Durham’s magnificent cathedral this past week has hosted an art installation dedicated to peace: thousands of white, paper doves hang from the ceiling in a cloud. No more is explained but ‘Peace’.
I am not sure how to take art installations. Was it to be admired, explored at leisure? Was it for a set period or did one leave just as one feels? Would the lighting or the mood music change as in a set performance? It did not, but then neither does the theme.
Rebellious reason argues against a demand for unspecified peace without practicality: to uphold peace without question, the Ukrainian state would have allowed the tanks of neighbouring Muscovy to roll unresisted across the wheat fields, and if the peace movement of the 1930s had prevailed, then the whole world including all that we have known and cared for would have sunk into the abyss of a new Dark Age, as Churchill knew.
However it is a deeper theme. Peace as a concept is not a single goal to be reached. It would be unreasoned folly to think it so.
But those qualities of man-kind, that concern their living together in Peace, and Unity. To which end we are to consider, that the Felicity of this life, consisteth not in the repose of a mind satisfied. For there is no such Finis Ultimus, (utmost ayme,) nor Summum Bonum, (greatest good,) as is spoken of in the Books of the old Morall Philosophers. Nor can a man any more live, whose Desires are at an end, than he, whose Senses and Imaginations are at a stand. Felicity is a continuall progresse of the desire, from one object to another; the attaining of the former, being still but the way to the later. The cause whereof is, That the object of mans desire, is not to enjoy once onely, and for one instant of time; but to assure for ever, the way of his future desire.
The concept of peace between nations is a silly, limited idea of peace, just meaning an absence of war, which is a hard thing to achieve:
the nature of War, consisteth not in actuall fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is PEACE.
There is then no peace but only tension of balanced powers or yielding goodwill with the mailed fist reserved in case goodwill becomes unilateral. The idea of anarchist pacifism is as must a contradiction as a vegetarian pork pie: removing the force of the sovereign just invites gangs to impose themselves in its place – ask a Somali or a Syrian.
Peace is nevertheless a Christian goal, and so the doves of Durham are right. The vision we have is that give to Micah: “But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid”.
The removal of force does not allow a man to sit beneath his fig tree unafraid, for in the natural state, as we know:
In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.
Therefore to seek peace, we must do it with strength to defend the peace of each man, woman and child, with the goal that each should indeed sit in the shad of the vine and the fig tree: Micah was not envisaging an anarchy, but that “the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion:”.
‘Blessed are the peacemakers’. ‘The LORD lift up his countenance on you, and give you peace’: the Biblical blessing of peace is all through the Bible. There should be no question that Christians should seek peace. It is not a passive thing: what does the Lord promise? – ‘And I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.’; that is not sitting back but active peacemaking.
Indeed, activity appears to be the opposite of personal peace, namely a rest from labour, but the reality is that toil is necessary to achieve that end. The vine needs dressing, and as to the fig tree, the vine-dresser shall dig about it, and dung it to make it bear fruit, that the farmer may eat. The rest from labour comes through work, and innovating to make that work efficient, as a process that allows us to find peace of heart.
The peace is the ability to sit in the shade of the vine without fear, but if we stay there too long, the restless mind becomes bored, so we are up again – the theme for Micah is not slumber, it seems, but having no fear of violence from enemies, and that takes a robust, ruled society – as long as the ruler does not become violent himself.
To see Biblical peace as a cessation of war and no more is to miss the idea entirely. If those thousands of doves were saying ‘Lay down all weapons ‘ then they would be against peace, as it opens the gate to evil-doers (who will not permit any to sit beneath their own vine). However that is not an argument against the pursuit of peace.
The church should loudly proclaim the need to promote peace, and so the installation in Durham is a worthy expression of true Christian values.
Even so, we must not forget that ‘there is no such Finis Ultimus… Felicity is a continuall progresse of the desire, from one object to another’.
See also
Books
- By Thomas Hobbes:
- By Tom Wright, former Bishop of Durham:
- By Anthony Burgess:
- By H G Wells:
- By Aldous Huxley:
- By George Orwell:
- By Jordan Peterson:
