Abstract

The reconstruction of main ethical principles of calling in Protestantism has been given in the article, as well as its transformation in works on contemporary labor ethics and social ethics of this Christianity branch has been shown. The regularities in the process of the spreading of the idea of calling in Protestantism on all social strata and fields of human activity have been described in the research. The content of the Luther’s concept of professional calling has been clarified as a religious duty of every man and woman on their way of serving people and the God. The influence of the eschatological Luther’s understanding of human existence in the world and of Calvin’s idea of predestination on the formation of ascetic attitude towards human labor and everyday morality as well has been estimated in the article. It has been explicated in the paper how the religious asceticism results on the economy and works in favor of the capital build-up, though the motivation of enrichment was not foreseen by the founders of Protestantism. Thus, the possibility for Protestant ethics to become the ideology of capitalism has been shown in the article. The correlation between the religious ideas and socio-economical processes via the general civilizational process of world’s rationalization have been discovered. The rationalization, as M. Weber explained, determines the legality of the Western civilization and becomes the future of the entire human world. The contemporary influence of Protestant ethics on working and social behavior and its morality is conditioned by the transformation of Protestant doctrine itself. The analysis shows that the main factor of the transformation is the shift from the traditional eschatological idea towards the increase of the importance of social responsibility, justice and social service. On the whole, 5 main traits of the contemporary Protestant ethics have been emphasized: 1) its personal characteristics; 2) the principle of responsibility; 3) the importance of the idea of social justice; 4) the claim for modesty and prudence in the economic behavior together with generosity; 5) the openness to the idea of faith and the movement towards the evangelization of the world not only by spreading all over the word, but also by charity and sacrifice.