Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1954, Page 27

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“amore net ame eR cee cee mam eens emg

Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America, 1954 Q7

have always confessed.” (The Old and the New Differences, pp.
66 ff.) Pastor Buenger goes on to show how in spite of their ter-
minology used in ascribing the whole conversion from beginning
to end wholly and solely to the grace of God without any co-oper-
ation on the part of man, they still taught two kinds of resistance,
the natural and the willful. Natural resistance, found in all men,
never prevents conversion. Willful resistance, however, goes be-
yond this natural wickedness and cannot be overcome by the Holy
Spirit. Thus the kind of resistance offered by man finally decides
the matter of conversion, whether we say that conversion itself is
entirely a work of God’s Holy Spirit or not.

We have no way of knowing today whether or not the Ameri-
can Lutheran Church has given up this false distinction between
natural and willful resistance unless it actually says so in a con-
fessional document in so many words. They may positively ascribe
the whole act of conversion solely to the grace of God. They may.
rule out with a heaping up of exclusive particles any and all co-
operation whatsoever on the part of man in this act of conversion
itself. And they may do so in good faith, since their distinction
according to their viewpoint concerns a state or condition in man
before the act of conversion ever takes place. The writings of
Fritschel, Reu, Lenski, and Stellhorn on this matter still bear
powerful testimony in their circles. These writings have to this day,
to the writer’s knowledge, never been declared erroristic by any
official pronouncement of the American Lutheran Church.

This is one of those places where our Synod feels that a plain
and an unqualified antithetical statement is needed. This fact was
sensed by the Missouri Synod’s committee, which in 1929 was ap-
pointed to examine the Chicago Theses. They criticized the fact
that “the distinction between natural and willful resistance (was
not) ruled out.” Pastor Buenger speaks of the “gravest neglects”
of the Chicago Theses on this point, which left the door open for
duplicity. Defining these, he states: “The one is, that the false
distinction between two different kinds of resistance is in no way
rejected. This omission made it possible for the colloquists from
the Iowa and Ohio side, while they stretched themselves to the
uttermost to come as near as possible to our phraseology, yet to
take every expression in their own sense.” (The Confession of
the Missouri Synod and the Desired Unity of the Lutheran
Church, p. 15.)

The Brief Statement subsequently took care of this matter in
a most satisfactory way. Where the Common Confession uses three
sentences, the Brief Statement found seven paragraphs necessary.
After carefully stating the Scriptural doctrine itself, it continues:
“On the basis of these clear statements of the Holy Scriptures we
reject every kind of synergism, that is, the doctrine that conversion
is wrought not by the grace and power of God alone, but in part
also by the co-operation of man himself, by man’s right conduct,
his right attitude, his right self-determination, his lesser guilt or
less evil conduct as compared with others, his refraining from will-
ful resistance, or anything else whereby man’s conversion and
salvation is taken out of the gracious hands of God and made to
depend on what man does or leaves undone” (Art. VII, Par. 12).
This calls the error by name and refutes it, which, we feel, is de-
manded by the history of past controversy on this doctrine.