 Leaving aside Luther’s influence on individual philosophers, there has also been some philosophical interest in considering his wider cultural and historical impact on “modernity”, and his role in shaping the modern world as we now understand it.[39] Of course, this is a highly complex matter (for a helpful overview, see Zachhuber 2017), but broadly five approaches have been adopted. On some accounts (such as Hegel’s outlined above, as well as Heine’s) Luther’s impact is seen as both decisive and positive, alongside a largely positive conception of modernity itself, where here the emphasis might lie on his resistance to religious authority, and his prioritising of the conscience of the individual. On other accounts, this impact is accepted, but seen instead as an object of criticism, as the relevant features of modernity are deplored, so that for example Luther is blamed for the rise of modern individualism, of voluntarism, and of the secularism that is said to go along with both (see for example Maritain 1925). A third approach (as we also saw above in relation to the Marxist tradition and to Marcuse, for example) may also blame Luther for unequivocally problematic aspects of modernity, such as authoritarianism and anti-Semitism. A fourth approach is to see Luther as in fact standing in contrast to certain key positive features of modern thought, such as rationalism, freedom, and religious tolerance; for example, the juxtaposition between his views and those of Erasmus’s humanism is sometimes portrayed in this light (see for example Gillespie 2008; Massing 2018). And of course, if one adopts certain views of the development of Luther’s thought, one may attribute different influences as coming from different phases, and treat some as more positive than others (by distinguishing, for example, between a “radical” earlier Luther and a more “conservative” later Luther), so that Luther’s impact may be understood as taking more than one (and even contradictory) form (see for example Erdozain 2016). A final approach is to criticise all attempts to link Luther too closely with such debates concerning “the modern”, arguing that this is historically anachronistic, as he is more essentially a medieval figure, so that to focus myopically on his impact on modernity will be to distort our understanding of Luther himself, and also perhaps of his distinctiveness and originality, while also neglecting the way Luther’s own thinking changed over time (for a recent example of this approach, see Helmer 2019). This is not the occasion to adjudicate such debates, but it is hoped that the account of Luther given previously will make it possible to give proper consideration to some of the issues they raise. For in discussing how far Luther shaped the modern world, some consideration of how far he shaped philosophy surely deserves a place. 