Human Sciences and Theories of Religion

Abstract

There are two ways of studying religion: religion by religion and comparatively. To study religions one by one is invariably to stress the individuality of each religion. To study religions comparatively is invariably to emphasize the similarities among religions. It is theologians who seek the uniqueness of their own religion. It is social scientists who seek the commonality of religions. To be sure, there is the hermeneutical, or interpretive, movement, which, starting with Wilhelm Dilthey and culminating so far in Clifford Geertz, focuses on the particularities of the cases of any category studied, such as marriage or revolution or religion. But this chapter concentrates on the mainstream quest for similarities, or generalizations.

This chapter gives an overview of the main modern theories of religion. Those theories come mostly from the social sciences, a term used interchangeably with the “human sciences.” The focus in this chapter is on theories from anthropology, which has provided the largest number of theories. What makes theories theories is the issue. What questions about religion do theories raise, and what questions do they ignore? Twentieth-century theories are distinguished from nineteenth-century ones. In the nineteenth century, religion was deemed incompatible with natural science – not, to be sure, by natural theologians but by social scientists. In the twentieth century, religion came to be deemed compatible with natural science.