Martin Luther
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MARTIN LUTHER: THE RELUCTANT REVOLUTIONARY<br />
PROF. M. M. NINAN<br />
Regarding the Assumption of Mary, he stated that the Bible did not say anything about it.<br />
Important to him was the belief that Mary and the saints do live on after death.<br />
Mediatrix – that Mary functions as a mediatrix between man and God.<br />
<strong>Luther</strong> denied Mary’s power of intercession, as well as that of the saints in general, resorting to<br />
many misinterpretations and combated, as extreme and pagan.<br />
Every century this adoration of Mary led to its climax in 1996.<br />
At a Mariological Congress held at Czestochowa in August 1996, a commission was established in response to a<br />
request, by the Holy See, on the possibility of defining a new dogma of faith regarding Mary as Coredemptrix,<br />
Mediatrix and Advocate. The response of the commission, was unanimous and precise: it is not opportune to<br />
abandon the path marked out by the Second Vatican Council and proceed to the definition of a new dogma. If it<br />
was approved Mary would probably have been the fourth member of Godhead along with the Holy Trinity.<br />
B. Purgatory<br />
Roman Catholic teaching on Salvation<br />
In 1518 <strong>Luther</strong> wrote: 'I am very certain that there is a purgatory'.<br />
In the Leipzig debate of 1519 purgatory was discussed at length, <strong>Luther</strong> said he knew that there is<br />
a purgatory. The dispute was about the nature of the institution rather than its existence. But<br />
increasingly <strong>Luther</strong> could find no room for this doctrine in Scripture.<br />
By November 7, 1519, he wrote to George Spalatin: 'It is certain that no one is a heretic who does<br />
not believe that there is a purgatory,' although he had still professed to believe in its existence in<br />
February of that year.<br />
In 1520, he still holds to it.<br />
But thereafter his language becomes different until he calls it a "fabrication of the devil".<br />
Catholic theologians base their doctrine on the Apocryphal book 2 Maccabees 12:43-45: “For if<br />
he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous<br />
and foolish to pray for the dead. But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for those<br />
who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Therefore he made atonement for the<br />
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