This research examines the views of Martin Luther on the subject of salvation. The research will establish the context in which Luther shaped and articulated his soteriological views and then discuss the content of his thought on the subject and the emphasis on salvation that permeates his writing.
The Protestant Reformation was perhaps the most far-reaching Renaissance response to Roman Catholic Church hegemony over religious and secular life. The life and work of Martin Luther were decisive in the whole process. An attentive reading of the history of Martin Luther's break from the Roman Catholic Church reveals that Luther's conception of salvation was at the very center of the Reformation. To understand why, it is necessary to see the context in which that conception emerged: Catholic doctrine.
Catholicism holds that salvation is unattainable for souls in a state of sin. Souls of sinners who die in a state of mortal (unforgivable) sin go to hell, whence there is no escape or possibility of salvation. Souls of those whose sins have been forgiven but for which they have not endured appropriate penance, are sent to purgatory, where temporal punishment, as it is called, purifies the soul and enables it to enter heaven, i.e., achieve salvation. But Catholic doctrine also says that sinners may acquit or lessen the debt of temporal punishment in purgatory before they die. An indulgence, "the remission in whole or in part of the temporal punishment due to sin" (Kinkead 193), is one means of accomplishing this. Receiving an indulgence means that part or all of the temporal punishment of purgatory is forgone, allowing the soul immediate entry into heaven after being separated from the body.
Whatever one may think of this belief, the relevant point is that whether by penance or indulgence, the Church, as both Mystical Body and ecclesiastical apparatus, functions as an agency of individual salvation. As a matter of logic, to grant an in...