What causes war?

I spent the later part of my second decade, having my thoughts influenced by the music and culture I was in. It was the 1960’s, the era of the Beatles, hippies, ‘no more war’ and so on. My generation experienced a massive culture shift from that of their elders. The thought was there that our elders had messed up the world big time: World War 2, Korea and especially Vietnam. Our generation would not do the same. The counter culture would become mainstream. No more young men and women fighting and dying in wars started by their elders. A worthy concept but a flawed one. While there hasn’t been another world-wide war, there hasn’t really been anything close to an outbreak of peace has there. And my generation is now the ones causing the wars!

Which all leads me to the question; What causes war? Is it a function of age? Or something else?

“Wars happen when groups or nations fail to reach a peaceful agreement. Major causes include fighting over land and resources, intense national pride, different political or religious beliefs, and when leaders mistakenly think they will win a fight.”

This was Google AI’s response to me typing “What causes war”. A little further research added the thought that wars start when leaders feel unaccountable for their actions. It’s not hard to see evidence of this in our world right now.

The Bible has a perspective on what causes war as you would expect. It can be summed up quite easily. Wars, as with all other evils, come from within us. All of us. It is part of our human nature to do the wrong thing. And in the wrong hands doing the wrong thing can have huge consequences. Like wars. They are started by human beings. It’s not an abstract concept. It can always be traced back to human nature.

But God says there is a time coming when this will no longer be the case. “The LORD will mediate between peoples and will settle disputes between strong nations far away. They will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer fight against nation, nor train for war anymore.” Micah 4:3 (NLT)

And God has promised much more to us in this coming time. It’s all there in His Bible.