The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

in this, that all human beings are born without the fear of God. Conf. "Sine
metu Dei;" "Keine wahre Gottesfurcht haben." This means not only that
an infant does not and cannot consciously fear God, but that there is in it a
lack of anything which can potentially, or through any process of selfdevelopment
or of natural education, exercise such a fear of God as He
demands of the creature. We can by nature have a false fear, or an
instinctive fear of God, but not a true fear, hence the emphasis of the
German of the Confession, "Keine wahre," "no true fear."
2. A second element of the privative result is, that they are born
without trust in God, without faith in Him or love for Him. In the fear of
God there is a just contemplation of His natural attributes, and that
reverential awe which inspires the spirit of obedience. In trust, faith, and
love, there is a contemplation of His moral attributes, drawing the heart to
Him. Neither our just fears, nor our just hopes toward God, are left
untouched by original sin. Conf., "Sine fiducia erga Deum;" "Keinen
wahren Glauben an Gott, keine wahre Gottesliebe."
There is innate in a child, before conscious exercise, a potential, true
trust, faith, and love, toward its mother, and that trust unfolds itself out of
the potential into the actual. Before a child's first act of love toward its
mother, there must be a power of loving, and that power of loving must
exercise itself: There must be something in a child that can love before it
does love, and that something is born with the child. In other words, a child
may be said, with reference to this innate power, to be born with trust
toward its mother. But it lacks in its nature that which would enable it to
exercise a true trust in God, such as He demands. Man may by nature
have a false trust in God, or an intellectual and natural trust, but not that
higher and true trust which is in perfect keeping with God's nature and His
holy law. In order to this, grace must impart something with which we are
not born.
The Roman Catholic theologians, in their confutation of the
Augsburg Confession, say that the statement in this article in regard to
original sin is to be utterly rejected, since it is manifest to every Christian
that to be without the fear of God, and