The Structure of Religion and Theories of Its Origin

The community of adherents

The moral community in Durkheim's definition, and the forms it takes are the subject of [Church, Denomination, Sect and Cult].

Part two: theories of origin

Animism: E. B. Tylor

Tylor argued that religion began in the belief in spiritual beings. Primitive people, reflecting on dreams, visions, trances and above all death, concluded that a person consists of a body and a separable soul. That belief was extended to animals, plants and objects, and the spirits so postulated became the gods, so animism is the minimum definition of religion and the root of all later forms.

Criticism. It makes religion a mistaken piece of reasoning by an individual philosopher, which is intellectualist and improbable; it explains belief but not ritual or emotion; and it does not account for religion's social character.

Naturism: Max Muller

Muller argued that religion began in awe at the great forces of nature, the sun, the sky, storms, rivers, which were personified, named, and eventually became gods. He attributed much of this to a "disease of language", by which metaphors describing natural events were later misread as the names of persons.

Criticism. It is largely a theory about language derived from a narrow body of texts, and it does not explain the sacred quality attaching to trivial objects.

Animatism and mana: R. R. Marett

Marett argued that before belief in distinct spirits there was a vaguer belief in an impersonal supernatural power pervading things, called mana in Melanesia. Religion begins in awe at that force rather than in a theory about souls, and it is felt before it is thought.

Totemism: Durkheim

Durkheim studied the totemism of Australian Aboriginal societies as, in his view, the simplest religion available for study, and concluded that the totem, the emblem of the clan, is sacred because it stands for the clan itself. Since it is the clan that constrains the individual, sustains them and outlives them, the force people experience as divine is society, and in worshipping the totem the clan worships itself.

Criticism. The Australian material may not be as primitive as he assumed; totemism is not universal; and the argument that the object of worship is society is a redescription that adherents would not recognise.

Magic, religion and science: J. G. Frazer

Frazer proposed an evolutionary sequence: humanity first tried to control nature by magic, treating it as governed by laws the magician could manipulate; finding magic ineffective, it turned to religion, propitiating personal beings assumed to control events; and finally to science. Criticism: magic, religion and science coexist in every society including modern ones, so the sequence does not hold.

Psychological theories: Freud

Freud derived religion from the psychological situation of the child before the father, projecting that relation onto a cosmic figure, and treated religion as a collective illusion serving to reduce anxiety. Criticism: it rests on a speculative reconstruction of prehistory and generalises from one family form.

Fear and dependence

An older and simpler line, associated with the Roman poet Lucretius's remark that fear first made the gods, and with later writers who derived religion from human helplessness before nature. Criticism: fear explains why people might want a god, not why they have the specific beliefs, rituals and communities that religions actually have.

The modern position

Say four things.

1. The origin of religion is not recoverable. It predates writing and every record, so all these theories are inferences from present-day societies wrongly treated as living fossils of the past.
2. The evolutionary assumption underlying most of them is not accepted, for the reasons in [The Evolutionary Perspective].
3. The question has changed. Sociology now asks how religion works rather than how it began, which is a question evidence can answer.
4. Durkheim's contribution survives not as a history of origins but as an analysis of function: whatever religion's origin, collective ritual demonstrably produces solidarity, and that can be observed today.

A worked example

A stone under a tree at a crossroads acquires a coat of vermilion, then a shelter, then a weekly gathering, then a festival.

Tylor would look for a belief that a spirit inhabits it. Marett would look for a sense of power felt in the place before any spirit was named. Muller would look for a natural feature personified. Durkheim would ask who assembles there, and would say that the stone is sacred because it has become the emblem of that group, so that the sanctity is a property of the collective attitude and not of the stone.

Durkheim's account is the only one of the four that can be tested by looking, which is why it survived. One can observe who gathers, what happens to their conduct afterwards, and whether the group treats offences against the stone as offences against itself. The others require access to the thoughts of people long dead.

Quick revision

1. Structural aspects: beliefs, rituals, sacred objects and symbols, sacred places and times, a moral code, organisation and specialists, and a community of adherents.
2. Durkheim: positive rites prescribe, negative rites forbid; ritual is the mechanism, not decoration.
3. Weber: the priest holds authority by office and routine, the prophet by personal charisma.
4. Tylor: animism, belief in spiritual beings, from reflection on dreams and death.
5. Max Muller: naturism, awe at natural forces plus a disease of language.
6. Marett: animatism, an impersonal power, mana, felt before it is thought.
7. Durkheim: totemism; the totem stands for the clan, so society is the object of worship.
8. Frazer: magic to religion to science. Freud: projection of the father. Lucretius: fear made the gods.
9. The origin is not recoverable; the modern question is how religion works, not how it began.

Test yourself

1. Name the structural aspects of religion. Beliefs; rituals and practices, including positive rites which prescribe and negative rites which forbid; sacred objects and symbols; sacred places and times, which structure the calendar and with it social and economic life; a moral code prescribing conduct; an organisation with religious specialists; and a community of adherents, the moral community of Durkheim's definition.

2. State Tylor's theory and the objection to it. Tylor held that religion began in animism, the belief in spiritual beings, which arose when people reflecting on dreams, visions and death concluded that a person consists of a body and a separable soul, a belief then extended to animals, plants and objects whose spirits became gods. The objection is that this makes religion a mistaken inference drawn by an individual reasoner, which explains belief but not ritual, emotion or the collective character that is religion's most obvious feature.

3. Explain Durkheim's totemic theory. Studying the totemism of Australian Aboriginal societies as the simplest available religion, Durkheim argued that the totem is sacred because it is the emblem of the clan. Since it is the clan that constrains its members, sustains them and outlives them, the superior force which people experience in religious life is society itself, so that in worshipping the totem the clan is worshipping itself in a form it can see.

4. What was Frazer's sequence, and why is it rejected? That humanity first attempted to control nature by magic, treating events as governed by laws a magician could manipulate; then, finding magic ineffective, turned to religion, propitiating personal beings believed to control events; and finally to science. It is rejected because magic, religion and science are found together in every society including modern industrial ones, so they are not successive stages but coexisting modes of dealing with uncertainty.

5. What is the modern position on the origin of religion? That it is not recoverable. Religion predates writing and every record, so the classical theories are inferences drawn from contemporary societies wrongly treated as survivals of an earlier stage, and the evolutionary assumption behind them is not accepted. The question sociology now asks is how religion works, what it does for solidarity, control, identity and legitimation, which is a question the evidence can answer, and Durkheim's contribution survives as an analysis of function rather than as a history of origins.