Foreword.
In this second volume of dogmatics, the Christian doctrines of saving grace, of Christ's person and work, of faith, of the origin of faith and of justification by faith come to the presentation, on the task and method of a coherent presentation of Christian doctrine I have spoken about in the preface to the first volume. In the presentation of the teachings which form the content of this second volume, I also endeavored to offer a presentation which is modern in the right sense. By this I of course do not mean an "orientation" of dogmatics to the "modern consciousness of time or the "modern world view". These are "fluctuating values", as even the liberal theological camp has conceded. A properly modern, "up-to-date" representation of Christian doctrine must have two main characteristics. First of all, it must be "oriented" only to God's Word, in that particular sense that God's Word is its only source of knowledge. This is part of a truly modern dogmatics, because the word which the Holy Spirit spoke through the apostles and prophets and is now available in written form in Sacred Scripture is the only principium cognoscendi of Christian truth, not only for the apostolic age but for the Christian Church until the Last Day, that is, precisely also for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries." Christ himself expressly says that the knowledge of Christian truth is only conveyed by abiding by his Word, and his Apostle declares that everyone is darkened and knows nothing (tet0wo tar pndév éTAOTEUEVOG) Who does not abide by the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ. If in more recent times also Protestant dogmatists expressly reject Holy
Scripture as the only source of dogmatic exposition and want to substitute for it the Christian consciousness of faith or the Christian experience, they thereby in principle renounce the sure knowledge of Christian truth, and at the same time they lose the characteristic of being modern in the proper sense. Only by sticking to the Word of Scripture as the only source of knowledge and therefore also the only norm of Christian doctrine do we really stand "at the height of time in every century, in every year, on every day, at every hour, except for the hour when the Lord comes and transforms faith in his Word into seeing it face to face. The word of human teachers, be it the word of individuals or the word of entire ecclesial fellowships, even in the case of complete conformity with Christ's Word, can always be considered only as a witness to divine truth, never as the source of it. [ In the second place, it is part of a dogmatics which is modern in the right sense of the word that it enters into the closest relationship with the "ecclesial movement" not only of the past but also of the present. By this I mean that dogmatics must represent and assert the divine truth revealed for all times in Scripture, in contrast to the human errors of not only past times but also of our own time. To give an example: the "ecclesiastical movement" of the present has brought to the surface a strange "ecclesial direction". It is this direction that makes it "in the present state of science" impossible, after the event of Christ (Jn 10:35), to hold Scripture to be God's infallible Word for any longer, and thus to use it as the sole source and norm of Christian teaching. The representatives of this trend believe to be able to seize the divine truth more surely and more certainly, if they draw it from their own inner being instead of from the Holy Scriptures, and orientate themselves towards their own inner being. A dogmatic understanding with this direction is not possible, because contra principium (namely the Sola Scriptura) negantem disputari non potest [no disputation when the principle, i.e. Holy Scripture, is denied]. The confrontation with this trend also takes place
in this part of dogmatics in such a way that the "science" to which one refers is shown as unscientific self-deception, specifically as illogical.
At first sight it might seem strange that Christology, especially the doctrine of Christ's person, has been given a somewhat broad scope in its presentation. I myself thought of limitation, but then dropped the idea for several reasons. First of all, it is a fact that modern theology, even in a positive direction, has mostly explicitly abandoned the enhancement of the human nature of Christ, that is, the Incarnation of the Son. Then we have to reckon with the further fact that the Lutheran Church of America lives in a Reformed environment. The dogmatic works of such important Reformed dogmatists as Charles Hodge and William Shedd are also widespread in our circles. In these works, however, the Christology of the Lutheran Church is fiercely opposed, sometimes fanatically. Luther is portrayed as a confused Christologist, and the doctrine of the Formula of Concord is almost mocked as a collection of contradictory sentences. *) So I felt it was necessary to follow the Reformed objections as far as possible into all corners and to show them not only as contradictory to Scripture but also as contradictory to one’s own Reformed standpoint.
The detailed presentation of the doctrine of the origin of faith or of conversion should be acceptable to everyone. Firstly, in view of the long struggle that has been waged over this doctrine in the American Lutheran Church, and secondly, in view of the fact that
. Nothing is more familiar to modern theology, even in a positive direction, than the phrase that before conversion, man's ability to decide for or against grace must be preserved. The realization that this sentence denies the scriptural doctrine of sin and grace and places oneself on Erasmus' platform against Luther and =
this realization has been lost to wide circles. I have therefore made an effort to compile the objections of synergism to monergism in their entirety and to show their groundlessness.
That the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae, the doctrine of justification, is set forth in detail needs no excuse, because all scriptural doctrines are either antecedens or consequent upon this doctrine, and all heresies are either directly or indirectly contrary to this article.
The doctrines presented in the second and third volumes have been discussed in detail by me in synodical discourses, in the journals of the Synod, in lectures to students and in individual writings. It will therefore not be interpreted badly if I refer to these works from time to time in the dogmatic presentation. The third volume will, God willing, be published in a few months. Due to certain circumstances, the first volume will appear last.
Soli Deo Gloria!
St. Louis, Mo., August 1917. F. Pieper.
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