11/29/17
Kolb, Robert. The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000.
Augsburg Confession II, “Concerning Original Sin” p. 38.
Apology to the Augsburg Confession II, “Original Sin” pp. 112-118.
This brief article affirms that humans are sinful by nature since the fall. “This means that from birth they are full of evil lust and inclination and cannot by nature possess true fear of God and true faith in God” (Kolb 2000, 38). It rejects those who allow human nature to become righteous in any natural way.
In the apology for the second article, Melanchthon observes his list of features of original sin was meant to be illustrative, while the Confutation engages it and makes what he considers unfair interpretations. The argument at hand is the definition of concupiscence (Kolb 2000, 113). The scholastic teachers consider sin to be a matter of physicality, while the Lutherans look beneath the physicality to the motives. By attempting to shift the argument to those terms the authors of the Confutation mis the po4). Melanchthon goes on to evaluate historic arguments about how one would be in the righteous likeness of God. The examples he cites all show that humans need to receive forgiveness and that their natural unrighteousness is a matter of the motives of the heart influencing actions (Kolb 2000, 115), an idea Melanchthon ties to Scripture as well. The text moves on to establish the idea that sinful desires and actions remain even in the Christian (Kolb 2000, 118).