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Luther believed that "faith alone" in Jesus Christ was necessary for salvation. He believed that good works were useless. Consequently, he tried to take The Letter of James out of the New Testament where it bluntly states, "faith without works is dead". In this he failed, with friends warning him that if he pushed for it his whole movement might fail. The Catholic Church believes that faith in Christ is necessary for salvation...and ultimately, only faith. However, the Catholic Church holds true to the Bible that any real faith must produce good works or it is not real faith.

Luther believed in "sola scriptura", which means scripture alone should be used to figure out church stances and positions on various issues. The Catholic Church believes that holy scripture is primary but church tradition also should factor into this process, albeit as secondary only.

Luther believed that clergy should be able to marry while the Catholic Church has maintained celibacy for priests for most of it's 2000 year history. It should be noted that this is different than the other issues as the Catholic Church does not hold this rule up as an permanent article of faith and could actually change it tomorrow.

Luther believed in a ordained clergy but not in a hierarchy as complex as the Catholic Church, where priests report to bishops, and so on and so forth, all the way up to the Pope. It should be said that many think that given the right Popes during his lifetime, Luther could have lived with the concept.

Luther believed in personal confession to God without the use of a confessor for the forgiveness of sins, where as the Catholic Church believes in private confession with the use of a confessor.

Luther did not believe in the practice of selling indulgences, which by the way, WAS NOT the selling of forgiveness but something else entirely. In any event however, the Catholic Church later discontinued the process and indulgences are free today.

Luther believed in a type of "once saved, always saved" born-again experience but it was rather different than how many evangelical Protestants and even some Lutherans believe today. The Catholic Church believes that faithful Christians of any denomination can have a reasonable assurance of salvation provided that they are not in a state of mortal sin but no one can know for sure if they are saved or not until they die and face judgment.

Luther did not believe in the existence of purgatory and tried to take out both Books of Maccabees from the Old Testament. (In Maccabees, praying for the dead is clearly prescribed.) In this he was successful. The Catholic Church did not remove those two books from the Old Testament and still today holds to the notion of purgatory. To be clear, purgatory can be defined as "a place or state of purification that already saved souls experience before going on to heaven". Any soul there will end up in heaven, whether they are prayed for or not, being prayed for just hurries up the process.


Interestingly enough, Luther strongly endorsed some positions where he agreed with the Catholic Church and where many modern Lutherans and most Protestants disagree with both Luther and the Catholic Church.

Luther always held fast to every belief that the Catholic Church holds about Mary, he never dissented in a single way about anything here.

Luther did believe in the real presence, or in other words, Luther believed that the bread and wine, (never grape juice!), really became the actual blood and body of Jesus Christ. He simply disagreed in the process, in how it happened.


Overall, it's been said by Catholics and Lutherans alike, that if the post Vatican II Catholic Church, (after 1965), was the Catholic Church of Luther's lifetime, than he never would have started his movement. It just so happened that Luther lived at a time when the Catholic Church was at it's lowest point, managerial wise.

2007-03-20 12:03:23 · answer #1 · answered by Raindog 3 · 0 0

He believed that you didn't have to confess to a priest or pay money for your sins to be forgiven (during that time, Catholic Churches had you pay after confession to have your sins forgiven) as well, priests could be married and that the Bible should be available for all to read in their language, not just Latin. Once Luther and the protestants left Catholicism, the Catholic Church went through major changes, which most of which make the Catholic Church what it is today compared to then.

2007-03-20 10:54:23 · answer #2 · answered by garyr_h 3 · 1 1

If you read Martin Luther's theses they are mostly protests of practice not doctrine.

Most of the not so good practices have been cleaned up but whenever people are involved there is always room for improvement.

However I don't think Martin Luther was always right on, for example his first thesis already sounds like trouble:

"When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said 'Repent', He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance."

The Catholic Church calls for repentance at certain times of our lives but we are also called to live in happiness and joy.

With love in Christ.

2007-03-20 17:46:40 · answer #3 · answered by imacatholic2 7 · 0 0

Transubstatiation- the Catholics taught that the Priest at communion could and did change the bread & wine into the actual, real body and blood of Christ. Luther said that was balony. Many were burned at the stake by the Catholic run Inquisition for admiting they didn't belive in this nonsense. One woman was still arguing " if you take the bread from eucharist home and leave a few days, it will get moldy just like any other bread" when the fire was consuming her. Jew's were accused of sneaking into the church and knifing the bread causing it to bleed.

2007-03-20 15:51:01 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0 2

Luther believed that the Catholic church coveted the basic principles of Christianity - he disliked the notion of selling forgiveness. Additionally he also believed that there was far too much dogmatic law that was contrary to biblical passages

2007-03-20 10:53:38 · answer #5 · answered by max power 3 · 0 1

Luther taught Righteousness by Faith which was different than than Catholic church's reliance on works to be saved. He also denounced the sale of indulgences to buy one's way into heaven.

2007-03-20 10:50:20 · answer #6 · answered by BookAddict 3 · 1 1

He didn't like the way the Church was running things.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_luther

VLR

2007-03-21 07:12:01 · answer #7 · answered by Jesus and Pals 2 · 0 0

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