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Essay Subject: Life, work, theological belief system, theory of salvation & the primacy of Scripture, historical context, impact of his ideas on Protestant Reformation & transition from Middle Ages to Renaissance.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Life, work, theological belief system, theory of salvation & the primacy of Scripture, historical context, impact of his ideas on Protestant Reformation & transition from Middle Ages to Renaissance. Paper Introduction: The purpose of this research is to examine the life, work, and theological belief system of Martin Luther (1483-1546) regarding his vision of scripture as the way to salvation. The plan of the research will be to set forth the historical and theological context in which Martin Luther became a pivotal figure in European Christianity and the Protestant Reformation and then to discuss the pattern of ideas that emerged out of his experience, as well as the details of and means by which the articulation of these ideas exerted influence on the shape that European thought assumed as the medieval period made a transition toward the Renaissance. When the late medieval period of the thirteenth century began to merge with the revival of classical learning and opened, by the time of the sixteenth century, into the Renaissance, a whole Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. The Freedom of a Christian Man (152 ) [excerpt]. Luther: Man Between God and the Devil. In the background of this line of thought is that it is the truth ofrevelation, the most direct experience of which is contained in holyscriptures, that is at the core of human being-ness. The relevanceof encouraging study of scripture to Luther's vision of the connectionbetween scripture and salvation is the Protestant approach to intellectualmethod in general and to the telos or purpose of human experience inparticular. Hillerbrand. The Last Days of Luther. Now this is not to say that goodworks are useless in the scheme of humane experience. Philosophy centered on the nature of reality (hence, of God, thesoul, and man), but it is the method of scholasticism that had the mostimpact on Western thought. In his bold break with Rome, he advocated direct study ofscripture. Unmerited grace is Luther's answer to the view that mancould in any way make amends for sin, for "God forgives sins withoutrecompense, out of unlimited grace at all times, and demands nothing inreturn but living a proper life from then on" (Luther's "Wittenbergprogram," in Oberman 192). Man's fate on this view is the sole prerogativeof God, who is perforce a font of grace and not vengeful. They cannot be considered valuable withoutreference to faith, i.e., without reference to Christ, who is revealed inthe scripture. The Age of Belief: The Medieval Philosophers. 239). "Luther and Death." The Last Days of Luther. . It is in this context ofinability to effect an outcome with God that the experience of grace mayoccur for human beings, when, as Tillich says, following Luther, that allthat is required is that "you accept the fact that you are accepted"(Tillich 156). 65. A History of the Western Educational Experience. Gutek says that as competing creeds grew up during the Reformation, sodid learning systems and institutions designed to support rival creeds.Part of this involved putting in place mechanisms whereby the emphasis ofreligious or other instruction would rely less on institutional authority(especially that of the Church) than on the authority of scripture: The various denominations developed their own theologies of education, established their own schools, and sought to commit the young members of the church to 'defend the faith' against rival creeds. Trans. Hans J. During the period of the twelfth-century renaissance, the structure ofthought was marked by the seven liberal arts, divided into the trivium(grammar, rhetoric, logic) and the quadrivum (arithmetic, geometry,astronomy, music), which had been inherited from the classical traditionlaid down by Martinus Capella in the fourth century A.D. That, he says for example, would be like"limping with two different opinions" (1 Kings 18.21). Works CitedAlthaus, Paul. Thescriptural emphasis is decisive, for, as Althaus says, Luther interpretsthe passage to "equate[]" dying "with the on-going act of the crucifixionof the flesh," with the Passion becoming "both a 'sacrament' and 'anexample'" (Althaus 214). 4. That is, everythingcomes back to faith and to the Word. Robert C. Implicitin the reference is that the answer to life's ambiguities, including theanticipation and fear of death that is at the core of human experience, ismeant to be contained in and by the text, inasmuch as that text isidentified with the absolute of divinely revealed truth. Hillerbrand. Schultz. He also cites Rom.1 .1 to the effect that "man believes with his heart and so is justified."The inner man of faith in Jesus Christ as articulated in scripture, not theouter man of works who fails to heed scripture, is justified. Luther feels that it must be expressed thus: Christ in his love has made himself one with man. Ed. 2 .16] 64. To follow the example is to have the same absolutetrust in God as Jesus and incidentally to behave well, with faith"appropriating" everything and lending meaning and purpose to the humanexperience of life and death: "Christ's battle and victory, his cross andresurrection, are thus contemporary events, present to us in the battlesand the victories of the individual Christian" (Althaus 214-15). Ed. The plan of the research will be toset forth the historical and theological context in which Martin Lutherbecame a pivotal figure in European Christianity and the ProtestantReformation and then to discuss the pattern of ideas that emerged out ofhis experience, as well as the details of and means by which thearticulation of these ideas exerted influence on the shape that Europeanthought assumed as the medieval period made a transition toward theRenaissance. The general Protestant emphasis on individual biblical reading and interpretation [a dramatic break with scholastic orthodoxy] fostered a demand for universal literacy (Gutek 117).In this regard, Luther urged general education in the vernacular for tradeand lower classes, although for the social elite he advocated thecontinuation of classical education. The Protestant Reformation. In the thirteenth century, this was overlaid with a belief that thehighest endeavor of learning was to grapple with theology. Significantly, he connects his criticism of the notion thatgood works to a critique of church praxis: It does not help the soul if the body is adorned with the sacred robes of priests or dwells in sacred places or is occupied with sacred duties or prays, fasts, abstains from certain kinds of food, or does any work that can be done by the body and in the body. Fremantle describes Aquinas's "omnivorous acceptance of Aristotle"(145); as the premier theologian of Roman Catholicism, Aquinas has auniquely Christian perspective and interpretation of Aristotle, whosesystem of thought is brought to bear on scholastic explication of thefaith. Louis: Concordia, 1959.Simon, Edith. 59;239). Introduction. New York: New American Library, 1954.Gutek, Gerald L. History of Western Civilization. No, says Luther. reason, contributed to imposingdiscipline and structure on the process of learning and thinking: "Their[scholastic theologians'] researches led to the development ofscholasticism as a formal methodology of inquiry, scholarship, and teachingamong medieval educators. 88-1 7.---. Therefore the treasures of the Gospel were the net with which one once caught the wealthy. An Explanation of the Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine for the Use of Sunday-School Teachers and Advanced Classes, Baltimore Catechism No. Such works produce nothing but hypocrites. "You Are Accepted." The Shaking of the Foundations. This is not least because theRenaissance was coincident with the Protestant Reformation, which markedthe departure from the unitary Age of Belief, culturally and religiouslydominated by the Roman Catholic Church. The later Renaissance--more exactlythe late Middle Ages that culminated in what is now considered theRenaissance--can be interpreted partly as a response to the strands ofthought that emerged in the earlier period. However, Luther's approach to institutionalization was to vary a gooddeal from the premier European institution of his time, the CatholicChurch. Onedoes not have to be an opponent of the very concept of institutionalintervention in the divine mystery of salvation to appreciate Luther's viewof the market orientation of such intervention and his refutation of whathad become the routine sale of indulgences (as well as the doctrinalconcept of a spiritual treasury) by specific reference to scripture, notsuch sales, as the ground of salvation. The Theology of Martin Luther. Interpenetrating Luther's line of thought on scripture, faith, andgrace as the path toward salvation is the figure of Christ, who is knownexclusively through scriptural evidence. A Mentor Book. 63. The authority forthis view is scripture, from which there can be no appeal--particularly aninstitutional appeal. xi-xxvii.Jonas, Justus, Michael Coelius, and Others. [Mark 9.34; Matt. The Protestant Reformation. The righteousness and the freedom of the soul require something far different since the things which have been mentioned could be done by any wicked person. Temporal punishment inCatholic doctrine refers to the unpaid debt that the soul of a sinner owesGod even after sin has been forgiven. Trans. The tripartate or as it were trinitarian nature of what constitutessalvation in Luther's view cannot be overstated. Rather, Lutherinsists on a view of good works that shows how useless they are per sewhere the issue is salvation. This was in no small part because of the relationship Luther, whoproduced a translation of the Bible, had to the text itself. An example of the importance of Scripture as Luther's interpretativestarting point for religious doctrine can be seen in a commentary onGalatians, where he ties together his trinitarian concept of salvation withsalvation more or less as personified in the figure of Jesus: Therefore the afflicted conscience has no remedy against despair and eternal death [the opposite of salvation or eternal life] except to take hole of the promise of grace offered in Chris, that is, this righteousness of faith. . The profound consequences of sin, namely fear and insufficient love of God and one's neighbors, cannot be removed by indulgences but only by the Gospel (Oberman 19 ; emphasis added). . It was during this period thatLutheran and other sectarian instructional modes emerged in Germany andScandanavia, comprising "a dual system of elementary vernacular schools andsecondary classical humanist schools and colleges" (Gutek 123; 124). . Luther's view of the role of the dominant text in everyday lifewas institutionalized as Wittenberg became his base of operations and as itbecame the premier Protestant university. 2d ed. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians (1535). . Oberman cites the distinction that Luther made in the Thesesbetween indulgences granted by the Church to commute Church-imposedpenalties, and punishment that may come from or that can be relieved onlyby God, specifically through the sinner's relationship with divine text: Luther . . Any assertion of scriptural authority thatmight contravene institutional authority might have led to theinstitutional dislocation that became the Reformation. Gutek cites the rigorously rational methods ofoutlining hypotheses, objections, and syntheses of opposing propositionsregarding, for example, faith vs. The latter guidestoward belief and trust, or faith in God. In faith Christ's work becomes our own. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1967.Hillerbrand, Hans J. . 153-63. The true treasure of the church is the most holy Gospel of the glory and grace of God. But this treasure is naturally [merito] most odious, for it makes the first the last. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 197 .Kinkead, Thomas L. Hans J. Philadelphia: Fortress P 1966.Fremantle, Anne. . Luther's greatest break with scholastic (i.e., Roman Catholic) strandsof thought and tradition came about, according to Gutek, because ofscholasticism's identification with Roman Catholicism and of Catholicismwith Thomism. Luther Alive: Martin Luther and the Making of the Reformation. It is the latter that shapesLuther's view and that overtakes the notion of the law. Faith in God's promises merges with observance of commandmentsfor Luther, who says that the first commandment, "'You shall worship oneGod,' is fulfilled by faith alone" (Luther 12), where faith means absoluteconfidence in God's truth and goodness and promise of salvation, which arethemselves articulated in scripture. Hayes, etal., refer to "what modern historians often call the 'renaissance of thetwelfth century'"(Hayes, et al. That is, Protestantliterature emphasizes the Biblical texts, in particular in preference tothe early church fathers and in particular in preference, as matters turnedout, to the Thomist reliance on, acceptance of, and reconciliation withAristotle. The treasure of indulgences, on the other hand, is very acceptable, for it makes the last the first. Luther's discussion of Galatians, where Paul speaks of dying withChrist, goes to the notion of dying as an internal process of faith. He wanted to stress true repentance and thus make the limited value of indulgences clear: they profit only the living, not the dead in purgatory, because indulgences can only commute punishments imposed by the Church. New York: Harper & Row, 1968. However, it isapparent from the foregoing that the stakes of the debate weresoteriological, inasmuch as what remained uncontested was that in theChristian universe the purpose of life--the very raison d'кtre of man--wassalvation, or the contemplation of going to heaven. Without our merit--since, after all, we cannot merit anything--He wants to give us forgiveness of sins, righteousness, and eternal life for the sake of Christ (Luther 99). The primacy of scriptureas the foundation of salvation cannot be separated from the primacy of thenotion of justification (salvation) by faith or again separated from theprimacy of unmerited grace, i.e., unqualified trust in God's goodness asthe font of grace. The teacher's task was to aid the students inrecognizing basic principles and in developing their implications" (Gutek92; 97). Scholastic teachers used syllogisticreasoning from evident 'first principles' and accumulated an ordered bodyof demonstrated knowledge. Oberman cites Luther's tripartite soteriological "platform":unmerited grace (sola gratia), pure Scripture (sola scriptura), and faithalone (sola fide). For by His word God has revealed to us that He wants to be a merciful Father to us. 9-13.Tillich, Paul. . Rather, such authority and spiritual treasury as the Church mayclaim resides specifically and programmatically in scripture. Luther takes the view that spiritual authorityemanates from the original source, the scripture, where God speaks directlyto man, and not from the institution claiming authority to speak for God.In particular, as Luther made clear in the famous Ninety-Five Theses,generally regarded as the definitively first articulation of theReformation, an institution that claims divine authority on one hand yetsells indulgences, or relief from God's punishment for sin, is not to betrusted. . Commentary on St. Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books, 1988.Luther, Martin. The positive affirmation of the absolute goodness of God and of theabsolute inability of man to do anything like deserve salvation. Now man in faith makes himself one with Christ (Althaus 213). This intervention option was appropriated bythe Church as its "spiritual treasury," a means of "giving us a share inthe merits of the Blessed Virgin and of the saints" (Kinkead 193, 195). 66. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 197 . This trinitarian doctrine is the sole basis for arguingthat man can be saved. Althaus continues: When salvation is at stake, God deals with men always and only in a personal way, that is, through faith. St. Oberman quotes from Theses 62-66 inthis regard: 62. Scripture, meanwhile, comprises two features: commandments andpromises (Luther 8). Still less is that treasury something that canbe dispensed more or less in the manner of an account that ebbs and flowsin value. Trans. The referenceto words both refers to Luther's system of thought and illustrates howtightly consistent with the emphasis of his faith that system was. Accordingly, theindulgence is meant to relieve that punishment. . . Given the soteriologicalimplication of indulgence, to grant an indulgence is to intervene in whatstands between sinner and God. The Church's spiritual treasury, on this view, is not itsinstitutional prerogative. the advertising slogan: "A penny in the box, a soul out of purgatory." . Scholasticism, as both a view of the world and a method of learningconsistent with that view, was the dominant medieval philosophical systemof the period, articulated most systematically in the theology of ThomasAquinas. In other words, this is the righteousness of Christ and of the Holy Spirit, which we do not perform but receive, which we do not have but accept, when God the Father grants it to us through Jesus Christ (Luther 89-9 ).According to Althaus, Luther views Christ's work of reconciliation andredemption, not as the ultimate in good works (!), or as he puts it, "not amaterial achievement which would be valid and effective even without ourknowing it and without personal sharing with Christ" (Althaus 213), but asa matter of internal experience of God, which is of course faith, and whichfaith in turn has its nexus in scripture. Eileen Walliser-Schwarzbart. The treasures of indulgences are now the net with which one catches men's wealth (Luther, in Oberman 19 ). Hans J. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland P Inc., 1972.Hayes, Carlton J., Baldwin, Marshall Whited, and Cole, Charles Woolsey. AsPelikan notes more generally, Luther was above all "an expositor ofScripture" (87). Elsewhere, Althaus says that Luther meant toobey "the clear word of God contrary to all thoughts of vain reason" (387),not least in response to the scholastic churchmen's practice of makinghuman reason instrumental in the very process of understanding God. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1968.Tappert, Theodore G. Equally from thisfollows a key concept of the Lutheran method is that of the protest againstossification and (religious, above all) orthodoxy, specifically as manifestin what Luther analyzed as the corrupt nature of the institution of theRoman Catholic Church. His impulse in thisregard was to develop the view that in the collision between reason andfaith, reason was obliged to yield to the incomprehensible and to paradox,even (or especially) when such paradox emerged in scripture. That unpaid debt stands between asoul and its salvation. Apart from the implicit protest againstinstitutional church authority in the matter of indulgences as aninstrument of salvation, Luther specifically distinguishes his doctrine ofsalvation from the doctrine that a man's good works can or will somehowsave him from damnation. When the late medieval period of the thirteenth century began to mergewith the revival of classical learning and opened, by the time of thesixteenth century, into the Renaissance, a whole range of reforms andinnovative thought had begun to emerge in the European culture. . Conversely, good worksabsent faith will accomplish nothing. In other words, good works will not addanything that faith has not already accomplished. Luther's approach to scripture can be interpreted as aninstrumental use of text, or as it were the Word, with a view towardsalvation as the culmination of devotion to the text. The life and work of Martin Luther were intimately engaged in, by, andultimately against this whole process of rational discourse--not becauseLuther did not engage in discourse and disputation (he did), but because asa matter of religious belief and practice he sought to repudiate thedoctrinal validity and metholodology of scholasticism. Luther the Expositor. New York: Harper & Row, 1968. Luther's sola fide doctrine is that what God doesdemand is not paying a spiritual debt (no human attempt at a debt repaymentto God could be sufficient, God being omnipotent) but rather faith, orabsolute trust in God (via scripture) and grace. Such implications ineluctably pointed toward a reconciliation offaith and reason, which involved discourse that inevitably departed fromoriginal texts. (Hayes, et al. Indulgences as an abstract concept are connected to salvation becauseby definition an indulgence is "the remission in whole or in part of thetemporal punishment due to sin" (Kinkead 193). The purpose of this research is to examine the life, work, andtheological belief system of Martin Luther (1483-1546) regarding his visionof scripture as the way to salvation. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1948. Luther goes on to cite Old and NewTestament verses to explain the spiritual poverty of good works asjustification for salvation. Until it is paid soul and salvation are notreconciled, i.e., the soul and God are not reconciled. In a discussion of Luther's viewson the Eucharist Althaus makes the point that on matters of doctrinalinterpretation, Luther meant always to be "certain that he was obedient toScripture," and further that he did not rely either on the text nor on thesubject matter of the text in his exegetical writings but on "one with andin the other" (Althaus 385). The Protestant Reformation. On the other hand, it will not harm the soul if the body is clothed in secular dress, dwells in unconsecrated places, eats and drinks as others do, does not pray aloud, and neglects to do all the above- mentioned things which hypocrites can do (Luther 5) Luther rather overstates what hypocrites, by which he appears chieflyto mean worldly/monastic churchmen engaged in extravagant ritualobservances and (apparent) self-denial or (apparent) mortification of theflesh, can do as against what ordinary men may do in order to arrive at thelarger point, which is that what is relevant to salvation is not suchoutward signs but what is interior to the soul, more exactly what has beenabsorbed by the soul, i.e., scripture. Hillerbrand. explicitly opposed . New York: Harper & Row, 1968. Trans. Yet stillsalvation is available, in Luther's view. It is not by works but by faithalone; not by works but by God's grace alone; not by works but by scripturealone that man can be saved. "That which is impossible for you toaccomplish by trying to fulfil all the works of the law--many and uselessas they all are--you will accomplish quickly and easily through faith"(Luther 9). Martin Ebon. Thus faith belongs to the work of Christ. At the sametime, he sought to build structures of theological thought consistent withthe 1526 articulations in the so-called Appellation of Protestation, whichwas the culmination of complex disputes over secular and religiousadministration of various German states and the papacy, and from which theterms Protestant and Protestantism derived. The former guides toward a well-lived life, which mayinclude good works but which is really directed toward fulfilling God'slaw, which as a practical matter cannot be fulfilled. 3- 28.Oberman, Heiko Augustinus. Hillerbrand makes themore general point (xiii) that "in the time before the storm [Reformation]people were intensely religious." Analysts of Luther's work and of the Reformation more generally alsocite the emergence, very much following Luther, of the "Protestantprinciple of sola scriptura" (Hillerbrand xxvii). The "most holy Word of God," saysLuther, is the "one thing" that is "necessary for Christian life,righteousness, and freedom" (Luther 6). The tightness of thisargument is the core of Lutheran/Protestant doctrine. Out of this, thetradition of scholasticism as the principal educational method of themiddle ages was firmly entrenched. Ed. . Obermanexplains that implicit in this argument was a rift that could not later berepaired, that between the claims of papal/institutional authority and theauthority of scripture, irrespective of the very existence of a pope or aninstitution: "The decisive event was the subsequent debate on the questionof the fallibility of [institutional] councils, the supreme power of thepope, and the right to admonish the Church, on scriptural grounds, tochange its ways" (Oberman 191). . Tappert (11) cites anannotation that Luther made in the flyleaf of a book he inscribed for areader toward the end of his life that encapsulates the nexus in Luther'sworld view of scripture and the very fate of man: "if anyone keeps mywords, he will never see death (John 8:51; emphasis added). Indeed, the Reformation, withwhich Luther is identified, appears to have been a major agent of theincreased democratization of the political and social as well astheological systems Europe, at least compared to the avowedly aristocraticand hierarchical systems prevalent during the medieval era. It cannot bereconciled with--indeed perforce must protest against--the authority andprerogatives of the institutional church, and especially cannot bereconciled with an institutional articulation of papal infallibility inmatters of doctrine. Luther insists on the requirement of faith and morespecifically on faith in Christ, which implicates the whole range ofteaching associated with the Word, and which is specifically articulated inscripture, indispensable to Luther both as the basis for his belief and asthe basis for his challenge to the institution that he sought to reform. Luther isquite specific in linking the figure of Jesus Christ with both salvationand scripture, and all again with faith, the immediate and personalexperience of trust in God: If you want to be saved, your salvation does not come by works; but God has sent His only Son into the world hat we might live through Him. New Haven: Yale UP, 1989.Pelikan, Jaroslav. Martin Ebon. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.