ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CUE NET CONFESSIONS CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY EDUCATION NETWORK CONFESSION 1 QUESTION 61 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. *** >>How is enthusiasm the source, power, and might of all herisy according to Luther. To put it another way, what does it mean for us today when Luther says that God does not want to deal with human beings except for the external word and sacrament? >>DR. CHARLES P. ARAND: You know, it's kind of interesting when we move from one century to another century how words change their meaning I suppose from one decade to another. Such is the case with the English word enthusiasm. I know in context we think of that as being energetic, pumped up, ready to go, passionate about something I suppose. Well, it's being used to translate a word that has a very technical meaning in the confessions to refer to a particular doctrine or a particular approach to theology especially when it comes to how do we know something is from God or not. More recently the cold wing edition of the book of Concord might translate it as raving or ravers. Well, what are we talking about here? This is an issue that goes to the question of what is the source of our teaching? What is the basis for our theology? And along with the doctrine of justification came a very strong emphasis among Lutherans for -- or by Lutherans upon the word. In other words, not only in justification do we look outside of ourselves at Christ as opposed to looking inward at our progression and holiness, but in looking outside of ourselves to Christ, where do we find Christ but in the word? And so there is this character to our faith that is *extronos, that is outside of us. And it is focused on what we call the external world, the *externum verbum. And for Luther then, he tended to see a common theme between his opponents in roam and the more radical reformers of the reformation. And what they had in common is that both groups tended to rely upon their own imagination or you might say their own raving for theology. In other words, if you ask a question where did you get that stuff? They would not be able to say within the word. They would have to say in a council and from the pope or from tradition or from my experience on the other side. Now, the radical wing of the reformation by the way, did accuse Luther of replacing a flesh and blood pulp with a paper pulp. By the paper pulp they meant the Bible. So they tended to move in a direction that strongly emphasized a direct communing between the believer and God meaning no mediation whether it's the mediation of a priest, or the mediation of a Confession, or in some cases, even the mediation of the Bible. Well, in the Smalcald Articles, one of the most lively sections to be found -- and I think most important is under the section of repentance where he has a lengthy discussion on enthusiasm. And he identifies it as lying at the root of all false doctrine. In other words, if you ask why did Adam and Eve fall into sin, the answer was they were deceived by false doctrine they were led away from the word of God to believe something else, something Satan had told them that they would be like God but only -- the difference between good and evil. And Luther then traces how this has adhered to the human race ever since Adam and Eve and is the cause of all false doctrine. And for him, false doctrine causes spiritual deaf station. Actually harms. It hurts. It can even kill a person spiritually. Now, the reason I'm raising this and the reason I find it particular important is when we turn to our American contexts, I think one can make a strong argument that the religious environment within America is largely based on the radical wing of the reformation. Because you see, in Europe, Rome had legal recognition -- legal right to exist within the empire. Lutherans achieved that in 1555 at the peace of *Halsburg. *Calvis achieved it at the *Aphelia in 1648. One group that never achieved it, never gained it was the radical wing of the reformation. The wing descended from the anti-Baptists. So they are the first ones to come to America for religious reasons because they had been persecuted both by the state and by the church. So when they arrived in America, they emphasized that we want freedom from the state and freedom from the church so we get individuals like Roger Williams emphasizing the conscious as the meeting ground between God and man. William pen emphasizing the conscious of the divine spark. And what all that implies is there's a direct revelation of God to me in such a way that religion becomes very privatized in any attempt to teach, to speak of confessions to peach of pastored is to potentially interfere with that direct communication within God and man. And I think that is very characteristic of the religious mentality of Americans today. We find people saying "Well, listen to the voice of God inside your head." Or you know, that we can worship God in a fishing boot out on lake he is wold as we can within a church. So that the idea of enthusiasm that God does not meet us at a particular location, particularly in the word or in baptism or during the Lord's supper, by simply commune -- but simply communicates himself directly to us apart from a written word or spoken word. Where Luther would have been something to raise red flags in our mind and if at all possible to avoid. So this section is very important. Because it highlights then that we are -- our theology has to be tied to the word and nothing but the word. *** 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. ***