Where does sacrum exist?

Abstract

The author of the article begins with the remark that in the second half of the nineteenth century the European researchers identified the multiplicity and diversity of religions in the world. For some of them it was an argument for the validity of the atheistic attitude — every nation constructs gods and the cult owed to them according to its tradition and culture, so that there was no true religion. But another part of the researchers treated this diversity as a challenge to the human intellect. They looked for the common in the aforementioned diversity. As a result, it was concluded that the common and the most important in religions is sacrum.

In the second part of the article, the author explores how to understand the stances of three outstanding researchers on religion: Émile Durkheim, Nathan Söderblom and Józef Tischner. The analysis of the works by Émile Durkheim shows that for the French thinker, sacrum is what stands above reality and ordinariness of everyday life. So, sacrum understood in this way is a base on which religious life is built. For Nathan Söderblom, sacrum was a name common for God in prophetic religions and for the Principle of the Universe in religions of the Far East. Tischner, in turn, said that sacrum is not the most important in Christianity. The primary aim of the religion is to become good in the moral sense of the word. A good man is a saint, i.e. sanctum.

In conclusion the author states that the category of sacrum was an important and interesting attempt to find what is common in all religions. After a careful look at the views of those three researchers mentioned above and influential in the area of knowledge of religion we may state that each of them understands sacrum in a different way. So, we need to look further on for what is common in religions.