Trauma, suffering, and evil are foreseeable parts of the military experience, especially for those who participate in combat. Reflection on experience, orders, or war in and of itself can cause personal spiritual unrest. “Can I be forgiven?” is a commonly raised theological question. This question is a manifestation of a recently named, but age-old, phenomenon known as moral injury. Moral Injury requires specific care. The source of pain demands specific attention. It is one thing to believe that Jesus’s death forgave all sins as a theological tenet. It is another to feel this theological Christian Truth applied to the individual when the Spirit has been transgressed; because the transgression causes an interruption in the Christian atonement narrative.
The pain of this dissonance blatantly emerges in dialogue with Christian Veterans. For them, healing is a journey of acceptance – from the presence of evil, to the embodied pain, to learning to cope. Their healing process shows that atonement as theory or distant theology, while necessary, is not sufficient. By providing language for reconciling God and humans, classic atonement theories offer necessary salvific hope. However, they fail to sufficiently address the continued existence of evil and overlook the need for self-forgiveness in accepting God’s perpetual forgiveness though Christ. An effective atonement theory for the transgressed Soldier, therefore, must also include a method for personal forgiveness and ownership, in light of the reality of evil. Without this, the message of God’s saving grace cannot be fully received. Evil Exists: The Reality of Our WorldThat war or conflict have raged for as long as humanity has existed is proof that not only does evil exist, but also that it is pervasive. The United States itself has been engaged in conflict since its inception as a nation. Thus, warfare is a frame of reference for understanding the world for many United States citizens. Yet, the violent undertaking of war unearths the world’s evil, resulting in death, destruction, and decay of persons, places, and Creation. War makes evil a lived reality. Evil, though, is also a biblical reality. Christians are first introduced to evil in the Creation narrative. In Genesis 3, Satan enters the world and interacts with humanity. Then again in Job we are alerted to Satan’s – or evil’s – presence on earth. What is more is that God recognizes the presence of evil. God directly asks Satan “‘Where have you come from?’” Satan then answers, “‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.’”[1] Both Genesis and Job pointedly identify evil not as some abstract concept, but rather a tangible force which resides on earth. Moreover, these are only two of the multiple places in which Scripture identifies evil. Scripture, therefore, points to the coexistence of God and evil as part of our inhabited world. Given evil’s prevalence throughout human history and in human belief systems, humanity would be naïve to pretend that a world without conflict can exist. Yet, this fact does not preclude one’s ability to retain an eschatological hope that, one day, God “will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”[2] The Christian can – and should – still believe that evil will dissipate with the second coming of Christ. As such, Christians can derive purpose for living a life of Love as was modeled by Jesus’s life on earth. However, this hope must be couched in the reality of our world for it to be both responsibly preached and healthily received. As theologian and ethicist Reinhold Niebuhr explains, “As long as men are involved in the conflicts of nature and sin, they must seek according to best available moral insights to contend for what they believe to be right. And that will mean that they will contend against other men. Short of the transmutation of the world into the Kingdom of God, men will always confront enemies.”[3] Here, Niebuhr presents a realist argument of what it means to be a Christian living into the worldly tension of the existence of evil, or sin. He acknowledges that the world does not yet resemble the Kingdom of God and that, the reality is, the world will not unless sin ceases to exist. For sin to cease to exist, however, means that humanity has reached the end of time. Niebuhr, therefore, addresses the inescapabilty of war as an inherent part of the lived human condition. By addressing conflict’s pervasiveness without excusing humanity from striving to live morally, he inextricably links ethics and conflict. Niebuhr offers that living a moral life is ideal, but that “every conceivable order in the historical world contains an element of anarchy.”[4] He continues to argue that Chaos always “threatens the world of meaning.” Even so, Chaos “does not destroy the tension of faith and hope in which all moral action is grounded.”[5] Thus, Niebuhr does not discount Christian life or doctrine. He does not pronounce that hope serves no purpose. Rather, he affirms a role for Christian faith while acknowledging that war and conflict, both internal and external, are components of human nature. United States Military Veterans express the same tension to which Niebuhr alludes when reflecting on their lived experiences.[6] As one recounted of Vietnam, “it was kill, or be killed.”[7] Another confessed, “I don’t want to take someone’s life… [but I have no feelings about it if I do].”[8] Though both Christians, these men found ways to rationalize or cope with their participation in war. One had no qualm killing in the moment when faced with the reality of the world. The other numbed his feelings after acquiescing to the inevitability of conflict. Their realist perspectives enabled them to preserve their own lives when at war. However, what both Niebuhr and these Veterans do not address are the residual impacts on the soul of participating in the world’s evil, particularly for a Christian. Niebuhr only alludes to the fact that personally claiming Christianity “complicates the problem of dealing with the immediate moral and social situations which all men must face.”[9] Christians, thus, find themselves situated in the difficult position of wrestling with how to faithfully engage evil in order to address its impacts on the human soul, while also affirming the goodness of God. For some, the tension between personal theological beliefs and their participation in war is so great that they feel as though their soul has been transgressed. This unique state of pain demands a unique application of Christian theology. Moral Injury: The Impact of Evil’s Existence“War is Hell,” the William Tecumseh Sherman quotation proposes; but the real Hell, one could argue, emerges from the unending burden bore on the conscience by those who participate in state-sanctioned violence. Though these people know that evil exists from firsthand experience, and though their actions may have been legally justified, they cannot overcome the guilt or shame of past actions. This phenomenon is known as “moral injury” and stems from the collision of action and ethics. Researchers at Syracuse University define moral injury as “the damage done to one’s conscience or moral compass when that person perpetrates, witnesses, or fails to prevent acts that transgress their own moral and ethical values or codes of conduct.”[10] Military Medicine adds to the causes of moral injury, suggesting that it can also stem from the “betrayal of what's right by someone who holds legitimate authority in a high-stakes situation.”[11] For the Soldier, this injury may be from personal action or from wrestling with the justification of war. Regardless of the acute trigger, the dissonance between moral code and behavior causes injury which impacts the person’s psyche and spirit. While not every combat Veteran suffers from moral injury, for those who do, the weight could be suffocating. Moral injury boasts vast symptoms. Some manifestations include sorrow, grief, regret, shame, and alienation. When coupled with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), symptoms may appear as anger, depression, anxiety, insomnia, mistrust, and self-medication.[12] Veterans confirm the validity of these impacts of moral injury. Not only this, but some also actively wrestle with the effects on the soul. Grief and sorrow were palpable when one Vietnam Veteran asked, “How do I handle having killed ‘nice’ people?”[13] This reflection decades later demonstrates the exasperation which accompanies reconciling personal beliefs with personal actions. This form of “injury” – one that disrupts the essence of the person – is the result of evil’s perpetual existence and society’s, particularly Christian society’s, inadequacy in addressing that reality. Thus, discord between moral or ethical codes and actions may result in a specialized pain for the transgressed Christian.[14] “I don’t know if God forgives me. I feel like I committed a crime. A great sin,” one Christian Veteran confessed as he wrestled with the guilt he had borne for nearly 40 years.[15] Underlying this lament rests questions of personal worth in God’s eyes. For Christians, therefore, a symptom of moral injury may also be the undoing of their theology. The theologian Josiah Royce addresses the potential impact of war on a spiritual or religious person. While he does not explicitly name moral injury as the diagnosis, he adopts the word “traitor” to describe a person suffering from similar symptoms. Royce’s “traitor” is someone who betrays a held ideal from his/her religion or “way of salvation.”[16] Put concretely by one Veteran, the “traitor” is one who grew up believing and hearing that murder is bad, but then killed anyways because he was ordered to “shoot everything that moved.”[17] Royce, therefore, encapsulates the nuance of moral injury for the Christian. The impact of participating in the world’s evil can undermine everything the participant held true about the world and about God. This is a transgression that does not feel easily or quickly forgivable. Just like evil, the weight of the violation sits perpetually on the soul of the transgressed, because the action cannot be undone. Royce calls this trap the “Hell of the irrevocable.”[18] He explains, “Whatever else the traitor may hereafter do – and even if he becomes and remains, through all his future life, in this or any other world, a saint – the fact will remain…The traitor can henceforth do nothing that will give to himself…any character which is essentially different from the one determined by his treason.”[19] The “traitor” is unable to forgive her or himself for past action. This individual lives ensnared in grief, sorrow, or shame. They need to feel God’s forgiveness but are unable to accept it because s/he cannot forgive her or himself.[20] Royce’s analysis maps onto the experience of Veterans suffering from moral injury. The members of the PTSD Spirituality Group with which I worked were all Christian men who professed believing in a God who forgives all sins. Yet, they could not accept this forgiveness because they themselves had not accepted nor forgiven themselves for the role they played within the reality of evil. The existence of both evil and God make the possibility of moral injury a lived reality for the Christian Soldier. To begin the healing process, therefore, atonement must occur. Atonement Theology: The Solution, or Is it?Classic Christian doctrine presents multiple theories of atonement that, though nuanced in difference, all posit that in Christ’s death on the cross, humans received forgiveness of all sins. Often, recalling this indiscriminate forgiveness can be enough to put the soul at ease. The multiple atonement theories make it so that most Christians can find solace in at least one view of the theology of atonement. The most commonly discussed theories include: ransom theory, satisfaction theory, penal substitution, and moral influence.[21] The first three of these theories deal in debt and punishment. Ransom theory holds that humanity was in bondage to sin, so God paid the Devil humanity’s debt, with Christ as the compensation for redemption.[22] Irenaeus and St. Augustine developed and supported this theology of atonement. Satisfaction theory, argued by Saints Anselm and Aquinas, also asserts that humanity had a debt to pay. Unlike ransom theory, however, satisfaction theory states that humanity’s debt was to God. To pay back this debt in full, a sacrifice equivalent to God’s glory was necessary. Thus, Christ – the God-man, as Anselm defined him – had to die for humanity as he was the only Being who satisfied the requirement of both fully God and fully human.[23] John Calvin then proposed penal substitution as an explanation for atonement. Accordingly, Christ took humanity’s place on the cross, bearing the punishment of an angry God for us.[24] The last two of these commonly held theories advocate triumph. The Christus victor theory of atonement, defended by Gregory of Nyssa and C.S. Lewis, paints Christ as victorious over death. By sending Christ to die for humanity, God defeated the Devil and freed us from the sin that enslaves the world.[25] Finally, the atonement theory of moral influence speculates that “Incarnation and the death of Christ was the pure love of God.”[26] According to Abelard, the Devil was owed nothing by humanity; rather, Christ’s life of teaching and love for others to the point of death on the cross gives us a moral example and compelling impetus for us to love God, love others, and live accordingly.[27] To this end, the moral influence theory most directly relates Christ’s death on the cross to humanity’s current attempts at living moral lives amid the reality of evil. Ultimately, regardless of their different approaches, these atonement theories all address the reconciliation of God and humanity through Christ. However, sometimes hearing that God forgives all sins is not enough. While this is a necessary condition for faith, it may not be a sufficient condition when struggling with an embodied transgression such as moral injury. Impersonal atonement theories, while theologically explicatory, are too far removed from the individual. Reconciliation is also needed within the personal “moral universe.” To use Royce’s terminology, the “traitor” is dealing not only with God, but now directly with her or himself.[28] Classic atonement theology emphasizes the past, what happened on the cross; rather than what is happening now, or the continuity of evil. What they overlook, then, is the necessity of self-reconciliation in a broken world before a transgressed soul can fully accept God’s redeeming Love. Only with this personal forgiveness can the morally injured person begin to heal. For a “traitor” to embrace God’s forgiveness, s/he must define what atonement looks like for her/himself amid the reality of evil. Niebuhr highlights the difficulty of this task when he writes that the “Religious ideal of forgiveness is more profound and more difficult than the rational virtue of tolerance.”[29] Forgiveness is challenging and painful. For many, it can be a journey. The ideal of forgiveness is further complicated when the essence of a person is placed at the center of the dilemma. This is so with moral injury. The morally injured Christian Soldier is not struggling with an angry God, as Calvin suggested. The Christian “traitor” already believes that God forgave all sins through Christ. Rather s/he struggles with the self after violating a known Truth and the Love given by God through the Holy Spirit.[30] An effective atonement theory for those suffering from moral injury, therefore, begins first with feasible self-atonement situated within the reality of evil’s existence in the world. If Niebuhr presents the realist argument for the presence of evil within a world designed by a good God, then pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer provides a framework for how to ethically live with that evil. Like many atonement theories, Bonhoeffer roots reconciliation of humanity and God in Christ.[31] Yet, what he also does, that the theology of atonement does not do, is address the world’s current reality. Bonhoeffer maintains that when confronted with evil, the Christian must face it directly. Through his reasoning, Bonhoeffer empowers the Veteran to rationalize war as “kill or be killed” because not acting would be condoning the continuation of the evil.[32] Bonhoeffer, then, establishes the case for participating in war as it is a “reality of the world.”[33] He nuances atonement theology by contextualizing sins, or treacherous behavior, in contemporary time and space. Bonhoeffer’s rationale may be the first step in self-forgiveness for the morally injured Soldier as his theology enables acceptance of actions conducted within systems. The second component necessary for embracing God’s forgiveness is learning to forgive the self. Though God already confronted the Devil so that humanity does not have to, as humans and moral agents, it is nearly impossible to remove culpability, especially if the soul feels violated. As Royce offers by his “Hell of the irrevocable,” there is no undoing a moral transgression. However, there may be methods of personal atonement that allow a person to confront their past, live with it, and then create the space to allow God’s grace to enter their heart. One Veteran-turned-pastor concretely elucidated this felt necessity. He admitted, “I’ve been a mean person, so I promised God that I would try to help, in any way possible.”[34] For this man to accept his participation in the evil of war, he needed to own his past and felt it imperative to personally atone for sins by pledging his life to God. The first part of this testimony, the confession, is necessary to receive God’s Love. Love is only possible if the sin which demands forgiveness, as Niebuhr suggests, is acknowledged.[35] The latter half of this Veteran’s statement, a promise to God, allows for ownership of action. While an explicit pledging of life to God may not be the action every morally injured person needs to take to feel personally atoned, attaching action to atonement appears part of the solution for the injured Soldier. Soldiers take pride in action, competence, and ownership. They serve, never quit, and stand ready to act.[36] Providing an avenue for personal atonement via positive action nests within the military ethos. Ideally, this actionable atonement will then open the heart to God’s forgiveness. In addition to personal atonement, Royce offers another solution that may speak to military communities. While he agrees that the irrevocable nature of the committed sin needs to be acknowledged, Royce would push this further to say that personal atonement can only happen through communal activity to atone for the sin.[37] Though the community may not be at fault, they could do a deed with or on behalf of the traitor to “introduce into this human world an element which, as far as it went” could be “genuinely reconciling.”[38] For a group of persons defined by being members of a team who “never leave a fallen comrade,” this communal approach to atonement may hold credence.[39] Ultimately, any action taken, whether personal or communal, is not necessary to receive God’s forgiveness. At their best, actions become sacramental – outwards signs or participation in the internal forgiveness that the transgressed person longs to feel, first with self and then with God. Atoning actions taken are contemporary representations of the atoning done by Christ. As evidenced by the multiple atonement theories, Christian belief is that God already confronted evil for us and perpetually forgave our sins on the cross. However, the existence of evil creates opportunities for moral injury; and when the soul is transgressed as such, accepting God’s forgiveness may be impossible before self-reconciliation occurs. Humans banish ourselves to the “Hell of the irrevocable.” An effective atonement theory for the morally injured Soldier, therefore, provides a personal way out of this Hell and back into the salvific Hands of God. Thus, to adequately support morally injured Christian military personnel, personal atonement or self-reconciliation must occur first so that the transgressed can feel worthy of receiving God’s forgiveness given to humanity through Christ. Conclusion: The Way Ahead True atonement and reconciliation of the self can only come through God. Yet, because humans live in a world in which evil not only exists but also in which we participate in that evil, persons need a way to embody atonement. Without this, the morally injured Soldier may never cope with the internal dissonance of ethics and action. The sacramental solutions of personal actionable atonement and communal atonement suggested above are only two possible answers for the transgressed Soldier. The literature on understanding, diagnosing, and providing care for moral injury is limited. Thus, anyone discussing moral injury does so experimentally. This means that the above solutions are by no means exhaustive. Resolution could also be found through expounding on Abelard’s atonement theory of moral influence, in emphasizing the importance of narrative-telling for healing, or simply showing someone that they are worthy of Love. Much like the uncertainty of the acute trigger of a person’s moral injury, the acute coping mechanism needs discernment. What is certain, however, is that God’s Love is unfailing. All that is needed is a way to help open a violated heart to feel this Truth. [1] Jb. 1:6-7 (NRSV). [2] Rev. 21:4 (NRSV). [3] Reinhold Niebuhr, An Interpretation on Christian Ethics (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1935), 229. [4] Ibid, 105. [5] Ibid, 106. [6] During the Fall 2018 semester, I participated in Clinical Pastoral Education at the Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center. While there, I co-led a Spirituality Group for Veterans diagnosed with PTSD. The Veteran accounts in this paper are all from that Spirituality Group. Personal identification has been redacted out of respect for the confidentiality of the members of this group. [7] Veteran Account, Interview by Anna Page, Personal Interview, Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 23 October 2018. [8] Veteran Account, Interview by Anna Page, Personal Interview, Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 16 October 2018. [9] Niebuhr, 103. [10] “What is Moral Injury,” The Moral Injury Project, Syracuse University, accessed 14 November 2018, http://moralinjuryproject.syr.edu/about-moral-injury/. [11] William Nash, Teresa Marino Carper, Mary Alice Mills, et al, “Psychometric Evaluation of the Moral Injury Events Scale,” Military Medicine, Volume 178, Issue 6 (1 June 2013), https://doi.org/10.7205/MILMED-D-13-00017. [12] David Wood, “The Grunts: Damned If They Kill, Damned If They Don’t,” Huffington Post: Moral injury Process, accessed 18 March 2014, http://projects.huffingtonpost.com/projects/moral-injury/the-grunts. [13] Veteran Account, 23 October 2018. [14] Moral injury does not discriminate based on religion. Rather, it can affect anyone with an ethical code. However, in this paper, I am only addressing the moral injury of Christian military personnel. [15] Veteran Account, 23 October 2018. [16] Josiah Royce, The Problem of Christianity (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2001), 168. [17] Veteran Account, 23 October 2018. [18] Royce, 162. [19] Ibid. [20] Ibid. [21] This is not a comprehensive list of atonement theories. Rather, it is an overview of common theories to highlight the diversity of thought around atonement. [22] “Doctrine of Atonement,” Catholic Encyclopedia, New Advent, accessed 14 November 2018, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02055a.htm. [23] Ibid. [24] Christian Theology Lecture, Duke Divinity School (Durham, 17 October 2018). [25] Ibid. [26] “Doctrine of Atonement.” [27] Christian Theology Lecture. [28] Royce, 170. [29] Niebuhr, 226. [30] Royce, 171. [31] “Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945),” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Ethics, 198, https://www.iep.utm.edu/bonhoeff/#H2, accessed 14 November 2018. [32] Ibid. Also Veteran Account, 23 October 2018. [33] Niebuhr, 229. [34] Veteran Account, Interview by Anna Page, Personal Interview, Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 8 November 2018. [35] Niebuhr, 223. [36] “Soldier’s Creed,” Army Values (Washington, DC: Department of the Army), https://www.army.mil/values/soldiers.html, accessed 14 November 2018. [37] Royce, 178. [38] Royce, 179. [39] “Soldier’s Creed.” |