Martin Luther (1483-1546)

Here is the complete text, in English, of the thesis that outlined Luther's ideas on Free Will.
The Bondage of the Will, by Martin Luther (1524), was the cornerstone of the Protestant Reformation; it argues the idea of predestination and God's sovereignty, two principles which were paramount to many of the American colonists.

Martin Luther
The Original Protestant

Martin Luther was critical of the powers in Rome that headed the catholic church for quite a while. The explosion finally came around the matter of the financing of the lavish building program of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome.  As a somewhat unintended spokesman for this critical mindset, in 1517 Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenburg castle church protesting, for theological reasons, the sale of indulgences to finance the pope's schemes.

Behind this defiant action was a long personal pilgrimage of Luther, one based on an deep desire to unburden himself of a profound sense of guilt and personal condemnation before God's judgment.  For Luther, a personal breakthrough occurred as the message sank into the head of this Augustinian professor concerning Paul's teaching (Galatians and Romans) about divine grace and forgiveness received through the simple faith of the believer--and not through the demands of any religious law or requirements of a religious system.  So "liberated" was he that he felt that his discovery had to be brought to the world.

The occasion of the sale of indulgences brought this desire to the fore. With this action of challenging papal authority, Luther, unaware of where this would eventually take him, uncorked an explosive force among fiercely faithful Christians.  It also excited the political interests of the German princes who saw in this theological revolution an economic/political opportunity they could not pass up.

For Luther the reform movement was related to the matter of a sinner's personal justification before God.  Luther showed little interest in making broader changes within Christianity beyond the throwing off of Roman spiritual authority--with its traditions of works-righteousness.  Substantial changes in worship, for instance, were of lesser interest to Luther.  Also the episcopal form of church government (rule by bishops) was kept by Luther--though with the understanding that the bishops were answerable to the local princes--not to Rome.

The pope's ability to reply to Luther's challenge to ecclesiastical authority was greatly limited by the protection that Frederick, imperial elector, placed around Luther.  Meanwhile, in Luther's debates with the papal opponents sent to silence him, he was gradually drawn more deeply into a position defiant of Rome.  By 1520, Luther's defiance of Rome was total.  To Luther, Rome was the anti-Christ.  At the end of that year Luther boldly and publicly burned the papal bull requiring his submission.  Luther, and much of Germany with him, was in full religious rebellion against Rome.

The newly elected Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V (ruler of: powerful Spain and its wealthy American colonies, the commercially energetic Netherlands, and Austria and much of Italy), now took up the issue on the side of the Roman church. Luther, now excommunicated but still under the protection of Frederick and widely popular in Germany, was called by the Emperor to an Imperial Council at Worms to give account of his views.  Here Luther stood firm in his views against the Roman church. Under an Imperial guarantee of his freedom, Luther was able to get away from the Council before the guarantee was retracted.  From then on for the rest of his life, Luther remained in seculsion--publishing works against the papacy and bringing forth his German translation of the Bible.

In the meanwhile the Emperor found himself preoccupied by an on-going war with France over control of various cities and principalities in Italy. Thus the Emperor was seriously distracted in his effort to quiet Luther.  Then the Turkish military threat to the Emperor's Austrian holdings rose up again. Thus with the Emperor preoccupied elsewhere, Luther was relatively safe.

But events took an unexpected turn when in 1524-1525 German peasants, in the name of their new freedom of conscience, rose up in rebellion against their feudal lords.  Luther sided with the lords against the peasant "hordes."  These pitiful peasant rebels were cruelly crushed.

The result of the Peasant War was to move real power over to the various German princes.  Thus in Germany, the rule of the church was not a matter either of local congregational power--nor of the power of popes and bishops.  Rather, it was the ruling prince in each of the many principalities that made up Germany who determined each in his own territory its particular Christian character.  Some remained loyal to Rome (the southern German princes), some followed the Lutheran line (the northern German princes).  But in any case it was the local princes who made that determination.  The dependence of church on state was thus set as the characteristic feature of German Christianity--a feature lasting down into the 20th century.