Luther
Thought He Was Divine!
By Plinio Corrêa de
Oliveira (*)
I do not understand how men of the Church today, including
some of the most cultured, learned, and illustrious, mythicize
the figure of Luther, the heresiarch, in their zeal to favor an ecumenical
rapprochement directly with Protestantism and indirectly with all the
religions, schools of philosophy, and so forth.
Do they not perceive the danger that is lying in wait for all
of us at the end of this road, that is, the formation on a world-wide scale of
a sinister supermarket of religions, philosophies, and systems of all sorts, in
which truth and error will be broken up in pieces, mixed together in a
cacophonous confusion? The only thing missing from the world would be – if we
could reach such a point – the whole truth, that is, the Roman Catholic and
Apostolic Faith, with neither spot nor wrinkle.
Today I present some facts about Luther that clearly point up
the odor that his revolted figure would spread in that supermarket, or rather,
that morgue of religions, of philosophies, and of human thought itself. To him
belongs, from a certain point of view, the role of being the point of departure
in this march toward total confusion.
I have drawn these passages from the magnificent work of Fr. Leonel Franca, S.J., A Igreja,
a Reforma, e a Civilização [The
Church, the Reformation, and
Civilization] (Rio de Janeiro, 1934).
A uniquely characteristic element of Luther’s teaching is the
doctrine of justification by faith alone. Put more simply, this means that the
superabundant merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ, alone and by themselves, without
our cooperation, assure the eternal salvation of man, so that one may lead a
life of sin in this world with neither remorse of conscience nor fear of God’s
justice.
For Luther, the voice of conscience was not that of grace, but
rather that of the Devil!
For this reason, he wrote to a friend that a man vexed by the Devil should
occasionally “drink more abundantly, gamble, entertain himself, and even commit
some sin out of hatred and spite for the Devil so that we may not give him an
opportunity to disturb our consciences with trifles. The whole Decalogue should
be erased from our eyes and our souls, from us who are so persecuted and
molested by the Devil” (M. Luther, Briefe, Sendschreiben und
Bedenken, Ed. De Wette
[Berlin, 1825-1828]; Franca, pp. 199-200).
Along the same line he also wrote: “God only obliges you to believe and to
confess (the faith). In all other things He leaves you free, lord and master to
do whatever you will without any danger to your conscience; on the contrary, it
is certain that, as far as He is concerned, it makes no difference whether you
leave your wife, flee from your lord, or are unfaithful to every obligation.
What is it to Him if you do or do not do such things?” (Werke, Weimar ed., XII, pp. 131 ff.; Franca,
p. 446).
The incitement to sin given in a letter to Melanchton
on
This doctrine is so bizarre that even Luther himself could scarcely manage
to believe in it: “There is no religion in the whole world that teaches this
doctrine of justification; I myself, even though I teach it publicly, have a
great difficulty in believing it privately” (Werke, XXV, p. 330; Franca, p. 158).
Luther himself recognized the devastating effects of his admittedly
insincere preaching: “The Gospel today finds adherents who are convinced that
it is nothing but a doctrine that serves to fill their bellies and give free
reign to all their impulses” (Werke, XXXIII,
p. 2; Franca, p. 440).
And Luther added, regarding his evangelical henchmen, that
“they are seven times worse than they were before. After the preaching of our
doctrine men have given themselves up to robbery, lying, imposture, debauchery,
drunkenness, and every kind of vice. We have expelled one devil (the papacy),
and seven worse ones have come in” (Werke, XXVIII,
p. 763; Franca, p. 441).
“After we understood that good works are not necessary for
justification, I became much more remiss and cold in doing good...and if we
could return now to the old state of things and if the doctrine of the
necessity of good works to be holy could be revived, our alacrity and
promptness in doing good would be different” (Werke, XXVII, p. 443; Franca, p. 443).
All these insanities make it understandable how Luther reached a frenzy of
satanic pride, saying of himself: “Does this Luther not appear to you to be
eccentric? As far as I am concerned, I think he is God. Otherwise, how could
his writings or his name have the power to transform beggars into lords, asses
into doctors (of learning), falsifiers into saints, slime
into pearls!” (Werke, Ed. Wittenberg, 1551, IV, pp. 378; Franca, p. 190).
At other times, Luther’s opinion of himself was much more objective: “I am
a man exposed to and involved in society, debauchery, carnal movements, in
negligence and other disturbances, to which are added those of my own office” (Briefe, Sendschreiben und Bedenken,
I, p. 232; Franca, p. 232).
Excommunicated in
In a sermon preached in 1532: “As for me I confess, and many others could
undoubtedly make an equal confession, that I am careless of discipline and
zeal. I am much more negligent now than under the papacy; no one has ardor for
the Gospel now like that you used to see” (Saemtiliche Werke, XVII , p. 353; Franca, p. 441).
What, then, can be found in common between this morality and that of the
Holy Roman Catholic and
__________
(*) Folha de São Paulo, January 10, 1984.