# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1859_S9
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Preface to the 1859 Volume. 9

is really contradictory; on this matter, judgment is rather to be
rendered from God's Word alone. And since this is not observed by the
opponents, the Calvinists and the Photinians (Socinians), it happens
that they consider to be contradictory what is not really, absolutely,
and utterly contradictory. Thus it seems contradictory to the Calvinists
that the human nature of Christ should be a true humanity, and that it
should have personally become a partaker of the divine attributes;
hence they deny the latter on the basis of the former. To the
Photinians it appears contradictory that God is one, and that there are
three persons in the divine essence, and that Christ is true man and
true God in one person; hence they too deny the one on the basis of the
other. But we answer quite simply that only that is really contradictory
which is so according to the judgment of the Holy Spirit, who speaks in
Scripture, and not that which is contradictory according to the
judgment of reason. But now that former case is contradictory not
according to the judgment of the Holy Spirit, but only according to the
judgment of reason, because the Holy Spirit teaches both in Scripture;
therefore these are not really, absolutely, and utterly contradictory
things."

"Moreover it can be shown on many grounds that the judgment as to what
constitutes a true contradiction in the articles of faith may not be
left to human reason. 1. The divine mysteries exceed the grasp of
reason. Hence reason can not and may not judge concerning their
falsehood or truth, and consequently also not concerning the
contradiction in those mysteries. Scaliger writes in his Exercitationes,
77, 2: "What is above nature, I hold, is by no means to be judged from
the laws of nature... The divine power is not to be measured by the
yardstick of our reason." Let it be noted here that when we say the
mysteries of faith exceed the grasp of reason, this is not to be taken
only in the sense that reason, without the revelation of the Word, can
know nothing of them, but that reason, even granted the revelation of
the Word, nevertheless does not fully understand them, and hence cannot
decide from its own principles what is to be held as really
contradictory in the mysteries of faith. Ephesians 3:8-9; 1 Corinthians
2:7, 14-16; 1 Timothy 6:16. 2. Reason, and its mistress philosophy,
cannot judge what God's power can accomplish and what it cannot; hence
it also cannot judge what is really contradictory in divine mysteries.
The first proposition is clear from many statements of Scripture:
Genesis 18:14; Zechariah 8:6; Matthew 19:26; Luke 1:38, 18:26. In
particular the apostolic statement in Ephesians 3:20 is to be noted. If
accordingly God can do what surpasses our understanding, then he can
certainly also do what, in our logic, involves a contradiction. God's
power is infinite, without any limit, and surpasses the grasp of
reason; therefore we must make it a matter of conscience to want to
limit it and to say that God can do everything possible; the