Henry:
Luther, wanting to avoid the corruption of the church and its
>politicalization and commercialization of divine indulgence and,
>ultimately, redemption, tends also to say that it is ultimately god's
>choice, but he waters down calvin's ultra-logical omnipotent/omniscient
>being into a more loving judge who gives people a break per their
>intentions and various human frailties.
I generally agree, but naturally you are aware that Luther antedates
Calvin by some period of time. If watering-down is being done, it's
Calvin making the otherworldliness of Luther's vision psychologically
untenable. Also, whatever flaws there are in Weber's Protestant Ethic he
gives a nice distinction with regard to the orientation of the self.
The Lutheran self orients away from society, as had the monastery
Catholic (of which Luther himself was one). The Calvinist, through a
rather laborious psychological process, was forced into the world to
prove his own worth to himself. Weber also notes, as he must to discuss
his native Germany, that even where "Lutheranism" is, most of its
adherents adopted, to a greater or lesser extent, the world-view of the
Calvinist at a certain historical juncture. But I suspect that with
Weber the religious terminology is more a code-word for the encroachment
of modernity and its origins rather than a truly
phenomenological/hermeneutic/sociological picture of each group.
MT
>
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Luther, wanting to avoid the corruption of the church and its
>politicalization and commercialization of divine indulgence and,
>ultimately, redemption, tends also to say that it is ultimately god's
>choice, but he waters down calvin's ultra-logical omnipotent/omniscient
>being into a more loving judge who gives people a break per their
>intentions and various human frailties.
I generally agree, but naturally you are aware that Luther antedates
Calvin by some period of time. If watering-down is being done, it's
Calvin making the otherworldliness of Luther's vision psychologically
untenable. Also, whatever flaws there are in Weber's Protestant Ethic he
gives a nice distinction with regard to the orientation of the self.
The Lutheran self orients away from society, as had the monastery
Catholic (of which Luther himself was one). The Calvinist, through a
rather laborious psychological process, was forced into the world to
prove his own worth to himself. Weber also notes, as he must to discuss
his native Germany, that even where "Lutheranism" is, most of its
adherents adopted, to a greater or lesser extent, the world-view of the
Calvinist at a certain historical juncture. But I suspect that with
Weber the religious terminology is more a code-word for the encroachment
of modernity and its origins rather than a truly
phenomenological/hermeneutic/sociological picture of each group.
MT
>
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