Religion and the Spirit of Capitalism. Remarks to the Function of Religion in Modern Societies

Abstract

The article deals with the relationship between religion and economy in modern, functionally differentiated society. Based on Max Weber’s famous study on the emergence of capitalism from the spirit of puritan ethics, the religious socialism of Paul Tillich and conscious capitalism are reconstructed as ways of dealing with the destructive tendencies of modern economics. But in modern societies religion and economics are autonomous systems. Religion doesn’t answer economic problems and vice versa. Religion deals with religious questions and economics with economic questions. How is then a relation or a debate between both religion and economics possible? Could it be possible to construct on a meta-level in which religious themes translate into economics, and economical themes translate into religious? Or must both systems develop in itself a critical solution for its own problems? This paper agues for the second option.