The idea that Luther knew the truth (when he was Catholic)

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Peter_J

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Hi y’all.

I was about to post this on another thread, but then it just felt so important to me that I thought I should start a thread for it:

Hi MichaelP3. As I say, I do want you to tell me if I’m on a right track. (Perhaps other Protestants can chime in too – but I know how shy they can be 😊.) But I have a suggestion that may help, namely that we focus more specifically on the idea that Luther originally knew (when he was Catholic) the answers to all the questions he asked.
I don’t have a specific question, but am just hoping (against hope, or for hope, as the cae may be) that others will post thoughts on this theme. (I apologize that this OP is not very polished. Past experience has shown that, when starting a new thread, spending a lot of time trying to get the first post just-so, may well mean wasting said time.)
 
P.S. This is what I had said previously on the aforementioned thread:
Peter_J said:
Growing up Catholic I knew nothing about Protestants to begin with … Then when I eventually learned about Martin Luther, I saw it something like this: First Luther started out knowing that we (Catholics) are right; then he darkened his mind in some way; then he investigated questions that he originally knew the answers to.
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A Lutheran might argue that he didn’t really " darken his mind," but his mind was enlightened when he discovered the doctrine of justification by grace through faith. The darkness was when he was compulsively running to confession and obsessing over the state of his own soul. A Lutheran would also say that Martin Luther basically never " stopped" being Catholic, that Leo’s Bull of Excommunication was an ill- advised political maneuver. He simply saw himself as being placed outside the papal system, not Christianity ( *or *historical Catholicism) and in a position to right some things he thought was wrong in the practice of Germanic Christianity. That, however, is simply a Lutheran’s point of view regarding the relationship between Herr Doktor Martin Luther and the Church Catholic.
 
LutheranScholar said:
A Lutheran might argue that he didn’t really " darken his mind," but his mind was enlightened when he discovered the doctrine of justification by grace through faith. The darkness was when he was compulsively running to confession and obsessing over the state of his own soul. A Lutheran would also say that Martin Luther basically never " stopped" being Catholic, that Leo’s Bull of Excommunication was an ill- advised political maneuver. He simply saw himself as being placed outside the papal system, not Christianity ( *or *historical Catholicism) and in a position to right some things he thought was wrong in the practice of Germanic Christianity. That, however, is simply a Lutheran’s point of view regarding the relationship between Herr Doktor Martin Luther and the Church Catholic.
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Hi LnSr.

I tend to use “Catholic” interchangeably with “ICWR”, except when there’s signficiant danger of misunderstanding.

Admittedly, “darkened his mind” was an imperfect attempt on my part to fill in a gap. But what seems more significant to me is the part about him knowing (at the outset anyhow) the answers to the questions.
 
LutheranScholar said:
A Lutheran might argue that he didn’t really " darken his mind," but his mind was enlightened when he discovered the doctrine of justification by grace through faith. The darkness was when he was compulsively running to confession and obsessing over the state of his own soul. A Lutheran would also say that Martin Luther basically never " stopped" being Catholic, that Leo’s Bull of Excommunication was an ill- advised political maneuver. He simply saw himself as being placed outside the papal system, not Christianity ( *or *historical Catholicism) and in a position to right some things he thought was wrong in the practice of Germanic Christianity. That, however, is simply a Lutheran’s point of view regarding the relationship between Herr Doktor Martin Luther and the Church Catholic.
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And a Catholic might wonder: did Luther intellectually discover the doctrine of justification or was it received by him by Divine revelation?
 
campeador said:
And a Catholic might wonder: did Luther intellectually discover the doctrine of justification or was it received by him by Divine revelation?
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To me that would seem strange, considering that Luther/Lutherans don’t even make such a claim.

But I guess people are free to wonder about what they wish. 🙂
 
Peter_J said:
To me that would seem strange, considering that Luther/Lutherans don’t even make such a claim.

But I guess people are free to wonder about what they wish. 🙂
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Maybe I misunderstood LutheranScholar? He wrote “…(Luther’s) mind was enlightened when he discovered the doctrine of justification by grace through faith.”

🤷
 
campeador said:
Maybe I misunderstood LutheranScholar? He wrote “…(Luther’s) mind was enlightened when he discovered the doctrine of justification by grace through faith.”

🤷
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I said exactly that and there’s the link to back it up:

*Sola Fide: Faith Alone
Martin Luther developed his understanding of justification amid the moralism and mysticism of late medieval religion. He made strenuous efforts to find a gracious God, doing penance according to the dictates of scholastic theology. Ultimately he became frustrated to the point of despair.

Luther’s “discovery of the gospel,” as it has been called, came during his scholarly labors as a Doctor in Biblia. The pivotal text was Romans 1:17. “At last, as I meditated day and night on the relation of the words ‘the righteousness of God is revealed in it, as it is written, the righteous person shall live by faith,’ I began to understand that ‘righteousness of God’ as that by which the righteous person lives by the gift of God; and this sentence, ‘the righteousness of God is revealed,’ to refer to a passive righteousness, by which the merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, ‘the righteous person lives by faith.’ This immediately made me feel as though I had been born again, and as though I had entered through open gates into paradise itself. From that moment, I saw the whole face of Scripture in a new light. … And now, where I had once hated the phrase, ‘the righteousness of God,’ I began to love and extol it as the sweetest of phrases, so that this passage in Paul became the very gate of paradise to me.”

Luther considered justification by faith “the summary of all Christian doctrine” and “the article by which the church stands or falls.” In the Smalkald Articles of 1537 he wrote: “Nothing in this article can be given up or compromised, even if heaven and earth and things temporal should be destroyed.”* christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-34/dr-luthers-theology.html
christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/8742/when-and-how-did-martin-luther-arrive-at-the-justification-by-faith
gty.org/Resources/Print/articles/22
 
LutheranScholar said:
I said exactly that and there’s the link to back it up:

*Sola Fide: Faith Alone
Martin Luther developed his understanding of justification amid the moralism and mysticism of late medieval religion. He made strenuous efforts to find a gracious God, doing penance according to the dictates of scholastic theology. Ultimately he became frustrated to the point of despair.

Luther’s “discovery of the gospel,” as it has been called, came during his scholarly labors as a Doctor in Biblia. The pivotal text was Romans 1:17. “At last, as I meditated day and night on the relation of the words ‘the righteousness of God is revealed in it, as it is written, the righteous person shall live by faith,’ I began to understand that ‘righteousness of God’ as that by which the righteous person lives by the gift of God; and this sentence, ‘the righteousness of God is revealed,’ to refer to a passive righteousness, by which the merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, ‘the righteous person lives by faith.’ This immediately made me feel as though I had been born again, and as though I had entered through open gates into paradise itself. From that moment, I saw the whole face of Scripture in a new light. … And now, where I had once hated the phrase, ‘the righteousness of God,’ I began to love and extol it as the sweetest of phrases, so that this passage in Paul became the very gate of paradise to me.”

Luther considered justification by faith “the summary of all Christian doctrine” and “the article by which the church stands or falls.” In the Smalkald Articles of 1537 he wrote: “Nothing in this article can be given up or compromised, even if heaven and earth and things temporal should be destroyed.”* christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-34/dr-luthers-theology.html
christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/8742/when-and-how-did-martin-luther-arrive-at-the-justification-by-faith
gty.org/Resources/Print/articles/22
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I’m not a Lutheran. But reading this post, it made me smile. 😃
 
read somewhere Luther knew the harm he had done shortly before his death and that he would have to answer to God.
 
To explain a bit why I said “darkened his mind” (there may, of course, be better wordings out there): if someone who is RC necessarily knows that we’re right and the rest of you are wrong, then the natural question is, Why would Martin Luther question things that he knew to be true?

Does this same kind of dilemma come up within “Protestantism”? I.e. someone “knowing” that Protestantism is true, but then later on leaving Protestantism?
 
Peter_J said:
Or did you? (Cue dramatic music.)

Heh. But seriously, I’m more interested in what you meant by enlightened.
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😃 Apparently, Dr. Luther hadn’t figured out the whole justification by faith deal before ( which is odd, seeing’s how the theme that " the righteous person will live by his faith" is repeated throughout both the Old and New Testaments), but that reading seems to have shed some light on a man who was obsessively confessing and performing acts of penance and still felt left in the dark. I suppose you could say that his studies just sort of came together in his mind and he was able to cut through to the heart of the matter. I reckon that’s what I mean when I say " enlightened."
 
Peter_J said:
To explain a bit why I said “darkened his mind” (there may, of course, be better wordings out there): if someone who is RC necessarily knows that we’re right and the rest of you are wrong, then the natural question is, Why would Martin Luther question things that he knew to be true?

Does this same kind of dilemma come up within “Protestantism”? I.e. someone “knowing” that Protestantism is true, but then later on leaving Protestantism?
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Did Luther really know them to be true, or were there doubts present from the beginning that he just had to explore? As Protestantism is more of a movement of different churches stemming from a Reformation heritage stemming from four traditions: Lutheran, Calvinist, Anabaptist and Anglican, it’s more of a matter of somebody leaving his or her own upbringing for a different alternative. A firmly convinced Mennonite, for example, may get shunned by his community, then he must choose another tradition to affiliate with. Baptist? Presbyterian? Russian Orthodox? Catholic? Lutheran?

Given no choice but to ponder different traditions, to put them in their various historical contexts, examine their fidelity to the Scripture, visit a few churches and then select the one he is convinced is correct, this unhappily banished Mennonite will be far more likely to select a church he believes to be true than one with traditions similar to the one he has left ( comfort must take a back seat to God’s Will revealed in His Word). Then, as most converts do, he will immerse himself in the theology to the point where any return to Mennonitism will be impossible.

In the meantime, being wrenched away from his community and the tenets that he was firmly convinced were true can only be a torment… until he studies alternative points of view. He’ll never leave the Christian faith, but he was booted out of his community, so perhaps he’ll have to find a community that* will *accept him.
 
Peter_J said:
Hi MPT. We non-Lutherans have to stick together, am I right?

Or did you? (Cue dramatic music.)

Heh. But seriously, I’m more interested in what you meant by enlightened.
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Considering the onslaught by the Catholics, how else? 😉
 
Thanks LutheranScholar.

I don’t want to offend you or hijack this thread, so I’m reading the links you provided, as well as the Joint declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. 🙂
 
So, I’ve done some reading this week, including links posted by LutheranScholar, and I can’t find any evidence suggesting that Martin Luther arrived at the doctrine of justification by any other means but by his own intellect.

Criticism and correction are welcome. I’m just trying to understand the Lutheran position.
 
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