On this first level of reality, the question of what is real is seldom
raised, as there is no need at all to doubt it. But there are other
levels that many people do think about, although it seems that there are some
who are content to live their lives only on this first level. For them it may
be true, to a certain extent, that “ignorance is bliss.”
Level two: Things get more complicated when we enter
the realm of thought and reflection rather than remaining in the world as experienced
by our five senses. Further consideration indicates that much of what we
consider real is actually socially constructed.
Peter L. Berger (1929~2017) was an Austrian‑born American sociologist and Protestant theologian,
best known for his work in the sociology of knowledge and of religion. He ended
his long teaching career as University Professor of Sociology and Theology at Boston
University from 1981 until his retirement in 2009.
Berger’s book, The Social Construction of Reality (1966), co-authored with Thomas Luckmann (1927~2016), is a
classic in the sociology of knowledge. It asserts that what we humans experience
as “reality” in everyday life is largely a human, social product rather than a
fixed, purely objective given.**
In their book, Berger and Luckmann introduce the concept of
“plausibility structures,” and Berger further develops that idea in his next
book, The Sacred Canopy (1967). That
concept was then popularized by the British theologian Lesslie Newbigin in his influential
book The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (1989).
In July 2018, I posted a blog article titled “There Really Are ‘Alternative
Facts’," and I encourage you to read that important post (here). The
point is that on this second level, “facts” are only what the society one
belongs to agrees upon as being real or true. For example, for those who are
die-hard MAGA supporters, whatever the POTUS says is considered true and
trustworthy.
On the other hand, most of the rest of us are painfully aware that every
day he says things that are false or misleading. We so often disagree with what
he claims to be factually true. Our plausibility structure is based on the
anti-Trump Democrats and Independents who think that much of what he says is neither
true nor trustworthy.
So, what is “real” in this case? The answer depends almost entirely
upon the “society” to which we belong. Thus, what we consider to be real in the
realm of religion, philosophy, and politics is socially constructed, formed by our
thought-community.
Level three: Finally, we are challenged to consider whether there is ultimate reality, and if so, what that might be. From the ancient past, there have been some/many who have explored the profoundly important metaphysical and religious question of what is ultimately real.
There are those, of course, who don’t acknowledge this third level.
But I believe AI is right: ultimate reality “precedes us, holds us, and does
not depend on our perception to be real.” Most of us need to spend more time
and effort exploring, evaluating, and engaging with this level of reality.
While it may or may not be “blissful,” that is where we find the real meaning
of life.
_____
** In addition to this seminal book, Berger is
also the author of two significant sociological/theological works: The
Sacred Canopy (1967), a foundational text in the sociology of religion,
exploring religion as a protective framework for understanding existence amid
modernity, and A Rumor of Angels (1969), which examines signals of
transcendence in modern society, challenging secularization theories. In addition,
he is also the editor of a much later book of interest, Between Relativism
and Fundamentalism (2010).
“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” This is a well-known quote, widely attributed to Anaïs Nin, French-Cuban-USAmerican writer.
ReplyDeleteNin's statement is directly related to the central part of the above post, and since I failed to get it worked in to the post itself, I am sharing her words here.
DeleteThank you, Leroy. This fits perfectly with a message on the reality of Heaven I plan to bring tomorrow (Sunday, March 1) to Kentwood Heights Baptist Church, Quinton (near Richmond), Virginia. With your permission I would like to use it as an illustration.
ReplyDeleteYou have my permission to use the blog post as you would like, but I am not sure what your name is as you posted (maybe by necessity) as "Anonymous."
DeleteToo deep for me!
ReplyDeleteI think I'm supposed to write something here because I read Peter Berger's books as an undergraduate in sociology, also in seminary, also in graduate school in sociology, used a number of his books as textbooks in courses of sociology, philosophy, and religion during my academic career, and have covered his work in writings of my own. So "divine providence" must be calling on me to say something! LOL! I won't in this context get into my critiques of Berger, which are more than a few, except this one: he seemed unable to really take seriously the radical insight of "the social construction of reality" that he and Luckmann saw so well, even though he (Berger) appropriated so very well the insights of Hume, Kant, Marx, Nietzsche, Sartre, and others. And here it is in my own words: there are no human perceptions, no human knowledge, no mental imaginings, no human beliefs (religious or otherwise)--even of ultimate reality--that can escape the social constructions of history and culture. Human finitude has its boundaries, and they are cultural. As I used to tell my evangelical students who had not yet escaped the ideology of biblical inerrancy, "However inerrant might be divine revelation, our interpretations of it are always largely shaped by our place in history and culture." And I would suggest here that the limit of the cultural boundedness of humanity is one of the major if not the primary message of the first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis.
ReplyDeleteThanks for following "divine providence" and posting your comments. I did not see, though, how what you wrote was somehow a "correction" to Berger's main point. Rather, I thought you mainly amplified what he was emphasizing in explaining the social construction of reality,
DeleteYour last sentence called to mind what Harvey Cox wrote in "The Secular City" (1965) (summarized here by AI): "Cox emphasized that Genesis 1–11 should be read as mythological narrative in the technical, scholarly sense — not meaning 'false,' but meaning a story that conveys deep theological truth through symbolic language. He argued that treating these chapters as literal history misses their actual purpose: they are profound reflections on the human condition, not accounts of datable events."
I read Berger's The Sacred Canopy in seminary, I think. That was many years ago, and my sociology major was more in family systems, most of which I have forgotten. The thought of the multi-levels of reality, however, brought back studies of 'time' during my brief journey in physics. The postulation is there are at least three possibilities of time: conscious time, 'chronos' time, and time as experienced by the universe with its interaction of gravity, mass, and velocity beyond man's ability to measure. The levels of reality should force any person willing to give themselves a headache the sense of urgency to determine what level of reality is guiding their decision making process. How might this cause us to reevaluate our value systems and prejudices?
ReplyDeleteBro. Leroy, I just found this quote and thought I would pass it on:
DeleteQuotemeal; Feb. 27. 2026
"Things and persons appear to us according to the light we throw upon them from our own minds. How unconciously we judge others by the light that is within ourselves, condemning or approving them by our own conception of right and wrong, honor and dishonor! We show by our judgement just what the light within us is."
— Laura Ingalls Wilder
Thanks for your comments, Tom. I don't know/understand enough about physics to comment meaningfully on postulations regarding the three (or more) "possibilities of time." Concerning your last two sentences, though, I think I would have to insist that most people most of the time make decisions based on the second level of reality, which was the main emphasis of my blog post. But as pastors, we sought to get people to embrace Ultimate Reality, and from that viewpoint to reevaluate their value systems and prejudices.
DeleteThanks also, Tom, for the interesting quote by Laura Ingalls Wilder, which was a bit surprising to see coming from her. I though it was was a good and important statement, though, that tied in well with the words of A. Nin at the top of these comments.
DeleteImmanuel Kant gave us the concept of "ding an sich" which in English is thing-in-itself. While the ding an sich is foundational, we have no way to actually know it. Indeed, on common way around this is to assume "naive realism" which is to say that what we see is what exists. This is frequently an efficient way to work with the phenomena we experience, but we have plenty of those moments when that fails. So we struggle to develop better theories to manage the gulf between perception and reality. Children have to learn a lot to get proficient at it, and even adults get fooled enough. We have categories to help us solve problems, such as concepts of optical illusions and mirage. I think Berger is on solid ground (metaphorically speaking) with the social construction of what we know. Look at the long struggle in civil rights to establish acceptance of the capabilities of women and people of color, not to mention sexually diverse persons. Eventually most of get to realizing we have types of music and art we like, not necessarily music and art that is intrinsically better. Science helps us a lot with this, as it gives us a way to understand and predict phenomena. Still, the ultimate reality is out there somehow, somewhere. So we have faith, even as we realize our "metaphysics" is actually better understood as metaphors. Tillich called it "the God beyond all gods." The prophet Micah simply told us, "Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before your God." (Micah 6:8) The Apostle Paul worried about the strong in faith and the weak in faith, a challenge we still face today. (Romans 14) I try to follow their advice.
ReplyDelete