"War is hell," William Sherman said, but that doesn't necessarily make it wrong! In his philosophical treatise, "Why I am not a Pacifist," Lewis propounds three arguments that dispel several presuppositions made by the general theory of pacifism.
"Wars do more harm than good," or so many pacifists might claim. However, Lewis points out that there is no conclusive evidence for this. If the world had not intervened in the midst of what is now referred to as World War One, things very possibly wouldn't be "better." When Greece halted the Persian invasion, they prevented the course of all human history from being drastically altered, and who's to say it would have been better under a Persian, barbarian empire. There are worse things than war, such as the suppression of a "higher religion by a lower one."
Lewis believes that there is some value to a universal opinion about certain issues. One cannot simply presume to contradict the rest of the world unless one has some pretty convincing and solid reasons for doing so. The universal opinion is certainly not in favor of pacifism. Homer, Vergil, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Zarathustra, Shakespeare, et al., shared a common belief in the necessity, at times, for war. Nor does God himself seem to contradict this notion of righteous battle, as illustrated time and again in the Old Testament accounts of the Israelites, and even through the concepts of fighting a spiritual battle (with spiritual armor) at all times. Pacifism is in the universal minority.
Introspectively, Lewis notes that pacifism is the "easier way out," inasmuch as life may go on without interruption (for some), postponing putting loved ones at risk. War, though more difficult, is justified when it is waged on behalf of good against evil, or even perhaps, better against worse. The bottom line is that if a nation manages to attain a majority of pacifists, and thus doesn't arm or prepare for war, offensive or defensive, then a more totalitarian regime will be able to take it over, without any qualms about offending the pacifist agenda.
By Paul Haverstock
English 203, C.S Lewis- Prof Yacher
1/27/03