Abstract
This article examines how theology and social science can contribute to the specific task of talking about God in management without compromising the integrity of the Triune God. To talk about God in management studies initially requires a discussion on the character of modernity and about whether modernity is absence or transformation of religious forms; to follow is an examination of the governing assumptions operating in social theory from a religious perspective. The conclusion is that without the correct hermeneutics, what management scholars mean by God cannot be more than an idea.
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Notes
Blaise Pascal, “The Memorial” on the overwhelming mystical experience of the night of 23 November 1654.
Augustine, De Trinitate, V, 15. Cf., Letter 140, Ad Honoratum, ch. 4, n. 10, “we were indeed something before being sons of God, and we received the divine favor to become what we were not.”
I found the same idea exposed by Joseph Ratzinger in an essay of political theology originally published in Germany in 1970: “In Greco-Roman culture the unity of the world had its source in pantheism: the divine was itself a part of the world, and the world had divine status. Hence the unity of humanity could be converted directly into political reality” (Ratzinger 2015: 11).
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I am indebted to the anonymous reviewers of an earlier version of this paper for providing insightful comments and directions for additional work which has resulted in this improved version.
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Beltramini, E. God and Modernity in Management Studies. A Case of Theological Social Theory. Philosophy of Management 18, 331–345 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40926-018-0090-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40926-018-0090-5