ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the final and perhaps also closest of all engagements, concentrating on a sociological account of the human person in dialogue with theological anthropology. It takes as an example the recent work by the Catholic Social Thought-inspired sociology of Christian Smith, who links a critically realist and personalist view of human beings with Aristotelian virtue ethics and teleology. Smith's specific focus on human capacity helps create a fruitful engagement by means of a comparative understanding of the person, with a special focus on the role of sin and evil. Against this background, a high degree of agreement and correlation can be found between Brunner and Smith, pertaining to human nature and human capacities. The main instances in which divergences could be identified concern directionality and causality in the emergence of the person, how fundamental relationality is in human capacities and the anthropological depth of sin and evil. It is here that the paradigms between the two authors differ most clearly.
