Religious Studies

http://journals.cambridge.org/RES

Additional services for Religious Studies:

Email alerts: Click here

Subscriptions: Click here
Commercial reprints: Click here
Terms of use : Click here

Howard Wettstein The Signicance of Religious

Experience. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). Pp.
ix + 223. £40.00 (Hbk). ISBN 978 0 19 984136 3.

SILVIA JONAS

Religious Studies / Volume 50 / Issue 01 / March 2014, pp 119 - 123

DOI: 10.1017/S0034412513000486, Published online: 27 November 2013

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0034412513000486

How to cite this article:

SILVIA JONAS (2014). Religious Studies, 50, pp 119-123 doi:10.1017/S0034412513000486

Request Permissions : Click here

Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/RES, IP address: 87.68.72.60 on 01 Jun 2014

 Religious Studies (2014) 50, 119–138 © Cambridge University Press 2013

Book reviews

Religious Studies 50 (2014) doi:10.1017/S0034412513000486

© Cambridge University Press 2013

Howard Wettstein The Significance of Religious Experience. (New York:

Oxford University Press, ). Pp. ix + . £. (Hbk). ISBN
    .

In this collection of twelve essays, some previously published, Howard

Wettstein merges the perspective of academic philosophy with that of an obser-
vant practitioner of Jewish religion in order to explore the metaphysical and
epistemological implications of traditional Jewish law, commentary, and theology.
Specifically, his goal is to square his naturalistic outlook in philosophy with a firm
commitment to religious doctrine, by deflating the supernatural guise in which the
latter often presents itself: ‘I wish to challenge the view, accepted by theists and
atheists alike, that the sort of religious life I have described, with God at its heart,
involves commitment to the supernatural and thus the denial of naturalism’
(p. ). Driven by a conviction that the analytic tradition has unrightfully neglected
religion as one of the central topics of philosophy (p. ), Wettstein sets out to
provide a naturalistic interpretation of religious theory and practice, yet without
pursuing reductive or eliminative goals. He considers his approach broadly in line
with the non-reductionist naturalistic projects of Aristotle and Spinoza, and pro-
fesses a great sympathy for American naturalists about religion such as William
James, John Dewey, and George Santayana. ‘Mentor-in-print’ is the honorific title
Wettstein bestows upon Abraham Joshua Heschel, whose poetic approach to
religious matters he prefers over being ‘too rigidly analytical’ (p. ). Despite – or
perhaps in line with – that inclination, Wettstein also cites Wittgenstein as a core
source of inspiration: ‘throughout this book, I am trying to think through religious
commitment in a way that reflects what I have learned from him’ (p. ).
Chapter , ‘Man thinks, God laughs’, contains an outline of Wettstein’s
spiritual and philosophical development of the last decades, thus providing a
very personal background for his deliberations in the following chapters. In
chapter , ‘Awe and the religious life: a naturalistic perspective’, Wettstein
criticizes the narrow preoccupation of recent philosophy of religion with questions
of religious metaphysics and epistemology on the one hand, and theodicy on the
other, while neglecting the question how doctrinal belief and its idioms can be


http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 01 Jun 2014 IP address: 87.68.72.60

  Book reviews

understood naturalistically. He differentiates between the parable-ridden

‘theology’ of early Jewish scriptures such as the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, and,
specifically, Aggadah, on the one hand, and the full-blown doctrinal theology of
the Middle Ages, most notably Maimonides, on the other. The latter, he argues,
places the concept of belief in the centre of attention, whereas the former appeals
to more affective concepts accommodating religious attitudes, such as standing
in awe of God ( yirat Ha’shem), feeling love for God (ahavat Ha’shem), and being
grateful. Wettstein holds that, while conceptual analysis as found in medieval
Jewish theology has become the paradigm for contemporary philosophy of
religion, it is the affective approach of the early scriptures that supports the
viability of religious practice in the absence of firm corresponding metaphysical
beliefs. He illustrates his point by comparing religious practice and discourse to
other areas of practice and discourse, such as mathematics, where the lack of an
agreed metaphysics constitutes no obstacle to the success, applicability, and
acknowledgement of the respective subject. Without aiming for a classical analysis
in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, he provides some elucidation of
several core religious concepts. Amongst them are: awe, ‘a faculty for discerning
the holy’ (p. ) with a dual phenomenology of both humility and elevation; faith,
a ‘generalization of awe’ (p. ); prayer, an ‘audience with God’ (p. ); and God:
‘If the concept has great utility in our practice, then surely it is doing important
work, even if it is difficult to say what that work is’ (p. ). The chapter ends with a
brief indication of what a naturalistic outlook on the biblical renderings could look
like: giving a non-fundamentalist reading to passages such as the six days of
creation, the story of Noah, the story of the garden of Eden, etc., and considering
other passages such as Psalm  as entirely poetic. As Wettstein sees it, ‘the lack
of belief in the factual adequacy of the depiction poses no threat to the religious
power of the passage’ (p. ). Captured by this intriguing idea, the reader is keen
to learn more about the interpretative principles behind this naturalistic approach
to the biblical narrative: how do we decide which passages ought to be read
literally, which ones ought to be understood as myths, and which ones can be
considered poetry? Are these principles subjective or universal? And finally: is the
ultimate meaning of the biblical scriptures ineffable? If so, what explains the
enormous body of commentary about it? If not, why is it impossible to formulate
the meaning of non-factual passages in literal terms? While Wettstein is certainly
aware of these questions, he unfortunately decides not to dwell upon them,
leaving the reader with a promise to attend to them in future work.
Chapter , ‘Terra firma’, explores the relevance of Wittgenstein’s thoughts about
the use of nouns to the religious naturalism defended by Wettstein. Particular
attention is paid to Wittgenstein’s treatment of pain ascriptions, and the related
question about the metaphysical commitments (not) involved in talk about
abstract objects. Wettstein holds that the naturalistic stance he embraces ‘makes it
difficult for skepticism to get a foothold’ (p. ), though it would probably be more

http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 01 Jun 2014 IP address: 87.68.72.60

 Book reviews 

accurate to call this plain rejection: ‘My naturalist, failing to have learned the
skeptic’s lesson, begins in the external world’ (p. ). Just as Wittgenstein shuns
Fregean ‘third-realm’ senses as the vital addition to otherwise lifeless pro-
positions, arguing that it is the way a word is used that provides its meaning,
Wettstein repudiates the necessity of metaphysical commitments for the
application of, and commitment to, religious scripture.
Chapter , ‘Theological impressionism’, engages with the relation between
religious belief and religious imagery. Wettstein identifies a tension between
thinking about religion philosophically in the tradition as established in Ancient
Greece, and perceiving religion through the imagery of the Hebrew Bible. The
former approach revolves around conceptual analysis and aims at conceptual
coherence; the latter approach invokes sensual imagery and aims at emotional
engagement. It is the latter approach, he argues, that stands at the centre of Jewish
religiosity, and he puts forth the idea that religious belief ‘lives at the level of
imagery’ (p. ) without having literal propositional content. Unfortunately, this
intriguing idea remains undeveloped – one cannot help but wonder how religious
imagery manages to convey religious law in a way that seems impossible by means
of image-free literal writing. Wettstein correctly states that ‘imagery is what it is; it
does not yield to propositional formulation’ (p. , n. ), yet fails to give at least a
brief account of why this is so – certainly one of the most interesting questions with
regard to theological impressionism. Another fascinating idea he invokes without
elaborating on it is a notion of non-theoretical coherence, enabled by an ‘ability to
negotiate experience, appealing to one idea or the other when fitting, allowing
each to call a halt when we are nearing excessive attention to the other’ (p. ). It
would have been most exciting to learn more about this type of knowledge-how,
which he suggests can help overcome inconsistencies in propositional knowledge,
but alas, the idea is merely touched on.
Chapter , ‘Against theology’, makes a case for a paradigm shift within Jewish
thought that took place in early medieval times, ‘when the Jewish religious
tradition entered into a long-term flirtation with the philosophical tradition’
(p. ). Wettstein argues that the adjustment of Jewish thought to philosophical
traditions outside Judaism distorted Jewish theology, by placing too much weight
on conceptual refinement and by neglecting the Bible’s characteristic way of
rendering its contents, viz. poetically infused storytelling.
It comes as a bit of a surprise, then, that chapter , ‘The significance of
religious experience’, mounts an objection against William James’s and Richard
Swinburne’s arguments for the existence of God from religious experience.
Wettstein adopts a Wittgensteinian approach to argue that religious experience,
rather than serving as the epistemic foundation for religious belief, ought
to be understood as experiences ‘as of God’ (p. ). On this picture, religious
experiences reflect individual spiritual progress rather than proving supernatural
facts.

http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 01 Jun 2014 IP address: 87.68.72.60

  Book reviews

Chapters  (‘Against theodicy’),  (‘God’s struggles’), and  (‘Coming to terms

with exile’) provide a series of what Wettstein calls ‘non-opiate reflections on the
problem of evil’ (p. ). Wettstein criticizes the usual attempts of philosophers
of religion somehow to ‘explain away’ the dissonance between, on the one hand,
the abundance of atrocities in the world and, on the other, the insistence
on portraying God as omniscient, just, benevolent, and omnipotent. Instead of
trying to find a way of dissolving this dissonance – for example by arguing that
human suffering follows a divine rationale the human mind is incapable of
grasping – Wettstein aims at achieving a religious outlook ‘in full awareness of the
dark side’ (p. ). He takes the story of Job and God’s speech from the whirlwind
as an example of a non-opiate way of explaining evil: God’s creation is not only
made up of good things, but also of plain horror, and that’s the end of explanation.
There is no reason to believe that ‘the universe conforms to our sense of justice’
(p. ). God ought to be considered ‘a life partner to the community and
derivatively to the individual’ (p. ) – both a source and a recipient of nurture
and comfort, but also weak at times, unjust, and in need of consolation. And
in fact, as Wettstein points out repeatedly, the God of the Hebrew Bible is never
depicted as a flawless being, but as a being with various facets, some of them
just, caring, benevolent, others cruel, petty, bad-tempered – struggling for the best
way to deal with humankind while mourning over the tragedies inflicted upon
them.
Chapter , ‘Forgiveness and moral reckoning’, provides a critical appraisal of
Charles Griswold’s Forgiveness. Wettstein discusses secular and religious ap-
proaches to forgiveness here, as well as the virtue of forgivingness. Chapter ,
‘Ritual’, develops the idea of ritualized prayer as an expression of intimacy be-
tween God and mankind. Wettstein uses a comparison between ritualized prayer,
and ritualized ways of expressing affection and intimacy in long-term human
relationships, in order to shed some light on the meaningfulness of religious
practice and the guilt that comes with failing to observe the established rules. In
‘Concluding remarks: religion without metaphysics’, Wettstein ends the book with
a reformulation of his view that religion and metaphysics have no necessary
connection.
This is a book worth reading for undergraduate and graduate students who are
interested in the philosophy of religion and also theology, who are dissatisfied with
more classical accounts of religious doctrine and practice, and who would like to
find some way of getting around their preternatural metaphysical commitments
without falling into atheism. What distinguishes Wettstein’s work from that of
others is the very personal angle from which it is written, which helps the reader
understand the development of Wettstein’s outlook on religion. His somewhat
prosaic style may feel unfamiliar to philosophers raised in the analytic tradition,
but it by no means prevents Wettstein from getting his message across. Slightly
more problematic is the fact that many of his new and exciting ideas remain

http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 01 Jun 2014 IP address: 87.68.72.60

 Book reviews 

undeveloped. Wettstein contents himself with delivering interesting suggestions,

rather than looking for ways to flesh them out within the framework of his theor-
etical system. This is particularly deplorable given that many of the topics he
tackles, such as the expressive powers of religious imagery or knowledge-how
to ‘balance’ mutually exclusive beliefs, are extremely fascinating and worth
exploring.
Another question hovering untouched over Wettstein’s book is the relation of
his account to classical pragmatist accounts of religion. The way he refers to
Dewey and James, two of the founding fathers of the pragmatist movement, leaves
no room to doubt his great sympathy for the philosophical theories of the two
thinkers. However, he makes no attempt to position himself with regard to the
pragmatist movement, even though his religious naturalism seems, to say the
least, closely related to it. Consequently, he also doesn’t address familiar problems
of pragmatism that apply to his account, such as relativism (to name only one). If
the value of religious practice is not grounded in the existence of some
supernatural being, and ought to be considered a ritualized way of enhancing
spirituality and human flourishing, the question immediately arises of the
consequences this has for religious truth(s): are all religions somehow ‘right’?
If so, why choose one over the other? If not, how can we explain their different
alethic values without making reference to underlying metaphysics? Such a
discussion would also have been interesting to those readers left with a feeling of
uneasiness about Wettstein’s metaphysically non-committal way of interpreting
religion, readers who may agree with Wettstein that ‘in thinking about God, we are
over our heads, we have outrun our conceptual competence’ (p. ), but who still
feel that there is something more to religious doctrine and religious practice,
something that does have metaphysical weight.
This is an enthralling book spiked with original ideas. Particularly noteworthy
and refreshing is Wettstein’s harsh treatment of theodicy, an overhaul of classical
apologetic accounts long overdue and appropriate with regard to an abundance of
information on all sorts of atrocities available round the clock. His in-passing
exposition of Wittgenstein’s views on religion is extremely enlightening, while
being concise enough not to distort the overall balance of the argument, and the
comparisons between religion and mathematics open up exciting and provoking
lines of thought for the future. It has been about time that someone started making
sense of religion in a way that befits our times. Wettstein’s book is a successful
beginning.

SILVIA JONAS
The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
e-mail: silvia.jonas@merton.oxon.org

http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 01 Jun 2014 IP address: 87.68.72.60