Principles of Integral Science of Religion

220 Pages·1979·4.975 MB·English

by  Georg Schmid

Principles of Integral Science of Religion
Μ
Religion and Reason 17
Method and Theory
in the Study and Interpretation of Religion
GENERAL EDITOR
Jacques Waardenburg, University of Utrecht
BOARD OF ADVISERS
Th. P. van Baaren, Groningen
R. N. Bellah, Berkeley
E. Benz, Marburg
U. Bianchi, Rome
H. J. W. Drijvers, Groningen
W. Dupre, Nijmegen
S. N. Eisenstadt, Jerusalem
M. Eliade, Chicago
C. Geertz, Princeton
K. Goldammer, Marburg
P. Ricoeur, Paris and Chicago
M. Rodinson, Paris
N. Smart, Lancaster and Santa Barbara, Calif.
G. Widengren, Stockholm
MOUTON PUBLISHERS · THE HAGUE · PARIS · NEW YORK
Principles of Integral Science of Religion
by
GEORG SCHMID
Teachers College,
Chur, Switzerland
MOUTON PUBLISHERS THE HAGUE · PARIS · NEW YORK
Translated from German by John Wilson
ISBN: 90-279-7864-6
Jacket design by Jurriaan Schrofer
© 1979, Mouton Publishers, The Hague, The Netherlands
Typeset by Η Charlesworth & Co Ltd, Huddersfield, England
Printing: Wemer Hildebrand oHG., Berlin
Binding: Lüderite & Bauer, Berlin
Preface
I wish to thank, firstly and above all, those who have supported my
work with their suggestions, criticisms and interest, especially Prof.
F. Buri in Basel, Prof. C. Keller in Lausanne, and Dr. J. D. J. Waar-
denburg, who is the chief editor of this series, John Wilson, Ph.D. in
Möhlin/AG, who translated this book and David Stitt, who made the
corrections.
Certainly no less, but only in a different way, do I wish to thank
my family, my students and my colleague at the Lehrerseminar in
Chur, W. Glücker, all of whom enriched my course of work with
patience and understanding. The staff of the Kantonsbibliothek
Graubünden deserve special thanks. What would science be without
such contributing colleagues?
The reader will discover that this work asks him to follow several
new distinctions, and he could have the impression that the author
wishes to establish new programs or, indeed, to project a new disci-
pline. That is, however, not the case. Against such misunderstanding I
can, to state my goal, use the words of J. Wach in the preface to his
methodological studies:
In all it is a matter neither of programs nor of projections of new
disciplines, but of the clear working-out of directions, efforts and
tendencies which have always come forward in our science. These
should be lifted into methodological awareness and clarified.
(Religions Wissenschaft, 1924:IV).
Although Wach's explanation is now more than fifty years old, it has
lost none of its significance. A methodological work exceeds its capa-
bilities if it pretends to give something fundamentally new. It is also
superfluous if it does no more than repeat what has already been
said. Methodology does not create new ways, but it also does not
simply tramp along the old. To employ methodology can only mean to
continue along known ways where these ways indicate further work.
VI Preface
This book is no exception to that rule. It will have attained its goal if
it succeeds in grasping, clarifying and, here and there developing
what science of religion has long carried in itself as beginning point
and as possibility.
Chur, 9 June 1978 Georg Schmid
Table of Contents
PREFACE Ν
INTRODUCTION
1. Methodology 1
2. Methodology and the Reflection on, or Consideration of
(Be-Sinn-ung auf) the Whole of Religion 3
I THE TASK
1. Modern Science of Religion 9
2. The Specific and the Integral Interests of Modern Science
of Religion 16
Excursus I. On the Difference between History of Religion
and Systematic Science of Religion 22
3. Specific and Integral Science of Religion 27
II THE PREMISES
1. Religious Reality and the Reality of Religion 33
2. Religion in Question 40
3. Integral and Integrating Science of Religion 50
4. The Whole of Religion 53
III THE METHODS
1. Integral and Heretical Science of Religion 67
2. Religious Reality and the Method of Science of Religion . . 68
3. Description 69
4. Comprehension 76
Excursus II. On the Theory of Understanding in Science of
Religion 80
5. Understanding 89
6. Integral Science of Religion as Description, Compre-
hension and Understanding 97
7. Non-Identical Correspondence and Category 100
8. The Way to the Whole as Supplementation of the Individual. 102
VIII Table of Contents
IV THE VERIFICATION
1. Execution, Application and Verification 105
2. As an Example: Yasna 32:8 108
3. Radical Reality 121
4. Attempt at Realization 139
5. Understanding of Religion and Science of Religion 150
Excursus III. On the Distinction between Religion and Re-
ligiouslessness 154
V THE IDENTITY
1. Self-Evident Parallels . 157
2. Theology and Science of Religion 158
Excursus IV. On Ulrich Mann's Synoptic Method
1. Foreword 165
2. Synopsis as Task 167
3. Synopsis as Method 169
4. Synopsis as Theory 170
5. Synopsis as Model 173
6. Synopsis and Integral Science of Religion 174
3. Criticism of Religion and Science of Religion 178
NOTES 183
BIBLIOGRAPHY 199
INDEX 207
Introduction
L. METHODOLOGY
If I may begin with a metaphor from the Gospel of Matthew, to
employ methodology means to offer the reader a stoneinstead of bread.
However, that in itself is not to be held against methodology. Meth-
odology does, at first, put one's own act above the work one is con-
sidering, one's perceiving above what one perceives in the work, one's
being under way above arrival. But in doing this, methodology serves
the work itself, the perception and the goal far more than an inter-
pretation of the work which, while giving results, says nothing at all
about the whence, the how, and the means of the interpretation. In
any case, the broad discussion of method in contemporary science
of religion1 has resulted in the conclusion that we can only be res-
ponsible for our perceptions if we are responsible for our method
of perceiving. Methodology may be a sterile undertaking, but it is
a sterile necessity.
It is the intention of this work to be a contribution to the meth-
odology of science of religion. But to which methodology? Depen-
ding on its point of departure, its understanding of its goals and its
procedure, methodology can move in quite different directions
(cf. among others G. Sauter, 1973). Therefore, one who employs meth-
odology must tell us what he is talking about. We name methodology
the attempt of science of religion to come to clarity about what it
itself does. What that means may be explained in the following four
points.
1. In our view, methodology is more than what G. König means
when he says that it is scientific occupation with methods and
'methodics'. It has as its object not only 'individual, definitely given
ways of procedure which have to be judged' and systems 'of opera-
tionally connected methods which have application in a definite
2 Introduction
area' (1973:100). We understand the object of methodology to be
nothing more and nothing less than science of religion, and, indeed,
science of religion as a theme of science of religion. When science of
religion does methodology, it attempts to consider itself critically. It
stands, so to speak, before a mirror. Such self-observation leads to
narcissism and self-adulation only if it is uncritical and if the science
becomes inebriated with its own successes. In this critical reflection
on itself science of religion will, in any case, see itself confronted
not only with its methods or methodics. Just as fundamentally, it
will also have to sight its way of posing tasks and goals, its premises
and their consequences.
2. In the attempt to attain clarity about what it does, science of
religion can neither proceed only descriptively nor simply establish
norms. Certainly the description of its own methodological pro-
cedure is of central importance. It is just as important for any meth-
odology that it not only describe what it has done but also, where
necessary, prescribe the basic lines of its continuing course. There-
fore, methodology proceeds neither only descriptively nor only
by laying out norms, but critically: criticism is constructive de-
scription. Constructive description means giving attention to what is
yet possible in what has already been given. It is that description of a
course which leads into the prescription of new courses. In its meth-
odology , science of religion makes self-criticism a consequent duty to
be assumed.
3. What is the best that can result from such criticism? Meth-
odology cannot attain any sort of eternally valid fundamental laws
or complete and self-contained methods of perception in science
of religion. Whoever expects the former of methodology confuses
methodology with ideology, and whoever expects the latter confuses
methodology with an instrument. Apart from signs of wear and tear,
an instrument always remains the same before, during and after
its application. A method becomes what it is through its execution
and not in its abstract formulation. The best that methodology can
produce, therefore, are neither immovably basic laws nor complete,
self-contained methods but only principles or 'beginnings'. We name
principles first steps leading to other steps and indicating the basic