# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1855_S226
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

226 The Erlangen “Journal for Protestantism and Church”

That, then, is also the understanding of our Synod. It can no more occur to our Synod than to the entire Lutheran Church to claim anything more for the interpretation of Scripture found in our Symbols than that it meets God’s requirement for interpretation—namely, that it be “in accord with the faith,” that it be orthodox. Our Synod therefore acknowledges without hesitation the possibility that one or another passage of Scripture may have a meaning different from the one given in the Symbols; and it readily concedes that no Lutheran teacher is bound in conscience to explain every passage of Scripture exactly as it is explained in the confession. Only the meaning expressed in the interpretation, not the process by which that meaning was reached, belongs to the confession.

Secondly, that proposition, “Lutherans as such must interpret Scripture according to their Symbols,” is intended still less to elevate the Symbols to the status of a norm of interpretation standing above, or at least alongside, the Bible—

[illegible]. Granted, matters of this kind do not bind anyone to retain every circumstance, phrase, proof, and citation found in them; nevertheless, the substance of the doctrine itself must be retained as written, and not merely insofar as it appears, according to private judgment, to agree with Holy Scripture—for on that basis one could subscribe even to the Koran. (2nd ed., vol. I, p. 258.) Here, however, to prevent misunderstanding concerning the nonbinding character of the arguments occurring in the Symbols, which Dannhauer also concedes here, we cannot refrain from sharing the following excellent explanation by Dr. Rudelbach: “Among the less essential matters must be counted: 1) everything that belongs merely to the argumentation, and consequently also the manner in which the opponents’ objections are answered. This by no means asserts that the true essence of the argumentation—the principles of the Gospel used as major and minor premises—is not something enduring and most intimately rooted in the faith itself. It does assert, however, that its form always permits a more perfect formulation and can be enriched by much that is furnished especially by deeper study of Christian antiquity and conscientious examination of later times according to God’s Word. This does not mean that our view of the evangelical content of the passages of Scripture need not remain the same generally and as a whole—for that is certain—but rather that individual passages of Scripture may appear to us in a different light and context, and that some must be ascribed greater evidentiary force and others less, all in accordance with the growth of Christian understanding of Scripture and according to the rule of faith. Argumentation in general lies closest to the heart of the confession, and therefore we assign it first place in the transition from the essential to the less essential; but the more extensive and ramified it becomes, and the more it passes from the simple sphere of confession into the theological sphere, the more it must be regarded as capable of improvement and correction. Wherever, however, the essence of the confession merges with the argumentation, the symbolic books themselves clearly indicate this by emphasizing the weight of that argumentation and, with the Apology, for example, speaking of an evangelical canon that is to be applied in understanding Scripture (Apol. Conf. Aug., p. 138), so that here too it is not difficult to draw the indicated line of distinction.” (See Rudelbach’s classic work: Historical-Critical Introduction to the Augsburg Confession, pp. 167–168.) Further on, Rudelbach says that neither Löscher nor other clear-sighted men were of the opinion “that more should be counted as binding than the actual doctrinal content in its integrity.” (Ibid., p. 219.)