# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S164
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

164   Doctrinal Proceedings of the 19th General [Synod], or

It speaks of deriving the individual doctrines from the so-called "whole of Scripture." Christ himself and the apostles are said to have appealed not so much to individual passages of Scripture as rather to the "whole" of Scripture — a delusion, let it be remarked in passing, that a mere reading of a few chapters of Matthew ought to cure. What one is actually supposed to picture under the fashionable phrase "the whole of Scripture," probably none of its inventors has ever seriously tried to say. The procedure generally runs thus: one starts from general Christian truths, develops the individual doctrines from these by logical inference, and then sets about testing the doctrines so obtained against Holy Scripture. Underlying this procedure is the notion that Christian doctrine forms a system, or an organic whole in the sense reason understands, in which one part follows from another by logical necessity. Hence also the demand that the individual word of Scripture must subordinate itself to the so-called "whole." In reality the matter then works out as follows: the individual, explicit word of Scripture which, in the judgment of the theological master-builder, does not readily fit into the structure to be erected, is either rejected outright or else so altered that it fits into the whole. This is also sometimes called theological mediation. Between the statements of Scripture, human thoughts are inserted which are meant to make the statements of Scripture — which appear disconnected to human reason — hang together in a way reason can accept. The consequence is that, through such additions, the statements of Scripture become something other than they truly are. Human words, set alongside God's word, always have the effect that God's word is altered and displaced.

Let us take an example from the recent events that powerfully agitated our Lutheran church, particularly here in this country. Among other things, the question at issue was this: in what relation do faith and the whole Christian state of the elect stand to their eternal election? Are Christians to regard their faith and their Christian state as an effect of their eternal election, so that election is to be called a cause of faith — or does faith, the Christian state, precede election, so that election took place with regard to persevering faith? — We have words of Scripture that speak explicitly of election. Acts 13:48 reads thus: "And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed." Whoever reads these words without prejudice, and takes them as they stand, finds revealed in them the fact that those Gentiles who at that time came to faith became believers because they were ordained to eternal life. Their ordination to eternal life was a cause of their coming to faith in time. That is also why our confession cites this very passage where it calls election "a cause which