The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

by Max Weber

  147) This idea finds its practical application in, for example, Cromwell’s “tryers,” who examined the candidates for the office of preacher. They were trying to establish not so much the specialized theological knowledge as the subjective state of grace of the candidate.

  148) We shall refrain, for good reasons, from entering into the “psychological” connotations (in the technical sense of the word) of these religious states of consciousness, and even the use of the relevant terminology has been avoided where possible. The conceptual basis of psychology is at present not remotely adequate for the purposes of historical research in the area of our problem. The use of psychological terminology would simply tempt us to elevate, in an amateurish way, what is directly comprehensible and even trivial to the level of scholarly erudition, and thus to create the false impression of an enhanced conceptual precision, something which has, unfortunately, become typical of Lamprecht.

  For more serious attempts at evaluation of psychopathological concepts for the interpretation of certain historical mass phenomena, see W. Hellpach, Grundlinien zu einer Psychologie der Hysterie, chapter 12, as well as his Nervosität und Kultur. I cannot here attempt to justify in detail my view that even this author, despite his wide range of interests, has been tainted by the influence of certain theories of Lamprecht. Anyone who knows the available literature is surely aware of how completely worthless, compared with the older literature, are Lamprecht’s schematic observations on Pietism (in volume 7 of Deutsche Geschichte).

  149) Thus, for example, among the adherents of Schortinghuis’s “Innige Christendom.”

  150) This occasionally happened among the Dutch Pietists, under the influence of Spinoza’s philosophy.

  151) Labadie, Tersteegen et. al.

  152) Such influence emerges perhaps most clearly when he—it is Spener we are talking about!—disputes the competence of the authorities to control the conventicles, except in the case of disorder and misuse, on the grounds that it is a question of a basic right of Christians, guaranteed by the apostolic order (Theologische Bedenken, vol. 2, pp. 81f.). That is—in principle—precisely the Puritan standpoint with regard to the nature and sphere of validity of the rights of the individual, which are ex jure divino and therefore inalienable. Neither this heresy (Pietismus, vol. 2, p. 157) nor that mentioned elsewhere in the text (ibid., p. 115) escapes the notice of Ritschl. One can only concur with him when he says that in neither case is there any organic consistency with Luther’s standpoint. This remains true despite the unhistorical nature of his positivist (even philistine) criticism of the basic rights idea. We do, after all, owe to this idea practically every essential element of our basic individual freedoms, as even the most reactionary person will concede.

  The conventicles (collegia pietatis) themselves, for which Spener’s famous “Pia desideria” provided the theoretical foundation and which he established in practice, corresponded in essence to the English “prophesyings,” such as those first found in Joh. von Lasco’s London Bible Classes (1547). Thereafter, they were part of the inventory of those forms of Puritan piety persecuted for their opposition to the authority of the Church. Finally, he rejects the Geneva Church discipline on the grounds that its appointed agent, the “third estate” (status oeconomicus: Christian laymen) did not form part of the Lutheran Church organization. On the other hand, when it came to the question of excommunication, recognition of the secular members of the consistory, deputed by the Landesherr as representatives of the “third estate,” was faintly Lutheran.

  153) The very name “Pietism,” which originated within Lutheran territories, indicated that contemporaries saw that “piety” [Pietät] was being turned into a methodical operation.

  154) It must be admitted that while the source of this motivation is predominantly from within Calvinism, it is not exclusively so. In fact, it is found particularly commonly in the oldest Lutheran Church orders.

  155) As in Hebrews, chap. 5, vv. 13 and 14. Compare Spener, Theologische Bedenken, vol. 1, p. 306.

  156) Alongside Bailey and Baxter (see Consilia theologica, vol. 3, 6, 1, dist. 1 no. 47; dist. 3 no. 6), Spener particularly values Thomas à Kempis and especially Tauler (although he does not always understand him: Consilia theologica, vol. 3, 6, 1; 1, 1). He has written extensively about the latter in Consilia theologica, vol. 1, 1 no. 7. He sees Luther as a follower of Tauler.

  157) See Ritschl, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 113. He refuses to accept the “repentance experience” [Buβkampf] of the later Pietists (and of Luther) as the sole determining characteristic of true conversion (Theologische Bedenken, vol. 3, p. 476). Regarding sanctification as the fruit of gratitude arising out of faith in reconciliation—wording that is specifically Lutheran (see Archiv, vol. 20, p. 42, note 1)—see the passages quoted in Ritschl, op. cit., p. 115, note 2.

  On the certitudo salutis, see Theologische Bedenken, vol. 1, p. 324: true faith (we read) is not so much felt emotionally, as it is recognized by its fruits (love and obedience toward God). See also Theologische Bedenken, vol. 1, pp. 335f.: “With regard to the worry you feel about the assurance of salvation and grace, it is safer to rely on our (Lutheran) books than on the ‘English scribblers.’” He does agree with them on the nature of sanctification, however.

  158) Here too the religious journals that A. H. Francke recommends the faithful to keep are the outward sign of this. Methodical practice and the habit of sanctification should bring about further growth in sanctification and the separation of good people from the wicked. This is roughly the basic theme of Francke’s book Von des Christen Vollkommenheit.

  159) Characteristically, this rational Pietist belief in providence, which is at variance with the orthodox interpretation, emerged in the celebrated dispute between the Pietists of Halle and the representative of Lutheran orthodoxy Löscher. In his “Timotheus Verinus,” Löscher goes as far as to set everything that can be achieved by human activity in in opposition to the decrees of providence. By contrast, the view that was always firmly held by Francke was that the flash of “clearness” about what was to be done (the result of quiet waiting for the decision) was “a sign from God.” This is analogous to the Quaker psychology and corresponds to the general ascetic idea that a rational methodical approach is the way to come closer to God. True, Zinzendorf in no way shares Francke’s kind of faith in providence. He did, after all, in one of his most important decisions, determine the destiny of his congregation by drawing lots.

  Spener, Theologische Bedenken, vol. 1, p. 314, had looked to Tauler for his image of Christian “composure,” according to which one should place oneself in God’s hands and not thwart his designs by hasty and willful action. Essentially, this is also Francke’s standpoint. By comparison with Puritanism, the activity of Pietist devotion everywhere appears relatively weak, as it seeks peace in this world. The opposing view was expressed as recently as 1904 by a leading Baptist (George White, in an address from which we shall quote further) when he defined the ethical program of his denomination with the words “First righteousness, then peace” (Baptist Handbook, 1904, p. 107).

  160) Lectiones paraeneticae, vol. 4, p. 271.

  161) Ritschl’s criticism, in particular, is directed against this constantly recurring idea. See Francke’s book (referred to in the third from last footnote), which contains this doctrine.

  162) It can be found in the English nonpredestinationist Pietists too, for example, Goodwin. Regarding him and others, compare Heppe, Geschichte des Pietismus in der reformierten Kirche, Leiden, 1879, a book which, even after Ritschl’s standard work,4 still fulfills a need for matters concerning England, and occasionally the Netherlands.

  163) This was an attempt to combat the laxity resulting from the Lutheran doctrine of the recoverability of grace (especially the usual “conversion” in extremis).

  164) Against the concomitant necessity of knowing the day and hour of the “conversion” as an essential mark of its genuineness, see Spener, Theologische Bedenken, vol. 2, 6, 1, p
. 197. He knew as little of the “repentance experience” [Buβkampf] as Melanchthon knew of Luther’s terrores conscientiae.

  165) Of course, alongside this, the antiauthoritarian interpretation of the “general priesthood” common to all ascetic movements also played its part, of which more later.

  Occasionally, the pastor was recommended to postpone absolution until there was “proof” of genuine repentance, which Ritschl rightly designates Calvinist in principle.

  166) The essential points for what concerns us can be most conveniently found in Plitt, Zinzendorfs Theologie (3 vols., Gotha, 1869f.): vol. 1, pp. 325, 345, 381, 412, 429, 433, 444, 448; vol. 2, pp. 372, 381, 385, 409f.; vol. 3, pp. 131, 167, 176.

  Compare also Bernhardt Becker, Zinzendorf und sein Christentum (Leipzig, 1900, bk. 3, chap. 3).

  167) Admittedly, he only regarded the Augsburg Confession as a suitable document of the Lutheran Christian life of faith when—in his repulsive terminology—it had been doused with “antiseptic.” To read him is a penance, because his language, in rendering the amorphous fluidity of his thought, is even worse than the “Christo-turpentine oil” that Friedrich Theodor Vischer found so dreadful in his dispute with the Munich “Christoterpe.”

  168) “In no religion do we recognize as brethren those who are not washed by the sprinkling of the blood of Christ and continue thoroughly changed in the sanctification of the spirit. We recognize no revealed (= visible) community of Christ but that where the word of God is taught pure and unblemished and the members also live holy lives in accordance with it as the children of God.”

  True, the final sentence is taken from Luther’s Little Catechism; but—as Ritschl points out—its purpose there is to answer the question of how the name of God should be hallowed, whereas here it is being used to demarcate the Church of the Saints.

  169) See Plitt, vol. 1, p. 346. Even more decisive is the answer given in Plitt, vol. 1, p. 381, to the question “Are good works necessary for salvation?” The reply: “Unnecessary and harmful in gaining salvation, but after having gained salvation they are so necessary that anyone who does not do them is not saved.”

  170) For example, by those caricatures of “Christian liberty” that Ritschl castigates (op. cit., vol. 3, p. 381).

  171) Especially by increased stress on the idea of penal satisfaction in his salvation doctrine, an idea which, after the American sects had spurned his missionary approaches, he made the basis of his method of sanctification. Thereafter, he made the preservation of childlikeness and of the virtues of self-effacing modesty the aim of Herrnhut asceticism, in sharp contrast to the tendencies in the community, which were much more in accord with Puritan asceticism.

  172) An influence which, however, had its limits. For this reason alone it would be a mistake to try to categorize Zinzendorf’s form of religiosity as a developmental stage in terms of “social psychology” [sozialpsychisch], as Lamprecht does. Furthermore, his whole religiosity is most strongly influenced by the fact that he was a count with fundamentally feudal instincts. From the point of view of social psychology, the emotional side of these instincts would fit just as well into the period of the sentimental decadence of chivalry as into that of “Empfindsamkeit”.10 If it can be understood at all in terms of “social psychology,” then, given its opposition to West European rationalism, this should be in relation to the backwardness and patriarchal conservatism of the German East, as we shall see later.

  173) This is revealed by Zinzendorf’s controversies with Dippel, just as—after his death—the statements of the Synod of 1764 clearly express the character of the Herrnhut community as an institution of salvation. See Ritschl’s criticism, op. cit., vol. 3, pp. 443f.

  174) Compare, for example, paragraphs 151, 153, and 160. The remarks here, in particular, make it clear that sanctification may still be absent despite true repentance and forgiveness of sins. This is in accordance with the Lutheran doctrine of salvation, and is contrary to the Calvinist (and Methodist) doctrines.

  175) Compare Zinzendorf’s words, quoted in Plitt, vol. 2, p. 345. Also Spangenberg, Idea fidei, p. 325.

  176) Compare, for example, Zinzendorf’s comment on Matthew 20.28, quoted in Plitt, vol. 2, p. 131: “When I see a man to whom God has given a fine gift, I am glad and make use of the gift with pleasure. But if I notice that he is not satisfied with what he has, but desires to make it into something better, I regard that as the beginning of the ruin of such a person.” Zinzendorf—especially in his discussion with John Wesley in 1743—denied the possibility of progress in sanctification, since he identified the latter with justification and found it only in the relationship with Christ, which was emotionally experienced (Plitt, vol. 1, p. 413).

  177) Due to its origins in this tendency, such labor did not have a firm ethical grounding. Zinzendorf rejected Luther’s idea that the calling was itself a form of “worship,” and that this was therefore the primary reason for faithfulness in the calling. Such faithfulness was, according to Zinzendorf, in fact repayment for the “Savior’s faithful handiwork.”

  178) As we know, he said: “A reasonable man should not be an unbeliever, and a believing man should not be unreasonable” in his Socrates, d.i. Aufrichtige Anzeige verschiedener nicht sowohl unbekannter als vielmehr in Abfall geratener Hauptwahrheiten5 (1725). He is also known to have a predilection for authors such as Bayle.

  179) The marked preference of Protestant asceticism for rational empiricism on a basis of mathematics is well known and needs no emphasis. On the development of the sciences toward mathematically rationalized “exact” research, the philosophical motives behind it, and their opposition to Bacon’s views, see Windelband, Geschichte der Philosophie, pp. 305–07, especially the remarks at the bottom of page 305, which trenchantly refute the idea that modern natural science is to be understood as the product of material, technological interests. Extremely important relationships between them obtain, of course, but they are far more complicated than this. See also Windelband, Geschichte der neueren Philosophie, vol. 1, pp. 40f.

  The decisive point regarding the attitude of Protestant asceticism, as seen most clearly in Spener’s Theologische Bedenken, vol. 1, p. 232, and vol. 3, p. 260, was that just as the Christian can be recognized by the fruits of his faith, so too the knowledge of God and of his purposes can only be developed from a knowledge of his works. Accordingly, the favored discipline of all Puritan, Baptist, and Pietist Christianity is physics, followed by other mathematical and scientific disciplines that work with similar methods. It was believed that it was possible to arrive at a knowledge of the “meaning” of the world through empirical understanding of the divine laws as seen in nature. In view of the fragmentary character of the divine revelation—a Calvinist idea—this meaning, it was believed, could never be com-prehended by means of conceptual speculation. The empiricism of the seventeenth century was for asceticism the means of “seeking God in nature.” Empiricism seemed to lead toward God, while philosophical speculation seemed to lead away from him. According to Spener, Aristotelian philosophy in particular has done the most fundamental harm to Christianity. Any other philosophy was better, particularly “Platonism”: Consilia theologica, vol. 3, 6, 1, dist. 2, no. 13. Compare also the following typical passage: “Unde pro Cartesio quid dicam non habeo (he has not read him), semper tamen optavi et opto, ut Deus viros excitet, qui veram philosophiam vel tandem oculis sisterent, in qua nullius hominis attenderetur auctoritas, sed sana tantum magistri nescia ratio (Spener, Consilia theologica, vol. 2, 5, no. 2).

  The significance of these beliefs of ascetic Protestantism for the development of education, and in particular technical education, is well known. Together with the attitude toward “fides implicita” they constituted its pedagogical program.

  180) “These are the kind of people who divide up their happiness into four sections: 1. To become . . . lowly, despised, scorned . . . 2. To neglect . . . all those senses which they do not need for the service of their Lord . . . 3. Either to have not
hing, or to give away what they get . . . 4. To work as day laborers, not for the sake of payment, but for the sake of the calling and for the sake of the Lord and one’s neighbor . . .” (Religiöse Reden, vol. 2, p. 180; Plitt, vol. 1, p. 445). Not everyone can or may become “disciples,” but only those whom the Lord calls—but, as Zinzendorf himself admits (Plitt, vol. 1, p. 449), there are difficulties with this, as the Sermon on the Mount is formally addressed to everyone. The affinities of this “free acosmism of love” with the old Baptist ideals is evident.

  181) The emotional internalization of piety is by no means alien to Lutheranism, even that of the later period. The ascetic element, and the regulation of life, which in the eyes of the Lutherans smacks of “justification by works” [Werkheiligkeit], is rather the crucial difference here.

  182) “Genuine fear” was a better sign of grace than “security,” according to Spener, Theologische Bedenken, vol. 1, p. 324. Of course, we also find express warnings about “false security” in Puritan writers. But at least the doctrine of predestination always had the opposite effect, to the extent that pastoral care was influenced by it.

  183) The psychological effect of the existence of the confession was always to relieve the subject from personal responsibility for his conduct (this was why it was sought after, of course) and thus of the full rigor of ascetic demands.