Category Archives: philosophy

Reasonable Atheism (17): Preventing the supernatural

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I’ve been putting off writing this post because I wanted to do some more research, but I think that’s not the wisest course, and I don’t want to let go of this sequence. So here is my take – in unresearched and unreferenced terms! – of what ‘the supernatural’ might mean. Click ‘full post’ for text.


There is a wonderful prayer in the BCP that begins: Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings…. This isn’t asking God to stop us from doing something – it is asking God to ‘go before us’ and allow or enable things to happen by grace, because that is what the word ‘prevent’ meant at the time the BCP was written. It’s a good example of a word that has changed its meaning over time. The trouble is, the same thing has happened to the word ‘supernatural’ – but fewer people are aware of this.

In the medieval period the word ‘supernatural’ had its sense within a particular anthropology, a particular understanding of what it meant to be human. The human being had certain natural qualities and capacities (eg of body and mind) and was created in the image of God. Consequently it found its fulfilment in a supernatural end, the beatific vision, and those things which prevented that supernatural end were sin. Sin prevents us from achieving our created end; grace enables us to achieve our created end. So: the word supernatural took its meaning from a particular way of talking about human nature and human behaviour; it was a way of describing the meaning and purpose of human life, and integrating that into a larger moral framework. So a supernatural miracle, one might say, was, eg, a charitable act. Our sinful nature would tend against doing good deeds; doing a good deed was a product of grace enabling us to act charitably and thereby fulfil the intentions that we were created for. Those who spent their lives caring for the poor and sick were living supernatural lives. Hence that BCP prayer, in its full form:

Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings with Thy most gracious favour, and further us with Thy continual help; that in all our prayer and works begun, continued and ended in Thee, we may glorify Thy Holy Name, and finally by Thy mercy obtain everlasting life. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord, Who livest and reignest with Thee, in the Unity of the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Now the word supernatural as we use it commonly today means something completely different. That medieval construction has vanished, and in its place, I suggest, is something like this: the world is amenable to scientific investigation, principally through the understanding of the ‘hard’ physical sciences like physics, chemistry and biology. This is the natural world, what can be studied by the natural philosophers. That which is not amenable to scientific analysis is ‘supernatural’, it is beyond the natural. Dependent on the person doing the categorising, this can include: psychic phenomena like telekinesis or telepathy, the occult, various superstitions and, of course, religious beliefs of various sorts.

The underlying mental construct is that only that which can be measured independently of the person doing the measuring can count as ‘real’. Only this can be ‘objective’ and safe for the realm of public knowledge. The alternative to this objectively real knowledge is the subjective realm, of feelings and intuitions and other sentimental woolliness.

Which flags up a rather crucial point: this underlying mental construct has itself been abandoned by the hard physical sciences. Reality doesn’t fit into that ‘subjective-objective’ model. Unfortunately the cultural influence of that now-discarded image is still strong, and most references to ‘supernatural’ that I come across in my conversations with atheists presuppose this framework.

What this means is that, in almost all cases, the word ‘supernatural’ has no specific intellectual content, it merely functions as a sort of swear word or insult, along the lines of ‘you’re a moron for believing this’.

In other words, a mark of the division between the humourless and the sophisticated is whether the word ‘supernatural’ is given some definite and agreed meaning, which can serve to illuminate the matters under discussion. Personally I think that we need to take a holiday from the word completely, and maybe in a generation or two it can be rehabilitated.

UPDATE: in response to the early comments. The principal source for the medieval perspective is Henri de Lubac’s ‘Surnaturel’ (see also here or here) which, I should point out, I have not read(!) However I’ve read a fair bit of work derived from it, and I think I’ve got the gist of his argument. (He’s influenced the Radical Orthodox, for example. Milbank’s ‘The Suspended Middle’ is on my bookshelf but not yet read – it was what I wanted to read prior to writing this post, but I felt a need to put something up rather than let the sequence grind to a complete halt.)

Falling in love with Frankenstein

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This is a sketch for a much longer essay about science fiction. Click ‘full post’ for text.

One of the dominant themes of Modern culture is the Frankenstein conceit – what you might think of as the ‘mad scientist’, or, more profoundly, the Faustian bargain. A man (and it normally is a man) is so consumed by his rational intellectual pursuits that he unwittingly provokes disaster and his own death.

As I see it, this is the way in which humanity’s soul has digested and absorbed the impact of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment project is precisely that which has elevated one element of our human nature falsely above the others; it has insitutionalised asophism; and thus we are in the midst of ecological crisis. The devil has come to collect his due.

Being a fan of sf, especially visually, I am struck by the way in which this theme has been subverted and then overcome within the world of fiction and film. I see this as a creative analogue of the way in which the Enlightenment project has itself been undone from within. (This is, I believe, why there is such an efflorescence of angst-ridden writings from the humourless atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens et al – they are aware in their bones that they are being left behind.)

Three examples of this shift:
1. The Matrix trilogy. The first Matrix was pure Frankenstein – the intellectual products of humanity turn against their creators and destruction follows; human liberty and salvation lie in battling against the machine. However, the second two films explored something more creative – the machine is not monolithic, it has variety (and therefore more dramatic interest of course) – there is a possibility of an alliance between human and mecha.

2. Battlestar Galactica, the new series. Whereas in the original series we are facing highly efficient automata (rational products of Enlightenment) now the cylons are riven with their own competing needs and desires. The Cylons are now just like us; we can even breed with them.

3. The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The original Terminator film is a real classic, and a classic description of the Frankenstein – a totally remorseless source of death and destruction ‘it absolutely will not stop until you are dead’. With the films a little first, but now much more with the series, we have much more creative ambiguity. This crystallised for me in the recent episode where Summer Glau starts to learn ballet. A vision of beauty – and whether it is human or mecha falls by the wayside.

(I’ve also been put in mind of this by recently finishing Dan Simmons’ Hyperion cantos, but I’ll write about them separately.)

I believe that what we have in this medium – film and television science fiction – is the creative resolution of the human conflict created by the Western idolatry of reason. As our society moves beyond the Enlightenment, so too does our fiction. Robots who are pure products of reason are no longer very interesting – the robots need to have more to them – and this is simply a mirror for how we see ourselves. In other words, there is more to humanity than the remorseless application of reason.

I find this encouraging and exciting.

Reasonable Atheism (16): a response to the Chimp

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I’m going to pick out some elements from the Chimp’s recent comment. My remarks in italics.

Yes, very sophisticated. Proclemations made with no support. Science is the absolute antithesis of faith. In adopting the scientific method, nothing is believed to be true without evidence.

This isn’t true. For implicit in the method, even as you describe it, is the construct of ‘evidence’, which contains assumptions about what is allowed to count as evidence. This notion is embedded in a whole patchwork quilt of assumptions from empiricism. Once these assumptions are brought out into the open the scientific endeavour starts to look much less pristine.

Faith is the exact opposite. The suggestion that science is in some way a faith position is ingnorant and misleading. It seems to me that anything half-hearted that states nothing concrete is ‘sophisticated’.

No, I think what is sophisticated is being able to step aside from the culturally acceptable rhetoric about science, and recognising science as a cultural construct itself. That’s why Ian and I can have productive conversations.

We ‘humourless’ Atheists are ‘humourless’ because we refuse to leave any wiggle room for religious fantasy.

Rather, I would say the humourlessness comes from not recognising a) the non-fantastical elements of religion, and b) the fantastical elements of science.

As for the end of faith, I have yet to witness a scientist strapping explosives to himself and blowing up civilans in honor of a theory or torturing someone to death because they would not subscribe to their view of gravity.

This is silly.I’m quite sure that if we were able to work out some sort of utilitarian calculation on which set of beliefs had had the most malign consequences – religious exploration and teachings, or scientific exploration and teachings – then science would end up with by far the most bloody hands. In other words, I’ll trade you one Torquemada for your chemical warfare.

Science represents civilization, cooperation and the free expression of ideas.

You missed out motherhood and apple pie 🙂 Those values existed before the rise of science and are maintained apart from the maintenance of science. What I would want to ask you is: can you give a scientifically acceptable explanation of those values?

Not all ideas are defacto accepted as equal. Some ideas are bad ones, they are discarded in favour of good ones.

How is this different from a religion?

There is no ‘holy’ text that cannot be contradicted.

Perhaps not a text, but certainly a network of culturally embedded assumptions. As Kuhn points out, what makes scientific practices change isn’t some semi-mystical notion of ‘reason conquering ignorance’ but simply a generational change when those established scientists who don’t ‘get’ a new theory die out and are replaced. Reason has very little to do with it (aesthetics is much more important).

Religion runs into this problem constantly. This leads to ‘sophisticated’ theology. That being bullshit dressed as being sensible. When the ancient books, full of hate and intolerence conflict with modern ethics, excuse making, obfuscation and meaning twisting begin in earnest. If the bible were a scientific document, it would have been discarded long ago.

Thank God it isn’t – because I completely agree that as a scientific text it’s worse than useless. But that is the mistake that fundamentalists make, and in saying it you show that you share a fundamentalist attitude. Besides which, where do you think ‘modern ethics’ came from, if not from Christian roots? Or do you think it sprang out new born from John Locke’s head, like Athena from Zeus?

Harris’ point is that if many people believe the end is coming, and a worryingly large number seem to think so, imagine what they would do with a nuclear arsenal. Many fundamentalists of all stripes actually look forward to the cataclismic ending of the world, day of judgement and all that.

I agree with him on that, and have been teaching and preaching to that effect for a while now.

His point simply is that the world can no longer afford ‘faith’. Our technological development coupled with much freer access to information will empower believers to literally destroy the world over their fantasies. ‘Sphisticated’ theism is complicit in that it suggests these types of beliefs are reasonable and justified.

On the contrary, the only hope of humanity is good theology outcompeting the bad. All that humourless atheism achieves is the disarming of the last best hope we’ve got. If you don’t understand what religion is, how it functions and why it appeals – if both good theology and bad theology is equally nonsensical – then the only future is a violent one, and my point above about the scientists having the bloodiest hands will be vindicated a billion-fold.

Reasonable Atheism (14b): Religious grammar continued

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At the risk of making this even murkier than it seems to be already, a few thoughts to expand what I said in the earlier post.

Think of different languages. Think of the different words for ‘cow’. Clearly there are connotations to the word for cow in Sanskrit and Urdu that aren’t present in English or Welsh. However, there is enough in common for the term to be more or less translatable.

You could say that the words for cow across the different languages share a family resemblance. There may not be any one item which is the exact ‘essence of cow’ which all the words for cow correspond to, but there is enough correspondence for people of different languages to understand each other, and recognise what is being referred to, in just the same way that different members of a family might more or less resemble each other, without there being any one specific feature which they all have in common.

My argument is that there is something similar going on with religious frameworks. There may not be any one essential thing which all religions have in common (in fact, I’m pretty certain there isn’t) and there are all sorts of ways in which religions differ – to the extent that even using the word ‘religion’ is suspect – but there are family resemblances across the different religions which mean that they more or less resemble each other.

Much of that resembling comes in terms of what could be called ‘the practice of holiness’, ie cultivating certain attitudes and virtues like forgiveness. Again there may not be one specific element which is ‘the essence of forgiveness’ but, as I see it, there is enough correspondence in behaviour across the different faiths (and even no faiths) for this to become a meaningful analogy.

Now the way in which these different behaviours are described (or justified) across the different cultures may be very diverse, but if the underlying behaviour is sufficiently similar then I believe we are justified in saying ‘these are the same sorts of behaviour’. My point is that when this happens the different religious perspectives do not in reality contradict each other, however diverse the explanations may be. (I would say they each correspond to the will of God – but that’s an example of what is at issue.)

Ponder for a moment what it would be for this not to be true. It would mean that there is no common humanity across different cultures, no way in which, for example, one person could communicate their hunger to someone from a different society. Making motions towards an open mouth, rubbing the stomach and so on – are we saying that human beings are so shaped by their culture and language that no communication is possible?

Perhaps this is true. My wife is a translator, and certainly some things, some concepts, are untranslatable (I’m sure the word logos is one). Yet I would place this into a spectrum of understanding, whereby some things are more or less clearly common to human nature, and other things are more or less untranslatably a product of specific circumstance. This is why the word schadenfreude is used in English – in order to preserve a more specific meaning (and of course, that word may well by now have developed different overtones and connotations to what it had in its original linguistic home.)

The point I would want to drive home is that differences in spoken or written language do not necessarily make for a substantial difference in belief. They may, they may not. The key is the practice or form of life within which the words are embedded, and which give the words any meaning that they possess. I have no interest in saying that Christianity, Islam, Buddhism etc are all the same (they’re not). I do want to say that there are family resemblances, areas of correspondence and compatibility, and that what might seem at first sight to be a contradiction ain’t necessarily so.

I return to that Wittgenstein quotation I make much use of:
“Actually I should like to say that … the words you utter or what you think as you utter them are not what matters, so much as the difference they make at various points in your life. How do I know that two people mean the same when each says he believes in God? And just the same goes for belief in the Trinity. A theology which insists on the use of certain particular words and phrases, and outlaws others, does not make anything clearer (Karl Barth). It gesticulates with words, as one might say, because it wants to say something and does not know how to express it. Practice gives the words their sense.”

Reasonable Atheism (13): Look at it as a miracle

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I originally posted this in June of 2006, but it’s worth bringing back up and putting into this sequence. There is more to be said, but this is a reasonable start.
~~~

(Something I wrote in 1995; I’m prompted to put it in from reading this and this)

‘The truth is that the scientific way of looking at a fact is not the way to look at it as a miracle… For imagine whatever fact you may, it is not in itself miraculous in the absolute sense of the term’ (Wittgenstein)

The “violation concept”
I suspect that if you asked the proverbial ‘man in the street’ what a miracle was you would end up with an account which referred to laws of nature being transgressed. Rather like the way the hand in the National Lottery adverts reaches in to the world to change the course of a person’s life, so miracles are understood as the intervention of a divine actor into a system, transgressing the laws by which that system operates.

This sort of conception owes a lot to David Hume. He defined a miracle as

“a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity or by the interposition of some invisible agent”.

This can be described as the violation concept of miracle as it stresses two things: a system of natural laws which the world follows, and an intervention by God which violates those laws. This understanding of miracle has been exposed to severe criticism, in the first place by Hume himself.

Hume’s scepticism
Hume’s criticism of this conception is quite subtle, and very powerful. He does not deny that such events can occur, rather, what he says is that no reasonable person can believe that such an event has occurred. It is always more reasonable to believe that a person is mistaken than to believe that the laws of nature have been broken. Hume takes it as a fundamental principle that a reasonable person will always proportion his or her belief to the evidence available (he gets this from John Locke) and the evidence for there being natural laws is extremely strong, attested to by common experience and controlled experiments. In contrast the evidence for miracles is very poor.

Once we accept that we should apportion our belief according to the evidence, why should we believe in anything miraculous? We are never going to be in a position where it would be reasonable to believe that a miracle had occurred, one which was ‘attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves; of such undoubted integrity, as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind as to have a great deal to lose in the case of their being detected in any falsehood; and at the same time attesting facts, performed in such a public manner, and in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render the detection unavoidable.’

There are four main elements to Hume’s critique:

  • Testimony: no miracle is attested to by enough people of sufficient education and integrity to make us believe them;
  • Gullibility: we know that people are prone to look for `signs and wonders’, and that they enjoy stories of marvellous events (and are prone to embellish them);
  • Ignorance: most stories of miracles come from `barbarous’ cultures who do not know better;
  • Incoherence: if miracles truly established anything then there would be some coherence to what they seem to show. Instead the different miracles from different religions effectively cancel each other out.

There is actually a fifth point which can be added to this sceptical charge sheet. This is that, if presented with the evidence for a supposedly miraculous event, why should we look for a supernatural explanation? Wouldn’t we now simply try and understand what had gone on, possibly by trying to reproduce the events leading up to the supposed ‘miracle’, trying to understand what has gone on – in essence trying to tie it in to our understanding of the world? The most amazing of events would only be seen as a miracle if that is the way a person’s preconceptions lead.

The moral case against the violation concept
Hume’s sceptical arguments are quite powerful, but they essentially come from outside a religious framework. I think that a more devastating critique of the violation concept comes from Maurice Wiles in his book God’s Action In The World. In essence Wiles says that, if you accept the violation concept of miracles (and therefore of God’s action) then the God that is responsible for such action becomes monstrous. Such a God chooses to perform some relatively interesting but trivial tricks (eg let Jesus turn water into wine) but turns a blind eye to situations that horrify us such as Hiroshima or Auschwitz.

There are corollary problems for human action if the violation concept is accepted. If we act in a world with stable natural laws then we can plan our actions with some degree of certainty as to their probable outcome and effect. However, if we have a God who intervenes to change things from their expected course then an element of arbitrariness is introduced which trivialises our actions. In addition, unless we can have a degree of surety about the results of our actions then we cannot be responsible for them – if the world was such that a God could intervene every so often to change the course of events then God assumes that much greater a degree of responsibility for what happens in the world.

There is also an issue about divine consistency involved here, ie how consistent is a God who sets up the universe to operate according to certain laws, only for those laws to cease to hold at times and places that are religiously convenient for a particular grouping of people on a small planet on the edge of an average galaxy in a small corner of the universe?

The idea of a miracle as a violation of natural laws is only one way of understanding the nature of a miracle. I would say that it is in fact quite a modern conception – Hume has a lot to answer for. It presupposes a stable and ordered environment within which God can act – essentially a Deist framework, whereby the creation is a vast machine which only has to be started off and then left to its own devices. An alternative way of looking at miracles, (which I would also contend has a rather more substantial Biblical basis) is to think of miracles as a sign, and not involving any breach of natural law. Rather than a miracle being a particularly interesting event, to describe something as a miracle is to talk of a way of perceiving that event.

In the climactic scene of the film ‘Pulp Fiction’ there is a discussion of the nature of miracles. The characters played by John Travolta and Samuel Jackson are hit men for a particularly nasty LA mobster. They have recently carried out a ‘hit’ which almost went wrong – one person had hidden away while his friends were being killed, and he then attacks Travolta and Jackson. The person shot six bullets at them, all of which missed. In the circumstances – the gunman was not very far away, it was a powerful handgun &c – Travolta and Jackson should have been killed. In fact, every bullet misses, the gunman runs out of ammunition and our two ‘heroes’ then kill him instead.


What is interesting about this episode is the discussion in a cafe which follows. The shooting incident has affected them in different ways: the Jackson character sees the episode as miraculous – it provokes him to examine his life, and he says that, because God has spared his life it must be for some purpose; he then resolves to give up his life as a hit man and reform his character. For Travolta, however, they were simply lucky – the event was simply unexpected, but doesn’t make him think of anything religious, he does not see this as proof of divine intervention. The important point is that nor does the Jackson character. The fact that the event could have a perfectly ‘normal’ explanation is irrelevant – what was important is that it has provoked a change of view in the Jackson character, which now leads him to describe the event as a miracle.

A change in perception
As discussed above, there are severe problems with a violation concept of miracles. They are impossible to prove and even if proven, they cannot be the foundation of a religion – cannot prove a particular doctrine, or be necessary for religious doctrine (which gives a clue as to the nature of a religious doctrine). Furthermore, this notion of the miraculous emasculates human freedom and shows God as both bizarre (couldn’t God do a better job?) and immoral (why did the heavens not darken over Auschwitz?)

These problems stem from the modernist background against which this conception of a miracle was formulated. A miracle is essentially something that provokes a sense of awe and awareness of the divine. It develops a religious understanding of the world. The crucial point about a miracle is that it changes the aspect under which reality is viewed. This involves perceiving something in a different way – it is not a question of new facts being available, which change the way that other facts are seen. Rather it is that the same set of facts are seen in a different way. To use a different vocabulary, changing the aspect is the same as a paradigm shift.

Miracles involve the same process: an insight is gained which changes the way that things are viewed. In the Pulp Fiction example, Jackson and Travolta don’t disagree about the events, they disagree about how to interpret them. A miracle happens when an event strikes you in such a way that you see the event in a religious light – a revelation. It is something that provokes an awareness of the divine at work in creation. It does not mean that a divine figure has decided to intervene at just that point in time, in reaction to our choices. This is why no wonders can be performed if the observers have no faith, or no propensity for faith – see for example Mt 13.58. A determinedly sceptical mind will never be able to see a miracle, they will always search for explanations that cohere with their sceptical outlook – just as the saint sees God in all things, so a sceptic sees the absence of God in all things!

This can be taken even further. Wittgenstein at one point discusses a priest who fakes a miracle, using red ink to show stigmata in a statue of Christ. He says ‘You are a cheat, but nevertheless the Deity uses you. Red ink in a sense, but not red ink in a sense.’ The sense in which it is not red ink is where the perception of it has religious significance. What distinguishes a miracle from the merely strange, improbable or monstrous is the question of religious significance, and that depends upon the entire outlook of the person viewing the event. This is why miracles cannot be produced on demand, and why they cannot be the foundation of a faith – the faith must come first.

To say of something that it is a miracle is not to say anything factual about it, it is to provoke a particular way of seeing it. A student once asked the Buddha, ‘How did you perceive the world before you were enlightened?’ The Buddha answered, ‘Before I was enlightened, when I looked at a mountain all I saw was a mountain, when I looked at a tree all I saw was a tree, when I looked at a stream all I saw was a stream’. ‘Ah!’ said the student, ‘Now that you are enlightened, what can you see now?’ The Buddha answered, ‘Now that I am enlightened, when I look at a mountain all I see is a mountain, when I look at a tree all I see is a tree, when I look at a stream all I see is a stream’.

“Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

Reasonable atheism (10): emotions and decisions

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There is a developing awareness amongst neuro-psychology that the emotions play an important part in our reasoning skills, and that it is no longer possible, even in principle, to consider rationality as something separate from our body.

Interesting research has been undertaken into the predicament of patients suffering from anasognosia, which is an inability to experience emotion, although the disorder leaves rationality (logic) and linguistic abilities intact. In one case, an investigator was discussing with a patient the possibility of a meeting at a later date, and gave the patient the option of choosing between two dates. The patient then began analysing which of the two dates would be preferable and considered the pros and cons of each in considerable detail. In fact, the consideration only stopped – after half an hour of thought – when the investigator himself stated a preference for one of the dates.

The body, particularly the emotions, play a central part in our reasoning capacity, most importantly when it comes to making decisions. An example may make things clearer: in playing chess there are an extremely large number of possible moves. A normal player will automatically exclude certain moves from consideration, for example those which lead directly to the loss of a queen, thus winnowing down the number of options that have to be considered. In practice, the player will consider only a small handful of potential moves, and the choice amongst those options will depend upon a wide variety of factors, including previous training and experience, the understanding of the opponent’s abilities and temperament, and the mood of the player concerned. These decisions are ultimately based upon the emotions, which play this role within normal human reasoning. When the brain is considering certain courses of action it ‘presents’ the outcome to the body, and makes decisions based on how the body reacts. In the example of a chess match, the player concerned will envisage a particular move, and imagine the situation that would result (better players imagine the situation that would result after more moves). In playing the game, assuming a desire to win, certain situations will be desired more than others. For example, a strong pawn structure and well developed pieces will be seen as desirable or valuable, and a situation which results in the loss of a queen will – other things being equal – be seen as very undesirable and lacking in value.

In saying that certain outcomes are desired or not desired, or are seen as more or less valuable, what is at issue is the emotional weight given to those different imagined scenarios. The player will physically react to those scenarios, and a decision will be reached based on that reaction. Our decision making capacity rests upon our biological nature – our existence as homo sapiens, with all the biological heritage consequent upon that fact. We are human beings, not simply rational intellects, and as such we have an embodied existence – our intellects are dependent upon our biology. As Antonio Damasio, one of the principal researchers in this field, puts it: ‘It does not seem sensible to leave emotions and feelings out of any overall concept of mind’ – in other words, it is an illusion to think that we can make decisions without regard to our emotions; on the contrary, full rationality requires a comparably complete emotional engagement. Rationality is dependent upon our emotional development, or, as Hume put it, our reason is a slave to our passions.

Reasonable atheism (9): Wittgenstein on language

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It’s possible that my request ‘what sort of language is acceptable for talking about wisdom’ is unclear [hint: the answer isn’t ‘English’ 🙂 ]

When I am talking about the sorts of language that are possible, I am referring to what Wittgenstein calls ‘depth grammar’. We do things with words, and it is the doing (the practice, the form of life) which gives language sense and meaning. So the point of my question is: give me examples of discussions of wisdom (the teaching of wisdom) that you do not think are nonsense. As it happens, I don’t believe that such examples can be given which don’t then fall foul of the same criticisms made of theology. That is the cancer at the heart of our culture. If the criticisms made of theology are valid, then those criticisms also apply to any sort of wisdom teaching – and the prevalent acceptance of those criticisms is why our culture is so unwise, and why we are in the mess that we are in.

Here is something I’ve written before, which may help to clarify things.

~~~

Wittgenstein once said ‘It has puzzled me why Socrates is regarded as a great philosopher. Because when Socrates asks for the meaning of a word and people give him examples of how that word is used, he isn’t satisfied but wants a unique definition. Now if someone shows me how a word is used and its different meanings, that is just the sort of answer I want.’ Wittgenstein had in mind a passage such as this one, from Socrates’ first speech in the Phaedrus: ‘in every discussion there is only one way of beginning if one is to come to a sound conclusion, and that is to know what one is discussing… Let us then begin by agreeing upon a definition’. In the conclusion of the Phaedrus Socrates restates this: ‘a man must know the truth about any subject that he deals with; he must be able to define it.’ For Wittgenstein it is this emphasis upon definability in words which is the source of all our metaphysical illusions, illusions which ‘lie as deep in us as the forms of our language’. Wittgenstein’s view, in contrast, is that “in most cases, but not in all, the meaning of a word lies in its use in the language game”.

Wittgenstein’s positive philosophical achievement lies in an understanding of language which is not predicated on this Socratic perspective. The easiest way to get a quick grasp of Wittgenstein’s view of language is to talk about the difference between what he calls surface grammar and depth grammar. Surface grammar is the explicit content and form of a sentence: the division into nouns, verbs, adjectives and so on. It is what we normally think of as grammar. Depth grammar is the function that a sentence plays within the life of the person speaking the sentence. In other words, an investigation of the depth grammar of a word will indicate the use that the words have. Think of the expression ‘I need some water’. This seems quite straightforward, but depending upon the context and the emphasis placed upon different words, it could have all sorts of different senses. For example, it could be a straightforward description of thirst, or an expression of the need for an ingredient in making bread, or preparing water colours. So far, so straightforward. But think of something more interesting. Perhaps it is an insult: I am a mechanic, and I am working on fixing a car radiator. My assistant knows that I need some fluid, but passes me some left over orange squash: ‘I need some water’ – where the expression also means: why are you being so stupid? In other words, the surface grammar of a comment may be the same, but the depth grammar is radically different dependent on the situation at hand. For Wittgenstein, true understanding came not from the search for definitions but from grammatical investigation – ie, looking at
real situations and seeing what is being discussed.

Now, for Wittgenstein, the point of this grammatical investigation was that you achieved clarity about any questions that are at issue. If there is a philosophical discussion, then the way to proceed is to conduct a grammatical investigation of the words and concepts that are in dispute, to look at how different words are used in their normal context. For Wittgenstein, philosophical problems are the result of conceptual confusion and to meet these problems what is needed is conceptual clarification. The task of the philosopher is carefully to depict the relationships between different concepts, in other words, to investigate their grammar. The concepts are the ones used in our everyday language, and it is the fact that the concepts *are* used in our language that gives them their importance. A grammatical investigation in the Wittgensteinian sense is one that looks at how words are used within a lived context. Hence there is the need to investigate the nature of “language games” and “forms of life”, which are the usual phrases which you hear when people talk about Wittgenstein. This is a method, and it is with this method that Wittgenstein’s true genius lies. In contrast to almost all philosophers within the Western tradition Wittgenstein was not concerned with providing answers to particular questions. Rather, he wished to gain clarity about the question at issue, in order therefore to dissolve the controversy. He wrote: ‘Philosophy can in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it.’

An example might help to make his view clearer. A traditional metaphysical question might be ‘What is time’? We want to know what the word means, and because the word is a noun we look to see what it is that is referred to. Yet there is nothing to which we can point and say ‘That is time’. Thus philosophers are puzzled, and trying to answer questions such as this is the classic job of a philosopher, or more precisely, a metaphysician. For Wittgenstein, though, the question is without sense. Wittgenstein would say, why do we assume that there must be something to which the word refers? Look at how the word is actually used in our language, and see if that enlightens your consideration. Thus, when we look at the contexts in which we use the sentence ‘Time flew by’ they would tend to describe moments when we are particularly absorbed in a piece of work, or where we are with friends having an enjoyable evening. The phrase derives its meaning from that context. To then ask, ‘What is time?’ would be absurd. What we must always have at the forefront of our minds is the organic basis of the language that we use. Language has evolved for particular purposes, it has various distinct uses, and there is no necessity that there is a clear and logical basis for it. One of Wittgenstein’s best images is to suggest looking at language as like a tool box, with different tools to perform different functions. Why should there be something which all tools have in common? And why are you so concerned to find it? Wittgenstein is very concerned to ease the philosophical mind away from its tendency for abstract theorising, and to focus it on everyday details, to see what language is actually doing in a given situation.

~~~

One of the main reasons why I’m going slowly – and I understand that it might be frustrating – is because of this need to raise the awareness of different sorts of language, and, eventually, to point out what sort of language theology is, and the place it has in our understandings.

To continue to ask for an explanation of theology in terms of other language games – which is what the humourless atheist requests – is to make a category mistake. This is what leads to the criticisms like “standard theological obscurantism, obfuscation and semantic masturbation”. I can see why it might appear that way, but the description is false.

Wittgenstein, PI 373: “Grammar tells us what kind of an object anything is. (Theology as grammar.)”

I am – in an image Wittgenstein uses – guiding you around a city, walking from street to street, not in a logical way, but in the way that a local would walk around them. Slowly an understanding of the locale would grow, and you will no longer need a guide. ‘Light dawns gradually over the whole’.

Reasonable atheism (8): the fundamental theological rule

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“The way you use the word ‘God’ does not show whom you mean but rather what you mean.” (Wittgenstein)

The most important element of monotheistic religions is the prohibition on idolatry. Idolatry is the raising up of some created facet of the world (so either an object, an ideology or a value) and giving it the importance that should be reserved for the creator alone. It is about getting our priorities wrong. Terrible consequences always follow from idolatry.

There are a number of ways in which to discern if idolatry is taking place. The most straightforward comes when actually using the language of God. For the rule is: the living God cannot be the member of any set. If you are attributing something to God which can also be attributed to another object or value, and you are not prepared to entertain any negations or qualifications to that attribution, then you are engaged in idolatry.

So, for example, we can take the claim that ‘God exists’. This makes God a member of the set of ‘existent things’. Thus it is a theological mistake. God is not a member of the set of ‘existent things’. It would therefore be strictly accurate to say that God does not exist.

Or take the set of ‘good things’. God is not a member of the set of ‘good things’. It would therefore be strictly accurate to say that God is not good.

And so on.

This undoubtedly will sound like ‘cobblers’ to the humourless atheist – but that is, I argue, because they have a restricted understanding of what it means for language to ‘make sense’. Theologians do different things with language. But I’ll say more about that, particularly the nature of analogical language, in due course. For now I just want to emphasise this basic rule of theological grammar: all idolatries are prohibited. God can never be the member of a set.

One defining feature of humourless atheism is that it depends upon the violation of this rule.

Reasonable atheism (7): a brief comment about structure

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I thought it would be worthwhile to say a little something about ‘where am I going with this?’ as it may not be clear. Just as my Virgin Birth tirade evolved from what I thought was going to be two posts into a great long series of over a dozen, so too this sequence I now expect to stretch over at least twenty posts. This is how I see the structure of it panning out:
– first some conceptual ground clearing, especially on the difference between atheisms (mostly now done);
– then I’m going to talk about how wisdom is taught, and how ‘wisdom language’ and traditions function, not least in neurological terms;
– then I’m going to talk about the nature of theological language, when it’ll become clearer (I hope) why I’m talking about wisdom so much – I see theological language as a means of forming wise people;
– then I’m going to talk in more specific terms about what it means to be a Christian, not least in terms of the claim that Jesus is wisdom incarnate, and, therefore, what a Christian is actually committed to claiming over against the humourless atheist critique. This is where the ‘meat’ of positive assertion will come; I’m holding it off until the end because I don’t believe it can be properly understood without the prior clarifications.

Along the way I want to disinter some ‘theological mistakes’ made by humourless atheists (and many Christians). This is my list at the moment:
1. Why God does not ‘exist’ (this will explain the basic principle of idolatry).
2. The fallacy of ‘I only don’t believe in one more God than you’.
3. Christians don’t believe in ‘the supernatural’
4. The fallacy of “You’re just a liberal and you don’t believe anything, you’re not really a Christian”.
5. The nature of magic and superstition.
If there are any others that people can think of I’d be happy to add them in.

Reasonable atheism (6): what is acceptable to the humourless atheist?

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“People nowadays think that scientists exist to instruct them, poets, musicians, etc. to give them pleasure. The idea that these have something to teach them – that does not occur to them.” (Wittgenstein, 1939)

I want to explore the comment I ended my last post on the topic with, that atheism of the humourless variety not only is aspect blind to something crucial, but that, in a very real and concrete sense, the salvation of our society rests upon our being able to shift away, as a culture, from the tenets of humourless atheism. Clearly this requires some further explanation.

Let’s begin by taking an example of atheist criticism of religious language, Stephen Law’s criticisms (eg here). Stephen finds the resort to mystical language ‘cobblers’ and comments: “The appeal to mystery and the mystical has of course been a bog-standard technique of cultists and other purveyors of snake oil down through the centuries whenever they are accused of talking cobblers.” I want to ask: what would count as not being ‘cobblers’? In other words, what sort of language meets the standard that is being applied? I take Stephen to be a representative of the Humean tradition (if I’m wrong I’ll amend this post!) so as a guess I would have thought that at least two forms of language would meet Stephen’s criteria for not being cobblers: language of mathematical and symbolic logic, and language that was supported by empirical science. Do other forms of language have anything other than emotionally-expressive value (that is, it makes us feel good but has no other cognitive weight)?

If we take poetry for example, it may well be that poetic language and verse has a useful function to play within a human society, as something which gives pleasure to people, but which is of no wider interest to those concerned with ‘truth’. Poetry can function in the way that football functions – it is entertainment, and might end up being economically significant, but as a discipline with the capacity to teach us truths about human nature and our place in the world it is without merit, and must give way to more scientific investigation.

My problem with this Humean perspective, however, is that it is impossible to teach wisdom with language that is acceptable. In other words, it is impossible to teach wisdom with language that is only a) logical, b) empirical or (at a stretch for the Humean) c) emotionally expressive. In order to teach wisdom – and for our civilisation to survive this crisis – we need something more.