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Peace

Peace ethics

When may violence be used, and what makes peace just? An overview of positions from Augustine to the churches of today

Key points at a glance

  • Peace ethics asks how peace can be justified, protected and promoted, and whether violence can ever be justified.
  • The older doctrine of just war names conditions under which a war is supposed to be permitted, such as legitimate authority and a just cause.
  • The churches in Germany today orient themselves by the guiding idea of just peace, with priority for prevention and civil conflict transformation.
  • In this view, force is at most a last resort, bound to strict criteria.
  • The new EKD memorandum of 2025 holds on to just peace but puts protection from violence more strongly in the foreground.

In numbers

2000

Gerechter Friede (Just Peace)

statement of the German bishops, 27 September

2007

EKD memorandum

Aus Gottes Frieden leben, für gerechten Frieden sorgen

2025

EKD memorandum

Welt in Unordnung, Gerechter Friede im Blick

Just war and just peaceSources: katholisch.de, EKD memorandum 2007, lecture by Wolfgang Huber 2004

Doctrine of just war

Key question
When is a war permitted?
Origin
Augustine, summed up by Thomas Aquinas
Core
legitimate authority, just cause, right intention, later the last resort
Force
justified under these conditions

Guiding idea of just peace

Key question
What does a lasting peace need?
Origin
term already used by Augustine, worked out only in the second half of the 20th century
Core
protection from violence, promotion of freedom, reduction of need, recognition of cultural diversity
Force
at most a last resort, bound to criteria
Three church documents comparedSources: German Bishops' Conference, EKD

Bishops 2000

Title
Gerechter Friede (Just Peace)
Focus
dealing with conflict in ways that avoid violence as a priority obligation
Key sentence
Preventive policy is better than limiting damage afterwards.

EKD 2007

Title
Aus Gottes Frieden leben, für gerechten Frieden sorgen (Live from God's Peace, Care for Just Peace)
Focus
priority of civil conflict transformation, seven criteria for testing force
Key sentence
If you want peace, prepare for peace.

EKD 2025

Title
Welt in Unordnung, Gerechter Friede im Blick (A World in Disorder, Just Peace in View)
Focus
protection from violence and the state's duty to protect move into the foreground
Key sentence
Fitness for peace instead of fitness for war
Classic criteria
legitimate authority, just cause, right intention
Added later
ultima ratio, the last resort
Guiding idea today
just peace
Church texts
Bishops' Conference 2000, EKD 2007 and 2025

What is peace ethics?

Peace ethics asks how peace can be justified, protected and promoted, and under which conditions violence could be justified at all. In Germany the churches have set out their positions on this in memoranda and statements by the bishops.

Two lines of thought shape the debate. The first is the doctrine of just war, which names conditions under which a war is supposed to be permitted. The second is the guiding idea of just peace, by which the Catholic and the Protestant Church in Germany orient themselves today.

The Chair of Applied Ethics at the University of Jena describes the task like this: peace ethics sees securing peace as a central task of ethical reflection, and securing peace means not only the absence of war but securing the conditions for a good life between states and between groups within states. This page describes the positions as they appear in the sources. It does not judge them and does not apply them to individual conflicts of the present.

What is the doctrine of just war?

Augustine, who lived from 354 to 430, brought reflections on just war into Christian thought. Among other things, he named these conditions: a war had to be ordered by God or by a lawful authority, serve the common good rather than particular interests, and remain limited to the most extreme case.

Thomas Aquinas, who lived from 1225 to 1274, summed up the doctrine in his Summa Theologica in three criteria. According to these, a war requires legitimate authority, legitima auctoritas, a just cause, causa iusta, and a good intention, recta intentio.

Later the criterion of last resort was added, the ultima ratio: the war must be unavoidable, and all other options must have been exhausted. Further criteria such as proportionality and a prospect of success are also named in the tradition; the sources differ on where they come from.

What does just peace mean?

The term is old. In a lecture in 2004, Wolfgang Huber pointed out that Augustine, of all people, the theological founder of the doctrine of just war, also coined the term just peace, in Latin iusta pax.

The EKD memorandum of 2007 aligns all its reflections on peace policy with the guiding idea of just peace. Throughout, it emphasises prevention and gives priority to non-violent methods of dealing with conflict.

According to the memorandum, it follows that the doctrine of bellum iustum, just war, no longer has a place within this guiding idea, because modern international law has abolished the concept of just war. The moral criteria for testing the use of force are not meant to be given up, however.

Which dimensions does this guiding idea have?

The EKD memorandum of 2007 does not understand peace as a state, neither as the mere absence of war nor as the silencing of all conflicts, but as a social process of decreasing violence and increasing justice.

It names four basic elements. First, avoiding and protecting from violence. Second, promoting freedom, because a just peace includes not only survival but a life in dignity. Third, reducing need, because competition for scarce resources is one of the most important causes of armed conflict. Fourth, recognising cultural diversity.

The memorandum of 2025 takes up these elements. According to it, the guiding idea builds on protection from violence, the promotion of freedom, the reduction of inequalities and dealing with pluralism that promotes peace, and it links the hope for peace with the need for a just order.

What do the churches say today?

On 27 September 2000 the German bishops published the statement Gerechter Friede (Just Peace). The Bishops' Conference calls it the foundational document of Catholic peace ethics in Germany, the successor to the 1983 letter Gerechtigkeit schafft Frieden (Justice Creates Peace). In it the bishops call dealing with conflict in ways that avoid and reduce violence a priority obligation.

In October 2007 the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) presented the memorandum Aus Gottes Frieden leben, für gerechten Frieden sorgen (Live from God's Peace, Care for Just Peace). It describes a legal order committed to the priority of civil conflict transformation and binds the use of coercive means to strict ethical criteria and criteria of international law.

In November 2025 the Council of the EKD presented the memorandum Welt in Unordnung, Gerechter Friede im Blick (A World in Disorder, Just Peace in View) at the synod in Dresden. In it, peace is understood as a process in which violence decreases and justice increases, and protection from violence is given central importance. Pacifist traditions are acknowledged, but according to the EKD, the recognition of the state's duty to protect moves into the foreground.

What is new about the memorandum of 2025?

According to the EKD summary, the memorandum holds on to the vision of a just peace without denying the reality of violence and threat. It distances itself, however, from earlier positions that saw service without weapons as a clearer sign of Christian action for peace.

According to the memorandum, counter-force in defence must always follow very strict rules. It serves the law, not revenge, and aims to end violence. Where violence becomes unavoidable, the text speaks of an entanglement in guilt from which no one fully escapes.

The memorandum rejects the term fitness for war and speaks instead of fitness for peace. The EKD describes its own role like this: it is not its task to make political decisions, but it wants to accompany the public struggle for orientation with a theological voice.

Which criteria apply to violence as a last resort?

The EKD memorandum of 2007, which makes just peace its guiding idea, also holds on to moral criteria for testing the use of force. It speaks here of an ethics of law-preserving force.

The memorandum names seven criteria: grounds for permission, authorisation, right intention, last resort, proportionality of consequences, proportionality of means and the principle of distinction, under which people not directly involved in the violence are to be spared. On the last resort it says: the use of force must be necessary as a last resort, which means that all effective milder means of settling the conflict are to be explored. The idea ties in with the ultima ratio of the older doctrine.

In the memorandum these criteria stand alongside the priority of prevention and civil conflict transformation. Its guiding principle reads: If you want peace, prepare for peace. On W3ltfrieden you can find peace missions or start one yourself.

EKD memorandum Aus Gottes Frieden leben, für gerechten Frieden sorgen, 2007, translated

If you want peace, prepare for peace.

Sources

What is peace?

Milestones of the debate

  1. Augustine354 to 430, brings just war into Christian thought and also coins the term just peace
  2. Thomas Aquinas1225 to 1274, the doctrine of three criteria in the Summa Theologica
  3. Bishops' Conference 2000Gerechter Friede (Just Peace), 27 September 2000, priority for dealing with conflict in ways that prevent violence
  4. EKD 2007Aus Gottes Frieden leben, für gerechten Frieden sorgen, the guiding idea of just peace
  5. EKD 2025Welt in Unordnung, Gerechter Friede im Blick, presented at the synod in Dresden

Frequently asked questions about peace ethics

What is the EKD's new peace memorandum called?

It is called Welt in Unordnung, Gerechter Friede im Blick (A World in Disorder, Just Peace in View), with the subtitle Protestant peace ethics in the face of new challenges. The Evangelical Church in Germany published it in November 2025; it appeared with Evangelische Verlagsanstalt in Leipzig.

The EKD offers the memorandum as a free download on its website, together with a summary of its main statements.

What is Christian peace ethics?

Christian peace ethics grounds its positions in biblical and theological sources. Wolfgang Huber points to passages such as Psalm 85:11 and Isaiah 32:17, to which Augustine linked the term God's just peace.

The EKD memorandum of 1981 put the principle like this: only peace, not war, lies in the direction of Christian ethics. A lecture in the EKD archive therefore calls just peace the guiding concept of Christian peace ethics.

What does the Catholic Church say about peace ethics?

The foundational text is the statement Gerechter Friede (Just Peace) by the German bishops of 27 September 2000. It says that utmost efforts to avoid violence are not merely recommended but obligatory in the strict sense. In all circumstances the principle applies: preventive policy is better than limiting damage afterwards.

The bishops also see violence where there is no war: conditions of lasting serious injustice are in themselves charged with violence. In 2024 the peace statement Friede diesem Haus (Peace to This House) followed, which according to katholisch.de holds military counter-force to be justified as an ultima ratio when people are massively threatened.

What does the ecumenical peace paper of 2026 call for?

In June 2026 the ecumenical peace paper Wer Frieden will, muss mit dem Feind reden (Whoever Wants Peace Must Talk to the Enemy) was presented online. It was written by Ralf Becker, Karen Hinrichs, Heinrich Schäfer and Theodor Ziegler.

According to katholisch.de, the authors call it a myth that peace can be achieved through military force and threats, and they call for international law to be strengthened. Their approach thus differs from the EKD memorandum of 2025 and from the peace statement of the bishops of 2024, which consider military counter-force possible as a last resort.

Are there teaching materials on peace ethics?

Yes. In its series Themenblätter im Unterricht, the Federal Agency for Civic Education offers issue no. 101, Frieden und Sicherheit (Peace and Security), free as a PDF. The Evangelical Church in the Rhineland has set up a page on the EKD peace memorandum for peace education.

The original texts themselves are also a good start: the EKD memoranda and the German bishops' statement are free to download. The links are listed in the sources of this page below.

More on peace

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