54. Brief Analysis

The leaders of the church today insist that the intellect has to be held under obedience to faith. In fact, they say that true faith is a faith in the unknown — a blind faith, a faith of the night.

This is the first absurdity. Faith has to do with truth and truth has to do with faith. In order for truth to become part of our faith, we have to see it in its own light; otherwise what we are believing in could be false.

There are many further absurdities that flow forth from faith as the church today defines it: God the Father bore a Son from eternity. The Holy Spirit emanates from both the Father and the Son. Each of these three is a person and a god in his own right. Both the body and the soul of the Lord originated from his mother. These three persons, and therefore three gods, created the universe. One of them came down and took on a human manifestation in order to reconcile the Father to us and save us. We are saved through the assigning, attributing, and transferring of his justice to those of us who by grace have acquired faith and believe the absurdities just listed. Prior to receiving that faith, we are like a statue, a log of wood, or a stone. Just hearing the Word allows faith to flow into us. Faith alone has the power to save us apart from the works of the law, even if that faith is untouched by goodwill. Faith produces a forgiveness of our sins without our having to go through repentance first. On the basis of that forgiveness of sins and nothing else, even if we have not repented we are nevertheless made just, regenerated, and sanctified. Then goodwill, good works, and a restoration of wisdom spontaneously come upon us.

From the body of teaching based on the idea of three gods, these and many other teachings like them flow forth like illegitimate offspring conceived as the result of an ongoing illicit affair.

81. Astoundingly, the teaching that faith is the only thing that justifies us occupies every square inch throughout the entire Protestant world; that is, within the clergy it rules as virtually the only theology. This position is what all candidates for the ministry eagerly learn, consume, and absorb in college. Then, as if they were people inspired with heavenly wisdom, they teach that position in their churches and publish it in their books. Through it they pursue and achieve the name, reputation, and glory of having superior erudition. Because of it they are given diplomas, fellowships, and awards. And all this goes on, despite the fact that as a result of that teaching alone the sun today is darkened, the moon is deprived of its light, and the stars of the heavens have fallen, that is, have been destroyed.

I have been given absolute proof that the teaching that faith assigns us justice has so blinded human minds today that they do not want, and are therefore virtually unable, to see any divine truth in the light of the sun or in the light of the moon. They can see it only in the light of a fireplace by night. I can therefore make this assertion: If divine truths about the true partnership between goodwill and faith, about heaven, about the Lord, and about the eternal happiness that comes from him were to be written in silver letters and sent down from heaven, people who believe that we are justified by faith alone would not even consider them worth reading. The complete opposite would happen, though, if a paper asserting that faith alone makes us just were to be sent up from below.

We also read in the Formula of Concord that the article concerning justification by faith alone, or concerning the justice that we acquire through faith, is the most important of all Christian teachings, and that works of the law must be completely excluded from this article (pages 17, 61, 62, 72, 89, 683; appendix, page 164).