Previous
Pietism
Predestination is the Calvinist doctrine that humanity is completely wretched and separated from God, and thus cannot earn their own salvation. Instead, God divinely chose a minority of humanity to save, long before the earth was created, and the rest of humanity is damned to hell. Those who are saved are known as the elect.
Predestination Quotes in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
The The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism quotes below are all either spoken by Predestination or refer to Predestination. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 2, Section 1
Quotes
This doctrine [of predestination], with all the pathos of its inhumanity, had one principal consequence for the mood of a generation which yielded to its magnificent logic: it engendered, for each individual, a feeling of tremendous inner loneliness.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Tireless labor in a calling was urged as the best possible means of attaining this self-assurance. This and this alone would drive away religious doubt and give assurance of one’s state of grace.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
The consequence of this systematization of the ethical conduct of life, which was enforced by Calvinism (unlike Lutheranism), is the permeation of the whole of existence by Christianity.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Lutheranism, as a result of its doctrine of grace, simply failed to provide the psychological drive to be systematic in the conduct of life, and thus to enforce the rationalization of life.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Section 2
Quotes
If we may sum up what has been said so far, then, innerworldly Protestant asceticism works with all it force against the uninhibited enjoyment of possessions; it discourages consumption, especially the consumption of luxuries. Conversely, it has the effect of liberating the acquisition of wealth from the inhibitions of traditionalist ethics; it breaks the fetters on the striving for gain by not only legalizing it, but […] seeing it as directly willed by God.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism LitChart as a printable PDF.
Predestination Term Timeline in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
The timeline below shows where the term Predestination appears in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 2, Section 1: The Religious Foundations of Innerworldly Asceticism
...opposed but became nearly identical to each other over the centuries. Doctrinal differences, even over predestination, also shifted and combined so that each tradition was “mutually influenced” by each other. Weber...
(full context)
...quotes the articles of the “Westminster Confession” of 1647, where the doctrine of election (or predestination) was canonized. According to the articles, human beings are wholly wretched, unable to come to...
(full context)
Weber claims that the doctrine of predestination, in “all the pathos of its inhumanity,” darkened the mood of all who ascribed to...
(full context)
...he has focused mainly on Calvinism so far, in large part because its doctrine of predestination not only became foundational for many subsequent Protestant movements, but also because he finds Calvinism...
(full context)
...Puritans, with the comparative freedom of modern Germans, descended from Lutherans. Although Calvin’s doctrine of predestination is not the only progenitor of such a rationalized, methodical lifestyle, Weber believes it was...
(full context)
The ascetic tradition of Pietism is usually based on the doctrine of predestination and thus closely resembles Calvinism. Where they differ, however, is in the scope of their...
(full context)
However, when Pietism does not lapse into monasticism and does not abandon the concept of predestination—as Lutheran Pietism did—Weber argues that it produces an even more serious and methodical person. Pietists...
(full context)
