America’s Greatness: Our right to self-defense — Part One

From The Founders’ Bible comes a treatise on the right to self-defense. Among the various civil laws God gave His people as He was establishing  Israel as an independent nation was one concerning their own homes. He told them: “If the thief is caught while breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there will be no blood guiltiness on his account” (Exodus 22:2). This verse authorizes homeowners to defend their dwelling; and if in the process of doing so they kill an intruder, they were not guilty in the eyes of God-there was no guilt for shedding the blood of the intruder. 

This verse forms the basis of what is now known as the “Castle Doctrine.” It was explained by Founding Father James Wilson, a signer of the Declaration and the Constitution and an original justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, who declared: “Homicide is enjoined (required) when it is necessary for the defense of one’s person or house… Every man’s house is deemed, by the law, to be his castle; and the law, while it invests him with the power, places on him the duty of the commanding officer of his house. Every man’s house is his castle… and if anyone be robbed in it, it shall be esteemed his own default and negligence.” 

In other words, if you were robbed in your home, it was not the fault of the police but your own, for God made you the commander of your “castle” hence, the “Castle Doctrine.” 

Other Bible verses affirm what God authorized in Exodus 22. Jesus noted, for example, in Luke 11:21 that “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed.” In the book of Nehemiah, when lawless bandits were on the loose (4:11), God’s people went about armed, and every man wore his sword girded at his side” (4:18).

Because self-defense is a Biblical right given to every individual, it is therefore an inalienable, or God-given right. Constitution signer John Dickinson defined an inalienable right as one “which God gave you and which no inferior power has a right to take away.” John Adams agreed, explaining that inalienable rights are…rights antecedent to all earthly government; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe.”

John Quincy Adams echoed this, avowing that man’s inalienable rights are those “given him by his Creator, which can neither be taken from him by force nor transferred from him to anyone else.” 

The Founding Fathers established American government with the primary purpose of securing to every individual the right to practice his or her inalienable rights. As the Declaration of Independence states: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.” 

There is more to be gleaned from these Bible verses and the great wisdom of our Founding Fathers. More on our right to self-defense in Part two..

Tim Lewis can be reached at TimLewis1@windstream.net.