# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1888_S19
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1888. 19

derive." The fault does not lie with God's Word, but in this, that one resists God's Word. The false teachers do not want simply to believe what God's Word says. Their error and their uncertainty come from their unbelief toward the Word of God. Their position is characterized by the saying: "The message I hear well enough; but faith I lack."

God's Word is so constituted that one can not merely derive the right doctrine from it but must derive it, if one stays with the Word. If someone wants to err, he must first throw the clear wording of Scripture behind him and cover the sense with human glosses. But the faith that Holy Scripture is a light that reveals clearly and plainly all articles of faith has, alas, greatly dwindled in Christendom.

It was further remarked from another quarter: Whoever follows Holy Scripture cannot go wrong; he must find the right way. This stands firm also for the reason that the doctrine of Scripture is a single one. It never happens that one doctrine of Scripture contradicts another. No truth of Scripture has undergone alteration. False science has invented that there are in Scripture different doctrinal systems, different tendencies, which come into collision with one another. That is a lie from the devil. If that were so, unity in faith would be impossible. But there is no such division in two or many in Scripture. Whoever follows Paul follows also Peter and John; he follows the Holy Spirit. Whoever follows the Holy Spirit arrives at unity in faith. As soon as we mix in wisdom of our own, unity ceases. A look at history teaches this too. As soon as science wants to do theology, Babylonian confusion takes the place of unity, so that people no longer understand one another, indeed often not even themselves. The same teacher may speak one way one day and another way the next. Only where all stand on the same ground, namely that on which one says: "Speak, Lord, thy servant heareth," and again speak, teach, believe, confess what the Lord speaks, there can we arrive at unity in faith and remain in it. This great good God has bestowed on us. He has given us his truth and has preserved us from false science. Therefore we are one in faith. —

To refute this thesis, appeal has been made, e.g., to 1 Cor. 13:9: "Our knowledge is in part, and our prophesying is in part." It is said that we can never claim to have the truth; one must never forget Christian modesty. Appeal is made further to the fact that even the apostles did not agree with one another. So too through all the centuries it has repeatedly become plain that agreement in Christendom is not possible.