8.1 What does a definition of religion do, anyway?

The basic building block in Religion Studies is the word "religion". So we need to learn what the word means. Put differently, we need a definition of the word or concept "religion".

Briefly, a definition provides a statement of the precise meaning of a word. That is what it does. But before we begin to attach any specific meaning to the word "religion", it will be useful to first take a step back, and think about the role that words (definitions) such as "religion" play in scholarly work.

Is it necessary at all to have definitions? Yes. The reason for this is that in order to think clearly, express our views clearly and communicate them clearly to others, the words that we use need to have a clear, unambiguous and consistent meaning. Even in ordinary life, being clear about exactly what we mean by words is important. A lot of quarrels can be avoided if people would simply make sure that they understand the same thing by the same word. Often our lives depend on it. If the manual for the new piece of electrical equipment says "Do not touch the wire with the red coating with your bare hands", you want to be very sure that you and the manufacturer understand exactly the same thing by the word "red". If his "red" is your "brown" you may be in deep trouble!

However, the word "religion" is far more complex than the word "red". Usually it would be quite in order to just point to something to make clear what the word "red" refers to. But it is more difficult with "religion". One cannot simply point to something. What is more, many people (including scholars) have very different ideas of what the word "religion" means. We could have just given you a definition of religion. But we deliberately do not do it. Let us rather investigate various kinds of definitions of "religion", take them apart and criticise them. This way you will be able to distinguish between good and bad, useful and useless definitions, and even come up with a good definition yourself.

First, let us distinguish various kinds of definitions before we try to arrive at a definition of "religion".

Narrow and broad definitions

As the word says, a narrow (exclusive) definition includes a limited slice of experience in the word "religion", and excludes a great deal. A typical narrow definition is: "religion" means the belief in God .

A broad (inclusive) definition includes much more. A typical broad definition would be: "religion" meanspeople's search for ultimate meaning . The belief in God might be part of such a definition, but it would not be restricted to it. On the other hand, in such a wide definition it might be possible to even say that even when people do not believe in God, they may nevertheless be religious.

One should not right away jump to the conclusion that any one of the above two types of definition is "right" or "wrong". A definition is just an instrument, a tool, designed for a certain job, a tool that we need to learn how to use well. So it depends on what you want to do. Under certain circumstances, a narrow definition might be more useful, in other circumstances, a wide definition.