Part 5

Modern Theology

It remains for us to consider Walther’s stance on contemporary theology. He was a staunch opponent of the newer “scientific” theology. Not that he was an opponent of science in general. In the preface to the 21st volume of “Lehre und Wehre,” he expressly defends himself against the “charge of despising science and a corresponding isolation from the intellectual movement of modern times.” He demonstrates that it is neither biblical nor Lutheran, but fanatical, to despise science. He breaks forth here into the following praise of science:

We vividly recognize that (with the exception of God’s Word) science is of incomparable importance not only for the temporal welfare of mankind, but also for the eternal salvation of the world, for Church and theology; and that contempt of that noble gift of God has always brought and must always bring irreparable damage. The spirit of Carlstadt, the Anabaptists, and other fanatics who despised science as useless, even dangerous and carnal, and who boasted instead of the promptings of the Spirit, has no place among us. We are vividly aware not only that all the sciences can be drawn into the service of sacred theology, but also that without many of them, especially without thorough knowledge of the original languages of Holy Scripture, of the profane as well as the sacred, of religious as well as church history, of classical as well as biblical and ecclesiastical antiquity, etc., a thorough and relatively comprehensive understanding of Scripture, and thus development and preservation of pure biblical doctrine, is not possible. We do not forget what inexpressibly valuable treasures of knowledge and experience the Christian Church has stored up for eighteen centuries until this hour in writings of various languages or at least in a form which appears to the unscientifically educated reader like a completely foreign idiom, treasures which, without scientific knowledge, would all be lost to the Church of the present. We are vividly aware that one can become a fully equipped theologian only through many years of general scientific studies. Indeed only through this means, from youth on up, can he attain that practiced, sharpened sense, that habitus mentis, that mental dexterity which is absolutely necessary as a conditio sine qua non for him who would establish and defend the divine truth against opponents of every kind. For by this means he can not only perceive for himself the scope and harmfulness of every perversion of divine truth and every emerging unscriptural error, but he can also reveal this to others and convince them of it. He can resolve the linguistic, the historical and logical difficulties, and the apparent contradictions occurring in Scripture, and come to the aid of honest souls assailed by all kinds of doubts. He can meet all the objections of the enemies of the truth, even those who have the greatest appearance of truth, and see through and unmask all their fallacies, however well hidden. In short, by such study he can clarify the muddy water of the erring sophistries of the enemy, and even defeat him, where possible, with his own weapons. We do not believe that the Church should flee into the wilderness in order to preserve itself through such self-isolation, nor that it should shut itself off from the unbelieving world and let the enemies on the outside have their way, nor that it should abandon the anti-religious intellectuals to whom we can only bring the Gospel in a certain form, and should turn only to the uneducated people. No, we recognize it as our holy duty to become all things to all men, that we might by all means save some! We wholeheartedly agree with Melanchthon when he once wrote: “An Iliad of evils is an unlearned theology.”

Thus, it was not contempt for science in general that caused Walther to oppose the newer “scientific theology.” Nor did he oppose it because this theology speaks of divine things in a new way. Walther declares that as unyieldingly as he wished in all points, by God’s grace, to remain in the faith of the apostolic church and the church of the Reformation as that which fully accords with Scripture, he cared little to fight for the external form in which that doctrine was presented in former times. Indeed, the form in which, for example, some of the old Lutheran theologians presented Christian doctrine, their arrangement of the entire subject matter according to the analytical method, and within the individual loci, their use of the causal method, was by no means to his taste. He had adopted Rambach’s criticism of the “Aristotelian-scholastic method.”¹

Walther has something else against the newer scientific theology. Namely, that it places science in a false relationship to theology. We must here first examine what relationship should exist between science and theology according to Walther. From the praise of science just cited it is already clear that he wants to see science solely in a relationship in which it serves theology. The knowledge of the fundamental languages of Holy Scripture, of the text of Scripture, and of history and the antiquities should be used so that the divine revelation present in Scripture may be better understood. All intellectual training through general studies, and especially through logic, should serve to sharply grasp the divine doctrines as they are revealed in Scripture, and to recognize all opposing errors and demonstrate that they do not agree with Scripture. But if science will not merely serve in the manner indicated, but wants to rule; if, instead of illuminating the content of Scripture, it wants to criticize, correct, supplement it, in short: if science wants to sit in judgment over the content of Scripture, then the God-ordained relationship of the same to theology is completely inverted. Such a use of science is as unscientific as it is godless. Walther writes:

As necessary as we consider science, especially linguistics, logic, rhetoric, and history, for the investigation of the content of Holy Scripture, we nevertheless want nothing to do with a science that, when confronted with Scripture, instead of being a maidservant and student, wants to play the mistress and teacher; instead of merely being helpful in finding the truth contained in Scripture, wants to sit in judgment over it and decide; instead of correcting itself from Scripture, wants to correct Scripture from itself; instead of remaining in its proper sphere, wants to elevate the laws which happen to be valid in its own domain to universal ones and impose them also on the domain of Scripture. Such a μετάβασις εἰς ἄλλο γένος [“crossing into another category”, a logical fallacy] we consider to be as idolatrous as it is unscientific.²

We do not, Walther explains further, place science above biblical truth, nor equal to it, but rather infinitely deep below it. “A single saying of Scripture stands incomparably higher to us and is an immeasurably greater treasure than all the wisdom of this world.”³ In “conflicts” between Scripture and science, it is therefore clear to him from the outset that science is the erring party:

However confidently science may present the results of its research as absolutely certain truths, we do not consider it, but rather Scripture, to be infallible. If the results of scientific research contradict clear Scripture, it is therefore certain to us from the outset that they are nothing but certain error, even if we are unable to demonstrate it as such other than by appealing to Scripture. Holy Scripture stands firm for us in all cases, no matter how great a conflict with the results of science we find ourselves in under this assumption. Whenever we have to choose between science and Scripture, we therefore speak with Christ, our Lord: “The Scripture cannot be broken!” (John 10:35) and with the holy Apostle: “We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).⁴

Therefore Walther further demands of the theologian, so that he might not pervert the relationship between theology and science, that from the outset, the authority of Scripture be established for him and regarded by him as unshakable by anything. Otherwise, the theologian will make undue concessions and harm the Church with his work instead of benefiting it. Walther speaks at length about biblical criticism and isagogics. He demands of those who work in these disciplines that they do not approach Scripture as doubters, but with the presupposition that the written foundations on which the Church of Christ rests stand unshakably firm. “A science,” he says, “which first asks whether the foundation of the apostles and prophets is not perhaps, at least in part, a foundation of lies, we regard not as a Christian but a heathen science, of which nothing should be found in the Church, except insofar as it is an object to be fought and overcome. But a science whose goal or product is the loosening of the foundation on which Christianity, as long as it exists, stands and rests, we regard as nothing other than a weapon of the devil, just as we regard all those who pursue the same as servants of the devil. We hold in high regard and precious a biblical criticism and isagogics which defeats the enemies of Scripture with their own weapons; but if these disciplines, in the interest of science, make the slightest concession to the enemies against the foundation on which the Church stands, then we trample them underfoot as traitors. We do not wait for science to first conquer the foundation for us. We already have it, and it stands as firm for us before all scientific investigation or examination as our God who laid it. Nothing that science may bring to light, either gives us faith nor takes it away from us.”⁵

Thus Walther determines the relationship between theology and science. He finds that the newer scientific theology allows science to step out of its position as a mere servant and makes it the ruler in theology. “The maid has been elevated to mistress.”⁶ This theology has, instead of defending the foundation on which the Christian Church stands, specifically demanded a surrender of this foundation in the name of science. It has declared the doctrine that because Holy Scripture is inspired by God, it is God’s infallible Word, to be scientifically untenable. That biblical criticism and isagogics would still approach Scripture with holy awe is quite impossible. With the abandonment of the biblical doctrine of inspiration, Scripture has become an object of criticism. How much or how little of Scripture remains valid as divine truth depends on the verdict of science, now enthroned as judge. Therefore, instead of unhesitatingly siding with the Bible in a conflict between the Bible and science, even the most positive representatives of modern theology admit from the outset that in historical, geographical, natural historical, and similar matters, science may be, and indeed often is, in the right over against the Bible.

But modern theology has also shifted the relationship between science and theology in the presentation of Christian doctrine itself, that is, in dogmatics. With the old Lutheran theologians, Walther emphasizes that in the presentation of Christian doctrines, only the formal or organic use of reason should prevail. The activity of the theologian consists in his simply drawing the individual doctrines from clear Scripture, and arranging them together. Walther says:

We agree completely with August Pfeiffer when he defines theology thus: “Positive theology is nothing other than the Holy Scriptures arranged in a specific order and, according to a clear method, into specific doctrinal categories (loci); therefore, not a single member of that doctrinal body may exist, however small it may be, that is not taken from and supported by well-understood Scripture.” No less, therefore, do we agree with Johann Gerhard when he writes: “The sole principle of theology is the Word of God, therefore what is not revealed in God’s Word is not theological.”

The correctness of Christian doctrines is to proven solely by demonstrating that these doctrines are revealed in Holy Scripture. No attempt is to be made to justify the mysteries of the faith also before human reason. But in the interest of scientific rigor modern theology, in the first place, does not want to accept Scripture as the source of theology; it does not want to draw and develop Christian doctrines from Scripture, but from “the religious faith of Christians,” from “Christian consciousness,” from “enlightened reason.” Only afterward does it want to test the doctrine which it has found independently, for its conformity to Scripture. It considers the old method in which Christian doctrines are drawn directly from Scripture, to be “mechanical.” Walther sees this as apostasy from the Principle of Christian theology.⁷ If one attempts to point out that Christian doctrines are drawn not from unregenerate but from enlightened reason, Walther answers: “Even enlightened and regenerate reason cannot be a principle of knowledge alongside of and coordinated with Scripture, since the very nature of enlightened and regenerate reason is that that it does not make itself but Scripture its Principle of knowledge in matters of faith, 2 Cor. 10:5; not to mention the fact that here below, no perfectly renewed and enlightened reason can be found in any human being, Gen. 18:10-15.”⁸ — But just as modern theology, in order to be scientific, wants to draw Christian doctrines not simply from Scripture but from within the theologian himself, so, for the same reason, it also does not want to limit itself to proving Christian doctrines correct by appealing to Holy Scripture. It sees its actual task as elevating Christian doctrines to “absolute truth,” that is, proving them to be true independently of Scripture; in short, to justify Christian faith to reason. Walther, on the contrary, holds that if one wants to find the Christian articles of faith anew through speculation, or even to prove them a posteriori through reason, he thereby contradicts the essence of these articles. The result is the destruction of both faith and the articles of faith. He writes:

However great a service this appears to render to Christian theology, we are nevertheless certain that such supposed demonstrations are not only nothing but a deception, but also, far from explaining and proving the mysteries of faith, they instead alter and completely destroy them in their essential content, and by this very method, produce the mere appearance of a demonstration and reproduction of the Christian mysteries of faith. We hate all such apologetics with our whole heart, for they presuppose that there is something even more certain than God’s Word, and that from this more certain thing the mysterious content of revelation can be derived by way of discursive thinking. But God Himself tells us that His mysteries “have been kept secret since the world began, but are now revealed and made known through the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God” (Rom. 16:25-26); that they are the content of a preaching foolish before human reason, of which the natural man receives nothing, which is rather “foolishness” to him, indeed, that they are a light which God has “commanded to shine out of darkness” (1 Cor. 1:21; 2:14; 2 Cor. 4:6).

Walther, on the one hand, is firmly convinced that there is not, nor can there be, any real contradiction between Christian theology and true science, science in abstracto. On the other hand, however, he does not regard it as the task of a theologian, nor indeed as at all possible, to reconcile theology and science when they are present in concreto. One should therefore refrain from the desire to demonstrate the harmony of the Christian faith and science to the world. He writes:

We are firmly assured that even the present fallen world can be helped, not by the lie that divine revealed truth stands in the most beautiful harmony with the wisdom of this world, but solely by preaching the divine foolishness, the old, unchanging Gospel to it; of which Paul, all of Church history, and every individual Christian testifies to be ‘the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes: to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile.’ A man who has been won for Christianity by being shown how Christianity withstands the sharpest test of science had not yet been won, for his faith is not yet faith. … [The instruction that Christ’s servants have been given for] conquering the world for Christ’s kingdom … [reads:] “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.” Here we hear nothing about Christ’s servants scientifically solving the world’s questions: “How can this be?” or: “How shall I recognize this?” No, as “ambassadors for Christ,” in the name of the great God, they are to “testify to the world repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ;” once they have done that, they have fulfilled their commission to the world, and as many as are appointed to eternal life will believe. Acts 13:48. Men may despise such theology in this scientific age: but this is the theology of the prophets and apostles, with which we intend to remain until our death!⁹

Because modern theologians conceive of theology as the science of Christianity, Christian doctrines should supposedly now form a complete whole according to reason, and the task of theology should be to demonstrate how the individual doctrines fit together. Walther, on the contrary, emphasizes that when two doctrines seem to contradict each other before reason, but are nevertheless clearly revealed in Scripture, they must both be held fast simultaneously. The solution to the apparent contradiction will be brought to us by the light of glory. Walther dealt with this point in the article: “What should a Christian do if he finds that two doctrines which seem to contradict each other are both clearly and distinctly taught in Scripture?” (L. u. W. Vol. 26, 257 ff.). He concludes this article with Luther’s words: “If they must be in harmony, we will not retain a single article of faith.”

And what, according to Walther, is the result to which modern theology has arrived by (making theology into a science) wanting to elevate faith to knowledge, wanting to present Christian doctrine (both regarding the individual doctrines themselves and their coherence) in a way that takes into account the “intellectual needs” of Christians and the world? The representatives of modern theology claim that they are only teaching old truth in a new way, and that any changes against what was said in former times were demanded by progress in scientific knowledge. Walther, on the contrary, asserts that this theology does not merely present Christian doctrines in a new way, but completely changes their content; that what it calls “progress” is an abandonment of biblical-ecclesiastical doctrine and a return to old errors. Walther has provided the proof for this assertion in the well-known article “What about the doctrinal progress of modern Lutheran theology?” an article which spans three volumes of “Lehre und Wehre” (Vol. 21, 22, 24). Through the excerpts provided therein from older dogmaticians and the writings of the main representatives of modern theology, he wants to demonstrate that “modern Lutheran theology is not progress from or a further development of the old, but a completely new and different one — a most decided apostasy from the latter.”¹⁰

Elsewhere, Walther summarizes his judgment on modern theology as follows, while also explaining in what sense there can and does exist a “progress in doctrine” over time:

Not greater precision in the presentation of the old doctrine, not a richer foundation of the same from Scripture, not a victorious and previously unpresented proof that such newly emerging doctrines have long ago been condemned by the old, certain, and unshakably firm doctrines which were have stood the test of time — but on the contrary, completely new doctrines; not further development, but transformation; not foundation, but correction; not defense, but dissolution, destruction, abandonment, and supposed refutation of the old doctrine, and indeed not only of this and that secondary doctrine, but of the fundamental doctrines of our Church, indeed, a direct subversion of its foundation — this is what is being advertised to us (now) as further development and progress, even within the so-called Lutheran Church of our time. This is what we are supposed to recognize as doctrinal development and doctrinal progress. It is as if the leading voices, even within the Churches of our day which bear the name “Lutheran,” with very few exceptions, had tacitly agreed to divide the various Loci of our Lutheran doctrinal edifice among themselves, with one undertaking to overthrow this one, the other that one, until finally each of them would either be eradicated from Lutheran dogmatics or at least fundamentally reshaped, such that a completely new Christian religion would emerge, reconciled with the alleged results of scientific research and acceptable to our advanced age.¹¹

Therefore, while Walther recognizes that the research of modern theologians has, in many areas, brought and continues to bring the Church “a fund as rich as it is valuable,” and he wants “every real gain of theirs” to be fully utilized, he nevertheless warned most emphatically until his end against the entire nature of modern “scientific” theology as “the transformation of Christian religion into a human science.”

Having so far shown what Walther understood by theology, as well as his stance on Scripture and the teachers of the Church, we intend to present Walther’s position on the individual doctrines that have become controversial, especially in this country.

Footnotes

¹ Baieri Comp. ed. Walther. Prolegomena, p. 77.

² Lehre und Wehre, vol. 21, p. 34.

³ Ibid., p. 33.

⁴ Ibid., p. 35.

⁵ Ibid., p. 36 f.

⁶ Lehre und Wehre, vol. 18, p. 127.

⁷ Lehre und Wehre, vol. 21, p. 225 f.

⁸ Lehre und Wehre, vol. 13, p. 99.

⁹ Lehre und Wehre, vol. 21, p. 41 f.

¹⁰ Ibid., p. 161.

¹¹ Ibid., p. 69.