LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1971, Page 238

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238 PRESIDENT’S REPORT

readily see that we have not accepted any unchristian doc-
trines.” At the same time they pointed to the concluding
thought of the Confession, in which the Confessors state that
they had submitted these articles so that a summary of
their doctrine could be derived therefrom, and that they
were ready to present ampler information according to the
Scriptures if any one should desire it.

These facts, without doubt, answer the question which
Prof. G. Fritschel raised in his article “Luther and Open
Questions.” He had asserted that certain articles were pur-
posely omitted in the Augsburg Confession. True, some ar-
ticles were omitted. But here is the reason for this omission.
They were omitted not because they had not yet been re-
ceived as dogmas in the Lutheran Church or were still
looked upon as open questions by the Lutherans; but be-
cause of the discord in the primary fundamental doctrines of
the Christian religion it would have been unwise to include
such doctrines as cannot be comprehended apart from the
primary fundamental doctrines. Therefore, as long as there
was no agreement on the primary fundamental doctrines, it
was unnecessary, yes, impossible, to try to come to an agree-
ment on those which had been omitted, because, without
a more mature understanding of the Gospel, they could only
arouse suspicion and hatred in the hearts of ail Papists, in
the fanatical as well as in the more soberminded. If the Lu-
theran theologians had included these doctrines in their Con-
fession, the papistical sophists unquestionably would have
directed their barbs against them only and would have cre-
ated the impression as though these teachings formed the
sole issue in the controversy and the Church must be warned
against them because by the general public they were con-
sidered dangerous and fanatical and subversive of all god-
liness and order. When, therefore, the Emperor, egged on
by the sophists, asked the Lutherans the question “if they
considered the Augsburg Confession an adequate statement
of their doctrine or if they intended to add some additional
articles,” the Lutheran theologians, after due deliberation,
issued the following declaration: “Almost all necessary ar-
ticles are presented in the Confession which has been sub-
mitted; at the same time all abuses which militate against
that doctrine are pointed out and justly condemned. If we
now at length should present also those articles which arouse
ire, our opponents could malign us and say we had pre-
viously submitted only those articles which are acceptable
to every one and that Your Imperial Majesty now could see
plainly that we were concealing many pernicious errors and
that, if Your Imperial Majesty should insist on receiving
more information, still more errors would come to light.
Since we ourselves ought not to contribute anything toward
the frustration of those religious discussions which are now
going on, it is inadvisable in our opinion to urge at this time
a declaration concerning those offensive and unnecessary
articles which are proper subjects for debate in theological
faculties.”

Among the questions termed either “offensive” or “un-
necessary” the Lutheran theologians enumerated the follow-
ing: “Is free will really free? Are all Christians priests?
Are there more or less than seven sacraments? Is auricular
confession necessary for salvation? Is it the duty of bishops
to wield a worldly sword as well as to be heads of the
Church? Does ordination imprint an indelible character on
the priests? ete.” It is simply absurd to maintain that our
theologians omitted these doctrines because they looked upon
them as mere open questions. Their expressions on this point
lead us to the opposite conclusion. According to their writ-
ings there are many dogmas of the Lutheran Church which
are not found in our Symbols and are not fixed symbolically,
as the saying goes. Prof. G. Fritschel indeed often uses the
terms “offensive” and “unnecessary.” Our theologians, how-
ever, do not call the articles mentioned above “offensive”
and “unnecessary” because the Lutherans themselves hated
them and considered them unnecessary, but because the
papists hated them and beeause it would have been un-
necessary, even entirely useless and dangerous, to advance
and try to settle them at that time before the dissent had
been removed in those controversial articles “which are
especially profitable for the salvation of souls.” In Augsburg
the Lutherans earnestly sought peace and unity and insisted
on following the Emperor’s demand that “present religious
questions should be discussed in love and charity.” Yet they
knew that their unfair opponents, who feared and did not

desire a union on the basis of the truth, were striving at
every opportunity to lead the controversy in that direction

«

Let the following fact be considered. During the first three
centuries of the Christian era there was only the Apostolic
Symbol. What a monstrosity, then, for Iowa to assume that
a doctrine must be placed in the category of open questions
and is no dogma of the Church as long as there are “no
symbolical decisions regarding it,” as long as certain “ques-
tions have received no symbolical definitions, because the
Church cannot fix anything symbolically which has not
passed through the fire of controversy and thus has become
one of the Church’s vital questions”! According to this as-
sumption the Church during the first three centuries would
have been so poor in articles of faith that one cannot com-
prehend how it would be possible to speak of a Christian
Church in those centuries with such poverty in articles of
faith. Kromayer writes: “The Apostolic Symbol does not
contain all nor only fundamental articles of the first class.
Are not the articles of the vicarious satisfaction of Christ,
of sin, of the universal grace of God, of the means of grace,
adequately and clearly taught in Scripture? Yet they are
not expressly confessed in the Apostolic Symbol. On the
other hand, the rather difficult articles concerning the con-
ception of Christ and His descent into hell are a part of the
Confession.” (Scrutin. Religionum, ed. 2, p. 476.) This same
fact holds good of all the ecumenical symbols of the first five
centuries. When the syncretists of Helmstedt declared all
those who accepted the Ecumenical Confessions to be essen-
tially united with us Lutherans, Calov wrote the following
words against this “consensus antiquitatis quinquesecularis”
as a secondary principle of theology and unity among the
churches: “In the symbols of the first five centuries several
chief doctrines of the Christian faith are not mentioned at
all or are not expressly stated, especially those which were
not in dispute in the councils, as the vicarious satisfaction
and the merits of Christ, the universal grace of God and the
redemption wrought by Christ, justification alone by faith,
the Lord’s Supper, ete. Must we therefore deny that these
articles belong to the articles of faith because they are not
defined (definita) in those Symbols and Confessions? May
a Christian on that account ignore those articles, or can
one not be charged with heresy because of disagreement in
these and similar essential articles which are not found in
the Symbols?” (Syst. Locc. Th., I, 912.) These same facts
apply with equal force to the specifically Lutheran Confes-
sions. In the later Lutheran Symbols we find dogmas which
are not expressly mentioned in the Augsburg Confession,
e.g., the doctrine of the normative authority of Scripture;
and in all our Symbols there is no so-called decree on the
inspiration of Scripture. Was the first of these doctrines an
Open question before 1580, and is the second still an open
question in our day? Furthermore, was he who denied the
first doctrine nevertheless a true Lutheran up to the year
1580, and does he who denies the second still continue to
be a consistent Lutheran? These conclusions necessarily
must be drawn from the hypothesis which assumes that
dogmas are finally fixed by defining them in Symbols. Like-
wise it is well known that in accord with this hypothesis
almost all contemporary “Lutheran” theologians actually
deny the doctrine of our Church concerning the inspiration
of Scripture, and yet with great earnestness they claim to
be exponents of true Lutheran orthodoxy. How a man like
Dr. J. H. Kurtz, one of the authors of the opinion rendered
by the Dorpat theologians at the request of Iowa, presents
the doctrine concerning the angels, a doctrine not mentioned
in our Symbols or, in the language of the theologians of the
new school, “not yet symbolically fixed,” all those men
know who have read the writings of this theologian entitled
History of the Old Covenant and The Bible and Astronomy.
Dr. Kurtz places the origin of the angels in an indefinable
era antedating the creation of man, in which the world prior
to this existing world (Urwelt), the universe, and its original
inhabitants (the angels) were created. (Bible and Astron-
omy, 2 ed., pp. 244,110.) In his mind the world prior to this
existing world (urweltliche Erde) was “the dwelling-place
and home of those angels who rebelled against God”; it was
“without form and void,” Gen.1:2, as “the consequence of