 Born in decided who will go to Heaven
Eisleben, and who won't.
Germany, in
1483, Martin
Luther went on
to become one
of Western
history’s most significant figures.
 Luther spent his early years in
relative anonymity as a monk and
scholar.
 But in 1517 Luther penned a
document attacking the Catholic
Church’s corrupt practice of selling
“indulgences” to absolve sin.
 His “95 Theses,” which propounded
two central beliefs—that the Bible
is the central religious authority
and that humans may reach
salvation only by their faith and
not by their deeds—was to spark
the Protestant Reformation.
 Although these ideas had been
advanced before, Martin Luther
codified them at a moment in history
ripe for religious reformation.
 The Catholic Church was ever after
divided, and the Protestantism that
soon emerged was shaped by
Luther’s ideas. His writings changed
the course of religious and cultural
history in the West.
 Calvin
believed that
the Bible was
the only real
source of truth
about religion.
He thought
that people might not always
understand God's teachings but
we still had to follow them. Calvin
also believed in predestination,
the idea that God has already
 That all sounds pretty harsh, but
Calvin didn't just want people to be
sad all the time. He thought that
real religious belief would help
people with their worries and
fears.
TULIP
 Total Depravity/Inability
o This is saying that man is
hopelessly sinful. Man is
incapable of being "good."
Any "good" deed is truly
motivated by something evil.
The rest of the four points rely
on this point.
 Unconditional Election
o This is what I find outrageous.
Since man is totally evil,
man's salvation is completely
dependant upon God. This
part is somewhat biblical; God
chooses who he chooses. No
matter how hard man tries, his
actions alone cannot get him
into heaven; God is the only
one who has control.
However, I believe that God
will save those whose hearts
are totally dedicated to Him,
thus granting some influence
to man. Afterall, God is just.
However, calvinists see it
otherwise. Calvinists believe
that man has no free spiritual
will.
 Limited Atonement
o Since God predestined the
elect, Jesus paid only for
those few elect.
 Irresistible Grace
 o The elect have no choice  A group calling themselves the
about being elect. The elect Anabaptists (Re-baptizers) opposed
cannot resist God's grace. the policy of infant baptism and
refused to join Zwingli’s group.
 Perseverence of the Saints
They were ruthlessly silenced and left
o Calvinists believe that once Zurich in 1526.
you're saved, you're always  Gradually Zwingli tried to spread
saved since God had reformation ideas across all the
predestined the elect and the Swiss cantons, but this met with
elect have no choice about mixed success. Eventually civil war
being elect. broke out and in 1531, Zwingli was
killed in battle while defending Zurich.
___________________________________
 Gradually
Zwingli began to
The Catholic Response to the
oppose the
teachings of the
Protestant Reformation
Roman Catholic
Martin Luther's 95 Theses set the Catholic
Church, having
world on fire in 1517, and nearly 25 years
come into contact
after the Catholic Church condemned
with the writings
Luther's theological errors at the Diet of
of Martin Luther.
Worms (1521), Pope Paul III attempted to put
 He began to
out the flames by convening the Council of
attack the doctrines of purgatory,
Trent (1545-63). The Council of Trent
prayers to saints and significantly the
defended important Church doctrines that
doctrine of the real presence of Christ
Luther and later Protestants attacked, such
in the Eucharist.
as transubstantiation (the belief that, during
 The Zwinglian view of the presence of
the Mass, the bread and wine become the
Christ is commonly called
true Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, which
‘Memorialism’ – the idea that the
Catholics then receive in Communion); that
bread and the wine are merely
both faith and the works that flow from that
symbols of Christ’s body and blood.
faith are necessary for salvation; that there
This contrasts with Luther’s view that
are seven sacraments (some Protestants
the body and blood of Christ are truly
had insisted that only Baptism and
present in the bread and the wine and
Communion were sacraments, and others
the view of John Calvin, that Christ is
had denied that there were any sacraments);
spiritually present.
and that the pope is the successor of Saint
 Pope Adrian VI took notice of the
Peter, and exercises authority over all
situation and requested that the
Christians.
council in Zurich discipline Zwingli
and declare him a heretic. In 1523, a
public hearing was held there. Zwingli But the Council of Trent addressed
defended himself and his defense structural problems within the Catholic
proved persuasive – the council Church as well, many of which had been
backed him and thus endorsed the cited by Luther and other Protestant
reformation. reformers. A series of popes, particularly
from the Florentine Medici family, had
caused grave scandal through their
personal lives (like Cardinal Farnese,
they often had mistresses and fathered
children), and their bad example was
followed by a significant number of
bishops and priests. The Council of Trent
demanded an end to such behavior, and
put into place new forms of intellectual
and spiritual training to ensure that future
generations of priests would not fall into
these same sins. Those reforms became
the modern seminary system, in which
prospective Catholic priests are trained
even today.
Through the council's reforms, the
practice of appointing secular rulers as
bishops came to an end, as did the sale
of indulgences, which Martin Luther had
used as a reason to attack the Church's
teaching on the existence of, and need
for, Purgatory. The Council of Trent
ordered the writing and publishing of a
new catechism to make it clear what the
Catholic Church taught, and called for
reforms in the Mass, which were made by
Pius V, who became pope in 1566 (three
years after the council ended). The Mass
of Pope Pius V (1570), often regarded as
the crown jewel of the Counter-
Reformation, is today known as the
Traditional Latin Mass or (since the
release of Pope Benedict XVI's
Summorum Pontificum) the
Extraordinary Form of the Mass.
Europe. He founded seminaries and
schools throughout Northern Italy, and
traveled throughout the area under his
authority, visiting parishes, preaching,
and calling his priests to a life of holiness.
St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622), the
bishop of Geneva, in the very heart of
Calvinism, won many Calvinists back to
the Catholic Faith through his example of
"preaching the Truth in charity." Just as
importantly, he worked hard to keep
Catholics in the Church, not only by
teaching them sound doctrine but by
calling them to the "devout life," making
prayer, meditation, and the reading of
Scripture a daily practice.
St. Teresa of Avila (1515-82) and St.
John of the Cross (1542-91), both
Spanish mystics and Doctors of the
Church, reformed the Carmelite order
and called Catholics to a greater life of
interior prayer and commitment to the will
of God.

Other Chief Figures of the

Counter-Reformation

While there are many important figures

who left their mark on the Counter-
Reformation, four in particular bear
mentioning. St. Charles Borromeo
(1538-84), the cardinal-archbishop of
Milan, found himself on the front lines as
Protestantism descended from Northern