Luther rightfully had had enough of the Roman Catholic church
corruption, blackmailing tyrannical hold through ever more
convoluted medieval mind church doctrine and fabricated
sacraments.
What he did not foreshadow were the changes that the new found individuals liberty
through Reformation would have on the development of the secular and scientific realm,
which in effect was responsible for weakening any prospect of introducing his own
dominant theistic orthodoxy.
Luther was a nominalist that saw the natural world/empiricism and theology
as oil and water that don't mix...so for Luther, the only way to understand g0d
was through scripture...which was at odds with institutional Catholicism that
'harmonised' with Greek pagan phylosophy.
He posited that one could be one's own priest in forming a personal relationship
with the creator in effect undermining the authority of RCC as the official earthly
spiritual intermediary..This personal empowerment policy could not be contained
to just spiritual matters, for it permeated also other already developing sectors
of society that had sprung from the dynamic momentum of the precursory Renaissance..
which in itself was supported by RCC but was also subject to constraints by RCC
(infused with much pagan underpinnings that had been adopted by RCC to float
it's wonky theology, which Luther was vehemently opposed to)
Thankfully the secular/empirical path gained more and more strength as result
of diminishing power of the RCC and independence delivered by Luther resulting in
greats like Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton who were prepared to question
long held ancient misconceptions (eg) Ptolemy's obsolete geocentric model which
institutional religion held onto since it was part of their flawed theological model.
Now an interesting point is, Luther's Reformation was only possible after
gaining much support from secular leaders in Germany and other northern states
waiting for opportunity to be free from the overarching attempts by the
southern RCC to gain complete cultural and religious domination of Europe.
The RCC responded with an equally zealous counter reformation which enhanced
the secular movement even further, for the RCC tried to better the Reformation
results through the Jesuits who employed many secular practices.
The overall effect was that the Reformation fragmented the monolithic
western church beyond repair, and both the Reformation movement and
the opposing RCC each fueled conditions which weakened their own
authority against secular growth and independence.
A valuable read is the 'Western Mind ' (spanning ancient Greece to Post modern)
by Richard Tarnas a Harvard man, Professor at CIIS
and founding director of its graduate program in
Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness.
