SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGIONS
SOME METHODOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS
Keywords:
ReligionAbstract
The contact of the West with Islam, the revival of classical antiquity in the Renaissance with its aftermath of humanism, and the geographical discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries with their subsequent colonial and missionary conquests, gave impetus to the study of religions of other lands and peoples. The discovery of diverse religions was experienced by western Christianity fIrst as a threat to its absolutism and only much later in recent times as an enrichment to its own growth and development. In the beginning comparative studies were always made in terms of one's own religion, which was often taken for a norm or standard. In the second phase during the latter part of the nineteenth and the early twentieth century, there came a generation
of scholars who claimed to be "neutral" or "non-committed" and who wished to make "objective" and "impartial" studies of religions. Some of them picked up isolated parallels arbitrarily from different religions all over the world. Others worked with the evolutionary principle and accordingly classified religions into higher and lower forms and. tried to reconstruct the origin and development of religion. Today these "one-track schemes of development" have been discarded by most of the scholars and emphasis has been placed on understanding the uniqueness of each religion and discovering the basic structures of the religious phenomena. This clearly manifested the necessity of a convergence of the historical and phenomenological approaches in the study of religions. In this article we do not intend to discuss these different methods or approaches in the study of religions. Our purpose here is to indicate certain guidelines to be observed in any scientific comparative study of religions. What are the rules for comparing religions?
References
Joachim Wach, "The Meaning and Task of the History of Religions" in : J.M. Kitagawa, ed., with the collaboration of Mircea Eliede and Charles H. Long. The History of Religions : Essays on the Problem of Understanding. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1967, pp. 1-17
Heinrich Frick, Verglelchende Religionswíssenschaft (1928), (Comparative Religion). from Jacques Waardenburg (ed..) Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion.
Aims Methods and Theories of Research. Vol. I, Introduction and Anthology. Mouton. The Hague. 1973. P. 486.
Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, (translated by Joseph Ward Swain). Macmillan, New York, 1915;
Max Weber. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirlt of Capitalism. (translated by Talcott Parsons), New York. 1930 ; Scribner, New York. 1958.
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Longmans, Green Co , New York-London, 1907 ; Collins. London. 1960.
Mircee Eliade, The Quest. History and Meaning in Religion, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago end London, 1969, p. 19.
Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, (translated by J.W. Harvey), Second Edition, Oxford University Press, London, 1950, pp. 3-4.
Tuttle, H.N.. Wilhelm Dilthey's Philosophy of Historical Understanding. A Critical Analysis, Leiden. E.J. Brill, 1969. p. 9
