Global security and Catholicism: Augustine, Aquinas, Teilhard, and the dawn of Noopolitik.

Sukys, Paul

Introduction Part I: Problem

Let's begin with a simple statement. This paper explores Catholic thought as it relates to intrinsic evil and the threat that such evil poses for global security. By necessity, this approach means two things. First, the paper will be filled with references to the Divinity, in general, and to Christ in particular. The paper does not assume that all readers will necessarily believe in, nor accept the truth of Christianity, nor the Catholic interpretation of Christianity. Nor does the paper assume that the reader will agree with the paper's premise regarding the nature of intrinsic evil and its operation within the global community. The paper does assume, however, that the reader will approach the subject with an open mind and will respect the author's willingness to share ideas that might ordinarily be considered out of place in a traditional political discussion. Having said all of this, it is also necessary to warn traditional Catholic readers that, what is said here, while Catholic in tone, tenor, and intent, is not entirely orthodox in its interpretation of Catholic doctrine. In fact, some of the conclusions reached here take their cue from a Protestant author, (1) from a secular philosopher, (2) and from a Catholic theologian whose works were greeted less than enthusiastically by the Church. (3)

Now, before going any further, it might be appropriate to ask why it is necessary to discuss the Catholic Church in relation to global security, in the first place. After all, it is easy enough to assume that the Catholic Church is simply one voice within a global community of religious and political factions, most of which have very little power to do anything of real consequence in the global community. It is easy to make this assumption, but it is also wrong to do so. Several reasons can be offered for listening to the Church, all of which would be sufficient in and of themselves. However, when taken together, they demonstrate a growing need to focus on the Catholic approach to these matters and to distinguish that approach from among other religious, political, and financial voices on the international scene today.

First, the Catholic Church has become an increasingly vocal presence in the global community today. The elevation of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, a politically vocal, highly visible and, at times, controversial theologian, to the Papacy, as Benedict XVI, is just one example of this growing influence in the global community. Another example of the presence of the Church in global affairs involves the rapidly growing number of Catholic politicians, judges, and diplomats in positions of power and influence in government today. (Vice President Joe Biden, Chief Justice John Roberts, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, House Speaker John Boehmer, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi come immediately to mind. There are many others. (4))

Second, when the Catholic Church wants to be heard in matters of international trade, diplomacy, and security, it has the resources, the will, and the power to rally the people to its cause. In terms of simple numbers, the Church has an enormous amount of global influence. There are over one billion Roman Catholics world-wide today. (5) This makes the Catholic Church the largest Christian Church in the world, accounting for over half of all Christians, and one sixth of the global population base. In addition, in the United States, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian church, representing 30% of the Christian population and 24% of the U.S. population. (6) In Europe, the Catholic Church represents 40% of the population. (7) Moreover, when the Church mobilizes its vast resources and taps its deep pockets in a unified campaign aimed at a specific problem, its presence is keenly felt by those involved in that problem. For instance, in 2012, forty-three Catholic institutions initiated lawsuits against the Obama administration in twenty-one different federal courts to contest a mandate issued by the Department of

Health and Human Services, a mandate said to force Catholic institutions to include birth control related services in their health care insurance policies in a way that violates the moral values of the Church. (8) This move is but one example of the power of the Catholic Church when its constituents are galvanized to act in support of a Church issue. Another example involves the Church's long term campaign promoting religious freedom and fighting the religious persecution of Christians in Islamic and Communist nation states. The church has been involved in that effort since the days of Vatican II in the 1960s and there is little sign that it intends to lessen its efforts in this area. (9)

Unfortunately, as the Church has become a more vocal member of the international community, it has become increasingly evident that the political positions of the Church in regard to certain issues, issues such as terrorism, nuclear blackmail, and genocide, are, to be generous, somewhat inconsistent. In fact, the Catholic Church is often accused of having a contradictory set of global security standards when dealing with war and other forms of violence, especially international violence. On the one hand, Catholicism is allegedly a religion of peace extolling, as it does, the virtues of charity and benevolence. Yet, theologically within the Catholic tradition we find Augustine and Aquinas defending the concept of Just War and historically in the Middle East we see the heritage of the Crusades.

Resolving this conflict and thus solving this problem are not easy tasks; still, they become easier if we admit that intrinsic evil does, in fact, exist; that such evil must be fought to protect the innocent, the poor, the disenfranchised, and the helpless, and that such battles will necessarily involve moral paradoxes (using violence to stop violence; waging war to prevent war, killing to keep from being killed, and so on, a paradox we will sometimes refer to as the use of "benevolent violence"). These paradoxes must be confronted, lest they resolve themselves in acts of even greater evil. Settling the conflict between what the Catholic Church says and what it actually does is also made somewhat easier when we understand the true nature of intrinsic evil. Intrinsic evil is a deliberate, premeditated, and unmitigated act by one human against another that robs the victim of his or her human dignity. More often than not, intrinsic evil is correctly described as "man's inhumanity to man." In his book, Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions, Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) explains that intrinsic evil is not, as Manichaeism insists, a power that opposes God and goodness in a grandiose cosmic battle, but is, instead, "the destruction of being," (10) a destruction that must be confronted in a Christian way.

Intrinsic evil is a palpable reality that threatens local, national, and global security because, by definition, it falls outside the boundaries of moral sensibilities and international law. It is committed by those who flout global peace and security, who disregard international law, who ignore the resolutions passed by international organizations, and who choose to act outside the rules of civilization. Those who commit acts of intrinsic evil are what the political scientist Thomas Barnett refers to as agents of disconnectedness, that is, those in power or who maintain power by keeping their own people in isolation, deprivation, ignorance, and poverty. (11) Intrinsic evil, then, includes the following activities: (1) terrorism, (2) ethnic cleansing, (3) genocide, (4) torture, (12) (5) asymmetrical warfare, (13) (6) the new global warfare, and (7) political assassination. (14) Intrinsic evil has always been with us. Only the techniques for committing such acts have changed. Thus, neither the existence, nor the need to confront intrinsic evil can come as a surprise to anyone of moderate intelligence. Dealing with intrinsic evil within the confines of Catholic theology, however, entails understanding the moral maturation process that paradoxically reflects both the absolute nature of the good and its emerging completion within history. (15) It is to that topic that we now turn.

Introduction Part II: the Proposition

Because Catholic moral theology is immersed within a maturation process, that theology must be viewed on a spectrum that moves from ignorance to knowledge, or perhaps more accurately, from incompleteness to fulfillment. Grasping this movement requires a look at the three principal players in the historical tapestry of evolving Christian moral thought: St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Each of these theologians represents a dramatic flashpoint in Western history. (16) Augustine stood within a transitional flashpoint at the end of the Ancient World and the beginning of the Middle Ages; Aquinas lived within a confrontational flashpoint that saw the growing battle between Christianity and Islam; and Teilhard experienced the flashpoints of modernity, flashpoints that dealt not only with two world wars, an economic depression, and the threat of nuclear annihilation, but also with the establishment of the United Nations, the birth of globalization, and the beginning of the Cold War.

We will first look first at the foundation laid by Augustine at the end of the Ancient World as he struggled with the existence of evil and as he verified and legitimized the Christian response to that evil. We will then examine the supporting pillars of that moral theology initiated by Aquinas as he unified Greek and Christian thought in a way that empowered the Church to deal with the realities of a violent medieval world. Finally, we will examine the strategy suggested by Teilhard de Chardin as he formulates a mature moral response to intrinsic evil, a response that recognizes the need to handle evil in an uncompromising way, while, at the same time, preserving the Christian ethic of benevolence. Teilhard's mature moral standard, which some commentators have labeled Noopolitik, gives national leaders a way to challenge those agents of disconnectedness (17) who threaten the weak and the powerless, while, at the same time, offering a Christian strategy that can prevent global leaders from tumbling into the twin traps of overreaction and revenge, both of which would violate the virtue of benevolence.

The need to validate, or at least clarify, the Catholic moral response to intrinsic evil, is not an idle academic discussion, though it may seem so at the moment. It is, in fact, a very real debate that may provide insight into the moral catch 22 that emerges as we attempt to fight intrinsic evil while simultaneously living up to the requirements imposed by the virtue of benevolence. To help dramatize this catch 22 between the need to fight evil and the need to remain benevolent, we will place it within the context of contemporary events. To do this, we will test the moral theories of Augustine, Aquinas, and Teilhard against the backdrop of the Israeli-Iranian conflict. Specifically, we will focus on that aspect of the conflict that involves the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran and the prediction that Iran and the rest of the Middle East will soon see Israel "wiped from the map." (18) The question we will ask several times throughout the paper is how each of the three central characters, Augustine, Aquinas, and Teilhard, would deal with the threat to Israel posed by the possible Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Before continuing it is necessary to underscore three caveats. First, the arguments presented in this paper deliberately sidestep the traditional Just War Doctrine. This "side-step" recognizes that the Just War Doctrine is disliked, overworked, and ineffective. In fact, the very label "Just War" is so offensive to some commentators that simply mentioning it often short circuits all discussion on the issue. To avoid this impediment, the Just War Doctrine has been shelved temporarily. This is not to say that the Just War Doctrine is not a valuable tool. It is extremely valuable, once we understand and appreciate the First Principles upon which it is based. In this paper, we will seek to grasp those First Principles. Second, the arguments in the paper focus on the threat of Iranian nuclear development because it is, perhaps, the most imminent threat facing global security today. It is not however, the only threat. Therefore, any moral justification for overt action against intrinsic evil must also apply to other instances of such evil including torture, ethnic cleansing, political assassination plots, and so on. The Just War Doctrine fails to deal with these problems, which is another reason for shelving it, at least at the present moment. Third, the paper will suggest that the moral positions adopted by Augustine and Aquinas, either do not work or are ambiguous and confusing and, therefore, should be either modified, explained further, or abandoned altogether. As noted previously, the paper will conclude with an examination of a third moral strategy, the strategy of Noopolitik, which stands in opposition to Realpolitik and which emerges from within the theology of Teilhard (with an assist from Max Weber and Joseph Ratzinger [Pope Benedict XVI]).

Augustine: Mishandling the Tension Between Fighting Evil and Remaining Benevolent

Augustine (A.D. 354-430) was obsessed with the problem of evil and his early search for an answer to this dilemma took him from Christianity to Manichaeism to Neo-Platonism and then back to Christianity. (19) Even after returning to Christianity, however, Augustine had to battle Pelagianism, a dispute that frustrated him to such extremes that he retreated into the flawed doctrine of determinism. (20) Augustine blames the existence of evil on free will and original sin. Humans were created with free will to empower them to choose authentically between obeying the commandments of God and following their own selfish instincts. When the first humans disobeyed a single Divine commandment, they doomed the human race to weakness in the face of temptation and to a lifetime of guilt emerging from the sin of their ancestors. Moreover, the weakness that humans inherit is so severe that human beings are unable to resist sin without Divine assistance. (21) This weakness necessitates the Incarnation, that is, the entry of the Divine into the temporal. The traditional reasoning behind the need for the Incarnation is clear enough. Since humans rejected the Divine, a human must answer for that transgression. However, since all humans are tainted by original sin, they are too weak and self-serving to shoulder that responsibility. God must, therefore, enter the physical dimension and become human, in order to restore humanity to grace. (22)

Moreover, Augustine also manages to transform this notion of evil from its limited form as an individual problem into a universal condition that affects all human civilization. Augustine expands this notion even further in his masterpiece The City of God. (23) In The City of God, Augustine depicts human destiny as a cosmic battle between two extremes--the City of God and the City of Man. The City of Man represents those individuals who have surrendered to evil, something that is an easy, although despicable, and ultimately self-defeating, thing to do. (24) Augustine's analysis of free will as the source of evil, however, is not without its shortcomings. Quite the reverse, it is deeply flawed and these flaws render Augustinian theology very weak in the face of intrinsic evil. The central flaw in the Augustinian interpretation of free will emerges because of his battle with the followers of Pelagius. Pelagius taught an extreme form of Christianity that held that, although human beings have difficulty with virtue, being virtuous is not only possible, but likely, given the rational control that humans have over their own impulses. Thus, humans can reach salvation on their own, without Christ. Moreover, in a declaration of independence from the Church, Pelagius also claimed that original sin was a myth. Unfortunately, to combat this heresy, Augustine went to extremes. He denied that humans are capable of any measure of good on their own. In response to Pelagius, Augustine argues that the sin of Adam and Eve not only exists as a real force within the soul, but also goes beyond the soul and the Earth itself to contaminate the entire universe. (25)

Thus, under this extreme form of Augustinian theology, evil becomes the natural state of the humanity. (26) As a result, Augustine unwittingly becomes a precursor to John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards. (27) Such a position weakens the human ability to fight evil by normalizing it. The truly evil among us, the Hitlers, the Stalins, the Husseins, the Osama bin Ladens, and the Eichmanns become simply ordinary people who have permitted their commonplace evil impulses to control them. The focus then falls on the psychology of the evil-doers, and the goal becomes understanding their lives so that we can see how everyone of us could, with a few biographical detours here or there, become just as guilty as any one of these mass murderers. (28)

The modern philosophical position that corresponds to this idea is termed Neo-Augustinianism. Perhaps the most well-known practitioner of Neo-Augustinianism is Hannah Arendt who in her book, Eichmann and the Holocaust, focuses on Adolf Eichmann as an example of the banality of evil. (29) In Eichmann and the Holocaust, Arendt sees the evil performed by Eichmann as something that anyone of us could do, given the right set of circumstances. Eichmann was evil in his passivity, in his inability to resist the movement of the crowd, and in that tendency, he is like all of us, Arendt says. This willingness to "go along" is what permits a man like Eichmann to transform evil into something that must be done and, as a result, he feels no guilt (30) Arendt writes that, "(t)he trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal." (31) Thus, according to Arendt, no difference exists between the evil done by Eichmann and that done by someone who pilfers office supplies, except, perhaps, in the degree of the evil. Reverse our positions and Eichmann would be the office pilferer and we the mass murderers.

Of course, in coming to this conclusion, Augustine, Arendt, and the Neo-Augustinians are wrong. In his book, Political Evil, Alan Wolfe explains that the position adopted by the Neo-Augustinians contains three flaws. The first flaw, as noted above, is that, according to the Neo-Augustinians, evil is the normal state of the human soul. This viewpoint, Wolfe declares, eliminates moral responsibility. No action can be judged evil, if evil is the norm. (32) Next, Wolfe notes that, to the Neo-Augustinians, evil becomes an internal psychological problem rather than a public wrong that damages the lives of those affected. (33) This focus on the sinner rather than the sin minimizes the damage done by the sin. No matter how horrific the sin and the resulting damage might be, it must be minimized because it results from a psychological oddity, not a moral failure. (34) Finally, when we focus on the internal problems of the sinner, Wolfe says we equalize the sinner and the victim. If each of us is depraved, then the victim is victimized only because the victimizer acted first, and it is likely that the victim's own depravity is being justly punished. (35)

These three Neo-Augustinians elements, the depravity of human beings, the psychological nature of evil, and the need to blame the victim, unite to minimize the evil intent, the evil content, and the evil results of intrinsic evil. In effect, then, the Neo-Augustinians avoid the moral tension between using violence to fight intrinsic evil with violence and remaining benevolent by normalizing the depravity of intrinsic evil, transforming it into a psychological illness, and then blaming the victim. Specifically, in relation to the Israeli-Iranian case study, the first element, human depravity and the banality of evil, would minimize the responsibility of the Iranians for both their intentional targeting of Israel and for their use of nuclear arms as a weapon of genocidal murder. Since all evil is the normal state of the human soul, the Neo-Augustinians would argue that no action can be judged evil, even the evil that results from the intentional destruction of an entire nation-state. (36) Second, since evil is a psychological difficulty, not a moral failing, any Iranian official who doubts the holocaust, blames Israel for Iran's problems, and takes action to deal with those imagined transgressions, must be "understood," perhaps even treated for a psychological problem, rather than dealt with firmly and justly. (37) Third, the Neo-Augustinians would declare that the depraved nature of the victims makes the victim deserving of the evil visited upon them. Thus, if Israel is attacked by Iranian nuclear weapons, it is only fair to recall, the neo-Augustinians would say, that they "brought it upon themselves." (38) This is all absolute nonsense, of course, and it is this extreme position that finally dooms the Neo-Augustinian approach to evil. On the other hand, as we shall see when we reach the end of this discussion, what Augustine does offer the 21st century is an element of human understanding which must not be minimized despite the extremes to which Augustine, Arendt, and the Neo-Augustinians have traveled. Humans are flawed and properly dealing with those flaws requires an understanding of the private dimension of human psychology which, as we shall see, is an element of the Teilhardian strategy of Noopolitik.

Still, what Augustine and the Neo-Augustinians fail to comprehend is the truly vile nature of intrinsic evil. When we look at the Iranian nuclear program we are not talking about a stolen stapler; we are talking about depraved indifference to countless human lives. We cannot confront depraved indifference if we see it as normal, as Augustine does. Indeed, there is no point in confronting it at all. If evil is inherent in human nature, as Augustine claims, it will continue, regardless of any attempt to condemn, punish, or eliminate it. We, in effect, become paralyzed. Intrinsic evil, however, is not like this. It is not banal. It is not normal. It is not trivial. It is an act (in this case the planned destruction of an entire race of people) that is so horrific that it is must be declared absolutely evil in intent, form, and result, something that a Neo-Augustinian cannot (will not?) do. (39)

The evil contemplated here is, in a sense, "other worldly," something so far beyond normal human comprehension that it terrifies the rest of us and shocks us into blank incomprehension. (40) Yet, intrinsic evil is not a myth. It operates within our universe, and the Iranian threat is evidence of this. Thus, intrinsic evil has a dual nature. It is beyond us and, therefore, impossible to comprehend, but it is with us, and so it must be confronted. (41) How, then, do we proceed? Is there a way within Catholic moral theology to explain, perhaps even to justify confronting, even destroying, the intrinsic evil of something as vile as the Iranian threat to annihilate Israel with nuclear weapons, despite, or perhaps, because of the Catholic concern for benevolence? To answer this question, we must turn to someone who has defined intrinsic evil, and who has, thus, granted us permission to oppose it on an even playing field. That person is Thomas Aquinas and it is his theology that we will now examine.

Thomas Aquinas: Increasing the Tension Between Fighting Evil and Remaining Benevolent

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) develops an extremely complex moral theory that combines orthodox Catholic doctrine with Aristotelian philosophy, and a not insignificant dose of his own critical thinking. (42) Our discussion in the present context, however, will focus narrowly on how Aquinas (or Thomas) characterizes the moral act itself. To begin, Thomas declares that determining the internal and external nature of an act is essential in establishing that act's morality. The internal dimension involves the actor's intent to perform the act, while the external dimension involves the consequences of the act. Thomas states that actions rationally performed (a) for "man's good" (internal-intent) and those actions that (b) actually result in "man's good" (external-consequences) are moral. (43) This indicates that Thomas has formulated a morality that mixes both intent and consequences. Moreover, as we shall see, Thomas also includes a third dimension, the actual form of the act itself. To see how this theory plays out, it is best to begin with intent and consequences, and then move on to form. For example, an act that is intentionally meant to harm someone and does, in fact, produce that harm will be immoral--period. Thus, if a disgruntled employee intends to poison his boss and succeeds in doing so, the employee has performed an immoral (or evil) act in both intent and in consequences. In addition, an act performed with evil intent that does not result in the actualization of that intent is still evil. Thus, if the poisoner fails in his attempt because the victim is immune, the poisoner is not exonerated and the act remains evil. (44)

In contrast, if the actor's intent in performing an action is good, and the consequences are evil, the action will be less evil than an act that is evil in both intent and consequences. Thus, if an employee gives medicine to her boss intending to ease his pain and the medicine poisons him, the action is evil in result, but not in intent thereby diminishing the actor's guilt. The death of the victim makes the action evil because it has produced evil consequences, despite the actor's intent. (45) At this point we can more easily introduce Thomas's element of form. Thus, in this case, the action itself--giving medicine--is good in form. However, since the consequences are bad, that good act performed with good intent, becomes evil, although not as evil as an act that is evil in both intent and consequences. (46) This is easy to see and does not cause many moral dilemmas. However, when we face the opposite situation, when a bad action is performed with a bad intent and the consequences are good, we become tangled in a bit of a mess. Thus, the question becomes: Is it possible for an act that is evil in form (killing a human being, for example) committed with an evil intent (the intent to kill) that leads to a moral result, (the saving of a life) to be morally correct (or at least to lose some level of immorality)? Clearly, the answer is "yes." The morality of the result will partially offset the evil intent and the evil nature of the act. Such a situation would occur, for example, if the poisoner believes he is poisoning to the victim but, instead, gives the victim a life saving dose of medicine. Although the would-be poisoner cannot be totally exonerated due to the evil nature of the act and his evil intent, the good result does modify his guilt somewhat.

However, suppose we are presented with a situation that, on the surface at least, appears totally depraved. Now, the question becomes: Is it possible for an act that is evil in form (killing a human being, for example) committed with an evil intent (the intent to kill) that leads to an evil result (an actual death) to be morally correct (or at least to lose some level of immorality)? Oddly, the answer is still "yes." Such a situation occurs, for example, when a bystander witnesses an attack on an innocent victim and, in the process of defending the victim, kills the attacker. In such a situation, the action is evil because the defender's intent (kill the attacker) and the act itself (killing) are both evil in form and in result. Yet, holding the defender of an innocent victim morally culpable seems unreasonable, and so we judge the action to be moral, and, in fact, we may even praise the bystander for his or her courage and daring.

Thomas justifies the killing of the attacker (and the praise heaped upon the bystander) with the principle of the double effect (47) Under the double effect principle, it is morally permissible to protect people who are threatened unjustly, even if, in the act of protection, the assailant is killed. The intent, however, must be to save a life, not to kill. Thomas argues that, if the intent is to kill, the protector has crossed a line and has engaged in an immoral act, that is, the killing of another with the intent to do so. Thus, the act is immoral on all three counts: (a) in intent (to kill); (b) in consequences (the death of the assailant); and (c) in form (the use of deadly force). According to Thomas, under the principle of the double effect, defense of others is acceptable only if the death is caused as a spinoff of the intent to save a life. This is an incidental death caused by the attempt to create a good end. This is sometimes referred to as collateral damage. (Note: Strictly speaking, then, the example given above--an act that is evil in form (killing a human being) committed with an evil intent (the intent to kill) that leads to an immoral result (an actual death) is immoral.) However, Thomas also warns that this does not give anyone permission to retroactively transform an evil act into a good act when it was undertaken to perform an evil end. Thus, according to Thomas the ends do not justify the means. Thus, he distinguishes between a situation in which (a) the evil act--killing--is a spinoff in the pursuit of good (permissible) and (b) a situation in which the good produced--saving a life--is a spinoff of the intent to kill (impermissible). (48) Thus, the bystander can be exonerated when he intends to save a life and accidentally kills the attacker, but held accountable when he intends to kill the attacker and incidentally saves the victim. (49)

Applying this principle to avoid our moral catch 22, the question becomes: Can an individual who intends to fight intrinsic evil by using violence, offset that violence by pointing to the benevolent effects of that violence? Or, to put the question in a within our contemporary problem, would this approach permit Israeli leaders to use the double effect principle to justify a preventative attack against the Iranian nuclear program before it reaches the point at which the Iranians can launch nuclear weapons to "wipe Israel from the map"? The answer to both questions is a cautious "yes." Since Iran has repeatedly promised the destruction of Israel and since Israel has every reason to believe that Iran is capable of such an attack due to its nuclear program, then Israel--under the doctrine of the double effect and under the principles of divine, natural, and human law--would be justified in launching a preventative strike to protect itself from Iranian aggression. Yes, it is true that a secondary effect may be the violent deaths of Iranian civilians. However, under the double effect principle, the primary effect, the saving of Israeli lives, is benevolent. This benevolent effect is in line with the ultimate good promoted by following divine, natural, and human law, all three of which require (1) the preservation of the lives for which the leader is responsible, (2) the protection of future generations, and (3) the promotion of the civic peace for the nation-state and its people. (50)

Unfortunately, like Augustine, Thomas is not without his flaws. One flaw lies at the heart of the double effect doctrine. As we have seen, Thomas argues that, under the double effect doctrine, many actions, especially self-defense and defense of others, can be justified morally if the actor intends to save the innocent victim rather than to injure or kill the attacker. This resolves the moral catch 22 by elevating the benevolent act over the violent one. Thus, killing is permitted if the killing is committed to promote benevolence. Some critics argue, however, that it is unlikely that someone involved in self-defense or defense of others would have the ability to separate violent actions that intend to kill or injure the attacker from benevolent actions designed to protect the victim, thus the benevolent act disappears and the violent act becomes the only reality. For instance, in Good and Evil Actions: A Journey Through Saint Thomas Aquinas, Steven J. Jensen of the University of St. Thomas argues that it is not possible to separate the violent intent to kill or injure the attacker from the benevolent intent to save the victim. In fact, there are times when our protector must directly intend to do violence in order to kill or injure the attacker---period.

If our protector hesitates and tries to make such a finely drawn false distinction, he or she may not succeed in protecting the innocent victim. (51)

This does not suggest that critics like Jensen cannot resolve the moral tension between fighting intrinsic evil with violence and remaining benevolent. On the contrary, it only means that they must develop a different exception to the rule. Jensen, for example, replaces the double effect principle and resolves the moral catch 22 between violence and benevolence by adopting a new principle, the emergency principle. Under this principle, an emergency situation, such as the benevolent need to protect an innocent victim from an attacker, "would allow the defender to act as a kind of emergency public official." (52) Analogously, when an Israeli citizen kills a suicide bomber before the bomber can detonate a bomb in a cafe, that citizen has not committed an evil act because his actions were, in reality, performed by the nation-state to promote civic peace and protect community order.

Still, this element does not totally exonerate Thomas. Other flaws exist within his moral theology. One of the most serious flaws is that his theology is susceptible to misinterpretations that are so severe that they prompt a disastrous slide toward moral ambiguity. No evidence exists, of course, to support the idea that Thomas really is morally ambiguous, or that he intends to ignore the Divinity as the source of moral law. Nevertheless, his twin obsessions with intent and result and his unending development of multiple moral exceptions, such as the double effect doctrine and the emergency principle, suggest a preference for relativism, and open his complex moral theology to accusations of sophistry. Ultimately Thomas is an absolutist and would defend Israel's right to self-defense, based on divine law, natural law, the double effect doctrine, and the just war principle. (53) However, his fixation on results and intent and his propensity toward the development of exceptions are, at best, confusing and, at worst, dangerous. Thomistic complexity, therefore, requires that we look elsewhere to develop a less puzzling plan for resolving the moral catch 22 between violence and benevolence, and for dealing with intrinsic evil.

Teilhard: Resolving the Tension Between Fighting Evil and Remaining Benevolent

Unlike Augustine and Thomas who acquired their views on morality in a primitive environment, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) developed his ideas on morality and Noopolitik within the modern world. As a stretcher bearer in the First World War, as French national whose country was occupied by the Nazis during the Second World War, and as an "enemy alien" who witnessed the Japanese occupation forces in China first hand, Teilhard was not a stay-at-home, armchair theologian. (54) Rather, he was a scientist and a priest who worked in the field constructing a theory of evolution that would be compatible with contemporary Christian theology. Teilhard is the author of numerous works, the most well-known of which is The Phenomenon of Man, a book in which he explains the integration of evolution with Catholic doctrine, especially as it relates to the Incarnation and the future of humanity. (55) In brief, Teilhard's image of the evolving universe is driven by the presence of the Divine, first, as the Alpha Point of creative union; then as the Incarnation wherein the eternal joins with the temporal; and finally as the Omega Point, which acts as both the empowerment of and the end point toward which the evolutionary process moves.

According to Teilhard, a key step in evolution is the appearance of the noosphere, (56) which is the thinking environment in which humanity lives and which simultaneously emerges from and facilitates human growth. The noosphere has been described as "the total pattern of thinking organisms (i.e., human beings) and their activity, including the patterns of their interrelations" (57) and as "the special environment of man, the systems of organized thought and its products in which men move and have their being, as fish swim and reproduce in rivers and the sea." (58) The noosphere is a network of inter-connected thoughts which ties humans together into a tightly woven collective and which empowers them to live, to reproduce, and to build a thriving, evolving community. At one point, Teilhard describes the noosphere as the next layer of existence on the Earth that emerges from the biosphere, and co-exists along with it, while at the same time qualitatively surpassing it in ability and endurance. (59) The essential elements of a Teilhardian manifesto would include (1) the need to adopt an evolutionary viewpoint on just about everything including theology; (2) the need to study humanity objectively as a product of evolution, (60) and (3) the need to look forward to the future of the noosphere. (61) Moreover, as surprising as it may seem, much (but not all) of Teilhard's manifesto would slip within the boundaries of Catholic orthodoxy. Evidence of this acceptance of Teilhard can be found in the New Catechism, where the Bishops of the Netherlands write that "(i)n a world of ascending evolution, sin is often nothing more than the refusal to grow in the direction which conscience reveals." (62) This same point is emphasized by Joseph Ratzinger who cites Teilhard favourably in his book The Spirit of the Liturgy:

   Teilhard de Chardin depicted the cosmos as a process of ascent, a
   series of unions. From very simple beginnings the path leads to
   ever greater and more complex unities, in which multiplicity is not
   abolished but merged into a growing synthesis, leading to the
   "Noosphere," in which spirit and its understanding embrace the
   whole and are blended into a kind of living organism. (63)

In another book, Truth and Tolerance, Ratzinger declares that he sees no contradiction between Catholicism and evolution, and thus, we suspect, between dogma and the Teilhardian manifesto. (64)

Teilhard's merger of evolution and theology into a political manifesto, however, is another story. Here he strays into virgin territory and offers a platform that is brief but powerful in its implications for foreign policy and global security. To grasp the details of his political manifesto, and to understand how he reconciles violence with benevolence, we must examine a short essay that he wrote at the beginning of World War II. The essay, "Moment of Choice," is one of the few times that Teilhard devotes an entire article to a political theme. (65) In "Moment of Choice," which is appropriately subtitled, "A Possible Interpretation of War," Teilhard ignores the cynical predictions of mainstream political commentators and demonstrates how a utopian future can emerge from the most pessimistic of circumstances. (66) The tendency in the middle of a crisis, Teilhard observes, is to pass the guilt along to others, to denounce the system, or to blame the times. Adopting this approach, he argues, is counterproductive. The problem lies not in the system nor in the times, he declares, but on the shoulders of a few select political leaders who experienced an abject failure of the will. (67)

Teilhard does not directly identify the political leaders who are guilty of this failure of the will, but, given the political events unfolding in Europe in 1939, it is not difficult to pinpoint the leaders that he had in mind. Thus, he quite clearly means a failure of will on the part of the Germans and the Japanese, who used uncontrolled brutality to achieve goals that should have been accomplished by careful diplomacy. However, Teilhard also means the Allies, who should have contained the Axis powers before they exerted control over Europe and Asia. More specifically, in 1939, he is referring to the abandonment of Czechoslovakia by the British and the French to the Nazis. Thus, when Teilhard discusses a failure of the will, he almost certainly means to underscore the unwillingness or the inability of Western politicians to stand tough against the Nazis. (68) Or, to put it another way, he means the inability of Western political leaders to reconcile violence with benevolence.

What, then, should the allies have done, rather than appease the Nazis? Or, to place the problem within a Teilhardian context, what should the allies have done to avoid the failure of will exemplified by the political abandonment of Czechoslovakia? To answer this question, we are going to place Teilhard's moral strategy within the context of an earlier moral theory, this one developed by Max Weber in 1918. In an article entitled "Politics as a Vocation" (69) Weber reconciles the moral catch 22 of violence and benevolence and in doing so anticipates Teilhard's position in "The Moment of Choice." In "Politics as a Vocation," Weber suggests that many theorists have trouble with this moral catch 22 because they see ethics as a single system in which ethical actions can be performed at one level and one level alone, the individual level. (70) This is a significant error of judgment, Weber argues and, given the discussion in "Moment of Choice," it is clear that Teilhard would agree. Instead, Weber proposes a binary system which allows for two complementary benchmarks of ethical behavior: the ethic of ultimate ends (which he will use to explain acts of benevolence) and the ethic of responsibility (which he will use to defend acts of necessary violence). (71) The ethic of ultimate ends is somewhat misnamed because it implies that the consequences of an action are critical in the actor's decision-making, when precisely the opposite is true. Only individuals can act at the level of ultimate ends because, under that ethic, the action itself is considered right or wrong, not the results of the action. Thus, the ethic of ultimate ends teaches that the ends never justify the means. (72) Therefore, individuals must always act with benevolence, because the only ends that concern them are those that relate to the experiences which they face on an everyday basis.

In contrast, the ethic of responsibility, which more properly belongs only to leaders, requires those leaders to protect their constituents. This responsibility arises because those constituents depend upon their leaders for protection and safety, indeed, at times, for their very lives. Therefore, because political leaders must follow the ethic of responsibility, they must focus on results, and thus, may be forced to engage in conduct (or order others to engage in conduct), which is violent, but which gains a benevolent result for those people they are sworn to protect. In other words, a leader always resolves the moral catch 22 by never ruling out violence, and by acknowledging that, when leaders act, they generally do so with their eyes on the consequences of their actions. Thus, for leaders, the ends almost always justify the means. (73) This is the morality of the nation-state and it is quite different from the morality of the individual. The nation-state, as we have seen, has a primary duty that outweighs all others and that is to promote the civic peace of its own people. As counter-intuitive as this conclusion may seem at first, it, nevertheless, may require the leaders of the nation-state to order violence if the use of that violence is the only way to protect the people and to promote the civic peace.

Moreover, the fact that national leaders must follow the ethic of responsibility has been recognized as the official position of the Catholic Church. The ethic of responsibility was endorsed in 1965 by the Second Vatican Council in The Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World. (74) The ethic of responsibility has also been cited with approval by Joseph Ratzinger, in his book, Values in a Time of Upheaval, in which he discusses both the ethic of benevolence and the ethic of responsibility at length. Ratzinger gives different names to each concept. He refers to the ethic of benevolence as salvator mundi ("savior of the world") and to the ethic of responsibility as "conservator mundi" ("conserver of the world"). (75) Nevertheless, Ratzinger sees "the great task of political activity to be precisely the preservation and defense of the existing order (and), warding off threats against it." (76) The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which, by the way, displays the Imprimatur of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, also endorses this ethic in Sections 2236, 2237, 2241, and 2265.77 The best statement of the ethic of responsibility is found in the Catechism at section 2265 which states:

   Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one
   who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the
   common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to
   cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority
   also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the
   civil community entrusted to their responsibility. (78)

It may also be surprising to learn that, despite all the flaws within their respective ethical systems, both Augustine and Thomas support the concept of dual morality and, along with it, the ethic of responsibility. Thomas's support for dual morality and the ethic of responsibility can be seen in his doctrine of self-defense. His support for self-defense and the double effect doctrine leads to the emergency principle which permits an individual to assume the persona of the public official in order to protect himself or herself (or even another party) when no public official is present. (79) However, the emergency principle is built upon a pre-existing principle that permits, indeed, requires that public authorities act responsibly when the common good demands it. This principle includes instances in which the public authorities must act to protect others from a menace within the community or from assailants outside that community. The only requirement needed to invoke this principle is that the party triggering the threat be "guilty," that is, that they intend to kill or harm others. In fact, Aquinas goes so far as to justify preemptive strikes against those who pose an imminent threat to any community for which the public authority is responsible. (80)

The ethic of responsibility is more difficult to see in Augustine's work, at least outside the just war doctrine; nevertheless, it is present. It is clear, for instance, that, although his vocabulary is different, Augustine does, indeed, recognize the split between the ethic of benevolence and the ethic of responsibility. However, Augustine has difficulty harmonizing this belief with his notion that those who are responsible for exercising public authority must sometimes step away from and work outside of the regular scope of Christian morality. These officials, he suggests, must work outside the city of God and, as a result, may become too bound up in the city of man, thus endangering their immortal souls. On the other hand, some commentators identify Augustine as a "right-by-nature" theologian. A right-by-nature theologian argues that revelation and reason are compatible and that, as a result, the discoveries of reason can be used to illuminate revelation. (81) John von Heyking, a political scientist at the University of Lethbridge, argues in his book, Augustine and Politics as Longing in the World, that, as a right-by-nature philosopher, Augustine has recognized that all political leaders are duty bound to exercise practical rationality in the operation of the political state. (82) Thus, an effective political leader will not simply apply universal moral rules to politics, a process that would be akin to the application of the ethic of benevolence, but would, instead, recognize that "(j)ustice requires, in extreme and rare circumstances, breaking what is generally taken to be the just in a way that preserves the just without collapsing into a flimsy moral relativism." (83) Weber would agree. The only difference would be that Weber would say that such circumstances would be neither extreme nor rare.

Understanding and operating under the ethic of responsibility is a serious matter because grave difficulties can emerge whenever a leader tries to act with benevolence rather than the ethic of responsibility. Once this mistake is made, the leader grows confused and disoriented and, as a result, makes questionable decisions under fire. These questionable decisions also puzzle the political leader's constituents who may have been told that a decision had been made for benevolent humanitarian reasons when, in fact, it may have been implemented for responsible reasons of national security. Sending conflicting messages like this to the people back home can have devastating consequences. This is what happened in 1993, for example, when President Clinton broadcast that American peacekeepers were entering Somalia for a humanitarian mission designed to restore order by protecting the Somalis against the activities of several bands of roving warlords. When the Americans miscalculated and focused on a single warlord, this sent the wrong signal to the other warlords who saw it as green light to exploit Somali civilians. The Somalis fought back, the Americans were caught in the middle, literally, and the entire strategy collapsed as a group of American soldiers came under heavy civilian fire in Mogadishu. (84) In the aftermath of this defeat, the President's entire foreign policy collapsed around him, effectively paralyzing American decision making on the international scene for years and leading to even worse disasters such as the failure to end genocide in Rwanda in 1994. (85)

Avoiding errors of judgment that mix up the two levels of morality is one of the most difficult tasks that a leader may face. However, it is nothing compared to the need to move beyond the ethic of benevolence and the ethic of responsibility to a third level of morality. This move is the only authentic way to reconcile the moral catch 22 of violence and benevolence. This third level of morality, the ethic of conversion, is made necessary by the emergence of the next stage in the evolution of the noosphere, the globalized planet. The ethic of conversion requires leaders who are forced to use violence under the ethic of responsibility to look beyond the borders of their own nation, to acknowledge the existence of an integrated global community, and to recognize that, when a crisis strikes, that crisis must be managed, not within a single nation-state but, instead, within the context of the global community. This new stage, the stage of true globalization, (86) will force leaders to adopt the ethic of conversion. The ethic of conversion requires political leaders to adopt the strategy of transformation, which is designed to augment the principles of the traditional doctrine of Realpolitik with those of a new doctrine, the doctrine that has been labeled Noopolitik. (87) The traditional doctrine of Realpolitik is based on the premise that the nation-state is the seat of power and that political leaders must work to maintain or expand the power of the nation-state, generally using the hard power of the military. In contrast, the new doctrine of Noopolitik, the doctrine of the noosphere, is based on the premise that the most effective use of power involves an understanding of soft power (88) exercised by representatives of the global community who see that global community as the next stage in human evolution. Thus, if we look back for a moment we see that, although both Augustine's understanding of human psychology and Thomas's grasp of civic peace led to Noopolitik, the strategy could not emerge until humanity had matured to the point at which it was capable of authentically working toward a global community. (89)

If we were to apply Teilhard's strategy of Noopolitik (as amplified by the ethic of conversion and the strategy of transformation) to the moral catch 22 that we have been exploring in this paper, it would play out something like this. When political leaders are forced to use violence, as they might have been in 1994, during the crisis in Rwanda, for instance, they could do so by invoking the ethic of responsibility. More specifically, they could have argued that, restoring the civic peace in Rwanda required military action to fight the intrinsic evil of genocide, and that such military action was morally correct under the ethic of responsibility despite the violence that would have ensued. The doctrine of Realpolitik would, at that point, consider the matter ended. In contrast, under Noopolitik ending the genocide is not enough. Rather, what must occur next is an affirmative effort to transform Rwanda into a peaceful nation that can rightfully claim full membership in the global community.

When we apply the doctrine of Noopolitik (again enhanced by conversion and transformation) to the current Israeli-Iranian crisis, it would unfold in the following way. Recall that Iran is developing nuclear weapons in order to attack Israel. (90) In this situation, the ethic of benevolence would demand negotiation, trade-offs, bargaining, and ultimately Israeli collaboration with Iran. However, neither Weber nor

Teilhard would compel the Israelis to appease the Iranians as the British and the French appeased the Nazis. Instead, both Weber and Teilhard would expect Israel to sidestep the ethic of benevolence in favor of the ethic of responsibility. This ethic would almost certainly demand an Israeli military strike against Iran to eliminate the nuclear threat before it can be implemented fully, even though that will involve violence. As the war continues, or perhaps even before in begins, Teilhard, using Noopolitik, would caution Israeli political leaders to make certain that the war is fought, not to destroy Iran, but to encourage an early end to the hostilities and a settlement between the two nations. Moreover, to Teilhard, this third step is the most significant because it is that part of the evolutionary process that unravels the moral catch 22 resulting from the use of "benevolent violence." The war we fight today, he argues is "much more a war of conversion, because it is a war of ideals." (91) The nature of the conversion that Teilhard seeks is important too. In "Moment of Choice," Teilhard says quite clearly that, "there is no way out ahead except the road of comradeship and brotherhood." (92) None of this means that Teilhard does not recognize the danger of implementing Noopolitik. On the contrary, he is vividly aware of the danger, but insists that we move forward despite the risks. He is willing to propose risky behavior for the betterment of the entire community and for the progress it represents toward the final emergence of Omega. (93)

Teilhard and his Detractors: Responding to Three Critiques

Teilhard is not, of course, without critics. Many political scientists have pointed out, for instance, that his belief in Noopolitik sounds good as a political sound bite but has little, if any, practical use. Noopolitik simply does not work as either a political tool or a method for conducting foreign policy, they argue, and any state that adopts it would be committing national suicide. Let's get an overview of these arguments one by one, and then examine then in greater detail. First, those political commentators who are opposed to Noopolitik assert that the new theory will not work because it depends upon a power shift away from nation-states to quasi-governmental organizations (QGOs) and to non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Such a shift, these critics argue, is unlikely in the foreseeable future. Therefore, Noopolitik, which depends on those NGOs and QGOs for its lifeblood, is doomed. Second, Teilhard's critics argue that Noopolitik, the ethic of conversion, and the strategy of transformation require an optimistic belief in the development of a cooperative, benevolent global community, something which is little better than a fantasy given the current antagonistic climate on the international scene. Third, Teilhard's critics argue that he has done nothing more than provide a convenient rationalization for military intervention. His three tiered ethic (benevolence, responsibility, and conversion), they contend, adds nothing new to the mix, and in fact, may be even less effective than the just war theory.

The first critique has some merit. Nations do possess most of the power on the planet because they control natural resources, military operations, and the global money supply. Moreover, they have done so for the last 400 years. Yet, even now, there are signs that the current situation cannot last. The growth of the interrelated global community has weakened the power of nation-states, making many, although not all of them, second or third level players on the international scene. For example, in his study of international politics, Globalization: A Critical Introduction, Jan Aart Scholte of the University of Warwick argues that territorialism, one of the key characteristics of the nation-state has been steadily eroding over the last half century. Territorial control has diminished because of the electronic revolution which has connected the global community to an extent unheard of in the past. Starting with the use of the telegraph, and expanding through the advent of the telephone, radio, television, and now the Internet, the global electronic net has tied humanity together in ways that make it virtually impossible for nation-states to control the data that flows in both directions across their borders. (94) Evidence for this position may be seen in the inability of the Egyptian authorities to control the flow of information through the internet during the anti-government uprisings in 2011. (95) This loss of territorial control is also demonstrated by the inability of nation-states to exercise jurisdiction over transborder financial dealings among multinational corporations, (96) as well as the growth of influence among quasi-governmental organizations such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization, and non-governmental Organizations such as the Climate Action Network, Amnesty International, and Greenpeace. (97)

The second argument, that the vision of a global community is little better than a utopian day dream, is a familiar criticism of Teilhard's work. In fact, it is so familiar that Teilhard addresses his critics on this very point in his essay, "The Moment of Choice," where he writes:

   Unhappily, this gospel of unanimity cannot be proclaimed without
   producing a sort of pity in those to whom it is addressed: 'A
   spineless doctrine--a bleating for a Utopia.' Ah! so we shall find
   that Rousseau and the pacifists have done more harm to mankind than
   Nietzsche! Nowadays, seriously to envisage the possibility of human
   'conspiration' inevitably raises a smile: and yet, even for the
   modern world, could there be a more healthy prospect or one with a
   more realistic foundation? (98)

Teilhard's response is, of course, theological in nature, and therefore, escapes the understanding of most political commentators. Nevertheless, it is worth repeating. The utopian dream of which he speaks results from evolutionary forces, but it is not the evolutionary force of "mutual destruction" (99) that has plagued humanity up to the present time. Rather, it is the force of attraction, "(t)hrough spirit's irresistible affinity for its own kind, (that) has created a sort of convergent milieu within which the branches as they are formed, (and) have come closer together in order to be fully living. In this new order of things, the whole balance is changed, though with no diminution of the system's energy." (100) What he means is that the Christian movement of history cannot be defeated because it is fueled by the transformative power of the Incarnation, and is empowered forward by the Divine will, toward Point Omega. This argument, of course, will convince neither the hard-headed practical practitioners of Realpolitik nor the cynical observers of a modern world that is falling apart under the stress of its own internal divisiveness. It is, nevertheless, the glue that holds Teilhard's philosophy together and the hope that maintains his vision of the ethic of conversion, the strategy of transformation, and the politics of the Noosphere.

Perhaps this problem occurs because many political commentators believe that Teilhard is writing about a future world government, something which many such commentators see as an impossible utopian dream. Those who assess Teilhard in this way are mistaken. Despite Teilhard's faith in a growing global community, neither he, nor the Roman Catholic Church, supports a world government, nor believes that such a political organization would be beneficial. (101) Teilhard is too good a theologian and too dedicated a Catholic priest to suggest any such thing. The ultimate unification of which he speaks, which he encourages with his ethic of conversion and tactic of transformation, and which he sees as emerging at the end of time at the Omega Point is a purely theological proposition and has nothing whatsoever to do with the development of an "earthly utopia" or a world government, both of which are beyond the capabilities of humankind. Thus, Teilhard's Omega Point has nothing in common with any party platform on either the right or the left side of the political spectrum. He is preaching neither a socialist agenda as his friend and companion, Emmanuel Mounier did for years during his days as a political writer; nor a strategy promoting genetic engineering, or any of its less subtle manifestations, as did his supporter and colleague, Julian Huxley; nor a capitalistic and militaristic solution, as did his contemporary, the political scientist and practitioner of Realpolitik, George Kennan. Instead, Teilhard's Omega Point is a mystical state of being that involves both unification and an intensification of those individuals within the noosphere. Omega has a cosmic and Divine dimension that unites the entire universe in a mystical convergence that goes beyond contemporary global struggles. Omega involves the convergence of the entire noosphere, a movement empowered by God's love. Thus, in his essay, "Centrology," Teilhard describes the future state of the Omega in the following way:

   Omega appears to us fundamentally as the centre which is defined by
   the final concentration upon itself of the noosphere--and
   indirectly, therefore, of all the isospheres that precede it. In
   Omega, then, a maximum complexity, cosmic in extent, coincides with
   a maximum concentricity. (102)

The third and final argument against Teilhard dismisses his three tired ethic (benevolence, responsibility, and conversion) as a contemporary rationalization used to justify military intervention. The argument is based on the notion that Christianity is, or ought to be, a religion of pacifism and peace, and that a doctrine that supports military intervention must, by definition, fall outside that tradition. This conclusion is also in error. Teilhard is neither justifying nor encouraging the use of violence or military intervention. Rather, he has developed a way to understand when and how to take affirmative action against intrinsic evil. Teilhard recognizes that those nation-states that have been blessed with abundant resources, political stability, and economic wealth have a corresponding responsibility to help those nation-states which are relatively powerless, especially those victimized by the practitioners of intrinsic evil, that is, those targeted by aggressive rogue states, by genocidal maniacs, or by radical terror groups. Teilhard, like Reinhold Niebuhr, laments that, at times, it is necessary for Christians (Nieburh's "children of light") to adopt the tactics of intrinsic evil (Niebuhr's "children of darkness") in order to protect the innocent and the helpless and to stop those who would prey upon them for personal, economic, or political gain. Both Teilhard and Niebuhr, therefore, recognize, as does Paul Christopher in his book, The Ethics of War and Peace that Christ's declaration "'Blessed are the peacemakers,' does not refer to a passive inactivity but to an active process." (103) Teilhard, however, says it better when he writes:

   In a system of convergent cosmogenesis, to create is for God to
   unite. To unite, to form one with something, is to be immersed in
   it; but to be immersed (in the plural) is to become a particle
   within it. And to become a particle in a world whose arrangement
   statistically entails disorder (and mechanically calls for effort)
   is to plunge into error and suffering, in order to overcome them.
   (104)

Those with the power to defend and protect the innocent, the helpless, and the victimized he writes, must "plunge into error and suffering" and use that power to "overcome them." (105)

Summary and Conclusions

Circling back to the beginning of the paper, we must ask once again: What does this have to do with global security and Catholicism? The answer to this question is not seen separately in Augustine, Aquinas, and Teilhard, but in the evolutionary development of all three. The people who are willing to accept leadership position in a world threatened by intrinsic evil are those with the moral courage to engage in actions that offend their moral sensibilities as individuals to perform a different good, one that evolves out of their roles as leaders. This responsibility, however, risks the salvation of their immortal souls and in human terms perhaps their own sanity. They will be asked to deal with a serious disconnect between Weber's ethic of responsibility and his ethic of benevolence. These leaders must be of a high moral level to dive into the midst of evil, without becoming evil themselves. They must maintain a morally even keel, while at the same time doing morally questionable things to save those they are charged to protect. Yet, they must, at the same time, have the wisdom to see that fighting intrinsic evil does not mean simply using violence, although violence is needed, but also continuing the battle by influencing the world with benevolence and moving it closer to Teilhard's Omega Point.

In conclusion, then, we can see that we have settled on three key points as we have unraveled the moral catch 22 of benevolent violence: (1) Augustine's theological position (and Hannah Arendt's, as well as the other Neo-Augustinians among us) regarding the nature of evil is untenable by itself because it (a) assumes that evil is the normal state of the human soul and thus eliminates moral responsibility; (b) transforms evil into an internal psychological problem rather than a public wrong that damages the lives of those affected, and, therefore deserves punishment; and (c) threatens to punish the innocent victim. (2) The Thomistic approach is also insufficient by itself because, since it provides a defense for some morally questionable actions based on intent, results, and the double effect doctrine, these defenses give the impression that ethical relativity is tolerated and thus fails to deal adequately with intrinsic evil. (3) Teilhard (with an assist from Weber and Ratzinger) provides an effective tactic to defend the evil actions that must be taken by leaders. To implement this tactic Teilhard introduces the doctrine of Noopolitik which recognizes, under the ethic of responsibility, that leaders must sometimes engage in violent acts to stop intrinsic evil, but that the fight must continue as those leaders, under the ethic of conversion and the strategy of transformation, work to unite the people of the earth in a globalized community characterized by the ideal of civic peace, as the continued cosmic evolution to the Omega Point. Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, the moral philosophy of Augustine, and that of Thomas, despite all their faults, unerringly support the concept of dual morality, and along with it the application of both the ethic of benevolence and that of the ethic of responsibility.

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Scholte, Jan Aar. Globalization: A Critical Introduction. New York: Palgrave, 2000.

"Section 2265." Catechism of the Catholic Church. New York: Doubleday, 1997.

Shehata, Dina. "The Fall of the Pharaoh: How Hosni Mubarak's Reign Came to an End." Foreign Affairs (May/June 2011): 26-32.

Speaight, Robert. Teilhard de Chardin: A Biography. London: Collins, 1967.

Spickard, Paul R. and Kevin M. Cragg, A Global History of Christians: How Everyday Believers Experienced their World. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1994.

Taleb, Nassim Nicholas and Mark Blyth. "The Black Swan of Cairo: How Suppressing Volatility Makes the

World Less Predictable and More Dangerous." Foreign Affairs (May/June 2011): 33-39. The Bishops of the Netherlands. A New Catechism: Catholic Faith for Adults. New York: Herder and Herder, 1967.

The Catholic Church, Spiritus-Temporis. Worldwide Distribution. (2005) http://www.spiritus-temporis.com (accessed May 6, 2012).

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. "Centrology." In Activation of Energy: Enlightening Reflections on Spiritual Energy. Translated by Rene Hague. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1976.

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. "From Cosmos to Cosmogenesis." Activation of Energy Enlightening Reflections on Spiritual Energy. Translated by Rene Hague. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1976.

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. "The Formation of the Noosphere." In The Future of Man. Translated by Norman Denny. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1964.

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. "The Great Event Foreshadowed: the Planetisation of Mankind." In The Future of Man. Translated by Norman Denny. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1964.

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. "The Moment of Choice." In Activation of Energy: Enlightening Reflections on Spiritual Energy. Translated by Rene Hague. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1976.

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. The Phenomenon of Man. Translated by Bernard Wall. New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishing, 1959.

Tolson, Jay. "Aiming for Apocalypse: Much Rests on whether Iran's Leader Is a Shrewd Nationalist or an End-Times Nut." U.S. News and World Report (May 22, 2006): 34.

Urban, Linwood. A Short History of Christian Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Von Heyking, John. Augustine and Politics as Longing in the World. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2001.

Weber, Max. "Politics as a Vocation." In Curtis The Great Political Theories: From the French Revolution to Modern Times. 426-436.

Wolfe, Alan. Political Evil: What It Is and How To Combat It. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.

Paul Sukys, Professor of Humanities, North Central State College

(1) Craig A. Carter, Rethinking Christ and Culture: A Post-Christendom Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2006).

(2) Alan Wolfe, Political Evil: What It Is and How To Combat It (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011).

(3) Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, trans. Bernard Wall (New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishing, 1959).

(4) A small sampling of these leaders includes: Joseph Biden, Vice President of the U.S.; John Boehmer, Speaker of the House; Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader; John Roberts, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (along with the following justices: Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Sonia Sotomayor, and Clarence Thomas); Leon Panetta, Secretary of Defense; former Republican presidential candidates Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich; Chris Christie, Governor of New Jersey; Jerry Brown, Governor of California; Richard Daley, former mayor of Chicago; and in Europe, Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister and in France, Nicolas Sarkozy, the former president of France.

(5) The Catholic Church, Spiritus-Temporis (Worldwide Distribution, 2005) http://www.spiritus-temporis.com (accessed May 6, 2012).

(6) Stephen R. Rock, Faith and Foreign Policy: The Views and Influence of U.S. Christians and Christian Organizations (New York: Continuum International, 2011), 5.

(7) Roman Catholic Church, The Free Dictionary http://www.encyclopedia.the freedictionary.co (accessed May 6, 2012).

(8) Louise Radnofsky, "Catholics Sue Over Health Mandate," The Wall Street Journal (May 22, 2012): A-1 and A-4; Laurie Goodstein, "Bishops Sue Over Mandate to Provide Birth Control," The New York Times," (May 22, 2012): A-13.

(9) Allen D. Hertzke, "The Political Sociology of the Crusade against Religious Persecution," in The Influence of Faith: Religious Groups and U.S. Foreign Policy, ed. Elliot Abrams (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001), 85.

(10) Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 48.

(11) Thomas Barnett, The Pentagon's New Map (New York: Berkley Books, 2004), 49.

(12) Wolfe, 21.

(13) Robert Kaplan, Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos (New York: Vantage Books and Random House, 2002), 9-10.

(14) It will be helpful to have a brief definition of each of these terms as well as the source of each definition where appropriate. In Political Evil, Alan Wolfe defines terrorism as "the use of violence by non-state actors to inflict death and destruction on innocent bystanders in order to publicize a cause." (Wolfe, 23). Ethnic cleansing is used to describe a process by which one group of people, generally identified by a common ethnic heritage, attempts to exclude an "alien" group from a specifically identified geographical area (Wolfe, 23). Genocide occurs when the proponents of an ethnic cleansing campaign begin to murder people of the targeted ethnic group (Wolfe, 24). Torture involves the deliberate, premeditated, and organized infliction of pain, both physical and psychological, on an individual, in order to gain information, compel betrayal, or to exact revenge. Asymmetrical warfare is a tactical situation in which a small group of people possesses a level of power that is disproportionate to the interests that they represent (Kaplan, 9). Global warfare is a universal conflict, fueled by unreasoning hatred, misguided selfinterest, and blind indifference to human suffering. Political assassination describes a deliberately planned and executed murder of a political individual, generally, but not necessarily, a head of state, the purpose of which is to create maximum disorder within a nation-state, and is, thus, aimed at the ultimate destruction of that nation-state. Political assassination is more than simply a crime against an individual; it is also a deliberately violent crime against peace and social order.

(15) It is essential to understand that the standard of moral goodness does not change. It is, by definition and by nature, absolute and unchanging. What does evolve ("mature" is probably a much better word) is human understanding (appreciation might be more accurate here) of that standard, which of course, should lead to a more consistent, more complete adherence to that standard.

(16) Although, the term "flashpoint" is my own, the idea itself comes from the work of Ervin Laszlo in his book The Chaos Point: The World at the Crossroads. Laszlo uses chaos theory to track the development of human social systems and concludes that those systems tend to flow as periods of stability followed by periods of instability, which emerge from a focal point at which the former system is no longer sustainable and at which the future direction of the system hangs in the balance at the chaos point. Some experts call this the "tipping point." I've adopted the term, "flashpoint." Ervin Laszlo, The Chaos Point: The World at the Crossroads (London: Piatkus, 2006), 10-15.

(17) Barnett, 49.

(18) Jay Tolson, "Aiming for Apocalypse: Much Rests on whether Iran's Leader Is a Shrewd Nationalist or an End Times Nut," U.S. News and World Report (May 22, 2006): 34. The first time this threat was made explicit was in 2006 during the Bush administration. However, the threat has not abated in the Obama administration. In 2012, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei labeled Israel as a "Zionist regime" and described it further as a "cancerous tumor that must be cut out." See "Bombing Iran: Nobody Should Welcome the Prospect of a Nuclear-armed Iran. But Bombing the Place Is Not the Answer," The Economist (February 25, 2012): 13.

(19) E. L. Allen, "Augustine," From Plato to Nietzsche (New York: Fawcett Publications, 1970), 46; David Luscombe, Medieval Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 9-10.

(20) Allen, "Augustine," 55-57; Luscombe, 12-14.

(21) Linwood Urban, A Short History of Christian Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 140-141; Allen, "Augustine," 52.

(22) E. L. Allen, "Aquinas," From Plato to Nietzsche (New York: Fawcett Publications, 1970), 69-70; The view that atonement for Original Sin is found in the Incarnation goes back as far as St. John's Gospel, Irenaeus, and Athanasius, and was taught by Aquinas. For St. John's Gospel, Irenaeus, and Athanasius, see Urban, 106-107; For Aquinas see: Allen, "Aquinas," 69-72.

(23) Michael Curtis, ed., "Early Christianity," in The Great Political Theories: From the Greeks to the Enlightenment (New York: Harper Perennial, 1961), 142. See also Lindsey Hurd, "St. Augustine's The City of God," Fortifying the Family (2001): 1-2, http://www.fortifyingthefamily.com/cityofgod.htm (accessed October 20, 2011).

(24) "Saint Augustine: The City of God," in The Great Political Theories: From the Greeks to the Enlightenment, ed. Michael Curtis (New York: Harper Perennial, 1961), 150-151.

(25) Allen, "Augustine," 55-56; Curtis, 142; Hurd, 1; Urban, 112.

(26) Wolfe, 52.

(27) Paul R. Spickard and Kevin M. Cragg, A Global History of Christians: How Everyday Believers Experienced their World (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1994), 184-185 and 263,

(28) Wolfe, 54, 57-76.

(29) Hannah Arendt, Eichmann and the Holocaust (New York: Penguin Books, 1963) 103; Wolfe, 63.

(30) Arendt, 103-104.

(31) Ibid., 103.

(32) Wolfe, 53-54.

(33) Ibid., 54; In his book, A Short History of Christian Thought, Linwood Urban confirms the psychological dimension of Augustine's work when he writes that "Augustine asserts that the battleground (between good and evil) is both overhead and in human hearts and souls. The demons are within, as the dark part of the individual psyche." (parenthetical remark added). Urban, 112.

(34) Arendt tells us that this focus on the psychological element is in fact, a major component of "civilized jurisprudence," and it was this principle that was ignored in Eichmann's case. Arendt, 104-105.

(35) Wolfe, 54-55.

(36) Ibid., 53-54.Wolfe does not, of course, discuss the Israeli-Iranian conflict directly. Nevertheless, applying his interpretation of Augustine to this situation leads to this result

(37) Ibid., 54. Again, Wolfe's interpretation of Augustine demands this conclusion. Moreover, if we look at Urban's interpretation of Augustine in A Short History of Christian Thought, we find that he insists that according to Augustine, "the battleground (between good and evil) is both overhead and in human hearts and souls. The demons are within, as the dark part of the individual psyche." (Parenthetical remark added). Urban, 112. Also, remember that Arendt has declared that we must tolerate psychological oddities (such as, in this case, delusions of persecution related to a denial of the holocaust, and imaginary plots of persecution by the Israelis and the Americans) because this approach, the psychological approach, is tied to tolerance and understanding, and is a key part of "civilized jurisprudence." Arendt, 104-105.

(38) Wolfe, 54-55. Yet again, Wolfe's reading of Augustine requires this inference (my quotation marks).

(39) Ibid.

(40) Ibid., 47.

(41) Ibid.

(42) In brief, Thomas begins with the assumption that life has meaning. He then adds that, because human beings are defined by rationality, human fulfillment depends upon the proper use of that rationality. Human actions that follow the rational exercise of free will create happiness. All human happiness, however, is transitory at best, except the ultimate, eternal, changeless state of happiness which results from the beatific vision of the Divine in the afterlife. Reaching the beatific vision, however, is difficult for human beings. Humans need help in the exercise of free will because they have been weakened by original sin. This help comes initially in natural law (that law which is found in our instinctive behavior), which itself emerges from eternal law (the law God). Natural law tells us intuitively to do good rather than evil. Good is innately understood as (1) promoting life, (2) procreating to continue the existence of the human race, and (3) living in a communal society blessed by civic peace. Despite all of this, doing good is still difficult for humans, however, because of original sin which, due to its cosmic effect, has weakened the human will, making it more likely that humans will sin (that is, they will pursue self-interest rather than the intuitive good defined above). This necessitates the intervention of the eternal (God) into the temporal (the physical, human world) in the Incarnation so that the Divine dimension and the human dimension become one in Christ. The redeeming act of Christ and the grace provided by that event empower humans to do good. Nevertheless, to determine the moral nature of any given act, it becomes necessary to analyze each of those acts by gauging the three characteristics of each act: intent, results, and the nature of the act itself. It is at that point that we pick up Thomistic morality as noted above. Peter S. Eardley and Carl N. Still, Aquinas (New York: Continuum, 2010), 67-86.

(43) Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1956). 260.

(44) Ibid., 261. The explanation belongs to Gilson. The example is mine. According to Gilson, "When the intention is evil, the act is irremediably bad, because each one of its constituent parts has been called into existence in the service of evil." 261.

(45) Ibid. Again, the explanation belongs to Gilson, while the example is mine. Gilson writes, "A moral act always gains by being inspired by a good intention. Even one that fails in execution, at least retains the merit of having meant well, and often merits more than it accomplishes." 261.

(46) Ibid.

(47) Alison Mclntyre, "Doctrine of Double Effect," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (September 7, 2011): 1-14, http:// plato.stanford.edu/ entries/ double-effect/ (accessed February 13, 2012): 1-2. McIntyre tells us that Thomas discusses the double effect in the Summa Theologica at II-II, Qu. 64, Art. 7.

(48) Ibid., 1-2

(49) Ibid. McIntyre is referring to self-defense. However, the double effect principle easily transforms itself into defense of others. Mclntyre writes, "since one's intention is to save one's own life, is not unlawful, seeing that it is natural to everything to keep itself in being as far as possible." 1-2. If it is lawful for a person to protect himself or herself from an attacker, it is equally lawful for another to help in that same effort.

(50) Gilson, 267.

(51) Steven J. Jensen, Good and Evil Actions. A Journey Through Saint Thomas Aquinas (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 58-64.

(52) Ibid., 64.

(53) Moreover, in 1967, Thomas would have defended Israel's preemptive strike against Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. See: Alan Dershowitz The Case for Israel (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2003), 97.

(54) Robert Speaight. Teilhard de Chardin: A Biography (London: Collins, 1967), 57-74, 251-267. Speaight writes of Teilhard's experiences as a stretcher bearer on the front in the chapter entitled "The First World War" (Speaight, 57). In a later chapter entitled "War in Exile," we learn that Teilhard was, of course, directly affected by the Japanese occupation forces in China (Speaight, 255-258). On the other hand, Speaight reports that Teilhard was only indirectly affected by the war in Europe although he did write of it often in letters during the time that he was in China at the start of the war. It seems, however, that he was more worried about the Russians and Stalin than he was about Hitler and the Germans. This can be attributed to his fear that Russia would become an insulated nation that would shut itself off from a fragmented Europe at the end of the war (Speaight, 254-255). Still, the fall of France "bewildered" him and the activities of the Vichy government "filled him with misgiving" (Speaight, 254-255).

(55) Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, trans. Bernard Wall (New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishing, 1959). See also: Julian Huxley, introduction to The Phenomenon of Man by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishing, 1959), 11-28.

(56) The development of Teilhard's concept of the noosphere is also a key element in the emergence of Noopolitik.

(57) Huxley, introduction to The Phenomenon of Man, 13.

(58) Ibid., 13-14. Huxley actually makes a distinction between the noosphere (the first definition noted above) and the noosystem, (the second definition used above) a term he seems to have coined himself. There seems to be no real reason to make this distinction, other than Huxley's personal need for a clearer differentiation.

(59) Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, "The Formation of the Noosphere," in The Future of Man, trans. Norman Denny (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1964), 157.

(60) Huxley, introduction to The Phenomenon of Man, 12-13.

(61) Michael Chorost, World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humanity, Machines, and the Internet (New York: Free Press, 2011), 162-163.

(62) The Bishops of the Netherlands, A New Catechism: Catholic Faith for Adults (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967), 264.

(63) Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. John Saward (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), 28-29.

(64) Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance, 178-183.

(65) PierreTeilhard de Chardin, "The Moment of Choice," in Activation of Energy: Enlightening Reflections on Spiritual Energy, trans. Rene Hague (New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1976), 13-20.

(66) Ibid., 13-14..

(67) Teilhard, "The Moment of Choice," 13-20. To quote Teilhard, the "present conflict" should not discourage us because, although "a group of isolated human wills might falter" the evolution of the universe cannot fail to reach the Divine. Teilhard, "Moment of Choice," 13-14.

(68) Teilhard, "The Moment of Choice," 13.

(69) Max Weber, "Politics as a Vocation," in The Great Political Theories: From the French Revolution to Modern Times, ed. Michael Curtis (New York: Harper Perennial, 1962), 426-436.

(70) Ibid., 430. See "Section 2265," Catechism of the Catholic Church (New York: Doubleday, 1997), 604.

(71) Weber, 430-31.

(72) Ibid., 431. Weber acknowledges that those who profess the ethic of ultimate ends often think in terms of results. This does not change the standard only their consistency. Weber adds that it also shows capacity for self-deception.

(73) Ibid., 431.

(74) David J. O'Brien and Thomas A. Shannon, eds., "Gaudium et Spes: The Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World (Second Vatican Council, 1965)," in Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heritage (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1992), 216-219.

(75) Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Values in a Time of Upheaval, trans. Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2005), 11-12.

(76) Ibid., 12.

(77) Catechism of the Catholic Church, 597-599, and 604.

(78) Ibid., 604.

(79) Jensen, 64-66.

(80) Ibid., 185-187.

(81) John von Heyking, Augustine and Politics as Longing in the World (Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2001), 5

(82) Ibid., 6.

(83) Ibid.

(84) Joyce P. Kaufman, A Concise History of American Foreign Policy (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), 126-128.

(85) Ibid., 127-128,

(86) Teilhard actually uses the term planetisation. See Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, "The Great Event Foreshadowed: the Planetisation of Mankind," in The Future of Man, trans. Norman Denny (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1964), 124-139.

(87) The term noosphere belongs to Teilhard. The terms ethic of conversion and strategy of transformation are my terms. They have been fashioned as a shorthand way to condense Teilhard's ethical position and his suggested plan of action as they appear in his essay, "The Moment of Choice." The term noopolitik is neither Teilhard's nor mine. However, it is a fitting term for describing the political behavioral theory that exemplifies Teilhard's philosophy. Whoever actually coined the term owes a clear debt to Teilhard.

(88) Noopolitik is not exclusively the exercise of soft power, as some commentators maintain, but is actually the exercise of hard power (the principal strategy of Realpolitik) balanced by soft power as a means of moving forward toward Omega.

(89) Note: It is critical that we not confuse the term "global community" with a "world government."

(90) Tolson, 34. The first time that this threat was made explicit was in 2006 during the Bush administration. However, the threat has not abated. In 2012, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei labeled Israel as a "Zionist regime" and described it further as a "cancerous tumor that must be cut out." See "Bombing Iran: Nobody Should Welcome the Prospect of a Nuclear-armed Iran. But Bombing the Place Is Not the Answer," The Economist (February 25, 2012): 13.

(91) Teilhard, "The Moment of Choice," 19.

(92) Ibid., 17.

(93) Teilhard, "The Moment of Choice," 14.

(94) Jan Aart Scholte, Globalization: A Critical Introduction (New York: Palgrave, 2000), 136.

(95) For a details on the global protest movement of 2011, see Lisa Anderson, "Demystifying the Arab Spring: Parsing the Differences Between Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya," Foreign Affairs (May/June 2011): 2-7; Jack A. Goldstone "Understanding the Revolutions of 2011: Weakness and Resilience in Middle Eastern Autocracies," Foreign Affairs (May/June 2011): 8-16; Michael Scott Doran, "The Heirs of Nassar: Who Will Benefit from the Second Arab Revolution?" Foreign Affairs (May/June 2011): 17-25; Dina Shehata, "The Fall of the Pharaoh: How Hosni Mubarak's Reign Came to an End," Foreign Affairs (May/June 2011): 26-32; Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Mark Blyth, "The Black Swan of Cairo: How Suppressing Volatility Makes the World Less Predictable and More Dangerous," Foreign Affairs (May/June 2011): 33-39; Shadi Hamid, "The Rise of the Islamists: How Islamists Will Change Politics, and Vice Versa," Foreign Affairs (May/June 2011): 40-47; Daniel Byman, "Terrorism After the Revolutions: How Secular Uprisings Could Help (or Hurt) Jihadists," Foreign Affairs (May/June 2011): 48-54.

(96) Scholte, 136.

(97) John Baylis, Steve Smith, and Patricia Owens, The Globalization of World Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 17.

(98) Teilhard, "The Moment of Choice," 17.

(99) Ibid.

(100) Ibid., 18.

(101) "Catholic Teaching Does Not Espouse World Government, Says Pontifical Academy Head," Catholic World News (May 1, 2012) http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines (accessed May 6, 2012).

(102) Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, "Centrology," Activation of Energy: Enlightening Reflections on Spiritual Energy, trans. Rene Hague (New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1976), 111.

(103) Paul Christopher, The Ethics of War and Peace: An Introduction to Legal and Moral Issues (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999), 40.

(104) Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, "From Cosmos to Cosmogenesis," Activation of Energy Enlightening Reflections on Spiritual Energy, trans. Rene Hague (New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1976), 262-263.

(105) Ibid.