ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CUE NET CONFESSIONS CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY EDUCATION NETWORK CONFESSION 1 QUESTION 51 Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. 3238 Rose Street Franklin Park, IL 60131 800-825-5234 *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. *** >>Article 4 of the Apology seems long and redundant. Is there any way I can follow the line of argument in Article 4 or was Melanchthon simply in the habit of repeating himself over and over? >>DR. CHARLES P. ARAND: You know, Article 4 of the Apology is the lengthiest article in the Apology taking up as much as one-third or one-half of the entire Apology. Personally, I think it's one of the masterpieces to be found in the entire book of Concord. I can't say that that was always the case in my thinking. When I first began reading it probably 24 years ago, I have to admit that I found it somewhat tough going. At times I thought "My goodness Melanchthon is overly repetitive. He seems to be saying the same thing over and over again." You almost want to say "Let's move onto the next point." Sometimes he seems to be meandering and you may wonder "How can I follow his argument?" When I started looking around for various outlines, I found as many different outlines of the Apology as there were individuals who had read it. Some outlined it primarily in terms of a theological system. Others tried looking for verbal cues within the Apology and the like. Well, the fact of the matter is, Melanchthon knows what he's doing. He was trained as a humanist. He is a very careful writer. And the Apology, in fact, was written over a period of nine months. There were times on the way back from Augsburg one instance on a Sunday in *Altinberg when they were at *Spalentine's house. Luther had to actually take the pen out of Melanchthon's hand at the dinner table and say look Phillip even God rested on the Sabbath. The text actual history of the Apology shows that Melanchthon spent more time revising and rewriting the Apology Article 4 than any other article in the entire Apology. He was trying to find the best arguments with which to counter the charges of his opponents. He was trying to find the best way of arguing convincingly and persuasively the Lutheran case for justification. I think the key -- I don't think. I know. The key to understanding the Apology or you're saying Melanchthon's writing style or Melanchthon's argumentation is to take a look at Melanchthon's textbook on rhetoric. he had already written a textbook on rhetoric back in the early 1520s. What I Find most interesting is that in the year 1531, the same year in which the Apology was published, Melanchthon published a new edition of his book on rhetoric. And many of the examples that are in that addition come straight from the Apology and/or vice versa. In other words, when he provides examples of definition or how to demonstrate the various parts of a thing, he'll bring into it examples from the article on repentance and so forth. Well, what dawned on me is that maybe we have here a guide or a key to reading Melanchthon's own writings. In other words you might say well did he practice what he preached? Now, the discipline of rhetoric basically is the art of per situation. In the lit middle ages you had two -- well in the classical tradition there were at least three steps or building blocks towards learning how to think and speak as an educated person. The first was grammar. Grammar tended to look at small blocks of text. The second would be dialectics. Dialectics were -- involved the art of teaching especially by making proper distinctions. Dialectics or logic would be used very often in disputations it provided a way for people to talk with one another in the search for truth. Rhetoric, on the other hand, dealt with large blocks of material. It tended to look at a text holistically and was as I indicated designed for per situation. One of the key things about humanism particularly in Melanchthon is rhetoric comes to the forefront perhaps even ahead of dialectics or maybe better yet, dialectics now serves rhetoric rather than the other way around. Well, when one uses Melanchthon's rhetoric, it does, in fact, help unfold the Apology so you can say "Oh, now I understand what he's doing here. He's using this kind of an argument here. He's using this kind of a distinction here." Well, we'll briefly summarize for you some of the basic features of rhetoric, particularly as it applies to the Apology. Melanchthon argued that the first important thing is to decide what kind of chandra you're going to be dealing with there were three major chandra's in rhetoric one was called the judicial gayness, the judicial kind of treatise it was called the *Gaytis unicoli. It tended to deal with facts particularly about the past. The second kind was called the demonstrative gayness. This often involved prescribing praise and blame to individuals. The kind of rhetoric one might use at eulogies or what happens when a roast is held in honor of another person. There would be a roasting. A third kind or treatise or speech is the deliberative kind. This deals more with the future. It's the kind of argument that you might find in Congress where people are arguing what will be the impact of this bill? What will be the effects of this law? Well, the Apology of the Augsburg Confession is seen in the judicial gayness. It's in very looseness a legal style of writing that Melanchthon adopts here. And that makes perfect sense, given the political and legal context of the died of Augsburg. They are addressing the Roman Empire the holy Roman emperor Charles the fifth they are appealing a decision that he has rendered in the recess of Augsburg. Well, in using the judicial gayness, one can outline a speech in several categories or into several divisions. For example, one always opens a speech with what Melanchthon calls an exordium. I suppose we would come it an introduction. In the introduction one is to lay out what you would call the status of the issue. The question of the issue. Exactly what is it that we are dealing with? What's the point of controversy? One might also include within the exordium or introduction certain words of *Benevolencia. This is a certain praise where you try to render the audience well disposed to hearing you. And this is often done by the heaping and a little bit of praise upon the audience. You'll find very often Melanchthon speaking about the emperor as his most gracious highness or we know that the emperor desires to be fair minded. We know that the emperor has the best interests of the church at heart. Trying to render him well disposed. The exordium might also include an *intentia. This is a device which is to retain the attention of the hearer so they hang with you especially when the argumentation gets perhaps a little bit dense. The most common form of intentia that Melanchthon uses is the glory of grace in the comfort of sinners. This highlights the importance of the issue the importance of what's at stake pastorally. Now, as you go through the Apology, you'll find him over and over saying here is what's at stake. The glory of Christ the glory of his work the comfort afforded by the Gospel to sinners. It's a way of him saying "Now, hang in here with me because here's what's at stake." Following the exordium you then lay out the *narratio, the narration in legal cases. This would often be a review of the events that brought us to the point where we are now in a court of law. Well, you'll see the narratio especially in Article 4 in Apology especially from Paragraph 5 to Paragraph 47. In this Melanchthon reviews the position of his opponents. And he then lays out the theses that he is going to then argument he first lays out a minor thesis regarding his critique of his opponent's position. And then he builds up to where he lays out the thesis that he is going to argument. And you'll find this basically Paragraphs 43 to 47. And especially in the last line of Paragraph 47 he comes -- it comes very clear that at stake or the critical issue is the distinction between Christian righteousness and philosophical righteousness. Following the narratio where you lay out the thesis, he then moves to the category called *Confamatio. This is the providing the evidence or confirming or strengthening or providing the data and evidence for your thesis. Now, in his rhetoric Melanchthon says this is the most difficult part of any speech. What you then have as you move through the Apology is Melanchthon first makes the case that faith just at this identifies Paragraph 48 through Paragraph 60. He does so by emphasizing the importance of the promise and that faith alone receives the promise, much of what we earlier discussed regarding the passage of righteousness of faith before God. Then in Paragraph 61 of Samuel 2 he picks up this theme that faith alone justification. Now having looked at faith and the definition of faith saying it's not historical knowledge you misunderstand what you mean by faith. Faith is to embrace the promise. He now takes a look at the word solo. He says we don't mean solo? Well, he says we don't mean that faith alone somehow excludes any role of the sacraments and creation of faith nor are we excluding works as the fruit of faith. So he's clarifying and strengthening arguments for why we say faith alone. m in these two sections he argued primarily on the basis of definitions. What is faith? What are the parts of faith? What do we mean by alone? What do we not mean by alone? Following that section he knows moves into strengthening the thesis that we are justified by faith alone by arguing both by scripture and then the corroborating witness of the church fathers this takes us all the way up to approximately Paragraph 120. Following that, he then advocates that faith produces good works, a spirit produces new spiritual impulses within us. And he now talks about the relationship between faith and works. Well, this goes all the way up until about Paragraph 182. At that point he introduces a new phase to the discourse or the treatise. It's called the *confutotsio that is a refutation of his opponent's arguments. Interestingly, this is the largest part of Article 4. It runs at least from Paragraph 182, 183 all the way to Paragraph 400. So you can see that it's at least half of the entire treatment of Article 4. In some regards, Melanchthon spent more time revising this section than any other because he was trying to find the absolute best way of handling the opponent's Bible passages as well as their texts. Now, when you read his rhetoric, he will discuss a variety of devices or approaches that you can use to dismantle the position of your opponent's. Sometimes he'll argue on the basis of grammar. Sometimes he'll argue they have drawn a faulty conclusion from a premise. Sometimes he will argue that they have simply confused the concepts and definitions. I think the thing that I appreciate most about what Melanchthon does in this section is the fact that he takes on -- takes very seriously the Bible passages that his opponents sited in the confrontation. Because while we often sometimes characterized in late medieval teleologist relying on tradition alone, the authors of a confrontation went out of their way in an attempt to refute the Augsburg Confession on the basis of scripture alone. They literally cite hundred s of Bible passages. What I respect about Melanchthon he doesn't simply ignore them. Sometimes I think in suggestions and debates today we, in fact, find the passages we like and ignore the passages that someone else cites and then it becomes almost a matter of whoever has more Bible passages on their side wins. For example, take the debate over infant baptism. Very often we'll cite Matthew 28 baptize all nations it doesn't say all over the age of 12 or 13 all means all. On the other hand someone who believes in believer's baptism will say yes but you know what Christ says repent and be baptized repent comes first that means one has to make a decision with reason and an act of the will. We might respond well if you go chronologically Matthew 28 says baptize and then teach baptize comes first teach comes second they might respond by saying you know what, you don't have any examples in the New Testament of an infant being baptized. We might respond, well, you do have households mentions nd book of acts it included children and non-mission field, adults always get baptized first. My point being I think very often we all sort of collect passages on our side. But not always interact with one another. Melanchthon takes head on the passenger's side by opponents and says here is how you properly understand it. Perhaps the best example comes from I Corinthians 13. Faith hope and love abide the greatest of these is love. From that Melanchthon points out love is the greatest virtue, therefore lust just at this identifies. Faith might be a beginning or starting point but love just if I identifies Melanchthon says fine but let's take a look at that passage in context. When we look at it in context you know what? Paul is not dealing with how we are justified before God. He's dealing with a problem among the Corinthians who are squabbling with one another. They have controversies with one another. Disputes with one another. And in that context of our relationships horizontally you might say, love is the greatest virtue. Why? Because love learns to bear the weaknesses of a neighbor love learns to overlook minor problems. Love doesn't get worked up over every little thing that may bother us. Love is the greatest virtue for human relationships because love is that which binds us to one another. That does not follow, though, that love is, therefore, that which binds us to God and just at this identifies us before God. That's simply one example. Other times you'll say they are relying on faulty translation of your own in bringing in their interpretation of particular Bible passage and the like. At the end of the treatise then he comes to what you might call a conclusion or in rhetoric a *Parotsial. Parotsial is to contain a restatement of your thesis along with maybe a brief summary of your major arguments and then it's to include perhaps some strong expressions of emotion in order to move your readers to agree with you. So throughout the Apology, Melanchthon uses rhetoric in part to persuade and appeal to the emotions. He uses logical dialectics in order to teach, to demonstrate false arguments and the like. Well, when one gets a pretty good handle on that, it becomes tremendously helpful in understanding every article of the Apology but especially Article 4 and Article 12 both of which are written almost as complete treatises or speeches in and of themselves. *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ***