What is Religion?

What, then, is Religion? Religion is the close and living relationship, the dependence upon, and communion of man with God. It is a deep respect, a holy fear, which one feels before the Most High and Almighty, a feeling of relationship and a strong attraction to Him. To put it more simply, Religion is the natural and perfect, the whole-hearted turning and dedication of man to God, so that man feels and confesses with this attraction of his towards God, that without God he cannot live, he cannot be happy, he cannot be content or at peace. But let us analyze this further.

Man’s logic, which seeks to discover the reason for the world’s existence, is forced to admit and acknowledge that God is its creator. Man’s inner desire to enjoy eternal happiness and bliss seeks the unending source of blessedness and finds it in God, Who is infinite and perfect. And when man’s conscience creates an inner turmoil within him, he senses that he has violated not only the moral law which innately exists within him, but also the God-given law of the Supreme Law-giver; thus he tries in every way to appease and placate Him. In this way, all men, civilized or not, acknowledge, besides those things which they perceive about them, the existence of God, Who is invisible and yet everywhere present.

This idea of God - regardless how unenlightened or imperfect it may be among idolaters and non-Christians, or how majestic and mysterious it may be among Christians - constitutes the heart which gives life to mankind through belief in Him, just as man’s body is vivified through the heart’s warm and pulsating blood. Just as no living organism can exist without a heart, so no people (or even isolated individuals) can exist without believing in God, without religion. Of course we Christians have a very special and privileged position as far as religion is concerned, because we believe in the one and only true God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The Prophet David is a living example of what we mean. He turned his gaze and his soul to God and said: “As the heart earnestly desires the fountains of water, so my soul earnestly longs for thee, O God. My soul has thirsted for the living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God?” (Psalm 41,3). These words of the Prophet show that religion is a very deep and strong desire: man’s desire for God. It is the unending and unquenchable thirst of man’s soul for its Maker and Creator. It is man’s inner compelling urge to communicate, for all matters in his life, with God the Heavenly Father, and to seek from Him the solutions to his problems. Blessed Augustine, addressing himself to God, says something quite similar to that of the Prophet David: “O God, you created us for Yourself and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee”. With these words blessed Augustine manifested and underlined the deep religiousness of his soul.

What is the source and root of this religious tendency and phenomenon that we call Religion? This question is a natural one which any one could ask. Here is the answer: Religious emotions and feelings are something innate in man, planted there, in his soul, by a Higher and eternal Power. In other words, it is something natural to him, deeply rooted within him and indelible. No one can root it out of him, destroy it or make man irreligious. In saying this we emphasize that religion is as old as man himself. As soon as man appeared upon the earth he immediately revealed his religiousness. His first turning was towards God, his first search was for God. His first act and expression were religious in nature. He immediately sought out God in order to satisfy his desires and to find rest in Him. Thus, we can well say - nay, rather we are compelled to say - that man’s religious feeling has been planted in him by God. God, when creating man, placed this religious emotion in him and bestowed upon this emotion the strongest and most compelling of drives. The result is that man appears throughout all the manifestations of his life as a completely religious being. In order to understand this better we point out that in man’s soul the idea, the thought and the name of God are predominant; man expresses this idea of his through prayer, worship and with offerings to God, through vows and sacrifices, through obedience and submission to Him, and to His will. All these things prove and witness to the fact that man by nature is religious: that he is created to be religious and that without religion he would not be able to live life as he should.

Concerning this innate religiousness in man St. John Chrysostom says: “From the very beginning God planted in man the knowledge of Himself”, i.e. from the very moment God created man, He placed in him a desire and longing to know and to unite with Him. Man then is rightly called “a religious being” and “a heavenly plant”.

Religion has a lofty, holy and salutary purpose: that man, small, corruptible, weak and sinful, may, through it, achieve full and complete union with God, and through this union attain to personal happiness and blessedness, - indeed, to achieve theosis, to become God by grace, as our Christian faith teaches us. And thus, though man’s soul is already endowed by God’s grace with immortality, he now achieves eternal blessedness. He becomes blessed in and through God. But let us expound this a bit further in order to make it clearer.

Man is neither self-created nor independent. He is neither self-sufficient nor self-sustaining. Rather, man is a creature, part of God’s creation, a dependent being - dependent upon God, the all-perfect Being, Who gave him his existence and life. Furthermore, man has many needs, both material and spiritual. It is impossible for him to live by himself and to progress as he desires and wishes. This is verified daily by his many and great weaknesses and needs. He needs help from without and especially from above, from Heaven. Indeed, keeping in mind that man is not only an infinitesimal and weak creature within this great world and boundless universe, and that he is a sinner as well, full of passions and evil, and hence ever falling, tormented by pangs of conscience, with inner disappointments and frustrations, we can readily understand how great and indispensable a need man has for his Almighty and merciful God. It is in God, then, that we find the benevolent purpose of Religion and in Him alone is Religion’s goal fulfilled. Religion joins man to God and makes him closely dependent upon God. Man derives strength, aid, material and spiritual benefaction, remission of sins, peace, mercy and salvation from God. And then man, even the most evil and most wretched of men, by living near God, derives from Him his happiness and joy. This is the purpose of Religion. It thus becomes apparent that man can not do without Religion.

What does this mean? It means that all men, of every generation, of every age and race, from the very first man to the very last, all had and possessed Religion. Of course their religions differed from each other. But the important thing is that they all had and have a religion. Man’s religiousness was never an isolated or a passing phenomenon, something that appears for a moment and disappears like a falling star. It was and is a general and universal phenomenon among all men. Regardless of where one finds himself, regardless of what race and generation one may wish to examine, he will discover religious expressions and manifestations even amongst the most uncivilized people.

Certain scientists who studied savage tribes living in the heart of Asia and Africa maintain that they came upon people and even entire tribes without religion. They were mistaken, however, in their observations. How? The aborigines took the Europeans to be impious and Godless; hence they hid their sacred symbols and religious ceremonies and other manifestations lest they be defiled by them. Later these same scientists were forced to admit that this was the case, and that nowhere did they come across, nor does there exist, a man or a race of men without religion, but that all the races of men, civilized or not, have their religion. Religion is thus a general and universal phenomenon, embracing all men. But one may ask: “Aren’t there any unbelievers or atheists at all”. Yes, its quite possible that there are such people, but they constitute an exception. Then again these atheists appear for only a short while; when everything is going well for them. But when they are beset by troubles and afflictions, when trials and set-backs fall upon them, then they become faithful and believers; they fall on their knees to pray and to ask God to help and protect them.

As we all know, all men do not have the same religion. There are many and varied religions. Indeed, there should by right exist but one religion, since there is but one true God, Who created all men and implanted within them the same religious tendency. But from the time man disobeyed God’s commandment and fell into sin, his mind was darkened and his heart corrupted, and, worst of all, he was deceived by the prince of evil, the Devil, and was led away from the one true God, Who had fashioned him and had bestowed upon him His blessings. This God he denied: he turned towards God’s creatures and His creation, and worshipped them and not their Creator. Thus he fell away from Monotheism into polytheism and idolatry. Instead of worshipping the one true God, he worshipped many false gods. One may ask, “Where did he discover these gods?” Quite simply: man, now corrupted and darkened by the fall, imagined them: he created them with his darkened mind; he created them to conform with his opinions and bestowed upon them all his weaknesses, all his passions and all his short-comings. Thus he deified and worshipped the stars in the sky and many of the animals on earth. He conjured up and concocted gods and goddesses, he made idols of them and worshipped and even sacrificed his children to them. And man lived in polytheism and idolatry for thousands of years.

But within this world-wide idolatry just described, there were individuals and people who held on to their faith in the one true God, like Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; like Job and the people descended from these God-fearing men. Such a people was Israel: the Jewish people, who besides the traditional religious legacy handed down by its fathers, also received revelation from God Himself. The Jewish people were the only people in antiquity who believed and worshipped the one true God, even though they did not worship Him as they should have, since the revelation imparted to them was only partial and not complete. Thus it is, then, that we have monotheistic religions like Judaism and Islam, and polytheistic or pagan religions, natural religions which have their roots in man’s innate religious instinct.

We also have revealed or Apocalyptic religions, such as Judaism and Christianity, the latter being the only true religion, since only it possesses God’s perfect and complete revelation.