Legal Doctrine of Max Weber’s Sociology of Religion

Abstract

Belatedly, this work is dedicated to prof. Max Weber’s (hereinafter – Weber) commemoration day of the centenary and focuses on the sociological understanding of the state and canon law. In order to better examine Weber’s views on the economic ethics of religion, human rights will also be examined in comparison – as a factor of interaction between opposites and sets of views – as they better identify Weber’s asceticism about the spirit of norm Protestantism. On the other hand, in a conventional discourse and a review of the theory of social stratification, through the so-called theory of degrees and directions of rejection, the essence of Weber’s idea will be best understood by examining how religion influenced formation of contemporary law and approach to contemporary law comparing it with the constitutional system of Latvia, among others. The article has been designed with a view that, by observing peculiarities of the era of Weber’s lifetime, the work would have a more modern character. Wherever in this study it is referred to purely legal dogmatic problems, the author has relied on the literature on the history of the church and law and to some extent on the past of the dogmas formed by it. Furthermore, the author mostly relies on materials obtained from Weber’s law sociological argumentation and comparative perspective, which serves to clarify the typology of the sociology of religion. To the extent possible, the author also delves into the primary sources of the history of law; due to their linguistically specific style of expression and peculiarities, in accordance with the objective to study Weber’s views on the socio-historical genesis of the state and canon law and their nature, which includes looking into canonical norms for the sociological understanding of law, textual identification of primary sources is not examined in more detail. However, the most important ideas expressed in Weber’s works are compared with those of other prominent representatives of this field. Therefore, in the part of normative analysis of law codification, the author focuses on analysis of the social environment of law and church law, instead of their general scope, and the work is mainly based on the ideas of the outstanding sociologist Weber and theses of the concepts created by him, preserving the style of thought expressed in Weber’s main text and means of expression. For those who are familiar with the most important works of canon law, including church law, the part of the material analysis of the norms could be new precisely from the point of view of this work, and the specifics of the analysis included, namely, this legal discipline is examined through Weber’s studies, works of other researchers and novelties about law as well as the place of sociology of religion found in these works. Keywords: church, sociology of religion, canon law, sociology of law, religious law, legal norm, ideal norm, legal phenomenon, iure divinum, lex nature, conventional norms, commandment, Calvinism, Puritanism