The thoughts of Martin Luther on the right to resistance are usually examined with his work On Temporal Authority, published in 1523, in which Luther defended the sacredness of the secular authorities and rejected the natural law theories that limit the power of civil governments. Luther, in his early writings, identified two duties for Christians: trust God without any doubts to reach justification and obey the secular power even if it is evil. According to him, secular power is given to authorities by God’s will, and the use of force can only be allowable if the resister’s authority is equal or superior then the opponent’s position. However, by the 1530s, Luther changed his mind about the resistance, he invited German princes and all Christians to disobey the emperor and corroborated his arguments with imperial laws in 1531, Warning to His Dear German People. At the end of the decade, he radicalized the ideas on the resistance and even adduced from natural law. Behind this change, German politics and the emperor’s threats were quite effective on Luther’s thoughts. He tried to protect his reformed church and evangelical supporters in this process. After the 1530s, when the emperor planned to attack the Protestants, Luther reconstitutes his ideas that were the exact opposite of his early writings. Therefore, the temporality of Luther’s thoughts that were shaped with reactions of political facts can be examined with his arguments on the right to resistance.
Birincil Dil | İngilizce |
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Konular | Siyaset Bilimi |
Bölüm | Araştırma Makaleleri |
Yazarlar | |
Yayımlanma Tarihi | 22 Haziran 2021 |
Gönderilme Tarihi | 9 Nisan 2021 |
Yayımlandığı Sayı | Yıl 2021 Cilt: 2 Sayı: 1 |