One Does Not Cease to be a Moral Being When One Takes Up Arms

"In the present age, war will never be eradicated; thus, the just-war tradition avoids the utopian error of thinking--or hoping--that war might be abolished. It reckons with the stubborn reality of human nature and human fallenness, which is not only the normative teaching of historic Christian theology, but the empirical evidence on display in all of human civilization. In this way, basic human discernment and just-war moral reasoning acknowledge that, where the lamb and the lion are presumed to lie together in the present age, the lamb will  need constant replacement."

"The just-war tradition maintains the moral distinction between guilt and innocence, between combatant and non-combatant, between involuntary manslaughter and murder--distinctions that are rooted in Scriptural teaching and the natural law. Much contemporary pacifism  is grounded in a basic horror and revulsion at the notion of violence and bloodshed. While these are unquestionably horrible, policemen and emergency medical technicians, to their credit, voluntarily engage horror and bloodshed as a public service every day as part of their normal work. Violence and bloodshed, hence, are not the worst of evils. The worse evil is not to engage social-moral evil when it manifests itself and innocent people are its victims. Properly speaking just-war theory sanctions neither an illicit peace nor unqualified violence; rather, it places both on trial,as it were, requiring that force be motivated by charity and utilized in the service of justice. One does not cease to be a moral being when one takes up arms. Any policeman, regardless of his political preferences, will verify this truth."

--J. Daryl Charles and Timothy Demy