Il mistero della realtà. Immanenza e trascendenza nel «realismo cristiano» di Sant’Agostino e Reinhold Niebuhr

This essay analyzes “Christian realism,” highlighting the main features of such an approach to political and social reality. The aim is to show how in the thought of St. Augustine and in Niebuhr's reflection there is a contribution that allows politics not to end up stranded in its own inevitable failures, nor even less to be totalizing in its vain claim to success. The thought of the Bishop of Hippo and the U.S. theologian express an anti-perfectist view of any socio-political construction that seeks to avoid both an idealization and a demonization of politics.