# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S173
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Fourth Delegate Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States. 1884.   173

ism. He demonstrates that those who say of two doctrines, both revealed in Scripture, that they contradict each other and must be reconciled with each other, at bottom only want the doctrines of Scripture to agree with their reason. Scripture, in the process, is taken merely as a pretext. Exactly as our most recent opponents proceed, so the Zwinglians already did in Luther's own day. They rejected the substantial presence of Christ's body and blood on the pretext that this doctrine conflicted with other articles of the Christian faith. We have already heard how excellently Luther answered such a pretext. Let one further statement be cited here: "There, then, lies the highly celebrated ground on which, more than on any other, they rage and on which they stand and insist most stubbornly — where they say that the two Scripture-passages contradict each other: Christ sits in heaven, and his body is in the Supper." And of Oecolampadius Luther says in particular: "This is what deceived the good man Oecolampadius — that passages of Scripture which contradict one another must, of course, be reconciled, and one of them given a sense that agrees with the other, since it is certain that Scripture cannot be at odds with itself." Luther answers this: "They prove well enough that such two passages of Scripture and their own reason contradict each other. But that would have been unnecessary to prove — I would gladly have told them so myself. For your merely saying that Scripture contradicts itself is worth nothing; who asks after your say-so? But then I would praise and honor them, if they proved such a claim from Scripture or otherwise. ... But if we were to judge the articles of our faith and Scripture by reason and by sight, as Oecolampadius did here, then indeed every single piece of Scripture would stand against every other." After Luther has shown this to be so with the articles that Mary is virgin and mother, and that Christ is God and man, and has already said in this connection, "Yes, before you and your reason Scripture contradicts itself, but how does it contradict itself before God? Tell me that" — he continues: "So runs his" (Oecolampadius's) "ground: I, Oecolampadius, say that Scripture in this point contradicts itself. Now is that not a delicate, fine foundation for faith? — when a man speaks thus: although God's word stands there and says, 'This is my body,' yet because I cannot grasp or believe it, and it seems to me to go against Scripture, therefore it is not true and must have some other meaning, regardless of how plainly God's word stands there. That is Oecolampadius's spirit and highly celebrated truth: that human conceit and unbelief should prevail over God's word and be the ground of our faith." (Erl. Ausg. Bd. 30, S. 49 ff.)

Gerhard, too, exposes the rationalism in the very procedure under discussion. He writes: "But you say: the reason that disputes the presence of Christ's body in the Supper does not rest merely