Not just firearms, but weapons of all kinds necessary to defend life and liberty. This is our claim. But not everyone sees it that way.
Quoting from the email I received from this group, “Constitutional Carry is the simple concept that law-abiding citizens shouldn’t need to pay a tax and get permission from their sheriff to exercise their God-given right to keep and bear arms.”
I laughed aloud when I read this email. Who knew God had given us the right to own guns? I mean, chapter and verse, please. God didn’t have anything to do with the U.S. Constitution, no matter how hard you want to try to do the mental gymnastics to say so. The Constitution is a creation of mankind, period. It is a great document, but it isn’t the Holy Scriptures, nor is it divinely inspired, so let’s back off of that bit of hyperbole.
And therein lies one of the principle bits of propaganda you will see in regards to many issues in the political arena. God is not into politics, nor politicians, nor even the political entities we call nations except, perhaps, the nation of Israel, the only group of people he ever promised a piece of land to call their own.
American politicians today, and probably for all the time we have been a nation, have tried to co-opt God to make him on the side of one political party or another or to have God endorse some act the nation was attempting to do on the domestic or world stage. Here is a free tip: You can be on God’s side by doing the work of God’s kingdom, but don’t believe for a minute you can bring God onto your side to endorse the works of man. It doesn’t work that way.
We can agree that trying to co-opt God is an improper project. Rather, we need to be on God’s side, and His side is found in the Holy Writ. So you’ve laid down the gauntlet, and we’ll respond.
To begin with, it’s a bit more complicated than “chapter and verse please.” Let’s start our discussion with The Westminster Confession of Faith, 1.6: ““The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture.”
The clearest right to own weapons also invokes a duty. John Calvin, commenting on commandment and prohibition, observes the following.
We do not need to prove that when a good thing is commanded, the evil thing that conflicts with it is forbidden. There is no one who doesn’t concede this. That the opposite duties are enjoined when evil things are forbidden will also be willingly admitted in common judgment. Indeed, it is commonplace that when virtues are commended, their opposing vices are condemned. But we demand something more than what these phrases commonly signify. For by the virtue of contrary to the vice, men usually mean abstinence from that vice. We say that the virtue goes beyond this to contrary duties and deeds. Therefore in this commandment, “You shall not kill,” men’s common sense will see only that we must abstain from wronging anyone or desiring to do so. Besides this, it contains, I say, the requirement that we give our neighbor’s life all the help we can … the purpose of the commandment always discloses to us whatever it there enjoins or forbids us to do” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1, Book 2, Chapter viii, Part 9).
Simply put, thou shall not take life unjustly also means thou shall defend innocent life. The clearest right (and thus command) is to be found right in the moral law given to all men everywhere. These are corollaries, and it is inescapable. Furthermore, to claim agreement with this and then deny either someone else or yourself the weapons necessary to effect that defense of innocent life is insulting to the Almighty. The thief may express agreement with the commandment not to steal, but that rings hollow when he then takes your possessions.
But if you wish for more direct evidence of ownership of weapons in the Scriptures, look no further than what Jesus commanded in Luke 22:36. Let’s look at the cultural context for a moment.
… for some evidence, see Digest 48.6.1: collecting weapons ‘beyond those customary for hunting or for a journey by land or sea’ is forbidden; 48.6.3.1 forbids a man ‘of full age’ appearing in public with a weapon (telum) (references and translation are from Mommsen 1985). See also Mommsen 1899: 564 n. 2; 657-58 n. 1; and Linderski 2007: 102-103 (though he cites only Mommsen). Other laws from the same context of the Digest sometimes cited in this regard are not as worthwhile for my purposes because they seem to be forbidding the possession of weapons with criminal intent. But for the outright forbidding of being armed while in public in Rome, see Cicero’s letter to his brother relating an incident in Rome in which a man, who is apparently falsely accused of plotting an assassination, is nonetheless arrested merely for having confessed to having been armed with a dagger while in the city: To Atticus, Letter 44 (II.24). See also Cicero, Philippics 5.6 (§17). Finally we may cite a letter that Synesius of Cyrene wrote to his brother, probably sometime around the year 400 ce. The brother had apparently questioned the legality of Synesius having his household produce weapons to defend themselves against marauding bands. Synesius points out that there are no Roman legions anywhere near for protection, but he seems reluctantly to admit that he is engaged in an illegal act (Letter 107; for English trans., see Fitzgerald 1926).
In this passage, Jesus is quite literally ordering His disciples to ignore the Roman laws and disobey them, buy weapons, and be ready to use them. He is turning His disciples into lawbreakers for the sake of having self defense.
There are more passages to which we may turn, but these will suffice for now. So, Mr. Cosby, you may get letters which are incomplete accounts of the Scriptural mandate to be prepared for defense of the innocent, but those are merely letters. They don’t mean such an account cannot be made.
You might want to seek out a little more theological training before you make those bold statements that you called … what was it … hyperbole.
The second amendment didn’t come from God, and God doesn’t need it. He alone grants rights and duties. However, it doesn’t end there. The constitution is a covenant, and for understanding this we may turn to “Lawful Oaths and Vows” also in the Westminster Confession of Faith.
It is a terrible thing to break a lawful oath or vow, cosmic treason against God’s laws, but we’ll leave that for another time and let you ruminate on what we’ve said thus far.
Please let us know if you need anything else.
