What Hath Sociology To Do With Catholicism?: An Orthodox Catholic Response to Tertullian, Comte, and Marx
Introduction
Although for different reasons, Tertullian, Comte, and Marx would all answer the question contained in this essay’s title in the negative.1 Sociology, or anything that involves the use of reason, either cannot or should not interface or be integrated–even in a nuanced fashion with qualifications noted–with an orthodox version of the Catholic faith. This essay intends to provide an orthodox Catholic response to these three thinkers and, correspondingly, a defense–theological and methodological–for the concept of a “Catholic sociology.”
Tertullian and the Rejection of Reason
Tertullian’s famous query, “What hath Athens to do with Jerusalem,” reflected the sentiments of many in the early Christian community. Influenced greatly by the eschatological hopes for an imminent return of the Lord, many early Christians basically posited a fundamental disjunction between Christianity and the world, rejecting everything of a this-worldly nature. In H. R. Niebuhr’s2 famous classificatory scheme, such a posture represents the “Christ against culture” option, an option still accepted today by certain Protestant groups within the Anabaptist tradition like that of the Amish. While nothing remotely like the sociological perspective existed during Tertullian’s lifetime, any contemporary Tertullian-like logic would clearly reject any positive role for sociology/the social sciences in promoting the authentic Christian apostolate.
The Catholic Church, at least since the third century A.D., has rejected the “Christ against culture” option, accepting in its place a model whose goal is to “restore all things in Christ.” The Catholic model is one that affirms a central role for the exercise of reason, including the reason that operates in sociological analysis, provided that the reasoning process is sound (e.g. “right reason”) and consistent with the natural law, Catholic social doctrine, and Holy Scripture, all under the guidance of Magisterial thinking. A key Catholic task, simply put, is first to transform and then to utilize sociological analysis in order to further the universal mission of the Church, geared as it is to the salvation of all souls and to the spiritual and material betterment of all humanity. The suggested Catholic appropriation of sociology (and the social sciences) sets itself off in sharp relief not only from Tertullian’s rejection of reason but, more importantly, from two contemporary and far more powerful alternatives to the Catholic understanding of both faith and reason and their relationship. These are the positivistic model, whose original proponent was Auguste Comte (1798-1851) and the ideological/political model, which is exemplified by Karl Marx (1818-1883).3 While Comte rejected faith for reason, Marx rejected both for politics.
Comte and the Positivistic Temptation
It was Auguste Comte, the French social thinker, who coined the term “sociology.” Sociology, as the “study of human association,” or, more simply as the “study of groups,” was linguistically derived from the Greek logos, “study of,” and the Latin socius “being with others.” Because he created the term, Comte is considered by many to be the founder of the discipline.
Among many other contributions, dubious or not, Comte is known widely for his unlinear evolutionary schema for historical development. History, in short, is marked by three stages: (1) the religious or mythic, (2) the theological and philosophical, and (3) the scientific or positive. A child, indeed, a principle cheerleader of the Enlightenment, Comte was a atheist who disavowed any belief in the existence and importance of the supernatural in everyday life. Put another way, Comte simultaneously was intellectually predicting the obsolescence of the saliency of traditional religion for humanity and actively promoting its demise. Relatedly, Comte is considered one of the key founders of the philosophy of positivism, i.e., the school of thought that claims that the only reality that exists is the natural world, the world that the scientist can see, feel, hear, touch, and about which universal predictions can be made.
Moreover, Comte not only viewed traditional religious and modern scientific understandings of reality in a “zero-sum” manner, i.e., as scientific knowledge grows, religious knowledge shrinks, but posited that science itself would become the true, i.e., rational “religion of humanity.” For Comte, then, science was not mere “means to an end” (e.g. using scientific technology to help implement the Christian golden role of loving and helping one’s neighbor). Rather, science was itself the end,–the philosophy, worldview, and alleged moral order–that represented the transcendent truth to which all must conform. Comte, as such, would have no problem with the Christian procedural claims that “the truth will set you free” and Pope John Paul II’s requirement in Veritatis Spendor that “freedom must be linked to truth.” For Comte, however, truth is to be found not in theological discourse but only in hard scientific endeavor.
Comte was no believer in democracy. An admirer of the inevitability and desirability of hierarchy in human relations, he believed that if science provided the rational blueprint for human existence, society must be led by those best able to decipher, uncover, and implement the truths of scientific understanding. Societal decisions should be protected from the “uneducated” and therefore not be mediated through mass political participation. For Comte, there is no common natural law written into the heart, and accessible, in principle, to all. Rather, such major decisions should be decided by a, relatively speaking, smaller group of scientists, technocrats, and intellectuals. Comte was an ex-Catholic who, while rejecting the content and substance of his original faith, appreciated the inherently hierarchical organizational structure of the Catholic Church, and wanted to substitute a magisterium of scientists for the magisterium of those who stand in apostolic succession. In many respects, Comte and Marx are the key inspirations for what sociologists like Peter L. Berger and Brigitte Berger refer to as the secular “new knowledge class”4 (or, perhaps, better yet, “gnostic” class) of intellectuals and technocrats (Comte) and social activists and bureaucrats (Marx).
Catholic social thought, obviously, does not find a comfortable home among the land of such a crude positivism. Any Catholic, scholar or otherwise, would view the claim that the only reality that exists is purely natural and this-worldly to be false, and constitute a profound spiritual and intellectual impoverishment–an example of what Eric Voegelin considered constitutes living the “contracted existence” experienced by too many “sophisticated” inhabitants of the modern world. Furthermore, positivism, while arguing for objectivity–a truncated and limited objectivity at very best–depicts the human actor–and more to the point of this essay, the individual scholar–as devoid of free will, creativity, and responsibility. As such, the positivistic sociologist inspired by Comte denies that the philosophical and personal values of the scholar impact on the research enterprise. Sociology, in other words for the positivist, is “value-free.” The Catholic sensibility, on the contrary, would argue that while the goal of sociology is to produce objective social research, one method in attaining objectivity or at least closely approximating it, is through consciously discerning precisely how one’s philosophical, theological, and value commitments impact on the intellectual pursuit of truth. And, even more importantly, the nature of the philosophical values that one incorporates into social scientific analysis, almost needless to say, matters also: values derived from natural law thinking are going to contain much more “truth content” than those found within, for instance, the radical feminist corpus of concepts.
It would not be hard to make, for instance, an impressive, empirically-based, case that intact nuclear families produce far more salutary results–for husbands, wives, children, and for the general civilization–than do other alleged “alternatives in family living.” The starting point of such an empirically-based analysis posits, either explicitly or implicitly, a comparison of Catholic versus radical feminist philosophical values and presuppositions. For the radical feminist, the basic unit of analysis is the individual who is viewed as a complete and self-sufficient entity unto itself. For the Catholic, the basic unit of analysis is the family, composed of organically related parts that are both dependent and interdependent with each other. For the Catholic and unlike the feminist, “nature counts,” as men and women–equal in dignity but specializing in different spheres of human existence and activity–are viewed as incomplete without each other. Marriage as the core of the family unit is seen by the Catholic, literally, as a “natural” institution and not as a naked arena for class and gender warfare.5
In the process of conducting his/her research, the Catholic sociologist is expected 1) to explicitly identify the values and assumptions chosen, 2) explain how the chosen values and assumptions have impacted on the research process and 3) openly and honestly engage the findings and methodology of the competing and equally value and assumption-laden secular alternative. In such an engagement, the Catholic sociological investigation, based on its realistic philosophy, will have little to fear.
Marx, The Denigration of the Intellectual, and the Ascendancy of the Political
Like Comte, Marx was an atheist. Like Comte, Marx embraced a totally encompassing vision of reality that was intended to provide a secular substitute for religion. For Marx, religion represented not merely ignorance and superstition but an “opiate for the masses,” a consciously designed ideology intended to keep the have-nots in their place and, correspondingly, to promote the class interests of those who own and, for later Marxists, control the wealth and the means of economic production.
Like Comte, Marx’s theory of social change was teleological in nature. For Comte, who stressed the changing role of ideas in history, social change of a, relatively speaking, peaceful nature would inevitably lead to some kind of scientific utopia. For Marx, it would be violent class struggle that would inexorably lead to some quite materialistic version of the return to the Garden of Eden. Though Marx posited that the development of a Communist or socialist world order was an inevitable occurrence, it was subject to influence by the actions of the various “handmaidens of the revolution.” Marx, in short, advocated a “unity of theory and praxis” on the part of his revolutionary leaders, a unity, moreover, in which theory is subordinate to and serves praxis. Social change must not merely be understood but, more importantly, channeled to the desired revolutionary end; the key task is not to understand the world but to change it. Marx went even further in his denigration of intellectual activity by arguing that there are no ultimately eternal truths and universal concepts but that all thought is relative and grounded in particular moments in time and space. More specifically, ideas are mere reflections of the class interests of their proponents. A Marxist sociology, then–much like, say, a radicalized feminist sociology–assumed that not only that the political cause in question is of more importance than the integrity of the scholarly process but also that the reality that the philosophy and personal values of the researcher affects the nature of the research process makes the goal of objectivity an impossible one. In the final analysis, this camp argues, if all intellectual activity is ideology and the political cause is supreme, then “objectivity” as a goal must be viewed only as a clever rationalization and intellectual tool used by the guardians of the socio-economic status quo to stamp out the virtuous utopian impulse. Marx’s denigration of the intellect was one of many modern powerful influences leading up to such present-day academic absurdities as “deconstructionism.” It is the case, of course, that Catholicism, with its belief in an objective moral order and the power of the mind to grasp truth, rejects this ideological, politicized, subjectivist, historicist, “post-modern” model.
Marxism was significantly incorporated into the profession of sociology during the mid-1960s and throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Marxist sociology is still an important part of contemporary sociology although, perhaps, its influence is waning as the now gray-haired “tenured radicals” of that period now mercifully retire or somehow else exit the scene. Conversely, the rejection of reason and rationality and the related revolt against authority that characterized that era produced a retrenchment of positivism, crude or otherwise–in sociology, a retrenchment that very well may prove temporary given the exalted role that is granted to anyone or anything that can plausibly lay claim to scientific legitimation in a materially prosperous, what Pitirim Sorokin would term “sensate,” culture of ever-escalating expectations.6
One Alternative: Catholicizing Sociology
The Catholic scholar fits in well neither with the Marxist or positivistic model of sociological research. Accepted from the former is the claim that the “cause”–in the case of Catholicism, the salvation of souls–is ultimately more important than any scholarly effort. However, rejected from the Marxist camp is the claim that objectivity in social research neither can nor should be sought after. It can be sought because reason, albeit operating through culture, has the ability to transcend ultimately any ideological moorings and reach a transcendent Truth. It should be sought–contra Tertullian and Marx–because the pursuit of truth, albeit a penultimate allegiance in the Catholic worldview, is a good in and by itself. Accepted from the positivist camp, on the contrary, is the claim that objectivity can and should be the goal of the sociologist, qua scholar. Rejected from this model, however, is the denial that the scholar, with his/her worldview, is an active participant in the research enterprise.
Viewed from the perspective of this essay, sociology is not a completely autonomous discipline; the empirical facts about the social world that the sociologist is concerned with discovering and gathering are influenced by values and philosophical assumptions. The scholar should approach, then, the quest for an objective understanding of social reality though the recognition and taking-into-account of how values and philosophical assumptions impact on the various stages of the research process. There are at least five such impacts. They are: 1) the motivation, or, in many cases, the ideological agenda of the individual researcher, 2) what the researcher considers (or doesn’t consider) to be either a worthy research project or social problem to be alleviated, 3) the analytical concepts, definitions, and theoretical frameworks that the researcher either creates or decides to employ, 4) how the researcher chooses to interpret data or, conversely, what aspects of social reality the researcher considers irrelevant in analysis, and 5) what the researcher considers to be possible social policy recommendations.
Regarding the first issue of motivation, for example, isn’t it obvious that progressivist Catholic sociologists like Rev. Andrew M. Greeley desire to substitute an idolatrous embrace of the American nation for allegiance to the historic faith of the Catholic religion? Isn’t it obvious that many secular sociologists are motivated by a desire to destroy the very same traditional nuclear family that is assumed in Familiaris Consortio to be the natural form of mankind? Isn’t it also obvious that many neo-conservative sociologists are interested in providing rationalizations for the leaders of corporate capitalistic America who, in turn, are motivated in their thinking and actions by a desire to maximize profits and are, in the main at least, indifferent to the needs of workers for gainful and dignified employment? Conversely put, isn’t it obvious that Catholic sociologists applying their skills to the pro-life movement are motivated by their respect for truth and an objective moral order and love for all of God’s creation, including the most defenseless?
Regarding the second issue of what is defined as an important research project, isn’t it obvious that many progressive Catholic scholars and elites do not see a crisis in the way doctrine and catechesis are taught in Catholic schools, parishes, and seminaries? Or that many do not accept the Church’s teaching on homosexuality and birth control? Isn’t it the case that many secular sociologists do not consider widespread abortion and euthanasia to be “social problems?” How many progressive Catholic or secular sociologists would consider it to be worthwhile to empirically study the salutary effects of Natural Family Planning on marriage? Or, for that matter, how many are truly open to uncovering the deleterious effects of many sex education courses?
Regarding the third set of issues that deal with concepts, definitions, and theories, it is clear that many progressive Catholic and secularist scholars choose theoretical frameworks that emphasize the inevitability of conflict and exploitation in society and in social relations over those that stress order, interdependence, and complementarity. Such models, as but one example, oftentimes exaggerate or disproportionately focus on what goes wrong in marriages and families or hide the fact that family dysfunctions are far more likely to be produced by so-called “alternatives in family living” vis-a-vis that of the intact nuclear family. Progressive Catholic thinkers, relatedly, tend to view legitimate authority in the Church not as an expression of love and fidelity to Christ but as the crude and immoral exercise of naked power. Secular and progressive Catholic thinkers also tend to uncritically accept those theoretical frameworks (e.g. Marxism, Freudianism, feminism, deconstructionism) that reduce out of existence any affirmation of the supernatural. Similarly, they tend to embrace models positing the human actor as homo economicus. How many secular and progressive Catholic sociologists, conversely, make reference to the idea of natural law and to such concepts as personalism, subsidiarity, and solidarity? Linguistic definitions, relatedly, are also very important to analyze. Progressive Catholics tend to wrap up social justice issues in socialistic lingo and tend to accept broad (and unfair) definitions of such terms as “homophobia,” “racism,” and “anti-Semitism.”
Regarding the fourth issue of interpretation, isn’t it true that many progressive Catholic and secular sociologists choose to emphasize the alleged “liberating” consequences for women of full participation in the labor force while conveniently ignoring the empirical evidence regarding the negative emotional and physical consequences for children exposed excessively to day care centers? Or that they would legitimize what is, in actuality, pathological “life-style alternatives in family living” while cavalierly dismissing the destruction ushered forth by an increasingly “fatherless America?” Conversely put, it is much more likely that orthodox Catholic sociologists would lampoon the claims that divorce, especially where children are involved, is an uncontested “natural right” and that the children of divorce do not suffer negative emotional and economic consequences.
Regarding public policy, fifthly and finally, Catholic sociologists would be far less apt to suggest social reforms for the American Republic that assume either the (capitalist) image of “autonomous man” or the (socialist) claim that the State is the ultimate authority in earthy affairs. Put another way, a society informed by Catholic social policy would allow neither “assisted suicide” as an individual “right,” nor a government engineered eugenics program. Putting the issue of the impact of values and philosophical assumptions on the research process in a more positive light, it can be stated, that, in principle, sociology itself can be Catholicized through the incorporation of valid and true values and philosophical assumptions that are either Catholic or are consistent with the Faith. The calling of a “Catholic sociology” is:
a) to provide objective social research
b) in assisting the Catholic Church in the tasks of 1) understanding how surrounding social forces affect the Faith and 2) reconstructing the social order along Christian principles
c) by applying, where appropriate, Catholic principles and a Catholic sensibility to the existing body of sound social scientific theory, concepts, and methods and
d) through a thorough public intellectual exchange.
Regarding point “a,” a Catholic sociology rejects all forms of “ideological” or “politically correct” thought, that is, thought concerned with supporting the material interests of any group by distorting a truthful depiction of social reality. Accepted is the claim that there is an objective social order, an understanding of which can be closely approximated through the critical application of reason.
Regarding point “b,” a Catholic sociology can assist legitimate ecclesiastical leadership in at least two ways. The first is in the understanding of how social and historical processes and events impact on developments within the Church. The second is by suggesting a range of acceptable social policies and programs geared to both Church and society that are universal in import and accord with Catholic social doctrine.
Regarding point “c,” accepted is the claim that some substantial part of the secular sociological tradition is valid and useful. Analogous to the argument that the light of the Gospel as mediated through the Church’s Magisterium perfects the natural reasoning power of the pagan, a Catholic sociology believes that the incorporation of distinctive Catholic principles (e.g. subsidiarity, personalism, solidarity) and the influence of a general Catholic worldview can serve as a leaven to sociology as it presently exists.
Regarding point “d,” rejected is the notion that all that is necessary for an immediately resurrected sociology profession is the simple and mechanical substitution of the “right” Catholic values for the “wrong” secular values. If a Catholic sociology is to become a successful tool for both substantive understanding and evangelization, it must actively confront, through constant replication, frank comparison, and honest and open analysis, the countervailing values, theories, concepts, methodologies, findings, and social policy arguments of secular sociology. The Church’s stance vis-a-vis secular sociology must be the stance she has historically taken toward the world: reject error, search for compatibilities, coopt when useful, and create anew when necessary. Hopefully, such a frank and public intellectual exchange between secular and Catholic sociology will move in the direction of institutionalizing a universal theoretical framework for the sociology based on the natural law7 but also one consistent with Holy Scripture and a Sacred, yet evolving, Church Tradition. At the very least the establishment of Catholic perspectives in sociology would guarantee the Church a presence both within the intellectual marketplace and those arenas in which public policy is forged. The ultimate goal, however, as I’ve argued in my recently published Bright Promise, Failed Community: Catholics and the American Public Order, is for a fully developed and articulated Catholic sociology and social science to serve as an important vehicle for the social reconstruction of American society derived from, or at least consistent with, the principles of Catholic social doctrine. The newly established–in1992–Society of Catholic Social Scientists was created with this end in mind.8
Endnotes:
1. This paper represents a revision of my “Introduction: What Hath Social Science to do with Catholicism?: Tertullian Revisited,” pp. 1-11, in my volume Bright Promise, Failed Community: Catholics and the American Public Order (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). It was presented at the conference, “Catholicism and the Social Sciences,” co-sponsored by the Society of Catholic Social Scientists, Ave Maria College, and Ave Maria Law School, and held on Saturday, March 25, 2000 at the Holiday Inn–North Campus, Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was later published in the journal of Christendom College, Faith and Reason (Volume XXXVIII, Number 2, Spring, 2003).
2. H. R. Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper and Row, 1951).
3. The interpretations that I put forth on the perspective of Comte and Marx represent my own synthesis of the commentaries on them found in Lewis A. Coser’s Masters of Sociological Thought: Ideas in Historical and Social Context, Second Edition, (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Jovenovich, Inc., 1977 and in Peter L. Berger and Brigitte Berger’s Sociology: A Biographical Approach, Second Edition, (New York: Basic Books, 1975).
4. See Peter L. Berger, “The Worldview of the New Class: Secularity and its Discontents” in The New Class, ed. B. Bruce-Briggs (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1979). See how Brigitte Berger and Peter L. Berger discuss and concretely apply the term in their volume, The War Over the Family (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983).
5. For my analysis of the significant differences that exist between secular and Catholic sociological interpretations of the family, see “Secular Sociology’s War Against Familiaris Consortio and the Traditional Family: Whither Catholic Higher Education and Catholic Sociology?” in The Church and the Universal Catechism, ed., Rev. Anthony J. Mastroeni, (Steubenville, Ohio: Franciscan University Press, 1992).
6. Pitirim A. Sorokin discusses “sensate culture” in many of his books. See, for instance, his Social and Cultural Dynamics (New York: American Book Company, 1937).
7. John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), p. 18.
8. For information and material on the Society of Catholic Social Scientists, write to Dr. Joseph A. Varacalli, Department of Sociology and Director of the Center for Catholic Studies, Nassau Community College, Garden City, NY 11530, [email protected]
(Biographical Note: Dr. Joseph A. Varacalli is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Catholic Studies at Nassau Community College–S.U.N.Y . He is the author, most recently, of Bright Promise, Failed Community: Catholics and the American Public Order, Lexington Books, 1-800-462-6420; www.lexingtonbooks.com or www.barnesandnoble.com or www.amazon.com )
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