Following Thomas Kuhn's conception of the periodic revolutions that interrupt the normal accretive growth of a science, an analogy is drawn between the typology of <it>theological</it> postures (“teleology,” “apocalypse,” and “prophecy”) offered by Harvey Cox and <it>paradigms central to</it> an understanding of <it>the crisis confronting contemporary sociology</it>. Correlated with the teleological stance is the “system” image that stood as sociologically orthodox through the 1950's; the “conflict” image which threatened to replace “system” in the 1960's is immediately congruent with an apocalyptic posture; and there is increasing evidence that the “system-conflict” polarity will be resolved in decade of the 1970's in a manner analogous to the stance of the Old Testament prophet. A dialectical” image is coming to the fore which is motivated, as were the nabi, by the assumption that the revelation of modes of present and past social order will operate in the longer run to free those who become aware of such order from its compulsive repetiton.
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Robert W. Friedrichs (1971) studied this question.