# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1886_S66
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

66 Proceedings of the eleventh convention

said: that is the original one. And that is now the glorious office of
theologians, to investigate which is the genuine reading. Although, whichever
readings one may choose as the genuine ones, the doctrines of
Scripture always remain the same; in no case does a doctrine undergo
a change, in no case is one lost thereby, in no case
does Scripture become poorer by a doctrine thereby. All scholars must admit this,
even those who are the bitterest enemies of Scripture. To be sure, there are
passages in which various readings occur and which, if one
chooses a certain reading, then no longer prove a certain doctrine.
But it is, remarkably, only the case when that doctrine is
firmly grounded in many other passages of Scripture. If, on the other hand, only very few
passages of Scripture are available as proof of a doctrine, then comparison
of them teaches that there are found in them no various
readings that change the sense.

Finally it is still said: Holy Scripture sets up
no theory at all about inspiration, it gives no account at all
of the How? of its origin. Now this much is true: how
the Holy Spirit acted upon the holy writers we shall
never investigate. But that the Holy Spirit himself spoke and
wrote through them, this Scripture teaches in express words, this we know
and that is enough. Even the modern-believing theologians admit
that they have not yet found a definite theory which would clearly show in what the share
of God in the composition of Holy Scripture and that of man
really consists; but to solve this task,
they say, is without doubt left to our age. One simply does not see the forest for
the trees. The doctrine of inspiration is revealed in Scripture just
as clearly as, for example, the doctrine of justification, if one will
only hear and accept the testimony which Scripture gives of itself.
But of course, of this way of obtaining the doctrine of the inspiration
of Scripture the newer theology will know nothing.

Volck has proposed a quite new way: "My procedure," he
says, "differs from the customary one. Usually one begins
with the proposition: Holy Scripture is inspired, that is, given by the Spirit of
God, and concludes" (?) "then from this proposition to the
nature which Scripture must have by virtue of such an origin. . . .
The reverse way is the right one, namely to calculate after God how he
did it. One examines first the Scripture as it lies before us,
investigates its nature and seeks to understand what it wants to be, and concludes
then to its origin." (The Bible as Canon, p. 32.) We know
how this "calculating after God," this "examining" of Scripture is meant!
The "theologians" are to work out what is worthy of God and possible for him;
above all they are to demonstrate the "closed organism" in
Scripture and from that the value and the inspiration of the individual