Generating a Scientific Hypothesis about Religion

A Preliminary Attempt

S.N. Balagangadhara

Universiteit Gent

Belgium

Balu@UGent.be

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Criticizing a Post-Colonial Saga

Consider the claim that most would give their assent to: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, etc.,

are the religions of India. Postcolonial intellectuals would probably add two or three

qualifications to this claim. They would probably say that it is not possible to speak of one

Hinduism, one Buddhism, one Jainism; instead, one should speak about many Hinduisms,

many Buddhisms, many Jainisms, etc. Secondly, they would also raise questions about

who could speak about these religions. Thirdly, they are likely to add that the British created

or constructed these religions in India during the colonial period. The first two qualifications

are either misguided or cognitively uninteresting. For instance, it is both linguistically and

logically impossible to speak about the plurality of any religion without referring to it in the

singular: tigers are animals because tiger names a kind; trees makes no sense if there is

no tree to speak of, etc. Such usage is misguided, unless, of course, one maintains that

Hinduisms is not a plural of the singular noun Hinduism. No one has maintained this

position. In any case, we could simply accept that Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism etc., do

not name a unitary phenomenon but that they pick out a superset that includes many different

sets of practices and beliefs. One can after all assume that, in principle, it is possible to

construct such a super set even if one is unable to practically do so at any given moment. The

second qualification is uninteresting because we are not after canonical descriptions of these

phenomena. In this sense, it matters very little who speaks about these religions. By far, the

most interesting qualification is the third one. Let us look at it closely.

During the colonial period, the British created many things: an education system, the

legal system, a bureaucracy, roads and railways. None of these existed in these forms before

the British colonized India. Were religions like Hinduism etc., also created in this way?

Some postcolonial thinkers are inclined to answer this question in the positive: the British

created Hinduism as a religion in India, the way they created the Indian Civil Service (ICS).

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In that case, it follows that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the Orientalist writings

on Hinduism. Some of them might have made false claims, but we can correct them as more

accurate information accumulates. The contemporary writings on Hinduism, etc., whether

from the field of Indology or of Religious Studies, would remain continuous with the

Orientalist writings on the subject. That is to say, the facts that the Orientalists provide

become the point of departure for the writings in social sciences. The latter either add to these

facts or explain them. In fact, this is also the status of the field today: the writings in the

humanities and social sciences maintain an unbroken line of continuity with the Orientalist

writings on these religions in India.

In such a case, one can hardly understand what the excitement is about either

Orientalism or postcolonial studies. Of course, if one adds other items to this creation

story, one can blame western culture as abig bad wolf: the British created Sati, the dowry

system, the caste system, and anything else one feels like. This exercise in apportioning

blame uninteresting because it transforms the Indians into a bunch of idiots bereft of all

reason. The British could do what they wanted to with the Indian culture, introduce and create

whatever took their fancy, while their subjects stood around without stopping sucking on their

thumbs. To put it in the language of the postcolonial thinkers: such a story deprives the

colonial subjects of their agency. The postcolonial writers who tell such stories indeed deprive

the colonial subjects of their agency in the name of giving it back, or they discover an

expression of resistance to colonialism in a vigorous sucking of thumbs. Homi Bhabha, for

instance, has made a lucrative business of telling such stories.

A Different Creation Story

There is, however, another way of looking at the claim of creating these religions in India.

Despite the limitations, drawing an analogy could make it more perspicuous. Imagine that an

extraterrestrial came to earth and noticed the following phenomena: grass is green, milk turns

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sour, birds fly, and some flowers put out a fragrant smell. He is convinced that these

phenomena are related to each other and sees hipkapi in them. The presence of hipkapi

explains not only the above phenomena but also how they relate to each other. To those who

doubt the existence of hipkapi, he draws their attention to its visible manifestations: the tigers

eating the gazelle, dogs chasing the cats, and the massive size of the elephants. Each of these

is a fact, as everyone can see it. However, they do not tell us anything about hipkapi. When

more extraterrestrials come to earth and reiterate the presence of hipkapi, if other conditions

permit, hipkapi not only becomes a synonym for these phenomena but also turns out to be

their explanation. Thereafter, to ask what hipkapi is, or even how it explains, is an expression

of ones idiocy: does not everyone see hipkapi, this self-explanatory thing? In this analogy,

the extraterrestrial visitor has constructed the hipkapi. To him, it is an experiential entity. He

talks, as his fellow-beings do, about this experiential entity in a systematic way.

That is what the Europeans did. The puja in the temples, the sandhyavandanam of the

Brahmins, the sahasranamams, etc., became organic parts of the Indian religion.

Purushasukta was the cosmogony of the caste system, and untouchability its outward

manifestation. Dharma and Adharma were the Sanskrit words for good and evil, and the

Indian deities were much like their Greek counterparts. To the missionaries, Indians were

idolaters; to the contemporary liberal, polytheism has to do with the conception of the

deity. In terms of the analogy, these visitors construct a hipkapi. To them, it is an

experiential entity. They talk about this experiential entity in a systematic way.

This analogy entails suggesting that Europeans created Hinduism etc., as their

experiential entities. Under this construal, the Orientalists did not describe what exists in the

Indian culture. Instead, they created a hipkapi, constructed a pattern and structure that lent

coherence to their cultural experience of India. In such a case, claims about Hinduism become

somewhat akin to claims about having visions of Mother Mary in the Lourdes. Only

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somewhat, because such a vision might be a hallucination, whereas one cannot say that the

West has been hallucinating about the Indian religions.

When the Europeans came to India and wrote down their experiences, they were not

hallucinating. They did not write about their dreams nor did they compose stories. Whether of

a merchant, a missionary or a bureaucrat, the reports had some structure. Reflections about

such reports at second remove, or reflections on experiences at a later stage or in a distant

way, led to finding a pattern or structure in these experiences. That structure is the Orient and

the discourse about it is the Orientalist discourse.

The previous sentence is not a description of how the pattern or structure was found. It

is not as though any one person pored over these reports (though many did), trying out one

inductive hypothesis after another (even though a few were formulated), until a satisfactory

pattern finally emerged. These reports lent structure to what the Europeans saw. At the same

time, they filtered out phenomena that could not be structured in this fashion. Thus, these

reports contributed to structuring a European way of seeing and describing phenomena in

India. Such texts, which embodied an explanatory structuring of the European experiences,

ended up becoming the ethnological data or the anthropological fieldwork that the social

theories would later try to explain.

Orientalism is how western culture came to terms with the reality that the East is.

That is, Orientalism refers not only to the discourse about experience but also to the way of

reflecting about and structuring this experience. In this sense, even though Orientalism is a

discourse about western cultural experience, it is oblique. It is oblique because it appears to

be about other cultures. It is also oblique because it is not direct and has not been an object of

reflection. It is western in the sense that it refers to the experiences of the members from a

particular culture. Orientalism is the western way of thinking about its experience of non-

western cultures. However, it takes the form of an apparent discourse about the Orient.

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It means to suggest that the West did two things: (a) created Hinduism and

Buddhism, etc. as coherent and structured units and (b) did so as religions. The issue is not

whether western culture created a monolithic religion instead of recognizing the multiplicity

of theories and practices that go under the label Hinduism. It is not even whether they

experienced Hinduism as a monolithic entity. Instead, it lies in the fact that Hinduism, as a

concept and as an experiential entity, provided the Westerners with a coherent experience. To

the extent it is a concept, like all other concepts, it is a human construct. It is also a construct

because, as an experiential entity, it unifies the Western experience. However, this concept

has no reference in the world, i.e., there is no Hinduism (whether as a religion, or as a

multiplicity of religions) in the Indian culture. As a result, one could argue that the Saidian

double qualification of makes sense: Hinduism is both a false description of the Indian

reality and it is an imaginary. It is false not because the West gave a false description of the

reality (Hinduism in this case) but because they falsely assumed that their experiential entity

was also a real entity in the world. It is imaginary in the sense that it does not have an

existence outside the experience of western culture. The same considerations apply to the

caste system. The notion of such a system unified the British experience of India; they

implemented certain political and economic policies based on their experience. However, this

experience was not of the caste system. In fact, this experience was of no particular object but

constituted the basis of their going-about with the Indians. By creating such a system the

British lent stability, coherence and unity to their cultural experience. Both the caste system

and the Indian religions are constructs in this specific sense.

It is not as though colonialism brought Hinduism and the caste system into

existence. The Europeans spoke about these entities as though they existed. They acted as

though these entities were real. However, neither before nor after colonialism do such entities

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or phenomena exist. They are hipkapis. These entities merely lend structure and stability to

the European experience.

Here is the thesis I want to put across: except for Christianity, Islam and Judaism,

there are no other religions in India. Entities like Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism,

Sikhism, etc which are called the religions of India, exist, it is true, but they do so only in

the western universities. These religions are the imaginative creations of the western

savants and of the culture to which they belong.

In that case, all the books and articles, all the PhDs and all the commonsense talk

about these religions tell you as much about India as other relevant books, articles and

interviews tell you about the length of the Unicorns horn a creature which only virgins can

see. Or about the relation between the upper and lower torso of a satyr or about the need for a

curriculum reform at Harry Potters magical school, the Hogwarts.

A Newtonian Anecdote

As soon as such a thesis is put across, huge questions appear on the horizon. Here are some:

are we to say that nearly four centuries of western intellectuals and nearly two centuries of

English-speaking Indians (and others) were hallucinating? If they were not, what made them

speak of Indian religions? If they were, why were they hallucinating, whereas I claim I am

not?

It is no part of my theory to suggest that the earlier generations were hallucinating. Of

course, by the simple privilege of being born after them, from my vantage point and looking

back, I do suggest that they were wrong. However, I do not merely record that they are wrong

and claim that I have found the truth. What I do is something different altogether.

What I argue is the following: thanks to their mistakes, we have the possibilities of

correcting some of them today. To us, these mistakes take the form of cognitive problems that

our theories have to solve. The very same theories should also explain (without adding any

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additional and ad hoc hypotheses) why thinkers from the earlier generations had to commit

the mistakes they did commit. This cognitive requirement is important enough for us to think

through a bit.

Let me recount a charming anecdote that circulates in intellectual circles that makes

the epistemological point I want to make. It appears that Sir Isaac Newton, one of the greatest

geniuses we have known, was once congratulated as a genius who towered over both his

predecessors and his contemporaries. The alleged reply of Newton goes as follows: Even

the shortest of the pygmies sees farther than the tallest of men, when he stands on their

shoulders. And I, Sir, am standing on the shoulders of giants.

Quite apart from expressing the truly enviable intellectual humility, Newtons reply

does something more: it tells us something about the growth of scientific knowledge itself.

Amongst other things, it tells us that Newtons breakthrough was possible only because he

built upon other, earlier theories. In exactly the same way, we can hope to create new theories

today by building upon the theories of earlier generations. Thus, Orientalist description of

India becomes the foundation for building theories about India. Today is possible only

because of yesterday.

Consequently, it is not sufficient to say, as the post-colonials do, that the Orientalist

writings about India are wrong. In the process of providing alternate descriptions, we have to

show why and how we would have committed the same mistakes were we to be placed in their

situation. Here, the post-colonial writers fail abysmally: all they can say is that the Orientalist

writers were misguided by their racist, imperialist, sexist and colonial motives.

Obviously, only the post-colonial writers of today are the truly enlightened; all others before

them were either bigots or unconscious servants of the exigencies of the colonial

administration.

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Not only do I argue that the West imaginatively created Hinduism but also explain

why it was compelled to do so. Its compulsion is rooted in the nature of religion, and I

advance a hypothesis about religion that accounts for this compulsion (see further).

Consequently, my story emerges as an alternative; it is a competitor theory to those in the

marketplace about what religion is. This hypothesis breaks the structural unity that

Orientalism has constructed. Hinduism, Buddhism, etc., become hipkapis. Consequently, it

is possible to investigate which of the facts that went into constructing the hipkapi belong

together, which do not, and how. One can start probing deeper into ones own culture,

because ones experience is accessible for reflection. What is Hinduism? What is

Buddhism? do not become definitional questions. Instead, they translate themselves as tasks,

which require an alternative explanation of those facts that lend credibility to the existence of

the hipkapi.

Such an explanation also takes care of Lorenzens objection, which is quite fatal to

those theories that speak of the colonial construction of Hinduism, when they have only the

British colonialism in mind. Even though Lorenzen focuses upon the occurrence of the word

Hinduism in India before the advent of British colonialism, there is a larger question to be

raised. Why did Islam identify the presence of alternative and competing religions in India

centuries before the British did? Even here, how do we understand the fact that both Islam and

Christianity identified more or less same phenomenon as the native religion of India? My

hypothesis answers these questions by arguing that those who come from a religious culture

are forced to identify religions in other cultures as well and construct them, where they do not

exist. There is logic to such constructions, the logic of the religions to which the observers

belong. This explanation takes care of two issues: why both Islam and Christianity spoke of

religions in India and why, this is more important, they identified (more or less) the same

phenomenon as the native religion of India. Their construction followed analogous lines

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because of the shared heritage of the Semitic religions. In this sense, identification of

Hinduism by the Muslims before the advent of the British does not testify to the existence of

that religion in India; instead, it shows that there are deep lines of continuity between Islam

and Christianity.

In that case, what about generations of Indian intellectuals? Why do they see religions

in their own culture? The answer has to be located in what colonialism is and what it does to a

people: among other things, it generates what I call colonial consciousness in its subjects. It

is generated through violence, reproduced through asymmetries in power and sustained by an

ideology. Even though I cannot expand on this theme here, let me draw attention to one aspect

of such a consciousness. Because the Indian culture does not have native religions, its

intellectuals are blind to the existence of religions in their midst. Even where they look at the

Semitic religions in India, they think that these are variants of what exist in India, namely,

traditions. Consequently, either they simply mimic the western thinkers while talking about

religions or, where they do not, try to re-describe Islam and Christianity as variants of Indian

traditions. Hence the reason why many Indian intellectuals call the Muslims to reform the

Koran or rewrite the Bible, so that they might become better suited to the Indian culture.

In this sense, I cannot dream of suggesting that all our intellectual predecessors and all

the contemporary English-speaking Indians were/are hallucinating. Instead, I suggest that the

theoretical frameworks and the existing methodologies in the domain of religious studies are

secularized variants of Christian theology. That is to say, what we call secular religious

studies is embedded in a Christian theological framework. There is nothing secular or

scientific about the domain of religious studies today.

Some Additional Theses

Immediately, the next questions force themselves upon us. Why are all the theories from the

domain of religious studies, Christian-theological in nature? How can one make a claim as the

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one I am making, if we take the diversities in the theories and methods into consideration?

After all, we know for a fact that not all those who study Indian religions are believers much

less Christians. So, how could these people accept a theological framework to study the so-

called Indian religions? I answer these questions and give more body to my earlier

explanation by formulating the following hypothesis: I suggest that religion (in general) and

Christianity (in particular) is characterized by a double dynamic of proselytization and

secularization. I call this as the process of universalization of religion. Universalization wins

converts in two ways: one through the process of conversion, where someone is inducted into

a religious community; the other through the process of generating secular variants of its

theology which also wins adherents. Let me explain.

Not many would challenge the claim that Christianity has been highly influential in

the development of western culture. We need to take this statement utterly seriously. It means

that many things we take for granted, whether in the West or in India, are influenced by

Christianity. As I said, I claim that Christianity expands in two ways. Both of these have been

present ever since the inception of Christianity and have mutually reinforced each other. The

first is familiar to all of us: direct conversion. People from other religions convert to

Christianity and this is how the community of Christian believers grows. This is the surface or

explicit expansion of Christianity.

In a manner of speaking, the second way in which Christianity expands is also familiar

to us: the so-called process of secularization. I claim that Christianity secularizes itself, as it

were, in the form of de-Christianized Christianity. Among other things, what this means is

that typically Christian doctrines spread wide and deep beyond the confines of the community

of Christian believers dressed up in secular (that is, not in recognizably Christian) clothes.

The enlightenment period, which is identified as the Age of Reason, is alleged to be

the apotheosis of the so-called process of secularization. What people normally mean by

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secularization here is the following: the enlightenment thinkers successfully fought against

the dominance that religion (especially, Christianity) had exercised over social, political, and

economic life. From then on, so goes the standard text book story, humankind began to look

to reason instead of religion in matters social, civic, political etc. The spirit of scientific

thinking, which dominated that age, has continued to gain ascendancy in our own day and

time. As heirs to this period, which put an end to all forms of irrational subservience, we are

proud citizens of the modern day world. We are against all forms of despotism and believers

in democracy; we believe in the role of reason in social life; we recognize the value of human

rights; and we should understand that religion is not a matter for state intervention, but a

private and personal affair of the individual in question, etc. As I say, this is the standard

textbook story. The problem with this story is this: the enlightenment thinkers have built their

formidable reputation (as opponents of all organized religions or even religion tout court)

by selling ideas from Protestant Christianity as though they are neutral and rational.

As an example, consider the claim that religion is not a matter for state intervention

and that it is a private affair of the individual in question. If we look historically, we

discover that the contrast between the secular realm and the religious realm (often

formulated also as a contrast between the temporal and the spiritual), and the debates about

the relationship between these two realms (or spheres) characterise the history of

Christianity for the last two thousand years. This debate was primarily a theological one. It

revolved around the question of who the Vicar of Christ was. With the Gregorian revolution

and the emergence of Canon Law (about a thousand years ago), the Catholic Church settled

this issue in one particular way. This theological debate was an answer to the question of the

relationship between the King (the emperor) and the Pope. The issue in the debate was about

the relationship between the Church as a spiritual entity and its relationship to secular

authorities: was the King subordinate to the Church or the other way round? Did they both

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have different spheres of influence, viz., the spiritual and the temporal? What was the

relationship between these two spheres? Etc.

With the Protestant reformation, this theological debate became more generalized,

especially in Continental Europe. It now involved every single Christian: could the laws and

institutions of men (the secular structures and their injunctions) in any way restrain the

revelations of God? Could an institution like the Catholic Church, which was seen as a human

institution by the Protestants, add anything to the word of God? Much like the earlier debate,

this was also theological and political. Theologically at stake was the nature of Catholic

Church and its theology; politically, it involved the relationship between religion and state.

Protestant theologies make the following claim: nothing can come between an

individual and God except Gods revelation. No human law or organization can dictate how a

man worships or what he worships. Neither the Catholic Church nor the secular authorities

could interfere in the affairs of religion, which involves the relationship between the

individual and God. Any such incursion in the worship of God is the corrupting influence of

the Devil. Being a Christian believer is a matter between the Maker (i.e. God) and the

Individual. It was God (i.e. the Christian God), who judged man; and men could not judge

each other in matters of faith.

The theories of state neutrality we have (the so-called Liberal theories) secularize this

Protestant theological claim. The separation of state from religion (to put it crudely) is a

theological doctrine of Protestant Christianity. Over the centuries, intellectuals and political

thinkers in Europe have been ceaselessly selling Protestant theology (albeit dressed in secular

clothes) as the summum of human civilization. The triumph of Protestantism in Europe has led

even the Catholic Christians to accept a watered-down version of this theological claim as a

political doctrine.

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This claim makes sense only in relationship to what religion is (i.e. in what form is

Christianity a religion?) and how religion draws a line between the secular and the sacred.

The lines of distinction between the religious and the secular spheres are drawn within a

religion. Historically speaking, this demarcation is the work of Christian theology and our

political theories are Christian theologies in disguise. The enlightenment thinkers repeated

this Protestant story and this has become our secularism.

The so-called religious and secular divide is a distinction drawn within a religion and

is internal to it. No possibility exists of conceptualizing such a distinction outside of some or

another theological framework; no neutral or scientific description of such a divide will

ever be forthcoming. Those who moan about the process of secularization as a

disappearance of religion are ignorant of what they are talking about: secularization is one

of the ways in which a religion spreads in society.

To begin appreciating the plausibility (if not the truth) of my claim, ask yourselves the

following question: why are the so-called social sciences different from the natural

sciences? I mean to say, why have the social sciences not developed the way natural sciences

have? There must have been many geniuses in the field of social sciences; the mathematical

and logical sophistication in some of the social sciences is simply mind-bending; we have

computers that can simulate almost anything. It is not even as though the social sciences are

totally starved of funding or personnel. Despite these, the social sciences are not progressing.

Why is this? There are many answers provided in the history of philosophy and many of you

may have your own favourite explanation. Here is my answer: you cannot build a scientific

theory based on theological assumptions. What you get then is not a scientific theory, but an

embroidering of theology. I put to you that this is what has happened. Most of our so-called

social sciences are not sciences in any sense of the term: they are merely secularized

Christian theologies.

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These secular variants of Christian theology include our theories of human rights as

natural rights, our theories about the state and politics, our theories about the growth and

development of human psychologies, our theories about human ethics and moralities, our

constitutions that erect the wall of separation between religion and politics... This list is both

varied and huge. Theories in multiple domains about human beings and their endeavours

build on secularized versions of Christian theological assumptions. As such, what they tell us

about our nature and the nature of our interactions with fellow human beings is also what

Christianity tells us.

The secularized-theological framework is absorbed in multiple ways by the western

intellectuals. To such people, there is only one mode of being-in-the-world: the western mode.

Therefore, for example, I suggest that when people do research into the evolutionary and

natural origins of religions in human communities, they are doing theology even though they

proclaim to the world at large that they are doing science. Is there any wonder that they set

out to naturalize this mode of being by chattering incessantly about the evolutionary and

biological origins of religion?

One might plausibly assent to what I have said so far and to one of its implications:

The western intellectuals were mistaken and continue to be mistaken in seeing religions in

India because they make use of theological frameworks to study other peoples and cultures.

This theology is primarily Christian in its nature and Semitic in its origin. This framework

compels them to discover religions in every culture; in fact, the belief that all cultures have

some or another native religion is itself theological in nature. In this sense, western

intellectuals mistakenly see religion in all cultures because of the compulsion exerted by the

religious framework in which they are situated.

Let me summarize what I have said so far very sharply. Christianity spreads in two

ways: through conversion and secularization. The modern day social sciences embody the

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assumptions of Christian theology, albeit in a secularized form. It is an insidious process, the

process of secularization of Christian ideas.

Christianity, in my story, has also brought forth western culture. In this sense, a

particular religion, namely Christianity, has brought forth a secular phenomenon, namely,

western culture. This thesis is consistent with my claim that the secular is generated by the

religious and that the secular remains within the boundaries of the religious. This western

culture is, therefore, religiously secular: it is a secular world within the ambit of a religious

world and is created by the latter.

Why has this movement of secularizing the religious come about? I claim that we

should seek the answers in what makes Christianity into a religion; that is to say, we should

locate the causes in those properties that make something into a religion.

Religion: A Characterization

The presence of which properties transform some phenomenon into a religion? What makes

the Semitic religions into religions at all? Why do I argue that Indian culture does not have

native religions? Even though I cannot give detailed answers to these questions in the course

of this paper, let me provide the outlines of my answer. My characterization of religion is that

it is an explanatory intelligible account of both the Cosmos and itself. The reason why the

Semitic religions are religions and not something else has to do with the fact that each

possesses this property. Let me use an analogy to elucidate this point.

Consider a non-smoker who objects to others smoking in the same room where he is

present. Let us say that we need to account for this objecting behaviour: Why does he object if

others smoke in his presence? Let us now consider the two kinds of accounts, an explanatory

and an intelligible one, which answer the above question.

One could make the objection of the non-smoker intelligible by appealing to the

(reasonable and justifiable) beliefs held by him: he believes that smoking is injurious to

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health; and that passive smoking is also a form of smoking; and that he does not desire to

injure his health... etc. Hence, we can understand his behaviour by appealing to his belief-

states (or intentional states). That is to say, by looking at this behaviour as an intentional act.

Why does this non-smoker object to the others smoking in his presence? Because, so the

intelligibility account goes on, he believes that... The ellipsis would get filled-in by these

above beliefs. It is important to note that his beliefs are connected to his actions by means of

principle(s) of sound reasoning.

Because I merely want to illustrate the difference between two kinds of account using

the same example, let me introduce myself into this picture as a possessor of some piece of

information. Let us suppose that I am his friend and that one day, in strict confidence, (which

I am, alas, breaking for the good of science) he informed me that he cannot withstand smoke.

(He has severe asthma and some other allergies that make him react physically to smoke.) He

does not believe that the smell is injurious to health and that, in fact, he likes it. Smirking

smugly, I now tell you that the cause of his objection has nothing to do with his `beliefs'.

Because, I say grinning from ear to ear, he cannot withstand smoke...

On the one hand, it appears impossible to speak of human actions without appealing to

desires and beliefs, but doing so reduces the predictive power (or the problem solving

capacity) of the accounts we may give. On the other hand, the search for the underlying

(contingent) causal laws governing human behaviour has not yielded fruits either. In any case,

we have two kinds of accounts, an explanatory account and an intelligibility one, each of

which appears to focus on different questions.

Consider now an account, which promises to give us both. It suggests or hints that

some sets of actions are intelligible because they instantiate some sets of beliefs. And that the

relationship between intending and acting is not only constant but that nothing else

interferes between the former and the latter to such an extent that they virtually become

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identical. To those from the outside, knowledge of these actions is sufficient to draw

inferences about the reasons for actions. There is only one proviso attached. Because the

observers knowledge of these actions is always framed in some description or the other, one

can only read-off the purposes of the actions exhaustively if the descriptions of these actions

are themselves exhaustive. That is to say, a complete and totally accurate description of the

actions is required before we can be said to have a complete knowledge of the reasons for the

actions.

Such an account, when it is forthcoming; of such sets of actions, if they are possible;

of such a being, if it exists; these, together, will give us an explanatory intelligible account of

that being and its actions. The reason for calling it thus must be obvious: the causes of the

action are also its reasons. Further, because each type of action instantiates one and only one

purpose, prediction becomes possible as well. The causal law will be general, its predictive

power is not reduced, and the causes are the intentions of such a being.

Suppose that we now have a doctrine which says the following: such a being exists,

such actions exist too, but we could never provide a complete description of the actions of

such a being nor possibly observe all the actions of that being. At best, we could have a very

fragmented and partial description of such actions. It adds further that this being has

communicated its purposes to us the understandability of this message is again restricted by

the descriptive possibilities open to us. In such a case, we have two sources of knowledge:

some sets of actions that we try to understand; the message, which we try to make sense of.

Suppose further that this being is called God; His actions are the universe; His

message is precisely the above doctrine. We now have on our hands what we call a religious

doctrine. This doctrine makes the Cosmos into an explanatorily intelligible entity but not by

providing us with a detailed explanation of all events, happenings, and phenomena. It claims

that all there is, was, and shall be (the Cosmos, that is) are expressions of a will that

18

constitutes the cementing bond of the Cosmos. However, this claim about the nature of the

Cosmos is not a bare and simple statement but is itself couched in the form of an account.

Which kind of an account? It is an account that not only says that the Cosmos is explanatorily

intelligible but also one which makes the Cosmos into such an entity. Among other things, the

latter involves that the religion itself exemplifies explanatory intelligibility.

To get a better grasp on the issue, consider what religion does. First, it imparts

knowledge by saying that the world is the expression of the purposes of God. Because this is

what the world is, the knowledge of the world will be an explanatory intelligible account.

Since the religion in question is making a claim about the world, it is a knowledge-claim. It is

not just any knowledge-claim but one which brings reasons and causes together in an

extraordinary way. In so far as it makes this particular claim about the Cosmos, it must also

exemplify that property which makes the universe into a specific kind of a place. That is, a

religious account must itself be explanatorily intelligible.

Second, this knowledge of the world is also in the world. If the universe is

explanatorily intelligible, so is this knowledge about the world. Consequently, it is not enough

that the doctrine says that the world expresses the Will of God, but it must also exhibit or

express the very same will of God as well. Religion makes both the Cosmos and itself

explanatorily intelligible. That is, it must not only tell us why God created the world and us

but also why He gave religion to humankind.

This, then, is what makes an explanation religious: it is knowledge of the Cosmos

which includes itself. It is the explanation of the universe which includes itself as an

explanandum. There would have been a logical problem here, the threat of circularity perhaps,

if this were to be the result of our (human) understanding or theory of the world. But this

problem does not arise, because God has revealed His purposes by speaking to us about them.

Revelation, then, is the crucial component that breaks the possible circularity. As religious

19

figures would put it perhaps, religion need not prove the existence of God at all; the existence

of religion is the proof for the existence of God. In this sense, as an explanatory intelligible

account, religion is Gods gift to mankind and not a human invention.

Religion and Meaning

To accept this account is to accept that everything in the universe has a purpose. As human

beings, we are born and die in the Cosmos. Consequently, both events have a purpose as well.

To be part of a religion as a first approximation is to believe that human life and death

have significance, a meaning, and a purpose. A religious doctrine need not specify the

purposes of any individual life or death; it is enough that it merely says that there is one. Con-

sequently to accept that life, including your life, has meaning and purpose is to accept this

doctrine. As an individual, you do not know what the purpose or meaning of your birth or

death is. But because you believe that your life itself is explanatorily intelligible, your actions

appear to you as constituting (or exemplifying) the meaning of your life.

One of the oft-heard claims about religion is that it helps human beings to find

meaning and purpose in their lives. Equally often heard claims suggest that one of the

problems in the secularized societies of ours is that individuals experience anomie or

alienation by virtue of not finding such a meaning; finding that life is meaningless; or, used

often as a synonym in this context, absurd.

However, it is not always clear what this claim amounts to. Are the diverse religions

so many different attempts to find solutions to the question of meaning of ones life and

death? Some would say no. Yet others would say yes. However, it is not evident that reli-

gion answers this question at all. What religions have done is to assert that life and death have

a meaning and purpose. I know of no religion that has been able to answer a specific

individuals existential question.

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In fact, if you talk to people who do believe that they have found their meaning and

purpose in life, you get the following reply as an explication of the said meaning of their

lives: they describe what they are doing, and inform you that this description is the meaning

of their lives. That is, they merely reply that their lives have meaning and that the meaning of

their lives is the lives they are leading. To understand this better, let us consider the following

event and its account.

Suppose that you have a friend who attends parties or goes to dancing clubs very

regularly. Equally regularly, he chases after women on such occasions and, let us say, he

succeeds in picking them up each time a different woman. Puzzled, you ask him one day

why he does this. His answer goes like this: I always want a woman I cannot get that is

why I go after women at the parties. As soon as I get them, I lose all interest, which is why I

drop them. Even though what you have on your hands is a mere re-description of his action,

which you have observed, this account makes it intelligible. As Davidson (1963) formulates

it: (T)here is no denying that this is true: when we explain an action, by giving the reason,

we do redescribe the action; redescribing the action gives the action a place in a pattern, and

in this way the action is explained (in Davis, Ed., 1983: 64). That is, a reason makes an

action intelligible by redescribing it (ibid.: 67).

Those who have found meaning in their lives do precisely this: re-describe the lives

they are leading. Where I can help people using my skills, said a doctor to me once, I do

so; this is what makes my life meaningful to me. Neither you nor I are any the wiser for this

piece of knowledge; but we can see that it has the structure of an intelligibility account. Your

friend made his action of chasing after women intelligible not merely by describing the

pattern in his actions; by re-describing the pattern he also appears to place it in a bigger

pattern accessible to you. The description of a pattern in one's life also re-describes the pattern

in one's life; it also places it in a bigger pattern. To those from the outside, the bigger pattern

21

appears absent, which is why this account of life does not appear intelligible. From the inside

though, i.e., to those to whom their own lives appear meaningful, a pattern appears to be pres-

ent. They feel that their lives are placed in a pattern and not merely that their lives have a pat-

tern.

They cannot tell you what that pattern is, any more than your friend can tell you about

the pattern where his women-chasing activity is placed. In this sense, it is not true to say that

one cannot communicate the meaning one has found to ones life because it is some in-

tensely personal thing or because such a deep personal thing is not communicable. No. In

fact, these people are able to communicate the meaning of their individual lives; from the

outside, to someone who listens to such accounts, the intelligibility appears missing because

the pattern where it requires to be placed is not known.

More generally, the answer to the question of the meaning of life is not to be sought in

the answer. It is found in the belief that enables the formulation of such a question. Religion

enables one to raise such questions because it is the only framework where such queries can

arise. Religion was not invented to answer questions about the meaning and purpose of the

life of some or another specific individual. Such questions come into being within the

framework of religion. These problems do not antedate religion; instead, religion generates

them. Having done so, the religious framework tantalizingly hints that the problem is

solvable. Take religion away, you will also take these questions away.

By saying this, I do not imply that life is either meaningless or that it is absurd. No,

because, even this answer is given within a framework, which makes either meaning

attribution or its denial sensible with respect to individual or collective life. Rather, what I am

saying is that the questions about the meaning of life are internal to religion; they are religious

questions no matter what the answer is. They are not questions that a primitive man raised

10,000 years ago; nor are they the questions of the modern man but those of a religious man

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a homo religiosus. Religion makes the world intelligible to us, promises also to relate us

intelligibly to the world.

Clearly, the difference among religions will revolve around the specification of these

purposes. What, then, makes them into rival religions is their characterization of this

explanatory intelligibility of human life and death (at a minimum). Their affirmation that the

Cosmos is an explanatorily intelligible entity makes them into religions. In a deep and

fundamental sense, to grow up within a religious tradition is to grow up with this fundamental

experience where the Cosmos has explanatory intelligibility. Equally, to have a religion is to

have this experience.

However, this does not imply that, in any particular religion, some or other statement

need occur to the effect that the Cosmos is an explanatorily intelligible entity. It makes the

world explanatorily intelligible by structuring experience accordingly. In doing so, it avoids a

crippling circularity by placing the origin of this account outside those who accept it. In

simple and simplified steps, both the problem and its solution can be described as follows:

step 1: Created by God, the Cosmos exhibits His purpose;

step 2: As human beings, we know this because God has revealed it;

step 3: Gods revelation consists precisely of both the above steps, including this step.

As an account, religion tells us what the Cosmos is like (step 1); makes itself into an

object by telling us how we could know that such is the case (step 2); characterizes both itself

as an account and the account of the Cosmos as true (step 3). What is paradoxical, perhaps

even impossible, when viewed from the standpoint of finite individuals with finite knowledge

and abilities, ceases being so when claimed to instantiate the infinite knowledge of some

totally other kind of being. The problem that we could have with respect to such knowledge

is not epistemic but hermeneutic in nature: our interpretative abilities are finite; therefore, the

sense that we could make of this knowledge is fallible unless, of course, this Divine Being

23

would also help us out in this case. Candour requires me to add: rumour has it that this Being

is known to do precisely that, even if His criterion for selecting individuals remains rather

vague and mysterious.

Looked in terms of what human beings do and what they think, religion involves a

peculiar kind of reflexivity. It is its own justification, its own truth, founded on nothing that is

human. Given the nature of this object, we need not wonder anymore that we have to take re-

course to religious/theological vocabulary in order to explicate the concept of religion.

The creation of the world and all that is in it, the Bible tells us, is the Work of God. As

a Being with goals and purposes, He brought forth everything for some purpose or another.

The cosmic products and processes embody the Will of this God. What we human beings see

are the phenomena; but underlying them, and expressed in them, is the Will of God. The same

God, the Good Book further tells us, has manifested His Will to us in two ways: through

revelation, as expressed in the scriptures; and in His product, viz., Nature. We can study His

Works and through such a study learn inductively about His Will; and then, there is also the

Biblical revelation. In a deep and fundamental sense, the world is governed by the Will of The

Sovereign.

How can we know the will of an actor by studying his actions? From our experience in

the world, we do know that there is a hiatus between the actions we perform and our belief

states. Even such a trivial action as my opening a door could not be said to instantiate some

or other belief unambiguously: perhaps, I feel that the room is stuffy or that it is too cold;

perhaps I want you to get out; or I sense an eavesdropper You cannot, in other words, read-off my intentions unambiguously by looking at my actions. You could also ask me the reasons

for my action: but I could deceive you by telling a plausible lie; or I forgot my own reasons;

or that I am not even sure that I have reasons... This being the case, how can we know (or

even hypothesize about) Gods Will by studying His actions?

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The answer must be obvious. God is perfectly good, perfectly consistent and that His

actions perfectly express His intentions... etc. The Sovereign's Will is not arbitrary but

perfectly constant. Because he is a Being who is perfectly trustworthy, His works do not

deceive us. The ascription of predicates of perfection to God, which many authors use as an

argument for the impossibility of His existence, I suggest, was a necessary condition for the

emergence of human knowledge about the natural world.

Consider, by contrast, the gods of the so-called religions like those of the Greeks, the

Romans, or the Hindus. What is constant about these gods is their capriciousness or unpre-

dictability. They ceaselessly interfere with the affairs of mankind but in ways that are both

unpredictable and mysterious. Thus, it is only right and proper that the universe is not

governed by their will.

Let me reformulate the earlier paragraphs in the following way: the Bible inculcates an

experience of the Cosmos as a particular kind of order, and this order consists of the fact that

phenomena express a deep, underlying constancy. This constancy is the Will of The Sover-

eign. His Will governs the world.

Religion and Truth

In our daily activities in the world, we assume that many of our beliefs and theories are true.

One such candidate, for example, is that the earth revolves around the sun or that we do not

change shape while we sleep. Even though we do not know whether they are true, we have no

reason (as yet) to presume their falsity. The assumption about the truth of these beliefs is

strengthened by a whole number of other beliefs from sending satellites to circle the earth to

biological theories and medical practices and we do not really despair about the tentative

and hypothetical nature of our theories. Commendable and necessary though such attitudes

are, our indifference does not affect the epistemological point: any and all of our theories

could turn out to be false.

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Religion not only tells us the way the Cosmos is, but also makes itself explanatorily

intelligible. Based on human knowledge and human cognitive abilities, both of which are

finite, we could never arrive at an explanatory intelligible account, which includes itself as an

explanandum.

Furthermore, religion, which claims to be the truth about the world, is radically

independent of our prior theories about the world. Whether one believes in the existence of

witches, ancestors, or quantum particles; whether one can understand Gdels theorem or the

mechanism of gene-splicing; whether one can drive a car or not; ones access to the message

of religion is not affected. Grasping the truth of the religious account does not depend on our

finite knowledge of the world and this truth, note well, is about the Cosmos. On our own, as

these religions have explained themselves, we could only arrive at a vague conception of

God as the creator. But this notion does not make the world explanatorily intelligible. God has

to reveal himself and aid us in seeing the truth because this truth does not depend upon human

knowledge and what we, at any given moment, believe to be true.

What we have on our hands, then, is an account that has no parallels in the domain of

human knowledge. We know of partial explanatory accounts; we think that our folk-

psychology makes use of intelligibility accounts. Religion alone is both an explanatory and an

intelligibility account. Not of this or that individual phenomenon, but of the Cosmos and

itself.

Corresponding to this, the issue and the question of truth take a radical form. The

problem is not whether religion is true in the same way my belief about Brussels being the

capital city of Belgium is true. The latters truth depends on other beliefs being true as well.

Such is not the case for religion at all. If we use the predicate true to describe religion, it

looks as though we cannot use it for anything else: what makes religion true cannot make

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anything else true. Religion is the truth in the specific sense of not being dependent on the

truth of any other belief we hold about the world.

Religion Sui Generis?

To the reader and to someone familiar with contemporary religious studies, two things must

be clear by now: (a) my characterization of religion attempts to make sense of the experience

of the believers. In contemporary jargon, I privilege the insider perspective as against the

outsider perspective. (b) In doing so, I seem to talk as though religion cannot be studied

using methods and theories from other sciences. In the words of McCutcheon, I seem to speak

of religion as sui generis. Because I cannot fully answer these objections in the course of

this article, let me make a few points in my defence, using a realist language.

What we have in human cultures are specific phenomena like Christianity, Islam,

Judaism and such like. If they are religions, then they are that by virtue of possessing some

property that makes them into religions. In this sense, religion is a property of these specific

phenomena. The insider and outsider problem makes sense only with respect to specific

religions because they also have other properties than that of religion. However, with respect

to that property which makes them into religion (the explanatory intelligibility that I talk

about), there is no outsider perspective available to us human beings. Only that entity

(God, in our case) whose will is the causal force of the Cosmos has an outsider perspective

with respect to the explanatory intelligible account that religion is. Consequently, we cannot

study religion as religion (or under the description of religion) from outside, ever.

I am not speaking about what makes some phenomenon into Christianity but what

makes Christianity into religion. From the outside, without having any such account, I cannot

say what makes some account an explanatorily intelligible account of the Cosmos; why it

does this to some and not to the others; what does the explanatory intelligibility consist of;

etc. Maximally, one can do what I have done: take note of the fact that religion is an

27

explanatory intelligible account. To be sure, we can ask the believers to explain themselves.

In such a case, we will be studying what it means to believe for these people; if and where

we can understand their answer to the meaning of the Cosmos and life, we will have some

idea about what it means to be religious. But that is a different issue altogether.

In fact, my characterization of religion says as much. Religion exhibits reflexivity:

religion includes what it says about itself; religious language is both the object language and

its own meta-language. Consequently, the possibility of a science of religion resides in our

willingness to accept theology as science.

However, this does not mean that one cannot study religion scientifically. If we study

religion as religion, only then are we forced to do theology. But religion can be studied at

different levels of description: (a) as religion; (b) as world view; (c) as a causal force in a

culture; (d) as specific religions, etc. In this sense, yes, we can study religion scientifically but

we must know the level at which we can provide a scientific description. In this sense, I am

not in the least suggesting that we cannot study religion using theories and methods from the

sciences.

But, it does mean the following. My characterization of religion enables us to come to

grips with authors like Schleiermacher and Otto, who have spoken of religious experience,

without accusing them of bad faith or imputing apologetic motivations to them. Both argue

that having a religious experience presupposes that one belongs to a religion, and that the non-

rational elements are related to the rational. Indeed so. Religion is an account that involves

concepts. To accept it is to feel a part of the purposes of that Being and depend on Him. With-

out such an account, there is no question of experiencing the absolute dependency that

Schleiermacher talks about; at best, all we can experience is a kind of relative dependency

upon each other. In such a case, the other is not The Totally Other of Schleiermacher. To

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have the kind of experience that Schleiermacher talks about, we need to accept the

explanatorily intelligible account of the Cosmos, i.e., accept religion.

It is this property that makes not only Christianity but also Judaism and Islam into

religions. But that which makes them into religion also divides, and this dispute is unsolvable

because it has no solution. Each is a specific religion, that is, each is an explanatorily

intelligible account and each makes the Cosmos into an explanatorily intelligible entity to

those who accept this account. Some individual may, at any given moment of time, switch

from one to the other on the ground that one does it better than the other. But his ground is

that one succeeds better than the other in making the Cosmos explanatorily intelligible to him.

He may even believe and, indeed, he has to that this superiority arises from the fact that

one is better than the other. But he can only do so after the other account has made the

Cosmos explanatorily intelligible to him but not before. He can judge that one religion is bet-

ter than the other, only after trading places. A formal conversion may (and often does) come

later, but the point is that there is no vantage point for the human being to judge the

superiority of one religion against the other. The reason is, of course, simple: religion must

make the Cosmos explanatorily intelligible to the individual in question.

Very often, believers make the claim that one cannot investigate the nature of religion,

unless one is a believer oneself. Brilliant and reputed thinkers have tried to argue for this point

of view. Equally often, such people have been accused by their opponents of bad faith,

dogmatism and suspected of harbouring apologetic motivations. Any phenomenon can be

scientifically studied, the opponents have maintained, including both religion and science.

Why should one believe in God in order to discuss His existence? One does not have to be a

stone to describe its fall, any more than one has to be a neurotic to discuss the nature of

neurosis. Therefore, why should one be religious to scientifically investigate religion?

29

Consider what I just said above regarding how anyone could judge the superiority of

one religion against the other. One can only do so from within the framework of some specific

religion or another. The reason, as I have said, lies in the fact that they are all explanatorily

intelligible accounts. Only from within the framework of one religion can we judge the

adequacy of the other. In the starkest possible terms: to investigate religion as an

explanatorily intelligible account of the Cosmos we need to accept some or another

explanatorily intelligible account of the Cosmos. That is, religion can be investigated only by

being religious yourself; religion is an object of investigation from within some or another

religion. This position stands to reason because, as I have said, religion makes itself

explanatorily intelligible too. The believers are not, I submit, dogmatic when they say, as

Sderblom did, that the only science of religion could be theology.

Again, it is important to note what I am saying and what I am not. Any specific

doctrine within a specific religion say, for example, the doctrine of trinity is not immune

from criticism or beyond discussion. After all, those who do not accept it do criticize and

discuss this doctrine. In this sense, in all probability, every single doctrine of every religion

has been discussed and criticized either at one time or another. So, if a Jew can criticize the

doctrine of Trinity, why not someone else, who denies the existence of God? Belonging to a

religion is not equivalent to holding a party card.

Some Contemporary Criticisms

Quite apart from the above remarks, my attempt has also met with criticisms either directly or

indirectly. I should like to answer a few of them, beginning with those of Sweetman and

Pennigton. Both believe that my definition of religion is flawed because I take Christianity

(especially, according to them, Protestant Christianity) as an exemplary instance of the

category of religion. Failing to appreciate what I do or even understand the difference

between a definition and a hypothesis, they come up with totally muddleheaded criticisms. In

30

what follows, I shall not try to set right the manifold confusions in Sweetmans thinking but,

instead, address myself to his central criticism.

He detects the following form in my argument:

First premise: Christianity is prototypically what religion is.

Second premise: Hinduism does not share all (or perhaps any) of the relevant properties of

Christianity.

Conclusion: Hinduism is not a religion. (p.337)

To begin with, let me make three logical points about his reconstruction of my argument. In

the first place, the conclusion that Sweetman attributes to me is not derivable on the basis of

these two premises alone: we need more. No one can derive the conclusion (without adding

additional premises) that Sweetman attributes to me: Hinduism is not a religion. As a result,

second, as it stands now, the conclusion is invalid: the only possible conclusion that one can

draw from the above is the following: Hinduism is not prototypically what a religion is. (Of

course, this could imply that Hinduism is a religion, even if it is not prototypically what a

religion is.) Third, he wants to take issue with the truth of the conclusion but he does so by

throwing doubts upon the truth of the premises. A freshman introduction to logic course

would have told him that he cannot do this. In deductive logics, truth is transmitted from the

premises to the conclusion but not their falsity. Falsity travels, again in deductive logics, the

other way round: falsity is transmitted from the conclusion to the premises. In other words,

there is an asymmetry in the transmission of truth and falsity in deductive logics. Thus, he

cannot contest the truth of the conclusion (that he attributes to me) on logical grounds by

challenging the truth-value of the premises. Yet, he does exactly that.

Let me take up the more substantive issues. My statement about the exemplary nature

of Christianity must, above everything else, be situated in the context of providing an

ostensive definition of the term religion. Such an ostensive gesture though given in

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language instead of in physical gestures does not make any claims about the nature of

religion except to point out that, in our language-use (in western languages), the word

religion refers at least to Christianity. Such an ostensive definition does not mean that

Christianity is the best religion or the most perfect one or the only one. In fact, it is easily

conceivable that Christianity is not even a religion and that our language-use is wrong.

However, it is sensible to say this only when we have a theory of religion and not before. In

other words, ones view of Christianity whether it is a true religion or merely a false

consciousness does not affect the definition I am putting forward. My definition registers a

fact about a language-use but makes no further assertions either about Christianity or about

religion.

I am not providing an explicit definition of the word religion; I am simply identifying

an example, a prototypical example, of the category religion. I am not making any

assumptions about what religion is, or what makes Christianity into one. My only argument

is: if Christianity is not an exemplary instance of religion, then we have no other examples

of religion. Therefore, I make no assumptions about the nature of religion or of Christianity in

beginning a study of religion. In fact, I do not even assume the existence of religion. Rather, I

merely point out the fact that unless we can show that our language-use refers to an entity that

does not exist in our world in which case we need not study religion at all we may not

reject our linguistic practice. If religion refers to something at all, the history of our natural

language-use with respect to this word does suggest that it does, it must at least refer to

Christianity. Otherwise, it picks out a fictitious entity and this is a theoretical claim that

one cannot make at the preliminary stage of defining a word in a theory.

Suppose that we extend this argument further. The very same linguistic practice that I

talk about also refers to following entities: Leprechauns, Cyclops, Satyrs and Unicorns.

Our linguistic practice not only assures us that these words refer to creatures in the world but

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also provides us with entertaining tales about the behaviour of such creatures. We can take

issue with the claims about the existence of such creatures (and, thus, whether these words

have any reference in the real word) only by accepting the theories in evolutionary biology

and not by talking about some or another philosophical claim about meaning and

reference. In this sense, if one wants to challenge the linguistic-use with respect to the word

religion, it is advisable that one arms oneself adequately, i.e., one should have some or

another substantial theory about the relevant part of the world. A bare claim about meaning

and reference will not do.

On the reference of the word religion

When we use the category religion, we minimally refer to Christianity. Why minimally?

What if someone refuses to recognize that Christianity is a prototypical instance of the

category religion? My answer is that this is the only option open to us, unless we make

epistemic assumptions about the object before having studied it.

Suppose that someone denies the prototypicality of Christianity as a religion. Then, he

has to (a) either deny that the concept religion has any reference to any entity in the world;

(b) or claim that it has some other reference. If he argues the first position, he is running

counter to our linguistic practice where the word does have a reference. Of course, one is at

perfect liberty to counter the linguistic practice; but, then, he must also have some kind of a

theory about what religion is and what it is not. Such a theory also has to explain why, for

more than two-thousand years, the word found a home in Christian theory and practice.

Let me linger on this point a bit longer because quite a few scholars argue today

(Jonathan Smith, Russell McCutcheon to name a few) that the word religion has no

reference to anything in the world and that it is merely a part of scholars talk. In fact

Jonathan Smith even claims that there is no data for religion. How much is this argument

33

worth? By building an analogical argument, let me identify the conditions under which such

an argument becomes admissible.

Let us suppose that I make the following claim: the words gravity and gravitational

force are mere words in the scholarly talk. They are parts of scholarly discourse. In the

absence of theories about gravity and gravitational force, what could we possibly conclude

about the reference of these words? Epistemically speaking, one cannot conclude anything

because we cannot know what the data sets for these words are. It is only a theory about these

phenomena that tells us that the free fall of objects, the ebb and tide in the sea and the

presence of atmosphere on earth, etc. have all to do with gravity and gravitational force. Such

a theory also postulates relations between these phenomena and gravitational force. Thus, it is

the theory of gravitation that tells us what its facts are. Without such a theory, we might

notice some facts: that objects in free fall downwards or that there are ebbs and tides in the

sea etc. But our problem is: which theory should explain these facts? Should a theory in

geography or a theory from physics or a theory about the fairies and angels tell us about the

why? Should one particular theory explain all the above facts, or are they discrete facts for

different theories? There is no way we can answer such questions in the absence of a theory

that effectively solves these problems. In the absence of such theories, it is meaningless to

make the claim that there is no data for gravity. Because none of the authors named above

have anything that remotely resembles a theory of religion or a theory of scholarly discourse

in the domain of religious studies, or a theory of theologies, their claim is unfounded. Worse,

it is meaningless.

However, it is meaningless only if treated as a philosophical objection. Actually,

though disguised as an objective criticism, it is actually ad hominem: they are directed

against certain authors (Scheleirmacher, Otto, Eliade and others), who are characterized as

harbouring apologetic motivations. Basically, the accusation is that some scholars attempt to

34

prevent a naturalistic study of religion by cordoning off religion from any such approach.

Apparently, they do this by suggesting that religious experience, religiosity, etc. are

unique to religion.

The problem with ad hominem attacks is that they embody fallacious reasoning. One

cannot either criticize or explain Schleirmachers theory about religion by suggesting that he

had apologetic motivations. Though meaningful in so far as speculations about motives are

concerned, such fallacious arguments have no place in an intellectual discussion. If taken as

philosophical criticisms, as I have said, they are meaningless.

On the other hand, one could meaningfully suggest that gravity and gravitational

force do not refer to anything in the real world, when there is a theory of gravity and

gravitational force. This is a philosophical stance that some assume with respect to scientific

theories: one could consider such concepts as fictions, or as theoretical terms, or as

pragmatically useful concepts that help us predict etc. In other words, it is a sensible meta-

scientific standpoint that tries to account for scientific theories by denying reference to

theoretical terms. However, today, we are not in such a situation.

Regarding the second point, I can be briefer. Indeed, the concept could have other

references, but it minimally picks out Christianity. To argue that it refers to some other entity

without referring also to Christianity is to take an epistemic decision: after all, Christianity has

described itself as a religion, and the word has its home in the European languages. To go

against either of these two facts is to have a theory about both.

This linguistic practice itself is not neutral. After all, it is the practice of a community

that speaks this way and not that or another way. I do not deny this. This fact about the

linguistic practices of a community having a cultural history reflects a general point, viz., that

as socio-cultural entities, we function in a context. To be sure, it also underlines the fact that

scientific enquiries have a context too. But then, these are the general presuppositions of any

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human enquiry not merely of this one. Needless to say, that I am a human being and, conse-

quently, I am situated in a cultural and intellectual milieu is not quite the same as accepting

presuppositions either about religion or the relation of Christianity to religion.

Let us say that in some phenomenon this or that property, or even a group of them, is

absent; let us assume that these very same properties are present in Christianity. This situation

does not tell us a great deal: it could be that the former is merely less prototypical than

Christianity; or that the former is a truer religion than Christianity; it could be that both have

all the properties of religion; etc.

Could we answer the question about the existence or nonexistence of religion by

simply looking at the properties of Christianity? That is, can we argue that because some

properties characteristic of Christianity are absent from traditions elsewhere, (say, in

Hinduism or Buddhism) the latter cannot possibly be religions? Such an argument is

possible only if one is able to show that the properties of Christianity which one has identified

are also the properties of religion. In the absence of such proof, all that one can do is to notice

that Christianity and some other tradition differ from each other. However, one cannot argue

that, because of these differences, some other tradition is not a religion.

This is so obvious a point that one wonders how Sweetman could possibly see me

arguing the opposite. Consider the distinction between Christianity as a historical movement

and Christianity as a religion. Today, the former owns buildings, land, telephones, television

studios, aircrafts, etc. These are the properties in both the senses of possessions and

predicates of Christianity. Is it any more or less of a religion because of that? The only way

we can answer this question either way is by postulating (or having a theory about) the

relation between Christianity and religion. One may want to argue that Christianity has

progressively become less of a religion because it is now more interested in earthly

possessions. Or the other way round. Notice, however, that this argument can work only if we

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know what religion is. By looking at Christianity alone as the exemplar of the concept of

religion we can make no such claim.

One can think of many such examples. One such is the obverse of this argument.

Because some or another tradition appears to share some of the properties of Christianity,

people have argued, the former is also a religion. This is how the anthropologist Martin

Southwold, for instance, argues: because Buddhism shares many properties of Christianity,

the former is also a religion even if it does not believe in God. This argument is flawed for

exactly the same reason as well: the properties that Christianity has by virtue of being a

religion may or may not be identical to the properties that it has by virtue of being a historical

movement. If Southwold can argue anything at all on grounds of his polythetic attributes, he

would have to say: because Buddhism shares many properties of Christianity, the former is

also like Christianity minus its belief in God. But he does not say this, does he?

In more mundane terms: we are studying, let us say, a brown cat that limps, has one

eye, a tail, one ear, a few teeth, and eats rats. Question: Is limping, having one eye, a tail, one

ear, being brown, having a few teeth, eating rats, the properties of all cats or merely of this

specific cat? Answer: that depends on the knowledge we have of cats. Precisely.

The Argument Explained

Instead of focussing further on Sweetman and Pennigton, let me outline the way I formulate

the problem of studying religion.

As I have argued, if the word religion picks out something, it refers at least to Chris-

tianity because the latter refers to itself as a religion (i.e., it uses the word with respect to

itself). This self-reference is not a few centuries old: it has been so used ever since the

inception of Christianity. If Christianity refers to itself as a religion and recognizes itself as

one, then the terms in which it does so gives us its concept of religion. This concept not only

enabled Christianity to describe itself as a religion, but also helped it to recognize some of the

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rivals it encountered as religious rivals. Therefore to study Christianity as a religion is to

study those properties by virtue of which not only did Christianity think of itself as a religion

but also confronted rival or competing religions. This is the first step of the argument. This

step merely allows us to establish the terms of description. These very same terms, however,

allow us to take the second step.

Christianity is a historical movement. So are Judaism and Islam. The former has

construed the latter as rival religions. Whatever goals they were/are competing for, they

did/do so as religions. Judaism and Islam were not merely baptized as rival religions by

Christianity. These two also saw Christianity as a rival religion under the same description.

The second step establishes that the terms under which Christianity recognized itself

as religion are also the terms under which Islam and Judaism recognize themselves as

religions as well (using whatever word they use). That is to say, the concept used by Chris-

tianity to call itself a religion is also the one which makes some (Judaism and Islam) who do

not call themselves as religions into religions (because it is also their self-description).

Therefore, the Christian concept is not just Christian. It cuts across the three Semitic

religions. This is not my concept or your concept, but self-descriptions of these religions. At

the same time, it suggests that the concept of religion is itself part of a religious framework

and vocabulary. This lends a greater probability to the claim that whether or not Judaism and

Islam use the word religion, they too are religions. That is, if Christianity is a religion, so are

Judaism and Christianity.

The third step picks out two salient facts. One: the terms under which Christianity

transformed Islam and Judaism are also those that make Judaism and Christianity rivals to

Islam, and Islam and Christianity rivals to Judaism. The possibility that Judaism and Islam

were merely reacting to the attacks of Christianity and were, therefore, forced to accept the

terms of Christianitys self-description is ruled out by the second salient fact: all three

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singled out exactly the same rivals under the same description elsewhere unerringly. Judaism

had singled out the Roman religio as its rival before Christianity was even born; Islam had

picked out precisely those Indian traditions as its rivals, which Christianity was also to

identify, centuries before the European Christians launched their major and massive

evangelizing activities.

The fourth step completes this argument by looking at the reaction of the rivals

identified by Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. These rivals, the Roman religio and the Indian

traditions, did not recognize themselves in the description provided by Christianity, Judaism

and Islam. Nor did they see the relationship between themselves and the latter as religious

rivalry. Incomprehension of the terms of description and indifference to the alleged rivalry

characterize the reactions of those belonging to the Roman religiones and the Indian

traditions. There are different roads to heaven, said the one shrugging its shoulders; How

could only your religion be true and ours false? asked the other uncomprehendingly. Even

under persecution, this tone did not change. The persecution of the Christians in the early

Roman Empire did not take place using those terms which Christianity would use to persecute

the pagans centuries later.

The third and the fourth step, together, establish the following case: the terms under

which Christianity recognized itself and identified rival religions were also those that

provided self-identity and rivals to Judaism and Islam. Precisely this description was incom-

prehensible to those in whose language the word religion existed (the Roman religio) and

to those who had no such word (the Indians). Neither recognized itself in this description;

neither fought the others as rivals under this description.

These four steps constitute the historical constraints under which we must generate

our hypothesis about religion. On the one hand, our hypothesis must capture the self-

description of the Semitic religions; further, it must also explain why Hinduism,

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Shintoism, etc., also appear as religions (even if they are false religions) to them. On the

other hand, the very same hypothesis must also explain why neither the Hindus nor the

Romans were able to recognize themselves as religions, whether true or false. Why this

double constraint and what does it do?

Quite apart from the issue that these are historical facts that any hypothesis on religion

has to explain, there is something more intriguing here. If one merely generates a

naturalistic hypothesis about religion that tells us why both the Semitic religions and the

Indian traditions (and the Roman religiones) are religions, then there is no reason to choose a

so-called naturalistic hypothesis above a theological explanation: both explain the same

phenomenon in the same way, viz., they are all religions. Actually, the situation is far worse:

theological theories tell us more about the differences between, say, Hinduism on the one

hand and the Semitic religions on the other. That is, apart from noticing all kinds of detailed

differences between these two groups (which a naturalistic hypothesis can also do),

theologies provide additional explanations of these differences: Hinduism is a false religion

because it practices idolatry (for example). In other words, if one intends to be scientific, then

one has to choose a theological explanation above a naturalistic hypothesis because the

former explains more facts than the latter can possibly do. This is one side of the coin.

The second side of the coin is this. If, on the other hand, we develop a naturalistic

hypothesis about religion that merely shows that Hinduism etc are not religions (because

there is no religion), then we merely side with the pagans and dis