Love and the Winter: C.S. Lewis, Nigel Biggar, and Marc LiVecche on Enemy Love

Abstract

In this paper, I tackle a difficult question about “enemy love,” with C.S. Lewis as a primary guide. In the Christian political tradition, can the command to “love thy enemy” be reconciled with the military task of killing one's opponent in war? After defining love, enemy, and enemy love, I move on to violence, particularly lethal violence. I disagree with perceptive contemporary Christian political ethicists Nigel Biggar and Marc LiVecche insofar as they argue that the killing of one's enemy can be “an expression of love”towards them. Such language obscures its moral ambiguity and is strictly speaking false. One may perhaps love one's enemy despite killing them, not by killing them. Lewis's conceptual distinction between “absolute” and “relative” love helps to untangle the knotty nature and limits of enemy love.