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3 Status quaestionis
3.1 Research done in Portugal
Some research done in Portugal, in the last decades, show that more than 90% of the population says to believe in God . But that fact has no correspondence with other Christian identity indicators; what leads us to the possibility that the “believe in God” construct doesn’t overlap with the catholic ecclesial tradition.
We have a reasonably safe information that a high percentage of the population believes in God but we don’t know what that means. Those researches weren’t interested in the question or have done it in a very feeble way, with a very deficient theoretical approach.
3.2 From the psychology of religion
The psychological research done internationally has been concerned with the conceptual representations of God, the identification of the correlated or predictive factors of those representations and/or with the development of the representations of the God concept .
Most of the researches has an individualistic approach and tends to ignore the role the socio-cultural contexts and the ecclesial practices have in configuring reality.
3.3 From the sociology of religion
The sociological research has been deeply conditioned by the “methodological atheism” and the consequent dichotomy between “god” (reserved to theological discourse) and the human reality (reserved to social sciences).
According to Piette , the dicotomization resulting from methodological atheism assumes four forms. The first reduces god to a social projection. God, which has no ontological status other than social projection, can not be studied. It’s the classical Durkheim position. The second form consists in the social dissolution. God is nothing else but a passive support for the social group values or social imagination. The third form is the theological exclusion. Accepted by believers and non beliervers, this form radicalizes the methodological atheism and considers god as untouchable, exterior to human culture and experience. Only theology would be able to talk about God; sociology should be mute about God. The fourth form consists in the “annulation humano-centrique” inspired by Weber. This form is interested by the religious subjects, by the social structures they build, erasing god from the scene.
Thesis, now classics, like the progressive deschristianization or the dissolution of Christianity in a syncretistic consumerism are proposed with no support from empirical data nor rigorous analysis of the theoretical basis.
3.4 From the religious education perspective
Schweitzer , from the perspective of a religious educator, lists five reasons explaining the useless character of a lot of research done so far about this theme:
• There is a tension between the religious themes and the contextual embeddeness of the subject. Religious propositions, if considered apart from the living context of the subjects, can easily generate errors.
• There is a lot of frustration with the fixation on snapshot-like empirical results which do not take into consideration the ongoing processes of religious change and development of a person.
• Another tension arises from the difference between actual and potential faith of the person.
• Another source of tension lies on the normative aspects of the researches. Apparently a research should be value-free to achieve objectivity. But the problem is that there are always parti pris (theological or ideological), non recognized as such; and for that reason ever discussed.
• A final obstacle is the tension between the structure or function of religion and the religious content.
3.5 For a synthesis
The human sciences research about God has been usually built on epistemological prejudices, rarely discussed, that undermine the quality and relevance of the results.
One of those prejudices is the dyadic perspective. God is studied only on a subject-object relation.
A linear causality has also been preferred, forgetting the complexity of the social, cultural, mediatic and religious systems in which we are embedded .
The majority of the research done so far has a positivist trend (unable to resist a honest criticism) or calls for a radical fragmentation (do it your self religion) that blocks knowledge (and knowledge is always general knowledge) and a thought and renewed praxis.
The reception the adolescent catechisands give to the announcement of the mystery of God is not enough studied and the concomitant research is not directly exportable.
It is true that the determinism of the progressive dechristianisation thesis is not acceptable; but it’s also true that religious agencies (Christian families, parish, catechesis…) are not any more the only ones contributing to God image formation.
The recent research about “God image” has, usually, balanced between the sum of descriptors attributed to the image of God ante the attempt to find causal explanations (mainly psychological ones).
The literature suggests there are several factors influencing that process:
a) Social and psychological family processes;
b) Personal experiences;
c) Formal and explicit religious formations processes (systematic catechesis, liturgy participation…);
d) The contents and worldview proposed by the state owned school system;
e) The values systems present in the Portuguese society;
f) The mainstream media system and its proposals;
g) The developing processes associated with adolescence;
The more sociological approaches indicate several other phenomena:
a) Women have higher belief in God indicators
b) The faith indicators diminish with age;
c) There is a serious difficulty in determining if this is a social change or only a cohort effect;
d) Individualization of the believing process;
e) Fluidity on the faith contents and quick intra-individual changes;
f) Apophatic tendencies;