# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S33
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1884. 31

not think: with good additions a great light falls on Scripture. The evil enemy thanks you for that! No, we have the light before us, that is the Bible itself. And it is only necessary that we open our eyes. But whoever wants to bring from his own understanding yet another light to this light, so that it may become brighter, acts just as foolishly as one who wants to make the sun bright for me with a tallow candle. Yet that is what most of the newer theologians do, in that they bring the light of their reason to the Bible.

So, Holy Scripture is the one fountain, the one source of all knowledge of the faith. Our dear Lutheran Church also confesses this. In the Formula of Concord, p. 568, in Part 2, Repetition, under the heading: "Of the Summary Concept, Ground, Rule and Norm, how all doctrine is to be judged according to God's Word and the errors that have arisen are to be Christianly explained and decided," — it says: We confess ourselves "first to the prophetic and apostolic writings of the Old and New Testament as to the pure, clear fountain of Israel." This confession is exceedingly important precisely in our time. The theologians of modern belief, namely, do admit that Scripture is the rule and norm, but they deny that it is the sole source of all knowledge of the faith. Even a Philippi said: There are several principles of Christian knowledge of the faith (principle means origin, something from which one proceeds, source). And among these principles he counts, among others, enlightened reason. But this cannot bring the least thing. Schleiermacher says: I proceed from the Christian consciousness. And Hofmann in Erlangen: My principle is my own person; I am a Christian and from that I now develop the whole theology. To be sure, he then permits another to test this theology of his, for he grants that the Bible is rule and norm, but the source he remains himself, as a Christian!

The authority of Holy Scripture consists, however, secondly in this, that it alone is the infallible rule and norm of all doctrines and teachers. This we prove from Psalm 119:105: "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." So there is no other lamp to heaven. If we want to know whether a doctrine is right, nothing else shows it to us but the light of the divine Word. That alone is light and lamp on the way to heaven, hence the one rule.

Further it says in Isa. 8:19–20: "And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits and unto wizards that peep and mutter: (say:) Should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony. If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." First the prophet says: You shall seek God and