Martin Luther on Natural / general revelation
Rejected as a real path to knowledge of God apart from Christ and special revelation
Now it is not sufficient for anyone, and it does him no good to recognize God in his glory and majesty, unless he recognizes him in the humility and shame of the cross.
THE POSITION
Luther's theology of the cross is built against natural theology. Reading God's invisible attributes off creation and history is exactly what he says disqualifies a man from being called a theologian; that wisdom is 'completely puffed up, blinded, and hardened,' and God has deliberately hidden himself in suffering so that he is found in the crucified Christ or not at all. The Large Catechism says the same negatively: the whole world has tried to work out what God is and 'has never been able to attain to any of these things.'
20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse.
NOBODY ELSE HOLDS 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 Natural / general revelation", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/luther/natural-revelation (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/luther/natural-revelation).