# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_1969_S514 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) “WHAT IS A DOCTRINE?” 503 question. Part of the problem no doubt lies in formulat- ing a definition precise enough for unambiguous applica- tion. But a major portion of the difficulty also arises from the fact that the meaning of the word “doctrine” as used in this question reflects only one of several meanings current in English usage and differs from the usual meaning of the term in the New Testament and the Lutheran Confessions. As used in the question, a “doctrine” rather reflects the usage and meaning of the term which gained wide currency in the writings of the 17th-century dogmaticians. The following paragraphs briefly describe the usage and meaning of the term “doctrine” in the English language generally, in the New Testament, the Lutheran Confessions, the Lutheran dogmaticians of the 17th cen- tury, and in the writings of C. F. W. Walther. This section concludes with a brief analysis of the meaning of the related terms “dogma,” “article of faith,” and “teaching.” A. “Doctrine” in the English Language Generally In the most general sense doctrine is “what comes from a teacher,” “what is taught,” whether it be re- ligious or secular, important or unimportant, right or wrong. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “doctrine” in part as follows: 1. The action of teaching or instructing: instruction, a piece of instruction, a lesson, precept. b. Public instruction; preaching. 2. That which is taught. a. In the most general sense: Instruction, teaching; a body of instruction or teaching. b. esp. That which is taught or laid down as true concerning a particular subject or department of knowl- edge, as religion, politics, science, etc.; a belief, theoreti- cal opinion; a dogma, tenet. 3. A body or system of principles or tenets; a doctrinal or theoretical system; a theory; a science, or department of knowledge.” The New Standard Dictionary of the English Lan- guage defines “doctrine” as: “That which is taught or set forth for acceptance or belief.” As synonymns of “doctrine” it lists “article of belief, article of faith, be- lief, dogma, precept,” but adds: “Doctrine primarily signifies that which is taught.” 1 The Random House Dictionary of the English Lan- guage defines “doctrine” as follows: 1. a particular principle, position, or policy taught or advocated, as of a religion, government, etc.: Catholic doctrines; the Monroe Doctrine. 2. that which is taught; teachings collectively: religious doctrine. 3. a body or system of teachings relating to a particular subject: the doctrine of the Catholic Church."! B. “Doctrine” in the New Testament The New Testament words usually translated with “doctrine” are didaskalia and didache, both derived from the verb didaskein, to teach. They are used synony- 9 The Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford, 1933. 10 Funk & Wagnalls, The New Standard Dictionary of the Eng- lish Language, New York and London, 1945. 11 The Random House Dictionary of the English Lanuague: The Unabridged Edition, New York, 1966. mously, generally in the singular. Lexicographers find that both are used in particularly two meanings: 1. As “act of teaching, instruction.” 1 Tim. 4:13, 16; Rom. 15:4: 1 Cor. 14:6; 2 Tim. 4:2; Mark 4: 2. 2. As “that which is taught.” In this latter usage the word is generally used in the singular, for the whole content of what is taught. Titus 2:10: “the doctrine of God our Savior’: 1 Tim. 1:10: something “contrary to sound doctrine”; 2 John 9, 10: “the doctrine of Christ”; Rom. 16:17: “the doctrine which ye have learned.” From these passages it is evident that the Christian doctrine is one; divisions of this doctrine into doctrines are man-made. Under the second meaning given above, several in- stances are cited where “doctrine” is used in the plural. But in every instance the context shows that these “doc- trines” do not agree with the doctrine which ought to be taught in the Christian church. Matt. 15:9: “teaching for doctrines the commandments of men”; Col. 2:22: “after the commandments and doctrines of men”; 1 Tim. 4:1: “doctrines of devils’; Heb. 13:9: “divers and strange doctrines.” The expression in Heb. 6:2: “doctrine of baptisms,” may be translated: “instruction about cleansing rites,” as it is in The New English Bible.1* 1 Cor. 14:26 (in the King James Version: “every one of you hath...a doctrine”) is properly translated by The New English Bible: “each of you contributes . .. some instruction.” In all these Biblical usages of the term “doctrine” there is nothing which exactly parallels the use of the term in the question “What is a doctrine?” The New Testament generally speaks of “the doctrine,” meaning the Christian doctrine as a whole. When it speaks of “a doctrine.” it generally refers to a false teaching. C. “Doctrine” in the Lutheran Confessions An examination of the use of the term doctrine in the Lutheran Confessions reveals usages which closely par- allel the uses of the term in the New Testament. Doctrine, whether Lutheran or Roman Catholic, means either “what is taught” or the “activity of teach- ing.” Very often the stress is on that which is taught publicly in the churches. We are reminded how often the Formula of Concord, as also our Confessions other- wise, use the formula: “We believe, teach, and con- fess.” 14 It is of the public teaching of the Gospel in the church that the following passage in the Augsburg Con- fession is to be understood: “For the true unity of the church it is enough to agree concerning the teaching of the Gospel [doctrina evangelii] and the administra- 12 See, for example, Arndt-Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Chicago, 1957. 13 The New English Bible: New Testament, Cambridge and Ox- ford, 1961. 14 See, for example, the Formula of Concord, Epitome, III, 3 to 41 (The Book of Concord, ed. Theodore G. Tappert. Philadelphia, 1959, pp. 473—474).