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| Professor Kurt Marquart |
Larry Darby's questions about UOJ, at Trinity LCMS in Bridgeton, Missouri (St. Louis area) led to the congregation inviting Professor Kurt Marquart to write and speak about it.
His essay is here:
Marquart is the only UOJ advocate I have found who could face some of the problems with the ideology. Normally they simply pontificate without any substance for their windy opinions.
Marquart is probably the main source for the contention that the Ambrose quotation in the Apology is UOJ.
I was looking that over last night when I noticed how hard he labored to fit everything into the twin categories, found in Knapp, of Objective Justification and Subjective Justification. Here is the Pietistic origin of that neat little formula, which preceded Walther but was later adopted by Walther. See the graphic below. Ruminate on this, UOJ fanatics - Woods was the Calvinist superstar of his age.
Martin Chemnitz, a Lutheran, discussed the use of extra-Biblical terminology in his epic Examination of the Council of Trent.
Some terms are not in the Bible but serve as short-hand for centuries of debate. Leftist sceptics like to say, "The term Trinity is not in the Bible and does not show up until many centuries later." That claim is correct but deliberately misleading. The Trinity is taught throughout the Scriptures, Old and New Testament both--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--but the actual term was adopted to express the concept much later.
When a topic (locus in Latin) is discussed, the best approach is to be as near as possible to the actual Biblical language.
By starting with a Calvinist's terms, OJ and SJ, the discussion is already tilted and difficult to rescue from error.
The Left in the political realm is just as anxious as the Left in Lutherdom to establish its own terminology and insist on it. The Leftists are pro-choice, not pro-abortion. They also call pro-life people anti-choice. They speak of a woman's right to choose, not the horror of taking a life.
By starting with OJ and SJ, the Enthusiasts are defaulting to Calvinist terms and leading people down the same darkling path, away from justification by faith, away from the Means of Grace.
Beware of Lutherans allergic to faith. I have seen them react in dread to that term for several decades. The Formula of Concord is so reliant on Luther's Commentary on Galatians that readers are directed to that book for great understanding of justification. So it is fitting to have people read the main thesis of that book, written by Luther, endorsed by the Concordia authors and editors.
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| "This doctrine of faith..." |
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| "If this doctrine [of faith] be lost..." |
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| Reason is the enemy of faith... |
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| We have to look beyond the title and the office to examine the doctrine, to remove the error. |
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| "The doctrine of faith..." |
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| "The righteousness of faith..." There is no righteousness of unbelief, in spite of the claims of UOJ salesmen. |
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| "This doctrine of faith..." |
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| Righteousness - only through faith in Him. |
