Martin Luther: The Autonomous-Self Meme

Abstract

In 2017, we marked the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation prompting many new books about its impact and its founding father, Martin Luther. This chapter focuses on how his preaching stressed individual capacity to stand on one’s own with only one’s faith and the supremacy of the individual conscience. Luther’s focus on unmediated faith, without clerics standing between the individual and God, was a key turning point in the growing autonomy of the common man. There is also a discussion of Luther’s seemingly contradictory message concerning free will, which he denied, stating “free choice is a pure fiction” during his battle with Desiderius Erasmus. While Erasmus’ view of free will replicated into the modern view, Luther’s focus on individual conscience and personal autonomy was a pivotal step toward increasing individualism where each person is now viewed as their own sovereign authority. This chapter shows how many of Luther’s extreme ideas did not reproduce, but his view of the autonomous-self did become an enduring meme.