Does Islam Need a Luther or a Pope?
"Faith alone" is for many a Protestant the ground, not only of salvation, but ultimately also of knowledge. "Reason is the devil's whore," Luther tells us, and it "must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed."
I did a Google search for "'Reason is the devil's whore' luther" and it looks like the quote checks out, at least in terms of minor popularity. The most complete contextual quotation I could find says this:
"And I sat in my heap of pain until the words emerged and opened out, 'The just shall live by faith. My pain vanished, my bowels flushed and I could get up. I could see the life I'd lost. No man is just because he does just works... This I know; reason is the devil's whore, born of one stinking goat called Aristotle, which believes that good works make a good man. But the truth is that the just shall live by faith alone. I need no more than my sweet redeemer and mediator, Jesus Christ."
If true, however, it is shocking. It's a brazen dismissal of rationality. It's a statement that is more open and honest in it's intentions than any I've seen from a subjectivist.
I did find a Luther-Aristotle analysis that persuasively argues Luther's animosity towards Aristotle...if the quote is true:
When Luther spoke of "reason" he often meant Aristotle - & specifically, what he saw as the undue influence influence of Aristotle on medieval theology. He did not object to the use of "reason" in theology but insisted that it had to serve revelation & not be its master. Reason must have a ministerial, not a magisterial, role in theology. "He who wishes to
theologize with Aristotle must first become thoroughly a fool for Christ."
The rest of Edward Feser's essay is extremely interesting. I may post about it after spending some time pondering it.
UPDATE(12/16/2003 12:10am)
The ultimate irony: blogging about how hard it is to find information on a subject...only to end up as the #1 Google hit for the subject you had trouble researching.
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I believe the "Relationship to Philosophy" section of this site will help you understand the situation better... at any rate it did me.
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/l/luther.htm
Posted by: rebecca on December 15, 2003 12:06 AM"And in the last sermon preached at Wittenberg, towards the end of his life: "Reason is the devil's greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the devil's appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom...Throw dung in her face to make her ugly. She is, and she ought to be, drowned in baptism...She would deserve, the wretch, to be banished to the filthiest place in the house, to the closets.""
Erlangen Edition Samtliche Werke(1826-1857)--67 8vo. vols. This quote is found in Erl., 16, 142 to 148 (1546). Cf. Denifle-Paquier, III, 277-278.
I don't know whether you have access to these (I don't), but you can find a great deal of information on Luther in Jacques Maritain's book, Three Reformers Luther-Descartes-Rousseau.
(I'm using spaces since I can't underline or italicize.)
My edition (which I accidentally 'stole' from the Franciscan Monastery in D.C., while I was staying there this summer editing a book on metaphysics) is from November 1929, Sheed & Ward, London.
It's a good read. I don't know how familiar you are with Jacques Maritain, but he was very Catholic, and very not-Protestant. So, he might be slanted towards Catholicism, but in my opinion, he is a trustworthy scholar, at least for his sources, which sources I had at least as much trouble over as did you.
That quote was on page 33 of my edition, and he has source notes and endnotes together at the back.
I am Catholic. I converted in 9th grade after several months of intense prayer and study, from a background of fundamentalism, Bob Jones University Press school textbooks, adulation of Pat Robertson, etc.
I was looking for a quote of Luther regarding Aristotle, which I remember seeing in this same book I referenced, but didn't want to read skim through it all. That's how I came to your page.
Go with God
Joseph Woodard
Thanks for that information, Mr. Woodard.
They really knew how to lay it on thick then, eh?
Posted by: Drizz on September 30, 2004 04:38 PMI also ran across this discussion in a search for this quote. However, I believe what Luther meant by this, was in the context of making 'reason' the ultimate basis for our decisions, rather than God's word.
Remember that Luther was up against a battle over the place of Scripture against ideas that everything we needed to know could be deduced by our fallible human reason. He held that certain things were just not open to our knowing 'a priori' (or just knowing something because we do from all time).
So, Luther was not against the use of reason, just not letting reason stand on its own. Faith and reason are not polar opposites at all, we just need remember our limitations and put priority in the right place.
-Steve
(I'll probably not return to this site... just wanted to comment... so if anyone wants to respond, please send me an e-mail... or maybe a link so I can find my way back here).