# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1902_S6
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

6 Proceedings of the nineteenth convention

[Scripture is said to contradict —] Finally, Scripture is said to stand in contradiction to the moral laws and laws of conduct which an ethics refined by the experience of the centuries prescribes as an unshakable law for the actions of men, and which, as it were, ought to count as the common property of the civilized world.

When such charges against Holy Scripture are put forward quite loudly and boldly, and with the chest-voice of conviction, by people who are reputed to know something, to know more than other people, a Christian too is sometimes a little alarmed. And when the appearance of proof is then added, and the talk is so scholarly that the foreign words simply fly about in the air, he thinks in the end: Must everything be false that the man says or writes? Is he not perhaps right in this or that? The Christian, after all, is by nature, just like other people, flesh born of flesh, and the flesh of the Christian is not changed by regeneration either, not even after it. The word always holds of him: "The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." For that reason the Christian also, according to the old man, has by nature no pleasure in God's Word; and when all sorts of reproaches are made against this heavenly wisdom, there is also in the Christian always something that does not rebel against these reproaches but even takes pleasure in them. And if the Christian gives room in himself to this something, namely his flesh, he stands in great danger of suffering the most grievous harm to his soul.

For that reason the Church, too, has never failed to take account of this danger. As long as Holy Scripture has existed, such reproaches have been raised against it; as long as the Church has existed, they have been rejected by it. This activity of the Church, when it repels unjust attacks on Christianity and Scripture, is called apologetic. Thus the writings of the apologists of the first centuries after Christ, those of a Justin, an Origen and others, contain exceedingly much material which can still be set against the opponents of Christianity today. Even Origen, who unfortunately by no means everywhere takes his reason captive under the obedience of faith in Christ and his Word, and who is far from following Scripture everywhere in right simplicity, has nevertheless, where he did so, supplied much that is useful. As unsuccessful as the part of his defense against Celsus is in which he combats him from general Christian ideas, so much that is fine does the part contain in which he follows his objections in detail with the help of Holy Scripture. And such apologetic works, as has been said, the Christian Church has never lacked. When new objections were brought forward, new defenders of the doctrine and of the Word of God always arose for it. I will not fail to call attention to this