20 August 2007

Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

Over against the subjective experiences of sectarian enthusiasts, the visions of ecstatics, the decrees of prelates, the canons of councils, the creeds of the Church, the traditions of the fathers, and the systems of philosophers, the Blessed Reformers asserted their unqualified dependence upon the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the sole rule and standard by which all teachers and all teachings of the Church are to be judged and evaluated. - A.C. Piepkorn, *Sacred Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions* pp. 76,77

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

If *I* were to say the Reformers asserted Scriptures "over and against" such things as "the creeds of the Church, the traditions of the fathers," wouldn't Lutherans call me on it pretty quickly, say that is NOT what sola scriptura means, accuse me of caricature, etc.???

Anastasia

William Weedon said...

That's only because we like to be mean to YOU. ;)

In another document, Piepkorn discusses the relation between Scripture and Symbol as follows:

"Thus in the Sacred Scriptures, in the Symbols, and int he concrete expressions of the Church's continuing ministry, we have a material element which changes from language to language, situation to situation, and from generation to generation, and we have a formal element, the unalterable Word of God. Because the Sacred Scriptures are in a unique sense the product of the Holy Ghost, because men of God spake as the Holy Ghost moved them, so that no prophesy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, the form of the Sacred Scriptures serves as a perpetual and supreme norm. And because by the consensus of the living Church, which has the Holy Ghost with her until the end of time to lead her into all truth in accordance with Christ's promise, the Symbols are uniquely effective witnesses to the proper understanding of the Sacred Scriptures; their form is a norm by which other efforts at interpreting the Scriptures are to be evaluated. They are thus norms which the Church has subjected to the judgment of the Sacred Scriptures and by which the day-to-day expressions of the mind of God in the public ministry of the Church must be evaluated, in order that the form of the latter will as completely and as correctly as possible exhibit the form of the Sacred Scripture properly understood.... Thus the value of the symbols lies in their correct interpretation of the sense of the Sacred Scriptures." (pp. 86,87)

William Weedon said...

Said another way, from Krauth, Lutherans assert with all Christians that the Sacred Scriptures cannot err or deceive; Lutherans do not say that their Symbols cannot err; they say that they DID not err.

Cha said...

"Lutherans assert with all Christians that the Sacred Scriptures cannot err or deceive..."

Well, certain interpretations of the Sacred Scriptures certainly can - and do.
-C