Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1954, Page 31

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Ev, Luth. Synodical Conference of North America, 1954 81

a cause of God’s election, specifically calling attention to errors
such as man’s “refraining from willful resistance” or an election
“in view of faith.’ With our Confessions it re-emphasizes the elec-
tion of God in Christ as a “cause of our salvation and what pertains
thereto.” Calvinistic predestination to damnation is ruled out. The
distinction between the election of grace and the universal will of
grace is pointedly observed, particularly the fact that election “does
not embrace all, but only a definite number,” without placing the
two doctrines in opposition to each other. Finally, the Brief State-
ment devotes about five hundred words to a presentation of the
great comfort which a Christian can derive from this doctrine, with
liberal quotations from Scripture. and the Confessions.

A great deal can be said, of course, in favor of the quality of
brevity in a confessional statement. Confessions, however, are
somewhat lengthy at times, not as a matter of choice but of ne-
cessity. Great danger lies in omitting specific reference to past
error. Our objections to the Common Confession lie in the fact that
“vital and indispensable statements are not found in this article”;
that “it fails to say what is required in a Scriptural presentation
of the doctrine of Election” (Wisconsin Synod Review of Union
Committee, Proceedings, 31st Convention, 1951).

D. Inspiration

In a consideration of the subject of Inspiration in connection
with the Common Confession one is not confronted with a history
of controversy over this article as with some of the others already
treated. At the time of the formulation of the Chicago Theses in
1929 the verbal inspiration and the inerrancy of the Holy Scrip-
tures was seemingly upheld and defended by representatives of
the American Lutheran Church. There seemed to be little reason
for considering this article a particularly controversial one at
the time.

It seems, however, that this position was being shaken to some
extent, in the Iowa Synod at least, by the close contact which it
maintained with German theology of the nineteenth century. Dr.
Reu, for example, in an article on the “Peculiarity of the American
Lutheran Church and Theology” (Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 1926)
wishes to restrict the inerrancy of the Bible to matters of Christian
faith and life, leaving open the question of its inerrancy in so-called
minor or nonfundamental matters, particularly when the matter
of church fellowship is involved.

This view is for all practical purposes the stand of the Ameri-
can Lutheran Church today. Fellowship is tolerated with such as
openly regard Scripture as merely “the history of revelation.”
(Prof. A. A. Jagnow, What Lutherans Are Thinking, pp. 74 f.) This
liberal view does not admit the thought that Biblical references
to geography, chronology, astronomy, geology, or physics are
necessarily considered to be inspired in the strict sense of the word.
Dr. Mattes of the American Lutheran Church approvingly quotes
Dr. H. E. Jacobs of the United Lutheran Church when he says:
“Writers were not inspired so as to speak with scientific precision
when they employed their human knowledge of geographical or
chronological details. .. . The Holy Spirit, in making the sacred