本文所要探討的問題是：歐洲在十六世紀之際，俗世的政治、社會與經濟各方面正面臨（逐漸跳脫中世紀的）轉型與變遷，而路德在引發了宗教改革鉅變的整個過程中，他在政教問題上是否言行一致？如否，則他所發展推動的新教運動中，是否有某些成分必然導致了他特別的政治觀？抑或，在此問題上他其實只是便宜行事，在有需要時因勢利導地把俗世權力引以為助而已？ 本文首先檢視路德對神學研究傳統的挑戰：他認為信仰重於知識，因此「因信稱義」與「唯信得救」成為他改革運動最重要的立足點。接著分析他對教會體系攻擊的原因，指出路德認為儀規及善行都不是基督宗教的核心，他揭櫫了類似「信仰的個人主義」似的自由立場，以為個人靈魂直接面對上帝才是基督宗教的原始精神。第三節討論路德對農民運動的看法，指出路德服膺教會傳統，將信仰範疇與俗世範疇分別處理，以致於與農民的「社會改革」運動分道揚鑣而遭致某些時人認為他「背叛」了「改革」。最後，本文企圖說明，在宗教改革運動中，路德政治神學所顯露的內在矛盾與侷限－其宗教改革之成功適與日後反對社會改革為一體兩面之事。

　　　　　Martin Luther is as controversial as a personality as the founder of the German Reformation. Appearing as a liberal figure devoted to the confrontation with the Roman See, he released the Germans from the "yoke" of doctrinal dogmatism on the one hand and the complex liturgical ceremonialism on the other. He destroyed the Vatican Scholasticism and ecclesiasticism at the same time on the German territory. But such a stern, powerful champion of Christian liberty and innate conscience should have had no mercy at all towards those poor peasants who tried to transform thereligious movement into a social one. This article is intended as a tentative exploration on the Lutheran political theology with a focus on his apparent inheritance of the Biblical separation of the earthly and the sacred. Yet emphasis is placed upon the contradictions he was forced into when he called on the German nobilities for help in the spiritual matter and then again in the crackdown of the subsequent social unrests. It thus can be pointed out the Luther has been using the temporal arms whenever it is necessary and expedient, contrary to his avowed position of the doctrine of the two swords. And this may be seen less as an inconsistency in Luther's politics than a holistic envisioning of the world under God in his theology.