RS 200 Leininger
Alston On The Concept of Religion
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Reading Questions on Alston
1. What does Alston identify as the shortcomings with the existing defintions of religion?
Explain what Alston means by each of the following terms: necessary and sufficient.
2. Explain how the metaphor of a family helps Alston to define religion.
3. Explain why Alston argues that the quantity of RMC’s present, by itself, does not make a
religion? What else is needed and why?
4. Explain how something could be partly a religion and partly not a religion.
5. Why would Alston reject the view that following his approach makes all judgments about
religion purely personal and subjective.
I. Family as a Metaphor for the Concept of Religion: We Recognize a Religion Similarly to the
Way That We Recognize a Member of a Family.
Borrowing from Ludwig Wittgenstein, William P. Alston argues that just as members of
a family share a cluster or network off overlapping traits, e.g., body shape, skin coloring,
mannerisms, so religions share a cluster of overlapping “religion making characteristics”
(“RMCs”). There is no single characteristic that is either necessary, i.e., all members must have
it to be part of the family, or sufficient, i.e., the presence of a single characteristic (or even of a
certain number of characteristics) by itself, suffices to make something a religion. Instead, a
member of the “religion family” must have a sufficient clustering of these RMCs and in clear
enough ways. This clustering is not simply a matter of quantity. In other words, having all nine
RMCs does not, by itself, make something a religion for Alston. To be considered a member of
the family, the quality of the presence is crucial. The more strongly each RMC is present and
interconnected with each other, the stronger the family connection.
II. Nine Religion Family Traits or RMCs.
1) belief in supernatural beings;
2) a sacred v. profane distinction;
3) ritual acts focused around the sacred;
4) a morality grounded in the sacred;
5) characteristically religious feelings aroused by the sacred [e.g., in response to the
mysterium tremendum et fascinans];
6) prayer and other forms of communication with sacred reality;
7) a worldview;
8) a relatively total organization of one’s life based upon the worldview; and
9) a social group bound together by the above.
III. Alston’s Test for a Religion.
Alston employs these RMCs in a sophisticated and subtle test for a religion. This test
includes the following questions:
RS 200 Leininger
Alston On The Concept of Religion
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1. Which RMC’s are present and in what ways? (The presence of all 9 does not make a
religion. How each is present is more important.)
2. To what extent is each present? (Greater strength of presence points toward a religion.)
3. How intimately interconnected are they? (Do the RMC’s display a pattern of magnetic
clustering (where groups of RMCs tend to occur together because they mutually shape
and determine each other) or dispersion (where RMCs tend to separate themselves from
each other because they have little mutual influence)? For example, “Do religious ritual
and belief mutually shape each other?” When taken together do the RMC’s constitute
meaningful “gestalt,” i.e. an integrated perceptual whole whose properties are greater
than the sum of its parts? The relevant paradigmatic cases of religion serve as the
clearest gestalts.
Alston’s test measures the answers to each of these questions against the answers provided by
the clearest cases of religion, i.e., the paradigm cases. In other words, his test asks, “As a whole,
how similar or different is this constellation of RMCs to that of the paradigmatic cases of
religion?”
IV. There Will Be Clearer and Less Clear Instances of Religion
Using the metaphor of the family, Alston allows for something to be more or less of a
family member, i.e., partly a religion and partly not a religion. One might say that
something, such as Marxism, could be considered a distant in-law or a family member only
in a weaker sense. In contrast, Alston suggests that Orthodox Judaism, Roman Catholicism,
and Orphism (an ancient Greek mystery cult) might be thought of as more like a husband or
wife. Like the patriarchal and matriarchal ancestors they serve as paradigmatic cases of
religion, i.e., the clearest case of a member of the family of religion. In short, just as the
definition of “family” is socially contested and may allow for more and less clear instances
of family, so Alston allows for a continuum of more and less clear cases of a religion. The
result is that there is no sharp, unmovable dividing line between religion and
“nonreligion.”
V. Classification Is Based on Comparison to Cases Established Through Social Practice
a) The method will be case-by-case reasoning driven by skillful use of analogy to and from
paradigm cases. There are no mathematical formulas to determine a religion. Instead,
taxonomies (or socially established classification schemes of clearest to least clear cases)
guide this determination. The relative weight given to each RMC is assessed in light of
the paradigmatic cases as well as the kind of presence they display.
b) Judgments do not become simply “personal”; instead they depend upon socially
negotiated arguments constantly decided and revised through ongoing social practice.
For example, in practice U.S. Federal Courts consistently treat Islam, Christianity, and
Judaism as religions for First Amendment purposes. Scientific communities rely upon
similar processes to resolve disputes. There are both contested and agreed upon scientific
judgments. Without some agreement it would be impossible to do science.