Faith and Violence: Christian Teaching and Practice by Thomas Merton (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 197 publicly and objectively. And finally, the scientific mind is explicitly open to the possibility that its formulations can be superseded by better ones, that, in fact, the radical questioning of the axioms of any system of thought is part of the scientific frame of mind-a procedure to which the primitive mind is closed. St. Stephen's College Dover, Mass. MICHAEL STOCK, O.P. Faith and Violence: Christian Teaching and Practice. By THOMAS MERTON. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968. Pp. 291. $1.95. If outstanding theologians find it difficult to explain the morality of man's sexuality in the light of the Gospel and the Church's magisterium, there also exists great mental work to be done to demonstrate and expose the morality of violence. In fact, it appears that those theologians who wish to jettison the traditional teaching of the Church banning contraceptive acts are, for the most part, quite glib either in allowing the use of revolution as a legitimate means for underdeveloped countries to achieve social justice or in supporting the extreme position which proclaims that all war is immoral in the twentieth century. But, to explain the morality of violence in the light of the Gospel and of natural law principles, one must resort to a rigorous examination of the term violence and then see its highly analogous role in the spectrum of moral truth. Unfortunately the late and lamented Thomas Merton has not done this task. From a phenomenological point of view one discovers many violent acts which many societies accept as morally good, e. g., a mother slapping her children when they have done something wrong, boxing, football, medical operations, strikes, the waging of just wars, capital punishment, some types of revolutions, sanctions built into law, mortification of the senses, of the emotions, of the intellect and will. However, these same acts can become immoral under certain conditions; some physically violent acts are always wrong, such as: rape, kidnaping, stealing, murder, and forms of brutality used by persons in authority. Even some contraceptive acts are a kind of physically violent acts which at the same time happen to be immoral. Violence, then, is a physical evil inflicted upon a person forcing him to act according to another's will and not his own will. Sometimes this may be morally good or evil. But to explain why, the theologian of our time must plunge into the depths of the pyschology of man, the nature of society and government, and grace. In discussing the meaning and scope of 198 BOOK REVIEWS human violence in his latest book, which is a collection of very personal essays, Father Merton does not directly intend to offer a technical treatment of the metaphysical structure of violence. Yet as one reaches the end the book, one cannot but feel that his ideas on violence have failed to harmonize among themselves. We are never quite sure whether the Christian can be for violence or against it. Praising the non-violent resister Merton says: "... he is fighting for the truth, common to him and to the adversary, the right which is objective and universal. He is fighting for everybody." (p. 15) Yet is it not possible, in principle at least, that the rational use of physical violence also could include the same rationale and even must include it, if the use of violence is to be just? Speaking about those who cannot have deep interpersonal relationships he writes: " The idea of building peace on a foundation of war and coercion is not incongruous, but it seems perfectly reasonable." (p. ~8) Yet can one simply say that coercion and authentic love of society by the ruling body is a necessary contradiction? If so, then the moral legitimacy of sanction built into the structure of law is totally unjustified. It would seem, on the contrary, that some coercion and at least the threat of war to potential invaders would be necessary for imperfect peace within a society. Merton asserts: "Each one of us has to unlearn an ingrained tendency to violence and to destructive thinking. Each of us has to rid himself of a systematic moral myopia which excuses...