Social Science, Philosophy and Theology in Dialogue

A Relational Perspective

Pierpaolo Donati, Antonio Malo, Giulio Maspero, Pierpaolo Donati, Antonio Malo, Giulio Maspero

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781138606326
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429885518
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This volume explores the potential of employing a relational paradigm for the purposes of interdisciplinary exchange. Bringing together scholars from the social sciences, philosophy and theology, it seeks to bridge the gap between subject areas by focusing on real phenomena.Although these phenomena are studied by different disciplines, the editors demonstrate that it is also possible to study them from a common relational perspective that connects the different languages, theories and perspectives which characterize each discipline, by going beyond their differences to the core of reality itself. As an experimental collection that highlights the potential that exists for cross-disciplinary work, this volume will appeal to scholars across a range of field concerned with critical realist approaches to research, collaborative work across subjects and the manner in which disciplines can offer one another new insights.

Part I

Fundamentals of the paradigm

1 The enigma of relation and the theological matrix of society

Pierpaolo Donati

The problem of the enigma and of its matrix

In the General Audience of April 15, 2015, Pope Francis wondered “if the crisis of collective trust in God, which does us so much harm, and makes us pale with resignation, incredulity and cynicism, is not also connected to the crisis of the alliance between man and woman.” The Pope, of course, suggests an affirmative reply. But how do we explain that the crisis of the man–woman covenant is related to the crisis of collective trust in God? The leap is large and, without an appropriate explanation, which is minimally rational and based on facts, that phrase is beautiful, but remains an enigma.

The phrase puts us before something hidden, obscure, which we cannot decipher: how can (and should) we think about human relations (in this case between man and woman) in such a way that recalls the relations that we have with God and vice versa? Where is God when we speak of human relations, and vice versa? Or: what relationship is there between relations with God and human social relations?

Theology gives a response as simple as it is problematic; it indicates the way of love. Love for God is correlated with human love (for example between man and woman) and vice versa. This concerns an important affirmation, which, however, in order to be enlightening, must be understood, and in fact, it raises more problems than it solves if it is addressed from a standpoint that is external to religious faith. In fact, that of which we speak, love, is completely yet to be defined. ¹

To respond to the question just mentioned, it is necessary to confront a crucial, terribly difficult question, which is the following: whether or not, to support determinate human and social relations (“horizontal relationships”, so to speak), a theological matrix is necessary (that is, resorting to “vertical” or transcendent relations). If not, why? If yes, which characteristics should it have? The more general problem is: if the social ontology of the relations of which we speak (like, for example, love, as an interpersonal relation and not as an individual sentiment or passion) requires a metaphysics rooted in the theology understood not yet in itself and for itself, but as a cultural matrix. ²

In this contribution, I would like to say how my relational sociology seeks to respond to the above question (whether social ontology needs to be rooted in metaphysics or not). This possibility, in its turn, depends on the fact of being able to see and manage the enigma of relation, the enigma that lies in relationality as such. ³

In summary, the problem is the following: whether or not it is necessary—if not, why, and if so, what is it—to have a symbolic matrix that allows us to face the enigma of relation in such a way that it is possible to see how and why human relations and divine relations are ontologically connected to each other (not by simile or metaphor).

The enigma of relation

I will begin to analyze the subject by commenting on some quotes. The first is from Pope Francis when he writes:

If we approach nature and the environment without this openness to awe and wonder [the same openness by Saint Francis of Assisi, Ed.], if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs. By contrast, if we feel intimately united with all that exists, then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously. ⁴

How is it possible that from an “inner (subjective) feeling” spontaneously derives effective (real) care for nature and the environment?

In the encyclical Caritas in Veritate (no. 7), Benedict XVI writes:

To love someone is to desire that person’s good and to take effective steps to secure it. Besides the good of the individual, there is a good that is linked to living in society: the common good. It is the good of “all of us”, made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society [Gaudium et Spes, 26]. It is a good that is sought not for its own sake, but for the people who belong to the social community and who can only really and effectively pursue their good within it.

But what is this social good that goes beyond the individual good?

Another author, Saint Josémaria Escrivá, writes: “God wants us to be very human. Our heads should indeed be touching heaven, but our feet should be firmly on the ground.” ⁵ It is an invitation to live on/with/through the relation between the human and the divine. He then adds: “I am not convinced either when I hear people making a great distinction between personal and social virtues” because “virtues are therefore also radically personal, they pertain to the person” (ibid.). However, he adds that solidarity and love are virtues that one does not pursue alone, because “in some way we are always either helping or hindering each other.” He therefore invites us to reflect on the meaning of the “social”. In another writing, he affirms, “Christian freedom arises from within, from the heart, from faith; however, it is not merely individual. It has external manifestations, one of which—among the most characteristic of the lives of the early Christians—is brotherhood.” ⁶ We are now asked: what is the relation between personal and social virtues?

Taken literally, these quotations indicate that certain intentions and inner feelings of people create certain relations (of caring, benevolence, brotherhood, etc.). In short, if people feel united, they achieve human solidarity and, as for Christians, the communion of saints. This perspective certainly has many elements of truth, but it needs to be enlightened and supplemented by new considerations, which are not to be undervalued. In fact, they require a cultural matrix that personalistic thought has not developed so far and which the dominant culture of today openly opposes.

In the above quotations (but so many others could be mentioned on the so-called “personalist” perspective), we find a view of things that, to a first-order consideration, ⁷ seems to indicate that the internal life of the person, their intimate union with God and with creation, is spontaneously and necessarily reflected in the social realm. This causality is instead quite problematic, and it becomes more and more so because of the mediations that a complex society like the hyper-modernized one—high-tech and globalized—places between inner life and external reality.

The consciousness of the person, her will and intentionality, her states of mind, can create or not create social relationships. They can be reflected in so many ways in relations, and with very different outcomes (various types of relational goods and ills). The idea according to which, if the people seek the good and they nurture good feelings (they are respectful of human solidarity and fraternity), then even a good society is a naive idea that can lead to big disappointments, frustrations, and failures. The point is that the necessary virtues for producing a certain good are not only those of persons as such but also those of their relations. The inner attitudes of the individuals are necessary, but not sufficient to generate a “third” (relation) that reflects the attitudes, dispositions, and aspirations of persons. We have to look at and carry out the virtues of their relations.

The defect of naive realism (inherent to traditional personalism) is that of understanding social relations with others and with the world as a “manifestation” which—sic et simpliciter—derives from the qualities inherent in the human person and her inner life. This vision certainly does not ignore prosocial virtues, like mercy and magnanimity, which are “the energy to break out of ourselves and be prepared to undertake generous tasks which will be of benefit to all.” ⁸ However, to undertake a work on the basis of internal impulses does not mean that a certain result follows. It poses the question: if it is true that personal virtues urge a certain action, who or what ensures that the objective intent is achieved? In other words: are the human social relations simply an expression of experiences, of consciousness, and of internal conversations of persons? Or are the social virtues also inherent in human nature? ⁹ It is necessary to give some insights and clarifications. In my view, in answering these questions (which are the enigmas that the oracle that is reality places before us) we must face the challenges whose solution lays the path that can lead to a possible neo-humanism that is open to transcendence.

The idea that relations necessarily follow from the subjective consciousness corresponds to what I call a naive conception, “un-mediatedly” human, of the social (that is, not mediated by what “is in between” human beings), according to which social relations and their effects are a sort of “prolonging” or result of feelings (good or evil), of virtues (or of vices), of intimacy (or of estrangement) of persons.

From the sociological standpoint, this derivation (induction) is problematic, if understood sic et simpliciter. Sobriety and the care of creation, brotherhood, and other social virtues are now, in fact, in crisis precisely because it is no longer sufficient that the person wants them intentionally, whether it be a single person or a “moral person” in the Thomist sense of the term, ¹⁰ that is, as an association of persons.

There is something that is “in the middle”; between the personal virtues of single individuals to which we must give new focus. The social virtues, in fact, refer to social relations. ¹¹ They do not arise in an immediate and spontaneous way from within people, because, between the interior life of the person and social reality, they emerge (and are increasingly multiplying) from mediations (made of relationships) that make the immediacy and spontaneity of social outcomes completely uncertain and improbable. Moreover, in hindsight, this speaks to the social doctrine of the Church, who regards the goodness (or lack thereof) of social relations as beyond the subjective intention of individuals. ¹²

The humanistic vision that makes the social reality depend on the person’s right conscience and goodwill could possibly have an effective comparison in certain societies of the past (the ancient Gemeinschaft), and in theory could still have validity in certain small social groups where there is a very strict causal relationship between the interiority of the person and her external relations. This happens in a family if there are vital relationships between its members, and always provided that the familial relationships manage to effectively control their boundaries with the external environment, which is generally complex and turbulent. Generally, however, in an open society, the causal relationship between individual subjectivity and the social context becomes increasingly lax and unpredictable. The case of the family that lives in a chaotic environment like that of the internet is emblematic of the difficulties that people have in firmly maintaining boundaries and the identity of their familial relationships. ¹³

In the new globalized environment, in order to create a certain social relation equipped with certain qualities and causal properties (for example, a “good family”), it is not only necessary to have a certain disposition and agency of individuals, but anot...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Foreword: Varieties of relational social theory
• Introduction: The relational paradigm as interface between the theological, philosophical, and social sciences
• PART I Fundamentals of the paradigm
• PART II Applications and perspectives
• Afterword
• Index