Martin Luther on Divine plurality & the unseen realm
Never posed as a question in these terms
THE POSITION
Nothing in the works read poses the question of what the other elohim of the Hebrew Bible are. Luther's nearest material is the Large Catechism on the First Commandment, where 'god' is defined functionally — whatever a person trusts for every good — which is an account of idolatry in the heart rather than a claim about the ontology of spiritual beings. He treats the devil and evil spirits as real throughout, but never ranks them as a divine council.
WHY THERE IS NO QUOTATIONTwo positions carry a quotation but are marked contested because Luther never frames the question the locus asks: the extent of the atonement, and the moment the Spirit indwells. Divine plurality has no quotation at all — nothing in the works read poses the question.
3 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Augustinian friar whose protest over indulgences opened the Reformation, and the theologian for whom justification by faith and the bondage of the will are the whole of the gospel. This entry rests on his own writings only — The Bondage of the Will (1525), the Smalcald Articles (1537), the Large and Small Catechisms (1529), Concerning Christian Liberty (1520), the Heidelberg Disputation (1518), the Church Postil and his biblical prefaces — and deliberately excludes the Augsburg Confession and the Formula of Concord, which are not his.
Cite this page
"Martin Luther on Divine plurality & the unseen realm", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/luther/divine-plurality (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/luther/divine-plurality).