The Nature and Source of Religion

At the center of man's life is religion. The some may say that it is a delusion, fortunate or unfortunate, all will grant its fundamental importance. "For good or ill, the earth is full of religion; and life and thought, art and literature, are moulded by it" (1). No person of intelligence today can ignore its claims for serious consideration. Havelock Ellis is right- "One is forced to ask oneself at last : How can I make clear to myself this vast and many-shaped religious element of life? It will not let me pass it by" (2).The attitude of modern science is that its purpose shall be systematic, clear-cut description of phenomena. The attitude of philosophy is that its purpose shall be to understand and to interpret the data of experience in ultimate terms. To have the accurate record and description of facts is essential; to understand the facts and to find intelligent and satisfactory interpretations of them, is certainly of equal, if not of greater, importance. The philosophical attitude should lead one quickly to the desire for the panoramic view. Properly and effectively to adjust oneself to phenomena, one should wish to say, with Will Durant, "I'm a devotee of perspective, an addict of integration. I want to see things whole" (1).That religion is a common and widespread phenomenon of our present world is well known. Furthermore, religion is not, as Otto Gruppe and others would have us believe, "a new invention", a newly created thing whose acceptance is due to the happiness which its votaries imagine they will attain and the general benefits which it confers upon human society. The antiquity of religion appears to be equal to that of man himself. The researches of anthropology lead us, indeed, to the almost inescapable conclusion that religion has been and is a universal fact. "The further we penetrate, the less we find of savage society which lacks the imprint of religion" (2). Differences in the stages of the development of religious conceptions and practices have, of course, always existed and exist today. But the preponderance of the evidence for the universality of the thing we call religion is such that he who would deny it assumes an impossible task. Accepting religion then, as a vital part of the experience of man, everywhere , from the beginning even until now, the most vital question for mankind is, Is there, at the heart of religion, reality?In reality, the nature or definition of religion and the source of religion are subjects so closely intertwined that it is almost impossible consistently to separate them. It is quite apparent that, for many writers, to define the nature or essence of religion is also necessarily to state conceptions of religion's source. For thought purposes, however, our treatment will follow these two general divisions. From a survey of a representative cross-section of the thought of the world- including expressions of layman as well as of recognized scholar--we should be in position better to formulate for ourselves satisfactory conceptions of these two fundamental aspects of the multitudinous phenomena which constitute what we call religion.