# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S161
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

[Unnumbered title page opening a new section; no running head, no folio printed.]

Doctrinal Proceedings.*)

Thesis 1.

A doctrine is Scriptural doctrine only when it is grounded on the explicit word of Scripture, or, what is the same thing, when it is derived and judged solely from the passages of Scripture that speak directly of that doctrine.

A. What we mean by this. Not that every word we use in speaking of a doctrine (or the churchly and theological terminology) must stand letter for letter in Scripture, but rather that everything asserted in a doctrine must lie openly revealed in the words of Scripture.

B. What we reject by this: a. deriving a doctrine from the so-called whole of Scripture, or from passages that do not speak of that doctrine; b. rejecting or reshaping a doctrine that is clearly expressed in the word of Scripture for the sake of so-called necessary inferences, or in the interest of a so-called system.

Thesis 2.

Only if we hold fast to this do

a. the individual articles of Christian doctrine stand, and faith obtain at all; only then is

b. there, in our hearts, a divine certainty and the right resolve against all error; only then is

c. Christians left the right, given them by Christ, to test all doctrine; only then do we have

d. the promise that God, in our teaching, will also grant people and hearers who receive it. (Luther.)

Concerning the theses above, which Prof. F. Pieper had laid before the Synod, the following was remarked:

In the Lutheran Church the principle holds: Holy Scripture alone sets forth the articles of faith. Few, presumably, in this country who call themselves Lutherans would refuse in words to grant this principle. It is said, along with us: not the Pope, not the Fathers, not the

*) The minutes of the doctrinal proceedings appear this time as an appendix, because
at this year's Delegate Synod very little time could be devoted to the doctrinal
proceedings.