Theology may be a most interesting mental discipline; but if it does not evolve, and the glory claimed for it is that it stays the same for ever and ever, then it is not going to be all that relevant to the predicament in which the Church or society finds itself today. To become relevant, the clergy need to become as adaptable as the Creator is Himself, or as Evolution appears to be when you study the morphology of creatures from the very distant past. Or again as the elder von Moltke said the army commander should be, when he modifies his original plan of operations after the first serious encounter with enemy forces.
How does German “War Guilt” fit in with all this? I’m not sure that it does. Some people say that Nazi Germany was a phenomenon quite unlike any other, in which criminals became the policemen, and the respectable law-abiding bourgeois became the criminals. But I am not sure this is right. How does the increasing chaos within Germany as the Nazis obtained power differ from the increasing chaos at the break-up of the Roman Empire, except that the enemy were within, rather than without? And what use is a religion if it promises to get you into heaven, but fails to lift a finger or make an effective protest, when evil starts to be accepted as “good”, and good starts to be labelled “evil”? Not much! As far as I am aware no Christian sect comes out of Hitler’s Germany with credit except the Jehovah’s Witnesses; and what was the point of dealing with the Pelagian heresy, when the German hordes began to carry fire and slaughter throughout the length and breadth of Gaul in 406AD? It seems to me we have seen it all before, except that the principal enemy is now within, rather than without. And Germany’s war guilt was primarily letting the gangsters get on top.
In an “ideal war”, each side would credit the other with a just cause, in order to leave open the door to negotiation should both sides begin to realize that the cost was beginning to far-exceed any possible gain. But this presupposes that both sides to the conflict have some sense of responsibility, and can be relied on to keep the conflict within the confines of political control. Now suppose one side behaves so badly, that its enemies are unwilling in any circumstances to seek to negotiate terms with them? Suppose it becomes known that the behaviour of one side in Belsen, Buchenwald and the Death Camps is so inhuman that none of their opponents will admit a willingness to trust their word; then the moment it looks as if the opponents are set to win, will they not openly rule out any question of negotiations with them? If so, War will then take its course, unfettered by any restraint of political expediency. Those who suggest there is anything to apologise for in the fire-storms of Hamburg and Dresden fail to understand the nature of War. Or expressing the same thought in Anglo-Saxon idiom, they have failed to understand that “There are no Rules in War; if you make Rules you lose!”