Comparison of Weber and Durkheim in the area of Religion

by Margaret Stowe

A comparison of the views of Max Weber and Emil Durkheim in the area of religion and its role in shaping social behaviour and history shows that the two thinkers have a different method, language, and resulting theory. It is made more interesting by looking at the upbringing and religious orientation of each thinker,
Weber being the Protestant Christian and Durkheim the agnostic. A few main themes of difference between the theories of the two thinkers are evident. Weber’s focus was on the individual and their relationship with their god, Durkheim focusing on the effects of religion as a group activity. Weber focused on the economic effects, Durkheim, the moral. For Durkheim religion involves a more mechanical social participation, but for Weber the motive of the individual with regard to religious activity was key. Weber argued that it was rewards in the afterlife that drove religious behaviour but for Durkheim religion was a “real world” thing, the upholder of social solidarity.

It is interesting to see how the upbringing and life story of each thinker affects his approach to the study of religion. Weber’s mother was a Calvinist and viewed hard work as a duty to god. His father was a lawyer and non-religious. These were conflicting worldviews on one hand but they both had one thing in common, hard work, one for religious reasons, and the other for worldly entrepreneurial reasons. The result was that Weber adopted the work ethic of both, and the religious protestant faith of his mother. Durkheim was brought up in a strict Jewish environment was also affected by Catholicism but in the end rejected organized religion and stood on the outside, as an observer, in his study of religion. These two worldviews shaped their theories and is relevant when comparing their social study of religion. Weber did not question the existence of God or the validity of the mythology and dogma. Durkheim on the other hand believed that the gods of religion, in fact all religious imagery, were the creation of society, for the purpose of holding itself together through with moral regulation.

Both Weber and Durkheim pursued the study of religion as a scientific study. Durkheim’s “science” focused on the moral effects of religion on real life social behaviour, and extended this to the philosophical and even psychological realm as he studied group religious behaviour but it is clear the Weber focused on the effects of religion on the economics aspects of life and the historical development of economic systems. Durkheim argued that repetitive religious ritual had a “conditioning” effect on the individual, which made the individual feel part of the group and behave in ways conducive to the survival of the group. As a result religion created the moral basic of society and held society together on a fundamental level. Weber’s theories of religion were more contextual, as he analyzed all of the world religions, from Judaism through Islam, whereas Durkheim’s theories were sweeping and more general to mankind as a whole and were primarily based on the study of the Totemism of early Australian Aboriginal religion. He believed that the study of early religious behaviour provided the key to its social purpose.
Clearly a major difference between Weber and Durkheim in the area of religion relates to their individualistic versus holistic theories, respectively. Weber’s ideas were centered on the personal willful action of each individual in response to the religious beliefs of the society in which that individual participated and was dependent on. Weber’s “religious individual” acted for his own betterment in order to receive favour in the eyes of god and rewards in the afterlife, and it was his moral duty to do so. More specifically he analyzed the role of the rising Protestant ethic in shaping of the modern economic system. Weber mainly asked the question “what role does religion play in economic behaviour and modern culture”. He showed that the increasing economic pursuits encouraged by the rise of Capitalism, starting with the Reformation in the16th century, is rooted in the Protestant ethic and the new moral values that arose during that time. He argued that the moral duty to work hard and accumulate wealth fostered by the Calvinist style Protestantism is what effectively shaped the development of modern Capitalism. He also analyzed this sociological phenomenon from the perspective of both western and eastern religions. For Weber, economics was a predominant force in society. His ideas were similar to those of Marx but Weber introduced the role of religion into the economic picture. Weber didn’t believe that religion was the sole mover of economic systems, it was part of a larger complexity, however his empirical study of history and world religions showed that the effect of religion on economic development was clearly evident.

For Durkheim, social solidarity was the basis of his sociological study of religion. Rather than a willful act, Durkheim’s “religious individual” acted in an almost mechanical way to the powerful effect of group religious ritual. Durkheim supposed that the purpose of religion is not to make us think about the nature of this world or the “other world” but it is rather to tell us how to act and how to live in society, in the real world. Through sharing common beliefs and engaging in repetitive group ritual and religious activity, the morals and restraints required for social control are maintained. It was the frenzy created by group ritual that internalized and “socialized” society’s moral being; the individual relinquishing his self interest for the greater social good. By participating in religious ritual, the individual feels a part of the group, clan or society as a whole. So religion had a socio-psychological effect on the individual as a component part of the society. God was society and was the creation of society. This is in distinct contract to Weber’s individual and his personal relationship with his God. For Durkheim religious action was more of a mechanical reaction, for Weber, a more dynamic process.

The “group” was not essential to Weber’s study of religion. He saw that individuals created societies, whereas for Durkheim society created the individual. Weber focused his study on the effect of religion on the development of economic and social systems, including the rise of capitalism, class structures and class conflicts. He didn’t delve into the collective religious “experience” as Durkheim did although in his studies of eastern religions he did see the unifying nature of religion in India and China including the rejection of worldliness in Buddhism. He was interested in the “rationalization” of society, protestant ethic and its focus on relationship between individuals and between individual and their personal God rather than the relationship of the individual with society as a whole. For Durkheim the very existence of the society was dependent on the existence of religion.

Weber studied complex historical development of world religions but Durkheim believed that religion could not be understood by looking only at complex societies. He studied simple economies, simple religions and simple religious life. In observing that not all forms of religion have divinity or belief in gods and spirits (like Buddhism) a definition of religion as “belief in spiritual beings” didn’t paint the whole picture for Durkheim. He observed that religious belief encompassed two groups of things, the sacred and the profane. “Religion” was the practices and beliefs pertaining to the “sacred”. He knew that the idea of the supernatural wasn’t common across cultures but the idea of the sacred and the profane was common across cultures. The sacred world cannot survive without the profane world to support it and give it life, and vice versa. He also saw that members of any specific society tended to think and act the same in this way and adopt a common religion, a common Church and a common moral community. A “unified system of beliefs and practices that relate to sacred things” created a common religion, Church and moral community. This goes hand in hand with this concept of “mechanical solidarity”.

In his analysis of the sacred and the profane Durkheim looked at some of the common theories of the day regarding primitive religions. Animism is the belief in spirits, the soul, a future state and a ghost-soul, which exists in dreams and fantasies. The divine is contrived from internal “mental experiences” of the soul and the ghost soul. Durkheim didn’t think animism answered his questions about the distinction between the sacred and the profane. What elevates things to the level of the sacred, to form the religious beliefs? Durkheim also saw that the first “sacred” objects were external natural objects, “things” and forces of nature. This was Naturalism, the personification of these natural objects through metaphor and images. Awesome spectacles inspired religious ideas. Again, Durkheim asked, “How did these things acquire a sacred nature and character?” To answer these questions he turned to a study of early Australian aboriginal Totemism. He chose this group because he felt they represented the most basic, elementary forms of religion within a culture. Clans were groups originating from a common ancestor. Each clan had a totem or emblem of an animal or plant, which represented the clan, and the Clan member’s names were the name of this animal or plant. The “totem image” of this animal or plant acted, as a sort of coat of arms and it appeared everywhere even on the body, and had religious properties.

The Churinga was an example of a Totemic object. It contained a totemic image and was flung around, had healing effect, and gave strength and courage. It couldn’t be touched by profane beings like women and boys and it is destroyed after each ritual and recreated. It is the image of the totemic object, like the Churinga, that is sacred and not the object itself. The totem of the animal or plant could not be touched or seen by the profane but the real animal or plant could be touched although it was forbidden to eat the animal or plant. This was highly significant for Durkheim as it represents something else other than just the species itself. If the species and the totem and the clan members are sacred then there is an impersonal divine force common to all. “God” is immanent in (almost) everything. For Durkheim this was a moral concept. Each person behaves according to the morals and precepts dictated by religious doctrine and ritual. Because one’s ancestors did it, there was a moral obligation to follow their behaviour. In fact, there was a fear of physical harm for not partaking in the rituals themselves. The power within the totem and the group ritual is sacred.

He also saw that as society became more complex the effect of the totem became more complex. For the Greeks, the force (Fate, an impersonal power) was even greater than the (personified) gods themselves. The gods themselves called upon the force when they created rain or provided abundant crops. Again he asks “What is the origin of the cosmic force or god?” What makes the totem sacred or divine? Durkheim’s resulting theory - it is society itself which is the divine as the totem is just a “sign” of the divine force which “is” the personification of the society or clan. The whole of society is a superior force, upon which every person depends. Society is the embodiment of a “greater than human” force, all-powerful and moral and is a collective representation of the Divine. The members of the society respect its authority and obey for fear of social isolation. Members experience this through rituals and ceremonies and the totem is the visible body of the god, the impersonal force which is the power of the clan. Religion makes the individual feel a part of the whole and inspires moral behaviour which creates social solidarity.
“Religious force is nothing more than the collective and anonymous force of the clan.” “God is nothing more than a figurative representation of the Society”, and is that which bonds the individual to the society to which he belongs and is dependent on. It is the source of morality for society. God is the “sentiment” of the group, objectified in religion. The individual “soul” is the “soul” of the Society, as it exists in every person. It is the power of the “totem” as it exists in the individual. Each individual soul is a particle of the collective soul. Immortality is the everlasting life of the clan. Spirits and Deities become the personification of the morality of the clan, each having it’s own moral domain. There are gods of war, death, sickness etc. All qualities and propensities, good and bad, are represented.

Durkheim sees all religions as being the same in this regard. However, he ignores the subjective meaning of religion, as it exists for each individual. In the real world, individuals don’t perceive god as the spirit of society. Religious rituals are directed at the Divine, not at Society and individuals regard their religious belief as part of a personal quest. Durkheim deified Society because he was afraid of the moral vacuum created by the decline of traditional religion in modern society. Modern industrial society had eliminated God and Society as God provided a secular substitute for religion. In modern Christianity the Ten Commandments became fixed social laws. Society is the new God, the “consciousness of the consciousness” embodied in the principles of duty, devotion and discipline.

"If religion has given birth to all that is essential in society, it is because the idea of society is the soul of religion."

So for Durkheim religion was not divinely or supernaturally inspired but was in fact a product of society. How did it affect behaviour and social action? For Durkheim the answer was solidarity, both mechanical (individual feeling of commonality with the group) and organic (created authority figures and moral norms, social control and purpose). His idea of mechanical and organic solidarity was certainly not limited to religion however the principle shows itself clearly in religious aspects of life.

In contrast to Durkheim’s concepts of religion as society’s way of creating order through moral regulation, Weber, on the other hand, saw that the religious experience was a highly individual one and argued that men drew subjective meaning to life through personal religious experience. Weber saw the great world religions as establishing a more universal God and relied on ideas of heaven and hell to ensconce its social effect rather than the Totemic spirits, studied by Durkheim, which objectified moral values. For Durkheim people behaved for fear of social retribution and isolation but Weber saw that it was fear of punishment or rewards in the afterlife that were the prime motivator of religious behaviour. For Weber, the historical development of the Protestant ethic exemplified this. If you accumulated wealth and property then you were surely to secure a place in heaven. Both Weber and Durkheim viewed religious activity was a moral pursuit, the former connecting the moral “duty” to serving God and the later the moral effect was to serve “society”.

There are many criticisms of Durkheim’s method and theories but that is not the focus of this paper. An overview of Weber’s study of religion is in order. Weber examined the effect of religious ideas on social development in the context of economics and politics. Specifically, he saw the effect of religion on the rise of modern capitalism. He believed that business interests were religiously motivated and sanctioned. Whereas the Lutheran doctrine of Protestantism was contrary to the capitalist spirit Weber argued that the Protestant ethic, with its puritanical aestheticism, encouraged the capitalist spirit. Making money was not seen as a selfish pursuit but a moral one as it meant that one was busy and productive. One participated in the moral pursuit of hard work as a service to God.

He also based his sociological theory around what he saw as “ideal types” of individuals and these “ideal types” have a distinct religious component. As a similarity, both Weber and Durkheim were aware of the role of religion in forming “ideal types” for people to aspire and live up to. However, for Durkheim it was the collective ideal that was created by religion. "Sacred things are simply collective ideals that have fixed themselves on material objects." Weber’s “ideal type” although perceived as an ideal for “all” to strive for, was much more egocentric and called upon the individual to make a conscious choice to “be” a certain type of individual. Religious behaviour was definitive to Weber’s idea of the “ideal type” and he used real men to exemplify this. The Capitalist Spirit as an “ideal type” was exemplified in Ben Franklin. Franklin, a Calvinist, showed how Capitalist style business dealings were justified within the new Protestant teachings. “Time is money”. Weber also conceived of a Moral ideal type exemplified by Baxter who brought spiritual content into the picture and John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was also one of his “ideal types”. Weber saw the division of labour as the organization of society with these ideal types in mind, with each person pursuing their “calling”, for the common good and the betterment of life. The accumulation of wealth was an end in itself, as the fruit of one’s labour in that “calling” and was a “sign of God’s blessing” and a sign of one’s faith. Economic development was a sign of religious commitment, enthusiasm and faith. A waste of time is “in principle the deadliest of sins”. One’s labour was for the glory of God, with a capital “G”.

Weber also notes that the idea of the “calling” became the justification for the exploitation of workers, as it eased the employers mind when extracting surplus labour from workers. The worker had the moral duty to labour with religious motives, as his calling. This thinking pervaded the culture, and “rational conduct” on the basic of the idea of the calling, and capitalism, developed out of this Christian Protestant asceticism.
To be sure, Weber did say that the protestant ethic wasn’t a necessary condition for the development of capitalism nor was it required for it to thrive over time but it contributes greatly to its fevered spirit and, as noted, also to its exploitive nature

Weber also addressed the question of why capitalism developed in the west before the east. To this end he studied Chinese, Indian and Judaic culture, the religious institutions as well as the economic and political. “Rationality” as a force in society is necessary for western style capitalism and many aspects of eastern society were “anti-rational” and therefore didn’t encourage the Capitalist spirit. Weber also noted two things that influenced capitalist style economic systems, increase of precious metals, and the increase in population. He saw that both of these things were common to both east and west but it was the autonomy of cities in the west, with their independent bureaucracies that fostered the market style economy. China did not develop an independent bourgeois class. In the east, central authority, tradition, family were still central to modern life. The difference in religious imagery between east and west also played a role. In the east, the harmony of heaven and earth, the unseen force that pervades all was sustained in nature, tradition, family and religion. The idea of private property was also different than the west. Further to this, eastern business people were also educated in the arts and literature, they were “Confucian gentlemen”, and were much more cultured individuals than the typical western businessperson. In the east, magic (and animism) was a strong force and held a large place in the lives of people in all social classes and businesspersons possessed “magical qualities” the same as a priest. Eastern Confucianism was all about harmony in the world, self control and repressed passions. All of social action was guided by this idea of harmony and this was contrary to the “every man for himself” Capitalist spirit. In the west, the aesthetic Protestantism eliminated “magic” from religion and the relationship between god and men took on a different nature in regards to worldly actions.

The picture was similar in India. Capitalism didn’t develop until well into English rule. Weber believed that the principal of Pacifism and the “magical mentality” of Indian religion kept this from happening. Also, the caste system was based on tradition, hindered the occupational guild mentality and was anti-rational. Further, the village artisan was the “bearer of stability” in Indian society and “fixed payment” as opposed to a “market economy” kept the Indian economic system in a “conservative” mode. Plus Indian towns had no autonomy or self-government. Buddhism had an inherent nature of a devaluing of worldly things and putting value on meditation, otherworldliness and pacifism. Lust for gain was not encouraged. This was not conducive to the swift development of modern capitalism.

In Judaism, the world was god-directed. God determined the future of the world based on the behaviour of the people, specifically the Jews. The people attended to their worldly pursuits for God. Judaism was the source of Christianity after all and the importance of Islam lies in its rational-ethical character. The idea of devotion to Yahweh was a rational one, and was based on the rewards of earthly happiness and domination over property and worldly “things”, and not on rewards in heaven. The contract between man and God was a rational one, which began with the freedom of the Jews from Egyptian bondage. “Prophecy” had an enormous effect on relations between people and shaped class relationships and conflicts. All of this served the development of modern capitalism very well.

Weber also studied the differences between Protestants and Catholics. He saw Protestant ideals as being more entrepreneurial, more focused on industrial enterprise and the technical aspects of things. The new “economic rationalism” of Protestantism also encompassed all social classes from top to bottom. Catholicism on the other hand was more traditional, more “humanistic” in its values and tending to encourage status quo and non-industrial occupations and values like craftsmanship. This ethic was not conducive to capitalist spirit. However the “economic rationalism” and the aesthetic nature of the Protestant ethos lead to the rapid rise of Capitalism. That is strict religious and moral code of self-denial, industry, frugality, hard work, and punctuality. The Protestant ethic.

So as we have seen, Durkheim believed that the study of early “simple” religion, specifically Australian Aboriginal Totemism was the key to understanding religious behaviour but Weber studied the historical development of world religion stretching from Judaism and Christianity to Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Islam. Durkheim focuses on the moral and social implications, whereas Weber saw religion through the development of economic systems. Moral regulation and social solidarity versus the moral obligation of hard work and productivity through the accumulation of wealth. The power of the group religious experience versus the individual and his God. “God as society” versus “God and the afterlife”. Rather than seeing only the opposing views of Durkheim and Weber in the area of religion perhaps it is possible to see the unity of these two worldviews. They both have clear elements of truth and including all the ideas presented above could enhance any true sociological understanding.


Copyright mstowe 2008