"Quia" Versus "Quatenus" Subscription
Lutheran church bodies and Lutheran individuals that identify themselves as confessional hold to a "quia" (Latin for "because") rather than a "quatenus" (Latin for "insofar as") subscription to the Book of Concord. Quia subscription (the Book of Concord is adhered to because it is faithful to the Scriptures) implies that the subscriber believes that there is no contradiction between the Book of Concord and the Scriptures. Quatenus subscription (the Book of Concord is adhered to insofar as it is faithful to the Scriptures) implies that the subscriber leaves room for the possibility that there might be a contradiction of the Scriptures in the Book of Concord in which case the subscriber would hold to the Scriptures against the Book of Concord. Some Confessional Lutherans maintain that this distinguishes them from other ("mainline") Lutheran bodies and Lutherans, who, they believe, hold to a quatenus subscription.
Read more about this topic: Confessional Lutheranism
Famous quotes containing the word subscription:
“The mode of founding a college is, commonly, to get up a subscription of dollars and cents, and then, following blindly the principles of a division of labor to its extreme,—a principle which should never be followed but with circumspection,—to call in a contractor who makes this a subject of speculation,... and for these oversights successive generations have to pay.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)