Held on September 4, 1517 at Wittenberg by Franz Günther from Nordhausen to obtain the dignity of Baccalaureus of the Holy Scriptures under the chairmanship of Martin Luther, Dean of the Theological Faculty.
Translated from the Latin.
The following theses will be publicly defended at a time and place to be determined by Magister Franz Günther of Nordhausen for the attainment of the dignity of a Baccalaureus under the chairmanship of the venerable father Martin Luther, Augustinian, Dean of the Wittenberg theological faculty.
1 To say that Augustine goes too far in what he speaks against the heretics is as much as to say that Augustine lied almost everywhere. - Against the general speech.
2. it is also as much as to the Pelagians
*) These theses are not found in any single print, but for the first time in the collection of various disputations, which is set in 1520 and came out under the title: InsiMium tkooloxorum, Domini
and give all heretics cause to triumph, even concede victory to them.
3 And it is as much as making a mockery of the reputation of all the teachers of the church.
It is therefore true that the man who has become an evil tree can only will and do evil.
It is false that free desire is able to do something according to both opposites; indeed, it is not free at all, but imprisoned. - Against the general opinion.
(6) It is false that the will can by nature be directed according to the right rule of reason. - Against Scotus and Gabriel.
7. but without the grace of God, he inevitably produces an action that does not correspond to it and is evil.
8 But it does not follow that he is evil by nature, that is, the nature of evil, as the Manichaeans teach.
9 However, it is inherently and inevitably evil and depraved in nature.
It is conceded that the will is not free to turn to everything that is held up to it as good. - Against Scotus and Gabriel.
11. nor does he have it in his power to want or not to want everything that is held against him.
12 Thus to speak is not against Augustine when he says: "Nothing is so in the power of the will as the will itself."
The conclusion is quite inconsistent: The erring man can love the creature above all, consequently also God. - Against Scotus and Gabriel.
(14) It is not to be wondered at that he can be guided by the erroneous rule of reason and not by the right one.
15 Yes, it is peculiar to him that he can only follow the wrong one and not the right one.
Rather, one should conclude thus: The erring man can love the creature, consequently it is impossible for him to love God.
17. man cannot by nature want GOD to be GOD; rather, he wants him to be GOD and GOD not to be GOD.
18) To love God above all things by nature is a fictitious saying, just like the chimera...) - Against the almost general opinion.
19 And the reason of Scotus of a good citizen who loves his state more than himself does not apply.
20. an act of friendship does not come to nature, but to obliging grace. - Against Gabriel.
In nature, there are only acts of lust against God.
22. Every act of lust against God is evil and fornication of the spirit.
(23) Nor is it true that the action of desire can be rectified by the virtue of hope. - Against Gabriel.
(24) For hope is not contrary to love, which alone seeks and desires what is of God.
Hope does not come from merit, but from suffering, which cancels out merit. - Against the custom of many.
26. an act of friendship is not the most perfect way to do what is in it, nor is it the most perfect qualification for the grace of God or the way to turn to God and approach Him.
It is an act of conversion already completed, later in time and nature than grace.
28. if of the sayings, "Return unto me, and I will return unto you" [Zech. 1:3]; likewise, "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you" [Jac. 4:8]; likewise:
1) The Chimera is a monster that consisted of a lion in the front, a goat in the middle that breathed fire, and a dragon in the back. Bellerophon killed it.
>lartini luitliori, XruZr. lüarolostnäii, kk. Nslaooktkonis et alioruin oonolnsionoü vnrias pro äivinao xrntäav ästensioos "o eorumsnäLtions: eontrn scliolastieoZ st polu^iunon oto. Then they came into the Wittenberg Theses - Collections of 1530 and 1531, which appeared under the title: kropo^itionos a ölnrtino I,otkero sudinäv äisputntao, and into the Baseler Thesm-Sammlung v. I. 1538. In the Gesammt-Ausgaben they are in Latin: in the Wittenberg (tom. I, col. 55), Jena <tom. l, col. 9), Erl. Ausg. opp. int. varii nrx. (I, p. 315), Weim. crit. Ausg. (vol. I, p. 221). Löscher also excluded them from his Reformation Acta. In German, they are found in the so-called Hallischer Theil (p. 87) and in the Leipziger Ausg. (Part XVII, p. 143). The Walch translation is replaced here by a new one.
"Seek and ye shall find" [Matt. 7:7]; likewise, "If ye seek me, I will be found of you" [Jer. 29:13]; and such as say that the one is due to nature, the other to grace, nothing else is asserted than what the Pelagians have said.
The best and infallible preparation and the only qualification for grace is the eternal election and provision of God.
(30) But on the part of man, grace is preceded by nothing but inability, even indignation against grace.
31) It is the most futile fiction, if it is said that the sentence: An elect can be damned, is true, if one separates the terms [in 8c-n8u äivwo], but not, if one takes them together [in sensu composito.] 1) - Against the scholastics.
32) Just as little comes out of the statement: The election is necessary according to the necessity of the consequence scon8equentia,6^, but not out of necessity of the following [ooWeguvnti]. 2)
(33) It is also false that if a man does as much as is in him, he removes the obstacles of grace. - Against some.
In short, nature has neither a right rule of reason, nor even a good will.
35. it is not true that an insurmountable ignorance excuses altogether [from sin]-against all scholastics.
For ignorance, which knows nothing about God and itself, nor what good works are, is always insurmountable to nature.
Nature even gloats and necessarily rises inwardly at every work that is apparently and outwardly good.
38. there is no moral virtue that can be de-
1) E.g. the sentence: "The sleeping can wake" is correct in !" n^n Nivi8n, since a man can sleep as well as wake, but at different times; only in svn.-ni cvn>i""-ito the sentence is wrong, because who sleeps, cannot wake at the same time.
2) What God wants must always happen (nocw-üät"" consequentiae), therefore a person chosen by God must necessarily be saved. But that just this person had to be chosen (necessitas conseguontis), there is no necessity for it.
would be neither without pride nor without sadness, that is, without sin.
We are not masters of our actions from beginning to end, but servants. - Against the philosophers.
(40) We do not become righteous by performing righteous acts, but after becoming righteous, we perform righteous acts. - Against the philosophers.
Almost the entire moral doctrine of Aristotle is the worst enemy of grace. - Against the Scholastics.
It is a misconception that Aristotle's opinion on happiness does not contradict Christian doctrine. - Against the moral teachings.
It is a mistake to claim that no one becomes a theologian without Aristotle. - Against the general speech.
Yes, no one becomes a theologian unless he becomes one without Aristotle.
To say that a theologian who is not a logician is a monstrous heretic is monstrous and heretical speech. - Against the general speech.
In vain, one invents a logic of faith, a substitution, brought about without proper manner of speaking and limits [suppositio ineckiutn extrn terminum et numerum]. - Against the newer dialecticians.
No syllogistic form holds stitch in statements about divine things. - Against the Cardinal svon Cambray]. 3)
48 It does not follow, however, that the truth of the article of the Trinity contradicts the syllogistic forms. - Against the same and the Cardinal of Cambray.
If a syllogistic form would hold in divine things, one could know the article of the Trinity and would not need to believe it.
In short, the whole of Aristotle is to theology as darkness is to light. - Against the Scholastics.
3) Pierre d'Ailly. In the X. Volume X of the St. Louis edition, p. 191, in the "Other Theological Disputation on the Secret of the Holy Trinity" 2c. Christian Massaeus, who, because he was also from Cambray, had the epithet Cameracensis, but was not a Cardinal and had no significance at all in scholasticism.
51. it is to be doubted strongly, pb the right mind of the Aristoteles is with the Latins.
52. it would have been better for the church if PorphyriuS with his universals had never been born to the theologians.
The more common explanations of Aristotle seem to foresee as proven what they should first prove.
54. For a meritorious action, either the presence of grace is sufficient, or the presence is nothing. - Against Gabriel.
55. The grace of God is never present in such a way that it is idle, but it is a living, busy and active spirit, and it cannot happen even by God's unlimited omnipotence that there is an act of friendship and the grace of God is not present. - Against Gabriel.
56. God cannot accept a man without the justifying grace of God. - Against Occam.
This speech is dangerous: the law commands that the fulfillment of the commandment be done in the grace of God. - Against the Cardinal and Gabriel.
From it would follow that "to have the grace of God" is already a new requirement beyond the law.
It would follow from the same that the fulfillment of the commandment could happen without the grace of God.
60 Likewise, it would follow that the grace of God would become even more detestable than the law itself was.
61. one cannot conclude: the law "must be kept and fulfilled in the grace of God: - Against Gabriel.
(62) Therefore, he who is outside the grace of God constantly sins by not killing, not committing adultery, not stealing.
63 But this follows: he sins by not fulfilling the law spiritually.
(64) Spiritually wise do not kill, do not break marriage, do not steal, who has no anger nor evil desire.
(65) Outside of the grace of God, it is so impossible not to have anger and evil desire that this cannot even be done in grace sufficient for the perfect fulfillment of the Law.
66. not killing in the work and outwardly, not breaking marriage 2c. is a righteousness of hypocrites.
67. It is by the grace of God that one has no evil desire nor anger.
Therefore, it is impossible to fulfill the Law in any way without the grace of God.
Yes, it is rather broken even more by nature without the grace of God.
The law, though good, is necessarily evil for the natural will.
Without the grace of God, law and will are two irreconcilable opposites.
What the law wants, the will always does not want, unless it pretends out of fear or love that it wants.
The law is a driver of the will, which alone is overcome by the "child that is born to us" [Is. 9:6].
74. the law makes sin exceedingly sinful [Rom. 7, 13.], because it irritates and draws the will back from itself.
75 But the grace of God makes righteousness through Jesus Christ exceedingly righteous, because it makes one have pleasure in the law.
Every work of the law without the grace of God appears outwardly as good, but inwardly it is sin. - Against the Scholastics.
The will is always turned away and the hand is turned toward the law of the Lord without the grace of God.
The will, which is turned toward the law without the grace of God, is so only out of consideration for its own advantage.
79. Cursed are all those who do the works of the law.
Blessed are all those who work works of God's grace.
The chapter Falsas: de poenit. <1i8s. 5, affirms that the works outside of grace are not good; if it is not misunderstood.
82. not only the ceremonial law is the not good law and the commandments in which one does not live: - Against many teachers.
83. but also the ten commandments themselves and everything that can only be taught and prescribed internally and externally.
The good law and the one in which one lives is the love of God poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
The will of every man would prefer that there be no law and that he be completely free.
The will of every man hates to have a law laid upon him, or desires it to be laid upon him only out of self-love.
Since the law is good, the will that is hostile to it cannot be good.
And from this it is clear and evident that every natural will is unjust and evil.
As a mediator, grace is necessary to reconcile the law with your will.
90. The grace of God is given to guide the will, so that it does not also err in the love of God. - Against Gabriel.
91. It is not given in order to bring about acts [of love] more frequently and easily, but because without it, no act of love is brought about at all. - Against Gabriel.
The proof is irrefutable that love is superfluous when man is naturally able to do an act of friendship. - Against Gabriel.
It is shrewd but wicked [subtils malum] to say that enjoyment and use are one and the same act. - Against Occam, the Cardinal and Gabriel.
The same is true when it is said that the love of God can exist even with a fierce love for the creature.
To love God is to love oneself and to know nothing except God.
We are required to conform our wills entirely to the will of God. - Against the Cardinal.
97. Not only what God wants us to want, but in general everything that God wants, we must want.
In all this we do not want to say anything, nor do we believe to have said anything, which would not be in accordance with the Christian church and the church teachers.