Knowing God Through Depression?

Martin Luther experienced severe periods of depression that were not abated by anything he tried. Even spirited success like translating the Bible into German did not cause his attacks to end. Luther describes his extremity of his emotional state: “For more than a week I was close to the gates of death and hell. I trembled in all my members. Christ was wholly lost. I was shaken by desperation and blasphemy of God.” Luther even saw these moods as beneficial to his understanding of the Christian life. “For without them,” he wrote, “no man can understand scripture, faith, the fear or the love of God.”