Nailed to the door of the Castle Cathedral in Wittenberg on Oct 31, 1517 on the eve of most Saints' Day (regarding to Philip Melanchton, Luther's colleague in Wittenberg University), Martin Luther's 95 theses paved just how for the delivery of a great religious motion called the Protestant Reformation. The Reformation ultimately signaled the end of the Medieval Time and the inauguration of modern times.
What Luther intended to be a group of propositional statements to be debated upon within the abuses associated with the deal of the indulgences very soon became the main element that unlocked the entranceway for the long-awaited reformation of the church of the later Medieval Christendom.
The Sales of the Indulgences
The doctrine of indulgences is peculiar to the Roman Catholic Cathedral, anonymous to the cathedral fathers, & most notably, to the apostles of Christ. It really is basically thought as a qualification of forgiveness awarded with a bishop or an archbishop within his diocese for the remission of the temporal consequence of sin both on earth and in purgatory, the alleged way to obtain that was the surplus of merit and elegance gathered through the lives of Christ, the Virgin Mary and the saints of the Chapel.
What most particularly attracted Luther's attention in this regard was the extravagant preaching from the sales of the indulgences in Germany by the Dominican friar Johann Tetzel. Tetzel was commissioned by Albrecht, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, to raise cash for the rebuilding of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. "As soon as the gold coin in the coffer jewelry, " Tetzel proclaimed, "the heart from purgatory springs. "
Luther's long quest for truth that led to his discovery of the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone must have been the reason why he indignantly reacted to such a deceptive subject matter that offered fake expectations to those who bought the indulgences for themselves and their departed loved ones due to their ignorance of the true gospel of Christ.
The 97 Theses Prior to the 95 Theses
Convinced that he must struggle the original views purported by the Roman Catholic Cathedral for centuries, he published a couple of 97 theses to be debated in an academic setting among his colleagues at Wittenberg University. The theses attacked lots of the major tenets of the Church with a specific message at heart: that the gospel was completely not the same as what had been commonly kept.
Luther expected the theses to cause a stir among the participants which would allow him to divulge his great breakthrough. To his disappointment, they only mustered little interest.
Martin Luther and His 95 Theses
Despite such a wintry response to his 97 theses, Luther constructed another set of theses which he called The Disputation on the energy and Efficiency of the Indulgences, now popularly known as the 95 theses. Like the 97 theses, this new group of theses was also meant to provoke academic discourse among his acquaintances in the school. They may have been an afterthought to a notice he delivered to Albrecht by which he aired his disagreement on the deal of the indulgences.
However, scholars are divided whether the Luther of the 95 theses was still a Roman Catholic clergyman at this time or already a Protestant Reformer. On the main one hand, Luther seemed to have thought Pope Leo X was on his side in this matter. Some scholars even suggest (probably following church historian Philip Schaff) that he was not protesting up against the indulgences, but only against its maltreatment.
On the other hands, a closer look at the document would show one thing for certain: what Luther was against was not simply the sale of the indulgences but its theological underpinnings. As Princeton theologian Benjamin Warfield places it, "They constitute, actually, a theological record of the first importance, training a total and tightly knit debate against, not the abuses of the indulgence traffic, rather than even the idea of indulgences, merely, but the complete sacerdotal conception of the saving process - an outgrowth and embodiment which indulgences were. "
While there could be visible remainders of Roman Catholicism in the theses, they nonetheless assert the evangelical Protestant doctrine of salvation that refuted the sacerdotal system that was typically built on traditions instead of the Bible. In summary, the 95 theses proclaimed that indulgences cannot remit guilt as a result a work belongs to God only, they are struggling to make souls planting season from the Purgatory, and that the truly repentant sinner has already received the forgiveness of God and it is justified by faith alone.
Sources:
Gonzalez, Justo. The Story of Christianity Quantity 2. NY, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1985.
Schaff, Phillip. Record of the Christian Church Level VII. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc. , 1997.
Warfield, Benjamin Breckenridge. "The Ninety-Five Theses in Their Theological Value. " The Princeton Theological Review, xv. 1917, pp. 501-529.
Copyright Edwin Vargas. Contact the author to obtain authorization for republication.
