Luther: The Theology of the Cross against the Theology of Glory and the Break with Scholasticism

In September 1517 Luther took part in a disputation against scholastic theology (aimed at Gabriel Biel), and in March 1518, together with Karlstadt, he removed scholasticism from the curriculum of the Wittenberg faculty, replacing it with Augustine and the Bible. At the Heidelberg Disputation (1518) he contrasted the theology of glory, which seeks God in works, with the theology of the cross, which knows God only in suffering and on the cross; he counted both Thomism and nominalism as theology of glory. Luther distinguished a general, "legal" knowledge of God available to all from the "evangelical" knowledge of what God wants to do for our salvation. Philosophy as an introduction to theology was rejected; reason is both a "whore" and "a very useful instrument."