GEMEINDETHEORIE. — Theory of the “creative collectivity” formulated by the “sociological school,” founded by E. Durkheim, heir to the positivism of A. Comte, which made use of the data of W. Wundt’s “psychology of the masses.” Society, the supreme phenomenal reality, is not only a reality sui generis (H. Spencer, W. Wundt), but an entity in its own right, with a soul and a force of its own, called by Durkheim “collective consciousness.” This emanates from individual consciousnesses fused together and absorbed into the collectivity; it exists outside and above them; as an environmental force, it creates and imposes upon the individual the ideas, beliefs, morality, rites, etc., which are all “social phenomena or facts.” The evolution of these values created and imposed by the collectivity—religion, law, morality, logical categories—must therefore be explained socially, as a consequence of variation in the form of society. Religion, the fruit and creation of the environment, varies with II.
The system was applied directly to the Old Testament by H. Hubert, M. Mauss, and J. G. Fraser; it is followed by A. Lods, A. Loisy, and especially A. Causse. These authors maintain the following evolution: collectivist religion of the nomadic period, Mosaic religion (Yahwism), syncretistic religion in Canaan, religion of the monarchical period, moral religion of the prophets, post-exilic religion, at first individualistic and then universalistic. It is also the indispensable logical foundation of the view held by K. L. Schmidt, R. Bultmann, G. Bertram, M. Dibelius (supporters of Formengeschichte), and by all those (A. Loisy) who, together with them, admit that the Christian community (particularly that of Antioch), precisely as such, was the creator of Christian ideas and values.
G., based on an untenable metaphysics and the product of misunderstandings, has the certain data of history and ethnology against it; these demonstrate the eminent place of the individual person, the elevated moral sense, the idea of the Supreme Being, and personal responsibility, which were in force among ancient peoples and among those who today are called “primitive.”
2) Refutations: S. Deploige, Le conflit de la morale et de la sociologie, there 1912; 1st ed. there 1927; H. Pinard de la Boulaye, L'étude comparée des religions, I, there 1925, pp. 431–50; L. De Grandmaison, Jésus-Christ, I, there 1928, pp. 105–200; II, there 1928, pp. 474–79; E. Magnin, Religion, in DThC, XIII, cols. 2206–2227; E. Florit, Il metodo della storia delle forme, Rome 1935, p. 19 ff.; A. Causse, Du groupe ethnique à la communauté religieuse, Le problème sociologique de la religion d'Israël, Paris 1937; R. Jolivet, Ethique personnaliste, in Archives de philosophie, 14 (1938), pp. 112–17; G. Gurvitch, Essais de sociologie, there 1938; F. M. Braun, Formengeschichte, in DBs, III, cols. 312–17.