QUESTION: “In the case of war, is the act of killing by a soldier contrary to divine law?
ANSWER: “No, it is not. For, as Jesus Christ has said, man should give God His due and Caesar that which is due him. If human beings on this whole earth sphere are still so far back in development that a war is necessary, a man has to fight for his country. By refusing to fight, even if all men would do so, evil would not be eliminated. War may be temporarily eliminated, but certainly not evil. War is only one of many expressions of evil. War is not the cause, it is only an effect. It would be the same if a father would allow a murderer to come into his house and kill his wife and children without defending them. He must defend those he loves, and evil has to be fought against. In your present state of development, unfortunately war often is still your means of fighting evil. As spiritual development grows, you will learn to go more to the roots of the problems and fight against evil in better ways. As it stands now, mankind is often forced to fight in war against forces that abuse free will and divine law. If people exist who take the power upon themselves to prevent other people to live as God wants them to live and if your world has not found other means as yet to eliminate this wrong, then a war is the lesser evil. From the spiritual point of view, you know that death is not the worst. Spiritual death is the worst, not physical death. Every person is judged individually, and that comprises also the circumstances and environment in which he lives. In the spirit world, the real motives count more than an act, and judgment is not passed generally or collectively. Each person is judged separately, and if a man simply goes to war to defend his country, this will not count against him. His inner attitudes count, his feelings, his reactions, his decency in motives, and his sense of responsibility.”

QUESTION: “How does spiritual law correspond with human laws in case of a death sentence with a murderer?
ANSWER: “From the spiritual point of view, capital punishment is wrong. That may sound like a contradiction to you in comparison with the last answer. But it is not. In the case of war, it is a question of defending a nation, mankind. For humanity, war is often the last means. And even the people living in the aggressive nation are often convinced that they are doing their duty; they do not see the whole picture. They have to abide by the laws of their society. Otherwise they might cause more hardship, not only to themselves and thereby becoming incapable of fulfilling their life, but also to others around them. Again we cannot generalize all the way, for there may be isolated instances where it is the duty of a person to violate a law of man in order to fulfill a law of God. But these instances are rare and only expected of strong and highly developed beings sent to earth with a special mission. But in general, this does not hold true. But capital punishment is not a necessity. War often is in your present state of development. You have not found the way yet to eliminate war. The only way to do so is when resentment, hate, and fear do not live in the individuals’s soul anymore. This is the only basis for peace. But capital punishment is not necessary.”

QUESTION: “A question in connection with war and killing, how are we to regard a conscientious objector who sincerely follows the admonition not to kill and considers the whole of the universe as his fellow men rather than the part he is called upon to so-called ‘defend.'”
ANSWER: “In the first place, man is not defending a part of geography but his immediate fellow creatures. By refusing to go to war, he may in the long run cause more harm than good. With this, I certainly do not wish to give the impression that I advocate war — by no means. But war cannot be eliminated by refusing it. This cancer has to be treated in another way and slowly has to grow out of all individuals. An individual conscientious objector, provided his motives are pure, will be judged accordingly. Then this will certainly not be held against him the same as a killing in a war by a soldier will not be held against him, if his heart is pure, his conviction sincere. But that does not alter the fact that his judgment is wrong. More precisely, his goal or endeavor is a good one just as the goal of a sincere soldier may be a good one, but he selects the wrong means to oust an evil. Refusing to go to war could not be the right curative against war. For as long as there is hatred within the individual soul and as long as there is blindness caused through lack of self-knowledge and as long as people do not purify themselves and strive upwards to God — and the only striving that counts is this purification process — and as long as people cannot refine their feelings, then there cannot be peace. It is impossible.

“War is an outpicturing of what goes on in so many individual personalities. It cannot be eliminated by collective means alone unless these are supported by the right spiritual attitudes, as well meant as they may be. It has to start from within by each individual. Otherwise you will only succeed to eliminate one effect, and another symptom will come. It is just the same with disease, my friends. War is nothing else but a disease. Your human history, your human science shows you how much medicine has found in eliminating diseases. Many diseases are not possible anymore today that existed a relatively very short time ago. But other diseases have sprung up that you cannot cure, and will continue to do so until a greater degree of purification exists on this earth no matter what wonderful progress science and medicine make. As long as the disease is not cured from within, war or any other disease will exist. If it is not war, it will be something else, equally terrible. In the case of an individual, it is possible to make a mistake in judgment, and this in itself is not held against you. You all make mistakes in judgment. “As long as you are sincere and do not delude yourself for other reasons and color your motives, it is something that is not held against you. But the coloring of one’s own motives so often exists. When man has an opinion, a very firm opinion about anything — religion, politics, any subject — the moment this opinion is very firm, fanatical, and inflexible, he should test his real inner motives, and he may find out that this opinion is not as general and objective as he may have thought at first. If you really dig deep and honestly, you will be surprised how often you will find a personal, emotional, and subjective reason connected with your convictions. ” (PL #29)