Luther: Der Luegenmeister.

"Aus einem verzagten Arsch kommt kein fröhlicher Furz!" (Martin Luther)


""""[Luther's] dialectical style was translated into the famous doctrine of the "two swords" dealing with authority in society. Luther argued that the authority of the Church ("the sword of doctrine") extended only to "spiritual" matters and that the Church should never interfere with the running of the state ("the sword of the princes"). In fact Luther taught that the princes could do whatever they needed to do to maintain order without regard to moral concerns. After all, justification was by faith, not by works and only dealt with one's eternal standing before God, not with one's temporal standing in the world. This was the first use of dialectical morality in Christian European history and was used to justify the brutalization, torture, rape and murder of peasants, Jews, Catholics, Anabaptists, and anyone else who threatened the absolute authority of the princes in their realms. Needless to say, this made Luther very popular with the more rapacious German nobles.""""

Luther/Errors

Arguments---sound arguments--- could be made that Luther and Lutheranism in some sense resulted in German nationalism, and the rise of the nazis. And if one recalls that Hegelian dialectic --Hegel was a devoted Lutheran at the end of his life, and rightist-militarist--- not only influenced German rightists, but Marx and the left , one could argue Luther, via Hegel ushered in Stalinism as well. Lutheran-Hegelian Apocalypse, dankeschoen.....Bertrand Russell sort of thought along those lines.

Luther rejected Aristotelian logic, and thus the law of contradiction (rather important to classical mathematics as well--try a reductio ad absurdum sans the law of contradiction), and most of the catholic theology (and in a sense greek rationalism): there is some mystical dualism instead, where Christ is both sinful man and god. That is one reason the catholics hated him (and burnt some of his translations of Screeepture), and still do. Luther's irrationalism then, according to this reading, had a great influence on Hegelian dialectic and marxism, which is also contra-Aristotelian logic (instead of objecting to contradiction as falsity, the protestants, and Hegelian-postmodernists in some sense embrace it).

That's not "necessary" in a sense (for one, methinks Hegel did respect the greeks to some extent--as did Kant), but some scholars argue in that fashion--I wager Gottlieb Frege, the father of modern logic and mathematical analysis, thought something like that (along with Russell, a Fregean such as Quine, writing on presumed challenges to the law of contradiction [a few supposed anomalies of quantum physics, or Browerian "intuitionism," etc.], also rejects the anti-rationalist, i.e. anti-logicist position). That's not to suggest that catholics are superior, or a more authentic tradition; merely that protestantism begins with a certain anti-rationalist position (Nietzsche also in that tradition to some degree, but FN, well-aware of the power of scientific empiricism--from Copernicus to Darwin--, simply rejects the theological BS---such as the dualism, either protestant/Hegelian or platonic-catholic--).


Therefore, we here at Contingencies interpret Luther's little anti-despair fart-rant, as sort of a "keep a smile on, firm-handshake, Win-Win situation" protestant-salesman BS: Reagan-like nearly. (Calvin himself also thought in those terms). I wager Luther was probably some big beer-swilling, pork-eating, saxon thug: recall his "sin strongly, but keep your faith" BS. In other words, keep your eye on the sparrow, und Gott im Himmel, as your Panzer division enters Poland.