141LUTHER, MARTINsocial unravelling of medieval philosophy
with the advent of modern science.
LUTHER, MARTIN (1483–1546).
Martin Luther was the son of peasants
and born in Eisleben, a small town in
Saxon Germany. When he died 63 years
later in Eisleben, he was known across
Europe as the founder of the theological
movement that would later be called the
Protestant Reformation. As a young man
successfully studying law at Erfurt, Luther
was overcome with terror one night while
out in a thunderstorm and vowed to his
patron saint Anne that if he survived he
would become a monk. But the scrupu-
losity of life as an Augustinian monk
burdened Luther, who, even after being
ordained a priest, believed that his inabil-
ity to live perfectly would invoke God’s
wrath and punishment. To distract Luther
from his fears of damnation, his confessor
Johann von Staupitz sent him to the
newly established university at Witten-
berg to gain his doctorate and lecture in
Old Testament.
It was in Wittenberg that Luther spent
the rest of his life, teaching and preaching
as he developed a theology that would
both alleviate his fears of God and split
the Western church. Although Luther
never intended to depart from Catholi-
cism, he found himself fighting for reform
as early as 1517, when he wrote and dis-
seminated 95 theses against the selling
of indulgences (which absolved the
recipient of their sins). By this time Luther
had become convinced that the church
was abusing its power, swindling the poor,
and preaching of a false gospel by which
humans could save themselves through
good works. When he refused the Pope’s
command that he recant his writings in
1521, he was excommunicated from the
church and declared an outlaw by the
emperor, subject to captivity and death.
Yet, he survived the political turmoil and
social unrest caused by his theology, liv-
ing for 25 more years, marrying the for-
mer nun Katherine von Bora, raising five
children, and developing a theology that
would spread quickly throughout Europe
due to the popularity of his ideas and his
use of the newly-invented printing press.
Luther’s conception of grace, which
became the theological foundation of
Protestantism, viewed salvation as a gift
of God given to Christians by Christ
through faith apart from works. Separat-
ing justification from sanctification,
Luther attributed salvation to God alone,
through the work of Christ, while still
allowing for humans to live freely and
responsibly, fueled by the Holy Spirit.
Against papal authority, Luther located
the church’s authority in Scripture alone.
Against visible church hierarchy, Luther
developed the doctrine of the priesthood
of all believers and the invisibility of
the true church. Against the Eucharistic
doctrine of transubstantiation, Luther
preached the “real presence” of Christ’s
body and blood in the bread and the wine.