Comstock, Toward Open Definitions

Journal of the American Academy of Religion, LII/3

TOWARD OPEN DEFINITIONSOF RELIGION

W. RICHARD COMSTOCK

A. DefinitionsAugustine's famous observation about time applies with equal force

to religion; if not asked, we know what it is; if asked, we do not know. Inthe case of religion, the problem does not lie in its alleged ineffability, asif it were something beyond the capacity of language to describe. Thefact is that we manage to say many significant things about religion,some of which may even happen to be true. What eludes us is a defini-tion of the crucial term characterizing our discourse. But if we cannotsay with authority what religion is, how can we be sure that we knowwhat we are talking about?

There is no want of proposals as to how religion might be defined. Ithas been described as the sense of the sacred; as ultimate concern; asloyalty to the Good, the love of Man, allegiance to the Gods. It has beensaid that it is what we do in our solitude; but also what we do to main-tain society; that it is about limit-situations; but also about everyday life.It has been called resignation, but also hope; release from this world, butalso a way of living in this world more effectively. Some claim it is anencounter with the Wholly Other; others that it is the crucial meetingwith one's own Self. The list of possibilities seems endless; yet scholars inthe field of religion cannot reach even tentative agreement as to thecandidate that might provide an authoritative definition of the term thatnames their field.

Is this a scandal? Does it indicate that religious studies may be apseudo-discipline possessing neither definition, method, nor subject mat-ter distinctive enough to warrant inclusion in the curriculum of a mod-ern university? The suggestion has been made. However, if apodicticcertainty about definitions is required to ensure the viability of an areaof study, there is no discipline in the university that will not be foundwanting. The dilemmas involved in defining time and religion pertain

W. Richard Comstock is a member of the Department of Religious Studies at the Unlver-ilty of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of The Study of Religion and PrimitiveReligions and of numerous articles in the fields of theology and philosophy of religion.

500 Journal of the American Academy of Religion

equally to history, art, literature, language, sociology and anthropology.Competent historians cannot agree on the definition of "history"; "What isliterature?" is a crucial question discussed by contemporary critics (Her-nadi). Even those working in the more exact disciplines of the naturalsciences explain the nature of the scientific method in different ways anddisagree among themselves as to the nature and scope of their enterprise.The problem faced by the religious scholar in respect to the definition ofhis field is not unique; all humanistic disciplines as well as the naturalsciences are embroiled in the same difficulty.

But if exact definitions of the various intellectual disciplines are so elu-sive, it would seem to suggest that the problem does not lie in what is to bedefined, but in an inadequate grasp of what a definition is supposed toaccomplish. We know that a poorly framed question inevitably produces aconfused response and that anything viewed through a distorted lensreveals the same distortion. So the difficulty of defining religion is notcaused by some mysterious aspect of the subject matter eluding words, oran intractable complexity that defies analysis. It is rather the untenableunderstanding of definition that has made every conceivable responseappear inadequate.

The root of the difficulty lies in the assumption that a definition issupposed to designate the distinctive feature through which the thingdefined is what it is. This notion was given its definitive statement byAristotle and is still defended by some philosophers at the present time.However, the linguistic turn of contemporary philosophy has subjected itto a critique and in general replaced it with a more functional approachto definition (Robinson). Locke's distinction between nominal and realdefinitions has been an important factor in this change. In general, phi-losophers now tend to hold that definitions are nominal affairs having todo with the meaning of words, not with the essences of things.

An attempt is made here to explore further certain implications inthe notion of nominal definitions. It may be felt by some readers thatthis task has been done and that most scholars in religious studies haveah'eady grasped the point at issue. This is only partly so. One purpose ofthis paper is to show that a more thorough-going appropriation of thetransition from real to nominal definitions is still needed.

A second purpose is to provide an approach to nominal definitionsthat will meet the specific needs of religious studies. It is a serious mis-take to assume that a full understanding of what is involved in nominaldefinitions has already been worked out. On the contrary, perhaps themost important work remains to be done. In the article on rdefinition" inthe Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Raziel Abelson has observed: ". . . para-doxically, no problems of knowledge are less settled than those of defini-tions, and no subject is more in need of a fresh approach. Definitionplays a crucial role in every field of inquiry, yet there are few if any

Comstock: Toward Open Definitions 501

philosophical questions about definition (what sort of thing it is, whatstandards it should satisfy, what kind of knowledge, if any, it conveys)on which logicians and philosophers agree. In view of the scope of thedisagreement concerning it, an extensive re-examination is justified"(314). The discussion that follows will pursue some intriguing connec-tions between nominal definitions and recent discussions about open textsthat unexpectedly illuminate a way in which nominal definitions mightfunction more effectively in religious studies.

B. Real DefinitionsLet us begin with a recent definition of religion that will serve as a

test case through which to clarify the issues involved in definition and toprovide some evidence for the position taken in this paper. Our concernis not with the adequacy of the content of the proposal but only withhow it functions as a definition. However, the two aspects are connected.We shall find that in determining what this particular definition does,we have also gained insight into why many scholars have found it soeffective.

In an influential article, Clifford Geertz offers the following defini-tion: " . . . a religion is: (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establishpowerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by(3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) cloth-ing those conceptions with such an aura of f actuality that (5) the moodsand motivations seem uniquely realistic" (1966:4). This definition is con-stituted by a single sentence of some complexity and length. The inde-pendent clause is succinct and to the point, but it is qualified by aplethora of dependent clauses and phrases that extend and amplify theinitial statement in all sorts of unexpected ways. However, theseclarifications do not appear to be sufficient. Most of Ceertz's article iscomposed of a set of commentaries on each syntactic part of his intricatesentence. His definition is, in fact, a brief text that appears to require anumber of other texts for the adequate communication of its intent.

From a traditional point of view this is hardly satisfactory. The clas-sical notion is that a good definition should state the essence of the thingdefined in a few words devoid of extraneous references or metaphoricambiguities. But Ceertz's proposal is a small essay imbedded in a set oflarger essays without which it cannot be fully understood. It is true thatif we consider only the main clause, "Religion is a system of symbols,"we do have a succinct definition of the kind usually expected, but itcannot be said that it has succeeded in designating the essential featurethat determines what religion is and distinguishes it from what is notreligion. Nor do the subordinate clauses help. All cultural forms—science, philosophy, social ideologies, political discourse, etc.—produce


conceptions of a general order clothed with an aura of factuality thatestablish powerful moods and motivations in men and women. Even therepresentations of art and literature have an "aura of factuality" aboutthem, though they make no ontological claims. The proposal would seemto have little to commend it when taken as an essential definition. Ceertzdoes not, however, claim that his definition specifies an essence, but onlythat it provides "a useful orientation, or reorientation of thought" thatcan develop and control "a novel line of inquiry" (4). Geertz goes on toindicate "the line of inquiry" that he has in mind. He first observes thatsocial anthropology has devoted a major amount of its attention to theway in which the connections between religious symbol systems and"social-structural and psychological processes" help to maintain the socialorder. He then suggests that not enough attention has been devoted to"an analysis of the system of meanings embedded in the symbols whichmake up the religion proper" (42). Geertz's definition of religion isdesigned, then, to direct the inquiry of his fellow-anthropologists to anarea of investigation that he feels has been neglected: not only whatreligious symbol systems do for society but what they purport to mean toits members. Geertz's definition is not, then, an absolute designation ofwhat religion is in all times and places but a context-determined propo-sal concerning an aspect of religion that, in the judgment of the authorof the definition, is worthy of further investigation.

An important question about Geertz's definition still remains unan-swered: is his recommendation concerning a line of inquiry to be pur-sued based on a "real" designation of the particular religion's data to bestudied, or is it established through a "nominal" specification of how theterm "religion" is used in the course of these investigations? Has Geertzoffered us a definition of "religion" or religion? At first, it might seemobvious that a recommendation pertaining to the empirical investigationsof societies that exist or have existed within the framework of humanhistory must involve a "real" specification of the religious aspects of thosesocieties. However, a little reflection will reveal that, paradoxical as itmay seem, Geertz's proposal concerns the meaning of the term "religion"and not the designation of specific religious data to which the termmight in some particular linguistic context or other refer.

Geertz's definition cannot possibly be ascertained through referenceto empirical data because it is the meaning of his definition that initiallydetermines what counts as such data. For example, how do we knowwhat is meant by the "powerful, pervasive and long-lasting moods andmotivations in men" that Geertz asserts to be established by religioussymbols? The answer will never be found through an introspective sur-vey of the moods and motivations in our own minds or through researchby means of personal interviews and written inquiries into the moodsand motivations that others have experienced. This cannot help us


because we do not know what counts as a mood or motivation. Themeaning that Geertz assigns to these words is not found in our own expe-rience but in the text he has provided to explain his meaning and whichin turn refers the reader to Ryle's famous book where the distinctionbetween a mood (an ephemeral feeling) and a motivation (an enduringcast of mind sustained by rituals and other symbolic media) is first initi-ated and explained. Geertz's proposal is not then an accurate descriptionof specific religions like those of Java to which he has devoted a majorportion of his empirical research. In spite of the importance of thesestudies, the meaning of his definition is found rather in the set of textsthat Geertz has provided as the ever-expanding linguistic contextthrough which the term "religion," as he understands it, is clarified andrendered more determinate.

Within the framework of the well-known distinction between senseand reference (Lyons, ch. 7), it can be said that Geertz's definition has todo with the sense of the word religion, not with how the word might beused in a statement or proposition to refer to the religious aspects ofthings. However, it may be that this distinction is not as absolute as somehave maintained and that it is vulnerable to the same kind of unsettlingcritique to which Quine has subjected the analytic/synthetic distinction.It is therefore important to see that the position advanced in this paperdoes not depend on any particular theory of how statements refer tothings. However this complex question is resolved, the proposition thatdefinitions have to do with words and not things remains viable for thereasons advanced above.

So far as definitions are concerned, the nominalist is right: the rangeof possible meanings that a word may assume is derived from the lin-guistic contexts of which it is a part. A definition represents a proposalthat one of these possibilities be deemed the accepted sense within acertain line of discourse. Religion may well be something real and objec-tive; "religion" remains a word that requires a definition. Considerationslike these seem to form the basis for a striking observation made recentlyby Jonathan Smith:

If we have understood the archeological and textual record cor-rectly, man has had his entire history in which to imagine deitiesand modes of interaction with them. But man," more preciselywestern man, has had only the last few centuries to imaginereligion. . . . That is to say, while there is a staggering amount ofdata, of phenomena, of human experiences and expressions thatmight be characterized in one culture or another, by one crite-rion or another, as religious—there is no data for religion. Reli-gion is solely the creation of the scholar's study. It is created forthe scholar's analytic purposes by his imaginative acts of compar-ison and generalization. Religion has no independent existenceapart from the academy, (xi)

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The claim that religion is a recent invention is a vivid way of makingthe point that the word "religion" as now used by scholars has the stip-ulated meaning they have assigned to it, not one determined by somereligious quality inherently present in the data to which the word issupposed to refer. Whether man makes his gods or the gods make manmay still be to some a matter of controversy. There can be no doubt thatit is the scholar who makes "religion."

However, the notion of nominal definitions concerned with wordsrather than things does not alone settle the matter of essential definitions.It is still possible to transfer the category of essence from the thing sig-nified to the signifier and maintain that the nominal definition of a wordhas the purpose of establishing its essential meaning. To this problem wenow turn.

C Essential DefinitionsReal definitions and essential definitions have been associated since

Aristotle's influential discussion of definition as the attempt to specify athing's essence. It is, however, possible to reject the notion that defini-tions are descriptions of things and still to hold that a definition cannotbe arbitrary since it must designate, if not the essential characteristic of athing, then the essential meaning of a term. On the basis of Aristotle'sanalysis, "essence" is taken to be that feature without which a thingwould not be what it is. It is "what the thing is said to be in virtue ofitself"; it designates "something primary" (Meta: 1029b). It takes only alittle linguistic dexterity to transform this formula into the dictum thatthe definition of a word ought to designate the primary or normativemeaning without which the definition will fail to indicate the true senseof the term. Thus Aristotle recommends: "Let a name . . . mean some-thing and have one meaning" (1006b).

There is, of course, no difficulty in assigning by stipulation onemeaning rather than another to a term; but it is not possible to demon-strate that the one selected is the essential meaning of the term in a waythat the rejected options are not. This is so because the notion of a pri-mary or essential feature is unclear. If essential is taken in a loose senseto mean no more than that which is deemed of great importance to theone making the definition, it conforms well enough to the notion thatdefinitions are stipulations made according to the interests of a givenlinguistic community. However, those who seek the primary or essentialmeaning of a term are after something more. They want the essentialaspect of the meaning in the sense of that which necessarily belongs to itand without which its true or normative sense has not been designated.Although the goal at first appears to be a reasonable one, it turns out thatevery attempt to specify such an essence exacerbates the very tangle of


hopeless confusions for which it is offered as a solution; and the solutionitself proves to be elusive and incapable of realization.

The reason for this dilemma is the absence of a norm through which todistinguish essential from nonessential meanings. The usual formulas arenot helpful. The claim that the essence is that without which it would notbe the meaning that it is amounts to no more than the tautology that ifsome other meaning than the one deemed essential were selected, it wouldnot be the same meaning as the first, but a different one. Nor is the situa-tion improved by a momentary return to the stance of real definitions. It istrue that a particular thing would not be exactly the thing that it is if itlacked the feature singled out as essential. But this is also true of the alleg-edly nonessential features it possesses. For example, in the classical tradi-tion it is common to define the essential feature of man as his reason. Butwhy is reason deemed essential in a way that other distinctive features arenot? Man has a mammalian body, an upright position, an opposablethumb. He makes tools, forms intricate symbol systems, lives in an environ-ment of culture as well as nature, has produced great works of art anddevised the scientific method through which to gain reliable knowledge ofthe world. He is capable of strong emotions and disciplined detachment; heis violent and also affectionate; he laughs and weeps, knows that he mustdie, smokes tobacco, and, according to at least one observant author, feels alittle sad after intercourse. How can we distinguish essential from acciden-tal features in such a description? Should a creature with human thought,an insect's body, a lack of emotions and a penchant for tobacco be deemeda human being? Human society might decide to stipulate that such crea-tures shall be deemed "human," but the decision would not depend on anorm distinguishing the essence of humanness from its accidents, sincenone is available.

These remarks are not meant to deny that the notion of essence isstill relevant to the concerns of many contemporary thinkers. Husserl,Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty have in different ways proposedsignificant revisions of the category rather than its unqualified repudia-tion. More recently, Saul Kripke has startled his colleagues with theunexpected recommendation that features usually thought of as contin-gent or accidental truths (e.g., Gold has the atomic number 97; Nixonwon the presidential election in 1968) should be deemed necessary fea-tures without which a particular thing or person would not be (rigidly)identified as the thing or person that it is. However, Kripke's fascinatingapproach to these categories does not support the conventional distinc-tion between essence and accidents, but amounts to a radical transforma-tion of how it has customarily been understood. Some notion of essencemay be defensible, but not the distinction between essence and accident.

Yet many scholars in religious studies continue to make use of it. Forexample, in a conference held at the University of Lancaster in 1972, the


viability of Troeltsh's notion of essence as "the germinative principle"was examined in the context of an attempt to use it as a means to char-acterize religious traditions like Christianity and Buddhism (Pye andMorgan). Unfortunately, the application of Troeltsch's version of essenceturned out to be basically dependent on the untenable distinctionbetween essence and accident. For example, Robert Morgan's papersuggests that the essence of Christianity is "Jesus Christ . . . the manfrom Nazareth . . . apprehended as the revelation of God in the momentof faith" (Pye and Morgan: 65). It is easy enough to show that this themeis central to a great deal of Christian thought; but is it capable of servingas a definition through which the difference between what is and is notChristianity is determined? From a strictly historical point of view arewe willing to say that those Christian thinkers who reject Morgan's "dia-lectical" approach and honor only the man from Nazareth or only theheavenly Christ are not essential Christians? Does not the historical con-nection of the Unitarians to the Christian past bring them within thefield of studies of Christianity even if they now honor only the good,man, or truth?

Karel Werner approaches the essence of Buddhism in the same way.He asks: "How do we know when a new interpretation of Buddhist tradi-tion is a valid one?" He decides that a proper answer requires a set of fourcriteria: liberation, a way of life, transmission of the message to others,responsibility felt towards the world at large. He then shows that thesefeatures are present in Hinayana, Mahayana, Tantra, Zen, Pure Land, andcertain schools in contemporary Japan. He suggests: "If the proposed set ofcriteria proves to be workable in these instances, the title question may beconsidered answered" (Pye and Morgan: 65). But is it? How do we knowthat an exhaustive list of the essential features has been provided? Is eachof the four criteria equally "essential"? Is the stress on responsibility towardthe world as crucial as liberation? Is even liberation crucial to Buddhistconcern in every instance? Further, are not elements distinguishing Zenfrom Pure Land and both from Theravada as important as those that allthree may have in common? A suspicion is aroused that supposedlydescriptive definition of what Buddhism is is in fact a prescription of whatthe author believes Buddhism ought to be. Werner's sketch of the essenceof Buddhism looks very much like an instance of Buddhology, just as Mor-gan's definition of Christianity appears to be a disguised theology.

The furtive presence of the essence-accident distinction can bedetected not only in the proposals still offered by scholars but in the cri-tiques of those proposals offered by the dissatisfied reader, including thecomments made above on the essays by Morgan and Werner. Objectionstend almost inevitably to be of two sorts. The recommendation is faultedbecause it is not inclusive enough or because it is too inclusive. Thus reli-gion as belief in supernatural beings is declared inadequate because it


does not encompass Buddhism, which, although acknowledging the gods,is deemed to have its "essence" in the quest for the release fromsuffering through Nirvana. On the other hand, Buddhism would easilyconform to the notion of religion as "ultimate concern," but thisrecommendation seems to err on the side of a comprehensiveness sogreat that it becomes indeterminate. Since everything from hedonism topolitical fanaticism can be an instance of ultimate concern, it is difficultto see how this notion can designate the distinctive essence of religion.These objections are valid only so long as it is assumed that a definitionmust designate an essence. However, if it is agreed that such anapproach to definition must be abandoned, then this particular critiqueof various well-known proposals pertaining to the definition of religion isno longer viable. Recommendations that religion be defined as belief insupernatural beings or as ultimate concern are not deficient because ofan alleged failure to specify "an essence." Their merit or lack of meritmust rather be judged on the basis of their effectiveness on pursuing theparticular goal indicated by the definition in question and the contextthat clarifies its meaning and intent. This brings us then to the need for amore exact description of the kind of stipulative definitions that mightbe used in religious studies.

D. Open DefinitionsA case for definitions of religion that are nominal and stipulative has

now been presented. Although this is familiar ground, the lack of a thor-oughgoing appropriation of the principles involved among scholars in reli-gious studies has made a review of them necessary. We are now ready tomove into less known territory through an examination of the possibility oflinking the notion of stipulated definitions to concepts of the open textcurrently discussed by philosophers of language and literary critics. Itwould seem that a concept of open definitions formed in the light of thisdebate brings to light four neglected aspects of definition: textuality, con-tingency, ambiguity, and syntagmatic connections. When these are com-bined with the nominal and stipulative aspects already considered, adistinctive account of how definitions can function in a way that is usefulfor the concerns of religious studies will become evident.

The notion of the "open text" is derived mainly from recent discus-sions on the nature of literary language that deem the traditional viewdominating European and American literary theory for several centuriesto be no longer adequate (Scholes). According to the older approach, aliterary work is a closed text whose "meaning" coincides with the imme-diate sense of the aesthetic vehicles composing it. Since this is so, thenorm by which the work is to be interpreted is held to be its own imma-nent structure without reference. To paraphrase Archibald MacLeish,


the function of a literary work is to be itself, not to mean something else.In this vein Murray Krieger observes: "Stubbornly humanistic as Iam . . . I want to remain responsive to the promise of the filled andcentered word, a signifier replete with an inseparable signified which ithas created within itself" (175).

It is a matter of some import that a number of impressive thinkersrepresenting very diverse philosophical approaches and orientations—reader reception criticism (Wolfgang Iser), speech-act philosophy (JohnSearles and Mary Louise Pratt), post-structuralism (Roland Barthes andJacques Derrida), hermeneutics (Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer),pragmatism and language philosophy (Richard Rorty)—should convergeon an approach that undermines the traditional notion of the self-contained literary work by insisting on the open-textured character oflanguage. Emphasis is placed on a gap between signifier and signified(Saussure) that makes the notion of self-contained statements and theworks composed of them untenable. This linguistic break is a result ofthe fact that signs, whether phonemes or lexemes, have no meaning thatinherently belongs to them but only that imposed on them within asemiotic system of differences having its source in human culture ratherthan nature. Derrida has supplemented Saussure's emphasis on the lin-guistic gap between sign and meaning with Charles Peirce's triadicscheme of the art of signification in terms of an initial sign meaning asecond sign that is clarified through an interpretant also made up ofsigns (Peirce). The meaning of this interpretant can then be subjected tothe same process through yet another interpretant. A signified thus playsa dual role: it is both the signified of the signifier that has elicited it andthe signifier of a new stage in the open-ended process of continuousclarification. Signification is in some respects like a room with mirrors onopposing walls; an infinite extension of images is generated by the reflec-tive play between one wall and the other. The example fails, however, tomake clear that in the case of the symbolic process, each meaning is nota mere replication of the last, but an extension and revision into continu-ously different shapes. The process is open-ended both in the sense thatit has no end and in the sense that no limits are placed on the transfor-mations of meaning possible in the movement back and forth again andagain from signifier to signified.

Literary critics like the brilliant Yale contingent (Bloom, de Man,Hartman, and Miller) have used these principles to insist on the opennessof the literary text, by which is meant that the signifiers within the workare determined by a signified that does not, as the older tradition main-tains, coincide with the original text. Perplexed by an interpretation ofany meaning offered us, we can always ask for an intepretation of theinterpretation. Once the meaning of a signifier is questioned, that mean-ing is transformed from signified into a new signifier requiring a further


meaning of its own. But the new interpretation clarifies some uncertain-ties by introducing others, since the new signs remain ambiguous untilthey are in turn defined by a further extension of the same process. As J.Hillis Miller puts it: "The hypothesis of a possible heterogeneity in liter-ary texts is more flexible, more open to a given work, than the assump-tion that a good work of literature is necessarily going to be 'organicallyunified.' The latter presupposition is one of the major factors inhibitingrecognition of the possibly self-subversive complexity of meanings in agiven work" (252).

The gap between signifier and signified is not overcome in speech asopposed to writing (Derrida). In the first place, the basic paradigm ofthe linguistic gap is derived from Saussure's account of the arbitrary con-nection between the signifier as sound image and the signified asconceptual meaning that together comprise the basic unit of humanspeech—the word. Furthermore, oral statements reveal the same gapbetween sign and meaning as do written ones. Finally, there are practi-cal and contingent considerations involved in the fact that the oral voicemust be rendered in some written semiotic form before it can be stud-ied. The anthropologist may be fortunate enough to listen to the wordsof a shaman belonging to an oral society, but all that is available for hisinvestigation are the written signs, whether in the form of brief notes oran extended allegedly verbatim account of what has been uttered. This,incidentally, is also true of scientific discourse as well, which is not basedon immediate observations but on the symbolic rendering of them insome formal language with a precisely determined code. Religious stud-ies is in the same situation. The content that it studies is not religiousexperience, rituals, myths, or beliefs, but their written records; notdreams, but a written account of the meaning of those dreams; not thespeeches of a figure like Moses, but the written version found in theBible; not even one's own introspective experiences, but the notes onehas taken about them. "Everything is a text."

Definitions are a striking instance of this dictum. A definition isnothing more than a brief text initiating an open set of interconnectedtexts providing the linguistic context through which the sense of theword to be defined receives specification and clarification. We havealready seen how Geertz's definition of religion fits this model. By thesame token, the most impressive part of the attempt of Morgan andWerner to establish definitions of Christianity and Buddhism are thecitations and discussions of the concrete texts: the Platform Sutra of Hui-Neng, the Gospels, Udana, Sutta Nipata, Newman's An Essay of theDevelopment of Christianity, etc. But none of these texts offers anessential definition. Thus: "While in Troeltschian terms we may beinvited to distinguish what is contrary to the essence (wesenswidrig) theMahayana seems to say that all items of doctrine are both essential and


dispensable, and that any item of doctrine may be contrary to theessence depending on the attitude of the person concerned. To put itmore provocatively, the provisional (which indicates the real) may bevariously essential, dispensable and harmful, while the provisional andthe real are also identical" (Pye).

Another important aspect of open definitions is their contingentcharacter. Definitions always begin in the middle of things. They notonly initiate a succession of further texts, they are themselves the prod-ucts of texts that have preceded and initiated them. Every definition isnot only a signifier of what follows, it is also the signified of what haspreceded. There is no absolute norm to establish why a scholar shoulddecide through his proposed definition to enter into a maze of interde-pendent texts at one juncture rather than another. In this respect allbeginnings are, as Edward Said has observed, arbitrary. From the stand-point of expectations raised by essential definitions, this can be at firsttroubling. But there is no reason to suppose that the necessary meaningof a word established independently of circumstances would be of anyuse in the investigation of meanings and data that are in fact context-dependent. For example, when the sacred is treated as a closed defini-tion indicating the essence of religion, the familiar difficulties quicklyemerge. The definition lacks specificity and seems to assert a tautology:the sacred is—the sacred, a sui generis phenomenon concerning whichwords can express only a feeling of wordless wonderl But in that case adefinition of religion sought to indicate an avenue for empirical researchhas been transformed into a mystical exclamation. When treated as acontingent definition, the meaning of "sacred" is sought in the paradig-matic texts that make use of the term. For example, the dated part ofOtto's pioneer study of the "holy* is his attempt to establish it as an apriori category. What endures are citations and comments on crucialtexts—Chrysostom, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Bible, Luther, a Quaker bookon silent worship, Ruskin, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Robertson, et al.—inwhich contingent but meaningful connections between "sacred" and"religious" are established.

An open definition is a process of continuous interrogation ratherthan a definitive answer provided in advance of the empirical investiga-tion that it initiates. It is a point of departure, not a conclusion. Each textleads to other texts where other aspects of religion besides that indicatedby the initiating definition are encountered. For example, it is at firstsurprising that an anthropologist like Geertz should offer a definition ofreligion that does not mention ritual. However, a subsequent text makesclear that for Geertz ritual plays a major role in establishing "the longlasting moods and motivations" noted in the definition. Whatever featureis chosen as the starting point, other aspects of religion—ethics, doctrine,meditation—will inevitably emerge in other texts to which the first is


related. In this way the understanding of religion grows more complex,changes, is possibly transformed into an entirely different emphasis as itproceeds. Investigations that proceed from different starting points, i.e.,different initial definitions, will undoubtedly intersect at a point where aparticular text becomes relevant to both. The investigations may thenmove apart to consider other texts according to their diverse goals onlyto converge yet again when their concerns once more coincide. Gradu-ally the joint effort of scholars with their different starting points pro-duces a variegated account of textual relatedness that constitutes theirfield of study.

Another characteristic of open definitions is their indeterminancy orambiguity. Unfortunate connotations in the term "indeterminancy" haveled many critics to deem that there is an issue dividing those who holdthat a statement or text has a determinate meaning and those who holdthat it has no meaning at all or meanings that are inchoate andunformed. But there is no important thinker at present who espouses thelatter. The real issue is between those who hold that statements have asingle meaning that is fully determinate and free of ambiguity and thosewho hold that because of the linguistic gap, statements will always be inthemselves inherently ambiguous (Hirsch and Hans-Georg Gadamer).

Ambiguity does not mean vagueness; it rather indicates the capacityof a sentence or text to convey more than one determinate sense simulta-neously. For example, the phrase "definition of religion" is ambiguousbecause it does not itself convey the norm through which to decide whe-ther the prepositional phrase is an objective or subjective genitive.Within the limits of the phrase alone, the choice between the two possi-bilities is "undecidable." Another text is needed in order to establish anorm on which to base a decision. Thus, the present paper is a text offer-ing reasons for taking it as a subjective genitive ("religion's" verbal defi-nition, not a discourse about religion). However, other ambiguitiesremain in this paper which require norms that have not been provided.The verbs "to determine" and "to establish," for instance, are used herewith great frequency, but without making clear whether they indicatethe act of designating objective determinate features already there or ofcreating those features through the linguistic process that determinesthem. This ambiguity is left standing because the intent of this paper isto consider how definitions clarify the sense of words and not to dealwith the more difficult issues involved in the controversy between lin-guistic "idealists" and "realists."

Although ambiguity pervades all of our statements, this does not pre-clude the possibility of saying what we mean. It does prevent us fromsaying only what we mean. The gap between signifier and signifiedgenerates an inevitable surplus of sense. We always affirm both more,less, and other than we intended, but in these uncertainties lies the


opportunity for the advancement of understanding. Because the linguis-tic gap allows us to say more than we mean, it is possible to transcendour original state of inadequate awareness toward an understanding ofan ever-growing awareness of the rich and often unexpected implica-tions that belong to the symbol systems of our cultural existence. Theopen-ended character of the process of signification is more like an openhorizon than a prison house. It is the basis of an expanding hope, not theboundaries of despair.

The last of the characteristics of open definitions to be discussed hereis the focus on syntagmatic relations (Jacobson). This is perhaps the leastnoted and yet the most important feature that distinguishes open defini-tions from essential ones. Attempts to ascertain the essence of "religion"are based on the assumption that "religion* must indicate a distinctiveset of data determined by some feature that all members of the set sup-posedly possess in common. The rule determining inclusion within theset is based on resemblance to the paradigmatic model. All members ofthe set are related to each other according to identity, similarity, or like-ness based on analogy. The set is an example of what Jacobson calls the

- metaphoric pole of signification.One reason for holding on to an essential definition of religion is that

without a common feature we remain puzzled as to why such diversedata as ritual, myth, belief, meditation, ethics, mysticism, and the like,have been characterized as "religious" and brought together as the con-tent to be investigated by religious studies. But this bewilderment reflectsthe mistaken assumption that all relatedness is based on similarity. Jacob-son points out that linguistic statements are formed out of a selection ofwords from the vertical axis of possible metaphoric substitutions that arethen related to one another along the horizontal axis of syntagmaticconnections. In the latter case the relations are based on contiguityrather than similarity, on metonymic rather than metaphoric connec-tions, as when it is said a lion is a metaphor for the majesty of a king,while the king's crown is a metonym for the same factor.

It is fair to say that until recently religious studies has been bewitchedby metaphoric relations and has accordingly underestimated the impor-tance of metonymic ones. Perhaps one reason for this is that connectionsbased on identity seem subject to a kind of logical rigor and necessity thatthe others lack. However, in a statement like "the cat is on the mat," it is themetonymic connection between cat and mat, not the metaphoric substitu-tions of feline for cat or pad for mat that are crucial. The relation estab-lished by "is on" is arbitrary and contingent; yet for that very reason itconsititutes the assertive thrust of a statement that is truly informative.Metaphorical relations between words give us verbal facility; metonymicconnections add to our knowledge.

The function of open definitions of religion is to produce a rich flow


of metonymic connections between texts. In doing so, the definitions arespecific enough to establish a definite field of discourse that is the prov-ince of religious studies. It is, to be sure, a territory without strict bound-aries, but this is a strength rather than a weakness. For example, there isthe question of secular ideologies like Maoism and Scientism. NinianSmart has rightly insisted that a study of religion that does not includethem is inadequate; yet essential definitions of religion seem to placethem outside the boundaries of what ought to occupy the attention of ascholar in religious studies. An open definition resolves the issue by insist-ing that there are no absolute limits to the texts that a scholar will use inthe process of clarification initiated by his proposal. So called "religious*texts and "secular" texts are equally pertinent to his concerns.

There is also the problem of whether "all religions are one." Blakemay be allowed to say this in a moment of poetic excitement, but at thepresent time the religious scholar is not allowed to affirm it in cold proseor to suggest it as serious hypothesis. Within the perspective of the closedtext, "religion" is the name of a class comprising particular religions. Thetask of the scholar is to establish the uniqueness of each tradition, itsdistinctive center setting it apart from the others. The prime dictum ofthis approach is, "Each thing is what it is and not another thing." Thereis, of course, a measure of truth in this emphasis; if we have to choosebetween "Each thing is the same thing" and "Each thing is not anotherthing," those who want to think more than feel will probably opt for thelatter. But there is a third possibility: "Each thing is what it is through itsconnections with other things." It possesses an identity of its own (as theclosed definition assumes), but this is achieved through the contexts ofdifferences and similarities in which it is set (as the open definitionmakes clear).

The notion of the open text helps to transcend the sterile alternativesbetween a "common core" transforming all religions into one and theuniqueness of each religion as an ultimate factor precluding any meaning-ful interaction between them. If the first assumes too much, the seconddoes not assume enough. At the very least the diverse texts of the world'sreligions are bound together by all sorts of metonymic connection that,while not yielding a common essence, do establish both continuities anddisjunctions, similarities and differences. Those who seek for the unity ofall religions are presumably hoping to find a center, ultimate ground, orcommon core, that will establish all particular religious texts as parts of oneuniversal text centered and perfectly self-contained. On the other hand, itis also possible that the connections between religions will in the end still bedetermined by difference to a greater extent than likeness. Religions willthen be related; they will not be one.

At present, we simply do not know whether the connections among thereligions are determined by a principle of unity or whether they remain in


the end a collection of distinct entities possessing at most family resem-blances to each other. But it would be a serious misunderstanding of thefunction of a definition to expect it to provide an answer to this questionwhich can only be obtained, if at all, at the end of the process of explora-tion. Any open definition of religion sets the scholar on his way. It does notannounce for him the end of his search, if there is an end. The process ofscientific investigation is not a "closed* movement of thought predeter-mined in every detail; it is an open enterprise. Already there have beenmany surprises and there will undoubtedly be many more.

E. Open ConclusionThe linguistic gap has been used to reformulate the customary way of

understanding the function of definition in religious studies. New defini-tions of religion or tradition have not been proposed, but the understandingof definition as something self-contained has been transformed into thenotion of an open process that not only allows but requires connections andclarifications with other texts to achieve specificity.

Once the usefulness of this proposal for religious studies is recog-nized, it becomes clear that what is needed are not new definitions ofreligion but a greater familiarity on the part of scholars with the notionof the open text and the open definition. But the classical notion ofessence dies hard. It is possible to make obeisance to a new paradigmwhile continuing secretly and not so secretly to serve and advance theold. A period of discussion and investigation within the field will berequired before the new model of the "open text" can be appropriatedand used effectively.

No doubt a major difficulty will be a secret hankering for the falsecertainty of Egypt on the part of scholars as they approach the promisedland of free exploration and creative advance. "Open" definitions will besuspected because they fail to establish the scope and boundaries of reli-gious studies as a discipline. But this lack is in fact a virtue. There is nodiscipline from art to physics that knows the absolute boundaries of itsconcern. Sociology, anthropology, psychology have expanded the area oftheir investigations in all sorts of ways beyond the limits established by theearly formulations of their founders. Religious studies will undoubtedlygrow, expand, undergo many transformations in the course of its develop-ment. An open definition is all that a scholar requires, since he needs toknow how to begin, not where he will end. While the notion of a meaningor text that is self-contained in an absolute sense must be rejected, this doesnot mean that the process of signification is without aspects of temporaryclosure. Contradictions and ambiguities within the structure of the closedtext force it open to the clarifications available from other texts outside.However, these extended interpretations do not annul the original text but


rather establish a more firm identity for it within the nexus of hermeneuti-cal connections in which it is now seen to be embedded. Closed and opentexts are not exclusive alternatives but dialectical components that bothdeny and enhance the original meanings even as they are transcended. Toparaphrase a thought of William James, the bird of meaning is in constantflight by means of the verbs of discourse that indicate a process of continu-ous transformation interrupted by perches on the nouns of discourse thatestablish points of momentary closure. Texts are closed and open, determi-nate and indeterminate.

Closed definitions are static affairs that support what is alreadyknown and can be expected to be known in the future. Open definitionsare dynamic instruments that uncover a path leading to regions of unex-pected insight. The first is a well-traveled road. The discipline of reli-gious studies would be well-advised to take the second way and prepareitself by methodological reflections of the land suggested in this paperfor a creative advance into the unknown.

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A HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH by WflHston WalkerFourth EditionRevised by Richard A. Nonis. David VV.Lotx, Robert T. Handyof Union Theological SeminaryWilltaton Walkers classic one-volume treatment of church history from thefirst century to the twentieth has been extonstvety revised In light of newhistorical research and methodotogica] chanoes that have led to discoveriesand fresh lnteiptetation» of the vartou» periods of church history The resultIs an updated history which preearvei the tenor ol Walkers original, out-standing text, along with his rate corobinatiQn of directness, competence,and balance. The revise™ have redesigned and updated the bfbUography,rymMng it an extjemety thorough and valuable source for students.March 1988 660peges dothbound

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