LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1973, Page 136

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136 RESOLUTIONS

of these articles cited above would constitute a de facto
violation of Article II of the synodical Constitution, and
would, moreover, indicate that a new, unLutheran, un-
Scriptural theology is present in the faculty stance.

We shall endeavor now to point out the deviations,
limited by space though we must be. We therefore re-
fer the members of the Synod to the respective docu-
ments (cited above, Introduction) for their own study
and verification of the charges.

1. To begin, the St. Louis seminary faculty in fact
abolishes the formal principle, sola Scriptura (ie., that
all doctrines are derived from Scripture and that Scrip-
ture is the sole norm of all doctrine), by asserting its
“freedom in the Gospel,” explaining that “the Gospel
gives the Scriptures their normative character, not vice
versa” (Faithful ... 1, p. 21). The Gospel as “govern-
ing principle” pervades both Faithful . . . I and the
more recent faculty “Response.” To the question
whether there could be any other “governing principle
for Lutheran theology” than the “Gospel,” the faculty
answers:

It is our conviction that any effort, however subtle, to
supplement the Gospel so that it is no longer the sole
ground of our faith or the governing principle for our
theology is to be rejected as unLutheran, contrary to our

“so and injurious to the mission of the Church.

The same point is repeated with emphasis by the
St. Louis seminary faculty in their “Response” (May
22, 1973), p.21, where they say: “We contend that the
Gospel is the basic issue in both interpretation and au-
thority.” (Their emphasis)

Clearly, then, not the Scriptures themselves, inspired
of God and infallible, are the formal principle in the-
ology for the St. Louis seminary faculty majority, but
the “Gospel” abstracted from them. This is an assault
against the very heart and marrow of the Lutheran
Confessions. Lutherans are pledged to this stance:
“Holy Scripture remains the only judge, rule, and norm
according to which as the only touchstone all doctrines
should be understood and judged as good or evil, right
or wrong” (FC, Epit., Pref.). In similar, clear-cut fash-
ion Luther stated in the Smalcald Articles with refer-
ence to the Scriptural Word: “The rule is that the Word
of God shall establish articles of faith, and no one else,
not even an angel.” (II, UH, 15)

Faithful . . . I grounds its theological approach on
the contention that the so-called “historical-critical
methodology is neutral” and, in fact, “that all the tech-
niques associated with ‘historical-critical’ methodology,
such as source analysis, form history, and redaction his-
tory, are legitimated by the fact that God chose to use
as His written Word human documents written by hu-
man beings in human language” (p. 41). Actually it
can be shown that commitment to this methodology lies
at the root of Faithful... I’s regarding the following
as in the area of exegetical, open questions: the crea-
tion account as given in Gen. 1 and 2; the historicity
of Adam and Eve as real, historical persons; the Fall
as a historical event detailed factually in Gen. 3; mira-

culous details throughout the Scripture, even events
recorded by the evangelists in connection with Christ’s
life; predictive prophecies in the Old Testament (“The
Old Testament — on its own terms — does not explicitly
bear witness to Jesus Christ” according to the faculty
majority’s most recent “Response,” “but it proclaims
to us the words and deeds of God for Israel.”), ete.

Justification for the use of the historical-critical
methodology is claimed on the basis of its use under
what are termed “Lutheran presuppositions” — being
baptized, ordained, professed subscribers to the Scrip-
tures and the Lutheran Confessions. The history of
Biblical studies has relentlessly borne out, however, that
such “neutral” use is a fiction. The substituting of the
“Gospel” as the “governing principle” in theology is part
of the overall process of the erosion of the Biblical
Word as authoritative. The fact that Scripture’s iner-
rancy, verbal inspiration, absolutely unique and divine
character are also attacked — ever so subtly at first —
simply fits the tragic picture of what has gone on else-
where in the Christian world.

It is an illusion to think that the Gospel can be held
on to, even though the formal principle is yielded by
being fused into the “Gospel principle.” Christian con-
tent and Christian teaching authority are two distin-
guishable, but two inseparable dimensions of the same
God-given reality, God’s Word to men. The question
cannot be whether the Gospel did not come first, before
the written Word; but rather, whether we today have
any other rule, judge, norm, touchstone, by which the
Gospel may be known among us than Holy Scripture!

2. A second error in the faculty stance concerns
“Gospel reductionism.”

The term suggests various applications. The first
and usual meaning is that where the “Gospel” is estab-
lished as the “governing principle” instead of the Scrip-
tural Word, then such “Gospelism” reduces to a mini-
mum the content of Christian belief and discards what-
ever does not seem to serve it directly. Pres. Preus ad-
dressed the matter in a Lutheran Witness article, “Two
Kinds of Bible Authority,’ April 22, 1973. He stated:

A subordination or limitation of the normative authority
of Scripture to its Gospel content or function is what we
call “Gospel reductionism.” By this we mean a reducing
of all doctrine to the one doctrine of the Gospel and
making the Gospel (often undefined) the only norm for
all doctrine and life.

As Pres. Preus correctly points out, this often leads
to an erosion of the Scripture’s authority, especially as
regards matters like “history, geography, and nature
but also of such important matters as the orders of crea-
tion and other expressions of God’s will for what we
are to believe and do.”

Such “Gospelism” corresponds to “fideism,” a chief
fault in contemporary theology. It separates matters
of belief from fact, from miraculous events or details,
and questions Scripture’s accuracy and historicity in a
ruthless manner. That it resembles the “Enthusiasm”
(“Schwarmerei’’) spoken against by our Confessors
should be noted.