The Life and Influence of Martin Luther
Thesis: Martin Luther was by far one of the most influential people in Church history. His doctrine on faith and works was instrumental in the success of the reformation and has since become a cornerstone of the church we know today.
Martin Luther was born on November 10th 1483. His father, Hans Luther, had made something out of himself and came to own a copper mine. Desiring to see his own son go even further he pushed him in school. By the time he was seventeen years old he was entering the university life. In four years he had obtained a Master’s degree from the University of Erfurt. From here his father pushed him into law school. This is not where Martin Luther would stay. While on the road, during a storm, Martin Luther had the fear of God put in him when lightning came crashing down near him. He called out to God to make a bargain. If God spared his life, he would become a monk. While ninety nine out of a hundred would probably shake it off and continue on after such an ordeal, he kept his word and joined a local Augustinian monastery. He found himself unsatisfied by the rituals of monastic life and began lecturing at the University of Wittenberg. He finally obtained his Doctorate Degree in 1512, but it was what he saw two years earlier on his trip to Rome that would change the direction of the Church forever.
Martin Luther’s witnessing of the sale of indulgences changed him. The idea that a piece of paper signed by the Pope could justify the sins of the living was enough to infuriate him. But the claim was that an indulgence could also free someone from purgatory. Martin Luther dug deeper than the original Augustinian view “impelled by the urgent problem of indulgences.” The Bib...
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...e University of Wittenberg during which time he did suffer from frequent health issues. He passed away from natural causes February 18th, 1546 when he was sixty two years old leaving the world a hero of doctrine, theology, and reform.
Bibliography
1. Lindberg, Carter. The Reformation theologians: an introduction to theology in the early modern period. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002.
2. Mullett, Michael A. The Catholic Reformation. Taylor & Francis e-Library ed. London: Routledge, 2002.
3. Olin, John C. Luther, Erasmus, and the Reformation: a Catholic-Protestant reappraisal. New York: Fordham University Press, 1969.
4. Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Reformation of Church Dogma (1300-1700). Of Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
5. Wakefield, Gordon S. "Faith." In The Westminster Dictionary of Christian spirituality. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983.
First we will talk about Martin Luther. Martin Luther was born on November 10th, 1438 and died February 18th, 1546, but his actions throughout his life leave a mark in the history world. Luther was a Catholic priest and professor of Theology from Germany. He attended the University of Wittenburg, and there, not only did he earn a doctorate, but he also gained "religious enlightenment". He is, to this day, a very influential person of the past and he changed history forever, but why? The answer is the Protestant Reformation.
Martin Luther, was “temperamental, peevish, egomaniacal, and argumentative” (Hooker, www.wsu.edu), but played a pivotal role in history. During Luther's time as a monk, the Catholic Church was selling indulgences. Luther took notice to the corruption and began to reason that men can only get their salvation through Jesus Christ, not the Pope or indulgences, let alone the Church itself. Luther began ...
Martin Luther was born on November 10, 1483. He was a German monk, priest, professor, theologian and church reformer. His teaching helped to inspire the Reformation, and influenced the doctrines of the Lutheran and Protestant traditions, as well as the course of western civilization. Luther's works and writing helped bring the Middle Ages to a close, and brought about the Modern Era of western civilization. His translation of the Bible furthered the development of a standardized German language. Due to the development of the printing press, his teachings were widely read and influenced many reformers and thinkers. (Peterson 1)
He was the man that formed the base of the Protestant Reformation. Luther knew he had to take action on this convictions immediately. So on behalf of the rebellion against indulgences and other Catholic doctrine, Luther created a “ Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences” or more commonly known as “The 95 Theses.” The 95 Theses were a list of topics to discuss and propose the idea of indulgences. Or as some people would say to protest the sale of the indulgences of the Roman Catholic Church. The main seller of these indulgences was a man named John Tetzel who had promised the Christians that by paying they were “instantly” saved from sin. Legend says that on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther’s 95 Theses were nailed onto the doors of the Wittenberg Castle Church. Luther knew that this revolt was not violent, but was only intended to educate
By questioning the practice of Indulgences (the collection of money to offset sins) and the belief in Purgatory (a middle between heaven and hell that one might suspend in) Luther struck cords with the very core of the Catholic Church’s foundation and would ultimately separate from them with a very strong following.
To construct Saint Peters Basilica, Archbishop Albert borrowed money from the Fuggers (wealthy banking family). To pay for this loan Pope Leo X gave permission to Archbishop Albert to sell indulgences in Germany. An indulgence is a way to reconcile with God, by confessing your sins to a priest and perform a penance. By the later Middle Ages people believed that indulgence removed all their sins and ensured entry to heaven. The selling of indulgence troubled Luther, he thought people were ignorant to believe that they didn’t have to repent after they bought an indulgence.
Martin Luther was a man of great thought and constantly went against the feelings and views of other people of his time. Martin Luther was born on November 10th in 1483, in the Saxon town of Eisleben located in Germany. Martin was born of mother Margrethe, who many of his enemies thought of as being a whore and a bath attendant, yet Martin recalled her later on in life as someone who was hardworking and very able and willing to punish him if he had done wrong. Martin Luther grew up in the middle-class range and wasn't born into great wealth like many other great scholars of his time were like such as Girolamo Savonarola, who's family was rich before his birth around Luther’s time. Martin Luther’s father's name was Han's Luder, which later on became Luther, who was a miner and a smelter in which neither made him wealthy in the least. Han's and Luther had a relationship that bounced around, but I will get to that topic in a not so distant paragraph. Martin was brought up in a Christian family and soon after his birth he was baptized, which was a momentous process that can occur. At a young age Martin began school and this started his steps towards becoming a great debater, writer, and preacher. According to Martin Marty, Luther's start as a great speaker and writer began after he learned Rhetoric and this held with him for decades to come. At the beginning Martin's father Hans saw great potential in Luther, as well as wanting him to make a lot of money, and told him that he should take the path in becoming a lawyer. Martin would have been well enough as a lawyer if he had taken the opportunity, but I feel history would be devastatingly different without him as a religious scholar. In Luther's twenty's he began to think deeply about ...
Martin Luther was born to Hans Luder and his wife Margarethe on November tenth, 1483, in Eisleben, Saxony, which was then part of the Holy Roman Empire. Since he was his father’s firstborn, his father wanted him to pursue being a lawyer, which was a good job even at that time. However, since his school focused mainly on persuasive speaking and writing, grammar, and logic, Luther came to despise it. The only aspect of it that he appreciated was that it sparked him into having an early interest in monastic life. He then went on to go to the University of Erfurt, where he learned arithmetic, astronomy, geometry and philosophy. (wikepedia.org) He graduated and received a master’s degree in 1505. (History.com staff. Martin Luther and the 95 Theses)
Martin Luther, also known as the “Reformator,” was a superior asset in the Protestant Reformation. He was born on November 10, 1483 in the town of Eisleben, which was located in East Germany. Luther’s parents were Hans Luder and Margaretha nee Lindemann. His father was a farmer and later became a copper miner in Mansfeld. Martin Luther’s parents brought him up in the strict environment of the Roman Catholic Church. With his new job in Mansfeld, Hans made the decision to move his family there in 1484. Hans expected Martin to become a lawyer, so Luther went to Erfurt in 1501 to study law. Luther received his master’s degree in 1505. Shortly after this, he felt like law was not the right place for him. This act upset his father, not only because he dropped out of the university, but he decided that he wanted to become an Augustinian monk in Erfurt. Luther believed that if he was serious about his religion, he could please and do good works for God. However, once again, he was still unhappy. Luther decided to make another life-changing decision by studying theology. He went to Wittenberg to study this subject. Martin...
In 1517, when reformist Martin Luther wrote an indictment of the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church called the 95 Theses, he appealed to many people across Europe. In his indictment he greatly criticized and addressed the selling of indulgences above all. At first, a person would have to do “work of satisfaction” like fasting, prayer, almsgiving, retreats and pilgrimages in return for an indulgence. But when the empire was in need of money to fight off the Ottoman Empire and rebuild St. Peter’s in Rome, the pope allowed indulgences to be sold for money where he would receive half the proceeds and the other half would go to funding. This is when Luther was even more angered by the selling of indulgences since he already believed that salvation could not be obtained by man’s own effort, but more the fact that man would be saved only if God willed it. It was that event that prompted the German monk to post his ideas and beliefs as the 95 Theses and address the abuse of selling indulgences in it.
Martin Luther’s (1483-1546) actions and teachings have had a profound influence on Christian faith. His crucial decision to go on a pilgrimage to Rome (1510) enabled him to witness and act against the objectionable corruption of the Catholic Church. Luther’s teachings developed through his work at Wittenburg University where his revolutionary theology evolved from the examination of the New Testament. On 31 October 1517 Martin Luther posted the controversial 95 Thesis, condemning the corruption of the Church and sharing his beliefs and ideas such as the 5 solas. Luther started a religious revolution that resulted in the formation of a new variant of Christianity that had changes to the expression of faith and key beliefs. This Protestant Church
On November 10, 1483, Martin Luther was born. His parents were Hans and Margaret Luther. Martin came from a poor family. The Luther's were Germans. They lived in the Thuringian Mountains near Eisleben. Martin Luther was still a small baby when his parents moved from Eisleben to Mansfeld, where his father found work in the mines. Martin, his brother, and his three sisters didn't have the easiest childhood to grow up with. Their parents taught them religion. Luther's parents were devout Catholics and their strenuous and even unmerciful discipline of their children, they believed, was the very best for the children's welfare. So when Martin or his siblings did anything wrong, they were beat as a punishment.
According to Martin Luther, "every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying." Martin changed the way people viewed their religion and the churches. He believed in the separation of church and state, he also believed people could ask for forgiveness from God themselves. Furthermore, he thought the church couldn’t forgive your sins; it was only God who could. While overall, starting the Protestant Reformation.
Martin Luther was well depicted in Luther, in the movie Luther’s character cared about what God wanted him to do. He wanted to follow the plan God had for him, and spent all of his time in confession. In the movie, they show Luther confessing in a cellar more than once a day as he was asking for forgiveness from God. After a while at the monastery, Martin was sent to teach theology at the University of Wittenberg. During Luther’s
On July 17th Luther entered the Augustinian Monastery at Eruft. He completely dedicated his life to the monastic life, the effort to do generous and good work to please God, and serve others through prayer for their souls. He dedicated himself to flagellations, fasts, constant confessions, and long hours of prayers and pilgrimages although his peace with god has escaped him. Luther pondered himself a lot in the monastery so his superior, Johann von Staupitz, believed that Luther needed more work to keep himself busy and keep his mind off of the many things that he was pondering, so he ordered Luther to purse an academic career. In 1507, he was ordained to the priesthood and in 15...