From our mid-western correspondent comes this quotation by President Harry S. Truman about the use of atomic weapons (sometime between the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki):
The atomic bomb is too dangerous to be loose in a lawless world. That is why Great Britain, Canada, and the United States, who have the secret of its production, do not intend to reveal that secret until means have been found to control the bomb so as to protect ourselves and the rest of the world from the danger of total destruction.
As far back as last May, Secretary of War Stimson, at my suggestion, appointed a committee upon which Secretary of State Byrnes served as my personal representative, to prepare plans for the future control of this bomb. I shall ask the Congress to cooperate to the end that its production and use be controlled, and that its power be made an overwhelming influence towards world peace.
We must constitute ourselves trustees of this new force–to prevent its misuse, and to turn it into the channels of service to mankind.
It is an awful responsibility which has come to us.
We thank God that it has come to us, instead of to our enemies; and we pray that He may guide us to use it in His ways and for His purposes.
To make light of the moral dilemmas involved in Truman’s decision would be easy, as if anyone should know that nuclear weapons are evil. Being the son of a Marine who survived Iwo Jima and was waiting in Hawaii to conduct a similar mission to Japan’s shores, I myself have a small portion of my heart expressing gratitude that my father was spared having to fight in Japan. Chances are I would not be blogging if not for that bomb. (Old Life loyalists may want to thank Truman as well.)
The problem is the president’s identification of a weapon of mass destruction with God’s purposes. Providentially speaking, no one, not the president or even a minister of the gospel, knows God’s purposes in human history. But when it comes to God’s revealed purposes, as in saving a people for himself, we know what the weapons are — word, sacrament, and discipline. Those are the means by which Christ’s kingdom (of grace) comes.
Truman was not wrong to pray for wisdom, though he may have been sanctimonious to do so while bombing the bejeebers out of the Japanese. But he needed to know how to pray and what to pray for (sorry for the concluding preposition). That’s why God gave us the Lord’s Prayer. No atomic WMD’s there. Only spiritual ones.
Postscript of full disclosure: I am technically a graduate of Harry S. Truman High School in Levittown, Pennsylvania (the proverbial armpit of Bucks County). I say technically because the school’s name at the time of my diploma was Woodrow Wilson, not necessarily a better choice in the horse race of admirably restrained presidents. But the change of name is not a factor in my evaluation of Truman’s remarks.
Old Life 
Hey, at least Wilson was a Presbyterian (if a bad one) and a friend of Machen. I wonder what he did learn while at Princeton?
You’re starting to sound like another President (gasp, Lincoln), when it comes to discerning God’s purposes in history.
LikeLike
Pious words from the only President to actually use nuclear weapons. And in my reading of history had Truman not insisted on unconditional surrender, and had allowed the Japanese Emperor to keep his throne (as MacArthur wisely allowed anyhow) the Japanese would have surrendered and you Dad would not have invaded… Cynical me thinks Truman and the military wanted to send Russia and maybe China a message that they had better behave too. Civilian targets were immoral. But the firebombing of Tokyo was worse in terms of lives lost.
LikeLike
Doug,
I think you’re being overly cynical. Some of the best historians have argued there were strong elements in Japanese society and the military which would have prevented any type of surrender short of the circumstances of the bomb. As it was, it took TWO bombs before Japan capitulated. Read “Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire,” by Richard Frank.
LikeLike
Richard W., I am really ignorant about God’s purposes. Lincoln sounded ignorant all the while knowing that he was going to reduce Atlanta to rubble. Then he turns around and wonders about God’s designs? He was tricky before Nixon.
LikeLike
My Grandfather after fighting across europe was also awaiting orders to invade Japan. I to thank God that those orders never came.
For the revisionist–the Japanese were far worse war criminals than the Nazis and yet suffered little for their crimes against humanity. In fact they still refuse to take responsibility for their crimes and do not allow their schools to even mention them.
LikeLike
Wilson was a friend of Machen?
LikeLike
D.G.,
Hey, I’m ignorant about God’s purposes too. I really thought the Phillies were going somewhere this year, darn it!
As for “Tricky Dick” Lincoln, maybe so. Although Hillsdale has a fine political science prof, Thomas Krannawitter, who wrote a little book several years ago, “Vindicating Lincoln,” which disputes some of the anti-Lincoln rhetoric in some circles. Watch out for those Northern guys in Michigan.
LikeLike
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo23.html
Even though we happen to believe that we as justified Christians will be raised to immortality, in the temporary reality we now share with nonChristians, resurrection should not be a factor to consider in politics, seeing that so many american children who are not Christians could get killed, and it would be better to get some quick closure and thus kill as many japanese children who are not Christians as our “powers” think need killing. Besides, it will act as a demonstration project, a pre-emptive threat against godless Russians, who will learn that in this kingdom, we are all godless….
LikeLike
Bill, JGM and WW were friendly, more so JGM’s parents.
LikeLike
Richard, the lesson of the Phillies this year and the Cardinals last year (and in 2006 for that matter) is that the more you spend, the less you win. The key to prevailing in MLB is inscrutable — it’s called catching lightning in a bottle.
LikeLike
“The key to prevailing in MLB is inscrutable — it’s called catching lightning in a bottle.”
It’s called… “The Washington Nationals???”
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
Go Dodgers.
LikeLike
D. G. Hart: Richard, the lesson of the Phillies this year and the Cardinals last year (and in 2006 for that matter) is that the more you spend, the less you win. The key to prevailing in MLB is inscrutable — it’s called catching lightning in a bottle.
RS: That must be the 2K in you talking. On the other hand, the WCF has plenty to say about baseball as well. It falls under the “by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.” I would think that this would include the world series.
I. God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass;[1] yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin,[2] nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.[3]
II. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions;[4] yet has He not decreed anything because He foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.[5]
LikeLike