# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1860_S258
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

258 A Word on the Bad Habit of Turning Articles of Faith into Open Questions.

The Lord ... will, whatever has come to us as a question not yet resolved, graciously resolve through His Spirit, who guides into all truth." (p. 114). "I do not say at the outset that the [ministerial] office is really a condition for the validity and efficacy of the sacrament. I wish to leave that an open matter. But because Lutheran practice does not agree with the usual theory, while the practitioner living in office must in any case gain the peace of a secure theory, it seems to me that, given the silence of the Symbols, this question too remains in suspense — in such suspense, to be sure, as presses toward a decision — and I think it will also be best to treat it as such." (p. 117). "These points of difference all belong, if one judges them according to the state of the church, more among the dubia, among the unfinished matters, although I would venture to draw my own boundaries between errors and pending questions. The Lutheran Church was for three hundred years not in the position of having to decide." (p. 118). "Let it be made clear that questions not yet brought to a conclusion — which for three centuries were carried along by the church unsettled, and one might say almost overlooked — do not abolish the church fellowship of those who are otherwise, more than other men, agreed in confession and doctrine. Let hands be joined in brotherhood, and let the sweet fellowship of the holy church, etc., be practiced. Thus let one begin, in love and peace, under prayer and supplication, an examination of the points in dispute, from the standpoint of a simple love of truth and a longing for perfect unity. Let one seek the truth in the thought of one's opponent, etc.; in this let one take one's time. ... But in doing so, church fellowship — this pledge, this testimony of true unity — is to be firmly maintained." (pp. 119, 120).

These sentences contain, on the one hand, a dogmatic judgment on the nature of certain articles of faith, and, on the other, a moral judgment founded upon it concerning conduct with respect to them; both may be represented somewhat as follows: the church has not yet decided, with regard to certain articles of faith, what is correct doctrine and truth and what is error. Until this decision, Scripture's teaching on the matter remains obscure, so that a doctrine bearing the seal of divine truth cannot be drawn from Scripture; so long as this decision has not been reached, the truth can only be sought, but not yet regarded and held fast as already known, since everything drawn from Scripture prior to this decision of the church — which alone first grants Scripture the light it lacks — is necessarily still a matter in suspense and unfinished. Therefore it is wrong when individual members of the church, or entire church communions, prior to such a decision of the church, declare their own doctrine — even though drawn from Scripture — to be God's Word, and the doctrine opposing it to be error; when, forgetful of the fact that they must first seek the truth in common with their opponents through thesis and antithesis, they contend for their