about man, his culture, and his values”2 was one of the most important intellectual changes in Western history, (2) that it arose first in Germany during the last decades of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, (3) that it reached a high point in the work of Leopold von Ranke, and (4) that it was based on the concepts of individuality (Individualität) and development (Entwicklung).
In the larger work Religion and the Rise of History, I raised two questions that cannot be dealt with here: (1) Is the period term—“the Cultural Revolution in Germany, 1760–1810”—a useful designation for capturing and teaching the formative stage in the development of modern German education, thought, and culture? (2) Since the rise of historicism and the rise of a distinctly modern type of Western historiography were important aspects of this Cultural Revolution, and since they arose first in Protestant Germany, was the Lutheran religious tradition especially conducive for the rise of these aspects of this revolution and of modern life?
The two questions that were dealt with in chapter two of this larger work, however, are the basic ones behind this essay: (1) Did Martin Luther have a second basic way of thinking and viewing life in addition to his well-known paradoxical, simul, or “at-the-same-time” way? (2) If so, how have these two ways shaped a distinctively Lutheran ethos and sense of calling?
Like each of the chapters in the original work, this essay begins with an introductory statement of the problems behind the inquiry. Here the reader will find not only the basic questions that I am trying to answer, but also some background material and literature so that he or she does not have to be an expert in any of these subjects or refer to other sources. To aid the reader, here and throughout this essay, I have made extensive use of quotations from primary works, as well as helpful secondary studies, so that he or she can be directly engaged with the thought not only of Martin Luther but also with specialists on Luther and the Protestant Reformation in Germany whose research, knowledge, and insights are particularly helpful.
Here I also want to acknowledge my debt and gratitude to those kind souls who read all or parts of my larger work and who offered helpful corrections, improvements, and suggestions: Luther S. Luedtke, Walter K. Stuart, Carlyle A. Smith, Richard Cole, Dale A. Johnson, Peter Hanns Reill, Eric W. Gritsch, Heiko A. Oberman, Richard W. Solberg, Robert Guy Erwin, James J. Sheehan, and Thomas A. Brady, Jr. Their kindness, however, should not be construed to mean agreement either in general or in many particulars.
I also want to express gratitude to my father, the Rev. A. Leonard Smith (1894–1960). I am indebted to him not only for the traditional kind of religious education that I received and that is portrayed in this essay, but also because he—more than anyone else I have known—personified the Lutheran idea of a “calling.”
Most of all, however, I want to thank my wife Sharon Faye Ronning Smith not only for reading and correcting the various versions of this and many other manuscripts, but also for all the advice, helpful criticisms, and unflagging support that she has provided for all of my academic endeavors.
1. Ranke, “Erwiderung auf Heinrich Leo’s Angriff,” 664–65.
2. Troeltsch, Der Historismus und seine Probleme, 102.
Abbreviations
BC The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, eds. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000
BC-T The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Theodore G. Tappert, tr. and ed. Philadelphia: Mühlenburg, 1959
LQ Lutheran Quarterly
LW Luther’s Works—American Edition. 55 vols. Philadelphia, Fortress; St. Louis: Concordia, 1955–1986
WA Luther, Martin. D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtsausgabe. [Schriften]. 65 vols. Weimar: H. Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1883–1993
WA.BR Luther, Martin. D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Briefwechsel. 18 vols. Weimar: H. Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1930–1985
Introduction
The appeal to national character is generally a mere confession of ignorance, and in this case is untenable. . . . It was the power of religious influence, not alone, but more than anything else, which created the differences of which we are conscious today.
—Max Weber1
The gigantic historiographical work of Leopold von Ranke grew out of the ground of a Lutheran kind of spirit [Geistesart] and religiosity.
—Carl Hinrichs (1950)2
In his brilliant and provocative study The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, published in the years 1904 and 1905, Max Weber (1864–1920) made the striking claim that it was “the power of religious influence, not alone, but more than anything else,” that created the national differences of which we are conscious today. At the present time, however, the religious origins of these national differences are not easily discernible since for centuries they have been transformed by what Weber called a process of “rationalization,” and Entzauberung.
For Weber, the phrase Entzauberung der Welt, or the “disenchantment of the world,” suggested a process of taking the magic out of life.3 Since he believed (1) that civilizations were based on religions, (2) that originally religion was based on magic, and (3) that the basic tendency of Western civilization was the increasing tendency to rationalize all aspects of life, rationalization and disenchantment were two sides of the same coin, or the same basic tendency. Since the Reformation of the sixteenth century, however, this two-sided process has taken place in different ways within different religious traditions.
In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber explored the relationship between Calvinism and modern capitalism. Here he did not claim that the Calvinist ethic was the cause of modern capitalism, but he did show that some Calvinist beliefs were conducive to the development of a capitalist spirit and to the rise of modern capitalism as “an historical individual” (individuum) or as “a complex of elements associated with historical reality which we unite into a conceptual whole from the standpoint of their cultural significance.”4
Those religious beliefs that were conducive to the development of this aspect of modern life, he called rational, and those religious beliefs that were not conducive to the development of this particular aspect of modern life, he called traditional. In order to show how a particular religious ethic was instrumental for the development of modern capitalism, however, he had to create an “ideal type” (his and Otto Hintze’s basic term for what Western scholars today call a model) not only of a Calvinist sense of calling but also of a Catholic and a Lutheran sense of calling as well.
For Weber, Calvinism was more rational than Catholicism and Lutheranism for the development of modern capitalism partly because it eliminated all “magical” means to salvation. For the Calvinist, he argued, the sacraments were not a means to the attainment of grace.5 This complete elimination of salvation through the Church—which Weber believed was by no means developed to its final conclusions in Lutheranism—“was what formed the absolutely decisive difference from Catholicism.”
