Values in Narratives: Religious Education as an Exercise in Emotional Rationality

Abstract

The domain of education deals with the issue of the possibility of a person’s development so that the person would learn to become more human through the educational process. An integral part of a person’s development is first and foremost the dimension of an individual’s integration into society. Education for values plays an indispensable role in education. The technical aspect of education—as John Macmurray described it—has its foundation in instrumental rationality, aiming at the realization of utilitarian values in order to achieve the necessary social cooperation for the purpose of an easier coexistence. That so-called instrumental conception of life has given birth to a special type of the contemporary human being, homo faber. If, however, we strive to achieve the complete development of a human being through education, which is more fully realized only in the communion of people in the forms of friendship, fellowship and love, this instrumental conception requires enrichment through a communitarian conception of life, aimed at the realization of intrinsic values. In that sense, this article explores the contemplative and relational aspects of education from the perspective of religious education, which, according to John Macmurray, are based on the emotional level of rationality which results in the acquisition and adoption of intrinsic individual and inter-individual values. The aim of this article is to show that when it comes to education, these values are best conveyed through narratives. The article also attempts to shed light on the way students internalize and personalize intrinsic values through their emotional familiarity with the narratives, and especially with the value of reciprocity, which is key to authentic religious practice, and thus also to ethical awareness, which is important for the formation of moral awareness and character of a human being. Furthermore, the article explores the extent to which narratives as a form of religious knowledge are important in religious education, and in which they contribute to the formation of students’ opinions, attitudes and identities as transmitters of religious truths. Narratives notably carry a strong potential for the spiritual transformation of one’s personal and social life in such a way that they can motivate students to accept and realize certain religious and moral practices through experiential touching of values. Examples of narratives used in religious education textbooks in secondary schools in Croatia reveal how much they actually contribute to the goals of religious education in terms of education for intrinsic individual and inter-individual values.

1. Introduction

Contemporary fluid culture is characterized by the dynamism of constant changes and transformations pervading all levels of personal and social life. This dynamism is particularly evident in the complexities of geopolitical turmoil, increased migration of people, economic instability, and constant technological and communication innovations. All of that raises an important question for modern education: How do we prepare today’s students, in terms of life circumstances, to face all these changes? The technological aspect of education, which is based on instrumental rationality, surely prepares today’s students to a large extent for the realization of social cooperation for the sake of achieving various common social pragmatic goals. However, self-realization only at the level of an instrumental conception of life is not enough for a person’s complete and integral development, as that dimension is guided by the principle of functionality, according to which the individual contributes to the realization of various utilitarian values only through this or that social function. If we want a human being to be seen as worthy in themselves, it is essential that others recognize that human being as a unique person beyond all social functions. This, in turn, is enabled in a special way by the communitarian conception of life, based on a relationship of reciprocity. It is a relationship of reciprocity between two people, though in religious context, it is also a relationship of reciprocity between a person and God.

Through the contemplative and relational aspect of education, religious education strives precisely to educate for a communitarian conception of life. The contemplative and relational aspects of education are, in turn, based on the emotional level of rationality, arising from the acquisition and adoption of intrinsic individual and inter-individual values. The aim of this article is to show that when it comes to education, these values are best conveyed through narratives. The article also attempts to shed light on the way students internalize and personalize intrinsic values through their emotional involvement with the narratives, and especially with the value of reciprocity, which is key to authentic religious practice, and thus also to ethical awareness, which is important for the formation of the moral awareness and character of a human being.

Furthermore, this article will explore the extent to which narratives, as a form of religious knowledge, are important in religious education, and to which they contribute to the formation of students’ opinions, attitudes and identities as transmitters of religious truths. In addition, narratives notably carry a strong potential for spiritual transformation of one’s personal and social life in such a way that they can motivate students to accept and realize certain religious and moral practices through experiential touching of values. The analysis of the examples of narratives used in textbooks for religious education in secondary schools in Croatia will reveal how much they contribute to the goals of religious education in the context of education for intrinsic individual and inter-individual values of strength (courage), nobility, patience, perseverance, consistency, moderation, meekness, modesty, diligence, justice, self-sacrifice, truthfulness, generosity, kindness, munificence, liberality, family and patriotic affection, gratitude and friendship.

2. Homo Faber: The Technological, Contemplative and Relational Aspects of Education

The instrumental conception of life has given birth to a special type of the contemporary human being—homo faber. The spiritual form of the modern human being that is homo faber was described in detail by Henri Bergson in his book Creative Evolution, published in 1907. According to this description, homo faber is an active human being, a human being that is a creator, i.e., a technical human being that makes tools, builds, and finds and transforms the environment to satisfy their basic life needs (Bergson [1907] 1999, pp. 57–58, 62–66, 100–102, 114). The German novelist Max Frisch outlines this structure of the modern human being as a homo faber in the form of a narrative, using the character of Walter Faber in the novel Homo faber: A Report from 1957. One of the many narrative descriptions of the characteristics of a homo faber is the following: “When the moon appeared (and I recorded it) between the black agaves on the horizon, we were still able to play chess, it was that bright, but suddenly it got cold; we firmly walked away, on the sand, to smoke a cigarette, and I admitted that landscapes mean nothing to me, least of all the desert.

You cannot be serious!—Herbert said.

He saw it as an impression.

[…]

I have often wondered what people actually mean when they talk about their impressions. I am an engineer and I am used to seeing things as they are. I can see everything they are talking about very clearly; therefore I am not blind. I see the moon above the Tamaulipas desert—clearer than ever, perhaps, but I see it as a calculable mass orbiting our planet, a matter of gravity, interesting, but why would that be an impression? I see jagged rocks, black in the moonlight; they may look like jagged backs of some kind of animals from the primeval world, but I know: they are rocks, stones, probably volcanic, that should be checked and established. Why should I be afraid? Prehistoric animals no longer exist. Why should I create them in my imagination? I do not even see petrified angels, I am sorry; nor demons, I see what I see: the usual forms of erosion, together with my long shadow on the sand, but no ghosts. Why act like a woman? I do not even see a great deluge, but only moonlit sand, stirred up by the wind like water, and I do not find it strange; I do not find it fantastic, but explainable. I do not know what damned souls look like; maybe like black agaves, at night in the desert. What I see are agaves, plants that bloom only once and then perish. I am also well-aware (though it seems so at the moment) that I am neither the first nor the last person in the world; I cannot be shaken even by the mere notion of being the last person, because that is not true. So why get hysterical?

Hills are hills, despite the fact that under certain lighting they might look like something else, it is the Sierra Madre Oriental after all, and we are not in the realm of the dead but in the Tamaulipas desert, in Mexico, sixty miles from the nearest road, which is uncomfortable, but why would that be considered an impression? For me, an airplane is an airplane, I do not see any extinct bird in it, but a ‘super-constellation’ with engine failure, and nothing else, illuminated by the moon as it wishes. Why should I have an impression of something that does not even exist? I cannot even bring myself to hear anything like eternity; I do not hear anything at all, except for the sound of the sand falling after each step I make. I am trembling, but I know that in seven or eight hours the sun will shine again. End of the world, where did that thought come from? I cannot make up a nonsense just to get an impression of something. I see a sandy horizon, whitish in the green night, about twenty miles from here, and I do not know why the Second World would begin there, in the direction of Tampico. I know Tampico. I refuse to fear a mere fantasy or to fantasize out of mere fear; all of that is simply incomprehensible to me.

Come!—I said.

Herbert remained standing there, experiencing” (Frisch [1968] 1997, pp. 21–22).

Walter is a homo faber engineer, and as a top expert in his field, he had received a high-quality education in terms of its technological aspect, as John Macmurray puts it (Macmurray 2012, p. 672). This suggests that thanks to the educational accumulation of information, Walter has a strongly developed intellectual–scientific and mechanical–pragmatic level of rationality that enables him to realize useful or utilitarian values (Macmurray 1992, pp. 121–22, 133–34). The technological aspect of education is based on the instrumental rationality that Charles Taylor (Taylor 2003, p. 11) describes as follows: “By ‘instrumental reason’ I mean the kind of rationality we draw on when we calculate the most economical application of means to a given end. Maximum efficiency, the best cost output ratio, is its measure of success”. Relying on the technological aspect of education, Walter perceives the reality around him through his senses, while intellectually comparing the information that was accumulated through his senses and adapting it into general principles and laws that become knowledge which can be applied either practically or reflexively in the economic, IT, technical–manufacturing, medical, communication, legal and any other cultural practice that has to serve organizations of personal and social life (Macmurray 1991, p. 176).

However, Walter does not perceive the deeper dimensions and meaning of the world that surrounds him. In other parts of the narrative, the novelist Frisch ([1968] 1997, pp. 84–87) shows that, due to precisely that, his Walter as a homo faber cannot achieve any deeper dimension of interpersonal relations with the people in his vicinity. In line with that, Macmurray (2010, pp. 28–29, 2012, pp. 670–71) would say that this is caused by Walter’s lack of the contemplative and relational aspects of education that enable the realization of intrinsic values, or more specifically, those that are not utilitarian, but have their own value. The contemplative and relational aspects of education are based on the emotional level of rationality, arising precisely from the acquisition and adoption of intrinsic values (Macmurray 1992, p. 29).

The contemplative aspect of education is realized in a special way through artistic and aesthetic education. Had Walter developed an artistic–aesthetic sensibility throughout his education, he would have been trained for contemplative reflection that is not primarily intellectual–scientific or mechanical–pragmatic, but emotional. To contemplate, as Macmurray (2012, p. 672) points out, does not mean only to perceive things and value them in their functionality; it primarily means to judge and value them in their uniqueness and inimitability. This kind of contemplative reflection denotes an emotional kind of awareness, as it evokes in the observer a feeling of admiration by which the thing is inherently valued. In this context, Macmurray (1992, p. 33) highlights the following: “And this suggests at once what the development of art signifies in human life. It represents the effort to become aware of the significance of individuals in themselves through an emotional apprehension of them. Art expresses to us our capacity as rational beings to apprehend the values of things in themselves; not their value to us but their meaning and significance in their own right as individuals in the world. It expresses that rational impulse in us to delight in the things that are real individuals in the world just because they are there and reveal themselves to us”. Contemplative reflection in this context directs our emotional awareness to something beyond ourselves, and thus, in the educational sense, it becomes a powerful remedy for egocentricity, which makes a person rude and immature, inhibiting their complete development (Macmurray 2012, p. 672). Therefore, a person who appreciates things for their inherent value—as is the case with contemplative reflection—learns to appreciate others for who they are, and not for the sake of potential benefits they can provide (Macmurray 1992, p. 33).

In other words, emotional rationality is at work when there is a transition from self-focus to focus on others, since only that kind of an attitude leads to the full development of the authentic human being (Macmurray 1992, p. 14). In this sense, emotional rationality is achieved in a special way and through the relational aspect of education, which is inherent to religious education. Had Walter developed a religious sensibility during his education, i.e., religious education, he would have been competent for a specific relational religious reflection, which is, naturally, an intellectual as well as an emotional type of rationality. Relational religious reflection is based on what constitutes the core structure of human nature, which is reciprocity, at the centre of which is the experience of having relationships with others. That, in turn, represents the focal human experience realized in all phases of human life: from birth and growing up in a family to the creation of various levels and types of relationships within the social community (Macmurray 2010, pp. 43, 45, 65, 2012, p. 670). Each kind of rationality seeks to generalize individual experiences, regardless of their particularity, in order to shed light on the fundamental laws present in all individual experiences. Relational religious reflection generalizes the particular experiences of one human being’s personal relationships with another human being through the notion of the universal Other, allowing for the realization of any kind of particular personal relationships. The notion of this universal Other is the notion of God (Macmurray 1991, pp. 168–69, 179, 2010, pp. 54, 79). In line with that, Macmurray (2010, pp. 80–81) points out the following: “In religion, it is the mutuality between the self and another self which is the object of reflection. The universal, therefore, must be a universal person to whom the self stands in universal relation. The idea of God as the universal Other is, therefore, inherent in the act of religious reflection. It is given in the act of reflection itself, which starts from the actual fact of personal relationship. […] God is primary correlate of human rationality. And moreover, because religious reflection is not primarily expressed in thought but in action, God is not primarily apprehended as an idea, but in life which is centred in the intention of mutuality, as that finite person in which our finite human relationships have their ground and their being”.

Religious education in this context mainly serves as an intellectual theoretical immersion in the laws of the universal human experience, in other words, the experience of relationships with the Other and with others. The fundamental teachings of faith, religious truths, moral–practical religious doctrines and the history of a certain religious community all represent objective findings, traces and evidence of such experiences, which is why these elements are important components of relational religious reflection. The goal of religious education, however, is the religious practice, which in turn is the effort to realize that same relationship in the shape of concrete and tangible reciprocity and life-practical communion with the Other as well as with others (Macmurray 2010, pp. 47–48, 89). In the context of this kind of religious practice, religious education is therefore an emotional and experiential immersion in the experience of the relationship with the Other and with others as a fundamental human and religious experience. In more specific terms, the pure cognition of something through religious truth or moral–practical religious doctrine does not directly imply acting and living in accordance with what has been cognized. At the same time, however, to feel and experience what has been cognized as valuable in life means to be motivated to act in accordance with what has been cognized (Macmurray 1992, p. 3). Therefore, as Hans H. Grelland (Grelan [2005] 2007, p. 147) emphasized, emotional rationality lets us comprehend what attracts us and what repels us, what we want and what we do not want, thus becoming our strong motivation for practical action. Emotional rationality in religious education enables the internalization and personalization of universal values through students’ emotional coexistence with them, especially with the value of reciprocity, which is key to authentic religious practice. In religious education, such coexistence with universal values, as well as with the value of reciprocity, is made possible in a special way by narratives (Whitefield Sykes 1987, p. 22).

3. Narratives as an Exercise in Emotional Rationality

Emotional rationality presupposes feelings that denote experiential expressions of internalized and personalized values. However, this experience can also encompass such an interpretation of reality that can be wrong. From that perspective, feelings can be either destructive or constructive for interpersonal relationships. In that sense, Grelland (Grelan [2005] 2007, p. 153) appropriately advises that “We can hold a grudge against an innocent person, we can grieve for something we have not lost in the end, we can fear something that is not dangerous at all. That is why our feelings should always be in line with our capacity for reasonable observation, analysis and logical thinking. It is clear, of course, that this cooperation does not mean that reason should suppress feelings; it should do what it is good at—identifying real relationships and reaching cognition”. Roger Scruton (Scruton 2007, p. 36) maintains that it is utterly important to “learn what to feel”, as well as “to learn how to correctly express feelings with words and gestures”. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle highlighted the same idea when he noted that the right action results from the teaching of virtues, and that virtue is a disposition imbued with motives that require a certain formation of emotions, which in turn is manifested in the ability to feel right at the right time, in line with the right object and to the right extent (Aristotle 2000, 1125b–1126b).

Narratives proved to be a practical and efficient form that allows “learning what to feel”. In that context, Martha C. Nussbaum (Nussbaum 1988, p. 226) clarifies that “We learn how to feel, and we learn our emotional repertoire. We learn emotions in the same way that we learn our beliefs-from our society. But emotions, unlike many of our beliefs, are not taught to us directly through propositional claims about the world, either abstract or concrete. They are taught, above all, through stories. Stories express their structure and teach us their dynamics. These stories are constructed by others and then, taught and learned. But once internalized, they shape the way life feels and looks”. To be more exact, thanks to the power of imagination, narratives are able to awaken different emotional states in people through joy and sadness, through despair and hope, and through the joy and anger felt by the role models—characters from the narratives. Authors of narratives use them to raise students’ awareness of different feelings that can serve as motives for various actions, awaking in them either feelings of sympathy or repulsion (Kupareo 1993, p. 38). On that note, Scruton (2007, p. 38) points out that “It is not that we imitate the characters depicted, but that we ‘move with’ them, acquiring an inner premonition of their motives, and coming to see those motives in the context that the writer or artist provides. Through imagination we reach emotional knowledge, and maybe this is the best way, in the advance of the crucial tests, of preparing ourselves for the joys and calamities that we will someday encounter”. Dealing with different feelings in the narratives, therefore, provides students with the opportunity to awaken and identify their own feelings related to similar situations they experience in their own lives, thus opening them up to reflective observation and analysis. The goal of this analysis is for the students to answer the following questions: How do I feel about the given situation? How do I interpret it? What do my emotions reveal about the values I hold and upon which I base my practical actions when confronting similar situations in my own life? That way, as Grelland (Grelan [2005] 2007, pp. 158–63) points out, examples can be used in narratives to show how one value functions in a concrete situation, which can serve as a basis for a critical evaluation of other people’s personal patterns of values, but also as a good starting point for developing moral awareness. When developing this kind of moral awareness, narratives are not only metaphorical, but constitutive of life, since moral reflection is more convincing if its argumentation is based on compelling examples. In this context, narratives facilitate understanding and appreciation of the ways in which history, traditions and different communities form each person’s moral consciousness (Anderson 1998, pp. 304–5, 312).

Suzanne Keen (Keen 2007, pp. XIV, XV, XXV), in her study Empathy and the Novel, however, questions this understanding of narrative in novels. She argues that there is still insufficient evidence to suggest that reading major literary works inherently encourages readers to become better individuals, or that reading automatically leads to altruism and the development of moral consciousness. Nevertheless, she posits that nuanced interdisciplinary research (encompassing literary criticism, philosophy, psychology, pedagogy, sociology, and contemporary neuroscience achievements) into the effects of experiencing aesthetic emotions might reveal that the novel is a highly effective medium for reminding readers of their own and others’ humanity. Such research, as Keen (2007, pp. XIV–XV) asserts, would likely demonstrate that any positive impact on a reader’s moral consciousness depends on a variety of other factors, including their level of education, psycho-social and cultural predispositions in terms of their (in)ability to empathize, and the irreplaceable role of teachers. Teachers are uniquely positioned within the educational process to guide readers (students) in understanding how the empathetic responses they experience through fiction can be translated into real life. We can certainly agree with Keen that the mere act of reading novels (or narratives) does not ipso facto lead to a transformation in moral consciousness. Every teacher understands that various psycho-social and cultural factors also play an indispensable role in it. However, narratives provide a solid foundation for the evocation of aesthetic emotions, making them fertile ground for the potential realization of humanisation.

Narratives make it possible for students to practice certain feelings in order to “know how to feel” in real life situations, as well as to discern the feelings that should or should not be “applied” in practical everyday life (Scruton 2007, p. 51). To be more precise, this “knowing how to feel” represents a key moment of emotional rationality, which is crucial for distinguishing rational from irrational feelings, i.e., true feelings from false ones. One such false feeling is sentimentality, as it does not contain the essential element of emotional rationality, which is the truth. That is precisely what Scruton (2007, p. 50) accentuates by claiming that “Sentimental words and gestures are forms of play-acting: pretending to have noble emotions while in fact being motivated in another way. Thus real grief focuses on the object, the person lost and mourned for, while sentimental grief focuses on the subject, the person who grieves, and whose principal concern is to show his fine feelings to the world. Hence, it is a mark of sentimentality that the object becomes hazy, observed with no real concern for the truth”. According to Macmurray (1992, pp. 11, 16–17), feelings can be rational and objective or irrational and subjective with regard to their true or false reference to reality. People can distinguish whether their feelings are rational or irrational by posing the following question: Will the realization of certain feelings result in utilitarian or intrinsic values? In that context, Macmurray (1992, p. 15) makes interesting observations regarding the example of love that he outlines as follows: “Love, which is the fundamental positive emotion characteristic of human beings, can be either subjective and irrational, or objective and rational. […] The capacity to love objectively is the capacity which makes us persons. It is the ultimate source of our capacity to behave in terms of the object. It is the core of rationality”.

By practising rational and objective feelings as a basis for emotional rationality, people are educated for intrinsic values, instilling in them a certain sensibility for what is appropriate, not only here and now, but universally. Therefore, the educational practice of distinguishing between universal rational and subjective irrational emotions represents an essential part of the moral development of students (Scruton 1979, p. 59). This kind of practice of rational and objective feelings as a basis for emotional rationality is particularly well realized through narratives in religious education. That way, they can significantly facilitate the acquisition of emotional knowledge, i.e., knowledge of the heart, which is crucial for the realization of reciprocity. In this sense, narratives in religious education epitomize a repository of emotional religious knowledge (Scruton 2007, pp. 39–42). That is the reason why they are thought to promote intrinsic individual and inter-individual values. Rajmund Kupareo (Kupareo 1993, p. 11, [1954] 2020, pp. 50–51) stresses that these are the values based on reciprocity and aimed at the good of the other person, therefore striving to achieve harmony between individuals and their neighbours, as well as between individuals and the supreme being. Values that fall into that category are strength (courage), nobility, patience, perseverance, consistency, moderation, meekness, modesty, diligence, justice, self-sacrifice, truthfulness, generosity, kindness, munificence, liberality, family and patriotic affection, gratitude and friendship. Narratives are, therefore, important for the realization of such individual and inter-individual values and for the development of interpersonal relationships based on those values (Grgić 2021, p. 231). In that context, religious narratives serve to preserve emotional knowledge, which is crucial for humankind because it enables understanding as well as love (feeling), thereby motivating people to apply individual and inter-individual values in their private lives (Scruton 2007, pp. 43–44).

4. Values in Narratives as a Source of Motivation for the Spiritual Transformation of Students

One of the salient features of narratives is that they have an impact on the power of human imagination. More precisely, thanks to the power of imagination, narratives create various worlds with a multitude of characters and events through which—both in education in general and in religious education—students’ opinions and attitudes are shaped (Comstock 1993, pp. 131–32, 134–35). In that sense, narratives can serve as direct or indirect vehicles and carriers of certain religious truths, and thus represent an important form of religious knowledge. To be more exact, perceptions of God, the entire reality, the place of the individual within that reality, and the right attitude of the individual towards their fellow people in that community are established and transmitted thought narratives, namely in religious education (Anderson 1998, p. 304). So, for example, in the Catholic Religious Education textbook for high school seniors, titled Building a Better World (Gradimo bolji svijet), the biblical narrative about Moses serves as a leitmotif in recognizing the essential features of the Old Testament image of God, while the narrative about Jesus of Nazareth, present in all four Gospels, aims to describe the image of God that Jesus proclaims in his preaching and action, as well as to explain the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity (Filipović et al. 2021, pp. 30–39). Furthermore, the Catholic Religious Education textbook for high school juniors, titled Towards Life (Životu ususret), reveals that the Christian understanding of a human being as the image of God and the knowledge of their dignity is supported by the biblical narratives about creation and Adam’s and Eve’s original sin (Živković et al. 2020, pp. 11–27). In the Catholic Religious Education Textbook for high school freshmen in Croatia, titled Come and See 1 (Dođi i vidi 1), the right or wrong attitude towards fellow citizens within a community is presented though the biblical narrative of Cain and Abel. The parable of the Good Samaritan serves the same purpose in the Catholic Religious Education Textbook for Croatian high school sophomores, titled Come and See 2 (Dođi i vidi 2) (Periš et al. 2019, p. 57; Džeba et al. 2020, p. 59). Narratives that serve as vehicles for the transmission of religious knowledge in religious education also contribute to the development of a stable religious identity of students, notably by trying to determine the meaning of life through religious answers to fundamental existential questions about God, about oneself, and about one’s attitude towards others. Lars Fr. H. Svendsen (Svendsen [1999] 2010, p. 194) further elaborates and emphasizes the following: “Narratives are not just external explanations of how we think and act. Rather, narratives are constitutive of our entire way of observing in regard to the world and our place in it. […] A narrative is a meaning-making activity in which we organize experiences into meaning-filled episodes, creating context between them so that they would form a whole. This identity can exist in a number of different forms, but for our purposes, it is imperative that the absence of such an identity is incompatible with a meaningful life. Narration is an ethical practice focused on telling oneself the truth about oneself”.

Besides the fact that religious education tries to shape opinions and attitudes, and thus form a stable identity of students, narratives also carry a strong potential for spiritual transformation of personal and social life (Gilman 1994, p. 237). Nussbaum ([2001] 2019, pp. 258, 453) has shown that narratives open up a “potential space” for students in which they can explore different life situations due to the liveliness of the narratives. However, these cannot be just any narratives, but only those that can introduce students to a wide range of possibilities for the realization of value standards, thus stimulating them both cognitively and emotionally. The fictional film narratives in which heroes embody a certain religious or universal ideal are a great example of that. The Catholic Religious Education textbook for high school freshmen, titled Come and See 1 (Dođi i vidi 1), thus offers the opportunity to scout for answers to the questions about the value and meaning of life by exploring the narrative of the film Life is Beautiful (La vita è bella/Roberto Begnini, 1997, Italy). The Way, directed by Emilio Estevez (USA, Spain, 2010), and its narrative serve to elucidate the values of forgiveness and reconciliation, while the narratives of films such as A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinnemann, 1966, UK) and Of Gods and Men (Des hommes et des dieux/Xavier Beauvois, 2010, France) are used to point out the significance of the value of courage and sacrificing one’s life for the sake of truth (Periš et al. 2019, pp. 11, 69, 89, 109). By exploring various life possibilities in these cinematic “narrative spaces”, students cultivate the ability to immerse themselves in what the protagonists of the stories experience while navigating different dramatic life situations in which they have to opt for or against certain values (Nussbaum [2001] 2019, p. 450). Narratives, therefore, represent exercises in emotional intersubjectivity, that is, exercises in imagining the protagonists’ inner world of emotions (Gilman 1994, pp. 229, 231). By imagining and going through the feelings of apprehension, sadness, suffering, despair, anger, fear, joy, hope, delight and happiness felt by the characters in the narrative, students can really experience the values that said characters fight for or sacrifice. In that sense, Nussbaum (1996, p. 40) notes that “People take due account of the sufferings of others only verbally, until they are able to imagine it themselves and feel agitation due to that”.

With this approach in mind, narratives in religious education can certainly motivate students to accept and realize certain religious practices as well as moral–practical values that are suggested to them in this experiential way, much more than by relying on stale argumentations and assertions. In this sense, it is not enough to present certain claims and religious axioms to students as part of their religious education, and then expect to see a drastic change in their lives. Therefore, it does not suffice to say that Christ’s love for people is expressed in the mercy he gives to the weak and rejected, that thanks to that every Christian can be and is free despite the external circumstances that limit them, and that Christians are accordingly urged to love their neighbours as well as their enemies. Still, the narratives that touch on the aforementioned Christian axioms in a dynamic, moving, lively and dramatic way carry greater potential for transforming lives because they are strongly charged with immersive emotions, providing space for experiential touching of values (Comstock 1987, pp. 693–94). Such are, for example, the narratives about Jesus’ merciful love, which was manifested in his encounters with different people on the fringes of society, like the Samaritan woman, Nicodemus, the adulteress, Zacchaeus, Pilate, etc. In the Catholic Religious Education textbook for high school freshmen, titled Come and See 1 (Dođi i vidi 1), these narratives are found within the unit covering the topic of his God-manship (Periš et al. 2019, p. 67). Furthermore, these are the narratives presented in the Catholic religious education textbooks Come and See 2 (Dođi i vidi 2), for second-year high school students, and Building a Better World (Gradimo bolji svijet), for fourth-year students, which recount the lives of real historical figures, St. Maximilian Kolbe and Blessed Aloysius Stepinac. Their powerful life stories serve as examples of the realization of inner freedom in the circumstances of forced imprisonment, and as models of love for both one’s neighbour and enemy (Džeba et al. 2020, pp. 18, 39; Filipović et al. 2021, pp. 142, 146). Not only do these narratives convey certain general truths about certain Christian values to students, but also introduce them to the dynamics of the emotional histories of specific role models—characters who embody these values (Nussbaum [2001] 2019, pp. 256–57).

Accordingly, narratives within religious education can be of great help to educators in their effort to show students that the instrumental conception of life, currently dominant in Western societies, needs to be fortified and upgraded in line with the communitarian conception of life.

5. Narratives as a Contribution to Building a Communitarian Conception of Life

The instrumental conception of life promotes a practical intellectual–scientific and mechanical–pragmatic level of rationality (instrumental rationality), and is therefore mainly focused on the realization of utilitarian values. Such conception of life, undoubtedly, enables the realization of social cooperation for the purposes of the attainment of common political, economic, technical, IT, medical, communication and other similar pragmatic goals. In such social cooperation, interpersonal relations are based on the principle of functionality, which means that the place of each individual is determined by their specific function (doctor, teacher, architect, firefighter, farmer, construction worker, cook, electrician, plumber, etc.). Those are all functions that allow the individual to contribute to various utilitarian goals of society for the purpose of an easier organization of coexistence (Macmurray 1992, pp. 43, 56, 59).

Even though this instrumental conception of life as functional societal cooperation is necessary and important for the organization of common life within a society, it is still far from sufficient when it comes to the complete development of a person. A human being needs to be recognized as complete, valuable in itself, and not just as this or that social function. In essence, a human being needs to be recognized by others in the community as a unique person beyond all social functions, and that is only possible in a communitarian conception of life, which, in turn, presupposes the important relationship of functional cooperation as well as the necessary relationship of reciprocity, which Macmurray (1992, p. 56) calls by different names such as friendship, conviviality, communion and love. In this context, Macmurray (1992, pp. 56–57) elaborates: “But what is common to them all is the idea of a relationship between us which has no purpose beyond itself; in which we associate because it is natural for human beings to share their experience, to understand one another, to find joy and satisfaction in living together; in expressing and revealing to one another. If one asks why people form friendships or love one another, the question is simply unanswerable. We can only say, because it is the nature of persons to do so. They can only be themselves in that way”.

Instrumental rationality operates with a functionalist approach. Therefore, it mainly objectifies people, viewing them just as useful parts of the social mechanism. The result of such an approach is the disintegration of any kind of community, except for functional cooperation. With such disintegration, personal existence becomes only an isolated fragment without any reference to the whole within which it would be possible to achieve a true community of people. Emotional rationality, on the other hand, represents the unifying factor of life (Macmurray 1992, p. 43). Considering the fact that it rests on the principle of reciprocity, emotional rationality is crucial for unifying the personal and social dimensions of life. This unification is called the community of persons, which is impossible to achieve without a permanent awareness of the mutual personal orientation towards each other in all fields of life (Macmurray 1991, p. 211). Reciprocity is therefore essential for the communitarian conception of life, which presupposes the community of persons in freedom. That is why Macmurray (1991, p. 212) accentuates the following: “This mutuality provides the primary condition of our freedom. […] The fundamental condition for the resolution of the problem of freedom is our knowledge of one another. But this knowledge is one in which the dissociation of fact and value is impossible, so that neither science nor art can extend it. For the knowledge of one another, and so of ourselves, can be realized only through a mutual self-revelation; and this is possible only when we love one another. If we fear one another we must defend and hide ourselves. Moreover, since our knowledge of one another conditions all our activities, both practical and reflective, we find here the ultimate condition of all our knowing and of all our action. This is the field of religion; and in this field the conditions of interpersonal knowledge have to be created by the overcoming fear, and so by the transformation of motives”.

The strengthening of emotional rationality as a unifying and liberating factor that enables a communitarian conception of life based on reciprocity can be notably facilitated by narratives in religious education. More concretely, narratives sensitize students for contemplative and relational religious reflection, which, as previously emphasized, represent two inseparable wings of emotional rationality. On the one hand, as a contemplative evaluation of the unique emotional histories of the narrative’s role models, characters can evoke genuine admiration in students, which is important as a source of motivation for imitation. In that sense, the Catholic Religious Education textbooks used in the first and second year of high school, Come and See 1 (Dođi i vidi 1) and Come and See 2 (Dođi i vidi 2), respectively, support the students’ contemplative evaluation with the artistically designed religious narratives about Jesus Christ and Catholic saints, such as film productions (Jesus of Nazareth, Franco Zeffirelli, 1977, Italy, UK; Risen, Kevin Raynolds, 2016, USA; Paul, Apostle of Christ, Andrew Hyatt, 2018, USA; Molokai: The Story of Father Damien, Paul Cox, 1999, Belgium, Netherlands, Australia; Romero, John Duigan, 1989, USA; Francesco, guillare di Dio, Roberto Rossellini, 1950, Italy; Karol, un uomo diventato Papa, Giacomo Battiato, 2005, Italy), as well as music pieces (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Requiem in D minor; Georg Friedrich Händel, Messiah; Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, Jesus Christ Superstar; Queen, Jesus; Ennio Morricone, On earth as it is in heaven; Joseph Haydn, The Cration; Gregorian chant Pange lingua gloriosi; Father Seraphim: Psalm 50) (Periš et al. 2019, pp. 11, 49, 59, 66, 86, 99, 117; Džeba et al. 2020, pp. 41, 51, 71, 101, 111).

On the other hand, the religious relational redirection of students’ consciousness from self-focus to focus on the world of narrative role models—characters and events—has a great potential for directing them towards reciprocity centred around the experience of relationships with others, which in turn is important for the development of individual and inter-individual values. In this context, the Catholic Religious Education textbook for the first year of high school Come and See 1 (Dođi i vidi 1), the Catholic Religious Education textbook for the second year of high school Come and See 2 (Dođi i vidi 2), the Catholic Religious Education textbook for the third year of high school Towards Life (Životu ususret), and the Catholic Religious Education textbook for the fourth year of high school Building a Better World (Gradimo bolji svijet) present several other important narratives that reference such values. These include the story of the life and work of the Cenacolo community, which reveals possible paths to achieving the value of freedom from addiction, along with other values that are important for life in a community of former addicts, such as perseverance, diligence, and steadfastness; the story of the life and death of Chiara Corbella Petrillo, who sacrificed her life to give birth to her son, highlighting the values of sacrifice, generosity, and family devotion; the story of the life and death of Pakistani politician and Christian Shahbaz Bhatti, who defended the principles of religious freedom and equality and advocated for the rights of minorities, emphasizing the values of courage, truthfulness, and meekness; the story of Croatian Jesuit Fr. Antun Cvek, who served the poorest with small, everyday acts of love, testifying to the values of moderation, modesty, and kindness; the story of Blessed Carlo Acutis, who proclaimed the values of the gospel through contemporary digital technologies, conveying the values of gratitude and friendship; the story of the missionary work of St. Mother Teresa and Croatian Jesuit Fr. Ante Gabrić, a shared testimony to the values of nobility and generosity; and the life stories of eminent human rights champions, such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela, which represent pledges to the values of truthfulness and love of freedom (Periš et al. 2019, pp. 50, 84, 100; Džeba et al. 2020, pp. 11, 18–19, 29, 49, 108, 117; Živković et al. 2020, p. 65; Filipović et al. 2021, pp. 51, 60, 110).

6. Conclusions

Within the framework of contemporary economic and societal structures, the objectives of education are predominantly utilitarian. One of the frequently emphasized objectives is to prepare students for competitiveness in the job market. However, the ultimate human goal of education can only be inherently intrinsic, i.e., focusing on the cultivation of one’s humanity and the essence of being a human being (Macmurray 2012, pp. 666–69). For that, it is important to train all dimensions of rationality. This includes both the technological–instrumental dimension, which practically operates with utilitarian values, and the emotional dimension, consisting of contemplative and relational religious reflection, oriented towards intrinsic individual and inter-individual values. If emotional rationality is excluded from education, students might turn out desensitized to those intrinsic values.

Narratives used within the domain of education, particularly in the context of Religious Education, therefore allow students to explore at least three notions elaborated by Nussbaum ([2001] 2019, pp. 257, 452–53): (a) the expansion of personal experiences of reciprocity and the formation of individual perspectives on fundamental ethical truths; (b) the development of the ability to perceive others in a non-instrumental manner; and (c) the cultivation of openness to diverse expressions of shared humanity grounded in the principle of reciprocity.

Should education fail to address these principles, the principal figure in the formation of contemporary culture will be Walter, the homo faber referenced at the outset of this article. Another succinct description of the spiritual structure of this archetype is provided by his narrative creator Frisch ([1968] 1997, p. 158) in a report of a discussion between Walter, as a model of technological rationality, and his star-crossed lover, Hanna, as a model of emotional rationality, which reads: “Discussion with Hanna!—about technology as a trick (according to Hanna) for arranging the world in such a way that we do not have to experience it. The obsession of technocrats with rendering the divine creation utilitarian stems from their inability to tolerate it as a partner and their uncertainty about what to do with it. Technology is thus employed as a stratagem to eliminate the world as a source of resistance. For instance, by manipulating the pace of life, technocrats seek to avoid fully experiencing it. (What Hanna means by that; I do not know.) Technocrats have no sense of the world. (What Hanna means by that; I do not know.) […] My mistake is that we technocrats try to live without death. Literally: You do not treat life as a form, but as a simple sum, therefore you have no relation to time, because you have no relation to death. Life is a form in time. Hanna admits that she cannot explain what she means by that. Life is not a substance; it cannot be controlled by technology”.

The prevailing instrumental rationality in contemporary culture necessitates enrichment through emotional rationality. From the perspective of religious education, this article demonstrates that the realization of its objectives relies significantly on the contemplative and relational aspects of education. These aspects underscore the critical importance of internalizing intrinsic individual and inter-individual values, which are fundamental in establishing and sustaining a coherent and stable communal conception of life. It has also been shown that such values are most effectively conveyed through narratives, as they facilitate the internalization and personalization of values by fostering the emotional engagement of students. This is particularly true for the value of reciprocity, which is key to authentic religious practice, and which is important for the formation of moral awareness. In the context of the increasingly dominant instrumental conception of life, narratives within religious education carry the potential for profound spiritual transformation of both personal and societal life. These narratives serve to counteract the utilitarian reduction of human beings by reinforcing their intrinsic value as ends in themselves, rather than as mere means to an end.