Silly Luther stuff From Catholic Answers

I don’t know what it is about the folks who hang around on the Catholic Answers forums. It’s like a meeting place for the ridiculous. Here’s something posted recently:

Here is how I look at Luther:"And Satan will be let loose for a time, and he worketh thru his prophet Martin Luther...."I personally believe by reading all his works, he was under the influence of Satan, if not Satan's unholy angels. Only Satan and his minions are so capable of distorting and twisting scripture to their own means. Martin Luther set in motion the greatest ever-growing Schism the Christian nation has known. 28,000 distinct Protestant Denominations have existed since the Martin Luther and it is estimated that 5 new denominations start somewhere around the world each week. Schism upon Schism upon Schism upon Schism. It is out of control.Not to be judgmental but Martin Luther was one of the false prophets mentioned by Jesus. Hazarding a guess, I would say he is in hell and if by chance he is in heaven, his mansion in heaven is about the size of an Outhouse....

The man who posted these comments calls himself “Joey Warren.”If my sleuth work is accurate, his blog can be found here: http://dialeticscripture.blogspot.com/. Joey says his comments are based on reading all the works of Luther. I’m assuming he read them all in English, so he read over 50 volumes of material. I simply do not believe it. Yes, that’s right: one of the defenders of the Papacy is using mis-truth to provide Catholic answers. Go figure.

I asked Joey the following question: Have you really read all of Luther's Works? Which "works" specifically led you to your conclusion? His answer:

“ColloquiaLuther’s New TestamentLuther's New Testaament (Edition of 1524). Luther's New Testaament (Edition of 1622).Do you want me to quote his heretical statements?We could just start with his "Sola Srcriptura", "Sola Fide" and the other one. All three are unbiblical and heretical.”

As I suspected, Joey hadn’t read all his works. Another participant, a man fairly knowledgeable about Luther responded:

In other words, you have not read all his works. (Luther wrote many, many works besides those you list. Probably most Luther experts have not read all Luther's works. There might be a half a dozen people in the world who have.) Why did you falsely claim that you had? By "Colloquia" I presume you mean the Tischreden. Did you read all of them? And what do you mean by having read three different editions of Luthers NT? What edition is represented by "Luther's New Testament" without a year? And how is the 1622 edition different from the 1524 edition? What did you learn about Luther from reading an edition published 100 years after his time? I applaud you, at any rate, on your ability to read 16th-century German. Unless that also turns out to be a false claim. . . . (It is implicit in the claim that you read "Luther's New Testament," which is a German translation, obviously.) I don't know what you think you are accomplishing by making these weird assertions.

Joey finally came clean after this and admitted he hadn’t actually read much of Luther:

No, I did not read them in their entirety, on the passages that were relevant to my investigation. This was done during the early 80's while in the Navy. Don't applaud me, I had lots of help. I took a trip to Europe to investigate these accusations people have made about his statements about the scriptures. I went to Germany and Rome and visited the libraries and asked to be shown certain passages where these quotes were. I had the librarian copy these after I found some scholars that could read the stuff enough. Then I visited the Universities where Theology was taught and got the same from the Professors. Then it took several months to find a couple of Linquists to translate these individually. So what I have is the photocopy of the text and it's transliteration. I hope one day that someone will put his entire works in English for the whole world so the truth of the matter can be ascertain. The problem with US libraries and Universities is that they have "Select" writings translated, not all of them. And what they do have, supports their teaching and beliefs. But I think it is in the best interest of the Lutheran movement that these don't become available in English.....

“That would be my challenge to the Lutherans. Put every single one of his writings in English if they so believe that he was so HOLY and so RIGHT. but they will not, and I can take that to the bank and draw interest on it. Some things are better left hidden from the world....for some.”

“I was looking in particular to references where Martin Luther questioned or made outright statements that certain books of the bible were not Inspired by God.”

I have good news for Joey- Much of Luther’s works in English have been available for quite some time, decades actually. The material he’s looking for about "certain books of the bible" can be found here Luther’s View of the Canon of Scripture.