Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Religion: the task of defining it and a taxonomy of definitions

Religion: the task of defining religion

The Problem of Definition

What is religion? How can it be defined? J. Milton Yinger has said, “Many studies of religion stumble over the first hurdle: the problem of definition. So I am by no means certain of being able to leave over this difficulty, I have some hope of doing so, based on a conviction that the problem is less one of communication within a matter of disagreement over the nature and functions of definition.” In other words, the problem surrounding the definition of religion is often caused by a lack of understanding of the nature of the task of defining. He states further, “The disagreements, to be sure, are often substantial ones, based both on different values and on different conceptions of the nature of the universe in which we live. Once their causes are recognized, the disagreements will not be eliminated, but they will no longer rest on the failure of communication. One may be able at the least to say: I can understand how a person, starting from those particular premises, would define religion in that way.”[1] In other words, there are factors that contribute the difference in definition, which rooted in the way we make value judgments about the world and nature, however if these factors we recognized, then perhaps a more clear understanding of the conflict will emerge. Yinger states, “We must recognize that there are some patterns that are marginally religious, according to any criteria that one may select.”[2] In other words, every definition possesses its own limitation. Yinger concludes, “Definitions, then, our tools; they are to some degree arbitrary; they lay stress on similarities within a delimited area and on the differences outside it, thus giving emphasis to one aspect of reality.”[3] In other words, definitions are determined by one's focus, scope, limitation, and purpose.

Types of Definitions

Yinger suggests that there are three different types of definition. The first type of definition is according to value. Yinger states, “Such definitions describe what religion "really" or "basically" is in terms of what, in a given writer's judgment, it ought to be. Clearly such definitions are inappropriate for the tasks of science.” [4] In other words, this is the definition includes a judgment about the religion from the one is defining it. It's kind of definition is highly volatile and is something criticism from many different. Second type of definition is descriptive. Yinger states, “They designate certain kinds of beliefs and practices as religion but do not evaluate them, on the one hand; nor, on the other hand, do they indicate their function or seek to discover whether other police and practices perform similar functions.... such a definition naturally draws attention to the differences among religions as distinct historical entities. The emphasis is placed primarily on religions as cultural systems. Their doctrines, rites, sacred texts, typical group structures, and the like, are described, contrasted, and compared.”[5] This type of definition is highly useful because it provides much information about any religion, while at the same time there is much room for further judgment. The third type of definition is the science of definition. This type of definition makes use of historical and comparative studies, while working for its ultimately evaluating the religion from the standpoint of human universal values.

The following paper is an attempt to trace the development of proposed definitions for the term religion in order to provide a taxonomy of options for constructing my own definition of religion. Specifically, I would like to find a definition for religion that is functional and to some extent scienctific. A wide variety of sources has been consulted for finding a definition. I have delved into several key philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, historians, as well as some theologians. In addition, a few dictionaries have been selected for the purpose of objectivity. I have not yet come to a conclusion about the definition of religion, however presently I find the definition of Winfried Corduan with the realization that his definition of religion is largely functional however his method for studying religion includes historical study as well as phenomenological engagement.

Proposed definitions of religion:


The American Heritage dictionary provides four definitions of religion. First, a broad definition which describes religion as “belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe,” or “a personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.” Second, it can simply be “the life or condition of a person in a religious order.” Third, it can be, “a set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.” Third, it can minimally be defined as “a cause, principal, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.”

John Locke defines true religion as the joining together of two types of priests: priests who teach the arts of propitiation and atonement and priests, or philosophers, who would instruct those who would apply to them, the knowledge of things and the rules of virtue. In his own words, “Jesus Christ bringing by revelation from heaven the true religion to mankind reunited these two again religion and morality as in several parts of the worship of God, which ought never to have been separated, wearing for the obtaining the favor and forgiveness of the deity the chief part of what man could do consistent in a holy life and little or no thing and all was left to outward ceremony.”[6]

The great business of religion is to glorify God and find favor with him. This though it be the most intimate and peculiar concern of every man within himself wherewith his neighbor has nothing to do (for what interest at any one but that of charity, what way I take for the salvation of my soul?) yet since the actions of a private solitary life cannot reach to all the instances and purposes of religion in its full intent. Therefore men find themselves obliged, when they embrace any religion, to associate, to join in communion with some society, where in that religion is professed.[7]

Immanuel Kant

The one true religion comprises nothing but laws, that is, those practical principles of whose unconditioned necessity we can become aware, and which we therefore recognized as revealed through pure reason (not empirically).[8]

Leudwig Feuerbach

In the perceptions of the senses consciousness of the object is distinguishable from consciousness of self; but in religion, consciousness of the object and self-consciousness coincide. The object of the senses is out of man, the religious object is with in him, and therefore as little forsakes him as his self-consciousness or his conscience; it is the intimate, the closest object.... the object of religion is a selected object; the most excellent, the first, the supreme being; it essentially presupposes a critical judgment, a discrimination between the divine and the non-divine, between that which is worthy of adoration and that which is not worthy.... religion the solemn unveiling of man's hidden treasures, the revelation of his intimate thoughts, the open confession of his love secrets.[9]

Rabindranath Tagore

The individual and must exist for Man the great, and must express him and his interested works, in science and philosophy, in literature and arts, in service and worship. This is his religion, which is working in the heart of all his religions in various names and forms. He knows and uses this world where it is endless and thus attains greatness, but he realizes his own truth where it is perfect and thus finds its fulfillment.[10]

John Dewey

According to Dewey, religion can be positively defined as, “a strictly collective term and the collection it stands for is not even the kind illustrated in textbooks of logic. It has not the unity of a regiment or assembly but that of any miscellaneous aggregate. Attempts to prove the universality proved too much or too little.”[11] In addition, religions do not genuinely exist in relation to the supernatural; rather the term religion “always signifies a special body of beliefs and practices having some kind of institutional organization,”[12] which are “survivals from outgrown cultures.”[13] However, Dewey is not completely one-sided with regards to the idea of religious experience. He believes that religious experience “as a quality of experience signifies something that may belong to all these experiences.”[14]

Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

Religion, the real formation of an inner life in protest against the conventional despotism of society, is never safe; it is always a challenge.[15]

Carl G. Yung

Numinosum—a dynamic existence or effect, not caused by arbitrary act of will. On the contrary, it ceases and controls the human subject, which is always rather its victim Than its creator.... either the quality of a visible object or the influence of an invisible presence causing a peculiar alteration of consciousness… religion appears to me to be a peculiar attitude of the human mind, which could be formulated in accordance with the original use of the term ‘religio,’ that is, a careful consideration and observation of certain dynamic factors understood to be ‘powers.’[16]

When with all our intellectual limitations, we call something ‘divine,’ we have merely given it a name, which may be based on a creed, but never on factual evidence. Because there are innumerable things beyond the range of human understanding, we constantly use symbolic terms to represent concepts that we cannot define or fully comprehend. This is one reason why all religions employed symbolic language or images.[17]

John B. Noss

Religion is a product of the earliest attempt of the human mind to achieve a sense of security in the world.[18]

Anthony F.C. Wallace

My point of view is naturalistic. Religion is a fact in nature and, to be understood, must be seen as a product of the same laws of nature that determine other natural phenomena. It is a nearly ubiquitous form of human behavior, culturally established in complex elaborations, but absolutely useless, from a crudely technological standpoint, in the accomplishment of the primary economic, domestic, and political tasks of mankind. Furthermore, a religion is based on supernaturalistic beliefs about the nature of the world which are not only inconsistent with scientific knowledge but also difficult to relate even to naïve human experience.[19]

J. Milton Yinger

Religion then can be defined as a system of beliefs and practices by means of which a group of people struggles with these ultimate problems of human life. It expresses the refusal capitulate to death, to give up in the face of frustration, to allow hostility to tear apart their human associations.[20]

Defined in these various ways, religion is -- and seems likely to remain -- an inevitable part of human life.

The definition: “religion is man's attempt to ‘relativize’ these difficulties by interpreting them as part of some larger good, some conception of the absolute that puts the individual's problems into new perspective, thus to remove or reduce their crushing impact. At the same time, man's social relations, his societies, are threatened by these same problems. Fear and frustration can lead to disrupting hostility, unless they can be reinterpreted as part of a shared experience. In addition, there is a tendency of each individual to think only of himself, to make his personal joys and desires into absolute goods, thereby threatening the patterns mutual adjustment that social life requires. Religion is that attempt to relativize an individual’s desires, as well as his fears, by subordinating them to a conception of absolute good more in harmony with the shared and often mutually contradictory needs and desires of human groups.”[21]

Winfried Corduan

A religion is a system of beliefs and practices that provides value to give meaning and coherence by directing a person toward transcendence.... religion (1) unifies our existence by providing the core values from which we derive meaning and goals and (2) directs us beyond the mundane routine of everyday existence.... transcendence can come to us in many different ways, through supernatural agencies or through metaphysical principles (for example, the greatest good or the first cause), an ideal, a place or awareness.[22]


Charles R. Monroe

Religion is concerned with the supernatural power of the Creator, the inevitable forces of nature and the spiritual world, and how humans react to these mysterious and supernatural forces. Religion is essential for human survival... man may rely less and less on God and religion as humans use reason and science to discover the secrets and mysteries of creation, but also at no foreseeable time the future will human beings be able to dispense with the believe in God loves us, heals us, and promises eternal peace in heaven after death.[23]

[It's obviously not an exhaustive list of definitions, however it is a list that I continually add to while I come across new definitions.]



[1] J. Milton Yinger, The Scientific Study of Religion, (London: Macmillan Company, 1970), 3

[2] J. Milton Yinger, The Scientific Study of Religion, 3

[3] J. Milton Yinger, The Scientific Study of Religion, 4

[4] J. Milton Yinger, A Scientific Study of Religion, 4

[5] J. Milton Yinger, A Scientific Study of Religion, 4

[6] John Locke: Writings on Religion, ed, by Victor Nuovo, (Oxford: Clarendon Press , 2002), 17

[7] John Locke, “Critical notes upon Edward Stillingfleet’s mischief and unreasonablenes of separation,” John Locke: Writings on Religion, ed, by Victor Nuovo, (Oxford: Clarendon Press , 2002), 73

[8] Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans, Theodore M. Green and Hoyt H. Hudson, (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), 156

[9] Leudwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity, trans, George Eliot, (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1957) 12 -- 13, italics mine

[10] Rabindranath Tagore, The Religion of Man, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1961), 17

[11] John Dewey, A Common Faith, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1934), 8

[12] John Dewey, A Common Faith, 9

[13] John Dewey, A Common Faith, 6

[14] John Dewey, A Common Faith, 7

[15] Out Of Revolution: Autobiography of Western Man, (Providence: Berg Publishers, 1993), 379

[16] Carl G. Yung, Psychology and Religion, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1938), 4, 5; see also: Man and His Symbols, (New York: Anchor Press, 1988), 21

[17] Carl G. Yung, Man and His Symbols, (New York: Anchor Press, 1988), 21

[18] John B. Noss, Man's Religions: fifth edition, (New York: Macmillan publishing Co., 1974), 3

[19] Anthony F. C. Wallace, Religion: An Anthropological View, (New York: Random House, 1966), vi


[20] J. Milton Yinger, A Scientific Study of Religion, 5


[21] J. Milton Yinger, A Scientific Study of Religion, 15

[22] Winfried Corduan, Neighboring Faiths: A Christian Introduction to World Religions, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 21

[23] Charles R. Monroe, World Religions: An Introduction, (New York, Prometheus Books, 1995), 10-11

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