# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_2016_S150 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) 150 IV. THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS A R e p o Rt o f t h e Co m m i s s i o n o n t h e o lo g y A n d C h u RC h R e lAt i o n s The Natural Knowledge of God: Abbreviations AC AE the natural KnoWledge of god in Christian Ap FC ep FC SD LC WA Augsburg Confession Luther’s Works. American ed. 55 vols. St.Louis: Concordia and Philadelphia: Fortress, 1955–1986. Apology of the Augsburg Confession Formula of Concord, Epitome Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration The Large Catechism D. Martin Luther's Werke, Kritische Gesamtaugabe, Schriften, 62 vols. (Weimar: H. BÖhlau, 1883–1986) Copyright © 2013 The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod 1333 South Kirkwood Road, St. Louis, MO 63122-7295 Manufactured in the United States of America. Confession & Christian All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Witness Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001, unless otherwise noted. Quotations from the Lutheran Confessions are from The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, ed. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000). This publication may be available in braille, in large print, or on cassette tape for the visually impaired. Please allow 8 to 10 weeks for delivery. Write to the Library for the Blind, 7550 Watson Rd., St. Louis, MO 63119–4409; call toll-free 1-888-215-2455; or visit the Web site www.blindmission.org. T h e L u T h e ra n C h u rC h— Missouri synod ® ® aPriL 2013 cover photo © Galyna Andrushko/Shutterstock, Inc. The Natural Knowledge of God The Natural Knowledge of God in Christian Confession and Christian Witness in Christian Confession and Christian Witness I. Introduction ............................................................................................5 II. Natural Knowledge as Christian Confession ............................... 8 A. The Testimony of Scripture .......................................................... 8 B. The Concurrence of the Confessions .......................................... 12 C. The Profession of Luther ............................................................ 15 D. The Doctrine of the Dogmaticians ............................................ 18 III. Natural Knowledge and Natural Theology ............................... 21 A. Enlightenment Opposition ........................................................ 21 B. The "Reformed Objection" ......................................................... 24 C. Excursus on Natural Law .......................................................... 28 D. The Legitimacy and Limitations of Natural Theology ........... 32 IV. Natural Knowledge and Christian Witness ............................... 38 A. Common Ground and Christian Witness ................................. 38 B. Christian Witness and the Two Kingdoms .............................. 44 V. Conclusion .......................................................................................... 63 I. Introduction ****** In the fall semester of her junior year in college, Michelle, a student in the natural sciences, observes a flyer advertising a public lecture on “Contemporary Science and the Question of God.” Recognizing the name of the visiting lecturer, she attends more out of curiosity than any real interest in the so-called God question; indeed, she has long described herself as an agnostic—sometimes as an atheist—primarily on the conviction that empirical data either could not address the question of God’s existence or, if it did, undermined belief in God. Throughout the course of the lecture, however, she is struck by the presenter’s marshalling of empirical data, his suggestion that such data implies a certain “design” in nature, and his persuasive argument that such design further implies the existence of a designer above and beyond nature. Her curiosity further piqued, Michelle approaches the lecture’s organizers—a Christian student society—and finds herself pursuing this discussion with them over the following days and weeks. By year’s end she is not only attending the society’s occasional studies and events, but increasingly even accepting their invitations to worship and Bible study. On the same college campus, Josh, a religious studies major and life-long Christian who hopes to become a foreign missionary for his denomination, enrolls in a course on the anthropology of religion. Throughout the semester he is continually struck by the fact that no human cultures are known which have not professed and practiced some sort of religion. And while his focus is first drawn to the vast differences between the religious beliefs and expressions of the world’s cultures, it gradually shifts to an increasing awareness of their fundamental similarities. Virtually all of the world’s religions, he realizes, recognize the existence of a deity; acknowledge that this deity deserves human worship; and express this worship, in part, through relatively common codes of moral behavior. Because these virtually universal beliefs do not derive from a universally shared sacred text, Josh is drawn to conclude that they must have been derived from that which all human beings do share in common: reason and the evidence of the natural world. Further, though, he increasingly wonders why God, who allows these beliefs to be universally acknowledged, would not therefore deem them sufficient for salvation. By the semester’s end he finds himself confessing that, though speaking differently of the deity, all religions actually believe in the same God, that all might lead to salvation, and that his desire to become a Christian missionary has almost entirely subsided. 5 2016 Convention Workbook