18. Theology and doctrinal freedom.
As the freedom of all Christians consists in the fact that they have become free from their own will and bound or servants of God δουλωθέντες τώ ϑεφ), 524) so especially the doctrinal freedom of the teachers of the church consists in their being completely bound by the Word of God. This explanation of doctrinal freedom is explicitly given by Christ in the words, "If you abide in my address, then ... you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (ή αλήθεια ελευθερώσει υμάς).525) Insofar as the theologian takes for Christian doctrine and issues what comes from his own ego or from the ego of other men, he has fallen into bondage to man. The freedom of teaching, which has been demanded in our time especially for the theologians and which should consist in the fact that the theologian is not bound by the word of the Holy Scriptures (book bondage, unworthy compulsion to teach, legal spirit, etc.), is the freedom of the flesh, still differently expressed: the freedom of the "superhuman" who thinks to be superior to God's word and will.
In order to see what abnormality in the generally demanded freedom of teaching confronts us, we still pay attention to the following individual points:
The Christian church has only one doctrine until the Last Day. That is Christ. Εις εστιν υμών δ διδάσκαλος, πάντες δε υμείς αδελφοί έστε ... καθηγητής υμών Ιστιν εΐς δ Χρίστος.526) What he, Christ, commanded his disciples, let them teach all nations until the end of days.527) Although in the state of exaltation Christ is withdrawn from the Church according to his visible presence, yet even in the state of exaltation he is and remains the only teacher of his Church by his word, which he gave to the Church through his apostles, and to which word he refers his Church until the last day.528) This is also how the apostles understood it. They bind the Christians to their doctrines.529) But they do this because they know that they speak only Christ's word.530) This is also how all the right teachers of the church understood it after the time of the apostles. Luther:531) "If someone wants to preach,
524) Rom. 6:22.<w:t>525) Jn. 8:31-32.
526) Matt. 23:8. 10.<w:t>527) Matt. 28:19. 20.
528) Jn. 8:31-32; 17:20.<w:t>529) 2 Thess. 2:13; Gal. 1:6-9.
530) 1 Cor. 14:37; 2 Cor. 13:3; 1 Tim. 6:3.
531) St. L. XII, 1413.
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let him be silent about his words and let them be valid in worldly and household government; here in the church he shall speak nothing but the word of this rich landlord; otherwise it is not the true church. Therefore it shall be called, God speaketh." What an abnormality there is, therefore, when those who want to be teachers in Christendom claim "doctrinal freedom" for themselves! He who claims freedom of teaching places himself beside and eo ipso against Christ. Therefore all false teachers are called anti-Christians, 1 John 2:18: Νυν αντίχριστοι πολλοί γεγόνααιν. This point is treated in detail under the section, "Christ's Direction of the Prophetic Office in the State of Exaltation."532)
Christians have a clear and often repeated command in the Scriptures to listen only to those pastors who teach from the Lord's mouth — that is for our time: from the Holy Scriptures — and not from their own inner being.533) To all who do not bring Christ's doctrines, they are to refuse the Christian brotherly greeting, 534) consider them pompous ignoramuses535) and depart from them.536) Great, therefore, is the folly of pastors who want no obligation to the confession of the Christian congregation, on the ground that thereby their freedom of doctrine is unseemly restricted. The mere demand for freedom of doctrine reveals that such people do not know what divine order is with regard to the doctrines that are to be taught in the Christian church. But even greater is the ignorance of the theological professors when they claim "freedom of teaching" as a privilege due to them. To them everything said to the pastors finds intensified application, because they are to train the future preachers of the church. The objection that they, as representatives of "theological science," are entitled to doctrinal freedom is not valid, because Christ teaches very clearly that all knowledge or all knowledge of Christian doctrine is imparted only by abiding in Christ's Word. The mere claim of freedom of doctrine on the part of theological teachers clearly exposes the fact that they lack the qualification for the theological doctrine office.
A look at the history of the Church shows us the fact that the so-called scientific theology has enjoyed quite a long time and quite generally doctrinal freedom in the State Churches of the various countries. But this is also a main cause of the
532) II. 400 ff. <w:t>533) Jer. 23:16, 31.<w:t xml:space="preserve"> 534) 2 John 7-11.
535) 1 Tim. 6:3 ff.<w:t>536) Rom. 16:17.
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present chaos in these churches. But even under free-church relationships, as here in the United States, the un-Christian demand for "freedom of teaching" has been widely given in church teaching institutions, even in circles calling themselves Lutheran. Even at our state universities, which by their very nature have no theological faculty, professors nevertheless demand freedom to teach their “religious views.537)
It is well known that in recent times it is generally claimed that two things are incompatible: being bound by Christ's Word and the "inner freedom" that is necessarily due to the theologian. If the theologian is obliged to consider himself bound to the Word of Scripture, then the Word of Scripture becomes a code of law fallen from heaven, a paper pope, etc., and in this respect there is a retreat to Catholicism. In order to grant the "Evangelical" spirit of Protestantism the absolutely necessary room for maneuver, it therefore remains only to abandon Holy Scriptures as the source and norm of theology and to retreat to the "life-warm" and "living" I of the theologizing subject. Thus argues, in essential agreement, all modern theology from the extreme left wing to the extreme right wing. It has been said that the right theology of the present day must get rid of "the Saul armor of ancient theology," namely, of the verbal inspiration of Scripture. Then it can "leap over the walls with God" like David.538) On the other hand, it must first be remembered that — according to Christ's authoritative view — these two things are not only very compatible with each other, but also that the one thing, and that is the adherence to the Scriptural word, is the only means by which it comes to the knowledge of truth and to theological freedom. This is what Christus disertis verbis Jn. 8:31-32 inculcates in us: Έάν υμείς μείνητε έν τω λόγφ τω έμφ … γνώσεσθε την αλήθειαν, και η αλήθεια ελευθερώσει νμας. On the other hand, in the same context, Christ points to
537) See James H. Baker, American University Progress, 1916, under the section "Academic Freedom," pp. 84 f.: "Problems may arise in discussion of … religious and political beliefs." "The university is responsible for pioneer thought and must adhere to facts, and, like Huxley, let them lead where they will." Administrators have done their duty "when they appoint able and fearless men to the faculties and attend to the business details of university management."
538) Cf. Theodor Kaftan, Moderne Theologie des alten Glaubens 2, p. 121.
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the fact that there are two classes of hearers, or readers, of his Word: those who recognize and willingly accept his Word as God's Word, and those who do not recognize his Word as God's Word, but consider it an annoying "external authority" and rebel against it. Christ gives the reason for this unequal position toward his Word in the words, "He who is of God (ο ών έκ τον θεον). he hears God's Word," 539) and expressed in the figurative, "The sheep follow him [Christ], for they know his voice. But a stranger they do not follow, but flee from him, for they do not know the stranger's voice." 540) Of the other class Christ says, namely, of the Jews, who rejected his word as against an intolerable "external authority," "Ye hear not, for ye are not of God" (έκ τον θεον ονκ έοτέ), and, "Ye know not my language, for ye cannot hear my word." 541) To put it more briefly, Christ says: God's children recognize God's Word in Christ's Word; those who are not yet God's children are not yet in the state of being able to recognize and accept God's Word in Christ's Word. Therefore, Christ calls out to the Jews who are grumbling about His word, as it were, appeasing them: "Do not grumble among yourselves! No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him." 542) On the basis of this teaching of Christ, we do not consider that we should first prove the divine authority of Scripture to a man who still stands outside the Christian Church by reasoning, in order to lead him afterwards to the knowledge of his sins and to faith in Christ, the Redeemer of sins, but we preach repentance and forgiveness of sins to him, even without merely mentioning Scripture. If a man has become a Christian in this way — and there is no other way — a sheep of Christ's flock, a child of God, then he recognizes God's Word in the Word of Scripture, just as the children of God among the Jews recognized Christ's orally proclaimed Word as God's Word and accepted it from the heart. If, to speak with Ludwig Hofacker, the camel has gone through the eye of the needle, expressed without a picture: if a man has become a Christian on the way of the contritio and fides worked by the Holy Spirit, then he also leaves such passages of Scripture uncriticized, which he does not yet understand, because the truth of the all Scripture is not clear to him
539) Jn. 8:47. 541) Jn. 8:47. 43.
540) Jn. 10:4. 5. 542) Jn. 6:43. 44.
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is covered by the authority of the one 543) whom he worships in faith as his God and Redeemer. This is the position on Scripture that Luther urgently recommends to every Christian: "If you cannot hear it, as it was six days [at the creation of the world], give glory to the Holy Spirit, that he may be more learned than you. For so thou shalt deal with the Scriptures, that thou mayest think as God himself speaketh."544) And this is not a Christian's unworthy or "unfree" submission to an "external authority," but a filial, willing, free, glorious submission which the Christian exercises throughout his life in relation to God's rule, unless he understands that rule. This subject is again excepted in the doctrine of Holy Scriptures under the section "The Divine Authority of Holy Scriptures," specifically in the question of how Holy Scriptures become a divine authority to us men. There is also dealt with the benefit and use of such arguments that can produce human belief in the divine nature of Holy Scriptures.