Some Second Thoughts on Substantive versus Functional Definitions of Religion

Abstract

Scientific approaches to religion have always alternated between functional and substantive definitions of the field-that is, between defining religion in terms of its social or psychological functions and in terms of its believed contents. Recently there has been a predominance of functional definitions, as exemplified by Bellah, Geertz, and Luckmann. Quite apart the scientific utility of these definitions, they have come to serve an ideological use-as a quasiscientific legitimation of the avoidance of transcendence. This is in accord with a secularized Zeitgeist, but it threatens to lose sight of the very phenomenon of religion. To regain the phenomenon, what is required is a return to a substantive definition, an understanding of religion from within. Schutz's analysis of multiple realities in human experience may serve as a useful starting point for this.

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