On what basis do Christians sometimes claim to know what God's intentions are? For example, some Creationists will explain dinosaur bones as "God placed them there to test us" - even if God did place them there, isn't it presumptuous to speculate what the motivations were?
This is what Luther calls the theologia gloriae.1

The most obvious way to the cognition of God is to follow the footsteps of creation. The creation speaks a powerful language.2 Scholasticism has understood the natural cognition as a way of salvation.3

Scholastics think of God and man from the same viewpoint of natural causality and connect the cognition of God per ea, quae facta sunt4 with a particular ethical view of man and his works.5

This connection builds the base, upon which Luther critisizes the theologia gloriae: That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the »invisible« things of God as though they were clearly »perceptible in those things which have actually happened«6

For him, real cognition does only happen by cognition of Cross of Christ: theologia crucis. 

And finally a biblical quote (found this here): 


  Matthew 24:36    (NLT)
  Mark 13:32 (NLT) 
  
  &nbsp;36 “However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows.   




1: See Heidelberg Disputation, Thesis 19
2: Walther von Loewenich, ''Luthers theologia crucis'', p.19
3: About the question what scholastics say about Rom 1:20, see Pierre Bühler, ''Kreuz und Eschatologie'', p.106
4: literal translation: ''by the things that have been made''
5: Theodor Dieter, ''Der junge Luther und Aristoteles'', p.109
6: WA 5,388,5f.: Non ille digne Theologus dicitur, qui invisibilia Dei per ea, quae facta sunt intellecta conspicit