Martin Luther: Against Catholicism, Essay Example

Martin Luther had a number of reasons to be against the Catholic Church in general and the Pope in particular. But basically all Luther’s dissatisfaction with the official Catholic Church was coming from the Pope’s desire to be not simply the earthly head of the Church, but more importantly the ruler over it and its people.

Luther was absolutely sure that all the authority over Christians comes from a single source which is the Word of God – the Bible. According to Luther the Christian Church itself originated from the Holy Scriptures and was built upon the Bible, but through his decrees and actions the Pope put the Church above the Word of God. In such a way the earthly way of thinking and human inventions became more important and truthful than their heavenly origin. This is the first thing with which Martin Luther became angry and frustrated: “The pope attributes more power to the Church, which is begotten and born, than to the Word, which has begotten, conceived and born the Church” (Luther).  Furthermore, Luther argues that the Pope declared decrees and diets which were adopted by the Church during various religious councils to be more important and of higher authority than Christ and his teachings.

Another aspect of Luther’s frustration with the Pope was based on the amount of political and social power that the one has obtained through his religious position. Many people, among them kings and monarchs, chose to believe in God and follow Catholicism simply because they were afraid of the Pope rather than because they believed in and trusted God and were afraid of His judgment. In such a way God was somewhat substituted by the Pope, but Luther argued that “The pope is not God’s image, but his ape” (Luther). Thus the idea that the Church is an earthly institution established by Christ and ruled by Him and His Father was substituted with an idea that it is the Pope who is the ruler over it. “If the pope were the head of the Christian Church, then the Church were a monster with two heads, seeing that St. Paul says that Christ is her head” (Luther). Such an idea promoted by Luther leads to logical assumption that the Church is called Christian after its head – Jesus Christ, if it was the pope who is to be its ruler then it would be called “Popian” Church, not Christian one.

For Luther the most important about faith was faith itself and that it should come from individuals’ internal desire to believe; Luther was absolutely sure that people should have faith not because they need to have it in order to succeed in life, but rather because they simply want to and do posses it. Therefore, Luther believed that the formal institution of the Church is absolutely unnecessary, because it destroys such a view on faith and the sincere desire of people to believe in Jesus and in God. Luther’s opinion was that through indulgences, sacraments, pilgrimages, feasts, and other attributes of religion adopted by the Pope the true idea of faith was lost. Initially, priests were ordained to preach the gospel and the Word of God and nothing else, but popes, bishops and priests themselves transformed this original duty into the mere necessity to serve masses, collect offerings, sell indulgences, etc. Therefore, the Church has lost its initial divine nature and became simply the source of wealth, power, and authority for those who served it. Luther stated that for money priests could promise and sell people whatever they wanted, beginning with elimination of sins and ending with holy relicts. Thus the necessity of self-punishment and work in order to obtain the salvation of soul and God’s forgiving of sins was substituted with an idea of receiving all these through money and false-worshipping. “They say: “The doctrine of the remission of sins is necessary: indulgences, pardons, and graces are remissions of sins; therefore they are necessary.” No: the pope’s pardons are not remissions of sins, but satisfactions of sins for remitting the punishments: mere fables and fictions” (Luther).

Another thing about the official Church from which Martin Luther’s absolute dissatisfaction with it was coming was connected with the inability and unwillingness of the pope and “his crew” to see the necessity for the Church to be reformed. It was much easier for the Pope, cardinals, and others to condemn Luther and his followers then to realize the necessity for change.  They couldn’t understand that “it was only on earth that power was given to the pope to bind and to loose” (Luther), but above earth there was God and Jesus, who are the true rulers. More importantly Luther believed that there is no way for the whole institution of Church to be transformed. He was absolutely sure that the nature of the Church was evil and that it was founded on lies and fables, therefore it couldn’t be transformed but had to be destroyed.

To sum everything up I can draw a conclusion that the main problem that Martin Luther had with the Catholic Church and the popedom was based on the fact that the official church and its servants (meaning popes, bishops, priests, etc.) in their religious service concentrated on the from, but had forgotten about the true meaning of faith and the Word of Jesus and God – “for they only read and babble out the words, but regard not their meaning” (Luther). Thus the Church was founded on mere hypocrisy and Martin Luther tried to break it and to return to the initial message taught by Jesus Christ.