Chapter 4. The Essence of Religion

What is religion? We use the word "religion" all the time, and when we use it we think we know what religion is. But when we stop to ask what it is we call religion, an exact answer does not usually come readily. Many scholars have defined religion. One scholar even collected over a hundred definitions of religion, counting only those with the most distinctive specific differences.¹ Yet of no definition, whatever it may be, can we say that it is so complete and flawless that it could never be changed or corrected. For religion is by its essence something hard to sum up simply in a definition of any fixed form.

First, religion has developed from the remote past to the present day in forms of every shape and color. So even under the same name² of "religion" its thought, tendencies, institutions and activities are not uniform, and it is hard to point to a common feature that could take in all its forms. And even if we arrive at some comprehensive concept, it has the defect that, by an undue widening of its extension, it fails to make plain what is peculiar to religion in its essence. For example, the religion of primitive times and the developed religion of today differ in essence, and it is hard to take them in under one concept. Even p. 75 if we look only at existing religions, we can see that among religions of various forms there is opposition and contradiction even in the principles held to be most fundamental to what makes a religion. Buddhism holds to a thoroughgoing atheism, and Islam professes an absolutely single God. Confucianism is this-worldly, ethical and devoted to antiquity, while Hinduism is for the most part contemplative, mystical and world-renouncing. There is an autonomous Jainism,³ which aims at strict moral discipline, and on the other side a heteronomous Christianity, which centers on redemption by the grace of God. In other words, religions are of many kinds, and the kinds differ so widely from one another that it is hard to arrive at the concept of religion in the form of a simple definition.

Second, religion is hard to consider in strict separation from human life in general. Religion is not an individual, independent entity⁴ standing apart from the phenomena of life in general. It permeates our whole personality and is at work in the whole of our living. So religion is as broad as life is broad, and as life has many branches, so the fields in which religion is at work are complex. That is to say, religion is expressed and at work with the conditions of life as its concrete structure, so it cannot be understood in full without examining the activity of the whole personality and the content of the whole of culture. In the thought and life of primitive peoples, when myth and magic took up almost the whole of it, culture was entirely undifferentiated, and no clear line stood between religion and politics, education, ethics, art, the economy and the other fields of culture in general. Only today has religion come to fix the limits of its essence p. 76 and function as religion. But this does not mean that religion withdraws entirely from the fields of culture in general, and, as a monadic existence⁵ with no organic or functional connection with them, carries on a world by itself alone, shut up in a world of its own. Religion does, of course, have special "religious acts," such as the sacraments, doxology, prayer and worship. But from such "religious acts" it is hard to understand the essence of religion in its outward relations. Religion is life.⁶ When religion is life, all our thought and action becomes religious, and education, politics, art, the economy, anything at all can come to have religious meaning. So the expression of religion in these outward relations is complex and wide-ranging, and its concept is hard to define simply.

Last, the reason it is hard to define religion in a fixed form is that religion itself, which we would define, is never fixed, but ceaselessly flows and changes. Even if we regard religion as a set of doctrines or institutions with a historical tradition, it has gone through a process of some selection and adaptation over time, and it has been applied and interpreted differently according to knowledge and the state of society. To go a step further: when we think of religion as vital experience rather than as a fixed form, it is of a nature that must always be alive and moving and growing vigorously. So religion is not something to be settled once and for all, "it is thus," and it must not stop in the same state even for a moment. At times the conceptual definition of religion, or its reduction to a uniform form, ends by killing its creative life. Religion is like flowing water: it must always be moving, vigorously and freely. p. 77

Above, we have explained two or three reasons why the concept of religion is hard to define. But despite these difficulties, to fix the theoretical direction of our treatment of religion, we can point out its chief features, settle provisionally on a normative concept of religion, and suggest the standard of the highest religion. Here, before the normative definition of the concept of religion, there are first a few points to consider.

First, to understand the heart of religion, we cannot take as our standard only the motive and form in which religion first arose. If we try to make the crude thought or the unrefined rites⁷ of primitive religion the norm for judging the essence and value of the highest religion, this is no more than⁸ an attempt to sacrifice the qualities added at the developed stages and reduce religion to magic.

Second, true religion does not have as a necessary condition that great crowds follow it or that it has a long historical background. Even if the whole world welcomes a religion with both hands and raises its voice in praise, that is no ground for judging it true. On the contrary, true religious experience and life may be found where nothing catches the eye of the crowd,⁹ and where there are no elaborate institutions and rites. From of old, those who have stood on the way of truth have often borne the mockery of the many and the misunderstanding of their age, found joy in solitude and accepted persecution gladly. So, in one respect, compromise¹⁰ and honor are things forbidden to religion.

p. 78 Last, when we try to define the normative concept of religion, we must attend to the inner life itself rather than to religion's concrete forms of expression. When religion is studied from the standpoint of science, the aim is usually a comprehensive description of the outward forms in which it has been expressed, and the study cannot enter the hidden depths of its dynamic life. In this sense the position of Dilthey, who holds that life is to be understood through life, may be called a method that brings us nearer to the real in life.¹¹

What, then, is religion? If we are to have a religion ourselves, what kind of religion must it be? Religion centers on the personal relation between God and human beings, that is, on spiritual experience. Ideas of God and interpretations of human nature differ from religion to religion; indeed it would be truer to say that they differ from person to person. Yet religion, taken broadly, can be embraced, however loosely, in the concept of a relation between God and human beings. Here the search for, and the longing after, the whole and absolute reality of the universe goes on; and, with the poignant¹² sense of having lived through that reality in person, one comes to live a life of dependence, reverence, worship and obedience, in the most devout spirit.

First, then, religion involves¹³ a conscious effort to find, in the universe or in the setting of life, an object of reverence that stands above all things, to know it, and to work together with it. That is to say, it deals with the gravest question there is for human beings. It is the effort of human beings, fundamentally bound in their thought and life, to overcome the essential predicament of their humanity; and at the same time it is the work of seeking the ground of the universe and of human life in all things, fixing their meaning p. 79 and seeking a standard. So religion is not one proposal among others, to be admitted or rejected according to subjective taste or interest. It is the ultimate way that every human being ought to walk, or at least the earnest effort to find the ultimate way.

Accordingly, religion involves devout discipline and earnest effort. To search for the absolute reality that is the ground of the universe, or to keep up¹⁴ a personal relation with God, is no easy thing. It calls for the investment of one's whole life. Nothing of worth is done without toil, and religion least of all. It is a thing to which I must pour out and offer my breath, my strength, my wisdom, my possessions, my sincerity, my whole life. Many people think religion is the idler's speculative quick scheme, a shortcut through life. But if we cannot know the depth of life without labor, nor achieve anything of worth without sacrifice, how much more is this true of following the truth and seeking fellowship with God.

Third, religion involves a serious and truthful attitude toward life. Religion makes us see, when human life is lived rightly and truly, how rich and how deep it is. To entrust my whole self to the will of God and the purpose of the universe, to work with them and rejoice with them, to take part in the providence of the universe and engage in its creative activity: this gives weight to me and sets the worth of my life. Every act and movement has meaning and is a serious thing. Here unceasing self-examination goes on, and one receives the stimulus and encouragement to a meaningful and earnest life. So religion is not a passing p. 80 fit of feeling, nor blind conformity to social custom, nor the fabrication of a cold theory. In the religious life the mental activities of feeling, willing and thinking go together; but here feeling is purified, the will made firm and the intellect unified. Religion teaches that there must be "the effort of the drowning,"¹⁵ the sense that a life decayed and ruined must be rescued.

Fourth, the religious attitude necessarily brings about a certain special quality of life. In other words, religious experience is holy living itself. So the highest religious life will be the highest expression of the purest, most spotless moral consciousness and action. First of all, religion has taught that a life sunk in folly, weakness and defilement can be born again, and it has offered fitting means to bring this about. Here, in the past, the scattered personalities of many people have found a new¹⁶ unity and center; those who had lost their aim and wandered have found the right direction; and souls that groaned in disappointment, grief and anguish have gained hope and joy and come to live meaningful lives. In society, religion has first believed in the possibility of spiritual reconstruction and growth, has worked with all its strength for the creation of "the new humanity,"¹⁷ and has in fact contributed not a little.

We have listed above the points of fundamental significance for the fact of religious experience, and so tried to make plain the distinctive features of religion. The aim was to make clear the uniqueness by which the fact of religion can be told apart from facts other than religious ones, and to point out religion's "features of reality"¹⁸ and its functions. Now we shall analyze what factors p. 81 religion with these features is made of, and so make the essence of religion clear. Religion, seen in the state in which we experience it, can be analyzed into three factors: an external factor, a subjective factor and a transcendent factor.¹⁹

First, the external factor means the general forms in which religion is shown to us: the scriptures, church, creeds, rules and rites that the historical religions possess. Whenever a new lived experience arose, a fitting outward form was sought to express that emergent lived experience; and when some fixed, ready-made form hindered the free activity of the spirit, or was inadequate to express the spirit's wondrous experience, revolt against forms and institutions broke out. But this is not a denial of institution or form as such. Outward forms are always required, so that religion may understand the concrete circumstances of its age, give spiritual experience a fitting shape, and at the same time foster it.

Second, the subjective factor means the inner psychological phenomena in which religion is experienced and lived by us: faith, conversion, sanctification,²⁰ obedience. Religious experience has, in essence, a heteronomy²¹ that cannot be explained as a compound of the mind's functions. Whether religious experience is taken as a partial act of some one part of the personality or as a total act, it implies the so-called "extinction of subjectivity": the self aims beyond itself and submits itself to what it aims at. Yet although faith is not in essence psychological, it is experienced through the subject, and so the concepts of human action and human possession cannot be excluded. Mr. Hoashi analyzes the psychological basis of religion p. 82 under four heads: first, the functions of intellect, feeling and will, each in its proper measure, work in harmony toward the ideals and purposes of the whole person; second, from the standpoint of God, the great spiritual real being, one's view of value is overturned and new spiritual values are produced; third, what is newly real is discovered or created; fourth, the self is realized and passes through a process of self-creation (Hoashi Riichirō, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, pp. 283ff.).²² These items are the subjective results by which religion affects human life, directly or indirectly, and they are factors without which religion cannot be constituted.

Last, the transcendent factor of religion means the act in which God reveals himself for humanity, gives himself and asserts himself: that is, revelation and grace. Because our being and activity depend on the one God, the basic factor of religion is this: that our thought turns first to contemplate the God who is of himself and works of himself;²³ that it recognizes that infinite good abides in God; that in our need it senses his presence with dread and wonder;²⁴ and that it believes that all value rests on the good will of God, who creates and provides.