Martin Luther, and John Calvin

 

Question:  Who started the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther or John Calvin?

 

Google: Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms 1521.  Martin Luther, a German teacher and a monk, brought about the Protestant Reformation when he challenged the Catholic Church's teachings starting in 1517.  The Protestant Reformation was a religious reform movement that swept through Europe in the 1500s.

What is the difference between Martin Luther and John Calvin?

The difference between the two is primarily a matter of emphasis rather than a matter of content.  For Calvin, God is strictly a personal being whose omnipotence controls everything.  Like Luther, he held that God is absolute sovereign.  However, Calvin goes a little beyond Luther in his emphasis on this point.

Did John Calvin agree with Martin Luther?

It has long been recognized that John Calvin admired Martin Luther and that the Frenchman's theology at various moments approached the teaching of Wittenberg.  This relationship, however, was always mediated, particularly through the work of Philip Melanchthon.

The greatest leaders of the Reformation undoubtedly were Martin Luther and John Calvin.  Martin Luther precipitated the Reformation with his critiques of both the practices and the theology of the Roman Catholic Church.

Who started the first Reformation?

Martin Luther

The Reformation generally is recognized to have begun in 1517, when Martin Luther (1483–1546), a German monk and university professor, posted his ninety-five theses on the door of the castle Church in Wittenberg.

He rejected the Roman Catholic belief that Mary acts as a mediator between man and God as idolatry, since only Christ can fulfil this role.  Calvin forbade prayers and supplications to Mary for the same reason, further arguing that praying to the dead is not a practice supported by Scripture.

What started the Protestant Church?

The Reformation began in Germany in 1517, when Martin Luther published his Ninety-five Theses as a reaction against abuses in the sale of indulgences by the Catholic Church, which purported to offer the remission of the temporal punishment of sins to their purchasers.

Calvin believed that human beings have access to the saving truths of religion only insofar as God has revealed them in Scripture. But revealed truths were not given to satisfy human curiosity but were limited to meeting the most urgent and practical needs of human existence, above all for Salvation.

 

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