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Wittgenstein and Descriptive Theology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Richard H. Bell
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Religion, The College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio

Extract

‘The work of the philosopher consists in assembling reminders for particular purposes.’

Among the many purposes for which Wittgenstein assembled reminders, the deeper understanding of the religious life would have to qualify as one. Though on first reading this would hardly seem obvious, I hope to make this abundantly clear through an examination of his later literature. There are two ways in which he sheds light on religious issues: first, by the personal passion of his own life and the forthright display of intellectual integrity expected of any professional thinker toward any discipline (this I take to be of particular importance for the theologian or religious thinker), and, second, by making his philosophical investigations descriptive. Any analysis of religious issues or the understanding of the religious life should involve the high degree of personal integrity and the rigorously descriptive method which Wittgenstein makes apparent throughout his writing.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

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References

page 1 note 1 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, (trans.) Anscombe, G. E. M., (ed.) Anscombe & Rush Rhees, (New York. Macmillan, 1953), part I, section 126. Henceforth references to this work will be noted as follows: Inv., part, section (or page where appropriate), e.g. Inv., I, 126.Google Scholar

page 1 note 2 Engelmann, Paul, Letters from Ludwig Wittgenstein with a Memoir, (trans.) Furtmüller, L., (ed.) B. F. McGuinness, (New York. Horizon Press, 1968), p. 55 ff. Henceforth cited as Letters.Google Scholar

page 2 note 1 Wittgenstein, , Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief, edited notes by students, (ed.) Barrett, Cyril (Oxford. Basil Blackwell, 1966), p. 28. Henceforth cited as L & C.Google Scholar

page 2 note 2 Drury, M. O'C., ‘A Symposium: Assessments of the Man and the Philosopher,’ collected in Fann, K. T., Ludwig Wittgenstein: the Man and His Philosophy (New York. A Delta Book, 1967), p. 71.Google Scholar

page 2 note 3 Letters, p. 79.Google Scholar

page 2 note 4 Malcolm, Norman, Ludwig Wittgenstein, A Memoir, with a Bibliography by Georg Henrick von Wright, (London. Oxford U. Press, 1958), p. 19.Google Scholar

page 2 note 5 ibid., p. 72.

page 2 note 6 ibid.

page 2 note 7 Hume, David, Dialogues on Natural Religion, in David Hume on Religion, (ed.) Wollheim, Richard (Cleveland. World Publishing Co., A Meridian Book, 1964), p. 116.Google Scholar

page 2 note 8 Malcolm, , op. cit., p. 71.Google Scholar

page 3 note 1 Drury, , op. cit., p. 68Google Scholar, and Pitcher, George, The Philosophy of Wittgenstein (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1964), p. 218.Google Scholar

page 3 note 2 Drury, ibid., p. 68 f.

page 3 note 3 Moore, G. E., ‘Wittgenstein's Lectures in 1930–1933,’ in Moore, Philosophical Papers (New York. Collier Books, 1962), p. 308 f. Henceforth referred to as Moore's Lecture Notes, and abbreviated MLN.Google Scholar

page 3 note 4 L & C, p. 48, cf. also, Zettel, 444.Google Scholar

page 3 note 5 Inv., I, 593.Google Scholar

page 3 note 6 Letters, p. 7.

page 3 note 7 I am grateful to Professor Stephen Toulmin for the suggestion of the terms ‘effable’ and ‘ineffable’ in gaining a perspective on this point of continuity in Wittgenstein's career. In several conversations in New Haven (fall, 1967), Mr. Toulmin was also very helpful in confirming and sharpening my views on the relationship of Wittgenstein's philosophy to theology. On this latter point, however, I owe the largest debt to my thesis advisor and friend at Yale University, Professor Paul L. Holmer.

page 4 note 1 Malcolm, , op. cit., p. 93Google Scholar. A similar remark may be found in Wittgenstein's literature, in Zettel (ed.) Anscombe, and von Wright, , (Oxford. Basil Blackwell, 1967), section 173: Nur in dem Fluβ der Gedanken und des Lebens haben die Worte Bedeutung. Cf. also, Zettel, 135.Google Scholar

page 4 note 2 Zettel, 455.

page 4 note 3 Although I have not come across this statement of Wittgenstein in his works (published or un-published), Donald Hudson attributes it to Wittgenstein without citing a reference other than noting ‘He once said of his later philosophy:…’ Cf. Hudson, , Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Bearing of his Philosophy upon Religious Belief (Richmond, Va. John Knox Press, 1968), p. 67.Google Scholar

page 5 note 1 Katz, Jerrold J., The Philosophy of Language (Studies in Language; Noam Chomsky and Morris, Halle, eds.), (New York. Harper and Row, 1966), p. 108.Google Scholar

page 5 note 2 William, P. Alston, ‘Philosophical Analysis and Structural Linguistics’, journal of Philosophy, 59: 709–720 (8 Nov. 1962), p. 714.Google Scholar

page 5 note 3 Inv., I, 118.Google Scholar

page 5 note 4 ibid., 7.

page 6 note 1 Inv., I, 23.

page 6 note 2 Zettel, 644.

page 8 note 1 MLN, p. 305.

page 8 note 2 Cf. MLN, p. 308 f.

page 8 note 3 Zettel, 175.

page 8 note 4 MLN, p. 306.

page 8 note 5 Malcolm, , op. cit., p. 70 f.Google Scholar

page 8 note 6 ibid., p. 71.

page 8 note 7 The line of thought in this paragraph about ‘good’ and ‘God’ is adapted from MLN, p. 306 f.

page 9 note 1 Inv., II, p. 224.

page 9 note 2 L & C, p. 2, compare also with Inv., I, 23 & 25.

page 9 note 3 L & C, p. 2.Google Scholar

page 9 note 4 ibid., p. 3.

page 9 note 5 ibid., p. 5.

page 9 note 6 ibid., p. 5.

page 10 note 1 L & C, p. 7.Google Scholar

page 10 note 2 ibid., p. 8, fn. 3.

page 10 note 3 ibid., p. 11.

page 10 note 4 Cf. L & C, p. 8 f.

page 10 note 5 L & C, p. 10.Google Scholar

page 10 note 6 ibid., p. 28.

page 10 note 7 Although Wittgenstein does not develop this point at length I believe it can be wholly supported as a legitimate ground for religious truth-claims. In a Wittgensteinian spirit, this argument has been cogently developed and applied by Diogenes Allen in his article ‘Motives, Rationales, and Religious Beliefs,’ American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 3 (April, 1966), pp. 111127. Cf. also Inv., I, 87.Google Scholar

page 10 note 8 Cf. L & C, p. 53 f.Google Scholar

page 11 note 1 L & C, p. 54.Google Scholar

page 11 note 2 Cf. L & C, p. 72, and Inv., I, 486.Google Scholar

page 11 note 3 Cf. Inv., II, p. 191 f.Google Scholar

page 11 note 4 L & C, p. 55.Google Scholar

page 11 note 5 ibid., p. 55.

page 11 note 6 ibid., p. 56.

page 11 note 7 ibid., p. 58.

page 11 note 8 ibid., p. 58 f.

page 11 note 9 ibid., p. 57.

page 14 note 1 Inv., I, 426.Google Scholar

page 15 note 1 ‘The Confession of 1967’, The United Presbyterian Church, USA, text in The New York Times, 23 May 1967, p. 36.Google Scholar

page 15 note 2 Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, (trans.) Anscombe, G. E. M., (ed.) von Wright, G. H., Rhees, , and Anscombe, (New York. Macmillan, 1956), part IV, section 14. Henceforth cited as: RFM, part, section.Google Scholar

page 17 note 1 REM, I, 141.

page 17 note 2 There are few interpretations of this aside in literature on Wittgenstein. I will mention two. Newton Garver in his excellent dissertation, Grammar and Criteria, Cornell University, 1965, sees Wittgenstein's remark about ‘essence’ as related to ‘theology’ as a comment on a piece of ‘scholastic terminology’. Only lexical proximity could justify Garver's proposal I am afraid. He comments only briefly. Implied, though not stated, in Garver's larger discussion of ‘grammar’ however, is the groundwork for an interpretation which might be formulated as I have in this final section.

Although Donald Hudson, op. cit., has some instructive things to say about Wittgenstein and theology, the point about ‘theology as grammar’ which he makes is much too oversimplified, thus missing the significance of the correlation between ‘grammar’ and ‘essence’.

page 17 note 3 Zettel, 144.Google Scholar

page 17 note 4 ibid., 55.

page 18 note 1 Ina., I, 355. Cf. also RFM, I, 74; Wittgenstein's, The Blue and Brown Books, (ed.) Rhees, , (Oxford. Basil Blackwell, 1958), p. 24Google Scholar; and Wittgenstein's, Lectures on Philosophical Psychology, notes taken by Peter Geach and others of Wittgenstein's lectures in 19461947, unpublished, p. 27.Google Scholar

page 18 note 2 Inv., II, p. 226.Google Scholar

page 18 note 3 This point about ‘essence’ ‘grammar’ and ‘the grammar of natural languages’ in Wittgenstein is more fully explicated in chapters five and six of my doctorale dissertation, Theology as Grammar: Uses of Linguistic Philosophy for the Study of Theology with special Reference to Ludwig Wittgenstein, Yale University, 1968.Google Scholar