Fundament 7: Arminianism; Synergism in Lutheranism; Piepkorn: "merciless", "monotonous"

      This continues from Part 6 (Table of Contents in Part 1), a translation of Franz Pieper's essay on the foundation of the Christian faith ("Das Fundament des christlichen Glaubens"). — Now we move to the category of the Reformed churches that Chuck Smith, founder of Calvary Chapel, identified as encompassing those who have “Methodist, Nazarene, and other Arminian-influenced backgrounds”.  There are very many Reformed sects in America… who knows how many of these are Arminian-influenced?… perhaps the majority of them? And to think of it – these have their basis in the later position of the author of the Lutheran Augsburg Confession.  Pieper bares all in this segment.

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Text preparation and translation by BackToLuther using DeepL, Google Translate, Microsoft Translate, Yandex Translate. All bold text is Pieper's emphasis. All highlighting, red text, and most text in square brackets [ ] is mine.

Das Fundament des christlichen Glaubens.

The Foundation of the Christian Faith.

[by President Franz Pieper, Concordia Seminary; continued from Part 6 - page 99]

And what about the foundation of the Christian faith in the other division of the Reformed fellowships, the Arminian Reformed? In contrast to the Calvinist Reformed, they want to teach [page 100] the general grace extending to all people.

But for their part they now restrict the grace of God in another way, namely in the way that they teach that man's conversion and salvation do not depend on God's grace alone, but also on the fact that man participates in his part for the attainment of grace and salvation. God's grace is only a partial power (vis partialis) for the conversion of the human will. The divine grace can only assert itself successfully with human participation, non posse exire in actum sine cooperatione liberae voluntatis humanae. 38) Thus the attainment of the grace of God and salvation does not come on the sola gratia, but also, and crucially, on man himself, starting to stand for his participation, his self-determination, self-decision, better behavior in comparison with other people. But the grace of God and salvation does not even exist where this is a factor for its attainment, and a faith that is based on this foundation or is dependent on it is a human imagination that plunges into doubt and despair in every serious challenge.

And yet, this scripturally unsound and bleak Arminian-Reformed doctrine also emerged within the Lutheran Church. And very soon. Melanchthon was quite a good theologian as long as he followed Luther's guidance from God's Word. But when he learned to feel and strived for independence from Luther, his philosophy “plagued him”. He wanted to be wise beyond God's Word. He did not want to calm himself down by what Scripture teaches, namely that those who are lost are lost only by their own guilt, whereas those who are saved are saved only by God's grace. Rather, he wanted to explain by human reason why not all people are saved. He could have won the explanation sought in Calvin's way by denying, as Calvin did, the general grace of God and the general salvation of Christ. But Melanchthon did not like this “explanation”. But because he thought he had to “explain” (necesse est) it, he chose the explanation that was later officially written on the flag of the Reformed Church by the Arminian party. He denied the “by grace alone,” the sola gratia. He taught: “Since the promise of the Gospel is general and not contradictory in God's will, there must necessarily be in us [men] a cause of difference why Saul is rejected, why David is accepted, that is, there must be in the two a different behavior (actio dissimilis)”. 39) Melanchthon taught three causes of conversion (tres causae conversionis), two outside and one inside man. He made, next to the Holy [page 101]

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38) Thus the Apology of the Confession of the Remonstrants 1630, p.162 b. 

39) Loci, ed. Detzer I, 74.

Spirit and the Word of God, the human will (the voluntas non repugnans, the facultas se applicandi ad gratiam) to be a contributing cause of conversion. It was for this reason that in the second half of the sixteenth century the Lutheran Church experienced a hard, more than thirty-year struggle. It was necessary to recoup this “by grace alone” in the doctrine of conversion and eternal election. 

The truth completely triumphed. In the second and eleventh articles of the Formula of Concord the rubbish of the synergism of Melanchthon and the Philippists is thoroughly swept away. With clear testimony, the Formula of Concord expels the synergistic fog that wanted to settle over the Reformation Church. She calls to the Church of God: No tres causae conversionis, but conversion to God is the work of God the Holy Spirit alone, for which he uses preaching and hearing of the Word of God as the means and instrument ordered by God. The Formula of Concord complains, 40) that “Since also the youths in the schools have been greatly perplexed de tribus causis efficientibus, concurrentibus im comversione hominis non renati, that is, by the doctrine of the three efficient causes of the conversion of unregenerate man to God, as to the manner in which they, namely, the Word of God preached and heard, the Holy Ghost, and the will of man, concur”. And in a positive statement it adds “that conversion to God is a work of God the Holy Ghost alone, who is the true Master that alone works this in us, for which He uses the preaching and hearing of His Holy Word as His ordinary [and lawful] means and instrument. But the intellect and will of the unregenerate man are nothing else than subiectum convertendum, that is, that which is to be converted, it being the intellect and will of a spiritually dead man, in whom the Holy Ghost works conversion and renewal.” The Formula of Concord therefore also calls us into the Church: there is no acquiesce by man to grace (facultas se applicandi ad gratiam), but man, according to his natural nature, resists, also knowingly and willingly (etiam sciens volensque), the action of the Holy Spirit “until he is enlightened, converted and regenerated by the Holy Spirit”. 41) There is therefore also 42) no “different behavior” (actio dissimilis) and no different guilt, but if those who become converted and saved compare themselves with those who remain unconverted, they must confess the same guilt (eadem culpa) and the same evil behavior against God's Word and the action of the Holy Spirit. “Nos cum illis collati et quam simillimi illis deprehensi.” [page 102]

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40) M. 610, 90. Trigl. 915, 90. [BoC here]  

41) M. 589, 7; 593, 20. 21. [Trigl. 883, 7; 889, 20-21; BoC here, here]

42) M.716, 57ff. [Trigl. 1081, 57 ff.; BoC here]

If we Christians, in a hired comparison, assume a different behavior and a lesser guilt on our part, we would leave the foundation of the Christian faith,  the sola gratia. “For no injustice is done those who are punished and receive the wages of their sins; but in the rest, to whom God gives and preserves His Word, by which men are enlightened, converted, and preserved, God commends His pure [immense] grace and mercy, without their merit.” [§ 61, BoC here]  Finally, the Formula of Concord also testifies: what goes beyond these two revealed in God's Word, namely beyond one's own guilt on the part of those who are lost, and beyond sola gratia on the part of those who will be saved, is to be recognized and left unexplored as a mystery in this life which is unsearchable for human knowledge. So thoroughly and all-round, the Formula of Concord sweeps out the synergism of Melanchthon and his followers. It forbids the attempt to explain the way Melanchthon proceeded. It also most emphatically rejects the factors in which Melanchthon found the desired explanation by teaching: There is no tres causae conversionis, no facultas se applicandi ad gratiam, no different behavior and no different guilt on the part of those who convert and become saved, but among them there is the same guilt and the same evil behavior. — Nevertheless, synergism, with its doctrine of different behavior and its different guilt on the part of those who convert and become saved, has repeatedly re-emerged in the Lutheran Church in the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries and, as in other countries, especially in the United States, has claimed the right to exist within the Lutheran Church. 

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      Pieper's teaching above is what Fuerbringer earlier labeled as one of his greatest strengths in discussions with opposing Lutheran groups in America – his ability to expose their hidden synergism (see Part 6, "Pieper as Theologian").
Piepkorn… or Pieper?

  Arthur Carl Piepkorn, in his 1977-1979 4-volume Profiles in Belief: The Religious Bodies of the United States and Canada lists several hundred "Protestant" church bodies outside of Lutheranism. Volume 2 lists dozens of divisions within what were considered the major branches of the Reformed groups: 

• Episcopal / Anglican, 
• "Reformed" / Presbyterian, 
• "Radical Reformation" groups – Congregationalists, Mennonite, Baptists, etc.,  
• Methodists.  

Volume 3 lists about 188 Holiness and Pentecostal church groups in America in the 1970s. Volume 4 lists dozens more under the headings of "Evangelical" and "Fundamentalist". Piepkorn's work may appear astounding to some.  Union Theological Seminary's Robert Handy, in the Introduction to Volume 2, p. xix, wrote that Piepkorn

"mercilessly reports on many, many small denominations,… later volumes will continue to spell out the details of the more than seven hundred religious bodies on the North American scene. It is good to have all this information in one place; … a diversity that in some respects contributes to the trivialization of organized religion. Probably most of us feel that this price of freedom is worth paying, but the litany of diversity does grow long and monotonous."

Piepkorn's "mercilous" reporting ends up being only a "litany of diversity… long and monotonous."  But Franz Pieper keeps it simple: The Reformed groups in America and their doctrine are either "Calvinist", "Arminian" synergism, or a mediation between these two subdivisions in doctrine.  And their "distinctives" against Lutheranism are much more than a "trivialization of organized religion".  Rather they destroy the foundation of the Christian faith. — In the next Part 8, Pieper continues his drive to expose the poison of Synergism.