Kitagawa - Joachim Wach

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Joachim Wach and Sociology of ReligionAuthor(s): Joseph M. KitagawaReviewed work(s):Source: The Journal of Religion, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Jul., 1957), pp. 174-184Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1199890 .Accessed: 10/11/2011 01:50

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JOACHIM WACH AND SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

JOSEPH M. KITAGAWA*

INTRODUCTION

ITH the untimely eath fPro-fessor Joachim Wach in Au-gust, 1955, we have lost one

of the most articulate spokesmen of thesociology of religion. He was born n 1898at Chemnitz, Germany, and studied atthe universities of Munich, Berlin, Frei-burg, and Leipzig. He started his schol-arly career as Privatdozent at Leipzig in1924 and served there as Professor Ex-traordinarius rom 1927 to 1935. Thenthe political situation n Germany causedhim to seek a new home in the UnitedStates, where he taught at Brown Uni-versity, Providence, Rhode Island, 1935-45, and at the University of Chicago,

1946-55.Looking back over his life, one may

say that Professor Wach was destined toinherit many divergent elements of hisfamilial and cultural background. Amonghis ancestors were noted philosophers,jurists, bankers, musicians, and pastors.He was as much an heir of the Enlight-enment as of pietism. By birth and bytraining he was a cultured German, andyet he was, like many of his distinguishedancestors, a true world citizen.

Although he never occupied a chair ofsociology of religion as such either in

Germany or in the United States, thissubject fascinated him early in his lifeand remained close to his heart until theend. In all fairness to him, however, wecannot label him as a sociologist of reli-gion per se. Rather, his understanding fsociology of religion must be seen as apart of his comprehensive system of

Religionswissenschaft.

RELIGIONSWISSENSCHAFT1To Professor Wach, Religionswissen-

schaft is an empirical science and not aphilosophic discipline. He is critical ofC. P. Tiele, who erased the boundariesbetween Religionswissenschaft and thephilosophy of religion.2 Similarly, Wach

feels that Chantepie de la Saussaye equat-ed Religionswissenschaft with the phi-losophy and history of religion.

Turning to philosophers of religion,Wach notes that his own teacher, ErnstTroeltsch, not only erased the bound-aries between philosophy of religion andReligionswissenschaft but was neverclear as to the essence and the task of thelatter. Troeltsch maintained that onecannot speak of a universal position, acommon universal possession of the sci-ence of religion. 3 To him Religionswis-senschaft was a normative discipline; orexample:

Die Religionsphilosophie st zur Religions-wissenschaft geworden. Aus einem Zweige derMetaphysik zu einer selbst~indigen Untersuchungder Tatsachenwelt des religiosen Bewusstseins,aus der h6ichsten Generalwissenschaft zu einer

neuen Wissenschaft.4

After Troeltsch, Wach observed twotrends in Religionswissenschaft, one

* J. M. Kitagawa is assistant professor of historyof religions at the University of Chicago. He re-ceived his degrees from Rikkyo Daigaku, Tokyo(Bungakushi), Central Theological College, Tokyo(L.I.T.), Seabury-Western Theological Seminary(B.D.), and the University of Chicago (Ph.D.). Mr.Kitagawa was a student of Joachim Wach forseveral years, and in 1951 he joined him as a mem-ber of the Federated Theological Faculty at theUniversity of Chicago. His articles have appeared inperiodicals both in the United States and in Japan.

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JOACHIM WACH AND SOCIOLOGY F RELIGION 175

starting from philosophy and developinga science, the other starting from scienceand leading into philosophy. However, it

was Wach's conviction that betweenthese two extremes lies the independenttask of Religionswissenschaft.5

Among recent religious philosophers,Wach depicts Max Scheler as the singleindividual who is clear on the distinctionbetween philosophy and Religionswissen-schaft. Scheler nserts between a positiveReligionswissenschaft and history of re-ligion) and the essential phenomenologyof religion ( die Wesensphainomenologieder Religion ) a broader discipline as aunifying theme. He calls it concretephenomenology of religious objects andacts ( konkrete Phainomenologie derReligionsgegenstainde nd Akte ).6 Ac-cording to Scheler, this inquiry aims atthe fullest understanding of the intellec-tual contents of one or more religiousforms and the

consummate acts in whichthese intellectual contents have beengiven.7 Thus Scheler clearly views thereligio-scientific ask from an expresslyreligio-scientific viewpoint. It is a taskwhich can be carried out only religio-scientifically with the decisive methodo-logical means of Religionswissenschaft.

Wach maintains that the point of de-parture of Religionswissenschaft s thehistorically given religions. While thephilosophy of religion proceeds from ana priori deductive method, Religionswis-senschaft has no speculative purpose.However, it is not purely descriptive,though description has a basic impor-tance in the discipline. Wach holds thatthe effort of the inquirer into religionmust always be directed toward theDeutung of phenomena.8

In comparison with other disciplines,Religionswissenschaft has special diffi-culties with Bedeutung because of thenature of its subject matter. For in-

stance, Wach argues that the scholar ofthe arts deals with a more objectivestructure n art than the student of reli-

gion deals with in manifestations of reli-gion. In the study of the arts there is agreater possibility of agreement betweenthe lower interpretations, which seekto establish the Bedeutung f an expres-sion, and the higher Verstehen, whichseeks to relate the phenomenon in itstotal context. In Religionswissenschaftone starts with an inquiry into themeaning of religious phenomena. At thispoint the philosophical and metaphysi-cal questions are raised, questions whichReligionswissenschaft eads to but is notcalled upon to deal with.9

In the philosophy of religion the ideaof religion must come first, and the phe-nomenon of religion follows, because itsproblem concerns the Wesen of religionand its place in a system of values and in

the processes of the spirit. Thus it is al-ways a difficult problem for the philoso-phy of religion o determine how much ofthe empirical-historical ught to be ap-propriated in the religio-philosophicaltask. Even when such an appropriationtakes place, it remains an application ofphilosophy to the data of religion. Thatwhich comes from above cannot do jus-tice to the empirical-historical nquirywhich works from below upward.10

The task of Religionswissenschaft sthe comprehension, reatment, and Deu-tung of historical data, and its methodsand procedure re conceived accordingly.In this context its systematic task mustrely solely on empirical data. And bothhistorical and systematic concerns arenecessary to Religionswissenschaft n its

questto understand

eligions.It is Wach's conviction that, while thetheologian and the philosopher of reli-gion are entitled to defend and advocatea definite doctrine, the student of Reli-


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176 THE JOURNAL OF RELIGION

gionswissenschaft cannot make valuejudgments. In principle, at least, deadreligions and historic religions can be

treated alike.12 Subjectively, however, anempirical nquirer s not free from philo--sophical presuppositions, and one mustbe aware of the danger of subjectivismand speculation. 13

In three ways, according o Wach, thephilosophy of religion can help Reli-gionswissenschaft: 1) by sharpening hemethods of the discipline (the logic ofReligionswissenschaft), 2) by articulat-ing the procedure of inquiry and thephilosophic determination of its object,and (3) by the philosophic ordering ofphenomena in the whole of knowledge(historico-philosophy nd the metaphys-ics of religion). This relationships n noway nullifies the clear distinction be-tween empirical and philosophical in-quiries, however. Also, Wach disagrees

with historians who derive universallyvalid norms from empiricism,14 eventhough he acknowledges hat religio-sci-entific inquiry shares the principles andmethods derived rom universal history.

In the systematic inquiry of Religions-wissenschaft, Wach, like Simmel, uti-lizes a hermeneutical heory of the rela-tive a priori, which mediates betweenthe one who seeks to understand and theobject to be understood.1 Wach's as-sumption s the fact of a universal humannature. Hence the importance of Wach'stypological method, which stands be-tween what he calls the ewig-menschlicheand the historically distinct phenom-ena.17

In short, Wach divides the study ofreligion into two dimensions-the nor-mative

disciplinesof

theologyand

phi-losophy of religion, on the one hand, andthe empirical discipline of Religionswis-senschaft, on the other. Furthermore,Religionswissenschaft is divided into his-

torical and systematic subdivisions. Un-der the heading of historical ome thegeneral history of religion and the history

of specific religions. Under the heading ofsystematic comes his typological con-

cern-both historical and psychologicaltypes.

One of the most imaginative ideas de-

veloped by Wach is the concept of the

classical. 's Wach believes that the con-cept of the classical enables one to bridgethe gap between the descriptive and thenormative aspects of the study of reli-gion. It is, in his own words, a relativenorm which does not need to do violenceto heterogeneous phenomena rom a pre-conceived point of view. ' Thus hestates:

What do we mean by classical .. ? Nega-tively, we do not mean those out of a multitude ofphenomena hich merely happen o be familiarto us.... The phenomena which we designate asclassical

epresentomething ypical; hey con-

vey with regard to religious life and experiencemore than would be conveyed by an individualinstance. We may consider Meister Eckhart,Al Ghazzali, nd Shankara s classical mysticsbecause something ypically mystical s to befound in their devotion and teaching. How-ever, the notion of the classical does not de-note only the representative character which in-heres n a phenomenon, ut also implies a norm.Out of the multitude of historical personalities,movements and events.., .some are chosen be-

cause we deem t possible o ascribe o them po-tentially an illuminating, edifying, paradig-matic effect by which they may influence our ownreligious ife.20

In short, the concept of the classical sWach's attempt to walk between abso-lute relativism and a view which startsuncritically with any particular heologi-cal or philosophical standpoint. In this

attempt,Wach finds affinities with

Gerardus van der Leeuw's phenomenolo-gy of religion and Mircea Eliade's reli-

gious morphology. Wach is convinced ofthe necessity of the principle of relative


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objectivity, as exemplified n the conceptof the classical, if we want to escape ananarchical subjectivism which would

make all 'Wissenschaft' mpossible. 21At any rate, the impressive super-structure of Wach's Religionswissen-schaft is grounded n his three main areasof concern: 1) hermeneutics, (2) inquiryinto the nature and expression f religiousexperience, and (3) sociology of religion.

HERMENEUTICS

Professor Wach's great concern n her-meneutics is well evidenced in his mas-sive thee-volume work, Das Verstehen:Grundzd~ge iner Geschichte der herme-neutischen Theorie m 19. Jahrhundert.22Although Wach was not yet thirty yearsold when he wrote this work, Das Ver-stehen is a brilliant and comprehensivetreatment of the main features of the his-tory of hermeneutical heory in the nine-teenth

century.This fact

may alsoex-

plain why, as Bultmann rightly observes,the study reveals very little of the posi-tion he himself takes up-one whichmight illuminate history from the criticalstandpoint.''23

Following the insight of Dilthey,Wach regarded hermeneutics as a con-necting link between philosophy and theGeisteswissenschaften. n Volume I of

Das Verstehen, Wach treats the her-meneutical systems of (a) the classicalphilologists-Wolfs, Ast, Boeckh; (b)Schleiermacher; and (c) Wilhelm vonHumboldt. Wach follows with keen sen-sitivity the interdependent relationshipbetween the individual scholar's her-meneutical theories and his philosophicalorientation. In Volume II the authordeals with the theological hermeneutics ffourteen well-known theologicans. Fol-lowing Schleiermacher nd others, Wachin his Introduction asks whether therecan be such a thing as a general her-

meneutics adequate o the understandingof religion, as well as of the arts and lit-erature. Also, if religious scriptures,

being sui generis, require a special her-meneutics, n what sense can a disciplinedealing with Scripture be called a science?Volume III is devoted to the hermeneu-tical theories of well-known historians,notably Ranke and Droysen.

His interest in hermeneutics was notconfined to external rules and principlesof interpretation but extended to an in-tegral understanding f religion itself.Those of us who were fortunate enoughto study under him will remember verywell the four cardinal principles of thelate master: (1) a comprehensive de-scription of the facts, (2) a historical andsociological explanation, (3) a technicalprocess of classification, and (4) thenecessity of psychological understand-ing.24

Early in his life, Wach struggled withthe hermeneutical problems involved inReligionswissenschaft. Following Sdider-blom, he asked whether it is possible toinquire into a religion from a point out-side. Can its Wesen be disclosed to onewho does not belong to it? Can an Is-lamic scholar make the Christian religionan object of scientific research? And howfar can he hope to judge these strangephenomena?25

In Das Verstehen, Wach starts withthe assumption hat there can be no un-derstanding without human corporate-ness (Zusammenleben) nd that there isa primordial phenomenon of understand-ing prior to communication. Thus under-standing is a social fact. And no singlediscipline has a monopoly on the problemof

understanding.For

instance, philoso-phy is interested n logic and epistemolo-gy; it considers the presuppositions aswell as the effects of understanding andits metaphysical foundation. Psychology


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178 THE JOURNAL F RELIGION

asks the place of understanding n theover-all ife of the psyche. It explores hedevelopment of man in order to relate

understanding o the experience of life.26But most important of all is the studyof language, because language s the de-cisive vehicle in direct intercourse be-tween man and man, and it is the mostfaithful medium of communication ex-tending beyond space and time. Wachgoes so far as to say that to understandsomeone means to understand his lan-guage. In his understanding of her-meneutics, Wach owes much to Wilhelmvon Humboldt, who had profound in-sights into the nature of speech, thestructure of language, its psychologicaland sociological problems, its typologyand function in the development of hu-man civilization.27 ollowing Von Hum-boldt, Wach regarded anguage as a cre-ative act of the mind. Indeed, speech canbe

definedas das bildende

Organ desGedankens, and language is the out-ward manifestation of the Geist of thepeople who created it. Hence the impor-tance of philology. Furthermore, Wach,following Von Humboldt and Dilthey,insists on the importance of the under-standing of individuality.

Significantly, Wach points out thatthe problem of understanding s a prob-lem of limitations or grades of under-.standing. In this connection, Wachwrites:

... In all understanding .. two factors om-bine: the subjective interpretation, which intendsto make sure the psychological meaning of an ex-pression by relating it to its author, and the objec-tive interpretation, which takes it as an entity initself and tries to unfold its meaning. The objec-tive exegesis consists of three different procedures:the technical interpretation, analysis of the ma-terial or elements of expression. . the genericinterpretation, asking for the genre or GENOS,ypeor form of work; the historical and sociologicalinterpretation, hich attempts to elucidate he

socio-historical ackground nd the developmentof the phenomenon....

... In the nterpretation f art, interpretationand appreciation r evaluation re closely con-nected, more so than in the interpretation oflaws. And in the interpretation f religion, t isdoubtful whether the meaning of a religious mes-sage can be understood without any reference toits historic character. That is how the earlyProtestant theologians conceive of understanding:Primum perceptio, einde cogitatio de illa perceptanotitia in praxim, tertio velle, quarto perficere.29

Wach advised his students of the fourprerequisites or the task of understand-

ing religions other than their own: (1) themost extensive information available,(2) an adequate emotional condition,(3) a right volitional preparation, and(4) personal experience of the holy. Thusthe author of Das Verstehen holds thatthe aim of Religionswissenschaft must bean integral comprehension of religion,even though an absolutely objectiveunderstanding s not attainable.

RELIGIOUS XPERIENCE

Professor Wach holds that the methodof Religionswissenschaft must be ade-quate to its subject matter, the natureand expression of religious experience.Following his master, Rudolf Otto,Wach defines religious experience as ex-perience of the holy.30 Wach paid warm

tribute to this great Marburg scholar nhis articles.31 According to Wach, Ottostood in a philosophical radition whichwas concerned with the epistemologicalquestion What constitutes experience?Otto was convinced of the specific char-acter of religious xperience. To this taskhe brought, besides a gift for conceptualanalysis, an unusual depth and intensityof religious feeling. 32 Wach acceptsOtto's starting point:

Religious experience differs from other kinds,moral, esthetic, tc., though t appears n interre-lation with hem. t is a specific ategory Bewer-


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JOACHIM WACH AND SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION 179

tungs-Kategorie ), or which [Otto] conceived thethe term numinous, derived from the Latin wordnumen. The religious realm is the realm of theHoly. This statement is not, as one might think,tautological. However, it is not the final word.Some mistakes might have been avoided if [Otto]had started... with the demonstration of theobjective quality of the reality of which we be-come aware in religious experience.33

Unfortunately, Otto's analysis of thefeeling of creatureliness and numinousUnwert caused some critics to believethat his concept of the holy was too psy-chological. However, Wach feels thatOtto's first proposition n The Idea of theHoly is grounded n an objective qualityof mysterium. Tillich makes a similarpoint when he states:

The phenomenological description of the holyin Rudolf Otto's classical book The Idea of theHoly demonstrates the interdependence of themeaning of the holy and the meaning of the divine,and it demonstrates their common dependence onthe nature of ultimate concern. When Otto calls

the experience of the holy numinous, he inter-prets the holy as the presence of the divine. Whenhe points to the mysterious character of holiness,he indicates that the holy transcends he subject-object structure of reality. When he describes themystery of the holy as tremendum nd ascinosum,he expresses the experience of the ultimate inthe double sense of that which is the abyss andthat which is the ground of man's being. This isnot directly asserted n Otto's merely phenomeno-logical analysis, which, by the way, never shouldbe

called psychological. However, it is implicitin his analysis, and it should be made explicitbeyond Otto's own intention. 34

Significantly, Wach observes thatOtto in his last two decades struggledwith two problems, one of a philosophi-cal, the other of a theological, nature.The first is the question of the relation ofreligion and ethics. Wach states:

Nearlyall critics

agreethat the

weakest pointin Otto's analysis of religious experience is hisconcept of schematism ( Gefiihlsgesellung ).The word he took from Kant, but he changes itsmeaning. Religious experience becomes schema-

tized in entering nto relationships ith othermodes of experience r of judgment. The centralreligious notions of sin and of redemption, eventhat of the Holy, have moral associations. Aphenomenological demonstration of the founda-tion of moral values was the aim of the last en-deavours f Rudolf Otto.3s

The second problem which confrontedOtto was What think you of Christ?This great theological issue was dis-cussed by another of Wach's masters,Ernst Troeltsch, in his Die Absolutheitdes Christentums, hich appeared n the

same year (1902) that Otto's The Lifeand Work of Jesus was published. Wachquotes approvingly Otto's statementthat this new religion of Jesus does notgrow out of reflection and thinking ....It breaks forth from the mysteriousdepth of the individuality of this reli-gious genius. 3According to Otto, thisreligion of Jesus centers n the preachingof the Kingdom of God. This view is alsoexpressed in his book The Kingdom ofGod and the Son of Man, subtitled An Es-say in the History of Religions. However,Otto's conclusion is that the answer tothe question Was Jesus the Christ sentby God? can be decided only by faithand thus does not fall within the com-petence of history.37 t might be addedin this connection that Wach wrestled

with the same theological question to-ward the end of his life.38While Wach was seriously concerned

with the analysis of the nature of reli-gious experience, his great contributionwas made in the systematic formulationof the expression of religious experiencein three main areas-theoretical, prac-tical, and sociological.39 Methodological-ly, Wach suggests the following our for-

mal criteria of religious experience:1. Religious experience s a response o what is

experienced as ultimate reality....2. Religious xperience s a total response f


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the total being to what is apprehended as ultimatereality....

3. Religious experience is the most intenseexperience of which man is capable....

4. Religious experience is practical, that is tosay it involves an imperative, a commitmentwhich mpels man to act... .

Concerning the theoretical expres-sion of religious experience, Wachstates:

A minimum of theoretical expression s alwaysalready present n the original eligious ntuitionor experience. This intuition is often representedin symbolic orm, which n itself mplies lementsof thought r doctrine. his first perception s for-mulated n more or ess well-defined nd coherenttheoretical tatements.41

The content f the intellectual xpression freligious xperience evolves bout hree opicsofparticular mportance-God, the world, and man.In other words, theological, osmological, ndanthropological onceptions are continuouslybeing evolved in terms of myth, doctrine, and

dogma.....42

... In the original experience, however, or in

its primary xpression, t isdifficult o differentiatebetween theory and practice, between theologyand ethics....43

Although Wach rightly holds thatwhat is formulated in the theoreticalstatement of faith is done in religiouslyinspired acts, and thus, in a widersense, all actions which flow from and aredetermined by religious experience are tobe regarded as practical expression orcultus, 44 he nevertheless narrows hisdefinition of the practical expression ofreligious experience to worship. He saysin part:

Religion s such has been defined s worship;experiences f the holyare n allreligions xpressedin acts of reverence toward the numen whoseexistence is intellectually defined in terms ofmyth, doctrine, and dogma.... Underhill, owhom we are indebted or some of the most sig-nificant contributions o the study of worship,divides these acts into (1) ritual (liturgical at-tern), (2) symbols images), 3) sacraments visi-ble things and deeds), and (4) sacrifice.

While Wach did not take sides in thecontroversy as to whether myths are de-rived from ritual or vice versa, he took a

keen interest in the interplay betweencompulsion and tradition, on the onehand, and the constant drive for indi-vidual liberty, on the other hand, in thehistoric development of the cult.46

Among the three areas of the expres-sion of religious experience, Wach wasmost keenly interested in the sociologi-cal expression, which motivated him topublish Einfiihrung n die Religionssozi-ologie.47 ociology f Religion,48 eligions-soziologie,49 nd Sociologie e la religion.50Let us now turn to Wach's understand-ing of the sociology of religion.

SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

Wach views sociology of religion asone subdivision-albeit an important one-of Religionswissenschaft. It is the off-

spring of two different scholarly pursuits-the study of society and the study ofreligion:

In addition o the problems hich he sociologyof religion nherits rom the two parental disci-plines, t has ts ownpeculiar ifficulties nd asks.That s to say: sociology freligion hareswith hesociology of other activities of man certain prob-lems and, in addition, has its own which are dueto the peculiar nature of religious experience andits

expression.51Briefly stated, the task of sociology of

religion is the individual, typological,and comparative study of religiousgrouping, religious fellowship, and reli-

12gious association. Before the emergenceof the sociology of religion as a recog-nized discipline, a great deal of materialwas gathered, particularly in the courseof the nineteenth

century,and

periodi-cally grouped and reviewed from theo-logical and philosophical, psychologicaland sociological viewpoints. '53 However,


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until the beginning of the twentieth cen-tury there was no sociology of religion assuch, with categories with which to or-

ganize the vast materials assembled andits own methodology based on an un-biased examination of the nature of itssubject matter. 54

While Wach acknowledges his indebt-edness to sociologists of religion in theUnited States, Great Britain, the Nether-lands, France, and Scandinavian coun-tries, he stands, by temperament and bytraining, n the German radition of dieverstehende Soziologie. Among theforerunners of this school were MaxWeber, Ernst Troeltsch, Werner Som-bart, and Georg Simmel. Wach was per-sonally influenced by Dilthey and saysthat the philosophical and historicalwork of Wilhelm Dilthey, himself averseto establishing an independent sociologi-cal discipline, proved to be important

systematically and epistemologically. 55Indeed, House's account of a basic con-cept of Dilthey can be used to describeWach's own view:

Society .. is a stream of socio-historical ap-pening, constituted hrough he interaction ofindividuals. This interaction is infinitely complexand far-reaching; he comprehension f it and theformulation of the laws that govern t are attendedwith great difficulties. Nevertheless, the phe-nomena of social interaction are known to theindividual as a participant, by direct inner per-ception. We stand outside nature and can com-prehend its working only to a limited extent,through the power of imagination. The world ofsociety, on the contrary, is our own; we experi-ence the interaction that goes on in it. The otherindividuals n society are like me, and I can con-ceive the workings of their inner life. I under-stand (verstehen) the life of society.56

Wach shares Richert's conviction that

understanding social phenomena doesnot involve adherence to any particularsystem of values . . . but the behavior ofhuman beings in society can be under-

stood only with reference o the meaningof things (Sinn). '' From his master,Max Weber, Wach learned that human

conduct alone, unlike all other phenome-na, is understandable (verstindlich),but that the understandable had fluidlimits for the empirical sciences. '8

On the whole, however, human] onduct hatcan be rationally nterpreted often serves best, insociological nalysis, the purpose of an idealtype ; ociology, ike history, nterprets ts data,pragmatically, in terms of the rationally under-standable nterconnection of human acts.59

Wach considers Weber the first for-mulator of a systematic sociology of reli-gion.60 He laments the fact that onlyWeber's work in Calvinism s widely ac-claimed, leaving in the dark the majorportion of his contribution to the sys-tematic sociology of religion. ' Never-theless,Max Weber eft much o be done. n his scheme freligions he neglected to include the entire groupof so-called primitive religions as well as Mo-hammedanism and other important faiths. Inaddition, the great scholar's understanding ofreligion was somewhat impaired by his criticalattitude oward t. The categories nder whichheclassified religious phenomena are not entirelysatisfactory, ecause ot enough ttention s paidto their original meaning.

In many respects Weber's work was comple-mented by the exhaustive studies of his friend,Ernst Troeltsch, which were, unfortunately,limited exclusively to Christianity . . It isregrettable that the commendable precedent setby the two German scholars--one a social scien-tist, the other a theologian nd philosopher-inrefusing to allow personal metaphysical andother theories and conceptions to interfere withthe impersonal ask of analyzing nd describingsocial phenomena of religious significance hasnot always been followed.62

Basically, Wach maintains that themethdology of the sociology of religionmust be impartial and objective. Certainprinciples must be observed, however:


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The first requirement s an appreciation f thevast breadth nd variety of religious xperience.This implies that the basis for all sociologicaltreatments of religion must be found, in the

first place, n a wide range of phenomenologicaland psychological ypes... and, second, n themultifarious istorical ypesof religion xperience.In other words, ny attempt o limit the scopeofour study to one religion.., is bound to leadto insufficient nd perverted onclusions ... 63

The second equirement... is an understand-ing and appreciation f the nature and signifi-cance of religious henomena. he inquirer mustfeel an affinity o his subject, and he must betrained o interpret ismaterial with sympathetic

understanding.Elsewhere he asserts that objectivity

does not presuppose ndifference. ''5 anthere be one sociology of religion, then?Wach thinks so, though there is aCatholic and a Marxian philosophy ofsociety, there can be only one sociologyof religion which we may approach romdifferent angles and realize to a different

degreebut which would use but one set

of criteria. 88 his does not imply, how-ever, that sociology of religion must relyon the traditional comparative meth-od and seek only analogies of religiousconcepts, rites, and organization. Rather,

individual features have to be inter-preted as part of the configuration heyform. ' The sociologist of religion mustfollow hermeneutical principles and at-

tempt to understand he intention of reli-gious ideas, rites, and forms of organiza-tion within their context.88

Because each religious group has itsown self-interpretation of intention,the question naturally arises as to howthe sociologists of religion can deal witha variety of such interpretations. Wachtries to answer this difficult question byrelying on Max Scheler's

relationism 89(sociology of knowledge) and utilizingthe typological method '0 (methodolo-gy of the sociology of religion). Charac-teristically, Wach suggests that the stu-

dent of religion must acquaint himselfwith the research of the sociologist, whilehe can supply the sociologist with a

working theory of religious life and itsmanifestations. Co-operatively the stu-dent of religion and the student of societycan articulate specific categories of thesociology of religion. For this task Wachemphasizes he importance of hermeneu-tical principles o determine

first, the actual meaning of any word and con-cept, sometimes bscured y tradition nd age;secondly, the religious implications of terms likesin, repentance, grace, redemption, etc.; thirdly,the concrete, ndividual theological nterpreta-tion given to the term in a religious community.... There is no hope of grasping the spirit and ofunderstanding the life, symbolism, and behaviorof religious roup olong as no serious ttempt smade to correlate the isolated traits (concepts,rites, customs) observed with a notion of thecentral experience which produces hem.

What are the main tasks of the soci-

ology of religion? n Wach's formulationthere are two main areas of study. Thefirst is the interrelation of religion andsociety. This may be subdivided into(a) an examination of the sociologicalroots and functions of myths, doctrines,and dogmas, of cultus and association ngeneral and in particular and (b) researchon the sociologically ignificant unctionand effect of religion n

society. 7The second main area of study is thereligious group. Obviously, there aremany approaches to the study of reli-gious groups. In the main, however,it is the task of general sociology to investigatethe sociological significance of the various formsof intellectual and practical expression of religiousexperience (myth, doctrine; prayer, sacrifice, ites;organization, constitution, authority); it falls tothe specific ociological tudy to cover sociological-ly concrete, istorical xamples: Sioux Omaha)Indian myth, an Egyptian doctrine of the MiddleKingdom .... Such studies should be carriedout for the smallest conceivable units (one familyor clan, a local group at a given period of time, the


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JOACHIM WACH AND SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION 183

occasional following of one cult leader, etc.).There is no danger of this task turning into a his-torical, psychological, anthropological, heologicalundertaking, because the sociological viewpoint

will be the decisive one.

Ideally, Wach maintains, a systematicsociology of religion must take into ac-count all religious groups, Christian andnon-Christian, past and present, in theirrelation to ethnic divisions, cultures, andsocieties throughout the world.74 n thePreface to Sociology of Religion, he says:

The author, a student not of the social sciences

but of religion, is convinced of the desirability ofbridging the gulf which still exists between thestudy of religion and the social sciences . . Heconsiders his contribution more as a modest at-tempt at a synthesis than an inventory with anyclaim to completeness.71

Similarly, n his conclusion, he goes onto say:

Yet the fact that this study is limited to adescriptive sociological examination of religiousgroups need not be interpreted as an implicitadmission that the theological, philosophical,and metaphysical problems and questions growingout of such a study of society have to remain un-answerable. They can and most certainly shouldbe answered, but it is not the task of this inquiryto do so. Our purpose has been to present materi-als ... to readers of different religious and philo-sophical convictions and persuasions who are in-terested in a study of the interrelation of religionand society.76

Although cognizant of the importanceof the sociological method, Wach doesnot regard this method as the universalkey to an understanding of religiousphenomena. He maintains that the in-quiry into the social origin, the sociologi-cal structure, and the social efficacy ofreligious groups cannot deal with thequestions of meaning, value, and truth

which are also essential n religion. Whilerecognizing he limitations of the socio-logical method, Wach insists that a soci-

ological approach to the study of reli-gious groups can shed much light on howreligious experience s expressed n reli-gious fellowship. In this sense, his shortstudy of Church, Denomination, andSect 77eveals most clearly his methodand synthetic perspective.

As stated earlier, Professor Wach wasnot a sociologist of religion per se. Hissociology of religion must be seen in thetotal context of Religionswissenschaftand in relation to his other concerns,namely, hermeneutics and the inquiryinto the nature and expression of reli-gious experience.

Through this approach [sociology of religion]we hope not only to illustrate the cultural signifi-cance of religion but also to gain new insight intothe relations between the various forms of ex-pression of religious experience and eventually tounderstand better the various aspects of religiousexperience itself. 8

Wach's own words, written in tributeto Albert Schweitzer, are equally appro-priate to Wach himself:

[He] is a master of understanding. Without agreat natural talent-or shall we say genius-noamount of acquired skill and knowledge wouldhave enabled him to interpret so profoundly and

comprehensively as he has done personalities ofthe past, distant periods and peoples, great reli-gious documents and works of art, the thoughts,feeling, and emotions of human beings.... Yet,like all masters of a craft, he never relied on theinspiration of his genius but perfected his talentsconsistently and methodically by experience andstudy over a long period of years. His understand-ing, moreover, has proved to be deep and fruitful,because it is the result not only of a great and in-clusive mind, but of an equally great and culti-vated heart.79

NOTES1. I am indebted o Mr. F. Dean Lueking, who

made available his translation of part of Wach'sReligionswissenschaft.

2. Joachim Wach, Religionswissenschaft Leip-zig: J. C. Heinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, 1924),p. 119. Wach disapproves Tiele's statement that


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ist [die Religionsphilosophie] nichts anderes alsReligionswissenschaft im engeren Sinne des Wortes;denn Wissenschaft ist die philosophische Be-arbeitung des gesammelten und geordneten, klassi-fizierten Wissens.

3. Ibid., p. 121.4. Quoted ibid., p. 123.5. Ibid.6. Ibid., p. 128.7. Ibid., p. 129.8. Ibid., p. 130.9. Ibid., pp. 130-31.10. Ibid., pp. 131-32.11. Ibid., p. 132.12. ibid., p. 133.13. Ibid., p. 136.14. Ibid., pp. 136-37.15.

Ibid., p.138.

16. Ibid., p. 143.17. Ibid., p. 147.18. Der Begriff des Klassischen in der Religions-

wissenschaft, in Quantulacumque, November,1937; The Concent of the 'Classical.' in hisTypes of Religious Experience (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1951), pp. 48-57.

19. Ibid., p. 51.20. Ibid., pp. 51-52.21. Ibid., p. 57.22. Vol. I (1926), Vol. II (1929), Vol. III (1933)

(Tiibingen: J. C. B. Mohr).

23. Rudolf Bultmann, Essays, Philosophical andTheological, trans. James C. G. Greig (New York:Macmillan Co., 1955), p. 235.

24. Ibid.25. Religionswissenschaft, p. 138.26. Einleitung, Das Verstehen, Vol. I.27. Das Verstehen, I, 227 ff.28. On Understanding, in The Albert Schweitz-

er Jubilee Book, ed. A. A. Roback (Cambridge:SCI-ART Publishers, 1946), p. 137.

29. Ibid., p. 138.30. Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, trans.

J. W. Harvey (London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford

University Press, 1923).31. Rudolf Otto and the Idea of the Holy, in

Types of Religious Experience, pp. 209-27; andRudolf Otto und der Bergriff des Heiligen, in

Deutsche Beitrdge, ed. A. Bergstrisser (Chicago:Henry Regnery Co., 1953), pp. 200-217.

32. Types of Religious Experience, p. 218.33. Ibid., p. 219.34. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1951), I, 215-16.35. Types of Religious Experience, p. 222.36. Ibid., p. 223.

37. Ibid., p. 225.38. Cf. Wach's article, Radhakrishnan and the

Comparative Study of Religion, in The Philosophyof Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, ed. P. A. Schilpp (New

York: Tudor Pub. Co., 1952), pp. 443-58; Re-deemer of Men, in Divinity School News (Uni-versity of Chicago), November, 1948; and Gen-eral Revelation and the Religions of the World, inJournal of Bible and Religion, April, 1954.

39. Types of Religious Experience, pp. 38-47.40. Ibid., pp. 32-33.41. Wach, Sociology of Religion (Chicago: Uni-

versity of Chicago Press, 1944), p. 19.42. Ibid., p. 23.43. Ibid., p. 25.44. Ibid.45. Ibid.46. Ibid., p. 27.47. Tilbingen, 1931.48. Chicago, 1944; London, 1947.49. Tiibingen, 1951.50.

Paris,1955.

51. Wach, Sociology of Religion, in G. Gur-vitch and W. E. Moore (eds.), Twentieth CenturySociology (New York: Philosophical Library, 1945),p. 406.

52. Sociology of Religion, p. 2; also cf. Religions-soziologie by J. Wach in Franz K6nig (ed.),Religionswissenschaftliches Wdrterbuch (Freiburg:Verlag Herder, 1956), pp. 749-52.

53. Twentieth Century Sociology, p. 407.54. Ibid.55. Ibid., p. 412. Wach's devotion to Dilthey is

seen in his dedication of Das Verstehen, Vol. III, to

this master.56. Floyd Nelson House, The Development ofSociology (New York and London: McGraw-HillBook Co., 1936), p. 396.

57. Ibid., p. 397.58. Ibid., p. 399.59. Ibid.60. Cf. Wach's Einfiihrung in die Religions-

soziologie (Tiibingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1931), esp.Max Weber als Relgionssoziologie (Appendix).

61. Sociology of Religion, p. 3.62. Ibid., pp. 3-4.63. Ibid., pp. 8-9.

64. Ibid., p. 10.65. Twentieth Century Sociology, p. 418.66. Ibid.67. Ibid., p. 419.68. Ibid.69. Ibid., p. 420.70. Sociology of Religion, pp. 9-10.71. Twentieth Century Sociology, pp. 424-25.72. Ibid., pp. 425-28; Sociology of Religion,

pp. 13-17 and 54-109.73. Twentieth Century Sociology, p. 434.74. Ibid., pp. 435-36.75. Sociology of Religion, p. v (my italics).76. Ibid., pp. 374-75.77. Types of Religious Experience, pp. 187-208.78. Sociology of Religion, p. 5 (my italics).79. The Albert Schweitzer Jubilee Book, p. 133.

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Kitagawa - Joachim Wach