Dear Dr. Jackson,
Greetings, from yet another disgruntled WELS layman. I wasn’t sure how to ask you a long question on theology. Do you like them to be asked through Ichabod? Anyway, I really appreciate your hard work: you have done a great service to laymen everywhere who would otherwise be left in the dark. I am very close to leaving the synod, but, for some reason, I have gotten hung up on how justification relates to election. I’m not sure if that should hinder my withdrawal; I suppose, if the WELS is suffering from a specific false doctrine which they’ll never change, that would make me lose more hope than if they were just suffering from pietism.
I have read TSW, especially chapter five, quite thoroughly. I think I am close to understanding justification. What made me think about justification in relation to election was a little reference in an article by Jacob A. O. Preus, “Martin Chemnitz on the Doctrine of Justification,” http://www.wlsessays.net/files/PreusChemnitz.pdf on p. 7,
[The Council of] Trent urged that “justification does not consist only in the remission of sins and free reconciliation, but it also includes the renewal of the mind and the will through the Holy Spirit.” This, of course, is a perversion of the distinction between law and Gospel and makes our justification before God contingent in part on our obedience to the law. It was this very error, creeping back into Lutheranism, which caused Walther, Pieper, H. A. Preus, and others to stress the objective aspect of reconciliation and justification.
But, with my resources limited to the WLS essay file on the web (and Ichabod, of course) I cannot find any reference as to how the Election Controversy led Missouri and the WELS to stress objective justification, at least in WELS essays. (I know you have been focusing on A. Hoenecke’s historical connection to UOJ on Ichabod, but in other essays dealing with the controversy, he isn’t even quoted mentioning justification at all. So could it have been that important to them?) I know that this is the one of the most difficult areas of theology, where we reach the obvious limitations of our reason and the revealed will of God. But none the less, it was important enough for Lenski to write against, and since few understand him today as well as you do, I would like to ask you the following:
Should your view of election affect your view of justification?
Do you agree with the stance that Lenski and the Ohio synod took in the Election controversy?
Or was he wrong on election, and right on Justification?
Here are some quotes that I have found in two WELS essays on the subject:
From The Election Controversy in the Synodical Conference By R. Dennis Rardin: http://www.wlsessays.net/files/RardinElection.pdf p. 32.
Lenski’s rejection of objective or universal justification results from his belief in election iniuitu fidei. Calling faith a cause or condition of election warps its role as purely an organon leptikon. Lenski simply gave faith the same role in justification as he gave it in election—to him it became a cause or condition of justification.
From The Doctrine of Conversion By T.R. Adascheck: http://www.wlsessays.net/files/AdascheckDoctrine.PDF p. 2
The Ohio and Iowa Synods also taught that man's conversion was entirely due to the grace of God. But they limited this grace. They taught that it was effective only in those who offered natural resistance to God's grace, while it was ineffective in those who offered willful resistance.
p.3:
Dr. Lenski repeatedly uses the expression "natural and willful" resistance. They teach that natural resistance is present with all men when the grace of God approaches, but this natural resistance can be overcome by the Holy Ghost. It is not obstacle to conversion. But willful resistance that they define as a mysterious wickedness that goes beyond the natural depravity of man, the Holy Ghost cannot overcome.
On the Chronicle of the Predestinarian Conflict By G.Fritschel as quoted and translated by a seminary student http://www.wlsessays.net/files/SchroederHoenecke.pdf on p. 19
Fritschel is commenting on Hoenecke’s second thesis of election which is: “2. The eternal election of God is the cause of the faith of the elect.”
However, the election did not happen in view of the faith of the elect. One sees (here most decidedly Missouri’s doctrine is pronounced) that not the general gracious will of God concerning all men, but the special grace of election of only a certain few is designated as the source from which faith flows forth. The result is that those who are not predestined cannot even come to faith; and one sees therefore that it was completely true, when Prof. Loy explained in The Lutheran Standard that the second thesis contained “an open denial of Lutheran doctrine.”
It is interesting to note that in the two articles by Hoenecke included in this student’s paper, not one mention is made of Objective Justification. The first article is from the Gemeinde-Blatt in 1878, Volume 13, Number 9. “Wenn Gott allein die Menschen bekehren kann und muß und solches thut ohne des Menschen Zuthun, woher kommt es denn, daß so viele Menschen unbekehrt bleiben?” and the other article is from the April 15, 1880 issue of Evangelish-Lutherisches Gemeinde Blatt, Volume 15, Number 16. entitled “Zur Lehre von der Gnadenwahl.”
Thanks,
WELS Layman
***
GJ - I would not be in a hurry to quit WELS over this issue. Many laymen are well read on this subject and forcing the issue. Besides, the other synods are also wedded to UOJ through Walther and Pieper. Hoenecke has been largely ignored, especially by WELS. If they take any longer to translate his slender Dogmatik, it will be too late. Christ will return sooner than they can finish.
Lenski did not agree with OJ at all. As he wrote, no one is justified--apart from faith--in the Bible.
A researcher I know has already found the two justifications in a Pietistic dogmatics book widely used in Germany and America, in use in English for about 60 years in America. There are earlier instances, my scholarly friend says. I do not have all the material, which will be revealed in the fullness of time.
Simply put, the two justifications are not found in the Bible, Luther, the Book of Concord, Chemnitz, Melanchthon, or the later orthodox theologians. What Jack Preus wrote is pure hooey. Robert Preus finally backed away from UOJ in his final book.
I will write a book on this, but not in 2009. I am trying to gather background information now.
I hope my review of the History of Pietism will help provide more insights about this. There may be some synodical exceptions, but I think all the Lutherans in America passed through Pietism before coming here, and many stayed with it. That started with the Muhlenberg tradition (ULCA, LCA) and continued with Scandinavian Lutheran migration and the LCMS.
Because of Pietism, the efficacy of the Word in the Means of Grace was neglected, even ignored, in the Synodical Conference.
