"Your book is, in my opinion, so contemptible and worthless that I feel great pity for you for having defiled your beautiful and skilled manner of speaking with such vile dirt….To those who have drunk from the Spirit of the teaching of my books, we have given in abundance and more than enough, and they easily despise your arguments….Hence, you see, I lost all desire to answer you, not because I was busy, or because it would have been a difficult task, nor on account of your great eloquence, nor for fear of you, but simply because of disgust, indignation and contempt, which, if I say so, express my judgment of your diatribe."
– Luther, responding to Erasmus‘ Freedom of the Will, in his counter-argument, The Bondage of the Will.
Adolf Hitler: Acting According to God's Will
"I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator."
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 2
Nice quote. What to you think it’s importance is?
Are you saying that anyone who feels they are doing God’s will is crazy like Hitler? That Mother Theresa, Billy Graham, or [fill in blank] is by definition a murderous, crazy, megalomaniac merely by the virtue that they have spiritual convictions about God’s will?
Or are you merely having a sour grapes party for yourself because you lack the courage or faculty to determine what God’s will for you or mankind might be?
BTW, what does your comment have to do with Luther’s?
No wait, let me answer… none.
To those who have drunk from the Spirit of the teaching of my books…
Sounds like the rantings of a rejected author. There’s no ego there, nosireebob!
Luther probably had a huge ego, and was definitely, um, outgoing. But his insults of Erasmus (who I also like), are deliciously fun history.