The Quest for Life’s Meaning
Religious Institution between Psychological and Social Human Conditions
Alessandro Lazzarelli
Institute of Anthropology
National Tsing Hua University
One of the most important contributions from the earliest works on the study of religion in a nontheological framework is to address religion as a human product. In particular, German scholars such as Marx and Weber provided the theoretical setting for showing how the institution of religion developed out of class differentiations and disparities among human beings. It is important to stress that although their views emphasize different aspects of human experiences both Marx and Weber conceive of religion as a human product that stems from individuals’ quest for meaning, which arises initially in response of their disparities and incongruities. Let us examine in what sense the authors refer to individual reconstruction of meaning.
As Morrris (1987:29-30) puts it, Marx’s theory poses human being as the subject of history, in which particular attention is given to the interdependent relationship between human beings and the natural world. He proposes a materialistic paradigm, in which history is viewed as the result of human’s influence on nature. In other words, human beings constitute themselves through their interaction with nature, constructing social life in a particular historical context. According to this materialistic paradigm, religion is considered only as a secondary phenomenon depending upon certain socioeconomic circumstances. For this purpose, Marx aims to explain how the material substrate, which is the result of the influence of human’s productivity on nature, generates the conditions for the formation of ideas or ideologies such as religion, whose function is to provide an illusory escape and justification to the social constrains. According to Marx, then, religion, as well as politic and economy, represents an epiphenomenon produced by individuals in order to maintain certain socioeconomic conditions, making them appear appropriate and necessary. In these terms then, religion is just a form of ideology, indeed it is the first form of ideology produced by human beings depending upon socioeconomic circumstances. In other words, religion may serve the function of expressing indirectly class interests.
Similarly to Marx, Weber (2009) considers the material substratum that gave rise to religious institutions, even though he extends further the concept of social incongruity, focusing on the development and transformation of the most influential theodicies in connection with the needs of different social classes. The author considers sufferance as one of the most important experiences in the study of religion, for he conceives of collective religious arrangements as the products of individual suffering and need for salvation. The focus here is on individual experience of suffering in a general sense, which encompasses evils influences, sickness, poverty, and other forms of distress or danger. As Weber puts it, whereas tribal religious cults have emphasized the collectivity as a whole neglecting individual interests, the individual concerned with his personal condition has turned to the sorcerer or “spiritual adviser” in search of a relief from distress (2009:272). Then, the diffusion of this massage of salvation to the masses created a religious community, initially formed by magicians and sorcerers who could
promise salvation of individuals from sickness or distress, and later organized through
professional organizations of trained personnel. Weber delineates a sort of continuum between the prophet and the priest, whose range comprehends the sorcerer, magician, spiritual advisor, savior, figures who exert in a similar way a charismatic influence to the masses. This charismatic influence is given mainly by their capability of responding to individuals’ needs, which under certain circumstances become the religious promise of salvation for the suffering of the whole community. The author continues arguing that with the rationalization of conceptions about the world, individuals needed a different interpretation for the meaning of their suffering condition or unfair distribution of their fortune. This led to the creation of a more rationalized ethic of religious theodicy, crystallized into the metaphysical conception of God, which replaced primitive and magical ideas used to give meaning to suffering and incongruity of fortune.
To sum up then, in both Marx and Weber, religion and with it the Church, which represents its highest organized and autonomous institution, is built out of individuals’ needs. Whereas Marx emphasizes class stratification and social disparities created by the control of the means of production in the capitalistic society, Weber extends further the concept of material incongruities encompassing sufferance and poverty as the root of religious institutionalization. The result is that although the agency of religion was initially related to the quest for meaning in front of terrestrial incongruity of fortune or human suffering, later it forged a rationalized theodicy that does not provide solutions to individual needs. On the opposite, the Church obeys to the principle of perpetuating itself as the institutionalization of the official sacred authority.
References
Morris, Brian
1987 Anthropological Studies of Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Weber, Max
2009 From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. London and New York: Routledge.
