It stems true to say that on the matter of war all Christians travel a common path-—a pith recognizing the sacredness the high value of life and the awfulness of life-taking—until they come to a fork in that road with one route being pacifism and the other being thf acceptance of war as a sometimes just act. The essential meaning of Just War theory is portrayed by the second path it is in assertion that under some circumstances war mil be a justifiable enterprise for the Christian. To say that war's justice or lack there of cannot be known a priori but only after the examination of the values at stake and an assessment of circumstances and thereby to place war along with other classes of human action under the aegis of prudence—that is the basis of the Just War position.