GB5: The Confessions vs. the Bible? Divinely assured by God's Word alone? Baier's Compendium

      This continues from Part GB4 (Table of Contents in Part GB1) in a series presenting C. F. W. Walther's defense against a Saxon State Church theologian Georg Buchwald, who attacked both the Lutheran Free Church in Germany, and the Missouri Synod in America. — Walther highlights the authority of the Confessions: God's Word alone. Buchwald tries to use deceptive logic to subordinate the Bible. — Buchwald mentions Baier's Compendium which Walther had republished with his own additions. What is informative here is that Walther reveals why he used Baier as a basis for his work. — The following translation is from Lehre und Wehre, vol. 32 (1886), p.104:

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Latest Defense of the State Church against the Free Church.

[by C. F. W. Walther]

We must declare it a wretched slander, however harsh it may sound, when Buchwald p. 8. f. writes: 

"In the Free Church the Bible is generally held in too low esteem in comparison with the value of the symbols. It is in fact only regarded as a collection of proofs for the 'One Pure Doctrine', as it is laid down in the symbolic books and the old dogmatists (above all: Beier [sic: should be Baier] 1)). 

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1) Thus written by Buchwald himself. We must confess that we are very tempted to conclude from this spelling of the name of the old dogmatist Baier that the Licentiate knows him only by hearsay. This may be as he likes, but it is true that we have taken Baier's Compendium as a basis for our dogmatic lectures, but that he is nothing less than a special dogmatic authority to us, that we have chosen his compendium for our textbook over others for quite different reasons, that we always read it with a critical eye and also seek to sharpen the theological judgment of our students in this way; in short, that the theological essence and life which the doctor is so kind as to ascribe to us is nothing but a picture of his only too creative imagination. 

“The Bible, which should be the source of doctrine, is thus made the testimony to it, and vice versa: the symbols and orthodox dogmatics, the testimony to the source of doctrine.” 2) (Underlined by Buchwald himself.)

Only a fanatic who has not yet sharpened his conscience for truthfulness can write like this. Only a skeptic can write like this, who considers it an impossibility to be divinely assured by God's Word alone, that the doctrine of our Confessions is the doctrine of God's Word. Only a man can write like this who only asks whether his judgment will be applauded by his party members as a tremendous trump card, without asking whether he can also justify it before the God of truth and justice.

(Conclusion follows.)

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      Walther extracts what Buchwald is actually saying, and makes a very strong charge against him that probably no other scholar makes: "a wretched sceptic". Walther uncovers the nakedness of this famous German Luther scholar and theologian. — I found it to be humorous that Buchwald would charge the Free Church or Walther with lowering the Bible as the source of doctrine, since Walther was noted to be a "Scripture theologian".  — In the next Part GB6…