The more a religion is aware of its opposition in principle to economic rationalization as such, the more apt are the religion’s virtuosi to reject t… - Max Weber

"Rationalism" is a historical concept that contains within itself a world of contradictions.

The capacity for the accomplishment of religious virtuosos — the “intellectual sacrifice”— is the decisive characteristic of the positively religious man. That this is so is shown by the fact that in spite of (or rather in consequence) of theology (which unveils it) the tension between the value-spheres of “science” and the sphere of “the holy” is unbridgeable.

Above all, as will be repeatedly apparent in the sections below, fundamental for our discussion is the investigation of the idea of a testifying to one's belief as the psychological point of origin for methodical ethics.