*Weber on Salvation

After leading several seminars on Weber's view of salvation (Ch. 10 of The Sociology of Religion trans Ephraim Fischoff. Intro by Parsons), I figured I'd summarize it here and make a few interspersed comments. 

In a brief nutshell, in this chapter, Weber aims to distinguish between ritualistic religions that don't contribute to ethical behavior and religions that do contribute to ethics; all of which is done within the purview of salvation.

First, he argues that salvation is an individual endeavor. One path to salvation is through "purely ritual activities and ceremonies: "ritualistic salvation." He states that this form of religion, which stresses the development of a particular "ephemeral subjective state" and experience, holds the effect of ex opere operato (from the work worked; emphasizing the efficacy of the ritual itself, i.e. salvation is obtained by participation): "Their typical intention is the accomplishment, by the sheer sacredness of their manipulations, of redemption from grace and the distribution of sacramental grace." Once the ritual has passed, however, Weber claims that there is a "negligible effect on behavior." He places "the Hindu and others in the Orient" and "the majority of non-Christian ancient mystery cults" into this category of "pure ritualism" (certainly problematic, to say the least). Moreover, he argues that animism focuses on this-world or 'immanence' and use the inducement of 'ecstasy' as an "instrument of salvation or self-deification." Again, for Weber, this has little to no positive effect on everyday ethical behavior. This carries several implications for the discussion of conversion and the role of religious experiences (although I don't think it contributes anything new to that discussion, at least where it stands now).    

By contrast, Weber distinguishes "pure ritualism" from Christian faiths which qualifies the efficacy of the sacrament "to bring salvation" only to those who are "ethically purified in the sight of god," which are associated with moral codes of behavior; prescriptive rules. We begin to see how Weber is setting up his view of religious "rationalization" and "systematization."  

One way by which ritual can exert an ethical effect is through education and the systematization of moral codes or a "body of law." A systematization of "good works" that can take one of two forms: an emphasis on individual actions (Weber includes: Zoroastrianism, Hinduisim, Judaism, and Roman Catholicism and the "oriental Christian churches") or an emphasis on a "underlying ethical total personality." In the case of the latter, he goes on to describe this as an "ethic of inwardness," which is developed either as a product of education - "through a training of goodness" - or as a product of "a divine gift" (but this is problematic, given the nature/nurture debate - we can wonder to what extent we can even talk about 'nature' as we are necessarily born within a specific historical, cultural, and social context). In either case, the prescribed views of "religious good works" become "instruments of self-perfection," self-deification, a process of "sanctification." 

This process of rationalization, a methodological account toward salvation, is codified in ethics; to "become his [god's] instrument or to be spiritually suffused by him." This method and rationalization in effect combats the "average habitus of the human body and the everyday world as those are given by nature." The negation of this-world, in yearning for salvation, induces the ethical behavior for this world. In other words, the end motivates the means to achieve the end.

While Weber highlights "method" over "religious experience" regarding their effect on everyday behavior, his protestant upbringing can't help but include a specific experience, an emergent "subjective condition" - the assurance of grace - that has a significant impact on consciousness and becomes a "foundation for the conduct of life." It renounces "irrational" behaviors of nature, not only from the view point of hygiene (we can branch into Freud here if we wanted) but also "sensual pleasures" which do not lead to salvation.

Rationality, for Weber, in the context of religion, is therefore intimately tied to salvation and ethical behavior, which is also to say that 'rationality' is connected and beholden to prescriptive codes of behavior and methods of thought provided/mandated by the systematized path to salvation of religious traditions (in response to much of this we could bring in Nietzsche's critique of power and morality as well as Marx's critique of social conditions that motivate religious thought, as well as post-colonial critiques in Weber's thought).