Ecclesiology and Social Theory: A Methodological Essay

Abstract

ECCLESIOLOGY AND SOCIAL THEORY A METHODOLOGICAL ESSAY T HIS ESSAY EXPLORES some of the methodological mplications of conceiving ecclesiology as a systematic discipline. Of the two questions that arise immediately -what is it that ecclesiologists seek to understand systematically ? and, what does it mean to understand it systematically ?-the first will here be answered heuristically and the rest of the paper will be devoted to addressing the second. Heuristically, the object of ecclesiology may be described as the set (or sets) of experiences, understandings, symbols, words, judgments, statements, decisions, actions, relationships, and institutions which distinguish the group of people called " the Church." Again heuristically, the purpose of ecclesiology may be said to be to understand how and why it is that these related elements constitute that group of people as what in faith is called " the Church." If, before the tasks of ecclesiology may be undertaken, these heuristic descriptions would need to be clarified, developed, and defended, it appears that these further moves depend at least in part on positions taken with regard to the second question above, namely what it means to understand the Church systematically . The remainder of this essay will be devoted to that question. A brief description of what it means (1) to understand, (2) to understand systematically, (3) to understand a human and social reality systematically, will provide the preface to an extended argument that a systematic understanding of the Church not only must draw upon social theory but itself is an undertaking similar in important respects to the effort of social theorists systematically to understand (other) social realities. 262 ECCLESIOLOGY AND SOCIAL THEORY 263 Understanding Understanding is what is intended when attention to an experience or set of experiences gives rise to questions that ask, What is this? What is happening? Why is this happening? How often does or will this happen? Such questions are met when the various data or aspects of the data given in experience are brought into an intelligible unity which is expressed in a concept or hypothesis. Reflection on the hypothesis asks about the conditions necessary for its verification. When reflection ascertains that the conditions are in fact fulfilledwhen all the relevant data or aspects of the data are accounted for and no further relevant questions arise-it proceeds to the jud;'ment and assertion, This is what this is. This is an occurrence of that. This is why it is happening. This is the probability that it will happen again.1 Systematic Understanding This process-from experiences through inquiry to understanding and conceptualization, and from hypothetical understanding through reflection to judgment and assertion-happens all the time and everywhere: it is part of the basic business of daily living. Systematic understanding, however, is not sought always and everywhere, but represents a particular differentiation of the common effort to understand. Systematic inquiry asks questions about what is taken for granted in the understanding that suffices or appears to suffice for everyday living. It aris1 es out of the "scientific attitude" which Alfred Schutz contrasted to the "natural attitude " of everyday living .2 It pursues as its goal the" theory" which Bernard Loner1 This description reflects, in obviously very simplified form, the work of Bernard Lonergan in his two chief works, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1958) and Method in Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 197~). •Alfred Schutz and Thomas Luckmann, The Structures of the Life-World, trans. Richard M. Zaner and H. Tristram Engelhardt (London: Heinemann, 1974), pp. 3-15. 264 JOSEPH A. KOMONCHAK gan constrasts to " common sense." 3 When systematically understood , the data given in experience are intelligibly related, not to the observer, but to other data. General relationships are ascertained, patterns of relationships discovered, types of patterns distinguished, frequencies of occurrence determined. In the course of the effort, systematic understanding devises its own methods of observation, inquiry, and verification as well as its own manners and forms of expression. It is in these developments that systematic understanding appears most obviously to differ from the understanding considered to suffice for everyday living. Systematic Understanding of Human Realities Among systematic inquiries, a basic differentiation is that between the natural and...