# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1892_S19
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1892. 19

general. The one, like the other, is in man by nature, and nothing new is added in order that the one may become the other.

It is also better not to make this distinction. First, because Holy Scripture neither makes nor suggests it, since it nowhere calls the heathen, who do after all have natural knowledge of God, believers; second, because the more recent theologians have falsely inferred from that distinction that every person must hear the preaching of the Gospel, either in this life or in the other, otherwise he cannot be an unbeliever with regard to the Gospel. They hold that unbelief toward the Gospel is essentially different from so-called general unbelief; that it is to be found only where the Gospel has been heard, and that man does not have it by nature. Now it is true that no one can come to faith in Christ who has not heard the preaching, as Scripture says: "How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?" But with unbelief it is not so; rather, it lodges by nature in all human beings, so that the natural man also, as soon as grace is offered to him in the preaching, rejects it at once, as far as it depends on him.

Many people now come to faith, some earlier, some later. Many of these also remain in the faith once obtained; others fall away, once or several times, but they come back to faith, and both those and these die in faith and are saved. To whom these owe their coming and coming back to faith, to whom they owe their persevering and dying in faith, has already been mentioned at the beginning, namely God alone. Their faith is God's work, John 6:29, his grace which has not been in vain toward them, 1 Cor. 15:10, it is an effect of his power, Col. 2:12. Their perseverance in faith is God's work; he is its author and finisher, Heb. 12:2; by God's power they are kept through faith unto salvation, 1 Pet. 1:5.

Many other people, however, remain without faith in Christ all their lives, many others become conscious unbelievers and die as such; many come to faith but fall away again and go, like those, in unbelief to damnation. Who is to blame for this their unbelief? Our thesis says: God is not to blame for it. God is to blame neither for the fact that human beings are born as unbelievers nor for their dying as unbelievers. For the former God is not to blame, since then God would also have to be to blame for the corruption of original sin in which unbelief is included. There have been and still are those who teach and believe this, namely those among the Reformed and the sects sprung from them who teach that God from eternity, by an unconditional decree, created a part of mankind for damnation; for then God is also the author of their sin, which brings damnation upon them. To reject this blasphemous