The Kingdom of God is Within You / Christianity and Patriotism / MiscellaniesTolstoy, Leo, graf
Religion
The Kingdom of God is Within You / Christianity and Patriotism / Miscellanies
Tolstoy, Leo, graf
Russian literature -- Translations into English
It is useless to refute such an assertion, because the men who
assert this refute themselves, or rather, turn away from Christ,
inventing their own Christ and their own Christianity in place of
Him in whose name the church exists and also the position which
they occupy in it. If all men knew that the church preaches Christ
punishing, and not forgiving, and warring, no one would be believing
in this church, and there would be no one to prove what it is
proving.
The second method is a little less rude. It consists in asserting
that, although Christ really taught to offer one's cheek and give up
a shirt, and this is a very high moral demand, there are malefactors
in the world, and if these are not curbed by the exercise of
force, the whole world and all good men will perish. This proof I
found for the first time in John Chrysostom and I pointed out its
incorrectness in my book, _My Religion_.
This argument is ungrounded, because, in the first place, if we
allow ourselves to recognize any men as special malefactors (Raca),
we thus destroy the whole meaning of the Christian teaching,
according to which we are all equal and brothers, as the sons of
one heavenly Father; in the second place, because, even if God
permitted the exertion of violence against malefactors, it is
absolutely impossible to find that safe and indubitable sign by
which a malefactor may be unerringly told from one who is not,
and so every man, or society of men, would recognize another as a
malefactor, which is the case now; in the third place, because even
if it were possible unerringly to tell malefactors from those who
are not malefactors, it would still not be possible in a Christian
society to execute, or maim, or lock up these malefactors, because
in Christian society there would be no one to do this, because every
Christian, as a Christian, is enjoined not to use violence against a
malefactor.
The third method of answering is still shrewder than the previous
one. It consists in asserting that, although the commandment of
non-resistance to evil is obligatory for a Christian when the evil
is directed against him personally, it ceases to be obligatory
when the evil is directed against his neighbours, and that then a
Christian is not only not obliged to fulfil the commandments, but
is also obliged in the defence of his neighbours, contrary to the
commandment, to use violence against the violators.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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