What did the 95 Theses accomplish?

Answer 1

Not much, by itself, other than getting Luther into trouble. Written in latin, one copy was nailed to a Church door in Wittenberg and another was sent to Albert of Brandenburg, the uneducated twenty year old Archbishop of Mainz. The theses themselves attacked the sale of indulgences as sold by Johann Ttetzel, an Augustinian indulgence-seller who had been doing the rounds in the region peddling his particularly potent brand of pardons. Tetzel claimed that his indulgences could not only buy the forgiveness of sins and time off purgatory but release souls from the latter and forgive all the sins of the purchaser; effectively, he was selling trips to heaven. Tetzel was not a typical example of indulgence sellers, but he was the product of a Catholic doctrine which Luther had already formed ideas in contradiction of several years beforehand; Salvation through faith and good works. Luther had come to believe that salvation could be attained through faith alone (sola fide), good works being an expression of one's faithful nature. The technical basis for indulgences was that, being a 'good work' (provision of funds to the Church, a charitable organisation) indulgences were a quick way to reduce time spent in purgatory because of their charitable status. On the other hand, in the context of sola fide, it was not strictly necessary to do good works to earn salvation, but it was expected. The vague differences between the positions did amount to much, and to the average person meant nothing. It would take a new perspective on the interpretation of scripture to get the ball rolling. This came in the wake of the Pope's heavy-handed reaction to Luther's technical hitch, a course encouraged by a furious Augustinian order. Sola Fide (the supremacy of scripture i.e. The Bible), would change Luther's world forever, as it would the lives of millions of others. But Luther had not yet arrived at this conclusion and as such, the 95 theses accomplished virtually nothing beyond setting him down the path to these new and more radical ideas.