SOURCE: "The Way Luther Speaks of God," in Luther: An Introduction to His Thought, translated by R. A. Wilson, Fortress Press, 1970, pp. 242–67.

In the following excerpt from a work originally published in 1964, Ebeling describes how Luther's conception of an "omnipresent" God shaped his faith.

There is something challenging about the way Luther speaks of God. We cannot turn to his works without our own way of speaking about God faltering or falling silent or being brought into question, or without doubt being cast upon it. This implies that Luther's way of speaking of God expresses more than an ordinary degree of personal involvement, and therefore also involves us. All consideration of historical data in some respects involves the participation of the observer, so that the false ideal of a 'purely historical' consideration is neither possible nor desirable. In the same way, what has been said about God and...