Inspiration of scripture as taught by the seventeenth century Lutheran dogmaticians

Abstract

There are two reasons which justify an investigation into the position of the seventeenth century Lutheran dogmaticians regarding the inspiration of Scripture. In the first place, the dogmaticians have had no small theological influence upon their Lutheran posterity even down to the present day. Succeeding generations of Lutherans have always studied their theology, though often superficially, unsympathetically and unfortunately from secondary sources. Their theological tenets and even their terminology and theological method have persisted in certain quarters to this day. This influence is an undeniable fact although many Lutherans today do not realize it and many others would not care to admit it. And this influence has made itself felt not only in conservative Lutheran circles but also in the liberal branches of the Lutheran church. K. Base's book, Mutterus redivivus?, and Lutherdite's Compendium der Dogmatik, which has now gone through fourteen editions, have both served to stimulate interest in the theology of the dogmaticians on the part of liberal Lutherans in Germany. Among the conservatives, Philippi, who believed in the verbal inspiration of the Bible, shows his regard for and dependence on the dogmaticians in his Kirchliche Glaubenslehre and draws heavily from them in his prolegomena and consideration of Scripture. In America, Heinrich Schmid's very useful book, Lie Dogmatik der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche, has been translated into English and has received wide circulation in liberal circles.

The tremendous influence effected by the old dogmaticians upon the large conservative segment of the Lutheran church in America is indicated in Franz Pieper's Christliche Dogmatik, now being translated into English, and Adolf Hoenecke's Ev. Luth. Dogmatik, the two most exhaustive dogmatical works written by Lutherans in America. Both Pieper and Hoenecke evince a profound respect toward the seventeenth-century dogmaticians as theologians, and in their treatment of Scripture, they follow the dogmaticians very closely.

In the second place, the attitude of the old dogmaticians toward Scripture has been the chief point where they, as representatives of seventeenth-century Lutheran orthodoxy, are remembered and judged. No other era in Lutheran church history has been depicted by historians, even Lutheran historians, with such a spirit of antagonism, no other era has been described with such lack of sympathy and censored with such lack of justification, as the period which these men dominated. The seventeenth century has too often been brushed aside by historians as the period of dead orthodoxy in the Lutheran church, although a cursory study of the era will reveal a genuine Christian piety expressing itself in a wealth of devotional literature and hymns which are some of the finest ever brought forth in the Lutheran church. The bitterness and misery of that century in which Europe experienced only seven years of peace, the imminent threat to orthodox Lutheranism from Catholicism and Calvinism from without and syncretism from within, the fact that bitter invective was the rule in all controversial issues, the fact that abhorrence, hatred, and intolerance of false doctrine all of which seems so strange now was a guiding principle then, all these important facts have been too often by-passed by church historians; and thus the possibility of appreciating the intentions and desires of these dogmaticians has been all but destroyed. And why such almost universal disapproval of these men by posterity? The answer to this question may be found partially in their stubborn, unrelenting assaults against Romanism, Calvinism, unionism, and everything not strictly Lutheran.

It may be found partially in their denunciation of syncretism and doctrinal indifferentism on the part of their more liberal brethren in the Lutheran church. But more than anything else, I believe, it is to be found in their rigid adherence to the Lutheran principle of sola scriptura and in their doctrine of verbal inspiration, tenets which are not cherished by the majority of modern theologians and historians.

That this is the point where they have been remembered and judged will be brought out in the course of this dissertation.