Carmen Zaldívar

Chapter 3: The Essentials of Religion

This chapter tries to define what the essence of religion is and therefore to know what
makes religion what it is.
Firstly, it compares two points of view. The first one is of Tylor who defines religion as
the belief in spiritual beings, giving rise to a more individualistic view. On the other
hand, Durkheim's definition revolves around practices and rituals, putting the
community as a base and defending a collectivist vision.
Tylor's definition is based on European philosophical idealism where belief arose from
the higher self and not from collective behaviors. Nowadays, a way of life that is
practiced individually rather than as a community is considered a spirituality. On the
contrary, if you are part of an institution, you are not spiritual, you are religious.
Later in the chapter, the author lists different views of what is essential for a religion to
be considered as such. He leaves aside the external aspects and the historical
background. For Otto it would be fascination; for Schleiermacher, dependence; Vand
der Leeuw would say it is power; Tillich defends the ultimate concern; and Mircea
Eliade, the sacred. It uses the comparative method to try to find what is common to all
these definitions, and thus, to find the essence of religion.
To seek a comparison of his difficulty in trying to find the essence of religion, he uses
the example of a work by Plato. The Euthypro is a dialogue between Socrates and
Euthypro that tries to define what piety is. Socrates uses the method of dialogue through
questions to try to get Euthypro to come to an answer. He gives eight definitions and
tries to define it through examples but does not reach any conclusion. There is only one
question that is key to understand what piety is:” Is something pious because the gods
love it or do they love it because it is pious? “That is to say, we return to the question of
other chapters of whether the essence is found in the object itself or in the subject.
Therefore, since finding the essence of something is an almost impossible task, we
should then focus on the function of religion.