It has been argued that the second amendment serves as the foundation for the other amendments of the constitution. As the bumper stickers suggest, “the second amendment makes the others possible” and likewise “the first amendment provides for freedom of speech and the second amendment guarantees it!” How should Christians think about and respond to notions such as these? Here I want to evaluate the idea that the second amendment should be maintained in order to provide protection to citizens from a tyrannical government. I will seek to assess this viewpoint in light of Patrick Miller’s thesis in The God You Have: Politics, Religion, and the First Commandment. Miller’s thesis is that the first commandment is a political axiom. And so I want to allow the first commandment to serve as a political axiom as I seek to think Christianly regarding the notion that an armed populace serves as a deterrent to government tyranny.
Following Karl Barth in his article, “The First Commandment as an Axiom of Theology,” Miller suggests that the first commandment is to be held as a political axiom. Miller indicates that Barth defines an axiom as “a statement which is sufficiently comprehensive and substantial to form the ultimate and decisive presupposition to the proof of all other statements of a particular scientific discipline.”[1] Thus, the first commandment is to be understood as the foundational principle by which all theological statements (Barth) and political statements (Miller) are to be either affirmed or denied. With respect to the conversation at hand, then, the first commandment is presupposed as the standard against which these claims regarding the second amendment will be weighed and measured.
As has already been mentioned, advocates of the second amendment often suggest that an armed populace is a deterrent to a tyrannical government. Proponents of this argument suggest that government leaders will be less inclined to violate the rights of citizens if those citizens possess firearms. Of course, this argument is not simply one in which citizens are afforded a right to possess firearms. More accurately, it is supposed that citizens who possess firearms are thereby equipped to provide a level of violent opposition against government oppression. This, then, provides a deterrent against such tyranny. These citizens, it is assumed, will employ their firearms in bringing physical harm and/or death to agents of a tyrannical government if tyranny ensues. This is the determining factor in the deterrence. It is not that the government is less likely to oppress citizens who merely possess firearms. Rather, an oppressive government is thought to be less likely to victimize citizens who will actually implement firearms in a defense against tyranny.[2] And so firearm possession also supposes a willingness by the citizens to engage in battle.
Now, if the first commandment is to be taken as a political axiom, then two questions must be raised regarding these matters. The first question is this: does the first commandment provide a basis for opposition against government tyranny? Does the acknowledgement of God’s authority as absolute entail a denunciation of an oppressive government? If so, how? And secondly, does the first commandment provide a basis for the specific means by which governmental tyranny is to be deterred? If so, are these either equivalent in principle to or able to include the notion that an armed populace should serve as a deterrent against tyranny? Does the commandment in some way uphold the notion that the citizens should reserve the right to employ lethal force against government agents as a legitimate means by which to subvert government oppression?
In response to the first question, it seems that opposition to government tyranny is something that is included in the first commandment. Miller cites Barth who writes concerning the acknowledgement of the first commandment by the Confessing Church under Hitler’s socialist regime. Barth indicates that the acceptance of the first commandment “is a decision against a totalitarian state which as such cannot recognize any task, proclamation or order other than its own, nor acknowledge any other God than itself.”[3] Ultimately, then, the acknowledgement of God as having sole and ultimate authority, an acknowledgement which is included in the first commandment, makes it impossible to acknowledge the legitimacy of an oppressive government which seeks to claim that authority for itself. Such an acknowledgement involves a displacement of God’s authority by the oppressive power.
Perhaps the second question is more complicated. Does the deterrence of an oppressive regime warrant the maintenance of the second amendment for the purpose that citizens might implement arms in opposition to such a regime? This second question seems to raise two additional questions. First, one must ask whether this idea has any grounding in Scripture. As those who affirm the first commandment, Christians are to look to their God as their absolute master and lord. And since the God of Scripture is a God who exercises his lordship through the Scriptures, then the acceptance of the first commandment as a political axiom should lead Christians to turn to the Scriptures as they seek to test and develop political theories. However, the notion that the citizens of a country reserve the right to employ lethal force against their government in the event of tyranny does not seem to find much support in the Scriptures. On the contrary, Paul’s exhortation in Romans 13 seems to imply that something of the opposite is true. Ultimately, if a totalitarian regime is an entity which has sought to take for itself the place of God, then it would seem that those who hold to the idea that the second amendment provides protection against tyranny have in the same way sought to displace the God of the first commandment with men who bear arms.
Consequently, the notion that an armed populace should provide deterrence to government tyranny should cause Christians to exercise great care in self-examination. Christians must determine whether they believe that the preservation of the freedoms they enjoy rests in their God or in the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. It seems that the two are more or less exclusive. Either the freedoms enjoyed are to be upheld by God or by something other than God (or, just as seriously, as by something in addition to God). This idea is expressed in Psalm 20:7. Here David wrote, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of Yahweh our God.” Similarly, and as Miller suggests, while both the economic system and the political order are necessary for the function of society, it is the tendency of human beings to adopt a stance of idolatry towards these things[4] The same can be said of a political system which seemingly puts the power in the hands of the people. Ultimately, the danger is that Christians will come to view their freedoms as something sustained by their own effort and virtue rather than by the God of Scripture.
One should also observe that the notion that an armed populace should be maintained as a deterrent against tyranny rests on the assumption that the end justifies the means. The deterrence of tyranny justifies the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. And so perhaps the second and more important question is whether any end should justify the means to that end. Clearly there are certain goals which might be good in and of themselves (providing a college education for one’s child), but in which the end does not justify the means (robbing a bank to get the money). Yet there are goals (getting good grades) which seem to warrant certain means (working hard in school), but not others (cheating). In all actuality, it does not seem that the means justify the ends in these scenarios or in any other scenarios, except one! To be sure, one is justified in working hard in order to get good grades. However, it seems that both the means and the end are justified by a different end to which both of these things (working hard and getting good grades) function as means. This is really at the heart of the issue. Remember that the acceptance of the first commandment as a political axiom involves accepting it as the “decisive presupposition to the proof of all other statements.”[5] Thus, any given end cannot justify the means to that end unless the end in question is the first commandment. It alone is the fundamental principle by which all endeavors are either justified or proven false. The one exception is a scenario in which the end in question is the keeping of the first commandment. And so the student, for example, is justified in working hard and in getting good grades if it is all a part of that student’s endeavor to keep the first commandment.
In the prologue to the commandments, God says, “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exod 20:2). This, then, provides the basis for the commandments. As those who enjoyed the freedom that came with being delivered out of slavery, the Israelites owed allegiance to Yahweh who was the one who had given them freedom. The commandments had come from Yahweh, the one who had delivered them from slavery. Similarly, the Christian who lives in America ought to recognize that his freedoms are afforded him by God. The God who delivered Israel from Egypt is the same God who provides Americans with the freedoms they enjoy. Therefore, we are to have no other gods. We are not to put our faith and trust in our freedom to bear firearms, our freedom of speech, or any other such thing. Rather, these things are provided by the very God who provides us with the first commandment—the very thing upon which our freedoms stand or fall.
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[1] Barth, in Miller, 2.
[2] It should also be noted that one must raise the question as to whether this notion is true. Does the possession of firearms by the populace really serve as a deterrent to tyranny? For the sake of this paper, I will assume that it may. However, one might either agree or dissent on this point for various reasons. This question is simply beyond the scope of this blog.
[3] Barth in Miller, 4.
[4] Miller, 31, 39.
[5] Miller, 2.
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Steve,
ReplyDeleteWould you say that an armed individual (who arms himself as a deterrent to crime from another individual) would be doing so from an end-justifies-the-means standpoint? Would he be precluded from arming himself simply because "arming" assumes "willingness to use deadly force if necessary"?
Jared
Hey, Jared. Good question. I think typically when we speak of ends justifying means there are typically one or more moral questions regarding those means. Above I raise questions about armed resistance to a tyrannical government on the grounds of Romans 13. So regarding your question, if there were either moral objections to arming oneself (such as if the individual lived in a place where firearms were illegal,) or if there were moral objections to using deadly force to protect one's life, family, or property, then someone could argue that the end justifies the means. However, in America where the Second Amendment affords citizens the right to keep and bear arms, the former objection is not a factor (except, perhaps, in locals where the Second Amendment is not upheld). In theory, the latter objection could be made by a pacifist or in response to a pacifist. Someone might argue that while the moral ideal might be to abstain from any and all violent action, that the gains that could be made against crime through personal armed opposition to crime would justify the violation of the moral ideal.
ReplyDeleteGenerally, I suspect, people who arm themselves for defensive purposes do so without considering whether or not the means are morally questionable.
For the record, I don't believe the means are, generally speaking, morally questionable. I think there are times when it is wise to bear arms for defensive purposes.