The paper makes an inquiry into three areas of Luther’s up until now less known natural theology: natural cognition of God (cognitio Dei naturalis), natural human reason (ratio) and natural law (lex naturalis). All these areas are related to the proposed theme concerning the foundation of universal ethics. The German reformer Luther illuminates all three parts on the biblical dialectical background, in which he points to God’s original intention with human beings on the one hand and to the concrete historical situation of human beings after Adam’s fall into sin on the other hand.
Luther’s theological anthropology with its emphasis on radical understanding of (original) sin and on lacking liberty, as far as salvation is concerned, is most prominent in his discussion with Erasmus of Rotterdam. Luther’s views require a discriminate approach. His critical view of the capabilities of human reason stems from soteriological emphasis on salvation as God’s activity for the sake of humans. Luther’s positive appraisal of human reason was developed in the context of his doctrine of two realms. Natural law as the Golden Rule is seen as a suitable ethical principle in searching for justice and welfare in human society – for Christians and Non-Christians alike. The author points out to the secular aspects in Luther’s theology and underlines his positive judgment of the society governed by reason.
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Martin Luther is generally considered a stark critic of Aristotle and, even more so, the medieval Aristotelianism of his age. Our article explores the development of Luther’s appraisal of Aristotle’s thought throughout his career with a special emphasis on the topic of theological anthropology. We will distinguish between the fundamental anthropological paradigms based on their situatedness – vertically, coram Deo, and horizontally, coram hominibus. The imago dei (Greek: eikon tou theou) doctrine will be closely examined as Luther’s essential component of his doctrine of the human being, and ethical as well as social implications will be drawn from his emphases. Aristotle’s philosophical heritage will be contrasted with Luther’s views on human will, conscience, sin, concupiscence, and divine grace. Our thesis is that, owing to Luther’s excessive reliance on God’s sovereignty and omnipotence, innate human capacities are diminished to the point of insignificance. This makes Luther’s anthropology pessimistic in regards to human capacities to do well. Questions of moral responsibility, the goodness of creation (including human reason), and the meaningfulness of human moral struggles are examined in the last section of our paper.
The article deals with some of Luther’s disputes from logical and semantic perspectives. It shows how Luther made use of some parts of medieval logic and semantics in order to elucidate the relationship between philosophy and theology. The author argues that Luther introduced the conception of „new language“ which offers a basis on which to differentiate between theology and philosophy. This difference between „old“ and „new“ language is a matter of a different significations of the terms used. From the exploration of the relationship between the two languages comes the conclusion: Luther’s theologically differentiating between theology and philosophy corresponds with his differentiating between „new“ and „old“ language.
The Bardejov Catechism is structuralized into ten parts (the last of which is the so called 'Haustafel') according to the oldest reconstructed structure of Luther's Little Catechism (1529). This first Slovak version of this work is written in Czech of Slovak redaction, with approximate orthography of the Renaissance Czech, which in some translated parts is very chaotic. In this catechism, Luther's own texts were translated from German and in at least one case from Latin, but other texts have other sources: the quotations from the Bible are mostly taken from the fifth edition of the Czech Melantrich Bible (1577) based on the Vulgate, some other from Jan Blahoslav's recent translation of the New Testament (1564 or 1568) based on Erasmus' new version. The main Christian ritual texts (Decalogue, Creed and Lord's Prayer) are included in their traditional Czech wording, with language archaisms and several words originating from the western Latin Christianization before the mission of Cyril and Methodius. The prayers have different, some of them ancient sources. The text doesn't answer the traditional question, whether his author/translator/editor is - as supposed - Severinus Sculteti, the VDM of the Bardejov Lutheran community.
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