Forerunners of the Reformation

Have you ever wondered what lead up to the Reformation? It's a question I obviously thought about a lot. While I still believe there are legitimate complaints by the Reformers of the 16th century about the state of the Church in their day, I also see the Reformation as tragic. In my view, the way things unfolded was not necessary but between corruption in the Papacy and Luther's scruples tragedy came about.

The video I'm sharing today is part of the story that culminated with Luther that wasn't talked about very much in my experience as a Lutheran. I had read here or there in biographies that Luther was influenced by a guy named William of Ockham, but I didn't really know what that meant. This talk by Roman Catholic theologian, Scott Hahn, is helping me to learn more about how influenced Luther was in his reading of the Bible and how he conceived of God Himself by the philosophy that came to be called "Nominalism".

Lutherans today say that Lutheran doctrine is simply the teaching of Scripture, but none of us approach the Bible or anything else as blank sheets of paper. The fact is that Luther was a man of his time, just as we all are, and was influenced by the philosophy he was taught. The ideas that had been planted a couple hundred years before him grew and bore fruit in his time and life.

The value of Scott Hahn's video here is that he presents the topic in a dynamic and engaging way. I commend it to you and hope you find it to be a helpful resource in understanding how we got to where we are today.