Erasmus Versus Luther (Discourse on Free Will)

Essay by spiked12College, UndergraduateA-, December 2012

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Erasmus Versus Luther

During the 1500's, the Catholic Church was found abusing its power through religious slander. It was revealed that the church used its role as the Christian interpreter to trick people into believing that people could pay for things in the afterlife. For example, one of the many lies the church announced was that souls are able to pay in their lives to shorten their purgatory time, which is of course absurd. This was nowhere to be found in the scriptures, yet the Catholics were preaching this nonsense. From this unacceptable behavior, scholars began to reform against the church. When these scholars reformed, they did not necessarily attack the church. They just decided to fix what they believed was out of line.

One of the famous reformists is Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, more commonly known as Erasmus. This famous scholar became a reformist after witnessing the unethical and immoral actions of the church, which of course was the selling of indulgence to the people; the immoral act of tricking the less competent people made him furious.

Because of these sorts of unacceptable actions, Erasmus became bent on moral reform in the church more than anything. He did not agree with the church, but he still remained loyal to the pope.

The more famous reformist, if not the most famous, was Martin Luther. Luther was a priest for the Catholic Church, but he did not necessarily agree with the Church's teaching. Luther believed that God was a cruel supernatural being who was angry with the people. Seeing how so many people were being told to buy their indulgences, Luther thought that it was disgusting how God treated people. Ultimately, Luther began to search for a merciful God. He began to search for a God who loved his people because...