Philosophy of Religion
Dr Tom Kerns

Philosophy of Religion

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Some classic definitions of Religion

These are just a few definitions (and criticisms) that I've picked up from various textbooks through the years

1. "Religion is the belief in an ever living God, i.e., in a Divine Mind and Will ruling the universe and holding moral relations with mankind."

- James Martineau



 

2. "By religion I understand a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of Nature and of human life."

- J G Frazer

 

3. "Religion is the attempt to express the complete reality of goodness through every aspect of our being."

- F H Bradley

 

4. "Religion is ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feeling."

- Matthew Arnold

 

5. "Religion is ... that pure and reverential disposition or frame of mind which we call piety."

- C P Tiele

 

6. "The essence of religion consists in the feeling of an absolute dependence."

- F Schleirmacher

 

7. "A man's religion is the expression of his ultimate attitude to the universe, the summed-up meaning and purport of his whole consciousness of things."

- E Caird

 

8. "Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness."

- A N Whitehead

Some problems with these definitions:

1. & 2. Any polytheistic religion would refuse the first definition. Many other religions, such as some kinds of Buddhism, would not hold to belief in a God, let alone one who rules the cosmos.

3. & 4. Religions are not necessarily ethical. Some primordial religions aparently had no ethical content at all (their ethics were derived from elsewhere).

5. & 6. Some authors say that there is no one special psychical disposition that is always and only religious. Also, absolute dependence suggests monotheism. And less that absolute dependence can be found elsewhere in the world, besides in religions.

7. Not all ultimate attitudes are religious: eg, the person whose ultimate attitude toward the world was that it was all a big joke, or perhaps another person who hates the whole world. We might be hesitatant to call these attitudes religious.

8. Some religions, early ones especially, are totally communal, and not solitary. Also, a person may spend their solitariness reading, and we might hesitate to call that necessarily religious.

Some characteristic features commonly found in religions:

• Beliefs in a transcendent order of being or beings or powers.
• Distinction between sacred & profane.
• Ritual acts focussed around sacred objects and places.
• A moral code believed to be sanctioned by the divine order.
• Characteristically religious feelings ... (awe, mystery, adoration, the numinous, etc) which tend to be aroused by sacred experiences.
• Prayer and other forms of communication/communioning with the divine.
• A world view and the place of the individual in that world, with an understanding of some purpose and how the individual fits into that purpose.
• A more or less total organisation of one's life based on this world view.
• A social group bound together by the above factors.

 

As a definition we might say that in order to qualify as a "religion," a candidate must have a substantial number of these traits to some substantial degree. (Now how's that for a different kind of definition?)

 

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