Did Calvin Have a Better Understanding of Modern Economics as Luther? Max Weber's Ideas to the Test

Abstract

For the Christian tradition there seems to be a critical attitude towards economy, it’s perspective and it’s logic. But it can be shown that not only the language of Luther and Calvin is dominated economically, but even the language of the Bible itself. Purpose of that is to bring the Christian faith in the "everyday life" of each era. And thus just Luther and Calvin had made use of economic terms and have dealt engaged with economic (everyday) questions. But by the works of Max Weber it became quite popular to estimate Luther low compared to Calvin concerning economic relationships. In this paper these ideas of Max Weber shall be tested: namely concerning the representative economic topics "property", "vocation/ profession" and "interest". It will be shown that there is nearly no reason to estimate Luther low compared to Calvin.