Teología y Secularizaciónuna lectura teológica de la sociología de la religión de Peter L. Berger

Resumen

The thesis “Theology and Secularization. A theological reading of the Sociology of the Religion of Peter L. Berger”, under the direction of Professor D. Bernardo Pérez Andreo, is the result of the pretension to make a qualitative leap in the study, first, of the Bergerian contributions to the problem of religious and theological identity crisis in modern Western societies; and second, the attempt to show the complexity of a thought in contact with a changing social reality in which we live. The fundamental intention of this work will be to propose an approach to the particularity of everything that in itself represents the Bergerian theological thought, in its relation to the processes of secularization and desecularization. This project, also, aims to approach Berger interdisciplinarily, that is, from other areas of knowledge less known and that have contributed so much to its theological evolution. The fundamental objective of this doctoral thesis is to determine if Bergerian theology suffers, as well as its sociology of religion and its conception of religion in general, a dialectical process (thesis, antithesis and synthesis) influenced by the theory of secularization, such as Peter Berger conceives it. In this sense, we are interested in determining the evolution of Bergerian theology in order to be able to clarify if it adapts to the dialectical method of secularization and, therefore, we can speak of a presecular theology, secular and postsecular; or if, on the contrary, it maintains a character of gnoseological uniqueness in the face of the avatars of secularization. That is, we want to know if Bergerian theology undergoes a process of aggiornamento or entrenchment in the face of secularization. That is, once we have determined the theological changes before secularization, we intend to determine a sociological evolution: Is it possible to verify that there is an evolution of Bergerian theology from prisms as diverse as the philosophical (theodicy), anthropological, phenomenological and even mystical?. Our intention is to demonstrate if it is possible to determine a new evolution of Bergerian theology, apart from the obvious sociological analysis; mainly, from an analysis that determines the foundation of theodicy at the very roots of Bergerian theology. That is to say, we intend to establish whether in Berger there is, ultimately, an evolution towards a postsecular theology or the theology of desecularization. This would allow us to conclude that, indeed, there is an evolution of Berger's theological thinking under the interpretation of the dialectical method used -previously- to understand the Bergerian religious paradigm. If we can not establish a so-called post-secular theology, then we would find that in Berger, theology has become obsolete as a spring of socio-existential meaning or as a legitimating institution and "structure of plausibility" for the believing individuals of late modernity. The thesis that I present before the University of Murcia, shows that in Berger there is, ultimately, an evolution towards a postsecular theology or "theology of desecularization." Therefore, being able to determine the existence of this postsecular theology allows us to establish that Berger's theology has not become obsolete as a spring of socio-existential meaning or as a legitimating institution and "structure of plausibility" for the believing individuals of late modernity. Bergerian theology could be called, then, as "theology for a secularized world".