38
votes
Accepted
What were Martin Luther's opinions on the Crusades?
Luther originally condemned the Church being involved in military conquests and advocated non-violence against Muslims
Martin Luther first wrote about the Crusades, and general armed conflict against ...
- 6,267
21
votes
Accepted
Did Martin Luther accept or reject the existence of Purgatory?
Luther's beliefs on purgatory evolved over time. A quick search on the Internet will find people claiming he accepted purgatory, offering quotes to prove it, and others saying he rejected it, also ...
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16
votes
Accepted
Did Martin Luther ever admit that his approval of Philip's bigamy was wrong?
Luther did not recant.
From: John Alfred Faulkner, "Luther and the Bigamous Marriage of Philip of Hesse, The American Journal of Theology Vol. 17, No. 2 (Apr., 1913), pp. 206-231 (on pp. 228-9) -
...
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14
votes
Why did Luther say "Sin boldy"?
For most of a year following his trial at Worms in April 1521, Martin Luther was in seclusion. During this time his associates at Wittenberg were implementing practical changes in the church there. ...
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13
votes
When did Martin Luther lose his Apostolic succession according to Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churchеs?
According to the Catholic Church, the short answer is that he never lost it. In fact, in the strict sense, Martin Luther never participated in apostolic succession to begin with.
Apostolic succession ...
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13
votes
What Protestant arguments exist for the perpetual virginity of Mary?
Protestant arguments for the doctrine can be divided up into 3 categories.
The Bible allows for it
The bible does not indicate Mary had other children after Jesus.
When Matthew 13:55 (as well as ...
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12
votes
Accepted
Is Luther really the originator of "We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone"?
Calvin
The first extant writing to contain the phrase is John Calvin's Antidote to the Council of Trent (1547).
First, for context, Calvin was responding to Canon 11 of the sixth session of the ...
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11
votes
Did Martin Luther really nail his 95 Theses to the church door?
Martin Luther, we know from his own writings, was clearly neither a fanatic nor a protester. His sensible and restrained attitude to the Iconoclasts (see other question and answer) demonstrates this.
...
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9
votes
Accepted
How did Martin Luther justify the separation from the Catholic Church?
Martin Luther had not intended to separate from the Catholic Church. His 95 theses, and his conduct immediately after he posted them, were intended to achieve reform in the Catholic Church. When he ...
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9
votes
Accepted
Martin Luther Quotes Regarding Hebrew
Between August and November 1532 Luther delivered a series of lectures on psalm 45, part of a longer series on selected psalms. Rorer took notes, using shorthand and these were later published, ...
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9
votes
Accepted
Cardinal Cajetan and Martin Luther
I found this paper "Cajetan and Luther: Revisiting the Roots of a Schism" written by Dr. Adam Cooper, a Lutheran pastor turned Catholic, who has a repository of his academic papers here. The paper ...
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8
votes
Accepted
Was Martin Luther a Rosicrucian?
Both Luther and the Rosicrucians have written about what the emblems represent, and the explanations differ quite a bit.
In a 1530 letter to Lazarus Spengler, Luther wrote:
Such a heart should ...
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8
votes
Accepted
Why did Luther not support iconoclasm like some other reformers?
Luther's own words on the subject are quoted in:
The Third Sermon, March 11, 1522, Tuesday after Invocavit
In his sermon on 'How Christians should regard Moses' Luther makes it clear that he does ...
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7
votes
Accepted
Why did Katarina von Bora need to hide in a barrel to escape from her convent?
Martin Luther and Katarina von Bora (Frau Luther as she became) belonged to different orders. He was an Augustinian canon, and as such, although resident with other priests, in a monastery, worked in ...
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6
votes
Accepted
Did Luther have any disagreements with the teachings of Augustine of Hippo?
Luther and Augustine seem to have disagreed on:
Ecclesiology
Purgatory: Augustine believed it, though Luther claimed he "held nothing at all of purgatory."
Sacraments: Luther claimed ...
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6
votes
What was Martin Luther's perspective on the early Christian church?
Luther, like other reformers, regarded the early church highly, but not above scripture. We see this in two ways – (1) he accepted the earliest councils of the church as faithfully proclaiming the ...
6
votes
What did Luther and Calvin believe about "Lucifer" in Isaiah 14?
Although Calvin and Luther most certainly believed in an entity called Satan, they deny that Isaiah 14:12 has any connection with the devil or that Lucifer is his name. In Calvin's commentary of ...
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6
votes
Accepted
Did Martin Luther express his views on suicide?
It appears that Luther did in fact say something to that effect. In one of his Table Talks, Luther is recorded as saying:
I don’t share the opinion that suicides are certainly to be damned. My ...
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6
votes
Accepted
Were celebrations for the 400th Anniversary of the Reformation held in Germany during World War I?
In 1917, Reformation Day was on a Wednesday. The German theologian Hermann Sasse, a sergeant in the German army at the time, spoke about that day in 1942. His glasses are too amazing for my conscience ...
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6
votes
Accepted
Is the Mass seen as a sacrifice in the Lutheran Church?
In the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Philipp Melanchthon identifies two distinct meanings of the word "sacrifice," rejecting one (the Roman Catholic view) and accepting the other:
The ...
6
votes
Why Does Luther Translate "Alpha and Omega", in the Book of Revelation, as "A und O" (A and O)?
Yup, Luther is Spot On
Technically, Luther's A und O (= English "A and O") is quite correct or as directly literal of a translation as one could get rendering the text into German (or English) ...
- 378
6
votes
Accepted
Who won the Leipzig Debate between Martin Luther and Johann Eck?
I only know of one source, which I have here, on the table, in the form of a published book. I will extract quotes from it, to give a flavour of what the author says about the Leipzig debate between ...
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5
votes
Accepted
Did Luther say he "might well have entrusted the whole affair of this [Eucharist] controversy to [Calvin] from the beginning"?
Original source
Henry's quote is verbatim from Christoph Pezel's 1590 book Außführliche, warhaffte und bestendige Erzehlung, and he mentions Pezel in a footnote to the paragraph prior to the story. ...
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5
votes
Did Luther add a word to Romans 3?
Yes, clearly and obviously, Luther added the word "alone" to his translation. But that's not the real question to ask. If you'll permit a small digression, the real question is why. It is clear that ...
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5
votes
Why did Luther curse those who oppose indulgences?
Luther published his 95 Theses in 1517.
At that time he had not fully separated from the theology of the Roman Catholic church and the Pope.
Most of his 95 Thesis are really just asking for ...
- 2,104
5
votes
Accepted
Which was the first Roman Catholic hymnal to include Martin Luther's "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God"?
The Hymnal Worship II, published in 1975 by GIA, and widely used in the Archdiocese of Chicago, includes an English translation of Luther's German paraphrase of Psalm 46 (Vulgate No. 45) in two ...
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5
votes
Did Luther believe in gnomish creatures?
Luther's objective was to express the Bible using words used by ordinary Germans. The following is an extract from his Letter on translation:
We do not have to ask the literal Latin how we are to ...
- 7,512
5
votes
Accepted
According to Catholicism, what is wrong with Luther's doctrine of ubiquity?
From what you've quoted of Ott, it sounds like this "Ubiquity* Doctrine" holds that Christ's human nature is His divine nature. This is the heresy of monophysitism,** which says that Christ only has ...
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5
votes
According to Catholicism, what is wrong with Luther's doctrine of ubiquity?
The ubiquity doctrine is problematic to Catholics in that it does not acknowledge a "real" (substantial) change.
Second, Lutherans reject Rome's identification of the bread and wine as the corporal ...
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5
votes
Accepted
Did Luther ever acknowledge that his Catechism would require textual changes as language evolves?
Whether Luther expected language to evolve in the future is not clear. The introduction of printing, and the political situation, had led to increased standardisation of different German dialects, ...
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