He longed now to make known to theologians and ecclesiastics generally his thoughts about indulgences, his own principles, his own opinions and doubts, to excite public discussion on the subject, and to awake and maintain the fray. This he did by the ninety-five Latin theses or propositions which he posted on the doors of the Castle Church at Wittenberg, on October 31, 1517, the eve of All Saints' Day and of the anniversary of the consecration of the Church.
These theses were intended as a challenge for disputation. Such public disputations were then very common at the universities and among theologians, and they were meant to serve as means not only of exercising learned thought, but of elucidating the truth. Luther headed his theses as follows:—
'Disputation to explain the virtue of indulgences.-In charity and in the endeavour to bring the truth to light, a disputation on the following propositions will be held at Wittenberg, presided over by the Reverend Father Martin Luther…. Those who are unable to attend personally may discuss the question with us by letter. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.'
It was in accordance with the general custom of that time that, on the occasion of a high festival, particular acts and announcements, and likewise disputations at a university, were arranged, and the doors of a collegiate church were used for posting such notices.
The contents of these theses show that their author really had such a disputation in view. He was resolved to defend with all his might certain fundamental truths to which he firmly adhered. Some points he considered still within the region of dispute; it was his wish and object to make these clear to himself by arguing about them with others.
Recognising the connection between the system of indulgences and the view of penance entertained by the Church, he starts with considering the nature of true Christian repentance; but he would have this understood in the sense and spirit taught by Christ and the Scriptures, as, indeed, Staupitz had first taught it to him. He begins with the thesis 'Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He says Repent, desires that the whole life of the believer should be one of repentance.' He means, as the subsequent theses express it, that true inward repentance, that sorrow for sin and hatred of one's own sinful self, from which must proceed good works and mortification of the sinful flesh. The Pope could only remit his sin to the penitent so far as to declare that God had forgiven it.
Thus then the theses expressly declare that God forgives no man his sin without making him submit himself in humility to the priest who represents Him, and that He recognises the punishments enjoined by the Church in her outward sacrament of penance. But Luther's leading principles are consistently opposed to the customary announcements of indulgences by the Church. The Pope, he holds, can only grant indulgences for what the Pope and the law of the Church have imposed; nay, the Pope himself means absolution from these obligations only, when he promises absolution from all punishment. And it is only the living against whom those punishments are directed which the Church's discipline of penance enjoins: nothing, according to her own laws, can be imposed upon those in another world.
Further on, Luther declares, 'When true repentance is awakened in a man, full absolution from punishment and sin comes to him without any letters of indulgence.' At the same time he says that such a man would willingly undergo self-imposed chastisement, nay, he would even seek and love it.
Still, it is not the indulgences themselves, if understood in the right sense, that he wishes to be attacked, but the loose babble of those who sold them. Blessed, he says, be he who protests against this, but cursed be he who speaks against the truth of apostolic indulgences. He finds it difficult, however, to praise these to the people, and at the same time to teach them the true repentance of the heart. He would have them even taught that a Christian would do better by giving money to the poor than by spending it in buying indulgences, and that he who allows a poor man near him to starve draws down on himself, not indulgences, but the wrath of God. In sharp and scornful language he denounces the iniquitous trader in indulgences, and gives the Pope credit for the same abhorrence for the traffic that he felt himself. Christians must be told, he says, that if the Pope only knew of it, he would rather see St. Peter's Church in ashes, than have it built with the flesh and bones of his sheep.
Agreeably with what the preceding theses had said about the true penitent's earnestness and willingness to suffer, and the temptation offered to a mere carnal sense of security, Luther concludes as follows: 'Away therefore with all those prophets who say to Christ's people "Peace, peace!" when there is no peace, but welcome to all those who bid them seek the Cross of Christ, not the Cross which bears the Papal arms. Christians must be admonished to follow Christ their Master through torture, death, and hell, and thus through much tribulation, rather than by a carnal feeling of false security, hope to enter the kingdom of heaven.