# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S182
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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

filled." — Having shown the same thing also with regard to baptism and the Lord's Supper, Luther continues: "What do these desperate fanatics [Rottengeiſter, sectarian spirits] now want, binding faith to reason, when it is impossible for faith and reason to agree? For Christ says here expressly: If you want to enter the kingdom of heaven, become a little child, for I have come into the world for this very purpose, to make everyone into children, and to make them fools." (Erlangen Edition, vol. 44, p. 157.)

Experience teaches plainly enough how reason clears away the individual articles of doctrine once it is allowed a say. What article of faith, indeed, has modern theology — which names it its task to bring Christian doctrine into a system — left untouched? Whoever fears God's word and reads the newer speculations on the article of the Trinity will find their hair standing on end. The whole of the newer theology that calls itself Lutheran further teaches the kenosis — that is, the little contrivance — that the Son of God had to lay aside part of his divine attributes in order to become and be man. The cause of this false doctrine is that people want to make it easier for human reason to grasp how God could become man. Furthermore, the whole of the newer theology is synergistic, that is, it credits man with cooperating toward his own salvation. This false doctrine, too, has its root in rationalism, in the attempt to reconcile the individual revealed doctrines with reason. It is said that only if one ascribes to man a certain cooperation toward salvation can one hold fast to the doctrine that God earnestly wills the salvation of all men! Melanchthon was the first within the Lutheran church to teach that the natural man must not be denied the capacity to make himself receptive to grace. But even in Melanchthon's case the basis of synergism was rationalism. He writes, among other things: "Since the promise is universal and there are no contradictory wills in God, there must necessarily be, in us, a reason for the difference why a Saul is rejected and a David accepted — that is, there must somehow be a different action in the two." (After L. Hutter.) One truly cannot build a system without synergism. Whenever, in the work of the mediating theologians, an article of the Christian faith still remains standing, the reason for that is a fortunate inconsistency.

What havoc the building of systems has wrought in Germany! It began so well. The testimonies raised against crude rationalism were vigorous and fresh with faith. Then the devil of system-building got into the theologians. People took it into their heads to reconcile divine wisdom with the wisdom of this world. They were not content that the Gospel was a costly