Menneskelig indsigt ved studiet af religion

Resumé

It is suggested that there are at least four kinds of insight which can be obtained in the course of the study of religion. To start with, we can obtain insight into the very different motivations and intentions with which people, including ourselves, can set out to study religion.

Secondly, in the course of our work we can arrive at a better insight into the complexity of the scholarly study of religion and in particular the very different approaches which are possible within this field of research. A distinction is made between the strictly empirical approaches of the various disciplines on the human and social sciences of religion on the one hand, and the schools concentrating on the objective meanings of symbolism and religious experience on the other. A third kind of approach seeks the significance of religious phenomena for particular groups of people, that is to say their subjective meanings. Such different approaches evidently lead to different concepts of what Religionswissenschaft is: (a) a special branch of existing disciplines, (b) a distinct discipline concentrating on religious data; or (c) a field of research whose specific subject-matter is the religious meanings of specific data for specific groups of people. It is fair to say that the study of religion at present has become a multidisciplinary and multiperspective field of studies.

A third kind of insight concerns the instrumental nature of the concepts of religion(s) which are used in the scholarly study of religion. Just as for a long time non-western cultures were described in terms of western cultural values and in relation to the image which the researcher had of his own culture, non-western religions were described for a long time according to religious notions of western Christianity. Non-western peoples’ religious activities and expressions were seen according to the parameters of what at a given time was understood in Europe by religion. The conceptualization of non-Christian and non-western forms of spirituality has been heavily indebted to western theological categories and intentions. In this light the study of religion can no longer be considered as a given parcel of knowledge – the accumulation of facts or the application of one conceptual model – but as a particular way of questioning data which have religious meanings, beside other ones, for particular people. For this study we need an open general concept of religion; strict definitions of religion can only be given in a limited sense and for the sake of specific investigations.

Finally we learn to see not only the study of religion but also religion itself as a human reality and form of activity, whether people follow or resist a religious tradition more passively or whether they articulate or oppose a religion more actively. Parallel to art and literature but in its own ways religion conveys meanings; as in art and literature, the nature of a given religion is less important than how it is interpreted and affects peoples’ lives.

Conclusion: Without personal motivations this kind of study would risk becoming meaningless, at least to the people carrying it out. Without adjustment of methods and techniques of research it would not be scholarly. Without theoretical reflection it would lack lucidity. Without searching for meanings it would fail to account for the meaning-giving dimension of religion.