# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1894_S56
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

56 Proceedings of the fifteenth convention

equally effective everywhere for conversion and yet not all are converted, then it follows of necessity that not only in God's counsel and grace but also in us there must lie a factor which brings conversion about. The old Lutheran sentence, "that man conducts himself toward his conversion *pure passive* (purely passively), that is, does absolutely nothing toward it, but only suffers what God works in him," has been turned around by the new synergists to this: If man has been brought, through the gifts of grace bestowed, into the condition of conversion, he can also decide for his conversion. It follows, then, of necessity that the causes of our conversion do not lie in God alone, but in a certain sense it also depends on man that he is converted.

Scripture teaches of an eternal election of God to salvation. It teaches that God's electing took place according to his good pleasure and in Christ. Scripture also teaches abundantly about faith, its origin, importance, power and effect, that, for example, no one can be in Christ without faith. From these two doctrines the inference has been drawn that God's electing is determined not only by the merit of Christ to be rendered, but also by the foreknowledge of the final appropriation of this merit accomplished in faith. In short, by this inference the doctrine of election in view of persevering faith has been made. That is fanaticism, which is rejected by the Confession of the Lutheran Church in these memorable words: "Thus there is no doubt that God, long before the time of the world, saw and still knows most certainly which of those who are called will believe or not believe. Likewise, which of the converted will remain steadfast, which will not remain steadfast. . . . But since God has reserved such things to his wisdom, and has revealed nothing to us in the Word about it, much less commanded us to search into it by our own thoughts, but has earnestly held us back from it, Rom. 11: we are not to follow it out, conclude, or brood over it with our thoughts, but to hold to his revealed Word, to which he points us." The determination of an election to salvation in view of the appropriation of Christ's merit accomplished in faith is given nowhere in the *sedes doctrinae* of election; it has been taken over from other articles of doctrine as a member of the definition of election. That, however, is no interpretation of Scripture, but fanatical perversion of Scripture.

3. Work-righteous Fanaticism.

a. Mission-mongering Fanaticism. Let no one misunderstand us. We do not wish to hang a millstone around the neck of the divine work of true mission as such. But that one speaks and