witt gen stein and religious dogma

8/2/2019 Witt Gen Stein and Religious Dogma

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Wittgenstein and Religious DogmaAuthor(s): Christopher HoytReviewed work(s):Source: International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Feb., 2007), pp. 39-49Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27646194 .

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Int JPhilos Relig (2007) 61:39-49DOI 10.1007/slll53-006-9106-5ORIGINAL PAPER

Wittgenstein and religious dogmaChristopher Hoyt

Received: 8 October 2006/Accepted: 8 November 2006 /Published online: 30 January 2007? Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

Abstract It iswell understood thatWittgenstein defends religious faith against positivistic criticisms on the grounds of its logical independence. But exactly how arewe to understand the nature of that independence? Most scholars take Wittgensteinto equate language-games with belief-systems, and thus to assert that religions arelogical schemes founded on their own basic beliefs and principles of inference. Bycontrast, I argue that on Wittgenstein's view, to have religious faith is to hold fastto a certain picture of the world according to which one orients one's actions andattitudes, possibly even in dogmatic defiance of contrary evidence. Commitment tosuch a picture is grounded in passion, not intellection, and systematic coherence islargely irrelevant.

Keywords Wittgenstein D.Z. Phillips Reformed epistemology HolismFideism Belief-system Foundationalism Dogma

It is a truism that many religious beliefs sound implausible, even absurd, to thoseoutside a given tradition. The creation myth and the story of Noah are two obviousexamples. It is equally true, especially at this moment in history, that many beliefs of

many believers are abhorrent to the rest us. Zealous adherents to several sects expectrewards in the afterlife for the brutal killing of innocents in this one. Jerry Falwellonce said that the attacks of 9/11 were an expression of God's wrath against feministsand the ACLU, amongst others, though he apologized soon after (CNN 2001). Withso many strange and vile beliefs riding under the aegis of religion, it is tempting totake the positivistic position that they are all just so much nonsense.One would like to think that those who commit atrocities in the name of religionare deeply confused, lost from God, etc. In that spirit, Helm argues that scoundrelscannot believe what a true Christian must (Helm, 2000 p. 157). But the fact of the

C. Hoyt(ISl)Department of philosophy and Religion, Western Carolina University, Stillwell Hall, Cullowhee,NC 28723, USAe-mail: [email protected]

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matter is that religiously motivated terrorists, scoundrels, do-gooders, and saints allstand in the same epistemic relation toGod and divine truth, so that in the end eachmust assert his own convictions, and often deny the other's, without definitive proof.In the context of questioning the rationality of faith we cannot assume which principles are properly Christian, asHelm does in a different context (p. 157ff). Nor shouldwe be satisfied by the glib statement that men's wills are weak, since the "fallen" ofwhom we speak are often more passionately committed to lives of self-sacrifice andservitude than the rest of us. It is a curious fact that religious faith so frequently turnsinto a force of enmity and violence ? contrary to what we say it is at its core, inits proper form, etc. ? and one ought to wonder what this says about the nature ofreligion generally, and about one's own faith specifically.In contemporary philosophy of religion, faith ismost commonly defended againstcharges of incoherence and absurdity on the grounds that religions constitute independent belief-systems. All belief-systems must have their basic propositions thatthemselves go unproved, the argument runs, so to assume the existence of God orthe historical truth of scripture is neither more nor less logical than to assume theexistence of sub-atomic particles or kinetic energy. Science and religion stand on anepistemological par. Moreover, while some concepts might be shared between scienceand religion, by and large the two systems are distinct. Thus, the concept of "God," totake just one example, can only be understood in the context of a religious belief-system. When taken out of its natural home and judged by scientific standards, it appearsthat the idea of "God" makes claim to the utterly unlikely existence of amagic beingwho now and again makes impossible things happen for

aprayer. Thus, it is invalidto criticize the concept of God, the virgin birth, or the creation myth for its scientific

implausibility. Logic, fact, and reasonableness are intra-systemic, the thinking runs,and so religious and secular worldviews will forever remain independent.

One form of the aforementioned argument derives from Wittgenstein, at least supposedly, and has been developed by such prominent philosophers as Peter Winch,Rhush Rhees, and D. Z. Phillips. At the heart of their position lies the idea that language-games function more or less like belief-systems, and that religious and scientificlanguage-games are distinct. In a frequently quoted passage, Winch writes:

... [The] criteria of logic are not a direct gift from God, but arise out of, andare only intelligible in the context of, ways of living or modes of social life. Itfollows that one cannot apply criteria of logic to modes of social life as such. Forinstance, science is one such mode and religion another; and each has criteriaof intelligibility peculiar to itself. So within science or religion actions can belogical or illogical: in science, for example, itwould be illogical to refuse to bebound by the results of a properly carried out experiment; in religion it would

be illogical to suppose that one could pits one's strength against God's; and soon. But we cannot say that either the practice of science itself or that of religionis either illogical or logical; both are non-logical (Winch, 1994, p. 100).Winch might just as well have said that both define logic internally. Either way,

the crucial point is that we are always within one "mode of thought" or another,and so our ideas of truth, reasonableness, etc. are always bound to one or anotherconventional system.There is no doubt thatWittgenstein means to defend religion against positivisticcriticisms on the grounds that religious beliefs are beyond the purview of science.

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why. Wittgenstein's point, I maintain, is better summarized by saying that religiousbelief has little concern for logic than that it is founded on its own logic. In other words,religious belief is different in form from scientific belief, not merely different in itsprecepts. The distinction between a system with strange logic and a system withoutlogic ismurky, of course. Lewis Carroll makes that point entertainingly inAlice and

Wonderland. Still, our concepts of "logic," "reason," and "system" can only bend sofar. There are those domains of life which have order of a sort, but for which suchconcepts don't comfortably apply. In a psychotherapeutic setting, for example, it isinappropriate for a patient to ask personal questions of her therapist, but that is not alogical rule, it is a custom. Analogously, Wittgenstein suggests that religious discourse

plays a different role in our lives than does factual discourse, and that the concept ofbelief has a distinct function in the context of religion (Wittgenstein, 1966 p. 59). Contrary toWinch, his further remarks suggest that the concept of belief, as used withinreligion, may no more imply logical relations than the concept of an inappropriatequestion does in psychotherapy.Most of what Wittgenstein says about belief-systems is contained inOn Certainty,and there he does describe an epistemological view like that outlined above. He saysthat our "convictions do form a system, a structure" (Wittgenstein, 1969, Section102) at the bottom of which lie certain beliefs that are exempt from doubt. Theseimmovable beliefs act "like hinges on which [questions and arguments] turn" (Section 341). Truth is defined within a system, saysWittgenstein, and so the hinges, thegrounds of the system, are themselves neither true nor false (Section 205). One ofthe hallmarks ofWittgenstein's philosophy is that he conceives of hinge propositionsas being of varied types (see Moyal-Sharrock), including empirical, thus abandoningthe traditional distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions. A few hingesmentioned byWittgenstein include: "that other human beings have blood and call it'blood'" (Section 340); "I have a body" (Section 244); and no one has been on themoon (Section 109).

Phillips emphasizes the fact that forWittgenstein, hinge propositions don't playthe foundational role that they do inReformed Epistemology. In Plantinga's theory,for example, basic propositions are a set of more or less arbitrarily given claims fromwhich all the others in the belief-system are derived (Plantinga, 1979, p. 17). On Wittgenstein's view, by contrast, hinge propositions get their force from the role they playwithin a system seen in its entirety. "[The] basic propositions are held fast by all thatsurrounds them," says Phillips, "They are not bases on which our ways of thinkingdepend, but are basic in our ways of thinking" (Phillips, 1988, p. 123). It is the beliefsystem as a whole that must be accepted without deeper grounds for Wittgenstein,and it is within a system that certain statements are regarded as fixed.

In those remarks on faith recorded in Lectures and Conversations and Culture andValue, Wittgenstein pursues two overlapping themes that clash with the notion of religious belief-systems, and which suggest a more fundamental shift in perspective. Thefirst of those themes is the dogmatic nature of faith, and the second its peculiarity. Inreference to the former, for example, Wittgenstein says that the devout have absolutefaith in the Resurrection and aLast Judgment despite that there is almost no empiricalevidence to support them. "It is for this reason," Wittgenstein writes, "that different

words are used: 'dogma', 'faith'" (Wittgenstein, 1966, p. 57). "A man would fight forhis life not to be dragged into the fire," he says elsewhere, "No induction. Terror.That is, as itwere, part of the substance of the belief" (Ibid., p. 56). Such remarkscan be rolled into a reading like Winch's ifwe presume that the dogmas mentioned

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are hinge propositions for believers. The necessity of God's existence might look likea dogma to an outsider, but be a hinge-proposition for someone within a Christianbelief-system. Phillips takes that line: "Beliefs such as belief in the Last Judgement,are not testable hypotheses, but absolutes for believers in so far as they predominatein and determine much of their thinking," he writes. Lending credence to that reading,

Wittgenstein does specifically state that a child raised either to believe in God or not"will accordingly be able to produce apparently telling grounds for the one or theother" conviction (Wittgenstein, 1969, Section 107).However, Wittgenstein elsewhere emphasizes the dogmatic nature of faith in terms

that can be squeezed into Phillips' interpretation only if bent rather too far. For starters,Wittgenstein plainly thinks of religious belief as dogmatic in the sense of beingcommanding and limiting, as well as indisputable:

Religion says: Do this! - Think like that! - but it cannot justify this and onceit even tries to it becomes repellant; because for every reason it offers there isa valid counter-reason. It is more convincing to say: "Think like this! Howeverstrangely itmay strike you." Or: "Won't you do this? - however repugnant youfind it." (Wittgenstein, 1980, p. 29)

Still more helpful is a remark targeting philosophical dogmatism within whichWittgenstein makes a telling reference to religion. He equates philosophical dogmatism with a habit of insisting that the world must correspond to certain preconceived

ideas, in some cases despite plain facts. As a simple example, Wittgenstein pointsto Schopenhauer's idea that man's real lifespan is one hundred years (Ibid., p. 26).Of course, Schopenhauer witnessed that most people die younger, but he insistedon seeing reality through the lens of his ideal. Just after mentioning Schopenhauer,Wittgenstein compares his dogmatic attitude with religious zealotry:

Of course, that's how itmust be!" It is just as though you have understood thecreator's purpose. You have grasped the system. (Ibid., p. 26)

Surely Wittgenstein wasn't blind to the implications of his metaphor for religiousbelief itself. Who more than the devout believer claims to understand the creator'spurpose? Who more confidently claims to see through the veil of the sensible world toa hidden, more essential system? Notice also thatWittgenstein is not simply pointingout that Schopenhauer holds peculiar hinge propositions; the charge is that Schopenhauer is blind to reality because of his presumption. The implication is that religiousbelievers at least might suffer a similar blindness.

Two caveats are in order. First, there are countless examples of good religiousarguments, and there are countless varieties of religiosity that are deeply intellectual ? witness systematic theology. That is not a point lost on Wittgenstein, who wasnothing ifnot anti-essentialist. Wittgenstein was deeply moved by James's Varieties ofReligious Experience, and his philosophy is generally in keeping with James's pluralistmessage that "'religion' cannot stand for any single principle or essence, but is rather acollective name" (James, 1982, p. 26). However, Wittgenstein clearly favors the morepassionate and "dogmatic" varieties of faith over the more effete and intellectual, andhe believes them to represent the kernel of genuine faith. He suggests, for example,that theologians who give proofs of God's existence "have wanted to give 'beliefan intellectual analysis and foundation, although they themselves would never havecome to believe as a result of such proofs" (Wittgenstein, 1980, p. 85). It is not proofsthat convince a person of God's existence, but an upbringing that shapes one's life a

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particular way (Ibid., p. 85). Not surprisingly, then, it is the passionate varieties andaspects of faith thatWittgenstein most helps us to understand. His insights are helpfuleven if none does, because none could, speak to all varieties of religion.

Second, Wittgenstein's point is certainly not that religious beliefs are universally oressentially dogmatic in the pejorative sense, and neither is it this author's. Wittgensteinwas a great admirer of religion, and particularly of the Catholic Church, into which hewas baptized (Wright, 1958, p. 2). He once remarked toDrury that "[the] symbolismsof Catholicism are wonderful beyond words_All religions are wonderful, even thoseof the most primitive tribes" (Drury, 1981, p. 17). Wittgenstein makes it clear that heis driving at something akin to Kierkegaard's impassioned fideism, not an objectionto religion (Wittgenstein, 1980, p. 32). Our exploration of some rather ugly religiousdogmas is only meant to bring into prominence certain elements in Wittgenstein'sthought that set him apart from foundationalists and Reformed Epistemologists, andalso through him to better understand a facet of faith well worth understanding.In that spirit, let us consider Wittgenstein's suggestion that the Catholic Churchenforces dogmas that limit people's thinking to a tyrannical degree:

The effect of making men think in accordance with dogmas, perhaps in the formof certain graphic propositions, will be very peculiar: I am not thinking of thesedogmas as determining men's opinions but rather as completely controlling theexpression of all opinions. People will live under an absolute, palpable tyranny,though without being able to say they are not free. I think the Catholic Church

does something rather like this. For dogma is expressed in the form of an assertion, and is unshakable, but at the same time any practical opinion can be madeto harmonize with it... This is how dogma becomes irrefutable and beyond thereach of attack. (Ibid., p. 28)

It is not immediately obvious what Wittgenstein means when he says that dogmaswork by limiting the expression of opinions rather than by determining them. We willreturn to that matter shortly. But notice that were he equating dogmas with hingepropositions, then they ought to work precisely by determining opinions.

Wittgenstein provides no example of the sort of Catholic dogma he has inmind,but fortunately one need not hunt long for candidates. Ronald Knox, a contemporaryofWittgenstein's who practiced at Oxford and who later became the Archbishop ofCanterbury, considers the dogmatic nature of certain Catholic dictates. Knox dividesthose dictates into two varieties. First, there are those that are merely "legislative,"meaning they are backed by the authority of the Church itself, and so apply only tocongregants. Second, there are "judicial" rulings that follow from the Church's interpretation of the Divine Law, and so bind all people. In both, says Knox, the Church"claims the same infallibility" (Knox, 1958, p. 155) and expects absolute obedience.When the Church legislates that congregants "abstain from flesh meat on Fridays,"says Knox for example, she does not "invite the opinions of her children on the relative value of the flesh meat and other meats; she only expects them to obey a rule"(p. 155). And when the Church judges that divorce is unholy, a congregant is certainlynot invited to live by her private understanding of God's will. The strictness of the

Church on such points might be seen as imperious and so invite apostasy, Knox admits,but he offers us a way to see that dogmatism as edifying rather than limiting:

But, for a soul that really seeks to know the will of God, there is a consolationhardly to be over-estimated in the consciousness that the Church offers youguidance, and a guidance which, at least in its solemn expressions, cannot err.

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44 Int JPhilos Relig (2007) 61:39-49... [For example, it] is not possible for the Catholic, even loosely attached to

his creed, to feel any doubt on the question [of divorce] so long as his reason isunclouded by passion. It is not that his Church tyrannously claims the right offorbidding to him a freedom allowed to others. He must say 'God forbids it, and

my Church fortifies that belief.'(Ibid., pp. 157-158)Knox's comment sheds light on what Wittgenstein probably means when he speaksof a tyrannical Catholic dogmatism to which he apparently has no moral objection.The very fact that "[believing] means submitting to an authority" (Wittgenstein, 1980,p. 45), asWittgenstein holds, might be essential to its capacity for salvation.(Ibid.,p. 46). The very limitations of perspective and choice imposed by religious dogmas

might play a positive and, ironically, liberating role in a person's life.Knox also reminds us of the decidedly positive nature of many Catholic dogmas.For example, the ideals of Catholic asceticism, which takes many forms including the

abstention from meat on Fridays and sometimes the renouncement of personal wealth,are closely related to the Church's ambitions to educate, heal the sick, feed the hungry,and so forth. (Knox, 1958, p. 176). The rules by which Catholics live are meant to leadthem into the service of God and the promotion of his glory, according toKnox (Ibid.,p. 174) and thus a good Catholic aims to be humble, tolerant, and compassionate.

While Knox believes that reason must win out over passion for a person to live byChurch dogmas, Wittgenstein holds nearly the opposite view. Wittgenstein concedesthat "a sound doctrine need not take hold of you; you can follow it as you would adoctor's prescription" (Wittgenstein, 1980, p. 53), but he adds that such a cerebralcommitment is at best a stage or a stepping stone to religious passion and a thoroughly religious life. Like Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein holds that true faith can onlybe a heartfelt reorientation of one's whole life (Ibid., p. 53). Religious doctrine isvaluable for the service itperforms in providing direction and meaning: "[The] wordsyou utter or what you think as you utter them are not what matters," he writes, "somuch as the difference they make at various points in your life (Ibid., p. 85). Thus,for example, Wittgenstein says that predestination is "less a theory than a sigh, ora cry"(Ibid., p. 30), meaning that to believe in predestination is to see the world ina particular way, to adopt a certain attitude towards the travails of life. So it is notdogmatic doctrines that are valuable, on Wittgenstein's view, but rather somethinglike a passionate commitment to the perspective and a way of life expressed by them.

Moyal-Sharrock's recent study of On Certainty and the nature of hinge propositionsis helpful here. At the heart of her reading lies the idea thatWittgenstein is a uniquesort of foundationalist ? a thesis ultimately at odds with the one presented here,but only in its final step, so to speak. Traditionally, foundationalist systems posit twointerlocking layers of propositions: at the bottom lie propositions that are assumed,not proved; above we find propositions implied either by those in the base or by othersecondary propositions. Moyal-Sharrock reads On Certainty as altering that picture injust one key respect, viz., the nature of basic beliefs. Basic beliefs are not propositionsat all, on her reading, they are "pragmatic certainties" that can be only crudely articulated as propositions; we act with certainty even where we lack a basis in knowledge.Indeed, our pragmatic certainty is the basis of knowledge rather than vice versa. Thus,where we ordinarily find a duality of types of propositions, Moyal-Sharrock posits aduality of entirely different kinds:

[The] message of On Certainty is precisely that knowledge does not have to beat the basis of knowledge. Underpinning knowledge are not default justified

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propositions thatmust be susceptible of justification on demand, but pragmaticcertainties that can be verbally rendered for heuristic purposes, and whose conceptual analysis uncovers their function as unjustifiable rules of grammar. So thatour basic beliefs stand to our nonbasic beliefs, not as propositional beliefs standto other propositional beliefs, but as rules of grammar stand to propositional

beliefs. Hence the absence and the uselessness of inference and propositionality.(Moyal-Sharrock, 2004, p. 10)

It is a basic truth that you pull your hand from fire, for example, and in doing so youshow your certainty that fire burns. Propositions and knowledge regarding fire comeonly later. "So much has Wittgenstein made clear," writes Moyal-Sharrock "there iscertainty before knowledge"(Ibid., p. 201). Thus, we might understand Wittgenstein'scomment on the devout believer's faith in a Last Judgment:

But he has what you might call un unshakable belief. It will show, not by reasoning or by appeal to ordinary grounds for belief, but rather by regulating forin all his life. (Wittgenstein, 1966, p. 54)Ironically, Moyal-Sharrock's reading does not go far enough to explain Wittgenstein's view of religion, for she leaves out the peculiarity of religious beliefs that

Wittgenstein repeatedly emphasizes. In fact, Moyal-Sharrock suggests that the ostensibly nonsensical belief in the Resurrection ? nonsensical because it contradicts the"universal hinge" that the dead do not come back to life ? is comparable to other"local hinges"(Moyal-Sharrock, 2004, p. 175), i.e., basic beliefs specific to a culture.

Other local hinges mentioned by Moyal-Sharrock include "no one has been on themoon" and "Napoleon was a man" (Ibid., p. 136). Once properly analyzed, belief in

the Resurrection will prove not to violate universal hinges any more than belief inNapoleon, she suggests (Ibid., p. 175).

That is not what Wittgenstein says, however. A believer's relation to the historical narratives of Christianity "is neither the relation to historical truth (probability),nor yet that to a theory consisting of 'truths of reason'," according to Wittgenstein(1980, p. 32). That is to say, religious truths are not basic propositions, as claimed

by Reformed Epistemologists, and it would seem they are not pragmatic certaintieseither, as suggested by Moyal-Sharrock. While pragmatic certainties define rules ofgrammar and logic, on her reading, Wittgenstein insists that belief in the historicalclaims of Christianity has a still different character, and he urges us to "[make] a quitedifferent place in your life for it (Ibid., 9. 32).Wittgenstein tentatively suggests such aplace when he considers how to we might respond to contradictions in the Gospels:

God has four people recount the life of his incarnate Son, in each case differently and with inconsistencies - but might we not say: It is important that thisnarrative should not be more than quite averagely historically plausible just sothat this should not be taken as the essential, decisive thing? So that the lettershould not be believed more strongly than is proper and the spirit may receiveits due.(Ibid., p. 31)It would appear that on the matter of religious belief, Moyal-Sharrock has not

taken the depth of Wittgenstein's pluralism to heart. Wittgenstein once remarked toDrury that he was thinking of using a quote from King Lear as a motto for Philosophical Investigations: "I'll teach you differences!" (Drury, 1981, p. 171) Wittgenstein'srespect for religion is rooted here, I argue, in an appreciation for the unique and

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profound role faith plays in our lives. Hence also the relativism attributed to him byWinch et al. does not go to the heart of thematter, despite itsmany merits.To better understand the role of religious beliefs in our lives, let us return to thematter of how religious dogmas often function like pictures. Some ugly examples ofsexist dogmas in the medieval Church nicely illustrate Wittgenstein's point. Whilethe tradition of sexism in the Church ismuch older, its codification traces back toGratian's Decretum, a massive work compiled in the 12th century which laid muchof the foundation for the code of canon law. The sexist nature of many of Gratian'sdecrees is shockingly blunt to the modern ear: "Women are in servile submission, onaccount of which they must be subject to men in everything" (Gratian, 1879-1881,l:col. 1254-1256). Still more helpful, however, are those passages justifying institutionalized sexism. Witness the following argument to deny women the right to preachor baptize:

That is to say, ifman is the head of woman and he ispromoted to the priesthood,itmilitates against divine justice to disturb the arrangement of the Creator bydegrading man from the preeminence granted to him to the lowest place. Forwoman is the body of man, has come from his rib and is placed in subjection tohim, for which reason also she has been chosen to bear children. ... [The Lord]as creator of nature and founder of its order knew the gradations of nature andwhat is proper. (Ibid., 1: col. 122)

The author's reliance on imagery to make his case is striking, and nicely illustrates

Wittgenstein's view that religion provides "[rules] of life dressed up in pictures"(Wittgenstein, 1980, p. 29). Again, that isnot to say that religious believers simply andslavishly trace the contours of a given image in their own actions. The truth is almostthe reverse: image and dogma reflect an orientation towards all of life to which believers commit. "If I say he used a picture," Wittgenstein says, "I don't want to say anythinghe himself wouldn't say. I want to say that he draws these conclusions (Wittgenstein,1966, p. 71). In other words, imagery and dogma merely reflect and reinforce a morefundamental orientation in life. The metaphor of woman as body or rib could hardlyconvince, but it does express and itmay strengthen a sexist perspective.

Why does Wittgenstein say that one struggling under the burden of a dogmaticallyheld picture would suffer a deficit of self-expression rather than a mere restrictionon opinions held? The answer is connected to the fact that, like textual metaphors,pictures can be applied well or badly, and thereby confuse or enlighten us. Wittgenstein addresses this point repeatedly throughout his later work, for he believes thatphilosophers are especially often led astray. A philosopher is prone to lose sight ofthe fact that his own theory of mind, meaning, truth, etc., is really nothing more than a

model, "a measuring-rod; not a preconceived idea to which reality must correspond"(Wittgenstein, 1974, Section 131). Essentially, the wayward philosopher confuses his

own metaphor for literal statement, his ideal for fact. Wittgenstein's own transitionfrom logical atomism to his later philosophy, he tells us, required him escape a certainpicture of language that once held him captive (Ibid., Section 115). As Schopenhauerwas apparently blind to certain facts regarding human longevity, Wittgenstein oncewas blind to the enormous variety of uses towhich we put language (Ibid., Section 23)

Wherever he looked, he seemed to see statements of fact, propositions. "How hard Ifind it see what is right in front of my eyes!" Wittgenstein says (1980, p. 39)Once in the grip of a picture, one tends to interpret all relevant expressions interms of it. Thus, in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein comes to the absurd conclusion that

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"ethics cannot be put into words (Wittgenstein, 1981, Section 6.421). So long as heheld fast to a picture of an underlying calculus behind language, Wittgenstein couldonly recast ethical statements as gestural expressions devoid of semantic content. Hetossed them into the bonfire in which Hume burned books on metaphysics. Whenhe later freed himself from his limited view of language, Wittgenstein was able toproperly appreciate the role of ethical discourse (Wittgenstein, 1974, Section 77).Liberation Theologians accuse Roman Catholics of being dumb, ifnot blind, to theprofound suffering caused the poor and powerless in our world by existing socio-political structures. For their part, Roman Catholics see divine justice in familiar capitalistsystems, even when they breed great inequities. In his famous Rerum Novarum, Pope

Leo XIII, always leaning on the authority of the Gospels, argues a strongly conservative agenda. God gave man reason, choice, and dominion over nature, says Leo XIII,and therefore also a divine right to retain the fruits of his labors, i.e., a right to privateownership (Rousseau, 2002, p. 29). It quickly follows that awealthy employer behavesjustly towards his workers so long as he pays them whatever wage the two negotiated(Ibid., p. 44). Pope Leo qualifies his position only to say that God provides man theright to support himself through his labors, and so the employer would act againstdivine justice were he to pay less than enough "to support a frugal and well behaved

wage-earner" (Ibid., p. 44). Pope Leo's is a strikingly materialistic view of justice, anda strikingly modest standard of fair treatment of the poor by the powerful.

By contrast, the Liberation Theologian Jos? M?guez Bonino takes Jesus himself tomodel social radicalism, and through his own actions to prove that a good Christian

should strive to create a world betterembodying egalitarian justice.

BoninoquotesMark 10:42^45, inwhich Jesus chastises those kings who demand to be served by their

subjects, and points out that he, as the Son of God, has come to serve the people.Bonino then writes:

When we read this text in the light of Jesus' temptation, his entry into Jerusalem,and many other texts of the Gospels ... a picture begins to emerge. Jesus is contrasting his own "way of being king" with the rule exemplified by those whosethe people were at that very time experiencing. The negative features of this

picture correspond exactly to those repeatedly singled out for prophetic condemnation - [viz.] absolutism and oppression. ... Jesus understood his missionnot as one of proposing a model for political action but as one of incarnating in aparadigmatic way God's just and liberating rule, thus setting our understandingof politics on a whole new course.(Bonino, 1983, p. 98)

We seen, then, that the sometimes painful divide between the Vatican and LiberationTheology may have little or nothing to do with a difference between their respectivebelief-systems per se. Surely Leo XIII accepts that Christ rebelled against Romanauthority and fought for better treatment of the poor, and Bonino likely accepts that

God gave man dominion over the earth. To assume that they must differ in their basicbeliefs is to be philosophically dogmatic in the negative sense. Where they clearly partcompany iswith those very different pictures of man and God's kingdom that theycall forth when assessing social inequality and the role of the Church.

Returning to the unique role of "belief" in the context of religion, a concession:Wittgenstein's philosophy of language implies that our concepts of religion, science,

history, etc. have no precise borders; each includes a broad range of phenomenabound by family-resemblance, not by essence. Thus it is true that religious beliefsare like other beliefs in some respects, and Wittgenstein does sometimes treat them

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as comparable (Wittgenstein, 1969, Section 239). But they are fundamentally unlikeordinary beliefs in other respects, and it follows that much of what Wittgenstein saysabout ordinary beliefs and belief-systems inOn Certainty does not apply to religiousfaith. Phillips and like-minded exegetes have too often failed to keep that inmind.

Wittgenstein writes:It strikes me that a religious belief could only be something like a passionatecommitment to a system of reference. Hence, although its belief, it's really a

way of living, or a way of assessing life. It's passionately seizing hold of thisinterpretation. (Wittgenstein, 1980, p. 64)

Ordinarily, it is fair to ask someone for evidence for his beliefs, to expect that beliefsbased on poor evidence will be held tentatively or given up, etc. In other words, itis appropriate to locate ordinary beliefs in systems, and to expect that they can beappropriately justified within those systems. By contrast, in religious spheres "[reasons] look entirely different from normal reasons" (Wittgenstein, 1966, p. 56).Withinreligion, we "don't talk about hypothesis, or about high probability," says Wittgenstein, because religious beliefs don't ground each other in that way at all, by and large."An honest religious thinker is like a tightrope walker," he writes, "He almost looks asthough he were walking on nothing but air. His support is the slenderest imaginable(Wittgenstein, 1980, p. 73).

To say that our ordinary ideas about grounds and evidence don't apply in religiousthinking says not just that we use other grounds and other evidence, but that we aredealing with something of a different nature.

Here believing obviously plays much more this role: suppose we said that acertain picture might play the role of constantly admonishing me, or I alwaysthink of it. Here, an enormous difference would be between those people forwhom the picture is constantly in the foreground, and the others who just didn'tuse it at all. (Wittgenstein, 1966, p. 56)

On Wittgenstein's view, religious beliefs are beyond the reach of scientific scrutinynot because they operate in a logical sphere based on different hinges (propositionalor pragmatic), but because they are the wrong sort of thing altogether. Religiousbeliefs are held dogmatically because they are ultimately expressions of passionatecommitment to a way of life, not to factual claims. That is true not simply for

a fewhinge propositions, but for many specific articles of faith. Catholics don't accept theImmaculate Conception because the arguments of Pope Pius IX are so convincing, forexample. Nor does it seem right to say that Immaculate Conception is a hinge proposition, a pillar of Catholicism. Rather, devout Catholics believe obediently becausePious IX declared the Immaculate Conception ex cathedra.Behind religious faith lies passion, not wisdom (Wittgenstein, 1980, p. 53). To bereally saved, says Wittgenstein, one must have emotional, not intellectual, certainty."And faith is faith in what is needed by my heart, my soul, not my speculative intelligence" (Ibid., p. 33). It is passion that drives people to become monks or martyrs,to believe in the Resurrection or the need to kill infidels. In her careful study ofreligious terrorists, Terror in the Name of God, Jessica Stern reaches the conclusionthat young, disaffected people are drawn to terrorist ideologies because they offercertainty, purpose, and spiritual satisfaction:

My interviews suggest that people join religious terrorist groups partly to transform themselves and to simplify life. ... The spiritually perplexed learn to focus?) Springer


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Int J Philos Relig (2007) 61:39^49 49on action. The weak become strong. ... Rage turns to conviction. What seemsto happen is that they enter a kind of trance, where the world is divided neatlybetween good and evil, victim and oppressor. ... There is no room for the otherside's point of view. ... They know they are right, not just politically, but morally.

They believe that God is on their side. ... As odd as it sounds, a sense of transcendence is one of the many attractions of religious violence for terrorists ...(Stern, 2003, p. 282)

A young terrorist might be incapable of following any but the most basic logicalinferences, he might never have read the Koran for himself, he might continue to insistthat Islam teaches love and mercy while he kills randomly. None of those things reallymatter if only he is passionately committed to a picture inwhich he plays the part ofan avenger fighting to cleanse the world of evil, atheists, Jews, or whomever else hesees as the enemy of God. Here and elsewhere, Wittgenstein's metaphor of a guidingpicture is far more revealing than the metaphor of a network of interlocking statements. Religious dogmas shape one's worldview not by logically determining beliefs,but by gripping the spirit and orienting one's life.

References

Bonino, J.M. (1983). Toward a Christian political ethics. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.CNN (2001). Falwell apologizes to gays, feminists, and lesbians CNN.Drury, M. O'C. (1981). Conversations with Wittgenstein. In R. Rhees (Ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein:Personal recollections. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Gratian. (1879-1881). In E. Friedberg (Ed.), Corpus Juris Canonici. Leipzig.Helm, P. (2000). Faith with reason. New York: Oxford University Press.James, W. (1982). The varieties of religious experience. New York: Penguin (original, 1902).Knox, R. (1958). The beliefs of Catholics. New York: Image Books.Moyal-Sharrock, D. (2004). Understanding Wittgenstein's on certainty. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.Phillips, D. Z. (1988). Faith after Foundationalism. New York: Routledge.Plantinga, A. (1979). Is belief in god rational. In CF. Delaney (Ed.), Rationality and religious belief.

Indianapolis, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press.Rousseau, R. (2002). Human dignity and the common good: The Great Papal social Encyclicals fromLeo XIII to John Paul II. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press.Stern, J. (2003). Terror in the name of god: Why religious militants kill. New York: Harper Collins.

Winch, P. (1994). The idea of a social science and its relation to philosophy (2nd ed., p. 100). London:Routledge.

Wittgenstein, L. W. (1966). In C. Barrett (Ed.), Lectures and conversations on aesthetics, psychology,and religious belief, p. 59. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Wittgenstein, L. W (1969). On certainty, trans. Denis Paul and G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright, 1972 ed. New York: Basil Blackwell /Harper & Row.Wittgenstein, L. W. (1974). Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: BasilBlackwell. (First ed. 1953).Wittgenstein L. W (1980). Culture and value, trans. Peter Winch, English-Language ed. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press.Wittgenstein, L. (1981). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Wright, G. H. (1958). Biographical Sketch. In N. Malcolm (Ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir.London: Oxford University Press.

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