# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1859_S6
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

6 Preface to the 1859 Volume.

of the prophets, and, as the ancients say, stole them from the people of
God. To confirm the doctrinal points of the other kind, philosophical
proofs may be employed — not indeed because it were necessary, as though
theology could not prove them from its own principle, but for the sake
of abundance, so that it may become clear that not only the light of
grace, but also the light of nature, can attain them to some degree; nor
in the first place, as if the greatest force of proof lay in those
philosophical arguments, but in a subordinate one. The refutative or
elenctic use consists in the contesting and refuting of doctrinal
points, in which one must proceed thus: false and erroneous doctrines
are first to be refuted from theology's own principle, namely from Holy
Scripture, which is the proper, chief, and effective refutation; after
that, philosophical grounds may also be added, in order to show that the
false dogma conflicts not only with the light of grace but also with the
light of nature — which is a secondary form of proof, less principal,
and, without the former, wholly ineffective. To the refutative use
belongs also this, that one may weaken the opponents' proofs by means of
instances (examples brought forward in refutation) drawn from nature
itself. Thus Augustine, when the Arians say that what is begotten cannot
be of the same duration as that from which it is begotten, and that
therefore the Son cannot be co-eternal with the Father, rightly sets
against this the emanation of rays, which is of the same duration as the
sun."

"Manifold is the use of philosophy in theology, but manifold too, and
indeed exceedingly pernicious, is its abuse in the same; of this we will
treat in such a way as to show how philosophy, in its organic,
constructive, and refutative use, is turned into abuse. In the organic
use one abuses philosophy, 1. when one holds that the training of the
mind attained through the study of philosophy is a source (principium)
of saving faith and has an effective influence on the inward
illumination of the Holy Spirit. Thus (the Reformed) Keckermann writes
in his System of Theology, Bk. 1, ch. 4, p. 57: "God wills to kindle the
light of the Holy Spirit in the understanding of men through those two
wholly different disciplines, metaphysics and logic." But that effect —
the divine, inward, and spiritual illumination — is nowhere in Scripture
ascribed to the means of philosophy, but to the revealed Word alone. Ps.
19:9, 119:105, 2 Peter 1:19. The same Keckermann writes in his
Philosophical Preliminaries, Bk. 1, ch. 4, p. 80: "Through philosophy
piety, service, reverence, and the invocation of God are awakened in
us." But true piety, etc., cannot exist without knowledge of the
Mediator, Christ, which philosophy cannot attain through its own
researches. John 5:23, 14:6. To this belongs the error of Zwingli,
Bullinger, Andradius, and others, who