A Lutheran once asked me: “Why was Martin Luther excommunicated? In what way was he heterodox?” Luther was excommunicated in 1521. The radically anti-traditional nature of many (not all) of Luther's opinions (at least in their early stages) is clearly evident in his three great treatises of 1520: especially in To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation and The Babylonian Captivity of the Church.
I'm not presently trying to defend the rightness or wrongness of Catholic teaching, but rather, demonstrating that Luther was “heterodox” or “heretical” by the criterion of Catholic teaching. Based directly on statements in these two works, I summarize below how Luther was indisputably heterodox by 1520: judged by existing Catholic theological standards.
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