Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1973 · 50th Convention › Page 446
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1973, Page 446

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

446

a. These quotations from the
Symbols leave little doubt

about how they use the Bible,

namely, as the ultimate and
absolute authority for all
that the church teaches in
God's name.

b. That
over
ulas
(AC,
11;
III,
(AC, XXIV, 26;
Ap, IV, 263;

as "Scripture teaches"
XXIV, 28; Ap, XXIII,
FC, SD, I, 46; FC, SD

XXVIII, 51;
SA, III, vii,

1-2; III, xiii, 3; FC,
20, 57; VI, 12; VIIT, 6;
X, 8, 11; XI, 7).

c. That is why the Symbols,
without concern that some
might accuse them of making
a legislative use of Scrip-
ture, firmly insist that
“wherever the Scriptures

. give us clear, cer-
tain testimony, we shall
(German: sollen wir, i.e.,
we must) simply believe it
and not argue (FC, SD, VIII,
53).

3. The Sacred Scriptures are to
the Lutheran confessors the
source of doctrine.

a. In contrast to merely pa-
tristic authority, the
Smalcald Articles (II, ii,
15) set up the invariable
rule: "The Word of God
shall establish articles
of faith and no one else,
not even an angel." The
Augsburg Confession (Pre-
face 8; Epilog to XXI, 2;
XX1, 4 German) and the
Apology (1, 2; II, 32-43;
Iv, 5, 166; XII, 16; et
passim) appeal to the
Sacred Scriptures as a
whole as well as to in-
dividual passages as
final authority.

b. The "summary and
accepted concept
that the Formula (SD, Sum-
mary, 1) regards as essen-
tial for basic and firm
agreement in the Church is
to be drawn from the Word
of God. The prophetic and
apostolic Scriptures of
both testaments are "the
pure, limpid fountain of
Israel" (FC, SD Summary,
3).

generally
and form"

4. The fathers of The Lutheran
Church--Missouri Synod agreed

is why the Symbols repeat
and over again such form-

30), and "it is written"

sD III,

c.

From the standpoint of his-
torical reasoning, the Bible
yields no permanently valid
truth relative to any of the
subjects it talks about, and
therefore is not to be used
as an authority either in
matters of history or theology.
To do so would be like using
Aristotle's Metaphysics as a
textbook for nuclear science.

Especially to be rejected is
the Bible's authority as source
and norm of our theology.

There are several reasons for
this.

. Due to the “historicalness"

of the biblical literature,
it contains a radical theo-
logical pluralism ranging
from polytheism to monotheism
so that no consistent theo-
logical viewpoint can be de-
rived from it.

Moreover, every biblical con-
ception of God and His rela-
tion to human history and
affairs comes from an age
when people had grossly super-~
stitious and magical notions
of the divine. It is alleged
that the biblical authors had
no understanding of natural
causation, with the result
that they saw direct divine
activity in every physical
phenomenon and in all human
activity.

Moreover, the biblical authors
allegedly thought of history

as deriving its significance
from what the gods were doing,
rather than from human striving,
failure, and achievement.

Finally, everything they wrote
about God and history allegedly
reflects mythological concep-
tions which cannot be norma-
tive for twentieth century
ideas of either God or history.

Historical reasoning completely
erodes the authority of the
Bible so that it is useful only
as a resource for studying an-
thropology.

4,

5.

CONTEMPORARY APPROACHES TO BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION

various meanings at differ-
ent stages of the tradi-
tion's development. Hence
the Gospels often tell us

only what early Christians

were saying that Jesus did
and taught; they may ac—

tually tell us nothing
about what Jesus actually
did and taught.

From the mediating view-
point, historical discrep-
ancies in the New Testa-
ment Gospel accounts do
not shake our faith or in-
Validate these accounts as
Word of God. According to
this view, the Gospel is a
promise grounded in his-
torical events and addressed
to our faith, not a report
of historical events ad-
dressed to our reason.
Accordingly, faith is said
to rest in the promise of
a faithful God rather than
in the accuracy of ancient
historians.

When discussing the Bible's
authority, the mediating vie
circumvents the problem of
the Bible's historical ac-
curacy by shifting the empha
sis to the power of the Word
It is emphasized that the
inspiration of the written
Word pertains to the effec-
tive power of the Scriptures
to bring men and women to
salvation through the Gospel
and has nothing to do with
the accuracy of its state-
ments. Accordingly, the
Sacred Scriptures are not

to be used as an infallible
textbook of history, or as
an authority on matters of
science, or even as a source
book of doctrine, for it is
not the purpose and intent
of the Scriptures to provide
information for the intellec

The mediating position
stresses that Holy Scripture
is addressed to faith that
appropriates the Promise. I
this view, the Promise often
appears to be treated as the
only constant in the Scrip-
tures.

Significantly, proponents
of this position, even

with respect to the Pro-
mise, emphasize the rich
variety of biblical ways to
portray the Gospel event, 0
word the Promise, and point