German theologian, Professor of Philosophy and then of Theology at Wittenberg, leader of the Protestant Reformation. Luther is notorious among philosophers for speaking of reason as 'the Devil's Whore', which must be sacrificed as the enemy of God. He sees reason as having being corrupted by original sin, and therefore incapable of coming to a true estimate of the relation between God and man. The Mosaic law, which crushes men but which would at the same time bind God to a human contract, is the fruit of reason.
Salvation can only come through the divine gift of grace and revelation.
While in human affairs reason ought to be followed, in the theological realm it must stand aside for the rebirth afforded by grace, confining its efforts to the elucidation of what God reveals through Scripture. Historically and theologically Luther is a pivotal point in the tradition leading from Paul's doctrine of justification through faith and Augustine's two cities through to the anti-rationalism of Karl Barth. The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology 3. Reason Bloomsbury Thesaurus 4. All rights reserved.