Translated from Latin.
Philosophy, or human wisdom, describes man as an animal that has reason, sensation, and a body.
2 Now it is unnecessary to argue whether man is called an animal in the proper or improper sense.
3) But it is necessary to know that this description goes only 1) to the mortal man, and that in this life.
(4) And it is certainly true that reason is the noblest and most important of all things, and the best and most divine of all other things in this life.
1) Jenaer: tunturri; Erlanger: tuna.
5 For she is the inventor and ruler of all the arts, the science of medicine, jurisprudence, and all the wisdom, power, virtue, and honor that men possess in this life.
6 That it must therefore rightly be called the essential difference by which man is distinguished from animals and other things.
7. also the holy scripture makes her a mistress over the earth, birds, fishes, and over the cattle, saying, "rule" 2c.
This is that it is a sun and a kind of deity who is set to govern these things in this life.
*) This disputation is found in the collections of Luther's disputations of 1538 and 1558; then in the Jena edition (1579), lorn. I, toi. 501 and in the Erlangen, oxx. var. arZ., vol. IV, p. 413. We have translated according to the Jena.
9 And this glory God did not take away from reason after the fall of Adam, but rather confirmed it.
But that it is something so majestic, even reason does not know from the beginning, but only afterwards (a posteriore), [when it is instructed about it].
(11) Therefore, if we hold worldly wisdom, or reason itself, against God's teaching, it will become clear that we know almost nothing about man,
Since it can be seen that we hardly recognize its material cause sufficiently.
For the worldly wisdom does not know at least the active cause, likewise also not the final cause,
14. because it states no other final cause than the peace of this life, and does not know that the working cause is God, the Creator.
(15) But about the formal cause, which they call the soul, the wise men of the world have never agreed, nor will they ever agree.
For the fact that Aristotle describes it as the first instinct (actum) of a body that has the capacity to live, he only wanted to blind his readers and listeners.
And there is no hope that a man will be able to recognize himself according to this most noble part, what he is, until he has seen himself in the source, namely in God.
18) Yes, what is deplorable, he does not even have full and certain power over his counsel or over his knowledge 1) but is subject therein to chance and vanity.
19) But as this life, so is the description and knowledge of man, that is, it is small, impermanent (lubrica) and even too physical (materialis).
20. Godliness, on the other hand, describes man completely and perfectly from the fullness of wisdom.
(21) Namely, that man is a creature of God, consisting of the body and a living soul, which was initially created according to the laws of God.
1) Jenaer: eoAnitionem; Erlanger: eoAnitionum. We have followed the latter reading.
was created in the image of God without sin, so that he should propagate his race and rule over created things and be immortal,
(22) That after the fall of Adam he should be subject to the power of the devil, to sin, and to death, a twofold evil, which is insurmountable and unceasing to his powers.
(23) Wherefore he can be delivered and made a partaker of eternal life by none but Jesus Christ, the Son of God (if he believes in Him).
(24) Since this is certain, and this most beautiful and excellent of all things, as reason is after your fall, is under the power of the devil, we must also draw the conclusion:
(25) That the whole man and every man, whether he be king, lord, servant, wise, righteous, and richly endowed with all manner of goods of this life, yet be and remain guilty of sin and death, under the power of Satan.
(26) Therefore, those who claim that nature remained unharmed after the fall speak ungodly, according to their reason, against the doctrine of God.
(27) Likewise, those who say that if a man does as much as is in him, he can earn the grace of God and [eternal] life.
28 Similarly, those who refer to Aristotle (who knew nothing of a divinely learned [theologico] man) for the fact that reason strives for the best things.
(29) Likewise, that there be in man a light of the presence of God, by which we are signified, that is, free will, which both rightly guides the resolutions (dictamen) of reason and well establishes the will.
30 Likewise, that it is up to man to choose good and evil or life and death 2c.
All these do not understand what man is and do not know what they are talking about.
Paul summarizes Rom. 3, 32. in these words: "Therefore we hold that a man may be justified without works of the law, but only by the law.
1466 L. v.". iv. 416.4is. X. Luther's writings on the law and faith 2c. W. xix, 1730-1782. 1467
through faith", briefly summarizes the description of man and says: man is justified by faith.
Certainly, whoever says that a man must be made righteous, claims that he is a sinner, unrighteous and therefore guilty before God, but must be saved by grace.
(34) And he takes man in an indeterminate way, that is, in a general way, so that he may conclude the whole world, or all that is called man, under sin.
Therefore, man in this life is a mere matter of God for the life in that future form.
36. just as all creatures that now belong to the
vanity is a matter for God for its future glorious form.
37. and as the heavens and the earth were in the beginning to the form completed after six days, that is, its matter,
38. So also man in this life is [a matter] to his future form, when the image of God will be renewed and completely produced in us.
39 Meanwhile, man lives in sins and is either made more righteous day by day or he becomes more impure.
Therefore Paul does not even want to call this realm of reason world, but rather he calls it the essence (schema) of this world [1 Cor. 7, 31. rö xxxxx].