“Wittgensteinian Formulations on Theological Thinking” (The Relevance of Ludwig Wittgenstein to Contemporary Theological Studies) *originally presented at the 1st Annual Academic Conference of “Rethinking Faith, Excellence and Service in the 21st Century Higher Education Institution at Colegio de San Lorenzo Congressional Avenue, Quezon City, February 10, 2015

Abstract: In this paper, I present an exposition of the thoughts that could be exhausted from the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and then move on to his relevance on Christian theology. For the first part of the paper, I would look at points that summarize Wittgensteinian concepts in his major works. The major works that are examined are the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and the Philosophical Investigations. And from these major works, I would like to posit the idea that although there is a great distinction between the early Wittgenstein and the late Wittgenstein, the very core of his philosophy was maintained – and that is his principle of ‘silence’. The second part would be on my presupposition that the Wittgensteinian way of thinking has crept into the way Christian thinkers engage their theological enterprise. I am speaking here of Wittgenstein’s notion of the “language games” and the community-formulated characteristic grammars, rules and techniques of particular language games. And, the third part is meant for a quick survey on the influence of Wittgenstein to the major fields of Theology. The major fields (in my consideration) are: Theology Proper, Bible Hermeneutics and Christian Ethics. Then I would proceed to my brief conclusion on the last part that argues that even though skepticism, privatization, relativism and the notion of ‘silence’ are very much prevalent in the academe – particularly in higher education institutions – because of such philosophers like Wittgenstein, there is still a crucial place for the value of faith in the 21st century higher education. And the infusion is very much evident in the interdisciplinarity of philosophy and theology, i.e. philosophical theology.

WITTGENSTEINIAN FORMULATIONS ON

THEOLOGICAL THINKING

(The Relevance of the Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein

to Contemporary Theological Studies)

Introduction

Theology is an enormous task as it deals with a language that could be beyond human

comprehension. The formulations of Christian theology have been emergent responses to the

philosophies, worldviews, and heresies that arose throughout the history of the Christian thought.

By the time church history reached the medieval period, Christians were almost ready to accept

everything that seems extremely “other-worldly” realities and to integrate them in their faith

walk and understanding. This trending formulation of theological understanding has been the

zeitgeist that some philosophers, like Immanuel Kant, were very repulsive about because of

human finitude on what can be or not be properly said about God. One who spoke of Kant’s

depth regarding this matter is Ludwig Wittgenstein whose “critique of language” (TLP: §4.0031)

is considered as a “radicalization of Kant’s critique of reason.”1

This paper is presented as an exposition of the thoughts I gained in studying Wittgenstein

and his relevance for my own field of academic inclination – theology and philosophy. For the

first part of the paper, I would look at points that summarize my own understanding of

Wittgensteinian concepts in his major works.2 The major works that would be examined are the

1 Fergus Kerr, Theology after Wittgenstein (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1986), 37. 2 The only primary writings that would be examined are the Tractatus, Philosophical Investigations and

“Lectures on Religious Beliefs”. All quotations and citations from other Wittgenstein’s works would be cited with “as quoted by…” or “as cited by…” other authors of secondary sources on Wittgenstein.

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus3 and the Philosophical Investigations4. The second part would

be on my presupposition that the Wittgensteinian way of thinking has crept into the way

Christian thinkers engage their theological enterprise. I am speaking here of Wittgenstein’s

notion of the “language games” and the community-formulated characteristic grammars, rules

and techniques of particular language games. And the third part is meant for a quick survey on

the influence of Wittgenstein to the major fields of Theology. The major fields are (in my

consideration): Theology Proper, Bible Hermeneutics and Christian Ethics. Then I would

proceed to my brief conclusion on the last part that tries to establish the place of faith in

philosophical theology.

The Tractarian Wittgenstein

and the Late Wittgenstein is Still Wittgenstein

I now present some points of Wittgenstein by highlighting bits of thoughts in his two

seminal works: TLP and PI. Then I would posit the idea that although there is a great distinction

between the early Wittgenstein and the late Wittgenstein, the very core of his philosophy was

maintained – and that is his principle of ‘silence’ if one may call it.

Wittgenstein once said to his friend Drury, “My fundamental ideas came to me very early

in life.”5 I am convinced that these fundamental ideas are philosophical disciplines that suggest a

great respect to “that which is unsayable.”6 In a letter Wittgenstein wrote to Ludwig von Ficker

3 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, side-by-side-by-side electronic version 0.22 (May

3, 2010), alongside both the Ogden/Ramsay and Pears/McGuinness English translations. All quotations with TLP are derived from the Tractatus.

4 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, German text with an English translation by G.E.M. Anscombe et al., 4th ed. (UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2009), preface/4e. All quotations with PI are derived from the Philosophical Investigations.

5 Recollections of Wittgenstein, ed. Rush Rhees (Oxford University Press, 1984), 158. As quoted by Kerr, Theology after Wittgenstein, 36.

6 Kerr, Theology after Wittgenstein, 37.

regarding the publishing of the Tractatus, he declared, “All of that which many are babbling

today, I have defined in my book by remaining silent about it…”7

This is the principle that I would like to maintain as I read through Wittgenstein’s two

seminal works. The concluding remarks in both the Tractatus and the Philosophical

Investigations that declare “whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent” (TLP: §7); and

“nothing is more wrong-headed than to call meaning something a mental activity!” (PI: §693),

respectively, imply (at least it seems to me) that both the Tractarian Wittgenstein and the late

Wittgenstein suggest that we ought to confine our discourses into the realm of the “utterable”.8

The challenge now is its application to the discourses about religion and theology RT.

The Early Wittgenstein on Theology and Religion

(Skimming through the Tractatus)

The early Wittgenstein in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus believes that the problems

in philosophy arise because of the failure to understand the logic of language. For Wittgenstein,

language is used to express our thoughts while these thoughts are actually pictures of the world.

The world is composed of “the totality of facts” (TLP: §1.1) that shows the connections of

objects such that they form “states of affairs” (TLP: §2.014). Just as with the logical pictures of

facts, language does represent existing or non-existing state of affairs as well (TLP: §4.2). But

nevertheless its truthfulness or falsity (or meaninglessness) is determined through its comparison

with reality. To understand the sense of a proposition, therefore, means to know what is the case

in actual reality. “Reality is compared with proposition,” says Wittgenstein, while

“[p]ropositions can be true or false only by being pictures of reality” (TLP: §4.05-06). And with

7 ‘Letters to Ludwig von Ficker,’ trans. Bruce Gillette, in Luckhardt, Sources and Perspectives, 94. As

quoted by Kerr, Ibid. Bold-Italics mine for emphasis. 8 Earl Stanley Fronda, “Wittgenstein Repudiates Metaphysical Chatter, Not Metaphysics per se,” 141.

regards to propositions that can neither be falsified nor verified as true, Wittgenstein stresses (1)

the senselessness of such declarations and (2) the misunderstanding of our language’s logic:

Most propositions and questions, that have been written about philosophical matters, are not false, but senseless. We cannot, therefore, answer questions of this kind at all, but only state their senselessness. Most questions and propositions of the philosophers result from the fact that we do not understand the logic of our language. (TLP: §4.003)

With this flow of thought, Wittgenstein proceeds by saying that “the limits of the

language (the language which I understand) mean the limits of my world” (TLP: §5.62). He

initially gives a summary at the preface of the Tractatus that, “What can be said at all can be said

clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent” – where the latter phrase

actually appeared as a concluding statement of this particular work (TLP: §7).9

Although Wittgenstein did not explicitly say that RT statements are meaningless and

nonsensical, it seems that such statements fall outside the limits of language for they cannot be

evaluated within what could be seen as empirical reality. Nevertheless, limits only make sense if

there are matters that transcend it. There are, indeed, that which transcend humanly discourse so

“it cannot be simply dismissed as ‘nothing’.”10 “How the world is,” Wittgenstein says, “is

completely indifferent for what is higher. God does not reveal himself in the world” (TLP:

§6.432). Whether be it a Parmenidian or Tillichian or a Personal God, Wittgenstein’s point is

that we simply cannot utter meaningful statements about that given entity; and so, we confine it

to silence (TLP: §7).11

9 I greatly acknowledge that the understanding of this summary is based on Dr. Earl Stanley Fronda’s

Classroom Lecture on Contemporary Philosophy, UP Diliman, 1st Semester of SY 2009-10. And thus, deserves to be footnoted.

10 Fronda, “Wittgenstein Repudiates Metaphysical Chatter,” 140. 11 Ibid., 141.

Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy

(Skimming through the Philosophical Investigations)

In the writing of the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein acknowledged the “grave

mistakes” he set out in the Tractatus. But it is noteworthy that his aim was to “publish those old

ideas and the new ones together” so the “latter could be seen in the right light only by contrast

with and against the background” of his former way of thinking. (PI: §Preface)

I would like to divide this part on Wittgenstein’s later philosophy into three sections that

are necessary to be taken into consideration: First is about Wittgenstein’s notion of language for

social activity, second is about his reaction to metaphysical pronouncements; and last is about his

position on our claims of what we know.

These three sections would (1) prove to be (if my understanding is correct) concepts

asserting that the early Wittgenstein and his late philosophy maintained the very core of his

philosophy with regards to the notions of God and religion; and (2) show that these

Wittgensteinian notions are potential tools for a better formulation of theological thinking – that

serve as a link to the next part of this paper.

On the Use of Language and its Meaning

At the very beginning of the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein immediately

presents a quotation from Augustine’s Confessions that says:

When grown-ups named some object and at the same time turned towards it, I perceived this, and I grasped that the thing was signified by the sound they uttered, since they meant to point it out. This, however, I gathered from their gestures, the natural language of all peoples… In this way, little by little, I learnt to understand what things the words, which I heard uttered in their respective places in various sentences, signified. And once I got my tongue around these signs, I used them to express my wishes.12

12 Augustine, Confessions, I.8. As quoted by Wittgenstein, PI: §1.

By quoting this text, he initially introduced the faulty usage of language that as if it gives “a

particular picture of the essence of human language” (PI: §1).

If in the Tractatus the use of language as the “logical pictures of the facts” (TLP: §3) was

one of Wittgenstein’s concerns, it seems that in the Philosophical Investigations, he now focuses

on the “practice of the use of language”, and then introduced what he calls the “language-

games” (PI: §7, bold letters mine). A “language-game” stresses the “fact that the speaking of

language is part of an activity, or of a form of life” such as, to state Wittgenstein’s own

examples, “…thanking, cursing, greeting, praying” (PI: §23). He also sets out a notion of

“family resemblances” (PI: §67) such that, though relationships and similarities are not easily

defined in language, “we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-

crossing” (PI: §66). Just like in his “games” theme: as we try to compare a board-game to a card-

game, and then to a ball-game, “much that is common is retained, but much is lost” (PI: §66). It

is also true with the way we use language where it emerges from different activities or forms of

life.

This position of Wittgenstein regarding language is a necessary ground for understanding

the two other considerations below as he moves away from traditional Western philosophies –

which contain a “denial of the bodily nature of ‘meaning’.” Words, for Wittgenstein, are always

used in its proper ‘undualistic’ contexts – the social, the behavioral and linguistic contexts.13 It

can be said that Wittgenstein’s project is the challenge to master language in its earthbound use.

On Traditional Metaphysical Matters

As already mentioned, Wittgenstein was an ‘unorthodox’ analytic philosopher who also

tried to overcome the trend of dualism in traditional Western thinking. His philosophies go

13 Bruce Ashford, “Wittgenstein’s Theologians? A Survey of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Impact on Theology,” in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (June 2007, vol. 50 no.2), 357-75.

against the primitive notions of Platonic essentialism, making “philosophy as the setting forth of

grand theories”, that could be contemplated from the so-called Ultimate Reality. “Philosophy,”

Wittgenstein writes, “just puts everything before us, and neither explains nor deduces anything”

(PI: §126); and so, “All explanation must disappear, and description alone must take its place”

(PI: §109). With this insinuation, language limits philosophical processes that it “should not

attempt to get outside of itself by becoming what it is not (explanatory and metaphysical).14

It seems that Wittgenstein is also repulsive of the idea that the human person is in its state

of dichotomy of mind and body. In his last statement on the first part of the Philosophical

Investigations, he said that, “…nothing is more is wrong-headed than to call meaning something

a mental activity!” lest one sets out “to produce confusion” (PI: §693). He rejected the “two-

substance theory of reality” and the “absolute conception of reality”, and lectured on “just the

opposite of Descartes’ emphasis on ‘I’.”15

But with regards to these transcendental beliefs and others that were not mentioned,

Wittgenstein does not reject its possibility or truthfulness. He was merely saying that we cannot

speak of them clearly. U.P. Professor Dr. Earl Stanley Fronda argued that Wittgenstein

repudiates not metaphysics, but metaphysical chatter:

Any chatter about that which is beyond the normal provisions of the human form of life… is metaphysical chatter… Wittgenstein shuns it, not because of the lack of truth of the statements that are issued in it, but because the said statements are otiose as speaking of the transcendent is ultimately futile. There cannot be any point at all in making metaphysical claims for such a claim cannot in principle be tested for verisimilitude.16

14 Ibid., 359. 15 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein’s Lectures, Cambridge 1932-1935, ed. Alice Ambrose (Oxford:

Blackwell, 1979), 63. As quoted by Ashford, Ibid. See also Kerr, Theology after Wittgenstein, 3-27. 16 Fronda, “Wittgenstein Repudiates Metaphysical Chatter,” 140

On Human Epistemological Capacity

“Philosophy,” says Wittgenstein, “must not interfere in anyway with the actual use of

language, so it can in the end only describe it” (PI: §124). Knowledge for Wittgenstein is rooted

in describing a person’s form of life and not in a consciousness for one’s self just as the

Cartesian ‘ego’.17 So Wittgenstein asserts that there are limits to the capacity we see, believe and

understand pictures of reality. In the usage of expressions, we “make detours, go by the side

roads” because although we “see the straight highway before us,” we cannot use it “because it is

permanently closed” (PI: §426). In fact, Wittgenstein says that only a god could view the world

from above and an outside perspective:

…the form of expression seems to have been tailored for a god, who knows what we cannot know; he sees all of those infinite series, and he sees into the consciousness of human beings. For us, however, these forms of expression are like vestments, which we may put on, but cannot do much with, since we lack the effective power that would give them point and purpose. (PI: §426) With these words, Wittgenstein invites us to remember who we really are and “to give up

comparing ourselves with ethereal beings.”18 There are matters beyond the limits of our

comprehension and we ought not to explain but only to define (PI: §109).

The Trend of Wittgensteinian Formulations in Theology

Some theologians (Christian theologians in particular) found refuge in the works of

Wittgenstein. One philosopher/theologian (if indeed, it is possible to be a philosopher and a

theologian at the same time) said that, “ ‘Wittgenstein’s work has not had a great deal of

influence on theology’ and ‘it is unclear what might happen to a theology given the full

Wittgenstein treatment’.”19 But in the course of time, we eventually saw the inclination of

Christian thinkers to formulate different areas of theological studies with a Wittgensteinian

17 Ashford, “Wittgenstein’s Theologians?,” 360. 18 Kerr, Theology After Wittgenstein, 45. 19 Keith Ward, review of Fergus Kerr, Theology after Wittgenstein (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986) in RelS

(1988), 267, 269. As quoted by Ashford, Wittgenstein’s Theologians?, 357.

touch. Stanley Hauerwas, one of the preeminent living theologians of today, writes in his book

The Peaceable Kingdom that Wittgenstein cured him “of the notion that philosophy was

primarily a matter of positions, ideas, and/or theories.”20

In this portion of my paper, I would identify two main Wittgensteinian themes that have

already crept immensely into the way theology is understood and practiced in Christian circles.

Language Games

Language consists of grammar that makes it appear to have sense within the use of

language. A statement does not make sense if it is not understood within its “language game” in

its entirety. These language games, according to Wittgenstein, are guided by the grammar of a

particular language. Interestingly, Wittgenstein added a parenthetical statement: “Theology as

grammar” (PI: §373). This might mean, it seems to me, that theology and religious concepts

have its own vocabularies, rules and techniques closely-knit to people and their forms of life.

Wittgenstein says:

It is not possible that there should have been only one occasion on which only on person followed a rule. It is not possible that there should have been only one occasion on which a report was made, an order given or understood, and so on. – To follow a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of chess, are customs (usages, institutions). To understand a sentence means to understand a language. To understand a language means to have mastered a technique. (PI: §199)

Hauerwas himself considers Wittgenstein’s notion on language greatly. Though he does

not evidently use the phrase “language-game,” it could be seen that he stresses that, “language is

always embedded in a form of life. Christian discourse is embedded in Christian practice.”21

…Wittgenstein ended forever any attempt on my part to try to anchor theology in some general account of “human experience,” for his writings taught me that the object of the theologians’ work was best located in terms of the grammar of the language used by the believers.22

20 Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer on Christian Ethics (Notre Dame: University of

Notre Dame Press, 1983), xxi 21 Ashford, Wittgenstein’s Theologians?, 362. 22 Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom, xxi.

The Community as World

Picking it up from the concept of the “language games”, I would want to go back to

Wittgenstein’s statement in the Tractatus: “The limits of my language are the limits of my

world” (TLP: §5.6). The shift from the early Wittgenstein to the late one is quite difficult for me

to keenly analyze. But if I were allowed to interpret this statement, I would say that this

statement strongly applies for its use on the concept of language in community or communities.

(Wittgenstein considered his own early work as dogmatic wherein he wrote against making

philosophy a doctrine and so the approach should not be dogmatic.) The transition from the

Tractatus is a noticeable shift from the “realm of logic” and dogmatic analysis to a non-dogmatic

use of ordinary language, family resemblances and language games.23

I would like to apply this notion of Wittgenstein to the context of church life. One needs

to understand the particular language game in Christian communities, lest he limits himself in a

world where he cannot communicate meaningfully with it. For example, the use of “scripture is

always located in the web of ecclesial practices, skills, and gestures,” such that “the church is the

irreplaceable locus of authority for reading Scripture.”24 Thus, one needs to understand how

persons use “scripture” and “church” in its own context of usage, because even Christian

traditions have diverse regard to these entities.

In Theology after Wittgenstein, Fergus Kerr gave an example of the Christian

understanding of atonement or the “scapegoat Christology.” “Following Wittgenstein,” says

Kerr, “one might be able to root the doctrine of the atonement in brute facts about the internal

23 “Ludwig Wittgenstein,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, First published on Nov 8, 2002;

substantive revision on Dec 23, 2009. 24 Michael G. Cartwright, “Stanley Hauerwas’s Essays in Theological Ethics: A Reader’s Guide,” in

Stanley Hauerwas, The Hauerwas Reader, eds. John Berkman and Michael Cartwright (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001), 641. As quoted by Ashford, “Wittgenstein’s Theologians?,” 362.

dynamics of any human community.” He goes on to say that the “theological significance of the

death of Jesus rehabilitates the language of sacrifice by drawing on considerations from social

anthropology.” From this series of historical-anthropological studies, Kerr asserted that the

‘scapegoating’ of Jesus bears much understanding only in the context of sin. If we say we have

no sin then we resist the terrible truth that “we need scapegoats to keep ourselves at peace.”25

Kerr importantly noted:

…it is only when we can say that we are sinners that we can say anything interesting about the death of Jesus… but the problem is to get substantial anthropological content into our understanding of ourselves as ‘sinners’. ‘Christianity is not a doctrine’, Wittgenstein wrote: ‘not, I mean, a theory about what has happened and what will happen to the human soul, but a description of something that actually takes place in human life. For “consciousness of sin” is a real event…26 This is the case in theology, which is defined in a simple way as talking about God. We

speak about God in the context of a community, which has a different language from the non-

religious. Religion is a distinct practice or use of language with its own grammar rules and

techniques. Thus, it is possible for some to engage with it and to master its practice. Its

truthfulness and falsity cannot be evaluated from the perspective of science because it has a

different language game. That is the reason why sometimes the transliteration of theology as

“the science of knowing God” brings much confusion because, on the other side of the coin,

religion cannot subject itself to the rules of science. This is one reason why Wittgenstein

expressed a somewhat sarcastic reaction towards Drury in his intention to be a priest.

Wittgenstein said that he is afraid that he might just try to give some sort of philosophical

justifications in his sermon every week as if some proofs are needed; whereas to make it into a

philosophical system is offensive to the wonders of religion. In fact, he finds it disgusting when

25 Kerr, Theology After Wittgenstein, 181-82. 26 Ibid., 182. Words of Wittgenstein from Culture and Value, ed. G.H. von Wright in collaboration with

Heikki Nyman, trans. Peter Winch (Oxford: Blackwell, 1966), 28. See also Norman Malcolm, Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View? (London: Routledge, 1993), 16, 19.

people try to philosophically systematize it.27 Thus for Wittgenstein, religion and talk about God

is not altogether senseless or meaningless but only non-scientific.

Not only that RT has its own ‘Language’ but RT has “different forms of language, which

occur in different situations and convey meaning in different ways…”28 For example, the words

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned” makes sense only in the Roman Catholic tradition; and the

practice of speaking in tongues among Pentecostals is an entirely foreign way of worship to other

traditional backgrounds of Christianity. So, is there a thing such as a “Religious Language”? It

would be best to say ‘No’; there are only usage of different forms of language in particular faith

practices of the people.29

It is also the same thing in the world of experiences. We have to ask if there is such a

thing as religious experience. Of course if we say that there is no such a thing, then that would

be obnoxious to RT. With this, we dismiss the notion that there could be a possibility of God.

Wittgenstein never got this far!! In the Memoir of Wittgenstein written by his friend Paul

Engelman, he said that the idea of a Creator God “scarcely engaged Wittgenstein’s attention but

‘the notion of a last judgment was of profound concern to him’.”30 And so, in this sense,

Wittgenstein never dismissed the possibility of God. With regards to religious experience, it is

entertained in the language game of RT. For not maintaining its possibility “would mean

limiting the power, the potential, of God” but what’s impossible is to formulate a Theology from

a particular religious experience as if there is such a thing as ‘The Experience’.31

27 See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Personal Recollections, ed. Rush Rhees, 123, as cited by Malcolm,

Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View?, 11; Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle: Conversations recorded by Friedrich Waismann, ed. Brian McGuiness (Oxford: Blackwell, 1979), 117, as cited by Ashford, Wittgenstein’s Theologians?, 364.

28 Gareth Jones, Christian Theology: A Brief Introduction (USA: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1999), 49. 29 Ibid., 49-50. 30 Paul Engelman, Letters from Wittgenstein with a Memoir, 77, as cited by Malcolm, Wittgenstein: A

Religious Point of View?, 9. 31 Jones, Christian Theology, 52-54.

A Brief Survey on the Influence of Wittgenstein

in Major Fields of Theology

For this part of the paper, I would like to present a quick look on the impact of

Wittgenstein to Christian Theology. Indeed, it is only a quick look. A good material for a

survey on the influence of Wittgenstein could be Kerr’s Theology after Wittgenstein or Ashford’s

Wittgenstein’s Theologians?. But for this section, I would just examine some formulations of

theological thought that are parallel to Wittgensteinian claims.

I divided Christian Theology into three main categories with their respective literature to

be examined: (1) Postmodern Theology32 edited by Kevin Vanhoozer for Theology Proper, (2)

Anthony Thiselton’s The Two Horizons33 for Bible Hermeneutics; and (3) Stanley Hauerwas’s

The Peaceable Kingdom for Christian Ethics. Christian Theology has a particular language-

game/s for a particular community/communities, but these major fields are languages within the

language-game/s.

Theology Proper

Theology that regulates the faith and practice of the church operates in an individual

while grammatical analysis comes to us in a “social-linguistic world.” This means that,

what is real for humans is shown by the way human beings – in the plural – speak with one another. To pronounce upon matters that lie beyond the boundaries of language use can only breed confusion.34 The temptation, even in Theology proper is to make pronouncements such as the

philosophical struggles on the existence of God. But there is a wrong grammatical use in the

application of existence because it does not apply to God. “We ordinarily say, ‘For how long has

32 The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology, ed. Kevin Vanhoozer (UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

33 Anthony Thiselton, The Two Horizons: New Testament Hermeneutics and Philosophical Description with Special Reference to Heidegger, Bultmann, Gadamer and Wittgenstein (Great Britain: The Paternoster Press, 1980).

34 Nancey Murphy and Brad J. Kallenberg, Postmodern Theology, 32.

this institution existed?’, ‘When did dinosaurs cease to exist?’, and ‘Sadly, racism still exists in

the world today.’”35 “God does not exist” is, in a sense, a wrong grammatical use unless “God

does not exist” is read as God ‘does not exist’ because existence is incompatible to God by

definition – God is eternal!!

But this kind of discourses seem unfruitful to me. In recent theological approaches, the

word “God” becomes meaningful by its relation to the complicated form of religious life:

…we pray to God, we witness about God, we confess our sins to God, and so on. If practice gives the word its sense (Wittgenstein’s notion in Culture and Value), then the word “God’ spoken from within an atheistic form or life and word “God” spoken by Christian believers are simply homonyms. It is no wonder that the theist-atheist debate has been interminable.36 Thus, we go back to Wittgenstein’s notion about community-based meaning that can be

applied to theology. “Theology as grammar” (PI: §373), for Kerr, is “the patient and painstaking

description of how, when we have to, we speak of God.”37 Trinitarian theology is probably one

of the most complicated assertions in Christian Theology. It operates in a particular

metanarrative with a story of God’s salvation and His relationship to the created order that only

makes sense to Christians. Nevertheless, it…

…becomes meaningful when it is enacted and embodied in the local stories and the concrete practices of particular believing communities. When Christians tell the story of God, they do so from within the context of particular practices of worship, prayer and everyday life… When theologians attempt to modify these narratives in ways that drift too far from the common practices of everyday believers, they will certainly be called to account by those who not simply talk about the narrative, but live their lives accordingly.38

Bible Hermeneutics

In the area of Hermeneutics, Anthony Thiselton wrote in The Two Horizons that he is

emphatically arguing for the relevance of Wittgenstein’s thoughts both in New Testament

35 Ibid., 33-34. 36 Murphy and Kallenberg, Postmodern Theology, 34. Parenthetical statement mine from Wittgenstein,

Culture and Value, 85., as cited by David S. Cunninghum, Postmodern Theology, 195. 37 Kerr, Theology after Wittgenstein, 147. 38 Cunninghum, Postmodern Theology, 199-200.

interpretation and in hermeneutical theory at large.39 The impact is easy to discern. We cannot

do a Bible interpretation outside a particular language game. To put it in a nutshell, Bible

interpreters became conscious of doing context-based understanding of Biblical text.

This is a radical shift from making every understanding be derived from the dogmatic

teachings of the church that is rooted from the allegorical interpretations of the early Church

Fathers. If we interpret Isaiah 53, for example, we do not see it immediately in the light of the

Christian understanding of the Suffering Servant; but we try to understand the socio-historical

context that makes sense to the Jews of those days even apart from the New Testament. Only

after acknowledging that fact, can we then go to the understanding of the Judeo-Christian

interpretation recognizing the historico-grammatical progression of a particular language-game.

It is just like comparing a board-game to a card-game, and then to a ball-game where, again,

“much that is common is retained, but much is lost” (PI: §66).

Christian Ethics

In Christian Ethics – in spite of the ‘conservativism’ and intolerance of some in the

Christian circles, Stanley Hauerwas boldly commented in the opening lines of his book:

All ethical reflection occurs relative to a particular time and place. Not only do ethical problems change from one time to the next, but the very nature and structure of ethics is determined by the particularities of a community’s history and convictions… In fact, much of the burden of this book will be to suggest that ethics always requires an adjective or qualifier – such as Jewish, Christian, Hindu, existentialist, pragmatic, utilitarian, humanist, medieval, modern – in order to denote the social and historical character of ethics as a discipline.40

This, again, has something to do with Witgenstein’s language games, its grammar within

a particular community context that gives sense to its play on ethics and the family resemblance

of morality on what is good and what is evil. Though Wittgenstein is not cited by Hauerwas all

through out the content of this particular writing (The Peaceable Kingdom), he initially

39 Thiselton, The Two Horizons, 26. 40 Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom, 1.

acknowledged him at the preface. Besides, Wittgensteinian notions are explicit in his ethical

assertions. Hauerwas considers ethics to be at the very heart of theological task because it is

“concerned to display how Christian convictions construe the self and the world.”41 This seems

to echo Wittgenstein’s “The world and life are one” (TLP: §5.621) only that the Tractarian

Wittgenstein considers ethics as transcendental (TLP: §6.421).

Let me just add briefly that Hauerwas’s concept of sin also somewhat parallels

Wittgenstein’s view that “consciousness of sin is a real event.” And again, it has something to

do with situating ourselves within a context. For Hauerwas, “we are not sinful because we

participate in some general human condition” but we learn our sin and become conscious of it as

we discover our true identity by locating the descriptive events in our lives “through the life,

death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”42

Conclusion

The task of Theology is a very difficult one and it has a tendency to be merely

transcendental. With regards to these matters, Wittgenstein’s advice is to confine them to

silence. Nevertheless, a Christian cannot fully follow that advice because it would undermine

the very core of the Gospel to spread the good news we received and shared in the community of

faith. What could be gained from Wittgenstein is his reverence for the “unspeakable”. We just

have to admit that, “both theology and philosophy have difficulty in speaking of language

ideally, as if there were a formal definition of language which fits each and every situation.”43

With this strong emphasis, Christian thinkers have been given a caution. And also, the

Wittgensteinian notion of our language limits is an encouragement for us to just understand and

41 Ibid., 55. 42 Ibid., 31. 43 Jones, Christian Theology, 49.

master the language from within (and to use evangelism to make the community accessible to

others outside). Our faith and practice should be ways of “knowing that is fit for humans, a way

of speaking that acknowledges the “bodiliness” of language and meaning, and a way of

worshiping that does not negate a person’s humanity.”44 The “task of theology is to be

descriptive rather than speculative, therapeutic rather than theoretical”45

The Church is an organic community that has its own language and could therefore be

misunderstood by others outside or be misevaluated by the use of inappropriate measures of

evaluation. “In a religious discourse,” says Wittgenstein, “we use such expressions… differently

to the way in which we use them in science.” If you ask a person whether why he believes

something, Wittgenstein’s remark is that,

He will probably say he has no proof. But he has what you might call an unshakeable belief. It will show, not by reasoning or by appeal to ordinary ground for belief but rather by regulating for in all his life.46 With this brief monologue of Wittgenstein, I end this paper: “How do I recognize that

this colour is red?,” – One answer would be: “I have learnt English” (PI: §381). And so, how do

we get to know the meaningfulness of Christian beliefs and practices? An answer would be: “I

have entered a Christian community and have comprehended the language from within.”

44 Ashford on Kerr, Wittgenstein’s Theologians?, 364. 45 Ashford on Hauerwas, Wittgenstein’s Theologians?, 362. 46 Ludwig Wittgenstein, “Lectures on Religious Beliefs,” Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics,

Psychology and Religious Belief, compiled from notes taken by Yorick Symthies, et al., Cyrill Barrett, ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1966), 53-72.

Bibliography

Note: Sources with ( * ) were used extensively

Wittgenstein’s Writings and Letters:

Alice Ambrose (ed). Wittgenstein’s Lectures, Cambridge 1932-1935. Oxford: Blackwell, 1979.

Engelman, Paul. Letters from Wittgenstein with a Memoir.

Gillete, Bruce (trans) ‘Letters to Ludwig von Ficker,’ in Luckhardt, Sources and Perspectives.

McGuiness, Brian (ed) Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle: Conversations recorded by Friedrich

Waismann. Oxford: Blackwell, 1979.

Rhees, Rush (ed). Recollections of Wittgenstein. Oxford University Press, 1984.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Culture and Value, ed. G.H. von Wright in collaboration with Heikki Nyman,

trans. Peter Winch. Oxford: Blackwell, 1966.

*---------------------------- “Lectures on Religious Beliefs,” Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics,

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*---------------------------- Philosophical Investigations, German text with an English translation by

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Secondary Sources:

*Hauerwas, Stanley. The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer on Christian Ethics. Notre Dame: University

of Notre Dame Press, 1983.

Jones, Gareth. Christian Theology: A Brief Introduction. USA: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1999.

*Kerr, Fergus. Theology after Wittgenstein. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1986.

Malcolm, Norman. Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View? London: Routledge, 1993.

Thiselton, Anthony. The Two Horizons: New Testament Hermeneutics and Philosophical Description

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*Ashford, Bruce. “Wittgenstein’s Theologians? A Survey of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Impact on

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Fronda, Earl Stanley “Wittgenstein Repudiates Metaphysical Chatter.” Used with permission.

Online Source:

“Ludwig Wittgenstein,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, First published on Nov 8, 2002;

substantive revision on Dec 23, 2009.