# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1861_S40
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

40 The Biblical Creation Account and the Geological Theories of the Earth's Formation.

[the holy] writers spoke as driven by the Holy Spirit, and that their
message is truth given by God, is confirmed for the one who walks before
God by this, that through this word alone he is led out of the night of
error into a light of knowledge, in whose light he has found the fountain
of truth and blessedness, the living God at work within him; that through
this word alone a divine life is generated in him which carries within it
the pledge of the Eternal; that all parts of this word, though scattered
over millennia as regards the time of their revelation, not only agree
perfectly among themselves, but also share in the same blessed effect of
making man certain in the truth he has recognized and of strengthening him
in the divine life. Of no human theory can anything similar be claimed;
rather, of them all without exception holds the saying: dies diem docet
[one day teaches another]. It is therefore also impossible for the
Christian to suppose that, when he trustingly surrenders himself to the
clearly expressed sense of the gracious word of the Holy Spirit, he might
thereby possibly become entangled in a web of error.

When the revelation of the Holy Spirit was brought to the heathen
through the Christian Church, a kind of border region between heathendom
and Christendom soon formed as well. Not all of the men striving after
insight, who gave a willing ear to the heavenly teaching, rose to a sense
of the majesty of the revealed word and bowed in the recognition that it
is wisdom to leave unanswered — or to expect their solution only in that
other world — the presumptuous questions which heathen philosophy and
natural science might well raise, but with regard to which revelation
shows a sublime reticence. Many could not and would not grasp that the
word of Scripture contains not merely isolated truths, but proclaims
divine truth thoroughly and exclusively. Having emerged from the heathen
schools, they did not consider the divine word too exalted to gain,
should it go as well as might be hoped, by being brought into agreement
with the sayings of the world-wise, who had undertaken to instruct the
world on the highest matters. Thus arose Gnosticism, which, in keeping
with the presumption of heathen philosophy, likewise claimed to solve even
the highest problems unattainable to man, and, on condition that
Christianity allow it to combine its wild speculation with the teaching of
Scripture, used the language of the new religion and interpreted its holy
books according to its own wisdom. That this Gnosticism still occupies
many professorial chairs and pulpits within the Christian Church today is
well known.

To be sure, one must distinguish from the Gnostics those upon whom the
wisdom of the world makes such an impression that they do indeed, against
the divine prohibition, "mix straw with wheat," yet without wishing thereby
to do any harm to the majesty of the divine word. There is, however, a
very great danger