This continues from Part AG1c (Table of Contents in Part AG1a) in a series presenting Walther's essays to the Western District that supported his theme "That Only Through the Doctrine of the Lutheran Church is All Glory Given to God Alone". — Concluding the 1873 Western District essay is Walther's Thesis III, part 3, on Divine Providence. — In Walther's forceful teaching, he exposes all hidden unbelief, even in matters relating to this subject. — From pp. 63-80 in the original:
Notable Quotes:
63: "The dear Christians…think that these [laws of nature] are actually the driving force … [they] should rather see God at work everywhere."
64: "…God's greatest honor, that no mosquito can move in the universe without Him…Oh, it is a very blessed teaching!"
64: "Anyone who does not believe [providence of God] this is not a Christian."
65: There have been people who have thought that God takes care of the whole, but does not take care of the smallest things; but this is a boundless stupidity.
66: "God considers everything he has created important,…and cares about everything without exception"
66: "The pagan Pliny thinks that the divine majesty is defiled when it cares for despised things. But these are foolish thoughts…"
67: God's "eye surveys everything, from beginning to end, without first having to consider anything"
67: "The power of God is no less visible in the creation of a mosquito than of an elephant; hence also in its preservation."
67-68: God's handiwork: The mosquito, elephants, bees, beavers
68: "…everywhere they [atheists] look they see themselves surrounded by immeasurable power and wisdom, and they are nothing but impotent dust." [Notwithstanding Artificial Intelligence.]
69: Luther: "that God is with his own in death, in hell, in waters, in mud, which are as unclean and impure as other filth"
70: "If the good Lord were not everywhere, no seed could germinate, no sprout could become a stalk…"
71: "In this disgraceful, God-denying time, we must push this article hard.…Many people don't really believe the first article"
71: "For it is not true faith, if someone thinks that there is a bit of God everywhere…[God] is not only everywhere, but everywhere he is always whole."
72: Luther: God "is at the same time in every little grain completely and utterly, and yet in all and above all and beyond all creatures"
72: "…the Reformed say: 'How can the body of Christ be in the host? He would then have to crawl into it completely.' But these are stupid rational thoughts." [Walther catches the Reformed in their error: they not only deny the True Prescence, in the process they deny God's Providence.]
73: "all things…are only there because there is divine preservation.…perpetually dependent on Him for all eternity."
73: "we have a way of saying: "The sun rises, it rains, it hails." — But this is an improper way of speaking…" [Scripture] "usually says: God makes the sun rise, God rains, God hails."
74: "the blessing that is in the grain nourishes us. Only the blind heathen thinks that the nourishing power is in the grain itself."
75: "If God is not willing, no war can break out; if God is not willing, no peace can be made.…Anyone who attributes victory to cannons or well-trained soldiers is basically an atheist." [Or drones, or Artificial Intelligence.]
75: "we Christians, when we read in the newspapers [or Internet], must always look not at men, who are only the instruments, but at God, who rules the world."
75: "Therefore no revolutions, but repentance!"
75-76: "therefore the most simple-minded Christian horseman can make a better judgment about it than the greatest historian, if he is not a Christian."
76: Unbeliever: "everything he does is pure sin before God, even if it may be civically good."
76: "a most important subject, namely the extent to which God cooperates in evil deeds"
77: "strictly speaking, God has no foreknowledge, he has no present, no past, no future. What he knows, he knows; only for us is it foreknowledge" [Who teaches like Walther?]
77: "But men were preserved because the Son of God prayed for them."
78: "God is not bound by the so-called laws of nature. The three men in the fiery furnace are an example"
79: "even if God is the driving force in all people, he works good; but he does not work evil, …This is …a justification of Luther's entire book…The Bondage of the Will. So if there are other passages in which Luther speaks as if he believed that God also does evil, this is mere appearance." [See Part AG1c: Against Robert Kolb, Cameron MacKenzie, Roy Suelflow.]
80: "God shows us…that he is the great artist who can make something good out of evil"
How comforting to hear Walther's powerful teaching of God's Providence!… that He is with us always!
Now I present my new English translation with all missing portions, and Walther's emphasis of wording, fully restored, and hyperlinks added for navigation and reference:
Walther's teaching against the Reformed above is counteracted by several prominent LC–MS theologians and pastors. These tend to equate the term "Evangelicals" with today's Reformed, but it was the Lutherans who were the real "Evangelicals". These LC–MS teachers typically teach against a so-called "biblicism" that they perceive as Reformed, or "Evangelical", doctrine. But these essentially ignore the strongest defense against the Reformed that Walther uses, that the bare words "This is my body, this is my blood" are not understood as they read. The Lutherans accept these simple words as they read — does that make true Lutherans "biblicists"? It would seem so. — In the next Part AG2a…
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