Q. Then the
ancients allowed the resistance of injury by
injury?
A. Yes. But Jesus
forbids it. The Christian has in no case the
right to put to
death his neighbor who has done him evil, or to
do him injury in
return.
Q. May he kill or
maim him in self-defense?
A. No.
Q. May he go with a
complaint to the judge that he who has
wronged him may be
punished?
A. No. What he does
through others, he is in reality doing
himself.
Q. Can he fight in
conflict with foreign enemies or disturbers
of the peace?
A. Certainly not.
He cannot take any part in war or in
preparations for
war. He cannot make use of a deadly
weapon.
He cannot oppose
injury to injury, whether he is alone or with
others, either in
person or through other people.
Q. Can he
voluntarily vote or furnish soldiers for the
government?
A. He can do
nothing of that kind if he wishes to be faithful
to Christ's law.
Q. Can he
voluntarily give money to aid a government resting on
military force,
capital punishment, and violence in general?
A. No, unless the
money is destined for some special object,
right in itself,
and good both in aim and means.
Q. Can he pay taxes
to such a government?
A. No; he ought not
voluntarily to pay taxes, but he ought not
to resist the
collecting of taxes. A tax is levied by
the
government, and is
exacted independently of the will of the
subject. It is impossible to resist it without having
recourse
to violence of some
kind. Since the Christian cannot employ
violence, he is
obliged to offer his property at once to the
loss by violence
inflicted on it by the authorities.
Q. Can a Christian
give a vote at elections, or take part in
government or law
business?
A. No;
participation in election, government, or law business
is participation in
government by force.
Q. Wherein lies the
chief significance of the doctrine of
non-resistance?
A. In the fact that
it alone allows of the possibility of
eradicating evil
from one's own heart, and also from one's
neighbor's. This doctrine forbids doing that whereby evil
has
endured for ages
and multiplied in the world. He who
attacks
another and injures
him, kindles in the other a feeling of
hatred, the root of
every evil. To injure another because he
has injured us,
even with the aim of overcoming evil, is
doubling the harm
for him and for oneself; it is begetting, or
at least setting
free and inciting, that evil spirit which we
should wish to
drive out. Satan can never be driven out
by
Satan. Error can never be corrected by error, and
evil cannot
be vanquished by
evil.
True non-resistance
is the only real resistance to evil. It
is
crushing the
serpent's head. It destroys and in the
end
extirpates the evil
feeling.
Q. But if that is
the true meaning of the rule of non-
resistance, can it
always put into practice?
A. It can be put
into practice like every virtue enjoined by
the law of
God. A virtue cannot be practiced in all
circumstances
without self-sacrifice, privation, suffering, and
in extreme cases
loss of life itself. But he who esteems
life
more than
fulfilling the will of God is already dead to the
only true
life. Trying to save his life he loses
it. Besides,
generally speaking,
where non-resistance costs the sacrifice of
a single life or of
some material welfare, resistance costs a
thousand such
sacrifices.
Non-resistance is
Salvation; Resistance is Ruin.
It is incomparably
less dangerous to act justly than unjustly,
to submit to
injuries than to resist them with violence, less
dangerous even in
one's relations to the present life. If
all
men refused to
resist evil by evil our world would be happy.
Q. But so long as
only a few act thus, what will happen to
them?
A. If only one man
acted thus, and all the rest agreed
to crucify him,
would it not be nobler for him to die in the
glory of
non-resisting love, praying for his enemies, than to
live to wear the
crown of Caesar stained with the blood of the
slain? However, one man, or a thousand men, firmly
resolved
not to oppose evil
by evil are far more free from danger by
violence than those
who resort to violence, whether among
civilized or savage
neighbors. The robber, the murderer, and
the cheat will
leave them in peace, sooner than those who
oppose them with
arms, and those who take up the sword shall
perish by the
sword, but those who seek after peace, and behave
kindly and
harmlessly, forgiving and forgetting injuries, for
the most part enjoy
peace, or, if they die, they die blessed.
In this way, if all
kept the ordinance of non-resistance, there
would obviously be
no evil nor crime. If the majority acted
thus they would
establish the rule of love and good will even
over evil doers,
never opposing evil with evil, and never
resorting to
force. If there were a moderately large
minority
of such men, they
would exercise such a salutary moral
influence on
society that every cruel punishment would be
abolished, and
violence and feud would be replaced by peace and
love. Even if there were only a small minority of
them, they
would rarely
experience anything worse than the world's
contempt, and
meantime the world, though unconscious of it, and
not grateful for
it, would be continually becoming wiser and
better for their
unseen action on it. And if in the worst
case
some members of the
minority were persecuted to death, in dying
for the truth they
would have left behind them their doctrine,
sanctified by the
blood of their martyrdom. Peace, then,
to
all who seek peace,
and may overruling love be the imperishable
heritage of every
soul who obeys willingly Christ's word,
"Resist not
evil."
ADIN BALLOU.
For fifty years Ballou wrote and published books dealing
principally with the question of non-resistance to evil by
force.
In these works, which are distinguished by the clearness of
their
thought and eloquence of exposition, the question is looked at
from every possible side, and the binding nature of this
command
on every Christian who acknowledges the Bible as the
revelation of
0 comments:
Post a Comment