LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1971, Page 231

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PRESIDENT’S REPORT 231

ments on Gal. 5:12, VIII, 2669f.) A little above this passage
Luther had written, “Christian doctrine does not belong to
us, but to God, who has made us merely its servants and
ministers; hence we cannot drop or yield the smallest tittle
or letter of it.’ (Comments on Gal. 5:9.)

On the other hand, that a point can become divisive only
after the respective error has in vain been proved from the
Holy Scriptures, after all repeated admonitions have been
without fruit, and after it has become evident that the err-
ing person is inwardly convinced of his error and that he
therefore consciously contends against the foundation of
faith, either the real or dogmatic or merely the organic
foundation, Luther states emphatically in the well-known
passage: “Augustine says with respect to himself: Errare
potero, haereticus non ero; that is, I can err, but I do not
want to become a heretic. The reason is this: Heretics not
only err, but they refuse to be instructed; they defend their
error as right and contend against the truth which they have
come to know and against their own conscience. Of such
people Paul says, Titus 3:10,11: ‘A man that is an heretic,
after the first and second admonition reject, knowing that
he that is such is subverted and sinneth,’ being autocatacri-
tos, that is, he deliberately and finally chooses to remain in
the condemnation resulting from his error. But St. Augustine
will gladly confess his error and accept instruction. Hence
he cannot become a heretic even if he should err. All other
saints take the same course and willingly throw their hay,
stubble, and wood into the fire in order that they may remain
on the saving foundation. This very thing we also have done
and are still doing.” (Concerning Councils and Churches,
A.D. 1539, XVI, 2663f.) As long therefore as the erring
person has not been convicted of subverting the organic
foundation through his error, and as long as he has not
become stubborn in his attitude, no error constitutes him
a heretic. The same thing applies to a whole church-body.
Yes, should the error pertain to less principal points clearly
revealed in the Scriptures but of a non-fundamental char-
acter, then even a stubborn clinging to such points does not
make a teacher a heretic but merely a schismatic, and his
association does not get to be a sect, but a schismatic body.
Accordingly in our Church, Flacius, who stubbornly defended
the erroneous teaching that sin belongs to a man’s essence,
and Huber, who stubbornly taught that predestination is uni-
versal, did not become heretics but schismatics, whom ortho-
dox churches could not admit to their pulpits, and if these
men had founded church-bodies embodying the errors of
their leaders in their doctrinal platform, these bodies, caeteris
paribus, would not have been sects but schismatic associa-
tions. For this reason Quenstedt writes: “There are, further-
more, less principal articles of faith which Holy Scripture
teaches us to believe but whose rejection does not necessarily
involve loss of salvation. The denial of these articles does
not by itself but merely through a more remote inference
oppose a fundamental article of faith and destroy it. Such
a denial makes a person a schismatic, for instance, the
rejection of the teaching that sin does not belong to man’s
essence, that predestination is not universal, etc.” (Theol.
Didactico-polem., I, 355.) Calov also, to mention one more
instance, willingly admits with Gerhard that, for example,
“the accusation of heresy must not be raised on account of
a dissension in the question pertaining to the baptism of
John, since in our time this question has nothing to do with
salvation.” But he at once adds: “By no means is it per-
mitted to believe and argue for or against a matter where the
Holy Spirit has given us a decision,” which Calov held to
be the case in this instance. (Syst., I, 953.)

The following sections of this article are intended to show
that the advocates of the modern theory of open questions
try to support it by advancing the view that everything must
belong to the category of open questions which has not been
decided in the Symbolical Books or in which even recognized
orthodox teachers have erred, or, finally, whatever, though
contained in the Scriptures, has not been clearly revealed
there.

A further argument for this theory is the view that
evidently for ecclesiastical unity not more is required than
agreement in the teachings laid down in the public confession
of the Church; that these are the only ones fixed by the
Church itself; that on these only the Church has made pro-
nouncements and decisions; and that everything else has to
be considered as belonging to the category of open questions.

This view was voiced, for instance, by the pastors of the
Towa Synod when they in 1859 published the following
“Declaration” in their synodical organ: “We treat the teach-
ing pertaining to the ‘last things’ as an open question, that
is, as a question in which there may be a difference of
opinion without disturbance of church-fellowship and con-
cerning which in the symbols of our Church no confessional
decision has been laid down, for which reason both views
may exist in the Church alongside each other.”

In its synodical report of 1858 the same synod had made
this declaration: “Accordingly we dare not deny that beside
the teachings which are symbolically fixed there is found
a sphere of theological knowledge containing open questions
which have not as yet been answered by the Church and
symbolically defined because the Church cannot symbolically
fix anything unless it has passed through controversy and
hence become a vital question for the Church” (pp. 14, 15).
Asking German theologians for their opinion, the Iowa Synod
stated in 1866: “Since concerning these matters” (the ques-
tions pertaining to the ministerial office and the last things)
“until now no universal agreement has come about in the
Lutheran Church, we are of the opinion that these things,
or at least those that are most controverted, had best be
entirely eliminated from the public proclamation of the
Church. ... Briefly stated, we consider the teachings men-
tioned as open questions.” (Quoted from Guericke’s Journal
in L. & W., Vol. XHI, 363.)

Pastor Loehe, in listing the points in which there is a dif-
ference between the Saxon pastors in Missouri and Pastor
Grabau, mentions as the fifth class the following: “matters
which, as open questions, might be reserved for future more
complete understanding.” Among these matters he places the
doctrine of ordination (whether or not ordination rests on
divine institution) and of the relation between the ministerial
office and the validity of the Sacrament, and these alleged
open questions he terms something “that has come down to
us as not yet fully determined,” points which “rather belong
to the dubia, the unfinished matters,” on which the Lutheran
Church for three hundred years did not face the necessity of
making a decision,’ “questions which have not yet been
concluded and which the Church for three centuries has
been satisfied to regard as unfinished business and almost, as
it were, to ignore.” (Unsere kirchliche Lage. By W. Loehe.
Noerdlingen, 1850, pp. 91, 114, 118, 119.) In the same way
Pastor Loehe writes furthermore: “I do not say a priori that
the ministerial office is really a necessary condition for the
validity and power of the Sacrament. I will leave that matter
in abeyance. But because the Lutheran practise does not
agree with the usual view and, at any rate for the practical
minister, it is essential to have a definite theory, it seems to
me that, since the confessional writings are silent on this
question, the matter is still undecided although urgently
requiring a decision, and I consider it best to look at it in
this light.” (1b., p. 117.)

A similar declaration was given by all the members of the
theological faculty in Dorpat who were present at the time,
Professors and Doctors Harnack, Kurtz, v. Oettingen, v. En-
gelhardt, and Volck, in a theological opinion on agreement
in matters of doctrine, written and published at the request
of the Iowa Synod. In this opinion we read among other
things: “The Confessions are. as it were, the mile-stones in-
dicating the development of the Church. ... Accordingly our
Confessions contain, in addition to those articles and doc-~
trines of faith that have been symbolically discussed and
fixed, such elements also of the universal Christian and
ecclesiastical creed (we refer to the Apostolic Creed) as
partly are still in the process of development, partly are
not yet at all or merely by way of beginning affected by the
historical evolution of doctrine, because the Church has had
occasion to express itself on them hitherto merely from one
point of view or because they have not as yet become the
subject of more thorough explanation and definition. In both
cases, it is true, that which has been symbolically gained
and fixed is presupposed as the norm and basis for further
study and confessional pronouncements of the Church; how-
ever, in this period different opinions and convictions are
not only unavoidable but justified and permissible. This pre-
supposes, of course, that such matters, in the first place, are
subject to the conditions which underlie the confessional
activity of the Church itself, that is, that they do not contra-
dict the Word of God and the ecclesiastical consensus doc-