Calvinist Predestination and the Spirit of Capitalism: The Religious Argument of the Weber Thesis Reexamined

In Weber’s (1930: 99) view, the Calvinist doctrine of predestination represents a ‘causal factor’ because of its ‘influence on other historical processes,’ including the spirit of capitalism, suggesting that, as an instance of ‘judgments of historical imputation,’ in respect of the ‘significance which is to be attributed to that dogma by virtue of its cultural and historical consequences, it must certainly be rated very highly’.

According to Weber (1968: 575, 1978: 1122), ‘all that remained of (the doctrine of predestination) in Occidental ascetic Protestantism was a remains (caput mortuum), the contribution which this doctrine of grace made to the rational capitalistic orientation (i.e., to) the concept of the methodical demonstration of vocation in one's economic conduct (forming) the dogmatic foundations of inner-worldly asceticism.’.

This applies, above all. to Weber’s initial essay the Protestant Ethic (including his replies to early critics) and to some extent his later work Economy and Society in which he also emphasizes the “contribution” of the doctrine of predestination yet diagnosed as “presumed dead” (caput mortuum) during his time, to the rise and expansion of capitalism. However, it does not apply to his lectures on General Economic History in which Weber presents his mature, “last” theory of the factors of the evolution of capitalism and even does not consider and mention that theological dogma as relevant (Collins 1980).

Parsons (1935: 690) proposes that for Weber “ascetic Protestantism placed peculiarly powerful “psychological sanctions” on certain types of conduct and the source of these sanctions lies in the way in which Protestant dogma, above all the doctrine of predestination, canalized the individual’s attitudes and conduct in a certain peculiar direction–that of systematic, rational mastery over the external environment, and lent these attitudes a very special ethical intensity (as) the central core of Weber’s thesis. Tawney (1930: 10) comments that Weber takes ‘as his theme, not the conduct of Puritan capitalists, but the doctrines of Puritan divines’, in particular the predestination doctrine. Previously in 1914, Scheler (1964: 17) registers the specific connection (of the spirit of capitalism) with Calvin’s doctrine of “predestination” in the “confirmatory” value of wealth for “certitude of salvation” (being of the elect) within Weber’s framework. Giddens (1976: xiif.) comments that ‘of the elements in Calvinism that Weber singles out for special attention, perhaps the most important, for his thesis, is the doctrine of predestination: that only some human beings are chosen to be saved from damnation, the choice being predetermined by God. From this torment, Weber holds, the capitalist spirit was born.” Fourcade and Healy (2007: 295) comment that “Weber was careful to show that the rational search for profit he observed among the protocapitalist Calvinists did not follow logically from their religious worldview. Rather, their actions made psychological sense as a way to relieve the salvational anxiety their harsh religious doctrines (of predestination, etc.) tended to produce”.

Benedict (2014: 200) remarks that ‘the great spur to such behavior within Calvinist religious culture, (Weber) believed, was the doctrine of predestination (which) brought believers face to face with the alarming question: am I predestined to salvation or damnation?’ van den Brink (2014: 221) suggests that ‘Calvin’s ‘terrifying’ doctrine of predestination was combined with the conviction that the sustained attempt to lead a disciplined (‘sanctified’) life was a clear sign of one’s being among the elect’. Graafland (2014:178) comments that, according to ‘Max Weber’s famous thesis,’ ‘because of Calvin’s doctrine of double predestination, people were desperate for signs that they belonged to the elect, and worldly success became one such sign.’ Also, according to Gorski (2003: 26), for Weber the ‘Protestant ethic is rooted in Calvinist theology, specifically, the Calvinist doctrine of double predestination’.  

Scheler (1964: 18) remarks that Calvinism placed “the excessive premium of “confirmed” certitude of salvation upon the action of acquiring and earning (wealth) as the most important manifestation of God’s power over the world and in his elect. (Thus) the source of the restless desire to work and to earn money is the perpetually harassing, wretched doubt of the individual as to whether he was elected to heaven or condemned to hell”. Troeltsch (1966: 136) states that ‘since the aggressively active ethic inspired by the doctrine of predestination urges the elect to the full development of his God-given powers, and offers him this as a sign by which he may assure himself of his election, work becomes rational and systematic”. Generally, for Troeltsch (1966: 64) the “consciously elect man feels himself to be the destined lord of the world, who in the power of God and for the honour of God has it laid on him to grasp and shape the world”. Also, Tawney 1962: 38f.) proposes referring to Weber’s Thesis that “Calvin did for the Bourgeoisie of the 16th century what Marx did for the proletariat of the 19th century (i.e.) the doctrine of predestination satisfied the same hunger for an assurance that the forces of the universe are on the side of the elect as was to be assuaged in a different age by the theory of historical materialism”.

Benedict (2014: 200) remarks that ‘after three generations of research devoted to pertinent aspects of this topic, the preponderance of the evidence clearly seems to be running in favor of the view that features distinctive to the theological or religious makeup of Calvinism or of the Reformed tradition more generally cannot convincingly be shown to have provided an important stimulus to rational capitalist accumulation or economic success.’ Also, van den Brink (2014: 221f.) registers that ‘whereas (Weber’s) essay continues to serve as a classic in sociology, in economic historiography it has been largely marginalized’.

Young (2009: 384) comments that “Weber argued that the unique (predestination) theology of Protestantism nurtured a capitalist orientation in which saving, investment, and hard work were valued for their own moral content”.

Benedict (2002: xviii) objects that “the new social or anthropological history of early modern religion has revealed how risky it is to infer the psychological experience and social behavior of the members of a given faith from its theology—essentially the method of Weber” specifically used in respect of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination.

Scheler (1964: 16f.) states that “neither Protestantism nor Calvinism “has given birth” to the bourgeois spirit, but in Calvinism the bourgeois spirit broke through the religious barriers which the Catholic Church (and Aquinas) had put in its way,” thus qualifying Weber and disagreeing with Sombart (1928) who contended that Catholicism, notably Thomism, had opposite, positive effects on the spirit of capitalism. Moreover, in stating that “the receptiveness for and dissemination of (Calvinist) doctrines was doubtlessly prepared and conditioned by the “bourgeois” type which at this time had become dominant” (1964: 16), Scheler effectively disconfirms Weber’s Thesis and confirms Sombart’s argument that capitalism precedes Calvinism, despite Scheler’s opposite declaration and seeming inconsistencies (see note 3).

In general, this holds because of what Durkheim, Pareto, and Mill suggest as a sociological rule of explanation and prediction positing an equivalence of the cause and the effect, i.e., Sorokin’s (1970) “patterns of uniformity” of causal relations. This is in the sense that the same cause can only produce and explain equivalent, uniform effects under all typical societal conditions and historical conjunctures in which it operates, excluding major “pathological” disturbances, rather than certain consequences in one case and different ones in other cases negating the notion of causation and explanation. If this rule is valid, as a corollary the doctrine of predestination, regardless of its Calvinist and pre- and non-Calvinist variations, must generate via its consequent asceticism or otherwise the same imputed effect, the spirit of capitalism under all societal conditions and historical conjunctures in which it was held, thus both in pre- and non-Calvinism and Calvinism, before (AD 487, 987 or 1496) and during and after the latter (1560 or 1640 or 1776, etc.). Conversely, on these grounds the same doctrine cannot generate that effect only under one set of social–historical conditions such as during Calvinism, but not in all others like in pre- and non-Calvinism such as early Christianity, Catholicism, and Lutheranism (plus Islam), as per Weber’s Thesis. One can object that the same cause, in this case religious ideas and beliefs like predestination, can produce different effects under varying social conditions and historical circumstances, specifically in pre-Reformation and Reformation societies and times. Yet, the burden of proof is on those arguing this to demonstrate that pre-Reformation, particularly Renaissance, and Reformation Europe, the late 15th century and the 16th and 17th centuries were so different in economic as well as non-economic terms that the same doctrine of predestination had radically differential effects on economy and society in the latter as opposed to the former society and period. In fact, Weber and Weberians do not systematically demonstrate such relevant differences in social-economic conditions between the two—say, between Renaissance Italy and Calvin’s France and Geneva or Baxter’s Puritan England—likely because they did not exist to the degree to infer the drastically differential outcomes of the doctrine of predestination for economy and society.

This also holds true generally so long as Durkheim–Pareto–Sorokin’s explanatory rule of the same cause producing and explaining, under identical or similar conditions, identical, and not drastically different, effects is valid.

Weber (1930: 98) describes predestination as the “most essential,” “most characteristic” and “basic” theological doctrine of Calvinism, and yet implies that Calvin did not invent but rather adopted that dogma directly from Augustine (and Luther) and indirectly from Muhammad. Weber (1930: 221) points to “Augustine’s first attempt to develop the doctrine” of predestination expressing the “feeling of certainty that (religious) grace is the sole product of an objective power, and not in the least to be attributed to personal worth,” and identifies its “Biblical foundation” (“principally the first chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians”). Curiously, Weber (1968: 572–573) joins Augustine and Muhammad (plus Luther) in respect of their shared “faith in predestination” and thus regards them as pre-Calvinist believers in that dogma and respective direct and indirect influences on Calvin’s version. In turn, Weber (1930: 102) suggests that during Calvin’s life (unlike Luther) “the significance of the doctrine for him increased, perceptibly in the course of his polemical controversies with theological opponents. It is not fully developed until the third edition of his Institutes, and only gained its position of central prominence after his death in the great struggles which the Synods of Dordrecht and Westminster sought to put an end to”. Within the Weber Thesis, this implies that the doctrine of predestination had existed both in Christianity and Islam (Augustine and Muhammad) long before Calvin and Calvinism, and yet only its later Calvinist version operated, through the consequent ascetic ethic of hard labor in a calling as proof of “election,” as the religious “causal factor” of the origin of the spirit of capitalism. However, Weber does not explain and elaborate how and why the doctrine did so only in the late Calvinist version but not in its early pre-Calvinist versions, or simply avoids dealing with and seemingly unrecognizing this problem. It seems as if it never occurs to Weber to ask why and how the same doctrine produced its assumed effect in the Calvinist case, but not in the cited pre- and non-Calvinist cases.

Rawls and ebrary Inc. (2010: 264) recounts that ‘unless one made an exception of oneself and assumed one would be saved, I came to feel the doctrine of predestination s terrifying once one thought it through and realized what it meant. Double predestination as expressed in its rigorous way by St. Augustine and Calvin seemed especially terrifying, though I had to admit it was present in St. Thomas and Luther also, and actually only a consequence of predestination itself’.

Walker (1937: 13) suggests that Calvinism and the Reformation generally represented in theological terms a re-statement and re-emphasis of certain parts of Catholic theology, especially Predestination and Original Sin.

Collins (1980: 925f.) comments that Weber’s “original thesis about Calvinism” is presented in the Protestant Ethic and consists in the “argument that the Calvinist doctrine of predestination gave the psychological impetus for rationalized, entrepreneurial capitalism,” but describes it as “only a fragment of Weber’s full theory” or “well-rounded model” outlined in General Economic History.

Parsons (1938: 660) adds that a human “eternal fate is settled by Predestination, but he can become certain of salvation through proving his faith by active labor in the vineyard, by doing God’s will. (So) rational, systematic, workmanlike labor in a worldly calling has had this significance to ardent believers in Calvinism and related religious movements”. Similarly, Bendix (1977: 58f.) comments that for Weber among Protestant theological doctrines “especially” the Calvinist doctrine of predestination “contained implicit incentives” for “the new worldly orientation”. Also, McCleary and Barro (2006: 52f.) referring to Weber remark that “Calvin emphasized predestination but thought that economic success and religious faith provided signals that a person had been chosen for salvation. Calvinist Protestantism, with its emphasis on predestination, seems at first glance to be weak on economic incentives. After all, according to Calvin, a person is either one of the elect or not, and no good works or other worldly acts can do anything about it. However, the uncertainty about salvation is also stressed, as is the motivation to gain some kind of sign that one has been chosen. The Reformed churches, which closely follow Calvin’s theology, stress outward or social signs of salvation. Human industry and thrift that result in material success are the clearest possible signals that God has chosen the person as one of the elect who will be saved”.

Ay and Dolphin (1994: 164) comment that “Weber links this (economic) asceticism with John Calvin’s doctrine of predestination,” means (1965: 4) that “Weber stresses the idea of election and predestination as being Protestant ideas instrumental in the rise of capitalism,” and MacKinnon identifies Weber’s focus on “Calvin’s predestinarianism” (1988: 143) and then the “predestinarian content” of orthodox Calvinism (1990: 191).

Critics may comment that Calvinism thereby makes ridicule (Giddens 1984) of what Parsons (1951) claims as the “universalism-achievement” complex supposedly defining America as the historically Puritan society (Clemens 2007; Munch 2001) in an invidious distinction from that of “particularism-ascription” presumably characterizing Catholic Spanish America, though he was reportedly ambivalent toward his “Puritan heritage” (Alexander 1983). In turn, non-Calvinists like liberals and secularists a la Jefferson et al. may remark that the “universalism-achievement” nexus defines America not because but in spite and opposition of Puritanism, including the dogma of predestination, and instead is primarily due to the ideals and legacy of the Enlightenment and its liberalism and secularism (Dombrowski 2001; Kloppenberg 1998).

Troeltsch (1966: 63f.) proposes that Calvinism “more and more made this doctrine the focus of its system, and in its great historical conflicts drew thence the strong support of the consciousness of election; sacrificing for this, however, rationality and universal love as elements of its conception of God; whereas, Lutheranism, in defending the two latter interests, progressively weakened down the doctrine of predestination, thereby, however, taking from its thought the heroic, the iron element”.

Mathews (1912: 303) remarks that “with Augustine the absolute sovereignty of God (and so predestination) became the central element of the theology (as) in Augustine’s City of God in which the entire Christian dispensation is definitely cast in the political mold. This unmodified absolute monarchy of God was the starting-point of all theological discussions throughout the Roman Catholic church and thence passed over into the Protestant Augustinianism of Luther and Calvin”. Hunter (1914: 233) notes that these doctrines like predestination “with which Calvinism is popularly identified did not originate with Calvin at all. He inherited them, and much else, from Augustine,” and Buckham (1918: 293) describes Calvinism as the “most pronounced Protestant form of Augustinianism”. Bouma (1947: 45) formulates a sort of motto or bumper-sticker of Calvinism—”Not Kant, but Pascal. Not Hegel, but Calvin. Not Feuerbach, but Augustine,” and Tyacke (1987: 204) reports that “Augustine was the author most usually cited by Calvinists” in late 16th century England.

Augustine implies this in stating that “it is not that God is ignorant, and reads in the book to inform Himself, but rather His infallible prescience is the book of life in which (things) are written, that is to say, known beforehand (any human works)”.

Augustine, citing the Biblical passage “many are called, but few are chosen,” asserts “many reprobate are in this world mixed with the elect” until the “wicked must be separated from the good”. Also, he calculates that “from Adam to Noah there are ten generations. And to Noah three sons are added, of whom, while one fell into sin, two were blessed by their father; so that, if you deduct the reprobate and add the gracious sons to the number, you get twelve—a number signalized in the case of the patriarchs and of the apostles (so) the whole human race, with the exception of eight persons, deserved to perish in the deluge (for) all the sins of men (i.e.) all who belong to the city which lives according to man, not according to God, are reprobate”. Cynics may add that this number of the “elect” amounts not even to Weber’s (1930: 121) “spiritual aristocracy of the predestined saints of God within the world” but to a “heavenly” hyper-oligarchy or autocracy as it seems that ultimately the only one “saved” is Augustine at this point or Calvin et al. later. On this account, Augustine sounds like the first “Calvinist,” the theological father of Calvin.

Weber’s influential contemporary Scheler (1964: 14) remarks that the “doctrine of predestination was the doctrine of Augustine” long before Calvin and Calvinism, though does not mention Aquinas’ codification.

Zwingli asserts that ‘predestination is born of providence, nay is providence,’ thus virtually citing Aquinas. However, Weber (1930: 217) remarks that Zwinglianism ‘after a short lease of power it rapidly lost in importance’.

Hobsbaum (1972: 26) implies this remarking that Calvinism “centres and turns upon the doctrine of Predestination: a marginal matter in St. Augustine, a special application of Providence in Aquinas, but taken as his central dogma by Calvin”. Theologian Trinterud (1955: 267) explicitly states that “double predestination” as well as “many other “Calvinistic” ideas and practices were gratefully borrowed by Calvin from his predecessors”.

Weber (1930: 101) admits this shared element in commenting that the “phenomenon of the religious sense of grace is combined, in the most active and passionate of those great worshippers which Christianity has produced again and again since Augustine, with the feeling of certainty that that grace is the sole product of an objective power, and not in the least to be attributed to personal worth,” mentioning also Calvin as well as Luther, while omitting Aquinas.

Calvin’s hostility to Aquinas’ is especially perplexing in contrast to his enthusiasm for Augustine’s version of predestination. This is because of almost no profound differences between Calvin’s and Aquinas’ versions, including the “number of the elect” and the role of “good works” in salvation, and the latter mostly develops, as he states, that of Augustine. It is remarkable that Calvin with all his famed theological erudition and “logical mind” could overlook not only that his version was mostly continuous with that of Aquinas, but even more the latter with Augustine’s, the second omission probably leading to the first. Conversely, if Calvin realized that Aquinas’ version actually elaborated rather than deviated from that of Augustine in the core elements, he would probably have not dismissed the first the way he did.

Beza was probably more correct not just because of being an orthodox Calvinist theologian. He was a disciple and “brother in arm” of Calvin following him in the “water and fire” such as Geneva and representing him in France after the exile, thus knowing and witnessing personally his ideas, feelings, and actions almost four centuries before Weber writing the Protestant Ethic, although his mother (Helene Fallenstein) was of a French Calvinist, Huguenot descent (the Souchays).

In Franklin’s words, referring to Calvinism: “Surely it is not more difficult to believe the World was made by a God of Wood or Stone, than that the God who made the World should be such a God as this,” described as “contrary to the very Notion of a wise and good Being” (cited in Slack 2013: 365).

Pareto’s (2000: 35) implicit description of the doctrine of predestination and theology in general as a “cage for the insane” seemingly parallels Weber’s (1930: 181) of capitalism as an “iron cage,” yet a rational one. Cynics may comment that Weber’s Thesis is that Calvinism as a theological “cage for the insane” religiously determines capitalism as an economic “iron cage”.

In Sombart’s (1913: 42) words, “the doctrine of predestination had the effect of imposing a life to Calvinists strictly in accordance with the requirements of the Church. The man in sound mind, obeying only simple logic would say that since his will and his conduct cannot change his fate, he cannot assure salvation or escape from the condemnation, all live according to His good pleasure, but for (others) sanity was completely broken and they were in a state bordering on madness”. Similarly, Mitchell (1914: 34) remarks that “Calvinism developed a similarly reactionary exaltation of poverty, and in its Puritan strains filled the week so full of religious exercises as to leave scant time for an “excess of worldly cases and business” citing Sombart.

Means (1965: 4) comments that “Weber stresses the idea of election and predestination as being Protestant ideas instrumental in the rise of capitalism. These ideas, however, go back to the life of the early church and the Pelagian and Augustinian controversy” and cites a theologian’s statement that “one can hardly blame Professor Max Weber, who was not a theologian for making the mistake many theologians have made and treating the doctrine of election as the distinctive mark of Calvinism. Luther, Zwingli, and indeed all the reformers shared the view of Augustine, and the majority of the great Catholic doctors agreed on this point with Calvin”. Also, Walzer (1965: 21f.) suggests that Calvin’s “innovation was far less important in theology than in moral conduct and social organization”.

Samuelsson (1961: 151) notes that the doctrine of predestination “permeates the whole of Pauline Christianity and was not invented by Calvin or the Puritans”. Hyma (1938: 338) reports that, for example, in Holland under Calvinism the “doctrine of predestination itself was held dear, not so much because of the authority of Calvin as of the manner in which Paul had discussed it in his Epistle to the Romans”. Also, Kaplan (1994: 661) registers that since Calvin to his Dutch followers “all Calvinists assented to” rather than invented strictly speaking the doctrine of predestination.

Weber (1930: 99) remarks that the “Calvinist great synods of the seventeenth century, above all those of Dordrecht and Westminster, besides numerous smaller ones, made (the) elevation (of the doctrine of predestination) to canonical authority the central purpose of their work”.

Samuelsson (1961: 97) observes that “as late as 1647, at all events, the Confession of Westminster (cited at length by Weber) clings to the same conception of predestination as Calvin held” and to that extent to those of Augustine and Aquinas.

Troeltsch (1966: 63) implies that the doctrine of predestination existed before Calvinism stating that early Christianity aims at “excluding all human effort and making salvation independent of man and dependent on God alone”. Troeltsch (1966: 63) adds that “in the interest of assurance of salvation the doctrine of Predestination becomes the central doctrine of Protestantism,” including Luther and Calvin alike (plus Zwingli).

Benedict (2002: 8) notes that “minority voices within the (pre-Calvinist Christian) church upheld a doctrine of predestination (joined with) an Augustinian pessimism about the power of the will to contribute to salvation”. Also, Davis (2010: 6) remarks that “predestination had a long history as a doctrine within the Christian tradition long before the early Protestants came along. They found Augustine persuasive on this point”.

I credit an anonymous reviewer for this statement and the discussion that follows.

Young (2009: 388–393) implies this in finding that, while Weber emphasized a “specific (predestination) theology” as the basis of in-world asceticism, “there is no evidence of a Protestant ethic supporting economic growth; the coefficient for Protestant share is consistently negative and nonsignificant”.

Weber (1978: 1125) argues that the ‘development of French bourgeois capitalism was closely linked with the Huguenot movement’ during Calvin’s life and later. Echoing Weber Troeltsch (1966: 132) notes that “Calvin and his successors rejected the Canon-law prohibition of interest, and did away with the burdensome restrictions on investment”.

Weber (1930:156) describes Baxter as a “Presbyterian and an apologist of the Westminster Synod, but at the same time, like so many of the best spirits of his time, gradually grew away from the dogmas of pure Calvinism,” including the dogma of predestination “whose terrible seriousness deeply influenced (his) youthful development”.

Weber (1930: 102) comments that “at the time of Luther’s greatest religious creativeness, when he was capable of writing his On Freedom of the Christian, God’s secret decree (of predestination) was also to him most definitely the sole and ultimate source of his state of religious grace”.

I credit an anonymous reviewer for this comment.

Weber (1930: 138) suggests that restless labor has historically been an “approved ascetic technique,” as especially applied in medieval monasteries outside society manifesting other-worldly asceticism, and then released and expanded by Calvinism to all social life expressing inner-worldly asceticism.

I give credits to an anonymous reviewer for these qualifications.

According to MacKinnon (1988: 171) “in 17th century Calvinism there is no crisis of proof, no irrationally textured psychological sanction, no unintendedness and above all—no holy approval and blessing for the successful pursuit of a worldly calling”.

Pareto (2000: 55) uses the phrase “kill in the name of the Divine master” with reference to medieval Christian warriors.

Samuelsson (1961: 97) objects that “why it should be only in Calvin and Calvinism, not in St. Paul, Augustine or Luther, that the idea of the ‘sanctity of labor” came to be used, Weber is unable to explain”.

Benedict (2002: 20) finds that the ascetic, rational “style of piety was strikingly absent or muted in many (European) Reformed churches, even though predestinarian theology was no weaker (than in Puritanism)” and infers that “rationalized self-discipline” emphasized by Weber “did not arise simply as a logical, if unintended, consequence of the doctrine of predestination”.