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.
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 ...
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 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
...who openly departed from the Roman Catholic church in the 16th century. Furthermore, his Ninety-Five Theses became the first widespread publication to question church practices and thus threaten papal authority. The church and Luther particularly disagreed on ideas related to salvation, and Luther’s refusal to recant his beliefs, which contradicted with those of the Pope, resulted in his excommunication from the church. Nevertheless, this excommunication initiated his breaking away from the church and led him to create his own church, which embraced Scripture as the sole authority and justification by faith. The theology of the Reformation emerged from his Ninety-Five Theses and this work marked the beginning of the process that transformed Luther “the monk” into Luther “the reformer” and fractured the Roman Catholic church into new sects of Christianity.
During Luther’s early life he faced a severe inner crisis. When he sinned he looked for comfort in confession and followed the penance, the fasting, prayer and observances that the church directed him. But, he found no peace of mind and worried about his salvation. But reading St. Paul’s letters he came to believe that salvation came though faith in Christ. Faith is a free gift, he discovered, it cannot be earned. His studies led him to a conclusion that, “Christ was the only mediator between God and a man and that forgiveness of sin and salvation are given by god’s grace alone” (Martin Luther, 01). Historians agree that, “this approach to theology led to a clash between Luther and the Church officials, precipitating the dramatic events of Reformation”.
Although his father still pushed strongly for Luther to become a lawyer, something bizarre happened to change that. Martin Luther was caught in a massive thunderstorm, and a bolt of lightning almost hit him. He vowed that if he came out of the storm alive, he would become a monk. He kept true to his word, and on July 17, 1505, he abandoned his studies of law to enter an Augustinian monastery. After seven years in the monast...
James Kittelson’s biography on the life of Luther is thought provoking and informative. Kittelson does not have a concise thesis, but as it is a biography the central theme of Luther the Reformer is an insightful narrative of Martin Luther’s life from his birth in Eisleben until his death on February 18, 1546 in Eisleben. Kittelson thoroughly and with great detail and sources explains Luther’s mission to reform the catholic church. Luther the Reformer seeks to condense Luther’s life in a manner which is more easily read for those who do not know the reformer’s story well. Luther is portrayed not only as a theologian throughout the book, but as a person with struggles and connections throughout the Germanic region in which he lived. Luther’s theology is portrayed throughout the entirety of the book, and Kittelson approaches Luther’s theology by explaining Luther’s past. The inclusion of
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...
Martin Luther was born in 1483. He was born a Catholic as that was the religion of the time. Marin Luther’s life was predetermined to become a lawyer, but instead he chose the path of becoming a monk. He toiled over questions and his relationship with God. It was thought that a person had to build up enough “good deeds” in order to be saved and to enter heaven. The church had a practice of “selling indulgences” which meant that the church was selling from the overabundance of good deeds that the saints had themselves accumulated. The church sold access to this bank of good deeds to the people, and led them to believe they were buying their access into heaven. These indulgences could be purchased for your past and future sins. The selling of indulgences, to Martin Luther, exposed the churches’ corruption. Martin Luther began to debate the choices the church was making and began to question the limits of papal authority. Martin Luther was banished from the Roman Catholic Church. Martin Luther then wrote Against Catholicism in 1535. Martin Luther begins this text by explaining his disagreement between the pope and himself. He wrote this to explain his debate on why the papacy has lost their way and to explain what he believed the r...
Its hard for most people to imagine it possible that one man, like Martin Luther, could affect the world so profoundly in such a short period of time. However, that is infact exactly what he did and in a period of only sixty-three years. Some of the most spectacular events in religious reform took place during Martin Luther's life. He forced the scholarly to stop and take a good, hard look at the practices of the church and he allowed the layman to do the same. At a time when indulgences and pardons were at there height, and the Catholic church reigned supreme, Martin Luther chose to preach against them and the church's doctrine. With one document, his Ninety-Five Theses, he raddled the halls of the Vatican, broke the strong hold of the Catholic church, and brought Christian reform to all parts of Europe and the world.
Luther started his education at a Latin school in Mansfield. There he received training in the Latin language and learned about the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer and morning and evening prayers. In 1497 Luther was sent to a school in Magdeburg run by the Brethren of the Common Life, a lay monastic group whose focus on personal piety had a lasting influence on him. In 1501 he enrolled at the University of Erfurt, the best University of the time in Germany. Luther took course in the liberal arts and received the baccalaureate degree in 1502. He obtained his master’s degree three years later. Since Luther graduated from the arts faculty he could chose to pursue graduate work in one of the three disciplines law, medicine, or theology. Due...
Martin Luther was a German theologian whose writings prompted the beginning of the Reformation in Germany. He was born to Hans and Margarete Luther on November 10th, 1843, in Eisleben, Germany. At the age of 18, in 1501, he enrolled into the University of Erfurt. During a terrible thunderstorm at Erfurt, he prayed to St. Anna and promised that, if he came out of the storm alive, he would become a monk. After surviving the storm however, Luther regretted this promise, but still joined a monastery in 1505, becoming an Augustinian friar. In 1510, he visited Rome on behalf of a number of Augustinian monasteries, and was disgusted by the corruption that he found there. After this visit to Rome, Luther became increasingly troubled by his faith, so during studying and teaching theology, after being made a Doctor of Theology at the University of Wittenberg in 1512, he began to ...
Born in 1483 in Saxony, Eisleben Luther originally studied law before turning to the religious field. In 1505 he joined the monastery of the Augustinian friars at Efurt and was ordained as a priest in 1507. Luther went on to study at the University of Wittenberg where he would later become a professor. L...
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