Zhang guobao biography of martin luther
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doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.351
This impact began with the publication of his Ninety-Five Theses on 31 October 1517, in which as a young professor at Wittenberg he attacked the Church’s doctrine of indulgences as falling short of a true Biblical understanding of penance; this was then followed by various further disputations and disputes as well as published works that defended his increasingly radical position, leading to his excommunication in 1521 and his famously defiant appearance at the Diet of Worms.
doi:10.1515/9783110499025-010
Schaaf (trans.), Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1985.
It has also been argued by commentators that this radical critique of Aristotle from the perspective of his view of justification and grace also results in a departure not only from Aristotle’s ethics of the virtues, but also some fundamental assumptions of Aristotelian metaphysics, and its commitment to the substance/attribute model.
Rather, it would be more accurate to say that he was keen to keep reason within its proper boundaries and under the right tutelage.
One text that brings out some of the complexities of Luther’s position on these issues is Disputatio de homine (“The Disputation Concerning Man”, 1536). The marriage was a successful and happy one, and they were to have six children together, of whom two daughters were to die young, affecting Luther greatly.
Likewise and more generally, the Christian lives in a society in which not all are good, so that laws are required in order to constrain the behaviour of the wicked—which alongside its “convicting” use, is the other function of the law in Luther’s account.[37] Such laws will require authority in those who institute and enforce them, an authority grounded in the important role that these public bodies play in enabling fallen human beings to live together, and thus in fulfilling God’s purposes for the world.
In recognizing how far law and the legitimacy of public authorities and social structures rest on the role of both in furthering the ends of God’s creation, there is an important connection between Luther’s ethics and social philosophy and the theistic natural law tradition.
818–823.
Luther asserted that individuals could interpret the Bible for themselves, without relying solely on the interpretations of church authorities. Whether he actually said, “Here I stand, I can do no other” is uncertain. During the Diet of Worms, Luther refused to recant his position. doi:10.1017/S0022046903008005
He also says that the Physics is fundamentally flawed, elsewhere arguing that this is because Aristotle has no conception of the Biblical account of creation (Lectures on Genesis, 1535–1545, WA 42:63/LW 1:84). Erasmus 1524 [1969: 41]), where he makes several key claims that will be developed further in what follows. (WA 18:662–3/LW 33:105)
However, this then means, Luther argues, that on Erasmus’s account, if a human being does “the things which lead” to eternal salvation, this is not just because they have willed these things, but rather have chosen to act on them through exercising this capacity for choice—which is enough to make him a semi-Pelagian, who believes in this capacity for choice even though he disagrees with Pelagius himself over our ability to also know unaided the matters of salvation and thus the good concerning which we are said to choose.
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.
Caught in a violent thunderstorm, he cried out to St. Anne, vowing to become a monk if he survived. doi:10.1515/9783110499025-015
Jenson (eds.), Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, pp.