by Max Weber
The idea that secular labor in a calling was capable of achieving this derived from deep-seated peculiarities of the religious feelings cultivated in the Reformed Church; the differences from Lutheranism were most clearly manifested in the doctrine concerning the nature of justifying faith. These differences are so subtly and objectively analyzed in Schneckenburger’s fine series of lectures [97], with such absence of value judgments, that the following brief observations can essentially simply base themselves on his account.
The goal of Lutheran piety, as it developed in the course of the seventeenth century, was the supreme religious experience of the “unio mystica” with the deity. [98] As indicated by the term itself, which was unknown in this version of the Reformed doctrine, we are talking about a powerful [substantiell] divine sensation, the feeling of the divine really entering into the believing soul, an experience similar in quality to the effects of contemplation in the German mystics; it is passive in character, is directed toward the fulfillment of the desire for rest in God, and is marked by a pure inwardness of spirit. In Lutheranism it is combined with that profound feeling of sinful unworthiness, which is intended carefully to preserve the “poenitentia quotidiana” of the Lutheran believer; this in turn is directed toward the preservation of the humility and simplicity essential for the forgiveness of sins. The piety specific to the Reformed Church is not, and never has been, of the purely inwardly directed, emotional kind. Any real entering of the divine into the human soul is excluded by the absolute transcendence of God in relation to all his creatures: “finitum non est capax infiniti.” The communion of God with the recipients of his grace can only take place and be consciously experienced by God’s working in them (“operatur”) and by their becoming conscious of this—in other words, when their actions arise out of the faith which comes from God’s grace, and when the quality of those actions legitimates this faith as truly coming from God. The Reformed Christian, too, wants to be saved “sola fide,” but since in Calvin’s view all one’s feelings and moods, however sublime they may appear, are deceptive, [99] faith must prove itself in its objective effects, if it is to serve as a reliable guarantee of certitudo salutis: it must be a “fides efficax.” [100]
If one poses the further question, by what fruits the Reformed Christian may indubitably recognize true faith, the answer is again: by a Christian manner of conducting one’s life [Lebensführung] which serves the greater glory of God. What this is can be deduced from his will, which is either directly revealed in the Bible or is indirectly discernible in the purposeful ordering of the divinely created world (lex naturae). [101] In particular, by a comparison of one’s own spiritual state with that which according to the Bible is appropriate to the elect, for example, the patriarchs, it is possible to check one’s own state of grace. [102] Only one of the elect really has the fides efficax; only he is capable, thanks to regeneration (regeneratio) and the sanctification (sanctificatio) of his whole life which follows from this, to increase God’s glory by works that are really, not merely apparently, good. And by being conscious of the fact that his conduct—at least as far as his basic character and constant firm resolution (propositum oboedientiae) are concerned—is based on a strength [103] dwelling within him which is capable of increasing the glory of God, and is therefore willed by God and above all effected by God [104], he attains that supreme prize which has been the goal of all his religious striving—the certainty of grace. [105] The second Letter to Corinthians 13.5 provides further evidence that this certainty is attainable. [106] Totally unsuited though good works are to serve as a means of attaining salvation—for even the elect remain creatures, and everything they do falls infinitely far short of God’s demands—they are indispensable as signs of election. [107] In this sense they are occasionally described quite simply as “indispensable for salvation,” [108] or linked with the “possessio salutis.” [109] This means, however, fundamentally, that God helps those who help themselves [110], in other words, the Calvinist “creates” [111] his salvation himself (as it is sometimes expressed)—more correctly: creates the certainty of salvation. It further means that what he creates cannot consist, as in Catholicism, in a gradual storing up of meritorious individual achievements; instead, it consists in a form of systematic self-examination which is constantly faced with the question: elect or reprobate? This brings us to a very important point in our discussion.
Again and again, as we know, the accusation of “sanctification by works” [Werkheiligkeit] [112] was made by Lutherans against the thinking which developed with ever greater clarity [113] in the Reformed churches and sects. And—although the accused rightly rejected the identification of their dogmatic position with Catholic teaching—the accusation was not unreasonable as far as the practical consequences for the everyday life of the average Reformed Christian were concerned [114]: there has perhaps never been a more intensive form of religious appraisal of moral action than that which Calvinism engendered in its followers. But crucial for the practical importance of this kind of “sanctification by works” [Werkheiligkeit] is the recognition of the qualities which characterize the conduct of life corresponding to it and distinguish it from the everyday life of an average Christian in the Middle Ages. We may perhaps attempt to formulate it as follows. From the ethical point of view, the medieval Catholic [115] lived to a certain extent “from hand to mouth.” Firstly, he carried out the traditional duties conscientiously. The “good works” he performed over and above these, however, were normally an unsystematic series of individual actions that he carried out to make up for particular sins or as advised by the priest, or, toward the end of his life, as a kind of insurance policy. The God of Calvinism, on the other hand, demanded of his own, and effected in them, not individual “good works,” but “sanctification by works” raised to the level of a system. [116] The ethical practice of ordinary people was divested of its random and unsystematic nature and built up into a consistent method for the whole conduct of one’s life. It is no accident that the name “Methodists” stuck with the bearers of the last great revival of Puritan thought in the eighteenth century, just as the term “Precisians”14 (which is similar in meaning) was applied to their spiritual forebears in the seventeenth century. [117] For only in a fundamental transformation of the meaning of the whole of life in every hour and every action [118] could the working of grace be effective in lifting man out of the status naturae into the status gratiae.
The life of the “saint” was exclusively directed toward the transcendental goal of salvation, but precisely for this reason it was rationalized and exclusively dominated by the necessity of increasing the glory of God on earth; and never has the principle of “omnia in majorem dei gloriam” been taken with such deadly seriousness. [119] Only a life governed by constant reflection, however, could be regarded as overcoming the status naturalis: Descartes’s “cogito ergo sum” was taken over by contemporary Puritans in this ethical reinterpretation. [120] This rationalization now gave Reformed piety its specifically ascetic character and was also the basis for its inner affinity (as well is its specific antithesis) to Catholicism.
Christian asceticism in its highest manifestations exhibited this rational character as early as the Middle Ages. It is also the fundamental reason for the importance in world history of Western monastic life [Lebensführung], in contrast to Eastern monasticism. In the rule of Saint Benedict, even more strongly in the Cluniacs and Cistercians, and, finally, most markedly in the Jesuits, it is free of arbitrary withdrawal from the world and virtuoso self-torment. It has become a systematically formed method of rational living, its aim being to overcome the status naturae, to release man from the power of irrational impulses [Triebe] and from dependency on the world and nature, to subject him to the supremacy of the purposeful will [121], and to subordinate his actions to his own continual control and to the consideration of their ethical consequences. The aim was thus to train the monk—objectively speaking—to be a worker in the service of the kingdom of God,
and so also—subjectively speaking—to ensure the salvation of his soul. This absolute self-control, like the aim of the exercitia of Saint Ignatius and the highest forms of all rational monastic virtues, was also the decisive practical ideal of Puritanism.
In the profound contempt with which the cool, reserved calm of its devotees [122] is contrasted, in the reports of the interrogation of its martyrs, with the frenzied bluster of the noble prelates and officials, one can already see the clear emergence of that high regard for reserved self-control which is found in the best kinds of English and Anglo-American “gentleman” today. [123] Putting this into language familiar to us [124], we might say the following. Puritan asceticism—like any “rational” asceticism—worked to enable man to demonstrate and assert his “constant motives”—in particular, those which asceticism instilled into him—against the “emotions”—in other words, to train him to become a “personality” in this strictly psychological sense of the word. The goal of asceticism was, in contrast to many widely held notions, to be able to lead a watchful, aware, alert life. The most urgent task was the eradication of uninhibited indulgence in instinctive pleasure. The most important means employed by asceticism was to bring order into the conduct of life of those who practiced it. All of these vital points are found equally clearly [125] both in the rules of Catholic monasticism and in the principles of conduct of the Calvinists. [126] It is to this methodical control over the whole man that both owe their tremendous world-conquering power. In particular, it has enabled Calvinism, rather than Luther-anism, to ensure the continued existence of Protestantism as “ecclesia militans.”
On the other hand, it is quite obvious where the difference between Calvinist and medieval asceticism lies: it is in the omission of the “consilia evangelica” and thus the transformation of asceticism to a purely innerworldly variety. It is not as though within Catholicism the “methodical” life had been confined to the cells of the monasteries. That was neither the case in theory nor in practice. In fact, it must be freely admitted that in spite of the more modest aims of Catholic morality, an ethically unsystematic life does not attain the highest ideals that Catholicism has set itself—even for innerworldly life. The tertiary order of Saint Francis made major advances toward the ascetic penetration of everyday life and was by no means alone in this. Of course, works like the “Imitation of Christ” show, precisely because of the powerful influence they exercise, how the conduct of life commended in them was felt to be on a higher plane than the everyday morality which merely satisfied minimum requirements. They show, too, that everyday morality was in no way judged by the standards of Puritanism. And the practice of certain ecclesiastical institutions, especially that of indulgences, which was seen in the Reformation period not as a minor abuse but as the fundamental evil, inevitably constantly ran counter to the beginnings of systematic innerworldly asceticism [innerweltliche Askese]. The decisive point was, however, that the model of how to lead a methodical life par excellence, was, as ever, the monk, and he alone, that therefore the more firmly asceticism took hold of the individual, the more it forced him out of everyday life, because the truly holy life consisted in exceeding innerworldly morality. [127]
Luther was the first to do away with this—not as some kind of agent of a “developmental tendency,” but first as a result of his own personal experience, and then after being pressed further by the political system—and Calvinism simply followed on from him. [128] A dam was thus built to prevent asceticism flowing out of secular everyday life, and the way was open for those passionately serious, reflective types of men, who had hitherto provided the finest representatives of monasticism, to pursue ascetic ideals within secular occupations.
In the course of its development, Calvinism made a positive addition: the idea of the necessity of putting one’s faith to the test [Bewährung des Glaubens] in secular working life. [129] It thus provided the positive motivation [Antrieb] for asceticism, and with the firm establishment of its ethics in the doctrine of predestination, the spiritual aristocracy of the monks, who stood outside and above the world, was replaced by the spiritual aristocracy [130] of the saints in the world, predestined by God from eternity, an aristocracy which with its character indelebilis was separated from the rest of reprobate humanity by a gulf that was fundamentally more unbridgeable and in its invisibility was more awe-inspiring [131] than that which outwardly cut off the medieval monk from the world. This new gulf cut unsparingly into all social feelings. For in view of their neighbors’ sinfulness, the appropriate sentiment for these elect by God’s grace, and therefore saints, is not forbearing helpfulness in the consciousness of their own weakness, but hatred and contempt for them as enemies of God, who bear the mark of eternal damnation upon them. [132] This way of thinking was capable of intensifying to the point where in certain circumstances it could end in the formation of sects. This was the case when—as in certain “Independent” groups of the seventeenth century—the authentic Calvinist belief that God’s glory demanded that the reprobate be compelled to submit to the law of the Church was outweighed by the conviction that it would be dishonoring to God if an unregenerate person were in his flock and partook of the sacraments, let alone presided over their administration as an appointed preacher. [133] And even where they did not proceed to the logical consequence of forming sects, the most varied forms of church constitution did (as we shall see) emerge from the attempt to separate regenerate Christians from the unregenerate, who were not ready for the Communion, and to admit only regenerate preachers.
The norm on which this ascetic conduct of life consistently based itself, and which it evidently needed, came, of course, from the Bible, and the important point for us concerning the often talked-about “bibliocracy” of Calvinism is that the moral precepts of the Old Testament—since the Old Testament was as much inspired as the New Testament—were of equal worth with those of the New Testament, provided, that is, they were neither obviously meant to apply only to the historical circumstances of Judaism, nor had been expressly abrogated by Christ. For the believers in particular, the law was provided as an ideal norm, never quite attainable, but still binding [134], whereas Luther, by contrast, (originally) extolled the freedom from the servitude of the law as the divine privilege of believers. [135] The influence of the plain Hebrew wisdom laid down in the books most commonly read by the Puritans, the Book of Proverbs and many of the Psalms, can be sensed in these people’s whole attitude to life. In particular, the rational character of religion and the suppression of its emotional side have been rightly attributed by Sanford [136] to the influence of the Old Testament. This Old Testament rationalism is essentially petit bourgeois and traditionalist in character; it is flanked by the emotional power of the prophets and many of the Psalms, as well as elements which had already influenced the development of a specifically emotional religion in the Middle Ages. [137] So ultimately it was, after all, its own fundamental ascetic character which led Calvinism to select those elements of the Old Testament that it found congenial, and to assimilate them.
That systematization of the ethical conduct of life that ascetic Reformed Protestants shared with rational Catholic religious orders is visible in the manner in which the scrupulous [präzise] Reformed Christian continually monitored his state of grace [138]. The religious journal, in which sins, temptations, and progress made in grace were continuously recorded, was a feature common to both modern Catholic piety (chiefly in France), largely created by the Jesuits, and the most devout circles of the Reformed Church [139]. But whereas in Catholicism it was complementary to the confession, or provided the “directeur de l’âme” with the basis for his authoritarian guidance of the believer (who was usually female) under his charge, the Reformed Christian used the journal to “feel his own pulse.” It is mentioned by all the important moral theologians, and a classic example of it is provided by Benjamin Franklin’s tabular and statistical bookkeeping of his progress in the individual virtues. On the other hand, Bunyan takes the i
mage of God as bookkeeper (which goes back to the Middle Ages and even to antiquity) to typically tasteless extremes, whereby the relationship of the sinner with God is compared to that of a customer to the shopkeeper.15 Anyone who goes into the red may just be able to pay off the accumulated interest with the proceeds of his own merits, but will never be able to pay off the principal. Just as he scrutinized his own conduct, so also the later Puritan examined that of God and saw the finger of God in all the vicissitudes of life. And, in contrast to Calvin’s authentic teaching, he therefore knew why God disposed in this or that way. Thus the sanctification of life could almost assume the character of a business arrangement [140]. The consequence of this systematization of the ethical conduct of life, which was enforced by Calvinism (unlike Lutheranism), is the permeation of the whole of existence by Christianity.
