500 Years of Protestantism: 38 Things Martin Luther Wrote

  • Thread starter Thread starter yosephdaviyd
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
pocohombre said:
Now you have added something I did not- “merely”. I also said he is many things.I do not think Jesus is merely a Shepherd, nor merely a Door, not merely the Way, nor merely the Vine etc. You do not think Christ is “overseer” of all creation? Does He not always act on behalf of someone else (the Father) ? Of course you are right in that He is more, for it is above human terms, the Trinity, that is. In a sense Jesus is steward for the Father, but Jesus is also the Son, co owner, which an earthly steward usually is not. So I get your point. Do you get mine ?
Click to expand...
No. I do not get your point at all, I believe it is false to describe Jesus Christ as a steward. Jesus Christ is not overseer of creation. He owns it being a person of the blessed Trinity.
 
Darryl_B said:
No. I do not get your point at all, I believe it is false to describe Jesus Christ as a steward. Jesus Christ is not overseer of creation. He owns it being a person of the blessed Trinity.
Click to expand...
You got me laughing Daryl. Maybe we’ll let this rest, may only be semantics. Blessings
 
Randy_Carson said:
This will make some folks unhappy, but I just came across a book review by Dr. Art Sippo that I think relevant to this thread.

Martin Luther: The Man and the Image
By Herbert David Rix

By far and away, the best book written on Martin Luther in the 20th Century was “Martin Luther: The Man and the Image” by Medieval scholar and Erasmus expert Herbert David Rix. It was published by a small independent New York press Irvington Publishers in 1983. It did not receive much press. I obtained a used copy in a small bookshop in Oxford, UK in 1989. I had never heard of it before, but as I glanced through it in the shop, I knew it was a must read. My expectations were more than realized. it was essentially a life-changing book and I used it as the basis for an extended lecture on Martin Luther entitled “The Death of Charity” which I delivered to the Pro Fide Forum at Westminster Cathedral in London in October 1989.

Dr. Rix did an extended survey of Luther’s works from the Weimar Edition of Luther’s collected works. He also did a survey of the various analyses of Luther’s personality and work by his 16th Century contemporaries and by scholars since the Quadricentenniel of his birth in 1883. Rix makes several connections in the timeline of Luther that I have not seen documented in other biographical materials. He also gives a plausible (if somewhat dated) psychological profile of the heretic using pre-DSM3 categories.

In short, Dr. Rix thinks that Luther suffered from a severe manic-depressive disorder punctuated with periods of extreme mania that bordered on the psychotic and characterized by a poor self image, severe depression, and delusions of grandeur. In this view he was not alone. He quotes from previous authors who wrote about Luther including Erasmus, Richard Simon, Preserved Smith, Fr. Heinrich Denifle, Fr. Hartman Grisar, Preserved Smith, Paul Reiter, and Eric Eriksson.

Based on his masterful summary in this book, it is abundantly clear that Luther was suffering from severe mental illness and that this illness lay as the foundation of his alleged religious “breakthrough.” To put it bluntly, the theological foundation of Protestantism is mental illness. Luther’s amoral and anti-nomian heresy of “justification by faith alone unformed by charity and without good works” was a personal catharsis which the heretic used to control his periods of depression.

Full review here: art-of-attack.blogspot.com/2012/06/best-book-on-martin-luther-now.html

This analysis by Dr. Rix might explain a lot of what we see in the OP.
Click to expand...
Just heard a study on this and Luther apparently he had a brilliant mind. Did well when he studied law (at the finest law school in Europe) and did well when studied to be priest. His sharp legal mind, when later applied to God’s law, left him quite “naked” in sin. Guilt is indeed behind many mental illnesses. There may be a fine line between being crazy and genius also. I understand Luther and all monks had to confess every day. Luther could spend several hours in the confessional, being very meticulous. He was hypersensitive to sin and to God’s righteousness in comparison . How heavily have we travailed over our own sin? I understand Wesley had a similar experience of actually being physically sick for almost a year because of this dilemma, of His perfect righteousness and our depravity (what man can know it). So one had mental illness and one physical illness but both "learned’ how to spell “relief”, “the just just shall live by faith, and that not of ourselves, it is a gift from God”. Thank God for such “illnesses”.
 
pocohombre said:
You got me laughing Daryl. Maybe we’ll let this rest, may only be semantics. Blessings
Click to expand...
No. It is not semantics. You are either the owner or the steward. You cannot be both. Laughing one’s way out of a hole, is good medicine, and I am sure it has helped many people in the past.🙂

Which still leaves the undealt with issue of Isaiah 22:20-23 as raised by Steve B and Isaiah45_9.
 
pocohombre said:
Just heard a study on this and Luther apparently he had a brilliant mind. Did well when he studied law (at the finest law school in Europe) and did well when studied to be priest. His sharp legal mind, when later applied to God’s law, left him quite “naked” in sin. Guilt is indeed behind many mental illnesses. There may be a fine line between being crazy and genius also. I understand Luther and all monks had to confess every day. Luther could spend several hours in the confessional, being very meticulous. He was hypersensitive to sin and to God’s righteousness in comparison . How heavily have we travailed over our own sin? I understand Wesley had a similar experience of actually being physically sick for almost a year because of this dilemma, of His perfect righteousness and our depravity (what man can know it). So one had mental illness and one physical illness but both "learned’ how to spell “relief”, “the just just shall live by faith, and that not of ourselves, it is a gift from God”. Thank God for such “illnesses”.
Click to expand...
Sorry Pocohombre, but I do not see a thin line between crazy and genius. That is a fuzziness so prevalent in the “modernist” approach to anything, Luther was neither crazy nor genius, he was ordinary. Meticulous is another word for scrupulous. I suspect that the scrupulous Luther eventually rebelled and threw off what he saw as the “shackles” that he believed was creating his scrupulousness, the Catholic Church teaching.

Subsequently there are things he wrote, which show he had no fear of sin. Salvation by faith ONLY, and you can murder as much as you want and still be forgiven without the sacrament of confession/reconciliation. He should really have found a spiritual mentor who could help him through this scrupulous phase he had, rather than taking the action he took.
 
Darryl_B said:
Subsequently there are things he wrote, which show he had no fear of sin. Salvation by faith ONLY, and you can murder as much as you want and still be forgiven without the sacrament of confession/reconciliation.
Click to expand...
Wow. Just wow.
 
Darryl_B said:
Sorry Pocohombre, but I do not see a thin line between crazy and genius. That is a fuzziness so prevalent in the “modernist” approach to anything, Luther was neither crazy nor genius, he was ordinary. Meticulous is another word for scrupulous. I suspect that the scrupulous Luther eventually rebelled and threw off what he saw as the “shackles” that he believed was creating his scrupulousness, the Catholic Church teaching.

Subsequently there are things he wrote, which show he had no fear of sin. Salvation by faith ONLY, and you can murder as much as you want and still be forgiven without the sacrament of confession/reconciliation. He should really have found a spiritual mentor who could help him through this scrupulous phase he had, rather than taking the action he took.
Click to expand...
Ugh. The cartoons continue…:rolleyes:
 
Darryl_B said:
Subsequently there are things he wrote, which show he had no fear of sin. Salvation by faith ONLY, and you can murder as much as you want and still be forgiven without the sacrament of confession/reconciliation. He should really have found a spiritual mentor who could help him through this scrupulous phase he had, rather than taking the action he took.
Click to expand...
Quite a serious claim. Please provide a source and context.

Thanks,
Jon
 
JonNC said:
**Quite a serious claim. **Please provide a source and context.

Thanks,
Jon
Click to expand...
I’m not sure it is actually. Certainly the way it was stated (“you can murder as much as you want and still be forgiven without the sacrament of confession/reconciliation”) makes it sound pretty bizarre, but objectively speaking I don’t think that contradicts Catholic teaching – there’s never been an official teaching that no one can be forgiven of mortal sin without the sacrament of reconciliation.
 
Peter_J said:
I’m not sure it is actually. Certainly the way it was stated (“you can murder as much as you want and still be forgiven without the sacrament of confession/reconciliation”) makes it sound pretty bizarre, but objectively speaking I don’t think that contradicts Catholic teaching – there’s never been an official teaching that no one can be forgiven of mortal sin without the sacrament of reconciliation.
Click to expand...
Sorry, I was intentionally drawing it back to the sacrament of reconciliation as that is the thing he threw off to unshackle himself from his scrupulousness.

Instead he implied commit fornication or murder 1000 times and still be in right standing (justified) with God because I guess he would be saved by faith only. No need for reconciliation. No offense but anyone who commits fornication or murders 1000 times does not have faith.
 
Darryl_B said:
Sorry, I was intentionally drawing it back to the sacrament of reconciliation as that is the thing he threw off to unshackle himself from his scrupulousness.

Instead he implied commit fornication or murder 1000 times and still be in right standing (justified) with God because I guess he would be saved by faith only. No need for reconciliation. No offense but anyone who commits fornication or murders 1000 times does not have faith.
Click to expand...
You realise that that’s a defeater for your own argument, right?
 
Darryl_B said:
No. Because that is my perception, I cannot speak for Martin Luther who actually said it.
Click to expand...
But surely you recognise that Luther would simply say that we ought to doubt the faith of anyone who commits thousands of murders without any sign of remorse?
 
Peter_J said:
I’m not sure it is actually. Certainly the way it was stated (“you can murder as much as you want and still be forgiven without the sacrament of confession/reconciliation”) makes it sound pretty bizarre, but objectively speaking I don’t think that contradicts Catholic teaching – there’s never been an official teaching that no one can be forgiven of mortal sin without the sacrament of reconciliation.
Click to expand...
Agreed, but Darryl’s point seems to be that Luther rejected Confession/Holy Absolution. This is where he is incorrect.
Originally Posted by **Darryl B **
Sorry, I was intentionally drawing it back to the sacrament of reconciliation as that is the thing he threw off to unshackle himself from his scrupulousness.
Click to expand...
Instead he implied commit fornication or murder 1000 times and still be in right standing (justified) with God because I guess he would be saved by faith only. No need for reconciliation. No offense but anyone who commits fornication or murders 1000 times does not have faith.
Click to expand...
I do not know where you get the idea that Luther rejected what Catholics call Reconciliation, and what we call Holy Absolution. Certainly he doesn’t mention it in the letter to Melanchthon that you pulled the quote from. But then again, it was a private letter, not a doctrinal statement, and between two theologians who knew each other well, not everything has to be stated. Some things are assumed.

From the Augsburg Confession (while Luther didn’t write it, he did approve of it)
bookofconcord.org/augsburgconfession.php#article11

And from the Small Catechism, which he did write:
bookofconcord.org/smallcatechism.php#confession

Incidentally, the format Luther proivdes here is the usual format used by Lutherans for private confession. And Lutherans believe that pastor/confessors, when they grant Absolution, speak in personal christi.

Jon
 
Novocastrian said:
You realise that that’s a defeater for your own argument, right?
Click to expand...
That’s only part of it. Luther, obviously, was speaking in hyperbole here. He knew Melanchthon well. Melanchthon was a more reserved individual than Luther.
One has to read the letter, but the intent here is to encourage us to act in this world, even though our actions have sin in them. Grace is greater than sin, Christ greater than Satan.
When I read the letter, I am reminded of Paul’s statement that the wrong he would not do, that he does, etc.

Jon
 
Darryl_B said:
Sorry, I was intentionally drawing it back to the sacrament of reconciliation as that is the thing he threw off to unshackle himself from his scrupulousness.
Click to expand...
Interesting assertion ^^ if it’s true. Can you provide a source? (I see Jon has already touched on this point, in the negative, but I figured I should ask anyhow.)
 
JonNC said:
Agreed, but Darryl’s point seems to be that Luther rejected Confession/Holy Absolution. This is where he is incorrect.
Click to expand...
He might have meant Luther’s understanding was erroneous. The pope lists Luther’s errors in this area. Look at the link provided, and see if I missed anything.

(all emphasis mine)
  1. That there are three parts to penance: contrition, confession, and satisfaction, has no foundation in Sacred Scripture nor in the ancient sacred Christian doctors**. **
  2. Contrition, which is acquired through discussion, collection, and detestation of sins, by which one reflects upon his years in the bitterness of his soul, by pondering over the gravity of sins, their number, their baseness, the loss of eternal beatitude, and the acquisition of eternal damnation, this contrition makes him a hypocrite, indeed more a sinner.
  3. It is a most truthful proverb and the doctrine concerning the contritions given thus far is the more remarkable: "Not to do so in the future is the highest penance; the best penance, a new life."
  4. By no means may you presume to confess venial sins, nor even all mortal sins, because it is impossible that you know all mortal sins. Hence in the primitive Church only manifest mortal sins were confessed.
  5. As long as we wish to confess all sins without exception, **we are doing nothing else than to wish to leave nothing to God’s mercy for pardon. **
  6. Sins are not forgiven to anyone, unless when the priest forgives them he believes they are forgiven; on the contrary the sin would remain unless he believed it was forgiven; for indeed the remission of sin and the granting of grace does not suffice, but it is necessary also to believe that there has been forgiveness.
  7. By no means can you have reassurance of being absolved because of your contrition, but because of the word of Christ: "Whatsoever you shall loose, etc." Hence, I say, trust confidently, if you have obtained the absolution of the priest, and firmly believe yourself to have been absolved, and you will truly be absolved, whatever there may be of contrition.
  8. If through an impossibility he who confessed was not contrite, or the priest did not absolve seriously, but in a jocose manner, if nevertheless he believes that he has been absolved, he is most truly absolved.
  9. In the sacrament of penance and the remission of sin the pope or the bishop does no more than the lowest priest; indeed, where there is no priest, any Christian, even if a woman or child, may equally do as much.
papalencyclicals.net/Leo10/l10exdom.htm
Click to expand...
Do you see a theme here to his thinking?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top