Eight theories of religion second edition

As we have noticed throughout the preceding chapters, all of our theorists address themselves in some measure to the question of religion in general—religion taken “in the round”—but they do so in quite different ways. Like their predecessor Max Müller, Tylor and Frazer feel they can explain the entire history of religion as it first appeared and then developed through the long span of the human centuries. This strikes us today as an astonishingly unrealistic goal, though for their part, they found in the principle of social evolution all the guidance they could want. For Tylor, the spirit worship of primitive peoples, the polytheism of the Greeks and Romans, and the monotheism of the “higher” religions could all be explained as steps on the staircase of civilization; they mark the ascent of humanity to ever more rational forms of religion—the most rational of which, in his view, was the choice of no religion at all. Frazer’s approach, which includes magic as a preliminary stage, follows essentially the same grand global pattern.

Nor are Tylor and Frazer alone. From their very different perspectives, the three major reductionists—Freud, Durkheim, and Marx—show the same sort of general ambition. When they explain religion, they mean to explain all of religion, and they refer to one religious system as a sort of paradigm case, the supreme instance of an endeavor that appears in numerous other “lesser” or later forms. For Freud, the idea at the center of humanity’s universal obsessional neurosis is the Judeo-Christian belief in God as Father. Durkheim also

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Weber and Eliade, as we have seen, share not only a dissent from the policies of reductionism but a parallel determination to explain religions in some comprehensive comparative manner. Both take the entire spectrum of world religions as their topic, though their emphases—Weber on the great world systems, Eliade on archaic religions—clearly differ. Both keep the evolutionism and comparative method of Victorian anthropology off their agenda, but as it happens, the scale of their inquiries is no less breathtaking than the worldwide travels of Tylor and Frazer. Weber is confident that he can make wellgrounded but sweeping comparisons between Asian and Western religions, between asceticism and mysticism on a panoramic scale, and among the economic ethics of entire civilizations. Eliade draws his evidence from every age and every locale of human civilization; in his search for the universal patterns of symbolism and myth, he moves freely from Hindu writings on yoga and the shamanism of Asia to the aboriginal culture of Australia to the “cosmic Christianity” of European peasants, as well as the texts and rites of many other times, places, and peoples, whether ancient or modern, Eastern or Western, simple or sophisticated. His aims too are genuinely global.

If the universalist ambitions of Weber and Eliade bring them together with reductionists they otherwise distrust, those aims clearly separate them from two of their colleagues in antireductionism, Evans-Pritchard and Geertz. As we have noticed, both of these theorists have serious misgivings about any theory that aspires to universal claims about “all” of religion. From their standpoint, the global ambitions of Weber, and more especially Eliade, come uncomfortably close to the old ways of Tylor and Frazer. Weber, at least, shows a thorough concern about method; he attends consciously to the role of his ideal-types in comparisons. Eliade’s Frazerian affinities are more troubling. It may well be true, as he says, that religion must be explained “on its own terms,” but field anthropologists who spend years in a single primitive village wince at the method he chooses—searching throughout the world, and throughout history, to find what appear to be surface similarities between the symbols, myths, and rituals of differing cultures. There may indeed be certain symbolic themes—like that of rebirth associated with the cycles of the moon—shared by peoples of most times and many places, but if their

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An explanation is one thing; the way we try to prove it is another. If we look at all eight theories in light of their approach to evidence, certain clear differences are not hard to notice. Because they believe that a truly global theory of religion requires an equally global array of evidence, Tylor, Frazer, Weber, and Eliade all set out with great determination to collect the widest possible array of information. The strength of this approach lies in its honest attempt to make a complete fit between theory and evidence. It assumes that if claims about all of religion are to be made, then evidence from all (or as close as we can come to all) religions ought to be adduced. Nevertheless, its disadvantages are obvious. It is a program virtually impossible to pursue without conceding that our grasp of some texts or traditions will be better than others, that there will be barriers of language and limits to translation, and that there will be gaps to fill by inference rather than evidence. In addition, global investigations almost by definition must make at least some of their arguments by drawing facts, customs, or ideas out of the natural context of the cultures that generate them. When that happens, the risks of distortion and misunderstanding are very real.

These difficulties with evidence are rather neatly escaped by Freud and Marx even though, as we have seen, the claims they make about religion are in a sense just as universal as any made by Tylor, Frazer, Weber, or Eliade. Freud and Marx feel no need to search the world for data; they feel they have found something better—the fundamental mechanism in human beings that everywhere generates religion, regardless of the specific form it takes in one culture or the next. For Freud, there is no need to gather facts from around the world when the source of all rites and beliefs can be traced directly to the Oedipal tensions and neuroses that are characteristic of every human personality. If we have in hand the principle that generates all religions, we have no need for all the many labors of anthropology and comparative religion, other than to supply us with instructive supporting details. Similarly for Marx, it

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The problem with both of these theories, of course, is that they must show how all religions arise from wish fulfillment or the class struggle; they cannot just assume it. Since religions differ tremendously in both form and substance around the world, it is the obligation of both Freud and Marx to show us just how it is that, say, Chinese folk religion or Australian totemism is generated by the same psychological and social forces that have produced Judeo-Christian monotheism. This is not impossible to achieve. The Hindu doctrines of caste and reincarnation, for example, seem almost to plead for Marxist analysis. Freud and Marx see no compelling need to canvas multiple cases; both are content to apply their theories chiefly to Judeo-Christian monotheism and let the verdict in that case stand for all other religions as well. But such a strategy is hardly a substitute for genuine consideration of other relevant cases. Clearly, the sharp focus of both Freud and Marx largely on one Western monotheistic religion constrains their accounts unless some effort is made to widen the scope of the evidence they are willing to consider. Universal claims cannot easily rest on mainly provincial arguments; the range of the evidence must be sufficient to support the range of the theory it is adduced to support.

The remaining three theorists—Durkheim, Evans-Pritchard, and Geertz— think that the matter of theory and evidence can be settled only by some form of compromise. They find the comprehensive approach of Tylor and Frazer and of Weber and Eliade unacceptable, while the exclusively Western focus of Freud and Marx is too narrow. The truth, they say, must be found somewhere in between. In this connection Durkheim’s solution, though different from theirs, still somewhat resembles that of Freud and Marx. He too thinks he has found the mechanism that generates all of religion, not in the psyche or the class struggle but in the needs of society. He also thinks he can illustrate this mechanism through an account of a single primitive religious tradition that serves as his test case—in his own words, the “one well-made experiment” that is “valid universally.”¹⁰ The religion he chooses, however, is not Judeo-Christian monotheism but primitive Australian totemism, for it better shows the “elementary forms” of all religions. As we noted in the chapter discussion of Durkheim, however, his critics have been quick to point out that Australian clan cults offer no better foundation for a general theory than does any other religion taken in isolation. So here again, though Durkheim does try to be more genuinely scientific about his procedure than

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Durkheim’s example enables us to see just why theorists such as EvansPritchard and Geertz have moved so decidedly away from any general claims about the nature of religion. The problem is in the evidence, which in their view must be patiently studied in individual cases before any kind of more general statement can even begin to be made. In that connection, Evans-Pritchard does express a kind of deferred hope that at some future moment scholars, building on studies done in the present, may be able to frame well-founded general interpretations. Quite diffidently, in the conclusion of Nuer Religion, he describes his own careful work in the Sudan as little more than a small first step on the way to comparative studies that in the future will examine African systems as a whole.¹¹ From there, presumably, he would encourage interpreters to go on to even wider theories that embrace other continents and cultures, though all of that would no doubt occur far in the future.

Geertz, by contrast, is more skeptical. As we have already seen, the position he takes brings him very near to announcing the end of all general theories in both anthropology and religion. He thinks the fault of earlier theorists—from Tylor and Frazer to Weber, Eliade, and the reductionists—lies not (as Evans-Pritchard claims) in the method or manner of reaching their goal but in the goal itself. His contention is that the evidence does not, and probably never will, allow for any scientifically generalized claims about religions or cultures as we find them in anthropological research. Given the deep and sharp particularity of societies around the world, the whole idea of a general theory of something so culture-bound as religion must be called into question. Accordingly, says Geertz, we cannot frame a general explanation of religion any more than we can create a general theory of culture or of world literature. What we can develop, as the title of his most important book states, is the interpretation of cultures (plural); what we cannot create is some generic theory of culture (singular). And what is true of culture is equally true of religion. We can investigate and interpret individual cults, creeds, and even emotional states, but we cannot reach some comprehensive theory of religion in general. The range of our evidence will always be insufficient to support the range of such a theory.

The cautions of Evans-Pritchard and the renunciations of Geertz stand out in rather sharp relief against the backdrop formed by the earlier and far more ambitious designs of their predecessors and rivals. Nor are they alone. If anything, the course of more recent discussions in the theory of religion has for the most part deepened doubts and multiplied hesitations about general formulas of almost every kind. Current theorists wonder aloud whether, outside

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of recent appeals to evolutionary biology and genetics, the term “science” can any longer even be used in the field of religious studies.¹²

None of the theorists we have met in this book should be considered a purely detached scholar, writing on a subject of no immediate interest to himself or his times; each is a human being who in addition to his theory holds certain personal convictions about religion as well. The relationship between those personal convictions and the explanations proposed is a subtle and complicated matter, which we can hardly explore in any complete way here. Nonetheless, a few last comments on this tangled and problematical issue may turn out to be useful.

First, to recall a point made early in this book: There is a sense in which all of the theories we have considered here offer at least a possible challenge to religious belief because from the start they choose not to consider supernatural explanations of religious endeavors. The devout Christian explains her faith as a gift of God; the Muslim explains the power of the Prophet through direct inspiration from Allah. By contrast, the theorist of religion appeals only to what can be described as “natural causes” or “nonprivileged accounts.” This difference of approach need not necessarily create a conflict. Max Müller, a devoutly religious man, saw no reason why natural and supernatural explanations of religion should ever need to come in conflict; in his view the two could nicely converge.¹³ But that was not the view of Tylor and Frazer, who set the terms for so much of the theoretical sequence that we have followed here. Both were antireligious rationalists who took considerable pleasure in announcing that supernatural explanations of religion lose their purpose once we grant that belief in gods and spirits arises from a natural but mistaken way of explaining the operations of the world. That Muhammad claimed to receive revelations from Allah, they would say, is a fact no one need doubt; that he actually was so inspired is a claim no rational person can accept. Religion for Tylor and Frazer is thus a form of thought suitable to those ages when people lived in relative ignorance of natural causes. Now that civilization has evolved to a higher stage and the ways of science are known to all, such crude explanations of events are no longer needed.

The decidedly antireligious uses that Tylor and Frazer found for the comparative study of religion opened the way to the even more aggressive attacks of the three pivotal reductionists we have considered—Freud, Marx, and Durkheim. Like Tylor and Frazer, they too personally reject religion and dismiss it as a relic left behind from earlier ages of ignorance. Going a step further, however, they proceed to explain how it has survived by tracing its

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origin to irrational or subconscious causes: the neurotic psychology of the individual, economic injustice in the social order, or the idealization of community interests. Since religion cannot possibly be a normal and rational thing, such functional and reductive accounts of its survival are the only ones available. Atheism in this connection seems naturally to entail reductionism.¹⁴

It is not hard to see why Eliade and Evans-Pritchard, both of whom exhibited a sympathy for religious belief, would take a stand in opposition to reductionism. Reductionist explanations, even in the less militantly antireligious form developed by Durkheim, tend to be so fundamentally opposed to the normal stance of faith that it is hard to see how believers could abide them without discomfort. To the eyes of faith, reductionism seems an alien form of explanation. Yet if all religious believers will tend to oppose reductionism, at least of the strict sort, it does not follow that only believers will oppose it, even though current theorists of religion sometimes make the mistake of supposing this must be so.¹⁵

On this point, both Weber and Geertz provide instructive examples. Weber describes himself as “religiously unmusical.” Geertz describes his stance as agnostic; he has no personal religious commitments. Yet in their explanatory work, both oppose reductionist theories as pointedly as do Eliade and EvansPritchard. Weber and Geertz obviously do not do so because reductionists present any challenge to their personal beliefs but simply because in their view those theories do not adequately explain the phenomenon of religion. As they see things, the appeal to a single circumstance or process that explains all forms of belief—whether it be Freud’s personal neurosis or Marx’s class struggle— simply cannot do justice to extraordinarily diverse forms of religion or to its true nature as we actually encounter it in the world. A circumstance such as

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Behind the scenes, then, it is apparent that personal commitments have played at the very least a strong motivating role in the development of modern theories of religion. To those who, like Freud and Marx, have written from a personal stance of antipathy toward religion, aggressive reductionism seems only natural and right. To those who, like Eliade, have been moved by sympathy with the religious perspective, it can only be misguided and mistaken.

While personal commitments have undoubtedly played their role in the theoretical enterprise, it would be a mistake to think that the influence of any of our theorists has been limited only to those who share his beliefs. Theories naturally are affected by the belief (or disbelief) of their authors and audiences, but neither their design nor their fate is wholly determined by either. Although Tylor and Frazer were anti-Christian agnostics, readers of all persuasions were drawn to certain aspects, at least, of their evolutionary intellectualism because at the time it offered a compelling account of religion’s role in civilization. Today a reader might be attracted instead to neo-Tylorian theory, but for the same reason: It informs, explains, or persuades.

A somewhat similar judgment can be applied in the case of the key spokesmen for reductionism. Although Freud and Marx were militant atheists, the influence of their theories, which probably reached its apex just after the middle decades of the past century, has extended far beyond the narrow circle of psychoanalysts, Communist party members, and academic agnostics. The reason for that is clear. As we noted in the chapter discussions, the theories of both Freud and Marx are particularly aggressive forms of functionalist explanation; they claim fully to explain religion by reducing it to the dynamics of a personality disorder or class struggle. Few thoughtful observers today or in the past have ever made a purchase of these views in their full-dress reductionist form, but many have found them to be extraordinarily useful simply by scaling back their claims from the whole to the part. As reductionists who laid claim to a complete explanation of religion, Freud and Marx both have been largely discredited. But in a more constrained role as functionalists whose penetrating partial insights into the nature of personality and the dynamics of social struggle have thrown welcome light on certain hidden dimensions of religious experience, their impact has been enormous. The influence of Marx may have waned in political institutions, but (as has become clear) Marxian themes appear everywhere in the vigorous and multiple forms of postcolonial theory.

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Interestingly, it is Eliade whose impact on later theorists bears the closest resemblance to Durkheim’s. Though there is, to be sure, merit of its own in his stress on archaic thought and the primacy of the sacred, Eliade greatly increased his influence on subsequent discussion by establishing himself at a great university and assembling, if not quite a school, at least a loosely extended clan of younger scholars who broadly shared his general perspective. Moreover, because his own religious sympathies were muted, his strong antireductionist stance was never visibly tied to personal religious belief (as was that of Rudolf Otto, by contrast) in a way that would have invited critics even more readily to dismiss it as a theologically confessional posture rather than (as it certainly is) an independent theoretical stance. Today, scholars even of quite nonreligious attachments can be drawn to Eliade’s antireductionist stance on purely theoretical grounds; they claim, quite apart from personal beliefs, that it is simply a better way to explain religion.

New chapters on Eliade and reductionism undoubtedly remain to be written. In the meantime, however, both sides in that debate have seen their quarrel somewhat eclipsed by the new double challenge, as it were, put to them first by fieldwork anthropology and later by evolutionary biology. Anthropology asks whether any general theory of religion that appeals primarily to humanistic or social scientific theorems can still lay claim to the kind of generalized (and generally applicable) knowledge that we call science. The prevailing consequence of field research, as we have seen, has been a general disposition to ask whether the grand, ambitious, all-embracing explanatory schemes devised by Weber and Eliade on the one side and by their adversaries Freud, Durkheim, and Marx on the other have perhaps

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In this quite skeptical present environment, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the future plainly does not belong to general theories that try to explain all of religion. If anything, theory of the most useful kind is likely to appear in the form of specific ideas and connections, or occasional and narrowly tailored theorems, that can be drawn from one specific case and fruitfully applied to some (but probably not all) others. Evans-Pritchard has been doubly significant in this connection. Not only has he published one of the more devastating critiques of generalist theories, but his own works on both the Azande and the Nuer have succeeded in showing just how much deeper and richer explanations of religion can be when they are rooted in a close, careful, and detailed study of the entire culture that is both their home and their expression. The same sort of argument by example is to be found in the work of Geertz. His colorful and detailed ethnographic studies of religion in Bali and Java as well as Morocco have left all theorists of religion with an intriguing dilemma: What happens when the first mission of a science—to acquire precise, accurate, and specific information—is done so thoroughly that its second task—the formulation of generalized theory based on similarities between cases—becomes almost impossible to accomplish? Until some usable path through this dilemma is found, the day of the general social scientific theory is not likely to make a quick return.

This emphasis on focused particular studies does not mean that no statements at all of a more general sort can be made about religious phenomena. Attempts to make connections, find similarities, or frame comparisons always remain useful, but these are, to be candid, forms and habits of inquiry more nearly associated with humanistic inquiry than with procedures of a science. And they suggest what some observers have always predicted: Future theoretical inquiry into religion may need to proceed with the particularist and historical focus of the humanities rather than the generalizing aims of social science, though the ideals of the latter remain a part of its inspiration. This is decidedly not because humanistic inquiry has been found to be better than scientific, but simply because it seems more suited to the extraordinarily diverse and changing nature of the data, which consists of institutions, beliefs, and behaviors that are bound up with complex—partly free and partly conditioned— thoughts and choices of human agents. In the late 1800s, when the fascinating fruits of the new anthropology first captured the imagination of the Victorians,

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There is now a third option, one which Maitland, of course, could hardly imagine, though perhaps his contemporary Charles Darwin might have. Should the energized pioneers now at work in genetics, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology find some success, should they begin to offer accounts of religiosity rooted in certain universal structures or common chemistries of the brain, then a true general theory, anchored in what we may call the biology of belief, will again become a viable prospect. In that case, our dilemma would find a resolution—and this book would need a new and quite different final chapter.