Материал: The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion by John Hinnells

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3Reductionism here means complete, or eliminative, reductionism. The reduction is ontological. By contrast, the reduction in social scientific accounts of religion is only methodological. Social scientists deny not that religious beliefs and practices exist but that those beliefs and practices generate and sustain themselves. Religious beliefs and practices are not considered hallucinatory. The ‘hallucination’ is the assumption that they create and perpetuate themselves.

Bibliography

Asad, Talal 1993 Genealogies of Religion. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Asad, Talal 2003 Formations of the Secular. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Beattie, John 1966 [1964] Other Cultures. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; New York: Free Press. Bellah, Robert N. 1970 Beyond Belief. New York: Harper & Row.

Berger, Peter L. 1967 The Sacred Canopy. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. (Also published as The Social Reality of Religion. London: Faber and Faber, 1969.)

Berger, Peter L. 1969 A Rumor of Angels. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Bloor, David 1991 Knowledge and Social Imagery. 2nd edn (1st edn 1976). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Douglas, Mary 1966 Purity and Danger. New York and London: Routledge.

Douglas, Mary 1973 Natural Symbols. 2nd edn (1st edn 1970). New York: Vintage Books; London: Barrie and Jenkins.

Dubuisson, Daniel 2003.The Western Construction of Religion, trans. William Sayers. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Durkheim, Émile 1965 [1912] The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, trans. Joseph Ward Swain. New York: Free Press.

Eliade, Mircea 1963 [1958] Patterns in Comparative Religion, trans. Rosemary Sheed. Cleveland: Meridian Books.

Eliade, Mircea 1968 [1959] The Sacred and the Profane, trans. Willard R. Trask. New York: Harvest Books.

Erikson, Erik H. 1958 Young Man Luther. New York: Norton. Erikson, Erik H. 1969 Gandhi’s Truth. New York: Norton.

Fitzgerald, Timothy 2000 The Ideology of Religious Studies. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fitzgerald, Timothy 2007 Discourse on Civility and Barbarity. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

Frazer, J. G. [James George] 1922 The Golden Bough. Abridged edn. London: Macmillan.

Freud, Sigmund 1950 Totem and Taboo, trans. James Strachey. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Freud, Sigmund 1964 [1961] The Future of an Illusion, trans. W. D. Robson-Scott, rev. James Strachey.

Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books.

Geertz, Clifford 1973 The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. Geertz, Clifford 1983 Local Knowledge. New York: Basic Books.

Jung, C. G. 1938 Psychology and Religion. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. King, Richard 1999 Orientalism and Religion. London and New York: Routledge.

McCutcheon, Russell 1996 Manufacturing Religion. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Malinowski, Bronislaw 1925 ‘Magic, Science and Religion,’ in Joseph Needham, ed., Science, Religion

and Reality (New York and London: Macmillan), 20–84.

Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels 1957 On Religion. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing. Masuzawa, Tomoko 1993 In Search of Dreamtime. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Masuzawa, Tomoko 2003 The Invention of World Religions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Müller, Friedrich Max 1867 ‘Comparative Mythology’ (1856), in his Chips from a German Workshop, vol. 2 (London: Longmans, Green), 1–141.

Preus, J. Samuel 1987 Explaining Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press.

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Said, Edward 1991 Orientalism. 3rd edn (1st edn 1978). Harmondsworth: Penguin. Segal, Robert A. 1989 Religion and the Social Sciences. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Segal, Robert A. 1992 Explaining and Interpreting Religion. New York: Peter Lang.

Segal, Robert A. 2005 ‘James and Freud on Mysticism,’ in Jeremy Carrette, ed., William James and ‘The Varieties of Religious Experience’ (London and New York: Routledge), 124–32.

Taylor, Mark C., ed. 1998 Critical Terms for Religious Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Turner, Victor H. 1967 The Forest of Symbols. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Turner, Victor H. 1968 The Drums of Affliction. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Tylor, E B. [Edward Burnett] 1871 Primitive Culture. 2 vols. London: Murray.

Weber, Max 1963 The Sociology of Religion, trans. Ephraim Fischoff. Boston: Beacon Press.

Suggested reading

Because theories of religion come mainly from the social sciences, the most useful overviews are of the application of these disciplines to the study of religion. Edited by Robert A. Segal, The Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion (Oxford, UK, and Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006) contains lucid chapters on ‘Anthropology of Religion’ (Fiona Bowie), ‘Economics of Religion’ (Rodney Stark), ‘Psychology of Religion’ (Roderick Main), and ‘Sociology of Religion’ (Grace Davie).

Chapter 6

Theology

David F. Ford1

Definitions of theology and academic theology

Theology at its broadest is thinking about questions raised by, about and between the religions. The name ‘theology’ is not used in all religious traditions and is rejected by some. It is a term with its own history, which will be sketched below. Yet there is no other non-controversial term for what this chapter is about, so it is used here in full recognition of the disputes and diverse associations surrounding it. Theology has many analogues or comparable terms such as ‘religious thought’, ‘religious philosophy’, various technical terms for the teaching and deliberative dimension of particular religions and even ‘wisdom’. Indeed, wisdom (though itself a complex idea with different meanings and analogues in different traditions) is perhaps the most comprehensive and least controversial term for what theology is about. Wisdom may embrace describing, understanding, explaining, knowing and deciding, not only regarding matters of empirical fact but also regarding values, norms, beliefs and the shaping of lives, communities and institutions. The broad definition of theology given above could be refined by reference to wisdom. The questions raised by, about and between the religions include some that are not necessarily theological, and many of these are formative for the disciplines covered in other chapters in this volume. One helpful (if still quite vague) further determination of the nature of theology by reference to wisdom is: at its broadest, theology is thinking and deliberating in relation to the religions with a view to wisdom.

This chapter is mainly about the narrower subject of academic theology as pursued in universities and other advanced teaching and research institutions, especially in settings variously called departments of religion, religious studies, theology and religious studies, theology or divinity. The primary focus is on this academic theology in its European history and its present situation in universities that are in continuity with that tradition and its expansion beyond Europe. There have been numerous traditions of theology (or its analogues) originating in other parts of the world and in various religious traditions, some of which are increasingly significant within contemporary universities; but an appropriate way of portraying academic theology within one chapter is to concentrate on its characteristics in the academic tradition that generated the field called in other chapters the study of religion or religious studies.

In that tradition, as will be seen, theology is an inherently controversial discipline because of its subject matter, because of its history, because of the relations of other disciplines to religious issues and because of the nature of modern universities and the societies that support them. Academic theology is distinguished from theology in general mainly by its

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relation to the various disciplines of the academy. So a preliminary definition of academic theology (and analogues of theology) is that it seeks wisdom in relation to questions, such as those of meaning, truth, beauty and practice, which are raised by, about and between the religions and are pursued through engagement with a range of academic disciplines.

The final preliminary definition to be considered is that of religion. This too is a contested concept, as other chapters in this volume make clear. For the purposes of this chapter it is sufficient to identify religion in a low-key, non-technical way through a number of generally accepted examples. Religion, it is assumed, includes such ways of shaping human life in communities and their associated traditions as are exemplified by Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism. This is not an exclusive definition; it simply limits the scope of reference of this chapter, while allowing that much of what it says could be applied to other instances of religion and to traditions (such as cultures, philosophical schools, or secular worldviews and ways of living) which might not be included in a particular definition of religion. It is also a definition that does not entail any particular position on such disputed matters as the essence, origin and function of religion.

Before focussing on the discipline of academic theology it is important first to say more about theology and its analogues in the broadest sense.

Theology beyond the academy

The religious communities mentioned in the definition above all place a high priority on learning and teaching. An immense amount of time and energy is spent on such activities as the study and interpretation of key texts, and instruction in tradition, prayer and ethics. Much learning happens through imitation, and the adoption of habits of thought, imagination, feeling and activity, which are assimilated through participation in a community’s life. Such learning and teaching have been important in helping those traditions survive and develop over many generations.

It is, however, never simply a matter of repeating the past. The texts and commentators raise questions that require consideration afresh by each generation; each period and situation raises new issues; there are conflicts, splits and challenges from inside and outside the tradition. Even when the verdict is that what is received from the past ought to be repeated and imitated as closely as possible in the present, that is a decision which cannot be arrived at without some deliberation. Thinking about appropriate ways to understand and act in the context of a particular tradition comes under my broad definition of theology. Such thought is pervasive and usually informal, and teaching usually aims at turning its basic features into implicit, taken-for-granted assumptions in the light of which questions are faced and behaviour shaped. Yet, because of the many factors which prompt internal and external questioning, explicit thought may also be provoked, and theological inquiry, in the sense described above, may be generated. What is the right interpretation of this text? How should children be educated in this tradition? What is the right response to legal or political injustice? Does God exist? If so, what sort of God? What about death, creation, salvation, gender issues? What, if any, is the purpose of life? How should those with very different traditions and conceptions be treated? Such questions may give rise to theological inquiry.

Yet it is not only those who identify with a particular community and its traditions who ask such questions. Religions provoke inquiry in many beyond their own members; and some of their own members may dissociate themselves from their community but may still (sometimes even more energetically) pursue such questions. In addition, there are public debates about

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every major area of life – medicine, politics, economics, war, justice and so on – which raise religious issues and require deliberation and decision. Such debates display various types of theological thinking, both implicit and explicit.

Therefore theology in the broad sense is practised not only within religious communities but also by many who are beyond such communities or in an ambivalent relationship with them; and it is also present between religious communities and in public debates, both within and between nations.

Finally, theological questions arise at all levels of education. They may be focussed in religious or theological education, but, because of the considerations discussed above, they are also distributed through other subjects, and they are relevant to overall educational policy and practice.

Overall, it is important to remember that only a very small part of the theology going on in the world is taught and learnt in the university settings that are the main concern of this chapter.

Academic theology: early history in Europe

The Greek word theologia meant an account of the gods, and it was taken over by the early Christian church to refer to the biblical account of God’s relationship to humanity. This close relationship to scripture was maintained through the Middle Ages in western Europe, when theology in the narrower sense of a specific discipline studied in universities arose with the development of universities in the early thirteenth century. It is significant that these universities themselves had many characteristics in common with Islamic institutions from which Christian scholars learnt a great deal.

Before the foundation of universities, theology had been nurtured in the many monasteries around Europe and in associated rural schools. Theology was there inseparable from the duties of worship and prayer, pervaded by the life of the cloister. In the cities the cathedral schools, founded for training diocesan clergy, were important theological centres. In addition, theology in the cities became part of the guild-oriented activity of a new rising class of freemen, both students and teachers, who responded favourably to new forms of argument and teaching and to the rediscovery of forgotten writings of the past. Here theology in schools (hence the label ‘scholastic’) was becoming a specialty subject for professional, philosophically trained dialecticians. Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109), based in a monastery, brought fresh systematic and argumentative rigour to theology, and described it as ‘faith seeking understanding’. Peter Abelard (1079–1142) represented the new sort of teacher and dialectician. In Paris, the new religious movement embodied in the Augustinian canons of St Victor mediated between the claims of the monastery and the schoolroom. This was an age of discovery, compilation and integration, which culminated in producing what became (in addition to the Bible) the standard theological text for discussion in the university schoolrooms of Europe during the next four centuries. This was the Sentences of Peter the Lombard (d. 1160), a collection of four books of the theological wisdom of Scripture and of the early Fathers of the church.

After the formal establishment of the first universities in the first part of the thirteenth century, scholastic theology developed under a new influence, the mendicant religious orders of Franciscans and Dominicans. Both flourished in the new University of Paris. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) among the Dominicans and Bonaventure (1221–1274) among the Franciscans developed distinctive ways of doing theology within the new universities. They