Strangers to Sisters - Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary Library: Essays

presumption we take much greater delight in concerning
ourselves with matters which we cannot harmonize – in
fact we have no command to do so – than with those
aspects of the question which God has revealed in His
Word. 50
With the persistent encroachment of rationalism in the Lutheran Church at large
and even among the Norwegians, Koren kept sounding the warning against the
magisterial use of reason in the interpretation of Scripture,
This is what the Norwegian Synod has contended for, and
still contends for: Unwavering obedience to that “which is
written” and a frank confession in accordance with it … He
who really believes, i.e. is convinced that the Bible is the
Word of God according to which we are to be judged,
cannot want to take issue with God and presume to pass
judgment on His Word, to accept some and to reject some
of it. He will not allow his own thought or reason, or
“considered opinion,” or “conscience” or the thoughts,
learning, or “scientific knowledge” of other men to sit in
judgment on the Word of God and accept some and reject
some of it. 51
But rationalism can get into an otherwise orthodox church through the back door
of “father’s theology.” This too, Koren addresses. These three treatises show how the
Norwegian Synod used and viewed the Lutheran symbols and the writings of the church
fathers. En Redegjoeresle casts the Lutheran symbols as precious landmarks because
they are drawn from and point directly back to Scripture’s clear teaching. Yet, they are
never, never to be placed on the same plain as the Scriptures themselves. The study of the
confessions and the fathers, while important, is to never supplant or surpass the direct
study of Scripture itself,
In the preceding, I have spoken about our Synod’s position
with regard to the Lutheran Scriptural principle…from this
it follows that we do not recognize “reason” as a source,
50 Koren, Can and Ought…, 152-153.
51 George Lillegard, Faith of Our Fathers (Mankato: Lutheran Synod Book Company, 1953), 54-56
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