Go ahead. Look it up.
Go ahead, provide active link from where you copied and pasted that particular quote from. I'd wager that it's been entirely severed from context of what else the man was trying to say.
Besides, I need not defend Luther as if he was not only "infallible in teaching of faith and morals" but impeccable when speaking his own views also.
That first kind of thing is attributed to RC popes. The second is provided to those same [popes] as excuse for particular pope's own personalities, and extended even to the vile wickedness found in some -- yet fully denied for persons such as Martin Luther who was far less wicked than many a "good" Pope.
The display of such double standards in light of bad, and not so "good" Popes, undermines credibility of RC apologists who delight in vilifying such as Luther (and Calvin, too, it could be added?).
I need justify nothing (to you) pertaining to Luther. Instead my intent and aim has been to show what truths concerning the man diligent & honest scholars (more honest than Cochlaeus and imitators) have found through their own intensive studies of Martin Luther, and his writings. Though it may be arguable that Luther could err on particular points, in the one you cited in the post to which I here reply, I do think you simply do not understand what he was driving at, at that time.
Are you an accomplished historian? A renowned theologian? Just who are you that your own opinions should matter to others?
Are you what more simply what among Roman Catholicism could be described as a "layman"?
Here [below] a convert to Catholicism, being quoted from books, and published articles;
John Todd was formally an agnostic who converted to Catholicism. His major works on Luther are Martin Luther: A Biographical Study,[110] and Luther: A Life.[111] Todd’s books are a well-balanced approach to Luther: one senses neither a lurking negative polemic or an obvious adulation. Todd says in the introduction toMartin Luther: A Biographical Study: “If the author were compelled at the point of a gun to express his opinion of the results of Luther’s life, whether they were good or bad according to his Christian scale of values, the answer would still be variegated, that some were good and some were bad. He might even murmur that Luther was Justus et peccator [Justified by God, but still a sinful human].[112] Todd concludes in his later book, Luther: A Life:“My principal image [of Luther] is of a man driven, driven by a passion for the Divine, driven too, by a horror of evil; convinced of its eventual futility, he was ever conscious of its threat, and his life was one of prayer … Under the rumbustious lover of life lay sensitivity, intelligence and imagination, and a failure to come to terms with a world which was never good enough, a failure he found confirmed in the crucifix.”
[113] Todd is acutely aware of the previous vilification of Luther by previous Roman Catholic historians, as well as the limitations of recent Catholic evaluations:
“It is only quite recently that passions have really begun to cool within the Protestant and Catholic traditions over Luther’s life and works…The beliefs of authors in the past made it almost inevitable that Luther would be treated either as a hero or a villain. More recently this has been mitigated a little, but, even so, authors who are themselves in the Catholic tradition, if they have not ‘exposed’, have tended to ‘explain’ or perhaps apologize or patronize Luther.” [114]
Todd’s books have been called a “sensitive and moving biography by a Catholic layman who has done his homework on Luther very well.”[115] Todd avoids vilifying Luther: “At points where Todd might have been sharply critical of Luther he desists. Luther's temper, his attitude to monasticism and marriage, his role in the Peasants' War and in the Philip of Hesse affair cannot be ignored, but Todd has no intention of using these to build some kind of case for serious spiritual or mental deficiency in Luther.”[116] Todd also avoids using Luther’s Table Talk utterances against him (as is a common practice of Luther detractors: “…[C]are has to be exercised in using the Table Talk. It is quite easy to make a selection of passages, combine these with excerpts from the work of admitted enemies and produce a lurid picture of a coarse blasphemer. Such a picture does not tally with the evidence as a whole and cannot be taken seriously.”[117]
A. Todd’s View of The Indulgence Controversy
Todd gives a general overview of the religious piety of Luther’s time. He finds the “daily life of piety had much superstition about it”[118] in which pagan beliefs and “an attitude to the sacramental and devotional life…tended to be mechanical, even ‘commercial’, to use Luther’s own later description.”[119] “The sacramental and devotional life…was treated in fact, sometimes, as though it were magic, and this again ties back to a pagan past.”[120] Todd finds that abuse was not uncommon throughout the western church: “…[I]t was often said and written that a specified number of Masses would achieve some object, usually the release of some soul from purgatory. This of course was severely denounced at the Council of Trent- but not of course till it had been going on virtually unchecked for centuries.”[121] “Indulgences were similarly abused.”[122] “…[B] that the abuses were widely tolerated in practice is not in doubt, and the people were in no position to distinguish between what was ‘tolerated’, happening day in and day out, and what was formally taught."[123] “We have a picture then, of Christian life and prayer deeply permeating every part of life, and abuses quite widely corrupting it, and mixed with it many pagan habits of thought and action.”[124]Todd is critical of the Roman Church that condemned Luther: “Rome is frankly criticized for its whole approach to Luther. Instead of taking his concerns seriously it opted for the "easier" route, ecclesiastical pressure to silence him. The curia was blind to the theological issues, unable to believe that a critical German was really trying to work for the good of the church.”[125]
“Moreover, with a praiseworthy frankness, Todd describes again Rome's attitude in the conflict following on the affair of the indulgences. Imbued with a sense of her own power, caught up by all sorts of political demands, the Papacy was incapable of taking Luther seriously, incapable of conducting a careful examination of the Ninety-five Theses and their manifold theological implications. To the appeals for reform addressed to her from Germany, she replied "in the form of a personal and canonical attack". When he was accused of heresy and excommunicated by the Bull, Exsurge Domine, Luther began to doubt Papal authority. And when he had broken his ties with Rome by burning the code of the Canon Law, opposition to the Pope became a "psychological necessity" to him. Yet even when he was convinced that the Papacy was the Antichrist, he never set out to create a new institution; he still continued "to see himself simply as a ‘reformer’ of the Church".[126]
Todd notes, “Pope Julius II issued the bull Liquet omnibus in 1510 establishing an indulgence the income from which would help pay for the building of St. Peter’s.”[127] The bull had a “deliberately financial nature”[128] and said, "Moreover all Christians of either sex, secular as well as regular... who shall effectively place a pious alms in the chest for the above-mentioned building [St. Peter's], may gain the fullest remission of their sins..." Todd notes the bull "seems deliberately loose in places"[129] that would lead one to believe that sins are forgiven by an indulgence. Todd uncovers the fact that the money collected from the St. Peter’s indulgence campaign did not go directly to Rome. No less than half of the money collected went to German bankers, because the Archbishop of Mainz had "bargained with Rome to be allowed to keep half what was contributed for the indulgence..."[130] which he owed to the German bankers. Todd also notes that Tetzel's pay for his preaching work was a "princely sum".[131]. Todd explains that when Tetzel got a copy of Luther's 95 Theses, Tetzel said " The heretic would be in the flames within three weeks."[132] Tetzel was a Dominican, and the Dominicans directed the Inquisition. The request to charge Luther for heresy did come, because Luther attacked not only indulgences, but a Dominican as well: “Many must have realized that in attacking Tetzel Luther had engaged Goliath. Tetzel was a Dominican. The Dominicans, who directed the Inquisition, were all-powerful in the Curia at Rome, and again in Saxony.”[133] “The Dominican chapter had sent a denunciation of Luther to Rome for suspicion of heresy.”[134]
Todd argues that Rome was not able to address Luther constructively or helpfully on the 95 Theses. The Church was mired in abuse, and its theologians had no desire to hear from one its biblical theologians. Todd says,
“Luther’s opponents were unable to take him seriously because for them the Church was simply ‘God’s Church’ possessing an authority almost identical with that of God himself, and the Bible something secondary, a mine of texts, which could be taken directly or allegorically, or in any way that would harmonize with the Church’s traditional practice; a practice must be defensible, indeed must be in a sense divine, if the Church had sanctioned it, and the Church’s actions ipso facto received God’s approbation.”
[135] In other words, Todd argues that the sixteenth century Roman Catholic Church functioned by sola ecclesia, and whatever it did, was right. A Church that functions this way can never take any opposition seriously. If it did, it would mean it’s demise because it would admit it is in error. To admit an infallible Church is in error is to admit it is not an infallible Church.B. An overview of Todd’s approach to Luther:
Overall, Todd treats Luther as an honest theologian, with important insights: “Luther's message was not solely the rather austere theology of justification but a return to the New Testament themes of the Fatherhood of God, the sending of the Son, and the Son's message of forgiveness and love for all men. Beneath the polemics and the theology lay this concern for man, the personal appeal. He spoke of Christ the man who had suffered for them, and had taken on the bitter life of the world. Luther himself lived out his life as one who shared all things with others, an ordinary honest man.”[136]“In Todd's eyes, Luther is a serious student, a pious and intelligent monk,[137] sensible and brave,[138] well thought of by his superiors[139] and unwittingly possessing all the qualities of a leader.[140] Because of the emotional tension that marked his relationship with his father, he had a tender spot in regard to the question of authority and was more conscious than the most of men of his sin before the righteousness of God.[141] Although Todd thinks that Luther's experience was not without certain psychological sources—he speaks in this context of "nervous anxiety" and of a tendency to a "certain morbidity"[142]—he still emphasizes that Luther was not "unbalanced”.[143] Moreover, following on excellent passages on the Anfechtung and the tentatio tristitiae, he says that if one wants to understand Luther, one must not isolate the religious factor in him. It was because the theology of merits which was dominant at the outset of the sixteenth century did not give an answer to the question set to Luther by the separation of man from God that he found the solution to the problem in the doctrine of justification by faith.”[144]
“…Todd thinks that the doctrine of justification by faith is not contrary to Roman Catholic dogma. He rightly points out that, even if Luther attacked scholasticism,[145] he is nonetheless one of the heirs of medieval theology[146]; he did not want to destroy everything that had gone before,[147] but to cause to shine out in the heart of the Church the teaching which he found in Scripture and which, because it had calmed his own fears, seemed to him necessary for man.[148] We must note in this connection that, concerned as Luther was with the individual as such,[149] he was nevertheless not an individualist.[150] His theology is in no sense anthropocentric. It does not start out from man by way of some self-styled particular revelation—contrary to what Ronald Knox imagines when he makes Luther an "enthusiast"[151]; it stands on the authority of Scripture.[152] It does not turn man in on himself but conducts him to the merciful God who in the person of his Son justifies the sinner.[153] Todd emphasizes again that Luther is not antinomian; the righteousness of Christ imputed to the believer is not only the cloak veiling his unworthiness, but also the power which allows the justified man to live a new life.[154]”[155]
Todd summarized Luther in 1982 by saying:
“Of Luther himself it is impossible to speak summarily. The complex and remarkable story of his life, the tally of his works, and the witness of a great number of friends, acquaintances and enemies are there. Many loved him, many revered him, some were frightened of him, a few resentful. No one accused him, with any semblance of justification, of double dealing, or of cowardice. My principal image is of a man driven, driven by a passion for the Divine, driven, too, by a horror of evil; convinced of its eventual futility, he was ever conscious of its threat, and his life was one of prayer. His friends remembered him standing by the window of his room praying, often aloud. Under the rumbustious lover of life lay sensitivity, intelligence and imagination, and a failure to come to terms with a world which was never good enough, a failure he found confirmed in the crucifix, but glorified in what followed. At the Wartburg he wrote: ‘They threaten us with death. They would do better to threaten us with life.’”[156]