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The Kenotic Structure of Max Weber's the Protestant Ethic

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The Kenotic Structure of Max Weber's the Protestant Ethic The Kenotic Structure of Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Secularization Demelza Marlin A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia May 2010 1 The Kenotic Structure of Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Secularization In its classic form the theory of secularization is the story of a Fall. It charts the disenchanting potential of a rupture within the sacred cosmos, said to be responsible for violently sundering human unity with the divine. In most conventional accounts, the secularizing consequences of this primordial rupture are not fully realized until modernity when the culture of the “West” achieves complete emancipation from the supernatural. In its earliest incarnations this narrative of progressive liberation was used to defend a moral schema that demarcated the modern from pre-modern and religious societies. Although the Enlightenment pretensions of this moral schema have been widely rejected by critics of secularization the association of modernity with secularity has not. The idea that the worldliness and rationality of modern culture lacks spiritual depth remains axiomatic in the social sciences today. Indeed its logic animates recent scholarship identifying the return of the sacred in the postmodern epoch. Both advocates and critics of the secularization narrative tend to overlook the deeply entangled relation between spirit and flesh that endures within the modern. Using Max Weber’s seminal study of Protestantism and capitalism as its point of departure, this thesis demonstrates that secularization is a kenotic process. It is characterized by the passage between spirit and flesh, an active commerce that endures within the modern, as the condition of its secularity. 2 The kenotic understanding of secularization is tracked through the broader frame of Weber’s theory, providing detailed examinations of the narrative of disenchantment, Weber’s engagement with Calvinist theology, with particular a focus on the semiology that underpins Calvin’s concept of the fides efficax, and a number of unorthodox theories of secularization that emphasize the sacredness of the secular. Emerging from within the interstices of this inter- textual dialogue is a narrative of secularization that chronicles the survival of the religious spirit within disjuncture, disenchantment, and even death. This challenges received notions about secularity by relocating the religious within the modern, thus questioning the basis of its difference from both the primitive and postmodern. 3 Acknowledgements The gestation of this thesis was long, and the writing of it, often exacting. Over the course of this difficult, but ultimately rewarding journey, I have been supported by many people. I am especially grateful to: My supervisor Vicki Kirby. Her support, cogent advice and encouragement has been unfailing throughout, but particularly so in the last few months when she was so generous with her time. She has been not just a supervisor but also a mentor, giving me opportunities to present papers, contribute to publications, and teach, all of which have been indispensable in sustaining my desire to pursue a scholarly vocation. Most of all I would like to acknowledge the deep impact that her insatiable curiosity, and her delight in the puzzle, has had on my own work. For teaching me to be faithful to the questions that our lives provoke, I am truly grateful. The academic and administrative staff of The School of Social Science and International Studies (formerly The School of Sociology and Anthropology) for their words of advice and assistance negotiating the bureaucracy at UNSW. In particular I would like to acknowledge the generous involvement of Ann Game and Andrew Metcalfe in my scholarly and teaching life. Our weekly meetings never failed to reignite my passion for writing and thinking about religion. The large postgraduate community at UNSW, past and present, which has been like a surrogate family to me. I am especially grateful to Peta, Guy, Jarred, John, Larissa and Gen for listening to my ideas and sharing their own. 4 The members of the reading and writing group for their input into my written work. I owe a particular debt to Michelle Jameson, Florence Chiew and Craig Lundy who were my daily grounding in the final months when the days sometimes looked quite bleak. The scholars who were generous enough to share their unpublished work with me: Ann Game and Andrew Metcalfe, Peta Hinton, Eric Repphun, Susanna Rizzo and Richard Kearney. The wide circle of friends and the loving family who have helped me in ways they probably can’t imagine. Your love and support, given freely on camping trips, at weddings and over Christmas lunches, is a gift, for which I am always profoundly grateful. In particular, my parents, David and Kelly, who have given me financial support and unconditional love. Your unshakeable faith in me is central to how I negotiate the world, and what I think I am capable of. Lastly, my partner Sam Trewartha, for the love that I come home to daily. Your support has carried me through the best and worst of this project. You have been a patient listener, a shoulder to cry on, a willing cook, an enthusiastic participant in lengthy conversations about the nature of religion and the process of creative production, as well as a constant source of inspiration. I am so glad to be able to share this achievement with you, who have been such an integral part of it. 5 Table of Contents Abstract ………………………………………………………………………….2 Acknowledgments ……………………………………………………………….4 Table of Contents ………………………………………………………………..6 Introduction: A Secular Age …………………………………………………….7 Chapter One: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism .…………..32 Chapter Two: The Disenchantment of the World ……………………………87 Chapter Three: Living Signs of Grace ……………………………………….139 Chapter Four: Incarnation, Kenosis and the Death of God …………………186 Chapter Five: Survival and Return in the Secular Present …………………..235 Conclusion: Letting the Spirit Speak …………………………………………290 Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………298 6 INTRODUCTION: A SECULAR AGE This thesis uses the work of “founding father” Max Weber to explore the logic of secularization. It asks what the becoming-worldly of the spirit means for religion, and for those societies we commonly designate as secular. Although the focus of this thesis argument is, in one sense, quite narrow – it meditates on a relatively small number of key sociological, philosophical and theological texts dealing with processes of secularization – it addresses enduring questions within the sociology of religion, as well as the broader study of religion. At its basis this thesis asks what is the nature of the religious spirit? Can religion become secular, worldly, without losing “what is specifically religious about it” (Bruce and Wallis: 1992, 21)? Does the “world-historical” process responsible for secularization describe the transformation of religiosity, or does it simply chart its corruption or decline? If the spirit can, as some “secular theologians” and postmodern philosophers have argued, become worldly, human, or even profane (see Altizer: 1966a; Tillich: 1948; Van Buren: 1963; Taylor: 1982; 1994; 2007; Marion: 2002; Kearney: 2009), then what marks the difference between secular and religious societies, beliefs and institutions? Can bipolarities like enchanted/disenchanted, spiritualist/materialist, worldly/otherworldly be used to describe the particular orientation of divergent systems of belief? A few clarifying comments are necessary to help contextualize these questions. Secularization is commonly defined as the process “in which the key reference points for the everyday workings of a capitalist society focus on this age and this world and not on any world beyond” (Boer: 2007, 8). It involves what Larry Shiner calls “conformity with ‘this world’” (Shiner: 1967, 211). This is when “[t]he religious group or the religiously informed society 7 turns its attention from the supernatural and becomes more and more interested in ‘this world’” (Shiner: 1967, 211). When understood in these terms secularization is a process responsible for the gradual unhinging of social institutions from their former reference to the supernatural, a reorientation from the otherworldly towards the worldly. With some important exceptions, to be discussed in the body of this thesis, the reorientation of religion towards the mundane is regarded as a loss for religion, a corruption of its spiritual purity, and an improper compromise with the secular world (Bruce and Wallis: 1992, 21; Berger: 1973, 161; 1993, 42). But what if it is in the very nature of the religious spirit to be both transcendent and immanent, to manifest as both enchanted and disenchanted traditions, to occupy the place of the divine, and yet also to speak with the voice of the social – to wear a human face? If it is in the nature of religion to be different to itself, and in this deviance to remain true to itself, as theorists like G. W. F Hegel (1977) and Mark C. Taylor (2007) argue, then secularization does not chronicle the shift from one state of being, one spatio-temporal reality, or one set of institutional arrangements, into another. Rather, secularization indicates an intrinsic possibility within religion to be open to change, to embrace it as an essential part of its vitality and historical viability. In
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