From:  (AJ)
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Verbal Plenary Inspiration of the Scriptures
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 09:50:24 GMT

On Sat, 15 Aug 1998 21:21:22 -1000, "Rowland C. Croucher"
<> wrote:

>
>OK. Let's start with Luther. Evidence? 
 A net search for Luther+inerrancy came up with the following.
================================================================================
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 16:10:29 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Walther Library -- Concordia Theo. Seminary" 
To:   WITTENBERG 
Subj: Luther on Inerrancy (fwd)

Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 17:04:20 -0400 (EDT) 
From: RE3 <72132.20>
To: Wittenberg List 
Subject: Luther & Inerrancy 

Dear W'bergers:

As regards whether Luther spoke of the Scriptures as 'inerrant':

I would suggest that the proper translation of 'allergewisseste
Wahrheit' is a blind alley. 

Luther commonly uses the phrase 'Gottes Wort kann nicht fehlen'.  It
is incorrect to claim that by 'God's Word' he is here speaking only of
the Gospel content of Scripture, and not of Scripture itself.  These
passages must be read in context. 

Incidentally, in the Smalcald Articles, in the sentence 'The Word of
God shall establish articles of faith and no one else, not even an
angel', the phrase 'the Word of God' is clearly identified, not with
'the Christ content of Scripture', but with 'the Scriptures', in
opposition to the words of St. Augustine [Tappert:295]. 

Furthermore, the phrase 'Gottes Wort kann nich fehlen' is expanded in
the Latin, to read 'verbum Dei nec potest errare nec fallere';  and
this corresponds to the statment in the previous sentence that 'God
does not lie'.(See Tappert:444)

Robert Englund
Sunderland, England


================================================================================

================================================================================
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 05:17:45 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Walther Library -- Concordia Theo. Seminary" 
To:   WITTENBERG 
Subj: Luther on Inerrancy (fwd)

Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 15:53:55 -0600 
From: 
To: 
Subject: Luther/Inerrancy 


As I was perusing an old stack of Springfielders I ran across an issue
dedicated solely to Luther's views on this subject. It is a reprint of
an article done by Dr. M. Reu.

   The article is entitled: "Luther and the Scriptures"
        1. Introduction
        2. Scripture Becomes the Sole Authority to Luther
        3. Luther's Preface to the Epistle of James Is Not Proof for
Another  Attitude
        4. Scriptures Remained Luther's Sole Authority Until the End
of His Life
        5. Luther Never Admitted Any Error in Scripture
        6. Even Those Parts of Scripture That Do Not Concern Our
Salvation  Were Considered Errorless by Luther
        7. Absolute Inerrancy, However, Luther Did Not Ascribe to our
Present  Text but Only to the Original Drafts of the Biblical Books
        8. Luther Does Not Identify Inspiration with Dictation; He
Rather Emphasizes Human Cooperation
        9. Not Luther but Other Theologians of His Time Were on the
Road to  the Mechanical Dictation Theory

   There are many sub-headings. 

        The Springfielder
        August 1960


        FYI
James Bauer, Pastor
Trinity Lutheran Church (LC-MS)
Denver, CO

================================================================================
Date: Sat, 17 Aug 1996 12:08:25 -0500 (CDT)
From: Marvin Huggins 
To:   WITTENBERG 
Subj: Luther on Inerrancy (fwd)



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 15:04:02 -0400 (EDT) 
From: Christopher B. Brown 
To: 
Subject: Luther on Inerrancy 

In _On the Councils and the Church_, Luther quotes in support of his
position the following passage from Augustine (PL 33.277):


"Ego solis eis scriptorum qui iam canonici appelantur didici
hunc timorem honoremque differe, ut nullum eorum scribendo errasse
audeam credere"

Luther renders this in abbreviated fashion as:


"Ich allein die Heilige Schrift nicht irrig halte."

The American edition translates this quite justifiably as "I . . .
hold the Scriptures alone inerrant."

See WA 50.524; LW 41.25.

Luther's comments in his lectures on Genesis (which have already been
cited in this thread) regarding the literal truth of such elements of
Genesis 1-2 
as the creation of man from the dust, the waters above the firmament,
etc.
 also show that Luther holds to the literal, historical truth of the 
Biblical account even in places which he confesses make no sense with
respect  to the science of his own time.  

With regard to the Confessions on the inerrancy of Holy Scripture,
Luther's own argument in SA II.2.14-15 shows that he identifies
Scripture with the
Word of God.  St. Augustine's opinion regarding the possibility of
Purgatory is denounced as "Wort ohne Schrift," and the section
concludes with the declaration that "God's Word shall establish
articles of faith, and no one else, _ne angelus quidem_."

The repeated treatment of "Word of God" and "Holy Scriptures" as
equivalents in the contemporary translations of the confessional
documents also demonstrates that a distinction between the two was far
from the minds of the sixteenth-century confessors.  See FC SD Norm 9,
Triglotta 852-5.

It is, of course, all too possible to praise the Scriptures as
inerrant  even while ignoring their chief contents.  But Luther's own
case should  demonstrate conclusively that any supposed necessary link
between confession  of the inerrancy of the Scriptures and an abuse of
the Law/Gospel principle is imaginary.  

--Christopher Brown
  
  http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~cbrown/

AJ