FREE ESSAY ON COMPARING AND CONTRASTING TWO WORLD FAMOUS POLITICAL THEORISTS

COMPARING AND CONTRASTING TWO WORLD FAMOUS POLITICAL THEORISTS

Both leaders of their generations, Martin Luther and Niccolo Machiavelli were also
religious and political icons. Through their theses, essays, and books they were able to
successfully convey their views to the public. Martin Luther was a lawyer turned priest,
who tried to open the eyes of the public to the general corruption of the Catholic
Church. His 95 theses were the foundation of the Protestant Reformation, while
Machiavelli used his skills as a writer, with The Prince, and other works, to bring to
light the issues of politics. Known as the father of modern day politics, Machiavelli
took his ideas public and changed government, as we know it. Both men were determined to
break up the monopoly of knowledge and power that the Catholic Church held over the
people. Through examination of Machiavelli's The Prince, and Martin Luther's Christian
Liberty, their different views on the individual, God, and the state will be compared and
contrasted to better understand their issues with the Catholic Church.
Many people say that Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation by nailing his 95
theses on the front gate of the Catholic Church. Some of these people also say that these
theses were an attack on the Church. Both of these statements are false. Martin Luther, a
brilliant philosopher during the Renaissance, traveled to Rome in 1511 as the delegated
representative of seven allied Augustinian monasteries to protest against some
improvements of Staupitz. His experiences as a monk and a priest were fulfilling to his
Catholic enlightenment. For example, his trip to Withberg to receive the sub-prior
position helped Luther to gain respect and earn more important and valued positions with
in the Church. While moving his way up in the Church, Luther was able to see the
corruption and deceptiveness that the Catholic Church had become involved in. During his
year associated with the Church, he was able to develop his own view on God and the
behavior of the Church.
All throughout Martin Luther's life, even before his work with the Church, his faith God
was limited. His beliefs were based on his personal experiences with God. He constantly
felt that God had left him, and would consistently punish himself through starvation. He
felt that through starvation he could cleanse himself of all the things God felt was
impure. As stated in Christian Liberty "Since by faith the soul is cleansed and made to
love God, it desires that all things, and especially its own body, shall be purified so
that all things may join with it in loving and praising God." (Luther, 22). This was
Luther's personal feeling about the relationship between man and God. 
Personal conflicts with God did not keep Luther from helping other people find their own
peace with God. Luther spread his interpretation of the bible to help the common people
find their faith. Through his work with the Catholic Church and observations of the
corruption it holds, Luther was set to help the oppressed people overcome their battle
with the Church by preaching a new word of God. "For the person is justified and saved,
not by works or laws, but by the Word of God, that is, by the promise of his grace, and
by faith, that the glory may remain God's, who saved us not by works of righteousness
which we have done [Titus 3:5], but by virtue of his mercy by the work of his grace when
we believed [ I Cor. 1:21]." (Luther, 26). Luther felt that if a person believed in God
and had their own personal relationship with Him, then the Church had no right to condemn
that person to Hell just because they could not pay the taxes or go to Church every
Sunday. Luther felt that the Church did not have the right to run peoples lives through
their beliefs in God.
To eliminate some of the corruption of the church, Luther felt that with the new
understanding about the relationship between man and God, that the people should be able
to elect their own pastors. The Word of God should come from a person with the same views
as the people. The free cities could not resist this and it gave them the freedom from
taxation. Luther's views and theology, as the nobles viewed it, was a way to contain the
powers of the Church within their own states. The individual towns felt that the
influence of the Church within their states was too much, because it proved that the
Church had too much power over them.
Machiavelli's felt somewhat differently than Luther on the subjects of the individual,
the state, and God. As an individual, Machiavelli felt that the most important quality in
a true person it the value of his word. For example, in The Prince, Machiavelli expresses
his feelings about the individual through the story of a prince. "How praiseworthy it is
for a prince to keep his word and to live by integrity and not by deceit everyone knows;
nevertheless, one sees from the experience of our times that the princes who have
accomplished great deeds are those who have cared little for keeping their promises and
who have known how to manipulate the minds of men by shrewdness; and in the end they have
surpasses those who laid their foundations upon loyalty." (Machiavelli, 58). His view on
the individual was more negative. Drawing from this quote he felt that people had the
ability to do important things, but they are either too lazy to complete their tasks or
are too manipulative to let their accomplishment go unrewarded. "Like these men, those
who become princes through their skill acquire the principality with difficulty, but they
hold on to it easily; and the difficulties they encounter in acquiring the principality
grow, in part, out of the new institutions and methods they are obliged to introduce in
order to found their state and their security." (Machiavelli, 21). Machiavelli based
these observations on medieval Christian tradition. Their traditions taught that the
individual was weak and corrupt. This corruption did not suggest that government was
impossible, but in fact, the government should be able to regulate the freedom of man, in
order to contain further weakness and corruption.
Machiavelli's view on the state and their ideals came down to the strength and slyness of
a ruler. The strength will not be enough to enable the ruler to escape the traps set by
enemies; the slyness is also needed. Especially for new princes, strength and slyness are
tested through the acts of war. The questions arise about, is the prince smart enough to
win the war and not lose too many men. "Let me say, therefore, that the armies with which
a prince defends his state are made up of his own people , or of mercenaries, or
auxiliaries, or of mixed troops. Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous.
And if a prince holds on to his state by means of mercenary armies, he will never be
stable or secure; for they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, disloyal; they
are brave among friends; among
enemies they are cowards..." (Machiavelli, 41-42). This shows that new princes are put in
compromising situations; they either go into battle with these mercenaries and
auxiliaries, or risk the land they conquer to be taken away by their enemies. 
Machiavelli opens The Prince by stating that there are two types of government, monarchs
and republics. Concentrating on monarchial governments, Machiavelli tries to help the
reader understand why having a prince is more beneficial than a republic. Machiavelli
tries to prove that it is the value of the prince's associates than his qualities that
make this type of government more desirable. Many readers of The Prince, believed that it
was a satire on absolute rulers like Caesar Borgia. However, this theory fell apart when
a letter was found that was written by Machiavelli, which stated that he wrote The
Prince, to endear himself to the Medici family for how they ruled Florence with such
authority. 
Through these two pan flits, both The Prince and Christian Liberty were able to open the
eyes of the world. Whether it was through political standing or the start of the
Protestant Reformation, both Luther and Machiavelli were able to enlighten their
generations through these two books. The role on God, the individual, and the state were
not only crucial during the Renaissance, but in fact it is and will be forever a part of
peoples everyday lives. This was why both Luther and Machiavelli felt that the injustice
against the people, by the three largest factors in their lives, needed to become public.
Through their teaching and writings, they were able to convey their political and
religious standpoints with enough support to build up a revolt. Both men were religious
and political icons for their generation and ours. Machiavelli, the father of politics,
and Luther, the fire behind the Protestant Reformation, changed government and the world
as we know it. "A man does not live for himself alone in this mortal body to work for it
alone, but he lives also for all men on earth; rather he lives only for others and not
for himself." (Luther, 27).