# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1886_S24
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

24 Proceedings of the eleventh convention

What desperate malice lies behind this so-called whole of Holy Scripture! And this is to be driven into the people. Prof. Volck, on the reproach that he should have kept silent before the people, expressed himself thus: No, I want no double bookkeeping. From his standpoint he is quite right. Christians cannot, as he regards Scripture, hold to the individual words and sentences of Scripture; they would fall into error. As an example he cited the words from Psalm 14:1: "There is no God." But this is not at all the question here, whether one may tear the Bible out of its context. We do not want that either. We know well that one must consider every passage in context. But Volck says: Even if I understand the words of a saying perfectly in their context, I still know nothing at all; for now I must first know how the sense of this saying relates to the whole of Scripture. That amounts to taking the Bible entirely away from a person. How can a man always have the whole of Scripture before his eyes! That exceeds all spiritual and mental powers. Consider: I want to be able to take comfort in Scripture even when my mental powers fail. When in dying my senses grow weak, the saying: "The blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cleanseth us from all sin," should be enough to strengthen and keep me in the faith. But now it is suddenly to be said: No, that can be done only from the organism of the whole.

Let our dear Christians therefore take careful note of what the newer theology is serving up to them here. It says to them: Do you want to know what God's Word is, then you must first read through the whole Bible, and afterward you must look at the individual part to see whether it is necessary to the whole system. If it is necessary, then you have found God's Word there. But if it is not necessary, as you think, if it is only side matters, then that is not God's Word. — Is that not dreadful? Who, I will only say, among the unlearned laity is capable of this? Oh, what dreadful things Satan has therefore in store for Christendom! He wants nothing else than to rob Christians of their salvation; although in this we by no means wish to maintain that the newer theologians have this intention knowingly, but the devil, who disguises himself here in the form of an angel of light, he has this intention. Consider well that not a single noted theologian has rebuked the Dorpat men, but all have praised their pronouncements. The father of the newer theology, in so far as it is a new one, is quite evidently the devil. The father of the old theology, however, is God. God said once in Paradise: "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." This old theology Eve still had in her heart when Satan came to her. For she said: Yes, God has said so. But the devil came with his new theology: Can God have meant it so? You must on the