Individual and social fides: the contribution of Reformation to the ontology of economics

Abstract

This essay wishes to address what is believed to be a central historical crossroad that allowed the development of economics, and other social sciences, in the modern era. Such development would not have been possible without the transformation of the fundamental ontology through which European and Christian societies understood the world around them and their own social structures. I identify the turning point of such transformation, as other scholars, philosophers and social scientists have done, with the Reformation, which was the center and cause of major cultural, political and scientific development. Philosophers and social scientists have developed such interpretation of the Reformation as the historical event in which the cultural and political landscape of western civilization has been utterly transformed. My interest in the Reformation as a religious, political and cultural upheaval lies in the fact that I identify Luther’s reforms not only as a shift in the landscape of political/religious authorities of the time, but also as a crucial moment in which the ontological landscape of western civilization has been radically changed. I am of the belief that the fundamental, ontological, assumptions of economics are based on the ontological revolution represented by Luther’s theology, and Reformation more generally, in a fundamental way. Such that economics would be unthinkable without the Reformation.