Morality and National Power in International Politics

Abstract

There are two principal elements in Christian faith which underwrite and require the attention of Christian ethics to problems of foreign policy. First, the Christian is convinced that God is sovereign over all the world and therefore over all the areas of the common life—not the least of which is political society. On these terms no political engagement is ever a mere power struggle and no Christian in politics is ever merely or even primarily political man, for the engagement is understood through faith to be a locus of divine activity and the politically-involved Christian is above all a man seeking to make his action correspond faithfully to the action of God. Divine sovereignty imposes a qualification on political sovereignty and thereby requires the recognition of limits to the exercise of political power and to the exaltation of national existence. But it also strengthens legitimate political authority by means of the explicit declaration that the powers that be are ordained of God. Second, the vocation of the Christian in the world is to serve the neighbor in love.