  Absolute pacifism is often connected with a religious standpoint in which nonviolence is seen as a religious commandment. Thomas Merton explains that Gandhi and most other absolute pacifists have a larger metaphysical view: “as Gandhi saw, the fully consistent practice of nonviolence demands a solid metaphysical basis both in being and in God” (Merton 1971, 209). In the West, absolute pacifism is often derived from the Christian ideal of nonresistance to evil as required by Jesus’ pronouncements about nonresistance in the Sermon on the Mount (in Matthew) or the Sermon on the Plain (in Luke). In Indian traditions, it is grounded in the commitment to ahimsa or nonviolence that is derived from a larger metaphysical picture which emphasizes karmic interdependence, ascetic self-abnegation, and compassion. The religious foundation of absolute pacifism is often tied to the idea that there is merit in suffering violence without retaliating. As Martin Luther King Jr. puts this, “unearned suffering is redemptive” (King 1986, 18). 