Martin Luther.
“Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.”
“Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has.”
These quotes need to be taken in a much larger context.
The epistemology of faith has a very long tradition. The root of the problem is that the human brain has certain functions that we can either include or exclude when defining and using the term "reason". If "reason" is defined broadly then these statements are simply wrong. But, as anyone familiar with the tradition knows, the term "reason" can be used to exclude faith as a matter of distinction and then "reason" - the term - is being used -without the knowledge of the user usually - to distinguish one function of the brain from another.
If you look at Russel's program, or the logical positivists, or the work of Goedel, or the definitions of computability, you can even see within mathematics human knowing that can be distinguished from "reason" if "reason" is very narrowly construed.
His inclusion of "sense" and "understanding" broadens his claim. There are traditions in Zen that go that far and more.
All of this needs to be understood as reflective phenomenology of the experiencing that occurs as a result of human neurological systems doped by hormones. One day we will be able to parse it neurologically and endochrinologically as well as by using a reflective phenomenology and be able to correlate the two.
But what mustn't be done is to assume that the call for an abandonment of "reason, sense, and understanding" is meant to say "stop reasoning, sensing and understanding". Luther was an intellectual and a very deep one. It's just that the intellect in reflection can detect that some of what it knows cannot be founded rationally. As Wittgenstein says there is a point where explanations need to stop. Some religious experiencing is of that area. The term "faith" itself is not well defined. There are many things that surpass reason.
Being itself is inherently irrational. You can see this like this: Consider a physical law, like Newton's law of gravity. Now consider a proof of mathematics, like the Pythagorean theorem. Now try to derive Newton's law of gravity from it. You will find it impossible. Therefore *in a sense* all science has an irrational basis. But it still has a sensory one. If you through out "sense" you loose science.
What is left is pure metaphysics. To my mind that term "understanding" is the hardest. Because it refers to foundations. If you throw out that you loose even metaphysics. This is what Luther is referring to I think. Then what is left is a kind of naked man whose will is responding to the will of God.
That there are such states in human religious experience and that in particular Luther was subject to them is very probable if you read his history. Exposed to potential execution "with prejudice" if you know what I mean, (pain), he submitted and it is probable that he did so not by any form of what to him were "reason, sense, or understanding". In fact, he probably thought what he was doing was crazy when analyzed within what he thought of as "reason sense or understanding". Crazy and recklessly dangerous to his physical well being and comfort. I think it is probably that he went against all of those, and offered his actions and life up to what he knew - somehow - that he must do.
If Luther had not done this none of us would know his name or be quoting him. Soldiers of all kinds know this I think. Lives at stake. Instinct takes over. Another way of knowing. Not easily explainable to those who have not been there. Perhaps even profanation to attempt a description! "About that which nothing can be said (perhaps) one should remain silent".
You must read everything in the context of his life. Very powerful people were trying to kill him so they could collect money. At the time it was not easy to conclude he would escape them. In fact a betting man would have bet against him. But he still, for "reasons" (broad sense) in his own mind that he chose to categorize as beyond "reason, sense and understanding" he took very significant risks to his life and in a sense more importantly - his comfort.
In addition you must understand the use of the word "whore". It looks to me that our sexuality is very involved in this epistemology. That use of the word "whore" is not something you can just blow off if you want to understand the range of human intellectual experience. You must understand the relation between sex-war-knowing. It is based in instinct. Even the fact of not talking about it is a form of sexual embarrassment. It is related to why we do not shit in front of each other if you look carefully at it. You need to parse the whole instinctual apparatus/basis of the sacred and profane.
A very profound understanding of human instinctual knowledge in the biological sense is required to understand these statements. They are not trivial. They are a kind of phenomenological description of the operations of human cognitive biology.
Those who eternally replay Copernicus are doomed to be always looking over their shoulders backward and will never realize the future of our attempts to build a better understanding of the future.