Man is entirely egotistical, and bent to evil. In Luther, man is so utterly fallen that there is no natural inclination of the will to the good, unlike in Aquinas. We see here Luther both for and against the Ockhamist tradition, but squarely working out the consequences of the Augustinian notion of the desire for mastery corrupting everything – even against Augustine’s appropriation of the Neoplatonism found in the Late Antique world. For an act to be meritorious, either the presence of grace is sufficient, or its presence means nothing.” This is because the natural goodness of our humanity is corrupted by sin so thoroughly that our efforts to acquire good habits can only produce evil fruit appropriate to our fallenness: “ith God there is nothing intermediate between righteousness and sin, no neutral ground so to speak, which is neither righteousness nor sin.” Whether the Ockhamist contracted merit obtained through effort or the “semimerit” of Aquinas, Luther rejects it. We do not become righteous by doing righteous deeds but, having been made righteous, we do righteous deeds.” Indeed, “54. nothing precedes grace except indisposition and even rebellion against grace.” Yet in line with the covenantal distinction between person and work, Luther will write that “40. We saw above the line from Biel about “turning to God and doing what one can” for Luther, this is nonsense, as “30. This could only result in idolatry, because the mind, conscience, and will of humanity (as Luther argues) were bent toward concupiscence, and were unable to know God. Whether in the rational theology of the Late Antique and early Medieval period or the speculative theology of the late Scholastics, Luther saw “only an effort to manipulate revelation with reason”, just as works done to earn grace were an effort to manipulate God. In opposing the speculative theology of the late Scholastic nominalists, “Luther may have been more consistently Ockhamist than were” those he opposed. For Ockham, the world was contingent, not necessary, and only concepts, words, and promises bound man to God and to the world.” Ozment elsewhere describes the center of Luther’s thought in similar terms, as following the Ockhamist tradition on this point: “Luther found the interpretive center of the Bible in what is variously called pactum or testamentum, the promise of God, the foundation of salvation and the sacraments.” This promise is known through the signs of the promise, and reason cannot bypass the signs to know something about God apart from them. Continued from part one, which was followed by part two: this is the third and final post (for now, until I get to Calvin at some future date.)ħ) Ozment argues that “n Ockham’s philosophy, ‘artificial’ relations replaced assumed real relations between God, man, and the world.

Martin luther and william of ockham