A Comparative Study of Methodological Principles in Social Theology and Sociology of Religion with an Emphasis on Functionalism

Social theology is one of the areas of study within social thoughts of Islam and a branch of Islamic social theology describing the doctrine of faith and religious perspectives concerning social issues. The most important methodological principles of social theology include: evaluation of historical validity، realism and meaningfulness، hermeneutic validity، methodology of Ijtihad، and inference of knowledge. On the other hand، methodological principles of sociology of religion، in understanding the subject and achieving the goal in the paradigm division، can be divided into three proven، interpretative، and critical groups. Functional explanation is from explanations of proven methods which is based upon two principles of holism and utilitarianism including characteristics such as putting emphasis on objects’ utility، rejection of the metaphysical criteria and relativism. On the contrary، functional logic of the social theology is a modern functional logic concentrating on religious teachings without characteristics of functional explanation of the sociology of religion and its secularizing consequences. Avoiding independent consideration to mundane functions of religion and priority of the truth to function are the most important instruments in differentiating the speakers’ functional logic from functional explanation of sociology of religion.