Generating a Scientific Hypothesis about Religion A Preliminary Attempt

S.N. Balagangadhara Universiteit Gent Belgium

Balu@UGent.be

Criticizing a Post-Colonial Saga Consider the claim that most would give their assent to: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, etc., are the religions of India. Postcolonial intellectuals would probably add two or three qualifications to this claim. They would probably say that it is not possible to speak of one Hinduism, one Buddhism, one Jainism; instead, one should speak about many Hinduisms, many Buddhisms, many Jainisms, etc. Secondly, they would also raise questions about who could speak about these religions. Thirdly, they are likely to add that the British created or constructed these religions in India during the colonial period. The first two qualifications are either misguided or cognitively uninteresting. For instance, it is both linguistically and logically impossible to speak about the plurality of any religion without referring to it in the singular: tigers are animals because tiger names a kind; trees makes no sense if there is no tree to speak of, etc. Such usage is misguided, unless, of course, one maintains that Hinduisms is not a plural of the singular noun Hinduism. No one has maintained this position. In any case, we could simply accept that Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism etc., do not name a unitary phenomenon but that they pick out a superset that includes many different sets of practices and beliefs. One can after all assume that, in principle, it is possible to construct such a super set even if one is unable to practically do so at any given moment. The second qualification is uninteresting because we are not after canonical descriptions of these phenomena. In this sense, it matters very little who speaks about these religions. By far, the most interesting qualification is the third one. Let us look at it closely. During the colonial period, the British created many things: an education system, the legal system, a bureaucracy, roads and railways. None of these existed in these forms before the British colonized India. Were religions like Hinduism etc., also created in this way? Some postcolonial thinkers are inclined to answer this question in the positive: the British created Hinduism as a religion in India, the way they created the Indian Civil Service (ICS).

In that case, it follows that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the Orientalist writings on Hinduism. Some of them might have made false claims, but we can correct them as more accurate information accumulates. The contemporary writings on Hinduism, etc., whether from the field of Indology or of Religious Studies, would remain continuous with the Orientalist writings on the subject. That is to say, the facts that the Orientalists provide become the point of departure for the writings in social sciences. The latter either add to these facts or explain them. In fact, this is also the status of the field today: the writings in the humanities and social sciences maintain an unbroken line of continuity with the Orientalist writings on these religions in India. In such a case, one can hardly understand what the excitement is about either Orientalism or postcolonial studies. Of course, if one adds other items to this creation story, one can blame western culture as abig bad wolf: the British created Sati, the dowry system, the caste system, and anything else one feels like. This exercise in apportioning blame uninteresting because it transforms the Indians into a bunch of idiots bereft of all reason. The British could do what they wanted to with the Indian culture, introduce and create whatever took their fancy, while their subjects stood around without stopping sucking on their thumbs. To put it in the language of the postcolonial thinkers: such a story deprives the colonial subjects of their agency. The postcolonial writers who tell such stories indeed deprive the colonial subjects of their agency in the name of giving it back, or they discover an expression of resistance to colonialism in a vigorous sucking of thumbs. Homi Bhabha, for instance, has made a lucrative business of telling such stories. A Different Creation Story There is, however, another way of looking at the claim of creating these religions in India. Despite the limitations, drawing an analogy could make it more perspicuous. Imagine that an extraterrestrial came to earth and noticed the following phenomena: grass is green, milk turns

sour, birds fly, and some flowers put out a fragrant smell. He is convinced that these phenomena are related to each other and sees hipkapi in them. The presence of hipkapi explains not only the above phenomena but also how they relate to each other. To those who doubt the existence of hipkapi, he draws their attention to its visible manifestations: the tigers eating the gazelle, dogs chasing the cats, and the massive size of the elephants. Each of these is a fact, as everyone can see it. However, they do not tell us anything about hipkapi. When more extraterrestrials come to earth and reiterate the presence of hipkapi, if other conditions permit, hipkapi not only becomes a synonym for these phenomena but also turns out to be their explanation. Thereafter, to ask what hipkapi is, or even how it explains, is an expression of ones idiocy: does not everyone see hipkapi, this self-explanatory thing? In this analogy, the extraterrestrial visitor has constructed the hipkapi. To him, it is an experiential entity. He talks, as his fellow-beings do, about this experiential entity in a systematic way. That is what the Europeans did. The puja in the temples, the sandhyavandanam of the Brahmins, the sahasranamams, etc., became organic parts of the Indian religion. Purushasukta was the cosmogony of the caste system, and untouchability its outward manifestation. Dharma and Adharma were the Sanskrit words for good and evil, and the Indian deities were much like their Greek counterparts. To the missionaries, Indians were idolaters; to the contemporary liberal, polytheism has to do with the conception of the deity. In terms of the analogy, these visitors construct a hipkapi. To them, it is an experiential entity. They talk about this experiential entity in a systematic way. This analogy entails suggesting that Europeans created Hinduism etc., as their experiential entities. Under this construal, the Orientalists did not describe what exists in the Indian culture. Instead, they created a hipkapi, constructed a pattern and structure that lent coherence to their cultural experience of India. In such a case, claims about Hinduism become somewhat akin to claims about having visions of Mother Mary in the Lourdes. Only

somewhat, because such a vision might be a hallucination, whereas one cannot say that the West has been hallucinating about the Indian religions. When the Europeans came to India and wrote down their experiences, they were not hallucinating. They did not write about their dreams nor did they compose stories. Whether of a merchant, a missionary or a bureaucrat, the reports had some structure. Reflections about such reports at second remove, or reflections on experiences at a later stage or in a distant way, led to finding a pattern or structure in these experiences. That structure is the Orient and the discourse about it is the Orientalist discourse. The previous sentence is not a description of how the pattern or structure was found. It is not as though any one person pored over these reports (though many did), trying out one inductive hypothesis after another (even though a few were formulated), until a satisfactory pattern finally emerged. These reports lent structure to what the Europeans saw. At the same time, they filtered out phenomena that could not be structured in this fashion. Thus, these reports contributed to structuring a European way of seeing and describing phenomena in India. Such texts, which embodied an explanatory structuring of the European experiences, ended up becoming the ethnological data or the anthropological fieldwork that the social theories would later try to explain. Orientalism is how western culture came to terms with the reality that the East is. That is, Orientalism refers not only to the discourse about experience but also to the way of reflecting about and structuring this experience. In this sense, even though Orientalism is a discourse about western cultural experience, it is oblique. It is oblique because it appears to be about other cultures. It is also oblique because it is not direct and has not been an object of reflection. It is western in the sense that it refers to the experiences of the members from a particular culture. Orientalism is the western way of thinking about its experience of nonwestern cultures. However, it takes the form of an apparent discourse about the Orient.

It means to suggest that the West did two things: (a) created Hinduism and Buddhism, etc. as coherent and structured units and (b) did so as religions. The issue is not whether western culture created a monolithic religion instead of recognizing the multiplicity of theories and practices that go under the label Hinduism. It is not even whether they experienced Hinduism as a monolithic entity. Instead, it lies in the fact that Hinduism, as a concept and as an experiential entity, provided the Westerners with a coherent experience. To the extent it is a concept, like all other concepts, it is a human construct. It is also a construct because, as an experiential entity, it unifies the Western experience. However, this concept has no reference in the world, i.e., there is no Hinduism (whether as a religion, or as a multiplicity of religions) in the Indian culture. As a result, one could argue that the Saidian double qualification of makes sense: Hinduism is both a false description of the Indian reality and it is an imaginary. It is false not because the West gave a false description of the reality (Hinduism in this case) but because they falsely assumed that their experiential entity was also a real entity in the world. It is imaginary in the sense that it does not have an existence outside the experience of western culture. The same considerations apply to the caste system. The notion of such a system unified the British experience of India; they implemented certain political and economic policies based on their experience. However, this experience was not of the caste system. In fact, this experience was of no particular object but constituted the basis of their going-about with the Indians. By creating such a system the British lent stability, coherence and unity to their cultural experience. Both the caste system and the Indian religions are constructs in this specific sense. It is not as though colonialism brought Hinduism and the caste system into existence. The Europeans spoke about these entities as though they existed. They acted as though these entities were real. However, neither before nor after colonialism do such entities

or phenomena exist. They are hipkapis. These entities merely lend structure and stability to the European experience. Here is the thesis I want to put across: except for Christianity, Islam and Judaism, there are no other religions in India. Entities like Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, etc which are called the religions of India, exist, it is true, but they do so only in the western universities. These religions are the imaginative creations of the western savants and of the culture to which they belong. In that case, all the books and articles, all the PhDs and all the commonsense talk about these religions tell you as much about India as other relevant books, articles and interviews tell you about the length of the Unicorns horn a creature which only virgins can see. Or about the relation between the upper and lower torso of a satyr or about the need for a curriculum reform at Harry Potters magical school, the Hogwarts. A Newtonian Anecdote As soon as such a thesis is put across, huge questions appear on the horizon. Here are some: are we to say that nearly four centuries of western intellectuals and nearly two centuries of English-speaking Indians (and others) were hallucinating? If they were not, what made them speak of Indian religions? If they were, why were they hallucinating, whereas I claim I am not? It is no part of my theory to suggest that the earlier generations were hallucinating. Of course, by the simple privilege of being born after them, from my vantage point and looking back, I do suggest that they were wrong. However, I do not merely record that they are wrong and claim that I have found the truth. What I do is something different altogether. What I argue is the following: thanks to their mistakes, we have the possibilities of correcting some of them today. To us, these mistakes take the form of cognitive problems that our theories have to solve. The very same theories should also explain (without adding any

additional and ad hoc hypotheses) why thinkers from the earlier generations had to commit the mistakes they did commit. This cognitive requirement is important enough for us to think through a bit. Let me recount a charming anecdote that circulates in intellectual circles that makes the epistemological point I want to make. It appears that Sir Isaac Newton, one of the greatest geniuses we have known, was once congratulated as a genius who towered over both his predecessors and his contemporaries. The alleged reply of Newton goes as follows: Even the shortest of the pygmies sees farther than the tallest of men, when he stands on their shoulders. And I, Sir, am standing on the shoulders of giants. Quite apart from expressing the truly enviable intellectual humility, Newtons reply does something more: it tells us something about the growth of scientific knowledge itself. Amongst other things, it tells us that Newtons breakthrough was possible only because he built upon other, earlier theories. In exactly the same way, we can hope to create new theories today by building upon the theories of earlier generations. Thus, Orientalist description of India becomes the foundation for building theories about India. Today is possible only because of yesterday. Consequently, it is not sufficient to say, as the post-colonials do, that the Orientalist writings about India are wrong. In the process of providing alternate descriptions, we have to show why and how we would have committed the same mistakes were we to be placed in their situation. Here, the post-colonial writers fail abysmally: all they can say is that the Orientalist writers were misguided by their racist, imperialist, sexist and colonial motives. Obviously, only the post-colonial writers of today are the truly enlightened; all others before them were either bigots or unconscious servants of the exigencies of the colonial administration.

Not only do I argue that the West imaginatively created Hinduism but also explain why it was compelled to do so. Its compulsion is rooted in the nature of religion, and I advance a hypothesis about religion that accounts for this compulsion (see further). Consequently, my story emerges as an alternative; it is a competitor theory to those in the marketplace about what religion is. This hypothesis breaks the structural unity that Orientalism has constructed. Hinduism, Buddhism, etc., become hipkapis. Consequently, it is possible to investigate which of the facts that went into constructing the hipkapi belong together, which do not, and how. One can start probing deeper into ones own culture, because ones experience is accessible for reflection. What is Hinduism? What is Buddhism? do not become definitional questions. Instead, they translate themselves as tasks, which require an alternative explanation of those facts that lend credibility to the existence of the hipkapi. Such an explanation also takes care of Lorenzens objection, which is quite fatal to those theories that speak of the colonial construction of Hinduism, when they have only the British colonialism in mind. Even though Lorenzen focuses upon the occurrence of the word Hinduism in India before the advent of British colonialism, there is a larger question to be raised. Why did Islam identify the presence of alternative and competing religions in India centuries before the British did? Even here, how do we understand the fact that both Islam and Christianity identified more or less same phenomenon as the native religion of India? My hypothesis answers these questions by arguing that those who come from a religious culture are forced to identify religions in other cultures as well and construct them, where they do not exist. There is logic to such constructions, the logic of the religions to which the observers belong. This explanation takes care of two issues: why both Islam and Christianity spoke of religions in India and why, this is more important, they identified (more or less) the same phenomenon as the native religion of India. Their construction followed analogous lines

because of the shared heritage of the Semitic religions. In this sense, identification of Hinduism by the Muslims before the advent of the British does not testify to the existence of that religion in India; instead, it shows that there are deep lines of continuity between Islam and Christianity. In that case, what about generations of Indian intellectuals? Why do they see religions in their own culture? The answer has to be located in what colonialism is and what it does to a people: among other things, it generates what I call colonial consciousness in its subjects. It is generated through violence, reproduced through asymmetries in power and sustained by an ideology. Even though I cannot expand on this theme here, let me draw attention to one aspect of such a consciousness. Because the Indian culture does not have native religions, its intellectuals are blind to the existence of religions in their midst. Even where they look at the Semitic religions in India, they think that these are variants of what exist in India, namely, traditions. Consequently, either they simply mimic the western thinkers while talking about religions or, where they do not, try to re-describe Islam and Christianity as variants of Indian traditions. Hence the reason why many Indian intellectuals call the Muslims to reform the Koran or rewrite the Bible, so that they might become better suited to the Indian culture. In this sense, I cannot dream of suggesting that all our intellectual predecessors and all the contemporary English-speaking Indians were/are hallucinating. Instead, I suggest that the theoretical frameworks and the existing methodologies in the domain of religious studies are secularized variants of Christian theology. That is to say, what we call secular religious studies is embedded in a Christian theological framework. There is nothing secular or scientific about the domain of religious studies today. Some Additional Theses Immediately, the next questions force themselves upon us. Why are all the theories from the domain of religious studies, Christian-theological in nature? How can one make a claim as the

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one I am making, if we take the diversities in the theories and methods into consideration? After all, we know for a fact that not all those who study Indian religions are believers much less Christians. So, how could these people accept a theological framework to study the socalled Indian religions? I answer these questions and give more body to my earlier explanation by formulating the following hypothesis: I suggest that religion (in general) and Christianity (in particular) is characterized by a double dynamic of proselytization and secularization. I call this as the process of universalization of religion. Universalization wins converts in two ways: one through the process of conversion, where someone is inducted into a religious community; the other through the process of generating secular variants of its theology which also wins adherents. Let me explain. Not many would challenge the claim that Christianity has been highly influential in the development of western culture. We need to take this statement utterly seriously. It means that many things we take for granted, whether in the West or in India, are influenced by Christianity. As I said, I claim that Christianity expands in two ways. Both of these have been present ever since the inception of Christianity and have mutually reinforced each other. The first is familiar to all of us: direct conversion. People from other religions convert to Christianity and this is how the community of Christian believers grows. This is the surface or explicit expansion of Christianity. In a manner of speaking, the second way in which Christianity expands is also familiar to us: the so-called process of secularization. I claim that Christianity secularizes itself, as it were, in the form of de-Christianized Christianity. Among other things, what this means is that typically Christian doctrines spread wide and deep beyond the confines of the community of Christian believers dressed up in secular (that is, not in recognizably Christian) clothes. The enlightenment period, which is identified as the Age of Reason, is alleged to be the apotheosis of the so-called process of secularization. What people normally mean by

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secularization here is the following: the enlightenment thinkers successfully fought against the dominance that religion (especially, Christianity) had exercised over social, political, and economic life. From then on, so goes the standard text book story, humankind began to look to reason instead of religion in matters social, civic, political etc. The spirit of scientific thinking, which dominated that age, has continued to gain ascendancy in our own day and time. As heirs to this period, which put an end to all forms of irrational subservience, we are proud citizens of the modern day world. We are against all forms of despotism and believers in democracy; we believe in the role of reason in social life; we recognize the value of human rights; and we should understand that religion is not a matter for state intervention, but a private and personal affair of the individual in question, etc. As I say, this is the standard textbook story. The problem with this story is this: the enlightenment thinkers have built their formidable reputation (as opponents of all organized religions or even religion tout court) by selling ideas from Protestant Christianity as though they are neutral and rational. As an example, consider the claim that religion is not a matter for state intervention and that it is a private affair of the individual in question. If we look historically, we discover that the contrast between the secular realm and the religious realm (often formulated also as a contrast between the temporal and the spiritual), and the debates about the relationship between these two realms (or spheres) characterise the history of Christianity for the last two thousand years. This debate was primarily a theological one. It revolved around the question of who the Vicar of Christ was. With the Gregorian revolution and the emergence of Canon Law (about a thousand years ago), the Catholic Church settled this issue in one particular way. This theological debate was an answer to the question of the relationship between the King (the emperor) and the Pope. The issue in the debate was about the relationship between the Church as a spiritual entity and its relationship to secular authorities: was the King subordinate to the Church or the other way round? Did they both

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have different spheres of influence, viz., the spiritual and the temporal? What was the relationship between these two spheres? Etc. With the Protestant reformation, this theological debate became more generalized, especially in Continental Europe. It now involved every single Christian: could the laws and institutions of men (the secular structures and their injunctions) in any way restrain the revelations of God? Could an institution like the Catholic Church, which was seen as a human institution by the Protestants, add anything to the word of God? Much like the earlier debate, this was also theological and political. Theologically at stake was the nature of Catholic Church and its theology; politically, it involved the relationship between religion and state. Protestant theologies make the following claim: nothing can come between an individual and God except Gods revelation. No human law or organization can dictate how a man worships or what he worships. Neither the Catholic Church nor the secular authorities could interfere in the affairs of religion, which involves the relationship between the individual and God. Any such incursion in the worship of God is the corrupting influence of the Devil. Being a Christian believer is a matter between the Maker (i.e. God) and the Individual. It was God (i.e. the Christian God), who judged man; and men could not judge each other in matters of faith. The theories of state neutrality we have (the so-called Liberal theories) secularize this Protestant theological claim. The separation of state from religion (to put it crudely) is a theological doctrine of Protestant Christianity. Over the centuries, intellectuals and political thinkers in Europe have been ceaselessly selling Protestant theology (albeit dressed in secular clothes) as the summum of human civilization. The triumph of Protestantism in Europe has led even the Catholic Christians to accept a watered-down version of this theological claim as a political doctrine.

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This claim makes sense only in relationship to what religion is (i.e. in what form is Christianity a religion?) and how religion draws a line between the secular and the sacred. The lines of distinction between the religious and the secular spheres are drawn within a religion. Historically speaking, this demarcation is the work of Christian theology and our political theories are Christian theologies in disguise. The enlightenment thinkers repeated this Protestant story and this has become our secularism. The so-called religious and secular divide is a distinction drawn within a religion and is internal to it. No possibility exists of conceptualizing such a distinction outside of some or another theological framework; no neutral or scientific description of such a divide will ever be forthcoming. Those who moan about the process of secularization as a disappearance of religion are ignorant of what they are talking about: secularization is one of the ways in which a religion spreads in society. To begin appreciating the plausibility (if not the truth) of my claim, ask yourselves the following question: why are the so-called social sciences different from the natural sciences? I mean to say, why have the social sciences not developed the way natural sciences have? There must have been many geniuses in the field of social sciences; the mathematical and logical sophistication in some of the social sciences is simply mind-bending; we have computers that can simulate almost anything. It is not even as though the social sciences are totally starved of funding or personnel. Despite these, the social sciences are not progressing. Why is this? There are many answers provided in the history of philosophy and many of you may have your own favourite explanation. Here is my answer: you cannot build a scientific theory based on theological assumptions. What you get then is not a scientific theory, but an embroidering of theology. I put to you that this is what has happened. Most of our so-called social sciences are not sciences in any sense of the term: they are merely secularized Christian theologies.

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These secular variants of Christian theology include our theories of human rights as natural rights, our theories about the state and politics, our theories about the growth and development of human psychologies, our theories about human ethics and moralities, our constitutions that erect the wall of separation between religion and politics... This list is both varied and huge. Theories in multiple domains about human beings and their endeavours build on secularized versions of Christian theological assumptions. As such, what they tell us about our nature and the nature of our interactions with fellow human beings is also what Christianity tells us. The secularized-theological framework is absorbed in multiple ways by the western intellectuals. To such people, there is only one mode of being-in-the-world: the western mode. Therefore, for example, I suggest that when people do research into the evolutionary and natural origins of religions in human communities, they are doing theology even though they proclaim to the world at large that they are doing science. Is there any wonder that they set out to naturalize this mode of being by chattering incessantly about the evolutionary and biological origins of religion? One might plausibly assent to what I have said so far and to one of its implications: The western intellectuals were mistaken and continue to be mistaken in seeing religions in India because they make use of theological frameworks to study other peoples and cultures. This theology is primarily Christian in its nature and Semitic in its origin. This framework compels them to discover religions in every culture; in fact, the belief that all cultures have some or another native religion is itself theological in nature. In this sense, western intellectuals mistakenly see religion in all cultures because of the compulsion exerted by the religious framework in which they are situated. Let me summarize what I have said so far very sharply. Christianity spreads in two ways: through conversion and secularization. The modern day social sciences embody the

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assumptions of Christian theology, albeit in a secularized form. It is an insidious process, the process of secularization of Christian ideas. Christianity, in my story, has also brought forth western culture. In this sense, a particular religion, namely Christianity, has brought forth a secular phenomenon, namely, western culture. This thesis is consistent with my claim that the secular is generated by the religious and that the secular remains within the boundaries of the religious. This western culture is, therefore, religiously secular: it is a secular world within the ambit of a religious world and is created by the latter. Why has this movement of secularizing the religious come about? I claim that we should seek the answers in what makes Christianity into a religion; that is to say, we should locate the causes in those properties that make something into a religion. Religion: A Characterization The presence of which properties transform some phenomenon into a religion? What makes the Semitic religions into religions at all? Why do I argue that Indian culture does not have native religions? Even though I cannot give detailed answers to these questions in the course of this paper, let me provide the outlines of my answer. My characterization of religion is that it is an explanatory intelligible account of both the Cosmos and itself. The reason why the Semitic religions are religions and not something else has to do with the fact that each possesses this property. Let me use an analogy to elucidate this point. Consider a non-smoker who objects to others smoking in the same room where he is present. Let us say that we need to account for this objecting behaviour: Why does he object if others smoke in his presence? Let us now consider the two kinds of accounts, an explanatory and an intelligible one, which answer the above question. One could make the objection of the non-smoker intelligible by appealing to the (reasonable and justifiable) beliefs held by him: he believes that smoking is injurious to

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health; and that passive smoking is also a form of smoking; and that he does not desire to injure his health... etc. Hence, we can understand his behaviour by appealing to his beliefstates (or intentional states). That is to say, by looking at this behaviour as an intentional act. Why does this non-smoker object to the others smoking in his presence? Because, so the intelligibility account goes on, he believes that... The ellipsis would get filled-in by these above beliefs. It is important to note that his beliefs are connected to his actions by means of principle(s) of sound reasoning. Because I merely want to illustrate the difference between two kinds of account using the same example, let me introduce myself into this picture as a possessor of some piece of information. Let us suppose that I am his friend and that one day, in strict confidence, (which I am, alas, breaking for the good of science) he informed me that he cannot withstand smoke. (He has severe asthma and some other allergies that make him react physically to smoke.) He does not believe that the smell is injurious to health and that, in fact, he likes it. Smirking smugly, I now tell you that the cause of his objection has nothing to do with his `beliefs'. Because, I say grinning from ear to ear, he cannot withstand smoke... On the one hand, it appears impossible to speak of human actions without appealing to desires and beliefs, but doing so reduces the predictive power (or the problem solving capacity) of the accounts we may give. On the other hand, the search for the underlying (contingent) causal laws governing human behaviour has not yielded fruits either. In any case, we have two kinds of accounts, an explanatory account and an intelligibility one, each of which appears to focus on different questions. Consider now an account, which promises to give us both. It suggests or hints that some sets of actions are intelligible because they instantiate some sets of beliefs. And that the relationship between intending and acting is not only constant but that nothing else interferes between the former and the latter to such an extent that they virtually become

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identical. To those from the outside, knowledge of these actions is sufficient to draw inferences about the reasons for actions. There is only one proviso attached. Because the observers knowledge of these actions is always framed in some description or the other, one can only read-off the purposes of the actions exhaustively if the descriptions of these actions are themselves exhaustive. That is to say, a complete and totally accurate description of the actions is required before we can be said to have a complete knowledge of the reasons for the actions. Such an account, when it is forthcoming; of such sets of actions, if they are possible; of such a being, if it exists; these, together, will give us an explanatory intelligible account of that being and its actions. The reason for calling it thus must be obvious: the causes of the action are also its reasons. Further, because each type of action instantiates one and only one purpose, prediction becomes possible as well. The causal law will be general, its predictive power is not reduced, and the causes are the intentions of such a being. Suppose that we now have a doctrine which says the following: such a being exists, such actions exist too, but we could never provide a complete description of the actions of such a being nor possibly observe all the actions of that being. At best, we could have a very fragmented and partial description of such actions. It adds further that this being has communicated its purposes to us the understandability of this message is again restricted by the descriptive possibilities open to us. In such a case, we have two sources of knowledge: some sets of actions that we try to understand; the message, which we try to make sense of. Suppose further that this being is called God; His actions are the universe; His message is precisely the above doctrine. We now have on our hands what we call a religious doctrine. This doctrine makes the Cosmos into an explanatorily intelligible entity but not by providing us with a detailed explanation of all events, happenings, and phenomena. It claims that all there is, was, and shall be (the Cosmos, that is) are expressions of a will that

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constitutes the cementing bond of the Cosmos. However, this claim about the nature of the Cosmos is not a bare and simple statement but is itself couched in the form of an account. Which kind of an account? It is an account that not only says that the Cosmos is explanatorily intelligible but also one which makes the Cosmos into such an entity. Among other things, the latter involves that the religion itself exemplifies explanatory intelligibility. To get a better grasp on the issue, consider what religion does. First, it imparts knowledge by saying that the world is the expression of the purposes of God. Because this is what the world is, the knowledge of the world will be an explanatory intelligible account. Since the religion in question is making a claim about the world, it is a knowledge-claim. It is not just any knowledge-claim but one which brings reasons and causes together in an extraordinary way. In so far as it makes this particular claim about the Cosmos, it must also exemplify that property which makes the universe into a specific kind of a place. That is, a religious account must itself be explanatorily intelligible. Second, this knowledge of the world is also in the world. If the universe is explanatorily intelligible, so is this knowledge about the world. Consequently, it is not enough that the doctrine says that the world expresses the Will of God, but it must also exhibit or express the very same will of God as well. Religion makes both the Cosmos and itself explanatorily intelligible. That is, it must not only tell us why God created the world and us but also why He gave religion to humankind. This, then, is what makes an explanation religious: it is knowledge of the Cosmos which includes itself. It is the explanation of the universe which includes itself as an explanandum. There would have been a logical problem here, the threat of circularity perhaps, if this were to be the result of our (human) understanding or theory of the world. But this problem does not arise, because God has revealed His purposes by speaking to us about them. Revelation, then, is the crucial component that breaks the possible circularity. As religious

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figures would put it perhaps, religion need not prove the existence of God at all; the existence of religion is the proof for the existence of God. In this sense, as an explanatory intelligible account, religion is Gods gift to mankind and not a human invention. Religion and Meaning To accept this account is to accept that everything in the universe has a purpose. As human beings, we are born and die in the Cosmos. Consequently, both events have a purpose as well. To be part of a religion as a first approximation is to believe that human life and death have significance, a meaning, and a purpose. A religious doctrine need not specify the purposes of any individual life or death; it is enough that it merely says that there is one. Consequently to accept that life, including your life, has meaning and purpose is to accept this doctrine. As an individual, you do not know what the purpose or meaning of your birth or death is. But because you believe that your life itself is explanatorily intelligible, your actions appear to you as constituting (or exemplifying) the meaning of your life. One of the oft-heard claims about religion is that it helps human beings to find meaning and purpose in their lives. Equally often heard claims suggest that one of the problems in the secularized societies of ours is that individuals experience anomie or alienation by virtue of not finding such a meaning; finding that life is meaningless; or, used often as a synonym in this context, absurd. However, it is not always clear what this claim amounts to. Are the diverse religions so many different attempts to find solutions to the question of meaning of ones life and death? Some would say no. Yet others would say yes. However, it is not evident that religion answers this question at all. What religions have done is to assert that life and death have a meaning and purpose. I know of no religion that has been able to answer a specific individuals existential question.

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In fact, if you talk to people who do believe that they have found their meaning and purpose in life, you get the following reply as an explication of the said meaning of their lives: they describe what they are doing, and inform you that this description is the meaning of their lives. That is, they merely reply that their lives have meaning and that the meaning of their lives is the lives they are leading. To understand this better, let us consider the following event and its account. Suppose that you have a friend who attends parties or goes to dancing clubs very regularly. Equally regularly, he chases after women on such occasions and, let us say, he succeeds in picking them up each time a different woman. Puzzled, you ask him one day why he does this. His answer goes like this: I always want a woman I cannot get that is why I go after women at the parties. As soon as I get them, I lose all interest, which is why I drop them. Even though what you have on your hands is a mere re-description of his action, which you have observed, this account makes it intelligible. As Davidson (1963) formulates it: (T)here is no denying that this is true: when we explain an action, by giving the reason, we do redescribe the action; redescribing the action gives the action a place in a pattern, and in this way the action is explained (in Davis, Ed., 1983: 64). That is, a reason makes an action intelligible by redescribing it (ibid.: 67). Those who have found meaning in their lives do precisely this: re-describe the lives they are leading. Where I can help people using my skills, said a doctor to me once, I do so; this is what makes my life meaningful to me. Neither you nor I are any the wiser for this piece of knowledge; but we can see that it has the structure of an intelligibility account. Your friend made his action of chasing after women intelligible not merely by describing the pattern in his actions; by re-describing the pattern he also appears to place it in a bigger pattern accessible to you. The description of a pattern in one's life also re-describes the pattern in one's life; it also places it in a bigger pattern. To those from the outside, the bigger pattern

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appears absent, which is why this account of life does not appear intelligible. From the inside though, i.e., to those to whom their own lives appear meaningful, a pattern appears to be present. They feel that their lives are placed in a pattern and not merely that their lives have a pattern. They cannot tell you what that pattern is, any more than your friend can tell you about the pattern where his women-chasing activity is placed. In this sense, it is not true to say that one cannot communicate the meaning one has found to ones life because it is some intensely personal thing or because such a deep personal thing is not communicable. No. In fact, these people are able to communicate the meaning of their individual lives; from the outside, to someone who listens to such accounts, the intelligibility appears missing because the pattern where it requires to be placed is not known. More generally, the answer to the question of the meaning of life is not to be sought in the answer. It is found in the belief that enables the formulation of such a question. Religion enables one to raise such questions because it is the only framework where such queries can arise. Religion was not invented to answer questions about the meaning and purpose of the life of some or another specific individual. Such questions come into being within the framework of religion. These problems do not antedate religion; instead, religion generates them. Having done so, the religious framework tantalizingly hints that the problem is solvable. Take religion away, you will also take these questions away. By saying this, I do not imply that life is either meaningless or that it is absurd. No, because, even this answer is given within a framework, which makes either meaning attribution or its denial sensible with respect to individual or collective life. Rather, what I am saying is that the questions about the meaning of life are internal to religion; they are religious questions no matter what the answer is. They are not questions that a primitive man raised 10,000 years ago; nor are they the questions of the modern man but those of a religious man

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 a homo religiosus. Religion makes the world intelligible to us, promises also to relate us intelligibly to the world. Clearly, the difference among religions will revolve around the specification of these purposes. What, then, makes them into rival religions is their characterization of this explanatory intelligibility of human life and death (at a minimum). Their affirmation that the Cosmos is an explanatorily intelligible entity makes them into religions. In a deep and fundamental sense, to grow up within a religious tradition is to grow up with this fundamental experience where the Cosmos has explanatory intelligibility. Equally, to have a religion is to have this experience. However, this does not imply that, in any particular religion, some or other statement need occur to the effect that the Cosmos is an explanatorily intelligible entity. It makes the world explanatorily intelligible by structuring experience accordingly. In doing so, it avoids a crippling circularity by placing the origin of this account outside those who accept it. In simple and simplified steps, both the problem and its solution can be described as follows: step 1: Created by God, the Cosmos exhibits His purpose; step 2: As human beings, we know this because God has revealed it; step 3: Gods revelation consists precisely of both the above steps, including this step. As an account, religion tells us what the Cosmos is like (step 1); makes itself into an object by telling us how we could know that such is the case (step 2); characterizes both itself as an account and the account of the Cosmos as true (step 3). What is paradoxical, perhaps even impossible, when viewed from the standpoint of finite individuals with finite knowledge and abilities, ceases being so when claimed to instantiate the infinite knowledge of some totally other kind of being. The problem that we could have with respect to such knowledge is not epistemic but hermeneutic in nature: our interpretative abilities are finite; therefore, the sense that we could make of this knowledge is fallible unless, of course, this Divine Being

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would also help us out in this case. Candour requires me to add: rumour has it that this Being is known to do precisely that, even if His criterion for selecting individuals remains rather vague and mysterious. Looked in terms of what human beings do and what they think, religion involves a peculiar kind of reflexivity. It is its own justification, its own truth, founded on nothing that is human. Given the nature of this object, we need not wonder anymore that we have to take recourse to religious/theological vocabulary in order to explicate the concept of religion. The creation of the world and all that is in it, the Bible tells us, is the Work of God. As a Being with goals and purposes, He brought forth everything for some purpose or another. The cosmic products and processes embody the Will of this God. What we human beings see are the phenomena; but underlying them, and expressed in them, is the Will of God. The same God, the Good Book further tells us, has manifested His Will to us in two ways: through revelation, as expressed in the scriptures; and in His product, viz., Nature. We can study His Works and through such a study learn inductively about His Will; and then, there is also the Biblical revelation. In a deep and fundamental sense, the world is governed by the Will of The Sovereign. How can we know the will of an actor by studying his actions? From our experience in the world, we do know that there is a hiatus between the actions we perform and our belief states. Even such a trivial action as my opening a door could not be said to instantiate some or other belief unambiguously: perhaps, I feel that the room is stuffy or that it is too cold; perhaps I want you to get out; or I sense an eavesdropper You cannot, in other words, readoff my intentions unambiguously by looking at my actions. You could also ask me the reasons for my action: but I could deceive you by telling a plausible lie; or I forgot my own reasons; or that I am not even sure that I have reasons... This being the case, how can we know (or even hypothesize about) Gods Will by studying His actions?

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The answer must be obvious. God is perfectly good, perfectly consistent and that His actions perfectly express His intentions... etc. The Sovereign's Will is not arbitrary but perfectly constant. Because he is a Being who is perfectly trustworthy, His works do not deceive us. The ascription of predicates of perfection to God, which many authors use as an argument for the impossibility of His existence, I suggest, was a necessary condition for the emergence of human knowledge about the natural world. Consider, by contrast, the gods of the so-called religions like those of the Greeks, the Romans, or the Hindus. What is constant about these gods is their capriciousness or unpredictability. They ceaselessly interfere with the affairs of mankind but in ways that are both unpredictable and mysterious. Thus, it is only right and proper that the universe is not governed by their will. Let me reformulate the earlier paragraphs in the following way: the Bible inculcates an experience of the Cosmos as a particular kind of order, and this order consists of the fact that phenomena express a deep, underlying constancy. This constancy is the Will of The Sovereign. His Will governs the world. Religion and Truth In our daily activities in the world, we assume that many of our beliefs and theories are true. One such candidate, for example, is that the earth revolves around the sun or that we do not change shape while we sleep. Even though we do not know whether they are true, we have no reason (as yet) to presume their falsity. The assumption about the truth of these beliefs is strengthened by a whole number of other beliefs from sending satellites to circle the earth to biological theories and medical practices and we do not really despair about the tentative and hypothetical nature of our theories. Commendable and necessary though such attitudes are, our indifference does not affect the epistemological point: any and all of our theories could turn out to be false.

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Religion not only tells us the way the Cosmos is, but also makes itself explanatorily intelligible. Based on human knowledge and human cognitive abilities, both of which are finite, we could never arrive at an explanatory intelligible account, which includes itself as an explanandum. Furthermore, religion, which claims to be the truth about the world, is radically independent of our prior theories about the world. Whether one believes in the existence of witches, ancestors, or quantum particles; whether one can understand Gdels theorem or the mechanism of gene-splicing; whether one can drive a car or not; ones access to the message of religion is not affected. Grasping the truth of the religious account does not depend on our finite knowledge of the world and this truth, note well, is about the Cosmos. On our own, as these religions have explained themselves, we could only arrive at a vague conception of God as the creator. But this notion does not make the world explanatorily intelligible. God has to reveal himself and aid us in seeing the truth because this truth does not depend upon human knowledge and what we, at any given moment, believe to be true. What we have on our hands, then, is an account that has no parallels in the domain of human knowledge. We know of partial explanatory accounts; we think that our folkpsychology makes use of intelligibility accounts. Religion alone is both an explanatory and an intelligibility account. Not of this or that individual phenomenon, but of the Cosmos and itself. Corresponding to this, the issue and the question of truth take a radical form. The problem is not whether religion is true in the same way my belief about Brussels being the capital city of Belgium is true. The latters truth depends on other beliefs being true as well. Such is not the case for religion at all. If we use the predicate true to describe religion, it looks as though we cannot use it for anything else: what makes religion true cannot make

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anything else true. Religion is the truth in the specific sense of not being dependent on the truth of any other belief we hold about the world. Religion Sui Generis? To the reader and to someone familiar with contemporary religious studies, two things must be clear by now: (a) my characterization of religion attempts to make sense of the experience of the believers. In contemporary jargon, I privilege the insider perspective as against the outsider perspective. (b) In doing so, I seem to talk as though religion cannot be studied using methods and theories from other sciences. In the words of McCutcheon, I seem to speak of religion as sui generis. Because I cannot fully answer these objections in the course of this article, let me make a few points in my defence, using a realist language. What we have in human cultures are specific phenomena like Christianity, Islam, Judaism and such like. If they are religions, then they are that by virtue of possessing some property that makes them into religions. In this sense, religion is a property of these specific phenomena. The insider and outsider problem makes sense only with respect to specific religions because they also have other properties than that of religion. However, with respect to that property which makes them into religion (the explanatory intelligibility that I talk about), there is no outsider perspective available to us human beings. Only that entity (God, in our case) whose will is the causal force of the Cosmos has an outsider perspective with respect to the explanatory intelligible account that religion is. Consequently, we cannot study religion as religion (or under the description of religion) from outside, ever. I am not speaking about what makes some phenomenon into Christianity but what makes Christianity into religion. From the outside, without having any such account, I cannot say what makes some account an explanatorily intelligible account of the Cosmos; why it does this to some and not to the others; what does the explanatory intelligibility consist of; etc. Maximally, one can do what I have done: take note of the fact that religion is an

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explanatory intelligible account. To be sure, we can ask the believers to explain themselves. In such a case, we will be studying what it means to believe for these people; if and where we can understand their answer to the meaning of the Cosmos and life, we will have some idea about what it means to be religious. But that is a different issue altogether. In fact, my characterization of religion says as much. Religion exhibits reflexivity: religion includes what it says about itself; religious language is both the object language and its own meta-language. Consequently, the possibility of a science of religion resides in our willingness to accept theology as science. However, this does not mean that one cannot study religion scientifically. If we study religion as religion, only then are we forced to do theology. But religion can be studied at different levels of description: (a) as religion; (b) as world view; (c) as a causal force in a culture; (d) as specific religions, etc. In this sense, yes, we can study religion scientifically but we must know the level at which we can provide a scientific description. In this sense, I am not in the least suggesting that we cannot study religion using theories and methods from the sciences. But, it does mean the following. My characterization of religion enables us to come to grips with authors like Schleiermacher and Otto, who have spoken of religious experience, without accusing them of bad faith or imputing apologetic motivations to them. Both argue that having a religious experience presupposes that one belongs to a religion, and that the nonrational elements are related to the rational. Indeed so. Religion is an account that involves concepts. To accept it is to feel a part of the purposes of that Being and depend on Him. Without such an account, there is no question of experiencing the absolute dependency that Schleiermacher talks about; at best, all we can experience is a kind of relative dependency upon each other. In such a case, the other is not The Totally Other of Schleiermacher. To

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have the kind of experience that Schleiermacher talks about, we need to accept the explanatorily intelligible account of the Cosmos, i.e., accept religion. It is this property that makes not only Christianity but also Judaism and Islam into religions. But that which makes them into religion also divides, and this dispute is unsolvable because it has no solution. Each is a specific religion, that is, each is an explanatorily intelligible account and each makes the Cosmos into an explanatorily intelligible entity to those who accept this account. Some individual may, at any given moment of time, switch from one to the other on the ground that one does it better than the other. But his ground is that one succeeds better than the other in making the Cosmos explanatorily intelligible to him. He may even believe and, indeed, he has to that this superiority arises from the fact that one is better than the other. But he can only do so after the other account has made the Cosmos explanatorily intelligible to him but not before. He can judge that one religion is better than the other, only after trading places. A formal conversion may (and often does) come later, but the point is that there is no vantage point for the human being to judge the superiority of one religion against the other. The reason is, of course, simple: religion must make the Cosmos explanatorily intelligible to the individual in question. Very often, believers make the claim that one cannot investigate the nature of religion, unless one is a believer oneself. Brilliant and reputed thinkers have tried to argue for this point of view. Equally often, such people have been accused by their opponents of bad faith, dogmatism and suspected of harbouring apologetic motivations. Any phenomenon can be scientifically studied, the opponents have maintained, including both religion and science. Why should one believe in God in order to discuss His existence? One does not have to be a stone to describe its fall, any more than one has to be a neurotic to discuss the nature of neurosis. Therefore, why should one be religious to scientifically investigate religion?

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Consider what I just said above regarding how anyone could judge the superiority of one religion against the other. One can only do so from within the framework of some specific religion or another. The reason, as I have said, lies in the fact that they are all explanatorily intelligible accounts. Only from within the framework of one religion can we judge the adequacy of the other. In the starkest possible terms: to investigate religion as an explanatorily intelligible account of the Cosmos we need to accept some or another explanatorily intelligible account of the Cosmos. That is, religion can be investigated only by being religious yourself; religion is an object of investigation from within some or another religion. This position stands to reason because, as I have said, religion makes itself explanatorily intelligible too. The believers are not, I submit, dogmatic when they say, as Sderblom did, that the only science of religion could be theology. Again, it is important to note what I am saying and what I am not. Any specific doctrine within a specific religion say, for example, the doctrine of trinity is not immune from criticism or beyond discussion. After all, those who do not accept it do criticize and discuss this doctrine. In this sense, in all probability, every single doctrine of every religion has been discussed and criticized either at one time or another. So, if a Jew can criticize the doctrine of Trinity, why not someone else, who denies the existence of God? Belonging to a religion is not equivalent to holding a party card. Some Contemporary Criticisms Quite apart from the above remarks, my attempt has also met with criticisms either directly or indirectly. I should like to answer a few of them, beginning with those of Sweetman and Pennigton. Both believe that my definition of religion is flawed because I take Christianity (especially, according to them, Protestant Christianity) as an exemplary instance of the category of religion. Failing to appreciate what I do or even understand the difference between a definition and a hypothesis, they come up with totally muddleheaded criticisms. In

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what follows, I shall not try to set right the manifold confusions in Sweetmans thinking but, instead, address myself to his central criticism. He detects the following form in my argument: First premise: Christianity is prototypically what religion is. Second premise: Hinduism does not share all (or perhaps any) of the relevant properties of Christianity. Conclusion: Hinduism is not a religion. (p.337) To begin with, let me make three logical points about his reconstruction of my argument. In the first place, the conclusion that Sweetman attributes to me is not derivable on the basis of these two premises alone: we need more. No one can derive the conclusion (without adding additional premises) that Sweetman attributes to me: Hinduism is not a religion. As a result, second, as it stands now, the conclusion is invalid: the only possible conclusion that one can draw from the above is the following: Hinduism is not prototypically what a religion is. (Of course, this could imply that Hinduism is a religion, even if it is not prototypically what a religion is.) Third, he wants to take issue with the truth of the conclusion but he does so by throwing doubts upon the truth of the premises. A freshman introduction to logic course would have told him that he cannot do this. In deductive logics, truth is transmitted from the premises to the conclusion but not their falsity. Falsity travels, again in deductive logics, the other way round: falsity is transmitted from the conclusion to the premises. In other words, there is an asymmetry in the transmission of truth and falsity in deductive logics. Thus, he cannot contest the truth of the conclusion (that he attributes to me) on logical grounds by challenging the truth-value of the premises. Yet, he does exactly that. Let me take up the more substantive issues. My statement about the exemplary nature of Christianity must, above everything else, be situated in the context of providing an ostensive definition of the term religion. Such an ostensive gesture though given in

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language instead of in physical gestures does not make any claims about the nature of religion except to point out that, in our language-use (in western languages), the word religion refers at least to Christianity. Such an ostensive definition does not mean that Christianity is the best religion or the most perfect one or the only one. In fact, it is easily conceivable that Christianity is not even a religion and that our language-use is wrong. However, it is sensible to say this only when we have a theory of religion and not before. In other words, ones view of Christianity whether it is a true religion or merely a false consciousness does not affect the definition I am putting forward. My definition registers a fact about a language-use but makes no further assertions either about Christianity or about religion. I am not providing an explicit definition of the word religion; I am simply identifying an example, a prototypical example, of the category religion. I am not making any assumptions about what religion is, or what makes Christianity into one. My only argument is: if Christianity is not an exemplary instance of religion, then we have no other examples of religion. Therefore, I make no assumptions about the nature of religion or of Christianity in beginning a study of religion. In fact, I do not even assume the existence of religion. Rather, I merely point out the fact that unless we can show that our language-use refers to an entity that does not exist in our world in which case we need not study religion at all we may not reject our linguistic practice. If religion refers to something at all, the history of our natural language-use with respect to this word does suggest that it does, it must at least refer to Christianity. Otherwise, it picks out a fictitious entity and this is a theoretical claim that one cannot make at the preliminary stage of defining a word in a theory. Suppose that we extend this argument further. The very same linguistic practice that I talk about also refers to following entities: Leprechauns, Cyclops, Satyrs and Unicorns. Our linguistic practice not only assures us that these words refer to creatures in the world but

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also provides us with entertaining tales about the behaviour of such creatures. We can take issue with the claims about the existence of such creatures (and, thus, whether these words have any reference in the real word) only by accepting the theories in evolutionary biology and not by talking about some or another philosophical claim about meaning and reference. In this sense, if one wants to challenge the linguistic-use with respect to the word religion, it is advisable that one arms oneself adequately, i.e., one should have some or another substantial theory about the relevant part of the world. A bare claim about meaning and reference will not do. On the reference of the word religion When we use the category religion, we minimally refer to Christianity. Why minimally? What if someone refuses to recognize that Christianity is a prototypical instance of the category religion? My answer is that this is the only option open to us, unless we make epistemic assumptions about the object before having studied it. Suppose that someone denies the prototypicality of Christianity as a religion. Then, he has to (a) either deny that the concept religion has any reference to any entity in the world; (b) or claim that it has some other reference. If he argues the first position, he is running counter to our linguistic practice where the word does have a reference. Of course, one is at perfect liberty to counter the linguistic practice; but, then, he must also have some kind of a theory about what religion is and what it is not. Such a theory also has to explain why, for more than two-thousand years, the word found a home in Christian theory and practice. Let me linger on this point a bit longer because quite a few scholars argue today (Jonathan Smith, Russell McCutcheon to name a few) that the word religion has no reference to anything in the world and that it is merely a part of scholars talk. In fact Jonathan Smith even claims that there is no data for religion. How much is this argument

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worth? By building an analogical argument, let me identify the conditions under which such an argument becomes admissible. Let us suppose that I make the following claim: the words gravity and gravitational force are mere words in the scholarly talk. They are parts of scholarly discourse. In the absence of theories about gravity and gravitational force, what could we possibly conclude about the reference of these words? Epistemically speaking, one cannot conclude anything because we cannot know what the data sets for these words are. It is only a theory about these phenomena that tells us that the free fall of objects, the ebb and tide in the sea and the presence of atmosphere on earth, etc. have all to do with gravity and gravitational force. Such a theory also postulates relations between these phenomena and gravitational force. Thus, it is the theory of gravitation that tells us what its facts are. Without such a theory, we might notice some facts: that objects in free fall downwards or that there are ebbs and tides in the sea etc. But our problem is: which theory should explain these facts? Should a theory in geography or a theory from physics or a theory about the fairies and angels tell us about the why? Should one particular theory explain all the above facts, or are they discrete facts for different theories? There is no way we can answer such questions in the absence of a theory that effectively solves these problems. In the absence of such theories, it is meaningless to make the claim that there is no data for gravity. Because none of the authors named above have anything that remotely resembles a theory of religion or a theory of scholarly discourse in the domain of religious studies, or a theory of theologies, their claim is unfounded. Worse, it is meaningless. However, it is meaningless only if treated as a philosophical objection. Actually, though disguised as an objective criticism, it is actually ad hominem: they are directed against certain authors (Scheleirmacher, Otto, Eliade and others), who are characterized as harbouring apologetic motivations. Basically, the accusation is that some scholars attempt to

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prevent a naturalistic study of religion by cordoning off religion from any such approach. Apparently, they do this by suggesting that religious experience, religiosity, etc. are unique to religion. The problem with ad hominem attacks is that they embody fallacious reasoning. One cannot either criticize or explain Schleirmachers theory about religion by suggesting that he had apologetic motivations. Though meaningful in so far as speculations about motives are concerned, such fallacious arguments have no place in an intellectual discussion. If taken as philosophical criticisms, as I have said, they are meaningless. On the other hand, one could meaningfully suggest that gravity and gravitational force do not refer to anything in the real world, when there is a theory of gravity and gravitational force. This is a philosophical stance that some assume with respect to scientific theories: one could consider such concepts as fictions, or as theoretical terms, or as pragmatically useful concepts that help us predict etc. In other words, it is a sensible metascientific standpoint that tries to account for scientific theories by denying reference to theoretical terms. However, today, we are not in such a situation. Regarding the second point, I can be briefer. Indeed, the concept could have other references, but it minimally picks out Christianity. To argue that it refers to some other entity without referring also to Christianity is to take an epistemic decision: after all, Christianity has described itself as a religion, and the word has its home in the European languages. To go against either of these two facts is to have a theory about both. This linguistic practice itself is not neutral. After all, it is the practice of a community that speaks this way and not that or another way. I do not deny this. This fact about the linguistic practices of a community having a cultural history reflects a general point, viz., that as socio-cultural entities, we function in a context. To be sure, it also underlines the fact that scientific enquiries have a context too. But then, these are the general presuppositions of any

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human enquiry not merely of this one. Needless to say, that I am a human being and, consequently, I am situated in a cultural and intellectual milieu is not quite the same as accepting presuppositions either about religion or the relation of Christianity to religion. Let us say that in some phenomenon this or that property, or even a group of them, is absent; let us assume that these very same properties are present in Christianity. This situation does not tell us a great deal: it could be that the former is merely less prototypical than Christianity; or that the former is a truer religion than Christianity; it could be that both have all the properties of religion; etc. Could we answer the question about the existence or nonexistence of religion by simply looking at the properties of Christianity? That is, can we argue that because some properties characteristic of Christianity are absent from traditions elsewhere, (say, in Hinduism or Buddhism) the latter cannot possibly be religions? Such an argument is possible only if one is able to show that the properties of Christianity which one has identified are also the properties of religion. In the absence of such proof, all that one can do is to notice that Christianity and some other tradition differ from each other. However, one cannot argue that, because of these differences, some other tradition is not a religion. This is so obvious a point that one wonders how Sweetman could possibly see me arguing the opposite. Consider the distinction between Christianity as a historical movement and Christianity as a religion. Today, the former owns buildings, land, telephones, television studios, aircrafts, etc. These are the properties in both the senses of possessions and predicates of Christianity. Is it any more or less of a religion because of that? The only way we can answer this question either way is by postulating (or having a theory about) the relation between Christianity and religion. One may want to argue that Christianity has progressively become less of a religion because it is now more interested in earthly possessions. Or the other way round. Notice, however, that this argument can work only if we

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know what religion is. By looking at Christianity alone as the exemplar of the concept of religion we can make no such claim. One can think of many such examples. One such is the obverse of this argument. Because some or another tradition appears to share some of the properties of Christianity, people have argued, the former is also a religion. This is how the anthropologist Martin Southwold, for instance, argues: because Buddhism shares many properties of Christianity, the former is also a religion even if it does not believe in God. This argument is flawed for exactly the same reason as well: the properties that Christianity has by virtue of being a religion may or may not be identical to the properties that it has by virtue of being a historical movement. If Southwold can argue anything at all on grounds of his polythetic attributes, he would have to say: because Buddhism shares many properties of Christianity, the former is also like Christianity minus its belief in God. But he does not say this, does he? In more mundane terms: we are studying, let us say, a brown cat that limps, has one eye, a tail, one ear, a few teeth, and eats rats. Question: Is limping, having one eye, a tail, one ear, being brown, having a few teeth, eating rats, the properties of all cats or merely of this specific cat? Answer: that depends on the knowledge we have of cats. Precisely. The Argument Explained Instead of focussing further on Sweetman and Pennigton, let me outline the way I formulate the problem of studying religion. As I have argued, if the word religion picks out something, it refers at least to Christianity because the latter refers to itself as a religion (i.e., it uses the word with respect to itself). This self-reference is not a few centuries old: it has been so used ever since the inception of Christianity. If Christianity refers to itself as a religion and recognizes itself as one, then the terms in which it does so gives us its concept of religion. This concept not only enabled Christianity to describe itself as a religion, but also helped it to recognize some of the

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rivals it encountered as religious rivals. Therefore to study Christianity as a religion is to study those properties by virtue of which not only did Christianity think of itself as a religion but also confronted rival or competing religions. This is the first step of the argument. This step merely allows us to establish the terms of description. These very same terms, however, allow us to take the second step. Christianity is a historical movement. So are Judaism and Islam. The former has construed the latter as rival religions. Whatever goals they were/are competing for, they did/do so as religions. Judaism and Islam were not merely baptized as rival religions by Christianity. These two also saw Christianity as a rival religion under the same description. The second step establishes that the terms under which Christianity recognized itself as religion are also the terms under which Islam and Judaism recognize themselves as religions as well (using whatever word they use). That is to say, the concept used by Christianity to call itself a religion is also the one which makes some (Judaism and Islam) who do not call themselves as religions into religions (because it is also their self-description). Therefore, the Christian concept is not just Christian. It cuts across the three Semitic religions. This is not my concept or your concept, but self-descriptions of these religions. At the same time, it suggests that the concept of religion is itself part of a religious framework and vocabulary. This lends a greater probability to the claim that whether or not Judaism and Islam use the word religion, they too are religions. That is, if Christianity is a religion, so are Judaism and Christianity. The third step picks out two salient facts. One: the terms under which Christianity transformed Islam and Judaism are also those that make Judaism and Christianity rivals to Islam, and Islam and Christianity rivals to Judaism. The possibility that Judaism and Islam were merely reacting to the attacks of Christianity and were, therefore, forced to accept the terms of Christianitys self-description is ruled out by the second salient fact: all three

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singled out exactly the same rivals under the same description elsewhere unerringly. Judaism had singled out the Roman religio as its rival before Christianity was even born; Islam had picked out precisely those Indian traditions as its rivals, which Christianity was also to identify, centuries before the European Christians launched their major and massive evangelizing activities. The fourth step completes this argument by looking at the reaction of the rivals identified by Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. These rivals, the Roman religio and the Indian traditions, did not recognize themselves in the description provided by Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Nor did they see the relationship between themselves and the latter as religious rivalry. Incomprehension of the terms of description and indifference to the alleged rivalry characterize the reactions of those belonging to the Roman religiones and the Indian traditions. There are different roads to heaven, said the one shrugging its shoulders; How could only your religion be true and ours false? asked the other uncomprehendingly. Even under persecution, this tone did not change. The persecution of the Christians in the early Roman Empire did not take place using those terms which Christianity would use to persecute the pagans centuries later. The third and the fourth step, together, establish the following case: the terms under which Christianity recognized itself and identified rival religions were also those that provided self-identity and rivals to Judaism and Islam. Precisely this description was incomprehensible to those in whose language the word religion existed (the Roman religio) and to those who had no such word (the Indians). Neither recognized itself in this description; neither fought the others as rivals under this description. These four steps constitute the historical constraints under which we must generate our hypothesis about religion. On the one hand, our hypothesis must capture the selfdescription of the Semitic religions; further, it must also explain why Hinduism,

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Shintoism, etc., also appear as religions (even if they are false religions) to them. On the other hand, the very same hypothesis must also explain why neither the Hindus nor the Romans were able to recognize themselves as religions, whether true or false. Why this double constraint and what does it do? Quite apart from the issue that these are historical facts that any hypothesis on religion has to explain, there is something more intriguing here. If one merely generates a naturalistic hypothesis about religion that tells us why both the Semitic religions and the Indian traditions (and the Roman religiones) are religions, then there is no reason to choose a so-called naturalistic hypothesis above a theological explanation: both explain the same phenomenon in the same way, viz., they are all religions. Actually, the situation is far worse: theological theories tell us more about the differences between, say, Hinduism on the one hand and the Semitic religions on the other. That is, apart from noticing all kinds of detailed differences between these two groups (which a naturalistic hypothesis can also do), theologies provide additional explanations of these differences: Hinduism is a false religion because it practices idolatry (for example). In other words, if one intends to be scientific, then one has to choose a theological explanation above a naturalistic hypothesis because the former explains more facts than the latter can possibly do. This is one side of the coin. The second side of the coin is this. If, on the other hand, we develop a naturalistic hypothesis about religion that merely shows that Hinduism etc are not religions (because there is no religion), then we merely side with the pagans and discount more than two thousand years of human history. For all that matters, the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims simply do not exist or do not form a part of human history. Only the arrogant or the foolish would take this route taken by some of the naturalist thinkers of today. Consequently, the only reasonable and scientific avenue is to generate a hypothesis that accounts for both sets of facts in the same move. The historical constraints that I have

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identified vouch for a hypothesis generation under constraints, another description of scientific theorizing. In other words, we face two problems, which we need to solve. One appears as an empirical problem and the other is a historical problem. The solutions to these will give us a preliminary hypothesis about religion. The problem which appears empirical is the following: what is Christianitys concept of religion, and how is it possible to show that its concept is also that of Judaism and Islam? Let us appreciate this problem in its complexity, because doing so will enable us to realize why we have to move beyond the concept of religion. An obvious solution to this problem is not only a Herculean job, but also, in all probability, an unsolvable one. This is an inductive task of trying to find out what Christians have said about religion over the course of the last two thousand years. Even a preliminary survey, which involves the use of the word religion after all, that is the only way we can begin in extant writings will lead us to the conclusion that the word was used in a variety of ways, that it disappeared for centuries, re-emerged much later in yet other ways, that its meanings have changed according to the linguistic and historical contexts... etc. In fact, one does not even have to do a survey to predict such a conclusion. As though this is not enough, we have to do the same with respect to Judaism and Islam. Neither uses the word religion unless in modern writings on the subject. There is another solution. If one can generate a hypothesis of religion and show that Christianity, Judaism and Islam recognize themselves in such a portrayal, then this problem is solved. That is, by talking about the object that religion is; by arguing that the presence of something makes Christianity, Judaism and Islam into religions; and showing that it captures their self-descriptions; one can argue backwards to their concept of religion.

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This generates the historical problem: such a hypothesis of religion has to solve two further questions: (a) why do Semitic religions see religions everywhere (b) Why neither the Roman religiones nor the Indian traditions recognize themselves in this description. Needless to say, all of these would have to be done without appealing to ad hoc hypotheses. That is, any hypothesis on religion will have to simultaneously solve both the empirical and the historical problem in one move. That, precisely, is what my hypothesis does. In other words, by virtue of the above mentioned constraints and my hypothesis about religion, one can say that there is data for religion. And I have also said what that data is. Conclusion Let me bring this rather long article to its conclusion. In contradistinction to many writers on the subject, I do argue that religion can be studied. However, I add that it could be studied at multiple levels: studying religion as religion is to accept its self-description and, in that case, being forced to do theology. The peculiar self-reflexivity of religion explains to us how to understand authors like Schleirmacher, Otto and Sderblom without accusing them of apologetic motivations. In a very specific sense, they were entirely right when they suggested that one could study religion only by being a believer oneself. At this level of description, that is, at the level of self-description of religion, it is simply impossible for us human beings to have access to an outsider perspective. Our data are the experiences of the believers and the properties of religion (faith, worship and such like). Jonathan Smith is totally wrong when he says there is no data for religion. The word was historically not coined by the scholar during the enlightenment period: it was used in polemics and apologetics in Ancient Greece and Rome. The believers took over the word religio and gave it a different meaning than the one it had in Classical Rome. However, this does not mean that one cannot study religion scientifically: one can and should do this, but at a different level of description. It is only at this level that we could hope

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to develop a scientific theory about religion and the role it plays in human societies and cultures. Religions were constructed in India as experiential entities by people who had a religion. There is no religion in India, nor has there been one, provided one does not take the presence of Judaism, Christianity and Islam in India into account. In any case, entities like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism are fictional entities the way satyr and unicorn are.

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