Martin Luther Influence

Born in Eisleben, Germany, back in 1483, Martin Luther went ahead to become one of the most prominent figures in the entire Western history. Luther spent the early years of his life in relative anonymity serving as a monk and a scholar. However, in 1517, he was able to pan a document that was attacking the Catholic Church for practicing corrupt practices that involved selling “indulgences” to absolve sin. Through his “95 Theses,” he was able to pronounce two central beliefs that sparked the Protestant Reformation; hence leading to the thesis that Martin’s writing created unending divisions in the Catholic Church ever while his ideas shaped the Protestantism that emerged later. The paper analyzes the issues that Luther presented for the debate
Added to the criticisms of indulgences that the Church was practicing, Luther was also reflecting on the popular sentiments in regards to the “St. Peter’s scandal.” Luther was questioning why the pope, whose wealth by then was more than the wealth of the richest Crassus, end up building St. Peters Basilica with the money of poor believers rather than building it using his money. Luther, through his translation of Roman’s 3:28 understood that faith was the key to salvation, which was not fully in use by the Church during his days.
Through the 95 Theses, Luther was not just reacting against the full Pelagian as the purpose of justifying his works rather than faith. Instead, he was entirely reacting to what seemed to be the reasonable Catholic teaching on what entailed faith. The Catholic Church by Luther’s time was not using God’s sacraments and good works as part of faith. To Luther, it was all a matter of God’s grace into offering people paths of salvation, but no man had a secure opportunity because living such a life required maintaining high principles of faith before God