THEOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY

Concern for the connection between theology and sociology as methodologically distinct but related disciplines is relatively recent. It is rooted, however, in a much older question about the relation of religion and society. In that sense, the appropriate literature on theology and sociology would include such classic works, which predate the differentiation of academic disciplines, as Plato's Republic, Augustine's City of God and the writings of Montesquieu and de Tocqueville.

Historical Background. More precise methodological reflection on the relation between theology and sociology began in the Protestant theological world in 19th-century Germany as part of the discussion about the relation of faith and history, since sociology was primarily understood as a branch of history. Ernst Troeltsch is the major figure in this discussion. Troeltsch transformed theology by his attention to the institutional prerequisites and correlates of Christianity and the way Christian ideas become word-historical, shaping forces only by their elective affinity with ascendant carrier groups and the transmutation and exfoliation of these ideas through their contact with pregiven societal structures, groups, and culture. Troeltsch scholars in the U.S., e.g., H. Richard Niebuhr and James Luther Adams, continued his theoretical impulse. On a more practical level the disciplines were related by the use of sociology for pastoral planning in Protestant seminaries and church research agencies. For its part, the American Sociological Association, especially under the early leadership of Lester Ward and Albion Small, was much influenced by the social gospel movement.

Prior to 1960, Catholics did little methodological reflection on the relation between the two disciplines, although the American Catholic Sociological Association operated in its early years on the assumption that there was a specifically Catholic sociology. In Europe, church sociology, in the tradition of Gabriel Le Bras, was seen as a pretheoretical, ancillary, "fact-finding" discipline, useful for pastoral theology. In the aftermath of Vatican Council II, Catholic theologians began to dialogue with the proponents of sociology of knowledge and to inquire into new social action models to relate Church and society. Increasingly, dogma and theology are understood as strategic responses to pressing needs and claims of very particular times and places. Sociological analysis becomes an essential tool for hermeneutics in understanding the context and meaning of reactive dogmatic statements.

Evaluation of the Relationship. Many theologians now insist on social analysis as a necessary component in theological reflection. Sociology is essential for theology's task of ideology-critique and for delineating such key theological concepts as social sin, the Kingdom of God, liberation, and reading the signs of the times. Theologians turn to sociology to understand such processes as secularization and the privatization of religion. Sociology is no longer understood as a value-free purveyor of "facts," in accord with a naive realism or positivism, but is seen to include a worldview, a special imagination, and a model of human understanding. Theology has shifted from an older hierarchical understanding of the division between the sciences with its notion of "input" disciplines to a new framework of interdisciplinary creative collaboration.

Bases of Relationship. Neither theology nor sociology is, strictly speaking, a unified discipline. Both are conflictive fields of competing theoretical and methodological positions, some of them simply contradictory. Every theology contains, implicitly, a sociology and a theory of the self. Theology must raise questions about the societal implications of God's law and Kingdom and the personality implications of sanctification and love. Every theological performance claim about this-worldly transformations of self and society is subject to empirical test. Every ecclesiology is also a theory about society. In the writings of some theologians, explicit theological motifs control the understanding of self and society. In others, secular theories of self and society determine theology. Thus, in choosing George Herbert Mead's understanding of self and society, H. Richard Niebuhr precludes certain theological options. Not every theology and sociology is compatible. It seems possible to draw up a taxonomy of the logical affinities between definite theological options and corresponding social theories.

On its part, sociology is not, in any simple sense, value-free. It includes hermeneutical presuppositions about the locus of the real, the flow of causality, and the power of value. Sociology sometimes slips from descriptive to prescriptive modes of analysis, since some vision of the future and the good society is operative in sociological and historical research.

Possible Responses of Theology to Sociology in Dialogue. (1) The relevance of sociology to theology may be rejected. This response is possible only for those who rigidly separate nature and grace, e.g., Karl Barth, or who maintain idealistic epistemological positions about the unbridgeable gap between fact and value. If religion is a social fact and society has a religious dimension, theology and sociology must be correlated.

(2) Selective elements from sociology can be added as ancillary motifs for theology. Selective borrowing is usually eclectic and runs the risk that data of sociology may be either distorted in the translation process or irrelevant to the theologian's questions.

(3) A reductionist position may be taken that destroys the autonomy of sociology by subjecting it to theology. Creative collaboration between disciplines demands making distinctions between them as autonomous modes of knowing.

(4) A dialogue would mean corroboration of conclusions reached and grounded on theological premises. This is mere illuminative exemplification by means of sociological evidence rather than true interdisciplinary collaboration.

(5) Sociological language can be translated into theological discourse and vice versa. Care must be exercised to respect the varying language games of the different disciplines.

(6) A reciprocal transformation of disciplines is possible by a two-way dialogue and mutual interpenetration and critical correlation of both modes of knowing. The Catholic theological bias, drawing upon assumptions of the ultimate unity of truth in God and the analogical unity of knowledge, would seem to favor the sixth strategy for relating the disciplines. Perhaps, however, there are some contradictions among and between the disciplines of knowledge which cannot be removed because they reflect the brokenness of society. Only when the cleavages in social life resulting from sin are overcome will science be one. In the meantime, Christians strive for the goal of unifying sociology and theology.

Bibliography: j. l. adams, On Being Human Religiously (Boston 1976). g. baum, Religion and Alienation (New York 1975). r. n. bellah, Beyond Belief (New York 1970). j. a. coleman, "Theology and Sociology," Catholic Theological Society of America. Proceedings 32 (1977) 55–71. h. r. niebuhr, The Responsible Self (New York 1963). e. troeltsch, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, tr. o. wyon (2 v., New York 1960). g. winter, Elements for a Social Ethic (New Work 1968). s. wolin, Politics and Vision (Boston 1960).

[j. a. coleman]