_16_Theology and Certainty

The question how the theologian attains subjective certainty, how he attains personal assurance of the truth of the Christian doctrine (erkenntnis-theoretische Frage), is much discussed today. The moderns, both of the “conservative” and the “liberal” wing, raise the “problem,” and some of their spokesmen are free to confess that it is a difficult problem.159 But the difficulty they encounter is of their own making. It is due to their repudiation of Scripture as God’s Word.

Scripture gives a clear and simple answer to the question concerning subjective certitude. Christ tells all Christians, including the theologians: “If ye continue in My Word … ye shall know the truth” (John 8:31-32). Christ here states two things. First, there is such a thing as Christian certainty, “Ye shall know the truth,” and, second, that this certain knowledge of the truth (Wahrheitsgewissheit) is identical with continuing in the Word of Christ, believing His Word. Faith is certainty. And when we ask further how this faith, which continues in Christ’s Word, is brought about, Scripture again gives us a clear and definite answer. It is the Word of Christ itself which works faith in the Word of Christ (Rom. 10:17: “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God”). The reason for this is that the Word of Christ, when we hear and read it and thus apprehend it with our mind, carries with it the power of the Holy Ghost. Our Christian faith, as Paul declares (1 Cor. 2:5), is not produced by, and does not stand in, “the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” So, then, it is the sure Word which produces the Christian assurance. As Luther’s axiom has it: “Man is certus passive, sicut Verbum Dei cerium est active.” Elaborating this statement, Luther says: “Where this Word [of God] takes possession of the heart by true faith, it makes the heart as firm, sure, and certain as it is itself, unmoved, stubborn, hard, in the face of temptation, the devil, death, and anything whatsoever, in proud confidence laughing to scorn all that spells doubt and fear, ire and wrath, for it knows that the Word of God cannot lie” (St. L. III:1887).

And only by continuing in the Word of Christ is the Christian certainty mediated. Particularly the teachers of the Church need to learn this lesson. The Apostle Paul informs every teacher who will not abide by the wholesome words of the Lord Jesus Christ that he is given to hallucinations, knows nothing, is sick with the disease of question and strifes of words (1 Tim. 6:4), and thus shuts out all Christian assurance. The matter of Christian certainty, of personal assurance of the truth, is, as we see, fully settled by Scripture.

What Scripture says concerning the nature and source of Christian certainty is of great practical value for all Christians, particularly also for the theologian. Following the directions given by Scripture, they will, as often as their assurance wanes, at once flee into the Word of Christ, into Holy Scripture, hear, read, and ponder the Word in their hearts, accept the Word through the influence of the Holy Spirit active in the Word, completely subjecting themselves to it, and humbly praying: “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth” (1 Sam. 3:9). Luther did that. Whenever he found that his Christian certainty, both the “assurance of salvation” and the “assurance of the truth,” was about to vanish, he fled into Scripture. He says: “I do not know how strong in the Spirit others are; as for me, I could never be so holy as some feel themselves to be, even if I were ever so learned and full of the Spirit. Yet this is constantly happening to me that when I am without the Word, do not meditate on it, and occupy myself with it, there is no Christ at home, no fervor and Spirit; but as soon as I take up a Psalm or a passage of Scripture, it shines and burns into the heart and gives me new courage and a new mind. I know, too, that everyone will daily experience the same thing.” (St. L. VIII:749 f.) Luther therefore gives every Christian and every theologian the further advice to “take hold with his thoughts of the letters [of Scripture] as one clings with his hand to a tree or a wall, in order that he may not slip and flutter around and go astray with his own thoughts. That is the trouble with our ‘enthusiasts’: they imagine that their high spiritual thoughts will do it, and they do not see that without the Word they must lose their way, letting will-o’-the-wisps lead them hither and yon.” It is the wrong attitude towards Scripture, Luther here tells us, which precludes the Christian certainty. If we neglect Scripture, opining that we have advanced beyond it and no longer need it, we shall remain, or again become, the prey of uncertainty; we are not listening, not even outwardly, to the voice of Scripture and thus deny it the opportunity to attest itself as the divine truth. Then there are those who take a critical attitude toward Scripture. Their case is infinitely worse. They may experience the blinding effect of the Word of Christ, which Christ describes in the words: “I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes” (Matt. 11:25); and again: “For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see and that they which see might be made blind” (John 9:39). Such a one is absolutely cut off from all Christian knowledge.160 This warning, too, is a necessary safeguard of the Christian certainty. — We shall take up this point again later on.

If we keep in mind what Scripture teaches concerning Christian certainty, we shall know how to evaluate the “theory of cognition” set up by the moderns and their quest for “the assurance of truth.” Though they speak glibly of an “immediate” Christian assurance, they search for a reliable foundation or basis for their assurance, for an “impregnable fortress” [their phrase] into which the Christian “ultimately retreats” and in which he will be safe against all hostile attacks. But Christ directs us to His Word, the Word of His Apostles and Prophets, as the one strong fortress, indestructible, outlasting heaven and earth (Matt. 24:35; Mark 13:31; Luke 21:33). And the Christian Church has understood these orders. It has taken its stand on Scripture, and making Scripture the basis of certainty, it has withstood all assaults of the enemy. Standing on this basis, Luther, too, stood his ground against the whole world. But the moderns insist that Christ, the Christian Church, and of course also Luther, were in error. They hold that the fortress so long regarded as “impregnable” has in our day been captured and demolished, never to be restored. They protest that their keen “sense of realities,” as developed by modern scientific methods, forbids them to accept Scripture as God’s own Word.161 The modern theologians are sure they have found that basis in man himself, in something within the Christian. They are, indeed, not sure what constitutes this “impregnable fortress,” whether it is the pious self-consciousness of the theologizing subject, or the regenerate self, or the Christian faith consciousness, or the Christian experience, etc. Nor have they yet settled the question among themselves in which region of the Ego the actual seat of assurance is located, whether in the feeling or in the intellect or in the will or in a combination of these three activities of the soul. And they are still arguing the question whether the basis of assurance is the moral (“ethical”) condition or the “faith” of the Christian. But of one thing they are sure: the basis of assurance must be located within the “Christian subject” and not outside of it. And since all of them have given up Scripture as the Word of God, it is but natural that on this point they should be in full accord.

It was Schleiermacher who in the first quarter of the last century sold the theological world on this theology of “self-assurance” (Selbstgewissheit).162 Both the liberal and the conservative camps rang with the praises of Schleiermacher’s great achievement. Nitzsch-Stephan hailed his “Glaubenslehre” as “a reformatory deed,” an “achievement of the utmost spiritual importance,” “by far the most important dogmatics in recent theology.” “In it and through it man’s self-consciousness has reached its highest development.”163 And R. Seeberg fully agrees with this appraisal. He acclaims Schleiermacher as “the Reformer of the theology of our century” and calls his “Glaubenslehre” “the most perfect, the grandest dogmatics produced by the Evangelical Church up till now”; “this book has taught the nineteenth century true theology.”164 Pupils and admirers of Schleiermacher were found even in what is known as the “confessional Lutheran” group. “The entire dogmatic labor of the Church of the nineteenth century has followed,” as Seeberg points out, “the guidelines laid down by Schleiermacher” (loc. cit., p. 84). That applies, and particularly so, to what is known as the “Erlangen Theology.” This school stands squarely and unalterably on the theology of self-assurance. Hofmann declared that the Christian consciousness “does not look to the Church nor to Scripture for the primary and real certification of its truth, but it rests in itself and has an immediate assurance of the truth; it has within itself the Spirit of God to certify the truth to it.”165 And Frank says: “We deal with the central and specific essence of the Christian certainty, where no authority coming from without but the Christian personally determines the ground and validity of his certainty”166

That Frank includes Scripture among the “authorities coming from without” which cannot serve as the foundation of Christian certainty is evident from his somewhat brusque reply to Philippi: “With him, however, who opposes to me the ‘objective’ act of redemption and the Word of God in place of my ‘subjective’ starting point, I am not able to find terms of agreement, because he has not understood the position of the question” (op. cit., p. 115. — Engl, ed., p. 111). Frank certainly comes out squarely for “the full self-assurance of Christianity and its theology.” This agrees with Ph. Bachmann’s judgment, the last outstanding representative of the Erlangen School, when he says: “Hofmann and still more Frank have as a matter of principle espoused the principle of the full self-assurance of Christianity and its theology.” 167

We must now proceed to an examination of the real nature of this “self-certainty” of theology. We maintain that a certainty which in principle rejects the Word of God as the foundation of assurance is (1) not Christian, (2) not certain, (3) not scientific.

1. All are agreed that only what Christ teaches and does is Christian. And Christ definitely teaches, as was shown at the beginning of this chapter, that the method we must employ if we would know and be sure of the truth is to continue in His Word. Now, since Christ is always right, Schleiermacher, Hofmann, Frank, and all who employ their method, all who ask the “Christian subject” to furnish independently of the Word of Christ full assurance or, at least, half assurance, are in error. Their theological method is not Christian but unchristian. Every theologian who ascribes to a self-mediated consciousness such fine-sounding appellatives as the “Christian self-consciousness,” the “pious” self-consciousnes of the “regenerate I,” deceives only himself and others.

2. This vaunted “self-certainty” is anything but certainty. It is pure illusion. It cannot be anything else, because the Word of Scripture is the sole foundation of certainty. The notion that one does not need the Word of Christ in order to obtain the knowledge and the assurance of the truth had appeared already in the Apostolic age of the Church. There were men in the Corinthian congregation who ignored the Word of the Apostle and still claimed to be “prophets,” the possessors and dispensers of “spiritual” truth. But Paul tells these men plainly that his Word is the Word of Christ (“the things I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord”); furthermore, that they must root out all notions of “self-certainty” and take for their basis the Word of the Apostle, and, finally, that if a man persists in his rejection of this basis, his case is hopeless. That is the meaning of the sharp words: “If any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant” (1 Cor. 14:37-38; 2 Cor. 13:3). “Self-certainty men” appeared in other congregations, too, and all of them had to be told by the Apostle that their assurance was a self-delusion: “If any man teach otherwise and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ … he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting (, sick) about questions and strifes of words” (1 Tim. 6:3-4). In short, the “knowledge” that is not based on the Word of Christ, that is, on the Word of the Apostles, is ignorance, the pretended “certainty,” a sham.

And this applies to the whole group of the modern theologians who have definitely rejected the Word of Christ as the source and basis of certainty and therefore have done away with all real assurance. By erecting a barricade between themselves and Scripture, which is God’s Word, they also erect a barricade against the Holy Spirit’s testimony to the truth, for Scripture, because it is the Word of God, carries this testimony. They are thus forced to furnish their own testimonium veritatis on the basis of intuition, reflection, or self-analysis which they feel in themselves, do of themselves, or judge concerning themselves. It is therefore not surprising that the advocates of “self-certainty” have little use for the testimony of the Holy Spirit. Some of them reject it outright as involving a logical fallacy, “arguing in a circle.” The others declare it to be insufficient. That is only consistent with their theological position. One who believes in “self-certainty” will see in this witness of the Holy Spirit an unfair competitor, an unwarranted meddling in what is the theologian’s own business. The moderns actually hold that the theologian must bring about the certainty himself. Zoeckler, for instance, who belongs to the right wing of modern theology, says concerning “the appeal of the old Protestant dogmaticians to the testimonium Spiritus Sancti,” that while it is not to be rejected altogether, it is faulty, and then he makes the plain statement: “A free act is needed, one depending on ourselves, the responsibility for which devolves upon us, an achievement which is morally necessary and for that reason left to our free choice. _Only by this free act do we create the certainty.”_168 But this self-created certainty is nothing but an illusion. Everything in theology that is built on man himself, whether it be the “assurance of salvation” or the “assurance of the truth,” collapses at once when the thunderbolt of the divine Law strikes it, which hurls both sinner and “saint” into a heap “and suffers no one to be in the right but drives them all together to terror and despair” (Smalc. Art., Trigl., 479, 2).

Frank refers in his System of the Christian Certainty to the rchimedian . We thank him for this reference. The famous saying, rightly or wrongly ascribed to Archimedes: “ — give me a place to stand, and I will move the world” — dealing with a physical law, furnishes a fine analogy to the spiritual law which we are studying. Just as Archimedes required a position outside the world to move the world, just so we require a foothold outside ourselves and all the world in order to be able to maintain ourselves against the world, the devil, and our own I. All these powers, including our Ego, oppose us, particularly in the matter of the assurance of our salvation and of the assurance of the truth.169 There is such a position, lying outside of ourselves, providing a firm and safe footing. That is the Word of Christ, concerning which Christ says, as we have already pointed out: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.” And this Word, which is firmer than heaven and earth, Christ designates as the basis on which all must stand who would be His true disciples and know the truth. Luther understood and followed Christ’s instruction and command. And as one well experienced in this matter he incessantly calls upon all Christians and particularly all theologians to step out of their own I and “through the Word ascend above themselves” (St. L. XI:1727, 1736). In this way, in direct opposition to the ways of the self-certain theology, Luther gained an assurance of the truth that stood unmoved, unshaken in the face of all attacks, and that emboldened him to speak to King Henry VIII thus: “As the Lord liveth, if any king or prince imagines that this man Luther humbles himself before him in the sense that he repents of his doctrine, pleads guilty of false teaching and begs for mercy, such a one is deceiving himself badly, and the gold he was dreaming of turns out to be nothing but filth. In the domain of doctrine the greatness of men means nothing to me; there the greatest of them is a mere bubble or even less. That is not going to be changed. Whoever rues it, let him give up; whoever is afraid, let him flee. My Supporter is strong enough and safe enough for me; that I know. Whether all the world follows me or deserts me, that is all the same to me; for I recall that it did not side with me when I stood alone. Any man that wants to may quit; if he does not care to remain, he is free to go.” (“Antwort auf des Koenigs zu England Laesterschrift,” St. L. XIX:413, 422.) That is certainty, that is assurance of the truth! And this assurance of Luther was the result of the fact that he stood on Scripture as God’s own Word, and thus he had a foothold outside his I, outside the whole world. Nothing in the world, nothing in us, can give us the needed assurance. Only the Word can do it. Says Luther: “It is greater than a hundred thousand worlds, yea, greater than heaven and earth. That Word shall be my faithful counselor and sturdy tree to which I will cling in order that I may bear and stand it. If we do not cling to that tree, our nature is much too weak to bear the burning hatred and envy of the world and to withstand the crafty plots and fiery darts of the devil.” (St. L. XIII:2621.) Recall once more Luther’s remarks on 2 Samuel 23: God’s Word alone makes certain, cerium est active; man, however, is made certain by God’s Word, he is certus passive; but so certain that “the heart in proud confidence laughs to scorn all that spells doubt and fear, ire and wrath, for it knows that the Word of God cannot lie” (St. L. III:1887).

That is the voice of assurance. What about the assurance of the theology of self-certainty? We find that it is a theology of “self-uncertainty” (Selbstungewissheit). That is evidenced by a number of facts. There is the indifference to doctrine which prevails today. It has come to such a pass that agreement in doctrine is looked upon as an abnormality, while “pure doctrine” is disparaged as “so-called pure doctrine” and is made the object of ridicule. But indifferentism is the signature of uncertainty. One who is certain of the truth is never indifferent to doctrine, but insists uncompromisingly on pure doctrine, even as Scripture, both in the Old and in the New Testament, insistently demands that the doctrine be “pure,” uncontaminated by any human Ego product. (See Chapter 10: “Theology as Doctrine.” Jer. 23:16; 1 Pet. 4:11; 1 Tim. 6:3; 2 John 8-11; Rom. 16:17.)

Another symptom of uncertainty is unionism, which pervades the life of the Church today. Unionism has no scruples about practicing church fellowship with spirits that are not of God. But one who is sure of the divine truth thinks and acts according to the order of Christ: “Beware of false prophets” (Matt. 7:15), and the admonition of Paul: “Avoid them” (Rom. 16:17), and the instruction given by “the Apostle of love” with regard to Christian fellowship: “If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him Godspeed; for he that biddeth him Godspeed is partaker of his evil deeds” (2 John 10-11).

Again, modern theology betrays its uncertainty by treating Christian doctrines as “problems.” There are, indeed, sano sensu open questions and problems in theology,170 questions which arise in connection with the doctrines revealed in Scripture but concerning which Scripture either is silent or does not speak with sufficient clarity to warrant the careful theologian to say: “Thus saith the Lord,” “It is written.” Scrupulous theologians, like Luther, would not dare to rank a human opinion with the divine doctrine clearly revealed in Scripture, even though this human opinion is probably correct, as for example, traducianism. Luther says on occasion: “What I do not know for certain [from Scripture], I will teach no one” (St. L. XX:1062). Such theologians are certainly not to be censured; they deserve praise, for their refusal to affirm what Scripture has not clearly affirmed brings into bold relief the majesty of Holy Scripture and its unique divine authority, which does not tolerate any human authority to be set up beside it. The Christian theologians speak and assert where Scripture speaks and asserts; where Scripture does not speak and decide, they humbly step aside and keep silence, for what God has not decided in Scripture must remain a problem. Modern theologians, however, have an entirely different concept of theological problems. They have reduced such doctrines as are clearly revealed in Scripture to “problems.” They speak of the “problem” of creation and the preservation of the cosmos, the “problem” of the person and office of Christ, of conversion and justification, of the inspiration of Holy Scripture, of the relation of the Christian religion and the non-Christian religion; everything has become a “problem.” And, indeed, on the basis of their principle of cognition, everything must be treated as a problem. In the first place, their source and norm of theology, the human subject, is fallible. They say so themselves, either implicitly or explicitly — and this in spite of the claim of the “immediate certainty” of their theology. But a fallible source and norm can never beget certainty. In the second place, also their secondary and ancillary source of religious certainty is fallible. Modern theology admits — contrary to its principle of a self-mediated assurance — that “Christian experience” is subject to “self-deception.” 171 Therefore it advises and enjoins the theologian to test his own findings according to several objective factors, such as the principal world views, man’s cumulative religious knowledge, the results of scientific research in the field of anthropology, sociology, comparative religion, and the natural sciences. But if these factors are needed to establish certainty, no man can tell when the quest for certainty will end; to date no absolute finality in any of these fields has been achieved. The “Christian subject,” seeking certainty, is thus wandering about in a labyrinth of uncertainties. In addition, he is asked to “form a unified system” out of this tangle of uncertainties. That certainly spells toil and moil; it is indeed a “problem” in the strict sense of the term. And this “laborious search for certainty,” as they themselves call it, is altogether profitless. It is rolling the stone of Sisyphus and drawing water, after the manner of the Danaides, with a sieve. — In short, the theology which spurns Scripture as the only source and norm of theology and sets up its tents in the “pious self-consciousness of the theologizing subject” is a theology of uncertainty. But does not Scripture itself teach us to follow the method of the self-certainty theologians when it tells us that we should gain the assurance of our faith and of our continuance in the truth by reflecting on our good works, i. e., our own Ego? Now, it is true that our good works do assure us that we have passed from death unto life. That is the teaching of Scripture (John 8:47; 1 John 3:14; 2:3-4; Matt. 6:14; 2 Pet. 1:10) and of the Lutheran Symbols (Trigl. 199, 154 f.). But we must always bear in mind that when “stormy weather sets in,” and that happens very often, the Christian is driven, lest he perish in uncertainty, to rely solely and exclusively on the objective word of Scripture as the immovable basis of his assurance. Nevertheless, it is God’s will that the Christians should always be in a position to bring in their works as a testimonium of their standing in grace and in the truth.172 But note well that obviously this applies only to the good works of the Christians. But when we examine the works or the fruits produced by the tree of the “pious self-consciousness of the theologizing subject,” we see at once that they are evil works. Schleiermacher, the “father” of the nineteenth-century theology of self-consciousness, denies the guilt of sin and its expiation through the vicarious satisfaction of Christ, he denies the eternal deity of Christ, the Trinity; in a word, he denies all fundamentals of the Christian religion. There are theologians among the moderns who acknowledge the evil nature of the fruits of Schleiermacher’s self-consciousness. They admire, indeed, Schleiermacher’s method and apply it, but they view the products of Schleiermacher’s self-consciousness with “grave misgivings.” And what do we find when we examine the doctrinal fruits produced by the “Confessional Lutheran” theologians who had adopted Schleiermacher’s experience method? With malicious glee the radical wing of the moderns noted and published the fact that the Lutherans have in the Schleiermacher tradition also discarded the Scriptures as the Word of God and Christ’s work as satisfactio vicaria, also original sin and the eternal, immutable deity of Christ and the “two-nature doctrine” and justification as actus forensis and the means of grace as the only means by which the forgiveness of sin is obtained and faith produced and preserved. But these are all evil works. The Holy Ghost in the heart of the Christians views them with horror. They cannot support the “Christian certainty,” but can serve only as props for the imaginary certainty of the “human self-consciousness,” that has cut loose from Christ’s Word and thus erected a barricade against the cognition of the truth.173

3. But even if the theology of self-certainty does not serve the cause of certainty — it works the other way — is it not at least scientific? When Frank’s System der christlichen Gewissheit appeared in its first edition, it created a great stir. But there was also some sharp criticism. In particular one whom Frank himself in the second edition of the book calls an “eminent theologian” suggested to Frank that on his own theory “the profit” of his large book “must be but small.” If the “Christian certainty,” as Frank claims, really is entirely independent of everything lying outside itself, then Frank’s book, too, being one of the things lying outside the Christian, would be of no help towards producing and preserving Christian certainty; it could help neither Frank himself nor any other person in the world. This objection certainly puts the self-assurance men into a tight place. Here the Ego theology faces an insurmountable difficulty. When the “enthusiasts” of the sixteenth century (the Ego theology did not originate with Schleiermacher; there was plenty of it before his days) boasted that their “spirit” — and that included, of course, their assurance of the truth — did not need the “external word,” Luther told them that then they would have to desist from their own pratings and writings, unless, indeed, they were puffed up with the thought that “the Spirit could not come through the writings and spoken Word of the Apostles, but through their (the enthusiasts’) writings and words He must come” (Smalc. Art., Trigl. 495, 6). Frank concedes the force of this objection. He admits that his System of the Christian Certainty cannot help anyone to attain certainty; nor was it intended for that purpose. But, says Frank, there are other interests in the world besides Christian certainty. There is the scientific interest, and to serve this interest his System was written. We quote from the second edition: “If, then, it is further objected —as was done by an eminent theologian, now some years dead — that if such is our meaning, the profit must be but small, for he who had such experience and stands assured, does not need that proof, and for him who has not had it and does not stand in this assurance, it is of no help; I answer that I should desire nothing more than to understand in some measure that which is really present, the certainty actually existing…. A small task it may be, but yet a task, namely, a scientific one: he who, standing in the certainty, has no desire for this understanding may let it alone; and he who does not stand in the certainty may also let it alone!”174

But Frank is wrong again. When he says that his work serves at least the scientific interest, we shall have to tell him that his method and his work do not meet the requirements of science. It is not easy to gain a clear picture of Frank’s line of reasoning owing either to his involved language or his failure to keep in mind the train of thought by which he arrived at his “self-certification.” As we and others understand Frank, the way to arrive at scientific certainty is for the subject to “objectify” itself, that is, to make itself the object of investigation. And from this rather arbitrarily fixed object the subject receives “impressions,” studies these impressions until they become “knowledge,” and thus obtains a sound scientific basis for its assurance. But throughout this process the subject dare not look for an object outside itself; not even Holy Scripture and the testimonium Spiritus Sancti.175 That is like advising a man looking for a support (the scientific certainty is never meant to be anything else than a quest) to take a firm hold on some part of his own body; that will give him the necessary means of support. But this method of attaining certainty by grasping one’s own Ego and disdaining every “outside” support is as scientific as when Baron Muenchhausen pulled himself and his horse out of the quagmire by his own bootstraps. The self-certainty theologians claim that their method is a masterstroke of systematic theology, because it brings into a perfect unit all Christian knowledge and experience. Yes, it is a perfect unit, as when the playful kitten chases its own tail and revolves around itself. That describes the situation exactly. The theologian who actually cuts loose from Scripture is no longer in contact with God and the divine truth; he is communicating only with himself and his own human thoughts; he is, as has been aptly stated, in communication with “the projections of his own Ego.” And that is what the I theologians call scientific thinking!176

It follows that if modern theology wishes to serve the cause of real, not imaginary, Christian certainty and if it wants to meet the requirements of real science — science certainly calls for orderly thought processes — it must — there is absolutely no other choice — completely reverse itself. It must renounce the unchristian and illogical idea of self-certainty and place itself on the objective foundation on which the Church is actually built, on the Word of the Apostles and Prophets, that is, on the Word of Christ (Eph. 2:20; John 8:31-32; 17:20). There is no self-certainty in the Christian theology, but, as Luther says: Homo est certus passive, sicut Verbum Dei est certum active. — Modern theology asks us, in this connection, to make Christ’s person, and not Christ’s Word, our foundation. That will not do. To be sure, Christ’s person is the cornerstone of His Church (Eph. 2:20; 1 Pet. 2:6). But we find Christ nowhere else than in His Word. Only as we believe, and stand on, the Apostolic and Prophetic Word, which is Christ’s Word, are we built on Christ the Cornerstone. That is clearly stated in the words immediately preceding: “built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets.” Whoever pushes the Word of the Apostles and Prophets away is not standing on Christ; Christ is not there. “When I am without the Word, do not meditate on it, and occupy myself with it, there is no Christ at home” (Luther).

The spiritual and intellectual collapse of the theology of self-certainty, of experience, etc., is inevitable, because this theology does not take a believing but a critical attitude toward God’s Word, that is, toward God Himself. This critical attitude is its raison d’être. Because the experience theology rejects Scripture as the infallible Word of God, it has taken its stand on the “religious experience” of the theologizing subject and assumes the right to examine and criticize Holy Scripture. While Christ says: “I have given them Thy Word” and certifies this Word as the truth: “Thy Word is truth” (John 17: 14, 17), the experience theologians, from the extreme left to the extreme right wing, declare either openly or subtly, but unisono: Thy Word is not the truth; it is mixed with error. And while Christ instructs His Church to take its stand on His Word for the purpose of gaining the knowledge of the truth, and thus be delivered from all subjectivism, particularly also from the subjectivism of the theologians, the experience theology directs the Church to free itself from the Word of Christ, given the Church, and retreat into the “impregnable fortress” of the self-consciousness of the Christian subject. It goes so far in its censure as to charge that those theologians bring disaster upon the Church who, like the Early Church, the Church of the Reformation, and “especially the old dogmaticians,” make Holy Scripture, and not “experience,” the source and norm of Christian doctrine. Yes, it goes so far as to claim that such theologians do not foster a “living Christianity” and “living faith,” but “intellectualism,” dead orthodoxy. In their critical attitude the experience theologians set themselves above God’s Word. It is Nietzsche’s “superman” in the sphere of theology. But we know from Scripture that it is a most dangerous thing for men to criticize the Word of God. God cannot brook criticism of His Word. Christ has given men God’s Word that they should believe. All who criticize it instead of believing it call down upon themselves the judgment of which Christ speaks Matt. 11:25: “Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes.” They become incapable of knowing the truth. The Word of God has a twofold effect on man. Primo loco, it illumines; secundo loco, it blinds. Whoever, through the power of the Holy Ghost, operating in the Word, receives it not as the word of man, but, as it is in truth, the Word of God, as the Thessalonians did (1 Thess. 2:13), him it illumines; whoever opposes it with the criticism of his Ego, him it blinds.

It blinds his natural judgment, too. We point, first, to the efforts on the part of practically all experience theologians to make Luther the protector of the Ego theology. They insist that Luther had already before them directed the theologians to break away from the Scripture word and had made the pious Ego the judge of the Scripture word. Statements of Luther declaring that faith must be added to the external Word of Scripture are made to mean that Luther declared faith to be independent of the external Word of Scripture. This is a glaring misconception and misinterpretation of Luther’s statements.

In the second place, we note the fact that the advocates of the experience theology charge one another with “subjectivism.” And that makes no sense, since invariably both parties of the dispute are sick with the same disease, subjectivism. W. Herrmann accuses Frank of “subjectivism” while he himself asserts that the assurance of the truth is based on the fact that the human subject imitates “the inner life of Jesus.” 177 As if that were not “subjectivism” in a pronounced degree! Ihmels, too, takes Frank to task for his subjectivism, for making the “ethical approach” (the moral transformation of the Christian) “the foundation of the whole Christian state.” Ihmels correctly holds that the ethical condition of the Christian is subject to “frequent fluctuations,” a fact which Frank himself admits, and that justification, and nothing else, constitutes the foundation of the Christian state. On the other hand, Ihmels himself has not been able to remain free from subjectivism; he, too, like Frank, weaves human work into justifying faith. If the concluding words of his Zentralfragen mean what they say, then man’s coming to the gracious God and his cognition of the truth depend on the right action of the human will. These are his words: “In the final analysis this truth [the Christian truth] is God, and God can reveal Himself only to him who wills to have Him.”178 That clearly puts both the assurance of salvation and the assurance of the truth on a subjective basis. That was also Chrysostom’s view: “Trahit Deus, sed volentem trahit; tantum velis et Deus praeoccurrit,” — God draws, but He draws the willing one; only be willing and God anticipates — and the Formula of Concord warns against such expressions, because they “have been introduced for confirming the natural free will in man’s conversion, against the doctrine concerning God’s grace,” and “are not in harmony with the form of sound doctrine” (Trigl. 913, 86). Salvation depends not upon man’s will or effort, but upon God’s mercy (Rom. 9:16, 30-33). What fools we poor mortals are — seeking a subjective foundation of certainty! That gets us nowhere. The ground of our certainty lies outside us, in the Word of God, in the Word of the Apostles and Prophets, on which the Christian Church is built. The moment you base your certainty on something within yourself, your certainty becomes uncertainty, call this Ego basis what you will — regeneration, or ethical transformation, or self-determination, or self-positing, or human conduct, or lesser guilt, or prevenient willing, etc. Luther had learned that well, so well that when Erasmus urged him to subscribe to the thesis that salvation depends on the right use of the facultas se applicandi ad gratiam, he declared: “Jugulum petisti!” (Du bist mir an die Kehle gefahren. You’ve got me by the throat; i. e., You have attacked the vital part at once.) In the matter of the “assurance of truth,” Luther clung to the axiom: Homo certus est passive, sicut Verbum Dei est certum active — man’s certainty is not of his own making, he is made certain by God’s Word.

Luther the patron of subjectivism? Luther opposed subjectivism in whatever form it appeared. Thus he warned against making true faith, wrought by the Holy Spirit, the foundation of certainty and thereby founding faith on faith. Luther calls such subjectivists “idolatrous, apostate” Christians. He writes: “It is certainly true that one should have faith for Baptism” [and this applies according to Luther also to the external, objective Word]; “but one is not to be baptized on his faith. There is a very great difference between having faith and relying on one’s faith and thus being baptized on it. Whoever is baptized on his faith is not only uncertain, but an idolatrous, apostate Christian, for he trusts and relies on what is his, namely, on a gift given him of God, and not alone on God’s Word, just as another trusts and relies on his strength, wealth, power, wisdom, sanctity, which indeed also are gifts, given him of God.” (St. L. XVIL:2213.)

In this chapter we have passed a sharp judgment on the “theology of self-consciousness.” But that is not our judgment, but God’s. And in passing this sharp judgment we are looking also at ourselves. This wicked disposition, which asserts itself in the theology of the “human self-consciousness,” inheres in all Christians because of their wicked flesh, which retains all the evil qualities of fallen human nature. It is the nature of fallen man, just because he has fallen away from God, the Center of all things, to make himself the center of things; self-assured, self-centered, self-assertive, he sets himself above God’s Word — he is the “superman.” Whoever keeps this evil disposition in subjection will extol the unmerited grace of God that has placed him in such religious environment as does not impede but foster true theology. The man who boasts: “God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are” has eo ipso reverted to the theology of self-certainty, in spite of his external association with church circles which emphatically reject the doctrine of self-certainty. But the fact that the theology of self-assertion is but an outgrowth of the evil disposition inhering, since the Fall, in all descendants of Adam, certainly does not release us from the duty of waging grim war against it. Viewed from every angle, this theology is not what it pretends to be.

Let us recapitulate: Invented for the purpose of insuring the scientific character of theology, this theology makes its advocates play the role of the man who, in order to brace his toppling Ego, takes a tight hold of his Ego. Furthermore, the Ego theology is a form, the worst form, of idolatry — self-deification. The authority which the I theologian denies to Holy Scripture he claims for himself. And as every other idol leaves the supplications of his votaries unanswered (Ps. 115:4-8), so the idol set up by the I theologians makes fools of them. The result of the theology of self-certainty is, as we have shown at length, not certainty, but illusion, self-delusion, uncertainty. We also saw that the I theology is most contagious. Schleiermacher is today [at least in some quarters] still hailed as the Reformer of the 19th century. There is a twofold reason for that. Separated from the Center through the Fall, man makes himself the center of things and is therefore easily won for an Ego theology. Secondly, the Ego theology always covers its wickedness with the cloak of piety. The “enthusiasts” of the 16th century would not have won so great a following if they had openly declared that their vagaries were the product of their human Ego. But they labeled them as products of the Holy Spirit. And they shed, as Luther on occasion remarks, “troughs of tears” as evidencing their piety. In the same manner Schleiermacher and his followers speak of the pious self-consciousness of the theologizing subject, of the regenerate Ego, of the Christian experience, etc. And though they reject Scripture as the Word of God and deny the satisfactio vicaria, they talk about the great progress of exegesis and a deeper comprehension of the meaning of Scripture. All this is deceptive, apt also to deceive “the simple” (Rom. 16:18). In the realm of nature Fichte’s method of having the subject posit the object creates no trouble, because the irrational creatures do not order their life according to the ideas of Fichte, Plato, or any man’s Ego. In the spiritual realm, however, the situation is quite different. There the notion that the subject posits the object is much admired and does a thriving business. It is therefore the duty of all those who by the grace of God see clearly in this matter to uncover the fraud practiced by the theology of self-consciousness and war against it.

This unchristian and pernicious theology is not restricted to Germany; here in the United States, too, it dominates practically the entire Protestant theology. Here, in the land of the Reformed sects, it has found a most congenial environment. Zwingli and Calvin, teaching the immediate operation of the Spirit, represented in principle the I theology. Owing to the powerful influence of Luther this theology did not attain its full growth in those days. But it is not surprising that when Luther’s influence had waned at the beginning of the 19th century, Schleiermacher and his Reformed-pantheistic theology should find admirers and adherents in this country, even though it was criticized in some details.179 The situation at present is this, that all our large universities, with the partial exception of Princeton, stand for the theology of the self-consciousness, if they deal with theology at all. Some time ago we reported on an “organization of laymen,” set up for the purpose of defending the Christian fundamentals.180 These laymen charge that the universities and most theological seminaries have been training a generation of preachers who deny these fundamentals. They specify that these preachers have substituted for the divine authority of Scripture the consciousness of the individual and for the vicarious satisfaction of Christ moral endeavors conforming to the example of Christ, the ideal man.181 Whether this “organization” of laymen will check the destructive flood, only the future will show. — In our church body — the Synodical Conference — there has been up to now, thanks be to God, no need of organizing the laymen against the pastors. Among the thousands of our pastors there is to our knowledge not a single one who questions the inspiration of Scripture and, as a result, would be forced to espouse the Ego theology. But we must never overlook the danger threatening us from our American surroundings.