by Dr. Michael Smith

Created on: February 07, 2009

Emile Durkheim's purpose in his Elemental Forms of Religious Life was to understand the religious nature of man, and to do this, he takes us to the earliest, most primitive tribes of Australia, believing they represented the most rudimentary elements of religion.

In this untouched setting Durkheim hopes to expose the traits common to the religious nature of man. If, as he contends, these traits are universal, then it is expected that they would be present in some form in the common religions of the world. As we consider the basic tenets of Durkheim's thesis, we will also examine Judaism in its early stages, as communicated by the Bible[1], to see if indeed the proposals of Durkheim are present in this ancient system of faith.

The basis of a religious system

Durkheim takes an opposite approach to the study of religion than that pursued by many sociologists. While many study primitive religions to discredit modern expressions of belief, he rejects this hostility as counter productive, and prejudicial to the scientific understanding of religion, and contends, unlike Marx who disbelieved in its effacy, that religion is a reality and fulfilled a real need in the heart and mind of humanity.

He defines a primitive religion as one that is found in society, in which no earlier religion can be used to define it, and is present in the simplest form that can be found. His basic premise is that for religion to exist it must be important to society, because if not, either society would not exist, or they would abandon its use. The existence of religion in a society is then an expression of reality, and while the expressions used may seem strange, none the less, we can go beneath those expressions to discover the reality expressed. He seeks a "concrete reality that historical and ethnographical observation alone can reveal to us."[1] Using primitive religions allow us to isolate the constituent elements of religion.

Durkheim's first problem is to define religion. While the task appears simple, arriving at a definition that does not reflect religious bias on our part is difficult. First, we must understand a basic premise of religious phenomena, which is the realization that these phenomena fall into two categories: beliefs and rites.

Inherent in the concept of beliefs is the distinction between that which is profane and that which is sacred. Sacred things are those objects and beliefs, protected and isolated by prohibitions, while profane things must be kept separate from that

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