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Course 21 · Lesson 7.1

What the theologians mean by superstition, and why the line is hard to draw

10 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 21 outline

Module 1: The Theology of Worship

  1. What liturgy is: the word, the idea and the debate
  2. Worship in the Old and New Testaments
  3. Praying and believing: how worship shapes doctrine and doctrine shapes worship
  4. Word, sacrament and sign across the traditions

Module 2: How Christian Liturgy Developed

  1. The earliest descriptions: the Didache, Justin Martyr and the early church orders
  2. The liturgical families of East and West
  3. The Reformation and the revision of worship
  4. Liturgical renewal in the twentieth century

Module 3: The Christian Year: Calendars, Feasts and Fasts

  1. Sunday, the week and the hours of the day
  2. Easter, Holy Week and the dispute over the date
  3. Advent, Christmas and Epiphany
  4. Lent, the Orthodox fasting seasons and Protestant approaches to fasting
  5. Saints days and the second cycle of the calendar

Module 4: Sacred Space and Sacred Images

  1. From house church to basilica: the development of church buildings
  2. The meaning of church buildings: altar, table, orientation and the Orthodox and Gothic examples
  3. Icons and the Incarnation: John of Damascus and the Second Council of Nicaea
  4. Images and the Reformation: Lutheran, Reformed and Anglican approaches

Module 5: Material Signs: Incense, Water, Oil and Blessings

  1. Incense: Scripture, temple worship and its use in the churches
  2. Water: baptism, the renewal of baptismal vows and holy water
  3. Oil: anointing of the sick, chrismation, confirmation and ordination
  4. Blessings: what the church means when it blesses a person, a house or an object
  5. Sacraments and sacramentals: the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant vocabulary

Module 6: Popular Piety and Devotional Practice

  1. What popular piety is, and why scholars take it seriously
  2. Pilgrimage, relics, medals and pious objects
  3. The rosary, the Stations of the Cross, litanies and akathists
  4. How the churches have regulated and corrected popular devotion

Module 7: Telling Tradition from Superstition

  1. What the theologians mean by superstition, and why the line is hard to draw
  2. A method: source, date, doctrine, authority and consequence
  3. Case studies: apocryphal legends, magical formulas and invented history
  4. Honesty and respect in judging other people’s devotion

All courses

Program / Course 21: Liturgical Theology / Lesson 7.1

What you will learn

  • Trace how the word superstition was used in Roman and Christian writing.
  • State Thomas Aquinas’s definition and the Catholic Catechism’s account of superstition, divination and magic.
  • Explain how the charge of superstition has been used between Christians and why that makes it a difficult word.
  • Describe a working definition that can be applied fairly across traditions.

The big idea

Superstition is a word that everyone uses and few define. In Roman writers it meant an excessive or foreign religion. For Christian theologians such as Thomas Aquinas it means a wrong form of religion: giving divine honor to what is not God, or worshiping God in a wrong way, or seeking by rites what only God can give. The line is hard to draw because Christians have accused one another of superstition, and because sincere devotion can look like it to outsiders. A fair definition looks at doctrine and intent, not just at what looks strange.

Key terms

Superstition
In theology, a vice opposed to true religion, either by giving divine worship to what is not God, or by trusting a rite or object to produce effects by itself.
Magic
The attempt to obtain effects by rites or formulas that are thought to work automatically, apart from God’s free will.
Divination
Trying to learn hidden things or the future by means other than God’s revelation, such as fortune-telling, omens or horoscopes.
Idolatry
Giving to a creature the honor or trust due to God alone.
Irreligion
A failure of due honor to God, such as tempting God or sacrilege.
Vain observance
Aquinas’s term for a practice that has no natural or divine basis for its supposed effect.
Deisidaimonia
A Greek word, translated in Acts 17:22 as too superstitious, which can mean either religious or excessively fearful of divine powers.

Background

The Latin word superstitio first meant something like excess or a mistaken fear of the gods. Cicero connected it to those who prayed and sacrificed all day so that their children would survive them. Roman writers used it for foreign cults that they thought were fanatical, and Tacitus and Pliny applied it to Christianity, calling it a depraved superstition. Plutarch wrote an essay on the Greek equivalent, which he treated as a dread of the gods, as bad as atheism. In Acts 17:22 Paul says to the Athenians that they are in all things very religious, and the Greek word can be taken as either too religious or reverent of divine powers.

Christians took the word and turned it against their rivals. Augustine used it for pagan rites, and the church condemned divination, charms and amulets in many councils. In the Reformation each side accused the other. Protestants called Catholic devotion superstition, and Catholics used the same word for popular Protestant practices, such as reading signs in events.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Aquinas’s account

In the Summa Theologiae (II-II, question 92) Thomas Aquinas defines religion as a virtue that gives God due worship, and superstition as a vice opposed to it by excess, not because it gives too much to God but because it gives worship to the wrong object or in the wrong way. He lists kinds: worship of the true God in an improper manner, idolatry, divination and vain observances. He holds that divination, such as astrology used to foretell free acts, or invoking demons for knowledge, is a serious sin, and that vain observances rely on forms that have no natural or divine power. The reasoning gives a framework that does not simply label unfamiliar customs.

Step 2: The Catechism

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraphs 2110 to 2117) treats superstition as a deviation of religious feeling, which can attack the first commandment. It says that superstition can affect worship given to the true God, for instance when importance is attached to certain prayers or sacramental signs apart from the interior dispositions that they demand. It also condemns divination, such as recourse to Satan, horoscopes, astrology and mediums, and magic that seeks to tame occult powers. It treats irreligion, for example tempting God, as a separate fault. The text thus distinguishes superstition from things that look similar, such as devout custom.

Step 3: Orthodox and Protestant views

Orthodox teaching condemns magic, charms and fortune-telling in the canons and in pastoral practice, and warns against treating the sacraments or icons as automatic. The Westminster Larger Catechism (question 109) forbids superstitious devices, and Reformed writers saw in the medieval Mass and in relics examples of superstition. Lutherans likewise criticized trust in works and ceremonies. For many evangelicals, superstition includes practices such as horoscopes, lucky charms, tarot, occult games and, in some traditions, the use of objects such as prayer cloths with promised results. Each tradition defines superstition by its own account of true worship, which makes the word somewhat circular.

Step 4: Why the line is hard

Four reasons stand out. First, the same outward act can have different meanings: a person who wears a medal as a prompt to prayer and a person who thinks it works as a charm do the same thing. Second, churches disagree about which practices are valid, so the word becomes a weapon. Third, scholars of religion, from Keith Thomas on, have shown that the boundary between religion and magic was always fluid and that the word is often used by the powerful against the weak. Fourth, deep fear and hope make people turn to anything that promises help. A fair judgment thus attends to what the person believes the act does and who they think is acting.

Step 5: A working definition

For this course a practice is treated as superstitious in the theological sense when it attributes to a rite, object or formula a power or guarantee that belongs to God alone, or that the church that uses it does not teach, or when it seeks hidden knowledge or control by means God has not given. A practice is not superstitious simply because it is old, foreign, emotional or associated with a tradition one does not share. A private person can make this judgment about their own practice by asking what they expect and why. A judgment about another person’s devotion requires more care and humility, as the last lesson explains.

  1. What does the person doing this believe the act accomplishes?
  2. Who does she think is acting: God, a saint, a force, or the object?
  3. Does the church that uses the practice teach what the person believes?
  4. Is the practice seeking knowledge or control that God has not given?
  5. Would the practitioner be willing to say plainly what they expect?
  6. Who is using the word superstition, and what is at stake for them?

Examples

Two medals

Two people wear the same medal. One touches it when anxious and prays. The other believes it will prevent accidents without fail. The medal is the same. The first practice is a devotion and the second is what the churches call superstition. (A constructed example.)

Horoscopes

A woman reads her horoscope for fun but arranges nothing by it. Another cancels a trip because of it. Catholic and many Protestant teachers would say the second is divination, and would regard the first as a trivial habit that needs care.

A Reformed critic of the Mass

A Reformed writer of the sixteenth century called the elevation of the host a superstition. A Catholic of the same day called it an act of adoration toward Christ. The same act, two descriptions. The example shows that the word depends on the doctrine of the one who uses it.

Different perspectives

Catholic

Superstition is a vice against the first commandment, committed when religion is misdirected or trust is put in outward acts alone. The Catechism lists it alongside idolatry, divination and magic.

Orthodox

Charms, fortune-telling and mechanical views of sacred things are condemned by the canons. The church takes care to distinguish prayer for blessing from attempts to control, and relies on spiritual fathers to guide people.

Lutheran and Reformed

Superstition is false worship and trust in human works. The Reformed in particular included in it practices not commanded by Scripture, though they differed on the scope.

Anglican

The Articles refer to certain Roman doctrines as vain things and the Homilies speak against superstition, while Anglicans have long kept devotions that other Protestants rejected.

Scholarly

Historians such as Keith Thomas and Dale Martin show that superstition is a contested word, used differently by different groups, and they suggest that it should be described and not simply applied.

Why it matters

To test claims about rituals, one needs a way of saying what is wrong with a bad practice and not just that it is strange. Aquinas and the Catechism offer such a way. The history of the word also warns every student that the charge of superstition has often been a weapon, and that fairness requires saying what a person actually believes before judging it.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Superstition means any belief in the supernatural.

Correction: In theology it means a wrong form of religion. Belief in God and miracles is not superstition in this sense.

Misunderstanding: Superstition is only found among the uneducated.

Correction: It occurs among all classes, and historians point to learned men who used astrology, relics and charms.

Misunderstanding: Only Catholic practices are superstitious.

Correction: This is a polemical view. Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox have all accused others of superstition, and all have had superstitious practices among their members.

Misunderstanding: A practice must be superstitious if it is old and unexplained.

Correction: Age does not settle the question. A practice may be old and sound or old and mistaken. The test concerns what it claims and whom it directs people to.

Knowledge check

How did Aquinas define superstition?

As a vice opposed to the virtue of religion by excess: giving worship to the wrong object or in the wrong way. He lists improper worship of the true God, idolatry, divination and vain observances.

What three faults does the Catechism distinguish in connection with the first commandment?

Superstition, idolatry and divination or magic, with irreligion as a further fault, such as tempting God. Superstition may attach importance to outward signs apart from the interior dispositions that they require.

Why was the charge of superstition used between Christians?

Each side defined true worship in its own way, so each could call the other’s practices superstitious. Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox all used the word against others, which makes it a contested term.

Give a working definition used in this course.

A practice is superstitious when it attributes to a rite, object or formula a power or guarantee that belongs to God alone or that its own church does not teach, or when it seeks hidden knowledge or control by means God has not given. Age or strangeness alone does not make it so.

Think it through

  1. Have you ever treated a habit as a guarantee when it was only a hope?
  2. Why might the powerful use the word superstition against the poor?
  3. What difference does intent make to the judgment?
  4. How would you explain the difference between devotion and superstition to a child?

Independent assignment

Define and apply

In your own notebook, write 400 to 600 words. Define superstition in your own words using the sources in this lesson. Apply the definition to three practices (for example a medal, a horoscope and a chain prayer), giving for each the reasons it would or would not count. Note one case where reasonable people might disagree. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study