Deuteronomy

Guarding Property

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: 20-110

Genre: Talk

Track: 020

Dictation Name: RR187K20

Location/Venue:

Year: 1993

Let us worship God. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after. That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in his temple. Wait on the Lord, be of good courage and he will strengthen Thy heart. Wait I say, on the Lord. Let us pray.

Almighty God our Heavenly Father we give thanks unto Thee for Thy providential care. We thank Thee that Thou art ever mindful of us. More mindful of us then we are of ourselves. That Thy mercies are indeed new every morning and so we come to thank Thee, to praise Thee and to be instructed by Thee concerning the things that we should do. Make us mighty and effectual for Thy kingdom and for Thy name’s sake. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture is Deuteronomy 5:19. Our subject: Guarding Property. Deuteronomy 5:19, Guarding Property.

“Neither shalt thou steal.”

The modern world has been saturated by Marxist and related views that property is theft. So much so that in many, many circles an intelligent discussion of the eighth commandment is difficult. Prior to the rise of socialist thinkers [unknown] school of John Locke defines society and the state in terms of property. We have therefore moved from the religion of property to that of anti-property. When men depart from the God of the Bible and His law word his life and thinking become eccentric, off center, unbalanced. Man was created by God and therefore man is defined by God. We are made in His image; one aspect of God’s image in us is dominion. Dominion includes the ownership of property and therefore this law ‘neither shalt thou steal’. Theft is the expropriation of that which belongs to another. Whether it be land, things or ideas, and theft can be the direct seizure of these things or hiring someone to steal them for us or passing a law whereby another person’s properties are taken in violation of God’s law. Civil law can favor theft or it can validate it but this gives no moral justification to theft.

The state does not define true law nor morality. It either recognizes God’s law or it transgresses it. The modern state is the greatest thief in all of history and its citizens are allies in this immorality, in this massive theft. Some fifty years or more ago, I heard a lecturer describe man than no more than stripped down to his essentials than a pretentious rutting ape. Even before the rise of romanticism it was held that the true knowledge of man required a stripping down process. Religion was the first thing discarded by these thinkers of the enlightenment. Then after John [unknown] civilization had to be discarded. After Marx it was property and with the naturists or nudists such as George Bernard Shaw it meant even clothing. Is the result true or essential man or is it nonsense? Can no one know any of us except as we are all stripped naked for their examination and assessment. That in effect what the modern world is saying. And it is the logic of the modern era that leads to this conclusion. A most influential book of recent years and very important in shaping educational materials came out in the early 1970s and it was entitled The Naked Ape. Is man no more than a naked ape in his essence? How do we truly know man? By stripping all men naked or by knowing him as a creature made by God in His own image, in knowledge, holiness, righteousness or justice and dominion, as the Bible tells us? The humanistic definition of man has led to stripping man of biblical faith. The bible is banned from our state schools and it cannot be cited in American courts of law. Our schools teach evolution, man as a member of the family of apes. Having legally stripped civil institutions of any connection with the God of scripture the humanists are now stripping him of other privileges given to man by biblical faith and law.

One of these is property. But a man is more than his own person and a Christian man especially so. A man is a network of loyalties, allegiances, duties and associations. He is never alone. Man in isolation is a figment of academic fantasies. Man is at all times in a context. Robinson Crusoe on a desert island quickly reestablished the context out of which he had come. He reproduced a society even in his solitary life and he fitted the native Friday into it when Friday came into his life. One part of man’s context is his property. There is a difference between a homeless alcoholic man on the streets and a farmer with two hundred acres of grapes and peaches. The farmer by hard work and thrift has extended the scope of his God-given image by exercising a productive dominion over the land. His work both feeds and enriches others. His property is an expression of his character, of his thrift and work. It is thus an attribute of his being that he is able to gain property and make it productive. The alcoholic street dweller is lacking in any godly exercise of dominion. The presence and absence of property helps define these two men. The fact of property is not incidental to the life of the farmer. All stripped down definitions of man are wrong and much of our present political and social problems begin with a false definition of man. Now the primary dictionary definition of property is that whatever is proper to anything or is expressive of its essence or being, but we now limit this primary definition to philosophy. Is this valid? Property in this sense is that which is intrinsic to man. Property in the sense of lands or buildings is now held to be extrinsic to a person, not essential to his being, not expressive of it.

There are however intangible property rights, ideas, writings and progress and so on. How can such properties be called extrinsic to a person? They don’t just happen. If a man has ideas in the realm of writing or inventions in the realm let us say of computers, for instance, he has a property right in them. They are an expression of his mind and person. The boundary between intrinsic and extrinsic becomes a bit blurred. When a man who has developed a farm or a business has also put himself in the results. The results are both separate from his person and yet they are an expression of it. In this commandment ‘neither shalt thou steal’ means anything. An attack on our property is an attack on our person, upon our life. If property is lawfully and honestly required its theft is an attack on our person and an attack on our lives. It is thereby related to murder. The strip down doctrine of man has led to the legalization of theft by the state. It is taken the intellectual tradition of which the enlightenment, [unknown] and Marx are representative to redefine man so that the state can separate ourselves from our property as though we have no right to it. If men are no more than naked apes or clothed apes then they have no God-given privilege in any sphere. Then they have no right to either property or life. The attack on property is thus simply one aspect of a religious war. Now it is interesting that at the same time that property is being taken from us or defined as not belonging to us. We are told that vast segments of the earth belong to certain animals and we have no right to use that land. Modern man’s thinking is called humanism but it has become anti-human. We give to the animals what belong to man. Man is the preacher who exercises dominion and now we are denying to him that right. The attack on property is simply an aspect of a religious war, a war against Christianity. Calvin made clear that theft is an assault against God’s law and God himself. He said and I quote:

“No man can be deprived of his possessions by criminal methods, without an injury being done to the divine dispenser of them.” Unquote.

Calvin’s summary statement is also very clear and I quote: “The end of this precept is that as in justice is an abomination to God. Every man may possess what belongs to him. The sum of it then is that we are forbidden to covet the property of others and are therefore enjoined faithfully to use our endeavors to preserve to every man what justly belongs to him.” Unquote.

Our problem today is that the defense of property is linked to capitalism when it should be linked to theology. The attack on the private ownership of property is an assault on the fundamental order of reality when we see it theologically. It is an attempt to move from a God ordained order to a man made one. If the ownership of property by persons is simply a consequence of capitalism, one of the accidents of history in a meaningless universe then it has simply a historical rather than a theological and religious basis. And to agree to this is to surrender an essential point. We must see property as God does. As a part of His ordination, as a part of His order of reality, as an aspect of that which he ordains that man should have as he exercises dominion and subdues the earth. When God decrees ‘neither shalt thou steal’ He is declaring what the fundamental order of life is to be with respect to property. He is establishing its foundation in himself rather than in any historical development. Property is now regarded as simply a phase in the history of man and the arrangements which man has chosen to make. And therefore property can be abolished at will because it is not an essential aspect of human history. This is why a theological definition of property is a necessity. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we thank Thee for Thy word and it’s plain speaking. We thank Thee that Thou hast defined us and not we ourselves. That Thou hast decreed what is lawful, right and necessary for us and not the state. We thank Thee oh Lord that Thy word is truth and Thou hast summoned us to live by every word that proceeds from Thy mouth. Teach us therefore Thy word; empower us to wage a victorious battle against every force that would undermine Thine ordained order for man. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Well, as I recall at first and it’s not original with [unknown], it’s an old definition, theft is reaching out and taking what belongs to another. Second, it is hiring someone to do the stealing for us and third, it is passing a law whereby the state does it for us. All three methods are very popular and as Augustine said, the biggest criminal mob to put it in more modern language of all is the godless state. Are there any other questions or comments?

[Question] It appears as though the state is taking increasing strides in that direction and I have no way to confirm this, but I was talking on amateur radio with a fellow in Idaho and he said that when they had that confrontation between the FBI and the guy that they were- shot his son and both him and his wife were killed, the governor of Idaho, Cecil [unknown] issued an executive order declaring an emergency in the three counties surrounding this area. And the FBI went around methodically and forced everyone to give up their legally acquired weapons.

[Rushdoony] Yes there is more and more of that type of seizure going on. Routine seizure of people who are stopped of their cash, lawfully required for lawful purposes. So that theft by state agencies is now the major form of theft. It far surpasses what criminals are stealing which is very great. So we are seeing theft now vindicated by the courts and practiced routinely and brutally by the state. Yes?

[Question] It seems to me that the [unintelligible] that opened the gates to the preemptive type of taking of property.

[Rushdoony] Yes I am sure that’s the case. There have been attempts to repel it but they have so far died in committees. Congress is determined not to retreat at a single point on federal power. Yes?

[Question] Do forms of gleaning apply to written materials?

[Rushdoony] Do forms of gleaning apply to written materials, no. They apply to agriculture produce and then by the permission of the farmer. In other words, a farmer could keep out certain gleaners; he had an obligation to allow gleaners in, and in gleaning it was the grain and the edges or the ditch bank or the fruit that was hard to reach that was left. And it meant harder work to glean than to harvest. Well, supposing a gleaner went into a field and instead of working to reach the fruit that was high up on a tree, he just pulled the branch down and broke it to get the fruit. The farmer had a right to say to him, you’ve had it. You don’t belong here, you have a right to glean under God but not a right to destroy what is mine. It does not apply to ideas so that you have no right to expropriate portions of someone’s article or book. Yes?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes we’ve had one or two favorable decisions where writers were concerned, however there is no lack of challenge to that in an attempt to break down property rights where ideas, writings are concerned.

[Question] In an state of war, or in a very big battle…[becomes unintelligible].

[Rushdoony] Well that’s a very important question. What we have done especially in this century is to seize an enemy’s assets even those assets are not the assets of the enemy state but of private individuals. They can even be assets of a people who not citizens of that country. For example: I knew a man, now dead, whose parents were in Russia, they were not Russian citizens, but they were there on work and there they made a deposit of considerable funds because they could see World War One coming on in American banks and stocks. Subsequently by the time the war broke out they had managed, having had foresight, to go to London so they were when the outbreak of war began, in the capitol of one of the allies. Subsequently they came to the United States but because their deposit had been made from Saint Petersburg, it was seized by the United States and never returned to them. Now that type of thing happens routinely and it is theft. Even if they had been Russian citizens they were not enemies and even if they had been enemies they were private individuals but the property was seized.

And this kind of thing has become an aspect of twentieth century warfare and it is criminal. We are now talking about seizing the foreign assets of Iraq. Why? It’s not our money. It is simply a form of theft, of piracy. And it’s increasing and becoming regarded as routine. It’s done to the people of this country, it is done to foreign countries, it is done to foreign individuals and it is lawlessness by the state. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Question] What about spoils taken in war?

[Rushdoony] Spoils taken in war were things taken from actual soldiers or ships fighting against them, thats what it was historically. Spoils of war. They were sometimes taken of people of well, if a city had been at war and it refused the terms of surrender. Up until fairly recently the besieged city had to be given an opportunity to surrender peacefully in which case it could retain its possessions. If they refused and fought to the death, then they could be put to death and their properties seized. Now we may debate that, but at least those were the rules of warfare. We no longer have rules of warfare to any appreciable extent; it’s an ad-hoc thing. Yes?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] This was only in the conquest of Canaan when God declared that that land because of centuries of sin was sentenced to death. And even then the Israelites did not carry out God’s orders fully and in that instance the booty had to be given to God for the sanctuary. So that was not a part of the regular laws of warfare, it was a special circumstance ordained by God.

Well if there are no further questions let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father we give thanks unto Thee that Thy word is so glorious in the life it holds forth for us. A life of freedom in and under Thee. Grant oh Lord that the nations turn again to Thee and that we become a people wherein dwelleth righteousness and justice. And no go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, Bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, Amen.