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The Structure of Religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

John E. Smith
John E. Smith
Affiliation:
Professor of Philosophy, Yale University
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Extract

The popular belief that religion is the same everywhere or that all religions are ‘at bottom’ identical in essentials is a widespread falsehood that is saved from being completely worthless by the fact that religion does exhibit a universal or common structure wherever it appears. This structure is intimately related to the structure of human life in the world. The enduring pattern that enables us to understand religions widely separated in both time and space depends largely on the fact that man and the process of human life in the world have their own structures which remain, despite the undeniable variety introduced by vast differences of culture, ethnic features, geographical location, climate etc. Structure means pattern or form; it is reality significantly organised. It can be grasped as that which endures above and beyond changing historical details. Because human life has a structure, we are able to understand the wrath of Achilles or sympathise with the love of Abélard for Héloïse although we are separated from both by centuries of time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , October 1965 , pp. 63 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1965

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References

Page 64 note 1 William James, in The Varieties of Religions Experience, suggested the idea of such a structure and the concept was further developed by Royce in The Sources of Religious Insight; neither, however, went on to employ the concept of general structure of religion as it is employed in this paper.

Page 65 note 1 This point is well made by Cassirer in Substance and Function.

Page 67 note 1 I John iv. 20; the great commandment of Matt. xxii. 37 ff., Luke x. 27 ff. is, of course, pre-supposed.

Page 67 note 2 Some New Testament scholars such as Amos Wilder and Paul Schubert incline towards the view that the Kingdom idea is not a basic one for Christian belief derived from the New Testament sources. On the other hand, in addition to the many passages in the synoptic Gospels, especially the so-called ‘parables of the kingdom’, there are many references to the Kingdom of God, e.g.; Rom. xiv. 17; I Cor. iv. 20; vi. 9–10; Col. iv. 11; II Thess. i. 5.