Third, the Photinians.
Third, the Photinians.
§ 432. (III) The Photinians also corrupt the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture. Ostorodus claims: “Holy Scripture is perspicuous in such a way that we can understand it as we read and hear it with the help of our intellect alone, without the special internal illumination of the Holy Spirit” (Instit. Germ., c. 1, § 3). This assertion begins from a denial of original sin and of the innate darkness of our mind after the fall. Furthermore, Ostorodus with this assertion contradicts: (1) Himself. In the same book, c. 40, § 4, he writes: “If it would be worth it, we could prove in detail that the prophets and especially Revelation cannot be understood without the prophetic spirit.” But if one cannot understand the prophets without the prophetic spirit, which is the Holy Spirit, he also cannot understand a part of Scripture without the illumination of the Holy Spirit. Thus one must not claim the contrary regarding all of Scripture.
(2) He contradicts his associates in his faith. The Catech. Racov. German., p. 20, asks: “From where do so many disagreements come in drawing the meaning from Scripture?” It responds: “This happens because people read Scripture carelessly or do not come with a sincere heart, free of impediments and desires, or they do not, day and night, invoke the divine help of the Holy Spirit that God has promised nor ask for it with strong enough zeal.” Socinus, Solut. scrupul., response to 19, p. 45: “Our people seek the interpretation of Holy Writ from Holy Writ itself. Yet if in this manner they learn something that the others still do not know, they do not hesitate to refer all they have received to God, whose Spirit and aid they constantly implore to understand His mysteries.” Defens. animadv., p. 30: “God has given us His written Word with these words and this kind of speech so that it is easy to understand as much as is sufficient for anyone who loves the glory of God. Nor should any other help besides those written words be sought for the purpose of grasping this completely, except the help of the Spirit of God Himself, whom He has promised to give through Jesus Christ to all who ask.”
(3) He contradicts Holy Writ, which testifies that because of the innate darkness of our mind, we need the illumination of the Holy Spirit for a salutary understanding of the divine mysteries revealed in Scripture. This we can prove from two classes of arguments. The former is taken from God’s side, the other from our side.
§ 433. From God’s side, the necessity of illumination is proved: (1) By express statements that assign this work of grace to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in particular. Regarding the Father, 2 Cor. 4:6 says: “God who said (and by saying commanded): ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” The spiritual illumination of our mind is compared with the production of light at the first creation. Just as light was necessary for a knowledge of the divine works produced in the six days and, accordingly, light was created right away on the first day, so also for a knowledge of the divine mysteries a spiritual light is required, which God kindles in our hearts by His divine power. Just as there was utter darkness over the face of the void before the creation of natural light, so also before the illumination of the Holy Spirit, man is nothing else than utter darkness. Just as God created light by speaking, so also He kindles the light in our minds with the spiritual Word. In Matt. 16:17 Christ says to Peter: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood have not revealed this to you but My Father, who is in the heavens.” Christ is speaking not only about an external revelation but also about an internal one, because He declares that Peter is blessed because of it, and He attributes it to His heavenly Father as the principal efficient cause. 1 Cor. 3:6: “[Paul] planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” If, however, the seed of the Word is sown is vain unless God gives the growth, there is surely required a particular working of divine grace in the conversion and illumination of humans. In Col. 2:12 faith is called the 
, “the working of God,” which descended from the same power of God through which Christ was raised from the dead.
Regarding Christ, the Son of God, Heb. 12:2 says, “He is the author and perfecter of our faith.” If He is the author, then His gracious working is necessary for kindling faith through the Word. Also, “He opens the book sealed with seven seals” (Rev. 5:5). Origen, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and others of the ancients take this as a reference to Scripture.
Regarding the Holy Spirit, it is said that “He gives understanding” (Job 32:8), that He is “the gatekeeper who opens” (John 10:3). (Theophylact applies this to the Holy Spirit, who opens the meaning of Scripture to us.) For this reason He is called “the Spirit of wisdom and understanding” (Isa. 11:2) and “the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of God” (Eph. 1:17). Also faith is listed among the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22).
(2) By divine promises. Ps. 32:8: “I shall give you understanding and shall instruct you in the way you should go.” Isa. 54:13 and John 6:[4]5: “It is written in the prophets: ‘They shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me,” etc. Here the external ministry of the Word is not taken away. This shows instead that the preaching of the Gospel is salutary only after the divine working and illumination are added. Jer. 24:7: “I shall give them a heart to know Me.” Jer. 31:33: “I shall write My Law upon their hearts.” John 14:26: “The Spirit will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things.” John 16:13: “When the Spirit of truth comes, He will teach you all truth.”
(3) By the sighs of prayers with which the devout anxiously ask for divine illumination: (?) For themselves. Ps. 25:4-5: “Show me Your ways, O Lord; teach me Your paths. Direct me in Your truth and teach me.” Ps. 86:11: “Teach me Your way, O Lord; make me to walk in Your truth.” Ps. 119:18: “Open my eyes and I shall behold wondrous things out of Your Law.” Verse 73: “Give me understanding and I shall learn Your commandments.” Verse 135: “Make Your face shine upon Your servant, and teach me Your statutes.” Matt. 13:36: “The disciples came to Christ and asked Him for an interpretation of His words, saying, ‘Lord, explain to us that parable.’ “In Rev. 5:9 the twenty-four elders who represent the fellowship of the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant sing a new song and say to the Lamb, “Worthy are You to open the book and open its seals.” (?) For others. Eph. 1:16-18: “I remember you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that you may know what the hope of your calling is.” Col. 1:9: “We do not cease to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.”
(4) By manifest examples. In Luke 24:32 Christ “opened the Scriptures” to the disciples who were going down to Emmaus. Verse 45: “He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” for the disciples gathered at Jerusalem. Here it is clear that Christ opened the Scriptures for His disciples not merely by external interpretation but also with an inner illumination of their minds. Acts 16:14: “The Lord opened Lydia’s heart to give heed to what was said by Paul.” 2 Cor. 3:3: “You are a letter from Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of hearts of flesh.” 1 John 2:27: “You have no need that anyone should teach you; but just as His anointing teaches you about everything, so also it is true and is no lie.”
§ 434. From our side, the necessity of divine illumination is proved: (1) By express statements of Scripture, which attribute inability to humans on this point. John 16:12: “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” 1 Cor. 2:14: “The natural man does not perceive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them, for they are spiritually discerned.” 2 Cor. 3:5: “We are not sufficient to think anything good from ourselves as coming from ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God.” 1 Cor. 12:3: “No one can say ‘Lord Jesus’ except in the Holy Spirit.”
(2) By the great lack of proportion between the weakness of our mind and the sublime quality of the divine mysteries. Our minds experience some difficulty even with earthly matters. Wisdom 9:16: “We can hardly guess at things upon the earth, and we have hard work finding the things that are right at hand. But who will investigate the things in the heavens?” John 3:12: “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” Aristotle, Metaph., bk. 2, c. 1: “The mind of man, in knowing matters that are quite lofty, is like the eyes of bats toward the noonday light.” But now, the mysteries of faith, being divine and flowing from the fount of divine wisdom, are far more sublime than earthly matters. Therefore a supernatural and divine light is required to know them.
(3) By the depiction of our corrupt nature. You see, because of the innate dimness of our mind, we are called “darkness” (Eph. 5:8; John 1:5). We are said “to sit in darkness and in the land of the shadow of death” (Isa. 9:[2]; Luke 1:79); and Eph. 4:18 explains this as follows: “We are darkened in our understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance of God that is in us because of our callous hardness of heart.” Consequently, it happens that flesh and blood have not revealed to us the salutary knowledge of God, but the heavenly Father (Matt. 16:17). In the case of the divine mysteries, our reason is completely blind, to such a degree that Scripture is to it “like a sealed book” (Isa. 29:11; Rev. 5:2). It is opposed to heavenly doctrine (Rom. 8:5), and hence “must be taken captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5). But if it were not adverse and resistant, why would this captivity be needed? Our reason is completely unsuited for spiritual workings and the saving perception of divine mysteries (Rom. 8:26, etc.).
(4) By various hindrances that keep man from understanding the preached Word in a saving manner, and keep it from bearing fruit. The devil, that infernal vulture, does this especially to “take the seed of the Word away from hearts” (Luke 8:12) and to “blind the minds of those who do not believe, lest the knowledge of Christ shine upon them” (2 Cor. 4:4). People are fascinated by their preconceived notions; they listen with tedium; they cling to earthly things; etc.
(5) By the manifest examples of those who, in the clear light of the Word, still loved the darkness. In Deut. 32:[28-]29 it is said about the children of Israel to whom God had entrusted His oracles: “They are a nation without counsel and without prudence…. Would that they were wise and understood!” The cause of this is explained in Deut. 29:2-4: “You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes … but to this day the Lord has not given you an understanding heart or seeing eyes or ears that can hear.” Therefore humans are blind in the divine mysteries until God illumines their understanding. In Luke 18:34 it is said about Christ’s disciples: “They understood none of these things; this word was hid from them, and they were not understanding what was said”—that is, because they lacked the inner illumination of the Holy Spirit. The same is apparent in the case of the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:25), Nicodemus (John 3:4), etc.
Many statements of the fathers can be brought forth in support of this position. Justin, Dial. cum Tryph., p. 173: “Above all, pray that the gates of light be opened to you, for things are not seen by all nor known to all, except to the one to whom God and His Christ give the power to understand.” Irenaeus, Adv. haeres., bk. 4, c. 10, p. 238: “Without God it is impossible to learn God.” Origen, homily 17 on Exodus: “We must pray the Lord that as He takes the sealed book He will deign to open it; for it is He who opens minds that they may understand Scripture.” (See more statements of this kind drawn from the ancients in our treatise De method. studii theol., part 1, c. 3.)
§ 435. It does not seem worth our while to go on to a specific examination of the arguments of Ostorodus. One should note in general that: (1) The first lie and the source of this error is the denial of original sin. Ostorodus discusses this as follows: “If man without the internal illumination of the Holy Spirit could not understand those things that he must know for his salvation, the cause of this would lie either in the Word or in humans. It is not in the Word because it is sufficiently clear and perspicuous. Nor is it in humans, for they are such that they would be unable to understand the heavenly things presented to them either because of their creation or because of the corruption of their nature. It is not the former, as our adversaries admit; nor the latter,” as he promises to prove in c. 33-34. “Therefore there is no cause for this” (c. 1, § 5). But in its own place we demonstrate that this hypothesis is false.
(2) One must distinguish between Scripture in itself and with respect to us. Scripture in and of itself is a clear light, whether you consider the material or the form, that is, whether you consider the subject matter [res] or the means of handing it down and the words. However, with respect to us, because of the innate darkness of our mind, we need the illumination of the Holy Spirit for a saving understanding of the divine mysteries that are set forth in Scripture quite clearly. Luther, De serv. arbitr., Jena edition, vol. 3, p. 167: “Not even a single jot in Scripture is perspicuous without the light of the Holy Spirit, for all things are obscure to the flesh and keenness of man in this regard and in this respect.” The sun in and of itself is sufficiently bright, but the eyes of the blind cannot gaze upon it.
(3) One must distinguish between literal knowledge and spiritual knowledge. Those who have not yet been illumined and enlightened by the Holy Spirit can know the outer surface of Scripture and conceive historical faith through the external ministry of the Word. They cannot, however, have a solid and saving fullness of justifying faith without the Holy Spirit inwardly illumining their mind and turning their will.
(4) One must distinguish between mediate and immediate illumination of the Holy Spirit. We should not think that immediate raptures and illumination by the Holy Spirit are first to be expected before we go on to read, meditate on, and search the Scriptures. Instead, God wants to bestow on us a saving understanding of the divine mysteries through the ordinary means, namely, through diligent reading of the Word and meditation on it as we invoke God with our devout prayers. As natural light arose from the Word in the first creation, so spiritual light rises from the Word in the new creation. Acts 10:44: “While Peter was still saying this, the Holy Spirit fell on all who were listening to the Word.” In Gal. 3:2, the Galatians are said to have “received the Holy Spirit from the hearing of faith,” that is, from the preaching of the Gospel.
(5) The end does not exclude but rather includes the means leading to that end. Accordingly, the end ought not be opposed to the means. Therefore Ostorodus draws a vain conclusion: “If God in His singular counsel wanted divine matters to be written in such a way that anyone at all could read them, the consequence is that Scripture can be understood without the illumination of the Holy Spirit.” You see, that end of Scripture which consists in the revelation of divine matters necessary for salvation does not exclude the illumination of the Holy Spirit that is required in man to attain that end. After all, by the same logic we could draw the following inference: The end of the Gospel account is that we “may believe that Jesus is the Christ, and through faith in His name have eternal life” (John 20:31); therefore we can obtain faith and eternal life without the illumination of the Holy Spirit merely by the help of our own strength. Furthermore, if this end of Scripture were to exclude the means, there would also be no need for an interpretation of Scripture, the ecclesiastical ministry would be useless, and the reading of Scripture and meditation on it would be unnecessary—all of which Ostorodus, however, leaves in its own place.
§ 436. (IV) Weigel also denies the perspicuity of Scripture when he calls it “ambidextrous” and accuses it of “equivocal and ambiguous obscurity,” obviously for the purpose of leading people away from the letter of Scripture to the internal Spirit. He says (Post., part 2, p. 185): “Scripture is in both fists. They can be used on both sides. No matter how unrighteous one is, yet he can quote Scripture against his opponent.” Güldengrieff, p. 55: “Those who cling to the letter of the Scriptures can never agree among themselves. You see, it is a both-hander, and everyone can use it for himself as he wishes. This is why so many sects and divisions have developed.”
This error is contradicted by the clear words of 2 Pet. 1:19: “We have the prophetic word made more sure. You will do well to pay attention to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the morning star rises in your hearts.” He should have made a distinction between the accidental abuse of Scripture and its true and genuine use. (Cf. our Anti-Weig. de gloria Dei, disp. 1, § 20.)
68 Cotta’s edition repeats “413” for this paragraph and remains one less than Preuss’s paragraph numbers for the rest of this Commonplace.
69 That is, things of which one is contained under the other. For example, Gerhard says that the Holy Spirit and the water of Baptism are related to each other as subordinates in the giving of salvation, not as opposites. The water of Baptism is a means by which the Holy Spirit gives salvation, and thus the one does not rule out the other in the giving of salvation. Commonplace XXIII, On Holy Baptism, § 104.
70 See Glossary.
71 Read tract. instead of tr. Act.
72 This is Theodotion’s version.
73 See Gerhard’s Commonplace I, On the Nature of God (1625 Exegesis), § 268.