1. Religion, if you consider the etymon of the word, is taken chiefly in three ways. For - 1) Lactantius (Divine Institutes, book 4, chapter 28) derives the name of religion from religando, “binding again”; because it is proper to religion to bind men anew, through knowledge and love, to the Supreme Divinity, to whom they are already bound by dependence, whether with respect to being or with respect to the other goods received from Him. “By this bond of piety,” he says, “we are bound and tied again to God; whence religion itself received its name.” - 2) Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods, book 2, chapter 28) derives that name from relegendo, “reading over again”; because it belongs to a religious man often and repeatedly to meditate upon, and to turn over in his heart, the things which pertain to God and His worship, as though by reading them again on repeated occasions. Lactantius rejects this Ciceronian etymon; for, immediately after the words cited, he adds: “not, as Cicero interprets it, from relegendo.” - 3) Augustine (City of God, book 10, chapter 4) judges that the name religion arose from religendo, “choosing again,” because men strive through religion to acquire again God, whom they lost through sin. Nevertheless, the common etymon of Lactantius is strongly approved, which St. Augustine himself used (On True Religion, final chapter), when he said: “Let religion bind us again to the one omnipotent God.”
2. With respect to the thing itself also, religion does not have only one signification. For sometimes it is taken broadly; and then, as St. Augustine observes (City of God, book 10, chapter 1), “according to the Latin usage of speaking, not of the unskilled only, but also of the most learned, religion is said to be owed to human relationships of kinship, affinity, and any sort of close connections.” Hence there is religion toward parents, friends, superiors, and so forth; compare Forcellini, who in his lexicon enumerates fourteen different acceptations of religion, and illustrates all of them with examples from approved authors.
3. But if religion is taken strictly, as is agreed among authors both pagan and Christian, it expresses an order only to God. Hence St. Thomas (II-II, q. 81, a. 1) first repeats and approves the saying of Tully: “religion is the virtue which offers ceremony and worship to a certain superior nature, which they call divine”; and then, after reporting the various etymologies of religion, he concludes: “whether religion is said from frequent re-reading, or from the repeated choosing of that which was negligently lost, or whether it is said from binding again, religion properly imports order to God. For He is the one to whom we ought principally to be bound as to an unfailing principle, to whom also our choice ought continually to be directed as to the ultimate end; Him also, by neglecting through sin, we lose, and by believing and professing the faith we ought to recover.”
4. Nor is it an objection that it is read in James 1:27: “Religion clean and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their tribulation, and to keep oneself unstained from this world.” This, I say, is not an objection; for, as St. Thomas observes in the same place, reply to the first objection: “Religion has two kinds of acts: certain acts proper and immediate, which it elicits, through which man is ordered to God alone, such as sacrificing, adoring, and other things of this sort; but it has other acts which it produces by means of the virtues over which it commands, ordering them to divine reverence, because, namely, the virtue to which the end belongs commands the virtues to which belong the things that are for the end. And according to this, visiting orphans and widows in their tribulation is posited as an act of religion by way of command, though it is an act elicited by mercy. But to keep oneself unstained from this world belongs to religion commandingly, while elicitingly it belongs to temperance or to some virtue of this sort.”
5. Therefore, whether the etymological account or the common acceptation is considered, religion expresses a certain bond joining man to God; and therefore its essence cannot be better known than by a perfect understanding of that same bond. In truth, although between God and man there is an infinite distance, nevertheless man is joined to God by the closest bond. For just as man cannot exist without God, so, once he exists, he cannot be ordered to any other than God Himself as to the ultimate end, and he must necessarily be subject to Him.
6. Hence a twofold bond joining man to God can be distinguished: one physical, the other moral. The first consists in the physical relation by which all creatures, rational as well as lacking reason, depend upon their Creator and governor. The other, however, consists in this: that creatures endowed with reason and freedom are subject to God as to their ultimate end, to their holy Lawgiver, and to their just judge. Religion properly consists in this moral bond. Now anyone sees that this relation of man to God rests upon truths to be known by the intellect, and is completed in duties freely to be fulfilled. And from this arises the distinction of religion into theoretical and practical, which ought to be regarded not as two religions, but as two parts of one true and integral religion. The sum of truths which clearly and accurately determine the relations between God and men is called theoretical religion; the sum of duties which are deduced from the aforesaid relations and are prescribed to be fulfilled is called practical religion.
7. From these things it is not at all difficult to gather the true definition of religion. Yet, in order that it may be proposed more clearly, in accordance with the received custom- (1) From these things it is already plainly evident that materialists and fatalists overturn religion from its foundations, although they misuse the name of religion. For even though “all agents must act for an end… nevertheless,” says St. Thomas (I-II, q. 1, a. 2), “it must be considered that something tends by its action or motion to an end in two ways. In one way, as moving itself to the end, as man does. In another way, as moved by another to the end; as an arrow tends to a determinate end from this, that it is moved by the archer, who directs his action to the end. Therefore those things which have reason move themselves to the end, because they have dominion over their acts through free choice, which is a faculty of will and reason. But those things which lack reason tend to the end through natural inclination, as though moved by another, but not by themselves, since they do not know the account of the end… And therefore it is proper to rational nature that it tend to the end as though acting itself, or leading itself, to the end; but to irrational nature, as though acted upon or led by another, whether to an apprehended end, as brute animals are, or to an end not apprehended, as those things which entirely lack cognition.” following the received custom, we say that religion can be considered objectively, according as it is in itself; and subjectively, according as it resides in the man who professes it. Taken objectively, religion is “the sum of truths and duties determining the moral relations between God and men.” Subjectively, religion is “a virtue residing in a man both acknowledging and fulfilling those relations; or it is the very adherence to the aforesaid truths, and the performance of the aforesaid duties.”
8. Hence religion taken generally extends more broadly than religion as it is some special virtue. For the former includes all truths and duties which in any way tend toward the service of God; but the latter is “a moral virtue inclining man to render due worship and honor to God on account of His excellence.” By this definition the formal object of this virtue is clearly expressed; whence St. Thomas (II-II, q. 81, a. 4) says: “Since virtue is ordered to the good, where there is a special account of good, there must be a special virtue. But the good to which religion is ordered is to render due honor to God. Now honor is owed to someone by reason of excellence. But to God there belongs a singular excellence, inasmuch as He transcends all things infinitely according to every mode of excess. Hence special honor is owed to Him. Just as in human affairs we see that different honor is owed to different excellences of persons: one honor, indeed, to a father, another to a king, and so with others.”
9. And to this point return the other definitions of religion which are customarily brought forward. Thus, for example, St. Augustine (City of God, book 10, chapter 1) defines religion as the worship of God. This definition, however, if it is restricted to true religion, can rightly be expressed in these words: “The due worship of the true God.” This St. Thomas embraced when he said: “Religion is the virtue by which due honor and worship are rendered to the true God.” For every worship either exhibited to the true God in an undue manner, or exhibited to one who is not the true God, must be judged not religious but superstitious; for true religion requires both the due manner and the due object. Others define religion as “man’s free dependence upon God”; for since this dependence is the chief duty of man toward God, containing all other duties in itself, and necessarily supposing the truths concerning God as existing, creating, and so forth, upon which it is founded, it includes religion both practical and theoretical; and therefore this definition agrees very well with the other handed down by us.
10. Concerning the divisions of religion, it will be enough to indicate the principal ones. Religion is usually divided - 1) into true and false. True religion is that which has a true estimation and faith concerning God, and exhibits to Him true and legitimate worship; and it can be defined: “The certain rule and manner of worshiping God, by virtue of which we can please Him in this life and attain eternal happiness in the next.” False religion is to be called that which teaches false things concerning God, or pays Him adulterated worship. - 2) Religion is divided into natural and revealed. Natural religion is that which reason alone, left to itself, is fitted to dictate, and to which nature inclines; or it is the collection of principles and duties pertaining to the worship of God, insofar as they can become known by natural light and can be physically fulfilled by natural power. Revealed religion is that which rests upon, and becomes known by, an extraordinary and supernatural, or non-owed, manifestation of God. This, however, is supernatural simply, namely even with respect to the object, if the object itself exceeds the powers of created intellect and the exigency of human nature; but it is supernatural only in a certain respect, if the manner in which the object is manifested is non-owed, but not the object itself. In this second sense, natural religion in fact is also supernatural; for although it could be known by a natural means, nevertheless, the matter considered historically, it was not discovered from the beginning through a natural means, but was manifested by God through revelation. Hence, historically speaking, and by reason of the means, religion is only one, namely supernatural; and this, on account of the diversity of objects which it includes, is distinguished into natural, positive, and simply supernatural religion. 3) True revealed religion, according to its different epochs and states, is divided into the primitive religion, which was given to Adam and the Patriarchs; the Jewish, which was given by God through Moses to the Jews; and the Christian, which was manifested by God through Jesus Christ to the whole human race.
11. From the given notion of true religion, certain false opinions of some men can at once be rejected. And I. The pseudomystics reject every speculative religion, asserting that it consists essentially in the bare and simple practice of exterior works. This error is not new, but was already flourishing in the age of St. Augustine among the pagans, who kept saying: What does it matter to us to believe? It is enough to act well. Namely, they separated knowledge from works, theoretical religion from practical religion, and they judged that anyone, even if he thought badly concerning the truth, could attain salvation. This error, however, was renewed among the Protestants; for since each of their sects boasted that it possessed the true doctrine of Christ, and for that reason almost innumerable questions and dissensions arose among them, while there was no authority capable of defining the matter, some thought to put an end to disputes of this sort by locating the essence of religion in good exterior works, pronouncing and inquiring nothing as to whether the truth existed rather with this sect than with that one. This error was then strengthened by that absurd philosophy which admits no objective theoretical truth. God Himself exists insofar as He is apprehended as existing; concerning Him, however, nothing certain is held as to whether He truly exists outside the mind or not. Consequently, religion too has no objective or dogmatic part, but only a practical part.
12. But indeed, how far this opinion departs from the truth anyone sees for himself. For - 1) either the matter is being dealt with among those who acknowledge the fact of revelation; and these indeed cannot reject theoretical religion unless they transgress the first duty of religion, namely by refusing faith to God speaking; besides, they cannot preserve the law revealed by God, and compose their life according to the norm of revelation, unless they adhere in mind to the revealed precepts and truths. Or the matter is being dealt with among those who admit only natural religion; and these also cannot rightly arrange their life and worship God practically unless they know the end to which they are ordered, the means to that end, the law which they are to keep, and so forth. But these and similar things are so many truths pertaining to natural religion. 2) Surely the worship exhibited to God by exterior operations principally implies that the will, following the good in those operations, be rightly ordered to God. But the will cannot embrace the good unless it has been known beforehand; nor will man act rightly unless he completes in deed that which the intellect dictates to be good. Therefore practical religion supposes and necessarily includes religious doctrine itself. 3) Hence all who are not willingly blind have seen that moral science supposes metaphysics and rests upon it. Suppose, for example, that you deny that God exists, that He is Creator and supreme Lord, that we are endowed with freedom, that the soul is immortal, and the other things of this sort: how will God be able to be worshiped, free dependence upon Him to be exercised - in a word, practical religion to be observed?
13. Nor II. is the opinion of those men less absurd who place religion “in immediate consciousness, or in a certain spiritual sense of absolute dependence upon God.” For 1) the feelings of a religious soul presuppose knowledge of the truths pertaining to religion, by which they are aroused. If they are feelings of joy and gratitude, they prerequire the idea of a benefit received, of the existence of some being from whom it is received, and of man’s dependence upon that being. Likewise, if the feelings are those of sadness, these arise from the apprehension of a future evil, either namely from fear of God the avenger, or from the very evil which is already tormenting. But how can the essence of religion be constituted in feelings of this sort? Unless you hold in mind that God exists, that He is the giver of good things, and that the same God, according to His justice, repays rewards to the good and punishments to the evil, you will not conceive those feelings of gratitude or sadness. 2) Religion is man’s free dependence upon God. But feeling is not free; for it is not in our power, once the object has been proposed, that feelings not arise from the intuition of the true, the good, and the beautiful. The impious man sometimes admires virtue, even if speculatively he may seem to deny it, namely by denying that good is distinguished from evil.
14. III. We pass over in silence - 1) the opinion of the materialists, who constitute religion in a certain material sense, taking its origin from the impression of sensible things, and which they call the religious instinct: where spirit, intellect, and will are lacking, as we have warned, a moral bond is impossible. - 2) The opinion of the pantheists, who say that religion consists in the sense of the infinite: for whatever formula they employ, since they deny a personal God really distinct from man, they cannot admit man’s true dependence upon God, or true religion. 3) The opinions of those who seem to admit religion only by an abuse of words; in reality, however, they utterly destroy it. Thus Renan says that religion is “an aspiration toward an ideal world,” and that God is “a category of the ideal.” Let him who can understand, understand. All these opinions, and others of this sort, are so evidently absurd that we would waste time in vain if we delayed in their refutation. 8 DISP. I. ON RELIGION IN GENERAL.