Nehemiah 4:9
“And we prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night.”
In debate, there is a focal point of debates called “burden.” I am starting this conversation with what I see to be the burden of the Christian pacifist. I will warn you, this part isn’t short. Neither is the rest of it.
Natural Law
(“The doctrine that human affairs should be governed by ethical principles that are part of the very nature of things and that can be understood by reason”– Dictionary.com)
First off, I think it is important to note that the fail safe or default stance on self-defense should be that all human beings have the natural freedom to defend their own life and the lives of those they are responsible for.
In other words, if there were no scripture or ethic to the contrary, humans would, by natural law, be entitled (and perhaps responsible in some cases) to harm or kill an animal or another human in defense of himself or herself.
I do not know for sure if this is agreed upon, since I have rarely seen anyone start the conversation this far back, but I believe it should be. I don’t put a lot of emphasis on natural
law typically.
Here, I am merely mentioning it to indicate that it is “natural” for created beings to defend themselves.
Children fight back; animals fight back; created beings fight back as instinct, and the right to defend one’s own life and well-being as well as the responsibility to protect the weaker, has been considered a God-given right.
So, the burden is on the pacifist to show that for some reason, humans or some subset of humans, are responsible to refuse to defend themselves or others.
God’s Instructions
One thing that a Christian has to be able to argue is that something has radically changed between the ethic of violence in the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.
God directly instructs violence, executions, and killing in warfare regularly. Clearly, any directive against violence represents a change in the ethic that God calls His people to. Anyone who wants to debate this topic as a Christian must concede this.
After God has destroyed much of the human race, as is His right, He declares the ethic for how mankind engages with violence against other humans. This is not a Jewish law, or a Levitical rule. This is not just about governments, since there were none in place. God’s ethic for violence against humans was a violent response by other humans.
6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image.
Genesis 9:6
I want to make clear that this is a teaching from God to the race of mankind. This is God’s presented ethic about the very topic of human-on-human violence. There will need to be a teaching of Jesus that changes this ethic if it is to be argued that the new ethic for all Christians is one of non-violence.
I think there is no time needed for defenders of Christian pacifism to attempt to make case from the Hebrew Scriptures. What is required of them is to show that God has changed His mind on this in regards to His followers at the incarnation or teaching or death or burial or resurrection of Jesus Christ.
And the argument cannot just be from silence. As mentioned above, both natural law and direct instruction from Almighty God calls for man to respond to violence with violence.
Just getting started! More to follow next week.
This is a fantastic topic to discuss! Thank you for delving into this. I’m eager to read more!
Brandon, I am sure as the owner of a Kung Fu School, you must have to delve into this conversation regularly!
I am paraphrasing here I’m sure: As Jesus and the deciples were preparing to journey to another town Jesus said to the deciples, if none of you have a sword, sell your cloches and buy one. And James (I believe) said, “Master, we have two swords.” And Jesus said,” That is enough.”
Didn’t look this up again but the phrasing is close and seems to say to me that Jesus was in touch with the reality of the world and figured they would be attacked by bandits at the least and needed to defend themselves against harm. Is this not clear cut enough that Jesus was not against self-defense? If I misunderstood this then I have been teaching sin to my karate and escrima students for 40 years. Considering what has happened to some of them, I don’t intend to stop either.
I will cover this passage in an upcoming addition to this article for sure!
What an interesting opening for the debate! I’m not certain the natural law assertion is valid if we assume that the genesis creation narrative is historical. There was undeniably a shift in ethics at the fall. The result might be the natural law you describe (fighting and killing for one’s own life), though I’m not certain that is self-evident. Humans have apparently been “other” in God’s creation from the beginning so I think it is possible that the law you describe might not have ever been meant for humanity (in spite of the failings in this that are widely observable in recorded history). I think the remnant of the pre-fall ethic might be in evidence with God’s adjudication of Cain’s sin. God was the unequivocal arbiter of capital law – Adam apparently didn’t pass judgment.
Your reference to the post-noaic capital law must be conceded by any who hold scripture authoritatively. But, this does seem to illustrate a trend in God changing the ethic by which capital action (any action that ends in “-cide”) is executed. I think this at least raises the question: “can any good ethic be built on post-fall natural law?”
To sum, I’m not convinced that the burden rests solely on the pacifist. I think the man who argues for self-defense must prove that not only are pre-fall ideals unattainable but also that pursuing those ideals as good is actually an evil. I know you will get to the NT, but in just engaging with the Hebrew Bible I think that the advocate of self-defense has a larger burden than you have indicated here.
Of course you aren’t convinced, the argument isn’t finished yet :-). I am very gratified to get the feedback from someone of you caliber, Zach.
Luke 22.36, Psalms 149, Jer 48.10. The 2nd Amendment is an enumerated God given right. Red flag laws, and the taking of peoples arms without due process is criminal and unconstitutional, and the confiscation of arms has been a hostile act of war for thousands of years. The state when stepping in to regulate or confiscate arms is playing god. Americans and especially Christians are not subject to the edicts of ungodly men or tyrants.