“Self-defense is a proper ground for fighting and therefore all laws agree that self-defense shall go unpunished; and he who kills another in self-defense is innocent in the eyes of all men. But when the people of Israel wanted to start an unnecessary war with the Canaanites, the Israelites were defeated, Numbers 14 [:40-45].”*
BAG13642 Portrait of Martin Luther, 1525 (oil on panel) by Cranach, Lucas, the Elder (1472-1553); 40×26.6 cm; © Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, UK; (add.info.: Luther (1483-1546) German religious reformer;); German, out of copyright
Luther wrote this definitive statement on self-defense in 1526 based on conversations with Assa von Kram, a soldier who served Duke Ernst of Braunschweig-Lüneberg. He made this statement within the context of the discussion of just war in Whether Soldiers, Too, Can Be Saved. In this section, he is presenting biblical examples of his own just war doctrine.
“…for we must distinguish between wars that someone begins because that is what he wants to do and does before anyone else attacks him, and those wars that are provoked when an attack is made by someone else.”
*Martin Luther, Whether Soldiers, Too, Can Be Saved, LW 46, p. 120.
