Table Of ContentReligion Defined and
Explained
Peter B. Clarke and Peter Byrne
RELIGION DEFINED AND EXPLAINED
Also by Peter B. Clarke
THE WORLD'S RELIGIONS (co-editor)
ISLAM (editor)
ISLAM IN MODERN NIGERIA
THE STUDY OF RELIGION, TRADIDONAL AND
NEW RELIGIONS (co-editor)
WEST AFRICA AND ISLAM
WEST AFRICA AND CHRISTIANITY
THE NEW EVANGELISTS (editor)
BLACK PARADISE
Also by Peter Byrne
ETHICS AND LAW IN HEALTH CARE
AND RESEARCH (editor)
HEALTH, RIGHTS AND RESOURCES (editor)
MEDICINE IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY (editor)
MEDICINE, MEDICAL ETHICS AND THE VALUE OF LIFE
(editor)
NATURAL RELIGION AND THE NATURE OF RELIGION
RIGHTS AND WRONGS IN MEDICINE (editor)
THE PHILOSOPHICAL AND THEOLOGICAL
FOUNDATIONS OF ETHICS
Religion Defined
and Explained
Peter B. Clarke
Senior Lecturer in the History and Sociology of Religion
King's College, University of London
and
Peter Byrne
Lecturer in the Philosophy of Religion
King's College, University of London
150th YEAR
M
St. Martin's Press
© Peter B. Clarke and Peter Byrne 1993
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1993 978-0-333-53841-8
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First published in Great Britain 1993 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndrnills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-349-38986-5 ISBN 978-0-230-37424-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230374249
First published in the United States of America 1993 by
Scholarly and Reference Division,
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
175 Fifth Avenue,
NewYork,N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-09472-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clarke, Peter B. (Peter Bernard)
Religion defined and explained I Peter B. Clarke and Peter Byrne.
P· em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-09472-0
1. Religion. I. Byrne, Peter, 1950- . IT. Title.
BL48.C5535 1993
200--dc20 92-42691
CIP
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Introduction vii
PART ONE
1 The Definition and Essence of Religion 3
2 The Dynamics of Explanation 28
3 Forms of Explanation in Religion 55
PART TWO
4 A Religious Theory of Religion 79
5 Philosophical Theories of Religion 98
6 Socio-economic Theories of Religion 122
7 Sociological Theories of Religion 148
8 Psychological Theories of Religion 173
Conclusion 204
Bibliography 207
Index 213
v
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge permission to use material from
the following sources in Chapters 1 and 4: Byrne, P. (1988) 'Religion
and the Religions', in The World's Religions edited by S.R. Sutherland
et al. (by kind permission of Routledge, Chapman & Hall); Byrne, P.
(1991) 'A Religious Theory of Religion', in Religious Studies, Vol. 27,
no. 1 (by kind permission of Cambridge University Press).
vi
Introduction
It is characteristic of nineteenth- and twentieth-century approaches
to the study of religion that they gave rise to large-scale theories of
religion. The aim of this study is to survey and appraise a selection
of these theories and the intellectual enterprise that lies behind them.
Five major forms of theory are covered: religious, philosophical,
socio-economic, sociological and psychological. In the course of dis
cussing these theories we consider two aims in drawing up a defini
tion of religion, either to produce an operational definition or an
essentialist one. Among the major forms of definition of religion
examined are: substantive, functionalist, experiential, and family
resemblance.
What is characteristic of large-scale theories of religion (leaving
aside religious theories considered in Chapter 4) is their comprehen
sive and radical nature. They tend to be comprehensive in endeav
ouring to explain religion as a whole. They do not seek to add to our
explanatory understanding of religion merely by making more of
the facts about particular religions known, nor by interpreting spe
cific religious phenomena. They tend to seek in contrast an explana
tion of religion as such. They provide answers to the question of why
the very phenomenon or institution of human religion exists at all.
They wish to offer an interpretation and explanation of this entire
facet of human life. Why should they seek these ends? The relevant
assumption which justifies such large-scale theorising appears to be
that there is something problematic about the very existence and
meaning of the facet of life we know as human religion. Something
about the typical pattern of beliefs and behaviour we call'religion'
makes the thinkers we consider question why it should exist at all
and question its overall meaning and purpose.
In having these large-scale aims, and these kinds of background
assumptions, such theories tend to be radical in their thrust. The
radicalness of large-scale theories of religion is something that we
define in detail in Chapter 3. Granted the assumption that there is
something problematic about why religion exists at all, it is tempting
to explain religion by showing how it is caused by something exter
nal to itself. 'Explaining religion' tends to become synonymous with
outlining a psychological or social mechanism which causally gener
ates religious belief and behaviour. The assumptions that lie behind
vii
viii Religion Defined and Explained
the search for such a mechanism, and the endeavour to show that
religion is sufficiently explained by an external cause, of their very
nature undermine the fundamental beliefs of the various religions.
The inner logic of these explanations is to debunk and dismiss the
assumptions that religious beliefs have a real reference to non
mundane states and entities, and that religious life is in part the
outcome of human commerce with such transcendent, sacred
realities.
Radical and comprehensive theories generate in addition special
demands on the business of defining religion. Piecemeal and tenta
tive attempts to give the word 'religion' a useable sense by summing
up in a definition some of the salient and characteristic features of
members of the class of religions are not enough. A grand theory of
religion seeks some core, essential unifying feature or features of
religion. It must do so, on pain of otherwise admitting that there is
no uniform class of things called 'religions' which all require expla
nation, and the same explanation at that.
In exploring the intellectual underpinnings of these approaches
to the definition and explanation of religion we are anxious to get
away from the simplistic diagnosis that they are based on bringing
naturalistic assumptions to the study of religion. We try to find
common methodological assumptions behind grand theories of
religion in Part One. Assumptions specific to individual thinkers
are pointed to in our selective illustrations of theories of religion in
Part Two of the study. For reasons which emerge in Chapters 2, 3
and 4, the choice in the definition and explanation of religion is
never simply between naturalism, entailing radical, unifying theo
ries of religion, and anti-naturalism, entailing some kind of
confessionally based interpretation of religion. We endeavour in
these chapters to identify middle ground between these extremes.
We acknowledge problems in how to characterise it and defend its
viability, but we contend that it exists. It enables us to suggest that
the study of religions may be consistently all of the following: a
human study (like history and sociology); uncommitted to any con
fessional assumptions; not atheistic or sceptical in its very methods
or aims; and based on the working assumption that the interpreta
tions and explanations of religion that matter are ones that start from
the beliefs and concepts which directly inform the life of the reli
gious believers themselves.
In what sense does this book itself define and explain religion? It
contributes to these tasks in only a modest way by defending a
Introduction ix
general approach to the enterprises of defining and explaining reli
gion. This approach calls for tentative and cumulative explanatory
knowledge of religion. This will be knowledge built up in the course
of detailed study of particular religious phenomena. It will consist in
knowledge of: the salient, characteristic features of religion; the de
tailed course of religious history; conceptual connections within the
web of religious beliefs and meanings; general patterns in religious
change and development; and interconnections, causal and interpre
tive, between religious phenomena and non-religious social and
historical facts.
The grand theories of religion which illustrate our methodological
discussion in Part One have a lasting importance. In many respects
they have contributed to the explanatory knowledge mentioned in
the previous paragraph. If we finally reject them, and the assump
tions on which they rest, it is partly because we doubt whether, in
this area, explanatory knowledge can ever be summed up in a theory
of religion.
Note
'He' and 'his' are used in this book to represent the common gender, so in
appropriate contexts import the feminine and the masculine.
