The Formal and Material Principles

I’m on the Australian Lutheran Catholic Dialogue. Recently we have been discussing the Word of God in the Church. Although for both Lutherans and Catholics the phrase ‘Word of God’ means more than Scripture, it certainly includes Scripture.

 

In the last dialogue meeting both sides presented papers on the interpretation of Scripture in their respective communions. The Lutheran paper included a section on the Formal and Material Principles. The catholic theologians probed us on this point- especially on whether this distinction uses the terms ‘formal’ and ‘material’ in an Aristotelian sense.

 

At the dialogue I said that this Lutheran approach does use Aristotelian terms and categories, but now I think I was wrong to say this.

 

My hunch at this stage is that the distinction between the Formal and Material Principles is post Kantian: that it uses Kantian, not Aristotelian terms. It may be that it uses Kantian terms in a non Kantian way. I’ve not been able to find much in my library or on the net to help me.

 

One thing that I’m having a lot of trouble with is locating the genesis of the distinction between the Formal and Material principles in the Lutheran dogmatic tradition. I can’t find any sure references so far in the early dogmaticians. The Lutheran Cyclopedia defines the Formal Principle as the principium congnescendi. This is certainly not correct, at least as Gerhardt uses the term as distinct from the principium essendi. The earliest references I’ve found so far come from the 1940’s and 50’s – but I’m assuming that it can’t be that late.

 

 Preus’s book ‘TheInterpretation of Scripture’ apparently touches on these terms on pages 14-23, but does so in a way different from our current usage. The orthodox bods, it seems, distinguish quite precisely between two things. 

1.       They do not speak about the formal principle but about the forma of the Scriptures in two ways.

a.       The forma externa which is its idiom or style of writing as a human document

b.      The forma interna which is its inspired sense as God’s word

2.       They do not speak about the formal principle but about the materia of the Scriptures in two ways.

      a.   The materia ex qua which is their text

      b.   The materia circum qua which is their teaching, their doctrinal content

 

So not much help there in locating the genesis of the distinction.

 

I can’t find anything on the Formal and Material principles in Schmidt’s “Doctrinal Theology of the Lutheran Church’, but it’s possible that I haven’t read closely enough.

 

I don’t own Pieper, but I’ve been assured that he uses this distinction in the way it used now. Where does he get it from?

 

Does anyone who read this blog have any idea?