Mortal equivalence in full bloom

About 70,000 Ukrainians and perhaps twice as many Russians are estimated to have been killed so far in Russia’s bandit raid.

Some anti-war, anti-Putin Russian journalists weep for the dead Ukrainians, but they also mourn the untimely passage of “our boys” while still regarding them as murderers.

A certain Mail columnist, who can’t be accused of being anti-Putin, doesn’t regard dead Russian soldiers as murderers. He feels pity for them because “they had no choice”.

That’s simply false but, unlike his other lies, this one might have resulted from ignorance rather than bias. First, many Russian combatants are contract soldiers, which is to say volunteers. They actively chose to invade someone else’s country and kill everyone standing in their way.

Yet even the recruits had any number of ways to dodge conscription. One such was to leave the country, which has been done by tens of thousands of young Russians who’d rather not die just yet. Another, cheaper, way was simply to move somewhere else within Russia and not register with the local recruitment office – again a popular trick.

The third way was to ignore the conscription notice, declare conscientious objection and accept a light prison sentence, usually about a year. That’s a hard option, but one could argue it’s still preferable to killing and being killed.

All that aside, what is the moral, specifically Christian, position to take for someone like me, who regards Putin’s war as criminal and hence every Russian soldier as a murderer? Should I still pity those youngsters who died fighting for their beastly cause?

The question isn’t as straightforward as it may seem. On the one hand, I root for the Ukraine’s victory, which in the context of this moral dilemma means wishing for the death of as many Russian soldiers as possible, ideally all of them.

On the other hand, the ultimate moral authority I recognise commanded that we love not only those we like but even our enemies: “But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.”

This is the kind of situation that inspired Chesterton’s aphorism: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”

Difficult indeed. As a Christian, I’m supposed to love those Russian soldiers even though I consider them to be the enemies of everything I hold dear. At the same time, as simply a decent man, I want the Ukrainians to kill many, preferably all, of them. So should I mourn their death or rejoice in it?

It may appear that, in this case at least, Christianity is at odds with decency. Since someone like me has to regard such a contradiction as impossible a priori, do let’s try to get to the bottom of this conundrum.

Loving our enemies doesn’t presuppose pacifism. Christianity doesn’t renounce war – provided it’s just.

Augustine put forth, and Aquinas developed, the doctrine of just war, yet even that isn’t quite clear-cut. They both believed that, though killing may be necessary in defence of a just cause, it’s still a sin. A redeemable and forgivable one, but a sin none the less.

This dovetails with Christ’s commandment to love our enemies. For it’s precisely such love that makes the sin of just killing redeemable and forgivable.

The English language, with its unmatched genius for nuance, lends us a helping hand by serving up two verbs, ‘like’ and ‘love’, where, say, French and Russian make do with only one. This is an important nuance because, while we like people for something, we love them in spite of everything.

In that sense, any old love approaches the Christian ideal, but without quite reaching it. For Christian love, like Christ’s kingdom, is not of this world. It lives in a different, higher, realm. Christian love may coincide with the profane variety or even with simple liking, but that would indeed be only a coincidence.

One sine qua non of Christian love is prayer for the salvation of the soul, his own, his neighbour’s – and even his enemy’s. This is also implicit in another commandment: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul.”

Killing the body is thus distinct from killing the soul. The former, though sinful, may be necessary; the latter is impossible and, by inference, undesirable.

I think this ties up all the loose ends: the doctrine of just war, killing that may be necessary while still remaining sinful, the nature of Christian love that doesn’t preclude killing in a just cause provided we pray for the souls of our killed enemies. (The same line of thought, incidentally, applies to the issue of the death penalty.)

In that – and only in that – sense, even if a Christian regards Russian soldiers as enemies, he may indeed mourn their death. Does it then justify what I called, with my inability to resist puns, ‘mortal equivalence’?

My reply to that question is an unequivocal, resounding “yes and no”. For there is a catch there somewhere.

The Russian anti-Putin journalists who drew the wrath of their colleagues by expressing pity not only for the Ukrainians but also for “our boys” killed by them, aren’t Christians. One failing of the Russian opposition to Putin is that it’s atheist almost to a man.

That makes their sentiment both ambivalent and deplorable. If we remove the Christian component from that pity, it becomes tantamount to wishing that those Russian boys hadn’t died. However, had they lived, they would have persisted in their grisly mission by killing Ukrainian soldiers, torturing and castrating POWs, kidnapping children, murdering, raping and looting civilians.

Moreover, if not enough of them die, Russia may win her unjust war and, in all likelihood, step it up by attacking NATO members and risking a global catastrophe. That’s why anyone who hopes that Russia loses this war, must rejoice in the death of every Russian soldier.  Such jubilation may not be nice, but then neither is Putin’s war.

You can see how what I call mortal equivalence (equal pity for the dead on both sides) means different things depending on who is talking. It also means different things in the two realms, sacred and profane. This is the kind of moral dilemma that can gore an unbeliever with its horns.

Yes, Chesterton was right: Christianity was indeed found difficult and left untried. Yet those who have tried it nevertheless, have found a surer way out of moral and intellectual cul-de-sacs in this life. They may also find salvation in the other, everlasting, life, but that’s not up to them to decide.