Religion and Pseudo Religion

Religion and Pseudo-Religion: An Elusive BoundaryAuthor(s): Sami PihlströmSource: International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 62, No. 1 (Aug., 2007), pp. 3-32Published by: Springer

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Int

J Philos

Relig

(2007)

62:3-32

DOI 10.1007/sl

1153-007-9120-2

ORIGINAL

PAPER

Religion

and

pseudo-religion:

an

elusive

boundary

Sami Pihlstr?m

Received: 27

October 2006 /

Accepted:

9

February

2007 /

Published

online: 18

July

2007

?

Springer

Science+Business Media B.V.

2007

Abstract This

paper

examines the

possibility

of

setting

a

boundary

between

religion

and

pseudo-religion

(or

superstition).

Philosophers

of

religion inspired

by

Ludwig

Wittgen

stein's

ideas,

in

particular,

insist that

religious

language-use

can

be

neither

legitimated

nor

criticized from the

perspective

of

non-religious

language-games.

Thus,

for

example,

the

odicist

requirement

that the

existence of evil

should be

theoretically

reconciled

with

theism

can

be

argued

to

be

pseudo-religious

(superstitious).

Another

example

discussed in

the

paper

is the

relation between

religion

and

morality.

The

paper

concludes

by

reflecting

on

the issue

of relativism

arising

from

the

Wittgensteinian

contention

that the

religion

vs.

pseudo-reli

gion

division

can

only

be

drawn within

a

religious

framework,

and

on

Wittgenstein's

own

suggestion

that

the

religious

person

uses

a

picture .

Keywords

Religion

Pseudo-religion

Superstition

Evil

Ethics

Wittgenstein,

L.

James,

W

1

Introduction

It

is

a

commonplace

that

defining religion

is

a

very

difficult,

if

not

hopeless,

task.

Scholars

of

comparative religion,

for

example,

seldom

propose

any

explicit

definitions;

nor

do

phi

losophers

of

religion.

I

am not

going

to

propose

anything

like

that

in

this

paper,

either.

My

aims

are,

as

philosophical

aims

should

be,

located

at

the

meta-level:

what

I

am

interested in

is the

very

possibility

of

drawing

the,

or even

a,

boundary

between

religion

and

non-religion,

S.

Pihlstr?m

(IS1)

Philosophy

unit,

Department

of

Mathematics,

Statistics and

Philosophy,

University

of

Tampere,

Finland

e-mail:

[email protected]

?

Springer







4

Int J

Philos

Relig

(2007)

62:3-32

particularly

between

religion

and what I call

pseudo-religion

(or

what

may

as

well be

called

superstition ,

and

what

may

also

sometimes

come

close

to

hypocrisy ).1

Through

a

number of

case

studies,

I

will

examine

whether

attempts

to

draw such

a

boundary

are

committed

to

essentialism, viz.,

to

a

view

according

to

which

certain

essential

religion

making properties

are

required

for

a

given

activity

or

way

of

thinking

to

be

religious,

or

to be

accurately

describable

as

religious.

If such

an

essentialist view

were

true,

an

explicit

definition

of

religion

would be

a

meaningful goal,

and

its

possibility

would be

a

necessary

presupposition

of

any

normative discussion of

religion

and

religiosity.

If,

however,

no essen

tialism is

invoked,

or

if essentialism is

rejected

as

a

hopelessly

outdated

form of

metaphysics,

then

the

question

arises

whether

any

religion

vs.

pseudo-religion

(or

religion

vs.

supersti

tion)

boundary

can

be

drawn

at

all. This

issue

takes

an

especially

interesting

shape

in

the

Wittgensteinian

tradition

in the

philosophy

of

religion.

On the

one

hand,

it

seems

that

Wittgensteinian philosophers

of

religion,

such

as

D. Z.

Phillips,

confine

their task

to

the

mere

description

of

religious

ways

of

using

language?the

rules of

religious

language-games ,

as one

might

put

it,

keeping

in mind that

Wittgenstein

himself

never

explicitly

applied

his

concept

of

a

language-game

to

religion.

On

the

other

hand,

such

philosophers

are

often

busily

commenting

on

the

right

or

correct

(and

conversely,

wrong

and

incorrect )

ways

of

using religious

language.

This

latter

normative

task,

the

attempt

to

lay

down

rules

for

genuinely

religious

language-use,

seems

to

be

a

crucial

part

of their

philosophizing

about

religion,

even

if

they explicitly

commit themselves

to

a

mere

description

of

language-games,

that

is,

to

merely observing

that such-and-such rules

are

defacto

involved

in

such-and-such

communities,

practices,

or

forms of life.

Analogously,

pragmatist

philosophers

of

religion,

seeking

to

understand social

religious practices,

or

individual

religious

experiences

along

the

lines

of

William

James,

tend

to

arrive

at statements

about the

ways

such

practices

ought

to

be

engaged

in,

or

about

the

kind of

experiences

a

genuinely

religious

person

may

enjoy.

Now,

insofar

as

Wittgensteinians

and/or

pragmatists

engage

in normative discussion

of

religion,

are

they

committing

themselves

to

essentialism?

If

they

are,

don't

they

end

up

with

self-reflective

incoherence,

given

these

philosophical

orientations'

hostility

to

essentialist

assumptions?

And

if

they

are

not,

how does their

position

in

the

end differ

from

a

full-blown

relativism

according

to

which

no

religion

vs.

pseudo-religion

is

possible,

except

in

the

context

of

some

particular religious

tradition

or

standpoint?

A

comprehensive

treatment

of these

problems

would

require

us to

study

in

some

detail

a

number

of

specific

religious

and/or

theological

concepts

and

conceptions

in relation

to

which

the distinction

between

correct

and

incorrect,

or

properly (genuinely)

religious

and

pseudo

religious,

ways

of

speaking

and

thinking

can

be

applied.

Such

concepts

include,

e.g., prayer,

death and

immortality,

evil,

the

concept

of faith

itself,

and the relation between

religion,

on

the

one

side,

and

such

human

practices

or

social

institutions

as

science and

morality,

on

the

other.

Some of these issues will

only

be

mentioned

in

passing

below,

while others

will

receive

an

extended critical

discussion. In

particular,

I

will

emphasize

the

analogies

between

the

1

These

terms

are

not

always

interchangeable,

though.

For

example,

not

all

pseudo-religious

forms of behavior

can

be said

to

be

superstitious?not,

at

least,

if

superstition

involves

some

kind of

magical

attempts

to

control

one's

fate.

Someone

might,

for

instance,

have

a

religious

attitude

to

some

sport

s/he is

a

fan

of,

say

soccer,

and

others

may

condemn such

an

attitude

as

pseudo-religious

without

thereby condemning

it

as

superstitious.

Furthermore,

not

all

superstitious

forms of behavior need

to

be

hypocritical (given

that

hypocrisy

involves

some

kind of

pretending

or

lack

of

serious

commitment):

one can

be

seriously

confused

in one's

(pseudo-)reli

gious

life. In the

paradigmatic

cases

to

be

examined

in

this

paper,

however,

pseudo-religious

and

superstitious

(though

not

necessarily hypocritical)

attitudes

are

usually

very

close

to

each other

or even

amount to

one

and

the

same

thing,

that

is,

in

my

examples

below I

will be

mainly

interested

in

positions

that

can

be

characterized

as

both

pseudo-religious

and

superstitious.

4y

Springer






Int J

Philos

Relig

(2007)

62:3-32

5

contrasts

between

religion

and

pseudo-religion,

on

the

one

hand,

and

genuine

morality

and

its

distortions,

on

the

other.

These issues

are

not

identical,

but their

similarity

is

illuminating.

I

should

note,

moreover,

that

my

investigation

of the

religion

vs.

pseudo-religion

division

will be focused

on

religious

thinking

and

language-use,

instead of

religious

or

religiously

inspired

actions

(though

of

course

words

are

deeds,

too,

and

anyone

inspired

by

the later

Witt

genstein

must

in

one

way

or

another tie

meaning

to

action).

A

terrorist

might

pray

solemnly,

in

some

sense

highly

religiously,

and then

go

on

to

blow

up

hundreds of

innocent

people,

with

the

prayer

still

on

her/his

lips.

Such behavior

may

obviously

be

classified

as

pseudo-religious.

However,

this

essay

is

concerned

with

the

questions

of

whether,

and

how,

our

more

narrowly

linguistic,

conceptual,

and/or

argumentative

life

with

language

can

manifest

both

religious

and

pseudo-religious

aspects.

2

Examples

of the

religion

vs.

pseudo-religion

distinction

It

is

useful

to

briefly

introduce

the

issue

I

am

going

to

explore

through

examples,

because

the

Wittgensteinian

method

in

the

philosophy

of

religion

advises

us

to

look

at

particular

language

games,

instead

of

offering

a

universal

theory

of

what

religion

is. It is

from the

perspective

of

such

an

apparently

anti-essentialist

inquiry

that the

threat of

essentialism

arises.

We

may

ask, then,

what

kind of talk

or

thinking

about,

say,

the

following

six

topics

should

be

considered

genuinely

religious,

as

distinguished

from

pseudo-religious

or

superstitious:2

Prayer.

Here

the

contrast is

between

religion

and

magic:

the

religious

prayer

is

not

a

mag

ical

attempt

to

make God do

something

one

wants

Him to

do but

an

expression

of one's

sincere

trust

in

God,

whatever

happens,

along

the lines

of

the famous

phrase,

thy

will be

done .

A

magical

attitude

to

prayer

yields superstition

par

excellence.

Death,

mortality,

and

immortality.

Here

a

distinction

can

be drawn

between,

e.g.,

the

Christian

hope

for

survival

or

resurrection and the

kind of

fundamentalist

certainty

about

one's

salvation that

various

sects,

Christian

and

non-Christian,

preach.

Evil and

suffering.

Here,

arguably,

a

truly

religious

person

does

not

aim

at

a

theodicy

justifying

God's

ways

to

humans but

simply

trusts

God,

whatever

His

will

brings

about

in

the world.

Faith.

The

genuine

religious

believer,

again,

trusts

God,

rather

than

seeking epistemic

certainty

about God's

existence.

Religious

faith built

upon

such

trust

is

more

fundamental

than

any

evidence

one

might

come

up

with

(or

lack),

either for

or

against

theism.

Religion

and

morality.

A

major

issue

is

the contrast

between

tolerance

and

fundamental

ist,

hypocritical

moralizing,

e.g.,

on

homosexuality

and

other

sex/gender

issues

or

other

socio-politically

relevant

matters.

Religion

and

science.

The

truly

religious

believer

is,

once

again,

an

anti-fundamental

ist,

refusing

to

accept

either

fundamentalist

pseudo-sciences,

such

as

creationism,

or

the

typical

atheist

criticism that

progress

the

credibility

of

religious

beliefs.

In

cases

such

as

these,

we

should

(or

at

least

would like

to)

be able

to

say

that

certain

fundamentalist

ways

of

thinking

are

not

only

pseudo-scientific

(as

creationism

surely

is)

but

also

pseudo-religious,

yielding

superstition

instead of

genuine

religion.

The

cases

can

also

be

combined,

and

they

often

are.

For

instance,

we

would,

I

think,

be

prepared

to

regard

as

pseudo-religious

someone

who

prayed

in

order

to

manipulate

God

to save

her/his

immortal

soul

and

who

explained

away

unnecessary

suffering

by

referring

to

the sufferers' insuffi

ciently

successful

prayers

and faith.

2

This

list,

of

course,

is

by

no

means

exhaustive.

4y

Springer






6

Int

J Philos

Relig

(2007)

62:3-32

Recent

philosophers

of

religion

that

might

be

criticized,

at

least from

a

Wittgenstein

ian

perspective,

as

encouraging pseudo-religious superstition

rather than

genuine

religious

thought

include,

for

example, analytic

evidentialists,3

reformed

epistemologists,4

as

well

as,

obviously,

creationists and other

fundamentalists

(though

the

latter

can

hardly

even

be called

philosophers

of

religion).

The

Wittgensteinian philosophers

whose

views

on

religion

are

dia

metrically opposed

to

evidentialism

include,

among

others,

D.

Z.

Phillips,5

Lars

Hertzberg,

B.

R.

Tilghman,

Stephen

Mulhall,

as

well

as,

perhaps, Hilary

Putnam. Of

course,

I cannot

in

a

single

paper

offer

any

close

readings

of these various thinkers'

texts.

I

will

only

use

some

of their

pronouncements

as

illustrative

examples

of the need

to

draw the

distinction

between

religion

and

pseudo-religion,

and

of certain

ways

of

drawing

it.

Among

the items

on

my

initial

list,

I

will focus

on

two:

the

problem

of

evil,

which

leads

to

a

transcendental

discussion

of the limits

of

religious

language,

thereby

opening

a

novel

perspective

on

the

issue

of

religion

vs.

superstition

(Sects.

3^-),

and the relation

between

religion

and moral

ity

(Sect. 5).

Some of the other items

will,

through

these

cases,

be

indirectly

touched

as

well.

In

particular,

discussion aims

to

bring

to

the

fore

some

Wittgensteinian-inspired

ideas

about

what

faith,

in its

truly

religious

meaning,

may

amount

to.

In

Sects. 6 and

7

I

will,

eventually, proceed

to

a

Wittgensteinian

discussion

of the issue of

relativism that

seems

to

be

involved

in

the

claim that the

boundary

between

religion

and

pseudo-religion

can

only

be

marked

within

a

religious

form

of life

(or

language-game,

tradition,

etc.).

Although

I

am

not

going

to

endorse what

some

philosophers

might

condemn

as

Wittgensteinian

relativism

(let

alone

fideism),

I

will

eventually

seek

resources

for

such

context-embedded

demarcations

from

Wittgenstein's

famous

suggestion

that

a

religious

person

uses

a

picture .

3 The

problem

of evil:

religious

and

pseudo-religious

responses

The

problem

of evil is

so

well

known that

it

hardly

needs

to

be described

in

any

detail

here.

Obviously,

the

issue is

about the

compatibility

of

theism?a

belief

in

the existence

of

an

omnipotent,

omniscient,

and

absolutely

good

deity?with

the

empirical

fact

that there

exists

a

lot of

at

least

apparently

meaningless

suffering

in the

world.6

The atheist

employs

the

of

evil

as

a

logical

challenge

to

the

very

coherence

of

theism

or,

more

moderately,

as

an

evidential

challenge

to

its rational

credibility,

whereas

the

traditional

theist seeks

to

offer

a

theodicy, explaining why

a

benevolent

God

can or even

must

allow there

to

be

evil.

As

so

often,

a

plausible

position

may

here

lie

between

the

typical

analytic

(mainly

eviden

tialist)

approaches

and the

non-evidentialist

(sometimes

labelled

fideist )

way

of

thinking

inspired by Wittgenstein,

represented

most

prominently

by

Phillips.7

The basic

contrast

Especially

Richard

Swinburne's

views

on

evil and

theodicy might

be

paradigmatic

here,

as we

will

perceive.

See,

e.g.,

Swinburne

(1979).

4

Again,

the

views

on

theodicy

held

by

someone

like

Alvin

Plantinga

are

a case

in

point,

though

Plantinga's

other ideas

might

be taken

up

in

this

context

as

well.

See,

e.g.,

Plantinga

(2000).

However,

Plantinga's

complex

theory

of

the

warrant

of

Christian faith

is

not

something

that

I

can

discuss

here.

5

In

particular,

Phillips's

numerous

works

on

prayer,

immortality,

and

evil would

be

important

here,

though

only

a

fragment

of

his

vast

output

can

be discussed

in what follows.

6

For

a

selection

of

important

classical and

modern

essays

on

this

topic,

see

Rowe

(2001

).

See

also

the

dialogue

between

a

believer

and

an

atheist,

setting

the

problem

of

evil in

a

fairly

standard evidentialist

manner,

in

Craig

6

Sinnott-Armstrong

(2004).

7

I will

postpone

discussion

of

Wittgenstein's

own

views

on

religious

belief

to

Sect.

6

(and

even

there

I

will

be

extremely sketchy).

I

will here

only loosely speak

about

the

Wittgensteinian

tradition

in the

philosophy

?

Springer






Int J Philos

Relig

(2007)

62:3-32

7

between these

two

viewpoints

can

be

framed

in

terms

of

the

opposition

between

theodicism

and

anti-theodicism.

The theodicist

seeks

to

justify

God's

allowing

there

to

be

evil

in

the

world,

thus

rendering

the

apparent

incompatibility

of

there

being

both evil

and

an

omnipo

tent,

omniscient,

and

benevolent

deity

merely

apparent.

The atheist who

rejects

theism

on

the

grounds

of

the

problem

of

evil,

or

who

argues

that the

existence of evil constitutes

an

evidential

(if

not

a

logical)

problem

for the

theist,

is

also

a

theodicist,

because s/he

requires

the

theist

to

justify

God's

ways

to

man

as a

criterion for the

acceptability

of theism.

On

the

contrary,

the

anti-theodicist

rejects

this entire

project

of

justification

that

both theist and

atheist forms of

theodicism

share.8

In

addition

to

recent

Wittgensteinians,

William

James,

the

classical

pragmatist,

was

a

religious

thinker closer

to

the

anti-theodicist

approach

than

to

the theodicist

one.

I

will

partly

discuss the issue with

reference

to

Jamesian

ideas,

though

my purpose

here

is

not

to

engage

in James

scholarship.9

Like

theodicist

thinkers,

James does

appear

to

think that

there

is

a

kind of moral

oughtness prior

to

God's

will. It

would be

ethically

unacceptable

for

God,

or

anyone,

including

the

Hegelian philosophers'

Absolute,

to

let

innocent

children

die,

for

instance,

with

some

good

in

sight.

Such

a

sacrifice

would

simply

be immoral and

corrupt,

or

morally

insensitive

at

best,

and

no

ethically

concerned thinker

should,

even

for

purely

intellectual

reasons,

postulate

such

an

Absolute,

or

God,

in

her/his

metaphysics?

or so

the

Jamesian

argues.10

On

the

other

hand,

ethical

considerations

are

in

James's

view

applicable

only

to

human

beings thinking

about how

to

live

a

human,

perhaps

religious,

life

in this world

in

which evil is

an

undeniable

factuality.

The

problem

of

evil

is,

above

all,

an

ethical

problem

for

humans.

It

is

not

primarily?or

not

at

all?an

abstract

intellectual

exercise

of

philosophical

rationalization.

In

this

way,

James

can

be

seen

as

joining

the

later

Wittgensteinians

who

worry

that

theodicist

rationalizations in fact blind

us

to

the evil that

makes

people's religious

faith

fragile

and

may

even,

for

ethical

reasons,

lead them

to

lose

that

faith.11

Footnote 7 continued

of

religion,

assuming

that

what

is

usually

meant

by

this

expression

is

sufficiently

familiar

to

my

readers.

No

strong

claims about how

to

properly interpret

Wittgenstein

will

be

made

here.

Thomas

Wallgren's

discussion of

Wittgenstein?on

how

Wittgensteinian

reflection

on

language

may

transform

us

and

our

problems

but

should

not

dictate

general

norms

about

meaning?is

also

applicable

to

Wittgensteinian

philosophy

of

religion

(which

is

not

Wallgren's explicit

concern)

and

is

thus

highly

recommendable;

see

Wallgren

(2006),

especially

Ch.

5.

8

Rowe

(2001)

is

a

prime example

of

evidentialist,

theodicist

approaches,

featuring

work

by leading

analytic

philosophers

of

religion

such

as

Swinburne,

Plantinga,

and

others. For

recent

philosophical

(non-theological,

though

not

atheological) approaches

to

the

problem

of

evil,

see

Bernstein

(2002)

and

Neiman

(2002).

9

This

section

is

partly

indebted

to

Pihlstr?m

(2002b).

I

certainly

do

not mean

to

assimilate

Wittgenstein's

and

James's

quite

different views

to

each

other. From

a

Wittgensteinian

perspective,

one

might

resist

Jamesian

pragmatists'

arguments

for

justifying

religious

beliefs

on

pragmatic grounds?on

the

basis of their function

ality

or

satisfactoriness

in

people's practices

of life?and

argue

against

any

justificationist

project, pragmatist

ones

included.

Yet there

are

similarities between the

two

approaches

(and

their

numerous

contemporary

varia

tions),

especially,

I

will

suggest,

regarding

evil. Both

Jamesians and

Wittgensteinians

may

argue,

for

instance,

that

a

believer's

inability

to

objectively

justify

her/his

religious

beliefs

by

evidentialist standards is

not

a

sufficient

basis for

genuine

doubts

about

those

beliefs,

i.e.,

that

more

specific

reasons

for doubt

would be

needed

for the believer

to

really

change

her/his life.

(Evil

might,

but also

might

not,

be such

a reason

for

someone.)

10

The

central

reference here is James's

1891

paper,

James

(1979).

The Jamesian

pragmatist

agrees

with

Ivan

Karamazov

's

famous revolt

against God?against

the

very

idea

of the

ultimate

forgiving

of

horribly

evil

deeds?powerfully

presented

in

Dostoevsky's

The

Brothers

Karamazov.

Cf.

also Neiman

(2002)

for

the

relevance

of

Dostoevsky

in

this

regard.

1 *

For

such

a

picture,

inspired

by

Wittgenstein, Dostoevsky,

and Simone

Weil,

of

evil

as an

ethical chal

lenge rendering religious

faith

vulnerable,

see

Wisdo

(1993).

Wisdo's

critique

is

primarily

directed

against

*Q

Springer






8

Int J Philos

Relig

(2007)

62:3-32

Not

unlike

James,

moral

philosophers

and

philosophers

of

religion

inspired by Wittgen

stein

(and

to

some

extent

by Kierkegaard)

have

argued

that the

problem

of

evil should receive

an

ethical

scrutiny

rather than

a

purely

intellectual

one.

These

thinkers also resist the abstract

intellectualization of

this

metaphysico-religious

issue.

As

one

author

puts

it,

God's motiva

tions

would be

even

more

deeply

evil than

we

had realized if

we

were

to

see

the

starving

of

a

child,

for

instance,

as a

part

of his

allegedly good

overall

plan.12

Thus

we are

introduced

to

the

Wittgensteinian-Kierkegaardian perspective, according

to

which it

is,

in

a

word,

blas

phemous

and

therefore

pseudo-religious

to

try

to

bring

God

to

justice

or

to

offer

an

apology

in

favor of

God's

plan,

as

theodicists do.

It

is

simply

wrong,

both

ethically

and

religiously,

to

try

to set

objective

ethical criteria which

God,

like

anyone

else,

ought

to

obey.

Moreover,

it is

conceptually

impossible

to

do

any

such

thing;

the

very

attempt

is without

sense.13

If

we

see

the

problem

of evil

as an

intellectual

problem,

a

puzzle

to

be

solved,

we

will,

according

to

Stephen

Mulhall,

end

up

with

a

picture

of

God

as an

evil demon . Such

a

justification

of the

ways

of God

to

man

amounts to

little less than

blasphemy ,

he

concludes.14

Instead of

intellectualist

puzzle-solving,

the

truly religious

believer?the

one

avoiding superstition

and

blasphemy?abandons

all

attempts

for

theodicy

and

thereby

all

attempts

to

explain

or

justify

evil and

suffering.15

Another

Wittgensteinian

thinker

speaks

about the

conceptual

oddness

of the

theodicist's

attempt

to

justify

the

ways

of

God

to

man .16

One

may

argue

that the real

problem

of evil is

not

theoretical,

but is the

practical problem

of

how

one

lives

a

religious

life

in

a

world of evil and

misfortune,

a

life that

includes,

among

other

things, worship,

prayer,

and faith in

God .17

For all these

thinkers,

theodicism

is

a

form of

superstition

rather than

genuine religion.

Apparently,

James's

position

is

not

entirely

hostile

to

the

theodicist's,

however. When

Swinburne

states

that it

is

a

good thing

that

a

creator

should make

a

half-finished

uni

verse

and

create

immature

creatures,

who

are

humanly

free

agents,

to

inhabit

it ,18

he does

sound like

James,

affirming

the

central

values of freedom

and individual

responsibility

within

the created

universe.19

But

upon

closer

scrutiny

it

turns

out

that Swinburne

here

employs

Footnote

11

continued

Plantinga's

well-known free

will

defense

(see, e.g.,

Plantinga,

2001);

it is in

many ways

parallel

to

Phillips's

attack

on

Swinburne's

theodicy,

to

be referred

to

shortly.

12

Mulhall

(1994),

p.

18.

13

Can

something

which

is nonsensical also be

morally wrong?

Isn't

it

meaningless

to

say

that

something

that

makes

no sense

is

morally prohibited?

These notions

are,

however,

connected

more

intimately

than

we

might

initially

think,

and

part

of the

significance

of

a

philosophical

discussion

of the relation between

religion

and

superstition

is

precisely

to

bring

this fact

to

the

fore.

14

Mulhall

(1994),

p.

19.

15

Mulhall

(1994),

pp.

67-68. Cf. Le

Poidevin

(1996),

p.

102: If it turned

out

that,

from

God's

perspective,

any

amount

of human

suffering

is

perfectly acceptable,

that would be

a

horrible

discovery

to

make.

We

simply

could

not

go

on

believing

that God

was

genuinely

benevolent,

at

least

as we

conceive of

benevolence.

The

difference between the

accounts

of

Le Poidevin and

Mulhall

is, however,

that the latter and

his kin

seem

to

resist

the

metaphysician's tendency

to

imagine

what

itwould be like if

something

turned

out to

be

true

from

God's

perspective . Suffering

and evil

are,

if

genuinely religious problems,

problems arising

from

a

human

perspective.

This,

as

already

noted,

was

also James's

position.

16

Tilghman(1994),p.

192.

17

Tilghman(1994),p.

194.

8

Swinburne

(1977a),

here

p.

99.

Cf. also John Hick's

statement

that

moral

responsibility

and hence moral

growth require

a

world in which there

are

genuine contingencies

(Hick,

2001,

p.

126).

For

more

detailed

formulations,

see

both Swinburne

(1996)

and Hick

(2001)

contributions

to

Rowe

(ed.),

God

and the Problem

of

Evil.

19

This

picture

emerges

from

many

of

James's

key writings, including

James

(1975),

especially

Ch.

8,

and

James

(1977).

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Int J Philos

Relig

(2007)

62:3-32

9

the notion of

moral

goodness

in

a

problematic

sense,

referring

to

something's

being

good

prior

to

and

independently

of God's will.

God,

it

seems,

is

bound

by

objective

yet

humanly

understandable

moral rules and

standards,

in Swinburne's

(and

many

other

theodicists')

scheme. Swinburne

thinks

that

all is well

in

God's overall

plan,

which includes

the

creation

of

humanly

free

agents

whose world

is

only

half-finished .

Furthermore,

he

seems

to

think that human

beings

can

understand

this

plan

at

least

to

the

extent

that

we

can

realize that

it is

good, despite

the sacrifices that

must

be

made.

Hence,

if the unfinished character of

the

world is

taken

to

be

just

an

element

of

an over

all

plan

that

is

in itself

entirely completed

and

rationally

understandable,

then

Swinburne's

and

James's

differences become

more

clearly

visible. Our

main

alternative

to

theodicy

is

Phillips's

counter-argument

to

the

effect that

the

Swinburnean theodicist offers

us,

instead

of

genuine

freedom and

responsibility,

a

vulgarized

pseudoresponsibility .20

Rather than

justifying

God's

ways

to men

by referring

to

his

having

created

us as

free

and

responsible,

we

should admit

that

any

purportedly

higher

reasons

God

might

have for

tolerating

the evil

there is in the

human

world,

including

the reasonable

preservation

of moral

responsibility

among

humans,

are

unavailable

to

us;

as

Phillips

puts

it,

if

there

is

such

a

'higher'

form of

reasoning

among

God and

his

angels ,

then

so

much the

worse

for God and his

angels .21

Much like

James's sick

soul ,22

the

Phillipsian

believer

is

someone

who

finds her/himself

living

in

a world where disasters of natural and moral

kinds

can

strike without

rhyme

or

reason ,

unable

to

join

the

theodicist's

vision of

order,

optimism

and

progress .23

It is

for

the sick soul

only

that the

problem

of

evil is

a

genuine,

ethically significant problem;

such

a

person

hardly

profits

from

being

told that there is

a

hidden order in

God's absolute mind

in

the end. In

brief,

there is

a

crude moral

insensitivity

in

theodicies,24

an

insensitivity

that

makes them

or even

The

dispute

between the theodicist and the

anti-theodicist

is

not,

of

course,

simply

settled

by

an

appeal

to

moral

sensitivities

and insensitivities.

Swinburne

responds

to

Phillips

that

no

argument

has been offered for the lack of rational

order

behind

evil.25

Through

such

a

response,

the issue

is

again

turned

into

an

epistemic

one,26

whereas

Phillips's Wittgenstein

ian

point

is

that

we

should

not

conflate

the

ethical

(and,

in

a

sense,

existential)

issue of evil

with

an

epistemic problem

about the

pros

and

cons

of the theistic

hypothesis.

The wide

gulf

separating

these

thinkers'

philosophical temperaments

is

demonstrated

by Phillips's

state

ment

that

theodicies

are

part

of

the rationalism that clouds

our

understanding

of

religious

belief .27

The

very

attempt

to

offer

an

argument,

or even

the

question

of

whether there could

20

Phillips

(1977a),

p.

110. It

should

be noted

that

I

am

only

referring

to

Swinburne's and

Phillips's

rela

tively early

formulations

of their

positions.

Both

have,

for

decades,

written

voluminously

on

most

topics

in

the

philosophy

of

religion, including

the

problem

of

evil.

Since this

essay

is

not

a

study

on

the

development

of

their

views,

it

will

be

sufficient

for

me

to

cite their

early

confrontation in the 1970s.

It

seems

to

me

that

no

major changes

have taken

place

in their

positions?or

in

the basic

opposition

between

theodicies and

anti-theodicies?since then.

21

Phillips

(1977a),

p.

116.

22

Cf. James

(1985).

23

Phillips

(1977a),

p.

119.

24

Phillips

(1977a),

p.

118.

25

See Swinburne

(1977b).

26

It

is

clear

in,

e.g.,

Rowe

(2001),

God

and the

Problem

of

Evil,

as

well

as

in

Craig's

and

Sinnott-Armstrong's

dialogue

(2004),

that

most

contemporary

philosophers

of

religion

view the

problem

of evil

as

an

essentially

epistemic

(evidential)

one.

This

is

entirely

misguided

according

to

Wittgensteinians

like

Phillips?and

at

least

partly misguided according

to

pragmatists

like

James.

27

Phillips

(1977b),

p.

139.

For

the notion

of

a

philosophical

temperament,

see

James

(1975),

Ch.

1.

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10

Int

J

Philos

Relig

(2007)

62:3-32

be such

an

argument

pointing

to

a

rational

order,

in

Phillips's

view,

leads the

religious

thinker

astray,

or

is

even

to

be

judged

blasphemous.

Religious

belief, then,

should

not

be over-intellectualized

by

attempting

to

justify

God's

will,

as

we

can

hardly

intelligibly

either

demand

justice

from

God

or

owe

it

to

him;

instead

of

such

intellectualization,

religious

belief should

be

seen as

a

natural

pragmatic

response

by

some?though

by

no

means

by all?ethically

concerned human

beings

to

the various

prob

lematic

situations

they

encounter

in their often

insecure and

challenging

environment.

For

some

people,

for

some

reasons

(and

not

just

for intellectual

reasons),

the

religious

response

is

pragmatically

adequate.28

If

it

is,

then its

religious

value

should

not

be banalized

by

stretching

such

words

as

justification

and

evil

beyond

their

legitimate

uses

in the

language-games

religious

people

naturally

engage

in.

Nor

should

evil?its

existence,

magnitude,

or

ubiquity?

be

explained ,

except

in

the

perfectly

respectable

natural-scientific

sense

of

explanation,

e.g.,

when

we

explain

the

occurrence

of

an

earthquake

which

was

a

major

evil

for its

victims,

or

when

we

explain socio-psychologically

the conditions

which

led

some

people

to

engage

in

morally

evil actions

against

others.

The

problem, paraphrasing

Wittgenstein,

with

theodicist

attempts

to

explain

why

God

does

not

remove

all

apparently

unnecessary

evil

is

not

that

they

are

bad

explanations

but

that

they

are

explanations.

To

even

attempt

to

explain

in

this

context

is

to

misunderstand

religious

concepts

and their role

in

religious

life.29

Here

we

may,

by

way

of

clarification,

distinguish

between

misunderstandings

or

confu

sions

in

analyzing

(religious)

concepts,

on

the

one

side,

and

confusions

involved

in

religious

life and

understanding

itself.

The

latter

kind

of confusions

are

misunderstandings

of what

it is

to

be

a

religious

believer,

and

they

lead

to

distorted

or even

corrupt

forms of

religious

life and

practice?to pseudo-religion,

in short. The

theodicist,

for

example,

insofar

as

s/he

is

a

believer,

is

not

simply

mistaken

about

the

meaning

of

the

concept

of

God;

also

an

atheist

theodicist

can

commit

this

form of

misunderstanding.

The

theodicist

who

views her/himself

as

living

religious

life

is,

according

to

Wittgensteinians

like

Phillips,

deeply

mistaken about

what that life

amounts

to

from within .

This

is

ultimately

a

confusion

in her/his

^//-under

standing.

Both believers

and non-believers

may

be

confused

about

religious

concepts,

but

only

for the former is such

a

confusion

or

misunderstanding

a

confusion

about how

to

live

religiously.

For

example,

if

the believer

thinks that

religious

life

requires

as

its

support

a

coherent

theological

system

in

which the

problem

of evil

is

finally

solved,

s/he

cannot

be

said

to

have

fully grasped

the

nature

of

religious

life?the

life

with

religious

such

as

God ,

s/he is

attempting

to

lead.

Another

interesting

alternative

worth

briefly

taking

up

here,

drawn

from

more

main

stream

philosophy

of

religion

than

Phillips's

ideas,

is Eleonore

Stump's

discussion of

a

human

being's

relation

to

God

as

a

relation

to

a

second

person ,

with the

Book of Job

as an

illuminating

example.30

Stump

argues

that

suffering

can

be

explained

and

rendered

mean

ingful

in

a

relation

to

God

conceived

of

as

another

person,

like

a

loving

parent,

even

if it

can

never

be

explained

or

justified

in

abstracto,

from

an

objective,

third

person

point

of view.

This

is that

might

be

to

a

philosopher

of

religion

who?like,

again,

28

For

a

thoroughgoing

discussion of

how

a

pragmatist

conception

of

religion

may

retain the

goods

of

religion

in human

life,

see

Zackariasson

(2002).

I

am

here

greatly

indebted

to

Tommi

Uschanov's

unpublished

manuscript

(in

Finnish)

on

D.

Z.

Phillips

and

Wittgensteinian

philosophy

of

religion.

30

See

Stump

(2000).

For the

philosophical

relevance

of the Book

of

Job,

with

special emphasis

on

the idea

of

an

amoral universe

beyond

human

beings'

moral demands

of

goodness

or

justice,

see

Wilcox

(1992).

Wilcox's

argument

bears

some

resemblance

to

the

anti-theodicists'

(e.g., Wittgensteinians')

view

according

to

which it is

blasphemous

to

try

to

bring

God

to

justice.

Indeed,

Wilcox

points

out

that Job

is

(initially) guilty

of

blasphemy.

?

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Int

J Philos

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(2007)

62:3-32

11

James?yearns

to

live

in

a

universe in

which intimate and

personal

relations

are

possible,

in

which

one

can

have

a

personal

communion with

some

superhuman

Thou .

However,

from

the

Wittgensteinian-Kierkegaardian

anti-theodicists'

point

of

view,

Stump

does

not

go

far

enough

in her

repudiation

of the traditional

third-person

task of

justification.

Her

position

is

still

fairly

strongly

rooted

in

the theodicist

tradition,

although

its

conception

of

the

justifica

tion and

explanation

of evil

is

different

from,

say,

Swinburne's. Insofar

as

Job,

for

instance,

really

faces

God

as

a

second

person ,

as

a

you ,

he

does,

according

to

Stump,

receive

a

justification

or an

explanation,

an

answer

to

the

question

of

why

he

must

suffer.

It

is

a

merit

of this

view

that

the

justification

required

and

received

is

personal

rather

than abstract

and

objective;

yet,

it

is

a

problem

that

we are

still

dealing

with

justification

here.31

Moreover,

the

religious

believer

might

above all

be

concerned with

others'

suffering

instead

of

her/his

own.

For

such

a

person,

Stump's

second-personal

approach

offers

little

comfort.

If

one

receives

a

justification

for

another human

being's suffering

in

one's

own

per

sonal

contact

with

the

God

one

believes

in,

then

one

will

end

up

with

acting

like

a

companion

in the

guilt

in

an

evil

demon's

plan

rather

than

a

compassionate

fellow-sufferer.

Then,

once

again,

one's

attitude

to

the evil

one

perceives

in

the world

may

be

pseudo-religious.

At

its

best,

Stump's

view

may

thus comfort

the

suffering

believer who

asks

why

s/he

her/himself

has

to

suffer.

This does

not

help

the

one

who

encounters

evil

mainly through

the

evening

news

in

television,

asking why,

for

instance,

God lets

millions

of

innocent

African children

starve.

Where

Stump

does strike the

right key

is

in

her final conclusion

that believers

and

non

believers need

not

deal

in

a

similar

manner

with the

problem

of evil

as

it

emerges

in

the

context

of

their

own

lives.32

The

suffering person's

personal history

must

be taken into

account

in

discussing

the

justifiability

of

her/his

suffering.

The

presence

or

absence of

religious

faith

in

that is

obviously highly

relevant.

It

makes

all

the

difference

in the

world whether

the

sufferer

is,

in

James's

terms,

a

healthy-minded

believer

or

a

sick soul .

Neither

Stump

nor

James,

any

more

than

Phillips,

would thus

sympathize

with

standard

presentations

of

the

problem

of

evil

as an

atheological

argument

whose intellectual

structure

poses

the

same

challenge

objectively

and

universally

to

all

rational

thinkers.

This

problem

is

a

problem?an

ethical

problem?for

the

one

who

is

already

committed

to

a

religious

view of

life. Most

importantly,

it

is

not

an

intellectual exercise

that

an

atheist

can

successfully

present

from

a

point

of

view

lying

outside

religious

life. If

the

problem

is

put

to

such

a

use,

much of its

human

relevance

will

fragment

into

pieces.

As

a

problem

internal

to

a

religious approach

to

life's

agonizing questions,

it

may

lead

to

an

emergence

of

true

(pragmatic) significance?or

to

a

total

collapse.

An

engagement

with the

problem

thus

includes

a

genuine

risk.

Any

attitude

we

adopt

to

evil

is

adopted

at

our

personal

risk.33

Presumably,

however,

the fact

that

believ

ers

and non-believers

may

react

differently

to

the

reality

of

evil should

not

be construed

as

entailing

total

relativism.34

As

even

Phillips points

out,

we

should

not

claim

that faith

cannot

31

The

extent to

which

Stump's position

is

a

version of the free will

theodicy

can

be

seen

from

an

earlier

paper

by

her:

see

Stump

(1985).

Both

Stump

and other

recent

philosophers

of

religion

have

argued

that

a

successful

strategy

in

dealing

with the

reality

of evil

requires

specifically

Christian

premises

instead of

purely

metaphysical

theistic

ones;

see

also,

e.g.,

McCord Adams

(1989).

A

Christian

believer's intimate

personal

union with God

may

give

her/his life

a

profound significance

even

when

that life is

threatened

by

horrendous

evils . This

approach

is

inescapably

troubled

by

the

threat

of

relativism:

why

should

a

successful

theodicy

be

only

available

to

Christians?

(Cf.

Sect. 5

below.)

32

Stump

(2000),

pp.

112-113.

33

Analogously

to

the risk

involved

in

our

adoption

of the

religious hypothesis ,

as

analyzed

in

James's

famous

essay,

The Will to

Believe ,

in

James

(1979),

Ch.

1.

34

For

the

problem

of relativism

in recent

philosophy

of

religion, including

reformed

epistemology

and

Christian

philosophy ,

see,

e.g.,

Koistinen

(2000).

See

also

Sect. 6 below.

4y

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12

Int J

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(2007)

62:3-32

be

challenged

or

overthrown

by

nonreligious

factors .35

But

the

logic

of

such

challenging

or

overthrow is

not

the

simple

one

of

atheological

arguments.

It

is,

instead,

a

genuinely religious

logic

of

a

religious?and

thereby

also

ethically

sincere?encounter

with evil.

Do

these reflections

on

what makes

a

response

to

evil

genuinely religious

instead

of

pseudo-religious

or

superstitious, epitomized

in

the conflict

between

someone

like

Phillips

and

someone

like

Swinburne,

lead

us

to

postulate

an

essence

of

religion?

Is

it essential

for

something

(a

way

of

thinking,

a

response )

to

be

religious

that

it does

not

strive after

the

for

instance?

Are all

theodicists

necessarily pseudo-religious,

violating

the essential

criteria

that

define

religion?

There is

no

immediate

response

to

these

questions.

The

purpose

of

the

present

section

has been

to

motivate,

not

solve,

them.

They

now

need

to

be

approached

from

other,

supplementary viewpoints.

4

The limits of

religious language

As

we are

now

equipped

with

Phillips's

Wittgensteinian

considerations

against

theodicism,

it

should

be

possible

for

us

to

argue

in

more

explicitly

transcendental

terms36

against

the

very

attempt

to

employ

the

problem

of evil

as an

atheological

argument,

either

logical

or

evi

dential.

We

may

start

from the observation

that the

problem

of

evil?like,

presumably,

any

philosophical

argument?can

never

be

neutrally

formulated

in

a

situation

in

which

no

world

views

or

weltanschaulich

commitments

(religious

or

non-religious

ones)

are

at

work. On

the

contrary,

its

very

formulation

presupposes

all

kinds of

things,

and

here

a

Wittgenstein

inspired

transcendental

analysis

may

help

us

to

view

the

situation

accurately. Very

simply,

the

problem

of evil

must

be

presented

in

language,

moreover

in

a

language

that is

actually

used.

Now,

if

we

follow

the

Wittgensteinian

line of

thought

(transcendentally interpreted)

according

to

which

there

can

be

no

meaning

without there

being

habitual

use

of

expressions

within

public

human

ways

of

acting,

language-games,

we

should

admit

that

the

meanings

of

our

linguistic expressions, including

evil and

God ,

are

inextricably entangled

with

their

use

in

language-games

and thus

in

our

practices

(or

forms

of

life).37

Arguably,

for

a

genuine

believer who

speaks

about God

in

a

religious

way,

belief

in

God's

existence is

the

background

of

any

conceivable

discursive

treatment

of

evil. The

plausibility

of

the

premises

of

any

argument,

including

the

supposedly

of

evil,

will

be

evaluated

against

this

background.

One of

the

premises

of the

argument

might

then be

denied,

or

alter

natively

the

religious

person

might

contest

human

beings'

ability

to

argumentatively

evaluate

and

reason

about God's volitions

and

actions, which,

after

all,

must

remain

a

great mystery

for humans. This attitude

may

be

both

religiously

and

conceptually

inevitable

for

someone

playing

a

religious language-game.

The believer

may

point

out,

as was

already suggested

above,

that it is nonsensical

for

a

human

being

even

to

try

to

evaluate God's

works

or to

argue

about

them. God

is,

simply, sovereign;

we

humans

are

in

comparison

tiny, thoroughly

unimportant

creatures.

We

cannot

ask whether God's

will

or

the world-order

s/he

has created

is

just

or

unjust.

God

is

sovereignly beyond

human

understanding

and standards

of

justice.

35

Phillips

(1977b),

p.

138.

For

further

elaboration,

see

Phillips

(1986);

and

Wisdo

(1993).

I

am

using

the

expression

transcendental

in

its

(post-)Kantian

sense,

denoting

the

necessary

conditions

for

the

possibility

of

something (e.g., experience

of

objects,

meaningful

language)

taken

to

be actual.

If understood

as

a

search

for

such conditions

(of

religious language

or

faith),

Wittgensteinian

and/or

pragmatist

philosophy

of

religion

can,

in

my

view,

be considered

a

species

of transcendental

philosophy.

I

hope

to

be able

to

defend

this

suggestion

in

the remainder of this

essay.

See

also Pihlstr?m

(2002a).

37

Cf. Pihlstr?m

(2003),

Ch.

2;

and

Pihlstr?m

(2004b).

?}

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Int J Philos

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(2007)

62:3-32

13

The crucial

point

in all

this is the

question

about the

limits

of

language

and

thought.

What

I

am

suggesting

is that

one comes

close

to

breaking

the limits

of

meaningful

discourse

in

examining

the

problem

of evil

atheologically,

or

in

attempting

to

respond

to

the

atheological

challenge

in

a

theodicist

manner.

I

am

certainly

not

claiming

that this

was

explicitly

argued

by

James

or

by

Wittgenstein

and his

followers,

but

I

do think

that

this line of

argument

can

be

crucially inspired

by

the kind of

attitude

we

have

seen

such

anti-theodicists

adopting

to

the

problem

of evil.

From the

point

of

view of the

religious

person

immersed in

her/his

faith

practice(s)

or

language-game(s),

the

atheological

arguer

simply

fails

to

use

the

word

God

religiously,

or

in

a

way

relevant

to

the

pragmatic

evaluation of

religious

faith;

the

atheolo

gian

presents

an

abstract

argument

that breaks the rules of

the

religious

language-game,

or

belongs

to

an

entirely

different

language-game

whose

statements

are

only

of

limited

rele

vance

to

religious

life.

So does the

theodicist who takes

seriously

the

atheological

challenge,

thereby

lapsing

into

pseudo-religious

thinking.

If,

following

Wittgenstein,

we

maintain that

the

meaning

of

our

linguistic

expressions

is

grounded

in

their

use

in

language-games,

and

if

we are

in

a

good

pragmatist style

willing

to

act

on

this

belief,

we are

forced

to

admit that the

meanings

of words

such

as

God and

evil ?like the

meanings

of

other

religiously

relevant

expressions

(such

as

mercy

and

sin )?may

vary

from

one

language-game

to

another.

In

particular,

the

meanings

of these

terms

may vary

as one

moves

from

religious

discourse

to

secular

(atheist)

discourse,

or

vice

versa,

from

a

certain kind of

habitual

employment

of

con

cepts

and/or

symbols

to

another.

A

failure

to

follow the rules of the

language-games

one

is

apparently

playing

may

lead

to

pseudo-religious

misuse of

language

that has

only

the

illusion

of

sense.

If this

analysis

is

correct,

then the

problem

of

evil

cannot

function

as

an

atheological

argument,

because

the

one

who

presents

the

argument

uses

language quite

differently

from

the believer whose

view

is the

object

of the

argument.

It is

right

here that

we

encounter

a

limit

of

language,

of

what

can

and

cannot

be

meaningfully

said in

a

language-game. Conversely,

a

believer who

tries

to overcome

the

problem

of evil

through

a

theodicy

equally seriously

breaks the limits of

religious language.

What the

Wittgensteinian

considerations offered here

seek

to

refute, then,

is

not

only atheological

criticism of

the theist's

conception

of

God

but

also

the traditional

theist's

attempt

to

provide

a

theodicy.

Both the

atheological charge

of

God's

injustice

and the theodicist's defense of

God

against

such

charges

are,

from

the

point

of view

of

a

genuinely religious

trust

in

God,

equally

blasphemous

and

conceptually

muddled.38

It

is

interesting

to

note,

and it is

intimately

related

to

the

problem

of

demarcating

between

genuine

religion

and

pseudo-religion,

that

what

the

religious

language-user

takes

to

be

ineffa

ble

(i.e.,

the

transcendent,

transcending

the bounds of

sense)

here

partly

determines

what

can

be

meaningfully

said

in

religious language.

That

something

is

viewed

as

transcendent,

as

lying

beyond

human rational

capacities

(and

thereby beyond

theodicist

rationalizations),

functions here

as a

transcendental

precondition

of the

meaningfulness

of

expressions

used

3y

On the other

hand,

we

cannot

say,

of

course,

that the

argumentation presented

here would

in

any way

harm atheism

as

such,

because the atheist

can

refuse

to

play religious

language-games.

One

simply

need

not

engage

in

religious language-use

at

all,

and

one

may

invoke

pragmatic

considerations

to

support

such

a

withdrawal from

religious

ways

of

using

language.

Moreover,

one

may

be

able

to

play

the

game

of

religious

language-use correctly,

even

though

one

is

not,

or

is

no

longer,

a

believer,

especially

if

one

has

once

been.

Such

a

person may

present

philosophical

remarks

about

proper

and

improper

ways

of

using religious

language,

and such remarks

may

be

indistinguishable

from those

presented by

a

true

believer.

What

the

Wittgensteinian

transcendental

argumentation focusing

on

the limits of

religious language

may

be

said

to

refute,

or

at

least

seriously

problematize,

is

theodicism,

whether

theist

or

atheist,

i.e.,

the

view

that

a

theodicy

is

required

as

a

response

to

the

problem

of evil and

that if

the theist fails

to

provide

one,

then her/his

position

will

have

been defeated.

In

principle,

theodicist

pseudo-religion

can

be

criticized

by

both

believers and

non-believers,

provided

that

they

are

in command of the normative

grammar

of

religious language.

?

Springer






14

Int J

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62:3-32

within

religious

life. As

Jeff

Malpas insightfully

notes,

Kant

himself

seems

occasionally

to

designate something

as

'transcendental',

even

though

it involves the

positing

of

something

'transcendent',

in

virtue

of

the fact

that

the

positing

is itself

a

requirement

of the

structure

of

the

possibility

of

knowledge .40

A

conception

of what

lies

beyond

the

expressive

power

of

a

language(-game),

as

codified

in

the

(possibly changing)

rules

of

the

game,

crucially

affects

what

lies within the

limits,

i.e.,

what

can

be

said

and

done

in

the

language-game.

In

the

case

we

have

examined,

a

conception

of

God's

sovereignty

as

something

that

cannot

be intelli

gibly expressed

in

language

but is

only possible,

say,

as

an

object

of

mystical

admiration,

along

with the

corresponding acknowledgment

of

the

mysterious

or even

unconceptualiz

able

reality

of

extreme

evil,

may

decisively

influence

what

can

be said about evil

(or,

say,

justice)

in,

or

by

means

of,

religious language.

We

cannot

step

outside the

practices

and

language-games

in which

our

lives

are

most

deeply

based?this

is

a

fundamental

idea in both

Jamesian

pragmatism

and the

Wittgensteinian

transcendental examination

of the limits

of

language

I

have utilized here.

But

we

can,

from

within ,

stare

at

the bounds of

sense,

just

as

the believer

stares

at

the

transcendence s/he believes

to

exist while

remaining

bound

to

her/his

earthly

from

which

evil

can never

be eliminated.

The

one

who

observes,

from

within

a

religious

use

of

language,

that

there

are

(theodicist)

speculation^]

we

should

not

even

contemplate ,41

limits of

ethically responsible

human

thought

and

language-use,

is

firmly

rooted in

a

this-worldly,

human,

way

of

experiencing

the

world,

but

it is her/his

somewhat

other-worldly conception

of

transcendence that enables

her/him

to

draw the

limits

of

ethically acceptable language-use

that s/he

draws

through

her/his

life

and

faith.

There

is,

of

course,

the

possible reply?analogous

to

Hegel's

famous

critique

of

Kant?

that in order

to

draw

a

limit

one

will

have

to

go

beyond

it,

to

already

occupy

a

place

on

the

other

side .

But

the

pragmatic

reinterpretation

of

transcendental

reflection articulated here

is

designed

to meet

this

challenge by insisting

on

the

possibility

of

examining

the

transcendental

limits of

experience,

meaningfulness,

and other human

givens resolutely

from

within ,

both in

the

special

case

of

religion

and

more

generally.

Hence

the

metaphor

of

staring

at

the

limits,

as

contrasted

to

the

one

of

drawing

some

definite limits

which

could

only

be

drawn

from

a

point

of

view

lying beyond

them. A

pragmatically

oriented transcendental

philosophy

(of

religion)

admits that human

ways

of

setting

limits

are

never

permanent

but remain fallible

and

can

always

be contested.

This

applies

to

the

problem

of

evil

as

much

as

to

any

other

issue?and thus also

to

the task of

setting

a

limit

between

religion

and

pseudo-religion.

The

problem

framework of

evil

offers

interesting

material

to

illuminate the

ways

in

which

the

meanings

of

our

concepts

become

deformed,

if

we

fail

to

recognize

the

specific

features

of

the

practices

or

language-games

we

engage

in

or

employ,

scientific and

religious

ones

included.

In

this

case,

there is

a

great

difference between

taking

God's existence

(or

the

state

ment,

God

exists )

to

be

an

hypothesis

to

be tested

in

the

light

of evidence

(in

which

case

the

empirically

undeniable existence

of

evil

would

amount to

counter-evidence)

and

taking

it

to

be

a

genuinely religious

statement.

Arguably,

for

a

truly

religious

person,

nothing

can

count

as

evidence

against

God's existence.

For

such

a

person,

faith is

simply

not

a matter

of

testing

an

hypothesis. Religious

concepts

and the

statements

one

formulates

by employing

them

simply play

crucially

different roles

in

the lives of the

genuine

believer and

the

theodicist.

This feature of

the

Wittgensteinian

response

to

the

problem

of evil

is discussed

in

some

more

detail

in

Sami

Pihlstr?m,

The Transcendental and the

Transcendent ,

forthcoming

in Semi?tica

(special

issue

on

transcendence ,

ed.

by

Eero

Tarasti).

40

Malpas

(2003),

p.

2.

41

Phillips

(1977a),

p.

115. See

here

also,

in

relation

to

the

issue

of

the

limits

of

language

Phillips

(2005).

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Int J Philos

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62:3-32 15

Insofar

as we

tie

meanings

to

our

practices

of

using expressions,

the

meanings

of

religious

concepts

and

statements

are

widely

different

in

these

two

cases.

Accordingly,

one's

acknowledging

(transcendentally)

the bounds of

sense,

the

limits

of

language,

can

orientate one's

participation

in

a

particular language-game?what

one

does

or

can

do within the bounds of

sense

defining

that

particular language-game?in

a

significant

way.

In

this

sense,

viewing something

as

transcendent

from the

point

of view of

a

particular

language-game

can,

at a

transcendental

level,

function

as

a

precondition

of

the

meaningful

ness

of what is

or can

be

said

and done within the

game,

thus

constituting

the

boundaries

that the transcendent feature itself

{qua

transcendent)

inevitably transgresses.

One

of

the

peculiarities

of human

language-use

is, then,

that the

possibility

of

transgressing

the

lim

its of

meaningful

use

of

concepts

is,

in

some cases

at

least,

built

into

the

very

practice

of

language-use

at

issue.

The

particular transgression

we

have dealt with

is

both

religious

and

conceptual.

Its

rele

vance

to

the issue

of

religion

vs.

superstition

should

now

be obvious. The limit of

genuinely

religious

attitudes

to

evil

functions

as a

limit

beyond

which there

can

only

be

superstition

and

confusion,

but this limit is

never

set

in advance of

ethico-religious

responses

to

life.

5

Religion

and ethics:

the

problem

of limits

again

An

analogous

problem

with the limits

of

morality,

or

the

true,

genuine

meaning

of the

ethical,

should

now

be

discussed. It will be

argued

that

drawing

such

limits

is

possible

only

from

a

perspective

lying

within

them,

based

on

a

prior

commitment

to

the

seriousness

of

the

ethical;

an

analogical

argument

can

be

constructed

in

the

case

of

religion

(as

opposed

to

pseudo-religion).

Indeed,

the seriousness

of

the

ethical,

as seen

from within its

limits,

is,

because

of

its

depth , readily comparable

to

the seriousness

of

the

religious.

Here

we

will have

to

draw

attention

not

only

to

Wittgensteinian

philosophy

of

religion

but

also

to

the

related

tradition in moral

philosophy partly

established

by

the

same

group

of

thinkers.42

If

we

are

prepared

to

interpret

the

Wittgensteinian

tradition

transcendentally,

as was

al

ready

done

in

the

previous

section,

we can

draw

a

parallel

between

our concern

with

the

semantic limits of what is

meaningful

(or

what makes

sense

and

what

can

be

said,

religiously

or

otherwise),

on

the

one

hand,

and with the

ethical limits of what is

morally right

or

accept

able,

on

the other.

In

both

cases,

what is

right

or

meaningful

or

what makes sense

for

me

ox

for

us

is,

from

my

(or

our)

actual

point

of

view,

exactly

what is

right

or

meaningful

or

makes

sense,

period.43

Indeed,

this kind of

ethical

limits,

or

limits of

the

ethical ,

are

conceptual

and

thus

semantic

ones,

because

they

are

limits of what is

ethically

imaginable

and/or conceivable

in

the

practices

within which

our

ethical

concepts

get

their

meanings.

From

my

(or our)

point

of

view, then,

the

limits

characterizing

the

human condition

( tran

scendental

limits that

can

only

be

seen

from within that

condition)

are

the

(given)

limits of

whether

semantic

or

ethical;

yet,

we

can

constantly

remind

ourselves,

again

from within

our

limits

(which,

to

repeat,

are

for

us

the

limits),

that

they

may

not

be

permanent

but

may

undergo

historical

change,

after

all.

For

example,

there is

no

significance?from

my

or our

practice-internal

point

of

view?in the

moral

skeptic's

or

relativist's

claim

that

what

This section

is

to

some

extent

indebted

to

a more

comprehensive

discussion

of

similar

issues in Pihlstr?m

(2005b),

Ch. 3.

43

For

comparison,

see

Jonathan

Lear's discussion

of

the notion

of

a

form

of

life in

Wittgenstein

in Lear

(1998).

Cf.

also Pihlstr?m

(2003),

Ch.

2;

and Pihlstr?m

(2006).

Just

as

Lear,

I

am,

when

inquiring

into

what

we find

meaningful

or

meaningless,

whether

conceptually,

ethically,

or

religiously, addressing

us

as a

( disappearing )

transcendental

we .

?Spi

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16

Int J

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is

morally

wrong

or

forbidden for

me

(us),

or

what does

not

make

sense

to

me

(us),

might

nevertheless

really

be

right

or

meaningful.

We

are

not,

thus,

speaking

about

merely

con

tingent

limitations

of what

we can

defacto

make

sense

of,

semantically

or

ethically;

we are

drawing

transcendental

limits?which,

as

always,

can

only

be drawn from within

our

limited

activities

(both

linguistic

and

ethical)

themselves. Transform this

to

the

religious

case,

and

you

will

have

a

picture

of

how

a

religious

person

views

fundamental issues such

as

evil,

freedom,

and

morality,

from within the limits her/his form of

life

establishes

-

contingently,

for

sure,

but for

her/him

unavoidably.

Tilghman

explicitly

takes

up

the

notion

of limits

when

he

argues

against

reductive

mate

rialism

on

the

grounds

of

our

ethical task of

understanding

other human

beings:

At the

edge

of

materialism

we

reach

one

limit of

language.

Were

we

to venture

beyond

that

edge

our

lives would be

unrecognizable. 44

I

propose

to

read

this,

again,

as

a

transcendental

argu

ment:

a

thoroughgoing

neuroscientific

redescription

of human

cognition

would make

our

understanding

of and interaction with other human

beings impossible;

there

are,

thus,

limits

to

how

(scientific)

language

can

be

meaningfully

used in

discussions

of what

humans

are

and

do,

at

least

insofar

we

take the

possibility,

and indeed

actuality,

of such

understanding

and

interaction for

granted.

A

different

but

equally

relevant

engagement

with the limits of

language

in relation

to

ethical

concerns

can

be found in

works

by

Raimond

Gaita.45

Gaita

says,

for

instance,

that

no

philosophical

argument

can,

or

should,

lead

to

what is

ethically

unthinkable ,

such

as

the

toleration of

eating

dead

people

or

(pace

some

arguments

by

Peter

Singer)

of

killing

three

week-old

babies.46

Cultures,

according

to

Gaita,

are

defined

and

distinguished

by

what

is

unthinkable

in

them;

a

discussion of such unthinkabilities

from

within

a

framework

in which

they

are

unthinkable

(to

the

extent

that

such

a

discussion

is,

slightly paradoxically, possible

at

all)

is,

in

my

terms

though

not

in

Gaita's,

a

transcendental discussion

paralleling

the dis

cussion of

what

is

meaningless

from the

point

of view

of

some

actual

practice

of

meaningful

language-use.

It

is

part

of

this

approach

to

inquire

into the limits and

unthinkabilities

that

constitute

our

culturally

situated,

historically

changing

human

condition?semantic,

ethical,

and

religious

alike. Such

an

inquiry,

both

pragmatic

and

transcendental,

is

concerned

with

what is

ethically

possible,

or

what makes

sense,

for

us

as

the

kind

of

ethically

oriented

crea

tures

we

find

ourselves

being. Again,

a

religious

or

theological

analogy

will be

concerned

with

the

religiously possible ,

as

contrasted

to

what

is

unthinkable,

pseudo-religious,

or

even

blasphemous,

from

the

perspective

of

genuinely

religious thought, language,

or

culture.

Tilghman's,

Gaita's,

and other

Wittgensteinians'

discussions of what

is

unthinkable

are

internal

to

what

we

may

call

the

moral

point

of view

(and,

analogously,

the

religious point

of

view),

demonstrating

the

inevitability

of such

a

viewpoint

in

any

serious discussion

of

per

sonally

binding

moral

duty

(or

personally

serious

religious

commitment).

Someone

might

ask, however,

why

a

moral

point

of view

to

life and

to

the world

ought

to

be

adopted

in

the

first

place.

Why

be

moral? ,

a

question occasionally

asked

even

by

serious

philosophers,47

is, however,

precisely

the

wrong

question,

if

we are

already

within

and

truly

interested

in

leading

a

moral

life.

Similarly,

it

is

misguided

to

ask,

Why

be

religious? ,

if

religious

life is

already

motivating

for the

person.

It

is

only

in

religious

terms

that

such

a

question

could

be

answered,

and

then the

question

would

already

have lost

its

sense,

just

as

the

Why

be moral?

question

would,

if

answered

(as

it

only

could

be

answered)

in

irreducibly

ethical

terms.

44

Tilghman

(2001),

p.

249.

45

See

Gaita

(2004),

as

well

as

Gaita

(2000).

46

Gaita

(2000),

pp.

xxviii,

181-183.

47

See,

e.g.,

Nielsen

(1989).

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Int J Philos

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62:3-32

17

The standard reference

here

is

Plato's

Euthyphro,

in

which

Socrates asks whether certain

acts

are

pious

because

they

are

loved

by

the

gods

or

whether

they

are

loved

by

the

gods

because

they

are

pious.

Wittgensteinian

philosophers typically

maintain that

it would

be

a

misunderstanding

of

moral seriousness

to

claim that the

piousness

(or

goodness,

or

obligato

riness)

of certain actions

could

be

prior

to

God's

will?whether

or

not

one

literally

believes

in

God.

The

mysterious

absoluteness of ethical

goodness

requires

that

one

views one's

duty

as

if

it

were

commanded

by

God.

This is

not to

say

that

one

would have

to

view all one's

obligations

as

dependent

on

God's

will; rather,

a

religious

(especially

Christian)

attitude

to

moral

duty

may

be

described

as

a

way

of

placing

one's

ethical

concerns

into

a

context

opened

by

the

higher

perspective

religion provides,

a

context

somehow

above

of one's

ordinary

concerns.

This

position,

according

to

which

we

must

simply

remain within

morality

(or,

again

anal

ogously,

within

religion)

in order

to

interpret

our

lives in

terms of

it,

receives

a

beautiful

elaboration

in

some

of Peter

Winch's

writings,

which have

crucially

affected later

Wittgen

steinians

like

Phillips

and Gaita.

According

to

Winch,

we

cannot

see

morality

as

a

guide

to

conduct ,

since

asking,

for

instance,

which

contingent

advantages

morality

would

bring

to

our

lives

would

take

us

outside

morality.

Moreover,

there

may

not

be

anything

like

the

right

thing

to

do

in

a

given

ethically

problematic

situation,

and thus

we

may

have

to

give

up

the ideal of

moral

perfection

for

moral

reasons,

that

is,

within

morality

itself.48

This

has

something

to

do with

the absolute

demand

of

the moral

'ought' ,

which

is

absolute

even

when

it

obligates

us

to

do

something

that

is

itself

evil,

for

example,

to

kill

someone.

Such

absoluteness

is,

according

to

Winch,

intimately

connected with

the absolute

impossibility

of

harming

a

good

man .

Accepting

the

absolute demand

of the

moral

'ought'

amounts

to

thinking

compared

with the

importance

of

acting

honourably

and

justly

(for

instance),

nothing

else

matters ;

moreover,

this

is

to

bear

the

afflictions

that

life

brings patiently?i.e.,

not

to

be deflected

from

acting

decently

even

under the

pressure

of misfortune. A

man

who

has such

an

attitude

to

life

sees

that

as

long

as

afflictions

do

not

thus deflect

him,

they

do

not

harm

him?not

in

relation

to what

he

regards

as

really

important

in his

life. 49

Although

Winch is

describing

what he takes

to

be

a

genuinely

ethical

attitude

to

life,

his

description

could

as

well be

used

as

a

characterization

of

what

a

genuinely

religious

attitude

is

like,

and

of what

may

be

ethically

admirable

in such

an

attitude.

As

a

converse to

the

acceptance

of moral

duty,

feeling

remorse

is

a

way

of

seeing

the

wrongness

of

one's

actions;50

it

is

not

a

punishment

or

sanction external

to

morality.

Gaita's

conception

of

remorse

is

essentially

similar.51

It

is in

this

sense,

closely

related

to

the ineffa

ble

experiences

of

feeling

absolutely

guilty

or

absolutely

safe which

Wittgenstein

attempts

to

describe

in his

Lecture

on

Ethics ,52

that

we

may

understand

the

significance

of

the idea

that

our

moral

point

of view

cannot

be

justified

in

any

extra-moral,

non-ethical

terms.

Winch

attempts

to

find

an

expression

for

the view

that,

as

seen

from within

the moral

perspective,

this

perspective

itself

is

the

only

truly

important

one.

What

he

actually

says

can

hardly

constitute

an

argument

against

someone

who

does

not

already

share this

position.

It

is

an

expression

of

a

position

that

can

only

be

rejected

from

an

imagined

point

of

view

whose

very

existence

that

position

declares

to

be

humanly

impossible.

Similarly,

it is

a

profound

misunderstanding

of

the

religious

perspective

on

life

to

seek

to

justify

that

perspective

from

an

point

48

Winch

(1972),

pp.

175-176,

187.

49

Winch

(1972),

pp.

206-207.

50

Winch

(1972),

p.

225.

51

It

is

developed

in

detail

in

Gaita

(2004).

See

also

Pihlstr?m

(2007).

52

This 1929

lecture

is

published

as

Wittgenstein

(1965).

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18

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62:3-32

of view. The

importance

of

a

religious

perspective,

if

it is

to

be

genuinely religious

instead

of

pseudo-religious,

can

only

be

described in

religious

terms.

To

put

the

matter

in Jamesian

pragmatist vocabulary,

the fruits of

religion

in

an

individual's

life

cannot

be reduced

to

any

other,

non-religious

fruits .

Let

us

pursue

these

(meta-)ethical

issues still

further,

constantly

keeping

in mind their

reli

gious analogies.

Genuine

questions

have

answers,

or

at

least

we

have

a

vague

idea

of what

an answer

to

a

genuine

question

would look like. But

insofar the moral

point

of view

we

take

ourselves

to

be committed

to

is

a

genuinely

moral

one,

the

question,

why

be

moral? ,

has for

us no

significance

whatsoever,

since the

very

asking

of the

question

is

immoral.

By

posing

this

question

a

person

presupposes

that there

is,

or

could

be,

something

non-ethical

to

function

as a

motivation,

ground,

or

reason

for

morality.

But

the

point

in

morality

itself,

or

the

point

internal

to our

self-understanding

as

moral

agents,

is

precisely

that there is

nothing

like

that, indeed,

that there is

no

point

for

us

to

occupy

outside

morality.

It

is

on

these

grounds

that

we

might

claim

morality

to

be the

most

important,

and

thus the

most

pointless ,

thing

in

our

lives.53

One

consequence

of this

importance,

already

noted,

is

that

someone

willing

to

defend the

personal

absoluteness of

ethical

decisions

cannot

really

argue

her/his

case

against

the

moral

skeptic

or

relativist

who

treats

ethical

choices

as

contingent, culturally

contextual

preferences.

There

is

no room

for

further

argument

in

terms

that both

parties

to

the

debate

would

accept.

The

skeptic

would

require

a

non-ethical

justification

for

morality,

whereas the

Wittgensteinian

moralist insists that

there

can

be

no

such

justification

and

that it

is

already

morally

suspicious

even

to

require

anything

like that.

Do these

remarks

imply

that the

skeptical

relativist

must

inevitably

win

at

the

meta-level

and

that,

given

the

impossibility

of

conclusive

arguments,

morality

is

after all

a

matter

of arbi

trary

personal preferences?

This is

a

serious but

not

fatal

challenge.

What

we

have

imagined

is

a

moral

disagreement,

since

choosing

to

remain within

a

standpoint

internal

to

morality

is

itself

an

ethical

choice and

choosing

not

to

is,

from the

point

of view

of

someone

within,

an

immoral

one.

Serious ethical

thinking

can never

eliminate such moral

disagreements

but,

on

the

contrary,

seek

to

make

sense

of

their

seriousness,

of the fact

that in

our

deliberations

we

strive

after the

correct

solution. This

applies

to

our

meta-level

disagreement

as

directly

as

it

applies

to

our

first-order moral

disagreements.

The

relativist's

challenge ought

(and

this is

an

ethical

ought )

to

be

faced

by

means

of

a

serious ethical

concern

of how

to

live

and

think,

not

by

means

of

any

imagined

philosophical

(neutral, abstract,

non-ethical,

non-cornrnitted)

maneuver.

Thinking

about

the

issues of

moral

objectivity

is

part

of this

concern,

part

of

our

(philosophical)

lives.

Such

a concern

will

not,

of

course,

destroy

the

challenge

it

responds

to.

Morality,

then,

like

religious

faith,

is

utterly

fragile.54

Our

life

might

take

such

unhappy

turns

that

our

moral

identity

would

be

torn

into

pieces?that

we

would be led

to

give

up

moral life

altogether

and

to

adopt

total

cynicism

and

nihilism instead. Full

recognition

of the

impossibility

of

justifying morality

on

non-ethical

grounds requires

that

we

acknowledge

this

fragility

that

belongs

to

our

human

condition.55

Both

morality

and

religion?and

the

changes

that

may

take

place

in

our

relations

to

them?outrun

mere

argument

or

reasoning.

The

fragility

of

ethics and

religion

is,

then,

something

much

more

total,

more

holistic,

than the

corrigibility

of the

results

of

a

scientific

inquiry.

53

On the

pointlessness

of

ethics,

see

the

intriguing

essays

by

Iris Murdoch in

her

collection,

Murdoch

(1997).

54

Cf.

Wisdo(1993),

Ch.

6.

55

Because

of the

holistic

sense

in which

moral

concerns,

like

religious

ones,

are

intertwined in the

totality

of

a

person's

life,

the

term

fragility

is,

as

Wisdo

suggests,

better than

corrigibility

(or

falsifiability ).

Wisdo

(1993),

p.

51.

<S

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Int

J Philos

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(2007)

62:3-32 19

Acknowledging

moral and

religious

fragility

is

to

take

seriously

a

resolute

form of

anti

foundationalism.

Our

identities,

or

whatever is

most

precious

to

us,

can

at

any

time be

put

at

risk

by

evil and

suffering;56

both

morality

and

religious

faith

are

vulnerable

gifts

whose

continuous

presence

in

our

lives

we

cannot

take

for

granted.57

A

situation

in

which

morality

(or

religion)

had ceased

to

be

significant

for

us

(assuming

that

it

now

is)

would,

undoubtedly,

redefine us in

such

a

radical

way

that it would

not

be

easy

for

us,

in

the

personal,

cultural,

and historical situation

we now

contingently

find

ourselves

in,

to

recognize

ourselves

(or

our

possible

future

selves)

in those

changed

circumstances.

our

pursuit

of

moral

just

as

our

religious

sensibilities,

may

gradually

be eroded

by unexpected

external

factors.58

Our

very

conception

of

ourselves

as

rational,

reflective

self-legislators

may

fragm?ntate.

So

may

our

conception

of ourselves

as

religious

believers.

Recognizing

this

possibility

may

even

be

necessary

for

a

genuine,

as

opposed

to

superstitious, religiosity.

The

notorious

problem

of

evil

underlying

the

possibility

of the

fragmentation

of moral

identities does

not

easily

surrender

to

abstract

philosophical

analysis,

as we

have

seen

(cf.

Sect. 3

above).

Few

religious

believers

actually

lose their faith because of

having

become

convinced

by

the

philosophical

argument

that theism is

incompatible

with,

or

evidentially

challenged by,

the existence of evil. But

can

evil

lead

one

to,

or

make

one

remain

at,

a

point

outside

morality

(or

religion)?

It

would be

an

interesting topic

of

further

investigation

to

examine

whether,

and

in

what

sense,

paradigmatically

evil

figures

such

as

lago,

(Mil

ton's)

Satan,

de

Sade,

or

(Arendt's)

Eichmann

can

really

step,

or

consistently

remain,

outside

morality.

This

issue

cannot

be settled

here.

To

oppose

all theodicies and

to

call

for

an

ethical

response

to

the

evil inflicted

on

the other human

being,

in

the

sense

sketched

in

Sect.

3,

is

also

to

acknowledge

the

fragility

that

may

destroy

the

status

ethics and

religion

enjoy

in

our

lives. Evil

is

a

thick

ethical

and

religious

notion if

anything

is. The fact that

we

cannot

fully

describe

or

understand

our

moral

lives

(and

the further fact that

we

cannot

fully acknowledge

our

profound

inability

to

fully

understand

our

lives)

without this

concept

appears

to

lead

directly

to

the issue

of

fragility.

Our

need

to

cope

with

evil,

conceptually

and

practically,

perhaps

religiously,

is

again

part

of

our

human

condition

-

part

of the moral life that

may,

but should

not,

lead

to

its

own

fragmentation.

What

we

may

learn

from the

Wittgensteinians

I have

cited,

then,

is that

morality

(like

religiosity)

is

fragile

and

we

may

lose

our

faith

in

it

partly

because there

are

cases?and

they

are

not

rare?where

morality requires

us

to

do what

we

consider

morally

wrong

to

do.

For

instance,

I

may

be

convinced that

it is

wrong,

under

any

circumstances,

to

kill

another

human

being,

but

I

may

arrive

at

a

situation

in

which

I

have

a

duty

to

kill

someone

who,

for

example,

threatens

an

innocent

human

being's

life. The

duty

to

does

not

remove

wrongness

of

the

killing,

if

I

am

genuinely

committed

to

the

principle

thou shalt

not

kill ;

I

can,

and

should,

feel

remorse

afterwards,

even

though

I

may

have done

my

duty.59

I

cannot,

and

must

not,

think

it is

right

to kill

someone

even

if

it

saved

many

more

lives. Cases

where there

is

no

right

thing

to

do

but

only,

tragically,

morally

wrong

alternatives

are

not

unusual

in

our

lives,

although

some

of those

cases are

of

course more

significant

than others.

(Moral

seriousness

does admit

stages,

and

religious

seriousness

does,

too.)

Once

again,

it

is

the

importance

of

morality

in

our

lives that

leads

us

to

these

confusing

situations,

to

our

being puzzled

about

the

possibility

of

having

a

duty

to

perform

a

morally

wrong

action.

56

Wisdo(1993), p.

8.

57

See Wisdo

(1993),

p.

101.

58

Cf.

Phillips

(1986), pp.

89

ff.

59

Cf. here

again

Gaita's and

Winch's above-cited

discussions

of

remorse.

?

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20

Int J Philos

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(2007)

62:3-32

The

possibility

of

experiencing something

terrible,

such

as

killing,

as an

obligation,

yet

as a

wrong

thing

to

do,

is

one

of the

conditions that characterize

our

reflective

moral

experience.

It is

hard

to

criticize

someone

who

gives

up

morality

as a

result

of such

experiences.

As

David Bakhurst

puts

it,

it

may

be

pathological

but

not

incoherent that

someone

loses

her/his

interest

in the

moral life and

becomes

an

indifferent

person

or

even

an

evil

one.60

Similarly,

religious

people

may

and

occasionally

do lose

their

religious

beliefs

in

the

course

of

their

lives; indeed,

the

decline

of

religion

and

the

fragmentation

of ethical values

are

often

thought

to

take

place

hand in

hand. The

central

idea here

is,

as

already

remarked,

that the moral

as

well

as

the

religious identity

of

any

given

person

is

inherently

vulnerable;

a

key

outcome

of

our

inquiry

is the

suggestion

that

a

genuine

(as

opposed

to

superstitious) religious

believer

ought

to

be able

to

acknowledge

this basic

vulnerability, just

as

the

one

genuinely

ethically

committed

ought

to

be able

to

perceive

her/his

own

potential

moral weakness and

guilt.

We

may,

then,

re-emphasize

that the

reasons

for

one's

losing

one's faith

may

be

quite

similar in the

case

of

morality,

on

the

one

hand,

and

religion,

on

the other: the full realiza

tion

of the evil there is in the

world,

all

the

apparently

unnecessary

suffering

that

cannot

be

prevented,

and

mortality

as

the unavoidable condition of

all

living

creatures. In

neither

case

does the loss of

faith

normally

result from one's

becoming

convinced

by

some

particular

philosophical argument?by

the moral

skeptic's

argument

to

the effect that

objective

values

are

queer

and

cannot

exist

in the

natural

world,

in

the ethical

case,

or

by

the atheist's

argu

ment

to

the

effect that

there

are

no

good

reasons

to

believe in

God

or

that the

problem

of evil

renders theism

incoherent,

in the

religious

case.

Instead of

theoretical

arguments,

what is

at

issue

is

a

profound

change

in

the

person's

life and in

her/his

understanding

of

that

life

and

its basic

meanings

and

possibilities.

Philosophical

arguments,

or

intellectual considerations

in

general,

in

some

cases

be

one

factor

in

the

emergence

of

such

a

change,

but

usually

their role

appears

to

be

relatively

limited.

And of

course

there

are cases

in which

a

moral

or

religious

enthusiast

does

not

lose her/his

faith,

whatever

happens.

There

are cases

in which

people

in

desperate

circumstances?say,

in

a

concentration

camp,

awaiting

their

deaths?act

virtuously,

without

any

hope

for

rewards,

without

any

external

goal

or

purpose,

hence

point

lessly,

yet

justly

and

honorably.

In such

circumstances,

the

religious

believer

may

be able

to

maintain

her/his

faith,

though

s/he

may

also lose it.

The

fragility

of

our

ethical and

religious

lives

is

something

we

should

simply acknowledge

and

pay

respect

to.

Tragic

and

evil

events

and

circumstances

may

affect

our

lives

in

unexpected

ways.

It

is

part

of

a

religious

life,

as

opposed

to a

pseudo-religious

or

superstitious

one,

to

take

seriously

this

personal

aspect

of

religion

and its

vulnerability.61

This

picture

of

the

situation

we

are

in

may

seem

to

be

deeply

unsatisfactory

for

a

thinker

hoping

to

be able

to

construct

a

coherent moral

theory

or

a

coherent

system

in

the

philosophy

of

religion.

But that

is

precisely

what

I

mean:

our

situation,

if

we are

religiously

or

ethically

serious,

is in

many ways

deeply unsatisfactory.

Nothing

could

be

farther from

my

aims than

the

attempt

to

paint

a

neat

and

tidy?unproblematic?picture

of

moral and

religious

life;

on

the

contrary,

it

is

because of the central

place

of

ethical

concerns

in

our

lives

that life is

so

difficult,

problematic,

and

even

tragic,

whenever

it is

ethically

and

religiously

serious,

an

60

Bakhurst(1999),p.

242.

61

Conversely,

however,

evil and

suffering

may

also

lead

a

person

to

religious

life.

For

example,

if

one,

having

experienced

evil

either in

one's

own

life

or

in

the lives

of

others,

fully

realizes

the

futility

of

theodicies,

one

may

be

more

tempted

than

before

to

adopt

a

religious

belief,

the

adoption

of

which

may

have

been

prevented

by

one's

lack of

clarity

about this

futility.

4y Springer






Int J Philos

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(2007)

62:3-32 21

examined

life .62

There

is

no

guarantee

that

morality,

or

again

analogously

religion,

being

pointless

and

self-contained,

will

remain

important

for

us?even

if it is

at

the

moment

the

most

important

thing

in

our

lives.63

Moreover,

if

morality

does

not

remain

important

for

us,

then

our

lives should

be

judged

in moral

terms,

but should

that

happen,

we

would

no

longer

accept

those

terms

as

relevant

for

judging

our

lives. But

again,

this

paradoxical

impossi

bility

and simultaneous

necessity

of

morally judging

an

immoral

(or

allegedly

amoral)

life

highlights,

instead of

diminishing,

the

importance

of

morality

for

us.

A

person

can

move

outside

morality only

by

being

or

becoming

an

/mmoral

person.

There

is

no

logical

space

for

a

neutral

^morality.

From

this

perspective,

the distinction

between amoral and /mmoral

life

is

a

distinction without difference. Amoralism

appears

to

be

possible

only

if

one

steps

outside

the moral framework

altogether,

but that

step

itself

is

immoral?and thus

presup

poses

the

possibility

of moral

evaluation,

failing

to

entirely

step

outside

morality,

after

all.

The

religious

person

might

similarly

argue

that all

attempts

to

occupy

a

religiously

neutral

position,

such

as

agnosticism,

are

already

non- or even

anti-religious,

and thus

practically

equivalent

to

atheism.

In

sum,

a

human

being

can

surely

take

a

step

beyond good

and

evil ,

as

both

pragma

tists

like Bakhurst and

Wittgensteinians

like Wisdo have

acknowledged,

but

a

person

is in

some

sense

pathological

or

abnormal if

s/he does

this.

Some

Wittgensteinians

may go

as

far

as

claiming

that

philosophers

who hold

antirealist

or

relativist

theories

of

ethics,

doubt

ing

the

possibility

of

absolute

ethical

judgments,

are

in

a

way

abnormal

as

human

beings,

and

deserve ethical

(not

just philosophical)

critique.64

It is

part

of

the

human

condition ,

normatively

rather than

purely descriptively

viewed,

to

be interested in and committed

to

morality?though

not

for the sake of

any

non-moral

purpose.

However,

the

obvious

problem

is that

there

may

not

be

enough

room

for

a

normative

evaluation

of human

life within

the

Wittgensteinian conception

of

philosophy

as a

description

of

actual

language-use.

If,

as

I

have

suggested,

we see our

meta-level commitment

to

the

seriousness of

morality

as

itself

an

ethical

commitment,

a

commitment

we

should make

in

our

lives,

because

rejecting

it

would

amount

to

a

step

beyond

a

serious

concern

with

morality,

it

appears

that

we

cannot

remain

at

the level of

mere

description

but need

normative,

genuinely

ethical intervention.

Thus,

the

purely Wittgensteinian

thinker

who

only

describes

our

actual

use

of ethical

language

cannot

in the end embrace

moral

objectivity

in

a

fully

normative

sense.

Even if what

is

described

by

such

a

thinker

is the normative

rule-following

involved in

a

particular linguistic

commu

nity,

her/his

description

still falls short

of

normative

commitment;

it is

in the end

a

mere

description

of what

a

certain

language-game

looks

like.

The

same

obviously

holds for the

philosophy

of

religion, Wittgensteinian

or

not.

Mere

description

is

not

enough;

normative

commitments

are

essential. And

here,

again,

lies

our

problem.

There

is

no

God's-Eye

View available

to

us

for

making

such

commitments;

they

must

be

made from within

a

practice

defined

by

them?ethical

or

religious?unless

we

assume

that

there

is

an essence

of

religion

(or,

analogously,

morality)

the

knowledge

of

which

would

immediately

our

normative

claims.

Has

the treatment of the

absolute ,

yet

personal,

character of

moral

problems

and

obligations

in this

section assumed

such

an

62

Note

that

I

do

not

require

a

religiously

serious

(and

thus

examined )

life

to

be

religious.

A

religiously

serious

person

may

end

up

being

an

atheist.

The

important thing

is

to

take

seriously

the kind

of

problems

that

may

lead

people

to

embrace

religious

ideas,

and

not to

reduce them

to

everyday

or

scientific

problems.

63

Note also

that

I do

not mean

to

say

that

either

morality

or

religion

is

self-contained

in the

sense

of

failing

to

have

any

connections with other human

institutions,

such

as

science.

The

use

of this

expression

refers

to

the

idea that

these activities do

not

have

any

ultimate

goal

external

to

themselves. Cf.

again

Murdoch

(1997),

also discussed

in Pihlstr?m

(2005b),

Ch.

2.

64

See

Johnston

(1999).

Cf.

Pihlstr?m

(2005b),

Ch.

3.

^

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22 Int

J

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(2007)

62:3-32

essence? Is it

an

essential

feature

of the ethical

perspective

that it

cannot

be reduced

to

any

thing

else,

or

justified

in

terms

of

anything allegedly

more

fundamental? Is

it,

similarly,

an

essential feature of

religion

that it

cannot

be reduced

to

anything non-religious

(or

religiously

neutral),

either? Just

as

in

the

case

of the

problem

of

evil,

we

have encountered

questions

that

seem

to

lead

us

to

a

desperate

choice between essentialism and relativism.

Maintaining

the

possibility

of

distinguishing genuinely

ethical and

religious

views from

pseudo-ethical

and

pseudo-religious

ones

seems

to

commit

us

to

a

form of

essentialism,

while

at

the

same

time

we seem

to

arrive

at

relativism,

realizing

the

hopelessness

of such

distinctions,

when

abstracted from all actual ethical and

religious

frameworks, traditions,

or

backgrounds.

6 From within : the

problem

of

relativism

Having

at

some

length

gone

through

my

two

examples,

the

problem

of evil and the

analogy

between

religious

and moral

commitment,

it is

important

to

note

that

I

am

not

assuming

the

correctness

of

any

particular Wittgensteinian

(or

any

other)

way

of

drawing

the

religion

vs.

pseudo-religion

distinction.

Yet,

I

do

think

that

the

Wittgensteinian

tradition in the

philosophy

of

religion provides

us

with

insights

we

cannot

neglect?insights

often

usefully comparable

to

pragmatist

ones.

Moreover,

we

may

conclude,

at

the

meta-level,

that the

philosophy

of

religion

must

take

up

the issue of whether

some

accounts

of

religion,

either favorable

or

critical,

are

in fact committed

to

pseudo-religion

or

superstition.

It is

not

enough

to

deal

with

the

purely

intellectual

adequacy

of various views of

religion;

a

critical examination

of their

religious

adequacy

is also

constantly

needed.

But

if this is

true,

then the

philosophy

of reli

gion

cannot

simply

maintain its meta-level

perspective.

It

must

become

religiously

engaged,

though

of

course

not

reducible

to

religion

or

theology.

It

must,

at

the

very

least,

be

open

to

the kind of

religious

possibilities

its

practitioners perceive

in

their

own

lives.

My

discussion

thus far

suggests

that

it

is

possible

to

draw

the,

or

any,

boundary

between

religious

and

pseudo-religious language-use

or

thought

(or,

analogously,

between ethical

language-use

or

thought,

on

the

one

side,

and its

pseudo-ethical

mischaracterizations,

on

the

other)

only

from

within

a

form of life

or

world-view that is

already

understood

as

religious

(or,

mutatis

mutandis,

as

ethically

concerned)?that

is,

a

way

of

thinking

already

demarcated

from

ways

of

thinking

that

are

not

conceived

as

(genuinely) religious.

This conclusion in

a

way

resembles the

position

known

as

naturalism in the

philosophy

of

science,

inspired by

W. V.

Quine

and his

many

followers.65

The naturalist

says

that it is

only

from within the

evolving

world-picture

and

methodology

of science

itself,

instead of

any

autonomous

first

philosophical perspective supposedly

prior

to

science,

that the demarcation between science

and non-science

(or

pseudo-science)

can

be

made.

There

is

no

purely philosophical

way

to

solve the demarcation

problem .

Nor is

there,

in

the

religious

case,

any

purely philosophical

way

to

solve the

analogous

demarcation

problem.

In neither

case

is there

any

higher

court

of

appeal . Genuinely

religious thought

is demarcated from

pseudo-religion only

from within

a

religious

form of

life,

which

obviously

views itself

as

genuinely religious, just

as

science

is

demarcated from

pseudo-science only

from within science

itself,

which

explains why

the

views

it

considers

pseudo-scientific

do deserve that

label,

and

morality

is

acknowledged

as

essential

only

from

an

ethical

standpoint,

which

judges

as

unethical all

attempts

to

step

outside

the moral

sphere.

From

the

perspective

of

religious

life,

certain ideas about

religion

65

See,

among

Quine's

many

works,

his last

book,

Quine

(1995);

on

analogous (though largely neglected)

issues in

religious

naturalism ,

see

Pihlstr?m

(2005a).

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62:3-32 23

will

then

seem not

only conceptually

confused but

blasphemous,

as we

have

seen

through

our case

studies.

Indeed,

it is

usually,

or

perhaps exclusively,

within

religious

contexts

that the issue of

reli

gion

vs.

superstition

arises

as an

issue for

a

religious

believer

in

the first

place.

For

example,

superstition

is

a

sin

according

to

the

Catholic

Encyclopedia,

a

sin

arising

from

an

excess

of

religion

instead of

irreligion; specifically,

it

is

a

sin

offending

the First

Commandment,

according

to

which

only

the

one

true

God

ought

to

be

worshipped.66

The kinds of

pseudo

religion

I

am

interested in here

are

not,

however,

superstitious

but

typi

cally overly

intellectualized

philosophical

or

scientific

(or,

for

that

matter,

pseudo-scientific)

accounts

of

religion

that

a

philosopher

of

religion seeking

to

understand

a

genuinely religious

form

of

life

ought

to

resist

as

firmly

as a

Christian

ought

to

resist the sin of

superstitious

practices.

Now,

the

problem

of

relativism,

in

a

nutshell,

is this.

Religious

institutions

or

practices,

embodying profound

perspectives

on

the

meaningfulness

of

human

life,

are

from

their

own

perspective

fundamental,

basic,

autonomous,

and irreducible. For

someone

standing

outside

religion,

religious

views and

practices

may

and should be

intellectually

and

evalu

ated,

just

as

all other

human

ways

of

thinking

and

acting.67

For

the

true

believer,

the

morally

right

or

good,

however,

depends

on,

or

is

determined

by,

God's will

and becomes

inconceiv

able

if

conceptualized

in

any

other

way.

This

kind of

craving

for

absoluteness

is,

we

might

say,

a

transcendental condition

for

the

possibility

of

religious

practices.68

If

this

overarching

ideal of

meaningful

life is

to

make

sense as

such

an

ideal,

it

cannot

be

relativized

or

watered-down in

order

to

accommodate

other

equally

valuable

perspectives.

An

inescapable

condition

for

the

possibility

of

religion

qua

religion

is the

absolute

superiority

of the

religious

point

of

view.

There

is, then,

no

neu

tral

ground

for

making

the

choice

between

religion

and

some

other

framework critical of

it.

For

an

ethically

concerned critic of

religion,

for

instance,

even

the

choice

between

ultimate

foundational

( bedrock )

practices

or

perspectives

on

life

must

be

made

on

ethical

grounds;

making

such choices in

any

other

way,

for

allegedly

primary

non-ethical

reasons,

would

be

immoral,

because

that would

amount to

subordinating

ethical

reasons

for

something

more

fundamental?and from the ethical

point

of

view

nothing

can

be

more

fundamental

(see

again

Sect. 5

above).

But

for the

religious

person

God's

grace

is

the

ground

of all

our

being,

including

our

ability

to

engage

in

any

morally

motivated actions

at

all.

Our

capacity

for

moral reflection is

also,

according

to

the

believer,

a

gift

from

God?if

also,

paradoxically,

something

demanded

of

us

by

God. Either

way,

the choice

must

already

have been

made,

insofar

as

any

framework,

religious

or

not,

can

present

itself

as

we

could

legitimately

choose

to

employ

as

ultimate.

Because

no

neutral,

purely

rational choice is

possible

in

this

dialectical

situation,

that

is,

because either

a

(secular)

ethical

or a

religious

perspective,

considered absolute and fun

damental,

seems

to

be

always already

transcendentally

presupposed

in

any

choice

we

make,

in

any

lebensanschaulich

framework

we

find

ourselves

in,

are we

on our

way

to

a

kind of

per

spectivism

or

relativism?69

Should

we

just

declare

religious

and

non-religious

perspectives

66

See the

entry,

Superstition ,

in

the

Catholic

Encyclopedia,

online:

http://www.newadvent.org/ca

then/14339a.htm.

67

Think,

for

instance,

of

Kant's

way

of

arriving

at

the

justification

of

religion

only

through

the

demands

of

morality.

Or think of the

ethical

concerns

at

work

in

James's

reflections

on

religion:

cf.

Pihlstr?m

(1998).

68

Compare

this

to

the

way

in

which

the

idea

of

there

being

transcendental

conditions of

religious

language

was

invoked

in

Sect.

4

above.

69

For

a

discussion of relativism

as a

problem

in

post-Kantian

transcendental

philosophy

more

generally,

see

Pihlstr?m

(2003),

Ch. 1.

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24

Int

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(2007)

62:3-32

or

frameworks

only

relatively

valid,

non-absolutely

correct,

each

from their

own

perspective?

But

subscribing

to

this

compromise

would

amount

to

a

resolution of the meta-level issue

in

non-religious

terms,

insofar

as

we

would

now

ourselves

simply

rationally

choose

or

decide

to

view both valid

in

their

own

terms .

What is

more,

such

a

relativizing

move

would

hardly

satisfy

the demands

of the

religious

ideals,

because

not

only religious

but also other frame

works

(e.g.,

secular

ethics)

represent

themselves

as

primarily

important

and fundamental.

Thus

we

would

not

be able

to

occupy

a

neutral

ground

by

means

of

this

maneuver,

either.

A

tension

remains,

if not

an

outright

paradox.

No

religious

(or

non-religious)

framework

can,

without

begging

the

question, legitimate

its ultimate

status to

those

who consider

some

other

framework

more

fundamental,

and

no

external

philosophical

analysis,

or

relativization,

can

settle the issue

on

a

neutral

ground.

The

problem

is

only deepened

by

the

observation that

there is

a

great

number of rival

religious

frameworks that

are

incompatible

with

each

other.

If

one

cannot

adequately

describe

a

religious

form

of

life,

or a

religious

use

of

language,

in

non-religious

terms,

and

if

a

shared

religious practice

thus

seems to

be

a

condition

for the

possibility

of the

meaningfulness

of certain

expressions,

the

very

possibility

of

criticizing

religious

beliefs will become

problematic.

This,

again,

is

one

way

of

stating

the relativism

issue. Is there

any

way

for

a

non-religious

person

to

claim

that

a

particular

use

of

religious

language

is

superstitious

rather than

genuinely

religious?70

This

question

concerns

(tran

scendentally,

I

am

again

tempted

to

say)

the

position

from

which

the

non-believer

would

be

speaking

when s/he

tries

to

make

a

critical

comment

on a

religious

person's

utterance.71

A

grammatical

investigation

of

religious language

in

a

Wittgensteinian

style

may

end

up

with the conclusion

that,

for

instance,

superstition

(or

blasphemy)

makes

sense

only

on

the

basis

of believers'

sharing

certain

presuppositions

about

what is involved

in

reverence

to

God .72

Such

presuppositions

may

be

parts

of

the

background

that

make

those

people's

use

of

language intelligible.

Lars

Hertzberg,

from whom

I

am

drawing

these

ideas,

does

not

say

that

his

question

is

a

transcendental

one,

but

it

can

certainly

be

interpreted

in such

a

way.

Faced

with the

problem

of how

non-believers

can

say

anything

meaningful

about

religious language-use

(if

they

do

not

share

the

background

that makes

religious

language

meaningful),

Hertzberg

suggests

that

we

might

turn

the

problem upside

down:

Rather

than

taking

the

distinction

between believ

ers

and

non-believers for

granted

and

regarding

the

expression

of

certain

religious

attitudes

by

non-believers

as

a

problem,

we

should

take the

expressions

as

given

and instead

regard

the distinction

itself

as

problematic.

Then

we

may

be led

to

take

a

larger

look

at

the

context

in

which the

non-believer's words

acquire

their

meaning,

i.e.,

that

person's

life.73

Analogously,

I

want to

suggest

that

it is

our

on-going

normative

engagement

with

our own

and

other

people's language-use

that

ought

to

be

taken

as

something given.

The

(transcendental?)

condition

that

makes this

given

actuality

of

our

life

possible

is the

vagueness

of the normative

vs.

descriptive

distinction.

It

is

by coming

to

see

that

describing

and

clarifying

language-use

already

contains

a

normative

dimension

that

we can

make

sense

of

the fact that

norms,

rules,

and limits

are

inevitably grounded

in

our

factual

use

of

words. The distinction

between

the

normative

and the

descriptive

should

be considered

as

problematic

and context-sensitive

as

the

one

between the believer

and the non-believer.

Normativity

begins

look

like

an

entirely

natural?and

yet

somehow miraculous?

fact

about

our

human life with

language.

We

should

acknowledge

the

inescapable

need

for

70

See

Hertzberg

(2000),

especially

pp.

121 ff.

71

Hertzberg

(2000),

pp.

127-128.

72

Cf.

Hertzberg

(2000),

p.

129.

73

Hertzberg

(2000),

p.

131.

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Int J Philos

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62:3-32

25

normative

language-use,

such

as

the distinction between

religion

and

pseudo-religion

within

the

language-games

that

philosophers

of

religion

(and

other scholars interested

in

religious

phenomena)

entirely naturally

engage

in.

This need

overcomes

the need

to

separate

thinkers

into believers and

non-believers.

It

is

more

important

for

us

to

be able

to,

not

only

as

reli

gious

or

non-religious

persons

but also

as

scholars

or

thinkers,

to

judge

certain

phenomena

as

pseudo-religious,

or

superstitious,

than

to

be able

to

neatly

and

unambiguously classify

people,

ourselves

included,

as

believers

or

non-believers.

The relativism issue

we

have located

is, then,

expressible

as

the

following

question:

can

there

be

any

critical

discussion

of

any

particular

way

of

drawing

the

limit,

if

all

attempts

to

draw

it

are

inevitably

made from within

a

specific (religious

or

non-religious) perspective?

Here,

I

suggest,

a

healthy

dose of

(Jamesian)

pragmatism might help

us.

Because

pragma

tism

urges

us

to

view

our own

practices?the

very

language-games

we

engage

in?with

open-minded,

self-critical

eyes,

being experimentally prepared

to

learn from

our

mistakes,

including

the mistake

of

taking something pseudo-religious

to

be

genuinely religious

(or

vice

versa),

pragmatism

is less

vulnerable,

though

not

entirely

invulnerable,

to

the relativist

charge

than

some

standard

Wittgensteinian

views

in

the

philosophy

of

religion

seem

to

be.74

Relativism,

hence,

depends

on a

problematic prior assumption, according

to

which all dis

agreements

must

be

objectively

resolvable in

terms

of rational

grounds

common

to

all

parties

to

the

dispute. Pragmatists

may

allow

that there

are

methods and

standards of

reasonable

dis

cussion that fall short

of full

argumentative rigor

but

are

not

for this

reason

simply

irrational

or

arbitrary.

A

Wittgensteinian

like

Phillips might

insist that when

drawing

the

religion

vs.

superstition

boundary,

the

Wittgensteinian

thinker

only

draws

this

boundary

as

it is

articulated

in

our

language,

culture,

or

practice,

not

absolutely,

from

above ,

or

from

an

allegedly

neutral

God's-Eye

View.

Here,

of

course,

the relativism issue

returns

in

the

attempt

to

avoid

essen

tialism. Could

we,

within

our

culture,

be mistaken

(or

perhaps

even

superstitious)

about

how

to

draw the

limit between

religion

and

superstition?

Could

we,

from

within

our

perspec

tive defined

by

the

way

we

do draw the

limit,

acknowledge

the

possibility

that

we

might

be

mistaken,

the

possibility

that what

we

take

to

be

genuinely religious might

after all be

superstitious

in

some

objective, practice-transcending

sense?

If

so,

would

we

again

arrive

at

essentialism

instead of relativism?

7

The

religious

person

uses a

picture

We

have

once

again

ended

up

with

questions

rather than

answers?especially questions

demonstrating

the

need

to

steer

a

middle

course

between relativism and

essentialism.

Before

concluding

this

investigation,

I want

to

propose

that relevant criteria

(if

not

the

criteria)

for

genuine religiosity

might

be

found

in

Wittgenstein's

contentions

that the

religious

person

uses

a

picture ,

that

the

gap

between the believer and the non-believer

may

result from

the different

pictures

that

guide

them,

and that

the

whole

weight

of

a

religious

way

of

life

may

lie

in

its

pictures.75

Here

it

is

important

to

realize that

religious pictures,

or

reli

gious

ways

using pictures

(viz.,

making

and

looking

at

them,

etc.)

are

very

different from

non-religious

(e.g.,

scientific)

pictures

or

ways

of

using pictures.

To

fail

to

realize this is

to

74

On

the other

hand,

I

would be

prepared

to

call the

Wittgensteinian

orientation

pragmatist

in

a

broad

sense.

75

Wittgenstein

(1966),

pp.

53, 56,

72.

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26

Int J Philos

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(2007)

62:3-32

be

in

the

grip

of

a

false,

misleading?perhaps pseudo-religious?picture

of what

religious

pictures

are

like.76

But how

can we

distinguish

between

religious

and

superstitious

pictures?

We need

to

be

able

to

say

that

a

picture

may

be

appropriate

or

inappropriate

in

its context?and

that

some

pictures,

e.g.,

the

Muhammad

caricatures that caused

severe

turmoil in several Islamic

countries

in

2006,

are

clearly

inappropriate

at

least

in

some

crucial

contexts.

However,

appro

priateness

is itself

a

form-of-life-bound

concept;

so

the

problem

of relativism

seems

to

haunt

us once

again.

We have

to

take

a

look

at

some

particular

religious pictures

in order

to

find

out,

case

by

case,

whether

they might

function

as

expressions

of

genuinely religious

attitudes. Or

we

may

look

at

the

pictures

of

religious

language-use

and

religious

life that

philosophers

of

religion

have drawn in their

writings.

For

example,

the

picture

of

religion

that

emerges

from

Phillips's

Wittgenstein-inspired

work

(cf.

Sect. 3

above)

is,

roughly,

of the

following

kind.

Genuinely religious practices

must

be

distinguished

from the

pseudo-religious

ideas

connected with

the kind of traditional

theism defended

or

criticized

by

mainstream

philosophers

of

religion.

Theism,

as

standardly

articulated,

is

a

corrupt

and

superstitious

form

of

religion,

based

on

a

false and

unnecessary

conception

of there

being

a

state

of

rivalry

between science

and

religion

(and

possibly

other

human

practices

or

perspectives).

It

is,

according

to

Phillips,

not

just philosophically

mis

leading

but

even

religiously

corrupt

and

blasphemous

to

claim,

for

instance,

that God

has

reasons

to

allow the evil there

is

in

the world

as a

necessary

part

of

his

overall

plan,

or even

that

God

exists

as an

entity

of

some

kind.77

Furthermore,

religion

cannot

be

grounded

in

theology

or

dogmas

but lives

in

people's

practices.78

Even

less

can

religion

be

grounded

in

(analytic) philosophers'

of

religion superficial

and often

superstitious

rationalizations.

In

the

case

of

evil,

in

particular,

it is

blasphemous

and

to

offer

justifications

on

God's

behalf,

as

we

have

seen.

Theodicism

produces

pseudo-religious

pictures

of

religion.

Just

as

religion

cannot

solve the

problem

of

evil,

it

cannot

(when

genuine) promise

an

eternal

life;

it would

again

be

a

corrupt

form

of

religion,

a

false

picture

of

salvation,

to

strive for

one's

own

place

in Heaven and/or

to

deny

the full

reality

of

death

or

mortality.

These

aspects

of

Phillips's picture

of

genuine religion,

described here

only

in

very gen

eral

terms,

yield

normative

requirements

that

a

person

pursuing

religious

life

ought

to

take

seriously.

The

problem

is,

once

more,

whether those

aspects

and

the

norms

they ground

are

ultimately

based

on a

conception

of the

essence

of

Does

assume

that the

requirements

for

genuine religion

he describes

in

his works

are,

though

based

on a

description

of what he takes

to

be

a

(family

of)

religious

uses

of

language

within

human

practices

or

forms of

life,

essential

criteria

that

any

activity

classifiable

as

religious

must

meet? Or

could,

for

example,

an

outlook

which

incorporated

the idea of

immortality

or

survival be

genuinely

religious,

if it

met

some

of the other criteria

Phillips

lists?

A

charitable

reading

would admit

that the

Phillipsian picture

enables

one

to

maintain

a

gradualist

picture

of

religiosity,

with

no

sharp

demarcation between

religion

and

pseudo-religion.

But

it

is also

part

of this

picture

76

Moreover,

both

genuinely religious

and

pseudo-religious

pictures

can

presumably belong

to

the

Welt

bild

(world-picture,

worldview)

that is the inherited

background

I

use

for

distinguishing

between truth

and

falsehood,

as

Wittgenstein

(1969)

explains:

see

?

94

(cf.

also

??

95-99,

162,

167).

77

In

criticizing

the traditional theist's

conception

of theism

as a

commitment

to the

existence of

God,

Phillips

relies

not

only

on

Wittgenstein's

but

also

on

Kierkegaard's

and

Simone Weil's

thought.

Here,

again,

I

am

indebted

to

Tommi Uschanov's

unpublished

paper

on

Phillips.

78

However,

it

might

be

argued

that

in

a

high religion

such

as

Christianity,

Islam,

or

Judaism,

the

content

of

religious practices

is

inseparable

from

theology.

Thus,

theology

would

not

be

an

external

addition

to

people's

genuine

engagement

in

religious practices

but

an

integral

part

of those

practices'

being genuinely religious

ones.

I

leave

this

matter

aside

here,

however.

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62:3-32 27

that in

some

cases

the demarcation

must

be

sharp.

For

instance,

when

the fundamentalist

preacher

comes

to

tell

you

that homosexuals

will

go

to

Hell,

it

is

impossible,

if

one

is serious

about one's

own

religiosity,

not to

find her/his

pronouncement

as

deeply

pseudo-religious

and

superstitious,

however admirable her/his

other views

might

be,

religiously

or

ethically.

Phillips's

account

provides

us

with

only

one?in

my

view

interesting

and

in

many

ways

admirable,

though

not

for that

reason

unproblematic?picture

of what

genuinely religious

life

and

thinking might

amount to.

In

any

case,

there is

no

way

to

avoid normative

commitments,

if

one

endorses this

picture.

Moreover,

the various features of

genuine religion Phillips

takes

up

might

call for unification.

Could

we

find

a

more

general

picture,

capture

the essence

of

religion

in

a more

unified outlook?

What,

in

a

word,

might

be

the

picture

of

genuine religious

life,

if

seen

from

a

Wittgen

steinian

perspective? Risking

accusations

of

essentialism,

I

propose

that

one

candidate

for

such

a

central,

unifying picture might

be found in what

Wittgenstein,

in the Lecture

on

Ethics ,

described

as

the

wonder

at

the

existence

of

the

world?9

This

powerful picture

may,

of

course,

extend far

beyond religious

forms

of

life.

But

religious

lives

not

informed

by

it?

e.g.,

theodicist,

explanatory,

evidentialist views of

faith?may,

if the

foregoing

discussion

is

correct,

be

judged

pseudo-religious.

A

religious

person

ought

to

(a

religious

ought )

be

to

some

extent

in the

grip

of this

picture,

be held

captive by

it

(to

borrow another

familiar

simile from

Wittgenstein).

When

a

person

is

religiously

in

the

grip

of

the

picture

of

existence,

or

the

world,

as

something

that

can

only

be wondered

at,

s/he is

not

attempting

to

explain

this

mystery,

or

to

solve the

puzzle

of

existence.80

Perhaps

s/he

may

find it

appropriate

to

describe this wonder

in

terms

of

the idea

of the

world,

or

life

(which,

according

to

Witt

genstein,

are

one ),81

as a

gift .82

S/he

thus

acknowledges

mystery

in

a

way

that her/his

rival is unable

to

do,

while

to

dissolve

the

if

it is

misunderstood

as

an

ordinary question calling

for

rational

explanation.

The

mystery

invoked

here

might

even

have

something

to

do with

the

topic

of

skep

ticism,

often taken

up

in

Wittgensteinian

contexts.83

Specifically,

it

might

have

something

to

do with

the Kantian

variety

of

skepticism,

as

contrasted with the

Cartesian

variety,

that James

Conant,

one

of the

most

perceptive

recent

interpreters

of

Wittgenstein,

draws

our

attention

to.84

While the Cartesian

skeptic

doubts the truth of

a

particular

(or

even

highly

general)

factual

statement

or

belief,

such

as

the

statement

that there is

an

external

world,

the Kantian

skeptic's questions

go

deeper,

to

the

point

of

wonder

and

mystery.

The Kantian

thinker

(though

not

really

Kant

himself)

may

ask how it is

possible

that there is

a

world

at

all,

or

how

it is

possible

that

our

thought

and

language

are

answerable

to

the

way

the world

is. Insofar

as

genuinely

religious thinking

is

open

to

the

possibility

of

the

mysterious,

to

the

wonder

that

the

very

existence

of the

world,

or

of

anything

at

all,

may

elicit in

us,

it

must

be

Kantian rather than Cartesian

(in

this

somewhat anachronistic

sense

of

these

terms).

For

the

religious

person,

it is

a

mystery

that there is

a

world,

and

it is

a

mystery

of

equal

magnitude

79

See

Wittgenstein

(1965),

pp.

A\-\l. This

picture,

which

(like

the

others that

Wittgenstein

discusses

in the

same

context)

is

amere

simile because

it

is

a

desperate

attempt

to

run

against

the

limits of

language,

involves

a

humanly

impossible

but

(therefore)

fascinating

attempt

to

view

the

world sub

specie

aeternitatis,

thus

also

touching

the

themes

of

the final

pages

of

Wittgenstein's

famous

early

work,

Wittgenstein

(1961).

80

Thus,

her/his attitude will be

very

different

from,

say,

the

one

manifested

in

Rundle

(2005).

For

a

related

discussion,

see

Pihlstr?m

(2005b),

Ch.

6.

81

This theme

is

developed

in the

solipsistic paragraphs

(??

5.6

ff.)

of

the

Tractatus

(Wittgenstein,

1961).

See also Pihlstr?m

(2004a),

Ch. 3.

82

Cf.

here

also

Cooper

(2002)

and

Cooper

(2006).

Cooper

is

obviously

fond

of the

gift vocabulary.

83

See

Cavell

(1979),

and several

essays

collected

in

McManus

(2004).

84

Conant

(2005).

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28

Int J Philos

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that God exists

as

its

creator

(if

indeed He

does).

Again,

a

pseudo-religious

account,

such

as

traditional

theism,

diminishes

or

even

totally

annihilates this

sense

of

mystery,

reducing

God

to

an

entity

among

others whose

existence

is

postulated

in

an

evidentially

supportable

(and

challengeable)

hypothesis.

Therefore,

the

religion

vs.

pseudo-religion

distinction

might

be

reformulated

as a

distinc

tion between those forms of

God-thought

and -talk that

preserve

our

sense

of

mystery,

our

existential

wonder,

and those that do

not.

The

latter,

traditionally

metaphysical

theistic

(or

atheistic)

pictures

of

divinity,

are

(to

paraphrase

Wittgenstein again)

the

pictures

that hold

us

captive

whenever

we

lapse

into

theodicies

or

other

pseudo-religious

traps.

The

distinction

between these

two

kinds of

religious picture

is,

fundamentally,

a

distinction between differ

ent

forms of

life

or

practices

of

living

(and

speaking). Transforming

Conant's discussion

of

skepticism85

to

our

specific

purposes,

it

might

even

be

suggested,

as a

rearticulation

of

a

Wittgensteinian

account

of what it

means

to

be

genuinely

(as

opposed

to

superstitiously)

religious,

that

a

religious

person

approaches

the

problem

of

God's existence

as

a

Kantian

issue,

not

as

a

Cartesian

one.

That

is,

the

truly

religious

person

wonders,

especially

in the

context

of evil

and

suffering,

how it

is

possible

that there

is

a

God

at

all?and

then,

perhaps,

takes

a

Kierkegaardian leap

to

the

mysteries

faith?while

the

pseudo-religious

person

regards

the

problem

of theism

as,

primarily,

an

epistemological

skeptical

issue

of

whether there

actu

ally

is

a

supreme

being

whose

existence

could be

adequately

accounted for in

terms

of the

evidence

we

possess.86

Another

compelling suggestion

for

a

profoundly

religious picture

might

be

the

concep

tion

of

religion

as

a

response

to

an

individual human

being's

infinite

despair

(Not),

the

greatest

despair

of

all,

which

emerges

when

an

individual

person

feels her-/himself

to

be

lost,

as

articulated in

Wittgenstein's

remarks in

Culture

and

Value?1

Prayer,

if

genuine,

can

be

seen

as

a

search for such

a

response.

Human

mortality,

arguably,

lies

at

the

root

of this

picture?and

because it also lies

at

the

root

of

the

previously

discussed

one,

as

only

mortals

wonder

at

the existence of the world in which

they

contingently

find

themselves

and from

which

they

realize

they

will

one

day

be

gone,

might

these

not

be

ultimately

one

and the

same

picture?

Moreover,

they might ultimately

be

one

and the

same

picture precisely

because

it

is the

skeptical problematic

(understood

in the

Kantian rather

than the

Cartesian

sense)

that

deeply

unifies

them.

We

have

to,

in

Cavell's

words,88

live

our

skepticism

in

and

through

our

wonder

at

existence,

especially

when it

comes

to

acknowledging

otherness?our need

to

acknowledge

even

those who

are

very

different

from

ourselves,89

particularly

those

who

are

in

pain

and

agony.

85

See

Conant

(2005).

86

Given

our

Wittgensteinian

considerations,

it

might

be further

suggested

that

religious thinking

based

on

existential wonder

may

have

to

be

non- or

post-metaphysical,

instead of

relying

on

the kind of

metaphysical

frameworks that

give

rise

to

traditional

theism and

its

alternatives.

See,

e.g.,

the

essays

in

Wrathall

(2003).

Cf.

also the

discussion

of

wonder,

existence,

and otherness in

Kearney

(2003).

The

implications

of

these criticisms

of traditional

(theistic

and

atheistic)

metaphysical

presuppositions

for

our

present

concerns

cannot

be

taken

up

here.

87

Wittgenstein

(1998).

These

specific

remarks

were

written

ca.

1944.

88

Cavell

(1979).

89

See,

again,

the discussion of otherness

in

Kearney

(2003),

as

well

as

Gaita

(2000).

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Int

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29

8

Concluding

remarks

We

should conclude

that

it is

as

difficult

to

draw

the

religion

vs.

pseudo-religion boundary

as

it

may,

according

to

Hertzberg,

be

to

draw the

boundary

between the believer

and

the

non-believer

(cf.

Sect. 6

above),

although drawing

the former

may

be far

more

important

than

drawing

the latter.

We

should

be

satisfied with

soft ,

family-resemblance-like

concepts

here.

But should

we

then,

perhaps, simply

resort to

the

view that

a

substantial number of

religious-making properties

(from

a

relatively long

list)

will

be

needed,

and will be

sufficient,

to

make

an

activity religious,

or

a

religion?90

This would lead

us

back

to

essentialism,

I

am

afraid,

only

a

more

sophisticated variety

of essentialism

which would have

learned the basic

lesson of

Wittgenstein's

treatment

of

family

resemblance. We

might

do better

by just

refus

ing

to

seek

the

essence

of

religion

at

all,

but

then

we

would?wouldn't we??nonetheless

be

committed

to

holding

some

sets

of

features

as more

essential

than

some

other

sets

to

something's

being

a

religion

or

religious.

I

do

not

believe

that the

essence

of

religion

could be

captured by

any

list of

religion

making

properties.

Virtually

all standard

properties occurring

on

such

lists ,

such

as

the

theistic commitment

itself,

can

be

questioned

by,

say,

a

Wittgensteinian

like

Phillips,

for

whom

most

of the features

characterizing

traditional

theistic

religious thought

are

in fact

pseudo-religious

or

corrupt .

The

Wittgensteinian philosopher

of

religion

is

also

interested

in the limits of

religion,

but her/his

approach

is

very

different

from

the

one

relying

on

a

pre-defined

essence.91

The limits of

religion

I have been

exploring

here

are

transcendental

limits.

As

any

transcendental

limits,

they

can

in

the end

only

be drawn from within . We

must

bear in mind

that

religious pictures ,

when

parts

of

a

genuinely religious

life,

do

not

serve

any

allegedly

more

fundamental

non-religious

purpose

(see

also

Sect.

5

above).

They just

express

them

selves.92

Thus,

they

serve

to

mark

the

contrast to

a

life

that

does

not

have

a

religious

quality

or

whose

values and

purposes

are

not

appropriately

described

in

religious

terms. In

this

way,

pictures

do

draw limits

for

us.

However,

contrary

to

essentialism,

those limits

may

have

to

be

redrawn

at

any

time.

It is

up

to

us

to

draw and redraw

them,

from within

them.

This is

what it

means,

in the

case

of the

philosophy

of

religion,

to

naturalize and

pragma

tize

transcendental

philosophy.93

If the transcendental construal of these issues is

plausible,

as

I

think

it

is,

we

cannot

that

one

could,

as

it

were,

first draw the limit

between

religion

and

pseudo-religion

(from

an

external

perspective),

and

only

afterwards

decide whether

to

step

in the

territory

defined

by

those limits

or

not.

Instead,

one

must

already

be

inside,

dit

least

in

a

provisional

way,

in

order

to

be able

to

draw

any

limit

at

all. Transcendental limits

are

self-reflectively

drawn

from

within

the

experiential

field

(of

meaning,

cognition,

etc.)

90

Cf.

Alston

(1967).

There is

a

further distinction

to

be

drawn between the

ways

in which

the

contrast

between

genuine

and

confused

ways

of

understanding religion

(and

thus

the

limits of

religion )

is

manifested within

a

particular

religion

(e.g., Christianity)

and

more

generally (say,

at

the kind

of

philosophical

level

we

have

examined

the

matter).

It

is

a

problem?one

not to

be

discussed here?whether

philosophy

of

religion

can

ultimately

remain

at

the abstract

philosophical

level,

especially

if it

urges

that normative commitments

are

needed instead

of,

or

in addition

to,

mere

descriptions

of

religious practices.

It

is

clear

that for

scholars

within

religious

studies,

for

instance,

it is

important

to

describe and

explain

different forms

of

religious

behavior

without

relying

on

any

prior

normative

understanding specific

to

any

particular

religion,

but for

a

philosopher

of

religion

con

stantly

concerned

with normative issues

this

may

not

be

enough. Philosophical

attention

to

specific

Christian

commitments,

for

example,

may

be

required;

however,

this is

obviously

something quite

different from recent

Christian

philosophers'

habit

of

relying

on

Christian

premises

in

one's

argumentation.

92

Cf.

Wittgenstein

(1966),

p.

71.

93

See the

more

comprehensive

treatment

of

this

matter in

Pihlstr?m

(2003).

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30

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they

condition and constrain. At least

one

must

be able

to

view certain

religious options?or

pictures?as

own

order

to

assess

them

normatively

qua

religious.

This is

not to

require

that

one

is

dogmatically

committed

to

a

particular

religious

view of the world and

human

life.

But

it is

to

require

that

one

is

not

entirely

blind

to

the

possibility

of

leading

a

religious

life,

or

to

the

possibility

of

seeing

what

is

depicted

in

some

religious

pictures .

Acknowledgements

I

am

above all

grateful

to

Peter H.

Hare,

whose

comments

on

another

recent

piece

of

mine

inspired

me

to

write

this

paper.

Others who have

influenced

my

ways

of

thinking

about

these

matters

include Ville

Aarnio,

Hanne

Ahonen,

Leila

Haaparanta,

Eberhard

Herrman,

Lars

Hertzberg,

Heikki

Kannisto,

Heikki

Kirjavainen,

Heikki

J.

Koskinen,

Heikki

Kovalainen,

Simo

Knuuttila,

Timo

Koistinen,

Oskari

Kuus

ela,

Olli

Lagerspetz,

Maria

Lasonen-Aarnio,

Ilkka

Pyysi?inen,

Henrik

Rydenfelt,

Tommi

Uschanov,

Thomas

Wallgren,

and

several students of

my

Science

and

Religion

class

at

the

University

of

Tampere, Spring

2006.

I also

gratefully

acknowledge

the

very

useful

comments

on

an

earlier

draft

by

an

anonymous

referee.

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Religion and Pseudo Religion