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Contexts of the Global Financial and
Economic Crisis in the Perspective of Empirical Theology by
Dr. Arnd Hollweg No
unity without otherness. Today, we are all affected by the global
financial and economic crisis. But who
are “we”? We are all the people on this
earth, not only we Europeans, Americans, Asians, Africans, Californians,
Germans, Danes, Congolese or whatever.
When we look back at the history of humankind we sometimes discover
irreconcilable conflicts between peoples and cultures because all compete for
the resources of the earth. We did not
create these resources but we live on them by using our tools to work for our
food and bodily needs. Not everyone has
everything. Not everyone has the same, for instance oil, water, woods, deserts
etc. Therefore there needs to be a global exchange of the resources of his
earth. Depending on where we live on
this globe known as “Earth” our access to its various resources is more or less
easy. In the past our mobility on earth was very
limited. The frontiers between states,
empires and spheres of human domination were insurmountable unless conquered by
war or violence. This can still be so
today. But an irreversible process has
begun, by which not only an exchange of goods but also of populations between
the countries of the earth is growing increasingly fast. It no longer matters to which nation,
culture, race or religion a person belongs.
All are human beings and live on earth.
The world and its societies are not empty. We live in a world of people, and within its
different societies social life develops in the relations between equals and in
the interpersonal relations of people who are always different from each other
and yet the same. There can be no unity
of humankind without otherness. What does this mean for the financial and
economic crisis that has affected us all today?
All of us, i.e. all the people on the globe, are affected by it, but in
different ways. Nobody can opt out of
the social structures of humankind on earth, either as an individual or as a
religious or cultural group, neither through military pacts nor economic
alliances between states that try to distance themselves from their social
circumstances. Today there are hardly any regions left in isolation from each
other. The structures and conditions of
human life on earth have changed. The
manifestations of the global society can be found, for instance, in the
technological structures that influence human life, in the realms of
information technology and the media, in the international traffic of people
and goods and much else, not least also in terrorism. Conflicts in one part of the world are linked
to conflicts in other parts, as is apparent in The search is on for alternative financial
systems and economic models that would work better. But there lies the problem. The way in which modern scientific society
functions has separated it from the reality of human life. What is the relevance of those endless tables
of dizzying economic and financial statistics if they no longer represent the
concrete goods necessary for life or the cost of human labour? Human life does not run in functional systems
of economic or social processes but in anthropological and socio-historic life
structures. We have already for too long
ignored the basic difference between dealing with science and dealing with our
fellow human beings, with ourselves and with all human life on earth. What is the good of asking today how our financial
and economic systems could function better?
They cannot be isolated from the various other modern scientific systems
that define our lives, our thinking and our actions. The
consequences of thinking in terms of systems in science and society. A critical analysis of the problems of the
present crisis requires global, inter-disciplinary and scientific explanations
for which the necessary premises are lacking.
Ultimately every job in our work-oriented society is based on a closed
thought system that is contained in the operational processes of our
society. There is no super-system that
could be the basis for a thorough understanding of these problems and an
interrelation between the isolated systems.
Human society would not be able to have access to them. This is evident in the fact that the real
world exists outside our thought systems, even if we tend to project them onto
the world. This makes for a hectic society, depersonalised by its rational and
technological compulsions, turning around in circles and inwardly empty,
finding its concrete form in modern nihilism. The human being who has created thought and
action systems in order to deal with the world now stands between them. The socio-historic reality of life in the
world however cannot be identified with his world of the function of
things. We turn ourselves into victims
of the instruments that we have created in order to deal with the world but
these instruments cannot be used for our life as human beings in the world. Our
social life lies in human relations not in instrumental technology. This has to be our starting point. If, in order to fight the financial and
economic crisis today we want to improve or repair the functional systems that
operate in it we are already on the wrong track. We ignore the epistemological problems in the
scientific understanding of the world in which we not only think and act but
live as human beings. We are unaware of
the empirical premises of our own actions. Thus our actions are full of
contradictions. We have to create new
bureaucracies in order to control the economy and, at the same time, reduce
bureaucracy for the sake of greater efficiency.
We want to have more transparency in financial operations without realising
that it is impossible to understand them fully if we ignore their empirical
aspects. We let ourselves be guided by
mathematical constructions rather than by the economic actions of people in
their anthropological context. We
subsidise banks and industrial companies although, above all, they act in ways
that are dissociated from the social-historic life of human beings in the
world. The political left is demanding a
The
economic crisis as part of a global crisis of social orientation. The financial and economic crisis is different and larger than we imagine or realise. It is part of a global social crisis in which countries today are beginning to protect their places on our shrunken earth. It is not only a challenge to our European and American history but, through modern science, we are ourselves caught up in the global crisis. We have misused science as an instrument of our domination and power for the technological manipulation of our human environment. In our heads we have constructed a mental parallel universe different from, and without contact with, the real one. In journalistic professional jargon bankers and managers used to be called “masters of the universe” who acted and ruled outside the world of people, as science does over the cosmic universe where there are no humans. In the light of scientific epistemology the market was believed to be self-regulating. It was only necessary to master the technical tricks in order to steer it according to one’s own ideas from the outside. That is exactly what bankers and managers did when they channelled streams of money into their own pockets without responsible consideration for the socio-historic world, in order to extend their domination, power and wealth through unlimited egotistic endeavour. Nor did they even notice that they had already a long time ago lost their grasp and control of the universe. Many factors within it were beyond the reach of scientific knowledge and human understanding. Therefore it is not enough today to pour money in the form of subsidies into the black hole into which previous sums have already disappeared. Economic and financial processes cannot be
seen in isolation, cut off from the inter-disciplinary questions of science,
culture, tradition, anthropology, geo-politics and social questions. The crisis cannot be understood as simply a
disruption of the operational processes of society, as we find them in the data
of science and the internet. In fact they are caught up in the social contexts
which scientific and analytical thinking often ignores. Thus we are today
barely aware of the context in which our social life has been unfolding for a
long time. This cannot be worked out from mental or visual data. Scientific knowledge is as inapplicable to
the social reality of human life as were the philosophical and metaphysical
ideas of the ancient world. The mental and social worlds of human
beings can neither be understood as dichotomously analogous to each other nor
as symbiotically identified with each other.
They are different realities in relation to each other, in the global
setting of human life today. It is the
same person who thinks and lives in relation with his fellow human beings. He
does not live without a mental and spiritual world that also affects his
external social reality. Thus the financial and economic crisis is linked to a
world-wide spiral of fear. It causes too
many people, groups and nations to lose the social ground beneath their
feet. It affects completely different
internal and external situations. When
banks today refuse to lend money to each other or to their customers, this
shows how much the whole credit system depends on trust and credibility among
people. It is not simply a question of
people’s and countries’ “mood” but also of the whole structure of social
reality. Christian
faith in theology, philosophy and science. The individual in society is vulnerable,
helpless and always under threat, both in mind and in body, during his life on
earth. The individual is not an abstract
“I”, as Descartes used to imagine, not a grotesque product of his imagination
or an intellectually constructed entity but an empirical and anthropological
“I”. Nor is the individual a thing like
money that, as the tool of global commerce, may be the ‘thing of things’ but
still has its value determined by human beings.
It therefore is not a neutral entity.
Its context is the events in the social reality within which it
functions as a means of exchange in mutual giving and taking of things and
goods between people and nations. Human
beings, however, cannot be exchanged or used as tools in the social world. They cannot turn themselves into objects in a
world of objects. They are not
functional things like the tools or machines created to be instruments for
reproducing things, just as money is the tool for the equitable arrangement of
our social relations. The human being is at the centre of these
relations as the thinking, understanding, evaluating and acting person. Our living spirit inhabits a living
body. The living, personal “I” in us
does not only think intellectually but also understands through its living
spirit and feels in its living body. We
cannot sacrifice it to a world of function without losing our humanness in a
world from which it cannot be derived.
The human individual is neither part of it nor can he dispose of it or
dominate it. In his thinking,
understanding and acting in the world he has not only lost his relation with
himself in his social life but also the ground of his being, out of which he
lives in the world. For us human beings in the context of
global events in an industrialised, technological and mechanised world this raises
the question of God. The external
conditions of life in the world are subject to rapid change which affects every
empirical aspect of human life. No rigid
principles, laws, intellectual systems, timeless criteria or traditions can
help. They must be replaced by faith in
the living eternal God who, throughout human history, has exercised dominion
over our lives through his Spirit.
Through Jesus Christ the pneumatic life-force of the divine world is
transmitted to us. Thus, God’s presence
in the working of his Spirit becomes in us a dynamic power that can break out
of even the most rigid social and ecclesiastical traditions. They have largely turned into an empty shell
in which we were socialised and internalised.
Modern epistemological nihilism, however, could threaten to conquer our
hearts whilst our direct relation with God, mediated by the Spirit of Christ,
is lost. This inner secularisation is
challenging the very core of our Christian faith. The identification of theological thinking
with the ancient Greek philosophic tradition must not be repeated in the form
of identification with modern scientific thinking. The direct relation to God is given us by his
Spirit in Christ, not through the instrumental intelligence that we use in
dealing with the matters of the world. Here theology really stands between two
fronts, doubly manifested by the split between faith and science in the
metaphysics of arts and the physics of science.
Here we need a critical theology. In the dogmatic metaphysics based on
ancient epistemology, to which our thinking and understanding in faith has been
subject, the thinking individual stands apart from what he thinks. He does not exist in his thinking but has
objectified it. In mathematical and
physical science human thought and sight are separated. Thought becomes a function of sight and as
such is objectified and ontologised.
Faith however cannot be turned into a recognisable object of our
instrumental intelligence. If this were
possible it would lead to a pagan idea of the divine reality incompatible with
faith in a personal Christ because it cuts us off from the direct relation with
the living God. God’s pneumatic power in Christ, however,
frees us from the domination of the ideal and intellectual thought constructions
of the human mind. We can deal
critically with the socio-historic circumstances of our life and question them
as to their truth and reality. When a
person thinks that he can derive the reality in which he lives from these
thought constructions he loses his holistic and personal relation to it. The identification between theory and
empirical reality because of objectification and ontologisation of the thought
processes cuts him off from life in the world in which his faith, thought,
understanding and actions happen in the unity of body and spirit of his
person. We therefore have to raise the
critical question today, of what are the empirical premises for theological and
scientific thinking. Understanding in
faith is an anthropological enterprise, understanding in philosophy, dogmatic
and metaphysical theology and in natural science an intellectual and
instrumental one, focussed on recognisable objects. The one occurs in the living human spirit, in
the socio-historic setting of his life on earth whilst the other happens in the
operational processes of this intelligence in relation to the objects in the
world. The
role of the operational processes in the social structures of life. The economic, scientific and cultural
processes of society play a role in the structures of social life, where humans
have a responsibility for what happens in society. Therefore the operational processes in the
financial and economic sector cannot be understood and dealt with in isolation
from each other. The different mental
systems at work in them must be understood and justified in their interaction
and empirical connection. They are not
reality as such, not objective reality but instruments of human actions in
their socio-historic sphere of life. The
problems of the economic crisis today do not arise only from the use of funds
for the different sectors of society.
The human being’s relation with his work and profession is a
socio-anthropological matter. For a long
time already money has been the symbol for the domination of the financial and
economic processes necessary for human survival. Those who master and manipulate them can
exercise domination and power over their fellow human beings. Therefore, in human thought and action, a
distinction has to be made between mental theories and socio-historic empirical
matters that are both different from each other and yet remain related. Responsibility for this is inter-personal and
aimed at human relations in society, not at the functioning of different
isolated systems in it. In today’s historic situation it is the
understanding of, and accountability for, these concrete inter-dependencies
that is under discussion. This requires
a holistic approach since it is impossible to gain access to the empirical
world either through religious and cultural traditions or through theoretical
intellectual ideas. We have to start
from the concrete place of our experienced reality in order to understand the
present challenges of the global social reality but not move away from it. We do not live in an empty
space that we can randomly fill with our thoughts and theories nor are
we subject to timeless traditions that we only have to continue in our present
situation. We cannot leave the
socio-historic anthropological world where we live, in one particular place and
at one particular time, in our unity of body and spirit – the “here and now”.
Empirically and anthropologically speaking we may in our spirit be able to
leave our body in order to participate in the events surrounding us, but our
thinking remains connected to our mortal body.[1] In the light of Christian faith this means
that, faced with humankind’s global crisis, we have to start in our concrete
location where it hits us in everyday life.
Here the crisis challenges us to re-think, on a local basis, the
empirical conditions of our humanness in life and work in the world. Initially we can only try to work out
premises for our answers. We cannot yet
show a way into the future but, as before but under different conditions, we
are on the way to an unknown future. One
of the new conditions is that, today, no person, no nation, no society and no
church can live in voluntary isolation any longer. The Bible calls the unity of humankind in its
otherness the “oikoumene”. That means
the “whole inhabited earth” in which the one eternal God acts through his
Spirit in Christ as its creator. In
Christ he asks us whether we are prepared to let our life be guided by his
spirit of truth, love, mercy, reconciliation and forgiveness. This is not just a question of our human
understanding in mind and spirit but of the criteria we need to use them in our
life. The core of the Christ-event is the
establishment of relations of people with God, with their fellow human beings
and with themselves in their socio-historic life in the world. In it God’s Spirit in Christ works in us in
its dynamism in order to free us from the violence of the powers that are at
work in our human world, and lead us out of our self-imprisonment so that we
can lead our life in responsibility to God, to our fellow human beings and to
ourselves. We need not fear his
omnipotence or his omnipresence because they enable us to live in the world in
the freedom of the children of God. We
are liberated from our fear of the powers of the world in order to fear God, so
that we recognise that only the eternal God through the power of his Spirit in
Christ can show us the right way. This
is equally true for our way in the global financial and economic crisis. We can find God everywhere and at any time in
his presence in all that happens between people. That is where we should seek him so that, in
reference to him, we can strive critically to find solutions to the financial
and economic problems in social life from which they cannot be separated. They are inherent in the basic
anthropological and theological happenings of social life and in its external
changes. The concrete location of a
human being’s life is determined by his responsibility for his global
horizon. A reversal of these conditions
would turn anthropological reality into a virtual world. The concrete
human being in all the achievements and needs of his life must therefore be at
the centre of the solution of the economic crisis, regardless of where in the
world he lives. He must not become an
object of it. Anthropology and thinking in the world of things must be
distinguished. Calvinism
and capitalism – background to the economic crisis? In order to help us solve our global crisis
we may be able to learn from the cultural, religious, mental, social and
scientific traditions of the past throughout the world. In the analysis of our situation, however,
mono-causal explanations would be misleading.
The existence of a connection between the crisis in faith and the social
crisis that affects the economy at the present time has to be clearly
recognised. In his social
responsibility, the human’s relation with God cannot be cut out. This insight must be kept alive in the
churches and must not fall victim to the domination and enactment of its
traditions. Only when God Himself
remains Lord of his Church can it, in relation to Him, recognise its duty and
responsibility in the challenges of the constantly changing present times. In Martin Luther’s reformation this led to
the division of the church. The faithful
were looking for an answer to the inner secularisation of the medieval church
which was seeking its own power and thus was denying God’s dominion over human
social life. The Church of the
reformation therefore emigrated from the ecclesiastically institutional and
dogmatic-philosophical power structures of the Catholic Church. It was concerned with God’s rule through the
working of his Spirit in Christ which does not allow the church to exercise
dominion in the world. However, later
on, through their state-church structures, the Protestant Churches also claimed
secular power. The internal secularisation from God as
well as the external secularisation from the church in modern society
represents new challenges to our Christian faith. The process of secularisation is happening
within the economic crisis as well and has to do with the development of
capitalism. In the second generation of
the reformation, the reformer John Calvin wanted to correct the Protestant
faith on the basis of the biblical message.
Whilst Luther’s theological thinking had focussed on God’s actions in
human beings through his Gospel, Calvin demanded that the Christian person
should reply to God’s gracious acts
through his life, conduct and acts.
According to the Gospel promises, such acts in obedience of faith will
bear fruit in human life. This will not
mean external success in human endeavours but God’s blessing in the hearing and
doing of his word. The main emphasis was
no longer on the congregation’s Sunday worship service but on worship in
everyday life, where the Christian had to prove his faith in his work. In this he must not seek his own power,
wealth and importance in society but solely God’s honour and glory. The fruits he gains are inner riches and
meaning and fulfilment of life. In the
view of John Calvin’s theology which became influential especially in
Anglo-American Protestantism, the question of economic success became
irrelevant compared to the question of how best to serve God in our daily life
and work in the world. The Calvinist
Puritans led ascetic, sober and socially responsible lives. From their attitude to life and work there
grew, really automatically, the external wealth of the American society. Where, through secularisation, the church
structures separated increasingly from their direct relation with God, external
success, wealth and power became increasingly central. Thus the eminent economist Max Weber
(1864-1920) was able to state that, from the point of view of society, the
Calvinist work ethic had been the most important constitutive factor in the
development of capitalism. He devised
his theories of action against that background.
But he was no longer interested in the Christian’s obedience of faith in
his actions as answer to God’s gracious acts but in rational social acts in
general. For a Christian there exists a
permanent tension between his faith and the inner secularisation through which
God’s rule threatens to turn into secular domination. In this the Church shares the common life of
humankind in the world but it must not simply adjust to its structures. In and through the structures of secular life
it must cling to its relation with God, also when dealing with secular matters
like money. It is important therefore
that, in our economic thinking, we do not only refer to social systems and
industrial and technological operations but to our lives and our work as people
on earth under God’s promise. [ BWW Society Home Page ] © 2009 The Bibliotheque: World Wide Society |