ABSTRACT
The point of departure of the Reformation was a religious matter. Filled with
fears that he might not be saved, Martin Luther (1483-1546) sought the path to
which the church itself directed concerned people: he sought help in the world
of the monastery in order to attain to God’s grace through asceticism and pious
deeds (see p. 71). But to his despair, Luther discovered that he was unable to
live up to the twofold commandment of love. No matter how hard he tried, he
remained consumed by self-love and arrogance. God appeared to him accord-
ingly as the distant, righteous and condemning God. In the monastery, Luther,
who had originally planned to read law, was required to study theology, and
already by the age of 29 he had acquired his doctorate in theology. Shortly
afterwards, he became professor in the University of Wittenberg. It was in the
course of his studies on the Bible that Luther made what he later was to call his
‘reformatory discovery’:
Luther became increasingly clear through his studies of the extent to which
Catholic doctrine had perverted Christianity. He therefore began to write against
the official theology, while at the same time joining in the demands for reform
which many people were then making against the church. More or less coinci-
dentally it was Luther’s attack in 1517 on the indulgences trade (see p. 74) that
brought him to the public consciousness. However, since the theology was
closely connected with the external shape of the church, the life of worship and
the entire social structure, it soon became necessary also to subject these factors
to closer scrutiny. A contributory factor to all this was the dismissive attitude he
encountered on the part of the church leadership, in contrast to the support he
received from the bourgeoisie in the larger towns and from some of the Princes.
In the course of discussions with some of the theologians whom the church had
commissioned to oppose him, Luther went even further in his criticisms. Thus
