universality of religion essay

• Signup for G K Online test for 2 years
• 1 lakh+ Questions

• General Knowledge practice
• Current Affairs Q & A in Quiz format

• Daily Current Affairs News
• Get Instant news updates

• Anthropology notes
• Management notes

• Current affairs Digest

Sociology App

• Basic Concepts
• Anthropology
• Automation Society
• Branches of Sociology
• Census of India
• Civil Society
• Dalit Movement
• Economy and Society
• Environment and Sociology
• Ethnomethodology
• Folkways And Mores
• Indian Society
• Indian Thinkers
• Individual and Society
• Industrial and Urban Society
• Introduction To Sociology
• International Economy
• Market as a social institution
• Marriage, Family & Kinship
• Nation Community
• Neo Positivism
• Organization and Individual
• People's Participation
• Personality
• Phenomenology
• Political Modernization
• Political Processes
• Political System
• Post Modernism
• Post Structuralism
• Public Opinion
• Research Method & Statistics
• Rural Sociology
• Science, Technology
• Social Action
• Social Change
• Social Control
• Social Demography
• Sociology of Fashion
• Social Inequality
• Social Justice
• Social Mobility
• Social Movements
• Sociology News
• Social Pathology
• Social Problems
• Social Structure
• Social Stratification
• Sociology of Law
• Sociology of Social Media
• Sociology of Development
• Social Relationship
• Theoretical Perspectives
• Tribal Society
• Interest and Attitude
• Neo Functionalism
• Neo-Marxism
• Weaker Section & Minorities
• Women And Society
• Symbolic Interactionism
• Jurisprudence
• Sociology Of Environment
• Sir Edward Evans Pritchard
• Ruth Benedict
• Margaret Mead
• B. Malinowski
• Alfred Schultz
• Herbert Marcuse
• Edmund Leach
• Ralph Linton
• Peter M. Blau
• Auguste Comte
• Emile Durkheim
• Herbert Spencer
• Karl Mannheim
• Sigmund Freud
• Pitirim Sorokin
• Talcott Parsons
• Ferdinand Tonnies
• Thomas Hobbes
• Sir Edward Burnett Taylor
• Karl Polyani
• Alfred Louis Kroeber
• Erving Goffman
• James George Frazer
• Ralph Dahrendorf
• Raymond Firth
• Radcliffe Brown
• Thomas Kuhn
• Poverty Line Debate
• UN Summit on Non- Communicable Diseases
• UN Summit on Non- UN Report on Domestic Violence
• New Women of Tomorrow:Study by Nielsen
• World Population Projections
• Status of Healthcare Services in Bihar
• HIV/AIDS and Mobility in South Asia- UNDP Report 2010
• Levels and Trends in Child Mortality
• India's Development Report Card vis-a-vis MDG
• Sex Ratio in India
• Urban Slum Population
• Short Notes
• Chicago School of Sociology
• Harriet Martineau(1802-876)
• Power of Sociology
• Why we need sociology
• The Sociological Imagination ( 1959)
• Theories of Socialization
• Street Corner Society
• Research Tools
• The social construction of Reality
• Feminization of Poverty
• The Politics of Information
• Global Stratification
• Population and Urbanization
• Sociological Perspectives on Health and Illness
• Sociological Perspectives
• Scientific Method in Sociological Research
• Research Designs in Sociology
• What we need to know about the Gender
• Statistics and Graphs in Sociology
• Mass Media and Communications
• Rites and Secularization
• Caste System
• Communalism and Secularism
• Social Institution

• Sustainability and Development Processes
• Genetic Counseling
• DNA Technology
• Symbolism in Religion and Rituals
• Millenarian Movements
• Animatism and Manaism
• Universality of Religion
• Socio Cultural Anthropology
• Economic Anthropology
• Political Anthropology
• Physical Anthropology
• Archaeological Anthropology
• Ethno Archaeology
• Anthropology of Religion
• Ecological Anthropology
• Anthropometry
• Anthropology-Scope and Value
• Anthropological Thinkers
• Bronislaw Malinowski's
• Ceremonial Exchange
• Criticism of Radcliffe-Brown's
• Tribes in India
• Edward Tylor's concept
• Gender and Anthropology
• Father of Modern Genetics
• Kathleen Goughs Study on Marriage
• 'Dominant Caste'
• Marshall Sahlins
• Nature-Man-Spirit Complex
• Rites of passage
• Rules of Exogamy and Endogamy
• Applied Anthropology
• Totemism in Tribal India
• Tribe-Caste Continuum
• Universalization and Parochialization
• Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic

Archaeologists have found evidence of influence of religion on mankind as early as 60,000 years ago. Religious belief and practices are known to contemporary societies. Edward Taylor believes that religion originated when human speculated about dreams,trances and death.The appearance of dead persons in dreams led the people to believe that the souls of the dead were still around.Tylor used the term animism to refer to the belief in souls.His views were criticized for not dealing with emotional component of religion.

According to Marett animatism which Freud believed that people would turn to go to God during times of uncertainty and in course of time would outgrow the need for religion.Malinowski believed that religion is born when humans are under stress and their efforts to overcomes some problems are of no avail.By performing religious ceremonies people could communicate with the dead and derive a measure of comfort.

Religion along with its rituals and beliefs meet the psychological need of people.The religion originates in society and serves social needs. Emile Durkheim is of the view that humans are pushed and pulled in society by forces of public opinion, custom and law and the experience leads them to believe in religion which gives people to gain confidence to live amicably in society.

There are variations in the details of religious beliefs and practices. There are differences in the kinds of supernatural beings or forces and the character of the beings. They also differ in their structure and what they do. An example is mana a supernatural impersonal force of malayo-polynesian origin. The concept of mana is prevalent in many societies.

Two broad categories of supernatural beings including those of non-human origin and human origin are recognized. on human supernatural beings include Gods and spirits and those of human origin consist of ghosts and ancestral spirits. Gods are often conceived in the image of a person for instance in Hinduism many gods are represented in human form. Though many societies believe that the world was created by God, the opinion is not universal. Monotheistic religions like Islam, Christianity and Judaism believe in one God but they include some supernatural beings like angels and demons. Getting in touch with the supernatural is a universal problem and the different ways in which it is attempted include prayer, performance of rituals and sacrifice. In some societies sacrifices are made either to attract the goodwill of God or avert evil. Animal sacrifices has been common throughout history and carryout in most of the religions.

• Table of Contents
• Random Entry
• Chronological
• Editorial Information
• About the SEP
• Editorial Board
• How to Cite the SEP
• Special Characters
• Advanced Tools
• Support the SEP
• PDFs for SEP Friends
• Make a Donation
• SEPIA for Libraries
• Entry Contents

Bibliography

Academic tools.

• Friends PDF Preview
• Author and Citation Info
• Back to Top

The Concept of Religion

It is common today to take the concept religion as a taxon for sets of social practices, a category-concept whose paradigmatic examples are the so-called “world” religions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism. [ 1 ] Perhaps equally paradigmatic, though somewhat trickier to label, are forms of life that have not been given a name, either by practitioners or by observers, but are common to a geographical area or a group of people—for example, the religion of China or that of ancient Rome, the religion of the Yoruba or that of the Cherokee. In short, the concept is today used for a genus of social formations that includes several members, a type of which there are many tokens.

The concept religion did not originally refer to a social genus, however. Its earliest references were not to social kinds and, over time, the extension of the concept has evolved in different directions, to the point that it threatens incoherence. As Paul Griffiths notes, listening to the discussions about the concept religion

rapidly suggests the conclusion that hardly anyone has any idea what they are talking about—or, perhaps more accurately, that there are so many different ideas in play about what religion is that conversations in which the term figures significantly make the difficulties in communication at the Tower of Babel seem minor and easily dealt with. These difficulties are apparent, too, in the academic study of religion, and they go far toward an explanation of why the discipline has no coherent or widely shared understanding of its central topic. (2000: 30)

This entry therefore provides a brief history of the how the semantic range of religion has grown and shifted over the years, and then considers two philosophical issues that arise for the contested concept, issues that are likely to arise for other abstract concepts used to sort cultural types (such as “literature”, “democracy”, or “culture” itself). First, the disparate variety of practices now said to fall within this category raises a question of whether one can understand this social taxon in terms of necessary and sufficient properties or whether instead one should instead treat it as a family resemblance concept. Here, the question is whether the concept religion can be said to have an essence. Second, the recognition that the concept has shifted its meanings, that it arose at a particular time and place but was unknown elsewhere, and that it has so often been used to denigrate certain cultures, raises the question whether the concept corresponds to any kind of entity in the world at all or whether, instead, it is simply a rhetorical device that should be retired. This entry therefore considers the rise of critical and skeptical analyses of the concept, including those that argue that the term refers to nothing.

1. A History of the Concept

2.1 monothetic approaches, 2.2 polythetic approaches, 3. reflexivity, reference, and skepticism, other internet resources, related entries.

The concept religion did not originally refer to a social genus or cultural type. It was adapted from the Latin term religio , a term roughly equivalent to “scrupulousness”. Religio also approximates “conscientiousness”, “devotedness”, or “felt obligation”, since religio was an effect of taboos, promises, curses, or transgressions, even when these were unrelated to the gods. In western antiquity, and likely in many or most cultures, there was a recognition that some people worshipped different gods with commitments that were incompatible with each other and that these people constituted social groups that could be rivals. In that context, one sometimes sees the use of nobis religio to mean “our way of worship”. Nevertheless, religio had a range of senses and so Augustine could consider but reject it as the right abstract term for “how one worships God” because the Latin term (like the Latin terms for “cult” and “service”) was used for the observance of duties in both one’s divine and one’s human relationships (Augustine City of God [1968: Book X, Chapter 1, 251–253]). In the Middle Ages, as Christians developed monastic orders in which one took vows to live under a specific rule, they called such an order  religio (and religiones for the plural), though the term continued to be used, as it had been in antiquity, in adjective form to describe those who were devout and in noun form to refer to worship (Biller 1985: 358; Nongbri 2013: ch. 2).

The most significant shift in the history of the concept is when people began to use religion as a genus of which Christian and non-Christian groups were species. One sees a clear example of this use in the writings of Edward Herbert (1583–1648). As the post-Reformation Christian community fractured into literal warring camps, Herbert sought to remind the different protesting groups of what they nevertheless had in common. Herbert identified five “articles” or “elements” that he proposed were found in every religion, which he called the Common Notions, namely: the beliefs that

• there is a supreme deity, [ 2 ]
• this deity should be worshipped,
• the most important part of religious practice is the cultivation of virtue,
• one should seek repentance for wrong-doing, and
• one is rewarded or punished in this life and the next.

Ignoring rituals and group membership, this proposal takes an idealized Protestant monotheism as the model of religion as such. Herbert was aware of peoples who worshipped something other than a single supreme deity. He noted that ancient Egyptians, for instance, worshipped multiple gods and people in other cultures worshipped celestial bodies or forces in nature. Herbert might have argued that, lacking a belief in a supreme deity, these practices were not religions at all but belonged instead in some other category such as superstition, heresy, or magic. But Herbert did include them, arguing that they were religions because the multiple gods were actually servants to or even aspects of the one supreme deity, and those who worshiped natural forces worshipped the supreme deity “in His works”.

The concept religion understood as a social genus was increasingly put to use by to European Christians as they sought to categorize the variety of cultures they encountered as their empires moved into the Americas, South Asia, East Asia, Africa, and Oceania. In this context, fed by reports from missionaries and colonial administrators, the extension of the generic concept was expanded. The most influential example is that of anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor (1832–1917) who had a scholarly interest in pre-Columbian Mexico. Like Herbert, Tylor sought to identify the common denominator of all religions, what Tylor called a “minimal definition” of religion, and he proposed that the key characteristic was “belief in spiritual beings” (1871 [1970: 8]). This generic definition included the forms of life predicated on belief in a supreme deity that Herbert had classified as religion. But it could also now include—without Herbert’s procrustean assumption that these practices were really directed to one supreme being—the practices used by Hindus, ancient Athenians, and the Navajo to connect to the gods they revere, the practices used by Mahayana Buddhists to connect to Bodhisattvas, and the practices used by Malagasy people to connect to the cult of the dead. The use of a unifying concept for such diverse practices is deliberate on Tylor’s part as he sought to undermine assumptions that human cultures poorly understood in Christian Europe—especially those despised ones, “painted black on the missionary maps” (1871 [1970: 4])—were not on the very same spectrum as the religion of his readers. This opposition to dividing European and non-European cultures into separate categories underlies Tylor’s insistence that all human beings are equivalent in terms of their intelligence. He argued that so-called “primitive” peoples generate their religious ideas when they wrestle with the same questions that all people do, such as the biological question of what explains life, and they do so with the same cognitive capacities. They may lack microscopes or telescopes, but Tylor claims that they seek to answer these questions in ways that are “rational”, “consistent”, and “logical”. Tylor repeatedly calls the Americans, Africans, and Asians he studies “thinking men” and “philosophers”. Tylor was conscious that the definition he proposed was part of a shift: though it was still common to describe some people as so primitive that they had no religion, Tylor complains that those who speak this way are guilty of “the use of wide words in narrow senses” because they are only willing to describe as religion practices that resemble their own expectations (1871 [1970: 3–4]).

In the twentieth century, one sees a third and last growth spurt in the extension of the concept. Here the concept religion is enlarged to include not only practices that connect people to one or more spirits, but also practices that connect people to “powers” or “forces” that lack minds, wills, and personalities. One sees this shift in the work of William James, for example, when he writes,

Were one asked to characterize the life of religion in the broadest and most general terms possible, one might say that it consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto. (1902 [1985: 51]; cf. Proudfoot 2000)

By an “unseen order”, James presumably means a structure that is non-empirical, though he is not clear about why the term would not also include political, economic, or other invisible but human-created orders. The same problem plagues James’s description of “a MORE” operating in the universe that is similar to but outside oneself (1902 [1985: 400], capitalization in the original). The anthropologist Clifford Geertz addresses this issue, also defining religion in terms of an “order” but specifying that he means practices tied to conceptions of “a general order of existence”, that is, as he also says, something whose existence is “fundamental”, “all-pervading”, or “unconditioned” (1973: 98, emphasis added). The practices that are distinctly religious for Geertz are those tied to a culture’s metaphysics or worldview, their conception of “the overall shape of reality” (1973: 104). Like James, then, Geertz would include as religions not only the forms of life based on the theistic and polytheistic (or, more broadly, animist or spiritualist) beliefs that Herbert and Tylor recognized, but also those based on belief in the involuntary, spontaneous, or “natural” operations of the law of karma, the Dao in Daoism, the Principle in Neo-Confucianism, and the Logos in Stoicism. This expansion also includes Theravada Buddhism because dependent co-origination ( pratītyasamutpāda ) is a conception of the general order of existence and it includes Zen Buddhism because Buddha-nature is said to pervade everything. This third expansion is why non-theistic forms of Buddhism, excluded by the Herbert’s and Tylor’s definitions but today widely considered religions, can serve as “a litmus test” for definitions of the concept (Turner 2011: xxiii; cf. Southwold 1978). In sum, then, one can think of the growth of the social genus version of the concept religion as analogous to three concentric circles—from a theistic to a polytheistic and then to a cosmic (or “cosmographic” [Dubuisson 1998]) criterion. Given the near-automatic way that Buddhism is taken as a religion today, the cosmic version now seems to be the dominant one.

Some scholars resist this third expansion of the concept and retain a Tylorean definition, and it is true that there is a marked difference between practices that do and practices that do not involve interacting with person-like beings. In the former, anthropomorphic cases, practitioners can ask for help, make offerings, and pray with an understanding that they are heard. In the latter, non-anthropomorphic cases, practitioners instead typically engage in actions that put themselves “in accord with” the order of things. The anthropologist Robert Marett marks this difference between the last two extensions of the concept religion by distinguishing between “animism” and “animatism” (1909), the philosopher John Hick by distinguishing between religious “personae” and religious “impersonae” (1989: ch. 14–15). This difference raises a philosophical question: on what grounds can one place the practices based on these two kinds of realities in the same category? The many loa spirits, the creator Allah, and the all-pervading Dao are not available to the methods of the natural sciences, and so they are often called “supernatural”. If that term works, then religions in all three concentric circles can be understood as sets of practices predicated on belief in the supernatural. However, “supernatural” suggests a two-level view of reality that separates the empirically available natural world from some other realm metaphorically “above” or “behind” it. Many cultures lack or reject a distinction between natural and supernatural (Saler 1977, 2021). They believe that disembodied persons or powers are not in some otherworldly realm but rather on the top of a certain mountain, in the depths of the forest, or “everywhere”. To avoid the assumption of a two-level view of reality, then, some scholars have replaced supernatural with other terms, such as “superhuman”. Hick uses the term “transcendent”:

the putative reality which transcends everything other than itself but is not transcended by anything other than itself. (1993: 164)

In order to include loa , Allah, and the Dao but to exclude nations and economies, Kevin Schilbrack (2013) proposes the neologism “superempirical” to refer to non-empirical things that are also not the product of any empirical thing. Wouter Hanegraaff (1995), following J. G. Platvoet (1982: 30) uses “meta-empirical”. Whether a common element can be identified that will coherently ground a substantive definition of “religion” is not a settled question.

Despite this murkiness, all three of these versions are “substantive” definitions of religion because they determine membership in the category in terms of the presence of a belief in a distinctive kind of reality. In the twentieth century, however, one sees the emergence of an importantly different approach: a definition that drops the substantive element and instead defines the concept religion in terms of a distinctive role that a form of life can play in one’s life—that is, a “functional” definition. One sees a functional approach in Emile Durkheim (1912), who defines religion as whatever system of practices unite a number of people into a single moral community (whether or not those practices involve belief in any unusual realities). Durkheim’s definition turns on the social function of creating solidarity. One also sees a functional approach in Paul Tillich (1957), who defines religion as whatever dominant concern serves to organize a person’s values (whether or not that concern involve belief in any unusual realities). Tillich’s definition turns on the axiological function of providing orientation for a person’s life.

Substantive and functional approaches can produce non-overlapping extensions for the concept. Famously, a functional approach can hold that even atheistic forms of capitalism, nationalism, and Marxism function as religions. The literature on these secular institutions as functionally religions is massive. As Trevor Ling says,

the bulk of literature supporting the view that Marxism is a religion is so great that it cannot easily be set aside. (1980: 152)

On capitalism as a religion, see, e.g., McCarraher (2019); on nationalism, see, e.g., Omer and Springs (2013: ch. 2). One functionalist might count white supremacy as a religion (Weed 2019; Finley et al. 2020) and another might count anti-racism as a religion (McWhorter 2021). Here, celebrities can reach a religious status and fandom can be one’s religious identity (e.g., Lofton 2011; Lovric 2020). Without a supernatural, transcendent, or superempirical element, these phenomena would not count as religious for Herbert, Tylor, James, or Geertz. Conversely, interactions with supernatural beings may be categorized on a functional approach as something other than religion. For example, the Thai villager who wears an apotropaic amulet and avoids the forest because of a belief that malevolent spirits live there, or the ancient Roman citizen who takes a bird to be sacrificed in a temple before she goes on a journey are for Durkheim examples of magic rather than religion, and for Tillich quotidian rather than ultimate concerns.

It is sometimes assumed that to define religion as a social genus is to treat it as something universal, as something that appears in every human culture. It is true that some scholars have treated religion as pan-human. For example, when a scholar defines religion functionally as the beliefs and practices that generate social cohesion or as the ones that provide orientation in life, then religion names an inevitable feature of the human condition. The universality of religion that one then finds is not a discovery but a product of one’s definition. However, a social genus can be both present in more than one culture without being present in all of them, and so one can define religion , either substantively or functionally, in ways that are not universal. As common as beliefs in disembodied spirits or cosmological orders have been in human history, for instance, there were people in the past and there are people in the present who have no views of an afterlife, supernatural beings, or explicit metaphysics.

2. Two Kinds of Analysis of the Concept

The history of the concept religion above shows how its senses have shifted over time. A concept used for scrupulous devotion was retooled to refer to a particular type of social practice. But the question—what type?—is now convoluted. The cosmic version of the concept is broader than the polytheistic version, which is in turn broader than the theistic version, and the functional definitions shift the sense of the term into a completely different register. What is counted as religion by one definition is often not counted by others. How might this disarray be understood? Does the concept have a structure? This section distinguishes between two kinds of answer to these questions. Most of the attempts to analyze the term have been “monothetic” in that they operate with the classical view that every instance that is accurately described by a concept will share a defining property that puts them in that category. The last several decades, however, have seen the emergence of “polythetic” approaches that abandon the classical view and treat religion , instead, as having a prototype structure. For incisive explanations of the classical theory and the prototype theory of concepts, see Laurence and Margolis (1999).

Monothetic approaches use a single property (or a single set of properties) as the criterion that determines whether a concept applies. The key to a monothetic approach is that it proposes necessary and sufficient conditions for membership in the given class. That is, a monothetic approach claims that there is some characteristic, or set of them, found in every religion and that if a form of life has it, then that form of life is a religion. Most definitions of the concept religion have been of this type. For example, as we saw above, Edward Tylor proposes belief in spiritual beings as his minimal definition of religion, and this is a substantive criterion that distinguishes religion from non-religion in terms of belief in this particular kind of entity. Similarly, Paul Tillich proposes ultimate concern as a functional criterion that distinguishes religion from non-religion in terms of what serves this particular role in one’s life. These are single criterion monothetic definitions.

There are also monothetic definitions that define religion in terms of a single set of criteria. Herbert’s five Common Notions are an early example. More recently, Clifford Geertz (1973: ch. 4) proposes a definition that he breaks down into five elements:

• a system of symbols
• about the nature of things,
• that inculcate dispositions for behavior
• through ritual and cultural performance, [ 3 ]
• so that the conceptions held by the group are taken as real.

One can find each of these five elements separately, of course: not all symbols are religious symbols; historians (but not novelists) typically consider their conceptions factual; and so on. For Geertz, however, any religious form of life will have all five. Aware of functional approaches like that of Tillich, Geertz is explicit that symbols and rituals that lack reference to a metaphysical framework—that is, those without the substantive element he requires as his (2)—would be secular and not religious, no matter how intense or important one’s feelings about them are (1973: 98). Reference to a metaphysical entity or power is what marks the other four elements as religious. Without it, Geertz writes, “the empirical differentia of religious activity or religious experience would not exist” (1973: 98). As a third example, Bruce Lincoln (2006: ch. 1) enumerates four elements that a religion would have, namely:

• “a discourse whose concerns transcend the human, temporal, and contingent, and that claims for itself a similarly transcendent status”,
• practices connected to that discourse,
• people who construct their identity with reference to that discourse and those practices, and
• institutional structures to manage those people.

This definition is monothetic since, for Lincoln, religions always have these four features “at a minimum” (2006: 5). [ 4 ] To be sure, people constantly engage in practices that generate social groups that then have to be maintained and managed by rules or authorities. However, when the practices, communities, and institutions lack the distinctive kind of discourse that claims transcendent status for itself, they would not count for Lincoln as religions.

It is worth noting that when a monothetic definition includes multiple criteria, one does not have to choose between the substantive and functional strategies for defining religion , but can instead include both. If a monothetic definition include both strategies, then, to count as a religion, a form of life would have to refer to a distinctive substantive reality and also play a certain role in the participants’ lives. This double-sided approach avoids the result of purely substantive definitions that might count as religion a feckless set of beliefs (for instance, “something must have created the world”) unconnected from the believers’ desires and behavior, while also avoiding the result of purely functional definitions that might count as religion some universal aspect of human existence (for instance, creating collective effervescence or ranking of one’s values). William James’s definition of religion (“the belief that there is an unseen order, and our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto”) is double-sided in this way, combining a belief in the existence of a distinctive referent with the spiritual disciplines with which one seeks to embody that belief. Geertz’s definition of religion also required both substantive and functional aspects, which he labelled “worldview” and “ethos” (1973: ch. 5). To treat religion as “both/and” in this way is to refuse to abstract one aspect of a complex social reality but instead recognizes, as Geertz puts it, both “the dispositional and conceptual aspects of religious life” (1973: 113). [ 5 ]

These “monothetic-set definitions” treat the concept of religion as referring to a multifaceted or multidimensional complex. It may seem avant garde today to see religion described as a “constellation”, “assemblage”, “network”, or “system”, but in fact to treat religion as a complex is not new. Christian theologians traditionally analyzed the anatomy of their way of life as simultaneously fides , fiducia , and fidelitas . Each of these terms might be translated into English as “faith”, but each actually corresponds to a different dimension of a social practice. Fides refers to a cognitive state, one in which a person assents to a certain proposition and takes it as true. It could be translated as “belief” or “intellectual commitment”. Beliefs or intellectual commitments distinctive to participation in the group will be present whether or not a religious form of life has developed any authoritative doctrines. In contrast, fiducia refers to an affective state in which a person is moved by a feeling or experience that is so positive that it bonds the recipient to its source. It could be translated as “trust” or “emotional commitment”. Trust or emotional commitment will be present whether or not a religious form of life teaches that participation in their practices aims at some particular experience of liberation, enlightenment, or salvation. And fidelitas refers to a conative state in which a person commits themselves to a path of action, a path that typically involves emulating certain role models and inculcating the dispositions that the group considers virtuous. It could be translated as “loyalty” or “submission”. Loyalty or submission will be present whether or not a religious form of life is theistic or teaches moral rules. By the time of Martin Luther, Christian catechisms organized these aspects of religious life in terms of the “three C’s”: the creed one believed, the cult or worship one offered, and the code one followed. When Tillich (1957: ch. 2) argues that religious faith is distorted when one treats it not as a complex but instead as a function of the intellect alone, emotion alone, or the will alone, he is speaking from within this tradition. These three dimensions of religious practices—symbolically, the head, the heart, and the hand—are not necessarily Christian. In fact, until one adds a delimiting criterion like those discussed above, these dimensions are not even distinctively religious. Creed, cult, and code correspond to any pursuit of what a people considers true, beautiful, and good, respectively, and they will be found in any collective movement or cultural tradition. As Melford Spiro says, any human institution will involve a belief system, a value system, and an action system (Spiro 1966: 98).

Many have complained that arguments about how religion should be defined seem unresolvable. To a great extent, however, this is because these arguments have not simply been about a particular aspect of society but rather have served as proxy in a debate about the structure of human subjectivity. There is deep agreement among the rival positions insofar as they presuppose the cognitive-affective-conative model of being human. However, what we might call a “Cartesian” cohort argues that cognition is the root of religious emotions and actions. This cohort includes the “intellectualists” whose influence stretches from Edward Tylor and James Frazer to E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Robin Horton, Jack Goody, Melford Spiro, Stewart Guthrie, and J. Z. Smith, and it shapes much of the emerging field of cognitive science of religion (e.g., Boyer 2001). [ 6 ] A “Humean” cohort disagrees, arguing that affect is what drives human behavior and that cognition serves merely to justify the values one has already adopted. In theology and religious studies, this feelings-centered approach is identified above all with the work of Friedrich Schleiermacher and Rudolf Otto, and with the tradition called phenomenology of religion, but it has had a place in anthropology of religion since Robert Marett (Tylor’s student), and it is alive and well in the work of moral intuitionists (e.g., Haidt 2012) and affect theory (e.g., Schaefer 2015). A “Kantian” cohort treats beliefs and emotions regarding supernatural realities as relatively unimportant and argues instead that for religion the will is basic. [ 7 ] This approach treats a religion as at root a set of required actions (e.g., Vásquez 2011; C. Smith 2017). These different approaches disagree about the essence of religion, but all three camps operate within a shared account of the human. Thus, when William James describes religion as

the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual [people] in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine. (1902 [1985: 34])

he is foregrounding an affective view and playing down (though not denying) the cognitive. When James’s Harvard colleague Alfred North Whitehead corrects him, saying that “[r]eligion is what a person does with their solitariness” (1926: 3, emphasis added), Whitehead stresses the conative, though Whitehead also insists that feelings always play a role. These are primarily disagreements of emphasis that do not trouble this model of human subjectivity. There have been some attempts to leave this three-part framework. For example, some in the Humean camp have suggested that religion is essentially a particular feeling with zero cognition. But that romantic suggestion collapses under the inability to articulate how an affective state can be noncognitive but still identifiable as a particular feeling (Proudfoot 1985).

Although the three-sided model of the true, the beautiful, and the good is a classic account of what any social group explicitly and implicitly teaches, one aspect is still missing. To recognize the always-presupposed material reality of the people who constitute the social group, even when this reality has not been conceptualized by the group’s members, one should also include the contributions of their bodies, habits, physical culture, and social structures. To include this dimension mnemonically, one can add a “fourth C”, for community. Catherine Albanese (1981) may have been the first to propose the idea of adding this materialist dimension. Ninian Smart’s famous anatomy of religion (1996) has seven dimensions, not four, but the two models are actually very similar. Smart calls the affective dimension the “experiential and emotional”, and then divides the cognitive dimension into two (“doctrinal and philosophical” and “narrative and mythological”), the conative into two (“ethical and legal” and “ritual”), and the communal into two (“social and institutional” and “material”). In an attempt to dislodge the focus on human subjectivity found in the three Cs, some have argued that the material dimension is the source of the others. They argue, in other words, that the cognitive, affective, and conative aspects of the members of a social group are not the causes but rather the effects of the group’s structured practices (e.g., Asad 1993: ch. 1–4; Lopez 1998). Some argue that to understand religion in terms of beliefs, or even in terms of any subjective states, reflects a Protestant bias and that scholars of religion should therefore shift attention from hidden mental states to the visible institutional structures that produce them. Although the structure/agency debate is still live in the social sciences, it is unlikely that one can give a coherent account of religion in terms of institutions or disciplinary practices without reintroducing mental states such as judgements, decisions, and dispositions (Schilbrack 2021).

Whether a monothetic approach focuses on one essential property or a set, and whether that essence is the substance or the function of the religion, those using this approach ask a Yes/No question regarding a single criterion. This approach therefore typically produces relatively clear lines between what is and is not religion. Given Tylor’s monothetic definition, for instance, a form of life must include belief in spiritual beings to be a religion; a form of life lacking this property would not be a religion, even if it included belief in a general order of existence that participants took as their ultimate concern, and even if that form of life included rituals, ethics, and scriptures. In a famous discussion, Melford Spiro (1966) works with a Tylorean definition and argues exactly this: lacking a belief in superhuman beings, Theravada Buddhism, for instance, is something other than a religion. [ 8 ] For Spiro, there is nothing pejorative about this classification.

Having combatted the notion that “we” have religion (which is “good”) and “they” have superstition (which is “bad”), why should we be dismayed if it be discovered that that society x does not have religion as we have defined the term? (1966: 88)

That a concept always corresponds to something possessing a defining property is a very old idea. This assumption undergirds Plato’s Euthyphro and other dialogues in which Socrates pushes his interlocutors to make that hidden, defining property explicit, and this pursuit has provided a model for much not only of philosophy, but of the theorizing in all fields. The traditional assumption is that every entity has some essence that makes it the thing it is, and every instance that is accurately described by a concept of that entity will have that essence. The recent argument that there is an alternative structure—that a concept need not have necessary and sufficient criteria for its application—has been called a “conceptual revolution” (Needham 1975: 351), “one of the greatest and most valuable discoveries that has been made of late years in the republic of letters” (Bambrough 1960–1: 207).

In discussions of the concept religion , this anti-essentialist approach is usually traced to Ludwig Wittgenstein (1953, posthumous). Wittgenstein argues that, in some cases, when one considers the variety of instances described with a given concept, one sees that among them there are multiple features that “crop up and disappear”, the result being “a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing” (Wittgenstein 1953, §68). The instances falling under some concepts lack a single defining property but instead have a family resemblance to each other in that each one resembles some of the others in different ways. All polythetic approaches reject the monothetic idea that a concept requires necessary and sufficient criteria. But unappreciated is the fact that polythetic approaches come in different kinds, operating with different logics. Here are three.

The most basic kind of polythetic approach holds that membership in a given class is not determined by the presence of a single crucial characteristic. Instead, the concept maps a cluster of characteristics and, to count as a member of that class, a particular case has to have a certain number of them, no particular one of which is required. To illustrate, imagine that there are five characteristics typical of religions (call this the “properties set”) and that, to be a religion, a form of life has to have a minimum of three of them (call this the “threshold number”). Because this illustration limits the number of characteristics in the properties set, I will call this first kind a “bounded” polythetic approach. For example, the five religion-making characteristics could be these:

• belief in superempirical beings or powers,
• ethical norms,
• worship rituals,
• participation believed to bestow benefits on participants, and
• those who participate in this form of life see themselves as a distinct community.

Understanding the concept religion in this polythetic way produces a graded hierarchy of instances. [ 9 ] A form of life that has all five of these characteristics would be a prototypical example of a religion. Historically speaking, prototypical examples of the concept are likely to be instances to which the concept was first applied. Psychologically speaking, they are also likely to be the example that comes to mind first to those who use the concept. For instance, robins and finches are prototypical examples of a bird, and when one is prompted to name a bird, people are more likely to name a robin or a finch than an ostrich or a penguin. A form of life that has only four of these characteristics would nevertheless still be a clear example of a religion. [ 10 ] If a form of life has only three, then it would be a borderline example. A form of life that has only two of these characteristics would not be included in the category, though such cases might be considered “quasi-religions” and they might be the most interesting social forms to compare to religions (J. E. Smith 1994). A form of life that only had one of the five characteristics would be unremarkable. The forms of life that had three, four, or five of these characteristics would not be an unrelated set but rather a “family” with multiple shared features, but no one characteristic (not even belief in superempirical beings or powers) possessed by all of them. On this polythetic approach, the concept religion has no essence, and a member of this family that only lacked one of the five characteristics— no matter which one —would still clearly be a religion. [ 11 ] As Benson Saler (1993) points out, one can use this non-essentialist approach not only for the concept religion but also for the elements within a religion (sacrifice, scripture, and so on) and to individual religions (Christianity, Hinduism, and so on).

Some have claimed that, lacking an essence, polythetic approaches to religion make the concept so vague that it becomes useless (e.g., Fitzgerald 2000: 72–3; Martin 2009: 167). Given the focused example of a “bounded” approach in the previous paragraph and the widespread adoption of polythetic approaches in the biological sciences, this seems clearly false. However, it is true that one must pay attention to the parameters at work in a polythetic approach. Using a properties set with only five elements produces a very focused class, but the properties set is simply a list of similarities among at least two of the members of a class, and since the class of religions might have hundreds of members, one could easily create a properties set that is much bigger. Not long after Wittgenstein’s death, a “bounded” polythetic approach was applied to the concept religion by William Alston who identified nine religion-making characteristics. [ 12 ] Southwold (1978) has twelve; Rem Edwards (1972) has fourteen and leaves room for more. But there is no reason why one might not work with a properties set for religion with dozens or even hundreds of shared properties. Half a century ago, Rodney Needham (1975: 361) mentions a computer program that sorted 1500 different bacterial strains according to 200 different properties. As J. Z. Smith (1982: ch. 1) argues, treating the concept religion in this way can lead to surprising discoveries of patterns within the class and the co-appearance of properties that can lead to explanatory theories. The second key parameter for a polythetic approach is the threshold number. Alston does not stipulate the number of characteristics a member of the class has to have, saying simply, “When enough of these characteristics are present to a sufficient degree, we have a religion” (1967: 142). Needham (1975) discusses the sensible idea that each member has a majority of the properties, but this is not a requirement of polythetic approaches. The critics are right that as one increases the size of the properties set and decreases the threshold number, the resulting category becomes more and more diffuse. This can produce a class that is so sprawling that it is difficult to use for empirical study.

Scholars of religion who have used a polythetic approach have typically worked with a “bounded” approach (that is, with a properties set that is fixed), but this is not actually the view for which Wittgenstein himself argues. Wittgenstein’s goal is to draw attention to the fact that the actual use of concepts is typically not bound: “the extension of the concept is not closed by a frontier” (Wittgenstein 1953, §67). We can call this an “open” polythetic approach. To grasp the open approach, consider a group of people who have a concept they apply to a certain range of instances. In time, a member of the group encounters something new that resembles the other instances enough in her eyes that she applies the concept to it. When the linguistic community adopts this novel application, the extension of the concept grows. If their use of the concept is “open”, however, then, as the group adds a new member to the category named by a concept, properties of that new member that had not been part of the earlier uses can be added to the properties set and thereby increase the range of legitimate applications of the concept in the future. We might say that a bounded polythetic approach produces concepts that are fuzzy, and an open polythetic approach produces concepts that are fuzzy and evolving . Timothy Williamson calls this “the dynamic quality of family resemblance concepts” (1994: 86). One could symbolize the shift of properties over time this way:

Wittgenstein famously illustrated this open polythetic approach with the concept game , and he also applied it to the concepts of language and number (Wittgenstein 1953, §67). If we substitute our concept as Wittgenstein’s example, however, his treatment fits religion just as well:

Why do we call something a “religion”? Well, perhaps because it has a direct relationship with several things that have hitherto been called religion; and this can be said to give an indirect relationship to other things we call the same name. (Wittgenstein 1953, §67)

Given an open polythetic approach, a concept evolves in the light of the precedents that speakers recognize, although, over time, what people come to label with the concept can become very different from the original use.

In the academic study of religions, discussions of monothetic and polythetic approaches have primarily been in service of developing a definition of the term. [ 13 ] How can alternate definitions of religion be assessed? If one were to offer a lexical definition (that is, a description of what the term means in common usage, as with a dictionary definition), then the definition one offers could be shown to be wrong. In common usage, for example, Buddhism typically is considered a religion and capitalism typically is not. On this point, some believe erroneously that one can correct a definition by pointing to some fact about the referents of the term. One sees this assumption, for example, in those who argue that the western discovery of Buddhism shows that theistic definitions of religion are wrong (e.g., Southwold 1978: 367). One can correct a real or lexical definition in this way, but not a stipulative definition, that is, a description of the meaning that one assigns to the term. When one offers a stipulative definition, that definition cannot be wrong. Stipulative definitions are assessed not by whether they are true or false but rather by their usefulness, and that assessment will be purpose-relative (cf. Berger 1967: 175). De Muckadell (2014) rejects stipulative definitions of religion for this reason, arguing that one cannot critique them and that they force scholars simply to “accept whatever definition is offered”. She gives the example of a problematic stipulative definition of religion as “ice-skating while singing” which, she argues, can only be rejected by using a real definition of religion that shows the ice-skating definition to be false. However, even without knowing the real essence of religion, one can critique a stipulative definition, either for being less adequate or appropriate for a particular purpose (such as studying forms of life across cultures) or, as with the ice-skating example, for being so far from a lexical definition that it is adequate or appropriate for almost no purpose.

Polythetic definitions are increasingly popular today as people seek to avoid the claim that an evolving social category has an ahistorical essence. [ 14 ] However, the difference between these two approaches is not that monothetic definitions fasten on a single property whereas polythetic definitions recognize more. Monothetic definitions can be multifactorial, as we have seen, and they can recognize just as many properties that are “common” or even “typical” of religions, without being essential. The difference is also not that the monothetic identification of the essence of religion reflects an ethnocentrism that polythetic approaches avoid. The polythetic identification of a prototypical religion is equally ethnocentric. The difference between them, rather, is that a monothetic definition sorts instances with a Yes/No mechanism and is therefore digital, and a polythetic definition produces gradations and is therefore analog. It follows that a monothetic definition treats a set of instances that all possess the one defining property as equally religion, whereas a polythetic definition produces a gray area for instances that are more prototypical or less so. This makes a monothetic definition superior for cases (for example, legal cases) in which one seeks a Yes/No answer. Even if an open polythetic approach accurately describes how a concept operates, therefore, one might, for purposes of focus or clarity, prefer to work with a closed polythetic account that limits the properties set, or even with a monothetic approach that limits the properties set to one. That is, one might judge that it is valuable to treat the concept religion as structurally fuzzy or temporally fluid, but nevertheless place boundaries on the forms of life one will compare.

This strategy gives rise to a third kind of polythetic approach, one that stipulates that one property (or one set of properties) is required. Call this an “anchored” polythetic definition. Consistently treating concepts as tools, Wittgenstein suggests this “anchored” idea when he writes that when we look at the history of a concept,

what we see is something constantly fluctuating … [but we might nevertheless] set over against this fluctuation something more fixed, just as one paints a stationary picture of the constantly altering face of the landscape. (1974: 77)

Given a stipulated “anchor”, a concept will then possess a necessary property, and this property reintroduces essentialism. Such a definition nevertheless still reflects a polythetic approach because the presence of the required property is not sufficient to make something a religion. To illustrate this strategy, one might stipulate that the only forms of life one will consider a religion will include

(thereby excluding nationalism and capitalism, for example), but the presence of this property does not suffice to count this form of life as a religion. Consider the properties set introduced above that also includes

If the threshold number is still three, then to be a religion, a form of life would have to have three of these properties, one of which must be (A) . An anchored definition of religion like this would have the benefits of the other polythetic definitions. For example, it would not produce a clear line between religion and nonreligion but would instead articulate gradations between different forms of life (or between versions of one form of life at different times) that are less or more prototypically religious. However, given its anchor, it would produce a more focused range of cases. [ 15 ] In this way, the use of an anchor might both reflect the contemporary cosmological view of the concept religion and also address the criticism that polythetic approaches make a concept too vague.

Over the past forty years or so, there has been a reflexive turn in the social sciences and humanities as scholars have pulled the camera back, so to speak, to examine the constructed nature of the objects previously taken for granted as unproblematically “there”. Reflexive scholars have argued that the fact that what counts as religion shifts according to one’s definition reflects an arbitrariness in the use of the term. They argue that the fact that religion is not a concept found in all cultures but rather a tool invented at a certain time and place, by certain people for their own purposes, and then imposed on others, reveals its political character. The perception that religion is a politically motivated conceptual invention has therefore led some to skepticism about whether the concept picks out something real in the world. As with instrumentalism in philosophy of science, then, reflection on religion has raised doubts about the ontological status of the referent of one’s technical term.

A watershed text for the reflexive turn regarding the concept religion is Jonathan Z. Smith’s Imagining Religion (1982). Smith engages simultaneously in comparing religions and in analyzing the scholarly practice of comparison. A central theme of his essays is that the concept religion (and subcategories such as world religions , Abrahamic faiths , or nonliterate traditions ) are not scientific terms but often reflect the unrecognized biases of those who use these concepts to sort their world into those who are or are not “like us”. [ 16 ] Smith shows that, again and again, the concept religion was shaped by implicit Protestant assumptions, if not explicit Protestant apologetics. In the short preface to that book, Smith famously says,

[ T ] here is no data for religion . Religion is solely the creation of the scholar’s study. It is created for the scholar’s analytic purposes by his imaginative acts of comparison and generalization. Religion has no independent existence apart from the academy. (1982: xi, italics in original)

This dramatic statement has sometimes been taken as Smith’s assertion that the concept religion has no referent. However, in his actual practice of comparing societies, Smith is not a nonrealist about religion . In the first place, he did not think that the constructed nature of religion was something particular to this concept: any judgement that two things were similar or different in some respect presupposed a process of selection, juxtaposition, and categorization by the observer. This is the process of imagination in his book’s title. Second, Smith did not think that the fact that concepts were human products undermined the possibility that they successfully corresponded to entities in the world: an invented concept for social structures can help one discover religion—not “invent” it—even in societies whose members did not know the concept. [ 17 ] His slogan is that one’s (conceptual) map is not the same as and should be tested and rectified by the (non-conceptual) territory (J. Z. Smith 1978). Lastly, Smith did not think that scholars should cease to use religion as a redescriptive or second-order category to study people in history who lacked a comparable concept. On the contrary, he chastised scholars of religion for resting within tradition-specific studies, avoiding cross-cultural comparisons, and not defending the coherence of the generic concept. He writes that scholars of religion should be

prepared to insist, in some explicit and coherent fashion, on the priority of some generic category of religion. (1995: 412; cf. 1998: 281–2)

Smith himself repeatedly uses religion and related technical terms he invented, such as “locative religion”, to illuminate social structures that operate whether or not those so described had named those structures themselves—social structures that exist, as his 1982 subtitle says, from Babylon to Jonestown.

The second most influential book in the reflexive turn in religious studies is Talal Asad’s Genealogies of Religion (1993). Adopting Michel Foucault’s “genealogical” approach, Asad seeks to show that the concept religion operating in contemporary anthropology has been shaped by assumptions that are Christian (insofar as one takes belief as a mental state characteristic of all religions) and modern (insofar as one treats religion as essentially distinct from politics). Asad’s Foucauldian point is that though people may have all kinds of religious beliefs, experiences, moods, or motivations, the mechanism that inculcates them will be the disciplining techniques of some authorizing power and for this reason one cannot treat religion as simply inner states. Like Smith, then, Asad asks scholars to shift their attention to the concept religion and to recognize that assumptions baked into the concept have distorted our grasp of the historical realities. However, also like Smith, Asad does not draw a nonrealist conclusion. [ 18 ] For Asad, religion names a real thing that would operate in the world even had the concept not been invented, namely, “a coherent existential complex” (2001: 217). Asad’s critical aim is not to undermine the idea that religion exists qua social reality but rather to undermine the idea that religion is essentially an interior state independent of social power. He points out that anthropologists like Clifford Geertz adopt a hermeneutic approach to culture that treats actions as if they are texts that say something, and this approach has reinforced the attention given to the meaning of religious symbols, deracinated from their social and historical context. Asad seeks to balance this bias for the subjective with a disciplinary approach that sees human subjectivity as also the product of social structures. Smith and Asad are therefore examples of scholars who critique the concept religion without denying that it can still refer to something in the world, something that exists even before it is named. They are able, so to speak, to look at one’s conceptual window without denying that the window provides a perspective on things outside.

Other critics have gone farther. They build upon the claims that the concept religion is an invented category and that its modern semantic expansion went hand in hand with European colonialism, and they argue that people should cease treating religion as if it corresponds to something that exists outside the sphere of modern European influence. It is common today to hear the slogan that there is no such “thing” as religion. In some cases, the point of rejecting thing-hood is to deny that religion names a category, all the instances of which focus on belief in the same kind of object—that is, the slogan is a rejection of substantive definitions of the concept (e.g., Possamai 2018: ch. 5). In this case, the objection bolsters a functional definition and does not deny that religion corresponds to a functionally distinct kind of form of life. Here, the “no such thing” claim reflects the unsettled question, mentioned above, about the grounds of substantive definitions of “religion”. In other cases, the point of this objection is to deny that religion names a defining characteristic of any kind—that is, the slogan is a rejection of all monothetic definitions of the concept. Perhaps religion (or a religion, like Judaism) should always be referred to in the plural (“Judaisms”) rather than the singular. In this case, the objection bolsters a polythetic definition and does not deny that religion corresponds to a distinct family of forms of life. Here, the “no such thing” claim rejects the assumption that religion has an essence. Despite their negativity, these two objections to the concept are still realist in that they do not deny that the phrase “a religion” can correspond to a form of life operating in the world.

More radically, one sees a denial of this realism, for example, in the critique offered by Wilfred Cantwell Smith (1962). Smith’s thesis is that in many different cultures, people developed a concept for the individuals they considered pious, but they did not develop a concept for a generic social entity, a system of beliefs and practices related to superempirical realities. Before modernity, “there is no such entity [as religion and] … the use of a plural, or with an article, is false” (1962: 326, 194; cf. 144). Smith recommends dropping religion . Not only did those so described lack the concept, but the use of the concept also treats people’s behavior as if the phrase “a religion” names something in addition to that behavior. A methodological individualist, Smith denies that groups have any reality not explained by the individuals who constitute them. What one finds in history, then, is religious people, and so the adjective is useful, but there are no religious entities above and beyond those people, and so the noun reifies an abstraction. Smith contends that

[n]either religion in general nor any one of the religions … is in itself an intelligible entity, a valid object of inquiry or of concern either for the scholar or for the [person] of faith. (1962: 12)

More radical still are the nonrealists who argue that the concepts religion, religions, and religious are all chimerical. Often drawing on post-structuralist arguments, these critics propose that the notion that religions exist is simply an illusion generated by the discourse about them (e.g., McCutcheon 1997; 2018; Fitzgerald 2000; 2007; 2017; Dubuisson 1998; 2019). As Timothy Fitzgerald writes, the concept religion

picks out nothing and it clarifies nothing … the word has no genuine analytical work to do and its continued use merely contributes to the general illusion that it has a genuine referent …. (2000: 17, 14; also 4)

Advocates of this position sometimes call their approach the “Critical Study of Religion” or simply “Critical Religion”, a name that signals their shift away from the pre-critical assumption that religion names entities in the world and to a focus on who invented the concept, the shifting contrast terms it has had, and the uses to which it has been put. [ 19 ] Like the concept of witches or the concept of biological races (e.g., Nye 2020), religion is a fiction (Fitzgerald 2015) or a fabrication (McCutcheon 2018), a concept invented and deployed not to respond to some reality in the world but rather to sort and control people. The classification of something as “religion” is not neutral but

a political activity, and one particularly related to the colonial and imperial situation of a foreign power rendering newly encountered societies digestible and manipulable in terms congenial to its own culture and agenda. (McCutcheon & Arnal 2012: 107)

As part of European colonial projects, the concept has been imposed on people who lacked it and did not consider anything in their society “their religion”. In fact, the concept was for centuries the central tool used to rank societies on a scale from primitive to civilized. To avoid this “conceptual violence” or “epistemic imperialism” (Dubuisson 2019: 137), scholars need to cease naturalizing this term invented in modern Europe and instead historicize it, uncovering the conditions that gave rise to the concept and the interests it serves. The study of religions outside Europe should end. As Timothy Fitzgerald writes, “The category ‘religion’ should be the object, not the tool, of analysis” (2000: 106; also 2017: 125; cf. McCutcheon 2018: 18).

Inspired by the post-structuralist critiques that religion does not apply to cultures that lack the concept, some historians have argued that the term should no longer be used to describe any premodern societies, even in Europe. For example, Brent Nongbri (2013), citing McCutcheon, argues that though it is common to speak of religions existing in the past, human history until the concept emerged in modernity is more accurately understood as a time “before religion”. His aim is “to dispel the commonly held idea that there is such a thing as ‘ancient religion’” (2013: 8). Citing Nongbri, Carlin Barton and Daniel Boyarin (2016) argue that the Latin religio and the Greek thrēskeia do not correspond to the modern understanding of religion and those studying antiquity should cease translating them with that concept. There was no “Roman religious reality”, they say (2016: 19). These historians suggest that if a culture does not have the concept of X , then the reality of X does not exist for that culture. Boyarin calls this position “nominalism”, arguing that religion is

not in any possible way a “real” object, an object that is historical or ontological, before the term comes to be used. (2017: 25)

These critics are right to draw attention to the fact that in the mind of most contemporary people, the concept religion does imply features that did not exist in ancient societies, but the argument that religion did not exist in antiquity involves a sleight of hand. None of these historians argues that people in antiquity did not believe in gods or other spiritual beings, did not seek to interact with them with sacrifices and other rituals, did not create temples or scriptures, and so on. If one uses Tylor’s definition of religion as belief in spiritual beings or James’s definition of religion as adjusting one’s life to an unseen order— or any of the other definitions considered in this entry —then religion did exist in antiquity. What these historians are pointing out is that ancient practices related to the gods permeated their cultures . As Nongbri puts it,

To be sure, ancient people had words to describe proper reverence of the gods, but … [t]he very idea of “being religious” requires a companion notion of what it would mean to be “not religious” and this dichotomy was not part of the ancient world; (2013: 4)

there was no “discrete sphere of religion existing prior to the modern period” (2019: 1, typo corrected). And Barton and Boyarin:

The point is not … that there weren’t practices with respect to “gods” (of whatever sort) but that these practices were not divided off into separate spheres …. (2016: 4)

Steve Mason also argues that religion did not exist in antiquity since religion is “a voluntary sphere of activity, separate in principle” from politics, work, entertainment, and military service (2019: 29). In short, what people later came to conceptualize as religion was in antiquity not a freestanding entity. The nominalist argument, in other words, adds to the definition of the concept religion a distinctively modern feature (usually some version of “the separation of church and state”), and then argues that the referent of this now-circumscribed concept did not exist in antiquity. Their argument is not that religion did not exist outside modernity, but that modern religion did not exist outside modernity.

These post-structuralist and nominalist arguments that deny that religion is “out there” have a realist alternative. According to this alternative, there is a world independent of human conceptualization, and something can be real and it can even affect one’s life, whether or not any human beings have identified it. This is true of things whose existence does not depend on collective agreement, like biochemical signaling cascades or radioactive beta particles, and it is equally true of things whose existence does depend on collective agreement, like kinship structures, linguistic rules, and religious commitments. A realist about social structures holds that a person can be in a bilateral kinship system, can speak a Uralic language, and can be a member of a religion—even if they lack these concepts.

This realist claim that social structures have existed without being conceptualized raises the question: if human beings had different ways of practicing religion since prehistoric times, why and when did people “finally” create the taxon? Almost every scholar involved in the reflexive turn says that religion is a modern invention. [ 20 ] The critique of the concept religion then becomes part of their critique of modernity. Given the potent uses of religion —to categorize certain cultures as godless and therefore inferior or, later, to categorize certain cultures as superstitious and therefore backwards—the significance of the critique of religion for postcolonial and decolonial scholarship is undeniable. Nevertheless, it is not plausible that modern Europeans were the first to want a generic concept for different ways of interacting with gods. It is easy to imagine that if the way that a people worship their gods permeates their work, art, and politics, and they do not know of alternative ways, then it would not be likely that they would have created a concept for it. There is little need for a generic concept that abstracts a particular aspect of one’s culture as one option out of many until one is in a sustained pluralistic situation. The actions that today are categorized as religious practices—burial rites, the making of offerings, the imitation of divinized ancestors—may have existed for tens of thousands of years without the practitioners experiencing that diversity or caring to name it. Nevertheless, it is likely that a desire to compare the rules by which different people live in relation to their gods would have emerged in many parts of the world long before modernity. One would expect to find people developing such social abstractions as cities and then empires emerged and their cultures came into contact with each other. From this realist perspective, it is no surprise that, according to the detailed and example-filled argument of Barton and Boyarin (2016), the first use of religion as a generic social category, distinct from the concept of politics , for the ways that people interact with gods is not a product of the Renaissance, the Reformation, or modern colonialism at all, but can be found in the writings of Josephus (37–c. 100 CE) and Tertullian (c. 155–c. 220 CE). [ 21 ] From the realist perspective, it is no surprise to see the development of analogous terms in medieval China, centuries before interaction with Europeans (Campany 2003, 2012, 2018) and in medieval Islam (Abbasi 2020, 2021). The emergence of social kinds does not wait on language, and the development of language for social kinds is not only a Western project. If this is right, then the development of a concept for religion as a social genus is at least two thousand years old, though the social reality so labeled would be much older.

• Abbasi, Rushain, 2020, “Did Premodern Muslims Distinguish the Religious and the Secular? The Dīn-Dunyā Binary in Medieval Islamic Thought”, Journal of Islamic Studies , 31(2): 185–225. doi:10.1093/jis/etz048
• –––, 2021, “Islam and the Invention of Religion: A Study of Medieval Muslim Discourses on Dīn ”, Studia Islamica , 116(1): 1–106.
• Albanese, Catherine, 1981, America: Religions and Religion , Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
• Alston, William P., 1964, The Philosophy of Language , Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
• –––, 1967, “Religion”, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy , Paul Edwards (ed.), New York: Macmillan.
• Asad, Talal, 1993, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam , Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.
• –––, 2001, “Reading a Modern Classic: W. C. Smith’s The Meaning and End of Religion ”, History of Religions , 40(3): 205–222. doi:10.1086/463633
• Asad, Talal and Craig Martin, 2014, “ Genealogies of Religion , Twenty Years On: An Interview with Talal Asad”, Bulletin for the Study of Religion , 43(1): 12–17. doi:10.1558/bsor.v43i1.12
• Augustine, City of God, Volume III: Books 8–11 , David S. Wiesen (trans.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968.
• Bambrough, Renford, 1960–1, “Universals and Family Resemblances”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society , 61: 207–222. doi:10.1093/aristotelian/61.1.207
• Barton, Carlin A. and Daniel Boyarin, 2016, Imagine No Religion: How Modern Abstractions Hide Ancient Realities , New York: Fordham University Press.
• Berger, Peter L., 1967, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion , New York: Doubleday.
• –––, 1974, “Some Second Thoughts on Substantive versus Functional Definitions of Religion”, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion , 13(2): 125–133. doi:10.2307/1384374
• Biller, Peter, 1985, “Words and the Medieval Notion of ‘Religion’”, Journal of Ecclesiastical History , 36(3): 351–369. 10.1017/S0022046900041142
• Boyarin, Daniel, 2017, “Nominalist ‘Judaism’ and the Late-Antique Invention of Religion”, in Religion, Theory, Critique: Classic and Contemporary Approaches and Methodologies , Richard King (ed.), New York: Columbia University Press, ch. 2.
• Boyer, Pascal, 2001, Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought , New York: Basic Books.
• Burley, Mikel, 2019, “‘Being Near Enough to Listen’: Wittgenstein and Interreligious Understanding”, in Interpreting Interreligious Relations with Wittgenstein: Philosophy, Theology, and Religious Studies , Gorazd Andrejč and Daniel H. Weiss (eds), Leiden: Brill, 33–53.
• Campany, Robert Ford, 2003, “On the Very Idea of Religions (in the Modern West and Early Medieval China)”, History of Religions , 42(4): 287–319. doi:10.1086/378757
• –––, 2012, “Chinese History and Writing about ‘Religion(s)’: Reflections at a Crossroads”, in Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe: Encounters, Notions, and Comparative Perspectives , Marion Steineke and Volkhard Krech (eds), Leiden: Brill, 273–294.
• –––, 2018, “‘Religious’ as a Category: A Comparative Case Study”, Numen , 65(4): 333–376. doi:10.1163/15685276-12341503
• Casadio, Giovanni, 2016, “Historicizing and Translating Religion”, in The Oxford Handbook of the Study of Religion , Michael Stausberg and Steven Engler (eds), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• De Muckadell, Caroline Schaffalitzky, 2014, “On Essentialism and Real Definitions of Religion”, Journal of the American Academy of Religion , 82(2): 495–520. doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfu015
• Dubuisson, Daniel, 1998 [2003], L’Occident et la religion: mythes, science et idéologie , Bruxelles: Editions Complexe. Translated as The Western Construction of Religion: Myths, Knowledge, and Ideology , William Sayers (trans.), Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.
• –––, 2019, The Invention of Religions , Martha Cunningham (trans.), Sheffield: Equinox. French original published as L’invention Des Religions: Impérialisme Cognitif et Violence Épistémique , Paris: CNRS éditions, 2020.
• Durkheim, Emile, 1912 [1915], Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse, le système totémique en Australie , Paris: F. Alcan. Translated as The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, a Study in Religious Sociology , Joseph Ward Swain (trans.), London: George Allen & Unwin, 1915.
• Edwards, Rem, 1972, Reason and Religion: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion , New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanavich.
• Ferro-Luzzi, Gabriella Eichinger, 1989, “The Polythetic-Prototype Approach to Hinduism”, in Hinduism Reconsidered , Günther-Dietz Sontheimer and Hermann Kulke (eds), New Delhi: Manohar, pp. 294–304.
• Finley, Stephen C., Biko Mandela Gray, and Lori Latrice Martin (eds.), 2020, The Religion of White Rage: Religious Fervor, White Workers and the Myth of Black Racial Progress , Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
• Fitzgerald, Timothy, 2000, The Ideology of Religious Studies , New York: Oxford University Press.
• –––, 2007, Discourse on Civility and Barbarity: A Critical History of Religion and Related Categories , New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195300093.001.0001
• –––, 2015, “Critical Religion and Critical Research on Religion: Religion and Politics as Modern Fictions”, Critical Research on Religion , 3(3): 303–319. doi:10.1177/2050303215613123
• –––, 2017, “ The Ideology of Religious Studies Revisited: The Problem with Politics”, in Method and Theory in the Study of Religion: Working Papers from Hannover , Steffen Führding (ed.), Leiden: Brill, 124–152.
• Geertz, Armin W., 2016, “Conceptions of Religion in the Cognitive Science of Religion”, in Contemporary Views on Comparative Religion , Peter Antes, Armin W. Geertz, and Mikael Rothstein (eds), Sheffield: Equinox, 127–139.
• Geertz, Clifford, 1973, The Interpretation of Cultures , New York: Basic Books.
• Griffiths, Paul J., 2000, “The Very Idea of Religion”, First Things , 103(May): 30–35. [ Griffiths 2000 available online ]
• Haidt, Jonathan, 2012, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion , New York: Vintage.
• Hanegraaff, Wouter J., 1995, “Empirical Method in the Study of Esotericism”, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion , 7(2): 99–129.
• Harrison, Peter, 1990, ‘Religion’ and the Religions in the English Enlightenment , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511627972
• Hick, John, 1989, An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent , New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
• –––, 1993, Disputed Questions in Theology and the Philosophy of Religion , New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
• James, William, 1902 [1985], The Varieties of Religious Experience , London: Longmans, Green, and Co.; reprinted, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.
• –––, 1912 [1979], The Will to Believe , London: Longmans, Green, and Co.; reprinted, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979.
• Kant, Immanuel, 1793 [1934], Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft , Königsberg. Translated as Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone , Theodore M. Greene and Hoyt H. Hudson (trans.), La Salle, IL: The Open Court, 1934.
• Laurence, Stephen and Eric Margolis, 1999, “Concepts and Cognitive Science”, in Concepts: Core Readings , Eric Margolis and Stephen Laurence (eds), Cambridge: MIT Press, 1–81.
• Lehrich, Christopher I., 2021, Jonathan Z. Smith on Religion , London: Routledge.
• Lincoln, Bruce, 2006, Holy Terrors: Thinking about Religion after September 11 . Second edition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 
• Ling, Trevor, 1980, Karl Marx and Religion: In Europe and India , London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Lofton, Kathryn, 2011, Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon , Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
• –––, 2012, “Religious History as Religious Studies”, Religion , 42(3): 383–394. doi:10.1080/0048721X.2012.681878
• Lopez, Donald S., Jr., 1998, “Belief”, in Critical Terms for Religious Studies , Mark C. Taylor (ed), Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
• Lovric, Bruno, 2020, “Pokémon Fandom as a Religion: Construction of Identity and Cultural Consumption in Hong Kong”, in Handbook of Research on the Impact of Fandom in Society and Consumerism , Cheng Lu Wang (ed.), Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 460–479.
• Luther, Martin, 1526 [1973], Der Prophet Jonah , Nuremberg. Translated in Lectures on the Minor Prophets, Volume II , Hilton Oswald (ed.), (Luther’s Works, 19), Saint Louis, MO: Concordia.
• Marett, Robert Ranulph, 1909, The Threshold of Religion , London: Methuen and Co.
• Martin, Craig, 2009, “Delimiting Religion”, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion , 21(2): 157–176. doi:10.1163/157006809X431015
• Mason, Steve, 2019, “Our Language and Theirs: ‘Religious’ Categories and Identities”, in Roubekas 2019: 11–31.
• Masuzawa, Tomoko, 2005, The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism , Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• McCarraher, Eugene, 2019, The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• McCutcheon, Russell T., 1997, Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia , New York: Oxford University Press.
• –––, 2018, Fabricating Religion: Fanfare for the Common e.g. , Berlin: de Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110560831
• McCutcheon, Russell, and Arnal, William, 2012, The Sacred is the Profane: The Political Nature of “Religion” , New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199757114.001.0001
• McWhorter, John, 2021, Woke Racism: How a New Religion has Betrayed Black America , New York: Portfolio/Penguin.
• Needham, Rodney, 1975, “Polythetic Classification: Convergence and Consequences”, Man , New Series 10(3): 349–369. doi:10.2307/2799807
• Nongbri, Brent, 2013, Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept , New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
• –––, 2019, “Introduction: The Present and Future of Ancient Religion”, in Roubekas 2019: 1–8.
• Omer, Atalia and Jason A. Springs, 2013, Religious Nationalism: A Reference Handbook , Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
• Platvoet, J. G., 1982, Comparing Religions: A Limitative Approach , The Hague: Mouton.
• Possamai, Adam, 2018, The i-zation of Society, Religion, and Neoliberal Post-Secularization , Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978-981-10-5942-1
• Proudfoot, Wayne, 1985, Religious Experience , Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
• –––, 2000, “William James on an Unseen Order”, Harvard Theological Review , 93(1): 51–66. doi:10.1017/S0017816000016667
• Riesebrodt, Martin, 2007 [2010], Cultus und Heilsversprechen: eine Theorie der Religionen , München : Verlag C.H. Beck. Translated as The Promise of Salvation: A Theory of Religion , Steven Rendall (trans.), Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
• Roubekas, Nickolas P. (ed.), 2019, Theorizing “Religion” in Antiquity , (Studies in Ancient Religion and Culture), Bristol, UK: Equinox Publishing.
• Saler, Benson, 1977, “Supernatural as a Western Category”, Ethos , 5(1): 31–53. doi:10.1525/eth.1977.5.1.02a00040
• –––, 1993, Conceptualizing Religion: Immanent Anthropologists, Transcendent Natives, and Unbounded Categories , Leiden: E. J. Brill.
• –––, 1999, “Family Resemblance and the Definition of Religion”, Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques , 25(3): 391–404.
• –––, 2021, The Construction of the Supernatural in Euro-American Cultures: Something Nice about Vampires , London: Bloomsbury.
• Schaefer, Donovan O., 2015, Religious Affects: Animals, Evolution, and Power , Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
• Schellenberg, J. L., 2005, Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion , Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• Schilbrack, Kevin, 2013, “What Isn’t Religion?”, Journal of Religion , 93(3): 291–318. doi:10.1086/670276
• –––, 2018, “Mathematics and the Definitions of Religion”, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion , 83(2): 145–160. doi:10.1007/s11153-017-9621-6
• –––, 2021, “Religious Practices and the Formation of Subjects”, in The Future of the Philosophy of Religion , M. David Eckel, C. Allen Speight, and Troy DuJardin (eds), (Boston Studies in Philosophy, Religion and Public Life 8), Cham: Springer International Publishing, 43–60. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-44606-2_4
• Smart, Ninian, 1996, Dimensions of the Sacred: An Anatomy of the World’s Beliefs , Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
• Smith, Christian, 2017, Religion: What it is, How it Works, and Why it Matters , Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Smith, John E., 1994, Quasi-religions: Humanism, Marxism, and Nationalism , New York: St. Martin’s Press.
• Smith, Jonathan Z., 1978, Map is Not Territory: Studies in the History of Religions , Leiden: Brill.
• –––, 1982, Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown , Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
• –––, 1995, “Afterword: Religious Studies: Whither (Wither) and Why?”, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion , 7(4): 407–414. doi:10.1163/157006895X00171
• –––, 1998, “Religion, Religions, Religious”, Critical Terms for Religious Studies , Mark C. Taylor (ed.), Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
• Smith, Wilfred Cantwell, 1962, The Meaning and End of Religion , New York: Macmillan.
• Southwold, Martin, 1978, “Buddhism and the Definition of Religion”, Man , New Series 13(3): 362–379. doi:10.2307/2801935
• Spiro, Melford, 1966, “Religion: Problems of Definition and Explanation”, in Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion , Michael Banton (ed.), London: Tavistock, 85–126.
• Taves, Ann, 2009, Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building-Block Approach to the Study of Religion and other Special Things. , Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Tillich, Paul, 1957, Dynamics of Faith , New York: Harper and Row.
• –––, 1963, Christianity and the Encounter of the World Religions , New York: Columbia University Press.
• Turner, Bryan S., 2011, Religion and Modern Society: Citizenship, Secularization and the State , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511975660
• Tylor, Edward Burnett, 1871 [1970], Primitive Culture , two vols., London: John Murray, 1871; vol. 2 reprinted as Religion in Primitive Culture , Gloucester: Peter Smith, 1970.
• Vásquez, Manuel A., 2011, More than Belief: A Materialist Theory of Religion , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Weed, Eric, 2019, The Religion of White Supremacy in the United States , Lanham, MD: Lexington.
• Whitehead, Alfred North, 1926, Religion in the Making , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Williamson, Timothy, 1994, Vagueness , London: Routledge.
• Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1953 [2009], Philosophical Investigations , G. E. M. Armstrong (trans.), Oxford: Basil Blackwell; reprinted: 4 th edition, Malden: Blackwell, 2009.
• –––, 1974, Philosophical Grammar , Anthony Kenny (trans.), Oxford: Blackwell.

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Nye, Malory, 2020, “ Religion is Not a Thing ”, Religion Bites , 31 January 2020.
• The Critical Religion Association
• The Religious Studies Project
• Centre for Critical Realism

definitions | religion: philosophy of | skepticism | Wittgenstein, Ludwig

Copyright © 2022 by Kevin Schilbrack < schilbrackke @ appstate . edu >

• Accessibility

Support SEP

Mirror sites.

View this site from another server:

• Info about mirror sites

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is copyright © 2023 by The Metaphysics Research Lab , Department of Philosophy, Stanford University

Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054

University of Notre Dame

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

• Home ›
• Reviews ›

Religion and Rationality: Essays on Reason, God, and Modernity

Habermas, Jurgen, Religion and Rationality: Essays on Reason, God, and Modernity , edited by Eduardo Mendieta, MIT Press, 2002, 176 pp, $19.95 (pbk), ISBN 0262582163.

Reviewed by Fred Dallmayr, University of Notre Dame

This is a time to take stock, especially for intellectuals on the (traditional) Left. The end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union have brought to the fore two major conflicting tendencies: on the one hand, the upsurge of religious faith in many parts of the world, sometimes in the guise of a dogmatic fundamentalism; on the other hand, the triumphant rise of liberalism—now in the form of capitalist neo-liberalism—as a corollary of globalization. These developments have a peculiar bearing on the Frankfurt School, which by now spans at least two generations. While many members of the first generation were sympathetic to religion (though not to any kind of dogmatism) in the form of a subdued Jewish messianism, the basic initial impulse of the School—as an “Institute of Social Research”—was the critical analysis of late capitalism and bourgeois-liberal society. These tendencies were nearly reversed during the second generation. Under the guidance of Jürgen Habermas, “critical theory” showed little or no interest in religious faith, preferring instead to champion a purely rational discourse (inspired in part by neo-Kantianism and linguistic philosophy). At the same time, again under Habermas’s influence, critical theory has steadily moved closer to political liberalism, to the point that the distinction from Rawlsian proceduralism sometimes appears as a mere nuance. Small wonder that many observers have detected a gulf separating the two generations. Eduardo Mendieta, the editor of this collection, seeks to counteract and correct this perception. In his view (p.2, p.12), the second generation of the Frankfurt School has “without equivocation” continued the agenda of the first. With regard to religion, a central thesis of his introduction is that Habermas’s work “is not correctly characterized by the image of a temporal rupture between an early positive and a later negative appraisal of the role of religion.”

The essays collected in Religion and Rationality are meant to “constitute evidence” (p.14) of Mendieta’s claim of undisrupted continuity. As it happens, several of the selected essays date from the earlier period of Habermas’s career—prior to his full “linguistic turn” to discourse theory—when he was still relatively close to first generation thinkers; and while chapters taken from a later period—including a recent interview with Mendieta—mitigate the harsher connotations of “temporal rupture”, they can hardly be said to provide evidence of a smooth continuity. The impression of discontinuity is confirmed even by Mendieta’s own (otherwise informative) “Introduction” to the volume. Here one finds first of all a sensitive discussion of the religious leanings of the first generation, especially of its “Jewish utopian messianism”—in which Mendieta detects four main ingredients (p.4): restorative-anamnetic, utopian, apocalyptic, and messianic. Aspects of this outlook are illustrated in the writings of Bloch, Benjamin, Horkheimer, and Adorno. In the case of Horkheimer, reference is made (p.5, p.7) to his appeal to “an entirely Other ( ein ganz Anderes ),” his yearning for something “wholly other” and “absolutely unrepresentable” through which the injustices of history could be redeemed. Similar motifs are found in the writings of Adorno (p.8-9), especially in his treatment of the otherness of the Other as “irreplaceable and unrepresentable singularity,” and his refusal to accept “the assimilation of the singular into the concept” (without dismissing concepts as such). Mendieta also quotes Adorno’s statement: “If religion is accepted for the sake of something other than its own truth content, then it undermines itself,” and his addendum (in Negative Dialectics ) that attempts to capture the Other immanently always put otherness “in jeopardy.” What was common to most first-generation thinkers was the assumption (p.11) that religion remains a reservoir “of humanity’s most deeply felt injustices and yearned for dreams of reconciliation.”

Seen against this background, the following discussion devoted to Habermas gives the impression of a sea-change—despite Mendieta’s assurance (p.11) that the notion of an anti-religious bias is “misleading.” Rather than explicating this assurance, the Introduction turns to Habermas’s pronounced social-scientific endeavors, especially his embrace of a mode of “functionalism” (inspired by Parsons and Luhmann) and his elaboration of evolutionary models of social and individual development. In large part, as Mendieta observes (p.14), these endeavors were prompted by “dissatisfaction” with the first generation’s treatment of rationality, and especially its refusal to take seriously Weber’s thesis of progressive societal “rationalization,” secularization and disenchantment. Borrowing from Weber and functionalists, Habermas at this point developed a comprehensive theory of social life, comprising “system” and “lifeworld” dimensions and moving through the stages of archaic, primitive, traditional, and modern societies. From a social-scientific vantage, religion fulfills basically an immanent societal “function” whose meaning changes over time. Habermas comes close to this view in his statement (p.18) that “the idea of God is transformed [ aufgehoben ] into the concept of a Logos that determines the community of believers and the real life-context of a self-emancipating society” and in the notion that “God is the name for the substance that gives coherence, unity, and thickness to the life-world.” Mendieta also elaborates on Habermas’s “linguistic turn,” especially his formulation of a “discourse morality” and a “universal pragmatics” of speech acts (totalizing all modes of linguistic interaction). Crucial in this context is the thesis of the progressive “linguistification of the sacred,” the latter seen as the “catalyst of modernity.” Religion at this point remains relevant (only) to the extent that it can be translated or assimilated into discursive language. Illustrative here are Habermas’s assertion (in The Theory of Communicative Action ) that “the aura of rapture and terror that emanates from the sacred, the spellbinding power of the holy, is sublimated into the binding/bonding force of criticizable validity claims,” and his parallel statement that “only a morality, set communicatively aflow and developed into a discourse ethics, can replace the authority of the sacred” (p.24).

At the end of this overview, Mendieta reaffirms his conviction of continuity, stating (p.24) that, while “certainly a secularist,” Habermas is by no means an “anti-religion philosophe .” The point here, however, is not being for or against religion, but whether there are sufficient antennae to respect the difference, and respective integrity, of reason and faith, discursive validity and redemptive hope. In a functionalist (or quasi-functionalist) systems theory assigning a place or role to everything under the sun, where can there still be room for the “wholly other” and “absolutely unrepresentable” invoked by Horkheimer? Likewise, in a theory of universal pragmatics comprehending all possible speech acts, where can there still be room for any language beside that of discursive validity claims? Moreover, in a conception of linguistic intersubjectivity construed (with Mead) as “ego-alter-ego” relation, is there still a loophole left for the Other as “irreplaceable and unrepresentable singularity” in Adorno’s sense? As Mendieta points out (p.12), Habermas repeatedly acknowledges the debt owed by Enlightenment and modernity to the Judeo-Christian legacy. But this can be read as a simple developmental scheme. Here the “linguistification” thesis needs to be pondered. Does the thesis mean that, before discourse theory, religion or the sacred lacked language and was “speechless” (p.28)? But then how were its teachings transmitted? Or does the thesis mean that, in modernity, religion will be sublimated or absorbed without a remainder into discursive rationality? In this connection, how is one to read Habermas’s statement (in Postmetaphysical Thinking ): “As long as no better words for what religion can say are found in the medium of rational discourse, it [communicative reason] will even coexist abstemiously with the former”? Does this leave to religion only the options of absorption (in rationality) or exclusion? Does faith always have to “accommodate itself” (p.150) and bend to modern reason, and never the other way around? But how does this respect their differential integrity? More specifically, given the fact that “universal” pragmatics is necessarily timeless, holding good at all times and places, how can it allow for the distinct temporality of salvation history and the redemptive hope for a messianic future animating the early Frankfurt School?

Limitations of space do not permit a detailed review of all the essays assembled in the volume. For present purposes, I restrict myself to a few brief comments. Readers interested in Jewish thought may find most appealing the first and the last of the selected essays, where Habermas displays his more sensitive-empathetic qualities. The first is titled “The German Idealism of the Jewish Philosophers” and ranges broadly (and insightfully) from Buber and Rosenzweig via Cohen and the Marburg School to Cassirer, Bloch, and Benjamin. The last deals with Habermas’s friend Gershom Scholem and his search for “the other of history in history” (a search focused on Isaak Luria, Sabbatai Sevi, and the kabbalistic tradition). As distinguished from this amicable treatment, the other chapters tend to accentuate more the tensional/conflictual nexus between reason and faith or Athens and Jerusalem. Thus, an essay “On the Difficulty of Saying No” illustrates, in Mendieta’s words (p.25), the “relationship between rationalization and mythological or religious world-views, in which the latter must submit to the transformative criticism enacted by the former.” Another chapter, “Transcendence from Within, Transcendence in this World”, goes back to a conference held in Chicago on “Habermas and Public Theology” (in 1988). There, responding to theologians and non-theologians, and defending “methodical atheism” as the only acceptable option for “postmetaphysical” philosophy, Habermas asserts among other things (p.76) that “whoever puts forth a truth claim today must, nevertheless, translate experiences that have their home in religious discourse into the language of a scientific expert culture” (or at least into the language of discourse theory). He also questions (p.81) whether the “ superadditum ” of religion is required if we “endeavor to act according to moral commands.” Another essay, “Israel or Athens”, deals with the Judeo-Christian theology of Johannes Baptist Metz, and especially with the latter’s notions of “anamnesis” and a “polycentric world church.” There, while appreciating some of Metz’s leanings, Habermas comes to the defense of Athens, arguing (p.133, p.136) that “profane reason must remain skeptical about the mystical causality of a recollection inspired by the history of salvation” and that “the idea of a polycentric church depends in turn on insights of the European Enlightenment and its political philosophy.”

Perhaps the distance separating Habermas from the first generation of Frankfurt thinkers is most clearly illustrated in an essay devoted to the work of Michael Theunissen, “Communicative Freedom and Negative Theology.” As it happens, Theunissen’s writings—under Christian auspices and with a focus on Hegel transformed by Kierkegaard—recapture in many ways the Jewish religious aspirations of that first generation. As Habermas acknowledges (p.113), Theunissen maintains trust in “an eschatological turning of the world” and tries to show philosophically “why profane hope must be anchored in eschatological hope.” To buttress this view, Theunissen transforms Hegelian subjectivity into a Kierkegaardian “unrepresentable singularity,” and Hegel’s lateral conception of intersubjectivity into a much more open-ended, vertical relation to radical otherness. In Habermas’s words (p.116), “he is convinced that every interpersonal relation is embedded in a relation to the radically Other, which precedes the relation to the concrete Other” and “embodies an absolute freedom”—a conception that “can be traced back to elements of Jewish and Protestant mysticism.” In this perspective, God as the “radically Other” is present in human history “in the form of a promise, the ‘anticipatory’ present of a fulfilled future” which alone can redeem human suffering and despair. Countering this outlook, Habermas brings to bear a battery of considerations: first of all the “anthropological fact” (p.122) of human self-maintenance (despite despair); and secondly the Kantian notion of . priori conditions of possibility (saying that “the mode of successfully being a self can only be employed in a hypothetical way in the transcendental clarification of its conditions of possibility”—on which basis “faith could only be justified in functional terms”). Finally, the essay chides Theunissen for ignoring the basic tenets of formal or universal pragmatics, which “all subjects must accept insofar as they orient their action towards validity claims at all” and which alone “can provide the normative basis for a critical theory of society” (p.118). Regarding Theunissen’s trust in “a transcendence irrupting into history” and his attempt to provide arguments supporting this trust, Habermas concludes (p.123): “I am unable to accept these reasons.”

My task here is not to arbitrate between Athens and Jerusalem or to judge the respective merits of rational-philosophical and religious-theological arguments. My point here was simply to cast doubt on Mendieta’s claim of a smooth, uninterrupted continuity between the two generations of the Frankfurt School. This doubt is further reinforced by developments in another arena for which Habermas has shown little sympathy: French philosophy, especially in its deconstructive variant. As it seems to me, many of the motifs of the first generation—appeals to eschatology and a “radically Other”—have resurfaced in recent decades in the writings of French Jewish and Christian thinkers, from Levinas to Derrida and Marion. Habermas’s essays make no reference to Levinas, and his comments on Derrida are almost uniformly dismissive. Have motifs of the first generation thus emigrated from Frankfurt into new terrains? Whatever the answer here may be, the concern is that other issues may likewise have traveled elsewhere. I mentioned at the beginning the progressive accommodation of “critical theory” to American liberalism—a trend acquiring ominous portents under the auspices of a globalized neo-liberalism. To Habermas’s credit, there are passages in Mendieta’s book showing awareness of these portents, as when, in the essay on Metz (p.30), he castigates “the barbaric reverse side of its own mirror” which Western Enlightenment has ignored for too long and which has encouraged the rise of “the stifling power of a capitalistic world civilization, which assimilates alien cultures and abandons its own traditions to oblivion.” However, in the later interview with Mendieta, we learn (p.153) that the current state of the world is really “without any clearly recogniziable alternative” and that “there is no reasonable exit-option left to us from a capitalist world society today.” Although deploring the “unjust distribution of good fortune in the world,” redress for this situation belongs for Habermas to politics and economics, “not in the cupboard of morality, let alone moral theory” (p.166). As he reiterates, the “burning issue of a just global order” is basically a “political” (that is, a tactical or strategic) problem, and “not a question for moral theory” or discourse ethics. Does this mean that the poor and marginalized populations of the Third and Fourth World can no loner expect intellectual and ethical support for their plight from Frankfurt? In this case, the rupture between the two generations would indeed seem unbridgeable.

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

Contextuality and Universality in Post-Modern Philosophy of Religion

Related Papers

Genia Schönbaumsfeld

Interactions: A Journal of Multidisciplinary Academic Research

B. Moreno Bragas

In this paper, I present an exposition of the thoughts that could be exhausted from the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and then move on to his relevance on Christian theology. For the first part of the paper, I would look at points that summarize Wittgensteinian concepts in his major works. The major works that are examined are the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and the Philosophical Investigations. And from these major works, I would like to posit the idea that although there is a great distinction between the early Wittgenstein and the late Wittgenstein, the very core of his philosophy was maintained – and that is his principle of ‘silence’. The second part would be on my presupposition that the Wittgensteinian way of thinking has crept into the way Christian thinkers engage their theological enterprise. I am speaking here of Wittgenstein’s notion of the “language games” and the community- formulated characteristic grammars, rules and techniques of particular language games. And, the third part is meant for a quick survey on the influence of Wittgenstein to the major fields of Theology. The major fields (in my consideration) are: Theology Proper, Bible Hermeneutics and Christian Ethics. Then I would proceed to my brief conclusion on the last part that argues that even though skepticism, privatization, relativism and the notion of ‘silence’ are very much prevalent in the academe – particularly in higher education institutions – because of such philosophers like Wittgenstein, there is still a crucial place for the value of faith in the 21st century higher education. And the infusion is very much evident in the interdisciplinarity of philosophy and theology, i.e. philosophical theology.

Jairus Diesta Espiritu

One of the foremost antiphilosophers in the history of philosophy would be Ludwig Wittgenstein. He was said to be disturbed by Nietzsche’s hostility towards Christianity, not really because he was a professed Christian. Alain Badiou interprets Wittgenstein’s use of “Christianity” here as referring to the meaning of life or the sense of the world. Being disturbed by Nietzsche’s hostility to Christianity, therefore, is being disturbed by a hostility to the meaning of life. Yet Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus renders the meaning of life ineffable—which constitutes his antiphilosophical, archi-aesthetic act. Badiou, however, deliberately limits this analysis to the Tractatus. He believes that the Philosophical Investigations is an unfinished work and that it is already the work of a sophist. The antiphilosophy in the former work is seen as absent in the latter. However, this paper will argue that the Philosophical Investigations renders the meaning of life ineffable as well, thereby constituting the continuation of the antiphilosophical archi-aesthetic act of the Tractatus. Instead of drawing out the meaning of life from the meaningful via a picture theory, the Investigations now limits the bounds of sense via the language game. What is deemed ineffable outside the language game—the meaning of life, the sense of the world—is now limited to a pure showing. The archi-aesthetic act is therefore present in the Investigations as it permeates the whole of the Tractatus. In Wittgenstein’s special sense, the Tractatus is indeed “Christian” and this paper will now attempt to “Christianize” his later work, the Philosophical Investigations. This paper was presented in the first International Conference on Philosophy and Meaning in Life held in Hokkaido University in Japan.

Osman Bilen

Wittgenstein’s remarks on religion and religious language has some bearings on the current discussions on place of the religion in the secular societies. Early Wittgenstein represents a restrictive concept of religion as the religious language remains beyond the limits of ordinary experience and senses. In the Investigations religious life regarded as one form of life among other life experiences and hence the religious expression may as well constitutes a particular language game in itself. Wittgenstenians are divided on implications of this new conception of religion later works of Wittgenstein indicates.In this article I will analyze the implications of Wittgenstein’s concept of religion and religious language in the context of his later works. The question about the religion as a form of life needs to be answered as follows: Is religious language, according to Wittgenstein, a closed discourse that only within particular religious language game becomes meaningful? Or does Wittgen...

The paper examines the use of religious language in the light of Wittgenstein's two philosophies – the logical atomism of the Tractatus and the more complex approach Wittgenstein later adopted and which received its clearest formulation in the Philosophical Investigations. I use Wittgenstein's two philosophies to examine the assertions of religious fundamentalism – which the Oxford English dictionary defines as “a form of a religion, that upholds belief in the strict, literal interpretation of scripture.” propose to examine to what extent, if at all, it is possible to uphold a belief in the strict, literal interpretation of scripture. The particular example of Christian fundamentalism I use is taken from Thelyphthora, published between 1780-1 and written by Martin Madan, an English Christian theologian. The reason for using this rather obscure work is not so much becasue I want to examine Madan's specific concerns, but because Madan actually makes some very clear remarks about what he takes the meaning of the language of the Bible to be. He makes explicit, so to speak, his theory of meaning. And in doing that, I think he makes clear what kind of theory of meaning must underpin the idea that we can uphold a belief in the strict, literal interpretation of scripture.

American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

David Rozema

International journal of social sciences

Peter Ottuh

Wittgenstein’s profound thought had rich implications regarding religious belief and religion. In his early philosophy, silence occupies a central place to articulate what is beyond the boundary of language. Silence overcomes the limits of human language. In Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, religious language and different religious languages are legitimized by the multiple uses of language. An evaluation of his linguistic philosophy and its application in religious belief reveals that despite the limitations of his philosophy, Wittgenstein has enriched the contemporary philosophy of religion. This paper discusses the meaningful talk about religion, religious speech acts and religious rituals with Wittgenstein’s later understanding of the religious domain. Though Wittgenstein was not a religious man, he saw things from a religious point of view. His insight on religious belief can be seen from different perspectives. From a pragmatic perspective, religious language is very much tied...

Haralambos Ventis

At such times I felt something was drawing me away, and I kept fancying that if I walked straight on, far, far away and reached that line where sky and earth meet, there I should find the key to the mystery, there I should see a new life a thousand times richer and more turbulent than ours.-Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot. Abstract In this paper, I shall attempt to reclaim the conceptual validity of theological statements from the widely endorsed attacks occasioned by Wittgensteinian immanentism. I shall further argue that the exercise of a critical theology is very essential to the health of religions, affording as it does the latter's main chance for self-criticism – a vital feat, given the non-falsifiable nature of religious claims and the intolerance they can yield.

Tamara Dobler

Lodz Papers in Pragmatics

RELATED PAPERS

Alejandro Echeverry

Anales de Pediatría

Larissa Colindres

Paula Soares

Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional

Lucas P Rezende

Richard Coss

Journal of Teaching and Learning Physics

chaerul rochman

Salah Sadek

Saúde em Debate

Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science

Stephen Christiansen

Journal of the Neurological Sciences

Sonia Ancoli-israel

Bernardo Agudelo

Journal of Computer Science and Cybernetics

Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology and Oral Radiology

Patricia Grossi

pkl tangerang

Rizky Wisnu

New Journal of Chemistry

saban tekin

Cardiology Journal

Francesco Lavarra

Nature Reviews Nephrology

James Mathew

Julio Mezcua Rodriguez

Journal of Food Biochemistry

Priyanka Yadav

Journal of Pharmacology and Toxicology

Mohamed Shabi

Canadian Journal of Economics

Steve Ambler

BMC Public Health

Hans Dupont

Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences

Harshawardhan Choudhary

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment

Prof Ahmed Mohamed Badheeb

See More Documents Like This

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

• Search Menu
• Browse content in Arts and Humanities
• Browse content in Archaeology
• Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
• Archaeological Methodology and Techniques
• Archaeology by Region
• Archaeology of Religion
• Archaeology of Trade and Exchange
• Biblical Archaeology
• Contemporary and Public Archaeology
• Environmental Archaeology
• Historical Archaeology
• History and Theory of Archaeology
• Industrial Archaeology
• Landscape Archaeology
• Mortuary Archaeology
• Prehistoric Archaeology
• Underwater Archaeology
• Urban Archaeology
• Zooarchaeology
• Browse content in Architecture
• Architectural Structure and Design
• History of Architecture
• Residential and Domestic Buildings
• Theory of Architecture
• Browse content in Art
• Art Subjects and Themes
• History of Art
• Industrial and Commercial Art
• Theory of Art
• Biographical Studies
• Byzantine Studies
• Browse content in Classical Studies
• Classical History
• Classical Philosophy
• Classical Mythology
• Classical Literature
• Classical Reception
• Classical Art and Architecture
• Classical Oratory and Rhetoric
• Greek and Roman Epigraphy
• Greek and Roman Law
• Greek and Roman Papyrology
• Greek and Roman Archaeology
• Late Antiquity
• Religion in the Ancient World
• Digital Humanities
• Browse content in History
• Colonialism and Imperialism
• Diplomatic History
• Environmental History
• Genealogy, Heraldry, Names, and Honours
• Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
• Historical Geography
• History by Period
• History of Emotions
• History of Agriculture
• History of Education
• History of Gender and Sexuality
• Industrial History
• Intellectual History
• International History
• Labour History
• Legal and Constitutional History
• Local and Family History
• Maritime History
• Military History
• National Liberation and Post-Colonialism
• Oral History
• Political History
• Public History
• Regional and National History
• Revolutions and Rebellions
• Slavery and Abolition of Slavery
• Social and Cultural History
• Theory, Methods, and Historiography
• Urban History
• World History
• Browse content in Language Teaching and Learning
• Language Learning (Specific Skills)
• Language Teaching Theory and Methods
• Browse content in Linguistics
• Applied Linguistics
• Cognitive Linguistics
• Computational Linguistics
• Forensic Linguistics
• Grammar, Syntax and Morphology
• Historical and Diachronic Linguistics
• History of English
• Language Acquisition
• Language Evolution
• Language Reference
• Language Variation
• Language Families
• Lexicography
• Linguistic Anthropology
• Linguistic Theories
• Linguistic Typology
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Psycholinguistics
• Sociolinguistics
• Translation and Interpretation
• Writing Systems
• Browse content in Literature

Bibliography

• Children's Literature Studies
• Literary Studies (Asian)
• Literary Studies (European)
• Literary Studies (Eco-criticism)
• Literary Studies (Romanticism)
• Literary Studies (American)
• Literary Studies (Modernism)
• Literary Studies - World
• Literary Studies (1500 to 1800)
• Literary Studies (19th Century)
• Literary Studies (20th Century onwards)
• Literary Studies (African American Literature)
• Literary Studies (British and Irish)
• Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)
• Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers)
• Literary Studies (Gender Studies)
• Literary Studies (Graphic Novels)
• Literary Studies (History of the Book)
• Literary Studies (Plays and Playwrights)
• Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
• Literary Studies (Postcolonial Literature)
• Literary Studies (Queer Studies)
• Literary Studies (Science Fiction)
• Literary Studies (Travel Literature)
• Literary Studies (War Literature)
• Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
• Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
• Mythology and Folklore
• Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
• Browse content in Media Studies
• Browse content in Music
• Applied Music
• Dance and Music
• Ethics in Music
• Ethnomusicology
• Gender and Sexuality in Music
• Medicine and Music
• Music Cultures
• Music and Religion
• Music and Media
• Music and Culture
• Music Education and Pedagogy
• Music Theory and Analysis
• Musical Scores, Lyrics, and Libretti
• Musical Structures, Styles, and Techniques
• Musicology and Music History
• Performance Practice and Studies
• Race and Ethnicity in Music
• Sound Studies
• Browse content in Performing Arts
• Browse content in Philosophy
• Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
• Epistemology
• Feminist Philosophy
• History of Western Philosophy
• Metaphysics
• Moral Philosophy
• Non-Western Philosophy
• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Language
• Philosophy of Mind
• Philosophy of Perception
• Philosophy of Action
• Philosophy of Law
• Philosophy of Religion
• Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
• Practical Ethics
• Social and Political Philosophy
• Browse content in Religion
• Biblical Studies
• Christianity
• East Asian Religions
• History of Religion
• Judaism and Jewish Studies
• Qumran Studies
• Religion and Education
• Religion and Health
• Religion and Politics
• Religion and Science
• Religion and Law
• Religion and Art, Literature, and Music
• Religious Studies
• Browse content in Society and Culture
• Cookery, Food, and Drink
• Cultural Studies
• Customs and Traditions
• Ethical Issues and Debates
• Hobbies, Games, Arts and Crafts
• Lifestyle, Home, and Garden
• Natural world, Country Life, and Pets
• Popular Beliefs and Controversial Knowledge
• Sports and Outdoor Recreation
• Technology and Society
• Travel and Holiday
• Visual Culture
• Browse content in Law
• Arbitration
• Browse content in Company and Commercial Law
• Commercial Law
• Company Law
• Browse content in Comparative Law
• Systems of Law
• Competition Law
• Browse content in Constitutional and Administrative Law
• Government Powers
• Judicial Review
• Local Government Law
• Military and Defence Law
• Parliamentary and Legislative Practice
• Construction Law
• Contract Law
• Browse content in Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure
• Criminal Evidence Law
• Sentencing and Punishment
• Employment and Labour Law
• Environment and Energy Law
• Browse content in Financial Law
• Banking Law
• Insolvency Law
• History of Law
• Human Rights and Immigration
• Intellectual Property Law
• Browse content in International Law
• Private International Law and Conflict of Laws
• Public International Law
• IT and Communications Law
• Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law
• Law and Politics
• Law and Society
• Browse content in Legal System and Practice
• Courts and Procedure
• Legal Skills and Practice
• Primary Sources of Law
• Regulation of Legal Profession
• Medical and Healthcare Law
• Browse content in Policing
• Criminal Investigation and Detection
• Police and Security Services
• Police Procedure and Law
• Police Regional Planning
• Browse content in Property Law
• Personal Property Law
• Study and Revision
• Terrorism and National Security Law
• Browse content in Trusts Law
• Wills and Probate or Succession
• Browse content in Medicine and Health
• Browse content in Allied Health Professions
• Arts Therapies
• Clinical Science
• Dietetics and Nutrition
• Occupational Therapy
• Operating Department Practice
• Physiotherapy
• Radiography
• Speech and Language Therapy
• Browse content in Anaesthetics
• General Anaesthesia
• Neuroanaesthesia
• Browse content in Clinical Medicine
• Acute Medicine
• Cardiovascular Medicine
• Clinical Genetics
• Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
• Dermatology
• Endocrinology and Diabetes
• Gastroenterology
• Genito-urinary Medicine
• Geriatric Medicine
• Infectious Diseases
• Medical Toxicology
• Medical Oncology
• Pain Medicine
• Palliative Medicine
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology
• Rheumatology
• Sleep Medicine
• Sports and Exercise Medicine
• Clinical Neuroscience
• Community Medical Services
• Critical Care
• Emergency Medicine
• Forensic Medicine
• Haematology
• History of Medicine
• Browse content in Medical Dentistry
• Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
• Paediatric Dentistry
• Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics
• Surgical Dentistry
• Browse content in Medical Skills
• Clinical Skills
• Communication Skills
• Nursing Skills
• Surgical Skills
• Medical Ethics
• Medical Statistics and Methodology
• Browse content in Neurology
• Clinical Neurophysiology
• Neuropathology
• Nursing Studies
• Browse content in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
• Gynaecology
• Occupational Medicine
• Ophthalmology
• Otolaryngology (ENT)
• Browse content in Paediatrics
• Neonatology
• Browse content in Pathology
• Chemical Pathology
• Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics
• Histopathology
• Medical Microbiology and Virology
• Patient Education and Information
• Browse content in Pharmacology
• Psychopharmacology
• Browse content in Popular Health
• Caring for Others
• Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Self-help and Personal Development
• Browse content in Preclinical Medicine
• Cell Biology
• Molecular Biology and Genetics
• Reproduction, Growth and Development
• Primary Care
• Professional Development in Medicine
• Browse content in Psychiatry
• Addiction Medicine
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Forensic Psychiatry
• Learning Disabilities
• Old Age Psychiatry
• Psychotherapy
• Browse content in Public Health and Epidemiology
• Epidemiology
• Public Health
• Browse content in Radiology
• Clinical Radiology
• Interventional Radiology
• Nuclear Medicine
• Radiation Oncology
• Reproductive Medicine
• Browse content in Surgery
• Cardiothoracic Surgery
• Gastro-intestinal and Colorectal Surgery
• General Surgery
• Neurosurgery
• Paediatric Surgery
• Peri-operative Care
• Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
• Surgical Oncology
• Transplant Surgery
• Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery
• Vascular Surgery
• Browse content in Science and Mathematics
• Browse content in Biological Sciences
• Aquatic Biology
• Biochemistry
• Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
• Developmental Biology
• Ecology and Conservation
• Evolutionary Biology
• Genetics and Genomics
• Microbiology
• Molecular and Cell Biology
• Natural History
• Plant Sciences and Forestry
• Research Methods in Life Sciences
• Structural Biology
• Systems Biology
• Zoology and Animal Sciences
• Browse content in Chemistry
• Analytical Chemistry
• Computational Chemistry
• Crystallography
• Environmental Chemistry
• Industrial Chemistry
• Inorganic Chemistry
• Materials Chemistry
• Medicinal Chemistry
• Mineralogy and Gems
• Organic Chemistry
• Physical Chemistry
• Polymer Chemistry
• Study and Communication Skills in Chemistry
• Theoretical Chemistry
• Browse content in Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Architecture and Logic Design
• Game Studies
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Mathematical Theory of Computation
• Programming Languages
• Software Engineering
• Systems Analysis and Design
• Virtual Reality
• Browse content in Computing
• Business Applications
• Computer Security
• Computer Games
• Computer Networking and Communications
• Digital Lifestyle
• Graphical and Digital Media Applications
• Operating Systems
• Browse content in Earth Sciences and Geography
• Atmospheric Sciences
• Environmental Geography
• Geology and the Lithosphere
• Maps and Map-making
• Meteorology and Climatology
• Oceanography and Hydrology
• Palaeontology
• Physical Geography and Topography
• Regional Geography
• Soil Science
• Urban Geography
• Browse content in Engineering and Technology
• Agriculture and Farming
• Biological Engineering
• Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Building
• Electronics and Communications Engineering
• Energy Technology
• Engineering (General)
• Environmental Science, Engineering, and Technology
• History of Engineering and Technology
• Mechanical Engineering and Materials
• Technology of Industrial Chemistry
• Transport Technology and Trades
• Browse content in Environmental Science
• Applied Ecology (Environmental Science)
• Conservation of the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Environmental Sustainability
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Environmental Science)
• Management of Land and Natural Resources (Environmental Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environmental Science)
• Nuclear Issues (Environmental Science)
• Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Environmental Science)
• History of Science and Technology
• Browse content in Materials Science
• Ceramics and Glasses
• Composite Materials
• Metals, Alloying, and Corrosion
• Nanotechnology
• Browse content in Mathematics
• Applied Mathematics
• Biomathematics and Statistics
• History of Mathematics
• Mathematical Education
• Mathematical Finance
• Mathematical Analysis
• Numerical and Computational Mathematics
• Probability and Statistics
• Pure Mathematics
• Browse content in Neuroscience
• Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience
• Development of the Nervous System
• Disorders of the Nervous System
• History of Neuroscience
• Invertebrate Neurobiology
• Molecular and Cellular Systems
• Neuroendocrinology and Autonomic Nervous System
• Neuroscientific Techniques
• Sensory and Motor Systems
• Browse content in Physics
• Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
• Biological and Medical Physics
• Classical Mechanics
• Computational Physics
• Condensed Matter Physics
• Electromagnetism, Optics, and Acoustics
• History of Physics
• Mathematical and Statistical Physics
• Measurement Science
• Nuclear Physics
• Particles and Fields
• Plasma Physics
• Quantum Physics
• Relativity and Gravitation
• Semiconductor and Mesoscopic Physics
• Browse content in Psychology
• Affective Sciences
• Clinical Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Criminal and Forensic Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Health Psychology
• History and Systems in Psychology
• Music Psychology
• Neuropsychology
• Organizational Psychology
• Psychological Assessment and Testing
• Psychology of Human-Technology Interaction
• Psychology Professional Development and Training
• Research Methods in Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Browse content in Social Sciences
• Browse content in Anthropology
• Anthropology of Religion
• Human Evolution
• Medical Anthropology
• Physical Anthropology
• Regional Anthropology
• Social and Cultural Anthropology
• Theory and Practice of Anthropology
• Browse content in Business and Management
• Business Strategy
• Business Ethics
• Business History
• Business and Government
• Business and Technology
• Business and the Environment
• Comparative Management
• Corporate Governance
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Entrepreneurship
• Health Management
• Human Resource Management
• Industrial and Employment Relations
• Industry Studies
• Information and Communication Technologies
• International Business
• Knowledge Management
• Management and Management Techniques
• Operations Management
• Organizational Theory and Behaviour
• Pensions and Pension Management
• Public and Nonprofit Management
• Strategic Management
• Supply Chain Management
• Browse content in Criminology and Criminal Justice
• Criminal Justice
• Criminology
• Forms of Crime
• International and Comparative Criminology
• Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
• Development Studies
• Browse content in Economics
• Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Resource Economics
• Asian Economics
• Behavioural Finance
• Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics
• Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
• Economic Systems
• Economic History
• Economic Methodology
• Economic Development and Growth
• Financial Markets
• Financial Institutions and Services
• General Economics and Teaching
• Health, Education, and Welfare
• History of Economic Thought
• International Economics
• Labour and Demographic Economics
• Law and Economics
• Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
• Microeconomics
• Public Economics
• Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
• Welfare Economics
• Browse content in Education
• Adult Education and Continuous Learning
• Care and Counselling of Students
• Early Childhood and Elementary Education
• Educational Equipment and Technology
• Educational Strategies and Policy
• Higher and Further Education
• Organization and Management of Education
• Philosophy and Theory of Education
• Schools Studies
• Secondary Education
• Teaching of a Specific Subject
• Teaching of Specific Groups and Special Educational Needs
• Teaching Skills and Techniques
• Browse content in Environment
• Applied Ecology (Social Science)
• Climate Change
• Conservation of the Environment (Social Science)
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Social Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environment)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Social Science)
• Browse content in Human Geography
• Cultural Geography
• Economic Geography
• Political Geography
• Browse content in Interdisciplinary Studies
• Communication Studies
• Museums, Libraries, and Information Sciences
• Browse content in Politics
• African Politics
• Asian Politics
• Chinese Politics
• Comparative Politics
• Conflict Politics
• Elections and Electoral Studies
• Environmental Politics
• European Union
• Foreign Policy
• Gender and Politics
• Human Rights and Politics
• Indian Politics
• International Relations
• International Organization (Politics)
• International Political Economy
• Irish Politics
• Latin American Politics
• Middle Eastern Politics
• Political Methodology
• Political Communication
• Political Philosophy
• Political Sociology
• Political Behaviour
• Political Economy
• Political Institutions
• Political Theory
• Politics and Law
• Public Administration
• Public Policy
• Quantitative Political Methodology
• Regional Political Studies
• Russian Politics
• Security Studies
• State and Local Government
• UK Politics
• US Politics
• Browse content in Regional and Area Studies
• African Studies
• Asian Studies
• East Asian Studies
• Japanese Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Middle Eastern Studies
• Native American Studies
• Scottish Studies
• Browse content in Research and Information
• Research Methods
• Browse content in Social Work
• Addictions and Substance Misuse
• Adoption and Fostering
• Care of the Elderly
• Child and Adolescent Social Work
• Couple and Family Social Work
• Developmental and Physical Disabilities Social Work
• Direct Practice and Clinical Social Work
• Emergency Services
• Human Behaviour and the Social Environment
• International and Global Issues in Social Work
• Mental and Behavioural Health
• Social Justice and Human Rights
• Social Policy and Advocacy
• Social Work and Crime and Justice
• Social Work Macro Practice
• Social Work Practice Settings
• Social Work Research and Evidence-based Practice
• Welfare and Benefit Systems
• Browse content in Sociology
• Childhood Studies
• Community Development
• Comparative and Historical Sociology
• Economic Sociology
• Gender and Sexuality
• Gerontology and Ageing
• Health, Illness, and Medicine
• Marriage and the Family
• Migration Studies
• Occupations, Professions, and Work
• Organizations
• Population and Demography
• Race and Ethnicity
• Social Theory
• Social Movements and Social Change
• Social Research and Statistics
• Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
• Sociology of Religion
• Sociology of Education
• Sport and Leisure
• Urban and Rural Studies
• Browse content in Warfare and Defence
• Defence Strategy, Planning, and Research
• Land Forces and Warfare
• Military Administration
• Military Life and Institutions
• Naval Forces and Warfare
• Other Warfare and Defence Issues
• Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution
• Weapons and Equipment

• < Previous chapter
• Next chapter >

25 Universalism

Thomas Talbott is professor emeritus of philosophy at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, and has defended a doctrine of universal reconciliation in both theological and philosophical contexts. His writings on the subject include “The Doctrine of Everlasting Punishment” ( Faith and Philosophy , 1999), “Freedom, Damnation, and the Power to Sin with Impunity” ( Religious Studies , 2001), and The Inescapable Love of God (1999).

• Published: 02 September 2009
• Cite Icon Cite
• Permissions Icon Permissions

Universalism is the religious doctrine that every created person will sooner or later be reconciled to God, the loving source of all that is, and will in the process be reconciled to all other persons as well. Insofar as Christianity is a historical religion and includes substantive beliefs about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Christians are indeed committed to the view that anyone who denies this historical event is mistaken and anyone who does not understand its theological significance has not yet grasped the full truth of the matter. John Hick, the best-known proponent of universalism among twentieth-century philosophers of religion, has also been one of the most outspoken defenders of religious pluralism. This article discusses universalism and other Christian doctrines, including salvation. It also examines free will and the problem of hell, libertarian free will, and the role of human freedom in universal reconciliation.

Universalism , as I shall here define it, is the religious doctrine that every created person will sooner or later be reconciled to God, the loving source of all that is, and will in the process be reconciled to all other persons as well. There will thus be, according to this doctrine, a final restitution of all things in which all of the harm that people have done to themselves and to others will be canceled out, and all broken relationships will be healed. But Christian universalism , 1 as I shall here define it, is more specific than that; it is the Christian doctrine that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the divinely appointed means whereby God destroys sin and death in the end and thus brings eternal life to all. As St. Paul himself put it, “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19).

Paul also insisted that, apart from the resurrection of Christ, our faith is futile (1 Cor. 15:17). So insofar as Christianity is a historical religion and includes substantive beliefs about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Christians are indeed committed to the view that anyone who denies this historical event is mistaken and anyone who does not understand its theological significance has not yet grasped the full truth of the matter. All of which raises the issue of religious diversity and our proper attitude toward it. John Hick, the best-known proponent of universalism among twentieth-century philosophers of religion, has also been one of the most outspoken defenders of religious pluralism: the idea, which has received so much contemporary attention, that all (or many) of the great religions are not only genuine repositories of divine revelation, but possible instruments of redemption and reconciliation as well. In the end, Hick rejects the idea that, as the savior of all, Jesus Christ was unique in this sense: “only those who have been saved through him are really saved.” 2 But just what does it mean to be really saved ? If we think of salvation as an ongoing process, one that continues throughout our earthly lives and beyond, a slightly more conservative view would be something like the following: all who are being saved, regardless of the religious tradition in which their salvation is now taking place, are in the process of achieving a proper relationship with Jesus Christ, a relationship that may not become fully manifest in some cases until the kingdom of God is fully realized.

Two additional points about religious diversity are perhaps worth mentioning. First, there is no reason that a religious pluralist, as defined above, need suppose that each of the great religions captures every aspect of the truth equally. Even as a Hindu pluralist can coherently believe that many Christians have failed to grasp the important role of reincarnation in the process of redemption, so a Christian pluralist can coherently believe that many Hindus, no less than Abraham, Isaac, and other exemplars of saving faith (see Heb. 11), have never fully understood, at least not during their earthly lives, the essential role of the cross in their own redemption and eventual perfection. Second, the degree of diversity within any of the great religious traditions is so extensive that the question of diversity between religious traditions as a whole may have little or no coherent meaning. As a Christian universalist, for example, I reject the understanding of hell that many Muslims share with many Christians. Does this mean that I reject either religion as false? As it stands, the question has no clear meaning. But so long as we do not confuse religious pluralism with the sophomoric idea that all theological opinions are equal (whether equally true, equally false, or neither true nor false), we can expect that fallible human beings will continue to disagree and to make mistakes as they encounter “moments of divine revelation” 3 in their unique religious and cultural traditions.

In any event, Christian universalists, who believe that supreme power is at the service of supreme love and supreme wisdom, are in a unique position, among Christians, to put religious diversity into its proper perspective. They will no longer fear, for example, that an honest mistake in abstract theology might be eternally disastrous. They will simply proceed in the confidence that our Creator knows us from the inside out far better than we know ourselves; that he appreciates the ambiguities, the confusions, and the perplexities we face far better than we do; and that he understands the historical and cultural factors that shape our beliefs far better than any historian does. Such a Creator—loving, intimate, and wise—would know how to work with each of us in infinitely complex ways, how to shatter our illusions and transform our thinking when necessary, and how best to reveal himself to us in the end.

Universalism and Other Christian Doctrines

Because universalism in its Christian form is a specific doctrine concerning the nature of Christ's eschatological victory over sin and death, one must distinguish this doctrine carefully from any number of unrelated doctrines that a given universalist might hold in addition to it. As an illustration, some universalists (though not the earliest ones) have also been unitarians (or Arians) even as some trinitarians have also been premillennialists. But universalism no more requires the Arian view than a belief in the Trinity requires the premillennial view of Christ's return. Nor does the Arian denial of the Son being coeternal with the Father in turn require universalism; indeed, many Arians—John Milton, for example—have rejected universalism altogether. Among Christian universalists, then, some are trinitarians; others are not. Some accept the substitution theory of atonement; others do not. Some believe in biblical inerrancy; others do not. And that is, of course, just what one would expect; many different doctrines are logically compatible with universalism, just as many are also logically compatible with a belief in the Trinity.

But that having been said, I would also point out that universalism (or at least the salvation of the entire human race) follows as a deductive consequence from the conjunction of two respectably orthodox ideas. The first, fully embraced by the Arminians, the Wesleyans, various Pentecostal and charismatic groups, and a majority of Catholics, concerns the loving nature of God. Because God not only loves, but is love (1 John 4:8, 16), he at least wills or desires the salvation of all humans (1 Tim. 2:4) and is not willing that any of them should perish (2 Pet. 3:9); and because he wills or desires the salvation of all, he sent his Son into the world to be “the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the entire world” (1 John 2:2). The second idea, fully embraced by the Augustinians, the Protestant Reformers, and the Jansenists in the Catholic tradition, concerns the triumph of God's salvific will. Because God is almighty , not to mention infinitely wise and resourceful, his grace is irresistible in the end; our salvation therefore “depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy” (Rom. 9:16). When Jesus declared: “For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:25), he was speaking of salvation in a context where a person's own choices and moral character had made it seem utterly impossible, like a camel passing through the eye of a needle. And his meaning was clear: there are no obstacles to salvation in anyone, not even in the most recalcitrant will or the hardest of hearts, that God cannot eventually overcome if he so chooses.

Now these two respectably orthodox ideas provide the premises for a powerful argument for universalism:

God sincerely wills or desires the salvation of each and every sinful human being.

God will eventually achieve a complete victory over sin and death and will therefore accomplish the salvation of everyone whose salvation he sincerely wills or desires.

From these two premises, it clearly follows:

God will eventually accomplish the salvation of each and every sinful human being.

Of course, this argument, like almost any short, snappy deductive argument, is easily reversed. A proponent of the traditional understanding of hell can simply deny the conclusion and deduce that one of the premises, either 1 or 2, is false. The Augustinians, who restrict God's love and mercy to a limited elect, will thus reject premise 1, whereas the Arminians, who limit the scope of God's ultimate victory over sin and death, will thus reject premise 2. But here I would also point to a remarkable fact: if you reject universalism, you must also reject at least one proposition, either 1 or 2, that other theologians and New Testament scholars in the Western tradition will tell you is a clear and obvious teaching of scripture. 4 So why the unified opposition to universalism in the West (though not in the East)? Why should an assumption about eternal punishment be the only sacred assumption in a context where some are restricting God's love and others are limiting the scope of his ultimate victory over sin and death? 5 My own reflection upon such questions has led me to conclude that something other than biblical exegesis lies behind the fierce opposition to universalism that we find in the Western theological tradition. 6

Free Will and the Problem of Hell

Since the late 1980s, several Christian philosophers have defended at least the logical possibility of an everlasting separation between God and some sinners. 7 But few have wanted to challenge the first premise of our argument for universalism above; 8 most would agree wholeheartedly with the conservative New Testament scholar Howard Marshall, who writes: “The question is not really one of the extent of God's love; that he loves all and is not willing that any should perish is clear biblical teaching.” 9 But if God at least wills or desires the salvation of all, why suppose that he will never accomplish his will or satisfy his own desire in this matter?

Consider how tragic it would be, not only for the rest of us but for God himself, if God should fail to satisfy his own desire that all be saved. A hiking acquaintance of mine, who endured the murder of his daughter some twenty years ago, now claims that, for as long as one lives, one never truly gets over a tragedy such as that. Yes, he learned to cope over time, and I have seen him experience moments of genuine joy, especially out in the wilderness. Memories also tend to fade over time, sometimes mercifully and sometimes against one's will. For who would want the memory of a loved one to fade altogether? As a religious man, my acquaintance also retains the glorious hope of a future reunion with his daughter. But what if the truth of the matter were unremittingly tragic? What if this man's expected reunion with his daughter were nothing but a false hope? In that event, regret and sorrow would surely have the final victory in this man's relationship with his daughter.

The murdered daughter was, of course, an innocent victim. But when Ted Bundy's mother declared, so agonizingly and yet so appropriately, her continuing love for a son who had become a monster (as a serial murderer of young women), she illustrated the true nature of a mother's love and the true nature of God's love as well. Her obvious suffering over what her son had become and her all-consuming desire that he should achieve redemption of some kind is reminiscent of Paul's “unceasing anguish” over the spiritual health of his beloved kin: “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish [or pray] that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people” (Rom. 9:2–3). So how, I ask, could God possibly impart blessedness to the anguished Paul and to the suffering mother of Ted Bundy, unless his forgiveness should find a way to reclaim their lost loved ones as well? It will not do, at this point, to invoke the possibility of blissful ignorance. I have no doubt that God could, as some might suggest he should, perform a kind of lobotomy on the redeemed, obliterating from their minds all knowledge of their lost loved ones. But blissful ignorance is hardly blessedness and may not even be a worthwhile form of happiness in many cases. Would not love judge it far better to know the truth about a loved one's fate, however tragic it might be, than to remain blissfully ignorant of it? And even if God should conceal the depth of some tragedy from us, he could hardly conceal it from himself. So if God's love for even the most corrupt among us is infinitely greater than our own, as it surely is, then his own suffering over the loss of a single loved one would be infinitely greater as well.

So it all boils down, I believe, to something very simple: if the truth about the universe is ultimately glorious, as the universalists believe it to be, then Jesus was quite right to declare: “you shall know the truth, and the truth [not blissful ignorance and not an elaborate deception] shall make you free” (John 8:32; NKJV). But if the truth is ultimately tragic, or even includes an element of unmitigated tragedy, then it will also, by its very nature, include grounds for a kind of eternal sorrow and regret. Many Christians—Kenneth Kantzer, for example—appear to accept the second alternative, contending that human history does indeed include an element of unmitigated tragedy. Kantzer thus writes: “the biblical answer [to the question of human destiny] does not satisfy our wishful sentiments. It is a hard and crushing word, devastating to human hope and pride.” 10 What solace there might be in a religious view that devastates human hope as well as human pride, Kantzer does not say. Nor does he explain why anyone should embrace a so-called biblical answer that devastates the loftiest hopes of people like Ted Bundy's mother, St. Paul, or even Kantzer himself. Why suppose that a loving God with the power to prevent it would permit anyone to come to a tragic end?

Perhaps the best (or least implausible) answer to this question involves an appeal to so-called libertarian free will—which is, by definition, incompatible with determinism. The hard truth, some would say, is that the creation of free moral agents carries an inherent risk of ultimate tragedy and does so because not even omnipotence can causally determine our free choices. Whether essential to our personhood or not, free will is a precious gift, an expression of God's love for us; and because the very love that seeks our salvation also respects our freedom, God will not prevent us from separating ourselves from him, even forever, if that is what we freely choose to do. Accordingly, those who accept a free-will theodicy of hell—call them free-will theists—reject the second premise of the above argument for universalism; they reject, that is, the idea that God will successfully save all of those whose salvation he sincerely wills or desires. For the following rejection hypothesis, they contend, is at least possibly true:

(RH) Some persons will, despite God's best efforts to save them, freely and irrevocably reject God and thus separate themselves from God forever.

As the popular writer and Christian apologist C. S. Lewis once put it, “I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside .” 11 So even though God himself never rejects any of his loved ones, he does respect their freedom, as his love requires him to do, and he will continue to respect it even in the tragic case where someone freely chooses to reject him forever.

The difficulties with such a view begin to emerge, however, as soon as one examines the choice (or choices) specified in RH more carefully. For these imagined choices are utterly different from any other choice of which we might have had some experience. Suppose that God really is, as Christians have traditionally believed, the ultimate source of every good in life and, in particular, the ultimate source of human happiness; suppose that, in the words of Lewis himself, “union with” the divine “[n]ature is bliss and separation from it horror.” 12 If that is an objective truth, even as it is an objective truth that a hand placed upon a hot stove will burn badly, then an obvious question arises: why suppose it even possible that someone might freely choose to endure an objective horror and then, after experiencing it, continue to embrace it freely for all of eternity? 13 Why suppose this even logically possible when the alternative is eternal bliss?

Even if we should grant the bare logical possibility of RH, moreover, this would not amount to very much. For such a possibility would be quite compatible, first of all, with a hopeful universalism , as it is sometimes called: the very real possibility that the infinitely resourceful God will successfully win over all sinners in the end. It would also be compatible with the epistemic certainty —based upon revelation, for example—that no one will successfully resist God's salvific will forever. It would even be compatible with something very much like irresistible grace. For consider this: although it is logically possible, given the normal philosophical view of the matter, that a fair coin would never land heads up, not even once, in a trillion tosses, such an eventuality is so incredibly improbable that no one need fear it actually happening. Nor is RH any less improbable, even if it should be logically possible. In working with a sinner S (shattering S's illusions and correcting S's ignorance), God could presumably bring S to a point, just short of actually determining S's choice, where S would see the choice between horror and bliss with such clarity that the probability of S repenting and submitting to God would be extremely high. Or, if you prefer, drop the probability to .5. Over an indefinitely long period of time, S would still have an indefinitely large number of opportunities to repent; and so, as Eric Reitan has argued (successfully, in my opinion), 14 the assumption that sinners retain their libertarian freedom together with the Christian doctrine of the preservation of the saints yields the following result: we can be just as confident that God will eventually win over all sinners (and do so without causally determining their choices) as we can be that a fair coin will land heads up at least once in a trillion tosses.

But the New Testament picture nonetheless warrants, I believe, a stronger view, sometimes called necessary universalism : the view that in no possible world containing created persons does God's grace fail to reconcile all of them to himself. In what follows, therefore, I shall argue that RH is logically impossible, not just incredibly improbable.

Libertarian Free Will

Let us first consider the concept of free will with a bit more care. Free-will theists have too often allowed free choice to figure into their abstract calculations no differently than an utterly random event or chance occurrence would. Relying upon a seriously incomplete analysis of freedom, they have typically proceeded as if there are no limits of any kind to the range of possible free choices. They have typically specified a single necessary condition of moral freedom, namely, that a choice is free in the libertarian sense only if it is not causally determined, and they have then seemed content to leave it at that—as if there were no other necessary conditions of free choice, which there surely are. For not just any uncaused event, or just any agent-caused choice, or just any randomly generated selection between alternatives will qualify as a free choice of the relevant kind. At the very least, moral freedom also requires a minimal degree of rationality on the part of the choosing agent, including an ability to learn from experience, an ability to discern reasons for acting, and a capacity for moral improvement. With good reason, therefore, do we exclude small children, the severely brain damaged, paranoid schizophrenics, and even dogs from the class of free moral agents. For, however causally undetermined some of their behaviors might be, they all lack some part of the rationality required to qualify as free moral agents.

The obvious question, of course, is where to draw the line, and that question may have no clear answer, because both moral freedom and moral responsibility probably come in degrees, even as rationality does. All that is required for our present purposes, however, is some idea of when an action falls well below the relevant threshold. If someone does something without any intelligible motive for doing it and in the presence of the strongest possible motive for not doing it, then this person, whether acting compulsively or simply irrationally, has not acted freely . As an illustration, we might suppose that a young boy should irrationally and inexplicably thrust his hand into a fire and hold it there, all the while screaming his lungs out. Would we regard such an irrational and inexplicable act as free? Clearly not. The rationality condition thus limits the range of possible free choices, and one must at least raise the question, therefore, of where the choice or choices specified in RH fall. Do they fall inside or outside the range of possible free choices?

Remarkably, a number of free-will theists, such as William Craig, have felt no necessity to provide a relatively complete analysis of freedom before making pronouncements concerning the supposed logical possibilities. 15 They therefore fail to appreciate the following point: to argue against the possibility of RH, as I do, one need only identify a single necessary condition of freedom, such as the above rationality condition, and then argue that the choice or choices specified in RH could not possibly satisfy this condition. But to argue for the possibility of RH, it is hardly enough to identify a single necessary condition of freedom, such as that of being causally undetermined, and then to argue that the choice or choices specified in RH are consistent with this single condition. To the contrary, one must consider all of the necessary conditions of freedom, or at least specify some nontrivial sufficient condition. An argument for the possibility of RH, therefore, requires a much more complete analysis of freedom than does an argument against its possibility, and it requires a much more complete analysis, I might add, than any defender of RH has given to date.

Observe also that, however vague it may be, the rationality condition that I have specified is one that libertarians and compatibilists can both accept; it is utterly neutral with regard to the dispute between these two warring camps. For even libertarians want to distinguish a free choice from pure chance, randomness, or caprice, and the rationality condition is an attempted step in this direction. I now believe, however, that indeterminism of any kind in the process of deliberating and choosing introduces a degree of randomness, even irrationality, into it, and I also believe that we libertarians should simply bite the proverbial bullet and concede this point to the compatibilists. 16 Am I recommending, then, that we give away the proverbial farm and concede that the concept of free will is itself incoherent? Not quite. If free will should be incompatible with both determinism and indeterminism, as more than a few have argued it is, 17 then the concept of free will would indeed be incoherent. But I think there is a way out of the quagmire, a way to resolve the logical tension between indeterminism and the requirement for rationality. It requires, first, that we think of freedom as a matter of degree, and second, that we come to appreciate the following all-important point: some of the very conditions essential to our emergence as free moral agents are themselves obstacles to full freedom and moral responsibility, obstacles that can be gradually overcome only after we have emerged as embryonic moral agents and have begun to interact with the world on our own, so to speak.

As an illustration, consider simple ignorance. If we were created with a full and complete knowledge of God, that knowledge would not be a personal discovery at all. It would not be acquired through a complex learning process in which we formulate hypotheses, test them in our own experience, and then learn for ourselves over time why union with God is bliss and separation from him an objective horror; nor would it require a complex process in which we choose freely, experience the consequences of our choices, and then learn from these consequences why love and forgiveness are likewise better than selfishness and estrangement. Herein lies the truth, I believe, behind the free-will theist's contention that our freedom in relation to God requires that we start out in a context where God remains hidden from us, at least for a season. But consider also how relative degrees of ignorance can severely restrict our freedom and, in that sense, can become an obstacle to a fully realized freedom. If I am ignorant of the fact that someone has laced the local water supply with LSD, then I have not freely chosen to ingest the LSD, however freely I may have chosen to drink the water. And similarly for the free-will theist's understanding of divine hiddenness: insofar as the ambiguities, the ignorance, and the misperceptions in a given set of circumstances conceal God from us, or at least make unbelief a reasonable option, they also make committing ourselves to God in these circumstances more like a blind leap in the dark than a free choice for which we are morally responsible. So if anything, God's hiddenness can render us less rather than more responsible for our failure to love the one whose true nature and very existence remain hidden from us. 18

Now, even as ignorance is both a condition of and an obstacle to our freedom in relation to God, so also is indeterminism. As free moral agents, assuming we are such, we are not mere extensions of the physical universe, nor are our free actions the product of sufficient causes that lie either in the distant past before we were born or in eternity itself. That is the correct libertarian insight, and it seems to me utterly unlikely that any of our present actions are so determined, however determined some of them might be by more immediate beliefs and desires. For we all emerge and start making choices in a context of ambiguity, ignorance, and misperception, where indeterminism could easily play a huge role in the choices (or quasi choices) we make, in providing the necessary break from the past, and in allowing us to emerge as independent agents who interact with our environment, learn from experience, and make discoveries on our own. In a context of ambiguity, ignorance, and illusion, moreover, people inevitably miss the mark, the theological name for which is sin, and fall into error; nor is it surprising that in such a context people will sometimes cling to their illusions or suffer from self-imposed delusions of various kinds. But the self-imposed delusions that arise in such a context no more render someone competent to choose an eternal destiny than the self-imposed delusions of an eight-year-old render the child competent to choose a future career. 19

So the trick is to distinguish between the role that indeterminism plays in our emergence as free moral agents and the role it continues to play after we have become sufficiently rational to learn moral lessons from the consequences of our undetermined choices. Put it this way: it is essential to our moral freedom that we begin making moral choices in a context where those choices are not fully determined by sufficient causes; for, if they were so determined, they would most likely be determined by conditions external to the emerging agent. But it is also essential to our moral freedom that we should be rational enough to learn from our mistakes. So once we begin learning some relevant moral lessons—from our bad choices, in particular—some of our freest choices may be those voluntary choices where, given our own rational judgment concerning the best course of action, the alternative is no longer even psychologically possible.

In what follows, however, I shall continue to use the term “freedom” in the standard libertarian way as we consider the essential role of our undetermined choices in the complex process whereby God reconciles the entire world to himself.

The Role of Human Freedom in Universal Reconciliation

Consider now a dilemma argument against the very possibility of RH. Either a person S is fully informed about who God is and what both union with him and separation from him entail, or S is not so informed. If S is fully informed and should choose a life apart from God nonetheless, then S's choice, like that of the young boy who, against all reason, shoves his hand into a fire, is utterly and almost inconceivably irrational; such a choice would fall well below the threshold required for moral freedom. And if S is not fully informed, then neither is S in a position to reject the true God; S may reject a caricature of God, perhaps even a caricature of S's own devising, but S is in no position to reject the true God himself. Therefore, in either case, whether S is fully informed or less than fully informed, it is simply not possible that S should reject the true God freely .

Stated so briefly, the above argument, though pretty decisive in my opinion, is unlikely to persuade those already committed to a free-will theodicy of hell. But even many free-will theists seem committed to at least half of the argument, for many would accept the premise that a free and fully informed decision to reject God is logically impossible. We see this, for example, in their talk about God's hiddenness: how, in a context of full clarity, we would lose our power to reject God and would therefore be in no position to respond to him freely. In a similar vein, William Craig remarks that “for some people the degree of revelation that would have to be imparted to them in order to secure their salvation would have to be so stunning that their freedom to disobey would be effectively removed.” 20 If by a “stunning” revelation, he means a full disclosure of a kind that removes all of a person's relevant ignorance and corrects the person's mistaken judgments about God, then Craig in effect concedes that those who disobey God freely are never fully informed ; their disobedience always occurs in a context of ambiguity, ignorance, or illusion, where mistaken judgments and errors are real possibilities. And Jerry Walls, to his credit, is quite explicit about the matter when he writes: “I want to agree that those who choose evil, and ultimately hell, are indeed deceived.” 21 Or again: “We can grant that Talbott is correct in holding that the choice of evil is impossible for anyone who has a fully formed awareness that God is the source of happiness and sin the cause of misery.” 22 But Walls goes on to make a twofold claim: first, that the deceptions of the damned are self-imposed , a form of self-deception, and second, that our freedom to reject God forever includes the freedom to cling to our illusions and to our self-imposed deceptions forever. For if God were to shatter all of our illusions, remove all of our ignorance, and resolve all of the ambiguities that make a decision to reject God possible, then we would no longer be free in our relation to him.

So herein lies the focal point of the debate over universal reconciliation, as that debate appears in the current philosophical literature. Almost all Christian philosophers who defend the possibility of everlasting separation appeal to a free-will defense or theodicy of some kind. Because many of them also appear to concede that a free and fully informed decision to reject God forever is logically impossible, the live issue in the current debate concerns the status of our less than fully informed decisions or those decisions made in a context of ambiguity, ignorance, and illusion. Are these decisions truly free? And if so, to what extent are we morally responsible for their unforeseen consequences?

As a first step toward answering such questions, consider Robert Kane's illuminating discussion of what he calls a “self-forming willing” (SFW). It is as if an SFW, as Kane understands it, involves an undetermined leap of the imagination not unlike the leap of imagination that might occur when a scientist formulates a new hypothesis for testing. There are relevant reasons for the undetermined leap and also relevant reasons for a similar leap in some other direction, but there is no sufficient causal explanation of why the leap goes in one direction rather than in the other. Kane puts it this way:

Every free choice (which is an SFW) is the initiation of a “value experiment” whose justification lies in the future and is not fully explained by the past. It says, in effect, “Let's try this. It is not required by my past, but it is consistent with my past and is one branching pathway my life could now meaningfully take. … [In performing such an experiment, I am] guided by my past, but not determined by it.” 23

I find this most illuminating. Elsewhere, Kane writes: “To initiate and take responsibility for such value experiments whose justification lies in the future, is to ‘take chances ’ without prior guarantees of success. Genuine self-formation requires this sort of risk-taking and indeterminism is part of it.” 24 But such quotations also illustrate how indeterminism can be an obstacle to full freedom and moral responsibility. For in what sense is one morally responsible for the outcome of a value experiment conducted in a context of ambiguity, ignorance, or misperception, a context in which there is, according to Kane, no certainty concerning the best thing to do and no “prior guarantee of success”? Suppose that I am trapped in a burning building with two apparent escape routes, and suppose further that, although only one of these apparent escape routes will enable me to escape, I have reasons with respect to each of them for thinking that it might be the best route out. Here, then, is a situation that involves risk without any certainty concerning the best escape route or any guarantee of success. And though the presence of such risk may indeed add an element of drama to life, perhaps even something of great value, it may also seem incompatible with any personal responsibility for the outcome. So if risk taking, indeterminism, and a host of unexpected consequences are part of the process whereby we become the kind of person we are, as I agree they are, then we must also confront the question: in what sense are we morally responsible for the kind of person we finally come to be?

No answer to this question seems possible within the context of the traditional libertarian understanding of intrinsic desert: the unintelligible idea, as I see it, that certain punishments (or certain rewards, as the case may be) are intrinsically fitting responses to certain actions. But if we cast aside this unintelligible idea, we might observe that a value experiment of the kind that Kane describes requires a context in which hypotheses concerning the best course of action, or the best way to live, can be put to the test, so to speak; it requires, that is, a context in which one can learn from mistakes and correct moral failures. In the case of a bad character trait, in particular, being morally responsible for it depends not on its genesis but on an agent's present ability to learn moral lessons and thus to do something about it.

So here, then, is the essential role that our undetermined choices play in the complex process whereby God eventually perfects us: they enable us to make discoveries on our own and to learn important lessons from the consequences of our own personal choices. We may not all make the relevant discoveries at the same pace; but so long as we remain rational enough to qualify as free moral agents, we will all make the required discoveries in the end. For just as primitive humans may have been free on a given occasion to experiment with fire, so we are all free during our earthly lives (and beyond) to experiment with God; we are free, that is, either to separate ourselves from him further or finally to submit ourselves to him. But just as primitive humans were never free both to experiment with fire and to remain forever ignorant of its power to burn or to cause pain, neither are we free both to continue along the path of separation (the logical end of which is the loneliness and terror of the outer darkness) and to escape the bitter consequences of doing so. These bitter consequences, moreover, will eventually shatter the very illusions that made it possible to opt for separation in the first place, and they will finally elicit a cry for help of the kind that, however faint, is just what God needs in order to begin and eventually to complete the process of reconciliation.

A Concluding Comment

Our free choices do not determine our eternal destiny, which, according to Paul, is wholly a matter of grace; instead, they determine the lessons we still need to learn in the present as we travel our own unique path in life. The woman caught in an act of adultery, for example, and the moralists who would cast stones at her (see John 8:4–11) no doubt had very different lessons to learn. But because God has infinite love, infinite wisdom, and the very nature of reality on his side, he can so providentially control our lives that in the end we will inevitably learn for ourselves every lesson that, on account of our free choices, we need to learn. In that respect, God is a teacher than whom none greater can be conceived. For even as the proverbial grandmaster in chess can permit a novice to move freely, perhaps even allow the novice to “get away with” some ill-advised moves, and still manage to checkmate the novice in the end, so the hound of heaven can permit his loved ones to choose freely, perhaps even shield them from painful truths for a while, and still undermine over time every possible motive for disobedience.

I would list John Hick among the Christian universalists (despite his religious pluralism). Others within the philosophical community who have openly identified themselves as Christian universalists include Marilyn McCord Adams, Eric Reitan, John D. Kronen, Keith DeRose, and myself.

2. John Hick , God and the Universe of Faiths (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1973), 177.

The expression is John Hick's. See Hick, God and the Universe of Faiths , 136.

4. Even as the Augustinians and the Arminians both reject a proposition, either 1 or 2 above, that other New Testament scholars in the Western tradition claim to be a clear and obvious teaching of scripture, so the universalists also reject a proposition that others would claim to be a clear and obvious teaching of scripture. For the universalists reject the idea of eternal separation altogether. The Augustinians, the Arminians, and the universalists are all, therefore, in the same “exegetical boat,” at least in this sense. They all reject a proposition that other Bible scholars accept as a clear and obvious teaching of scripture. For more on the theological significance of this point and its relevance to any interpretation of the Bible as a whole, see Thomas Talbott , “Towards a Better Understanding of Universalism,” in Robin A. Parry and Christopher H. Partridge (eds.), Universal Salvation? The Current Debate (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 3–14.

5. Though many theologians assume that universalism is utterly inconsistent with the Christian scriptures, sustained exegetical arguments for that conclusion are hard to find and, for the most part, disappointing. For an exegetical defense of hell that restricts God's love and mercy to a limited elect, see J. I. Packer, “The Problem of Universalism Today,” in Packer , Celebrating the Saving Work of God (Carlisle, PA: Paternoster, 169–178), and Packer , “The Love of God: Universal and Particular,” in T. Schreiner and B. Ware (eds.), The Grace of God, the Bondage of the Will: Historical and Theological Perspectives of Calvinism , vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1995), 413–428. For an exegetical defense that does not restrict God's love and mercy to a limited elect, but instead limits the scope of God's ultimate victory over sin and death, see I. Howard Marshall , “Does the New Testament Teach Universal Salvation?” in J. Colwell (ed.), Called to One Hope: Perspectives on the Life to Come (Carlisle, PA: Paternoster, 2000) , and Marshall, “The New Testament Does Not Teach Universal Salvation,” in Parry and Partridge, Universal Salvation? 55–76; and for an exegetical defense that, either intentionally or unintentionally, leaves the whole matter confused, see John Blanchard , Whatever Happened to Hell? (Durham: Evangelical Press, 1993).

6. For why I believe universalism to be an inescapable consequence of Pauline theology, especially as encountered in such texts as Romans 5:12–21, Romans 11, and 1 Corinthians 15:20–28, and for why I believe universalism to provide the best interpretation of the Bible as a whole, see my discussion in Parry and Partridge, Universal Salvation? chs. 2, 3, and 12; for a similar view, see Jan Bonda , The One Purpose of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998) ; for a powerful defense of universalism from a Christological perspective, see Jürgen Moltmann, “The Restoration of All Things,” in Moltmann, The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1996), 235–255; and for a movement toward universalism within the Catholic tradition, see Karl Rahner , Theological Investigations , vol. 4 (New York: Crossroad, 1982) , part 6, and Hans Urs von Balthasar , “ Dare We Hope ‘That All Men Be Saved   ’   ?“ with “A Short Discourse on Hell” and “Apokatastasis: Universal Reconciliation” (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1988). See also Richard Bell, “Rom. 5:18–19 and Universal Salvation,” New Testament Studies 48, 417–432, and H. Berkhof , Well-Founded Hope (Richmond, VA: Knox, 1969).

An exception is Paul Helm. See his “The Logic of Limited Atonement,” Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 3, no. 2.

9. I. Howard Marshall , Does the New Testament Teach Universal Salvation? (Carlisle, PA: Paternoster, 2000), 19.

Kenneth S. Kantzer, “Troublesome Questions,” Christianity Today , March 20, 1987.

11. C. S. Lewis , The Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillan, 1944), 115.

12. C. S. Lewis , Surprised by Joy (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1955), 232.

As John R. Sachs points out in an excellent discussion of freedom from a theological perspective, one's “persistence in a stance of rejection would have to be something which at every moment was an active ‘effort ’ against the power of God's inviting, forgiving love, something quite different from the final ‘rest ’ of human freedom which freely and finally surrenders to the power of that love” (“Current Eschatology: Universal Salvation and the Problem of Hell,” Theological Studies 52, 248). This article also contains an excellent discussion of Rahner and Balthasar.

For the full argument, see Eric Reitan, “Human Freedom and the Impossibility of Damnation,” in Parry and Partridge, Universal Salvation? 136–141.

For a host of such pronouncements, see Craig, “Talbott's Universalism.”

16. For an excellent argument to this effect, see Peter van Inwagen , “Free Will Remains a Mystery,” in Robert Kane (ed.), The Oxford Handbook on Free Will (Oxford: Clarendon, 2001), 158–177.

17. See, for example, Richard Double , The Non-reality of Free Will (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).

18. For an excellent discussion of divine hiddenness and its implications, see the exchange between J. L. Schellenberg and Paul K. Moser in chapter 2 of Michael L. Peterson and Raymond J. VanArragon (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), 30–58.

19. For a further defense of this sort of point, see Marilyn McCord Adams , “The Problem of Hell: A Problem of Evil for Christians,” in Eleonore Stump (ed.), A Reasoned Faith (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), 301–327.

Craig, “Talbott's Universalism,” 300.

Walls, 129.

22. Ibid. , 133.

23. Robert Kane , The Significance of Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 145 .

24. Robert Kane , “Responsibility, Luck and Chance,” in Laura Waddell Ekstrom (ed.), Agency and Responsibility (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2001), 176.

Adams, Marilyn McCord ( 1993 ). “The Problem of Hell: A Problem of Evil for Christians,” in Eleonore Stump (ed.), A Reasoned Faith . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 301–327.

Google Scholar

Google Preview

Balthasar, Hans Urs von ( 1988 ). “ Dare We Hope ‘That All Men Be Saved’?” with “A Short Discourse on Hell” and “Apokatastasis: Universal Reconciliation .” San Francisco: Ignatius.

Craig, William Lane ( 1989 ). “  ‘No Other Name’: A Middle Knowledge Perspective on the Exclusivity of Salvation through Christ, ” Faith and Philosophy 6, 172–188.

Hick, John ( 1978 ). Evil and the God of Love , 2nd ed. New York: Harper and Row.

Kane, Robert ( 1996 ). The Significance of Free Will . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kvanvig, Jonathan L. ( 1993 ). The Problem of Hell . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lewis, C. S. ( 1944 ). The Problem of Pain . New York: Macmillan.

Lewis, C. S. ( 1946 ). The Great Divorce . New York: Macmillan.

Moltmann, Jürgen ( 1996 ). The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology . Minneapolis, MN: Fortress.

Parry, Robin A. , and Partridge, Christopher H. , eds. ( 2003 ). Universal Salvation? The Current Debate . Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge: Eerdmans and Paternoster.

Rahner, Karl ( 1982 ). Theological Investigations , vol. 4, part 6. New York: Crossroad.

Reitan, Eric ( 2001 ). “ Universalism and Autonomy: Towards a Comparative Defense of Universalism, ” Faith and Philosophy 18, 222–240.

Reitan, Eric ( 2002 ). “ Eternal Damnation and Blessed Ignorance: Is the Damnation of Some Incompatible with the Salvation of Any? ” Religious Studies 38, 429–450.

Seymour, Charles ( 2000 ). A Theodicy of Hell . Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.

Swinburne, Richard ( 1983 ). “A Theodicy of Heaven and Hell.” In The Existence and Nature of God , ed. A. J. Freddoso . Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

Talbott, Thomas ( 1990 ). “ The Doctrine of Everlasting Punishment, ” Faith and Philosophy 7, 19–42.

Talbott, Thomas ( 2001 ). “ Freedom, Damnation, and the Power to Sin with Impunity, ” Religious Studies 37, 417–434.

VanArragon, Raymond J. ( 2001 ). “ Transworld Damnation and Craig's Contentious Suggestion, ” Faith and Philosophy 18, 241–260.

Walls, Jerry ( 1992 ). Hell: The Logic of Damnation . Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

Walls, Jerry ( 2004 ). “ A Hell of a Choice: Reply to Talbott, ” Religious Studies 40, 203–216. 10.1017/S0034412504006912

• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Culture and Religion in Human Rights Universality Essay

Introduction, the debate on the universality of human rights, the role of culture and religion in influencing the universality of human rights, the universal fight for human rights.

One of the challenges that both the national and international forums face is observing all the human rights. If such forums could perfectly manage this issue, problems such as insecurity, racism, oppression, and injustice among other vices would not exist. As a result, some questions about human rights linger the minds of many people. For example, several scholars pose queries such as, “Can human rights ever be universal?” While a simple “yes” or “no” would do, the response needs an intensive and extensive analysis bearing in mind the various factors that play a crucial role is regarding human rights as global or relative. For this reason, this paper will provide well-researched rejoinder to the above question with the sole focus of unravelling the mystery that has befallen the subject of human rights around the globe. In addition, the paper will also compare the answers by pointing out the factors, for instance, religion and culture and schools of thoughts such as relativism and activism that influence the application of human rights. It concludes that such rights may be viewed as both universal and relative.

The issue of whether human rights are universal continues to attract debate from various stakeholders. Human rights are the privileges and freedoms, which everyone is entitled to enjoy unjustifiably. Their universality means making them common (accessible) to everyone across the globe. According to Tharoor (2000, para. 3), ‘The philosophical objection asserts essentially that nothing can be universal; that all rights and values are defined and limited by cultural perceptions…If there is no universal culture, there can be no universal human rights’. Tharoor (2000) argues against the rising ‘Western’ notion that presents human rights as a collective concept while ignoring the diverse elements that play a key role in determining the universality or relativism of such privileges. Hence, depending on the school of thought deployed, human rights may be universal as well as relative if the authorities responsible for their application use moral universalism. Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink (1999) present moral universalism as a concept that encompasses varied principles and values, which are common to all people, irrespective of their social, political, economic, historical, religious, cultural, and intellectual considerations and conditions (Eide 2000).

The universality of human rights depends on the different cultures and traditions. For example, rights that promote the equality of both genders are very controversial. Fagan (2009) asserts that a commitment to the universal legitimacy of human rights is not consistent with the dedication to the principle of respecting cultural diversity. According to Fagan (2009), each community will have its point of view concerning the equality of both genders. Religion also affects the universality of human rights. For example, according to Christians, human rights will not be universal if they are not founded on the values symbolised by God.

Moral universalism is characterised into two – the identity of humans and moral independence. The latter holds that any individual can decide to adopt morality or not depending on the first instinct that comes to him or her. With the help of human moral identity, people can use their morals without seeking influence from the social conditions. These two characteristics of moral universalism make human rights universal since anyone can access morals. Since a vice cannot become a virtue to a different group of people and vice versa, human rights remain universal based on this school of thought. For example, according to Schmitz (2010), murder is evil and punishable by the laws of the United States and in every nation in the world.

Ethical relativism argues against the universality of human rights. It holds that moral judgements could be proven right or wrong depending on a particular ground such as cultural, historical, or personal circumstances. However, none of them has more privileges compared to the other. Hence, the legitimacy or falsehood behind the judgements remains relative to the culture. The relativist concept also holds that the moral principles and values cannot exist, unless the social and cultural conditions determine them (Donnelly 2013). In essence, relativism does not support the universality of human rights because it focuses on concepts that are different from those that advocate the propagation of these rights across the world. While relativists believe in moral diversity, the formation of human rights requires a common moral ground. A relativist is likely to struggle in an attempt to become a strong supporter of human rights. In this case, a conflict of interest may arise. In descriptive relativism, the moral beliefs and practices in a particular place and time differ from those of another, meaning that relativists do not believe in the universality of human rights. Since prescriptive relativism evaluates moral diversity into two elements, negative and positive, prescriptive relativists contradict themselves when they argue that moral diversity can turn a negative action into a positive one. This contraction is in line with Tharoor’s (2000, para. 12) arguments, ‘many of the current objections to the universality of human rights reflect a false opposition between the primacy of the individual and the paramount position of society’.

From the concept of ethnocentricity, one’s culture or ethnic group may be superior to that of another. This concept compares the culture of one ethnic group to that of another with the sole focus of determining the best among them. Since human rights face the challenge of ethnocentricity, they incorporate culturally partial values and ideals from the world’s cultures. For example, in part, human rights may focus on western cultures while at the same time adopting the cultural ideals of the non-western countries. Such a case is likely to lead to the failure of adopting the human rights with beliefs from the non-western cultures in the western countries and vice versa. Therefore, harmonising these cultures is a crucial step towards universalising human rights. Christianity and Islam are universal doctrines on many levels since they have justifiable and equitable grounds for being universal. According to Fagan (2009), similar concepts exist in the universality of human rights.

Since almost every nations face injustices and abuses, both relativists and activists of human rights from every part of the world contribute to helping national authorities in fighting such voices in various ways. This situation reveals why humans rights should be viewed as a universal issue. For example, both relativists and activists help in spreading the truth and moral views in line with the cultural concepts of fighting injustice among other vices that trouble the society around the globe. However, although human rights vary, their supporters strive to promote and protect such gaps.

Relativists are advocates of relativism, which holds that there is no valid point of view. Hence, from this school, viewing human rights as universal is a misguided opinion. This group of people believe that absolute truth does not exist because every fact is relative to point of reference such as culture (Tharoor 2000). Different forms of relativism are applicable in diverse situations. For example, in Anthropological Relativism, the researcher uses his or her cultural beliefs to understand those of another society. Here, the disparity brings out the differences between the members of a culture and outsiders. According to Tilley (2000), whereas an insider is culture-specific, an outsider is likely to adopt a neutral view of the new culture because he or she can describe it in relation to his or hers or other cultures. On the other hand, as Mutua (2001) asserts, philosophical Relativism presents the truth of a particular proposition as dependent on the interpretation of the proposition or context of expression. From the two sides, it is evident that human rights cannot be universal.

Some of the must-do activities that require the attention of relativists include addressing issues related to human rights such as the right to life or shelter. According to Moravcsik (2000), they also have the responsibility of handling matters affecting a ‘particular’ category of people such as the violation of children’s rights. From Moravcsik’s (2000) line of thought, such rights differ from one country to another. Hence, declaring human rights a collective phenomenon may compromise the quality of justice that different countries accord to victims. From another perspective, regarding human rights as universal implies that some countries will be required to uphold privileges that do not have any significant impact on their citizens’ life. Tharoor (2000) concurs with this opinion. He claims, ‘some human rights are simply not relevant to their societies—the right, for instance, to political pluralism, the right to paid vacations (always good for a laugh in the sweatshops of the Third World), and, inevitably, the rights of women’ (Tharoor 2000, para. 5).

Human rights activists have a huge responsibility of providing education on various beliefs and human rights. However, they also adopt different strategies in different geographical locations, owing to the diverse cultures, hence demonstrating the relativistic nature of human rights. Being a relativist and a human rights activist could help people understand their cultural beliefs, as well as the rights entitled to them (Langlois 2013). However, it is almost impossible for anyone to balance these two concepts since they have different beliefs that seem to oppose each other, thanks to the lack of universality of human rights.

From the above expositions, it is clear that human rights may be viewed as both universal and relative, depending of the school of thought that one deploys to address them. The fight for the provision of universal human rights is a challenge to almost every nation in the world because of cultural diversity. One of the factors that make the universality of human rights a challenge is the fact that the western nations have cultures that are dissimilar to those of the non-western ones. As a result, trying to apply the human rights using beliefs from the non-western cultures in the western nations and vice versa may prove a daunting task. However, this factor does not rule out the universality of human rights. Harmonising these cultures is the perfect way to universalise these rights, although the move is almost impossible to be accomplished. Hence, countries should be given the liberty to uphold rights, which contribute to better livers of their respective citizenry.

Donnelly, J 2013, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice , Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.

Eide, A 2000, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as Human Rights, pp.9-36. Web.

Fagan, A 2009, Human Rights: Confronting Myths and Misunderstandings, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, England.

Langlois, A 2013, Normative and Theoretical Foundations of Human Rights, OUP, Oxford.

Moravcsik, A 2000, ‘The origins of human rights regimes: Democratic delegation in postwar Europe’, International Organisation , vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 217-252.

Mutua, M 2001, ‘Savages, Victims and Saviours: The Metaphor of Human Rights’, Harvard International Law Journal, vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 201-245.

Risse, T, Ropp, S & Sikkink, K 1999, ‘The power of human rights’, International Norms and Domestic Change, Cambridge , vol. 1, no. 1, pp.1949-1999.

Schmitz, H 2010, Transnational Human Rights Networks: Significance and Challenges . Web.

Tilley, J 2000, ‘Cultural Relativism’, Human Rights Quarterly , vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 501-547.

Tharoor, S 2000, Tharoor: Are Human Rights Universal? – World Policy Journal – World Policy Institute . Web.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, January 23). Culture and Religion in Human Rights Universality. https://ivypanda.com/essays/culture-and-religion-in-human-rights-universality/

"Culture and Religion in Human Rights Universality." IvyPanda , 23 Jan. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/culture-and-religion-in-human-rights-universality/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Culture and Religion in Human Rights Universality'. 23 January.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Culture and Religion in Human Rights Universality." January 23, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/culture-and-religion-in-human-rights-universality/.

1. IvyPanda . "Culture and Religion in Human Rights Universality." January 23, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/culture-and-religion-in-human-rights-universality/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Culture and Religion in Human Rights Universality." January 23, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/culture-and-religion-in-human-rights-universality/.

• Philosophy Issues: Universalism Versus Cultural Relativism
• The Clash of Unprovable Universalisms
• Moral Relativism and Moral Universalism
• Challenges for Universal Human Rights
• Mansoor’s ‘Universalism’ vs. Harris’ ‘Transnationalism’
• The Importance of Music Universality
• Human Rights: Universalism, Marxism, Communitarianism
• Theory of Culture Care Diversity and Universality
• Ethics of Relativism, Utilitarianism and Libertarianism
• Researching of Postmodernism Theories
• Children's Rights: Physical Punishment
• Ethical Dilemmas in Social Workers' Practice
• The Evolution of Human Rights: France vs. America
• The Universality of Human Rights
• Abortion in the Middle East

The origin in traces: diversity and universality in Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology of religion

• Published: 25 April 2019
• Volume 86 , pages 99–110, ( 2019 )

Cite this article

• Darren E. Dahl   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0293-8732 1  

338 Accesses

2 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

At the heart of Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology of religion one discovers a commitment to the diversity of religious expression. This commitment is grounded in his understanding of the linguistic and temporal conditions of religious phenomena. By exploring his contribution to the debate concerning the so-called ‘theological turn’ in French phenomenology in relation to his studies of translation, this essay explores Ricoeur’s understanding of religious phenomenality where meaning is experienced as the simultaneous advance and withdrawal of an originary event in the traces of its interpretations. With such an understanding of religious phenomenality, the way is opened for philosophy of religion to advance a more robust consideration of religious diversity and, therefore, to reconsider notions of universality better suited to the things themselves.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price includes VAT (Russian Federation)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Rent this article via DeepDyve

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Introduction: Religion as Historical Experience

Historicity and Religiosity in Heidegger’s Interpretation of the Reality: With an Outlook to Adolf Reinach’s Contribution to Heidegger’s Phenomenological Conception

Anna Varga-Jani

Regarding the emergence of “religion” in early modernity and its study as a unified object, see the work of Peter Harrison ( 1990 ) and, in relation to “science”, see Harrison ( 2015 ).

The terms of the debate itself arose when Dominique Janicaud published his Le tournant théologique de la phénoménologie française (Janicaud 1991 ), aimed at what he perceived to be a “theological turn” away from orthodox Husserlian phenomenology in the writings of Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Luc Marion, in particular. In response, a number of seminars were held and a collection of essays was published containing essays by Marion, Michel Henry, Jean-Louis Chrétien, and Paul Ricoeur under the title Phénoménologie et théologie (Marion et al. 1992 ). Both texts were subsequently published together in English translation as Phenomenology and the ‘Theological Turn’: The French Debate (Janicaud et al. 2000 ).

Of the “main players”, the work of Jean-Luc Marion is crucial. Not only was his work one of the main objects of Janicaud’s initial criticism but, in subsequent work, Marion has taken up and responded to Janicaud’s argument. Of particular importance to these issues, see Marion ( 2002a , b , 2008 ). For new developments in a more specifically theological direction see Marion ( 2016 ).

While the volume was originally published in French in 2004, the first two essays were presented in 1997 and 1998. For an excellent treatment of the place of “translation” in Ricoeur’s work as a whole, see Alison Scott-Baumann’s ‘Ricoeur’s Translation Model as a Mutual Labour of Understanding’ (Scott-Bauman 2010 ).

The idea that Ricoeur replaces phenomenology with hermeneutics is found already in Jeffrey Kosky’s ‘Translator’s Preface’ to the English translation of Courtine’s volume. Kosky argues that, ‘for Ricoeur, the description of religion calls not so much for a phenomenology as for a hermeneutic that can interpret the texts and practices of different particular religions’ (Kosky 2000 , p. 118). As a result, he continues, the task of the phenomenologist is to describe a ‘possible religion’ while those who would describe ‘actual religion…would follow Ricoeur and have recourse to a textual hermeneutic’ (Kosky 2000 , pp. 118–119). This argument is repeated more recently by Michael Staudigl who modifies it only enough to suggest that Ricoeur is inconsistently hermeneutical. He argues that while Ricoeur remains tied to affective structures of phenomenality he ultimately surrenders them to an overreaching hermeneutic. See Staudigl ( 2016 ). However, if Ricoeur’s strategy here is consistent with his work elsewhere, it makes more sense that he is staging a hermeneutic intervention within phenomenology. See Ricoeur ( 1974a , 1991a ).

For an excellent treatment of these issues in reference to Ricoeur’s relationship to the work of Jacques Derrida, see B. Keith Putt’s ‘Traduire C’est Trahir—Peut-être: Ricoeur and Derrida on the (In)Fidelity of Translation’ (Putt 2015 ).

In a larger work on Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology of religion (in progress) I explore these issues in relation to his many other essays on religious phenomenality. Among these I draw the reader’s attention, first of all, to the essays collected in Ricoeur ( 1995a , 2016 ) and, specifically, his ‘Preface to Bultmann’ (Ricoeur 1974b ) and his ‘Philosophical Hermeneutics and Biblical Hermeneutics’(Ricoeur 1991b ). Finally, a complete discussion of these issues would have to address his later work with André LaCocque. See Ricoeur and LaCocque ( 1998 ).

Arguably, this dialectic can be seen to organize all of Ricoeur’s writings from his “poetics of the will” (organized around the polarity of objective structure and dramatic mystery) to his writings on selfhood (organized around the categories of “what?” and “who?”). He uses the terms specifically, however, in his essays on structuralism where he seeks to bring to light what structural analysis occludes: the living event of speech in relation to the structures of sedimented language. See Ricoeur ( 1974c ).

The concept of the “trace” is important in Ricoeur’s thought as a whole and this provides a good indication that his so-called “religious writings” are integrally related to his philosophy in general. See, for example, the extended discussion of the trace in Ricoeur ( 2004 ), particularly as this takes shape in relation to the memory trace, the historical archive, and the erasure of traces in forgetting.

Though he doesn’t name it here, Ricoeur’s thought is very close to that of Hans-Georg Gadamer for whom the ‘transformation into structure’ is a key element of meaning. See Gadamer ( 2004 , pp. 110–119).

Like the notion of the trace, the notion of testimony plays an important role in Ricoeur’s writings on religion and his philosophy in general. See Ricoeur ( 1980 , 1995b ). Furthermore, his notion of testimony assumes a crucial place in his hermeneutics of selfhood when it is connected to his notion of attestation. See Ricoeur ( 1992 ).

Along the lines of enquiry opened up by these questions we see further questions—and questions that motivate further work—in an important late essay entitled ‘Religious Belief: The Difficult Path of the Religious’ (Ricoeur 2010 ).

For a very helpful discussion of how Ricoeur’s work on translation points toward constructive interdisciplinary discourse, see Mark Godin, ‘Translation and the Unspeakable: Ricoeur, Otherness, and Interdisciplinarity’ (Godin 2013 ).

Gadamer, H.-G. (2004). Truth and method (Second revised ed., J. Weinsheimer & D. G. Marshall, Trans.). London: Continuum.

Godin, M. (2013). Translation and the unspeakable: Ricoeur, otherness, and interdisciplinarity. Literature & Theology, 27 (2), 157–169.

Article   Google Scholar  

Harrison, P. (1990). ‘Religion’ and the religions in the English enlightenment (p. 1990). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Book   Google Scholar  

Harrison, P. (2015). The territories of science and religion . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Janicaud, D. (1991). Le tournant théologique de la phénoménologie française . Paris: Éditions de l’Éclat.

Google Scholar  

Janicaud, D., Marion, J.-L., Henry, M., Chrétien, J.-L., & Ricoeur, P. (2000). Phenomenology and the ‘theological turn’: The French debate (B. G. Prusak, J. L. Kosky & T. A. Carlson, Trans.). New York: Fordham University Press.

Kosky, J. L. (2000). Translator’s preface: The new phenomenology of religion: New possibilities for philosophy and for religion. In Phenomenology and the ‘theological turn’: The French debate (Janicaud, et al. Eds., B. G. Prusak, J. L. Kosky & T. A. Carlson, Trans.). New York: Fordham University Press.

Marion, J.-L. (2002a). Being given: Toward a phenomenology of givenness (J. L. Kosky, Trans.). Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Marion, J.-L. (2002b). In excess: Studies of saturated phenomena (R. Horner & V. Berraud, Trans.). New York: Fordham University Press.

Marion, J.-L. (2008). The visible and the revealed (C. M. Gschwandtner, Trans.). New York: Fordham University Press.

Marion, J.-L. (2016). Givenness and revelation (S. E. Lewis, Trans.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Marion, J.-L., Henry, M., Chrétien, J.-L., & Ricoeur, P. (1992). In J.-F. Courtine (Ed.), Phénoménologie et théologie . Paris: Criterion.

Putt, B. K. (2015). Traduire C’est Trahir—Peut-être: Ricoeur and Derrida on the (in)fidelity of translation. Études Ricoeuriennes/Ricoeur Studies, 6 (1), 7–24.

Ricoeur, P. (1974a). Existence and hermeneutics. In The conflict of interpretations: Essays in hermeneutics (K. McLaughlin, Trans., pp. 3–24). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

Ricoeur, P. (1974b). Preface to Bultmann. In The conflict of interpretations (P. McCormick, Trans., pp. 381–401). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

Ricoeur, P. (1974c). Structure, word, event. In The conflict of interpretations: Essays in hermeneutics (R. Sweeney, Trans., pp. 79–96). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

Ricoeur, P. (1980). The hermeneutics of testimony. In Essays on biblical interpretation (L. Mudge, Ed., D. Stewart & C. E. Reagan, Trans.). Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Ricoeur, P. (1991a). Phenomenology and hermeneutics. In From text to action, essays in hermeneutics II (K. Blamey & J. B. Thompson, Trans., pp. 25–52). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

Ricoeur, P. (1991b). Philosophical hermeneutics and biblical hermeneutics. In From text to action: Essays in hermeneutics II (K. Blamey & J. B. Thompson, Trans., pp. 89–101). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

Ricoeur, P. (1992). Oneself as another (K. Blamey, Trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ricoeur, P. (1995a). Figuring the sacred: Religion, narrative, and imagination (M. I. Wallace, Ed., D. Pellauer, Trans.). Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Ricoeur, P. (1995b). Emmanuel Levinas: Thinker of testimony. In Figuring the sacred: Religion, narrative, and imagination (M. I. Wallace, Ed., D. Pellauer, Trans., pp. 108–126). Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Ricoeur, P. (2000). Experience and language in religious discourse. In Phenomenology and the ‘theological turn’: The French debate (Janicaud, et al. Eds., B. G. Prusak, J. L. Kosky & T. A. Carlson, Trans.). New York: Fordham University Press.

Ricoeur, P. (2004). Memory, history, forgetting (K. Blamey & D. Pellauer, Trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ricoeur, P. (2006). On translation (E. Brennan, Trans.). London: Routledge.

Ricoeur, P. (2010). Religious belief: The difficult path of the religious. In A passion for the possible: Thinking with Paul Ricoeur (B. Treanor & H. I. Venema, Eds., B. Blundell, Trans., pp. 27–40). New York: Fordham University Press.

Ricoeur, P. (2016). Hermeneutics and the idea of revelation. In Hermeneutics: Writings and lectures (D. Pellauer, Trans., Vol. 2, pp. 111–152). Cambridge: Polity Press.

Ricoeur, P., & LaCocque, A. (1998). Thinking biblically: Exegetical and hermeneutical studies (D. Pellauer, Trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Scott-Bauman, A. (2010). Ricoeur’s translation model as a mutual labour of understanding. Theory, Culture & Society, 27 (5), 69–85.

Staudigl, M. (2016). On seizing the source: Toward a phenomenology of religious violence. International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 24 (5), 744–782.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Briercrest College, 510 College Drive, Caronport, SK, S0H 0S0, Canada

Darren E. Dahl

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Darren E. Dahl .

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Dahl, D.E. The origin in traces: diversity and universality in Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology of religion. Int J Philos Relig 86 , 99–110 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-019-09714-1

Download citation

Received : 30 November 2018

Accepted : 20 April 2019

Published : 25 April 2019

Issue Date : October 2019

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-019-09714-1

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Paul Ricoeur
• Philosophy of religion
• Theological turn in phenomenology
• Hermeneutic phenomenology
• Religious diversity
• Theory of religion
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

Of Unity in Religion By Francis Bacon: Summary and Analysis

Of unity in religion by francis bacon.

Francis Bacon wrote the essay Of Unity in Religion during a period of religious change in England during Queen Elizabeth I’s reign. It was during this period that Protestantism was establishing itself as the predominant religion in England under the Church of England. However, the reformation and the Church of England itself were fraught with dispute. Bacon, an experienced politician, saw the importance of a unified church for the stability and advancement of the English empire, and he authored the essay to transmit the idea of protestant religion unification.

Of Unity in Religion was originally published in 1612, but was expanded to its current length in 1625. The essay receives significance primarily due to the circumstances surrounding its production. Nonetheless, it retains some relevance today. Bacon establishes religion as the primary glue that holds human society together in this essay because, at the time it was written, there were numerous theological disagreements, plots, intrigues, persecutions, and assassination attempts on rulers. He insists that pagan religion be free of strife and division due to the fact that it was based on rites and ceremonies rather than set beliefs.

The essay’s fundamental argument is that religious divisions are detrimental to religion, charity, and peace and should thus be avoided. Religion is meant to maintain the unity of human civilization. As such, it should be a unified force in and of itself. According to Bacon, Christians should remain united around their religion’s fundamental principles. He sees no damage in quarrels about little issues or irrelevant points. This allows for a range of viewpoints on non-essential issues to be permitted. For example, different forms of church government and ritual and worship are permissible, as the Bible contains no definitive rule on these subjects. However, when the Bible expressly establishes a rule or doctrine, it must be accepted without reservation. In other words, unity on essential points is compatible with disagreement on non-essential points. Christ’s clothing was seamless, consisting of a single piece; nevertheless, the Queen’s garment, which represents the church, was multicoloured. Bacon’s advise is unquestionably valuable and applicable to members of other religions as well. Not only Christians, but adherents of any religion would be wise to retain a sense of unity on their religion’s fundamentals while tolerating disagreements over small points.

Please enable JavaScript

According to Bacon, men must not violate the laws of human society or human charity in order to maintain religious unity. Christians have two swords at their disposal to defend their Church: the spiritual sword symbolised by priestly authority and the temporal sword symbolised by the secular power of the government when invited by the Church to defend it. However, Christians should abstain from using the third sword – the sword of the Prophet Mohammed – which implied resorting to bloodshed and conflict in order to convert people to a certain religion. Furthermore, persecution and rebellion are not justified in the name of the Church’s unity. Persecution infringes on the rights of others, whereas rebellion is directed against the divinely ordained and declared institution of government. Man’s obligation to God should not negate man’s obligation to man.

Bacon argues in this article that the Church’s unity is the surest method to safeguard religion. He cites three advantages of religious unity, including the ability to please God and accomplish religious objectives. Secondly, to quell mockery of the Church; and finally, through religious unity, members of the Church can bring about peace, strengthen faith, and promote charity. He has also made recommendations: the church should reject unity based on ignorance of inconsistencies, as well as patchwork unity that is artificial or false unity. He implores both church and state not to be rebellious toward one another, as this would contradict the fundamental principles of man’s duty to God and mankind. One should not act like a devil with the goal of obtaining God’s throne. He asserts categorically that those who convert people through coercion are doing so for personal gain, not for the sake of religion.

Bacon is portrayed in this essay as an insightful observer and practical thinker who was cognizant of the dangers associated with religious debates. He appears to reject prejudices in this essay and makes a strong case for tolerance and a liberal outlook on religion—attitudes that are still important in the twenty-first century.

Discover more from Smart English Notes

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Type your email…

Continue reading

Academic Bibliography

• Download "(...).pdf"
• See all downloads
• Search results
• Comparative science of cultures and t...

Comparative science of cultures and the universality of religion : an essay on worlds without views and views without the world

• Department of Philosophy and moral sciences

Please use this url to cite or link to this publication: http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-600574

Social philosophy of Swami Vivekananda

by Baruah Debajit | 2017 | 87,227 words

This study deals with Swami Vivekananda’s social philosophy and his concept of religion. He was the disciple of the 19th-century Indian mystic Ramakrishna. Important subjects are discussed viz., nature of religion, reason and religion, goal of religion, religious experience, ways to God, etc. All in the context of Vivekananda....

Chapter 4.1 - Concept of Universal Religion and its Possibility

There are so many religions in this universe but no universal religion. There is a plurality of faiths differing from one another but there is no religion which is universal and one, which is accepted by all the peoples of the world. A considerable section has begun to think seriously, in utter disappointment, whether it is not time to abandon the cult of religion if, instead of promoting love and sympathy, fellow–felling and concord, it sows seeds of distrust and suspicion of hatred and discord. In one sense, religion is universal and one, and the particularities, dogmas of religions, have nothing to do with the essence of religion. In each of the religions, the universal religion is working and we have only to find out the essential and the fundamental element. There is no need for any special world-faith to work as the universal religion. Religion, properly understood, is nothing if it is not universal, and our search for a world-religion should be directed to find out the truth of religion itself which, when discovered, will reveal itself to be the one universal religion, which has been the dream of many visionaries.

Religion is a thing which cannot be dismissed easily from the human mind. It is inherent in the constitution of the human being. It belongs to the psychology of human beings. It is a passion, a craving, a desire for something universal. It is a longing for the infinite which will explain the mystery of the infinite, a striving towards reaching something which will solve the riddle of having the idea of the infinite in a finite frame. According to Swami Vivekananda also religion is that which knots the finite self with the Infinite universal self. Man has been endowed with a vague sense of the infinite. He has been given a glimpse of the infinite brightness which, though he does not remember it exactly, is still in his sub-conscious mind, and which rejects everything as dark and dull, constructed with itself. Although man is baffled in his attempts and although he is disappointed in most quarters, he has been given a strange confidence and a neverfailing hope by religion, which invites him to undertake the gigantic task and solve the riddle.

The success or failure of religion cannot be judged in the ordinary way. Though the object of religion is universal, it is to be realized by each individual in the inmost recesses of his heart. And the experience is a private, a very secret attainment which is also the dearest and the most sublime possession of the individual. God is not an object like external objects. The vision of God does not benefit the seer in any way if he is seen only as an external object. God is not only in all objects of the universe but is those very objects. If the mere sight of God would have been of any avail, our daily behaviour and dealing with worldly objects would have bestowed on us the benefit of the vision of God. One who thinks that the end of religion is to see God as an external object has surely misunderstood the whole thing. If one thinks that God is to be discovered as an external fact and that the aim of religion and science is the same one has missed the essence of religion. God is the embodiment of all values; the personification of all ideals. God is the concrete presentation of Truth, Beauty and Goodness. The realization of Truth, the clear and distinct perception of it as a reality, or the realization of Goodness as a concrete presence, as a definite and distinct Reality as distinguished from a mere ideal, is something very different from the perception of an external object as a fact. The perception of values is something different from that of the perception of facts, and the realization of the Absolute value is something unique. The contention of the common man or of the scientist that it has not been possible for religion as yet to show God as a fact to all and that consequently religion has failed in its task reminds one of the story of Lallande who swept the whole heavens with his telescope and declared that there was no God after having failed to notice Him there. We should remember here that a greater astronomer looking at the starry heavens exclaimed ‘O God’. That shows the difference between science and religion. The same starry heavens reveal God to one and hid Him from another. One perceives the value, the other wants to perceive the external fact.

It is to be remembered that the success of religion can hardly be tested by external results. The existence of envy and hatred, mistrust and suspicion, the absence of love and fellow-feeling, in a large scale or in a universal measure does not prove the failure of religion. The created world is a variety. In this world everything is not of the same kind, where everything is not and cannot be good. If it is all goodness and no evil, it is not creation at all. If creation serves any purpose, it is the conquest of goodness over evil which must exist in order to be conquered. Hatred and envy must have a place in creation by the side of love and compassion. If we do not find love anywhere it only shows that the purpose of creation is being worked out. But the religious soul must be filled with love; hatred and jealousy should not have any place in his heart. In his eyes, everything is good, there is no evil. Whatever happens follows strictly the will of God, and what is ordained by God is perfectly good. Something may appear to be evil, to be contrary to our end, but our knowledge is imperfect and partial, and we know very little of the cosmic end. What seems to evil from a partial standpoint may be not only good when seen from the standpoint of the whole but may be realized to be perfectly adjusted to the scheme of the universe and to be absolutely necessary. Good and evil are terms that have reference to partial and special ends. They lose all significance when applied to the Absolute. What is part of the absolute order of things is necessary and hence is perfect. Everything, being necessarily based on the Absolute, is an object of love, is to be welcomed. Nothing that happens, nothing that appears in the order of things, can be despised and rejected. Being necessary parts of the absolute order, all are equally indispensible, all are equally worthy. There is no room for hatred, no room for attraction and repulsion, in such a view. One who finds God as the ground of all things and beings, one who realizes God as a pervading the whole universe, cannot but be filled with love. This ‘Love’ is not an ordinary emotion as is found in worldly beings, it is ‘intellectual love of God’ as Spinoza puts it. It makes no distinction between persons and persons, between birds and beasts, but views all of them as necessarily grounded in and followings from the Eternal order of things. This love which is the sublime possession of religious minds is not to be found anywhere and everywhere, but is, by the very nature of the case, bound to be rare. It implies the rising to a state of knowledge which is above the level of the intellect. And this is not to be expected amongst common men. It is only a few fortunate souls that are favoured with this high apprehension. This knowledge and this love can hardly be verified by any external creation which always falls short of the required level. It is not to be assumed that if religion is true then every man in this universe is to be filled with love and compassion, and that the lower or the baser elements in human nature are to be completely eliminated.

There never was a time in the world when this was the case, nor will ever there be one when this will happen. The world can hardly be expected to be following love and compassion, and if this ever happens, it will mean the destruction of this creation. The evil and discord, duality and difference, which characterize the universe, will disappear only for the souls who have understood the scheme of the universe. This will disappear only for those who have penetrated behind the surface and have seen the indivisible and unchanging One pervading the whole universe, but will continue to exist for others who have not been able to realize that or to attain to such knowledge. There is end of the discord and the disharmony only for the soul who has realized the Truth. The Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of the Spirit become established in the heart and not in the world for the people at large. Each individual is to realize it for himself, is to feel it in the inmost depths of his heart. And if he searches for it outside he is sure to be disappointed.

The question as to whether there should be one universal religion supplanting all particular religions of the world has been drawing the attention of many thinkers. The conflict of different religions, war and bloodshed in the name of religion, impediment in the way of unity because of division into different religious folds, are the major reasons adduced in favour of the establishment of a world-faith. Universal religion may be said to be the most general concept which reveals the very unity and the unique nature of all religions of the world. The very essence underlying all religions of the world is the same. Universal religion expresses the sameness of the fundamental principles as well as the teachings of each and every religion of the world. Swami Vivekananda believes that universal religion exists. Just as universal brotherhood of man is there, so also universal religion is there. It is to be mentioned that Universal religion is neither the product of digressive understanding nor a synthesis of the vital elements of different religions. It is the realization that the different religions are expressions of one basic truth.

Different religions have come out of different traditions and against different backgrounds. Therefore, differences are bound to be present in them. But there are similarities too amongst the different religions. K.N. Tiwari says “But because religion as a whole arises in human consciousness due to certain common problems that human beings have to face in the world and because people of different traditions share certain common feelings, ideas and sentiments, therefore, there are bound to be certain similarities too amongst different religions. Thus it will be equally wrong to speak of similarities alone and leave out differences as it will be to speak of differences alone and leave out differences as alone and leave out similarities.” [1] From this it is cleared that since religion arises in human consciousness because of some common problems of theirs as well as since people of different religious traditions share some common feelings, ideas and sentiments, therefore there must have certain agreements or similarities among the various religions of the world. So it will be partial to highlight only the similarities. Similarly it will be equally wrong to highlight the differences only. A scientific comparative study of religions must highlight both these similarities and differences in a balanced manner.

To find out whether Universal religion is possible, we have to make a comparative analysis of different religions which are present in the world. Different religions of the world do agree or disagree among themselves on several matters. Some people give more emphasis on the similarities, while the others on dissimilarities. Generally those people who stress on the similarities aim at promoting understanding and good will among the followers of different religions. Again those who give emphasis on the dissimilarities alone intend to promote sectarianism. From the philosophical or scientific point of view both the approaches are not tenable. But keeping the social benefit in view the former, i.e. the approach of giving importance on similarities is more desirable. We should always keep it in our mind that the intention of those people who give importance on the differences among the religions creates violence among the followers of different religions. Differences are quite natural among the different religions of the world. But these differences are more apparent with regard to practices than beliefs. Such differences appear only for the different social and cultural traditions in the world. But we must mention here that their differences are only with regard to their practices.

Religions of the world both agree and differ amongst themselves on several points. Therefore, it is wrong and one-sided, to give over importance either on the similarities alone or on the differences alone. People of saintly nature have overemphasized the similarities with the idea of promoting understanding and brotherhood amongst the followers of different religions. On the other hand fanatics have been always active in highlighting the difference. From the Philosophical or scientific point of view, none of the attitudes is commendable, but with social considerations in view, the former has of course proved more healthy and desirable than the latter. The latter has created much strife and struggle amongst people of the world in the name of religion. Differences among the religions are quite natural. It is already said that differences are quite more conspicuous on the level of practices rather than of beliefs. Such differences are quite natural in view of the various social and cultural traditions prevalent in the world. But there is no cause for quarrel because of these differences. Religion in one sense is a means of satisfying the hunger of the soul for attaining a status which is free from the struggles of the worldly existence and there is no reason for quarrel if people of different traditions make efforts for satisfying this hunger in their respective ways.

Nevertheless, it is a hard fact that religion has been one of the most vital causes of strain and struggle amongst the followers of different religions of the world. It has created no less harm than the good it has generated. Fight in the name of religion has been our history. Even now there are many national and international problems which are fully religious in character. The etymology of the word ‘religion’ indicates that religion is there to bind men together in one thread of love or brotherhood, but the actual experience has been something different than this. It has more divided than bound. The following lines of Vivekananda shows this fact-“The intensest love that humanity has ever known has come from religion, and the most diabolical hatred that humanity has known has also come from religion. The noblest words of peace that the world has ever heard have come from men on the religious plane, and the bitterest denunciation that the world has ever known has also been uttered by religious men.” [2] That is why many have preached the end of all religion to be in the interest of man. But without much of argument, it can be seen that this is a foolish remedy. Persons of saintly nature have therefore sometimes prescribed another remedy and that is in the form of the bringing up of a universal religion. What exactly will be the nature of this universal religion is not very clear so far but this seems to be clear from the very nomenclature that universal religion will not be one more religion besides the existing religions from beforehand, rather it will be the only religion prevalent all over the world which will be acceptable to and followed by all religious peoples alike.

Universal religion will be the religion of all religious people, and not of one particular group or society. It will thus be the universally accepted religion. It is felt that once there is a universal religion, all conflicts in the name of religion will be completely over and religion will then play the role of binding all people together in the thread of universal brotherhood. In one sense, such a situation may be highly beneficial. But the question is, whether such a situation is really possible? There is no contradiction involved in the concept of universal religion, so the logical possibility of such a religion is undoubted. If we think of a religion which is universally accepted and followed by all religious men of the world alike, there seems to be no contradiction involved in such a thought.

But here in saying that there is no contradiction in the concept of universal religion, we must be careful about the fact that the term ‘religion’ is being used here in its social sense, i.e., in a sense in which Hinduism , Buddhism , Christianity Islam etc. are all called religions. There may be a religion, which does not cover a society or a whole group under it; rather it is confined to an individual alone. ‘Religion’ is sometimes defined or understood in such a way that it becomes a purely internal affair of an individual. In this sense we can hardly say that there is no contradiction in the concept of universal religion. And there is every logical possibility of universal religion, because in this sense whatever may be universal can hardly be taken as a religion at all. Religion is an individual affair and there is hardly any point in saying that it may be universal. But here we are surely not dealing with such a religion. We are dealing with that kind of religion, which is social in character. We are dealing with a religion which is social in character in the sense that its principles and practices are observed by a whole group of individuals, more often crossing the boundaries of nations and who feel a sense of bond of unity amongst them. In this sense of ‘religion’, there is obviously no contradiction in assuming that there may be a religion, the principles and practices of which, are observable by all religious people alike.

The above discussion tells us only about the theoretical possibility of universal religion. But that does not solve our practical problem which is the real problem. In our actual or practical plans, matters do not seem to be so easy. Our real problem to be seen here will be whether persons tide to a particular religion will ever be ready to give up their own religion for the sake of some other. Religion is a sensitive affair and the bond with which one feels tied to his own religion is more internal than external. For this we need to go into the details of some of the essential elements contained in any religion to which its followers are tied up with a sense of internal piety. We need also to see whether it will be reasonably and emotionally possible for the follower of a particular religion to give up easily these essentials of his own religion and adopt the principles and practices of the newly coined religion called the ‘universal religion’. Moreover, it will also have to be seen what exactly will be the form or the nature of this universal religion which an individual may be expected to adopt in place of his own religion. Or in other words, this will have to be decided what the possible universal religion will possibly be like.

The question ‘What is religion?’ may be answered differently. Theoretical discussion on the problem as to what a man has or does or becomes when he accepts a particular religion may centre around various points. But seeing the whole thing on a very general and realistic plane one may very easily find that what a man has with him in having a particular religion like the Hindu or Christian or any other of this kind as his own religion is that, he entertains some specific beliefs with regard to the worldand-life as a whole and performs certain specific practices which we call rituals in the light of those beliefs. Religion in this light may conveniently be defined as a specific way of life based on some specific conviction or convictions with regard to the world and life as a whole. Hinduism represents one way of life based on some specific kind of conviction or convictions with regard to the world and life as a whole, Christianity another, Jainism yet another. The beliefs include belief in God, belief in specific nature or status of the world and man, beliefs in a specific kind of life after death etc., and the practices include ways of prayer, various ceremonies and rituals and many ethical virtues and duties. We know that all the religions of the world have their own specific kinds of beliefs, and all of them prescribe specific practices for their followers. Of course, there are many similarities as regard these beliefs and practices amongst different religions, but there are differences too. Every religion maintains its separate character due to the specific beliefs and practices that it imbibes and prescribes. Similarly, every religious man is distinctly recognized as a Hindu or Buddhist or a Christian due to the specific beliefs and practices he entertains and follows. One more thing that we may add as forming the characteristic nature of a particular religion is the presence of certain specific religious stories or myths within it. R.B. Braithwaite in his book ‘An Empiricist’s View of the Nature of Religious Belief’ says that every religion consists of two things-(1) a moral way of life and (2) certain stories. The first is primary and the second is only subsidiary, but the two are there in every religion. Every religion is an attempt at setting out a moral way of life supported by certain stories. His analysis may or may not be accepted, but in pointing out the role and importance of stories in religions, he has drawn out attention to a very important aspect of prevailing religions. Every religion abounds in certain mythical stories, which are very reverently read, listened and remembered by its followers. On the practical level, these stories play a great role in religions and the specific nature and character of one religion are distinguished to a great extent from those of the others by the presence of different stories in them. Thus every religion, as its people observe and follow it, consists mainly of three things- (1) certain beliefs (2) certain practices and (3) certain religious stories. Naturally, therefore, accepting one specific religion rather than another by a man means accepting one set of beliefs and practices and entertaining one set of religious stories in mind rather than another by him.

We can consider three practically possible forms of universal religion. These are discussed below. People who realize religion in its true sense never try to establish his religion as the only universal religion to be followed by the whole world. They do not try even to establish a universal religion realizing the fact that all religions are only the different ways of arriving at the same goal. But fundamentalists of each one of the great religions want to prove to the world that it alone has the greatest claim to be accepted as the universal religion. It is because according to them only it transcends narrow local limitations. Many theologians and bigoted believers understand universal religion in this sense. If all become converts to Christianity and are actuated by its noble ideal, and if all follow this religion of love, the evil arising out of a variety of faiths will end, and the world will be a fit place for the establishment of the Kingdom of God, many devout missionaries seriously think. Many sincere Muslims also think similarly that as Muhammad is the last prophet all ultimately will have to come under the banner of Islam and the sooner this is done, it will be better for the world. Buddhism thinks that as it is a religion without any dogma and is founded on universal principles, as it is a religion without God, it alone has the valid title to be regarded as the world-faith and the followers of all religions can accept Buddhism as their creed without any difficulty.

So the first possibility of universal religion is that one of the prevailing religions themselves may be taken universally by all people of the world to be their religion instead of one which they have so far been following as their own. So in its first form the practical possibility of the universal religion means the acceptability of the beliefs, practices and religious stories of any one of the prevailing religions by all religious people of the world. For example, if Hinduism becomes universal religion, it will imply that followers of other religions along with the Hindus begin to believe alike in the immortality of the soul, karma and rebirth, bondage and liberations etc. Again all of them adopt the Hindu way of prayer and worship, perform Hindu rituals and observe Hindu moral principles etc. Besides these, all the people of the world will begin to read and listen with reverence the Hindu sacred stories relating to Rama , Krishna and many other Hindu mythological personalities. But the question is when will it be possible? It will be possible perhaps only then when Hindu beliefs, practices and religious stories prove to be the most religiously satisfying. In other words, when they prove to be such which satisfy the religious instinct and hunger of all the people of the world in the most efficient way. As a matter of fact, any religion which demands to be universal will have to satisfy this condition, viz. its beliefs, practices and religious stories are most readily acceptable to all the people of the world and are most satisfying in nature. But on what grounds can one prove the supremacy of the set of beliefs and practices of one religion over others so that it can have the best right to be the universal religion? Each religion in its own way is most satisfying to its followers, such that its beliefs and practices are most agreeably and conveniently acceptable to them. What will be the grounds then on which one can claim supremacy for the beliefs and practices of anyone religion?

There have, been attempts by some thinkers to prove implicitly or explicitly the supremacy of their own religion in respect of the fact that it contains elements which make it most suitable to serve as a universal religion. We can refer here to George Galloway as for example. Galloway in his book ‘Philosophy of Religion’ views that Christianity contains within it all such elements in the most efficient manner which may make a religion universal. He opines that only that religion may be taken as universal which touches the inner soul of man and which goes beyond all distinctions of class or group such that the ways of deliverance pointed out by it are applicable to all, and not to only a few of a particular class or group. In Galloway’s opinion it is only Christianity which satisfies them in the most suitable and efficient manner. But we can see it very well that Galloway’s opinion is clearly one-sided. His view is based on an unwarranted bias for his own religion. All the religions of the world in their own way try to satisfy the inner soul of their respective followers and its principles and practices are never meant for any particular group of people only. Kedar Nath Tiwari in this regard says, “No religion in its origin is sectarian in nature. Whatever ways for man’s deliverance it deciphers are meant for all, and not for a particular few. It is a different matter that only a few people in the world become the actual followers of a particular religion and such people form a definite religious or social group.” [3] No religion is really sectarian in its outlook. Its message is always universal, although only a few people adopt it and organize themselves under a separate religious group. Galloway’s opinion cannot make the claim of Christianity stronger than the other religions to become a universal religion. As a matter of fact every religion may claim universality and there is every likelihood of a quarrel on this score as to which religion can justify its claim most for being a universal religion.

Dr. S. Radhakrishnan with an implicit bias for Hinduism sometimes seems to conceive the possibility of universal religion in the form of Hinduism. Radhkrisnan in this book ‘Eastern Religions and Western Thought’ argues that Hinduism by its very nature has always been very liberal and broad-hearted and its attitude towards other religions has always been one of tolerance. It has always believed that all religions are struggling towards the same reality. Different religions are just like the different pathways leading to the same goal. History also gives testimony to this universalistic outlook of Hinduism. History tells us that at times, people of different religions from different countries of the world came to India and settled here. The Hindus happily allowed those peoples to settle here and observe their own religions. But in course of time, these religions could hardly maintain their identity in the face of the liberal and universalistic outlook of Hinduism and hence ultimately merged into it. Buddhism originated in India, spread and survived throughout the universe, but it could hardly maintain its separate identity in India. The liberality of Hinduism absorbed it. Those religions which did not merge into Hinduism were greatly influenced by its liberal and universalistic outlook and they have hardly been able to maintain their original vigor. All these evidences amply show that Hinduism contains within it claims of being a universal religion. It can very well accommodate other religions within it. Therefore Hinduism forms ground for a universalistic faith. But on examination we can see that grounds on which Dr. Radhakrishnan believes Hinduism to contain within it the qualities of a universal religion are not very strong. The beliefs that the God or gods and goddesses of different religions are basically one or the same, and that all the different religions are just the different paths leading to the same goal do not constitute Hindu religion. They rather constitute Hindu Philosophy of religion. Therefore the practical possibility of universal religion in the form of Hinduism does not depend upon the fact that it looks to other religions with a sense of sympathy and tolerance. Rather it depends upon the answer to the question, how far the beliefs, practices of Hinduism contain elements within them which will be efficiently able to satisfy the reason and emotion of all the religious people of the world. And it can not be said with certainty that Hinduism contains elements which will best satisfy all the people of the world. As we have mentioned above, all the religions of the world contain elements which best satisfy their followers in their own ways. The historical examples are not doubtless. The merger of a particular religion at a certain time in some other religion may be a sequel to many local factors of the time. There was a time when other religions merged into Hinduism and today there are several Hindus who are daily undergoing conversion into other religions like Christianity, Islam etc. Further, it can be said that if Hinduism has influenced other religions, the influence of other religions upon Hinduism cannot also be denied. It is quite natural that religions flourishing together influence each other and therefore there is nothing special in Hinduism influencing other religions. It is perhaps not because of the liberal and universalistic outlook of Hinduism that other religions merged into Hinduism.

Thus it has been seen that the pervading of one existing religion over all others such that it is acceptable to all religious alike as their own religion does not seem practicable. Which particular religion is competent for the purpose and why, is the basic question here. All religions may have equal claims and the preference cannot amicably be decided. However, the most basic question in this regard seems to be, whether it is practically possible that the same set of beliefs, practices and religious stories may be able to satisfy the religious feelings of persons coming of different traditions and living at different places in different times. The answer seems to be most palpably negative. And therefore the practical possibility of universal religion in the first form seems to be doubtful.

Some others think that the universal religion will be not any particular religion,-Christianity, Buddhism or Islam,-but the religion that will be free from all particularity, from all local colouring, that will have no special prophet, no special revelation, no special dogma, no particular church or particular creed, but will be a world-faith which will be acceptable to all men belonging to different religions and which will bring all men together into an indissoluble unity. So the second possibility of universal religion that, common and essential points of all prevailing religions may be drawn out so as to form common set of beliefs and practices to be observed and followed by all religious people of the world. Again such a religion will be free from local colorings as well as particularities. But religion, isolated from all particularities, from all local colorings, is not what is ordinarily understood by religion and cannot serve the purpose of the religion of the common man. Such colorless religion will hardly be able to attract people, and a religion devoid of enthusiasm and fervour, is not worth the name.

A synthesis of different religions also cannot be expected to serve the purpose. Every religion has a special form which has its own value, and a doctrine or a creed, however valuable and important it may be as a constituent element of a particular religion, losses its significance when it is dissociated from its context and is made to fit in with the doctrine of different religion. The best things in all religions when aggregated together may not only not be the best religion, but is most likely to be the worst, if it be any religion at all. What seems only the outer husk in contrast with the essence or the kernel is not really unimportant Smatter, but is the protective covering that serves the kernel from destruction. It is only in the midst of the local colouring, in the context of the historical event in which a religion has arisen, and in the surroundings in which it has grown and developed, that a religion can hope to live and has the chance of being understood and followed. When these are eliminated in the search for a universal religion or when the best elements are sought to be isolated to the neglect of these seemingly unimportant and irrelevant details, the essence is thrown away along with the refuse and what is left is only a dead phantom, an empty abstraction, an unreal shadow.

The third possibility of universal religion is that a totally fresh religion in a fresh manner may be evolved and people all over the world accept it as their common religion. If universal religion comes about as a new religion, it is bound to be nothing other than one more religion besides many existing from beforehand. No profounder or prophet of a fresh religion has ever wished his religion to be the religion of a selected group. He has rather wished it to be a religion of all the people of the world. But it is an irony of fate that every time when such an attempt has been made by any prophet to give man a new religion of universal acceptance, it has resulted in giving rise to one more religion besides those existing from beforehand. If universal religion comes up in the form of a totally new religion, it will also meet the same fate. So the third alternative of the practical possibility of universal religion is also not tenable.

Thus practical possibility of universal religion in any of its above mentioned forms seems very bleak. In fact, such a religion is not at all needed. What is needed is sympathy and tolerance on the part of the followers of every religion towards religions of others. If there is ever a religion which is universal in any of the above mentioned forms, that will mark the end of true religion. Religion will then be only a fashion, an external clothing. Then religion will be completely cut off from its essence or root. Religion is a matter of man’s inner conviction and the outer way of life is just a consequence of that. Men have the right to differ from one another in their convictions and are bound to have different ways of life in the light of their convictions. That is real privilege of man. If a universal religion is thrust upon him from outside in an artificial form, this privilege is withdrawn. Then there is neither real man nor real religion. Religion is from one point of view, a means of satisfying the hunger of one’s soul which arises due to the limitations of mundane life. There are various ways of satisfying this hunger. Since there are various ways of satisfying this hunger, there is no ground for quarrel. Every man has the right to differ from others on various points relating to life. Hence it will be total injustice to debar him from this privilege in the realm of religion. He has the right to differ from others and there is no need of evolving any universal religion. Only everyone will have to learn to accommodate and respect differences in matters of religion. Differences are quite natural and they will have to be recognized and tolerated as such. The primary lesson of religion must be to tolerate and accommodate the religious ideas and sentiments of others. If someone is unable to do it, he has no right to claim himself religious.

From the above discussion it has been seen that all the three ways of establishing universal religion are not tenable. All the great thinkers of religion are repeatedly telling us that there is no difference among the religions in their essence. Yet there is innumerable violence in the name of religion. Religion is essentially a spiritual relation which rouses in us the highest form of love, devotion, holiness and steady light of wisdom to be related with or projected upon certain object which also is not limited and finite, mundane and temporal, but a universal and abiding spiritual reality. Religion, with its stress upon union or communion with the Divine points the way to the highest philosophical position. Spiritual consciousness elevates us from narrow ego-frontier to the broad land of spirit, the positive realization of fundamental unity. This spirituality is not temporary feeling, which the poet and the artist sometimes have, or the lover and the philanthropist sometimes enjoy. It is an abiding settlement, a permanent possession. Both spiritual and rational life is universal. Spiritual life is universal because spiritual, though appears to be many, has the same nature. Rational life is universal because reason has the same objective reference. The Upanishads say that he who knows the Brahman becomes the Brahman. This can be true only when ‘to know implies to transform one’s being’ and this again can be true only upon the object to be known as one’s innermost self. Here knowledge means spiritual transformation of being.

Variation is essential for the growth of life. Similarly variety of faiths has enriched the spiritual world and made it comprehensive to all types of men. Since we are different in our natures, the same method can scarcely be applied to any two of us in the same manner. Some are very emotional in nature, some are philosophical, others cling to all sorts of ritualistic forms. All of these certainly can not have the same method. If there were only one method to arrive at truth it would be death for everyone else who is not similarly constituted. Again we can not make all conform to the same ideal. So only by following the above possibilities or any one of the possibility of universal religion, it is not possible to establish a universal religion. It is possible only when everyone understand the fact that essentially all the religions are the same because every religion leads us to the same point. This very fact is repeatedly told by Swami Vivekananda and all other religious scholars.

Footnotes and references:

Tiwari, K.N., Comparative Religion , p-191.

[Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda], VOL. 2 , p-375

Tiwari, K.N., Comparative Religion , p-272.

Article published on 01 May, 2020

Your Article Library

Essay on religion: meaning, nature , role and other details (5931 words).

ADVERTISEMENTS:

Here is your essay on religion, it’s meaning, nature, role and other details!

Religion is an almost universal institution in human society. It is found in all societies, past and present. All the preliterate societies known to us have religion. Religion goes back to the beginning of the culture itself. It is a very ancient institution. There is no primitive society without religion.

Image Courtesy : upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9d/Religios_collage_%28large%29.jpg/1280px-Religios_collage_%28large%29.jpg

Like other social institutions, religion also arose from the intellectual power of man in response to certain felt needs of men. While most people consider religion as universal and therefore, a significant institution of societies. It is the foundation on which the normative structure of society stands.

It is the social institution that deals with sacred things, that lie beyond our knowledge and control. It has influenced other institutions. It has been exerting tremendous influence upon political and economic aspects of life. It is said that man from the earliest times has been incurably religious. Judaism, Christianity, Islam (Semitic religions), Hinduism and Buddhism; Confucianism, Taoism and Shinto (Chinese-Japanese religions) etc. are examples of the great religions of the world.

Meaning of Religion:

Religion is concerned with the shared beliefs and practices of human beings. It is the human response to those elements in the life and environment of mankind which are beyond their ordinary comprehension. Religion is pre-eminently social and is found in nearly all societies. Majumdar and Madan explain that the word religion has its origin in the Latin word Rel (I) igio. This is derived from two root words.

The first root is Leg, meaning “together, count or observe”. The second root is Lig, meaning ‘to bind’. The first root refers to belief in and practice of “signs of Divine Communication”. The second root refers to the carrying out those activities which link human beings with the supernatural powers. Thus, we find that the word religion basically represents beliefs and practices which are generally the main characteristics of all religions.

Central to all religions is the concept of faith. Religion in this sense is the organisation of faith which binds human beings to their temporal and transcendental foundation. By faith man is distinguished from other beings. It is essentially a subjective and private matter. Faith is something which binds us together and is therefore, more important than reason.

Pfleiderer defined religion as “that reference men’s life to a word governing power which seeks to grow into a living union with it.”

According to James G. Frazer considered religion as a belief in “Powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life”.

As Christopher Dauson writes, “Whenever and wherever man has a sense of dependence on external powers which are conceived as mysterious and higher than man’s own, there is religion, and the feelings of awe and self-abasement with which man is filled in the presence of such powers is essentially a religious emotion, the root of worship and prayer.”

Arnold W. Green defines religion as “a system of beliefs and symbolic practices and objects, governed by faith rather than by knowledge, which relates man to an unseen supernatural realm beyond the known and beyond the controllable.”

According to Maclver and Page, “Religion, as we understand the term, implies a relationship not merely between man and man but also between man and some higher power.”

As Gillin and Gillin says, “The social field of religion may be regarded as including those emotionalized beliefs prevalent in a social group concurring the supernatural plus crest and behaviour, material objects and symbols associated with such beliefs.”

Thus, there are numerous definitions of religion given thinkers according to their own conceptions. As a matter of fact the forms in which religion expresses itself vary so much that it is difficult to agree upon a definition. Some maintain that religion includes a belief in supernatural or mysterious powers and that it expresses itself in overt activities designed to deal with those powers.

Others regard religion as something very earthly and materialistic, designed to achieve practical ends. Sumner and Keller asserted that, “Religion in history, from the earliest to very recent days, has not been a matter of morality at all but of rites, rituals, observance and ceremony”.

Religion, in fact, is not a mere process of mediations about man’s life; it is also a means of preserving the values of life. While it is possible to define religion as belief in God or some super-natural powers, it is well to remember that there can also be a Godless religion as Buddhism.

Nature of Religion:

In sociology, the word religion is used in a wider sense than that used in religious books. A common characteristic found among all religions is that they represent a complex of emotional feelings and attitudes towards mysterious and perplexities of life.

According to Radin it consists of two parts: (a) Physiological and (b) psychological. The physiological part expresses itself in such acts as kneeling, closing the eyes, touching the feet. The psychological part consists of supernormal sensitivity to certain traditions and beliefs. While belief in supernatural powers may be considered basic to all religion, equally fundamental is the presence of a deeply emotional feeling which Golden Weiber called the “religion thrill”.

If we analyse the great religions of the world, we shall find that each of them contains, five basic elements: (1) belief in supernatural powers, (2) belief in the holy, (3) ritual, (4) acts defined as sinful and (5) some method of salvation.

1. Belief in Supernatural Powers:

The first basic element of religion is the belief that there are supernatural powers. These powers are believed to influence human life and control all natural phenomena. Some call these supernatural forces God, other call them Gods. There are even others who do not call them by any name. They simply consider them as forces in their universe. Thus, belief in the non-sensory, super-empirical world is the first element of religion.

2. Belief in the Holy:

There are certain holy or sacred elements of religion. These constitute the heart of the religion. There are certain things which are regarded as holy or sacred. But a thing is holy or sacred not because of a peculiar quality of thing. An attitude makes a thing holy. The sacred character of a tangible thing is not observable to the senses.

Sacred things are symbols. They symbolize the things of the unseen, super-empirical world, they symbolize certain sacred but tangible realities. When a Hindu worships a cow, he worships it not because of the kind of animal the cow is, but because of a host of super-empirical characteristics which this animal is imagined to represent.

Religious ritual is “the active side of religion. It is behaviour with reference to super empirical entities and sacred- objects”. It includes any kind of behavior (such as the wearing of special clothing and the immersion in certain rivers, in the Ganga for instance), prayers, hymns, creedal recitations, and other forms of reverence, usually performed with other people and in public. It can include singing, dancing, weeping, crawling, starving, feasting, etc. Failure to perform these acts is considered a sin.

4. Acts defined as Sinful:

Each religion defines certain acts as sinful and profane (unholy). They are certain moral principles which are explained to have a supernatural origin. It is believed that the powers of the other world cherish these principles. The violation of these principles creates man’s sense of guilty. It may also bring upon him the disfavour of the supernatural powers. If the behaviour is not in accordance with the religions code, the behaviour or act is considered as sinful.

5. Some Method of Salvation:

A method of salvation is the fifth basic element of religion. Man needs some method by which he can regain harmony with the Gods through removal of guilt. In Hindu religion Moksha or Salvation represents the end of life, the realisation of an inner spirituality in man.

The Hindu seeks release from the bondage of Karma, which is the joy or suffering he undergoes as a result of his actions in his life. The ultimate end of life is to attain Moksha. The Buddhist hopes to attain Salvation by being absorbed in the Godhead and entering Nirvana. The Christian has a redeemer in Christ who gave his life for man’s sins.

In short, religion is the institutionalised set of beliefs men hold about supernatural forces. It is more or less coherent system of beliefs and practices concerning a supernatural order of beings, forces, places or other entities.

Role or Functions of Religion:

Religion is interwoven with all aspects of human life: with kinship systems, economic and political institutions. Prior to the advent of what may be called as “the age of reason”, religion has been the chief supporter of the spiritual and moral values of life. It has shaped domestic, economic and political institutions. Hence, it is obvious that religion performs a number of functions both for the religious group and for the wider society. These functions of religion are discussed bellow.

1. Religion Helps in the Struggle for Societal Survival:

Religion may be said to help in the struggle for societal survival. Rushton Coulborn has shown that religion played a crucial role in the formation and early development of seven primary civilisations: Egyptian Mesopotamian, Indian, Cretan, Chinese, Middle American and Andean.

Religion in each of these societies gave its members the courage needed for survival in an unfavourable environment, by giving explanations to certain aspects of the human conditions which could not be explained in a rational manner. In present societies religion also performs this role.

By relating the empirical world to the super-empirical world religion gives the individual a sense of security in this rapidly changing world. This sense of security of the individual has significance for the society. Since religion helps man to forget the suffering, disappointments and sorrows in this life’, social dissatisfaction and social unrest become less frequent and the social system continues functioning.

2. Religion Promotes Social Integration:

Religion acts as a unifying force and hence, promotes social integration in several ways. Religion plays an important part in crystallising, symbolising and reinforcing common values and norms. It thus provides support for social standards, socially accepted behaviour. Common faith, values and norms etc. are significant in unifying people.

As the individuals perform rituals collectively their devotion to group ends is enhanced. Through a ritual individual expresses common beliefs and sentiments. It thus helps him to identify himself more with his fellows, and to distinguish himself more from members of other groups, communities or nations.

By distinguishing between holy and unholy things, religion creates sacred symbol for the values and this symbol becomes the rallying point for all persons who share the same values. The cow as a sacred symbol of the Hindus, for example, is a rallying point which gives cohesion to Hindu society.

Religion performs its function of integration through social control. It regulates the conduct of individuals by enforcing moral principles on them and by prescribing powerful sanctions against them for violation.

3. Religion helps to knit the Social Values of a Society into a Cohesive Whole:

It is the ultimate source of social cohesion. The primary requirement of society is the common possession of social values by which individuals control the actions of self and others and through which society is perpetuated. These social values emanate from religious faith. Religion is the foundation upon which these values rest.

Children should obey their parents, should not tell a lie or cheat, women should be faithful to men; people should be honest and virtuous are some of the social values which maintain social cohesion. It is religion that asks man to renounce unsocial activities and requires him to accept limitations upon his wants and desires. All the religions have preached love and non-violence. They have emphasized sacrifice and forbearance.

4. Religions Acts as an Agent of Social Control:

It is one of the means of informal means of social control. Religion not only defines moral expectations for members of the religious group but usually enforces them. It supports certain types of social conduct by placing the powerful sanctions of the supernatural behind them.

It makes certain forms of social behaviour as offences not only against society but also against God. Hence, any violation of the acceptable norm is punishable not only by God but by society. Hinduism gives sanction to the caste system which regulates social relations of various classes in India.

5. Religion Promotes Social Welfare:

Religion encourages people to render services to the needy and poor and promote their welfare. It develops philanthropic attitude of people. Help and assistance are rendered to poor and destitute persons due to religion inspiration. It is believed that one can obtain the cherished goal of religion by way of giving alms and assistance to the helpless and needy persons. In this way religion promotes the welfare of individuals, groups and community.

6. Priestly Function:

The priesthood often was dedicated to art and culture. The priests laid the foundations of medicine. Magic supplied the roots of observation and experimentation from which science developed. It also inculcated the habit of charity among the people who opened many charitable institutions like hospitals, rest houses, temples to help the needy and the poor.

7. It Rationalizes and Makes bearable Individual Suffering in the known World:

Religion serves to soothe the man in times of his suffering and disappointment. In this world man often suffers disappointment even in the midst of all hopes and achievements. The things for which he strives are in some measure always denied to him. When human hopes are blighted, when all that was planned and striven for has been swept away, man naturally wants something to console and compensate him.

When a son dies man seeks to assuage his grief in ritualistic exchanges of condolence. On God he puts faith and entertains the belief that some unseen power moves in mysterious ways to make even his loss meaningful. Faith in God compensates him and sustains his interest in life and makes it bearable. In this way religion helps man to bear his frustrations and encourages him to accept his lot on earth.

8. Religion Enhances Self-importance:

It expands one’s self to infinite proportions. Man unites himself with the infinite and feels ennobled. Through unity with the infinite the self is made majestic and triumphant. Man considers himself the noblest work of God with whom he shall be united and his self thus becomes grand and luminous.

Besides this, religion shapes domestic, economic and political institutions. Religion supports institutional pattern more explicitly. All the great religions of the world have attempted to regulate kinship relations, especially marriage and family. Political institutions are often sanctioned by religion: the emperor of China or Japan was sacred; the ruling caste of India was sanctioned by Brahmanism; the kings of France were supposed to rule by divine right.

Religious rites are performed on many occasions in relation to vital events and dominant interests: birth, initiation, marriage, sickness, death, hunting, animal husbandry and so on; and they are intimately concerned with family and kinship interests and with political institutions. Religion is the central element in the life of civilisation.

Religion has also performed some other services to humanity among which Sumner and Keller included the provision of work, the spread of education, the accumulation of capital and the creation of a leisure class.

For thousands of years, religion has exerted a great influence over economic and political life. Even today religion is called upon to support rulers, contacts and other legal procedures.

Dysfunctions of Religion:

In addition to positive functions of religion, there are some negative aspects of its social functions. Although religion is an integrative force, it may be disruptive for the society as a whole. Sumner and Keller, Benjamin Kidd, Karl Marx, Thomas F. O’ Dea and others have pointed the dysfunctions of religion. The dysfunctions of religion are as follows.

1. Religion Inhibits Protests and Hinders Social Changes:

According to Thomas F. O’ Dea, religion inhibits protests and impedes social changes which may even prove to be beneficial to the welfare of the society. All protests and conflicts are not always negative. Protests and conflicts often become necessary for bringing out changes. Some changes would certainly lead to positive reforms. By inhibiting protests and preventing changes religion may postpone reforms.

2. Hampers the Adaptation of Society to Changed Conditions:

Social values and norms emanate from religious faith. Some of the norms which lose their appropriateness under changed conditions may also be imposed by religion. This can “impede a more functionally appropriate adaptation of society to changing conditions.”

For example, during the medieval Europe, the Church refused to grant the ethical legitimacy of money lending at interest, despite the great functional need of this activity in a situation of developing capitalism”. Even today, traditional Muslims face religio-ethical problems concerning interest-taking. Similar social conflict is evident in the case of birth control measures including abortion, in the Catholic world.

3. Religion may Foster Dependence and Irresponsibility:

Religion often makes its followers dependent on religious institutions and leaders. But it does not develop an ability in them to assume individual responsibility. For example, a good number of people in India prefer to take the advises of priests and religious leaders before starting some ventures. But they do not take the suggestion of those who are competent in the field.

4. Promotes Evil Practices:

In its course of development religion has supported and promoted evil practices such as cannibalism, slavery, untouchability, human and animal sacrifice etc.

5. Contributes to Exploitation:

As religion interprets misfortune and suffering in this world as manifestations of the supernatural order itself, it sanctifies the existing social structure. Religion preaches submission to the existing socio-economic condition and to fate.

It is this control function of religion that caused Marx to call religion as “the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opiate of the people.” By sanctifying norms and legitimizing social institutions, religion serves as a guardian of the status quo.

6. Promotes Superstitions:

Religion is the source of many superstitions. These superstitions have caused harm to human being. Superstitions like evil spirits and ghosts cause diseases; poverty is the desire of the God etc. hinder the welfare of human beings.

7. Results Conflicts:

Religion results in inter-group conflicts by dividing people along religious lines. It is deeply related with conflicts. Wars and battles have been fought in the name of religion.

8. Religion Causes Wastes:

Sumner and Keller are of the opinion that religion often causes economic wastes. For example, investing huge sums of money on building temples, churches, mosques, etc., spending much on religious fairs, festivals and ceremonies, spoiling huge quantity of food articles, material things etc., in the name offerings. It leads to waste of human labour, energy and time.

9. Religion Weakens Unity:

Religion creates diversities among people. It creates a gap among them. In the name of God and religion, loot, plundering, mass killing, rape and other cruel and inhuman treatments have been meted out to people.

10. Religion Promotes Fanaticism:

Religion has made people blind, dumb and deaf to the reality. They have faith without reasoning which is blind. On the contrary, it has often made people to become bigots and fanatics. Bigotry and fanaticism have led to persecution, inhuman treatment and misery in the past.

11. Religion Retards Progress:

Religion preserves traditions. It preaches submission to the existing conditions and maintenance of status quo. Religion is not readily amenable to social change and progress.

12. Religion Retards Scientific Achievement:

Religion has tried to prevent the scientists from discovering new facts. For example, it tried to suppress the doctrines of Darwin, Huxley and others.

By placing high premium on divine power religion has made people fatalistic. They think that all events in life is due to some divine power and hence due to fate. As a result, his power and potentiality is undermined. Thus, religion affects the creativity of man.

Marx has strongly criticised religion. For Marx all that was fundamental in the science of society proceeded from the material and especially the economic sphere. For him therefore religion is, to be sure, superstition, but to stop at this point is to limit religion to merely abstract belief.

It leaves the impression that religion may be dislodged simply by new, rational belief. Marx’s sense of the matter is more profound. Merely changing beliefs is not enough. The transformation of an entire social order is required, for belief is deeply rooted in the social relations of men.

Religion, writes Marx, “is the ‘self-consciousness and self-feeling of man who either has not yet found himself or has already lost himself. But man is no abstract being, squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man, the state, and society. This state, this society produce religion, a perverted world consciousness, because they are a perverted world.

Religion is the compendium of that world, its encyclopedic, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn completion, its universal ground for consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence because the human essence has no true reality.

Marx believed, like Luduig Feuerbach, that what man gives to God in the form of worship, he takes from himself. That is, man is persuaded through suffering or through false teaching to project what is his to a supernatural being. But he was convinced, unlike Feuerbach, that what is fundamental is not religious forms – against which Feuerbach had urged revolt-but the economic forms of existence.

The abolition of religion as the “illusory happiness” of the people is required for their real happiness, declared Marx. But before religion can be abolished the conditions which nurture it must be done away with. “The demand to give up the illusions about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusion”.

Marx’s criticism of religion is thus deeply connected with the criticism of right and the criticism of politics. As Marx put it… “The criticism of heaven transforms itself into the criticism of earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics”.

Marx was an atheist as well as a great humanist. He had profound sympathy for all who look up to religion for salvation. This is amply clear from his following observation: “The criticism of religion ends with the teaching that man is the highest essence of man, hence with the categorical imperative to overthrow all relations in which man is debased, enslaved abandoned…”

Changes in Religion:

Change is the very essence of a living thing. A living religion must grow, must advance and must change. No form of religion is static. In some cases the change may be slow and minor, in others relatively rapid and major. Every religion claims its first principle supreme, original and eternal. Hence, there is also an element of censure for change.

Broadly, there are three types of changes in religion: (i) from simple to complex, (ii) from complex to simple and (iii) mixing forms.

Contact with complex form of religion adds many new elements in the simple form of tribal religion. For example, with the gradual spread of Vaishnavism in chhotanagpur, the Oraons tribe which lives in that region, began to reorganise traditional faith.

There are also examples of simplification of complex form of religion, specially of rituals and ceremonies. Buddhism for instance, came as a revolt against the Vedic ritual which was both complex and expensive, and also beyond the common man’s reach. In the 19 century, Brahmo Samaj again tried to simplify the complex nature of Brahmanic Hinduism.

Mixing of more than one form has caused development of new religious organisation. The most excellent example is of Sophism. It has evolved from Persian, Zoroastrianism and Arab Islamism. Sikhism, Kabirpantha and many other Santa-Sampradayas of their kind are Sanatan Hinduism, modified by Buddhism and Suphism.

The history of the development of religion shows that as mankind moves from small isolated village towards large, complex, urban, industrialised society the character of influence of religion on man and his life changes. In the earlier phases of religion the primary needs of mankind, those concerned with the necessities of life, played a dominant part. As man’s knowledge of natural forces grows, he learns to control them by natural methods, that is, by a detailed scrutiny of their causes and conditions.

As religious explanation of the universe is gradually substituted by rational scientific explanations and various group activities (such as politics, education, art and music) have been increasingly transferred from ecclesiastical to civil and other non-religious agencies, the conception of God as a power over man and his society loses its importance. This movement is sometimes referred to as secularisation.

Thus secularisation as Bryan Wilson has defined, refers to the process in which religious thinking, practice and institutions lose social significance. In Europe, secularisation is held to be the outcome of the social changes brought about by urban, industrial society. It means that religious beliefs and practices have tended to decline in modern urban, industrial societies, particularly among the working class in Western societies.

Religion in Western societies has tended to place less emphasis on dogma and more on social values. It has tried to reconcile its doctrine with scientific knowledge. As Barnes has pointed out religion adapted to our changed conditions of life is worth preserving and it must seek to organise. The masses and guide their activities for the benefit of the society rather than for the purpose of pleasing the God.

Secularism as an ideology has emerged from the dialectic of modern science and Protestantism, not from simple repudiation of religion and the rise of rationalism. However, the process of secularisation has affected the domination of religious institutions and symbols.

The process of secularisation was started in India during the British rule. But the process of secularisation took its course unlike Western Europe renaissance and reformation in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. The process was very slow.

However, this worldly outlook, rationality and secular education gradually affected various aspects of religion in India. Various laws of social reformation, modern education, transport and communication contributed towards decline in religiosity among the Hindus.

No doubt we are moving from religiosity to secular way of life. But evidences show that religious beliefs have not declined in West as well as in our society. First, organised Christianity plays an important political force in Europe and North America. Second, the vitality of Zionism, militant Islam (Islamic fundamentalism), radical Catholicism in Latin America and Sikhism, fundamentalism and communalism in India suggest that no necessary connection exists between modernisation and secularisation.

All these criticisms are formidable indeed. But it should be noted that the diversity of religious sects and cults in modern societies demonstrates that religion has become an individual matter and not a dominant feature of social life. It can also be argued that, while religion may play a part in ideological struggles against colonialism (as in Iran), in the long run modernisation of society brings about secularisation.

Secularisation:

The history of the development of religion shows that as mankind moves from small isolated villages towards large, complex, urban, industrial society; the influence of religion on man and his life changes. In the earlier phases of religion the primary needs of mankind were very much influenced by it. As man’s knowledge of natural forces grows, he learns to control them by natural methods, that is, by a detailed scrutiny of their causes and conditions.

As religious explanation of the universe is gradually substituted by rational scientific explanations and various group activities (politics, education, art and music) have been increasingly transferred from ecclesiastic to civil and other non-religious agencies, the conception of God as power over man and his society loses its importance. This movement is sometimes referred to as secularization.

Secularism as an ideology has emerged from the dialectic of modern science and Protestantism, not from a simple repudiation of religion and the rise of rationalism.

‘Secularisation’, in the words of Peter Berger, refers to ‘the process by which sectors of society and culture are removed from the domination of religious institutions and symbols.

Brayan Wilson argues that the following factors encouraged the development of rational thinking and a rational world view. Firstly, ascetic Protestantism, which created an ethic which was pragmatic, rational controlled and anti-emotional. Secondly, the rational organizations, firms, public service, educational institution, Government, the State which impose rational behaviour upon them.

Thirdly, the greater knowledge of social and physical world which results from the development of physical, biological and social sciences. He says that this knowledge is based on reason rather than faith. He claims that science not only explained many facts of life and the material environment in a way more satisfactory (than religion), but it also provided confirmation of its explanation in practical results.

The term ‘secularisation’ has been used in different ways. Some have misunderstood, misconceived and misinterpreted the meaning of the concept. Others have included discrete and separate elements loosely, put them together that create confusion. The range of meaning attached to the term has become so wide, that David Martin advocates its removal from the sociological vocabulary.

There are two meanings of the word current in modern and modernizing India and even in the whole of this subcontinent. One of the two meanings is found by consulting any standard dictionary. But there is the difficulty in finding the other, for it is non-standard, local meaning which, many like to believe, is typically and distinctively Indian or South Asian.

The first meaning becomes clear when people talk of secular trends in history or economics, or when they speak of secularizing the State. The word secular has been used in this sense, at least in the English-speaking West, for more than three hundred years.

This secularism chalks out an area in public life where religion is not admitted. One can have religion in one’s private life. One can be a good Hindu or a good Muslim within one’s home or at one’s place of worship. But when one enters public life, one is expected to leave one’s faith behind.

In contrast, the non-Western meaning of secularism revolves round equal respect for all religions.

In the Indian context the word has very different meaning from its standard use in the English language. It is held that India is not Europe and hence secularism in India cannot mean the same thing as it does in Europe. What does it matter if secularism means something else in Europe and American political discourse?

As long as there are clear and commonly agreed referents for the world in the Indian context, we should go ahead and address ourselves to the specifically Indian meaning of secularism. Unfortunately the matter cannot be settled that easily. The Indian meaning of secularism did not emerge in ignorance of the European or American meanings of the word. Indian meaning of secularism is debated in its Western genealogies.

New meaning is acquired by the word secularism in India. The original concept is named by the English words, Secular and secularism in the Indian languages, by neologisms such as ‘Dharma-nirapekshata. This is translation of those English words and dharma-nirapekshata is used to refer to the range of meanings indicated by the English term.

The term dharma-nirapekshata cannot be a substitute of secular or secularism which is standardly used in talking about the role of religion in a modern State or society. Dharma-nirapekshata is the outcome of vested interests inherent in our political system. Dharma-nirapekshata is understood in terms of practice of any religion by any citizen.

Besides, the State is not to give preference to any religion over another. But this term is irrelevant in a democratic structure and it bears no application in reality because three principles are mentioned in the liberal-doctrine (Liberty which requires that the State, permits the practice of any religion, equality which requires that State not to give preference to any religion and the principle of neutrality).

Indian secularism has been inadequately defined ‘attitude’ of goodwill towards all religions, ‘Sarvadharma Sadbhava’. In a narrower formulation it has been a negative or a defensive policy of religious neutrality on the part of the State.

Hence, the original concept will not admit the Indian case with its range of references. Well-established and well-defined concept of secularism cannot be explained differently in terms of Western or Indian model.

To Herberg, ‘authentic religion’ means an emphasis on the supernatural, a deep inner conviction of the reality of supernatural power, a serious commitment to religious teaching, a strong element of the theological doctrine and a refusal to compromise religious beliefs and values with those of the wider society.

If there is any trend of decline in any aspect of religion mentioned above, then it is indicative of the process of secularisation. Thus secularization, as Brayan Wilson has defined, refers to the process in which religious thinking, practice and institutions lose social significance. Religion in America is subordinated to the American way of life. It means that religious belief and practices have tended to decline.

Secularism is taken to mean that one’s religious ideals and beliefs should not interfere in general with social, economic and political field. Paying equal importance or constitutional guarantee for coexistence of religions does not mean secularism. There are other aspects of secularism. Secularism is related to rationalism and empiricism.

Secularisation involves reduction of religious influence on men, elimination of some aspects of it which are not beneficial to human welfare, elimination of superstitions and blind beliefs. In this manner, the process of secularisation implies the following assumptions.

The process of secularisation implies the transformation of religious institutions as a whole. There is the need to secularise the religious institutions. This means less emphasis on supernatural power, lack of theological doctrine, and desirability to compromise with religious beliefs and values.

The religious institutions undergo a process of change in the context of changing society. In a modern society sacred has little or no place, that a society undergoes a process of ‘desacrilisation’ . This means that supernatural forces are no longer seen as controlling the world. Action is not directed by religious beliefs.

People in a modern society increasingly look upon the world and their own lives without the benefit of religious interpretation. As a result there is a ‘secularisation of consciousness’. Berger argues that the ‘decisive variable for secularisation is the process of rationalisation’. That is the pre-requisite for any industrial society of the modern type.

Secularisation also implies rationality. Wilson argues that a rational world view is the energy of religion. It is based on testing of arguments and beliefs by rational procedure, on asserting truth by means of factors which can be quantified and objectively measured.

Religion is based on faith. Its claim to truth cannot be tested by rational procedures. A rational world view rejects faith which is the basis of religion. It removes the mystery, magic and authority of religion. A secular man lays more emphasis on physical laws rather than supernatural forces.

The process of secularisation as the most important component of the process of modernisation is occurring in different forms in various contemporary societies. Like modernisation, this process is good and desirable for the welfare of mankind. Finally, it is both a product and a process.

Related Articles:

• Religion: The Meaning and Functions of Religion
• Religion: Short Paragraph on Religion

No comments yet.

Leave a reply click here to cancel reply..

You must be logged in to post a comment.

The most anti-science belief you can hold is that science is a religion

A new theory wonders if all matter could be "conscious" — before scientists hand-wave it, they should hear it out, by rae hodge.

“Fringe”, “weird” and “unthinkable” are perfectly acceptable descriptors any science writer might use when rightfully denouncing some hare-brained professor’s paper that suggests, for instance, the North American sasquatch is the leading driver of climate change, or that Elvis Presley and Tupac Shakur are responsible for kidnapping Shelly Miscavige. Science journalism has a job to do — and that includes verbally smacking the pseudoscience out of academic hustlers to defend the dignity of both the reader and the science. We stan a scientific diss track in this shop, and I’d gladly lend my pen to such a cause.

But when science writers dismiss robustly-debated philosophical theories this way — like panpsychism , one well-known theory about the possible nature of subjective consciousness even in inanimate objects — they look less like erudite champions of empirical truth, and more like a Victorian drawing room full of phrenologists scoffing at William James’ notions of psychology while proclaiming that “there isn't a single head-bump of evidence to support this theory.”

At least, that’s what they looked like this past week when Popular Mechanics science writer Stav Dimitropoulos offered a fresh bit of nuanced reporting on the renewed popular interest around the philosophical theory of panpsychism. To grossly oversimplify, the theory posits that consciousness isn’t just the currently scientifically-inexplicable emergent property of a human brain as many consider it now, but a property of pretty much any self-organizing system of material things. Panpsychism’s principles stretch back to human’s earliest notions of classical philosophy but have also evolved right alongside the sciences (like, you know, theories within humanities disciplines do).

Panpsychism winks at us from our species’ inquisitive past and seems to ask, “Aren’t you the same hairless apes that once laughed at a guy for suggesting all matter was ultimately made of vibration?

Its core concepts have been advocated for by the likes of Nobel Prize winner Roger Penrose , as well as physicists like Author Eddington and David Bohm, and even William James himself. As a theory, panpsychism challenges us to consider whether we featherless bipeds might be thinking a bit too primitively when we assume objectively extant concepts we have no real way to quantify — like consciousness — can only be produced by neuronal sparks of the electrified hamburger meat between our ears.

Panpsychism winks at us from our species’ inquisitive past and seems to ask, “Aren’t you the same hairless apes that once laughed at a guy for suggesting all matter was ultimately made of vibration? Do you think your primitive little frontal cortex is equivalent to the skull of Zeus, and that the totality of all possible wisdom springs from it fully armored as Athena?” 

Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter Lab Notes .

When fuzzy terms like “ artificial superintelligence ” are getting tossed around to describe black-box processes of a computer network you can pay to be your girlfriend, I’d say panpsychism’s questions are worth more than an embarrassingly tone-deaf snicker from science writers. Similarly well-timed amid all the recent heady research into quantum mechanics, Dimitropoulos’ rather eloquent piece invites readers to examine the current limits of material physics’ theories and see what the brainiacs in humanities departments have to say about self-awareness and the mind’s role in the wider universe.

But judging by the frantic oinking of science writers who quickly piggybacked off her click-traffic, you’d have thought the article was a crayon-scrawled defense of flat-earthers. Seemingly affronted by the possibility that a philosophical theory might offer a uniquely interdisciplinary approach to a problem that physics was never asked nor meant to solve alone, a gaggle of presumably muttonchopped science writers eagerly charged into the latest skirmish of a decades-old fray between philosophers and physicists.

In overindulgent headlines and ill-advised body-copy, would be defenders of the faith of Scientism gleefully celebrated missing the entire point of panpsychism across some widely circulating and uninformed articles that I’d rather not further promote.

We need your help to stay independent

It’s disappointing to see but not a surprise. A lack of curiosity about the possibilities of consciousness is the hallmark of anti-science attitudes, even among those appointed to herald the sober inquiry of an awe-striking world of which the human race is but one fleeting member. And to do this job right — hell, to even get beyond our own trembling ontological frailty long enough to learn something about this existence — we have to fight anti-science attitudes in every quarter, even our own. 

We should start with our own beliefs. To that end, the most anti-science belief you can hold isn’t that the earth is flat, that consciousness may be more than human thought, or that existence may be more than we can quantify at the moment — it’s that science is a religion. And when you treat science like a religion, like a framework for limiting the interpretation of the world’s possibilities, rather than like a framework for discovering those possibilities — you stop writing science journalism and you start writing Scientism apologia.

When your congregation zealously overestimates the epistemological functionality of empiricism in the work of logical positivism, you trap the conversation of science and consciousness in your lethally boring Vienna wagon-Circling. And in this way, yes, you insult the dignity of both the reader and the science. 

An earlier version of this article originally appeared in Salon's Lab Notes , a weekly newsletter from our Science & Health team.

about consciousness

• I code the body electric: We're putting AI brains in robot bodies now. What could go wrong?
• These brain scans of dying patients may reveal what happens when you die
• Three major things most people get wrong about the brain, according to a neuroscientist

Rae Hodge is a science reporter for Salon. Her data-driven, investigative coverage spans more than a decade, including prior roles with CNET, the AP, NPR, the BBC and others. She can be found on Mastodon at @[email protected]. 

Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Related articles.