Eckhardt's Homiletisches Reallexikon, 1907–1917

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Essays. Why should we in future too seriously oppose modern "progress" in the Church? W. 97. To what extent is progress also legitimate, even necessary, in the Church? Min. Syn. 1901 and 1902. Some of the most important errors of the age in the field of our Lutheran Church. L. W. 19, 193—208. 225—228. Do Christian dogmas arise only gradually, bit by bit? L. W. 21, 353. The modern heresy of doctrinal development. L. W. 23, 129—145. 161—174. What is the truth about the progress of modern theologians in doctrine? L. W. 21, 161. 225. 257. 353. Preface. L. W. 16, 1—13. 33—41. Neb. 1901, 7—14. 95, 6—9. Wis. 1903, 6—8. N. 76, 20—23. Outline. Progress in the field of scholarship. § 1. The modern Lutheran theologians hold that the Church too must progress. § 2. There can be no talk of a development of doctrine. § 3. The Lutheran Church wants nothing to do with a development of doctrine, and what should be said about it. § 4-5. Progress with respect to the purpose, the means, the norm. § 6. The right kind of progress. § 7. Progress.

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1. Progress in the field of scholarship. What progress has mankind made in the field of science and industry! Electricity, the microscope, the telephone, etc. Note a. Progress is the watchword, the slogan of our age. Note b. In the secular sphere progress is possible. Things of which people in earlier centuries had no knowledge can now be known. Note c. Since man can create nothing new, progress in the secular sphere consists in coming to understand the existing laws ever better and turning them to man's use. Note d. This progress is not sinful, not displeasing to God. God has given man reason so that he may study the book of nature. Acts 7:22: Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. 1 Kings 4:29-34: God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much. Note e. The advances in the field of science are nothing but fresh proofs of the power, wisdom, and goodness of God. Note f. Such advances are a sign of the times. The thought naturally occurs to a thinking Christian that the limit of this striving must soon be reached. Note g. Despite all progress, in many things people today have still gotten no further than the ancient Greeks and Romans, who were highly cultured. Note h. Instead of recognizing the goodness of the Creator, the children of this world let the gifts bestowed on them serve to rob God of his honor. Note i. The world also boasts of a progress in the field of religion and morals, but that is the progress of the prodigal son. Materialism, deification of nature and of man, idolatry, the chase and race after money, anarchy, corruption.

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2. The modern Lutheran theologians hold that the Church too must progress. What Luther preached, they say, suited the sixteenth century, but no longer suits our time. The clothing of his childhood does not fit the grown man. L. W. 53, 2. In an age when we have breech-loaders and Krupp cannons, we can no longer use the cumbersome armor of former times. Mich. 88, 39. For the modern man, a modern faith. a. Luthardt: the never-resting activity of the Church's dogma-forming spirit. b. Harnack: the further development of the Church's doctrinal system. c. Kahnis. d. Thomasius. e. Hofmann. f. Kurtz: The Church is called to develop the apostolic doctrine and practice further out of itself. g. Briggs. h. Vilmar: What Christ's redemptive work consists in was, he says, first brought properly to light through Augustine; that man is justified by faith alone, first through Luther. i. Eliot. k. The Dorpat opinion. l. The Iowa Synod speaks of doctrines which the Church has not yet decided, on which a unanimous consensus has not yet formed, and wishes to lead the Lutheran Church on toward a greater perfection. L. W. 25, 280. Note a. This much is certain: the spirit of progress has also penetrated, ruinously, into the Lutheran Church, in that professors in their chairs, pastors in their pulpits, 1. constantly want to offer something new, 2. surrender one biblical truth after another. Note b. It is held that one Christian article of faith after another has only now been drawn out of its former obscurity and partial concealment and brought to the proper knowledge of Christians. It is said to be the task of theologians, through constant searching and inquiry, to bring the divine truths ever better to light. Note c. The doctrine of the Trinity is supposed to have developed out of polytheism! The Old Testament, it is said, contains only a germ of the doctrine of the Trinity, of which the prophets knew nothing. Note d. The doctrine of the Church and the Ministry is, it is said, left for our century to fix. Note e. In Scripture, it is said, there are seeds of new doctrines contained. Note f. Progress is sought not in the fides qua but in the fides quae creditur — something new about which Scripture gives no report. Note g. Hence the complaint about the compulsion of the confessional symbols. The confessional writings, it is said, only hinder the free development of doctrine. Note h. Since the first Pentecost, it is said, the Christian Church has ever been occupied with the fashioning of new dogmas. — Our confessions, it is claimed, contain, besides the doctrines already symbolically fixed, also elements of the faith which are partly still in the very process of becoming, partly have not yet even entered into the historical, dogma-forming movement. Note i. This talk is especially convenient for the chiliasts too, that the Church progresses in the course of time toward a greater perfection and at last has its most beautiful flowering.

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3. There can be no talk of a development of doctrine, a. because the doctrines are not objects of natural knowledge but matters of divine revelation. In the natural sphere reason can progress, imperfect though it is even there, but of spiritual things reason understands absolutely nothing. Note a. If the Christian religion were a doctrine of works, reason would indeed know something of the Christian religion and could develop it further. But the essence of Christianity consists in what no eye has seen. Note b. The articles of faith are mysteries. Matt. 13:35. Luke 8:10. Rom. 11:25. 1 Cor. 2:7. 4:1. Eph. 3:3-4, 9-10. Col. 1:26-27. Note c. If articles of faith are to become known to man, this can happen only through divine revelation. Note d. If reason cannot recognize any doctrine of itself, then it cannot develop it further either. Note e. Reason is blind in spiritual things. 1 Cor. 2:14: perceives nothing, foolishness. What can such reason accomplish toward the discovery of articles of faith? It is utterly useless for that. Can one light up the sunlight with a dirty stable lantern? Note f. Even enlightened reason is not a light alongside God's word, but is enlightened only insofar as it takes up God's word into itself. And even then the illumination is never perfect in this world; alongside the light there is still much darkness. Note g. To develop doctrine further is a sin against reason. What is true today is true for all eternity; b. because the canon is now closed and we have no promise of new revelations. Note a. As long as the Old and New Testament canon was still in the process of being formed, God often added to it, explained further — e.g., that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, etc. Note b. Now the sum of doctrine lies before us complete, the edifice of doctrine is complete, the whole counsel has been revealed. Objection. If in the Old Testament the counsel of God was revealed piece by piece, one after another, may one not then assume that God has kept this or that piece in reserve for our time? Answer. Enthusiasts, Mormons, spiritists, and the like appeal to new revelations. — But they lack the necessary attestation by miracles. Also, their revelations stand in contradiction to Scripture. Note c. To the theologian there are not given, as in scholarship, mere facts from which he must abstract the doctrines; rather the doctrines themselves lie ready before him; c. because there is only one Church, one faith, one doctrine at all times. The doctrines were all there from the beginning and have also been known and preached at all times. Note a. The Church of the first century had all the biblical dogmas that we have. No doctrine was first invented at the time of the Reformation or in our own time. Note b. Even what was revealed later in the Old Testament lay already essentially contained in the first gospel promise in Paradise. Note c. The Church is built on a firm foundation, 1 Cor. 3:10, on a rock, Matt. 16:18. If earlier only germs of doctrine had been present, the Church would have been a building without a foundation. Note d. Yet even in the Church there have often been eclipses, lunar eclipses so to speak, times when for many the knowledge of pure doctrine had vanished, e.g., before the Reformation; d. because the doctrine is God's, and not man's. God is unchangeable, incapable of improvement. What kind of a god would that be, whose word and doctrine could and had to be improved and perfected by men! As surely as we today have no new God, just as surely we have no new doctrine. Note. There is no more shameful defiling of the Church than through the word of man; e. because Scripture is perfect. 1. It contains everything necessary to know for salvation. 2. It contains no error. There is no improvement, perfecting, revision conceivable in it, as with human books. One need not laboriously investigate whether one is dealing with genuine diamonds or artificial stones. Ps. 119:160. 3. It is clear, and accommodated to the understanding of the common man. It is not written in the scholarly language of our age. Note a. How could progress be possible where everything is already complete! What does reason wish to add, where it finds everything that is needed; what does reason wish to correct, where everything is pure! Here man can only bungle. Note b. He who has the pure doctrine cannot make it any purer. Note c. To the platform on which the Church stands, no plank can be added or taken away. Note d. No error can arise against which we do not already have the weapons in Scripture. Note e. If Scripture had not been clearly and rightly understood from the beginning, then the fault would lie with God, for not having revealed his word clearly enough. That would be against the clarity of Scripture; f. because God binds us to Scripture. We are to 1. remain with Scripture. God knows the scholarly need of men; therefore he has impressed this upon us: Deut. 5-7: therefore keep it now and do it. 5:1: keep them. [7]: preserve the doctrine. John 8:31: if ye continue in my word. Jude 3: contend for the faith. 1 Tim. 6:20: keep that which is committed to thy trust. 2 Tim. 1:13-14: hold fast the pattern of sound words. 1 Cor. 15:2: in what manner I preached it unto you. Note a. If we are to remain with Scripture, then this forbids all progress. To progress means to let go of the old and take hold of a new, better thing. Note b. As a father says to his son: You will stay right here at home, so God says to man: You will stay right here with Scripture, and thereby strikes down all cravings for progress; 2. not depart from Scripture, neither to the right hand nor to the left, Deut. 28:13-15. Josh. 1:7-8. add nothing to it and take nothing from it. Deut. 4:1-2. 12:32; 3. guard against false doctrine, Matt. 7:15: Beware, etc. Rom. 16:17-18: that ye mark them, etc. 2 John 10-11: If there come any unto you, etc.; Note a. If God forbids having fellowship with false believers, it follows from this that we are to remain unentangled with modern "progress." Note b. He who surrenders any part of the truth to the enemy is much worse than a traitor to his country; g. because the Church has no authority to establish articles of faith; Note a. The Church has not yet spoken. "Let the devil wait for that. I will not wait that long." Luther. Note b. If the Church must speak first, then 1. that would first become an article of faith which the Church, by its decision, makes into one, 2. until then everyone would be free to accept or reject what God has spoken, 3. the first century, with the Apostles' Creed, would have been poor in articles of faith. Note c. Our Church by no means confesses only the doctrines that stand in the confessional books, but the whole of Scripture. Note d. Our confessional writings do not claim at all to be a catalogue of all the doctrines necessary to salvation. Some doctrines are not even set forth in them. Note e. The doctrines were taken up into the confessional books not in order to become doctrines of the Church, but because they were already there beforehand. Note f. Just as little as Christ needs our Easter hymns in order to come forth out of the grave, just as little does doctrine need the councils. Note g. That a doctrine first attains churchly validity through a council is a Roman principle. To fight under the Lutheran banner for Roman principles! Note h. What a contradiction: to stand up for the Church's dogma-forming activity, and at the same time to reject all twenty-one ecumenical councils, including the Lateran Council! Note i. Given the Church's lamentable state of division, which church is now to decide? Dorpat or Rostock? h. because the doctrines are in themselves of such a kind that every attempt to develop them further leads to their dissolution. The further development of doctrine is the beginning of the end. 1. As often as reason has set out to resolve the difficulties in Scripture, in the process of squaring things up the scriptural doctrine has each time gone to pieces. 2. Every building-block that one breaks out of the edifice of doctrine is followed by a host of others. One cannot insert or remove one doctrine without affecting the others. Note a. Modern theologians want to mediate, that is, to reconcile two parties or factions through mutual concession. Note b. By "further development" one means not grounding but correction, not defense but dissolution; i. because all progress is in fact a regress. Progress is apostasy from the Lutheran confession, L. W. 21, 78-79, from true theology, L. W. 50, 5. To reshape doctrine means to destroy it, L. W. 21, 69. Thereby the old faith is let go, L. W. 53, 3; only the old frame still recalls the old picture. L. W. 21, 71;

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had to be developed further! Who would want to build his faith on that? Note a. As the theologians progress, no one really knows anymore wherein the progress actually consists, since each one condemns the other's progress as regress. Note b. On what do the progress-theologians ground their view? Scriptural proof is lacking. The hypothesis is everywhere silently presupposed. Note c. Under the name of "development," everyone can carry his own little invention to market as divine wisdom. Summary: Modern man, to whom the old faith no longer suits, is nothing more than a new edition of the old Adam: pride, self-conceit, self-righteousness — freedom from authority. — There is a true scholarship, which alone deserves the name of scholarship; but there is also a pseudo-scholarship, a drunken scholarship. S. 86, 13. Objection 1. Precisely the difficulties in Scripture that God has allowed to stand are, it is said, an invitation to progress through the development of doctrine. Why has God set these riddles before man? — The real ground for further development is not being offended at the difficulties. Unbelievers in this world swallow mysteries by the thousand. Objection 2. Thereby free investigation of Scripture is hindered. The Bereans too searched, whether these things were so. — But did they always remain at the "whether"? Did they never come to a firm faith, that it was indeed so? Objection 3. If everything in the world is subject to a law of development and becoming (evolution), why not doctrine as well?

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4. Our Lutheran Church wants nothing to do with a development of doctrine. a. Luther and the confessions always point out that their doctrine is not a new one, but the old one. Testimonies. L. W. 23, 165-166. 21, 353-354. 70. 20. 312. Konk. 725, 3-6. 730, 39, 40. b. We confess the Book of Concord of 1580 and bind pastors, members, and confirmands to it. Note a. We are reproached: that we close ourselves off against progress, are despisers of scholarship, have accomplished nothing yet in theology; we are pitied as people who have fallen behind the times. Note b. We too are in danger of being swept along by the spirit of the age.

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5. Although we reject all development of doctrine, we do nevertheless believe a. that the manner of presenting biblical doctrine in dogmatics and preaching can be improved,