The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

The first Protestant movement Weber will analyze is Calvinism, a sect that grew out of the teachings of 16th-century French theologian John Calvin. Weber believes it is prudent to begin with Calvinism as it was “the set of beliefs around which the great political and cultural conflicts in the most highly developed capitalist nations in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—the Netherlands, England, and France—were fought” (55). As Calvinism was at the core of religious discussions in capitalist countries, Weber believes that an examination of Calvinism’s central religious tenets—both of John Calvin and his later followers—will elucidate to what extent Protestantism is connected to a capitalist spirit.

Calvinism was most known for the concept of “predestination,” which held that individuals are predestined by God to go to either heaven or hell upon their death. According to this view, one’s salvation is “exclusively attributed to the hand of an objective power” (58)—that is, God—and one’s individual actions cannot affect one’s fate (58). This dogma creates a feeling of “happy certainty” in Calvinism, in which devout followers remain steadfast in their conviction that they are destined for salvation. However, Weber also argues that such a dogma also turns God into something “totally inaccessible to human understanding” (59), as God’s reasons for saving some while condemning the vast majority of others can only be understood by God. Weber argues that ultimately, predestination leads Calvinists to feel the “unimaginable inner loneliness of the solitary individual” (59), as they remain unable to know or change their fate, and the church no longer becomes a site through which they can achieve salvation. Predestination also leads Calvinists to eschew rituals such as confession and other religious practices “oriented to the sensuous and to feelings” (60), as they are seen as being superfluous.

According to Weber, this shift in dogma leads Calvinist followers to be predominately concerned with their individual well-being and fate, as they wonder if God has chosen them to be saved. Calvinist preachers advised their believers that they had to, as “a matter of duty,” “consider themselves among the elect few” who were chosen by God (65)—as any doubt of this fact would indicate a lack of faith and suggest that they were not predestined for salvation. However, preachers also advised their followers to devote themselves to “restless work in a vocational calling” as a way of gaining certainty that they were indeed destined for salvation (66). Such advice built upon Luther’s earlier notion of the “calling,” in which one’s work is a manifestation of God’s divine will.

Such a focus on work led to Protestants developing a “consistent, methodical organization of [their] life as a whole” (71). For Protestants, it was no longer enough to simply strive to practice singular good deeds. Instead, Protestants felt that they had to devote their entire life, “in every hour and every action,” to the singular goal of “increas[ing] God’s glory on earth” (71). Weber argues that such a focus on testifying to God’s glory in every single moment leads to a complete rationalization of one’s life, in which one’s actions are carefully and intentionally chosen, and all spontaneous “instinct-driven enjoyment of life” is eliminated (72). As a result, Puritans develop an ascetic personality, in which work becomes an aim in itself.

In this section, Weber moves to consider Pietism, a Protestant movement that developed after Calvinism. Pietism was not a strict sect of Protestantism, but rather a religious tendency that could be found within numerous sects, including Calvinism and others. According to Weber, Pietism expanded on Calvin’s doctrine by drawing a connection “between the doctrine of predestination and the idea that the devout must testify to their belief” (80). In essence, Pietism further developed Calvinism’s concept of predestination, leading believers to develop a “stricter ascetic control” over their lives and to an even greater emphasis on the “ethical significance of the [vocational] calling” than in Calvinism or Lutheranism (82).

Throughout this section, Weber discusses a number of different Pietist thinkers, with a special focus on the German Pietism led by the theologians Spener and Zinzendorf. While these and other Pietist thinkers advocated for a number of religious ideas, Weber notes that they are especially important in his analysis for their connection to his previously discussed notion of having a calling. Pietism advocated for the “methodical development” of the believer’s life, so that they lived in ever-increasing closeness and “conformity to God’s laws” (84). For Pietists, such a life organized around holiness and living according to God’s will becomes a “sign of one’s state of grace” (84). In turn, Pietists believed that believers were simply manifestations of God and that God was appearing through the believers’ morally determined lives. However, in contrast to the Calvinists, Pietist thinkers brought a renewed focus to the emotional or feeling aspect of religion. The teachings of the theologian Zinzendorf especially emphasized the believer’s individual feelings. Zinzendorf advocated that believers could “experience salvation […] through feelings” (86), a stark contrast to Calvinism’s emphasis on salvation coming only in the future. Weber argues that such an emphasis on the “feeling aspect of belief” led to a lesser emphasis on work as the central means for testifying to one’s religious piety (88).

In this section, Weber turns to Methodism, a sect of Protestantism that Weber describes as an “English-American counterpart to continental Pietism” (89). Like Pietism, Methodism emphasized the emotional aspect of religious devotion. Weber argues that such focus on emotion led to a lesser emphasis on Calvinism’s intense asceticism, though Methodism did still emphasize a methodical and rational organization of one’s entire life according to religious principles.

Methodism ultimately placed religious feelings at the center of its believers’ attempts to be certain of their predestined salvation. Accordingly, Methodist believers were taught to feel the “absolute certainty of [God’s] forgiveness” (90). Absent such feelings of God’s grace, Methodism held that believers would not be among those destined for salvation. Like Calvinism and Lutheranism, Methodism also emphasized that one’s tireless work in a vocational calling could be “the means to recognize whether one is among the saved” (91). However, for Methodism, one’s good behavior or conduct was not enough to be sure of one’s salvation. Instead, preachers like John Wesley taught that such conduct was only proof of one’s salvation if the believer also had “the feeling of being among the saved” (91). Such an emphasis on feeling one’s salvation could lead to intense displays of emotion in Methodists, or what Weber refers to as “the most alarming states of ecstasy” (90). Such an outpouring of emotion could then be channeled into the systematic organization of one’s life according to religious ideals.

Weber concludes Chapter 4 by considering what he calls the “baptizing sects”—a group of Protestant sects that practiced the baptism of believers. While Weber writes that Pietists and Methodists were ultimately unimportant for the development of the Protestant ethic, the baptizing sects were “the second [most important] (next to Calvinism) independent carrier of Protestant asceticism” (93). Particularly important sects that Weber will discuss are the Quakers, the Mennonites, and the Baptists.

Calvinists and other Protestants believed that anyone, devout believer or sinner, was welcome in their churches. In contrast, the baptizing sects aimed to create a community that was only open to the “sincere believers and the elect” (93)—those who had been chosen by God to be saved. These baptizing sects thus formed communities separate from the rest of the world in which adults who have “declared [their] sincere belief” in God are baptized and brought into the community (94). These sects believed that grace could only come through “an individual revelation” and thus aimed to live in such a way as to make revelation possible (94). As a result, baptizing sects advocated that followers should seek to eschew all interactions with the rest of the world as much as possible. They also taught that followers should not seek to satiate their material and worldly desires, as such urges could only serve to distract them from their goal of attaining revelation and living according to God’s will.

In spite of the baptizing sects’ avoidance of worldly affairs, Weber argues that such sects ultimately showed a greater interest in the notion of a vocational calling. One such reason for this renewed interest in vocation was that the baptizing sects advocated that their followers should avoid any government jobs as part of their commitment to isolating themselves from the world. Such baptizing sects also advocated that their followers should avoid “every sign of an aristocratic style of life” (98). As a result, these baptizing sects embraced an “apolitical vocational life” (98), bringing the moral organization of their lives into the area of work.