Luther

[leftrightleftrightleft]

"Reason should be destroyed in all Christians."

"Reason is the Devil's greatest harlot; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious harlot; she is a prostitute, the Devil's appointed harlot; harlot eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom ... Throw dung in her face to make her ugly. She is and she ought to be drowned in baptism... She would deserve, the wretch, to be banished to the filthiest place in the house, to the closets."

"There is on earth among all dangers no more dangerous thing than a richly endowed and adroit reason...Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and ... know nothing but the word of God."

"Christ wants to slay reason and subdue the arrogance of the Jew"

Is reason really all that bad? Don't we all use reason every day? Isn't reason older than Christianity?

-Living a life without logic or reason would mean crossing a busy freeway trusting and having faith in God to save you.
-Living a life without logic or reason would mean refusing medical treatment of any kind and trusting and having faith in God to save you.
-Living a life without logic or reason would mean throwing out all science and simply trusting God in blind ignorance with no desire to learn or explore the physical world.
-Living a life without logic or reason and instead resting in pure faith would mean that all debates would lead to, "God is right, you're wrong regardless of any evidence, logical proof or rational argument you present."

Slaying reason as Luther describes is something I simply cannot agree with and it is unfortunate that Luther's words and ideology has shaped Christianity.

Are Luther's claims Biblical supported?

 

[E.C.]

You have to remember that in Luther's time "reason" was seen as "witchcraft".

 

[elman]

"Reason should be destroyed in all Christians."

"Reason is the Devil's greatest harlot; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious harlot; she is a prostitute, the Devil's appointed harlot; harlot eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom ... Throw dung in her face to make her ugly. She is and she ought to be drowned in baptism... She would deserve, the wretch, to be banished to the filthiest place in the house, to the closets."

"There is on earth among all dangers no more dangerous thing than a richly endowed and adroit reason...Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and ... know nothing but the word of God."

"Christ wants to slay reason and subdue the arrogance of the Jew"

Is reason really all that bad? Don't we all use reason every day? Isn't reason older than Christianity?

-Living a life without logic or reason would mean crossing a busy freeway trusting and having faith in God to save you.
-Living a life without logic or reason would mean refusing medical treatment of any kind and trusting and having faith in God to save you.
-Living a life without logic or reason would mean throwing out all science and simply trusting God in blind ignorance with no desire to learn or explore the physical world.
-Living a life without logic or reason and instead resting in pure faith would mean that all debates would lead to, "God is right, you're wrong regardless of any evidence, logical proof or rational argument you present."

Slaying reason as Luther describes is something I simply cannot agree with and it is unfortunate that Luther's words and ideology has shaped Christianity.

Are Luther's claims Biblical supported?

There is a passage in the Old Testament where God is supposed to have said Come let us reason together. God gave us our mind and expects us to use it.

 

[GakuseiDon]

Leftright, do you have the sources for the original quotes? Believe it or not, some quoted statements on the Internet do not come from genuine sources. I believe that some of things that Luther was supposed to have said came from sources after his death, and not verifiable.

 

[zaksmummy]

Luther had much good stuff to say about grace, unfortunatly he also had a lot of other stuff to say which was downright wrong and used for all kinds of evil later on.

 

[CryptoLutheran]

Luther often ranted against reason, at the same time he often praised the need and importance of reason.

What Luther has in mind when he speaks against reason is the insistence that Christian faith can or should be reasonable. It's not. Christian faith isn't reasonable and the tenets of the Christian faith cannot be believed by reason. It's not reasonable to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the eternal Logos of God, incarnate by the Virgin Mary, that He was crucified for the sins of the world and that He rose three days later and is seated at the right hand of God the Father. Nothing in there is reasonable, and it is not apprehended through the rational processes, but is instead apprehended through faith.

Lutheranism places a strong emphasis on paradox, asserting mutually incompatible ideas as true despite the fact that they simply do not fit or function together and cannot be reasonably reconciled.

Case in point:

Lutheranism asserts that man is unable to choose God, he is wholly a slave to his sinful lusts and passions and is therefore dead in his trespasses. The will cannot overcome its enslavement to sin. Therefore human beings are entirely dependent upon God's grace who chooses--predestines--some for salvation.

At this point it sounds a lot like Calvinism. But here's the critical point of difference:

The rational person therefore says that if God has predestined some for salvation then He has predestined some/the rest for damnation. The Lutheran response is no, He hasn't. Instead Lutheran theology insists that God desires the salvation of everyone, that Christ died for all, not just "the elect", that God loves everyone, and will have mercy on all. That's all, everyone, each and every person unconditionally. Just as God so loved the world, that's all, everyone, each and every person unconditionally.

The rational mind rightly says that these two statements are irreconcilable.

So Lutheranism maintains that God has predestined some to salvation, by His grace, because He loves us and we are incapable of doing anything on our own by our own power to reach out; simultaneously it maintains that salvation is for all, available for all, that God wishes none to perish and that all might be saved because He is the Savior of all men, the whole world. Everyone.

There's even a term to describe this paradox in Lutheranism, the crux theolagorum, "the cross of the theologians", it's the "problem of the cross" and is regarded as perhaps the most frustratingly unanswerable question in theology, at least as Lutheranism is concerned.

When dealing with reason, at least within the Lutheran theological dynamic, this must be understood. The role of reason isn't cast aside utterly, but instead is said to not have a place of preeminence. There's nothing bad about reason in and of itself, it's good and noble and should be used and utilized. Critical thinking is good, logic is good. However, reason cannot take us to the Cross. The Cross is foolishness, it's absurd, it's ridiculous and irrational.

I'm also going to edit this to say that Luther's comments on the Jews are unjustifiable. There is simply no excuse for them, and he will face Judgment for it. I say this because Luther is not regarded as a prophet or above reproach, he was a normal, broken, sinful and often wretched little man who spat venom at both individuals and entire groups of people especially in his latter years. There's no excuse for it, it's just who he was, God have mercy on him.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[AlexBP]

Leftright, do you have the sources for the original quotes? Believe it or not, some quoted statements on the Internet do not come from genuine sources. I believe that some of things that Luther was supposed to have said came from sources after his death, and not verifiable.

I second this motion.

 

[Bear.Fr00t]

...always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you (1 Peter 3:15)

 

[Tangible]

Seconding what CryptoLutheran said. There must be a distinction between the magisterial use of reason and the ministerial use of reason.

The ministerial use demands that we be prepared use our God-given ability to think and reason to understand to the best of our ability God's revealed Word in scripture and to participate in apologetic and evangelistic endeavors. However, we are not required to be rational in order to receive God's gift of salvation.

The magisterial use of reason is when we attempt to interpret scripture solely according to our limited ability to understand it, effectively placing our puny cognition in a position to rule over the word of God. God's ways are not our ways. Human reason and logic are but a small subset of the rational mind of the Omniscient God.

When the Roman church or Calvin and other later reformers used reason in the magisterial sense - such as to attempt to deny the power of God to work through sacramental means, or to attempt to prove that man participates in his own salvation - Luther tended to get ... well, irked ... understandably if not justifiably so.

Like all of us humans, Luther was simultaneously a saint and a sinner.

 

[elman]

Luther often ranted against reason, at the same time he often praised the need and importance of reason.

What Luther has in mind when he speaks against reason is the insistence that Christian faith can or should be reasonable. It's not. Christian faith isn't reasonable and the tenets of the Christian faith cannot be believed by reason. It's not reasonable to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the eternal Logos of God, incarnate by the Virgin Mary, that He was crucified for the sins of the world and that He rose three days later and is seated at the right hand of God the Father. Nothing in there is reasonable, and it is not apprehended through the rational processes, but is instead apprehended through faith.

Lutheranism places a strong emphasis on paradox, asserting mutually incompatible ideas as true despite the fact that they simply do not fit or function together and cannot be reasonably reconciled.

Case in point:

Lutheranism asserts that man is unable to choose God, he is wholly a slave to his sinful lusts and passions and is therefore dead in his trespasses. The will cannot overcome its enslavement to sin. Therefore human beings are entirely dependent upon God's grace who chooses--predestines--some for salvation.

At this point it sounds a lot like Calvinism. But here's the critical point of difference:

The rational person therefore says that if God has predestined some for salvation then He has predestined some/the rest for damnation. The Lutheran response is no, He hasn't. Instead Lutheran theology insists that God desires the salvation of everyone, that Christ died for all, not just "the elect", that God loves everyone, and will have mercy on all. That's all, everyone, each and every person unconditionally. Just as God so loved the world, that's all, everyone, each and every person unconditionally.

The rational mind rightly says that these two statements are irreconcilable.

So Lutheranism maintains that God has predestined some to salvation, by His grace, because He loves us and we are incapable of doing anything on our own by our own power to reach out; simultaneously it maintains that salvation is for all, available for all, that God wishes none to perish and that all might be saved because He is the Savior of all men, the whole world. Everyone.

There's even a term to describe this paradox in Lutheranism, the crux theolagorum, "the cross of the theologians", it's the "problem of the cross" and is regarded as perhaps the most frustratingly unanswerable question in theology, at least as Lutheranism is concerned.

When dealing with reason, at least within the Lutheran theological dynamic, this must be understood. The role of reason isn't cast aside utterly, but instead is said to not have a place of preeminence. There's nothing bad about reason in and of itself, it's good and noble and should be used and utilized. Critical thinking is good, logic is good. However, reason cannot take us to the Cross. The Cross is foolishness, it's absurd, it's ridiculous and irrational.

I'm also going to edit this to say that Luther's comments on the Jews are unjustifiable. There is simply no excuse for them, and he will face Judgment for it. I say this because Luther is not regarded as a prophet or above reproach, he was a normal, broken, sinful and often wretched little man who spat venom at both individuals and entire groups of people especially in his latter years. There's no excuse for it, it's just who he was, God have mercy on him.

-CryptoLutheran

He also does not get a pass from me for encouraging the murder of anabaptists.

 

[elman]

The magisterial use of reason is when we attempt to interpret scripture solely according to our limited ability to understand it, effectively placing our puny cognition in a position to rule over the word of God. God's ways are not our ways. Human reason and logic are but a small subset of the rational mind of the Omniscient God.

.

This is valid only if the Bible in its entirity is dictated by God and comes from God. If however parts of it are not from God, then I do not let it override reason and the mind God has given us and what God has written on our hearts as human beings. Inerrancy of the Bible is simply a belief nothing more.

 

[Tangible]

Well, yeah. If you don't have faith that the bible is inerrant, you don't really have faith in what it says. Then you're free to pick and choose and make up whatever you want. Good luck with that.

The gracious favor of God to sinners because of Christ as revealed in scripture is simply a belief, nothing more.

 

[elman]

Well, yeah. If you don't have faith that the bible is inerrant, you don't really have faith in what it says. Then you're free to pick and choose and make up whatever you want. Good luck with that.

The gracious favor of God to sinners because of Christ as revealed in scripture is simply a belief, nothing more.

Luther also picked an chose what parts of the Bible to believe and which to ignore. He did not like the book of James or Revelation. You also pick and chose parts of the Bible to ignore or spin to conform with your theology. If I don't make up and own my own theology, then I must adopt one that some other person has made up. I chose to think for myself. It is true that belief in God is simply belief, nothing more. However it may be that God exists, and at the same time, the Bible is not inerrant. It is not required that I believe in inerrancy if I believe in a loving Creator.

 

[St_Worm2]

Folks, those quotes were written by Luther. The problem is, they're taken out of context. His principle complaint was not against reason itself, but against reason divorced from faith and Scripture, and how the use of such reason can lead men astray. Here's a website that will hopefully clear things up a bit (and where that last quote came from).

Go to: 'Reason is the Devil's harlot'

--David

 

[Hawkins]

"Reason should be destroyed in all Christians."

He's right. Reason with human intelligence is pre-warned in Genesis as the "fruit from the Tree of Knowledge". The day you choose to eat of it, the same day you shall surely die.

Modern humans are all educated and brainwashed by our secular system. Their reasoning sometimes (most of the times to me) is nether logical nor rational. A typical example is to ask for evidence to support historical figures such as Jesus. In reality however, not a single figure existed 2000 years ago can be supported by evidence. History by its very nature is mostly unsupported by evidence. History is conveyed as human witnessing which can hardly be evidenced. Yet "educated" humans fallacious thinks that "history should be supported by evidence and science".

Please grab any history book which is old enough then go through each chapter with the question that how that chapter is supported by science and evidence!

 

[Greg J.]

...
What Luther has in mind when he speaks against reason is the insistence that Christian faith can or should be reasonable. It's not. Christian faith isn't reasonable and the tenets of the Christian faith cannot be believed by reason.

The idea that knowledge, understanding, or reasoning (modern definition) is bad is absurd. The idea they are the enemy of faith is also absurd. The concept is the result of people who have trouble believing or understanding what God has said, but are under pressure to believe.

Some of the best apologists can demonstrate that not only are the assertions of Christianity reasonable, but that they must be true. I heard part of this argument from Ravi Zacharias once. How reasonable the assertions in Scripture seem is dependent upon the degree to which God has "primed" them for what they hear. One person can hear an assertion and see clearly that it is absolutely true, and another see that it is completely ridiculous.

Knowledge, understanding, and reason are attributes of God himself, just like goodness. The human version of them is like a child's, but they are gifts and blessings. One can grow in the knowledge of God, as Jesus did, but it has no value apart from understanding. Understanding apart from reasoning is useless. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit speaking through all of Scripture uses reasoning to help people seek God, put their trust in him, and get to know him better. Everyone comes to faith in Jesus through reason at some level. The book of Proverbs is a big list of correct reasoning based on correct understanding of God.

my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. “Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children. (Hosea 4:6, 1984 NIV)

 

[Sketcher]

Not providing the sources doesn't do justice to your inquiry, especially when dealing with Luther. I haven't read much, but from what I have read, context is absolutely necessary to grasp what he is actually saying.

 

[seashale76]

Luther offers something that came along over a thousand years after Christianity was a thing. My question is why you should care a whit about what he had to say in the first place?

 

[High Fidelity]

Luther offers something that came along over a thousand years after Christianity was a thing. My question is why you should care a whit about what he had to say in the first place?

As a founding father of Protestantism, why wouldn't someone be interested in his opinion(whether they later go on to disagree with it or not)?

My take on it is that reason is a double-edged sword that cuts both ways.

In some ways it's 'common sense' to many, for others, 'reason' leads them, or compounds them, to being wise in their own eyes and/or leaning on their own understanding above Scripture. And that's damnable.