John William Baier's
_Compendium of Positive Theology_
Edited by C. F. W. Walther
Published by:
St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1877
[Translator's Preface. These are the major loci or topics of
John William Baier's _Compendium of Positive Theology_ as ed-
ited by Dr. C. F. W. Walther. These should be seen as the
broad outline of Baier-Walther's dogmatics, but please don't
assume that this is all. Each locus usually includes copious
explanatory notes and citations from patristics and other
Lutheran dogmaticians.]
Chapter Three
On actual sins.
1. An actual sin by definition is a sin, that is completed by a
certain act or doing. But as far as the thing itself is revealed,
an actual sin ought to be evaluated, not only by what is done, but
also what is not done.
2. Therefore an actual sin is described as an action or the
omission of an action, fighting against the eternal law of God.
3. The efficient cause of actual sin is the sinning human, in so
far as, while positive acts, to which lawlessness adheres, is the
physically efficient cause, the moral cause comes from this same
adhering lawlessness, and in so far as they are not doing, that
which should be done, by this same is arrogated the lawlessness of
that omission entirely to them.
4. God is not at all the cause of actual sins, such as are done,
nor is he able to be said to be the cause.
5. However other causes of actual human sins occur both outside
humans, and then inside them. The former are the devil and the
world, or things and men, striving in this world; the latter are
ignorance of the intellect, affects or passions, or motions of the
sensitive appetite, and the wickedness of the will.
6. The devil is the cause of actual human sin, in so far as partly
he places objects which invite to sinning before humans, partly he
himself persuades, or provides plans for completing crimes, partly
he excites certain fancies in fantasies, or also passions in the
sensitive appetite by altered humors, which lead men to sin.
7. Meanwhile the devil does not compel or immediately bind the
human will to sinning, but humans willingly agree with the deceiver.
8. Humans who are called by the name of the world, are made an
alien cause of sin by supplying sinful objects, by persuading, by
advising and by inviting by their example.
9. Things of the world, which are subject to our senses, move the
sensitive appetite and the objective will to sin.
10. Among humans the efficient cause of actual sin is the corrupt
human nature itself or, speaking abstractly, that innate human
perversity, consisting in the lack of original righteousness and in
the depravity of concupiscence.
11. Especially on the part of the intellect ignorance is a cause of
sin, in so far as it excludes the knowledge, of which acts of sin
were about to entangle others.
12. On the part of the sensitive appetite the cause of sins are the
passions or affects, in so far as partly they distract or impede
the will, that either negligently, or openly not tending to the
objects commended by the intellect to itself, partly they disturb
the imagining faculties and thus the judgment of the intellect
itself and the mediating will they draw to sensible goods, partly
further, if they are completely impetuous, by which they draw the
will as if by weight to sensible goods, against rational dictates.
13. On the part of the will the cause of sin is the habitual malice,
by which some knowingly and willingly prepare themselves for
sinning.
14. In so far as Satan, humans who are in this world, and our
corrupt nature and their affects lead us to sin, they are said to
tempt us either about spiritual things or about secular things, by
flattering or by frightening.
15. But also preceding sins are accustomed to be the cause of
following sins, partly in so far as they incline to fully sinful
acts, partly in so far as they drive off grace, by which they
hasten humans into more serious addicting sins.
16. The subject of actual sins Which, or by being named, is the
human himself who sins.
17. The subject by Which are the faculties of the human spirit,
which are the principal thing of human actions, the intellect, the
will, and the sensitive appetite.
18. The effects of sin are partly a certain disposition of the will,
through which the will is inclined to other similarly sinful acts
being done, and if those are frequently repeated, the effect is a
confirming of the will in evil, and partly the fixed guilt and
penalty, both temporal, and eternal.
19. However actual sins are divided I. by reason of the efficient
cause into voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary sins are said to be
those of which the cause is the complete and deliberate will
binding itself to the act of sinning out of its own malice, now
however either through ignorance of the intellect, or hindered
through the more violent passions. Involuntary sins are said to be
those of which the cause is not the full and deliberate will, but
rather an ignorance not influenced, or a more violent emotion,
which however does not completely take away the use of reason and
it happens to a human without guilt.
20. Actual sins are divided II. on the part of matter in sins of
commission and omission. The former is called that since it
consists in positive acts, when the negative precepts are being
fought. The latter consists in the denying or omission of acts,
prescribed by the positive precepts.
21. Further, III. sins are divided on the part of the object in the
sin, in God, in the neighbor,or in the one sinning. The first is
said to be those which immediately and directly touch God; the
second, those which immediately reflect on the neighbor; the last,
those which directly vear on the sinning person himself.
22. By reason, the IV order of sin is divided into sins of the
heart, of the mouth and of works.
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This text was translated by Rev. Theodore Mayes and is copyrighted
material, (c)1996, but is free for non-commercial use or distribu-
tion, and especially for use on Project Wittenberg. Please direct
any comments or suggestions to: Rev. Robert E. Smith of the Walther
Library at Concordia Theological Seminary.
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file: /pub/resources/text/wittenberg/baier: cpt-2-03.txt
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