Martin Luther
Martin Luther (November 10, 1483 - February 18, 1546) was a Christian theologian, Augustinian monk, professor, pastor, and church reformer whose teachings inspired the Lutheran Reformation and deeply influenced the doctrines of Protestant and other Christian traditions. Luther began the Protestant Reformation with the publication of his Ninety-Five Theses on October 31, 1517. In this publication, he attacked the Church's sale of indulgences. He advocated a theology that rested on God's gracious activity in Jesus Christ, rather than in human works. Nearly all Protestants trace their history back to Luther in one way or another. Luther's relationship to philosophy is complex and should not be judged only by his famous
…show more content…
In Rome, cardinals saw Luther's theses as an attack on papal authority. In 1518, at a meeting of the Augustinian Order in Heidelberg, Luther set out his positions with even more precision. In the Heidelberg Disputation, we see the signs of a maturing in Luther's thought and new clarity surrounding his theological perspectivethe Theology of the Cross.
After the Heidelberg meeting in October 1518, Luther was told to recant his positions by the Papal Legate, Thomas Cardinal Cajetan. Luther stated that he could not recant. Unless his mistakes were pointed out to him by appeals to "scripture and right reason", he would not, in fact, he could not recant. Luther's refusal to recant set in motion his ultimate excommunication.
Throughout 1519, Luther continued to lecture and write in Wittenberg, and in June and July of that year, he participated in another debate on Indulgences and the papacy in Leipzig. Finally, in 1520, the pope had enough, and as a result, on June 15th the pope issued a bull (Exsurge DominiArise O'Lord) threatening Luther with excommunication. Luther received the bull on October 10th and proceeded to publicly burn it on December 10th.
In January 1521, the pope excommunicated Luther. In March, he was summoned by Emperor Charles V to Worms to defend himself. During the Diet of Worms, Luther refused to recant
During the diet of worms Luther was asked to take back all of his writings, His writing had included stuff the church liked, they wanted him to recant it all though. Luther refused to take back his writings and left. Luther was then going to travel back to Wittenberg when Charles V to declared Luther as an outlaw. Luther's way back to Wittenberg Frederick kidnapped him and brought him to the Wartburg castle to keep him safe from Charles V and his men
Pope Leo called for the Augustinian order to deal with Luther. Luther went in fear of his life, yet till portrays Luther as hopeful. At most of the meetings, portrayed by Till, Luther seems confident that he will be able to sway the pope and others to his beliefs. At the meeting Luther stands before the council. They have all his works placed on a table. Luther is not given a chance to defend his positions, for the council will not hear it. He is only asked if the literature presented is of his penmanship. Luther admits that he is the author. Then the council asks him to recant of his works. In keeping with historical records, Luther does not recant. In fact, he informs them that they only way he will be swayed that he has erred is if they can show him with Biblical proof.
The Archbishop then turned to Pope Leo X for advice, in doing so Pope Leo X didn’t want to cause trouble in Wittenburg due to political and other reasons. Pope Leo X sent senior member of the official church to then try and persuade Luther to drop is protests and complaints quitley without fuss, but Luthers next actions brought in various Catholic scholars to join the debate about the sale of indulgences. Luthers actions consisted of the making of pamplets and books. The first inventions of the printing press had a huge impact on the production rates at which Luthers books and pamphlets were being created. Once the increasing numbers of Martin Luthers books and pamphlets were being made this allowed him to distrubute it throughout germany. As the years carried on after the publicised 95 Theses was then followed by Martin Luther making new accusations/criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church. Mainly criticising the curruption of several individual popes. To help enforce and encourage the church reformation Martin Luther called upon local German rulers. The actions of Luther became too much for Pope Leo X and his accompainies causing them to excommunicate Martin Luther giving him only 60 days to apologize for his opinion and also the withdrawl of all his books and pamphlets. Martin Luther refused,
In 1517, Luther created a document for debate with the church. The document, known as the Ninety-five Theses, outlined what Luther saw were discrepancies between the actions of the church and what Scripture teaches. He nailed the paper to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg on October 31, 1517. Albert, the Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, received a copy of the document the same day. (McKim 8) The church proceeded to charge Luther with heresy and over the course of the next three years, he faced several panels. Finally, in 1520, the pope excommunicated Luther and fearing for his life, Luther went into hiding. During this time, Luther married a former nun named Katharina von Bora. During 1524 - 1526, Luther came out of hiding to oppose a revolt lead by the peasants in Germany which the other Protestant clergy supported.
At the time Luther wrote the “95 Theses on the Power of Indulgences” he presumed that reforms could still be made by the Pope and the church's hierarchy; however, after Luther received the papal bull excommunicating him, Luther’s ideology became diametrically opposed to the pope and the whole Roman Catholic structure (shilling 142). This break was a defining time
He did this because he felt that he would never earn his eternal salvation otherwise. He didn't feel that all of the prayer, studying and sacraments were enough and felt that he would never be able to satisfy such a judgmental God. After entering the religious life he later became a monk and entered the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt in July of 1505. While there, Luther became a well-known theologian and Biblical scholar. Luther took his religious vocation very seriously. This led him into a severe crisis in dealing with his religion. He wondered, "is it possible to reconcile the demands of God's law with mankind's inability to live up to that law?" Luther then turned to the New Testament book of Romans for answers. He realized that everyone is burdened by sin because it happens as a result of our weaknesses. He concluded that man could never earn his salvation by leading a blameless life or by performing Holy acts. Instead, man's salvation was a divine gift from God resulting from faith in Jesus, especially the saving power of His death and resurrection. This was known as the protestant doctrine of "justification by faith alone." The fact that Luther believed this led him into his first confrontation. The leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Leo X, was trying to raise money in order to build St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. In order to do this, the Pope offered the sale of indulgences, which were donations of money that would give
Luther on Trial, The Diet of Worms, 1520: Pope Leo X ordered him to give up his beliefs and he burned the thing he sent to Luther, he got kicked out of Church, he translated the New Testament into German, Pope Leo X was a Medici, all Luther’s books, notes, and everything was burned because they didn’t want people to remember
He was later called to defend his beliefs. It lasted for three days. Luther refused to recant.
Luther Said “Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and
After being translated from Latin, Luther’s writings spread throughout Europe due to the growing availability of the printing press sparking revolts against Papal authority, and after refusing to recant Luther found himself excommunicated. The ideas presented in Ninety-Five Theses, and other Luther writings would result in Luther forming his own Church that taught salvation could be obtained through living a pious life, and doing good works presenting a threat to the authority of the Church with the idea that supreme religious authority came from the Bible alone, and not from the Pope or Church officials.
True to his word and to his father’s dismay, Martin Luther begrudgingly joined one of the most devout Augustinian monasteries in Erfurt on July 17, 1505 where he fully gave himself to the Christian disciplines of fasting, confession, and making pilgrimage out of his struggle to find peace with God. Concerned with the eternal fate of his own soul, Luther literally, through penance, and figuratively beat himself up. It was not until Luther came under the mentorship of Johan von Staupitz, a superior to Luther in the Augustinian order, which Luther understood that true repentance did not take in the physical, self-harm of the outer body but rather a change of heart. Staupitz encouraged Luther to pursue an academic career and in 1507 was ordained as a priest. In 1508 Luther started teaching theology at the University of Wittenburg where he, himself, attained a number of degrees. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Biblical Studies, a Bachelor’s degree in Sentences by Peter Lombard, and finally on October 19, 1512, he finally earned a Doctor of Theology degree. Under the pressure of academic study, Martin was
On October 31, 1517, an angry Martin Luther nailed a sheet of paper with 95 theses on the university’s chapel door. In January 1521, Martin Luther was officially excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. In March, he was summoned before the Diet of Worms, a general assembly of secular authorities. Again, Luther refused to recant his statements, demanding he be shown any scripture that would refute his position. There was none. His actions fractured the Roman Catholic Church into new sects of Christianity and set in motion reform within the Church. He died
In 1517, the Church was struggling because a message was being told individuals how to do church a certain way. Any way outside of doing Church in this specific way was deemed heretical because of its radical ideas and would lead to individuals being cast out of the Church. This divide concerned Luther, around the same time as he was studying and teaching at Wittenberg, where he came a different realization on how our faith is built on how grace, freely given by God, is found at the cross and not by how much one spends on indulgences. Luther would write a document asking for a discussion by the larger Church body. With the help of the printing press, Luther’s
Martin Luther rejected several teachings and practices of the church. He believed that freedom from sin didn’t have to be bought. Luther proposed his discussion of the usefulness of the indulgences in his 95 theses in 1517. In 1520, he refused to retract his writings by the commands of Pope Leo X and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, at the Diet of Worms in 1521. He was excommunicated by the pope and condemned as an outlaw by the emperor.
The earliest most famous Protestant reformer, Martin Luther went to the school of Erfurt to study law in 1501, but he quickly became more interested in theology. Luther was exposed to recent humanist writings and read extensively in classical Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. In 1505, he enrolled in an Augustinian monastery. He spent a decade educating and preaching and visited Rome. The Reformation was a religious uprising in Europe in the 16th century, prompted by dissatisfaction with the set Roman Catholic Church, which directed to the formulation of the Protestant branch of Christianity.