Gott und Geld

Ever since biblical contrasts were made between God and mammon, the comparison of God and money has been a classical topos that has left numerous marks in theology and culture - from Luther's Large Catechism to Goethe's Faust and Benjamin's fragment Capitalism as Religion right up to the parallels currently being drawn between the creativity of bankers and the creative powers of God. The comparison mostly serves to highlight the opposition. Yet this opposition would only be possible if there were similarities as well. God and money are concepts which have real effects on the world. They are omnipresent and ever-present, can change into everything, and they hold the world together in its inmost folds through universal exchange. They motivate human action and shape our thinking. Jörg Dierken's categorial analyses of God and money investigate the conflicting similarity that lets each appear more clearly against the backdrop of the other.