Luther’s Appalling Instabilities & Contradictions

Seeing the despotism exercised by the head of the Reformation in imposing his opinions, one might imagine that nothing should be more soundly and painstakingly elaborated than his new doctrine. Such conclusion is completely mistaken.

His doctrine, dictated by personal whims and prejudices The false divine messenger, who ‘modestly’ preferred himself to all the Doctors of the Church and pretended to be inspired by the Holy Ghost since he received ‘his dogmas from heaven,’ in reality is insecure, regretful about his early teachings, contradictory and arbitrary. Whether he established dogmas or destroyed them, he was motivated by trivialities and personal prejudices. He changed his opinions like an actor changing his costumes. Here are some examples:

Conditional baptism - On May 12, 1531 Luther wrote to Wenzel Link about conditional baptism, affirming that “after careful consideration we have defined that it must simply be eliminated from the Church.” The next day, he changed his mind. Again ‘inspired,’ he wrote to Ossiandro: “I cannot condemn conditional baptism being given to children whose first baptism is doubtful” (1)

Power of the Catholic Church - In 1519 he wrote: “I fully confess the supreme power of the Roman Church; after Jesus Christ Our Lord, she should be preferred to everything on earth and heaven.” (2) This Church “is the one chosen by God; there can be no reason for anyone to break away from her and, entering into schism, separate himself from her unity.” (3) In 1520, in his Lutheran Epistle, he strongly praised Pope Leo X, saying that his courageous life placed him above any attack. (4)

However, in that same year Leo X would become the Antichrist and the Roman Church “a licentious den of thieves, the most depraved brothel, the kingdom of sin, death and hell.” (5)

Saints, purgatory, prayer for the dead - In 1519, two years after he publicly started to preach his Reformation, while defending himself from adversaries, he taught the cult of the saints, the existence of purgatory, praying for the deceased, the practice of fasting etc. (6) Some years later, he rejected all these doctrines as idolatry, superstition and fanaticism.

Indulgences - In 1541 he swore in Christ’s name that when he began to preach against Dominican Johann Tetzel, accusing him of selling indulgences, he did not even know what the word indulgence meant! (7) Notwithstanding, his criticism against those same indulgences - about which he knew nothing - had served as a pretext for him to attack Rome, disseminate his errors and preach the revolt! (8)

Luther’s own mission - Regarding the origin and ‘legitimacy’ of his mission, in a little more than 15 years Luther changed his views at least 14 times (9). Opportunism dictated his choices. To combat Catholics he would say one thing; to defend himself before his Protestant colleagues he would affirm another; he had yet other arguments to calm the turbulence in the new reformed communities. The actor had a well-stocked wardrobe, with costumes for a multitude of roles

It would not be difficult to continue this list of contradictions. There is almost no important dogma about which Luther did not completely change his views from time to time.

To understand Luther’s psychology, one must examine the motivation for his constant vacillations. Writing about Communion under one of two species in his liturgical essay called Formula Missae, he stated: “If a council would mandate or allow two species, to show our scorn we would receive only one or neither one

A 15th-century English manuscript with Bible verses on Purgatory, which Luther eliminated on a whim nor the other, and we would anathematize those who, following that mandate, would receive both” (10).

On another occasion, he declared that he had decided to do away with the elevation of the host at mass just to show his contempt for the Papacy and that he had conserved the custom up until then just to scorn Andreas Karlstadt [another more radical Protestant who had already abandoned this practice] (11).

With similar vileness he wrote in 1523: “If it should happen that one, two, or a thousand and more councils would decide that ecclesiastics should marry, I, trusting in divine grace, would rather forgive the one who has two or three harlots throughout his life than the one who, following that conciliar decision, would take one legitimate wife forever” (12).

The same psychological bias against the hated papists appeared when he wrote: “Since they [the papists] think they are triumphing over one of my heresies, then let me propose another” (13).

What a mixture of vulgarity, licentiousness and duplicity in the supposed “evangelic reformer”!

One other fact should not be forgotten. It is the famous sacramental dispute that divided the innovators Martin Luther and Andreas Karlstadt into two irremediably separated camps, which started with this tavern scene. After a harangue by Luther, the two reformers entered Black Bear Inn in Jura, where Karlstadt declared he could no longer tolerate Luther’s opinion on the real presence. Luther scornfully challenged him to refute his position in writing and promised him a florin if he would do it. He took a coin from his pocket and Karlstadt accepted it.

The wine flowed; the contenders shook hands and drank to each other’s health. This was their declaration of war on August 22, 1523. Karlstadt, bidding Luther farewell, said: “I hope you will be smashed by a roller!” Returning the amiability, Luther replied: “May a thousand lighting bolts strike you before you leave town!”

From this episode Bossuet concluded: “This is the new gospel, these are the acts of the new apostles…” (14)

His reason for suppressing the mass appears to be more ‘supernatural.’ It was the victory of the Devil in a terrible dispute into which Luther had entered with him. Luther himself narrated the episode in detail and then concluded:

“This [surrender] should surprise no one since the logic of the Devil was delivered in such a blood-curdling voice that it nearly froze the blood in my veins. I understood then why some persons die in the night: It is because the Devil can kill and suffocate men, and even if he does not take those extremes, he can entangle them in his disputes with so many obstacles they can cause death: I have experienced this many times” (15).

Was Luther lying when he described this episode or was he telling the truth? If the latter is the case, what reliance can be put on a man whose teacher was the Father of Lies? Let the admirers of the reformer try to find a resolution for this dilemma…

The episode above is indicative of the important role the Devil played in the interior life of the heresiarch. Indeed, Satan never leaves him alone a moment. He follows him day and night, into both the church and the tavern. More than once Luther stated that his life was “a series of duels” with Satan. He slept with the Devil more often than with his Katerina.

He saw the Devil everywhere: in the cloud that passed, in the lightning that struck, in the thunder that roared, in the forests, waters, deserts, infesting the air and the fields. He saw devils hidden in serpents and lizards, monkeys and parrots, in the fly that rested on his book, even in the walnuts sent by an admirer. The Evil Spirit was the one who routinely resolved every difficult problem for him. To the Devil’s malefic action Luther attributed the moral disorders and social calamities unchained by his subversive doctrines (16).

This diabolic obsession that tortured the soul of the unfortunate renegade can be seen in all of Luther’s writings. Devils dominate in his style; one would say that some of his pages were written in Hell. In the essay against Duke Henry of Brunswick, the Devil is honored by being named 146 times; in the book on the councils he mentioned the Devil 15 times in four lines (17). He accused the adversaries of the Reformation of having “a satanist, super-satanist and hyper-satanist heart.” To Luther must be attributed the initiative of making a new genre of writing fashionable, one dominated by the Devil, whose tune all the other reformers would follow and sing.

Are these uncertainties, doctrinal contradictions, superficiality in inventing and destroying dogmas, and satanic arrogance and language befitting a messenger who proposes to restore Christianity?

Probably a good place for this:

http://www.luther.de/en/95thesen.html

Out of love for the truth and from desire to elucidate it, the Reverend Father Martin Luther, Master of Arts and Sacred Theology, and ordinary lecturer therein at Wittenberg, intends to defend the following statements and to dispute on them in that place. Therefore he asks that those who cannot be present and dispute with him orally shall do so in their absence by letter. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

1.When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ``Repent’’ (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

2.This word cannot be understood as referring to the sacrament of penance, that is, confession and satisfaction, as administered by the clergy.

3.Yet it does not mean solely inner repentance; such inner repentance is worthless unless it produces various outward mortification of the flesh.

4.The penalty of sin remains as long as the hatred of self (that is, true inner repentance), namely till our entrance into the kingdom of heaven.

5.The pope neither desires nor is able to remit any penalties except those imposed by his own authority or that of the canons.

6.The pope cannot remit any guilt, except by declaring and showing that it has been remitted by God; or, to be sure, by remitting guilt in cases reserved to his judgment. If his right to grant remission in these cases were disregarded, the guilt would certainly remain unforgiven.

7.God remits guilt to no one unless at the same time he humbles him in all things and makes him submissive to the vicar, the priest.

8.The penitential canons are imposed only on the living, and, according to the canons themselves, nothing should be imposed on the dying.

9.Therefore the Holy Spirit through the pope is kind to us insofar as the pope in his decrees always makes exception of the article of death and of necessity.

10.Those priests act ignorantly and wickedly who, in the case of the dying, reserve canonical penalties for purgatory.

11.Those tares of changing the canonical penalty to the penalty of purgatory were evidently sown while the bishops slept (Mt 13:25).

12.In former times canonical penalties were imposed, not after, but before absolution, as tests of true contrition.

13.The dying are freed by death from all penalties, are already dead as far as the canon laws are concerned, and have a right to be released from them.

14.Imperfect piety or love on the part of the dying person necessarily brings with it great fear; and the smaller the love, the greater the fear.

15.This fear or horror is sufficient in itself, to say nothing of other things, to constitute the penalty of purgatory, since it is very near to the horror of despair.

16.Hell, purgatory, and heaven seem to differ the same as despair, fear, and assurance of salvation.

17.It seems as though for the souls in purgatory fear should necessarily decrease and love increase.

18.Furthermore, it does not seem proved, either by reason or by Scripture, that souls in purgatory are outside the state of merit, that is, unable to grow in love.

19.Nor does it seem proved that souls in purgatory, at least not all of them, are certain and assured of their own salvation, even if we ourselves may be entirely certain of it.

20.Therefore the pope, when he uses the words ``plenary remission of all penalties,’’ does not actually mean ``all penalties,’’ but only those imposed by himself.

21.Thus those indulgence preachers are in error who say that a man is absolved from every penalty and saved by papal indulgences.

22.As a matter of fact, the pope remits to souls in purgatory no penalty which, according to canon law, they should have paid in this life.

23.If remission of all penalties whatsoever could be granted to anyone at all, certainly it would be granted only to the most perfect, that is, to very few.

24.For this reason most people are necessarily deceived by that indiscriminate and high-sounding promise of release from penalty.

25.That power which the pope has in general over purgatory corresponds to the power which any bishop or curate has in a particular way in his own diocese and parish.

26.The pope does very well when he grants remission to souls in purgatory, not by the power of the keys, which he does not have, but by way of intercession for them.

27.They preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory.

28.It is certain that when money clinks in the money chest, greed and avarice can be increased; but when the church intercedes, the result is in the hands of God alone.

29.Who knows whether all souls in purgatory wish to be redeemed, since we have exceptions in St. Severinus and St. Paschal, as related in a legend.

30.No one is sure of the integrity of his own contrition, much less of having received plenary remission.

31.The man who actually buys indulgences is as rare as he who is really penitent; indeed, he is exceedingly rare.

32.Those who believe that they can be certain of their salvation because they have indulgence letters will be eternally damned, together with their teachers.

33.Men must especially be on guard against those who say that the pope’s pardons are that inestimable gift of God by which man is reconciled to him.

34.For the graces of indulgences are concerned only with the penalties of sacramental satisfaction established by man.

35.They who teach that contrition is not necessary on the part of those who intend to buy souls out of purgatory or to buy confessional privileges preach unchristian doctrine.

36.Any truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt, even without indulgence letters.

37.Any true Christian, whether living or dead, participates in all the blessings of Christ and the church; and this is granted him by God, even without indulgence letters.

38.Nevertheless, papal remission and blessing are by no means to be disregarded, for they are, as I have said (Thesis 6), the proclamation of the divine remission.

39.It is very difficult, even for the most learned theologians, at one and the same time to commend to the people the bounty of indulgences and the need of true contrition.

40.A Christian who is truly contrite seeks and loves to pay penalties for his sins; the bounty of indulgences, however, relaxes penalties and causes men to hate them — at least it furnishes occasion for hating them.

41.Papal indulgences must be preached with caution, lest people erroneously think that they are preferable to other good works of love.

42.Christians are to be taught that the pope does not intend that the buying of indulgences should in any way be compared with works of mercy.

43.Christians are to be taught that he who gives to the poor or lends to the needy does a better deed than he who buys indulgences.

44.Because love grows by works of love, man thereby becomes better. Man does not, however, become better by means of indulgences but is merely freed from penalties.

45.Christians are to be taught that he who sees a needy man and passes him by, yet gives his money for indulgences, does not buy papal indulgences but God’s wrath.

46.Christians are to be taught that, unless they have more than they need, they must reserve enough for their family needs and by no means squander it on indulgences.

47.Christians are to be taught that they buying of indulgences is a matter of free choice, not commanded.

48.Christians are to be taught that the pope, in granting indulgences, needs and thus desires their devout prayer more than their money.

49.Christians are to be taught that papal indulgences are useful only if they do not put their trust in them, but very harmful if they lose their fear of God because of them.

50.Christians are to be taught that if the pope knew the exactions of the indulgence preachers, he would rather that the basilica of St. Peter were burned to ashes than built up with the skin, flesh, and bones of his sheep.

51.Christians are to be taught that the pope would and should wish to give of his own money, even though he had to sell the basilica of St. Peter, to many of those from whom certain hawkers of indulgences cajole money.

52.It is vain to trust in salvation by indulgence letters, even though the indulgence commissary, or even the pope, were to offer his soul as security.

53.They are the enemies of Christ and the pope who forbid altogether the preaching of the Word of God in some churches in order that indulgences may be preached in others.

54.Injury is done to the Word of God when, in the same sermon, an equal or larger amount of time is devoted to indulgences than to the Word.

55.It is certainly the pope’s sentiment that if indulgences, which are a very insignificant thing, are celebrated with one bell, one procession, and one ceremony, then the gospel, which is the very greatest thing, should be preached with a hundred bells, a hundred processions, a hundred ceremonies.

56.The true treasures of the church, out of which the pope distributes indulgences, are not sufficiently discussed or known among the people of Christ.

57.That indulgences are not temporal treasures is certainly clear, for many indulgence sellers do not distribute them freely but only gather them.

58.Nor are they the merits of Christ and the saints, for, even without the pope, the latter always work grace for the inner man, and the cross, death, and hell for the outer man.

59.St. Lawrence said that the poor of the church were the treasures of the church, but he spoke according to the usage of the word in his own time.

60.Without want of consideration we say that the keys of the church, given by the merits of Christ, are that treasure.

61.For it is clear that the pope’s power is of itself sufficient for the remission of penalties and cases reserved by himself.

62.The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.

63.But this treasure is naturally most odious, for it makes the first to be last (Mt. 20:16).

64.On the other hand, the treasure of indulgences is naturally most acceptable, for it makes the last to be first.

65.Therefore the treasures of the gospel are nets with which one formerly fished for men of wealth.

66.The treasures of indulgences are nets with which one now fishes for the wealth of men.

67.The indulgences which the demagogues acclaim as the greatest graces are actually understood to be such only insofar as they promote gain.

68.They are nevertheless in truth the most insignificant graces when compared with the grace of God and the piety of the cross.

69.Bishops and curates are bound to admit the commissaries of papal indulgences with all reverence.

70.But they are much more bound to strain their eyes and ears lest these men preach their own dreams instead of what the pope has commissioned.

71.Let him who speaks against the truth concerning papal indulgences be anathema and accursed.

72.But let him who guards against the lust and license of the indulgence preachers be blessed.

73.Just as the pope justly thunders against those who by any means whatever contrive harm to the sale of indulgences.

74.Much more does he intend to thunder against those who use indulgences as a pretext to contrive harm to holy love and truth.

75.To consider papal indulgences so great that they could absolve a man even if he had done the impossible and had violated the mother of God is madness.

76.We say on the contrary that papal indulgences cannot remove the very least of venial sins as far as guilt is concerned.

77.To say that even St. Peter if he were now pope, could not grant greater graces is blasphemy against St. Peter and the pope.

78.We say on the contrary that even the present pope, or any pope whatsoever, has greater graces at his disposal, that is, the gospel, spiritual powers, gifts of healing, etc., as it is written. (1 Co 12[:28])

79.To say that the cross emblazoned with the papal coat of arms, and set up by the indulgence preachers is equal in worth to the cross of Christ is blasphemy.

80.The bishops, curates, and theologians who permit such talk to be spread among the people will have to answer for this.

81.This unbridled preaching of indulgences makes it difficult even for learned men to rescue the reverence which is due the pope from slander or from the shrewd questions of the laity.

82.Such as: ``Why does not the pope empty purgatory for the sake of holy love and the dire need of the souls that are there if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to build a church?’’ The former reason would be most just; the latter is most trivial.

83.Again, ``Why are funeral and anniversary masses for the dead continued and why does he not return or permit the withdrawal of the endowments founded for them, since it is wrong to pray for the redeemed?’’

84.Again, ``What is this new piety of God and the pope that for a consideration of money they permit a man who is impious and their enemy to buy out of purgatory the pious soul of a friend of God and do not rather, beca use of the need of that pious and beloved soul, free it for pure love’s sake?’’

85.Again, ``Why are the penitential canons, long since abrogated and dead in actual fact and through disuse, now satisfied by the granting of indulgences as though they were still alive and in force?’’

86.Again, ``Why does not the pope, whose wealth is today greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build this one basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers?’’

87.Again, ``What does the pope remit or grant to those who by perfect contrition already have a right to full remission and blessings?’’

88.Again, ``What greater blessing could come to the church than if the pope were to bestow these remissions and blessings on every believer a hundred times a day, as he now does but once?’’

89.``Since the pope seeks the salvation of souls rather than money by his indulgences, why does he suspend the indulgences and pardons previously granted when they have equal efficacy?’’

90.To repress these very sharp arguments of the laity by force alone, and not to resolve them by giving reasons, is to expose the church and the pope to the ridicule of their enemies and to make Christians unhappy.

91.If, therefore, indulgences were preached according to the spirit and intention of the pope, all these doubts would be readily resolved. Indeed, they would not exist.

92.Away, then, with all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, ``Peace, peace,’’ and there is no peace! (Jer 6:14)

93.Blessed be all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, ``Cross, cross,’’ and there is no cross!

94.Christians should be exhorted to be diligent in following Christ, their Head, through penalties, death and hell.

95.And thus be confident of entering into heaven through many tribulations rather than through the false security of peace (Acts 14:22).

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