The Explanation and Its Models in Religious Study

The ultimate goal of science is to predict the future and predicting is impossible without explanation. The scientific explanation is the expression of causes of a phenomenon in the light of a scientific law. Explanation in the humanities is a widespread and challenging issue and many theories have been put forward. The most prominent explanatory strategies in the humanities are naturalism and anti-naturalism, which have produced three causal, reasoning, and interpretative paradigms. The purpose of the present study is to criticize each of the models in religious studies and to design and redefine a new model for explication in religious studies. The basic strategy in explaining religious phenomena is methodological pluralism, which requires us to distinguish between the three concepts of paradigms, approaches, and methods in the study of religion. The relationship between the three is interactional. The explanation is a method used as a tool for measuring and evaluating hypotheses. The explanation of religious phenomena varies depending on the utilized approach. Our approach to the study of religion determines our model of explanation. Accordingly, the theological approaches are divided into the three categories of explanation-seeking, reason-seeking, and interpretation-seeking. The appropriate paradigm must be in synergy with the approach, and method, and state the cause. Religious issues are multidisciplinary and can be studied in different paradigms with many different approaches and methods. Thus, the three causal, discursive, and interpretive patterns in the religion do not have the same dignity and change depending on our approach. Our approaches to the study of religious phenomena determine the appropriate pattern of explanation. Religious research in the explanation-seeking approach seeks to explain the religious behavior causally and therefore the explanations are empirical. In the reason-seeking approach, an attempt is made to  seek to reason and understand religious behavior rather than to model religious beliefs and propositions. Finally, in the interpretation-seeking approach, theology seeks to interpret religious phenomena and to understand the behavior of the religion. A researcher needs all three models in religious studies and the use of all three is instructive and effective, provided they engage and cooperate with a pluralistic strategy. The pluralistic explanation is a better and more modeled approach to religious phenomena, which means accepting and benefiting from various approaches to understanding and articulating why religious phenomena occur.