As a Catholic, I would not say that Martin Luther was necessarily a "key point" in progress. I think the West could have advanced quite nicely had Western Christendom remained intact.
Even better had the Great Schism of 1054 been avoided so that all (or most) of Christendom were intact.
Martin Luther is /was significant contributor to the John Wayne individuality.
It’s his thoughts that publicized the concepts of self identification, self actualization, self realization etc etc all leading into the capitalist. All supplementing the necessary innovation and inventions we see in the development of sciences and patents.
A lot was happening back then.