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Calvinist Leonard Woods Jr. created the language of Objective Justification and
Subjective Justification in his famous 1831 translation of the Georg Christian Knapp dogmatics
textbook from Halle University, still in print today.
CFW Walther endorsed the double-justification OJ/SJ language decades later. |
AC V has left
a new comment on your post "
What
Huber and Knapp Have Accomplished In the Olde...":
Your Reformation
celebration “WELS Connection” for today: “The history of UOJ in WELS”
We
begin with Leonard Woods (1807-1878), born in West Newbury, Mass., graduated at
Union College in 1827 and at Andover Theological Seminary in 1830. His
translation of Georg Christian Knapp's
Christian Theology (1831-1833) was
long used as a text-book in American theological seminaries.
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Leonard_Woods
Woods and Andover Seminary
were
Calvinist.
This is the footnote Leonard Woods (Remember he
was a
Calvinist) put in his translation of Knapp’s
Christian
Theology under the article
“The Scripture doctrine of pardon or
justification through Christ as an UNIVERSAL and UNMERITED favor of
God”:
"This is very conveniently expressed by the terms objective and
subjective justification. Objective justification is the act of God, by which he
proffers pardon to all through Christ; subjective, is the act of man, by which
he accepts the pardon freely offered in the Gospel. The former is universal, the
latter not."
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Knapp was educated at Halle University, the center of Pietism,
and closely associated with August Hermann Franke. |
Who was Georg Knapp whose
Christian Theology textbook
was so acceptable to
Calvinists that is was “long used as a text-book in
American theological seminaries”? Knapp was a theologian at Halle University in
Germany in the late 1700s. Halle was a “Lutheran” University and a hotbed of
Pietism and Rationalism.
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Tholuck, a rationalist and Universalist, was Hoenecke's mentor
at Halle University. |
The year after Knapp died in 1825 Friedrich
Tholuck succeeded Knapp’s theology chair at Halle. Tholuck made it his aim to
combine Rationalism with Pietism and, in spite of the opposition of the
theological faculty of the university, he succeeded in changing the character of
its theology. This he achieved partly by his lectures,
but above all by his
personal influence on the students. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Tholuck.
Here’s the “WELS
connection”:
Tholuck mentored Adolf Hoenecke who attended Halle as
a student. Hoenecke often credited Tholuck for bringing him to faith
http://www.studiumexcitare.com/content/66). Adolf Hoenecke was the first WELS
Seminary professor beginning in 1866 when the Seminary was in Watertown, then in
1878 when it was in Wauwatosa, WI. His dogmatics notes, modified by Prof. John
Schaller and later Prof. John Meyer and recently by the Wisconsin Lutheran
Seminary staff, remain the basis for dogmatics studies at the Seminary.
http://www.studiumexcitare.com/content/66
To sum it up:
Halle
University (Pietism/Rationalism) + Knapp (theology acceptable to Calvinists) +
Tholuck (Influencial Rationalist/Pietist) + Hoenecke (UOJ in 2 Cor. 5:19) +
Schaller (“Wauwatosa Gospel”) + Meyer (unbelievers are saints) + Kuske (“God
declared all people righteous” Catechism Question #253) + Bivens ("
all
are sinners and
all are justified," FiCl Oct. 2011) = UOJ today in WELS.
***
GJ - That is an excellent summary of the history of the Objective Justification and Subjective Justification terms, along with their association with Halle University. Halle, as the center of Pietism, was associated with Biblical studies, Christian faith, and missions. Orthodox Lutherans opposed Pietism, but the later years changed the adversaries. Halle became the center of rationalism in Biblical studies (Semler), and believers were considered Pietistics and mystics in an overwhelmingly rationalistic 19th century, when Stephan and Walther came over.
The ethnic Lutherans coming to America were allied with Pietism and unionism because the alternative was the rationalistic state church opposing them. The Augustana Synod Swedes and the Norwegians had that in common with Saxon Immigration Society in Perry County and St. Louis. The Buffalo Synod was another Pietistic exodus.
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Pietist Johann Jakob Rambach was educated at Halle University.
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Jay Webber quoated Rambach, the Halle Pietist, against Chemnitz, the senior editor of the Book of Concord::
I can understand why Chemnitz would read 1 Timothy 3:16 in this way. But his reading does not rule out what I would consider to be a necessary corrolary to such a "personal" justification of Jesus. The 18th-century Lutheran theologian Johann Jacob Rambach makes the following observation in his Ausfuehrliche Erklaerung der Epistel an die Roemer (p. 322), regarding the Lord's payment and satisfaction of sinful humanity's "debt" to God:
"Christ was in his resurrection first of all justified for his own person, Is. 50:5, 1 Tim. 3:16, since the righteousness of God declared that it had been paid and satisfied in full by this our Substitute, and issued him as it were a receipt thereof; and that happened in his resurrection, when he was released from his debtor's prison and set free. But since the Substitute was now justified, then in him also all debtors were co-justified."
Later in that commentary Rambach also writes (in a way that shows that he has 1 Tim. 3:16 in mind):
"The justification of the human race indeed also ocurred, in respect of the acquisition, in one moment, in the moment in which Christ rose and was thus declared righteous; but in respect of the appropriation it still continues till the last day."
***
GJ - The origins of UOJ are a combination of Calvinism and its midwife, Pietism. Samuel Huber was the first Lutheran to claim that the entire human race was absolved in the resurrection of Christ. He was a "former" Calvinist who was repudiated by Polycarp Leyser, an assistant editor of the Book of Concord. Why do Olde Synodical Conference Lutherans teach Huberism, which was utterly rejected by the Concordists still alive when he failed at teaching universal absolution?
Pietism lacks the foundation of the efficacious Word in the Means of Grace, because all Pietists believe the real church is the cell group, which gives energy and power to the congregation, which is nothing more than a convenient place to organize the cell groups. That is why the Sacraments and the sermon mean so little to the Lutheran CGM and Emergent Church efforts. The outward appearance of the congregation is necessary for foot traffic, but the real church is the cell group (small group, Bible study group, share group, care group, koinonia group, prayer group).
Calvin taught that the Holy Spirit works separately from the Word and Sacraments. In fact, the Word and Sacraments are useless unless the Holy Spirit happens to drop by and do his work, according to the Swiss Reformer's published works.
The Olde Synodical Conference represents the triumph of Pietism, rationalism, and Calvinism.
---
LutherRocks
has left a new comment on your post "
WELS
Reformation Summary - From AC V":
Outstanding work. Thanks for
posting.
I remember hearing on more than one occasion when I was into
CGM...people these days vote with their feet. How upside down is that? We cater
to their feet? Or this one...the unchurched come to church for the wrong reasons
and end up staying for the right reasons...huh? And the 'poor miserable sinner'
is left unattended to...
***
GJ - And where are the "orthodox Lutheran leaders" opposing this Dreck, Joe? They are scheming to start more businesses under the cover of the synod - like coaching, estate planning (their own), etc.
GIBBON, Minn. (TEE) – When the pastor of St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Moltke Township, rural Gibbon, was approached by a Wisconsin church in late April and asked to transfer there and be their pastor, the St. Peter’s congregation was at a loss of words. 
