Spring, 1969 THE SPRINGFIELDER is published quarterly by the faculty of Con- cordia 7-heological Seminary, Springfield, Illinois, of the Lutheran Church - 14issouri Synod. EDITOPII.II_ C O\I3IITTEE EI:ICH H. ~ I E I ~ - ~ L E N , Editor R a ~ a i o ~ r , F . SURBCRG, BOO!: He17iezr Editor D,IVII, P . ~ C , I E R . rlssociate Editor MAKK J. STF EGE, A ifociate Editor J ) ~ : L . s J I ) E ~ T J . A . 0. PEEL-S, E X officio Contents RESPONSES -TO "IvH:\l' COi\ThlJI I'XIFST TO THF 'SOLX GliATI:I' IN THE LC1 HER-%I% COX FESSZONS Ih V0LI'f:S'' RICI~=\I:D 1. SCHL I 17, 3 RICH 11.- l j k , ~ h ' T ~ ~ h 7 fndc.rrd i7. INDEX TO RELIGIOUS PERIODICAL ITERATURE, published by the Amcricu?i Tl~t~olagical 1,ihror-y Associatiolz, JIcCormiclz Se7nitzar?* LiEmn, Chicago. : 'linois. Clergy c h n n p ~ s of .~ddress reported to Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, Missouri, will also cover mailing change of Tlte Springfielder. Other changes of address dlould he scnt to the Business Manager of The Springfielder, Con- cordia Theological Seminary, Springfield, IIlinois 62702. Address communjcations to the Editor, Erich H. Heintzen, Concordia Thee logical Seminary, Springfield, Illinois 62702. Comment on "The Lutheran Confessions and 'Sola Scriptura' " 0 PIT SCRIPTURE there is no choice in the fellowship quest. If we, the members of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, are a~ ail what we claim to be, thcn the fellowship we seek with other Lutheran bodies is certainly one that includes unanimity on the article of Scripture. Purity and consistency in the body of Christian teaching depend on it. A "consensus" without unanin~ity on the article of Scripture would militate against our Confessional stand. For "Sola Scriptura is written on every page of the Confessions of the Lutheran Church."' The Sola Scriptura principle is not only defended by our Con- fessions; it is primarily and first of all taught by the Scriptures them- selves. IVhile it is true that the Confessions devote no special article to the subject, they demonstrate it from beginning to end. They weave a tapestry on which the Gospel is central but the threads are all sola Script~rra. For them it is the God-given and only legitimate way of operating in theology. Fellowship discussions with the American Lutheran Church, or with any other must be based on this principle. More than that, they dare not skirt the crucial fact that today more than ever Scrip- ture is under fire. even from its erstwhile friends. The joint commissioners' essay on "The Lutheran Confessions and Sola Scriptura" chose a narrow focus. It managed to avoid present day controversial issues by restricting itself in such a way that the incisive elements dividing Lutheran churches today could be-and were!-avoided. "It did not address the real twentieth cen- tury problem which disturbs the whole Christian world," charges a recent book, The Maturing of ,4merica~z Lutheranism, and the same source goes on to say: "Rather, it played it safe by confining itself to the sixteenth century!"' But the essay is no nlerc museum piece. Some things it ac- complishes excellently well. The all-too-easy asseveration that the Confessions have no article on Scripture and say nothing about Scripture or the sola Scriptura principle and its proper application is adequately demolished. What the document fails to do is to confront squarely, with clear-cut answers, the modern aberrations on Scrip- ture, particularly those introduced by the neo-orthodox school. Nor does it deal with the present reality, that much of ALC teaching, writing, and publishing is committed to this stance. IVe shall trace these concerns, showing where the document should have spoken more pointedly, showing too where the ALC parts company with the soIa Scriptura principle, particularly as it espouses neo-orthodox thin king on Scripture. Of Scripture 13 I. The LVord of God In the first place, Lutherans need to restate for our times that the Holy Scriptures are the \Vord of God, not merely in a manner of speaking, but in fact. We are well aware that their chief content is the WORD, namely, Christ. In this divinely given circle there is no conflict. He who is the FVord, also constituted and designated Scriptures to be His Word. \Vith Luther, therefore, we have respect for the divinely chosen instruments, "coverings" or "masks" (lama Dei), by which He comes to men. This is His gracious way of re- vealing Himself to man, for in His naked majesty God is unapproach- able and unkno~vablc for man. So, with Luther, we are prepared to say uilequivocally : The Holy Scripture is the Word of God, written and (as I might say) lettered and formed in letters, just as Christ is the eternal Word of God cloaked in huinan flesh. And just as Christ was thought of and dealt with by the world (in der Welt gehalten und gehandelt) so is the written Word of God, In Holy Scripture there is a unique confluence of the divine and human, resulting in an objectively inspired text. It is not an easy thing for human reason to accept, yet Holy Scripture is God's Word in fact. This does not ruIc out other revelations of God. Luther, the Confessors of 1 5 80, the orthodox seventeenth century dogmaticians, were all perfectly aware of the fact that God's revela- ation in tiines past was not limited to this text alone, that there were different modes of revclation; but they were all convinced, as Lutheran theologians, that "Christian Theology is derived from an infallible source of knowledge, v i ~ . , divine revelation, which, for the preserzt state (if the Church, is mediate, i.e., co~nprehended in the writings of the prophets and apostles."' The commissioners' essay skates around this question, affirming only that "the Scriptures are God's address to man." It does not make pIain that the Scriptures are the Word of God orrtologically, that is, in their vcrv being, in their very form as God-given text, and also fanrtionall~ or djeamically, because they bring God's Word to the hearts and minds of sinners to work faith. By stressing only the latter point, the essav, wittingly or unwittingly, plays into the hands of neo-orthodox t h i n k i n g . 5 ~ m o s t all recently published ALC litera- ture, periodical or book form, is committed to the neo-orthodox line of thinking which allows one to call the Bible the "IVord of God" and yet not actually mean it in so many words. This is true of the by-now-well-known The Bible: Rook of Faith, a resource book in the ALC's Leaclcrship Education Series; also, Theological Perspectives; When God Speaks; A Reexnrni?ration of Lutheran and Reformed Traditions etc. Unfortunately, it is also true of articles that appear under "Missouri's" aegis. With editorial approval the Concordia Theological Monthly, March, 1969, offers an article by Dr. Kent S. Knutson, newly appointed president of Wartburg Seminary, on "The Authority of Scripture," who, in the final analysis, argues against sola Scriptura as the formal principle in Christian thcology, stating: T h c authority is in its material principle, in its substance, not in the character of its form. In the Scriptures God speaks to us His judgmental and His redemptive word, and we hear Him speak. That is its power. That is its authority." I t is a sad day for Lutheran theology when under guise of the "redemptive word" a sophisticated argument is framed to repudiate the formal principle, sola Scl-iptura! Ho~vever eloquent the testimony to Christ as the true and only core in theology, there is no guarantee that this will endure, if the formal principle, Scripture, as the inspired, authoritative IYord of God, is denied, as is done in Knutson's article by telescoping it into an all~biguous "rcden~ptivc word." Fuzzy thcology is already evident in ALC publi- cations on the Gospel itself. For cxamplc, instead of clear testimony to the central article of the Reformation, the sinner's justification he- fore God by faith through Christ's vicarious atonement, it is stated that the substnlrce of Christ's teaching is "bringing the rule of God into the worlcl in a dynarnic and new way,"' and that the "key to untlcrstanding ivhat the Bible offers us is a new self-understanding, an authentic existence."' For this reason it is not proper for Lutherans to agree that "Bart11 introduces a useful distinction between objective and subjcc- tive revelation,"" when he limits objective revelation to the mighty acts of God, and subjective revelation to the conversion experience of the believer who conles to confront God through the proclamation of these revelatory acts. What Barth is saying is that revelation oc- curretl then and there, when God spoke to Moses, when Christ came, taught, clied and rose, and it occurs now in the believer's illumina- tioil in faith, but that the Scriptures, which are in between, are not God's revelation, but merely a record, witness, or lnediuin through which revelation may come when and where it pleases God, the Holy Spirit. Lutherans, from Luther's day on, have for good reasons insisted on the objectivitv of the Scriptures as the revelation of God, since they art. God's inspired instrument. Tlxis they are ontologically in their very being, by their very origin. They do also have a func- tiollal P L I ~ ~ X ) S C by God's own ordaining, and that is to turn hearts to faith through the Gospel which thev proclaim as the Holy Spirit's choscn i~xediu~l~ or vehicle. Since ~ b d has chosen to make them what they arc, we dare as little despise their exalted nature and position -on the grounds that they were written through human "\vitnesses"-c?s we (lare despise or make excuses for the flesh in which Christ was incarnate. Both are veils of God (larva Dei), with elnpliasis on Cod! 11. Inspiration Lutherans need, secondly, to reiterate that inspiratien is Scrip- ture's own way of accounting for the fact that it is the Word of God. To the Confessors of 1580 this meant plenary, verbal inspiration, as it did to Luther, and it was the vcry ground 011 which sola Scrip- tura rested. Even Althaus, in his recent book on Luther's theology, has to admit, though he does so regretfully, that Luther was bound to the literal and plenary inspiration of Holy \Vrit, the objective fact of its being "inspired in its entire content by the Holy Spirit,'' cven to its very words."' Of course this is exactly what Luther had said: "Every word of Scripture comes from the revealed God.]' This was the unassailable testimony of God in His Word. There is tacit sup- port for the doctrine of inspiration in the comn~issioncrs' essay but it could, and should, have been much more explicit. Plenary inspiration is a tern1 of enlbarrass~llcnt o many Luther- an theologians today because of their commitn~ent to the historical- critical method. I t does not fit with thcir relativiircd view of Scrip- turc's authority and inspiration. "Lutherans have fallen into the snare of absoluti~ing the relative," charges Professor Warren Quan- beck of Luther Seminary, St. Paul, "by a theory of inspiration which removcd them (Scriptures) from the realm of the historical and con- tingent."I2 Quanbeck's is not an isolated opinion. The Maturing of American Jduthera~~ism documents how the ALC has gradually and officially adopted the same position. This, more than anything else, removed the last roadblock for fello~vshil:, between the LCA and the ALC. 111. Authority This leads to a third observation. Lutllcrans today, especially in view of what was shown above in connection with Barth's influence, must give wholehearted support to Scripture's normative authority. As our Confessions correctly put it, Scripture is "the only rule and norm according to which all doctrincs and teachers alike must be appraised and judged . . . the only judge, rule, and norm according to which as the only touchstone all doctrines should and must be understood and judged as good or cvil, right or wrong."" The Con- fessions also properly speak of what is known as Scripture's causative authority, that is, the power under thc Holy Ghost to turn men to repentance and faith through the preaching of the Gospcl which is their chief content or doctrine. The comn~issioners' essay is quite right whcn it states, in refer- encc to the Confessions, "there is a truly massive emphasis on the work of the I-Ioly Spirit in and through the Scriptures." But i t errs, or at least is very naive, when it stresses this dynanlic ("God speak- ing," Dezls loqzlens) side of Scripture over the objective ("God has spoken", DCUS ~ O C Z ~ ~ Z L S ) givenness of the Scripture as the Word of God. Both truths must stand, like two sides of the same coin. This is all the more imperative because modern theology is unwilling to view the Scriptures as the objective result of God's having spoken, or having inspired His Word in written form. By and large, they stress only the dynanlic side of Scripture, as the vehicle through which God prompts the proclamation of the Word, which is Christ. So, with Luther we have to state clearly, as he does in the Smalcald Articles, that no man receives the grace of God "except through or with the external Word which comes before."'" A curious comparison, not to say un-Lutheran and un-Scrip- tural, is likewise set up in the commissioners' essay with the propo- sition: "Only from the perspective of sola Gratia can one properly speak of sola Scril~tum in the sense of the Lutheran Symbols." Let i t be said here that, as far as the Lutheran Confessions are con- cerned, this theological truism could just as well be reversed: Only from the perspective of sola Scril~tam can one properly speak of sula Gratia in the sense of the Lutheran Symbols! An unwarranted Grading of the "solas" is made implicit here by the cast of the sen- h tence. Closelv connected with Scripture's authority is its inherent perspicuity 'and clarity, so basic to its proper interpretation and articufation of doctrine. Instead of this, the con~missioners' essay presses only thc Law/Gospel principle in exegetical enterprise. This is a proper emphasis. But it may also be n~isunderstood. In fact it may be, and often is, misused. For example, it has led to the unlvarrantt.d denial, or at lcast shelving, of certain parts of Scrip- turcps content on the grounds that some things, viz., geographical, historical, poetical, etc., are not involved in the Law/Gospel syn- drome, and therefore not finally and ultinlately important in theo- logical discussion, nor even divisive of church fellowship. The principle of the careful distinction and relation between Law and Gospel which Scripture introduces and makes basic to all interpretation is its own. I t dare never be used against Scripture itself, as a kind of "superior analogy of faith," or as a mechanism for subtracting from or delimiting what Scripture says, even things \vhich do not directly relate to its central teaching of God's grace in Christ. Luther, for example, would be the very first to pounce on anyone who had the temerity to use his little formula, "what preaches or presses, Christ" ( z m s Christum treihet) in a wrongful way, that is, as a selective tool on Scripture's corpus rather than as an intcrpretive key for Scripture's meaning! It is true he once said, "If the adversaries press the Scriptures against Christ, we urge Christ against the Scriptures."" On the other hand, Luther counters: "Stick to the Worci" (Scriptures) ! "Ignore every other-whether it is devoid of Christ, in the name of Christ, or against Christ, or whether it is issued in any other way."'" Can you miss his point? There is a lot of pious "Jesus talk" and "Jesus religion" that passes for Christianity these days; but it is worth nothing unless it stands under Scripturc., the "touchstone" for all teachers and all teachings, as he and the Confessions made so eloquently clear. IV. INERKANCY IVith the debate on Scripture's inerrancy we come to the crux of the matter as far as inspiration and authority are concerned. If it is granted that the human factor in Scripture's unique origin inevitably precludes an illfallible text, then ob~iously many of the things claimed for Scripture nlust be yielded. Yot least of these .r\70uld be inerrancy itself. It is a truism almost too simple to state, that if the Scriptures do not assert inerrancy for theinselves then o]lviously we have no right to do so either. By the same token, if assertion is made, then the church would be sorely reilliss and derelict in its duty if it failed to assert this article 1%-ithout ecluivoca- tion, apology, or embarrassment. Here it is not a matter of academic nicety or propriety, but of Christ's o11~n witness to Scripture. Since inerrancy of Holy \l.'rit is the platform on which Christ, our Lord, the church had best look to its own stance! Inerrancy of Scripture may still be a treasured truth among many ALC pastors and people, but anlong its leaders and in its theological schools it is, as Barth puts it, "a battle that once had its time but has now had it."" The position of the ALC president, Dr. Fret1 A. Schiotz, is no secret b!. this time. He frankly disavows that "a conlinitnlent to textual inerrancy" is required by the doctrine of Scripture's inspiration and then tries to throw people off guard by warning that the support of incrrancy is a virtual denial of theology of the cross (theologia c r l t ~ i s ) . ' ~ Professor Harris Kaasa of Luther Collegc asks: "IYhat is added to its authority (the Bible's) by insist- ing on inerrancy? \5'hy does it need. this man-made prop? IVhy can it not stand on its own authority?" The fact is, of course, if he were to face these questions on Scripture's terms, he would have his answers, and he would have bcen kept from the insul>portable charge that from Biblical inerrancy "all other doctrines were de- d u c e d . " ' V t is not the tern] "inerrancy" for \vhich we contend. But the thi~zg terlrzed, the fact that Scripture teaches inerrancy side by side with its authority, this is the issue! In thc opinion of Professor Gerhard Forde, also of Luther College, verbal inspiration by its very use Icaves the impression "that faith is a matter of believing a number of doctrines,"" that "Lutheran theology does not need the verbal inspiration method," and that in its place we ought to keep "the law-gospel methml" because it "is better and more in accord with Scripture."" One need only ask, where in Lutheran theology did Forde ever learn that "these two methods are quite different," as he says? The claimed insights of scholarly erudition and linguistic science have taken a heavy toll. Professor Ronald Ilals of Capitol Lutheran Seminary frankly states his full acceptance of the literary and form critical methods, with open rejection of inspiration for large parts of the Old Testanlent, and rcpudiation of the objective, normative authority of Scripture. For him the raising of Lazarus story is, for example, not "authoritatively reliable" because, along- side the synoptics, we must "regard the Johannine account as not historical."" Professor lililfred Bunge hits hard at the Ncw Testa- ment's historical accuracy and inerrancy, stating: "On the face of things the gospels appear to be straightforwarcl records of the life and teachings of Jcsus. This they are not . . . Thcy are filled with theological claims and confessions or interpretations \vhich go far beyond the objective events of the history of Jesus."" This means that students of theology in the A I L get their schooling under teachers who find it difficult, indeed i~npossible, to think any longcr of the Bible as a corpus of divine truth, inherently, objectively, and qualitatively, the \Vord of Gml, binding and iner- rant. With definite bias towards historical and form crltical mcth- ods of judging Scripture's content and meaning, these teachers commit the~nselves to the so-called scientific approach to Biblical studies. Condescendingly, chiding]!, Profcssor U7arren Quanbeck prods : For those nurtured in absolutizing ways of reading the Bible or the confessions, thc initial encounter with historical scholar- ship may indeed be a kind of shock, but those who stay with it can testifv that it is one of God's gifts to our times, to enable us to hear His \\lord with clarity and po~ver. '~ The issue ultimatelv is not scholarly crudition, but biblical commitment. Ix ther faced the challenge with child-like and dutiful candor, and wc should face i t in thc same way. On whether we can believe thc Gelzesis account of woman's creation from the rib of Adam, Luther, who Itas perfectly aware of the sport made of the manner of Eve's creation, asserted : "\17e dare not give prcferencc to the authority of' men over that of Scripture! Human beings can err, but the \Vord of' God is thc very ~visdorn of God and absolutely infallible truth ."'" For Luther, as I think it must be for us, to in1ply that Scripture contained error i1.a not on1y contrary to what the Scripturc itself tcstifiecl concerning its inerrancv in passages like 2 Timothy 3 , 16; John 10, 35, and others, but, nbovc all, an insolent affront to God who first gave it. l iut l~er was an.are of many of Scripture's so-called "errors," which Professor Philip Quanbeck argues are natural and perfectly obvious in a book of human origin. Quanbeck dcvotes his cntirc book to trying to prove the Bible's fallibility."' But Ixther, unlike Quanbeck, was ~in\villing to bc bud, ued one inch from what Scripture ~ritncsscti of its infall~bility. 3lorcovcr, Luther even anticipated by centuries the maneuver which casts the rc~liahility of Scripture in relative terms. This is thc stancc of the ALC's teachers of theology, that the Bible is abso- 1uteIy and infallibly right in all matters pertaining to its saving procla~~iation, that is, as regards the "redemptive word,"" but fallible and suhjcct to thc usual hunlan foibles and failings on other matters not central to salvation. Luther insisted, on Scripture's own evidence, that it 11li1st be an absolute inerrancv, no inntter with what difficult problems our human reason might be left. Dare \tre cio less? Dr. C. 1:. \I7. \\'althcr caught Luther's thinking exactlv, when years later he vlarned: Beware, beware, I say of this "divine-human Scripturc." It is the devil's mask. For eventually it constructs such a Bible Of Scripture 19 after which I n~ould not wish to call nlysclf a Bible Christian . . . For if I believe that the Bible coiltains errors, then it is no longer a toucllstone for me, but needs a touchstone itself. In short, it is unspenl;able what the clcvil tries with the "divine- llunlan sc r ip t~ re . "~ ' \Valther apparentlv 21acl the prefatorv words of the Formula of Concord in mind. H& knew, too, how thc Confessiolls reprove peo~>lc who accept what "agrees wit11 reason and treat the rest as mythology," or expendable.'!' The fact simply stood, as Luther put it so well in referring to the evident huinan side of the Scriptures: "Altho~~gh t ey \\.ere also nritten by mcn, thcv arc not of Inen nor from men, but from God."'" To assume t l ~ a t ' t l ~ e ~ were also faulty and subject to error bccausc they had a true human side was as wrong, as far as 1,uthcl- and \\'althcr were concerned, as to teach that there was sin in Jesus bc.c%ausc He had a human mother and a true human nature. Some of thcsc cn1ph;lses the comnlissioners' essay should have includecl, in order that t l ~ c full dimension of what the Confessions mean when they speak of Scripture's reliability, that "they will not lie to you," might have been stated for our day. Obviously, in the thinking of the Lutheran Confessors, the inspired, divine character and authority of Scripture included also the absolute in fallibilitv of the Holy Scripturcs as God's \\'ord. The cluestion is pertinent: Do the ALC-1,CAIS commissioners really fccl that they reflect the Con- fessions fairly i~nd full) b?. mrrcly saying that "the Scripturcs as the \Vorcl of God provide thc church with the adequate, reliable, and eficacious nleans for her work''? Or by allowing that "the\. make explicit reference to this attribute in Lontcxts that arc associated spccificallv with thc Gospel" only? This language would hardly cause a ripple ai11011g liberals. Hands of holy horror havc time and again been piously raised by the new (actually it is as old as the proverbial hills) school of thinking on Scripture's naturc. Solcn~nlv and with theological sophistication they chargc those who support thc teaching that Scripture is inspircd in plenary, verbal, inerrant way with Docctic- llonophysite heresy. T h e fact that this liercsy (heresies) had noth- ing directly to do \\.it11 Scripture's inspired, inerrant nature does not deter them from usjng what appears to bc a formidable barb. T h e Docetic hercsy in~olvcd the denial of the truc humanity of Christ, as our readers \\ill recall, with Christ nlcrcly "appearing" to have a human form. T h e supposition is that all w110 support the divine side of Scril>turcls character and origin must sonlehow deny Scripture's human side and teach that God dropped it into the lap of His church by a kind of divine hocus-pocus. Professor \\;arren Quanbeck of Luther Seminary, St. Paul, is one of thc chief prompters of this unfortunate and unfoundcd charge of Docetic heresy. He reasons: Any doctrine of Scripture which denies or abridges the fully human character of the Bible is a danger to the Gospel of the church . . . For just as the revelation of God is given in the human being Jesus of Nazareth so also the Word of God is given through the historical witness of men in the Bible." No Lutheran knowingly denies or abridges the truly human side of Scripture, as little as he denies or abridges the true humanity of the Lord Jesus. But no Lutheran, worth the name, draws the conclusion from this, that Jesus according to His hunlan nature was anything but perfect! Nor will any Lutheran worth the name, say less of Holy Scripture, in view of its divine inspiration! Quanbeck's point is all too clear: human authorship is historically conditioned by human frailty and that means the possibility of human error. Does he wish to teach the same lesson about Christ according to the human nature, too? The Confessions speak with absolute confidence about Script~lre as "the sole rule and norm of all doctrine," because of its divine origin and nature, even adding that "no human being's writings dare be put on a par with i t . " i Y V h a t profound respect the Con- fessors had for its divine character! \Vere they guilty of Ilocetism? Alrnost sounds like it. If this is Docetism, then let's have more of it! Is not the question which thosc arc asking who tloubt the divinely-given, verbal, plenary inspiration of Scripture through human hands really this: Are these Scriptures really and throughout the very \\Jord of God? Once they rchlsc Scripture's oivn avouch- ment here concerning itself, is not the next threat for them that they won't be able any Ionger to answer the question, "\\'hat think ye of Christ, whose Son is He?" correctly either? The tract, "\Vho Can This Be?" is vivid, tangible proof and a case in point. as is also a text like When God Speaks in its sections on the meaning of Christ for our day. Inerrancy used to be a perfectly respectable, as well as correct, term among Lutherans in describing Scripture's infallible nature. Today, however, by virtue of the wholesale adoption of the judgments of higher criticism, the term has virtually becoinc one of cmbarrass- nlent to Lutherans. So much so, that now not thosc who deny it are made to feel uncomfortable, but those who support it. A strange turn of events for those committed to the Lutheran Confessions! \\'hat has happened to bring biblical theology within the 1,u- theran church to this pass in our clay? Our Savior gave the answer, and it is always the same in every day, the human prediIcction, ever since the Fall, of "teaching for doctrines the con~mandments of men." Luther's chief criticism of Erasnus was not first of all his theology but his insolent and superior attitude ovcr against God's \\lord, Holy Scriptures, and he fired point blank a t this sore spot with the clues- tion: \Vould not everyone prefer to be a skeptic over against the Holy Scriptures? Put in equivalent terms today Luther's argument would be this: If the first premise is granted that the Bible is merely a O f Scripture 2 1 --- human, fallible record of God's saving acts in history, and not His inspired Word which never errs, then there is nothing to tie down the flighty spirit of man as he lords it over the Word with his "superior" insights and the "assured" results of scientiG res~3rr.h and investigation. In this position Walther was no different from Luther and the Confessors, when he said: It is absolutely necessary that we maintain the doctrine of inspiration as taught by our orthodox dogmaticians. If the Possibility that Scripture contained the least error were ad- mitted, it would beconie the business of rnarz to sift the truth from error. That places man over Scripture and Scripture is no longer the source and norm of doctrine . . . (and) intro- duces a rationalistic germ into theology and infects the whole body of d ~ c t r i n e . ~ ' Once man no longer stands with holy fear and awe before the "it is writtens" of Holy Scripture, then the state of the church will be worse than that of Israel in the days when "there was no king in Israel" and "every man did that which was right in his own eyes." (Judges 2 1, 25). It is then when "every heretic finds his own explanation convenient,";;' when Scripture's authority lies rejected. Without question Scripture is key to the present consensus debate within Missouri. With what glasses a man looks at Scripture will pretty well determine where he stands on fellowship with the ALC. FOOTNOTES 1. Theo. Engelder, et al., Popular Symbolics. Concordia, St. Louis, 1934, p. 2 . 2. Herbert T. Neve & Benjamin A. Johnson, cd., Augsburg, Minneapolis, 1968, p. 223. 3 . W A 48 , 31, 4 ; St. L., I X , 1770. 4. David Hollaz, Examen Theologicum Acroamaticum, 61 (Quoted in H. Schmid, Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, p. 26.) Emphasis added. 5. Barth, for instance, emphasized the centrality of Christ as the epitome of the revelatory acts of God in history, but denied that Holy Scripture was ever to be identiEed with revelation itself. Thus, by leaving Scrip- ture in the category of other human literary products, subject to the same kind of critical, historical, cultural, scientific judgments, a human product of great value, but fallible nonetheless like its authors, he achieved what many thought was the acme of theological triumph in being able to bow politely in two directions, both to liberal theology and also to evolutionary science. He was ready to receive the results of discovery from either one of these camps, or both. 6. Op. cit., p. 164. 7. Philip A. Quanbeck, When God Speaks. Augsburg, Minneapolis, 1968, p. 121. 8. Ibid., p. 101. 9. Fred Kramer, "The Christian Faith and Revelation," Concordia Theo- logical Monthly, April 1969, p. 169. 10. Paul Althaus, Theology of Luther. Fortress, Philadelphia, 1966, p. 50. 11. LW 12, 352. It is worth noting that Luther, whose views on James are well known, will nonetheless quote that epistle with due reverence as the Word of God, as in the Bondage o f the Will , for example. 12. "A Dialogue on Autho~3ty and Inquiry-The Lutheran Understanding of Authority," National Lutheran Education Conference Proceedings, Jan. 15-16, 1967, p. 50f. 13. Formula of Concord (Epit.), Preface, Tappert, p. 464f. 14. Smalcald Articles 111, VIII, 3-4. Tappert, p. 3 12. 15. LW 34, 122. 16. LW 22, 451. 17. Karl Barth, The Word of God and the Word of Man. Harper, New York, 1957, p. 61. 18. From Dr. Schiotz's essay on "The Church's Confessional Stand Relative to the Scriptures." 19. Theological Perspectives, ~ublished by Luther College, p. 18. 20. lbid., p. 67. 21. lbid., p. 52. 22. cf. Prof. Ronald M. Hals' essay, "The Authority of the Text Today," presented at a state-wide, pan-Lutheran pastoral conference in Texas recently. 2 3. Theological Perspectives, p. 42. 24. Quanheck, "A Dialogue . . ." p. 50f. 25. LW 1, 22. 26. cf. op. cit. 27. cf. Knutson's essay, CTM March 1969. 28. Concordia Theological Monthly, Nov. 1961. p. 674. 29. Apology VII & VIII, 27. 30. Works of Martin Luther (Phil. Ed.), 11, p. 454. 31. Warren Quanbeck, A Reexamination of Lutheran and Reformed Tradi- tions, 1964, p. 24. 32. FC (SD) Introduction, concerning Scripture as Rule and Norm, Tappert, P. 505. 33. Quoted in Lutheran Loyalty, July 1951, p. 14. 34. Luther, Bondage of the Will (Packer-Johnston), p. 261.