Some scholars have asserted that Luther taught that faith and reason were antithetical in the sense that questions of faith could not be illuminated by reason. He wrote, "All the articles of our Christian faith, which God has revealed to us in His Word, are in presence of reason sheerly impossible, absurd, and false." and "[That] Reason in no way contributes to faith. [...] For reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things." However, though seemingly contradictorily, he also wrote in the latter work that human reason "strives not against faith, when enlightened, but rather furthers and advances it", bringing claims he was a fideist into dispute. Contemporary Lutheran scholarship, however, has found a different reality in Luther. Luther rather seeks to separate faith and reason in order to honor the separate spheres of knowledge that each applies to. Bernhard Lohse, for example, has demonstrated in his classic work "Fides und Ratio" that Luther ultimately sought to put the two together. More recently, Hans-Peter Grosshans has demonstrated that Luther's work on Biblical Criticism stresses the need for external coherence in the right exegetical method. This means that for Luther it is more important that the Bible is reasonable according to the reality outside of the scriptures than that the Bible makes sense to itself, that it has internal coherence. The right tool for understanding the world outside of the Bible for Luther is none other than reason, which for him is the field of science, philosophy, history and empirical observation. Here a different picture is presented of a Luther who deeply valued both faith and reason, and held them in dialectical partnership. Luther's concern thus in separating them is honoring their different epistemological spheres.
What did Luther think that faith could not be understood by?
reason reason human reason
Some scholars have asserted that Luther taught that faith and reason were antithetical in the sense that questions of faith could not be illuminated by reason.
Some scholars have asserted that Luther taught that faith and reason were antithetical in the sense that questions of faith could not be illuminated by reason.
What did Luther think that faith could not be understood by?