# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1905_S140
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

14⁰ Kirchlich⸗Zeitgeschichtliches.

the one without rending the other into fragments.“ (S. 479 f.) Einen direten
Angriff auf die Stellung D. Jacobs' enthalten die folgenden Worte: “We have
heard it asserted that the “spiritual truths, or the saving truths, of the
Scriptures are infallible and inerrant, while other parts of even the original
Seriptures may contain errors! By what right does anyone make such a
distinction? We cannot find it warranted by anything in God's Word. The
trouble is you cannot separate the saving truths from their historical setting
by àa sharp line of cleavage. Let us try it and see. The Gospel history tells
us that Christ healed a man that had a palsied arm. What is the saving truth
in that beautiful story? What the part of it that need not be believed? The
Gospels inform us that Christ fed five thousand persons in a miraculous way;
that He walked on the water; that He raised the son of aà Wwidow from the
dead; that He opened the eyes of blind Bartimeus, and so on. What are the
saving truths in those narratives? Indeed, you cannot separate à historical
person from his history. The trouble with this partial-inspiration hypoth-
esis is, when you come to apply it to concréete cases, it falls helpless and
hapless to the ground. It is not a good working theory; it is not practical.“
(S. 481.) „If Matthew (20, 29—34] would make a blunder in so simple a
matter, mistaking one blind man for two, how can we trust him when he de-
scribes weightier matters? How do we know that he did not commit many
blunders when he described the passion and resurrection of our Lord? That
is the way the practical mind thinks. The same difficulty occurs if you sup-
pose that Mark 10, 46 -52)] mistook two blind men for one. He that is
faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much, ete.“ (S. 483.) Zu
dem Einwurf endlich: der Zweck der Bibel sei nicht, Wissenschaft zu lehren, bemerkt
P. Keyser: “Sometimes you hear men say that the Bible was not written to
teach science. That is true when properly qualifled, but it is not sweepingly
true. The Bible was not meant to teach science as a scientiflc text-book,
but even the lay mind can see that, wherever the Bible makes statements
that belong to the scientifle realm, its statements ought to be correct, to
agree with what is known to be true in scientifle research.“ (S. 485.) Auch
D. Schmauk, der gegenwärtige Präsident des Generalconcils und Hauptredacteur der
Church Reviet, spricht sich in derselben Nummer aus über die Inspirationslehre
und protestirt auch gegen die überaus vage Stellung, welche die Allgemeine Con⸗
ferenz in Pittsburg zu dieser Frage eingenommen hat, .) aber zu einem Bekenntniß zur

) D. Nicum sagt in seinem Berichte über die Conferenz in Pittsburg: The discussion [on The
Attitude of the Lutheran Church to the Holy Scriptures] was closed by the author of the
lirst paper with the following statement: 1. The Holy Scriptures to us are the Word 0of
God with power to regenerate. The negative critics recognize a general moral influence
coming from the Bible, but they concede this only in order to give them an open fleld in
rejecting and dismembeéring much trustworthy historical material. 2. The Old Testament
to us is the history of salvation in its preparatory form. To the oritic it is a purely his-
torical development, having its root in à low religious condition, gradually wWorking up-
ward. 3. In the New Testament to us Christ is the Son of God and the Son of Man. To
many negative critics Christ is merely à great religious genius. 4. To us the Epistles are
the unfolding of the truth of Christ by the Apostles under the guidanee of the Holy Spirit.
To the negative critics many statements of the Apostles are specnlative theology. 5. To
us the Book of Revelation is a vision of the future. To the negative critic it is a mirtum
compositum of Persian mythology, Jewish apocalypses, and some kernels of Christian
truth.“ (S. 605 f.) Mit Recht betont D. Schmauk, daß nur grobe Rationalisten und ausgesprochene Uni⸗
tarier sich weigern würden, diese vagen Sätze anzunehmen. In Pittsburg hat man Übersehen, daß es die
Aufgabe der Kirche ist, nicht die Wahrheit zu verschweigen, sondern zu bekennen und die Irrlehre entschieden
zu verwerfen und ihr keine Schlupflöcher zu lassen.