Did Calvin Invent Dogmatics Textbooks?

http://ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/2012/05/blog-post.html

"The Holy Spirit teaches man better than all the books; He teaches him to understand the Scriptures better than he can understand them from the teaching of any other; and of his own accord he does everything God wills he should, so the Law dare make no demands upon him."

Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, III, p. 280. Pentecost Sunday John 14:23-31. 

 Look at Calvin's Institutes chapters at this link. Remind you of dogmatics textbooks? Barth? Braaten-Jenson? LCMS Dogma-tanic?

Luther and Melanchthon taught directly from the Scriptures. The Reformer himself placed the emphasis on the sermon (unlike today). 

Chemnitz was exceptional in answering attacks on Biblical doctrine - The Council of Trent (his Examination) - The Apology of the Book of Concord (against the Calvinist naysayers).

Gerhard-Chemnitz wrote an enormous Harmony of the Gospels.

1. Listen to a Roman Catholic priest give a sermon. He will say, "The Church teaches..."
2. Matt the Fatt speaks of "The established doctrines of the Lutheran Church [Missouri Synod]..."
3. DP Jon-Boy Buchholz speaks of "established doctrine" - established false doctrine, established only recently, but established nevertheless.

Whether called Systematic Theology (Tillich) or Church Dogmatics (Barth), each effort is an exercise in creative writing. Stan Hauerwas used to say in class, "Watch him make his move..."

One person - or a group - will put together a new publication and a few generations will analyze it, argue for and against, and eventually forget it. How many read Schleiermacher's dogmatics today - Der christliche Glaube (The Christian Faith)?

The Problem with All Dogmatics Books

Every dogmatics book lays down various theses, which either begin the argument or frame how the Scriptures must be viewed - books judging The Book. No matter how good the dogmatics book might seem to be, that is the reverse of what Luther taught, which is exactly what the faithful in the earliest years of Christianity taught. 

Jesus also taught this, as the Apostles do.

 The sects and cults that depart from Biblical truths use the claw machine for their dogma. If a verse alone or a half-verse does not work, they add "add" to the verse (as the NIV does).

The Insanity of Universal Objective Justification - Forgiveness without Faith - Disguised as Gospel, as Grace, and as Biblical Truth

Advocates of UOJ are illiterate clowns who crave notoriety for being experts in Biblical doctrine, which they do not comprehend.

Navigation for Articles on the LCMS-WELS Mythologies
and Their Relationship to UOJ

I think about doctrinal issues often, and I get a lot of positive responses about what I post. An analysis of UOJ is overdue. What are they really teaching?

The fundamental claim of - Universal Objective Justification, General Justification, Objective Justification, or the Justification of the World - whatever the label - is the same:

"God has declared everyone in the world - past, present and future - absolved of all sin, and saved, regardless of faith."

It is true that some UOJ flavors may express this dogma with a little more subtlety, but the statement above is the main message. One ELS pastor wrote to me, "Your graphic makes it sound like Knapp used OJ and SJ, but the terms come from the [Calvinist] translator's explanation!" When a pastor is in the same bathtub with the UOJists, it is a bit late to cite the APA Manual or  Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Book of Eitiquette.

 "This is the Bible's clear teaching."
Where in the Bible?

What Does the UOJ Dogma Really Say To People?
First of all, the main statement makes any mention of sin and repentance superfluous. Everyone is already forgiven, before birth, as Edward Preuss claimed. The stories of gross carnal sin in the Old Testament are turned into interesting narratives, because all those sins have been declared void by God. The horrors of pagan culture - which are far worse than anyone can imagine - are not sins at all. They are forgiven, and those people are saved as well. Some fanatics like JP Meyer have them in Hell, but they are guilt-free saints, or "declared righteous for Christ's sake by God," as the LutherQuest guru announced.

Secondly, the basic premise of UOJ makes a shambles out of confession, repentance, absolution (already done), hymns, preaching, and the Means of Grace.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, UOJ intentionally destroys Justification by Faith. As Walther wrote (and he loved the OJ/SJ labels) - Subjective Justification is merely accepting by faith (in what? not Jesus) the absolution of the world.

This is a strange set of jibber-jabbers. Making a decision to accept a proposition is not faith, it is agreeing to a closing statement. Some would call it Decision Theology, but that is too kind. Decision Theology assumes faith in Christ. This teaches faith in World Absolution.

 This is the Panning edition of JP Meyer, meaning that Panning  did not or could not read the New Testament in Greek. "Will he accept or will he decline?"

 Sparky Brenner's History of Mordor proves my case.

I appreciate Sparky Brenner for being an Ichabod Unawares. In his dissertation he revealed what I always thought - the entire Election conflict was really about UOJ. Walther had already been promoting his Easter Absolution nonsense from Bishop Martin Stephan and Halle University. To shore up his dubious claims, he attacked others and promoted his Election without Faith notion, contrary to the Formula of Concord.

 I should have drawn arrows from "Woods' translation" to the text. But this is the original OJ/SJ formulation available in English before Bishop Stephan and Pope Walther landed in New Orleans. They would have used the German original, which was very popular, but Walther is known to have loved the OJ/SJ formula concocted by Woods, a Calvinist.
Just like Huber at Wittenberg? Yes, pretty close to Huber.

Graduation from seminary!

Wait - there's more. Sparky also wrote about Objective Justification in his Jars of Clay history of the Mequon Seminary. After quoting August Pieper about how wonderful OJ was - especially with the very persuasive CFW Walther teaching it, the topic was ended. Subjective Justification is not discussed. That is my main point - Justification by Faith is completely eliminated by UOJ dogma. Subjective Justification is the fig-leaf used to make people think Part II is Justification by Faith. But -
A. The second part is simply agreement with the dogmatic declaration.
B. The UOJists are frantic about the first part and indifferent about the second part. OJ consumes SJ, and SJ is a decoy.

He is often cited, but has anyone read him?
Oh, but he is condemned by the UOJ Stormtroopers to this day.

 Barth/Kirschbaum cited by Braaten on Justification
"There is not one for whose sin and death he did not die, whose sin and death he did not remove and obliterate on the cross...There is not one who is not adequately and perfectly and finally justified in Him. There is not one whose sin is not forgiven sin in Him, whose death is not a death which has been put to death in Him...There is not one for whom he has not done everything in His death and received everything in His resurrection from the dead."
(Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV, 1, 638)

By the way, as I mentioned to DP Robert Mueller, a shape-shifter of the worst sort, the original "in view of faith" statement was "in view of the merits of Christ apprehended by faith," which is perfectly good and Scriptural, from Gerhard, as I recall. He agreed. So it was obnoxious for Walther to run around attacking AN edition of the Small Catechism (Pontoppidan, in view of faith) when we do not teach doctrine from editors but from the Scriptures.

But conflict is good and God-pleasing, separating the wormy flour from the good flour. Unfortunately, the Justification by Faith Lutherans were lazy and prone to look at the European rationalists with covetous envy. The good old professors were replaced with cool guys with liberal degrees. Very hip. They did that with Lenski after working hard to silence him.

What did Schleiermacher teach about OJ/SJ?
He simply taught OJ.

European rationalists saw Schleiermacher, Halle University student and professor, as the turning point, their hero - faith without belief. Absolute dependence - whatever that means.

When the Son of Man returns, will He find faith?

Worth Saying Again

Biographical sketch - Theopedia

Born in Breslaw, Germany in 1768, Schleiermacher was the son of a Prussain army chaplain. At age nine his father came into contact with Pietism and entered into a devotional lifestyle. Friedrich was sent at age 15 to a boarding school run by the Moravian Brethren, a pious evangelical group that traced its roots back to Jan Huss. ^[2]^. While at boarding school Schleiermacher began to question his faith to which the Moravians did not care to give an answer.

As time went on Schleiermacher left to study at the University of Halle. Upon his fathers advice he studied Immanuel Kant who at this point in time was "causing a storm throughout the intellectual world." In 1790 he became a Reformed minister and later moved to Berlin in 1796 to be a hospital chaplain. While there he met Friedrich Schlegel with whom it was decided to attempt a translation of the works of Plato in the German language. ^[3]^

In 1799 Schleiermacher published On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers. "It defended religion against its Enlightenment critics. Religion, he argued, was not a philosophy, nor abstract metaphysical thought, nor natural science, nor adherence to dogmatic formulae, but the "sense and taste for the infinite" consisting primarily in feeling; belief and action are secondary. Knowledge of the soul and knowledge of God are inseparable—a concept that had been presented more than 1000 years earlier by St. Augustine. His thought thus has a subjective focus, but it should not on that account be deemed sheer "subjectivism." Schleiermacher's careful analysis of religious feelings always has in view, at least by implication, the infinite and eternal reality to which these feelings are responses. The Speeches are sometimes held to be pantheist in tone, but he did not identify the world with the "infinite and eternal." Rather, he held that it is always in and through one's experience of the whole interconnecting realm of the finite that there comes a sense of dependence upon the infinite ground of all things." ^ [4]^

***

 Huckster-in-Chief - Luther's 500th?
Let's publish Gerhard.

 CPH shot glass

GJ - I used to regret the many hours spent studying hundreds of modern theology books at Notre Dame. But now I recognize their crafts and assaults, their heroes and villains, their opaque and deceptive words.

Halle University - like Pietism - began with noble intentions, but quickly turned Biblical piety into Scriptural rationalism. Halle is not alone but certainly is the most significant source of anti-Biblical and anti-Christian scholarship. And yet, the school and center were so holy in the eyes of Protestants that nothing from Halle could be criticized. 

The American Lutheran groups were founded by Halle veterans - General Synod, LCMS, and WELS. The other groups, like the Swedes and Norwegians, were also Pietists.

Modern theology books skip over the Reformation's direct connection to the Scriptures and begin with rationalistic Pietism. Their stuffy academic language gives them away. From the new LCMS disaster - 

"Dogmatics presents the truth of God's saving self-disclosure as it has been apprehended, reflected upon, and expressed by the faith (fides quae creditur - GJ gratuitous Latin) of the Christian church." (Promotional material for the CPH  Titanic.)

 The Concordia was driven recklessly onto the shoals,
just like the Synodical Conference today.

Bad Boys, Bad Boys - Whatch Going To Do When They Come For You? Modern Theologians in the Woodwork

 Charlotte Kirschbaum is the Commie babe who lived with Karl Barth in a cabin in the summers and moved in with Barth's family later. She probably wrote most of the Dogmatics and
the research for his lectures. When she died, "his" writing
stopped.

Lutherans should concentrate on the Lutheran Reformation rather than the Stephanite (LCMS) Sex Cult, but the faithful should also study the modern theologians - with discernment.

 This is a basic academic treatment of Barth,
allowing that his relationship with his hawt assistant
caused considerable scandal and embarrassment.

Barth is the official theologian of Fuller Seminary, which is the dominant school for liberal and conservative Protestants - and some Catholics. Many conservative Evangelicals think Karl - or rather Charlotte - is the bomb. He was not only a flagrant adulterer and plagiarist, but also a dedicated Communist, sending his mistress to a key Party meeting.

The only thing the Synodical Conference has learned from Barth-Kirschbaum is how to get away with plagiarism. Like nursery school, only the bad habits catch on, and the disease organisms flourish.

 This Fortress book by a friend of Tillich is quite good -
honest about his academic weaknesses and paganism.
Tillich's wife wrote the tell-all about his affairs with the wives of his students and his fascination with sado-masochism.

Tillich soared in the estimation of Protestants and Catholics from the 1960s one, but I wonder if he has much influence today. He is a good example of leaving the faith behind completely while making a living from it. He also plagiarized the work of others, as exemplified by the best-selling The Courage To Be, based on the research of his graduate student.

Barth wrote so ambiguously that he was able to fool the undiscerning. One of my classmates teaches at a famous conservative Evangelical school. He became extremely upset with me when I categorized Barth as a liberal. With Tillich there is no doubt.

In both cases - Barth and Tillich - theology is divorced from the Word of God, except when the Scriptures are handy as a podium. As I repeated to a liberal at Concordia Ft. Wayne, Barth's theology is summarized by "holding the newspaper in one hand, a Kalashnikov in the other, while standing on the Bible." That quip was not original to me, but it enraged the liberal professor, as intended. Jay Webber was peeved, but I was the only one in the room to answer the question about Barth - and I was just visiting.

Bultmann out-lived many original scholars and became the leading New Testament scholar after World War II. The 1950s were quite prosperous for the mainline denominations, and they appreciated a famous man who backed up their mythical treatment of the Bible.

Meet the Founder of Modern Theology - Halle's Schleiermacher

 Friedrich Schleiermacher studied at Halle University as an unbeliever and also taught there in the same capacity.
Halle was a center of Pietism and soon became a center of anti-Biblical Rationalism.

“According to Schleiermacher, the decree of redemption already means that human beings are agreeable to God in his Son; an individual act of justification in time is not first needed in each individual person. It is only necessary that each individual person become aware that in God’s decree of redemption in Christ he is already justified and made agreeable to God.”
Hoenecke, Dogmatics, III, p. 339. Hat-tip to Joseph Schmidt. 

"Objectively speaking, without any reference to an individual sinner's attitude toward Christ's sacrifice, purely on the basis of God's verdict, every sinner, whether he knows about it or not, whether he believes it or not, has received the status of a saint. What will be his reaction when he is informed about this turn of events? Will he accept, or will he decline?"
J. P. Meyer, Ministers of Christ, A Commentary on the Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1963, p. 103f. 2 Corinthians 5:18-21.

Decree of redemption - does that sound like the LCMS Brief Statement of 1932?

In Christ - does that sound like Jay Webber's eternal mantra? 

Schleiermacher is generally considered the pivotal figure for modern theology, divorcing faith from belief. Halle University turned Biblical studies on its head and became a hotbed for anti-Biblical teaching - especially UOJ.

It is fashionable for modern theologians to distance themselves from Scheiermacher, but they really start from his perspective. If they have been induced to read a lot of earlier theologians, Schleiermacher is definitely on the list. Barth is especially close to the same rhetorical tricks, but Barth is easier to spell and pronounce, so the modern theologians refer to Barth.

 Liberal Roman Catholic theologians enjoy the
philosophical smokescreen thrown up by Paul Tillich,
who is very much like their Karl Rahner.
Two of my classmates, both Catholic leaders and now retired,
were offended by my faith in the Virgin Birth and Resurrection
of Christ. They said, "There is no use talking with you, Jackson."
They were also offended that a visiting Catholic theologian
believed the New Testament was historical,
though he called the Old Testament mythical.