# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1894_S45
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1894. 45

3. Schleiermacher's statements on Scripture, which he brings in the "11." [sic; evidently II.] Chief Part: On the Continuation of the Church in its Co-existence with the World. He says (§ 126) the Church would always be like itself. The reason is, because (§ 127) "first, the testimony of Christ in it is always the same, and this is found in Holy Scripture and in the service of the divine Word." This sounds very biblical and Lutheran. But how is it meant? By Scripture Schleiermacher understands not the whole Scripture of the New Testament, but only the Gospel, and alongside it a vouched-for oral tradition can have the same value. "And to that extent we can let it be acceptable to us that this form in which the personality of Christ is presented to us (there he means precisely the Scripture of the New Testament) does not belong indispensably to the being, but rather to the well-being of the Church." (P. 318). And on p. 319: "Scripture . . . is always a work of the Holy Spirit as the common spirit of the Church, and is only a single case of the testimony of Christ expressed generally in our proposition." That means now: Scripture is essentially nothing other than today's congregational testimony, independent of Scripture. "Now Scripture is something special, because the unaltered preservation of it hides in a peculiar manner the identity of our testimony and the original testimony of Christ." But Scripture "would be only a dead possession if this preservation were not an ever-renewing self-activity of the Church, which manifests itself in the living testimony of Christ going back to Scripture. And this" (the congregation's giving of testimony) "in its generality as duty and calling of all members of the Church shall here . . . be understood under the expression service of the divine Word." Here we have, then, the following propositions: 1. The Scripture of the New Testament is not (once given) absolutely necessary. 2. Scripture in itself is dead; living is the testimony of the congregational spirit, which of course also refers to Scripture. 3. The service of the Word in the Church is no service to Scripture, but the delivery of the congregational testimony coming from the congregational spirit. And how does the congregational spirit relate to Scripture? Page 310, § 128, Schleiermacher writes: "The authority of Holy Scripture cannot found faith in Christ; rather this must already be presupposed in order to concede a special authority to Holy Scripture." Accordingly Scripture is, on the one hand, to be very important for the congregational testimony, indeed even (§ 129) norm and authority for all successors; then, on the other hand, it is first the Church, which imparts faith through the common spirit, that founds the authority of Scripture. So one cancels the other, or better, one shows the other to be void, to be something that is basically indifferent with regard to the imparting of the Spirit. The one does not do it any more than the other; nor need it do so. It