classification of religions

Normative

Perhaps the most common division of religions—and in many ways the most unsatisfactory—distinguishes true religion from false religion. Such classifications may be discovered in the thought of most major religious groups and are the natural, perhaps inevitable, result of the need to defend particular perspectives against challengers or rivals. Normative classifications, however, have no scientific value, because they are arbitrary and subjective, inasmuch as there is no agreed method for selecting the criteria by which such judgments should be made. But because living religions always feel the need of apologetics (systematic intellectual defenses), normative classifications continue to exist.

Many examples of normative classification might be given. The early Church Fathers (e.g., St. Clement of Alexandria, 2nd century ad) explained that Christianity’s Hellenistic (Greco-Roman culture) rivals were the creations of fallen angels, imperfect plagiarisms of the true religion, or the outcome of divine condescension that took into account the weaknesses of men. The greatest medieval philosopher and theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas, distinguished natural religion, or that kind of religious truth discoverable by unaided reason, from revealed religion, or religion resting upon divine truth, which he identified exclusively with Christianity. In the 16th century Martin Luther, the great Protestant Reformer, forthrightly labelled the religious views of Muslims, Jews, and Roman Catholic Christians to be false and held the view that the gospel of Christianity understood from the viewpoint of justification by grace through faith was the true standard. In Islam, religions are classified into three groups: the wholly true, the partially true, and the wholly false, corresponding with Islam, the Peoples of the Book (Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians), and polytheism. The classification is of particular interest because, being based in the Qurʾān, (the Islamic holy book), it is an integral part of Islamic teaching, and also because it has legal implications for Muslim treatment of followers of other religions.

Although scientific approaches to religion in the 19th century discouraged use of normative categories, elements of normative judgment were, nonetheless, hidden in certain of the new scientific classifications that had emerged. Many evolutionary schemes developed by anthropologists and other scholars, for example, ranked religions according to their places on a scale of development from the simplest to the most sophisticated, thus expressing an implicit judgment on the religious forms discussed. Such schemes more or less clearly assume the superiority of the religions that were ranked higher (i.e., later and more complex); or, conversely, they serve as a subtle attack on all religion by demonstrating that its origins lie in some of humanity’s basest superstitions, believed to come from an early, crude stage. A normative element is also indicated in classification schemes that preserve theological distinctions, such as that between natural and revealed religion. In short, the normative factor still has an important place in the classification of religions and will doubtless always have, since it is extraordinarily difficult to draw precise lines between disciplines primarily devoted to the normative exposition of religion, such as theology and philosophy of religion, and disciplines devoted to its description (phenomenology of religion) or scientific study (e.g., anthropology of religion, sociology of religion, or psychology of religion).

Geographical

A common and relatively simple type of classification is based upon the geographical distribution of religious communities. Those religions found in a single region of the earth are grouped together. Such classifications are found in many textbooks on comparative religion, and they offer a convenient framework for presenting religious history. The categories most often used are: (1) Middle Eastern religions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, and a variety of ancient cults; (2) East Asian religions, comprising the religious communities of China, Japan, and Korea, and consisting of Confucianism, Daoism, the various schools of Mahayana (“Greater Vehicle”) Buddhism, and Shintō; (3) Indian religions, including early Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, and sometimes also the Theravada (“Way of the Elders”) Buddhism and the Hindu- and Buddhist-inspired religions of South and Southeast Asia; (4) African religions, or the cults of the tribal peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa, but excluding ancient Egyptian religion, which is considered to belong to the ancient Middle East; (5) American religions, consisting of the beliefs and practices of the Indian peoples indigenous to the two American continents; (6) Oceanic religions—i.e., the religious systems of the peoples of the Pacific islands, Australia, and New Zealand; and (7) classical religions of ancient Greece and Rome and their Hellenistic descendants. The extent and complexity of a geographical classification is limited only by the classifier’s knowledge of geography and his desire to seek detail and comprehensiveness in his classification scheme. Relatively crude geographical schemes that distinguish Western religions (usually equivalent to Christianity and Judaism) from Eastern religions are quite common.

Although religions centred in a particular area often have much in common because of historical or genetic connections, geographical classifications present obvious inadequacies. Many religions, including some of the greatest historical importance, are not confined to a single region (e.g., Islam), or do not have their greatest strength in the region of their origins (e.g., Christianity, Buddhism). Further, a single region or continent may be the dwelling place of many different religious communities and viewpoints that range from the most archaic to the most sophisticated. At a more profound level, geographical classifications are unacceptable because they have nothing to do with the essential constitutive elements of religion. The physical location of a religious community reveals little of the specific religious life of the group. Though useful for some purposes, geographical classifications contribute minimally to the task of providing a systematic understanding of human religions and religiousness.