Ichabod, The Glory Has Departed: Luther Knew How To Prove a Point

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Luther Knew How To Prove a Point - UOJ Fanatics Do Not

I shared this graphic on various Protestant Facebook pages. The Evangelicals like Luther far more than the Lutherans do. However, one reader was upset by this statement and mentioned Calvin burning Servetus at the stake. That gave me the opportunity to say, "This is Luther paraphrasing Paul's statement, Galatians 1:10."

KJV Galatians 1:10 For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. 11 But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. 12 For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

As a doctor of theology, trained at a Roman Catholic university, Luther knew all the fine points of sound argumentation. The Greeks invented it and polished the craft of rhetoric. The Romans borrowed it and added their insights. (The Romans had the drains, but the Greeks had the brains.)

Luther knew how to argue a point, how to spot logical fallacies, and how to defeat weak arguments.

Any thesis can be argued well, even if it is wrong. That is where the system of law and evidence, from the ancient world, polished by my kin in England, influences literature, philosophy, theology, and law to this day.

A good argument, at the most basic level, says - This is true because...(giving evidence for its truthfulness).

Refuting an argument starts with this kind of formula - This idea is false, because...(giving evidence against the contention).

Sometimes the reasons are called warrants. A search warrant, for example, must have a reason behind it. I asked one class, "Can they search your belongings without a warrant?" A Black student said, "Yes." I said, "Yours, but not the rest of the class..." The class laughed.

Whether we call them reasons, evidence, or warrants, an argument must be supported by something other than the mere statement of an idea. To argue against an idea, there must also be evidence against it.

When JFK's high society mistress was murdered, not long after his death, the police arrested a Black man and put him on trial, with a witness or two and evidence against him. His lawyer, a Black woman, asked the court, "How could he have engaged in such a brutal murder without a trace of blood on him?" Other evidence involved height, the lack of a weapon, and various impossibilities. He was judged not-guilty.

UOJ Arguments
The UOJ Hive is growing increasingly hysterical as the evidence mounts against their peculiar position. They seem to think that repeated assertions, without evidence, will win the day. They love to use personal attacks. But I could die tomorrow and their cause would still be hollow.

For example, I have shown repeatedly that the core of UOJ is Pietism. One argument is using 1 Timothy 3:16 to claim that the entire unbelieving world was absolved of its sins the moment Christ rose from the dead. As Jay Webber conceded, this great insight came from the Halle Pietist Rambach.

The double-justification formula (Objective Justification, Subjective Justification) comes from a Calvinist translation of Halle Pietist Georg Christian Knapp. The English version existed before the Great Kidnapper arrived in Nawleans with Bishop Martin Stephan, STD. As the evidence shows, Walther got his UOJ from Stephan, who studied at Halle. Knapp was the last of the old Pietists at Halle, a fact that commended him to 19th century divines who rejected rationalism. Knapp was extremely influential in German and remains in print in English. His translator was the Lady Gaga of young Calvinists in his day, so the book was big, Big, BIG.

Various people have put together this evidence. The Intrepid Lutherans admitted that Jay Webber's argument for UOJ was wrong, because it was based on Pietism and argued against the exegesis of Martin Chemnitz.

We are all Pietists. American Protestantism is Pietistic, returning to Church Growth cell groups, just as a dog returns to his vomit, despising the Means of Grace.

American Lutheran groups all began in Pietism. Zinzendorf was a key person in the start of the Muhlenberg tradition, and Muhlenberg went to Halle University. Zinzendorf was a key person for Martin Stephan, whose cell group church was built on Zinzendorf land, hosting the Walther circle of Pietists after Pietist leader Kuehn reached room temperature.

I came from the Augustana Synod, whose first periodical of note was called The Pietist. If you go to their library archives, you will find the bound volumes I helped to store away during the early library expansion. Augustana had preachers who gave sermons against smoking, dancing, and the Satanic lure of the card table.
Augustana was anti-liquor and anti-slavery. Missouri was pro-slavery because Stephan's ethnic group was allied with slavery. Walther defended the institution of slavery, but other Lutherans avoided the South because its exploitation of the human race.

UOJ Experts
The UOJ bench is quite quite shallow. They have nothing in the Scriptures, Confessions, Luther, or the post-Concord authors to support them.

They have some Calvinists, I imagine, because Pietism is an amalgamation of Calvinism and Luther - thanks to Spener, the first union theologian.

They do not start with Knapp, but disavow their copying of his language, which Walther adopted, after double-justification wording traveled to Germany and became accepted there. Knapp is radioactive at the moment.

They are stuck with Walther and his carefully chosen tribe of followers. F. Pieper. Oh. Oh. Stoeckhardt. Oh. Oh. Jungkuntz - Oh no! UOJ started the first gay Lutheran seminary in America - not a good argument at the moment.

DP Buchholz says that UOJ was "settled doctrine 150 years ago." Why not 500 years ago? Why not 4,000 years ago. DP Buchholz simply repeats what he learned at Mequon, which is the Harvard and Yale of UOJ.

When I discussed UOJ with Buchholz, about four years ago, he could not be bothered to read up on it. WELS has this fetish - "If I have this position, I am de facto an expert. DP locutus est. Causa finita est. The DP has spoken. Case closed."

Jack Kilcrease rushes in to play Harpo, to entertain us. His father was a WELS pastor, so he went to an ELCA college and an ELCA seminary. He got a PhD from the Jesuits at Marquette University and teaches at a convent school for Dominican nuns (Spanish Inquisition camp followers). Kilcrease is promoting this online seminary, which is not bothering to get itself accredited. Facebooks ads are all over the place for this theology business. The faculty members are mostly ELCA, so Kilcrease is right at home.

Kilcrease argues from his own authority, which is non-existent, and McCain relies on Jack for back-up.

Jay Webber stands on one essay from Kurt Marquart. Some other Ft. Wayne guys go back to Robert Preus' confused UOJ Halleluia Chorus from the 1980s but refuse to engage with his Justification and Rome. Recently he quoted from a Luther sermon. Which edition? Where is the whole sermon? Typical. If a proper citation cannot be provided, it is less than useful for anyone.

Luther Taught Justification by Faith Alone
As a service to my UOJ opponents, I am creating a new set of doctrinal graphics, based on the Kregel edition of Luther's Galatians Commentary, which is commended by the Formula of Concord on this topic.

No, no. Do not thank me. I enjoy doing it.