The Reanalysis of Peter Berger's Approach to Understanding Religion

Berger uses the term "dual citizenship" to define his approach to the study of religion. A dual citizen is one who can simultaneously do a theological activity and consider him/herself as belonging to the researcher citizens. The present paper tries to demonstrate the components based on which Berger could study religion by means of two approaches each of which has different methods and subjects, i.e. sociology and theology. First, the interrelated structures of inner-knowledge showed Berger that man can make use of his different mental structures in dealing with the phenomena, provided that the regulations of each structure are observed. Then the suspension contributes to his acquaintance with the regulations of approach of sociology. Finally, the nature of shades of meaning of man shows him empirical approaches, especially the approach of sociology, cannot make the last judgment on religion. Although some theories of the human sciences consider religion as the product of human mind, Berger believes that these very theories are, according to sociology of knowledge, subject to such criticism,. Therefore, Berger does his theological activities apart from the results of sociological research.