# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1902_S19
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1902. 19

[their lack of] knowledge or their lack of judgment, anything was left out that ought to have been said [text as printed: "was hätte geſagt"], or anything added that ought to have been left out.

And finally we assert this also: The Holy Spirit guided the holy writers as to how they were to write. It is true, they wrote their own style, each his own. It is not as if the Chairman dictated something to us; then each of us would have only the Chairman's style and not, besides, his own as well, and many might think while doing so: If I had a free hand, I should express myself this way or that. That was not so, however, with the holy men of God. Peter has a different style from Paul, Paul a different one from John, and that is so evident that one perceives it not only in the original text but even quite well in Luther's incomparable German version of the Bible. The Holy Spirit, as one may quite fittingly put it, accommodated himself to the style of the holy writers; none of them, so to speak, had to write against the grain.

Since this is so, since therefore the holy writers wrote under so extraordinary an influence of the Holy Spirit, as no one after them and in their own time no writer apart from them, we say also: Holy Scripture cannot contradict itself, even though God made use of intermediaries in order to let his Word reach us through them. The Holy Spirit, who is and is called a Spirit of truth, who inspired them and led them into all truth, cannot at the same time have led them into error and untruth, or even left them in it; he cannot contradict himself.

3. Otherwise Holy Scripture would have to cease to be a norm and rule of Christian faith and life. This third argument is to be discussed here only quite briefly, to conclude this part of our proceedings. Holy Scripture designates itself as the norm and rule of faith and life; as such it wishes to be accepted and respected. Isa. 8:23 [as printed]: "To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light [German: dawn] in them." John 12:48: "He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." It designates itself as profitable, not only for doctrine but also for the reproof of false doctrine. As such a norm Christ for his part used it, used the Old Testament; as a norm it was used by the pious kings of the Old Testament who carried out a reforming activity. And this its office of judging, indeed of deciding infallibly, Holy Scripture would, indeed must, lose if there were really and truly contradictions in it.

These, then, are the principal arguments which make it impossible for a Christian from the outset to believe that Holy Scripture could contradict itself.