Huang xiao jun biography of martin luther

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Luther was clearly attracted to the need for inner experience, and spoke of achieving a kind of union with or participation in God, while attaching great merit to some writings in the mystical tradition, particularly the sermons of John Tauler and the Theologia deutsch, a late fourteenth-century work which was transmitted to him by some Augustinian brothers.

These der ‘Heidelberger Disputation’ von 1518”, Lutherjahrbuch, 48: 54–79.

Luther on Free Will

Primary texts

  • Luther, Martin, 1525, The Bondage of the Will (WA 18: 600–787/LW 33:3–295).
  • Erasmus, Desiderius, 1524 [1969], On the Freedom of the Will, E.

    Gordon Rupp and A. N. Marlow (trans.), in Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation, Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1969, pp. From this realization, Luther later claimed (in his preface to the edition of his works published in his life time) that he was freed from his anger against an accusing God, and the anxiety that no such God could ever be known to be placated; instead he now recognised God’s gratuitous love and salvation, bestowed on us through divine grace (1545, WA 54:186/LW 34:336–7).

    Luther was able to develop this new position further in another disputation, this time held in Heidelberg in 1518, where thanks to the controversy unleashed by the Ninety-five Theses, he was invited by Staupitz to present his theological ideas to the triennial assembly of the German Augustinians.

    White 1994: 332–48, Bielfeldt 2002b). doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.343

  • Gerrish, B. A., 1962, Grace and Reason: A Study in the Theology of Luther, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Hamm, Berndt, 2010 [2014], Der frühe Luther: Etappen reformatorischer Neuorientierung, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. 3–15.

Luther, Aristotle, and Via moderna (“Nominalism”)

Primary texts

  • Luther, Martin, 1517, Disputation Against Scholastic Theology (WA 1:224–8/LW 31:3–16).
  • –––, 1522, “Preface to the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans” (WA DB 7:2–27/LW 35:365–80).
  • –––, 1526, The Disputation Concerning Justification (WA 39.1/LW 34:145–96).

Secondary texts

  • Andreatta, Eugenio, 1996, Lutero e Aristotele, Padova: Nuova Vita.
  • Balserak, Jon, 2017, “The Medieval Heritage of Martin Luther”, in Melloni 2017: 141–156.

    huang xiao jun biography of martin luther

    doi:10.1017/CBO9780511487743

  • Janz, Denis R., 1983, Luther and Late Medieval Thomism, Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
  • –––, 1989, Luther on Thomas Aquinas, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.
  • Joest, Wilfried, 1967, Ontologie der Person bei Luther, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
  • Juntunen, Sammeli, 1998, “Luther and Metaphysics”, in Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, Carl Braaten and Robert Jenson (eds.), Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, pp.

    As Luther puts it in Disputation Concerning the Passage: “The Word Was Made Flesh”:

    St. Ambrose has rightly said that the dialecticians have to give way where the apostolic fishermen are to be trusted. In particular, he believed that it was the Bible alone – and not priests or the Church – which had legitimacy for interpreting the word of Christ.

    This text is Luther’s Assertio omnium articulorum published in December of that year, in which (following John Wyclif (1324–1384)) he defended and went beyond the claim from the Heidelberg Disputation which had been condemned, namely that “Free will, after the Fall, exists in name only, and as long as it does what it is able to do, it commits a mortal sin” (WA 1:354/LW 31:40).[28] Correspondingly, Luther’s reply to Erasmus has a brief introduction, and then five main parts: the first two discuss Erasmus’s preface and introduction; a third part which questions Erasmus’s use of scriptural passages in support of free choice, and a fourth which uses scriptural passages against it; and a fifth part which challenges Erasmus’s arguments against the position Luther defended in the Assertio, while the final part marshals Luther’s general argument against free choice.

    In an introduction heavy with irony and sarcasm (which sets the rhetorical tone for much of the rest of the book, and which so offended the urbane Erasmus), Luther apologies for his delay in replying to Erasmus’s Diatribe, but says that the cause was “neither pressure of work, nor the difficulty of the task, nor your great eloquence, nor any fear of you”, but rather “sheer disgust, anger, and contempt” at the quality of Erasmus’s work, and its “evasive and equivocal nature”:

    you fancy yourself steering more cautiously than Ulysses between Scylla and Charybdis as you assert nothing while appearing to assert something.

    Meanwhile, theological and doctrinal disputes were to persist for the rest of Luther’s career, on issues such as the Eucharist (or Lord’s Supper: Heiliges Adendmahl) and baptism, both within the evangelical movement involving figures such as the sacramentarian Karlstadt, and the Swiss reformers Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531) and Johannes Oecolampadius (1482–1531), and outside it with the Anabaptists.

    (1521, WA 7:838/LW 32:112)

    Fearing for his safety after this defiant performance, which did indeed lead to the Edict of Worms declaring him a heretic and an outlaw, Luther was spirited away to the Wartburg castle under the protection of the Elector of Saxony, Frederick the Wise. Recent concerts took the duo to Brazil, China, Japan, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

    doi:10.1177/106385120701600108

  • Zur Mühlen, Karl-Heinz, 1981, “Luthers Kritik am scholastischen Aristotelismus in der 25. Luther first responded with relative moderation in his Admonition to Peace, in which after criticising both the rulers and the peasants, he urged dialogue between the two parties. Luther’s criticisms of Duns Scotus, Gabriel Biel and William of Ockham on these issues elsewhere in the Disputation make clear how he sees them as relating to this fundamental Aristotelian error, while his reference to Augustine’s anti-Pelagianism in the first two theses equally makes clear the theological mistake that Luther sees in all such views.

    doi:10.1093/actrade/9780199206599.001.0001

  • Melloni, Alberto (ed.), 2017, Martin Luther: A Christian Between Reforms and Modernity (1517–2017), Berlin: De Gruyter. The 95 theses of Martin Luther were critical of many practices relating to baptism and the sale of indulgences for the remittance of sin. in 127, Weimar: Hermann Böhlau, 1883–1929; Abteilung 1: Schriften (Series 1: Writings), Volumes 1–60, plus Volumes 61–73 (indexes).
  • [WA TR] D.

    With the help of the newly invented printing presses, the Reformation movement gained in strength and popularity.