Quotes About Relationality

Relationality [is] not only [a] descriptive or historical fact of our formation, but also an ongoing normative dimension of our social and political lives, one in which we are compelled to take stock of our interdependence.

Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves.

Each thing is what it is only through everything else.

Every individual is a person necessarily imbedded in a range of multiple relations, and therefore, no one is really independent in anything but a relative sense; no one is truly autonomous.

These observations strongly support the understanding that "us" refers to God in his Triune nature, and therefore, that the imago Dei refers to our relationality. Like God, we are created to live life as an "us," not just as an "I." But

Today in our late modern culture we find a growing dissatisfaction with the denigration of human embodiment and sociality that characterized so much ancient and early modern anthropology. These concerns have arisen in connection with what I call the philosophical "turn to relationality.

Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation. We have to stop pretending we are individuals that can go it alone.

The foundation of existence is not mere being itself (what is) but relationality (what is becoming): union is always toward more being.

To view any individual as being independent of relationality is like viewing a point outside of a line, a line outside of a figure, a figure outside of a body.