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Wittgenstein's (Misunderstood) Religious Thought Wittgenstein’s (Misunderstood) Religious Thought Philosophy of Religion World Religions Editor in chief Jerome Gellman, Ben Gurion University Editorial Board Pamela Anderson, University of Oxford Robert McKim, University of Illinois VOLUME 1 Wittgenstein’s (Misunderstood) Religious Thought By Earl Stanley B. Fronda LEIDEN • BOSTON 2010 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fronda, Earl Stanley B. Wittgenstein’s (misunderstood) religious thought / by Earl Stanley B. Fronda. p. cm. – (Philosophy of religion. World religions, ISSN 2210-481X ; v. 1) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 978-90-04-18609-5 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1889–1951. 2. Religion—Philosophy. 3. Negative theology. I. Title. II. Title: Wittgenstein’s religious thought. III. Series. B3376.W564F755 2010 210.92–dc22 2010023736 ISSN 2210-481X ISBN 978 90 04 18609 5 Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is dedicated to the memory of Professor Dewi Zephaniah Phillips (University of Wales, Swansea) and Professors Silvino and Nieves Epistola (University of the Philippines) CONTENTS Volume Foreword ............................................................................. ix Preface ................................................................................................ xi Acknowledgement ............................................................................ xiii List of Initials and Abbreviations .................................................. xv Introduction ....................................................................................... 1 Chapter One: Wittgenstein’s Religious Point of View ............... 5 I. To take or not to take Wittgenstein’s remark at face value ........................................................................................ 5 II. Mysticism as Wittgenstein’s religious point of view ...... 14 III. The merits of positing mysticism as Wittgenstein’s religious point of view ......................................................... 17 Chapter Two: The Theology of the Early Wittgenstein ............. 27 I. The mystical Wittgenstein ................................................... 27 II. Wittgenstein’s apophaticism ............................................... 38 III. The Pseudo-Dionysian theology ........................................ 44 IV. Wittgenstein’s theology is Pseudo-Dionysian .................. 51 Chapter Three: The Mature Wittgenstein on (Religious) Language ........................................................................................ 53 I. On language ........................................................................... 54 II. On the limits of language .................................................... 61 III. The trouble with speaking of the unspeakable ................ 65 IV. On religious language .......................................................... 69 Chapter Four: The Mature Wittgenstein on Seeing and (not) Speaking of God ........................................................................... 79 I. Speaking of the mind ........................................................... 79 II. Speaking of God .................................................................... 87 III. Some objections .................................................................... 92 IV. Wittgenstein à la St. Thomas Aquinas .............................. 98 V. Seeing God ............................................................................. 99 viii contents Chapter Five: ‘God exists’ after Wittgenstein after St. Thomas Aquinas .......................................................................................... 109 I. ‘God exists’ after Wittgenstein ............................................ 110 II. God exists as a grammatical hinge .................................... 115 III. St. Thomas Aquinas on ‘God exists’ .................................. 121 IV. Wittgenstein à la St. Thomas .............................................. 128 Chapter Six: Wittgenstein on the (Supposed) Evidence for God’s Existence ...................................................................... 129 I. On miracles as evidence of the divine .............................. 130 II. On religious experience as evidence of the divine .......... 140 III. The orderliness of the universe as evidence of the divine ...................................................................................... 144 IV. Faith creates the evidence that justifies faith ................... 149 Chapter Seven: Wittgenstein’s Religious Realism with Attitude .......................................................................................... 157 I. Cupitt’s idealist Wittgenstein ............................................. 157 II. From behaviourism to religious non-realism .................. 163 III. Wittgenstein’s anti-realism and his realist attitude ........ 170 IV. Realism/non-realism and Wittgenstein’s God ................. 176 V. ‘God’ and ‘colour’ ................................................................. 180 VI. Apophatic theology and God-universe bi-conditionality .................................................................... 185 Chapter Eight: The Wittgensteinian Philosophy of Religion is misunderstood .......................................................................... 189 I. The criticisms against the Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion ............................................................................... 190 II. Two discursive traditions about God as (not) a being .... 195 III. Wittgenstein in line with the Plotinian tradition ............ 201 IV. The criticisms are borne of nescience or obliviousness ............................................................................ 205 Chapter Nine: Concluding remarks: The difference it makes in understanding Wittgenstein’s religious point of view ...... 213 I. Wittgenstein’s religious point of view and other non-religious matters ........................................................... 213 II. Wittgenstein’s religious point of view and the conduct of philosophy of religion ..................................................... 220 contents ix III. Concluding remarks on non-realism, crypto-atheism and fideism ............................................................................. 221 Bibliography ....................................................................................... 231 Index ................................................................................................... 239 VOLUME FOREWORD Brill is pleased to begin its series in Philosophy of Religion—World Religions with this book by Earl Fronda. The series is dedicated to studies in particular religions, cross-religious explorations, and exami- nations of divergent traditions within religions. In this work Fronda examines the philosophy of religion of Ludwig Wittgenstein while tak- ing note of two divergent theological traditions in Christendom, one oriented towards cataphatic theology, the other towards apophatic theology. Fronda presents an outstanding analysis of Wittgenstein’s writings on religion and an insightful placing of Wittgenstein squarely in the apophatic tradition. Jerome Gellman, Series Editor Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel PREFACE This book (hopefully) would prove useful to undergraduate and post- graduate students of philosophy, to instructors of philosophy of reli- gion and Wittgensteinian studies, and even to philosophically inclined theologians and lay persons who are familiar with the issues in analytic philosophy of religion. This book’s evolution commenced when, while doing research on another topic, I noticed that not a few well-noted philosophers of religion—some of whom I admired very much—glar- ingly misread Ludwig Wittgenstein. I thought—or hoped—that some of them might have reconsidered their (mis)reading, so in an e-mail I asked one of them if he still stood by what he wrote several years previ- ously. He replied in the affirmative, even referring me to a few of his subsequent works where he repeated what he said in his earlier writing. That unsettled me a bit. Then I recalled that I had presented a paper in the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society Symposium that was implicitly critical of the Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion. I had a discussion with someone in the audience who said that I spoke as though God was a “being among other beings.” I did not give much thought to that until I realized how badly critics of the Wittgensteinian philosophy of reli- gion misrepresented Wittgenstein. So I revisited Wittgenstein’s works and other relevant materials and became increasingly convinced that I myself had misunderstood the Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion, and more disturbingly, that the philosophers whom I
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