a. The theses.
Under the presidency of Brother Martin Luther, Master of Sacred Theology, Brother Leonhard Beyer, Master of Philosophy and Liberal Arts, will defend [these theses] before the Augustinians of this famous city of Heidelberg at the usual place, on April 26, 1518.
From Theology.
Completely suspicious of ourselves according to the advice of the Holy Spirit (Prov. 3, 5.): "Do not rely on your own understanding", we humbly hand over the following unusual sentences to the judgment of all those who wish to attend, so that it may be revealed whether they come from the holy apostle Paul, the most chosen vessel and work, or not.
Christ, as well as from St. Augustine, his most faithful interpreter:
1. the law of God, the most wholesome teaching of life, cannot promote man to righteousness, but rather hinders him.
2) Much less can the works of men, which are repeatedly done by the help of the rule of natural reason, as they say, promote this.
3. although the works of men are always apparent and seem good, it is probable that they are mortal sins.
(4) Although the works of God are always inconsequential and seem bad, they are in fact immortal merits.
5. the works of men, we speak
*) We have combined the four pieces related to the Heidelberg Disputation, which are separated in Walch's old edition, because especially the explanation of the sixth thesis had not been recognized as belonging to it: 1. They were published first, and only the theological ones, in the Theses Collections already given by us in the first note to No. 3 in this volume. In the complete editions, namely in Latin: Wittenberger (vol. I, col. 54), Jenaer (vol. I, col. 27), Erl. Ausg. (vur. ars. I, p. 387), and finally Weimarsche kritische Ausg. (vol. I, p. 353); the German translation by I. G. Zeidler has been included in the Hallische Theil (p. 120), in the Leipzig edition (vol. XVII, p. 146), and in the old Walch edition, which has been replaced by a new translation in this revised edition. - 2 The 28 theological theses with short proofs. They are first found in Latin in the Wittenberg GesammtAusgabe (vol. I, col. 141), from which they passed into the Latin Jena edition (vol. I, col. 28), from which Löscher printed them in his Reformation Acta (vol. II, p. 47), and the Erl. Ausg. opp. lut. var. urZ. (vol. I, p. 390). The Weimarsche kritische Ausg. brings it in its I. They were also translated into German by Zeidler, whose translation is included in the editions mentioned in 1. - 3 The explanation of the sixth thesis. In the older complete editions, only the last part of it appears, and that as a special writing, in the Latin Wittenberg edition. (Vol. I, col. 196) under the title: Ooutra Koüolastioorurn sententiara with the correct date 1518, in the Latin Jenaer Ausg. (Vol. I, col. 181) under the expanded title: Hxplieutio looi Leelssiustis 7th: Xon 68t sustus in t6rra ete. Oontru Koüolustieornin 86nt6ntia,rn. Under this title, it is included in Löscher's Reform Act (Vol. II, p. 325) and is included as a special document next to the Huu68tio II mentioned in No. 1, Note 1. This is also the case in the later complete editions: German in the Leipz. Ausg., Suppl., p. 18; in the old Walchsche Ausg., Bd. V, Sp. 2364, and Latin in the Erl. Ausg., ox>x>. 6X6Z., XXI, x. 252. As supposedly not yet printed and as Huaestio II, this explanation from an old manuscript from 1.1518 appeared in the "Innocent News for the Year 1703", which we have already discussed sub No. 1 in this volume. Also in the translation of this piece, we followed the Weimar edition, Vol. I, 365 ff. The three pieces discussed above are undisputed and certainly by Luther. But it is different with the explanations of the first two philosophical theses. 4. Already Walch (Einl. p. 17) doubts after Cyprian's processes that they come from Luther. The Weimar edition has omitted them "because nothing speaks for Luther", but against him the external testimony that they are marked in the Gotha manuscript, from which they are taken, with the words: äisxutatio LutUeri HeiäeUrerMs, per Ltikeliuru (namely exxlioutu). They are explanations, not, as the title says, to the 11th and 12th philosophical thesis, but to the first and second. We have retained them because they are in Walch's old edition and could therefore be missed by some.
here of the good ones, as they appear, are not mortal sins in the way that they would be crimes.
6 The works of God, we speak of those that are done through man, are not merits in such a way that they are not also sins.
7. the works of the righteous would be mortal sins if they were not feared as mortal sins by the righteous themselves out of pious fear of God.
(8) Much more are the works of men mortal sins, since they are done without fear in pure and evil certainty.
9 To say that works without Christ are dead but not deadly seems to be a dangerous abandonment of the fear of God.
(10) Yes, it is very difficult to see how a work can be dead and yet not be a harmful or deadly sin.
(11) Presumption cannot be avoided, nor can there be true hope, unless the judgment of condemnation is feared in every work.
12. Then, with God, sins are truly forgivable when they are feared by people as deadly.
Free will after the Fall is a mere name, and by doing as much as is in it, it sins mortally.
14 Free will after the Fall is able to do good through a suffering faculty, but in evil always through an active one.
(15) Even in the state of innocence he could not remain by an active, but only by a suffering capacity, let alone progress in good.
(16) The man who thinks he will attain to grace by doing what is in him adds to sin, so that he becomes doubly guilty.
(17) To speak in this way is not to give cause for despair, but to encourage the effort to humble oneself and seek the grace of Christ.
(18) It is certain that man must first despair of himself completely in order to be able to obtain the grace of Christ.
19. not the one who rightly becomes a theologian
who sees the invisible things of God as conceived through what has become.
20. but who understands the visible and lesser things of God, seen through the cross and suffering.
21 A theologian of glory calls evil good and good evil, but a theologian of the cross calls things as they are.
(22) That wisdom, which considers the invisible things of God to be understood from the works, completely inflates, blinds and hardens.
23. and the law works the wrath of God, kills, curses, makes guilty, judges and condemns everything that is not in Christ.
24 And yet that wisdom is not evil, nor to flee the law; but man without the theology of the cross misuses the best in the worst way.
25 Not he that worketh effectually is righteous, but he that believeth much in Christ without work.
(26) The law says, Do this, and it is never done; grace says, Believe in this, and all is already done.
(27) The work of Christ should properly be called active, and our work should be called active, and thus the active work should be pleasing to God through the grace of the active work.
The love of God does not find, but creates what is lovable to it; the love of man, however, arises from what is lovable to it.
From Philosophy.
If you want to philosophize in Aristotle without danger, you must first become a complete fool in Christ.
(30) Just as no one uses the evil of the fleshly air more than a married man, so no one practices philosophy more than a Christian.
It was easy for Aristotle to assume that the world is eternal, since in his opinion the human soul is mortal.
After one had assumed that there are as many essential forms (formas substantiales) as there are composite things, one should also have necessarily assumed that there are just as many matters.
(33) No thing in the world necessarily becomes anything, but matter necessarily becomes everything that naturally becomes.
If Aristotle had recognized the unlimited power of God, he would also have claimed that it is impossible for matter to exist on its own.
35 There is no thing that is infinite in activity, but according to capacity and matter there are as many as there are composite things; so Aristotle holds.
Aristotle reproves and violates the philosophy of Platonic ideas, which is better than his own.
The imitation of the numbers in the things is asserted in a witty way by Pythagoras, but more witty is the community of the ideas of Plato.
The argument of Aristotle against "the one" of Parmenides leads (one holds this to a Christian's credit) air pranks.
If Anaxagoras, as it seems, has set an infinite in form, he has been the best of the philosophers, also in spite of Aristotle.
In Aristotle, deprivation, matter, form, movable, immovable, activity, capacity 2c all seem to be One Thing.