Panta Rhei: An Application of the Constructal Law for a New Scientific Model of Religion
Panta Rhei: An Application of the Constructal Law for a New Scientific Model of Religion

Summary/Abstract: Is religion an autonomous, as Eliade considered, system, as Culianu stated? What is religion? Nowadays “religion” is a term so broad that it encompasses a lot, from one God to many deities, from old gods to the spiritual life of today, from ghosts to the sacred, from stones and trees to spirits, and so on. What is more, given that each and every one of us, inhabitants of this Earth, have our own understanding, misunderstanding, or non-understanding of religion, and regardless of the fact that many scientists, researchers and writers in/of this field tried, with varying degrees of success, to define religion, there is not a final or unanimous accepted definition of it. This study starts with the view on religion of the mentor of Ioan Petru Culianu, Mircea Eliade, and it continues from the point where Eliade’s view meets the perspective of Culianu, with a focus on Culianu’s Model, namely, his outlook on religion. Then this article turns towards the constructal law developed by the physicist Adrian Bejan, and its applications in the humanities, in general, and religion, in particular. The main purpose of this research is not just to describe and clarify these viewpoints, but to provide a new definition of religion, and (equally important, if not more so) to take forward the theory of Culianu with the use of the constructal law, to open the way for a new understanding of religion, i.e. for a new theory, a new scientific model of religion.

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