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Such self-contradictory statements reflect the tortured attempts to reconcile morality with the hard facts of history. It is a task for which modern Western man, and particularly the American, is ill prepared. The U.S., as the most powerful nation in the world, has never systematically thought out the legitimate uses and the inevitable limitations of power. The answer cannot lie either in mere swagger or in mere compassion. The age-old problem of reconciling love and justice is cogently analyzed by German Catholic Theologian Karl Rahner, who feels that "it is impossible to make our existence a paroxysm of nonviolence." The Christian "should always first opt for the path of love; yet as long as this world exists, a rational, hard, even violent striving for justice may well be the secular personification of love." Love, or even justice, may only be dimly discernible in the brutal landscape of Viet Nam—but that does not change the principle.