Nonviolence and conscience
Examine how The Kingdom of God Is Within You turns the Sermon on the Mount into a critique of the state.
An original introduction. This guide accompanies the work; it is neither the complete text nor a translation.
Situating the text
Completed in 1893, the book was banned in Russia and circulated first abroad, in Russian and in translation. It draws on Quaker writers and on the American abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Adin Ballou, and closes with a train of soldiers sent to punish peasants, which Tolstoy met in 1892. Tolstoy answers critics of his teaching on non-resistance by tracing a tradition of Christian nonviolence and arguing that the churches have concealed the Gospel’s demand. He denounces conscription, patriotism and the state as organised violence that ordinary people sustain through obedience, and calls each person to follow conscience.
Following the arguments
Non-resistance : The command not to resist evil by force is the heart of the Gospel, not an impractical counsel reserved for saints. Organised violence : Taxes, courts and armies rest on the threat of force, and universal conscription makes every citizen a potential instrument of killing. Conscience : Change comes less from revolution than from individuals who refuse to take part in violence and live by the truth they recognise.
Continuing the reading
Begin with the survey of earlier Christian pacifists and the final chapter on the train of soldiers, then weigh his arguments against the case for legitimate defence. Completed in 1893, the book was banned in Russia and circulated first abroad, in Russian and in translation. It draws on Quaker writers and on the American abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Adin Ballou, and closes with a train of soldiers sent to punish peasants, which Tolstoy met in 1892.
Non-resistance, in Tolstoy’s sense, is not passivity but a refusal to cooperate with organised violence.
Your turn to think.
- Is there a difference between refusing violence and refusing to protect others?
- How does Tolstoy explain that ordinary people sustain a state whose violence they did not choose?
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