# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_2001_S422 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) 422 ADDITIONAL THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS AND REPORTS—OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, 1993), 10-32, 44-53, 125-130. 15. “A Call for Discussion” notes that Trent sees “justification as a process of growth in holiness empowered through the gift of grace given in the sacraments. Grace is understood as an infused causal power that transforms the soul.” Aristotle’s four causes are taken into the Tridentine definition. Predisposing or helping grace {first cause] turns the sinner from sin to “the church’s ‘instrumental cause’ of justification, which is baptism [second cause]. In baptism, the cleansing of original sin and the remission of actual sin (up to the time of baptism) are received, together with the infusion of grace which renews the soul and enables the observance of the commandments. This is supplemented by the rite of penance for post-baptismal sin [third cause] and by the necessary but always uncertain grace of perseverance in holiness of life until the end (fourth or final cause], when, for those who persevere, God grants eternal life both as a further gift and as reward promised for good works.” 16. Louis A. Smith, “Some Second Thoughts on the Joint Dec- laration,” Lutheran Forum 31 (Fall 1997): 8. 17. Smith, “Second Thoughts,” 8. 18. See “Grace and Justification” in the Catechism of the Catholic Church ({[Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1994], 481-490), which weaves together justification, grace, merit, and Christian holiness in a way consistent with the Council of Trent. 19. “In this controversy, the chief article [locus] of Christian doc- trine is at stake, which, when it is properly understood, illumines and magnifies the honor of Christ and brings to pious consciences the abundant consolation which they need” (Apology IV, 2). 20. “A Call for Discussion,” citing a Memo of March 5, 1997, to the ELCA Synod Bishops of Regions | and 3. 21. The Jesuit theologian Avery Dulles is quite precise in rec- ognizing these differences. See “On Lifting the Condemnations,” Dialog 35 (Summer 1996): 220. 22. Dulles, “On Lifting,” 220. 23. The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, translated by H. J. Schroeder (St Louis and London: B. Herder, 1941), 23. 24. Herbert Jedin, A History of the Council of Trent (London: Thomas Nelson, 1961), 2: 145, 162. 25. The Strasbourg A Commentary (38-41) forthrightly ac- knowledges that both sides define sin differently. What is more telling is their claim that modern exegetes do not agree with Luther’s interpretation that the sinful “I” of Rom. 7:14—24 is St. Paul as believer rather than St. Paul before his conversion. This, of course, supports the Roman view. 26. FC, Hl and IV, “Justification” and “Good Works.” One may also see Franz Pieper, Christliche Dogmatik, 3 volumes (Saint Louis: Concordia, 1917-1924), 2:633-635. FC, Ep IH/8 explicitly condemns “that renewal frenovationem] and love belong to our righteousness before God.” 27. One may see the Smalcald Articles. 28. Apology XXIV, 90. The Mass cannot be a sacrifice for sin because it would be on par with Christ’s death. 29. One may compare Apology IV, 53. 30. Pieper, Dogmatik, 2:631. 31. Theories of a limited atonement operate with precisely this kind of deficiency in seeing atonement and justification as arbitrary acts of a sovereign God, that is, Calvin and the Reformed. 2001 Convention Workbook 32. Outmoded Condemnations, \7 (emphasis added). 33. Justification (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981) 223. Kiing continues (224): Also, “In the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God’s gracious saving judgment on sinful mankind is pro- mulgated. . .. Here God pronounces the gracious and life-giving judgment which causes the one just man to be sin and in exchange makes all sinners free in Him.” 34. Luther’s Works, 26:129-130. The response of the six ELCA theologians about “faith as trust in God’s eschatological Word of promise” is too bare. Where is the full-blooded Lutheran stress on the life, death, and resurrection of the God-Man as alone-saving object of faith? The missing dimension here is that very vicarious (substitutionary) satisfaction of God’s justice in Christ, which is criticized in various ways in The Law-Gospel Debate: An Inter- pretation of Its Historical Development (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1968) by Gerhard Forde, one of the six St. Pau! theologians. Rather than reject outright the Finns’ plea for solid Trinitarian-Christolog- ical foundations, they ought to have acknowledged the intent, even while correcting the faulty implementation. Faith is “relational,” but without express reference to God’s concrete, historical act of righteousness in the cross and resurrection of His Son, the language is open to Barthian or Bultmannian interpretations. Eeva Mar- tikainen’s significant study of Luther’s understanding of doctrine notes the proclivity of modern Luther scholarship for putting pale philosophical fancies, for example, “relational ontology,” in the place of Luther’s strong incarnational-doctrinal realism (Doctrina: Studien zu Luthers Begriff der Lehre. Schriften der Luther-Agri- cola-Gesellschaft, 26 0357-3087 (Helsinki: Luther-Agricola Gesellschaft, 1992], 15). 35. Kiing, Justification, 226. 36. Kiing, Justification, 223. 37. Kiing, Justification, 223. 38. Tuomo Mannermaa, Von Preussen nach Leuenberg. Ar- beiten zur Geschichte und Theologie des Luthertums. Neue Folge (Hamburg: Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1981), 1:48, 56-63. 39. Tuomo Mannermaa, “Einig in Sachen Rechtfertigung? Eine Jutherische und eine katholische Stellungnahme zu J-rg Baur,” Theologische Rundschau 55 (1990): 327. 40. The Strasbourg A Commentary (48) concedes as much: “The Catholic and Lutheran doctrines of justification do speak par- tially different languages, sometimes using different concepts, sometimes drawing different distinctions. Nevertheless, that which is common and fundamental is expressed in the JD in a common language.” Somehow the second sentence contradicts the first. 41. Dulles, “On Lifting.” 220. 42. Dulles, “On Lifting,” 220. 43. Ecumenism—The Vision of the ELCA: A Guide for Synods and Congregations (Chicago: Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), 22—23. A good antidote would be Martikainen, Doctrina. 44. Dulles, “On Lifting,” 307. One could casily illustrate this tn great detail, as is demonstrated in Outmoded Condemnations? 45. Jedin, Trent, 2:307. 46. FC, SD, Rule and Norm. 7. 47. The True Visible Church, translated by J.T. Mueller (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1961), 24-25. 48. (St. Louis: Concordia Academic Press, 1997), 103-104.