Term Paper on "Martin Luther Ulrich Zwingli John Calvin"

>Later on, Luther's spiritual life began to suffer significant changes, easily discernible. It has been said that he entered the monastery and deserted the world to flee from despair but did not find the coveted peace; it has also been said that he had a morbid interior conflict that pushed him to his famous scrupulosity. What is almost certain is that he broke several rules, was guilty of breaches of discipline, his ascetic practices were distorted and his life resembled agony, due to spasmodic convulsive reactions.

The conclusion is that Luther had definitely a difficult personality, which made his struggle with the Roman Church even more difficult. He saw himself as wicked and corrupt. He thought of God as the minister of wrath and vengeance. He carried with him anger against God, which pursued him constantly and which could only be repelled, according to him, by his own righteousness and by the efficacy of servile works. All Augustinian monks were obligated to perform prescribed and regulated ascetical exercises, which Luther set aside. He disregarded the monastic rules and devised his own, which made him singular in the community. His mental condition produced melancholy and even physical and spiritual depression.

There are several causes that might have prompted these changes in Luther and that have stood at the foundation of the reformation. The causes of the great religious revolt of the sixteenth century are caused by events that took place as far back as the fourteenth century. Although catholic scholars allege that the doctrine of the Church had remained pure, that it was still a frequent phenomenon to encounter "saintly lives" in all parts of Europe, and that the medieval institutions of the Church were still performing their duty, the cause of the problem must be sought in the very heart of the Roman church.

Luther attacked the doctrine of the church and not "life itself," as he claimed that reformers before him had done. He believed that man as a whole was sick and corrupt. The Church, however, stated that an individual could make up for some bad deeds by doing good deeds. This way, it could easily be said that man could die having more credits for salvation than needed. These extra credits constituted a treasury of the merits of the saints; thus, the pope could make transfers to those having accounts in not such a good shape. These "transfers" were known as indulgences and the recipient had to make a contribution to the church in order to receive it.

By applying such practices, the church was in the position to raise significant amounts of money, mainly because paying indulgencies was not compulsory, so they could provoke no resentment. This is how great adventures such as the crusades or the construction of cathedrals, hospitals and bridges were financed. According to the Germanic law of commutation of a physical punishment to a fine, the indulgence initially applied to the penalties imposed by the church on Earth. It was later extended to the punishments applied by God in the purgatory and, in Luther's day, the Church arrived to the state of promising to the recipient of the indulgency that he/she would be immediately released from the purgatory and that not only remission of penalties was possible, but also remission of sins. Practically, the indulgency encroached the sacrament of penance.

Luther was terrified at first by God, conceived as a judge. He entered the monastery being convinced that this is the only way to earn those extra credits. He subjected himself to rigorous ascetism but he never reached the assurance that he could ever stand before the inexorable justice and majesty of God. He was more and more convinced of the fundamental sickness of man. He started to doubt the goodness of God who would make human beings so weak and unable to resist temptation, and then damn them for something they could not help. He found relief after studying the psalms. The 22nd Psalm was found particularly relieving because it contained the words quoted by Christ upon the cross: "My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?" Christ the Judge had become Christ the Derelict upon the cross and he had to face the wrath of God. But the mercy of God was also present, so Luther drew the conclusion that God was able to forgive those utterly devoid to merit. This was a way to justify the unjust, and what was needed form man was for him to embrace faith, to receive this gift of God.

The great offence posed by the doctrine of indulgencies was not the financial aspect, but the notion that human beings could engage into trade with God. Luther was at the time a professor at the University of Wittenberg and a pastor. His parishioners were supplied with indulgencies by Albert, the new archbishop of Mainz. The funds were equally distributed: half went to the Pope in Rome, and the other half was kept by the archbishop as reimbursement for his installation fee as a bishop. In these circumstances, Albert made unprecedented claims. If the indulgence were on behalf of the donor himself, he received the promise that he would be granted preferential treatment in case of future sin; if the indulgence was for somebody else already in purgatory, he need not be contrite for his own sin. As mentioned above, remission was applicable to both penalties and sins, and the vendor of indulgencies also offered a very special "product": immediate release form purgatory.

Even catholic scholars admit that the indulgence commissaries sought to collect as much money as possible in connection with the indulgences and that there were numerous case when the spiritual needs of the people did not receive by far as much consideration as the real motive for issuing an indulgence, i.e. To raise vast quantities of money to finance such objectives as the war against the Turks and other crises or the construction of churches and monasteries. Abuses were also present because secular rulers consented to the promulgation of indulgences on their territories only under the condition that a portion of the receipts should be given to them.

The same motive of abusive indulgencies (although indulgencies may be considered abusive in their very essence) led Zwingli to put forth his teachings, thereby inaugurating the Reformation in German Switzerland. Initially, both Luther and Zwingli argued that they were attacking only the abuses of indulgences; later their doctrine began to differ significantly from the one of the Roman church.

Luther received great applause in humanistic circles and among some theologians, not to mention earnest-minded laity because of the dissatisfaction with the existing abuses. Luther was soon lead by the wave he had created into rebellion against ecclesiastical authority. He intended to reform all the fundamental institutions of the Church. He proclaimed the doctrine of "justification by faith alone," rejected all supernatural remedies, denied initially the importance of good works and finally rejected the institution of hierarchical priesthood (the Pope himself was no more important).

The main aspect of Lutheranism is that it affirms the ultimate authority of the Word of God (as found in the Bible) in matters of both faith and Christian life and puts an accent on Christ, who is considered the key to the understanding of the Bible.

The doctrine of salvation. Salvation, according to Luther's teachings, is not derived from worthiness or merit but is actually a… READ MORE