# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1879_S14
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 14 —

For as soon as one understands by "open questions" only problems, the doctrine of Church and Ministry, chiliasm, and so forth, are excluded. For this reason Iowa wanted all doctrines minus principales fundamentales [less principal fundamentals] to be regarded as open questions, just as if minus principalis (less important) meant the same as non principalis (unimportant in the structure of doctrine). To come to terms with the Symbols, Iowa invented its "historical conception." Hermeneutics had until then understood by "historical conception" that the history of the Symbols should shed light on the doctrines set forth in them; Iowa sought, with the help of history, to designate certain doctrines in the Symbols as not binding and therefore not church-dividing, and to set them aside. Only the thetic and antithetic decision was to be binding. In this way one could trim the Smalcald Articles and nearly all the Confessional writings considerably, with the exception of the Augsburg Confession and the Formula of Concord. How, then, is doctrinal discipline to be exercised where one indulges the theory of "open questions" and, according to the Iowan understanding of the "historical conception" of the Symbols? If one points to God's Word, everyone may interpret it according to his individual conviction in the case of favourite doctrines that one holds to be open questions. One could fairly regard Holy Scripture as a hunting ground where everyone may take what game he can. — As soon as a church communion releases a doctrine of which it itself confesses that it stands in the Bible, it thereby throws door and gate open for everyone who wants to spread false doctrines in the Church.

What is to be thought of the open-questions theory Luther already teaches in a letter to Melanchthon of 26 Aug. 1530: "We have no power, in the Church of God and in divine services, to order or to tolerate anything that cannot be proved with God's Word. If that is to hold, I could with this very word readily make all God's laws and ordinances into things indifferent [*Mitteldinge*]. For if one admits one thing indifferent into God's Word, who will then prevent everything from being held as things indifferent?" (XVI, 1696.)

To this let one add the explanation of the First Petition [of the Lord's Prayer]: "Where the Word of God is taught purely and clearly and we also live holily as the children of God according to it; help us to this, dear Father in heaven. But whoever teaches and lives otherwise than the Word of God teaches, profanes the name of God among us; preserve us from that, dear heavenly Father." By this explanation alone the whole theory of "open questions" is already thrown to the ground. This theory is connected with the papistic error about the Church. If someone in the Church were to assert: "The forces of nature, e.g. electricity, are the angels, but the angels are not persons," how would we proceed? Would we say: "Let him teach, for we do not find this doctrine fixed by the Church"? From that it would follow: Therefore we must