Abstract
The article deals with the discussion between Martin Luther and the scholastic theologian and professor in Louvain Jacob Latomus, and especially with Luther’s viewpoint. In contrast to Latomus, Luther’s way of addressing the life of the baptized Christian is paradoxical. It places Christ at its center and is expressed in concepts reflecting continuity and discontinuity, time and eternity. It reveals a biblical understanding of historical reality, a reality which cannot be rationally understood by man and will always remain a mystery to the human mind. This is not to imply that Luther advocates a sacrificium intellectus, a biblicistic or fideistic view. His concern is to recognize Christ as the heart of theology and from that recognition to arrive at a correct approach to theological matters. In conclusion the article turns to a Swiss theologian, Stefan Streiff: he sees in Luther a representative of what he calls “Mediale Sprache” in opposition to “Instrumentelle Sprache”. This distinction between the two types of language is adopted as an appropriate description of the difference between Latomus and Luther.
© Walter de Gruyter
