# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1902_S13
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1902. 13

[and that] of the Frenchman Ernest Renan, who in part attacked Christ and Scripture with quite different weapons even than the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist? Great, very great also has been the number of the writings set against them. But since there is hardly one among them that dares to assert quite boldly that Holy Scripture does not contradict itself, really not, nowhere, indeed that it cannot contradict itself at all, I will not mention them further here, however much that is valuable is to be found in many of them. All, or at least almost all, of these apologists lack the insight that it is indeed, as one is accustomed to put it, a justified dogmatic postulate that Holy Scripture cannot contradict itself. But for that reason it is also necessary to become quite clear on this point.

From the Debate.

Two things are lacking in the more recent apologists: first, that they have no correct concept of inspiration, and second, that they hold a wholly perverted view of the Word of God. What counts for them as the actual Word of God is the quintessence of the doctrine of salvation. They defend the Word of God with great force, designate it as the source and foundation of our faith, and therefore also declare that there are no contradictions in it. In doing so, however, they confine themselves to the substance of the articles of faith and of those sayings that treat of faith unto salvation, and say something like this: What harm does it do if the evangelists contradict one another in external matters, for example in statements of time? That does not touch our faith at all, and the Bible is nevertheless God's Word. This false and dangerous position they even try to pin on Augustine, indeed they do not shrink from asserting that Luther stood in the same place (so, for example, Dieckhoff). Against them, since they still pretend to be Lutherans, one must say: God preserve me from my friends!

For a Christian the question how matters stand with Scripture, in particular whether contradictions occur in it, is decided from the outset by passages such as John 10:35; and if doubts nevertheless appear alongside, it is certain that they come from the flesh. When Christ says, "The Scripture cannot be broken," that is the same as if he said: In Scripture there are no contradictions. For if there were contradictions there, then either the one or the other, or both passages, would be broken. This is just as definite a word of Christ as when he says, "God so loved the world." But even if for a Christian the question of contradictions in Scripture is decided from the outset, it must nevertheless be held fast that the Christian still has flesh about him, and the flesh is given an outward blow on the head when it is said in apologetics that one is actually foolish and silly, even before the judgment of reason, if one