Relational Worldviews in the Western and Christianity-Derived Traditions
Discussion
Prompt to ChatGPT:
Western Traditions Between the Vertical and the Horizontal
In contemporary discussions about emerging ecological civilizations and post-individualist societies, relationality is increasingly recognized as a central ontological and spiritual principle. A widely shared summary frames this well:
"Relationality (not individualism!) is the ontological heart of emerging ecological civilizations.
- Indigenous: “all my relations"
- S. Asia: interbeing / codependent origination
- China: tianxia / all under heaven (no externalities!)
- Africa: ubuntu / personhood through others"
This framing contrasts relationally grounded non-Western traditions with what is seen as the individualistic bias of Western modernity. However, this view, while valuable, risks overlooking rich streams of relational thought within Western traditions themselves—both theological and philosophical, vertical and horizontal in nature.
This article explores how relationality manifests within the Western heritage, particularly within Christianity and its postmodern evolutions, identifying both God-grounded (vertical) and peer-based (horizontal) forms of spiritual and social relationality.
1. Vertical Relationality: Grounded in the Divine
Western traditions have long articulated relationality in explicitly theological terms, often rooting the web of relations in the nature of God and divine creation.
a. Analogia Entis (Analogy of Being)
Thomas Aquinas and other medieval thinkers argued that all creatures exist through participation in God's being, not by possessing essence independently. Thus, all reality is relational, connected analogically to the divine source.
Participatory implication: Being is not self-contained but a shared quality, emphasizing interconnectedness through divine origin. (Aquinas, Summa Theologiae; Milbank, 1990)
b. Perichoresis (Trinitarian Ontology)
In classical theology, God exists as a Trinity—three Persons in mutual indwelling (perichoresis). Rather than solitary essence, divinity is relational being. Human personhood, made in this image, mirrors that relational structure.
Participatory implication: Personhood is not isolation but mutual giving and receiving. (LaCugna, God for Us, 1991)
c. Process Theology
Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne reimagined God as not static but dynamically relational, affected by the world and co-creating reality in time.
Participatory implication: Reality unfolds through mutual interaction; nothing is independent. This resonates with ecological and Buddhist interbeing. (Cobb & Griffin, Process Theology, 1976)
d. Communion-Based Moral Theology
Catholic, Orthodox, and Wesleyan traditions hold that morality and holiness arise not through isolated virtue but through communion with others—Eucharist, shared prayer, and embodied community.
Participatory implication: Ethics and spiritual growth are social events. (Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 1985)
e. Modern Christian Relational Ontology
Contemporary thinkers like Joseph Kaipayil and Christos Yannaras argue that to be is to be-in-relation. Being is not substance but networked presence.
Participatory implication: Relationality is ontological, not just moral. (Kaipayil, Relationalism, 2002)
2. Horizontal Relationality: Peer-to-Peer Spirituality and Community
While much of the vertical tradition grounds relationality in the divine, Western history is also rich in horizontal, peer-based expressions of relational life—often emerging on the margins.
a. Early Christian Communities
The apostolic church practiced radical egalitarianism: shared property, communal meals, mutual aid, and the breakdown of social boundaries (Gal. 3:28).
Horizontal form: No one was above another; leadership was service. (Acts 2:42-47)
b. Monastic and Mendicant Orders
Monks and friars lived intentional lives of shared labor, common rule, and mutual accountability. Francis of Assisi's Canticle of the Creatures expressed kinship with animals, earth, sun, and moon.
Horizontal form: Spirituality as co-living and co-suffering with others and nature.
c. Quaker Worship
The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) practices silent worship in circles, where anyone may speak as led by the Spirit. Authority emerges through collective discernment.
Horizontal form: Radical equality, shared discernment, and mutual listening. (Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness)
d. Anabaptist Mutualism
Radical Reformation groups rejected both state and hierarchical churches, emphasizing communal discernment, shared economic life, and peace-building.
Horizontal form: Voluntary community based on equality and peer support.
e. Post-Theistic & P2P Spirituality
Contemporary movements—influenced by process theology, feminist theology, and peer-to-peer paradigms—conceive spirituality as equipotential inquiry. God becomes a field, not a figure.
Horizontal form: Spiritual truth arises from communal participation, not top-down authority. (P2P Foundation, "Relational Spirituality")
3. Thomas Berry and Cosmic Participation
Thomas Berry, a Christian ecotheologian, offers a powerful synthesis. He viewed medieval festivals as cosmic liturgies that celebrated the interwovenness of natural, human, and divine rhythms. He writes:
"In the medieval period, the religious feast days were also cosmic feast days. They followed the rhythms of the seasons, of the solstices and equinoxes, of planting and harvest. The whole community celebrated together… as a participation in the sacred cosmogenesis."
(Berry, The Dream of the Earth, 1988)
Berry argued that these festivals were not merely symbolic but performative enactments of a relational ontology—a mode of living-in-relation with land, sky, saints, seasons, and neighbors.
Implication: Medieval Christianity did not only think relationally—it practiced relationality at the civic and ecological level."