 It was against this background that around this time Luther had his so-called “tower experience”, which like the thunder storm, was later portrayed by Luther as a life-changing moment in a way that may be more myth than fact, and is named after the tower of the monastery in Wittenberg where it is said to have occurred (1532, WA TR 3 no 3232a–c/LW 54:193–4). In recounting the event, Luther explains that he came to radically re-think how it is that justification and hence salvation is possible for us at all: namely not through our attempts to conform to God’s law, but through faith as a form of “passive righteousness”. From this realization, Luther later claimed (in his preface to the edition of his works published in his life time) that he was freed from his anger against an accusing God, and the anxiety that no such God could ever be known to be placated; instead he now recognised God’s gratuitous love and salvation, bestowed on us through divine grace (1545, WA 54:186/LW 34:336–7).