AG7d: MacKenzie's "second error in Walther's citing of Luther"

      This continues from Part AG7c (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". — In researching all the LC-MS and WELS theologian's writings on Walther, Luther, and Luther's writing The Bondage of the Will (or De Servo Arbitrio), none was more offensive than that of Prof. Cameron MacKenzie's from 2011, a writing supposing to honor Walther. Although I represented the main points of his essay in my 2012 blog post, yet it was not a well researched response, only pointing out the false "honoring" of  Walther. And MacKenzie's references were rather detailed enough so that I shied away from digging deeper since that time. But after translating Walther's 1873 and 1874 Western District essays in this series, I determined to do the deeper research. What I found only confirmed my 2012 judgment of Prof. MacKenzie's diatribe. — The best way that I know to present my case is to reproduce an excerpt from MacKenzie's essay of Walther's so-called "second error". — All highlighting, red text within square brackets [] (there is a lot of red text!), and hyperlinks are mine:

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MacKenzie: Walther's Use of Luther    269

[Concordia Theological Quarterly, vol. 75 (2011), p. 269-271]

A second error in Walther's citing of Luther is more serious but quite understandable [“quite understandable”? Why “understandable”? This is the first statement in Walther’s favor.] also. Walther is concerned to shield Luther from the charge of Calvinism, especially with respect to the Bondage of the Will. [Which Burnell Eckhardt also does in his helpful article in Logia. (Logia vol. 7 (1998), no. 4, pp. 23-30)] On the one hand, Walther knows that Luther thought this one of his best works.75 [Oh really? Luther: “I acknowledge none of them to be really a book of mine, except perhaps the one On the Bound Will and the Catechism”] On the other hand, Walther also admits that "on occasion he [Luther] speaks in terms similar to Calvin"; he insists, however, that Luther's purpose was not to teach absolute predestination but "to deny the existence of man's free will in spiritual matters." Walther then cites the Augustana and the Formula in order to make the point that the Lutheran Church teaches that "man's salvation is exclusively a gift of God; in the case of damnation he is exclusively on his own.''76  [How is this pointing out Walther’s “second error”?]

So far so good. [Really? Admitting that Walther had something “good”? MacKenzie is surely loading his gun. This is the second statement in Walther’s favor.] Walther, however, wants specifically to rescue Luther from the accusation by others (Walther mentions the Iowa Synod77) that he, like Calvin, taught that God did not intend all people to be saved. Walther roars back with what appears [only appears?? This is actually the third statement in Walther’s favor.] to be an unanswerable quotation from Bondage,

God does not deplore the death of his people which he works in them, but he deplores the death which he finds in his people and desires to remove from them. . . . For he wills all men to be saved [1 Tim. 2:4], seeing that he comes with the word of salvation to all, and the fault is in the will that does not admit him, as he says in Matthew 23[:37]: "How often would I have gathered your children, and you would not!"78

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75 Convention Essays, 38-39 (1873 Synodal-Bericht des Westlichen Districts, 54).

76 Convention Essays, 39-40 (1873 Synodal-Bericht des Westlichen Districts, 54-55, 56).

77 According to Peter J. Thuesen [who quotes Mark Twain’s blasphemous saying], Predestination: The American Career of a Contentious Doctrine (Oxford: University' Press, 2009), 156, Gottfried Fritschel accused the Missouri Synod in 1870 of "slavish dependence" on Martin Luther even though he had "obviously erred" in his Bondage of the Will. Thus began a preliminary' battle regarding predestination between the Missouri and Iowa Synods even before the formation of the Synodical Conference which would shatter over the same subject just a few years after its founding (1872). For details regarding the Missouri/Iowa skirmish, see Hans R. Haug, "The Predestination Controversy in the Lutheran Church in North American" (Ph.D. dissertation, Temple University, 1968), 109-235. [Note: John Brenner of the WELS discounts Haug as writing from “a perspective of modern ecumenism which often fails to grasp the historic Lutheran stress on agreement in doctrine for the unity of the church”.]

78 Convention Essays, 40-41 (1873 Synodal-Bericht des Westlichen Districts, 56).

        270 Concordia Theological Quarterly 75 (2011)

This is a great quotation for Walther's position.79 [Really? Admitting that Walther had a “great quotation”? Again, MacKenzie is loading his gun. This is the fourth statement in Walther’s favor.] Unfortunately, it is also somewhat [only “somewhat”? Why equivocate?] misleading, for it contains an ellipsis of over 40 lines [Oh my! How terrible! But I count only 33-36 lines, depending on how one counts them. See ellipsis image here. MacKenzie is guilty of exaggerating. Why?] (in the Walch edition to which the Proceedings refer 80) that qualifies greatly what Luther is saying. [As it should, to distinguish the revealed God from the hidden God!] Walther has omitted the reformer's statements regarding the hidden will of God that is very different from the revealed will. [So what?? As if Walther omitted these statements to deceive his readers! “over 40 lines?” But he only omitted them because they were not appropriate for his point. And MacKenzie is implying that Luther was also a Calvinist.] So, for example, Walther has omitted this statement, "But God hidden in his majesty neither deplores nor takes away death, but works life, death, and all in all,"81 and this one, "God does many things that he does not disclose to us in his word; he also wills many things which he does not disclose himself as willing in his word. Thus, he does not will the death of a sinner, according to his word, but he wills it according to that inscrutable will of his."82

Now it may [may?] be that one can actually rescue [“actually”? — But no “rescue” is needed for those who can read Luther properly! See Brenner and Siegbert Becker. MacKenzie cannot.] Bondage of the Will from the charge of Calvinism—and Walther returns to this task a couple more times in his essays to the Western District83—but Walther's citation from Luther in this instance is not a sufficient representation [Walther’s quote gets to the heart of Luther on the matter against Calvin, and MacKenzie wants to question this?] of what the reformer

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79 And it brings Luther right into line with the Formula. [Are you surprised by this MacKenzie?] This was basic to Walther's thinking about Luther—the reformer and the Lutheran Confessions spoke with one voice. [But does MacKenzie also bring “Luther right into line with the Formula”? The Formula itself does! But MacKenzie later says the “whole approach to Martin Luther as…infallible teacher” is “long gone”. If that is so, then MacKenzie is denying that his own teaching is “confessional” since the Confessions 1) state that they are scriptural and 2) praise Luther’s doctrine.] Cf. LuW 21 (1875): 67, in which Walther equates Luther with the Book of Concord, "They do not know us who label our theology that of the seventeenth century. As highly as we treasure the immense accomplishments of the great Lutheran dogmaticians of this period, it is nevertheless not really to them that we return, but rather above all to our precious Book of Concord and to Luther, in whom we recognize the man whom God chose as the Moses of his church of the New Covenant, to lead his church, which had fallen into slavery to the Antichrist, out of that slavery. He is the column of smoke and fire of the Word of God, clear and pure as gold as it is." Quoted and translated in Kolb, "Luther for German Americans," 99. [It appears that MacKenzie’s venom towards Walther, and Luther, may have been instigated by the “scholarship” of Dr. Kolb. He refers to Kolb about a dozen times in this essay.]

80 Johann Georg Walch, ed., D. Martin Luthers sowol in deutsche als lateinischer Sprache verfertigte und aus der letztem in die erstere übersetzte sämtliche Schriften, 24 vols. (Salle im Magdeburgischen: Druckts und verlegts Johann Justinus Gebauer, 1739-53).

81 LW 33:140. "Gott aber, wie er verborgen ist in der Majestät, trauert nicht, nimmt den Tod nicht weg, sondern wirket Tod, Leben, etc., alles in allen." Walch 18: col. 2235 [W2 (StL) 18, 1795; StL 18, 1795 (EN); WA 18:685].

82 LW 33:140. "Es thut Gott viel Dinges, das er uns durchs Wort nicht zeiget; er will auch viel Dinges, das er uns durchs Wort nicht zeiget, dass ers will. Also will er den Tod des Sünders nicht nach dem Willen, den er durchs Wort offenbaret hat; er will aber nach dem verborgenen, unerforschlichen Willen." Walch 18: col. 2236 [W2 (StL) 18, 1795].

83 1874, Convention Essays, 67-68 (1874 Synodal-Bericht des Westlichen Districts, 33- 36); and 1877, Essays 2: 142-143 [All Glory to God, p. 225-228] (1877 Synodal-Bericht des Westlichen Districts, 97-100). In the latter case, Predestination, Walther admits that "contrary to our usual practice," he has cited Luther rarely and undertakes to produce only passages that show he was not a Calvinist. [Burnell Eckhardt does the same here (Logia vol. 7 (1998), no. 4, pp. 23-30).] Presumably, there were other passages not so dear. [Why this critical remark? Implies that Luther was a Calvinist?] Walther also includes (p. 143) the same misleading [“misleading” according to MacKenzie.] quotation from Bondage of the Will that he had used in 1873.

MacKenzie: Walther's Use of Luther    271

actually said. Walther omitted the evidence that did not immediately confirm Walther's own position.84 [Why this comment if Walther proved his point? This is poor theology!]

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84 Another part of the problem may ["may"? Pure speculation.] be that Walther read Luther in the context of later Lutheranism. As Robert Kolb, "Interpreter of Luther," 482, suggests, "[Walther's] knowledge of Luther came from his own reading of the sources, but that reading has been poured into forms and categories dictated by later generations." [What?! We see more evidence of Dr. Kolb's speculative thinking influencing MacKenzie's thinking.]

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On page 273, MacKenzie makes the incredible statement:

"But Walther is long gone and so is his whole approach to Martin Luther as…infallible teacher."

This assertion is an untruth since Walther in the very same 1873 Western District essay stated that "Luther was not a prophet and apostle who could not have been mistaken", see AG1b blog, p. 48. In this essay, MacKenzie actually distances himself, and his LC–MS, not just from Walther and Luther, but from Lutheranism! One can only hope that Prof. Cameron MacKenzie has seen his error and turned from this venomous position. — In the next Part AG8a, the 1882 Western District essay.

AG7c: 1868 Northern Dist.; The Good, Neutral, Bad, Ugly: On Luther's Bondage of the Will (de servo arbitrio)

      This continues from Part AG7b (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". — Luther's writing on the Bondage of the Will, or in Latin de servo arbitrio is one of his most controversial writings among modern theologians. The Methodist theologian Philip S. Watson, translator of this work for the American Edition of Luther's Works, volume 33, wrote the following in his Introduction, that Luther

"set about refuting him [Erasmus] in a way that was hardly irenic, taking his arguments apart point by point in a book nearly four times the length of the Diatribe. It is in many ways a pity that he adopted this procedure, since with the possible excep­tion of Part VI his argumentation is so shaped by his opponent’s point of view that his own position hardly emerges with the clarity or the balance that would have been desirable."

So our Methodist was understandably not pleased with the way that Luther presented his points. Also, as a Methodist theologian, he takes no note of Luther's irenic explanation of his earlier writing in his well known Genesis Commentary, as the Formula of Concord does, SD 2, 44 On Free Will: 

"Even so Dr. Luther wrote of this matter also in his book De Servo Arbitrio, i. e., Of the Captive Will of Man, in opposition to Erasmus, and elucidated and supported this position well and thoroughly, and afterward he repeated and explained it in his glorious exposition of the book of Genesis, especially of Gen. 26. [See StL 2, 174-177; AE 5, 42 ff.]

      So how will the Old Missouri Synod treat Luther's controversial writing? Will they also say that Luther's "own position hardly emerges with the clarity or the balance that would have been desirable"? Here is how the 1868 Northern District, pp. 26-27 (emphasis mine), treated this writing and it's corresponding comments in his lectures on Genesis:

"The question whether Luther later taught the doctrine of free will differently than in earlier years, was emphatically denied and noted that it seems so, especially if one compares his book against Erasmus with his interpretation of Genesis. But it only seems that way. Especially in his "de servo arbitrio" (That Free Will Is Nothing [or Bondage of the Will]) Luther speaks with the utmost caution; everything in it is well considered; he himself calls it his best writing. The difference that makes it appear as if Luther later taught differently is that Luther speaks dialectically in the first writing, in such a way and with such words, as it should have been done precisely towards this opponent."

So the Old Missouri Synod sided with Luther and the Formula of Concord concerning how his first writing, De Servo Arbitrio, should be read, as written "towards an opponent". (It is my contention that Walther himself was behind this judgement of the Northern District.) So how do other Lutherans from the 19th through the 21st centuries treat these writings of Luther? How do LC–MS and WELS historians view them? I have separated the various judgments into 4 categories: The Good, The Neutral, The Bad, and The Ugly. On the reading and understanding of Luther in his De Servo Arbitrio:

The Good:

• In first place here belongs the 1868 Northern District judgment. As stated above, it follows what is explicitly stated in the Formula of Concord. I am reminded of Walther's writing on Luther's Polemical writings (see here). 

A full translation of the essay by District President Huegli with the short blurb on pp. 26-27 containing the above quotation follows below:

Download the DOCX file >> HERE <<; German text >> HERE <<.

Another testimony in the "Good" category would be

• Siegbert Becker (see here): "We will not be able to understand Luther’s thought correctly unless we bear in mind his definition of the knowledge of God and the sharp distinction which he makes between a philosophical, or meta-physical, knowledge of God and the true and proper knowledge of God. Because of his flair for unusual, startling expressions, which is really part of his creativity as a master of language, Luther, more than most writers, must always be read in wide context. By making a judicious selection of isolated statements, it is easy to turn Luther into a follower either of Barth or of Butler. Only a wide acquaintance with Luther’s writings can guard us against both extremes."

I especially liked Becker's characterization of Luther's polemics as a "flair for unusual, startling expressions", hardly a pejorative way of putting it.

The Neutral:

• John Brenner here p. 19: "“Because of his sometimes bombastic style, his love of paradoxes, and his gift for making striking statements, Luther must be read carefully.”" [This would have gone into the "Good" category except Brenner's pejorative term "bombastic style". Did he use this term to placate his Jesuit school advisors?]

• John Wohlrabe here. Wohlrabe uses the term "clarified" for the way he says that Luther addressed his earlier De Servo Arbitrio in his Genesis commentary. (Wohlrabe is in a gray area as tempers his negative comment)

• Burnell Eckhardt, here, fn # 82: Contrasts Luther with Calvin, but does not address the all important Genesis commentary as a supposed "correction". Is he avoiding Kolb's error? (see "The Bad" below.)

The Bad:

• Gottfried Fritschel (Iowa Synod) here, "Iowans"; he started the negative criticisms of Luther/Walther on this! (Walther reports in 1873 Western District, p. 54 "Luther’s book on free will, the Iowans claim, is totally false, containing pure Calvinism, for in it the dear Lord is logically made the agent of damnation"

• Roy Suelflow p. 72 here. and here, and here. ("the committee of Synod (Northern District. 1868, p. 26 f.) which made the report could not state flatly that the De Servo and Genesis were in perfect agreement [!], since it becomes evident to anyone who reads them that this is not the case. [This is against the Formula of Concord!] Therefore the committee modified its report, and stated that they were essentially the same, the only difference being that in De Servo Luther had spoken dialectically, whereas in Genesis he had spoken popularly and instructively.5 Indeed a bit of ingenious sophistry! To admit a difference, but to try to explain it this way!" (Suelflow ridicules old Missouri, and surely Walther, in their proper explanation of the seeming difference.) (p. 69, Suelflow cuts Luther: "No matter how much we admire Luther, there is some truth in this statement: ”We do list him (Wycliff) as a teacher of absolute predestination. And so was Luther. There is no doubt about it,”2 [S. quotes a ULC theologian approvingly!] It is not surprising that Luther and his colleagues held more or less to the teaching of Augustine, since they were trying to combat the current Semi-Pelagianism prevalent at that time")

• Robert Kolb – see here: Dr. Kolb says: "…the reformer’s own 'correction' of his position [in De Servo Arbitrio] in his comments on Genesis 26 some fifteen years later." (Bound Choice, p. 9), Luther "offered codicils to what he had bequeathed to his followers in De servo arbitrio." (p. 26) Luther ''cautioned against possible misinterpretations of De servo arbitrio" (p. 271)

The Ugly:

• Cameron MacKenzie here and here or here. (explicitly calls out not just Luther but also Walther on this!) 

Prof. MacKenzie's "second error" of Walther is so offensive, it deserves it's own separate blog post to document all of the points and the references of the professor's convoluted logic and exaggerations... in the next Part AG7d.