Eight theories of religion pals pdf

EIGHT THEORIES OF RELIGION

SECOND EDITION

Daniel L. Pals

University of Miami

New York Oxford

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

2006

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pals, Daniel L.

Eight theories of religion / by Daniel L. Pals. — 2nd ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 0-19-530458-9 (hard : alk. paper)—ISBN-13: 0-19-516570-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)

ISBN 0-19-530458-6 (hard : alk. paper)—ISBN 0-19-516570-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Religion–Study and teaching–History. I. Pals, Daniel L. Eight theories of religion.

II. Title.

BL41.P36 2005

200'.7–dc22

2005050238

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

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To the memory of my father, Herbert H. Pals (1916–2004).

Filiis caritatem maiorem posset nullus pater habere.

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CONTENTS

Preface ix

Introduction 3

1. Animism and Magic 18

E. B. TYLOR AND J. G. FRAZER

2. Religion and Personality 53

SIGMUND FREUD

3. Society as Sacred 85

éMILE DURKHEIM

4. Religion as Alienation 118

KARL MARX

5. A Source of Social Action 149

MAX WEBER

6. The Reality of the Sacred 193

MIRCEA ELIADE

7. Society’s “Construct of the Heart” 229

E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD

8. Religion as Cultural System 260

CLIFFORD GEERTZ

9. Conclusion 292

Index 325

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PREFACE

Over the years since it was first published, Seven Theories of Religion seems to have found a

serviceable niche on the shelf of books that discuss modern efforts to explain and understand

religion. Its original purpose was not just to acquaint nonspecialist readers with general patterns of

interpretation but to offer a sequence of intellectual portraits centered on theorists at work,

reviewing the kinds of evidence they adduce, tracing the forms of argument they advance, and

appraising, amid comparison, both the agendas and achievements they promise. The focus fell on

certain classic formulations—a sequence of theories that by merit and historical influence have

managed to chart the main paths of discussion over the last century and more. Judging by the

responses of most readers, that approach has proved helpful, especially to students and their

instructors in both college and university classrooms. Accordingly, at the editors’ invitation, I

agreed to revisit the original and offer certain improvements.

Though it (necessarily) carries a new title, this book forms a second edition of Seven Theories,

revised and amplified in ways meant to enhance its overall design. While reproducing the main

sequence of discussion in the original, the present work seeks to extend its reach by offering 1) a

revised introduction, 2) a new chapter on the work of German social theorist Max Weber, 3)

associated other revisions that bring Weber into the earlier analyses and comparisons, and 4) a

revised and enlarged conclusion that traces patterns of recent inquiry against the background of

these classic approaches. In addition, a few minor clarifications suggested by observant critical

readers have been included.

The addition of Max Weber, now the fifth in the new sequence of eight theorists, merits a brief note

of explication. For all his originality and historical importance, Weber was omitted from Seven

Theories, mainly because the aim of the book was to present classic theories of a pure, or ideal, type

(a rationale Weber himself certainly could have appreciated). Because of their

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power to provoke or promote debate, the accent fell on explanations advanced in support of a single

overriding thesis—as in Freud’s finding that all religion reduces to neurosis—rather than those that

rely on complex multidimensional constructs. The latter, of course, is the kind of approach that

Weber preeminently represents; hence he was excluded. Over time, however, more than a few

thoughtful readers have come to take a different view of this matter. Consistency, they contend,

ought not to come at the price of completeness. In a work specifically centered on theorists who

have virtually defined the field known as “theory of religion,” the absence of Weber is a void too

large to overlook. His pioneering labors in social theory, especially as it bears on religion, argue for

his birthright in any sequence of classic figures, whatever we may think of the proper fit between

his program and those of others on the list. On rethinking the matter, this argument now strikes me

as persuasive. So Weber has here been included, taking what I hope will be an instructive place

alongside his theoretical peers.

The original conclusion to Seven Theories offered a set of structured comparisons among the

theorists presented. That material has now also been revised to include Weber in the sequence. The

idea of enlarging the final chapter to trace recent developments in the theory of religion comes at

the suggestion of Executive Editor Robert Miller and Oxford’s readers. I have followed their advice

in the discussion that now opens the concluding chapter. It seeks to show how the themes addressed

by these classic interpreters have evolved into the corollary issues, variant formulations, and newly

framed questions that stand at the center of today’s discussion and debate. Finally, in the interest of

economy in the presentation of scholarly citations, a substantial number of endnotes in the first

edition have been deleted or abbreviated in those places where close scholarly verification is not

absolutely essential to the exposition.

It is perhaps needless to say that this edition, no less than the first, bears prints of assistance from

multiple hands. For more than two decades, I have profited from the cordial atmosphere of

dedication to both learning and teaching fostered by thoughtful colleagues in the Department of

Religious Studies at the University of Miami. For the last eight years, members of the department

have enjoyed the further benefit of wise, patient leadership provided by Professor Stephen Sapp, a

chair who knows instinctively how to promote the mission of his faculty and, deservedly, gets their

best efforts in response. In this collegial context, I must especially thank longtime colleague and

friend David Kling, who carefully read through all the new materials and improved them with his

customary blend of pertinent query, apposite clarification, and constructive criticism. My nephew,

Derek John Brouwer of Denver Theological Seminary, gave the manuscript a similarly close

reading. Both know already how helpful their efforts have been. A more general word

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of appreciation is also due to Robert Miller, whose skills as an editor include persistence, patience,

and a capacity to routinely offer good literary advice. I am most grateful to him—and to the entire

team of skilled professionals on staff at Oxford Univesity Press who have assisted at various phases

of the production process. That group surely includes more than those whom I have come to know

by name: Emily Voigt, Sarah Calabi, and Celeste Alexander.

On a personal level, my wife, Phyllis, and my daughter, Katharine, already know how crucial they

are to every joy in my life. Seven Theories was dedicated to them. With their warm approval, this

work is dedicated to the memory of my father—a man who answered lifelong hardship only with

quiet sacrifices for his three sons and a simple ethic of hard work that expected neither fair reward

nor fitting recognition. He is a treasure that cannot be lost because he cannot be forgotten.

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EIGHT THEORIES OF RELIGION

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Introduction

On a February day in the winter of 1870, a personable middle-aged German scholar rose to the

stage of London’s prestigious Royal Institution to deliver a public lecture. At the time, German

professors were famous for their deep learning, and this one was no exception, though as it

happened, he had also become very English. His name was Friedrich Max Müller. He had first

come to Britain as a young man destined for Oxford, where his plan was to study the ancient texts

of India’s Vedas, its books of sacred knowledge. He soon settled in, married a proper English wife,

and managed to acquire a position at the university. Müller was admired for his knowledge of

ancient Hinduism, but he also acquired a mastery of written English, which he applied with

admirable skill in popular writings on language and on mythology that appealed widely to curious

Victorian readers. On this occasion, however, he proposed a different subject: He wished to

promote something he called “the science of religion.”

Those words in that combination doubtless struck some in Müller’s audience as puzzling in the

extreme. After all, he was speaking at the end of a decade marked by furious debate over Charles

Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) and its startling theory of evolution by natural selection.

Thoughtful Victorians had heard so much of science pitted against religion that a science of religion

could only fall on the ears as a curious combination, to say the least. How could the age-old

certainties of faith ever mix with a program of study devoted to experiment, revision, and change?

How could these opposing systems, these two apparently mortal enemies, meet without one

destroying the other? These were understandable concerns, but Müller was of a different mind. He

was quite certain that the two could meet and that a truly scientific study of religion had much to

offer to both sides in that controversy. His lecture, the first in a series that was later published as an

Introduction to the Science of Religion (1873), was designed to prove just that point. He reminded

his

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listeners that the words of the poet Goethe on human language could also be applied to religion:

“He who knows one, knows none.”1 If that is so, then perhaps it was time indeed for a new and

objective look at this very old subject. Instead of following the theologians, who wanted only to

prove their own religion true and all others false, the time had come to take a less partisan approach,

seeking out those elements, patterns, and principles that could be found uniformly in the religions of

all times and places. Much could be gained by proceeding like any good scientist, gathering the

various facts—the customs, rituals, and beliefs—of religions throughout the world and then offering

theories that compare and account for them, just as a biologist or chemist might explain the

workings of nature.

Certainly not everyone, even among scholars, agreed that something of value could be gained from

the study of many religions. Back in Germany, Adolf von Harnack, the foremost Church historian

of the age, insisted that Christianity alone is what matters; other faiths do not. “Whoever does not

know this religion knows none,” he wrote in pointed rejection of Müller’s view, “and whoever

knows it and its history, knows all.”2 It was useless, he added with a certain disdain, to go to the

Indians, the Chinese, or even the Negroes or the Papuans. Christian civilization was the only one

destined to endure. Harnack was unusually blunt, but his view itself was not so unusual. There was

a fairly wide consensus among theologians and historians across Europe that Christian ideals and

values, which formed the spiritual center of the West, expressed the highest in human moral and

cultural achievement. To imagine that something significant could be learned from others was to

think inferiors can tutor their betters. Disagreement of this kind did not discourage Müller, however.

He was entirely confident that serious study would show how certain profound and shared spiritual

intuitions link the sages of distant India and China to the saints and martyrs of the Church.

Ancient Theories

Müller’s program may have been unwelcome to some at the time and new to others, but elements of

what he proposed in his lecture were in fact very old. Questions as to what religion is and why

different people practice it as they do doubtless reach back as far as the human race itself. The

earliest theories would have been framed when the first traveler ventured outside the local clan or

village and discovered that neighbors had other gods with different names. When on his travels the

ancient historian Herodotus (484–425 B.C.E.) tried to explain that the gods Amon and Horus,

whom he met in Egypt, were the equivalents of Zeus and Apollo in his native Greece, he was

actually offering

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at least the beginning of a general theory of religion. So was the writer Euhemerus (330–260

B.C.E.) when he claimed that the gods were simply outstanding personages from history who began

to be worshipped after their death. According to Cicero of Rome, the Stoic Chrysippus (280–206

B.C.E.) was a thoroughly systematic student of the customs and beliefs of as many tribes and races

as his travels led him to encounter. Some Stoic philosophers accounted for the gods as

personifications of the sky, the sea, or other natural forces. After viewing the facts of religion, they

and others sought, often quite creatively, to explain how it had come to be what it was.3

Judaism and Christianity

Thinkers such as these lived in the classical civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome, where many

divinities were worshipped, and the idea of comparing or connecting one god with another was a

natural habit of mind. Judaism and Christianity, however, took a very different view of things. To

Isaiah and other prophets of Israel, there was no such thing as a variety of gods and rituals, each

with a different and perhaps equal claim on our interest or devotion. There was only the one true

God, the Lord of the covenant, who had appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and had revealed

the divine law to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Since this God alone was real and all others were mere

figments of the human imagination, there was very little about religion that needed either

comparison or explanation. The people of Israel were to trust in Yahweh because God had chosen

only them and had spoken to them directly; other nations worshipped idols, their eyes being

darkened by ignorance, wickedness, or both. Christianity, which arose out of later Judaism, took

over this perspective of Isaiah almost without change. For the apostles and theologians of the early

Church, God had put himself on clear display in the human person of Jesus the Christ. Those who

believed in him had found the truth; those who did not could only be regarded as victims of the

great deceiver Satan—souls destined to pay the bitter price of eternal suffering in Hell. As

Christianity spread across the ancient world and later to the peoples of Europe, this view came to

dominate Western civilization. There were occasional exceptions, of course, but the prevailing

attitude was expressed most clearly in the great struggle against Islam during the age of the

Crusades. Christians, the children of light, were commanded to struggle against the children of

darkness. The beauty and truth of God’s revelation explained the faith of Christendom; the

machinations of Satan explained the perversions of its enemies.4

For the better part of a thousand years after the Roman Empire had become Christian, this militant

perspective on religions outside the creed of the Church

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did not significantly change. But around the year 1500, as the epoch of world explorations and the

age of the Protestant Reformation arrived, the beginnings of a new outlook began to take shape. The

voyages of explorers, traders, missionaries, and adventurers to the New World and to the Orient

brought Christians into direct encounters with alien peoples who were neither Jews nor Muslims,

both of whose religions were readily dismissed (the first as a mere preface to Christianity, the

second as a perversion of it). Missionaries, traveling with those who explored and conquered, were

at the leading edge of the engagement. Their aim was to bring “heathen nations” to Christ and the

Church, and so they certainly did with many whom they converted, but that process brought some

surprises. When the Jesuit father Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) took residence at the court of the

emperor in China, the missionary very nearly became the convert. The Chinese, he discovered, had

a real civilization, with art, ethics, and literature. Their ways were rational, and they followed the

impressive moral wisdom of their own Moses, the ancient teacher Confucius. Another Jesuit,

Roberto di Nobili (1577–1656), had a similar experience in India. The spiritual wisdom of India

captured his imagination, and he studied the sacred books so intensively that he became known as

“the white Brahmin.” Still other missionaries, at work in the New World, discovered something like

a Supreme Being among the tribes of American “Indians.” As these reports filtered back to Europe,

it occurred to some in thoughtful circles that the condemnation of such peoples as disciples of the

Devil seemed inappropriate and misguided. China’s Confucians may not know Christ, but

somehow, without a Bible to guide them, they had produced a civilization of mild manners and high

morals. Had the apostles visited, they too would have admired it.

At the very same moment that these contacts were being made, the Christian civilization that Jesus

presumably had established found itself plunged into bloody and violent turmoil. Led by Martin

Luther in Germany and the lawyer John Calvin in Switzerland and France, the new Protestant

movements of Northern Europe challenged the power of the Church and rejected its interpretations

of Biblical truth. While the explorers traveled, their homelands often came ablaze with the fires of

persecution and war. Communities were split apart by ferocious quarrels over theology, first

between Catholics and Protestants and later among the scores and even hundreds of different

religious groups that began to appear in once-unified Christendom. Amid the storms of

ecclesiastical conflict and political struggle that gripped the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it is

not surprising that concerned believers on all sides grew ever less certain that they alone held God’s

final truth in their hands. The deadly, destructive wars of religion, which persisted for more than a

hundred years in some lands, led people to believe that the truth about religion

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cannot possibly be found in sects that were prepared to torture and execute opponents, confident

their work was God’s will. Surely, some said, the truth of religion must be found beyond the

quarrels of the churches, beyond the tortures of the stake and the rack. Surely, the faiths of Europe

could find a pure and common form, a more universal framework of belief and values.5

The Enlightenment and Natural Religion

It was this great quest, set against the bloody background of the previous era, that thinkers of the

eighteenth century, the Age of Enlightenment, embarked upon when they proposed the idea of a

pure and ancient “natural religion” shared by the entire human race. Natural religion formed the

basic creed of Deism, as it commonly came to be called. It enlisted the most articulate voices and

celebrated names of the age: philosophers such as John Toland and Matthew Tindal in Britain, the

American colonial statesmen Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin, brilliant men of letters such as

Denis Diderot and the great Voltaire in France as well as the dramatist Gotthold Lessing and

philosopher Immanuel Kant in Germany. Nearly all in this group endorsed the idea of a universal,

natural religion. It included the belief in a Creator God who made the world and then left it to its

own natural laws, a parallel set of moral laws to guide the conduct of humanity, and the promise of

an afterlife of rewards for good and punishments for evil. To the Deists this elegantly simple creed

was the faith of the very first human beings, the common philosophy of all races. The best hope of

humanity was to recover this original creed and to live by it in a universal brotherhood of all

peoples—Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Confucians, and all others—under their one Creator

God.

In addition to its commendable work in promoting tolerance, the Deist notion of an original natural

religion of humanity opened the door to a new way of explaining the many forms of religion in all

their conflicts and confusions. Whatever the different beliefs of the various Christian sects, the

rituals of America’s Indians, the ancestral rites of the Chinese, or the teachings of Hindu sages, all

could ultimately be traced back to the natural religion of the first human beings and then followed

forward as that wisdom was gradually transformed and dispersed into its modern variants. China

especially offered proof of this point. As trading ships from the Orient began to arrive regularly in

the 1700s, fascination attended all forms of Chinoiserie. Fabrics, spices, porcelains, teas, and

furnishings gave evidence of China’s civility, elegance, prosperity, and piety, all obviously acquired

without any help from the Bible. These graces, and the ethics of Confucius especially, exhibited the

virtues of natural religion.