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RUSH RHEES
ON RELIGION AND
PHILOSOPHY

ED I TED BY

D. Z. PHIL LI PS
Rush Rhees Research Professor, V•ziversity of Wales, Swansea,
and Dariforth Professor of lhe Philosophy of Religion,
The Claremonl Graduate School, California

AS S I S TED B Y

MARIO VON DER RUHR

Leclurer in Philosophy, University of Wales, S wansea

UNI VERSI DAD DE MURCIA

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40 West 20th Strrrl, New York, NV 10011 1211 , USA
10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbournt· 3166, Australia

© In the collection and ed itoria l matter D. z. Ph illips 1997

Th is book is in copyrigh t. Subject to sta tutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the writt en pe rmission of Cambridge Unive rsity Press.

First published 1997

Printed in the United Kingdom al the Unive rsity Press, Cambridge

Typeset in Baskerville No. 2 I l / l 2~

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress catalogui11g in publicatio11 data

Rhees, Rus h
Rush Rhees on religion and philosophy I edited by D. Z. Phillips;
assisted by Mario von de r R uhr .
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical refere nces and indexes.
ISBN 0 521 56410 7 hard back
I. Phi losophy and religion. 2. Christianity. I. Phillips, D. Z.
(Dcwi Zcpha nia h) II. Von der Ruhr, Mario. Ill. Title.
B L5 1. R42 1997
200-dc20 96-29 113 CJP

I SBN o 521 56410 7 ha rdback

FT
 Contents

\,Ii 1111111/trd,ttements ix
I 11f1rir/11rt ion X1

I' \H I' ONE RELI G I ON AND RE A LI TY

Rt' ligion and philosophy 3

11 Where does the world come from? 13
T he ontological argument and proof 17
Remarks on reality and religion 24
Natural theology 34
I1 Religion and language 39

Belief in God 50
II Wi ttgenstein on language and ritual 65
q Religious practices 97
I() Notes on religion and reductionism 118

11 'The divide' betwee n religion and

'scientific met hod' 122
I'! D ifficulties of belief 146

l' A R T TWO R E LI G I ON, L IFE AND MEAN I NG

I '~ Gratitude and ingratitude for existence 159

I•I Religion , life and meaning : A and B 166
Vlll Contents
15 Death and immortality 206
16 Election and judgeme nt 238
17 That man is made for H eaven 256

PART THRE E R E LI G I O AN D MORALITY

18 Living with ones elf 279
19 The sinner and the sin 289
20 The Church and moral law 292
2 1 Sufferi ng 301
22 Picking and choosing 307

I'/\ RT F OUR REF L ECT ION S ON CH RI STIANITY

'.L :~ M iracles 32 1
~ I l\lt-1w:di11 1·, Ill ys l.rn. sm an d re l'ig10us
. experie nce 334
'I ' > I >rl 111'1111 it's wit h C hr ist ia nity 345
' 11> <:111·iNt i:r11i ty :i 11d µ;rnwt li of' understanding 362
!ndt'.\ q/ //(/ ////!,\ 385
lllrlex qf s111?)ect.1· 388
 Acknowledgements

I acknowledge the help I have received from my assistant ed itor,

Mario von der Ruhr. He is responsible for translating most of the
French and German quotations, and for tracing those references
along with many ot hers. I am grateful also to our colleagues
Catherin e O sborne and T imothy T essin for assistance with refer-
ences and for l evan Lloyd's and T imothy Tessin's help with
proof-reading . I am also grateful to Mrs Helen Baldwin for
preparing the typescripts for publication .

Of the twenty-six papers in the collect ion only four have been pub-
lished previously. 'Where Does the World Come From ?', 'Natural
Theology' and 'Religion and Language' all appeared in Rush
Rhees, Without Answers, ed. D. Z. P hillips (London: Routledge,
1969) . 'Wittgenstein on Language and Ritual' a ppeared in Essays
on Wittgenstein in honour of G. H. van Wright, ed . ]. Hintikka,
. lcta Philosophica Fennica, 28, 2-3 (Amsterdam: North-Holland),
reprinted in Wittgenstein and His Times, ed. B. McGuinness (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1982). We are grateful for permission to reprint these
papers here.

IX
 Introduction

Rush Rhees ( 1905-1 989) was a remarka ble person. H e was a pupil
and a close frie nd of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Rhees edited many
of Wittgenstein's works a nd was one of his lite rary executors.
In his biography of Wittgenstein, Ray Mon k refers to Rhees'
'incom parable knowledge of Wittgenstein's wor k'. 1 Some of R hees'
published papers became classics: for example, his contribu tion
to a symposiu m with A. J. Ayer on 'Can There be a Private
La nguage?', and his paper, 'Wittgenstein 's Build er s'. Most of his
work, however , rem ained unpublished d uring his life time . T he
Rush Rhees Archive a t the University of Wales, Swansea, contains
work by him on every aspect of p hilosophy. For him, philosophy
was one su bj ect, not a collection of specialisms. In this introduc-
tion, I hope to provide a brief gli mpse of Rhees' background and
of the style which made him so d istinctive as a person and as a
phil osopher.
Rush Rhees' grea t-gr eat grandfather, Morgan J ohn Rhys
( 1760-1804), was a W elsh r adical pre acher and pa mphl eteer who
wrote tr acts on the abolition of slavery, the dises ta blish ment of
t It<· C hurch, and other r eforms he thoug ht desirable. H e was
prominen t in promoting free elemen tary Sunday schools at which
t ltc illiterate poor were taugh t to read and write. In 1791, wanting
l o wit ness the fruits of the Fr ench Revolution a t first hand, he
w1·111 to Paris wit h an American officer, M aj or Benjamin Loxley
111' Philadelphia. During the political upheaval which followed the
lfrvolut ion, R hys, fearing a rrest, fled to America in 1794.
I 11 Ame rica, Rhys married Loxley's d a ughter, An ne, a power-
lt il s11pportc r of all his future endeavours. After emigration, the
l.1111il y surname changed to Rhees. In 1796, along with eminent

1 H11y Mo11k, / ,11r/wi,li Will,~r111l1•i 11 : 1111• Duty ef C'enius (London: Vintage, 1991), p. xii.

XI
 xi i Introduction
l'hiladelphians, Rhees organized the Philadelphia Society for the
Information and Assistance of Persons Emigrating from Foreign
Countries. He became acquainted with the philanthropist
Benjamin Rush, a signatory of the American Declaration of Inde-
pendence. Rush helped Rhees in founding a Welsh colony in the
Alleghenes. Such was the latter's gratitude and admiration that
he named his second son Benjamin Rush Rhees.
The distinguished history of the Rhees family is lo be found in
Rhees ef Rochester by John Rothwell Slater. 2 The book concentrates
on Rush Rhees' father, sometime Professor of New Testament
Interpretation at Newton Theological Institute who, in 1899,
became President of Rochester University. This is not the place
to speak of President Rhees' distinguished term of office, marked
by his remarkable collaboration with the University's chief bene-
factor, George Eastman. The Rush Rhees Library stands as a
memorial to his achievements.
Rush Rhees, author of the papers in this collection, was born
on 19 March 1905 in Rochester, New York. He attended the
Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut. From there he went
to Rochester University in 1922, where he studied for two years.
His stay there was not a happy one. In his book, A History ef the
University ef Rochester 1850-1962, Arthur May writes that Rhees'
sudden departure from the university was due to
a head-on clash between Professor George M. Forbes and Rush Rhees
J r,Class of 1926, younger son of the President: 'Radicalism of Rochester
President's Son Causes Professor to Bar Youth from Class' read a
startling front-page headline in the New York Times. The accompanying
story related that Rhees, a youth of 'advanced ideas', had been dropped
from a philosophy class because he presumed to refute everything Forbes
taught and was guilty of shallow thinking and inordinate conceit.
Professing allegiance to anarchism, Rhees was quoted as saying, 'I am
radical. Dr Forbes is not. That is why I am debarred ... From a Puritan
I have revolted into an atheist.' Certain undergraduates reproached
Forbes on the ground that the expulsion of Rhees violated the principle
of independence of thought. President Rhees was abroad at the time of
the expulsion on campus, and his biographer is wholly silent on his reac-
tion to this bizarre incident.
In an interview granted to the Rochester campus magazine,
some time after his retirement from the University College of
2
New York and London: Ha rpe r and Row, n.d.
 Introduction Xlll

Swansea in 1966, Rhees said:

When I left Rochester I went directly to Edinburgh to continue study .
.. I wrote to my father and said that a certain professor suggested that
I might not be suited to study philosophy, but that I hoped to stay on
in philosophy long enough to think coherently. He wrote back and urged
me to do so, saying that 'the ve ry best thing education can give a man
is the ability to think coherently.'
It is this high value placed on a liberal education for which
Rush Rhees Jr wanted his father t o be remembered.
When Rhees we n t to Edinburgh in 1924, the chairs of philos-
ophy were occupied by A. E. Taylor and Norman Kemp Smith.
Rhees made quite an impression on the latter. In the course of
a letter to Baron von Hugel, Norman Kemp Smith wrote:
Among the American students here this year is a very picturesqu.e youth,
called Rush Rhees - of rather distinguished parentage, on the side both
of his mot her & of his fath er. He is quite a picture, like the young
Shelley, & rather lives up to it - tho' quite a nice & simple yout h -
wearing his shirt collar loose & open at the neck. Why he has been sent
over to Edinburgh, I can't quite make out: he is taking undergraduate
courses, & is in my big class. I cannot help thinking that he must have
got into some kind of you lhful trouble al Syracuse (sic) University where
he was studying & whe re his father is President. He came with an intro-
duction, so I fe el some responsibility for him. Asking him whether in
his work here he wanted discipline or mainly stim ulus, he replied, as I
t'xpected, very definitely the lat ter. He aspires to be a poel (I have nol
seen any of his ve rse) but conceals this high ambiti on under the very
thin disguise of journalism.3
Late in life, Rhees told me of his encounter with Norman Kemp
Smith. When he told his teach er that he wanted inspirat ion
l'rom his studies, Norman Kemp Smith replied, 'You won't get it
wit hout discipline.' Re turning an early essay by Rhees he des-
rribed it as full of promiscuous feeling and in need of reworking,
adding: 'It is as difficul t to get a student to return to his essay
:is it is to get a dog to r eturn to its vomit.' Rhees said to me,
'Th at was a good re mark, and I needed it.'
In 1928 Rhees graduated with an excellent first-class honours
i11 Mental Philosophy, and was awarded a Vans Dunlop Scholar-
11 liip, one o f t he highest distinctions the Philosophy Department

I '/11r /,rl/1•r1 q/ /Jrmm Frirdrich 11011 Hugel a11d Prqfessor Norman Kemp Smith, ed. Laurence F.
11111111111111 (Nrw York: Fnrcl han1 LJ11ivcrsity Press, 1981), pp. 275-6.
 I / It lf lr lflr ' "'"

t t1 11ld lwslt1 w, 11 1 1111' 11t1l1 11 111 1 ol Iii <' M.1 1111• ) ''•" 111• w .1 11 o1ppo i111 1•d
J\ss is111 11t L(T l111'(· 1· i11 l'lt ilosop lt y i11 Ilic· li 11iw 1·s i1 y t11' M. 11 lt'l1t•s1n ,
a pos t h e he ld f'or l(iur years . .). L. SIO(' ks wa s 1IH: Prol'csso r
of P hilosophy a t M an ch es tcr , an d R hees was h is o n ly a ss is 1a nt.
In a r eference, dated J uly 193 1, he testifi es to R hees' whole-
h e art ed commi t me n t in t eaching a wide r an ge of courses bu t
says : 'It is r a the r early to say on wh a t lines he will develop' as a
philosopher. ' Writing in 1936 of his main interests wh ile a t
1':fa nch ester, Rhees says : 'My principa l interests .. . d ur ing this
time were th e study of the philosophy of Fries a nd L. N elson, and
the indepen dent investigation of cert ain ques tion s in ethical
the?ry.' Typically, R h ees a dds in his stat em ent: ' But I d id not,
durm? the whole of these four years, succe ed in producing
anythmg fit for publication.'
. In 1? 31 , A. E. Taylor notes R h ees ' achievem ents a t Edinbu rgh
m a bnef r efer en ce . In a le t te r to R hees, he regrets that he could
n ot say m ore, but says, 'it is difficult when on e h as no published
work to go on '. T he m aj or influen ce on Rhees at Edinburgh,
however, h a d been ne ither Taylor n or K emp Smith, but J ohn
Ande rson, who was to become Ch allis Professor a t Syd ney.
Although Rhees becam e critical, lat er , of And er son 's views on
logic, his influen ce on Rhees in socia l philosophy rema ined a
powerf~l on e . Rhees was d eeply a tt racted by cer tain as pects of
ana rchis t th ough t in political p hilosophy, while being r ealist ic
abou t the problem s posed for the m by the em ergence of advan ced
indus tria l societies . In the forties, R h ees told Wittge nstein th a t
h e felt h e ough t to join th e Trotskyist Revolution a ry Com munist
Pa rty: ' I find more and mor e t h a t I am in agr eement with the
c~i e f poi~t s i~1 their analysis and criticism of present society and
wit h t he ir obj ectives.' 4 Mon k tells us:
Witt g~ n ste i n was sympathetic, but tried to dissuade him on the grounds
tha ~ his duties. as a loyal party member wo uld be incompatible with his
duties as a philosopher. In doing philosophy, he insisted, you have got
to b~ ready eo ns t~nt~y to change the direction in whi ch you are moving,
and tf yo u are thinking as a philosopher you cannot treat the ideas of
Comm unism differently from others.5
Rhees publish ed som e articles in th e journal Freedom . When I

4
Monk, L udwig Wittgenstein, p. 486.
5 Ibid, pp. 486- 7.
 ''
1141,c•d lt l1 !'111, l.111• i11 lif t', 1111 d <' l,1ils 111 1l1 1•s1· p1d 1lirn 1io11s a 11 c1 a ny
1

111111•1M It!' 111 ;t y lt nw w1ii1 1•11 , lit• 1•1•pl ic'< l l>y saying t ha t it was be t ter
111 lt':tVI' I l1t•111 11111i1'<l.
'l'lt t' Ma 11cll<'Hlt' I' pos l wns a lempo rar y one, and in t he summe r
111' 1!)3 2 Rh ee s kf'I Ma nchcsl er to stu dy with Alfred Kastil at
l1111sliruc k. Kas Lil was a n aut hority on and editor of t he work of
Frn nz Bre nta no. T h e p rincipal aim of Rhees' visit was to acq uain t
lt illl sc lf with Bre ntano's philosop hy. His interests soon cent r ed on
I11·en tan o's th eory of r ela tion s a nd, m or e particularly, on h ow
ii rela ted to issues concernin g con tinui ty. R hees re t urned to
l1:11g la nd in the au tu m n of 1933, b ut , up to 193 7, h e returned
lo visit Kastil, r et ired in Vienna , for p eriods of a mont h or six
W<'e ks for fur t her discussions. In a remarkabl e r efer ence, dated
Easter 1935, K astil writes: 'I m u st confess t ha t I looked forward
Io the hour of our mee tin g ea ch day with e age r curiosity in expec-
1:\l io n of t he n ew mat erial which he would br in g. For the r elation
of' tea che r to p upil had becom e inverted . I was chiefly th e
receiver. '
In 1933 Rhees a pplied to enter doctor al studies at Cambr id ge
nnd O xford. In his reference, Norman Kemp Smith re fer s to the
!'act th at in view of t he quali ty of R he es' h onours' work, his V a ns
Dunlop Scholarsh ip was re n ewed in 1928 fo r a fu rthe r th ree yea rs.
In the even t , R h ees wen t to Cam bridge wh er e G . E. Moore was
his su pervisor for two year s. By C hr istmas 1934 his re search had
concen tr ated on q uestions connected with continu ity . Yet, in 1936,
at th e end of h is pe riod of study, Rhees wrote in a s tat em en t
con cerning h imself:
Notwithstanding the opportu ni ties th at were furnished me and the time
l have allowed myself, however, 1 have succeeded neither in prepar-
ing anything for publication nor in completing a thesis for a PhD.
Nor can I say that I see any great likelihood of my doing so.6 Since I
came to Cambridge, I have applied for positions as lectu re r or assistant
lecturer in Bedford College , The University College of Swansea and the
University Coll ege of Ba ngor. At Bedford I was interviewed and
dismissed. Swansea and Bangor saw no need for an interview. My latest
employmen t has been as a shop assistant in Messrs Deighton, Bell and
Co's book shop.

6 Some of t he fr uits of his reAcctions, no doubt r evised ove r the yea rs, can be found, I
believe, in his paper 'O n Con tinu ity: Wittgenste in's Ideas, 1938' in D iscussions ef
Wittgenstein (London : Rou tledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), pp. 104-57 .
 111 l ltlll, IU11 •1ic \\ 111 11 t11l 1 11d1 1"1111l·.11 111 \111 1111 • l l11l \'11"11 1r1 1I
Nt>1 t l1 ( :.11111111 .1 .ii ( : 1t . q 11 I I Iill l ' llljllll i11g 1tl111111 1111• pt11o!iUl>1li1 y
of' a j unior pos t in pli ilosopli ) 1llC' 11·. 1lis .ippllt',111 1111 1101 on ly
included lhe frank sla tc rn c nt conct'rn ing hi s Phi> pl'OsptTl s and
the a bsence of any publication s, bul concluded as fo ll ows:

In conclusion perhaps I ought to say that I have some se rious doub ts

about my competence in the sort of post I am a pplying for. I like
teaching a nd a m interested in philosophy. But I have not made an
unqualified success of either, and I do not grow more sang uine with
time. But I cannot resis t a wish to go on with them (altoge ther this
may be bad psychology, but it seems to me an accurate desc ri ption of
my mental condition nevertheless) . And I find myself hoping that a start
in new conditions might prove more fruitful.

The cand our of th ese applications would m a k e the m u nu sual

at any time, but in the present practice of providing r eferences
lad e n with supe rla tives, they wou ld be uninteJJigible.
The incongrue nce be twee n Rhees' assessm e nt of himself a nd
the opinion s of]. L. Stocks a nd Alfred Kastil of him will h ave
been noted. In May 1935, G. E. Moore wrote in a reference for
R h ees: 'T rega rd him as exceptiona lly we ll qualified to lecture on
phil osop hy i11 a U n ive rs it y. Th e re are few, if any, of the pupils I
li :iw t•vt·r hacl w hose abili ty I s ho uld be inclined to rank high er
1li .111 li is.' Hy t li e e ncl of th e second year of supervision Moore
wrntt•: ' I have now an even higher opinion of his ability than I
liacl t he n ... I feel still g reater confidence in r ecommending him
as a leach e r of philosophy.'
Whe n Rhees informed Moore that h e would not be submit-
ting a dissertation for a PhD, Moore wrote to him on 19 August
1936:

I am writing exceedingly sorry to hear th at you have not been a ble to

write a nything that you thought worth sending in as a dissertatio n; and
still more sorry tha l your fa ilure to do so has been du e to your feeling
so incompe tent and confused since the beginning of Jun e. Don 't you
think th at this fe eling may have been main ly due to your having become
more conscious of the difficulties of you r subject? In a ny case, I hope
you will soon feel able lo work again.
I do not think the time I have spenl in discussion with you will have
been was ted, even if it should turn out to have been of no ul tima te
benefit to you; for I thin k it has been of benefit to me. I only wish I
could have been more helpful to you .
 111 i<J :~7. l{ltc·1·11 1f'l111 111 tl 1c1 f\ l.1111 l1e·s tc•1 .is .i l1·nq 1t11o11y n·placc-
11 11· 11t l(J r ,J. I.. S tol'ks \\ hn Ii.id It-It lo IH'rom c Vice-C h an~c ll or of
th e Un iv('rs ity o l' l .iw rpoo l. I It• taug h t courses on t h e h.istory of
philosophy, lk sr:i 1·11·s 10 Ka nl ; a nd a cours~ on the h istory of
political 1hrnry l(i r t h <.! o rdina ry d egree; a n mtroductory cou r~e
on Russell 's Problems of Philosophy; a n d hon our s courses on logic
and th e theory of the state, with a course on G reek philosophy
fo r Classics students.
Rhees count ed J ohn Anderson, Alfred Kastil and G . E . Moore
a m on g the t each e r s wh o influe n ced h im, but, ~bove ~hem all,. h,e
p ut Ludwig Wittgenst ein. H e began attending W1 t~genstem. s
lectures duri n g h is time at Cambridge. In 1939, W1ttgenstem
wrote t h e following refer e n ce for Rhees: 'I have known Mr R
R hees for 4 years; he has at tended my lectures on philosophy and
we have had a gr eat many discussion s bot h on ph ilosophical and
gen eral subj ects. I have always be en strongly impressed by the
great seriousness and intellige.nce wit~ which he tackles any
problem. Mr Rhees is an except10nally kmd an~ helpful m~n and
will spare n o trouble to assist his students. His G e rman 1s very
good indeed. ' .
In J 940, Rhees was appointed to a t empora ry assistant lecture-
ship at Swansea. At the t ime of h is a ppointn:ient h e was a
weld er in a factory. A. E . H eath was the foundat10n pro'.essor of
p hilosophy at Swan sea. His previous a ppoin tme n ts had 1 ~cluded
R. I. Aaro n, Alfred Ewing and H. B. Acton, but, n ow, his most
recent appointments, K a rl Britton a nd W. B . Galli e, had gone o.ff
to the war. At Swansea, Rhees tau ght pass degree cou rses m
psychology, logic, Plato's Republic a nd the history of p.hi loso ~hy
l'rom D escartes to Hume. H e gave h onou rs courses m logical
th eory, G r eek philosophy, and Kant. In 1944 and 1945, Rhees
ap plied for a Fe llowshi p a t Unive rsity College, ~xford .and a
lect ur eship at U n iversity Coll ege, Dundee, respec~1vely .. Wi ttgen-
st ein and H eath we re h is refe r ees for lh e Fellowship , while Moore
was a third refer ee for t he lectureship. The application s, as usual,
end ed wit h t h e words: ' I have published nothing a nd I have not
written anything that migh t be p u blish ed . It is no t likely that I
ever sh a ll. I have h ad op portunity e nough .' Rhees was now fort y
years of age wi tho u t a pe rman e nt p ost . In his refere n ce in ~pril
J 946, pra ising Rhees as a teach e r and coll eague, Heath m~n t10ns
t hat effor ts wo uld be made, now that Britton a n d Gall1e had
XVlll Introduction
returned to the department, to create a perma ne nt position for
Rhees. T hese efforts were successful. Rhees taught at Swansea
until he took early retirem e nt in 1966. Throughout his caree r he
declined all promotion. When J. R. Jones was to come as professor
in 1953, H eath persuaded Rhees to accept a senior lectureship
to assist the new man. During his first year as professor, Rhees
asked J ones, casually, whethe r he had settled in well. On being
told tha t he had, Rhees promptly relinquished the senior lecture-
sh ip before the date of its commencement. Rhees had an
enormous influence on staff and students, not only within the
d epartment. T here was great respect for him in the College from
the Principal to the porters. Nevertheless, there wer e many occa-
sions during his time at Swansea when Rhees worried over
whet her he should resign his post. Rhees' influe nce was at its
height from 1952 to 1964 whe n he had J. R. Jones, R. F. Holland
and Peter Winch as his colleagues .
Rhees was an inspiring teach er. He did no t use notes, although
they were invariably at his side. He wrestled with philosophical
problems before the class as if for th e first time. He had a great
love of Plato's dialogues. Throughout his time at Swansea he
introduced t hem to first-year students, lecturing on the la ter
dialogues to honours students, after first giving a course on the
Presocratics. He also taught a course on philosophical logic. In
all the courses he taught, Rhees conveyed a sense of the unity of
philosophy. He drew intriguing parallels betwee n Wittgenstein's
concern with language and Pla to's Parmenides concerning the
conditions fo r the possibility of discourse . In a ny branch of philos-
ophy, from logic to aesthetics, the question of what it means to
say some thing, of whether one can di stinguish be tween a ppear-
ance a nd reality, was never one far away in Rhees' deliberations.
From his early interes t in Brent ano, philosophical logic was
central in Rhees' inter es ts. In 1952 he edited George Boole's
Studies in Logic and Probability and wrote a substantial Note in
Editing. 7
Ever since hi s days at Cambridge, Rhees had discussions with
Wittgenstein. During the vacations Wittgenst ein visited Swansea
for these discussions, exclaiming invariably on his arrival from
Cambridge, 'Man, am I glad to be here!' H e was in Swansea from
7 George Boole, Studies i11 Logic wul Probability (La Salle·, lll i11ois: T he 0 1w n Court
Publishi ng Co, 1952), Notr in Editi111-(, pp. <) '13.
 I ntroduction X lX

March to October in 1944 going on almost daily walks with Rhees.

Monk states: 'The prospect of daily discussions with Rhees was
not the only attraction of Swansea. Wittgenstein loved the Welsh
coastline, and, pe rhaps more important, found the people in
Swansea more congenial tha n those in Cambridge.' 8 Wittgens tein
said to Norm an Malcolm in 1945: 'I know quite a number of
people here whom I like. I seem to find it more easy to get along
with them here than in England. I feel much more often like
smiling, e.g. when I walk in the street, or when I see children,
e tc.' 9 Rhees attended Welsh classes in a vain at tempt to learn
the language. At a meal in a Welsh-speaking home, those prese nt
turned to speaking English with each other in deference to
Wittgenstein's presence. He insisted that they should not stop
speaking Welsh to each other.
Rhees was one of the three literary executors who made over
Wittgenstein's papers to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1969, a nd
one of the principal editors of his work. He edited Ludwig
Wittgenstein: Personal R ecollections ( 1981), and some of his own
penetrating essays on Wittge nstein appeared in his collection,
/)iscussions ef Wittgenstein ( 1970). After his re tirement from
Swansea, Rhees was mad e an Honorary Professor a nd a Fellow
liy the College.
On coming to Swansea in 1940, Rhees founded the Philosophical
Society which has me t weekly eve r sin ce. Until retire me nt,
Hhces dominated its discussions. He would almost always ask the
lirsl question, a question which took one to th e heart of the pa per
l><' ing discussed. Often, a ge neral t heory propounded by a speaker
would be seen to colla pse once the question was asked. Rhees
would show great pa tience with any qu estion, however simplistic,
11' th e questions were genu ine, but his r eactions to sham and prc-
lc·1H'C could be fierce. After discussions, it was not at all unusual
Im the person giving the paper, or for someone who had made a
pnrl icul a r contribution to the discussion, to r eceive long typed
lc•11<·rs from Rhees which were phi losophical papers in t he mselves.
S1>111c· of these appeared in his collection Without Answers ( 1969).
I llild bee n instrumental in convincing Rhees that he had enough
1n.ilNial to publish two coll ections of essays . Having edited Without
1111111/'r.1, I found , to my a mazeme nt, that R hees had instructed
11
Monk , /.11dwig Wiltgl'llslri11, p. 459.
., lhid .
xx I ntroduction

Routledge to pay all the royalties to me. Naturally, I refused to go

along with this arrangement. The publishers were confronted by
refusals from an author and an editor to accept money. I then sug-
gested to Rhees that he might want to establish prizes for students
with the royalties. H e was delighted with the suggestion, saying
that it would never have occurred to him.
On leaving Swansea after 1970, Rhees lived for some years in
London. He gave seminars at King's College where Peter Winch
held the chair of philosophy. Lat er, he lived in Cambridgeshire,
but still had weekly discussions at his home with Peter Winch,
Norman Malcolm and Raimond Gait a. Late in life, Rhees
returned to Swansea, giving his time as liberally as ever to discus-
sions with students. He had been liberal with them in other ways
too. When grants were not forthcoming, many students, over the
years, received financial help from Rhees, with no question of a
loan. It was clear on Rhees' r eturn, however, that his heal th
had d eteriorated. Although he a tt ended every meeting of the
Philosophical Society, his contributions to discussion were few.
Rhees concentrated his energies on his weekly graduate seminars.
Even though he was a shadow of his former self, he won e nor-
mous respect from his students. Such r espect had always been
forthcoming from his first students in 1940 to these, his last.
During his final stay in hospital, Rhees said, 'Discussion is my
only medicine. When that is finished , so am I.' Once he was
unable to conduct his weekly discussions his decline was rapid.
He died at his home on 22 May 1989. Rhees had been told that
a Festschrift in his honour was in the press. The volume ,
Wittgenstein: Attention to Particulars (1989), was edited by P eter
Winch and myself. In a critical notice of the volume, David
Hamlyn wrote: 'I myself did not know Rhees well, but I me t him
on more than one occasion and was impressed by that combina-
tion of philosophical percipience, directness and modesty which
was the man.' 10
After Rhees' death, the A. E. Heath Memorial Fund enabled
the Department of Philosophy to purchase his papers. At various
times, I had offered to help Rhees to consider the possibility of
gathering his papers in collections. His reply was always the same:
thanks for what he described as the generosity of ) ,h e offer,

10 Philoso/1hical Jnvesti,~alio111 vo l. 111, 11 0. 1 (OCiobn 199 1), p. :l 112.

1
 Introduction XXl

together with an assurance that he had nothing, absolutely

nothing. From what I had seen, I knew this could not be true,
but even I was not prepared for the 'nothing' to turn out to be
sixteen thousand pages of manuscript. It became obvious that
Rhees, who published little during hi s lifetime, wrote almost every
day. Sometimes, he wrote for himself, but, more often than not,
in correspondence with friends and acquaintances, or in response
to papers heard or read. His writings range widely in their subject
matter: Greek philosophy, philosophical logic, philosophy of
mathematics, moral philosophy, poli tical philosophy, philosophy
of religion, aes thetics, Wittgenstein, Simone Weil, and subjects
which do not fall easily into designated categories. ,
Despite the range of the topics d iscussed, a concern with the
unity of language is to be found in most of his writings. Rhees
saw, clearly, that language does not have a formal unity, but
a rgued that it would be wrong to conclude from that that it has
no kind of unity a t all. The possibility of growth in understanding,
of a life having a meaning, and the possibility of a cultu re, depend
on the unity of language. Rhees emphasized, again a nd again,
the importance the bearing of what is said in one context has on
what is said in quite different contexts. Despite disagre eing with
Plato's claim that all forms of discourse refer to Reality, Rhees
thought there was great insight in Plato's view that although the
meaning of a life does not have the unity of a For m, it might
have the unity of discourse. Rhees thought it might be less
misleading t han most theories about the unity of language, to say
l ha t language has the kind of unity that a conversation has. To
learn from language is like learning from a conversat ion. All
language is not conversation, but ligh t may be thrown on non-
conversational forms of language by reflecting on conversation.
T he emphasis on conversation has a bearing on the present
rn ll ection of essays on philosophy and r eligion. Rhees emphasizes,
again and again, that the importance of what is said in religion
rnnnot be appreciated without a consideration of its bearings on
ot he r aspects of human life. It is in what he has to say about
t ll esc bearings that Rhees' writings seem to me to be clearly head
i11icl shoulders above anything being written in contemporary
philosophy of religion.
111 presen ti ng th e papers, I decided to sacrifice their chrono-
lo~frnl order in favour or grou ping them un der related themes.
 XX!l Introduction
The provision of dates, however, makes it possible for the reader
to trace developments and changes in Rhees' views. Developments
there certainly were, but it must always be remembered that, for
Rhees, this never meant development of a system. H e regarded
himself as intervening in discussions. If one aspect of a problem
is being neglected, Rhees may choose to emphasise it strongly.
On a nother occasion, he might think a very different emphasis
I is called for . No doubt there are remarks which see m to contra-
1 dict each other, and some difficulties are simply left unresolved.
What Rhees says, then, is often determined by the state of a
discussion, and by who he is talking lo a t a given time. That is
one reason why I thought it important to indicate who were the
recipients of Rhees' letters. His choice of title for the collection
Without Answers was no accident.
Apart from essays 1, 8 and I 7, t he ti ties of the essays are mine.
The degree of editing involved, apart from the selection and
ordering of the essays, is indicated in the appropriate footnotes.
At the end of his life, Rhees expressed a desire that his papers
be kept at Swansea, the one place he said he regarded as home.
He was prepared to leave questions concerning publication to
others, as he had done, in effect, with the two books published
in his lifetime. In all his writings what we see is a philosopher
truly exercising his vocation; a rarer occurrence than one migh t
suppose.
D. Z. Phillips
 PART ONE

Religion and reality

 ESSAY ONE

Religion and philosophy 1

When Aristotle gave the name 'first philosophy' to the study of

reality as such, he meant that this subject matter is 'prior ' to
that of the other sciences, a nd also that it is more universal -
which may come to the same thing. It is a special sort of univer-
sality, anyway. We might say, for instance, that the study of living
things is more general than the study of land animals. But if we
say then that the study of reality is more general than either,
there is something more than a difference of degree here.
Aristotle may have had this in mind when he said of theology
that 'If there is an immovable substance, the scie nce of this
must be prior ... and universal in this way, because it is first'
(Metaphysics E, 1026a 30). That was why he thought that theology
and first philosophy were really the same.
Aristotle thought of the immovable substance as a first cause.
It is not easy to see what he meant by that. It was the cause of
motion, certainly, at least in the sense that all motion depends
upon it, and it was the cause of becoming. Brentano thought
Aristotle meant that it was a creator too; so that first philosophy
would really be concerned with the God of religion - of Hebrew
,111d Christian and Mohammedan religion, anyway- and if we can
rnme to understand the world through philosophy, we shall have
t IH' unde rstanding that is sought in religion.
But I do not see how that can be right. Aristotle's god is the
rnusc of all coming to be and passing away. And in tha t sense it
i11 the cause of everything that has ever come to be or ever will.
Thi s is already a strange sense of 'cause', because we should
11ormally want to say that if it were the cause of everything it
rnu lcl not be th e cause of anything. But it is a 'first' cause in the

1 Th is pnp1·1· r:uTics I h(' dale (?) March 1956 (Ed.).

4 Religion and reality
sense tha t we can see from it how it is possible for one thing
to cause another at all. (This is one way in which 'first ' and
' univer sal' come toge ther.) Otherwise we should never understand
how changeable things can have any reality, or what reality it is
that they do have. But granting that the first move r makes things
intelligible in that way - this is not a belief in a creator.
Aristotle's god could not have created matter, but that is not
the point I want to make. My point is tha t belief in a creator is
not the belief in a cause, even in the special sense which Aristotle
has in mind. The belief in a creator might go with the thought
that 'There might neve r have been anything existing at all', or
(as it has been expressed) 'Isn't it extraordinary tha t anything
at all should exist.' If we call this an expression of wonder, then
it is the same wonde r as is expressed in 'This is all God's handi-
work; this declares the glory of God', or 'This - that the re should
be anything a t all - shows God's goodne ss.' And tha t would not
come into Aristotl e's theology. A philosopher's contempla tion of
things may lead him, perhaps, to infer the existence of a first
move r. But if it does - if change or motion 'declares' the mover,
in the sense that you can infer it - this is not what is being said
in 'The Heavens declare the glory of God.' And 'Isn' t it extra-
ordinary tha t anything should exis t' is not wond ering what could
have caused it, or how it is possible.
If it is an expression of wonder, that is a religious wonde r, 'The
Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of
the Lord' - that is religious wonder too, a nd no doubt it is partly
a confession that one does not understand. But it is not asking
for an explanation, or even wondering what the explana tion is.
If anyone had said 'I wonder what causes it' or 'what could have
caused it' - if Job had said that, for instance, - th a t would not
be religious. I do not mean, of course, tha t the religious wonder
refrains from ask ing the cause. It is just not concerned with that
question. Or suppose someone tells me, 'If you find you are too
stupid for this work - well, that's God's fault , not yours.' That is
not about the cause of my stupidity.
Brentano had various proofs that God exists (in Vom Dasein
Gottes there a re four) ,2 but the central one was a form of the
argument from contingency. If you say that anything a t all exis ts,

2 Franz Brentano, Vom Da1ei11 Gollt'I ( I la111h11q.(: Fl'l ix M1·i 11c·r, I%B), pp. 20Hl'f' (Ed .).
 Religion and philosophy 5
that implies that there is an absolute necessary being. There are
difficulties in this argument, and I believe the re are confusions.
But there may be some thing importa nt as well: ques tions about
contingency and necessity have been important in philosophy ever
since it began. What I do not see is what it can have to do with
religion. Suppose we prove that there is a necessary being and
that in some sense everything depends on it - why call it 'God'?
No one would try to teach children what 'God' means by talking
a bout a first cause, or by talking about causes at all. Bre ntano
might object that this is irrelevant; we do not try to give chil-
dren a scientific account of things in nature or of their own bodies,
either. We have to tell them what they can unde rstand. But I do
not think the parallel holds. We might not speak to children abou t
religion as we would to an adult. But this is not like the differ-
ence between a popular and a scientific account of magnetism or
digestion. If a devout adult has in som e ways a different idea of
God than children do, this is not because he can give a different
account of a nything - nothing like a scie ntific account , a nyway.
He is less naive tha n the child. But the child's naivete in religion
is not like the naivete in what he says a bout magne tism. It is
much more com parable to naive te in moral ques tions.
When people teach children a bout God - it is more like
teaching the m the language. When you do that, you keep to
simple things. But it is not a simpler account of something which
a n adult could d escribe more accurately.
If a child does learn what 'God' mea ns, h e has begun to under-
stand tha t language of religion. He is familiar, in however childish
a way, with what people are doing whe n they talk that way:
praying, telling stories, singing hymns, and so on. This is a more
complex language than a child can realize. But when I say that,
I do not mean that it is an account of very complex obj ects.
It has been said that causal investigation, or scientific investi-
gation, is able to tell us something about the obj ects we speak of
in everyday life, because this investigation is just an extension of
I he observation a nd analysis with which we go about among phys-
ical obj ects a nyway. Perhaps that is not quite accurate. But the
way we a pply scie nce in engineering makes it easy to think that
scie nce is some how of a piece with the garage mechanic's account
ol' th e sta te th e car is in . Science can tell you more about the
1 liin gs yo11 nn· fiirniliar with. Jt can tell you more about the metals
6 R eligion and reality

you work with, for instance, just as the m echanic who can strip
the e ngine may be able to t ell you more about it than you know
yourself.
The mechanic understands the engine better than you do. If a
lathe opera tor is not able to strip a nd assemble his machine, then
he does not really understand it. And here we have an idea of
'understanding the things we are speaking about'. It is somewhat
akin to this if we say that a che mist understa nds sugar better
than I do; and that he is in a better position to tell you what
sugar is than I a m. I might want to say that I know what sugar
is just as well as he does, a nd in a sense of course I do. But it is
true that the chemist could help me to unde rstand what sugar
is better than I do now. He can tell me more about the stuff I
am familiar with .
But what would 'learning more about God' be? Or 'adding to
our knowledge of God'? Could this be the work of specialists, for
insta nce? Brentano seems to think it could, and tha t p hilosophy
is th e science of God. But the n, wou ld not the knowledge of God
be som ething like a n understanding of God, almost like the
mechanic's understanding of the m achine?
As the child grows to be a man, he becomes less naive in wha t
he says about God. But this is not because he knows more a bout
God now. H e has not tried to discover what God is - not because
that would be a hopeless quest, but because it would not be a
quest at all.
No one comes to a deeper knowledge of God by making an
inves tigation - say by experimenting in order to discover prop-
erties which are not ordinarily apparent. The chemist can tell me
more about sugar because he has made investigations and made
experime nts. He can tell us the res ults of these experiments and
describe how they were produced. If he said that he had found
out something by revelation, tha t would not mean much and it
would not impress anyone. You would still want to know whether
you could get the same results without reve la tion . And if you could
not, you would not think his revelation showed you anything about
sugar. But if someone says that supernatural r eve lation has given
him a d eeper knowledge of God, tha t is different .
I do not know whether that is common. Certainly a man may
com e to a deeper knowledge of God by ways that he cannot ex-
plain, and it may be fa irly suddenly. And t hr fact th a t he cannot
 R eligion and philosophy 7
explain it, need n?t keep others from learning from him or
'following'_ him. It. migh t seem no more sensible to ask why he
thought his experie nce was a revelation, than it would be to ask
a. musicia n why he thought his way of taking the pi ece was the
n ght one . The trouble is that people may wan t to say there is
some reality corresponding to their r eligious beliefs and this
is not like understanding the music. Or rather: thar' need not
?ring t~ouble; but it does if they think of the reality corresponding
m physics.
. Plato th.ought there must be some reality corr esponding to our
ideas of n ght a nd wrong, because otherwise you could not say
that any moral conviction was true. And then moral q uestions
would not b.e very .import~nt. Men j udge actions diffe rently in
Athens an~ m Persia. But if we left it at that, if we m erely said
that what is wrong in Athens is right in Persia, we should have
taken the i~perative ? ut of morality. T his may be my duty in
At.h e!1s; but if somethmg else has j ust as good a sanction, then
this is not really imperative. I t is more a matter of convenie nce.
. Similarly, we might say: unless some reali ty corresponds to our
idea of God, religion is not importan t. It cannot be just a matter
of the practices people happen to follow. For then you could not
s~y tha t e.verything de~ends on it. But nei ther can you say tha t
different ideas of God and of God's will are each of them all
right. For then the attempt to know God a nd to do God's will
would not be terribly importa nt.
T he trouble is that if moral judgements are vindicated by some
1·cali~y corresponding in th~ way in which r eality corresponds to
physics, th e~ they are . no~ important either. That would not give
moral. q~cstions t~e kmq of in:iporta nce which in fact they have.
And it is somethmg t he same with religion. Descartes asked
whether there were a ny reaUty corresponding to his idea of God,
as though he thought this were like asking whether there were
.111y reality corresponding to his idea of a tree . But what is there
1·digious a bou t believing i~ the existence of an obj ~ct, in that
•w nse? Or in ':"orshipping it? (~f you believed the tree was a holy
t ITC, there might be some reality in that - but that is not t he
1·1·<tlity of the tree as a physical obj ect.)
If' yo u. say, 'By At~ cnian standards, cruelty is wrong', you are
1101 passing a moral Judgement. If you adhere to those st a ndards
)ot tl'st' lf, th rn you wi ll say 'Crue lty is wrong' - and it will make
8 Religion and reality

no difference whether the P ersia ns think it is or not. 'But then

you are assuming that your standards arc the right ones.' What
could that mean? To say they a re right , is to make a judgemen t
of value; which you might expre ss by saying that they are the
only standards to adopt. Anyway, it is an expression of adherence
to them. And similarly, if you say that C hristian morality is the
only true morality, you are making a j udgement of valu e -
declaring your adherence to that morality.
It is much the same with religion. There ar e different religions,
a nd so we may say there are differen t ideas of God and of worsh ip-
ping God. If you are a C hristian, you may say that the ideas
of Zoroastrianism are wrong, and that Christianity is the only
true religion. But the question of which of these religions is t rue
- is a question of decid ing be tween them. And that is a religious
decision.
To say 'The Christians worship the true God' is to believe as
Christians believe - to wor ship as they wor ship. It is an expres-
sion of religious belief - not a state ment of a matter of fact.
But when people say that there is some reality corresponding
to religious beliefs, they do not mean only that som e reli gion is
the true one; they mean also that religion is not just a human
convention. And I suppose we can see roughly why they would
say that. They would probably say that science is not just a human
convention. But is art? Or morality? If we t hink of the conven-
tions which determine what is 'socially correct', or of the
conventions of busin ess inte rcourse, or the conventions of diplo-
m acy, then we should not call a rt a convention in that sense, nor
morali ty either. You can learn something from a rt, and you can
learn some thing from meditating on moral questions, as you
would not from medita ting on the conventions of business inter-
course.
Neither is it a concern with human conventions whe n someone
is trying to know God 's will. I t is concern with the will of God.
It is the conviction tha t to know a nd to do the will of God is
immensely important, not becau se of any convention, but because
it is God's will. That is the sense of God's reality.
What do we mean by 'the reali ty of God'? To see this, you have
to follow th e worship of God. The r eality of moral distinctions is
not established by making them correspond to some thing that
is not a moral distinction. And th e reality of God cannot be a kind
 R eligion and philosophy 9
of realit~ that has no place in religious discourse a nd pract ice.
The reality of God must be a divine reali ty. And you cannot explain
that excep t in religious terms.
What is ~onfusing ~ere is the idea of an independent reality.
When we thmk of the mdepende nt reality of physical objects, we
m~ an that the~ a r_e what th_ey arc, no m a tter what we happen to
th~nk; the reality 1s somethrng we shall run up against if we are
?11staken, a~d. so on. W e may contrast it with the reality of our
td ~a~. And it is natural to suppose that a nything which has not
this mdcpendent real ity must be fancy or illusion. All of this fits
naturally _with the ways in which we attend to physical objects,
a nd the kmd of study we give th em. It goes with the commonest
:-vays of c~rrecting mistakes by showing how things really lie. And
1t goes with plans .for c?a.nging things. But it does not have any
such natural place m rehg10n. You might say, 'Surely when I speak
of God, I do not mean my idea of God'; and obviously you do not.
But wha t does that mean, exactly?
What is .it to have a~ idea of God? It is not like having an idea of
a locomot ive or an iceberg. I do not come by it in the same
way, for. one thing. It seems as thoug h I had formed my idea of a
locomotive from the ones I have seen. It is not as simple as that,
of course: I must have been told about the m too. St ill, I should
na_tur~lly say tha t I got my first clear idea of the thing from the
thmg itself. But not my idea of God. Nor does the idea of God play
the s~me sor t of role. It does not help me to identify or anticipate
a nythmg. I should hardly call it a n idea of God's p roperties, or of
the sort of being God is. And it would not be natural to wonder
whether God r eally is what I imagine him to be .
If w~ say that God has a n independent reality, this means, for
one thrng, th~t I may be mistaken in wha t I say of God, and that
people may disagree. Only, then it is important to see what kind
of disagree me nt this is, and what they disagree a bou t. Or for that
matter: if they do agree, what do they agree a bout?
When would anyone say, 'That is the God I worship'? Pe rhaps
when he could say 'Amen' to a service he had heard. Or if in
this se rvice appeal was made to a uthorities, like the Scri~tures
a nd the Church, which he also recognized. Does tha t tell him
what is being worshipped? It tells him of an established doctrine
a~d li tur~y. A1~d these are important in considering the contin-
11 1ty a nd 1dc nt 1ty of wha t is spoken of a nd what is worshipped.
10 Religion and reality
It is because of the m t ha t we can speak, whe n we d o, of different
views of God, a nd of cha nges or developmen ts in the view of God.
In the course of these cha nges there have been disagree men ts
too. And the d isagr eements a r e concerning the righ t way to
worship God.
And how could we decide tha t? How would we try to decid e
which way was right? Cer tainly not by more careful observation.
An announcement of divine r evelation might do it. Or it might
be by discussing and in terpreting a u thorities a nd tradition . (Think
of St P a ul on the interpre tation of the Hebrew tradition, for
instance .)
For the believer th e question may be very im portan t. H e may
feel tha t there is always a d anger tha t people will be misled into
doing some thing which claims to be the worship of God, but is
not r eally the worship of God a t all. But once again we ought to
try to keep clear wha t that means. If I said of someone 'He claims
tha t he is mining gold, althoug h he is not really mining gold at
all ', or 'H e claims tha t he is doing mathematics, although he is
no t really doing ma the matics a t all', this might be tole ra bly clear ,
because we have a fair idea of wha t 'really mining gold' would
be, a nd what 'really doing mathema tics' would be. W e have some
idea of the sort of error it would be, in each case. And we know
wha t would be m eant by calling it an error. But what is 'really
worshipping God '? Can you appeal to a nything except con t inuity
with a tradition? H e is really worshipping God, when he worships
the God of our fathers. And it may seem fairly clear that certain
practices are not tha t.
But it may not always be clear. T h er e may be a dispute. And
the n it may be felt that only divine revela tion can guaran tee the
truth of this or tha t form. T hat need not lead to misconceptions.
But if it did, I suppose they migh t come from the notion of a
guarantee. In everyday life the cha racter of a witness, or his special
knowledge, might gua ran tee the trustworthiness of his infor ma-
tion. I t is reasonably certain tha t wha t he tells us is true. But
how is it when th e cha racter of the revelation guarantees that
this is the true worship of God? It m akes no sense to speak of
'reasonably certain' - as though there wer e some thing that could
be confir med, a nd we were safe in trusting it. In the case of the
witness, we may find that the facts are as he said they would be
- we d id well to t rust him. But we mig ht have learned th ese fac ts
 Religion and philosophy 11
in some other way, without him. Whe reas if it is divine revela-
tion that shows the te acher wha t the true worship of God is, then
the revelation is not some thing apar t from what it shows.
W e may wonder whether what this man says really has been
divinely revealed to him . Or: whether the Scriptures really are
the word of God. Suppose then that there is som e supernatural
sign or miracle to assure us of this. Brentano 3 imagines the case
so: someone, in a dream or awake, hears words which claim to
come from God, and which bid hi m to adopt a par ticular belief.
At the same time he is shown a document to ce rtify that the
words do come from God, telling him, for ins tance, 'Demand as
proof any miraculous sign you wish.' Suppose then he asks to see
a plu m tree in blossom m ad e sudde nly full of fr uit, and suppose
that happens - he concludes then that the words were addressed
to him by God. Brentano asks, as others have, how the man could
be certain tha t the alleged miracle itself was from God. It might
have been a dream or an hallucination, or it might have been
the work of other supernatural beings. This ques tion of the kind
of evidence which miracles afford, has p uzzled a good many. But
if one concludes, say, that 'one cannot claim more than proba-
bili ty' for the doctri nes tha t have been certified by miracles, then
I think there must have been a misund erstanding. Not that one
can claim mor e than probability; I mean simply that this ques-
1ion makes no sense here .
What is mean t by asking whether this 'really is the word of
God'? Wha t is believing that this really is the word of God? It is
I a king it as gospel, living by it, worshipping by it. O r it may be
l'ollowing this man as a ho ly man of God. But not : trus ting his
sta temen ts, as one might trust information give n.
'The sign that was given me shows that this is the word of God,'
(t ha t cannot be like, 'shows that it was wri tten down by Moses')
' ... because it shows that the voice I heard was the voice of God.'
( )n the face of it, Brentano's objections seem valid. One wants
I o say that the whole experience could be explained otherwise .
B11 1 is it a q uestion of explaining the experience? Is that what he
111 doing when he says that it came from God? W hat happens is
t h:i t I accept it as the voice of God. And what that means appear s
i11 my be haviour and in the difference which this makes in my

1
In Nrli11io11 1111d l'ltiloso/1/tie (Bt'rn: Francke, 1954), pp. 45-6.
12 R eligion and reality
life. (It d oes not mean, for instance, tha t I could identify the one
who was speaking, as I can when I ide ntify the voice of a human
being.)
'Because tha t was the voice of God, I cannot doubt tha t the
Scriptures a re th e word of God.' Again one migh t want to ask,
'Why not?' Gran ting it was the voice of God, wha t do I know of
God 's inte ntions? How do I know tha t he has not chosen to deceive
me in this? W ell, her e I think we must ask wha t it is tha t he
would be d eceiving me about. Is not the point ra ther that in
knowing the voice as the voice of God, I knew the Scriptures as
the word of God? 'It is from God ' would m ean the sam e in both
cases. I migh t say, 'If I had not had that expe rience, I should
never have recognized the divinity of the Scriptures.' But wha t I
r ecognize is not some thing quite apart from wha t I had in that
experience . It is not like, 'If I had not met him, I should never
have known who wrote the book.' The divini ty of the Scriptures
is not a n 'obj ective fact ' like tha t. Once again: wha t do I recog-
nize, when I recognize the divinity of the Scriptures? And wha t
sort of recognition is it? It is not .finding out something about them -
like discoveri ng the date when they wer e writ ten down. It is to
live by them. If I say, 'This is the word of God ', tha t is a confes-
sion of faith.
 ESSAY T WO

Where does the world come from?1

Why is 'Wh ere does the world com e from ?' a queer ques tion?
Someon e asks me 'H ow did the world come to be?' Now if tha t
meant 'H ow did things come to be as they a re now?' it would not
be so quee r (though you can think of trouble enough) , a nd we
rnn imagine the sort of thing tha t might be said in answer, even
if' one offered only piece meal answers. But tha t is not the sam e
.is asking 'How did ther e come to be a nything at all?' And I do
ft- cl tha t tha t is qu eer.
Lt is cer tainly differe nt from 'How did things come to be as
I hey a re?' - if only because it is clearly not asking you to tell
us about a ny p rocess or developm ent . And tha t is also why it is
differe nt from 'H ow did the Earth come to be?'
'How did it come tha t . . . ?' - wha t does t ha t mean here? When
you ask 'H ow did there come to be a nythin g a t all?' it is no t
.1sking a bout a nything in pa rticula r. Tha t is one of the important
difficulties.
Not, 'How did there com e to be this, of all things (rather tha n
I he sor t of thing you would na turally have expected)?'
Nor, o f course, is it like 'How did the re come to be this rather
I han tha t?' Wher eas our question is 'H ow did th ere come to be
,111 yt hing, rather than -' - well, r ather t ha n wha t? Please d o not
K<' I too impatient with this, fo r I do think it is important.
Whe n P ar mcnides said tha t 'You cannot think what is not':
\\It' ll , he was confused if he meant that you cannot ma ke
tl<' ga tivc state ments, or that you cannot believe what is false;
.111d probably, if he meant t ha t you cannot t hink of empty
11p.i cc - though there is quicksand tha t way. Bu t he was right in

1 T11k1• 11, i11 t 11(' 111ain from a letter lo G. E. M. Anscombc dated 21 November 1957.
1
lt r p1intl'd in Witlwnt Answcr.r (London: Routledge, 1969) (Ed.).

13
14 Religion and realiry
suggesting that there is something queer m trying to think
of a bare and absolute nothing, without any relation to any-
thing at all; or in trying to say that there might be nothing, in
that sense.
When I say ' ... without rela tion to anything at all', I mean
supposing that there might never have been anything, for instance.
Then suppose I do not understand what you mean, and I ask
if you can explain. Well? And you have to avoid a fallacy of compo-
sition, I suppose .
Perhaps you will say it gives you no trouble. All right. But will
you not agree that it is at any rate peculiar?
It is not like supposing there were nothing wh ere there is some-
thing now.
When I can say of anything that it exist s, then I think it makes
sense to say 'it might not have existed '. (I know you cannot say
that of God - I would not say that God is a thing.)
I think tha t is equivalent to saying that it has come to be. And
that again is equivalent to saying that ther e are many things.
There is so much to be said here about 'things' a nd 'existence'.
So much that is relevant to 'talking about things' and 'talking
about the world', for instance. Well, I will make one arbitrary
re mark abou t 'things'.
Do you remember the second hypothesis in Plato's Parmenides?
Or rather, think of the first a nd second hypotheses. I suppose one
thing Plato is saying is that you can say 'it is' only when you can
distinguish between 'it' and 'is'. And I suppose part of what that
means is that we should be able to say 'it might not have existed'.
We must distinguish between 'being a thing' and 'existing'. (We
should have discussed the distinction be tween a thing and its
properties, a nd there are very important questions that go with
that.) Its reality is not just its existence . But . . . what else is it?
T he distinction between a thing and its existence is obviously
not like the distinction between a stick and the water on which if
float s; nor even like the distinction between a body a nd its motion.
We can know what it is - what you are talking about - without
knowing whether it exists or not. But that does not mean that we
could remove it from existence and still keep it the thing it is - or
a thing at all. When a thing ceases to exist, it ceases to be a thing.
(Not like a body and its motion.) Well, why speak of any difference
between a t hing and its existence, the n?
 Where does the world come from? 15
If we do, it is just another way of emphasizing that we can say
it exists if we can say something else exists.
I think Plato would have agreed with Parmenides, that you
cannot say 'there might have been nothing at all' . But he held
against Parmenides that you can always say 'it might not h ave
existed'. But there is a difficulty: it may seem as though you
must be able to speak of 'what exists' or 'all tha t exists', a nd
as though you must therefore be able to say that 'all that exists,
exists' or perhaps 'reality exists'. And if that has sense, well then
by our argument it must have sense to say that 'all that exists'
or the totality of existing things might not exist. T ha t had been
Parmenides' point.
But Plato's point was that you cannot talk a bout 'all there is'
as one thing, or even as one collection, in the way in which
Parmenides may have wanted to talk about 'all reality'. The
question of what sort of unity th e world has, is one that
occupied most of Plato's philosophy. But he held at any rate
that the world cannot have the unity of a thing, of which you
can sensibly say 'it is'; (nor the unity of a form either). For Plato
the world includes more than 'all existing things'. But even that
phrase, since it covers what has been and will be, does not
sta nd for a totality or 'one thing' of which we may say t hat it
rxists. There are difficulties enough, certainly, but I think Plato
showed that Parmenides' difficulty was misconceived. Parme n-
icl es was right about 'There is nothing.' But he was wrong
in thinking that if you said that 'what there is' might not exist,
it would amount to tha t - a mount to finding sense in 'there is
nothing'.
So I doubt if there is sense in saying 'the world exists', any
111ore than there would be in saying 'everything exists'.
(And it would not be very different with 'the world has come
lo be' or 'everything has come to be' (which is all right in one
1w nse, of course, but not when 'everything' is supposed to be a
parti.cular collection).)
If everything in this collection has come to be, then you can
"·'Y that the collection has come to be. But from 'everything has
t lllll<' to be' - or even 'everything in the world has come to be'

iI docs not follow that the world has come to be.

' Everything' is not a specific class, and it is not a particular
11ill1•<·tion. Nei ther is 'the world '.
16 Religion and realiry
(I think this raises interesting questions about 'divisions in
being' or distinctions among things, as against 'divisions in a
species' or 'divisions in a class'; and 'being in the world ' as against
'belonging to a class'.)
As regards 'the origin of the world' - I need not mention to you
that if anyone asks about that as perhaps someone might in
astronomy (is that what one would mean by 'dispassionately'?),
then it is not clear why we should feel we ought to look for the
origin at all.
Suppose we are not content to say 'there never was a begin-
ning'. It does not follow that there was just one beginning. What
is happening round about us here may have begun quite inde-
pendently of what is happening in the most distant nebula . If
things could begin in one place, well they could probably or just
as well begin elsewhere too. And if things - tumults like that we
live in - have begun at various times, it does not follow that the
later must have issued from the earlier: tha t there are not inde-
pendent beginnings later on.
Anyway, I cannot see that the idea of a beginning of things is
so important for religion. Or rather, I cannot see why it is. The
belief that God is the source of the world, and that eve rything in
the world has its reality from God - I can see that that is impor-
tant. But just for that reason, I wonder whether the beginning
depended on God in any other sense tha n the present does.
(If you say it does, the n perhaps you are bringing in the r eli-
gious conception of the history of the world, and a doctrine of
the Fall. And I wonder whethe r you would call that dispassiona t e.)
Do I mean that people who ask what brought the world into
being are just confused and deluded, then?
No, but I think the sense is diffe rent from this quasi-physical
one.
The question is much more ' Wiry is there a nything a t all? Wha t
is the sense of it?'
Or it may be an expression of wonder a t the world. ('Isn't it
extraordinary that a nything at all should exist?') Which easily
passes into reverence at the wonder of it - the wonder at there
being anything at all. T her e is gratitude in thi s too - gratitude
for the exist ence of things.
But now we are away from the kind of question you want to
conside r.
 ESSAY THREE

The ontological argument and proef

I'
In th~ ontolog ical argumen t there is the d ifficulty about the
meamn.g of the term 'existence' when one speaks of the neces-
sary existence of God.
Malcolm i~ his discussion suggests that you can talk about the
n cc.es~ary existence of God, meaning that God's existence is
1: nlim1ted, a nd. t~at his existence, is .not d epend ent on anything
t lse . But then It is not clear how existence' is being used a t all
Ma!colm emphasizes that you m ay use the term 'existence' in ~
variety of ways. Cf. the discussions of exis tence theorems in
1 ~rn~ he m ati~s, for instance. Bu t when he speaks of the un-
lim1te~ existence of God in contrast with othe r existence _
th e e~1s.te~ce of material things - well wha t is God's existence
th en if it ~s not the same 'exist ence' as that of material things?
An~ d.oes 1t make a ny sense to speak of existence in that use as
1in limited?

The exist~nce o~ a pla n t is dependent upon soil and light, mois-

1111.·e and .air. This does not say anything about the kind of
1 ~x 1 ste nce It has: ~xcept that it shows something of how we might
.lll swe r. the quest10n of whether any pla nts exist under such and
.~ 11 ch c1~cu~stances - perhaps on certain planets. It does show
some th~n g importa n t of how we use the word 'exists' or the
1·xpress10n 'does not exist '.
If we take this sense of 'existence', then ' unlimited existence'
111·~'. ITI S to be .meaningless. And it is not clear on his account of
Il1111gs what It does amount to.

1
No11-.~ t1:11cd 2 November 1960 in response to Norman Malcolm's article 'A J '
( >111 oloK1rn! Arg unwnts', .P!til~sophical Review, January 1960, a nd reprinted in ;l~~mr:~
1> 1111101 111, ll.111110/n!qr 1111d Ce1tr11111;1 (New Yor k: Prentice I ln ll, J 963) (Ed.) .

17
18 Religion and reality
If he wants to speak of 'a priori propositions of existence', we
shall want to know a good deal more about this: of what actually
you are saying about such propositions.

Neither does it make much clear if you speak of a kind of guilt

which people may feel towards God and whi~h they wo~ld ~10t
feel towards human beings or in connexion with human m stitu-
tions.
Confusing reference to 'God's properties' - where there is suc.h
assumption about what it is to talk about God: a~ though t.h1s
were talking about a being or a thing with certain propert~e s .
Why is it, by the way, that people feel there would be something
wrong in speaking of God as a thing? . .
If you speak of God as a necessary being, I do not thmk this
has point or sense except in contrast with the existence of the
world - which is then supposed to be 'contingent existence'. 'God
is a necessary being' is a way of speaking of God as creator. Th~re
are difficulties in talking about the contingency of the world which
are almost as great as talking about the necessary existence of
God.2 In ordinary use the contrast between contingent and neces-
sary refers to events - to what can be predict ed and what is
accidental, for instance.
For one thing, it is strange to ask questions about the exist-
ence of the world. You can ask whether the earth has always
existed, and for how long; and you can suggest that the earth
might not have existed at all ~~ut for. so ~nd so~ and. probably
someday will not, because conditions will an se which will destroy
it. But 'the existence of the world'? If you are going to talk about
this as contingent, one would like for instance to know 'contin-
gent on what'; and of course you could not begin by saying that
it was contingent on God if you were going to argue from the
contingency of the world to the existence of God.
The point about the existence of the plant which is dependent
on those various circumst ances, is that you could say 'It might
not have existed, but rather something else (there would have been
just a desert, or what it m ay be)'. But if you wanted to speak of
the contingent exist ence of the world, the 'but rather' would leave
you with nothing whatever. You seem to be forced to suppose

2 See Essay 2 in the co llectio n (Ed.).

 The ontological argument and proof 19
that there mig ht have been nothing at all. And this is a notion
which is probably sense less. It is the kind of difficulty which both-
ered Parmenides .3
When the scholastics were talking a bout continge nt existence
they did not mean simply that the existence ef some particular
thing was contingent. They were referring to a particular 'mode'
of existence. (Cf. questions a bout modality.) To say that my exist-
ence depends upon such and such, is all rig ht. But to say tha t I
have a dependent existence, if this means something different
from what I ju~t said, is another story. And when one is talking
about the contmgency of th e world, this is what it does mean.
This is one of the r easons why to talk abou t t he contingency of
the world is hardly something from which you can start.
The idea which the scholas tics seem to have had was that of
a dependent existence in some way analogous to that in which
in A~i stotl e's scheme of the categories the 'being' of a quality,
~ .g., is no~ a being which it has in itself but a being which it has
111 som ethmg else . And for the theologians the being of the world
was supposed to be something which it had in something else.
An? this leads to the kind of difficulties which Spinoza expressed,
which meant the identification of God and the world, and the
dimination of any distinction between creature and creator.
If you leave out the point that the refer ence to God as a neces-
sary being is a way of speaking of God as cr eator, you may wonder
wha t all the fu ss is about, and whether the reference to a neces-
~mry being has anything to d o with religious qu es tions at all.
Thomas' dispute with Anselm over the ontological argument
probably included the recognition by T homas that this would le ad
to the sort of view tha t Descartes put forward. It would lead to
t li c view tha t the fool and anyone else did have a knowledge of
< :od as complete and as thorough as that which was furni shed by
t li c Church. And this would stand in the way of the doctrine that
'No man co meth to the Father but by me'; or that it was only
t ltrough the C hurch tha t you could come to a true knowledge of
< :od. ff you could get it from the 'idea', this would seem t o make
t ltt· C hu rch unnecessary.
If' we were to say tha t the ontological argument is not really
i1 11 :1rgurn ent a t all then it might be t aken to mean that the only

1
S1·t• l~ss ay 2 i11 the collt•ction (Ed.).
20 Religion and reality

way of defending or es ta blishing a beli ef in God is through an

understanding of what is meant by 'God', and perhaps what is
meant by the worship of God (I should maintain that th ese two
are not separable). That it is not through a rgument that you can
defend religion, but by trying to clear up misunderstandings .
This would go with the converse point, that the doubts or disbe-
liefs in the existence of God lie in the inability to make anything
of it - make anything of the idea, or understand it in the least.
If it could be understood, then this wou ld amount to acceptance
of it. This may be somewhat far from Anselm's point, or it may
not; I am not sure.
Supposing one wants to talk about different kinds of existence
in this connexion: would it not be better to talk about divine exist-
ence? Divine and creaturely, possibly - rather than of 'necessary'
existence? Partly because of the 'a priori' considerations in con-
nexion with necessity. That may be important in some ways, if
one wants to contend that you cannot prove the existence of God,
a ny more than you can prove first principles, or something of
that kind.
You can hardly prove the existence of the world either. And
yet the world is supposed to be contingent, and not a priori. I do
not know whether various forms of solipsism and subj ectivism
would be taken to be denying the exis t ence of the world .
When one speaks of the goodness of God - or in some ways of
his existence too - it seems strange to me to talk about 'perfec-
tion' here. I should have thought the more fitting idea was that
of holiness.

JI 4

You cannot give any accou n t of the phrase 'the existence of

God', nor have any unde rstanding of it, without considering the
relation of God to human life. T his does not leave out the rela-
tion of God to the world, because part of what it means is the
relation of the human being, or of his life, to the world.
You cannot compare God with the belief in God, in order to
measure the belief or see whe ther the belief is adequate to God.
It is not even externally much like a belief in a particular thing;

1 F rom a manusrripl dated 24 Novrmb1·1· I 960.

 The ontological argument and proef 21
alt.hough some people talk as though it were like a belief in the
ex1sten~e ~fa partic~lar human being. In this way it is more like
the behef rn the reality of physical objects (notice that this is the
na~ura: way o~ speaking here: not 'in the existence of physical
obJ~cts ); and 1t would not make sense to talk about testing that
bel~ef.. (The constant inclination to try to test or establish the
bel~ef l~ God, ~y the criteria which would apply to the testing of
beliefs rn certain physical obj ects.)
Ther: s~ems to_ be something m istaken about asking whether
the belief rn God is 'correct'; or even perhaps whether it is justi-
fied. ~nd t~ere_ would be something equally wrong about saying
that 1t was Justified or that it was true ...
T he ~uestion whether the value of religion would be destroyed
or left rn doubt, unless you could prove this truth in the sense of
prov~ng the_ existence of God. Here the phrases 'truth of religion'
and the existe nce of God' are the ones which need examination .
And when they are exami ned, then I think the notion of proof
appears nonsensical.
_Wit~1 regard to 'things unseen': what believers seem to have in
mmd IS the. r eality of the huma n spirit; the reality of poetry and
of art, for instance. The opposition of spirit and of culture in
general to ' the wor~d'. T hen why speak of all this as t hough it
w.ere a s~rt of replica of the world, although an invisible one?
Like th_e idea of the soul as a r eplica of the body. Or conferre
l he not10n ~hat ~he meanings of words are 'counterparts' or that
l hey are objects rn the s~me way that the material signs are, only
I hey are apprehended (perceived'?) 'by the mind' instead of by
sc nse-organs.
!~1ere may be no_ objections to im agining the things of the
spint as unseen replicas of some sort, provided that you are clear
I ha t you are e mploying some sort of symbolism here.
, But the~e are _difficulties altogether in talking about symbolism
111 conn~x1on with religion. But especially in the idea of 'con-
I Prnplat10n'_ of God. _Prima facie I should want to say that
1·ontemplat1on of God m the way in which you might contemplate
1•v1·11 a sense o~ nat ural beauty, for instance, must be spoken of
111 sc_im_(' figurat ive way. The manifestation of God in this or that
I his is th e more usual way of speaking. Hebrews and Christians
wo11 lcl in sist th at you do not have a ny 'face to face' apprehension
11f Cod .
22 Religion and reality
III 5
Aquinas' account of atheism as springing from ( 1) the fact that
'God is not evident', and (2) the presence of evil which seems
incompatible with the existence of God.
The first of these may come to the fact tha t the belief in God
is not like the belief in something which might be observed. 'We
have no direct knowledge of God': if it were this, then I suppose
Aquinas would have disagreed with those who lay e mphasis on
'religious experience' - at a ny rate if this experience is supposed
to prove or show the existence of God; rather as the experie nce
in an observation might show the existence of certain stars or
nebulae.
'Whoever lives according to my words will know tha t they are
from God.' But this does not amount to saying that we have a
direct knowledge of God.
Perhaps those who think with Aquinas would say that we know
that there must be a God. And the formal proofs which we bring
are one way of stating this. H e might have said that the exist-
ence of God can be known by proof, although it cannot be known
directly or immediately. (The distinction between mediate and
immediate knowledge .) And this might have had something in
common with wha t I have been trying to say about the connexion
between belief in God and a certain view of the world; or almost:
belief in God and belief in the world.
What is confusing in this is the a nalogy with proofs of the exist-
ence of physical obj ects, like planets and comets or mountains
be neath the arctic ice cap. For in these cases we have no doubt
about th e sort of thing which we are investigating - what sort of
thing it is that we may show to exist, or possibly not to exist.
Whereas I should not imagine that an atheist would try to prove
that God does not exist, in the way in which we might try to
prove that life does not exist on Mars . (This is one place where
the uniqueness of God brings difficulties, I suppose; and at any
rate it shows that there is something very different in the idea
of God and the idea of any other object. This may go with the
obj ection to speaking of God as an obj ect a t all. )
In the ordinary sense of 'object', it would be hard to think of
an object...as unique and ask whether it exists. It is all right to
5 From a manuscript dat ed 17 .January 196 1 (Ed.).
 The ontological argument and proef 23
as~ whe ther Lycurgus existed, but here we are asking about the
existence of a particula r man; and we know what it is like to
imagine a man with characteristics in some ways like those of
men whom we do know to exist or have existed, and with some
character s diffe rent - or rather with a differ ent combination of
characters. And we are not thinking of a particular sort of exist-
ence: We are thinking of that man, H eracles or who it may be, as
havm~ be.en born at such and such a time, lived in such places,
and died m such a place. And none of this is som ething we could
say a bout God .
If we speak of the peculia rity of God, this is something which
cannot be separa ted from the peculiarity of his exist ence. This is
part of the point of saying that his na ture involves existence I
s ~ppose . And it seems to .be insepara ble from the conception 'of
~,od as creato ~: and ~specially as the creator of 'all things'. This
is where the difficulties of that conception and the difficulties in
speaking about God coalesce.
With regard to Anselm: proving God's existence is the sam e
.ls proving that God is conceivable. Proving that divine existence
i.~ conceivable.
. Different forms of discourse always seem to ge t mixed up here.
l•ormal proofs, as in mathematics, and material proofs. Proofs
that such and such a proposition has sense.
Compare perhaps also existence proofs in mathe ma tics.
What is meant by the remark that when the believer has knowl-
1•clgc of God, he does not have knowledge of God's essence? What
111 wrong with the objection tha t in this case he does no t know
what he believes; and that his 'belier is confused or even not a
IH' licf a t all. 'I beli eve something, but I do not k~ow what'?
 ESSAY FO U R

Remarks on reality and religion

I I

I want to show how the question of what it means to ta~k of ~he

reality of anything is relative to the kind of language m wh~ch
that 'anything' ente rs. The question about the nature of reality,
and the question of what things are: in many contexts these w~uld
be identical. How does one answer the question of what thmgs
are? That turns out to be a grammatical question, in s~n:e way
or other. Plato in the Sophist found reality in the cond1 tions of
the possibility of discourse. And that seemed to be also the sense
of the enquiries of the earlier philosophers wh? had ask~d about
the nature of things, or who seemed to be askmg what it m~~ns
to be a thing - or rather what all things are. What th~ enqum~s
of the Eleatics and of Plato seem to have brought out is that this
was a question regarding language. It is a question r egarding how
it is possible to speak of things; how it is possible to say some-
thing. . . . h'
That form of the question - how is It possible to say somet m g
_ is important, especially when we come to recogni~e .th~ different
ways that there are of saying something. And It is Import~nt
because we want to emphasize also th at you say som~thmg
only in the game you play with othe r people. Th~ question of
what it m eans to talk abou t ' th e reality' of anythrng has been
related to the idea of this world as what makes it possible ~or
la nguage to have sense, or meaning. But what we mean by rea~1ty
is determined by the character of a language, a nd the ~otion
of a single reality would seem to be replaced by the concept10n of
ways of living.
1 From fo ur manuscripts dated 3, 4, 6 and 7 FC'br11 ary 1956. Thl' st'C\l''.' lll'<' or ~o.mr p~ra­
graphs has lwcn clrniogt'tl 10 bring rc· l:i11·d poi111s 10gc·1 hrr a11cl l o :ivood rqw1 111011 (I.,d.}.
 Remarks on reality and religion 25
In the case of the reality of physical obj ects this seems less
plain, because one is tempted to demonstrate their reality in the
way in which Dr Johnson did. If it will resist your foot when you
kick it, there is no question but that it is real. It is something
which you have to take account of, to which you will have to
adjust your actions, and so forth. That is no doubt important in
conside ring the distinction be tween reality a nd illusion. But that
of course was not what Be rkeley was concerned with, a nd the
question of the reality of physical objects would not come up in
that way. It is in some ways an unusual use of the term 'reality'.
It is a matter concerning the possibility of discourse: how it is
possible to talk about physical objects. One might want to ask
whether the reality of physical things is what de termines the cha r-
acter of our language, the way in which we talk about them - or
whe ther it is the other way about. To that one can say that if
the physical things were e ntirely different, if it were not the case
tha t so much of what we say is concerned with things like stones
and trees and houses a nd motor cars, then it might be that the
grammar of our physical object language would be quite different,
and I suppose one could say then that the reality would be
different.
How does that bear upon Dr Johnson's stone? If you can say
so mething, then it makes a difference what you say. It makes a
difference whether you say that there is a stone there, or t hat
there is not. 'There is really no stone there, although it looks as
I hough there were.' The differe nce that this makes, has to do
with what it is to understand the statement that the re is a stone
I here. You know what to do if someone tells you to remove the
~ t on e, to avoid the stone, lo place something on the stone, e tc.
Th e question is what we mea n when we say of the stone, 'It is.'
Th e reality of the stone is what we are concerned with when we
11ay tha t it r eally exists, or it is really there.
The reality of physical obj ects is their being subj ect mat ter of
cli srourse; a nd the question of whether they can be known. And
that qu estion itself is always relative to a particular form of
disrnursc or form of grammar. Certainly one se nse of the term
' 11·ali ty' is connected wit h the possibility of making mistakes, a nd
111 th a t way of having independent confirmation. But that is not
I Iii· 011(y one. The qu estion of the reality of moral problems, for
1• x : 111 1pk . So meone mig ht Lry to show you tha t a moral problem
26 Religion and reality
was illusory, but not the way that one would m connexion with
physical objects, obviously.
What I am trying to get at is the point that to talk about the
reality of God as illusory - or rather, to talk about belief in God
as illusory - is a misunderstanding; that the whole distinction
between illusion a nd reality, which belongs to the physical obj ect
la nguage, is out of place here. Although Fre ud and oth ers have
ta ken belief in God to be an illusion, that is not the m atter that
is really in question here, any more than Lalande's r ema rk about
his t elescope is in the least relevant. 'The reality of the spirit'
would be more in place. It would be exact ly in the sam e sort of
way if one said that the preoccupation with moral issues is illu-
sory. (This notion of 'preoccupation with' and 'belief in' - ther e
is a much closer parallel there than the la nguage migh t suggest.)
The question of what God is; how does one answer the question
of what things a re? That turns out to be a grammatical question.
The sense of 'reality' th at we are concerned with her e is also
what comes in when one talks about the relation of logic and
reality. Or at any rate, there is something very akin to it. And
again, we should want to say, of course, that there is some reality
corresponding to logic and mathematics, but not in the sense in
which reality corresponds to physics. The re ality corresponding to
m athematics is the way we live. T his is where the business of the
diffe rent Lebensformen in a way supplants the id ea of 'the world'
as that which gives sense to statements.
This idea of reality as a reason for doing what you are doing,
comes in connexion with the correspondence between logic and
r eality, and the correspondence between mathematics a nd reality
too. And I suppose in a somewhat stronger for m in connexion
with religion and reality. It is pa rtly the though t that unless there
is some reality corres ponding, say to logic, or unless logic tells us
something about the na ture of reality, well then it is not partic-
ula rly important. Perhaps a piece of rather idle peda n try, a nd you
can please yourse lf. O r carrying the matter still further, that
there is no difference be twee n proof and persuasion. (That by the
way is an interesting and important question.)
T he question of whether there must not be some reality corre-
sponding to mathe matics; a question of whe ther ma the matics is
merely a rather empty game. The parallel he re would be tha t
unless what is said in re ligion corresponds to some reali ty, we ll
 Remarks on reality and religion 27
then religion is not particularly importan t - it is just a way of
behaving, and you can please yourself. There does not seem to
be any r eason for behaving in that way.
Compare: 'Two really does follow on one, and three really does
follow on two.' Or perhaps even more strongly: 'Thr ee obviously
really is more than two - it is not j ust a matter of our using the
words in that way.' Certainly I do not make three more than two
by saying that it is. T he question is as to the sense of that expres-
sion - that it 'r eally is no more, etc'. We might ask, 'How did
you find that out? And how would you undertake to teach anybody?
To what sor t of evid ence would you appeal, if somebody ques-
tioned it? Or how would a nybody go wrong, exactly, if he did
ques tion it?' Well of course it is easy to im agine how he would
go wrong, in the sense that h e would not ge t along with people
who spoke the other way. Compar e the idea that logic is in some
way fundamental to reality - almost what underlies everything else.
And perhaps compare in this connexion the kind of business that
Spinoza makes out of what he takes to be theology.
All these questions are important, and all of them have a fairly
close a nalogy to the matter regarding the reality of God, or the
reality of religion. Certainly what you have her e is not the
con trast of reality and illu sion. It is the question rather of whether
there can be any such thing as a distinction be tween reality and
illusion; or whe ther there can be any such thing as making a
mistake. Partly, the question is whether you migh t not just as
well have had anything else - whethe r a nything els e would have
done just as well as t he logic or the mathematics that we follow.
If you say 'No', then that would seem to say that there is some
reality; or if you d eny that there is some reality, this would seem
to say that it is just a matter of indifference - it is arbitrary -
Lha t we do this.
Of course it is not arbi trary that we make inferences in the
way that we do, and it is not arbitrary that we do m athematics
as we do. That would be a misund erstanding of t he distinction
between what is arbitrary a nd what is not.
Simi la rl y, perhaps : it is not arbitrary that we worship God as
we do - the question, at any ra te, would be of what is meant by
'arbi I rary' here.
28 Religion and reality
II
The difference between philosophy and religious doctrine. In
philosophy you are not committed to anything except discussion.
God as that in whom we live and move and have our being.
Philosophy and the concern with ultimate reality. Say rather: with
the nature of reality. If we add: with the distinction between
appearance and reality - then I do not think it is the business of
philosophy to say what the distinction between appearance and
reality is, in the sense of saying what the reality is that is behind
the appearances. But it is part of the business of philosophy to
try to understand what sort of distinction one is making when
one does try to distinguish between appearance and reality. This
is not at all like the religious search for God, any more than it
is like the worship of God.
'Is it not important for religion to try to understand what the
world is like? And is it not the business of philosophy to study
that? To tell us that?' About the first question, I do not know. If
it be meant that philosophy should try to provide something like
a cosmology (a system of reality), or that it should try to show
what the structure of the world is - as though this might be the
fruit of philosophical researches, much as a physical theory might
be the fruit of researches in physics - then I do not think that
can be part of philosophy at all. It may be part of philosophy to
show why that cannot be so.
Philosophy should be able to show that men ought to concern
themselves with God, or with their relation to God. It may do
this by showing that man has a spiritual and immortal soul, for
instance. In this philosophy would be showing something about
human life and about what ought to be the chief concern of
human beings.
That is a rather curious idea. In the first place it is a curious
idea that philosophy could show you anything about human beings
- perhaps in some way analogous to that in which physiology can
show you something about human beings. And in the second
place, it is a curious idea that whatever it is that philosophers
show you about human beings would be something to show what
ought to be their special concern.
Thal philosophy may tell us something about human beings -
because of the id ea that man is a rational animal, perhaps. And
 R emarks on reality and religion 29
in that there is something important especially if take it in
th; ~orm of 'an animal capable of di;course'. we
Discourse. and understanding and rationality.
The relat10n between "spiritual" and "material" (Wh .
meant
. b y " man h as an immortal
. soul"? Certainly not .that heathas
is
an I~m~rtal organ, ~r anything of that kind.)
Thmkmg and th e idea of principles.
The ~ifference between a reason and a cause.'
If philosophy can make any of this clearer - then 1.t
help human beings to understand better 'wh~t sort of b ~ay
I hey are'. emgs
. But fin all t~is, philosophy is not proving or revealing the exist-
cnce o anythmg.
·rAnd I do not see what it has to do with the belief in eternal
lI C.
'It means th at a man should be concerned for the fate of his
1m ul after d eath.'
B~t t~e idea is here, that the life he lives here will have some
N
· pec1al importance for the fate of his soul aft er d eat h - more
; 11.1p~rtant than the influ_ence. of what h e does today on the fate
>I h1~s.elf n ext year. It is this conception of th e fate of his soul
I hat IS I.mp?rtant here. There is something quite other than th
i<l<·a of its mfluence on his fortunes. e
I . ~~c rtainly philo~ophy cannot show anything about the fate of
."s soul. Nor can it show anything about immortality, I think. It
~.111not. show that a man has a soul in that sense either. I do not
11ow JU.St what ~ould be meant by sh owing th at a man has a
'O lld. It is not qmte the same as showing that a man has a mind
(1 11. that supposed to ~e part of the task of philosophy too?) When
\\c lalk about a m~n s soul, we obviously understand one another
,111d mean somethmg. And philosophy may help people to recog-
1111.< ' wh a t t~ey. do me~n by it - what sort of role these statements
pl.cy. ~3u l this is n~t hke enabling you to predict what is oin to
l111pp< n. I t may raise questions as to wh at is meant by '~h!t is
H•ilt1g l o • happen to my soul after death?' • - bY ea11'mg a ttention
·
1c1 q11<·s t cons about wha t will happen to a man's I .
111 , • f I. . . . sou m conse-
' 1111· o 11s act1v1ties now - whether a man has lost his soul b
ma~
c

d\1111g' so a11d so. Compare Socrates' questions to the young

i1l 1c1 w:1111'.·d to st udy wi t h Protagoras. Discussions as to whether
t tc• Mrn rl rs a substance'.
30 Religion and reality
It may be said that one has to have recourse to philosophy in
ord er to answer doubts and objections that may be brought
against religious belief.
There may be something in this, but I imagine one would have
to make certain distinctions. T here are philosophical puzzles in
religion, in a way somewhat analogous to that in which the re are
philosophical pu zzles in science, I suppose. One gets into tangles
and wonders whether there is a ny way of making sense of the
whole thing. I suppose the philosophe r's business then would be
to try to help the believer to understand what it is that he is
doing and saying; not to interpret it, but to help him to avoid
confusions - confusions with other ways of speaking which are
foreign to religion, for instance.
On the other hand, it seems to me a confusion to think of
philosophy as trying to defend the 'validity', or as trying ~o ~how
that religion is reasonable, after all - or perhaps that 1t is no
more unreasonable than much else which the critics would
tolerate.

I do not think philosophy can be of help in religious puzzle-

ments. Not in most of them anyway; if only because these centre
round the difficulty of what it is to believe in God.
Philosophy is concerned with what it is to understand a nything.
But not with the kind of understanding that one finds in religion,
or that one seeks there. (Art and music have much more to do
with that than philosop hy does.)
Julian the Apostate. The folly of looking to philosophy for an
answer to the questions that he felt in religion.
Socrates a nd understanding. Understanding the nature of
things, or the nature of reality. That is not religion eithe r.
Und ers ta nding the nature of r eality is not understanding one's
relation to God. Nor is it understanding what God is, either.

The idea tha t philosophy and religion are really concerned with
the same thing. Perhaps that leads to the position which Brentano
reached.
'Religion satisfies a deep questioning; a d eep need for unde r-
standing.'
The view that religio n is a substitute for philosophy.
 Remarks on reality and religion 31
The parallel view that philosophy is a substitute for religion _
or perhaps that it tries to answer questions that can only be fi nally
answered in r eligion.
Ancilla theologiae. 2
'All truth comes from God.'
I suppose part of the trouble here li es in the idea that 'truth '
is something that is always and everywhere the same. That in
philosophy we seek truth. And that in science we seek truth.
'If philosophy wants to see what things are - it can do this only
by seeing them in God.'
'God is the ultimate explana tion of everything.'
There is pro bably good sense in saying that, but God is not an
explanation of the sort that is sought in philosophical puzzles
at all.
What religious people have in mind is something like an answer
to quest ion~n?s of the heart. And it might be part of the philos-
ophy of religion to try to make clearer what that is - how it is
related to other sorts of questions, for instance.

Socrates was concerned with his soul - and with the souls of
others too - but this was not religion.
I ~o no~ think I would go to Jesus for the solution of a philo-
sophical difficulty. I do not think it would have interes ted him.

A PPENDIX

Philosophy ef religion: some suggested topics

I . 'Is "God" the nam e of an individua l? or is it a general term?'
T~ink of parallel questions regarding the terms 'reality', 'the
universe' .

Consider Aristotle's remark about Parmenides, in the sense (if I

remember) tha t Parmenides confused 'conceptual unity' and
' unity' of a 'being' or a 'substance'.
l ~<><'S this q~estio~ (about the term 'God') have a ny bearing on reli-
i.11ous clcvo t10n - 1.c. on the religion there has been in the lives of
I kbrcws and C hristi ans who practised it?

i 'Tl1t· lm11 cl 111aicl or t lwo logy' (Ed.).

32 Religion and reality
If you think there is some important confusion in the question - e.g.
that it seems to have sense, because it is externally like a question
that might be asked about 'sulphur' or 'air' or (?) 'light', then how
would you sort out the confusion of trying to ask this sort of question
about the term 'God'. (Well, is there any confusion about asking this
question?)

2. 'If by "the world" we mean not only "all that there is", but also "all
that there eve r has been" (most of wh ich is no more, we may guess)
and "all that the re ever will be" - then we cannot say tha t "the
world " has ever existed.'
Is this of any consequence for those who have spoken of the 'contin-
gency of the world'?

3. (a) 'The analysis of "exists" by Russell a nd especially by Frege has

made it futile to look for some inte rpretation of th e Ontological
Argum ent which will save it.'
(b) 'That analysis does not apply to the sense of "exists" in "the
existence of God''.

4. ls there any point is speaking of 'j1rogress in religion'?

(a) in the life of an individual;
(b) in the history or a people.
Should we speak of progress in the religion of the Hebrew people
between the first writing of Deuteronomy and the writing of the
Second Isaiah? - Is it likely that devout Jews of the first century BC
would have called the re ligion of Abraham 'primi tive' and marred by
mistakes?
Study Lcssing's 'The Education of the Human Race'.

5. What is meant by 'a religious Teacher'? Consider historical examples.

How should we think of 'unde rstanding' and 'failure to unde rstand'
among those whom he tried to teach?
Consider Kicrkegaard's comparison of Socrates and J esus in
Philosophical Fragments.

6. Idolatry. (The difference between idola t ry and 'irrcligion'.)

7. 'A religion cannot live without a church.' - Wou ld this be said only
of the Christian religion?
Consider - i.e. study seriously - Kant's discussion in 'Religion Within
the Limits <!/ Mt're Reason'.
 Remarks on reality and religion 33
8. The conceptions of salvation and of eternal Life. Are they the same?
Suppose you met with the religious speech and meditations of
people who had never known the Gospels. Perhaps in certain of
the Hebrew Psalms and in certain of the writings of Hebrew
Prophets. T he need fo r God: imploring God not to turn away his
face; the need for deliverance; ' ... wash me, and I shall be whiter
than snow'.
But do these writers think of eternal life?
On the other hand: study Plato's myths. Why do you think he wrote
them? Why does he turn from the dialogue di scussion to the telli ng
of the myth?
 ESSAY FIVE

Na tural theology 1

Those who speak of 'the natural knowledge of God' may want to

emphasize that 'God' is not a term to be taken as you choose;
that it is not just a symbol for what would satisfy your deepest
longings . And here I've no quarrel.
They may say further that you cannot assume that God is a
being you would like; still less, that God likes you. On these lines
people have spoken as though the power of God were the predom-
inant at tribute. (As though everyone knows what 'power' means,
alone in its glory.) T he infinite power of God.
This is meant to express humility: the insignificance of human
ideas; the need for men to accept only such divinity as is m ade
plain to t hem by the use of natural reason, or r evealed to them
in some supernatural way. But when I hear them speak, it is the
voice of arrogance. And I am not surprised.
If you t hink that the difference of God from his creatures is
one of power, you will not nat urally speak of compassion. (No
more than Ezekiel did.) That God will destroy his enemies is
more important than any idea of God's mercy. And the concep-
tion of the mercy of God is difficult .
If the point is that I am not mast er of my destiny, and that
no human society is or ever will be - well, all right. But it does
not need theology to show the nonsense of that. (And the idea
of causa sui carries much the same absurdities.) It has no special
connexion with religion.
Consider C laudel's: 'Quoi de plus faible et de plus impuissant
que Dieu, puisqu'il ne pe ut rien sans nous?' 2

1 Taken, in the main, from a letter to Walford Gealy da ted 14 April 1963. Reprint ed
in Without Answers (Ed.).
2 'l s there a nything feeb ler a nd less powerful than God given that lie cannot do anyth ing
without us?' (Ed.).
 Natural theology 35
The whole of creation, everything in creation, is a diminution
of God's power. Those who have obj ected to the idea of God's
omnipotence on grounds of this sort, were sound enough. And
those others who see an analogy, or more than analogy, between
creation and the Passion, would not dispute them.
I grant that you have not understood much of what religion is
about unless you try to recognize the disparity between God and
man. But 'limitless power ' gives no conception of this: you would
never guess how religion could mean anything deep to anyone.
Religious people have tried to give expression to the 'nothing-
ness' of men before God; perhaps as St Paul did, when he spoke
of the impossibility of fulfilli ng the law, and the need for grace;
and if we had time, there were fuller examples. Living with a
deep-going difficulty that remains unanswered can make human
life and the world a mystery in a different sense from that in
which men speak of the mys teries of the trinity and the incar-
na tion ... But then to talk about fitst causes makes th; whole
thing shallow.
The fault is in thinking ef natural theology as the FO UND ATION
qf the rest ef religion, in some way. Here they bring in the whole
ronfusion of metaphysics; whether Aristotelian or some other.
Introducing a sense of 'fundamental' which is badly confused.

Natural theology: 'Reason shows that there mu st be a God.'

Some people cannot think of religion except in these terms; except
in connexion with these ideas. And obviously there is nothing
wrong with this. What is wrong is the attitude of: 'This is so, and
we can prove it .' The expert talking to the ignorant upstarts.
These theologians speak of 'reason' in a way that confuses me.
But suppose they mean, roughly, formal argument; criticism of
in consistencies, criticism of non-sequiturs, trying to see what
follows from statements made, and so on. T his may be important
111 trying to get clear about religious ideas. But there is nothing
i11 this sort of work which will make a man an expert, in the sense
111 which a man may speak as an expert in a particular branch
of' mathematics or of experimental physics. T he term 'religious
1•x pcrt' ought to be a j oke, but apparently it is not.

I understand the fear of idolatry. But idolatry is hard to recog-

11i1.r . J\ncl a ' rational' proof of the existence of God would be no
36 Religion and reality
help. No more than it helps us to understand what 'idolatry'
means.
Those who hold to rational theology seem to argue that a man
might be brought to a belief in God, and also to a belief in the
immortality of the soul, by formal argument alone, even though
he had never known anything like an attitude of 'trust in God'.
Here I cannot follow them, and I wonder if I understand at all
what they are saying.
I feel like repeating what I have said more than once: I do not
know a ny of the great religious t eachers who has ever awakened
men to religious belief in this way. (When the a uthor of Isaiah,
or the a uthor of the book of Job, or the authors of certain of the
Psalms were trying to keep the faith of the Jews alive during the
exile - did they do anything of the sort? Do you find anything of
the sort in the New Testament?
Suppose you had to explain to someone who had no idea at all
of religion or of what a belief in God was. Could you do it in this
way? - By proving to him that there must be a first cause - a
Something - and that this Somet hing is more powerfu l (what-
ever this means) than anything else: so that you would not have
been conceived or born at all but for the operation of Something,
and Something might wipe out the existence of everything at any
time? Would this give him a ny sense of the wonder and glory
of God? Would he not be justified if he answer ed, 'What a horrible
idea! Like a Frankenstein without limits, so that you cannot
escape it. The most ghastly nightmare!' O n the other hand if
you read to him certain of the passages in the early Isaiah
which describe the beauty of the world ... then I think you might
have given him some se nse of what religious believers are talking
about. I say some idea: I am talking of how you might make a
beginning.
If my first and chief reason for worshipping God had to be a
belief that a super-Frankenstein would blast me to hell if I did
not, then I hope I should have the decency to tell this being, who
is named Almighty God, to go ahead and blast.
Is the reason for not worshipping the devil instead of God that
God is stronger than the devi l? God will get you in the end, the
devil will not be able to save you from his fury, and the n you will
be for it. 'T hink of your future, boy, a nd don' t t hrow away yo ur
chances .' What a creeping a nd vi le sort of thing r elig ion must be.
 Natural theology 37
The difference be tween the power of God a nd the power of the
devil: it is difficult to unders ta nd at all clearly what this differ-
ence is (otherwise there might be no idolatry); and yet people
with any religion at all will have a lively idea of it , gener ally. The
power of God is a different power from the power of the d evil. But
if you said that God is more powerful t han the devil - then I should
not understand you, because I should not know what sort of
measure you used.
If you tried to explain by comparing differenl physical causes,
as you might if you said that one explosion was more powerful
than another - meaning that it had mor e far-reaching effects -
then I think you would have sidetracked things well and prop-
erly. (When Satan said that dominion over this world had been
left to him, Jesus did not con tradict hi m.)
I should think that any na tural th eology wh ich rested on a
quantitative comparison between the power of God and the power
of physical agents or operations - or: a quantitative comparison
between the physical effects of God's power and the physical
t'Ifects of a nything else - would be a pretty unholy sort of thing.
I have not tim e to a nswer or discuss ot he r quest ions which you
asked. I should have liked especially to try to correct what seems
l o be a misunderstanding of some thing I may have said. You say
I hat I 'deny that the term "God" stands for any obj ective reality
in the literal sense'. I cannot have said j ust th at, because the
phrase 'obj ective reality' is one which I can almost never under-
~ ! and, and I try lo avoid i l. I have not d enied the reality of God
(I ca n make nothing of the p hrase ' in the literal sense'). I have
o;a id that if we do speak of the reality of God, this is not like
o;pcaking of the reality of the Milky Way, any more than it is
Ii kc speaking of the rcali ty of flying saucers. I probably said some-
1Iii ng like 'God is not an object.' And this is a grammatical
proposition, of course. It is comparable to 'The world is not an
11l>jcct' - and the comparison goes quite a long way. By 'an object'
I was thinking first of all of something like a pla net or a galaxy
111' " sound. ('God was in that voice' does not mean 'That voice
1'4 what we call "God".') In saying this I was trying to emphasize
~11111 c 1hin g of the sense of 'I believe in God', which I think does
11111 incan 'I be li eve in the existence of ... ', comparable to
' I lwli cvc in th e ex iste nce or a nebula beyond any we have
11l>M1· 1v1·d ': as though th e bc li crwcrc a ki nd or conjecture. And when
38 Religion and reality
we speak of trust in God, this is not like trusting in some human
being in the sense of being convinced that he ":ill ~ot let yo~
down. Such conviction is not even a first approx1mat10n to r eli-
gious faith. I said also that 'I believe i_n God' is har_dly di_fferent
from 'Thou a rt God'. Please think of circumstances m which you
would speak of trust in God.
 ESSAY S IX

Religion and language 1

It seems to me that your chief difficulty is regarding the language

of religion and its connexion with re ligious life. You still see~ to
want to think of the language of r eligion as though it were in
some way comparable with the language in which one de scr}p~s
matters of fact; and of religious practices as though they were jn
some way comparable, perhaps, with the practices of physical
culture. And therefore , perhaps, when I say that a believer's r~F~
gion 'makes a difference to his life', you wonder whether it ':"'ere
not conceivable that the sam e character should come into a maq's
life even if he had never taken part in religious practices, jt.tst as
it were conceivable that I should acquire a body like Lioqel
Strongfort 's even if I never practised his (or any other) exerdses.
As far as anything I have said is concerned, this seems to you -
I ta ke it - quite consistent with my position.
And in the same way, you ask whether there might not be the
11ame 'difference' in a man's life, even if he never talked about Ood.
Perhaps we could put the m a t ter by asking whether ~~e
rn nnexion between religious language a nd religious life is a~
c•x ternal one or an internal one. And if it is put like that, I WQL!ld
oeay it is a n internal one. And to your question of whe ther it 'makes
Hl' nse to say that a person's life might be different in that sort ef
/ll(ly' wi thout using a ny of the la nguage of religion, I would o~ the
whole say 'No, it does not make sense.' But there would ~ave to
111· (]u ali fications if this were not to be taken wrongly.
(1n this connexion questions about the language of religion a nd
1pll'sl ions about religious practices are generally the same, a nd I
1d1: dl treat th em so. I shall probably speak mostly of the language
111' rdi gion.)
1 A 11•111· 1 t o l'1'11·r Wi nch dnc ccl 20 Orcober 1954. Reprinted in Without Answ~s (Ed.).
40 Religion and reality

I wonder if it is hard for you to see t hat the language one uses
should make a deep differe nce to one's life - so much so that that
kind of difference would not be conceivable in any other way. I
expect you will admit that certain kinds of interests could never
have d eveloped apar t from language. And this does not mean that
language has been an indispensable aid in the d evelopment of those
interests, but that you could not even ask what the interests would
be wit hout language. T h e interest in mathematics is an example.
T he same goes, I think, for the whole of what we call t hinking and
rationality - which makes a great enough difference to our lives in
all kinds of ways, but not so that you can say 'H ere is what causes or
makes the differ ence, and there is the difference that it makes. '
Consider the la nguage of re ligion and the language of love -
I mean of the love of man and woman. I would say that th ere
could not be religion without the language of religion, and that
just as little could th e re be love without the la nguage of love.
But in the first place I would emphasize that there could not be
religion and there cou ld not be love of man and woman unless there
were language anyhow; unless, I mean, people used language in
their Jives - or, to put it the other way round, unless they lived the
kind of lives that people live with language. Of course the love of
man a nd woman depends on sexual impulses loo. But what we call
being in love, in the way that Chaucer's Troilus was or in the way
Romeo and Juliet were in love, is nothing we find in animals, and I
do not think we can imagine religion in animals. And if we did, we
should certainly imagine that the ani mals could speak. I mean now
that if someone falls in love - and if he is broken up by it as Troilus
was - then this was possible because he is a hu man being a nd
beca use he lives \·vith language in the way in which human beings
we know do. Becaus e he can have ideals and plans and longings, for
instance, and because he can remember and because he can
compare, and because he can have th e idea of what life is worth to
him. This goes with other things : it goes with the fact that this life
of speech and language is a life in which lying and deception are
possible too; that is im portant - important for the whole way of
thinking of things and t he whole way of judging and longing. Well,
it is in these circumstances t hat what we call specifically the lan-
guage of love may develop. But I wanted to e mphasize first that th e
love of man and woman depends on language in a more general
sense . And I think th e same is true of reli gion.
 R eligion and language 41
There are of course differences, j ust because love does seem
lo be connected with sexual impulses or with 'glands', and
lhere does not seem to be anything comparable in connexion
with religion. But I really think this is much less important
I han it is pictured to be. And people who have tried to under-
sl and love - or explain it - by approaching it from biology
have got nowhere; and they generally end by ignoring it. lf
men come to love women, and if men come to love God, this
has to do with the life which they lead and in which they take
part.
That applies to much else too, of course - to science, for
111stance - and it docs not tell you what love is or what religion
Iii. But I wanted to emphasize that language is not external to
1•ither of them. This may help a little to make intelligible how
1111portant language is in what is peculiar to love, the language
or religion and the language of love .
Obviously a man may use the language of Jove without telling
1 ltc woman in so many words that he loves her, and without using
I IH' word 'love ' at a ll. When Cummings writes
you only will create
(who a re so perfectly alive) my shame;
lady through whose profound and fragile lips
the sweet small clumsy feet of April came
into the ragged meadow of my soul

1li.tt is the language of love. But you might ask what that means:
' t liat is the language of love'. And in answer one would have to
11 y lo say someth ing about th e role that it plays and, as I should
~. 1 y, the grammar that it has. It is this that determines the
1111•an ing or the sens e of the language.
S11ppose a man does say to a woman 'I Jove you.' And now
~ 11ppose someone asks you what that means. What is he saying?
C:<'rtainly he is not just recording a fact; it is not like 'I have
.1 hook for you', nor even 'I am thirsty' or 'I feel fine.'

I It· is not telling her how he feels, if the standard for that is
11 lling the doctor how you feel.
'W<'l l, is he not telling her anything, then?' Yes; he is telli ng her
111 lows her. But of course you cannot refer to any happening or
It I or happen ings in him and say 'that is what he was telling her'.
111 ///(// se nse he is not telli ng her anything. (This is what I call a
dlll1•r1• 11 n· in grammar.)
42 Religion and reality
If we speak of the language of love, this is not b ec~u se it has a
special vocabulary. (It is not as if we had been refe~nng to ~ tech-
nical language.) It is because the la nguage is use? in a particular
way. The sense of his 'I love you' is bound up with so m~ch else
in his life now. For I repeat , it is not saying that anything has
happe~~d, and it is not describing anything. No.r is it the expres-
sion of a sensation or feeling. It is the expr ession of love.
It is here that I fe el I wan t to move to the other point and
speak of ,how the language of love affects an? constitu.tes the
cha racter of love. For this is really the same thing. Ce rtainly the
language ~f love is not just som ething added to. the r est of it.
There would not be what we call 'being in love' without any rela-
tion to that language .
I know t hat a man may be in love and not show it, either to
her or to his fri e nds. But I do not think it would make sense to
say it of him - I do not think he could be in love. a nd ~ever
do anything that would rig htly be called an exp~essi?n of it. If
he does not show it to his frie nds, it will appear in his thoughts
when he is alone. In the way a nd in the terms in which he thinks
of her; a nd in the way a nd in the terms in which he thinks about
the worlcl now. None of this would be possible without language;
1

and the lov~r ?s thoughts ar e in the language of love.

Now we said that religion makes a difference to a man's
life, a nd obviously being in love does too. But may~e we shou~d
warn against misunde rstandings here. It may s.omet1mes be said
that religi,o~ 'does something to you', or agai~ that. love does
something to you. All righ t; but not in the way in wh1~h ~sycho­
analysis does som ething to you, for instance. The po~n t is that
the person in love is different; life is differe nt for ~1m , or the
whole world is different for him. But in this the re is not any-
thing to which you can point a nd say 'that is the be~ng in lo~e,
a nd this is the difference that it made'; the difference is the being
in love. Whereas you can consider the psychoanalytic treatment
in some di~tinction from the differ ence that it made. P erhaps
that 's why it might be sensible to ask whether th~ same result
might no.t have com e without the psychoanalytic treatment.
Whereas you cannot ask this about the lover; nor about th1·
religious believer either.
What I have been saying would suggest that you cannot haw
that 'differ ence' wi thout the language of love eith e r; though again,
 Religion and language 43
I do not mean that the language of love brings about or induces
that differ ence . A man might, in one sense, learn the language of
love and never be in love. He might recognize it in others, he might
use it in ratio obliqua or he might use it in feigning love himself.
Bu t this does no t show that the love which is not feigned is some-
th ing separate from the language of love . And it is still clear, I
think, that knowing what that la nguage means is knowing what
being in love is. T he language does not bring about t he 'difference'
of being in love, but the language is a part of that difference - I
had almost said 'is that difference', because the language is not the
word s on paper nor even th e reciting of them, the language is the
way it is used and t he role it plays, the language is all it means to
him in using it and to her in listening.
('And what does it mean to her? W ha t is he telling her? Is he
11ot proposing something definite, o r trying to?' Oh Lord.)
I have said this about love because I wan ted to show how t he re la-
1ion of language to 'the difference in one's life' may be an internal
1>ne, and I think this holds in religion too. Reverence and devotion
.111d exaltation, for instance, would not be what they are without the
language of the m. But I am not sugges ting that reli gion is like
the love of man and woman in any other way. I do not think it is.
And the difference will appear in the ir differen t uses of lan guage
too. But I do not think this affects the point I have just been making.
We may say that children acquire a so rt of primitive theology in
th e stories of the Creation and the Garden of Eden and other
'l tories about God in. the book of Gen esis, for example. They learn
to think about God in these terms and in this way. T hey ge nerally
l1•arn this in connexion with elementary notions of worship and
p1·<1ycr too; and it is important to remember that. The stories of
( :lld walking the gard en arc not taught them in th e same way that
'llorics of King Arthur or the bat tle of Hastings are. I know you may
~. 1 y that children do not draw much distinction; but there is one all
I h1· same, and this is important for the role wh ich these stories
111 111c to play in later developments or for the way in which they a re
1111111 ccted wit h later developments. T he children are not being
11,1v1·11 primi tive ideas of history. T h rough thes e stories ideas are
lwi 11 g formed, bu t they are the ideas that enter in worship.
This theology may be altered as the children grow older. It may
1111.1 · on a new form when they become famil ia r wi th the H ebrew
p111ph C' IS, for i11sl;111c<'. 111 :i ll this - rrom !he beginning and on
44 Religion and reality

through the later changes - they h ave learne d a certain way of

using the expression 'God', a way of u sing the expression
'Creator ', a way of using the expressions 'God's will', 'sin against
God', 'serving God', 'love of God' and others.
There is nothing corresponding to a theology in the lan guage
of love of m a n and woman. And this is connected with othe r
ways in which re ligion is different. Someone may say that religion
turns from the temporal towards the eternal. And although the
notion th a t 'love is eternal' is importa n t and n eed not be a n empty
phrase , still t he love of man and woman is not centred on t he
ete rnal, on this world's rela tion to it, as religion m ay b e. To think
in that religious way is to have a certain view of human life; I
do not think there is any th ought about ' the world' apart from
that. But that way of thinking belongs with a way of speaking -
not jus t with a vocabulary but to a way of using t hat vocabu lary
- a nd this was learned in what I am calling the 'theology'.
I say that without t his theology religious devotion, reverence
and religious exalta tion would h ave no se nse at a ll. And yet -
on ce more - I do not mean that this theology, th e learning of
these ways of speaking, is wh at has produced religion. If children
learn to speak of God through h aving the Bible read to them,
the Bible itself was th e outcom e of religion before it was the
source of it. In general, one might say that theology grows out
of religious devotion just as much as t he oth er way about. And
no theology is conceivable except in connexion wi th a religious
tr adition.
But I said that children lea rn a t heology whe n t h ey learn how
th e word 'God' is used - perhaps that he is the 'Lord God of
Is rael', that h e is the 'Creator of Heaven and Earth' and so on
- and this m ay see m to be making theology superficial. Jus t
learning the sorts of things it is correct to say - is that theology?
W ell, I do n ot see how theology can be anything else. If I t ried
to say in any 'material' se nse wh at God is or wh at Creation is
... t hat would suggest a kind of investigation to.find out what God
is, and that is a bsurd. All that theology can do is to try to indicate,
perhaps even with some sort of formal proof, what it is correct
to say, wh at is the corr ect way of speakin g abou t God. T h e qu es-
tion of 'wh at God is' cou ld only be answe red thro ugh 'coming to
know God ' in worship and in religious lifc. 'To know God is to
worship him .'
 R eligion and language 45
Someone might ask 'W ell why have a ll t his theology at all,
th en? Is it not just so much trellis-work or ornament ation th at
coufd as well be left out?' Well, con sider 'To know God is to
worsh ip him .' What is worshipping God, precisely? Could you speak
of worshipping God - would that mean anything - without some
sor t of theology? I su ppose that even primitive religions have a
certain lore regarding what it is correct to say in connexion with
th eir totems.
This question of th e identity of God, th e question of how you
know whether the word means the same now, or whether different
people mean the sam e by it, is important . I said just n ow that
as children grow older they may learn to speak about God in a
way that see m s very different from the things th at could be said
in the s tories of G en esis (that God walked in the garden, for
instance). And yo u might ask what it would mean to say that
l he word God had th e same mea ning now as then. This is not
the question of how we can be sure that it really means the same
now. It is the question of what we should be sur e of if we were
sur e. Wha t is 'meaning the same' by the word 'God'.
If one lays emphasis, as you do, on the fact that 'God' is a
subs tantive, a nd especially if one goes on, as I think you might,
lo say that it is a proper name, then the natural thing will be
lo ass ume that meaning the same by 'God' is something like
meaning the same by 'the sun' or meaning the same by
'Churchill'. You might even want to u se some such phrase as
'stands for' th e same. But nothing of that sor t will do here.
<,.!uestions about 'meaning the same' in connexion with the names
or physical objects ar e conn ect ed with th e kind of criteria to which
we may appeal in saying that this is the same object - 'that is
I he same pla net as I saw in t he south west last night', 'th at
is th e same car that was standing here t his morning'. Supposing
1o meone said 'The word "God" stands for a different obj ect now.'
What could that mean? I know what it means to say that 'th e
( )uccn' stands for a different person now, and I know what it
111c·ans to say th at St Mary's Church now is not the St Mary's
C:liurch that was here in So-and-So's day. I know th e sort of thing
1 lt .1t m ight be said if I were to qu estion e ither of these state-
1111•111 s. But nothing of that sort could be said in connexion with
11 1y quest ion abou t the meaning of 'God'. Now this is not a trivial
111 i1icssc: ntial rnatl('I'. It hangs togethe r in very important ways
46 Religion and reality
with w hat I call the grammar of the word 'God'. And it is one
r eason why I do not think it is helpful just to say tha t the word
is a substantive.
Someon e might obj ect that we do not learn what ' Red
Ridinghood' m eans by h aving a nyo ne point either. But the same
kind of questions do not arise h ere . Red R idinghood is a char-
acter in that s tory, and belongs n owhere else but in that s tory.
If som eone were to write quite a different story in which a char-
acte r was a lso named 'Red R idinghood', then it is conceivable
someone would ask w hether two differe nt stories are both about
the same actu al person - where we do know fairly definitely wh at
is meant by 'talking ab out the same person '. Vve h ave in mind
criteria which a re conn ected directly or indirectly with 'I was
talking a bout him' and 'of course h e's the same man, I was talking
about before'. The puzzle about meaning t he same by 'God' is
not like th e query whe th er two stories a re abo ut the same pe rson.
The Red Ridinghood example is not parallel, just becau se that is
de libe ra te fiction . And to say that it is fiction is to say that t he
la nguage is supposed to have th e same kinds of meanings as the
language about everyday t hings has. But the language abo ut God
is not fiction and is not understood as fiction.
(Which is not to say that it is 'true'. My w hole point is that it
is not language in which the ordinary alternative of ' t ruth as
opposed to fiction' has any application. If it did, then it would be
the kind of la n guage applicable to physical objects. 'Truth' h as a
meaning in connexion with religion, but it is not that.)
How do two people know that th ey are ta lking about the same
subj ect when they speak of God? I know how yo u and I could
know whe ther we meant th e same if we spoke of 'th e G uildhall'.
But we cannot decide in that way whe ther we mean the same in
speaking of God. How would the peop les of different r aces know
whether they m eant th e sam e or whether they meant something
different in speaking of God? Or the members of different sects?
I suppose it would be t h e role which th e word played in
connexion with th e different manifestations of religion and reli-
gious belief - in the on e race and in the oth er say. Within a
single trad ition like that of t h e H ebrew religion, it can be said
that the author of th e second half of Isaiah meant the same 'God'
as the author (or authors) of Genesis did, and that St Paul mean1
the same 'God' as both of th em, because of the con tinui ty or
 Religion and language 47
H ebrew worship and of the kind of worship that was, the impor-
tance of such conceptions as 'the God of o ur fathers', 'the God
of Abraham and the God of Jacob', and so on. But for Paul the
same God could be worshipped by gentiles who were not the seed
of Abra~am and J acob. And if the gen tiles worship the same God,
then th is r:i us t appear in what they say about God, in the way
th ey worship and m what it means to them to be cr eatures and
children of God. To ask 'Do th ey worship the same God or not?'
is to ask a bout that.
Obviously there is no clear line which divides those who worship
t he same God from those who do not (or even those who worship
God at all from those who do not), and we find that some sects
are tolerant of one anoth er and some are not. (I think there are
still Scottish Presbyteria ns who refer to the Roman Catholic
Church as 'the Whore of Babylon'.) But the fact that there is no
sharp lin e does not mean that there is no dis tinction. And the
question wh ~the r we ~ean the same by 'Goel' may be an impor-
ta nt one . I t is a quest10n of t he role which our statem ents about
God play in our worship and in our lives . Or, if we are outside
religion and discussing it, t he r eference is still to the use the
language has among those who practise it.
You have to consider what 'meaning th e same by "God"' is,
w l~en you ask what 'God exists' means. What is being said to
rx 1s t? If you are talking a bout an object, then if I and others
11.nderstand wh at . you .are talking about, we can ra ise the ques-
t ion whether 1t sti ll exists (whether th e palace of Minos still exists
or whether it has been destroyed now), or how long it has existed,
.i nd so on; even whether it ever has existed. This - the intelli-
~ibi li ty of s uch question s - goes togeth er with a general idea of
what we would call finding out wh et her it exists or not. Suppose
I have found out that as a matter of fact the palace of Minos
docs exis t. .But I do not think it means anything to say that
Nt>rneone might fin d out whe th er in fact God exists .
I know there ar e those who say that a belief in God may rest
tlll 't he evidence of r eligious experience'. I think I h ave some idea
111 what leads them to speak that way, but I do not wan t to enter
1 lt at now. I wi ll say only that I think they are confused in what
t !11·y ma kc of i l. It is not evidence for a belief at all. They some-
11111<·s ta lk as though they observed God on these occasions. And
l llis invi11's th e ques t ion, ' fl ow do you know it was God?' Frank
48 Religion and reality
Buchman answers, 'Well, how do you know red 's red?'; and I
suppose someone migh t also say 'Well, how do you know it was
your brother you were talking with just now?' But tha t will not
do. I have m eans of identifying a m an, and if anyone doubts my
first assumption I can check. I know it is red because I know red
when I see it; i.e. because I know what 'red ' means, i. e. because
I have learned the word by ostensive d efinition and the r es t of
the usual method. Nothing of t ha t sort can apply to a n 'experi-
ence of God'. And the question, 'H ow do you know it was God?',
would not mean anything like 'H ow do you know it was this man
as opposed to that or some other?', or 'H ow do you know it was
red and not some other colour?' If it was God, then it was the
cr eator of all there is, it was that in which all things live and
move a nd have their being. T he point of the question was to
suggest tha t you cannot have experience of tha t. I m ean t hat it
means nothing; and no extraordina ry powers will change that.
Nor would it be experie nce of God without tha t. Winston
Ch urchill may be Prime Minister and also a company director,
bu t I migh t com e to know him without knowing this. Bu t I could
not know God without knowing tha t he was the C re ator and
Father of all things. Tha t would be like saying that I migh t come
to know Churchill without knowing that he had face, ha nds, body,
voice or any of the a ttributes of a human being.
T his bears on the question I asked just now: 'What is being
said to exist?' We use 'it exists' chiefly in connexion with phys-
ical obj ects, and a nyway we use it where we can ask whether it
exists or not. T his goes with the sense of .finding out whether
it exists. Now the 'it', whatever it is, is som ething that we could
identify in such an investigation - by, for example, the m ethods
by which we commonly identify a particular physical object. We
migh t also confuse it with something else, or mistake something
else for it. But in a ny case, the q uestion whether it was the same
obj ect would involve those sorts of criteria. Bu t the q uestion
whether we mean the same by 'God', I have said, is not a ques-
tion whether we are refer ring to the same object. T he question
whe ther we a re still t alking about God now, or whe ther we arc
really worshipping God now, can not be sett led by referring to an y
object. And I do not think it would mean anything to ask 'whether
any such object exists'. Nor does it change anything if you say
'being' instead of 'object'.
 R eligion and language 49
'God exists' is not a statemen t of fact. You might say also that
it is not in the indicative mood. It is a confession - or expression
- of fai th. This is recognized in some way when people say that
God's exis tence is 'necessary existence', as opposed to the 'contin-
gency' of what exists as a matter of fact; and when they say that
to d oub t God 's existence is a sin, as opposed to a mistake about
the facts.
If you ask, 'Well, when we a re talking about God, does our
language no t refer to a nythi ng?', then I should want to begin, as
I have tried to her e, by emphasizing some thing of the special
grammar of this language. O therwise it is natural to think of the
way in which our p hysical object language may refer to some-
thing. T he physical object language may r efer to something. T he
physical obj ect language may not refe r to anything either - if
someone has made a mistake, for instance, or if the language is
confused. And you might think that this is what I meant if I said
that the lang uage a bout God does not refer to anything. Which
is obviously not the point. Or you might think that I meant that
the language a bout God was j ust a sor t of beautiful pr etence; or
pcrhap.s that it was just part of the for mality of a ceremony, like
after-dmner speeches. I do not mean anythi ng of the sort, of
course, and if I wanted to avoid that I migh t say that the language
about God certainly does refer to somet hing. But then I should
wan t to say something abou t what it is to 'talk about God', and
how differen t this is from talking abou t the moon or talking about
our new house or talking abou t t he Q ueen. How different the
' I alking about' is, I mean. Th at is a difference in grammar.
 ESSAY SEVEN

Belief in God 1

What is it that is guaranteed; that that really happened; that so

and so is going to happen? That something is to be found in such
a nd such a place?
That is not the reality which corresponds to religious beliefs .
What is guaranteeing a religious belief? A guara ntee is some-
thing you ought to be a ble to check; it s hould be borne out or
not borne out.
(In fact, this language: 'guaran tee', ' warrant', e tc., has no more
place here than in the interpretation of music.)
The question of what is being s aid. What you are talking about.
This, I suppose, is the same a s the question of the re a li ty which
corresponds to religious statements .
'The re must be some reality which corresponds' = 'R eligious
beliefs, r e ligious stat e m e nts, are not empty.' 'Th e r e is some
reality corres ponding to m y idea of life. ' 'The re is some reality
corresponding to my idea of the world.'
Mozart: God cre ating a child playing with a flowe r.
I have a feeling that one canno t give an idea of creat ion except
in music or in poetry or in painting.
Th e belie f in a C reator - like my belief in m y depe nde nce on
God, for tha t matte r - is not a judgem e nt of valu e; but it is much
ne arer to that, has more of that in it, than it is to a theo retical
belief.
The belief in a Creator - in awe and wonder. But it is a lso lov('
and praise of the Creator. (It is not that I praise him because he is
creator. To say 'Creator' is a lready pra ise.) (And already mus ic.)
Probably one is not using con cepts here as one is in ordimtr)
discourse . More like ' the musical language'.

1 From various noll'S from .Ja n11 a1y and F<'bruary 1956.
 B elief in God 51
Is this why Plato thought it a matter to be treated in myths?
'Bedeutungsblindheit. ' 2
Religion is not a feeling . B elief in God is not a feeling. Not much
sense in asking whe ther it has been going on all the while, or
when it started or wh e n it stopped .
Could one say: 'H e behaves in ever y way a s though h e believed
in God - so that no one could possi bly discover tha t he did not
believe - and ye t h e does not?'
'On ly I know whe ther I believe in God or not' - And how d o
you know?
('Only I can know what I feel.' W ell, what do you fee l?)
'Only I can know whether I m ean what I say.'
'I neve r mean what I say when I say "thank you'', and yet there
is absolutely nothing in what I do that could show this.'
Obviously a man may be hypocritical about religion - as he
111 ay sha m pain - but this d ocs not mean that you can n ever tell
whether h e is being hypocritical or not, or whether he is really
111 pain.
There is more than an external connexion betwee n his belief
.111cl what h e does. (What h e does is no t the result of his belief -
fl'Om whi ch we may infer th e be.lief as cause .)
f Iow does this bear on the sugges tion that religion is some-
1 hing p ersonal a nd private?
'Only I know what it means to me': In a sen se that is all right:
111 I he sense that there are limi ts to what another p erson would
Iw able to p r edict in yo ur religious life, for instance . J ust as
.111other person may b e unable to tell you whe re you will be
p111:zled, and where you will cease to be puzz led. Yo ur religious
lwli cf wi ll be t o you a rea son for doing and saying this and t hat,
\\lit• rcas it does not seem to be a reason to a nothe r.
'l'll c diffi culty is in the suggestion tha t if some instruction is
Hl\' t'll from a divine sour ce, then we must believe it is correct.
11111 what is ' believing it', or believing it to be correct?
I )ivi n e revelation cannot guarantee its real divinity. No thing can.
( l'lil'rc may be a negative test by established dogmas .)
'l'ht· question for us may be whether what this m an says really
'101 l>l'cn divin e ly revealed to him, or whethe r the Scriptures
1t•1illy d o con tai n the word of God. The attempt to warrant t hat

1
'l'vk :111i11..:-bli 11d111·ss' (Ed.).
52 Religion and reality
by some external sign. T his is what Brentano criticizes. Can that
be called knowing a religious truth by divine revelation?
The sign may help us to accept the worship as the right one .3
What is really the word of God? What is believing that this really
is the word of God? It is taking it as gospel, living by it, worship-
ping by it. It is following the ma n as a holy man of God.
It is not trusting his statements, as one migh t trust informa-
tion given.
'The sign that was given me shows that this is the word of God.'
(That cannot be like 'shows that this was written down by Moses'.)
'Because it shows that the voice it heard was the voice of God.'
On the face of it, Brentano's objections hold; wan t to say it
could be explained otherwise.
But could it be explained in that wise? What is it to show that
that was the voice of God? I accept it as the voice of God. And
what that means appears in my be haviour.
'Because that was the voice of God. I cannot doubt that these
Scriptures are the word of God.'
Again, with Brentano, one might want to ask, 'Why not?' What
do I know of God 's intentions? How do I know he has not seen
best to deceive me on this?
But what is it that he would be deceiving me about? Or what
is it that I cannot doubt?
No, the 'because' means something different. (Not like:
'because he is a man who knows.') The point is rather that in
knowing the voice as the voice of God, I know the Scriptures as
the word of God. 'It is from God' would mean the same in both
cases.
Misleading to say that the miracle vouches for the divinity of the
Scriptures.
The whole notion of guaranteeing the divinity of the Scriptures
is full of misunderstanding.
'If I had not had that experience, I should never have come to
recognize the divinity of the Scriptures.'
But then what I recognize is not something quite apart from
what I had in that experience.
I t is not like 'if he had neve r met him I never should haw
known who wrote the book'.

3 Rhees repeats here the concluding paragraphs of Essay I (Ed.).

 Belief in God 53
('The divinity of the Scriptures' is not an 'objective fact' like
that.) Once again, what do I recognize, and in what sense is it
recognition, when I r ecognize the divinity of the Scriptures?
It is not to find out something about them, comparable to discov-
ering the date when they were written down.
It is to live by them.
If I say 'This is the word of God' that is a confession of faith
not a statement of fact. 4 '
All this concerns the independent reality of God. One cannot
guarantee th e reality of worship, no more than one can guarantee
the reality of God.
Making a mistake about God is not the same as not believing
~n God. And you can, in a sense, talk about an obj ective reality
m the former case, as you cannot in the latter.
You might make a mistake about physical objects, as you would
if you said that there are no black swans. But you would not make
a mistake - not that kind anyway - if you said there are no
physical objects.
To be convinced that morality is real, is to be convinced of the
reality of moral issues (i.e. to take them seriously). That is the
l'Cality here.
To be convinced that God is real, is to be convinced of one's
duty to God.
If you are really 'faced by' a moral issue - so that you 'have'
l o make a decision - then there can be no scepticism or doubt
about the reality of moral distinctions.
Morality can have no other reality than that.
There is no need to look for any further reality in morals.
To believe in God is to take seriously one's duty to God.
'But may not this be a delusion?' Is it not like fe ar of the
cbtd?
If i~ be the thought of one's duty to an invisible human being,
I hrn 1t may be; or at least partly.
But one's duty to God is only partly like one's duty to a human
Iwing. And to be serious about it [does not mean] is not to suppose
1li,1 t t here really is an invisible h uman being somewhere. That is
what is expressed if we speak of it as duty to him in whom we
l1w and move and have our being.

• At t hi.~ point t h1· ovnlap wit Ii Essay I e nds (Ed.).

54 Religion and reality

But what 1s it to have an idea of God? That 'having an idea'

is different from having an idea of an icebe rg or of a quality. For
one thing, you don 't get the idea in the sa me way. I might form
my idea of an iceberg from having seen one, or having seen a
picture. Neit her does th e idea of God play the same sort of role.
It does not help me to identify or anticipate anything. I should
ha rdly say tha t my idea of God was an idea of God's properties
(or of 'the sort of being that God is'). And it would not be natural
to ask, 'Docs God really have the properties tha t I suppose he
has?' (to wonder whether God really has the properties that I
imagine he has; really is what I imagined it to be).
When I speak of God I am not speaking a bout my idea. And
if we say that God has an independent reality this means partly
th a t it is possible to be mistaken in what one says of God, and
for people to disagree . Only, then it is important to see what kind
of disagreement this is a nd what they a re disagreeing about. How
do we know that we arc talking about the same thing?
When someone d escribed an iceberg to me, it was something
people could sec, could be shown a picture of. My idea of an
iceberg is an idea of that. Nobody could tell me about God in
that way.
It seems as though I get my idea of a locomotive from the real
locomotives I have seen. It is not as simple as tha t, of course. I
must have bee n told something about locomotives as well. But
my id ea of a locomotive is a n ide a of that; and I could show you.
I did not get my idea of God from anything in this way.
Or su ppose someone said, 'There is no such thing as great
music. There is only pleasant music and unpleasant or indiffere n t
musi c.'
Would you say he was mistaken?
Aft er we have gone through this account of what we may mean
by 'the independent reality of God', it appears that the 'inde-
pendence' is somehow not such an important part of the reality
- docs not constitute so much of what one means by the reality
- as in connexion with physical objects. (Which does not mean
that God is any less real, or any nearer to a fiction.) (The reality
of God is still the reality of him in wh om we live and move a nd
have our being.)
It may no t be, so to speak, the first thing you think of in
thinking of the reality or Goel.
 Belief in God 55
Though it is equally clear that God is not my invention, nor
anyone's. That 'inventing' God would be absurd, if only because
you could not worship what you had invented.
You cannot understand the r eality of God, unless you under-
stand the worsh ip of God.
Religion can no more be an invention than language can.
What diffe rence would it make if you thought there was no
God? Where would you go wrong? Or with what would you come
in conflict?
Note th e difference between this and asking, 'What differe nce
would it make if you had a mistaken idea of God or with what
would you come in conflict?' One might more easily a nswer the
latter.
But the form er is in some ways similar to asking what differ-
cnce it would make if you said there are no physical objects. (You
would not know how to a nswer that because you wou ld not know
just what it meant. If someone denies the existence of a rock in
I he channel, tha t is straightforward. But not if one denies the
t:xistencc of physical obj ects.)
What is one denying if you d eny the existence of God? This is
rnnnected with: if the beli ever says the atheist is mistaken, what
kind of mistake does he take that to be?
Not de nying the existence of something which he may run up
i1gainst in spite of hi s d enial.
Would you say tha t someone who d e nied the existence of phys-
wal objects was mistaken? Certainly not like the mistake of one
who denies the existence of black swans.
Seems as though the only kind of mistake you can make about
C :od, is a mistake within religion.
!'Loss of faith is falling into e rror.' But then that so much more
like moral error - 'the e rror of his ways'. (And even that might
hardly be said of loss of faith - not in the religious sense, a nyway.
I .oss or faith is not like heresy.)J
Srems that belief in God is not a ma tter of judgeme nt a t all
no more than 'belief in morality', or recognizing the reality of
lll()J'a l issues would be.
' I lw li cve in God.' 'I believe there is a purpose in life.' Cf. 'We
• 11111101 be sure whe th e r there is a purpose in life or not.' Perhaps
Mr1111t·clay scie nl ists will be able to say. Whateve r they say will be
111 t•lt·v:1n1 . O r else I hey r ;in say ii now.
56 Religion and reality
To say 'The Christians worship the true God' is to believe as
Christians believe - to worship as they worship. It is an expres-
sion of religious belief, no t a stat e ment of a matt er of fact.
The reality that corr esponds to religious beliefs.
'Religion is not just a human conve n tion.'
Is science just a human convention?
Or art, for that matter.
No more is morality of course. (Not a matte r of what is 'socially
correct', the conventions of human intercourse, or the convention
of diplomacy.)
You can learn something from art, and you can learn som e-
thing from medita ting upon moral questions, as you would not
from meditating on the conventions of human intercou rse . Nor,
of course, is it a matter of becoming more familiar with folkways.
You might expr ess this by speaking of the r eality of moral prob-
le ms; and it would not be very d ifferent if you said there is a
reality which cor respond s.
Nevertheless , what you learn through the study of moral ques-
tions is not lik e what you learn in science . 'Morality' is not itself
a n investigation, as science is. Neither is art, though it is in some
ways nearer.
Taking morality seriously: that the issues are important; that
it is important to try to find the right answer. Thi s is not what
we have in conven tions.
To r ecognize the reality of moral issues is to recognize this
importance. It is much the same in religion. No one who is
concerned with trying to know God a nd to know God's will,
is concerned with human conve ntion. He is concerned with the
will of God.
Shall we say that there is some reality corresponding to that?
To recogn ize the importance of religious beliefs a nd of re li-
gious m editation.
But to recognize the reality of what is worshipped and what is
sought, is to recognize this intrinsic importance, or feel the impor-
tance, the importance of the d evotion, myself.
This sense of a duty to God and of devotion to God is one thi ng
that makes people speak of 'a belief in some reality'.
The worship of God is not regulating one's life in accordance
with a highly probable hypothesis.
'Holding to a belief which we have eve ry reason to think is
 Belief in God 57
true.' (And what is meant by 'true' would be shown by the sorts
of reasons that are given for it.)
This is the idea of a possible justification of religious beliefs, or
the suggestion that a religious belief is something that can be
borne out. Otherwise, what is it that we 'have every reason to
think'?
When the believer speaks of the reality of what he worships,
he cannot mean that. As little as faith is conjec ture .
Th~t is why people want to say that in their devotion to God,
God is as real as another person (and unlike a hypothesis). This
is probably why people speak of 'religious experience' as though
l hat were evide nce of the r eality of God.
Although in fact this relation to God is not like a relation to
a nother person. Neither does one worship another person.
But the reality of God cannot be given in any single experience.
(Religious people who want to r efut e sceptics r ather as J ohnson
l'Cfuted Berkeley.)
Plato: a reality corresponding to moral ideas and views. Because
ot herwise you could not say views on morality were true . And in
that _case questions of morals are not important. (If som ething
l' lse is equally valid, then this is not imperative. You can please
yourself.)
Similarly: unless some reality corresponds to our id ea of God,
r c·ligion is not importa nt. (But here it is not so m uch: 'then there
i.~ no imperative'. But rather: 'then you canno t say everything
rlc·pends on this'. 'You can worship if you happen to fe el like it.
But it cannot make any d ifference if you do not.'
Some idea of a 'duty to believe' seems to be present in almost
,di religions. The idea of 'fea r of the Lord', 'A God-fearing man.'
Wc-11, as far as this is so, the situa tion is similar to morali ty. It
1'1 the overwhelming importance of r eligion and of the worship of
( :ocl. 'In whom we live and move and have our being.' 'Without
whom I am nothing.' To believe that there is some reality which
1111n·sponds, or that religious beliefs are true, is just to recognize
t 11.il importa nce.
I r the r eality corresponds, and the correspondence is supposed
t11 lw like that of physics, then the importance goes out of morality
11111 ,
And, I guess, from religion.
Wh<·rc• is the impor t a ncc of wors hippin g an obj ect?
58 Religion and reality
As wit h morality, so with religion: to say 'This is the true reli-
gion' is to adopt or adh ere to that religion.
'I have been led to my knowledge of God through supernatural
revelat ion.' That need not be obj ectionable, as it would be if he
said it of his knowledge of che mistry.
Co uld object to 'supernatural r evelation ', since it suggests some-
thing 'above ' nat ural evidence - as though it could compe te with
it. And something with a pre rogative over 'natural reason'.
Whereas the comparison cannot be made if the opposition makes
no sense .
Like the way of taking the mu sic - it is a matter of apprecia-
tion or insight, r ath er than proof.
Whe n some follow the teacher and ot hers rej ect his teachings
- can you say that on e must be mistaken? (What 'this is true'
means in religion.)
The dangers of doing something that claims to be worship of
God, but is not r eally worship of God a t all. (What does this
mean? The question of identity. 'H e is not really working with
gold at all' ; 'He is not r eally growing corn at all'; 'H e is not really
doing ma the matics at all.'
What is 'really worshipping God '?
The continuity with a trad ition. 'The Goel of our fathers.'
How this question of identity enter s into the question of truth
in religion.)
Idea that supernatural revela tion can some how de cide or guar-
antee this.
All others must be wrong.
Monotheism and the pantheo n.
If reve la tion leads me to my view of Goel , then I suppose reve-
lation shows m e tha t it is right.
Wha t is wrong is the idea of something like a ground for reli-
gious belief, outside the belief itself. Some thing which perhaps
the teacher has seen but which we cannot see, although we can
under stand, or at any rate adopt a nd follow, the view of God
whi ch he brings to us.
(And yet he may be a holy man. Shamanism . And we may
accept his teaching because he is a holy m a n. Religious authority.)
What is the a nalogy with testimony by a witness of the fact:>
Or testimony by a learned man?
Cf. Brentano's id ea of th e probability of reli gio us beliefs.
 Belief in God 59
The difficulty is in the idea of a guarantee - or a confirmat ion
- of religious beliefs al together.
Whe n th ey cl aim to give that, su pernat ural authority and philo-
sophical proof seem to be on the same footing.
Guarantee of what? 'Of the truth of the belief.' But is t hat not
like 'guaran tee that this morality is the righ t one'?
The shaman is a holy man . H e had contact with Heaven.
This is alr eady religious belief.
'Ther efore what he tells me abou t H eaven and about the will
of God must be true.'
But what of the question, 'Whether he is really holy? Whether
he really has contact with H eaven?'
If you say 'His wonderful feats show that he is' - well, not in
the sense in which th ey show his great strength, or show his
sincerity. Why do they have any r eligious importance?
Difficulties or confusion in the notion of supernatural revela-
tion .
One reason why the reference t o revelation is sensible here
and not in chemist ry, is that what the prophet teaches, and what
l learn from the prophet (or saint) is a new concept, a new way
of thinking of God. (This is not a simple thing like an image. It
connects with much else that I do, with the way in which I live.)
(Perhaps the chemist's way of thinkin g a bout sugar is different
too.)
The question of 'truth' : of th e right or wrong way of thinking
of' God.
C f. the right way or wrong way of playing the piece of music.
er. more especially tru e and false reasons in matters of morals:
of' what is right, or of what is impor tant.
W hy people wish to say tha t ' there is some r eali ty corre-
' ponding' to our religious beliefs .
I can see no objection to saying tha t, provided it is not thought
l o be the sor t of 'correspondence' (and the sort of 'reality') that
wt• have in physics .
(That correspondence would bring in the question - or the
11 i1nia - of identity. ('This is what I am talking about'; 'This is
.i sam ple or sugar'; 'Bring me a sample of sugar.' The way of
Mltowing you wha t I am talking a bout.
'I'll!' rea lity of' Goel.
'1'111· irnporta ncc of rrligious la nguage in religious belief.
60 Religion and reality
It is not used 'to call forth a ttitudes' which themselves were
possible without this language. This is what will not do at all. Any
more than the idea that religious language subserves some end.
No more than the language of love subserves some end, or the
language of morality.
Not simply that the language of religion is different from phys-
ical-object language - e.g. that questions of truth and falsity do
not arise he re in the same way. The point is that the character
of religious belief - even the belief in the reality of God - depends
upon the charact er of religious language. It is because of the
la nguage that religion (belief) is what it is.
Idea that this is connected with the philosophical question
about the na ture of reality - what things are, etc. Consideration
of religious la ngu age might throw some light on what it does
mean to speak of the reality of God, or to consider the reality of
God in relation to the r eality of physical obj ects. Cf. such ques-
tions as 'What things are'; 'What God is.'
Certainly my point is not simply that religious language does
not refer to objects, or that 'it is not cognitive'.
Whethe r we should say that the reality of God is something
like an et~ av8gc.O:rcov <j>'l'.Jmv
Not in the sense tha t God's reality is 'rela tive'. Not that God
is real so long as you think he is, or anything of tha t sort.
The whole question is regarding what is meant by God's being
real at all. Or: what is meant by thinking tha t God is real.
Ju st as you cannot say a nything about reality, so it would seem
here tha t you cannot ask about the reality of God. If you do
worship, you might say the reality of God is what allows your
worship to have sense. (Should one say: 'The reality of discourse
- cf. Plato's Sophist - and the reali ty of God are the same'? 'God
is the reality that gives sense to religious discourse.') 'The reality
of God is the same as the reality of religion.'
But her e the point is the way in which religious language enters
into and det ermines what one understands by 'God', just as it
d etermines what one understands by 'worshipping God'. Tha t one
could not have worship without the language of religion - just as
Ii ttle as vice versa.
You cannot consider the reality of God apart from consider-
ing the knowledge o f God - wha t is meant by the knowledge of
God.
 Belief in God 61
It is pa rtly because of all this that I am inclined to say that it
does not make sense to ask whether God exists. Maybe this is what
the people who proposed the ontological argument had in mind:
the P?in t being tha t if you a re in a position to ask that, with any
meanmg, then you a re already giving sense, and I suppose thereby
reality, to the concep tion . In that way again it seems like asking
whether the world exists. Which, if it can be asked at all would
have to be in the form of Gorgias' question whether ou; words
refer to anything.
The way in which language enters into the formation of our
conceptions a nd ideas. The way in which language determines the
sense in which it is possible to talk about anything or to think
about anything. Cf. the point tha t mathematics determines the
sort of thing that we call 'facts'.
(It would be ridiculous to suggest that religious language was
~oncerned with. calling forth certain a ttitudes. Religious language
ts concerned with God, with thanking God, praying to God and
praising God. It will not do at all to say that it is directed towards
ftttitudes.)
Try: 'He has made a mistake: he thinks there is a God, when
I here is not.' Or even: 'when no such thing exists'.
Or: 'H e has made a mistake: although t here is a God, he thinks
I here is none.' Or: 'H e thinks there is no God, when there is.'
In either case there is some thing of a misunderstanding there.
But it does not seem to me right to suggest that the misunder-
sl anding lies in th e fact that the statements are 'emotive' or
anything of that sort. Certainly the question of thinking the/e is
.i God, is what I should call an expression of personal faith . But
I ~le mat.ter of the reality of God has to be treated differently.
1
l .mphas1ze the parallel between this and the question of the
1 rnlity of physical obj ects.

Perhaps something about the r eality of the sou l would be a

p.1rallel here too.
To treat moral judgements as 'emotive' simply, is just as a bsurd.
C )1· for that matter, aesthetic judgements. It is to overlook the dif-
l1·1·1·nce between saying 'Ah!' when you have had a good vanilla ice,
,111d saying 'Ah!' when you are looking at Notre Dame Cathedral.
Bu t in morals the business goes even further. There is the
r•xpr<" ss ion of disgust, a nd so on. But if you leave it a t tha t , the
flt l!'st ion or th e realit y of' morn I problems d isappears, practically.
62 R eligion and reality
The reality of aesthetic proble ms. ('What are the artists so
worried about? Are they not simply trying to please people?')
'It cannot be simply a question of whether we know how to use
the language.' Like a schoolboy's difficulties in French and Latin.
Language belongs to a way of living.
And the difficulties are there. It is the way of living which we
do not understand. It is in !ife that we cannot find our way. 'I
don't know what I ought to do.'
What we care about belongs to our way of speaking. We have
developed moral expressions a nd moral ideas in coming to think
that certain ways of acting and living were important. But
thinking it important - that is something which a dog cannot do.
The dog may want strongly to do something. And this may go
with h abits: he always barks a t the postman.
But thinking it importa nt is not wanting to do it. And this
distinction is possibl e on ly because we have la nguage, and have
intercourse with one another; because we criticize one a nother;
discuss what we ought to do, and form sta ndards. ('It is because
I think it important that I want to do it: not vice versa.) We come
to care about standards, to care a bout what is important and what
we ought to do. And this influences the way in which we do care
about what we do. It ma kes possibl e the terrible perplexity of
wondering what I ought to do. ot simply a question of trying to
decide which I want.
What it means to think religion is important. If you think it
is simply a matter of 'do ut des'5 or of warding off the Evil One
or calamities - as if it is a m a tter of 'th er e are certain problems
which science cannot solve', therefore religion as a resource -
then obvious ly you cannot understa nd d evotion which does not
concern itself with that. If it were that, then you might say it
would be supplanted by science . I mean: if that were why it is
important: a view of external dangers, or even dangers after de a th .
Religion, we might say, is concerned not so much with ways of
living or acting, as with the fact of living itself. And once again,
it is not simply the question of wanting to live. It is the question
of how and why life is important. And this is where it leads to
the question of how the world is importan t, or what sense th ere
is in the world.

5 'l give, so t hal you may give' ( J~d .).

 Belief in God 63
What is praising God, for instance? Certainly not just thanks
for favours received (which may in fact be to your detriment).
The point here is tha t this question about the importance of
life (which goes with 'one's r elation to God') could be raised only
by people who live in society. If only because it can be r aised only
whe re there is reflexion. That is one reason wh y it were wrong
to speak of it as 'a deep need in human beings', as though it
were a need which a human being might feel or even if he had
never known society.
A dog may wonder what his master is up to - whether be is
going to go out or not. He does not t ry to discuss the will of God.
That makes no sense; but why? If you imagined him doing that,
you wou ld have to imagine him as a human being - i. e. you would
have to imagine that he could speak. That he could stop and
meditate, or stop and pray. And what is praying? The part it plays
in one's life and the lives ef people in the society . I t could not have
been something that only one man had ever done (perhaps that
only one man had ever made a special sort of noise). Praying has
a point, a significance - unlike the peculiar sort of noise . And, NB,
a significance in the life of the person praying. That is what it
cannot have for the dog. Certainty not simp!J a matter ef expressing an
1•motion .
Similarly with sacrifice. And generally with rites.
Bu t what is it to think these things are important?
Repeat: it is not a question of standards here.
They are important in th e only way in which life is important,
or existence is important.
Connected with fear of death, no doubt. But that is partly
because d eath makes one wonder wha t all this is anyway.
Death makes one wonder what life is. And in one sense what life
depends on.6
It is in this way that r eligion is con nected with procreation,
.1nd with relations of parent and offspring. Why it is natural to
~ p eak of God the Father. Tha t is not primarily a moral relation,
.i 11d the importance in religion is of a no ther kind.
Fear of death in another sense than simply be ing afraid to die.
A horse in an abattoir may fear d eath. But it does not lead to
11•ligiou s practices.

" For .i 1'1111 hc1 di.m1s.~io11 S<'<' Essay 15 (Ed.).

64 Religion and reality
Fear of death because of what death is. That is not the terror
of one in mortal danger. T he latter is instinctive, the former is
not.
Com e t o fear death because of its importance in rela tion to life.
Thinking death as something awesome, importa nt, is not the
same thing as being afraid for one's life.
The horse does not think death is awesome or import ant.
And if death is awesome and import ant, then so is a way of
life. (Camus: L 'H omme revolte)
The conception of sin, and of trying to find a way of walking
with God.
'A person in r eligious puzzle ment - what is he puzzled about?'
(Cf. Job)
Cf. 'What is the a rtist worried about?'
To be concerned a bout the importance of life - that is not
being concerned a t the fact that one is going to die.
J ob: 'It were better I had never been born.' - That is notjust
a matter of la m enting one's misfortunes.
T hat is what the Book of J ob emphasizes. That whether it were
better you had not been born, does not depe nd on whether things
go well with you or not.
It is a concern with life, not with one's lot. (Opposition to 'the
world'.)
Religious emphasis on what makes life worthwhile - som ething
'more' than the achievements of one's heart's desire. The latter
hardly see ms to have anything to do with it. What is important
is one's rela tion to God. What that is can be explained only in reli-
gious terms: only in gratitude to God, in prayer, in dev?tio~.
Misconception of Bre ntano's attempt to say what the rela t10n 1s
in other terms - especially causality.
Causality does come into it. Gra titude to my parents, and there-
fore to the world. But when I say the question of wha t is important
in life is one of my relation to God, that is not a causal relation,
nor a ny one would call moral either.
 ESSAY EIGHT

Wittgenstein on language and ritual

P ART I

A
In his first set of comments on Frazer (June 1931) Wittgenstein
wrote:
We have in the a ncient rites the use of a ve ry highly developed gesture-
language.

And when I read ~razer I keep wanting to say: all these processes, these
changes . of ~eam~g, - we have the m here still in our word-language.
If wha t 1s hidden m the last sheaf is called the Corn-wolf but also the
las t sheaf itself a nd also the man who binds it, we reeog~ize in this a
movement of la nguage with which we are perfectly familiar. 1
Then follows in the manuscript: 'Our language is a n embod iment
of ancient myths. And the ritual of the ancien t myths was a
language.' Wittgenst ein did not include this in his typescript, and
so it was not printed. He had writ ten someth ing like it a few
pages earlier: 'A whole mythology is deposi ted in our language'
(p. 35).
1. We can recognize in all these ritual 'processes' the kind of
shifts in meaning or in grammar tha t we use cons ta ntly in figures
of speech such as m etonymy or personification in our own
language. Anthropologists had noticed and written of this before
Wittgens tein wrote these comments. T his cannot have been his
point in writing them .
2. 'We have in the ancient rites the use of a ver y highly devel-
oped gesture-language.' In the next sentence Wittgenstein speaks
1
llc•marks on Frazer's Colden Bo11J!.lt, Tlte Human World 3 (May 1971), p. 36; future refer-
c•n<'('S arc· l o Ihis translaJ ion. The· original (including a few extra passages) appeared
In .~)intltm 17 ( 1967), pp. 2:1:1 .:;:1.

li!i
66 R eligion and reality
of th e parallels in the forms (figu res a nd construction s) in ou r
'word-language'. O nce o r twice it looks as though h e took gestures
in first teaching children to speak a nd we res~rt to gestures to
make ourselves understood by p eople wh en ne ith er they nor we
under sta nd a wo rd of e ach o th er 's la nguage (as, p erhaps,
Columbus did in t he W es t Indies). A year or two earlier h e had
distinguished 'pri mary signs' or gestures (especially t he gestu re
of pointing) a nd 'secondary signs' or .words as a m atter gene rally
'worth thinking over ' . About the ti me of th e_se . comn:ents _on
Fr azer he wa s fo rmulating th e criticism s of it 111 Philosophical
Grammar (pp. 88ff.). For exa mple :
It sounds like a ridiculous truism to say that a man who th inks that
gestu res are the primitive signs underlying all others would not be able
to replace an ordinary sentence by gestu res. (p. 89)

And ye t ther e is a diffe~·ence betw~en_ gest,ures ~nd word~,

a lthough it can not be put 111 te rms of. primary an? secoi:dary,
or of 'necessary' and 'arbitrar y' (which sounds like t~ymg ~o
explain lan gu age, on analogy with ele m e nta ry particl~s m
physics). If Wittge ns te in s till th~u ght of gestures as l: avm~ a
mo re gen er al role than words, t his was proba bly wh at, 1~ Philo-
sophical Investigations §206, is (called ) ' the com mo n beh av10 ur of
m ankind':
Suppose you came as an explore r into a.n unknown country with. a
language quite strange to you. In wha t circumstances wo uld you say
that the people there gave orders, understood them, obeyed them ,
rebelled against them, and so on?
The common behaviou r of mankind is t he system of reference by means
of which we inte rpret an unknown language.
The differ ence is th a t the behavio ur of m a nkind is not a system
of signs, as ges tures are . And at th e time of t h e comments on
Fr azer Wittge n stein would h ave said that h e could not h ave
under stood th e gestures of a peopl e whose l~ngu ~g~ was t otally
strange to him. 'Chinese gestures a re as u1?mt ellig1ble to us as
C hinese sentences.' The sen tence occurs m the same m anu-
script as the fi rst set of comm ents on Fr azer , m a passage that
begins:
U nderstanding negation is see ing th e defensive ges ture in it.
 Wittgenstein on language and ritual 67
Or: understand ing negation is the same as understanding a defensive
gesture .. .
We can say, I can imagine seeing this ges ture and not feeling it to be
'defensive'. For just in themselves the hand stretched out and the body
leant back a re no more defensive than a chair or a water-jug . . .
And now I want lo say this: it is not the fault of this particular move-
ment that it is not in itself a defens ive gesture. No! a movement as
such is never a gesture . . . Gesture language is a language a nd we have
not in the ord ina ry sense learnt it. Thal is to say, it has not been (inten-
tionally) deliberate ly taught us. And yet vvc have learn t it.
Chinese gest ures are as unintelligible Lo us as Chinese sentences.
(MS 110, 120- 1)

Abo ut ha lf a doze n years later ( 1937, p roba bly) he wrote :

What makes a shrug a sign? .. .
Shrugs, shakes of the head, nods, etc. are called signs principally because
they a re em bedded in the way we use our spoken language. (MS 116,
262)

3. T h e ges tures m ade in t hose r ituals had bee n learned in

th e d aily life and lan guage of those who made them - or many,
and probably most of them, were. T h e gestures used only in cere-
mony h ad th eir role as gestures - t h ey were seen as gestures -
through some affinity with the gestur es made in daily life and
pr actical a ffairs (in b uildi ng, plan ting, hun ting, figh ting, and so
on) . And the same goes fo r words and senten ces, which a r e as
impor tan t in many ri tual or magical practices as gestures are,
in incantations, spells, curses, in prayers, vows, an d so on. There
may be wo rds used only in ritual magic, bu t these are taken as
words wi th the power that words have in speech - conversation,
ins tructions, order s, quar rels, etc., ou tside ritual - a power which
th ey bring wi th them int o ri tual.
T he words and ges tures of daily speech. O therwise t hey would
110L be ges t ures or wo rds. T h e ri t ual means someth ing to those
who celebrate or take part in it. D ependi ng on which ri te it is,
I here must be just these gestures, j ust t hese words must be
111 t creel, and t hey must come in this order. W hat is done and
11pokrn in the r itual refers lo somet hi ng important in the lives
nl' l h<' people w ho prar t isc it: to s un rise a t I he sols tices or
68 Religion and reality
equinoxes, to planting a nd harvesting, to the coming of the rainy
season, to birth, to m arriage, to burial, to going into battle, etc.
It can do this, it has the significance, because 'it is the same
language' - the language in which they pl an a~d go about
their sowing and harvesting, the la n guage of their hopes and
fears r egarding it. When Wittgen stein says that all t he shifts from
one use of a symbol in a ritua l to a not h er or 'figurative ' use of
it are familiar or 'natural' in our own ways of speaking, h e would
assu m e they were natural also in the speech of those people
outside ritual.
What is it about the seque nce of words and gestures which shows
that this is a ritual? If an anthropologist described th e daily life
of one of the peoples Frazer m entions - what the men do, the
sort of things t he women do, t he games the children play, a nd gave
examples of the sor t of question s they would ask a nd the sort of
remarks they would make to one another in the course of this -
we should n ot think he was t elling u s about som e rite or cer emony.
Why is it easy to r ecognize a rit e whe n Frazer is d escribing it (even
supposing we have opened the book so that we missed Frazer's
remarks in introducing his account)? The formal ch a racter of a
ritual is one of its marks. And this is important for Wittgenstein's
discussion b ecause, we might say, the r epetition and keeping
con stantly to a strict form makes it plain tha t nobody is telling
anyone anything or asking to be informed of anyt hing in this use
of language and of figures of speech. '[Here] we have ... ~he
use of an e laborate gesture-language.' But the people are not usm g
the gestures h er e as they do in talking togeth er or in addressing a
public m eeting .
It is as thoug h they ass umed tha t the words and gestures h ad
some powers in the mselve s: with words and gestures I can tell
my n eighbour something or deceive him; words also embody
knowledge or wisdom, even in th e presen ce of someon e who
cannot s hare it, just as words may contain a cu rse or a blessing.
It is as though there might be a performance by words and gestures,
in which the people who made and utt ered them were stage h ands
or a ltar servants.
Wittgenst ein mentions (p. 237) the cer emony of adopting a
child, in which t he mother draws the child thro ugh her cl oth es
(see The Golden Bough, pp. 14, 15). This is like a fi gure of speec h;
som e thin g like a description of actua l birth, a lth oug h a symboli l'
 Wittgenstein on language and ritual 69
and abbreviated one. It is a figure which might have been used to
tell of an actual birth; but this is not how it is in the ceremon y.
She is n ot describing what h as h appened or trying to tell anyone
what it is like.
4. A common source of confusion in philosophy, Wittgenstein
thought, is to imagine the sen se of m eaning of a sentence as
something which is ' there' where t h e sentence is. 'You look at
the sentence, and not how it is used ': for example, 'The serie s of
cardinal number s is infinit e' or Cantor's rule for his diagonal
procedure.
About a year before these comments on Frazer, Wittgenstein
wrote:
It would be characteristic of a certain false conception of thi ngs if a
philosopher were to believe that he had to have a proposition printed
in red, because only so would it express the whole of what the author
wanted to say. (This would be t he magical instead of the logical concep-
tion of signs.)
(A magical sign would work like a drug and in that case the causal
theory would be quite satisfactory.) (MS 109, 89-90)
By ' the cau sal theory' h e means h ere 't he causal theory of
meaning' which we find , for instance, in The Meaning ef Meaning
by C. K. Ogden a nd I. A. Richard s (London, 1923) a nd in m a ny
writings of Bertrand Russell.
Wittgenstein writes of ' the magical ins tead of the logical
conception of signs' . The logical view sees signs as belonging to
a syste m or to a language. To see what the force or effe ctiven ess
or a sign is, look at th e way(s) it is used in a gam e or language.
1 see the sign a s m agical when I take its efficacy to lie in these
physical marks or sounds or movements.
Later , h e wrote in the manuscript with the comment on
Fl'azer:
'Th e way' I comply with the ru le (if the word is to have any sense a t
.tll) must be what is expressed by a furth er rule. If there is no such
l111·1hcr rul e, there is no wqy of applying the first rule; there is simply
ll H application. A way, here, would be as opposed to another way.
(~ I S 11 0, 125)

:>. If someon e ' treats it as magical ' in t his sen se, he shows
1h.11 lw mi sund ers ta nds wha t ' being a symbol' or ' h aving m eaning'
111 ' lwi ng lan guage' is.
70 R eligion and reality
Wittgenstein spoke, in the Tractatus and elsewhere, of 'mis-
understanding the logic of our language'. H e said in the preface
to the Tractatus tha t in its treatment of philosophical problems
the book shows 'tha t the reason why these proble ms a re posed is
that th e logic of our language is misunderstood'. H e began the
manuscript of these comments on Frazer by saying th at the right
way to begin his new book would be 'with remarks on metaph ysics
as a form of magic' (p. 29). If he still held to wha t he said in the
T ractatus preface, does this a mount lo saying that there is a kind
of magic - the magic we can see in the writi ngs and discussions
on metaphysics - which is practised from a misundersta nding
of the logic of language? Th is would not imply tha t this mis-
unde rsta nding unde rlies all magic; or that it is present in 'the
ancient rituals' .
Wittgenstein would not call an a ncient ritual practice 'meta-
physics' . But the misunderstanding of the logic of la nguage (or
of t he way language fun ctions) gives ri se to metaphysics. This
does not mean that me taphysical questions or theori es a re about
language, that metaphys ics puts forward a theory of language
which is wrong. Nor does it say tha t a misunderstanding of the
logic of la nguage could lead to nothing e lse . And he mig ht have
said tha t the hold of a ncient rituals on people also res ted on such
a misunderstanding.
It is hard to make clear the kind of 'misunderstanding' this is,
especially when we think it shows e lsewhere tha n in philosophy.
It is not li ke misunde rstanding the th eo ry of relativity or mis-
understanding the role of her edi ty in the quality of crops or
misunderstanding set theory. I t cannot be expl ained except by
illu strations and examples. In Philosophical Investigations 1, §§92,
93 , he is speaking of th e inclination in philosophy to ask, 'Whal
is language?', 'What is: saying some thing?': because the visible or
audible signs don' t see m to be tha t by which we a r e guided when
we read or listen or give a proof.

93 . One p e rson m ight say 'A proposition is t he most ordinary thing i11
the world' and another: 'A p roposit ion - tha t' s some thing very qucn'.
- And the l.atter is u nable simpl y to look a nd see hmv propositions rea l I)
work. T he forms that we use in exp ressing ourselves abou t proposi l io11s
and thought stan d in h is way.
Why do we say t h at a p ropositio n is somethin g re m arkable? On 11 11
one han d becau se or th e e n ormous im po ri ant:t' a llaching l o ii. (J\11d
 Wittgenstein on language and ritual 71
that is correct.) On the other hand t his, together with a misunder-
standing or the logic or language, seduces us in to th ink ing that
s?i:ncthing extraord in a ry, something unique, m ust be achieved by propo-
sitions .. - A misunderstanding ma kes it look to us as if a proposition did
some thing queer.

'Die For men un serer Ausdrucksweise .. .' T he English lransla-

Lion has: 'the forms that we use in expressing ourselves .. .' In a
typescript made soon after the manuscript of th e comments on
Frazer, he made a short cha pter of a few of them (and three
oLhe rs of this time) which he headed: 'The myt hology in the fo rms
of our language ((Paul Ernst)).' (The double paren theses arc a
reminder to himself, I think, to acknowledge somewhere in this
C'O ntext his inde btedness to P aul Ernst's epilogu e to an edition
of the Grimms' M archen for the phrase 'mis unders tanding the
logic of language'.)
In the manuscript (immediately afte r the pa ragraph ending
' ... "obj ect" and "complex"', T he H uman World, p. 36) he says
I ha t 'the p rimit ive forms of our language : substa ntive, adjective
.tnd ver b show the simple model, lo whose form language tends
l o bring everythi ng' (' . .. Au f desse n Form sie a ll es zu bringen
sucht' (MS 110, 206)) . This indicates some thing like a tendency
Ill language, a tende ncy th e Tractatus had followed in giving
I he place it docs lo 't he ge ne ral form of proposit ion'. Bu t here,
I ll the remar k I have q uoted, the emphasis is on 'Subject -
Pred icate'. This can lead to many confusions of different sor ts.
I >n c of the commones t comes in the way we take the phrase:
'In/king about something'. Conside r Russe ll 's notation (.3 x) fx, for
lllSlance, a nd vVittgenstein's criticisms in Philosophical Grammar,
pp . 202ff. and 265ff.
In a la te r manu script, of 1945, he is writing of the phrase
' I meant him':
I ~ay, 'P lease come here', and beckon to him . I m ean t A a nd not B. I
dul mean him, t h ere is no doubt abou t tha t. And yet it seems to be
1l1·n r th a t un less I want to fab ricate something there was no conncc-
111111 be tween me (or m y sp eaking) a nd him o ther th a n , say, my glance
o11u l the like. This 'meaning him ' cons trued as a connecti on is li ke a
ll l}"l h. A nd a very powerful myt h . Becau se whatever sort of connection
I li 11ngi Ill" none or th em docs what I want. No connection that I can
111 1.ig i111· w!I! b1· adcqu~tc, a n:I co nsequen tl y it seems tha t meaning must
111 .1 sp1"c1(1c ron tHT t1 011 qu11<· incompara ble with a ll o th e r forms of
11111111'<'1 io11 . (MS I I(i, 27.'i)
72 R eligion and reality
With this compare the passage, from the same ma nuscript, which
appears (with a slight revision) in Philosophical I nvestigations.
When you tell m e lhat you cursed and meant N . .as you .did ~o it is .all
one lo m e whether you looked at a picture of him, or 1magmed him,
utlered his na me, or what. The conclusions from this fac t lhat int erest
m e have nothing to do with these things. On the other hand, however,
someone mig ht explain to me tha t cursing was effective only when one
had a clear image of the man or spoke his n.ame o~t loud. But :ve ~h~ul~
nol say 'The point is how lhe man who 1s cursm g means his v1ct1m.
(§680)
And he adds: 'Nor, of course, does one ask: "Are you sure that
you cursed him, that the connection with him was established?"'
(§681)
In certain societies, uttering a curse on someone may be a
terrible thing. In some, this may depend upon the rank or .t he
r elationship of the person who utters it: if uttered by a pnest
or by one's father it might be terrible, bu t o.therwise less s?.
When I say it is terrible I refer to the role it would have m
that society; to a host of institutions, beliefs, and practices
which enter when I t hink of how a curse it taken up and re-
garded there; to notions of honour and of dignity among the
members; to the relations of the victim and his family, and to
what he may feel called upon to do now, etc. The 'effective-
ness' of the curse will depend on the circumstances or the
culture in which it is uttered. G enerally I suppose, there is no
doubt who is meant. And this - who is meant - is determined
by various things the person uttering it says or does, perhaps by
his relation to the victim before a nd afterwards. If he tells us
that he had a clear image of the victim as he was pro-
nouncing it, all right; but this does no mor e to establish a connec-
tion of the curse with t he victim than the relevant words and
actions do.
It may have been important to me that I had a clear image
of him in mind and spoke my curse to it (almost as if I had
been spitting at his picture). But the image did not fix who it
was or what it was I was talking about, any more clearly th a n
did the word s I was ·using. The present aut hor made a notl'
of the following remark a t a lecture d elivered in l 936: 'For tlw
CONNEXION is made in applying what we say - it is not some
thing which is given all at once.' To say 'U nl ess r have a mental
 Wittgenstein on language and ritual 73
image of him at the time, the curse will not be effective' is
like saying ' ... Otherwise the curse will not r eally be a curs e.'
!t is n.ot ' ... Otherwise it will not be a curse on him' (as though,
1f I did not have the image, I could not be cursing a nyone in
particular), nor is it 'if I am mean to him in my curse, I must
mean him in this way'. This would not be the ordinary use of
'mean'. In our everyday talking and writing a nd reading it would
make se_nse to ask, 'Did you mean him?', but not, 'How did you
mean him?'; as though you might answer, 'I mean t him in
this way - as opposed to that way or that other way.' You might
h~ve us ed that sentence if the word were ambiguous , as you
might explain, 'I was using "board" in the sense of Coal Board,
not of floor board.' But this is not what the person is trying to
say who speaks of 'how you mean him when you pronounce
the curse'.
When someone says this, he is trying to use the expression in
an invented appli~ation ('cine erfundene Anwendung'), although
he does not realize or ad mit that it is invented.
. I want tl~e ~tterance of the curse to be something like hitting
him. If I hit him, there is a 'connexion'; and that is the sort of
connexion that is important for me. But uttering the words and
having or drawing the image can be something like hitting him only
l>cc~use they arc words and symbols understood in the syntax of
ordmary language; which establishes the 'connexion' both with
hi m and wit h hitting.
. In ~u~h a case Wittgenstein says 'the invented use, or applica-
11on' is like a myth: 'This " meaning him" construed as a connexion
is like a myth.' We cannot describe it by anything it has in
1•ommon with other uses of language, and we cannot correct it
.is yo ~ might corr.ect or point out to me in the ordinary way
111 y misunderstandmg of the grammar of some expression I was
11~ing ..And i~ I. take 'meaning him ' as a connexion of my words
w1I h h1m, this illustra tes what 'misunderstanding of the logic of
l.111guage' is.
When Wittgenstein says 'a very powerful mythology' ('ein sehr
1lr11~<'r Mythos'), he means the powerful hold it has on the man's
t ld1~k i n~. Pe rhaps he also means that it is hard to keep from
l . dlt ~ ig ~nto .this way ~ f viewing 'what it .is that makes speaking
1
11 h1111 .1peak111g ef IIJM: that the tendency 111 our language towards
llr i.~ way of" thinking must be ve ry strong. Wittgenstein sometimes
74 Religion and reality
speaks of 'eine Verhexung <lurch die Sprache (<lurch die .Formen der
Sprache)' ('a bewitchment by language (by the.farms of language))',
or of 'eine Verstrickung' ('an entanglement'), from which it is aston-
ishingly difficult to free oneself. Il is an obstacle to that
understanding, to that 'Einsicht in das Arbeite n unscrer Sprache',
which is the work of philosophy. Th e passage in Philosophical
Investigations runs:
These philosophical problems a re, of course, no t empirical problems;
th ey are solved, rather, by looking into the workings of our language,
and that in such a way as to make us recognize those workings: in despite
qf an urge to misunderstand them. (§109)

(The English translation renders '<lurch eine Einsicht in clas

Arbeiten unserer Sprache' as: 'by looking into the workings of our
language'. I doubt if this can be bet te red. But it might suggest
to a new read er something like looking into the workings of the
organs of a body in physiology. 'Insight' could mislead in the other
way; but t here is something of this here. Wittgenstein commonly
drew his parallels from 'difficulties' in mathe matics and rn
aesthetics.)
In the next remark of Plzilosoplzical Investigations he gives an
example of this 'bewitchment of our understanding': 'Language
(or thought) is something uniqu e' - this proves to be a supers ti-
tion (not a mistake!), itself produced by grammatical illusions.
(§ 110) Aberglaube - supers tition - is not a mistake. But it shows
a want of understanding (it is 'produced by grammatical illu-
sions') and in this sense it is ajault (ein Tadel).
Frazer see med to think that t he people who practised the rites
he mentions were making a mistake: they were trying to follow
natural happenings or control th em, but their theories were
wrong. Wittgenstein thought this was a misunderstanding:
There is a mistake only if magic is presented as science. (p. 31) What
ma kes the character of ritual action is not a ny view or opinion, either
right or wrong ... (p. 33)

'So Wittgenstein was coming forward in defence of the ancient

rituals!' That remark could have se nse only if Wittgenstein had
r ecognized no other 'coordinates', no other standards tha n that
of knowledge, of what may be es tablished in science, a nd er ror;
(and probably it would not have se nse eve n I hrn).
 Wittgenstein on language and ritual 75
6. Some months before he began the first comments on
Frazer, Wit tgenstein wrote of the scapegoat ritual:
The scapegoat, on which sins arc laid and wh ich goes out into the wilder-
ness with them, is a false picture, like all the fa lse p ictures of philosophy.
Philosophy might be said to purify thoug ht from a m isleading mythology.
(MS l 09, 21 Of.)

'A false picture, or a misleading picture.' Sometim es we could say

'analogy' instead of 'picture'. Whe n Wittgenstein was writing the
comments on Frazer - he turned aside to writ e on other topics
fairly often - he said:
Whenever I put r ight a philosophical error, saying that things have
always been pict ured in a cer tain way but are not really so, I always
have to point out some a na logy that has gove rned thinking but has not
been recogni zed as an analogy. (MS 110, 193)

' ... I must always show an analogy in which he has thought,

although he has not seen it as analogy.'
In the rite of the scapegoat (Leviticu s 16:20-22) several analo-
gies come together. It would be na tural in a tribal society to
speak of 'bearing the sins of ot he rs': of a fam ily sharing the
si n committed by any member of it , or of children bearing
the sins of their forefa the rs. The sins of the people come be-
tween them and God. But purification was possible through
sacrifice, and then the people could Lurn Lo God again for help.
If ere there are metaphors enough, but they need not mislead
anyone. Suppose then: 'If the people assembled here do bear
I he sins of their fathers, and of their brothers now living, then
why should not the priest bring in some animal to be made
one of them in this sense only - that it bears their sins -
.111d then, after laying his hands on it, send it with their sins
.lway from them into the wilde rness?' W hen vVittgenstein calls
I his rite a misleading picture, he may mean something like
I his: conside r
1 'C hildren carry the sins of their fathers.'
2 'A goat, when consecrated, carri es the sins of the people.'
I 11 I he first sentence 'carry' is used in the sense of the whole
111· 111 c n c.:e. In the second sentence 'carry' see ms to mean what it
d t>t'H in 'Th e goal carries on his back the basket in which we put
t1111 · fil'< ·woocl '; and ye t it tr111110/ 111f a11 that.
1
76 R eligion and reality
Of course a living animal may be taken as a symbol together
with the other symbols, the symbolic performance, in the ritual.
But in this case Wittgenstein thought the symbol, in the role that
was given it, was badly misleading.
(If we called it an incongruous simile, we should be speaking in
a different tongue and a different culture; we should be saying
how the account of this strikes us now. Perhaps we should not
find it incongruous - we should not find the picture jars in symbol-
izing what is int ended for it - if you said that a man might take
on himself the sins the people have had to bear, and offer himself
in atonement for the m. But a goat? What would it mean to say
that a goat has to bear its own sins, let alone that it has to bear
the sins of people? Bunyan 's image of C hristian bearing his sins
like a heavy pack on his shoulders does not jar in this way. I a m
bewildered by th e separate roles of the two goats in the rituals
described in Levit icus. The goat that takes on itself the sins of
the people is not killed and sacrificed in an offering to God.
The people may have looked on the goat that was slaughtered as
something they offered in place of their first born - as Abraham
saw the ram that God told him to offer in place of his son.
But it is hard to see the substitution in the scapegoat that
delivers them of their sins. I do not know how they thought of
this. Nor does a nyone now. This does not affect the point
Wittgenstein is making.)
Wittgenstein says in the practice of magic - and so in much
of ritual - there is the portrayal of a wish. Just before this is the
se ntence: 'The portrayal of a wish is, eo ipso, the portrayal of
its fulfilm ent' (The Human World , p. 3 1, though there 'Darstellung'
is translated as 'description') . H ere the word 'fulfilment' ('Erfilll-
ung') gives trouble. Wittgenstein was writing on this while he
was writing these comments on Frazer. But if we leave this on
one side a mom ent, many would feel that 'the magic in a ritual
gives expression to a wish - it is a portrayal of a wish' has some-
thing in it; although we want to add that it is unlike tht'
expression of a wish in everyday life. In much tha t we call
ritual or magic, the words a nd the movements and the chants
come in a prescribed order, like steps in a liturgy. If I tell my
fri end what I wish, or if I tell a public mee ting, it is not like thi s.
A more serious trouble shows when we ask about ' portraya l'
('Darstellung'), or 'symbolizing'.
 Wittgenstein on language and ritual 77
We may think first that the picture set out in the scapegoat
ritual is a form of expression: the way in which those people
expressed their longing for release from the burden of sin. But
suppose someone asked, 'Do they get the purification for which
they have longed, when the scapegoat is se nt into the wilderness?'
Would this be all a misunderstanding? Or is there not something
that does make us want to ask it?
It would show misunderstanding if we meant tha t these people
thought that by expressing their wish in this way they could secure
the fulfilm ent (the removal of their sins) as a consequence of going
through these motions. The question is more like asking: 'Is the
performance of the ritual itse lf the experience of purification?
Is what they long for taking place in this portrayal of it?' If we
say it is, then a re we not saying that the scapegoat shows a
confusion of what belongs to the symbolism or phraseology with
what is portrayed or described in this phraseology? We might call
this confusion a more fundamental misunderstanding of this logic
of language than we find, say, in the misunderstanding of the
functioning or the grammar of 'mean' in 'When I said "Come
here" I meant A and not B.' (Although, if we do say this we
have not thought far e nough. Compare: '"That 's meant to be
him" (this picture represents him) - that contains the whole
proble m of representa tion' (own translation, Philosophical Grammar,
p. 102).
7. There is a tendency to confuse what belongs to the
symbolism with what is expressed in that symbolism - especially
in expression of a wish, or of an expectation or an intention.
Wittgenstein was writing about expectation, wish, intention, in
I he beginning of 1930 a nd he often returned to it. He some-
! imes wrote as though 'expectation' were the general term and
rnuch that he said of it would hold for wishing and for inte ntion
.1s well; but then he would speak of wishing and of inten-
t ion specially - of important points in which their grammars were
different.
In Philosophical Remarks the discussion of expectation begins on
page 57:
What docs it mean to say 'Admittedly I can't see any red, but if you
14 iw llH' a pa int-box, I can point it ou t to you'? How can you know that
~·1111 will be ab le to point it o ut if ... ; a nd so, that you will be able to
11'rnl(11izr ii when yclll S<'<' i1 ?
78 Religion and reality
This might mean two differen t kin ds of things: it might express th e
expecta tion that I shall recognize it if I am shown it, in the sam e sense
that I expect a headache if I'm hit on the head; then it is, so to speak,
an expectation that belongs to physics, with the same sort ~f grou nds
as any other expectation r elating to the occu rrence of a physical event.
- Or else it has nothing to do with ex pecting a physical event, and fo r
that reason neither wou ld my proposition be falsifi ed if such a n event
should fail to occur. Instead, it's as if t he proposition is saying that I
possess a paradigm that I could at a ny time compare the colour wi th.
(And th e 'could' he re is logical possibility.) (§ 11)
If I expect an eve nt and that which fu lfi ls my expectatio n occu rs, does
it then make se nse to ask whether that r eally is th e event I expected?
i.e. how wou ld a proposition tha t asserted this be ve rified? It is clear
that th e only source of knowledge I have he re is a compariso n of
the expression of' my expectation with the eve nt that has occurred. (p.
65, §25)
... For expecting that p will be the case must be the same as expecting
that th is expectation will be fulfill ed; ... (p. 65, §25)
The event which takes the place of an expectation, answers it: i.e.
the r eplacement constitutes the a nswer, so that no question can arise
whe ther it really is the answer. Such a q uestion would mean putting
the sense of a proposition i n ques tion. (p. 68, §29)
These r em a rks would hold (with verb al adju stments in the first
two) of 'wishing' as of 'expecting'.
While h e was wri ting t hese comme nts on Frazer - or rather,
a t intervals in h is writing them - h e wrote in the sam e manu-
script on the distinction between 'the bearer of a name' and 'the
m eaning of a name', and he wrote also those remarks on 'com-
plex' and 'fact ' ('Komplex 7:- T atsach e') which are now in
Philosophical Grammar (pp. 199-201). In the manuscript his discus-
sion of 'complex and fact' grows out of and con tinues a discussion
of: 'W e can neve r descr ib e anything except in general terms.'
Whenever I talk about the fulfilment of a proposition, I talk about it in
ge neral. My description of it falls und er some form or other: I?de~d
this generality is implicit in th e fact that I can g ive the descnpt10n 111
advance and certainly independently of the occurrence of the fact.
(The proposi tions are indicative of severe grammatical disorders.)
When I say, 'I talk about the fulfilment of a propositi~n in general,',
I mean that I ta lk in words that ar c not produced specially fo r tl11s
occasion.
 Wittgenstein on language and ritual 79
_YVh en we say. that the fac t is described in 'a gene ral way', we contrast
this mentally wit h some other way. (But of cou rse we derive this contrast
from somewhere else.) We imagine that the fulfilme nt consists in some-
~hing. new co~ing into existence which was not there before. We
imagine'. that 1s, an obj ect or complex that we can now point to or that
can. put itself .forwa~·d, whereas the description was only a picture of it.
As if I had painted m advance t he apple that was going to grow on this
b.ranch and now he re it is itse lf. It. m ight then be said tha t the descrip-
t1.o n of the apple was gene ral - 1.e. effected by means of' words and
pigmen ts etc., whic? existed. before the app le did and not specially for
its sake . ~ load of JUn k, as 1l wer e, in comparison with the real apple.
Prefigurat10ns that all have lo abd icate whe n the thing expected itself'
a rrives.
The fulfilmen t consists, though, not in the thing expected but in the
fact that it has a rrived.
This. m is t.ak~ '.s anchored deep with in our language. We say, 'I am
cxpectmg him, I am awaiting his arrival', and 'I expect that he will
come.'
Giving a general description of a fact means constructing it out of
old components.
We describe it, the fac t, exactly as if it was given to us not only by
the descriptio n but in some o th e r way also.
Here the fac t is put on the same footing as a house o r some similar
complex.
An hypo t h~si s ea? b~ construed in such a way that it does not go
bcyon? cxpe n ence, i.e. is not the ex pression of an ex pectation of future
i:xpen.ence. Thus the propositio n 'There see ms to be a lamp on the
lab!e m fro nt o_f me' c~n do ~o more than descri be my experience (or,
ilS is usually said, my 1mmed1a te expe ri ence).

. What. about .th e accura~y of such descriptions? Is it true to say, my

~1 sual p~ ct~re 1s so complicated tha t it is impossible to describe it in
111 11? This is a very fundamental question.
One .seems to be saying that somet hi ng is indescriba ble or not describ-
11bl c with the means currently available - or that one docs not know
how lo descri.be . it. .(Questions, or problems, in mat hematics.)
l low then .1s zt give n to o ne - I mean the thing one docs not know
how. to. descnb.e? - My vis ual picture is after all not a pain ted picture,
11111 is 1L the slice of na ture that J see, in which case I could investigate
It ''.wrc close ly. - Is it - this thing - already a r ticulated and the only
illlf1cul 1y th a t of' representing it in words? Or is it still in need of
11 1t irn lat io11r
80 Religion and reality
'The flower was of a reddish-yellow colour, which however I cannot
describe more accurately (or cannot describe in words more accurately)'
- what does this mean?
'I can see it before my eyes and could paint it .'
When one says one cannot accurately describe a particular colour in
words, one is thinking of the possibility of such a description (nat urally,
otherwise the expression 'accurate description ' would have no sense) :
one has in mind the case in which a measurement was not carried out
because the instruments were not accurate enough. (MS 110, 247-9,
258-9)

'I can give only a general description ' - this see ms to allude
to some description which I cannot give: to some way in which
I cannot describe it. But then I cannot compare it with what I
do say. And I could not tell you that any description whic h I do
give is inadequa te by com parison with that one . You can say
my description is inadequate and s uggest a better one. But yo u
cannot suggest a description in words whose meanings cannot be
explained in general te rms, so that they cannot be used in other
contexts, describing o ther situa tions.
T his shows 'a grave illness in the functioning of t he grammar
through which these expressions are intelligible ': how in the
normal following of this gr ammar, and.from the normal functions,
we think we are contemplating a n expression like 'fulfilment' and
we find in it questions which seem to make arry expression in
language unin telligible . 'This mistake is anchored deep within our
language.' If I wish my brother would come to see me, then it is
not my brothe r that will fulfil my wish, but that he has come.
Wittgenstein is emphas izing the superficial parallel betwee n 'the
coming of my broth er' and 'the coming of an event'. Confusions
may come from this, obviously. But Wittgenstein would not have
said there need be anything mistaken in our using the differenl
forms of expression: ' I am expecting him', 'I am expecting him
to come', and 'I expect that he will come.' He would not have
said that only the second of these expresses correctly what the
fulfilment of my expectation would be. If you asked ' What are
you waiting for?' and I answered 'I'm waiting for m y brothe r',
th ere would be nothing inaccurate or inadequate in this; and
Wittgenstein would not have said, 'what you really mean is you
are waiting for your brother to come'.
 Wittgenstein on language and ritual 81
Whoever said it would be confusing the meaning of a ·name
~nd t h e bearer of a n ame . Or at any rate, he would be unclear
m some way abou t this distinction. If we tried to think of the
bearer of a name without bringing in any of the 'content' of
the n~me by which we distinguish him (or it), we should not be
speakmg of anything . In the same passage, j ust after what I have
~uoted, there appear s in parenthesis: '"I am looking for him."_
What does h~ l?,~k like?" - "I don't know, bu t I'll recognize him
!
when see him (MS 110, 276). And there may be a similar
confusion a bout the meanings of colour words (or the word s of
sh apes ~r m?vements, such as 't urni ng', 'jumping', etc.). In a
manuscnpt six months earlier Wittgenstein wrote:
We confu.se the wo rd 'gre~n'. with the proposition 'a is green'. (Hence
too o~r difficulty to defi?e 1t m the. proposition 'a is not green'.) ... I.e.
~e thmk that the word itself contains what in fact finds expression only
m the proposition. (MS I 09, 2 I 3)

When we distinguish 'the meaning of a name' and 'the bearer of

the name' we recognize a distinction in grammar. In other words
~e explain the distinction by mentioning statements and ques~
t10ns that could be made and asked about the bearer of the name
and could not be made or asked about the meaning of the name
- wh ere t he 'could not' is a logical or grammatical one.
Ho"'. odd! I can l?ok for him when he is not there, but I cannot point
at him when he ~s not. there. That is the real problem of 'looking for'
and shows the m1sleadmgncss of the comparison.
O?e might. be tempted to say, But he must actually be there if I am
look1?g for him. - Then he must also be there if I do not find him, and
also 1f he docs not exist. (MS 110, 274)

Fifteen manuscript pages later (in the manuscript which has the
commen ts on Frazer):

'I ~an imagine how th.at w~ll ~e.' (When the chair has been painted
wh1.te.) Bu t how can I 1magme 1t, when it hasn' t been?! Is imagination
a kind of sorcery? No: the description of what one im agines is not the
same as the description of the expected occurrence. (MS 110, 289)

We might expect him then to revise his earlier remark: 'The

portrayal of a wish is eo ipso the portrayal of its fulfilment.'
' Dars tcllung' ('portrayal ' ) is not just the same as 'Besch reibung'
('clcscripl ion'); in Philo.ro/Jhiml Remarks, for example Wittgenstein
82 Religion and reality
says: 'A form cannot be d escribed: it can only be presented
(dargestellt)' (p. 208) . But after he had written ' .. . is, eo ipso, the
portrayal of its fu lfilment' he wrote the rem arks on 'complex and
fact' (see Philosophical R emarks, pp. 301 -3; Philosophical Grammar,
pp. 199-201) . And I wond er if the phrase, 'die Darstellung seiner
Erfollung', ('the portrayal of its fulfilment') , would be a ppropriate
in the light of what he says in them; for example:
Now, you can, of course, point at a constell ation a nd say: this con-
stellation is composed e ntirely of objects with which I a m already
acqua inted; but you ca n't 'point a t a fact ' and say this ...
To point out (hinweisen au}) a fact means to asser t som ething, to state
somethi ng. 'To point a t' (hinweisen auf) a flower doesn't mean this.
A chain too is com posed of its links, not of these and their spatia l
rel ations.
The fact that these links are so concate na ted isn't 'composed' of
anyth ing at a ll.
Th e root of this muddle is the confusing use of the word 'object'.
If I translate 'Darstellung' roughly in the phrases: ' portrayal of
my wish ... portrayal of that which would satisfy my wish ', then
this second phrase is not the sam e as, 'portraying the satisfaction
of my wish' or ' portraying the arrival of what I wish for'.
In Philosophical R emarks Wittgenstein had said:
. .. you cannot describe an expectation unless you can give a descrip-
tion comparing the expectation with the present, of the form: Now I sec
a red circle here, a nd expect a blue square there later on .
T hat is to say the yardstick of la ng uage must be applied at the poi nt
which is present a nd then points o ut beyond it - rough ly spea ki ng, in
the direction of the expecta tio n. (p. 72)
Abou t two years later he wrote in a pencill ed a mendme nt to his
typescript:
I wa nt to say tha t in order to determine the place of the thing wished
for my proposition must be placed upon the present s!tu~t i~ n li ke a
ru ler pointing in a certain directi on. How e lse would 1t indicate the
point in space where the thing wished fo r is meant to be? But cvc11
when the ruler is so positioned against reality, why must I then inter-
pret it as just th is wish? T he difficu lty we a rc he re trying to resolve is
once again this: H ow does the wis h determin e t he thing wished for~
And we a re once aga in vainl y trying to an ticipa t(' the fu lfilm e nt of l h <'
wis h in the wis h itself. (MS 213, 389)
 Wittgenstein on language and ritual 83
(Compare: 'How does a proposition determine the fact that vali-
dates it ?')

When he goes on from 'The de scription (Darstellung) of a wish

... ' to 'And magic does give representation (Darstellung) to a
wish .. .' (The Human World, p. 3 1) h e wou ld have to say that
the interpretation of this 'portrayal' (Darstellung) is still open. If the
ritual of the scapegoat is the portrayal of a wish, what do
we mean when we say that the symbolism is inappropr iate or
misleading? Among different peoples, substituting animals for
men as vict ims for sacrifice seems to have taken differ ent forms
- differe nt animals we re used, and perhaps the significance the
offer ed animal had for them, the way they read the substitu tion,
differed from on e people to another. Granted that there is some-
thing like a move in our verbal lang uage - a shift in the way a
symbol is used, and so in what is symbolized - we cannot say
what t hi s is in a particula r case (say the symbol of the scape-
goat) u nless we know the people who celebrate this ritual: unless
we know how their language and their use of images is inter-
woven wit h the other activities in their lives . W e do not know in
what sense it should be seen as acting ou t the fulfilment of
a wish.
Wittgenstein also said: 'The ritual of the a ncient myths was a
la nguage.' I find this wonderfully illuminating; yet I do not grasp
it distinctly enough to give examples that would illustrate it. The
ritual b rings or gives expression to th e myths which there are in
the lives of those people. I am reminded of the suggestion that
a church (a small Norman church or a Gothic cathedral) may
'give visible forms to' religious ideas. And the sense in which we
migh t say of the ar chitecture or of the ritual that it is 'a language'
this analogy might be developed . Differences are plain enough .
But it hints at the direction in which we might think of ritual
('de r Ritus d er alten Mythen') as 'a la nguage'. - Repe tition and
performance is not in the architecture, but it is at the hear t of
ri tu al. Repe tition and performance of music is not the same,
c·xcept whe re the music is part of a ritual. If we said 'the ritual
1-1 iws expression to a myth' we should have come closer than we
clo in ' th e ritual g ives expression to a wish'.
When Wittgenstein speaks of 'myth' in discussi ng philosophy,
ll 1t·1T is a ~w ggcs l ion of' sonH· l hing a kin to a wish . He speaks here
84 Religion and reality
of a tendency in our language and our thinking; of the strong attrac-
tion like a myth, which holds us to some misconception of the
gra~mar of expression; of the impulse which resists the investi-
gations which would remove it. But we do not think of the
fulfilment of a myth, as we do of a wish.
Would he have said the ritual of the ancient myth was a prac-
tice which resists or stands in the way of clarification? Not always.
But it might be. And perhaps at this time ( 1930) he would have
thought it most likely.

B
In the 1930 draft of his preface (his final version is printed as
the foreword to Philosophical Remarks) Wittgenstein wrote:
The danger of a long preface is that it ought to make manifest the
spirit of the book and this cannot be described ...
But it is true to say that, in my opinion, this book ha~ nothing to d_o
with the progressive civilization of Europe an_d Amenca -. ~hat this
civilization is perhaps the environment essential to the spmt of the
book, but that the two have different goals.
Everything ritual (everything high-priestly, as ~t were) must b: strictly
avoided because it immediately turns bad. A _kiss, to be sure, is also a
ritual, ~nd does not go bad - but the only allowable ritual is what is as
genuine as a kiss.
It is a great temptation, to try to make the spirit of something explicit.
(MS I 09, 208-9)
Most ritual acts and utterances corrupt or contaminate whal
they present. If Wittgenstein's book were offered to the public in
an introduction that degraded the spirit in which it had bee11
written, this would obstruct the sort of clarification that his discus-
sions might have brought - even though the reader understood
those discussions in the sense of being able to follow what wa:-1
said in them, to see that one remark bears on what is said i11
another, and so on. In the same set of drafts for his preface ht·
says: 'Whether the typical western scientist will understand_0 1
appreciate me is a matter of indifference to me, because, altt·1
all, he does not understand the spirit in which I write' (MS I ()<),
206). We may say, perhaps, that then the reader misunderstandri
what is written. This is not the same as 'jailing to understand'
 Wittgenstein on language and ritual 85
when someone cannot follow the par agraphs or finds them utterly
ob~cure. I~ the_ second set of comments on the Golden Bough,
W1ttgenstem might have said that Frazer does not understand
the spirit, the Geist, of the fire-festivals and of human sacrifice·
in this sense he does not understand what they are, although h~
can give detailed accounts of them, knows when and where they
':ere practised, and can say with high probability what the prac-
tices were from which these now on record were descended.
_About the time of the earlier comments on Frazer Wittgenstein
tned to show and perhaps to formulate the difference between
'misunderstanding' and 'not understanding'. ('Missverstandnis'. -
'Unverstand~is'). On one page he wrote : 'Here (on this page) I
wanted to display the essence of misunderstanding language, as
opposed to not understanding it' (MS 213, 35) . Where he spoke
of a 'misunders tanding of the logic of language', obviously he did
not mean that when I fall into this misunderstanding I show that
I do not know the language. It is only because I understand the
gran:mar of_ words lik_e 'cause' and 'thinking' - only then is it
possible (logically possible) to misunderstand them when I refl ect
on what a cause must be or what thinking must be. When you
correct my grammar you show that I am ignorant of it at some
point; this is not like showing that I have misunderstood the
grammar I know. It would be more natural to say I had not under-
st~od the spirit i~ "'.hich the book is written. And he says I have
misunderstood, this is not like misunderstanding the logic or the
functioning of language.
'Everything ritual (everything high-priestly, as it were) ... ' The
sense of this may be clearer from what he says in the printed
preface: 'I should like to say, "This book is written to the glory
of God", but nowadays that would be chicanery, that is, it would
not ~e rightly u_nderstood' (Philosophical Remarks, foreword). The
English translation has 'chicanery ... ', but 'eine Schurkerei' is
~uch str~n~er tha1:1 that. Mr John St?nborough called my atten-
l 1on to this. The tnck of a blackguard would come nearer, except
I h~t 'black~uard' is not just common-or-garden English any more.
W1ttgenstem does not suggest that the expression 'written to the
~lory o~ God' :vould at all times have had something 'high-priestly'
:Lhout it._ It did not when Bach wrote it on the title-page of his
111 anuscnpt, a nd Bach had no reason to think it would not be
1111clcrstood as it was meant.
86 Religion and reality
But the expression would not have bee n so understood if
Wittgenstein had written it on his titl e-page in 1930. This would
have been one form of misundersta nding (Missverstiindnis). It
would not in itself be a misunderstanding of the spirit of the
book. But it would make that understanding difficult and unlikely.
The 'Schurkerei' it showed would be incompatible with the spirit
in which Wittgenstein's book was written. Which does not mean
tha t it would be incompatible with anything said or written in
the book. T he incompa tibility with the Geist or spirit of the book
would show in other ways. Two d ays before he wrot e this draft
of the preface, he wrote in the manuscript book a comm ent on
a passage from Re nan's Peuple d'Israel, and in the course of it:
... it is wrong to say, Of course, all ph enomena were b~und .to lca~e
primitive peoples open-mouth ed. But perhaps cveryt hm g m their
environme nt did leave these people open-mouth ed. - That they were
bound to be open-mouthed is a primitive superstition. (Like the belief
that th ey were bound to be afraid of all th e fo rces of natu re.) But ex-
pe ri ence may per haps show that certain pri mitive tribes a re very liable
to be afraid of natural phenomena. - It is not excl uded, however, that
hig hly civilized races may once again be liable to this same fear; a~d
their civilization a nd scientific knowledge will not protect th em from i t.
To be sure, it is true that the spirit in which scie nce is conducted nowa-
days could not be combined with such a fear. (MS 109, 101-2)

I have quoted this solely for the phrase: 'that the spirit in which
scie nce is conducted nowad ays could not be conducted with such
a fear'.
Anything in t he preface to his book that smelt of a ritual or
the u tterances of a high priest 'could not be combined with the
spirit of the book', would be incompatible with its having be en
writ te n in good will (and not out of vanity or self-assertiveness).
T he same words and sen tences might have been written in
a differ en t spirit - just as the book might be read aloud in a
different spirit (so as to make a kind of parody of it) - a nd then
the talent in the book might come through as more scornful and
envious and perhaps hypocritical th a n a work of mediocre talenl
could be. 'A kiss, to be sure, is also a ritual, and does not go bad
- but the only allowable ritual is what is as ge nuine as a kiss.'
T he Fiiulnis, the corruption, that ritual generally shows, is th:11
it is not echt. It is like trying to be something th at o ne is not .
When h e was writing about ' taste' in connex ion with aes th cli<' ~,
 Wittgenstein on language and ritual 87
Wittgenstein said, 'T aste makes things acceptable.' He might have
said this of a kiss, and also of a preface that was as straightfor-
ward and genuine as a kiss. 'This preface makes the book
acceptable.' A kiss may be false. In his comments on the fire-
f~st ivals (to which I shall refer) he says that the practice of using
bits of cake to caste lots to d etermine who is to be the sacrificial
victim strikes us as particularly terrible, 'almost like betrayal
by a kiss' . T he form of that betrayal was terrible because a kiss
is unambiguous.
I have said that the expression 'incompatible with the spirit of
the book' is not the same as 'incompatible with some statement
or some paragraphs or some conclusions drawn in the book', and
I suggested that what is said or printed in the book, in this sense,
might have been written there in a different spirit from that in
which Wittgenstein wrote it. At a ny rate, we can imagine different
ways in which the book might be read aloud . Wittgenstein also
spoke of the spirit of the mainstream of European and American
civilization in which we all ar e. He might have spoken of the
spirit of a particular tribe or people d uring a particular period
in its history; I am not sure.
The senses of the exp ressions 'spirit' and 'myth' may partly
coalesce in special contexts. Obviously they are not the same
throughout. If som eone should speak of the myt hs that belong to
the life of this t ribe or peopl e, we should think, perhaps, of tradi-
tional stories of the origin of their race, of the origin of their
form of worship, the origin of their laws, a nd so on. The myths
may express a way of looking on their existence as a people. But
the telling of the myths and the spirit in which the people e nter
into them or hold to them may change with time. I say 'hold to
Lhem', and I might have said ' believe them'. If we tried to explain
what 'believe them' would mean here, we should see what it might
mean to say that the belief h·as not the same form, or that the
way it shows in their living is different now from what it was
1•arlier. In a later man uscript (of 1945) Wittgenstein wrote:
We a rc told that primitive t ribes be lieve they a re descended from an
.111imal - e.g. from a snake. We wonder, H ow can they believe that? We
IHl!{ht to ask, How do they believe it? They perhaps ut ter words wh ich
Wt' tra nslate into th e Englis h sentence 'We are descended from ... 'But,
1111 1· immediat e ly says, that is not all, they have th e mos t manifold prac-
1 i1·1·s and laws, a lI base cl Oil 1Ii is be I ic r (which th e rcfo re show that we
88 Religion and reality
h ave made a correct translation of their words into English! But why
should we not say, These customs and laws are not based on the belief:
they show to what extent (in what sense) such a.belief e:-ists. .
One might ask, for example, Do the people m quest1?n ever believe,
in everyday life, that a snake gives birth to a human ~emg rather th~n
to a snake? 'According as this question is answered m one way or m
another, their belief has from its origin a different field.'
Suppose a race calls itself 'the children of Israel'. Originally, I s,uppose,
that did not mean the descendants of a man call ed Israel. No, descen-
dants' or 'children' meant the same as the 'tribe', viewed as atemporal
phenomenon. As if the devel~pmenl of TI '."'as, called 'the c~ildren ~f TI'.
Now suppose that 'by a m1sunderstandmg the express10n was mter-
preted as the children or descendants of one Israel, so .that. there was
talk of a man Israel who was their ancestor: the question 1s, In what
sort of cases is it right to talk of a misunderstanding, and in what cases
just of a figure of speech? Prima facie, we should e~p.ect all sorts and
degrees. And that, in certain religi~ns, what wa~ ongmally a fi~ure of
speech would exuberate into full m1sunderstandmg. (Perhaps with the
help of philosophers.) (MS 116, 283-5)

PART II

1. The longest and most interesting of Wittgenstein's later .set

of comments are on the descriptions of the Beltane fire-festival
(May fire) as it was performed by children in eighteenth-cen.tury
Scotland. Frazer quotes fairly full descriptions from three wnters
who lived or travelled in Scotland in the latter half of the eigh-
teenth century. This comes in his chapter on 'The Fire-Festiv~ls
in Europe', which tells of festivals in France, Germany, ~ustna,
Switzerland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Russia, Lithuania, Estoma, e tc.
These are all fire-festivals - in this they are a ll a like. But granting
this, Wittgenstein says that the most remarkable thing is the
extent of the difference one from another.
It is a wide variety of faces with common features ... And one would
like to draw lines joining the parts that various faces hav~ in comn:o~ .
But then a part of our contemplation would still be lackmg, and ll ~s
what connects this picture wi th our own feelings and thoughts. T his
part gives the contemplation its depth.
He adds:
In all these practices we see something that is similar at any ra te, to
the association of ideas and related to it. We could speak of :i1 1
association of practices. (The H uman World , p. 37)
 Wittgenstein on language and ritual 89
'In all these practices we see something ... ' Wittgenstein's
comments are centred on t his 'something', on bringing out what
this is, or perhaps better, on clarifying 'seeing something in all these
practices'.
For it is not something we can see, in th e sense in which we
can see the features in the faces of different portrait-photographs
and draw lines connecting t hem when the photographs are placed
together in an album. Whatever it is, Wittgenstein says he re
clearly that it is not that.
2. Frazer and others offer theories of the origins of the se prac-
tices; and explain their origin by con sidering what 'advanta ges'
the ancient people expected to gain from them (cf. The Golden
Bough, p. 652, §2). For Wittgenstein, this does not explain what
we express in calling any of them a ritual sacrifice. Nor doe s it
explain the disquieting impression which they leave when we read
of them. We feel in some way involved, in this impression, a s we
should not feel in reading the history of some piece of technology
- say the development of the rudder in sailing ships. There is
an impression of something deep and sinister, in the celebration
of the Beltane festival by Scottish children 150 years ago, an
impression that is the more disquieting when we are not clear
why it strikes us, what it is about their celebrations of May Day
that strikes us so differently from anything we should find in an
account of children's games of highwaymen in which they pr eten d
to shoot or hang one another. It is queer that children should
make a festivity out of going through the motions of burning a
living man.
If we say with Frazer that in all probability this Beltane fe stival
was a survival from an ancient ritual of human sacrifice, then in
one sense we have explained it; explained, perhaps, the perform-
ance of it in this place and at this time of year, ~nd als9 the
burning of the straw figure. But in a sense that is more impor-
tant for Wittgenstein, it does not explain. This shows in the
disquieting impression we get from this festival as s trongly a fter
we have accepted the theory of its origin as before.
It would make no difference if the hypothesis that human
sacrifice was actually practised here at one time, turned out to
be wrong. What is important is the multitude of considerations
or the sort of 'game' it is (making a festival out of playing at
burning a hum a n be ing a live) and of the 'eviden ce' which m a kes
90 Religion and reality
its connexion with an act ual practice of human sacrifice over-
whelmingly probable prior to any historical research and in-
dependently of anything the research may bring to light. T he
'evidence' that is most important h er e is also what makes deep
and sinister the thought of the actual human sacrifice in earlier
times. It is evidence, we may say, part of which is not directly
connected with the accounts of the Beltane festival nor with the
actual human sacrifice as we may imagine it.
The disquieting impression when we think of the ritual sacri-
fice of a human being, as it was practised at one time, is hardly
different from, nor more disquieting than, the impression we have
from those descriptions of the children's celebrations of the
Beltane fire-festival. And if the problem was to understand the
source of this impression, then we have simply pushed the
problem further back. We ask now why we feel something deep
and sinister in the ritual sacrifice of a human being.
What makes human sacrifice something deep and sinister anyway? Is it
only the suffering of the victim that impresses us in this way? All manner
of diseases bring just as much suffering and do not make this impres-
sion . No, this deep and sinister aspect is not obvious just from learning
the history of the external action, but we impute it from an experience
in ourselves. (The Human World, p. 40)
But the meaning of this is not quite clear until we have looked
at more of what Wittgenstein says about what we 'see' in those
descriptions of the Beltane fes tivals. In particular:
Can I not feel horror from the thought that the cake with the knobs
once served to select by lot the victims to be sacrificed? Hasn't the
thought something terrible? - Yes, but that which I see in those stories
is something they acquire, after all, from the evidence, including such
evidence as does not seem directly connected with them - from the
thought of man and his past, from the strangeness of what I see in
myself and in others, what I have seen and have heard.
Notice here: 'that which I see in those stories', 'from the strange-
ness of what I see in myself and in others ... ', and also 'is nol
obvious just from learning the history of the external action'.
3. Wittgenstein had spoken of what it is that brings us to look
on the variety of fire-fe stivals in a way that connects th em wi t Ii
our own feelings and thoughts. And h e said it is this that g iws
depth to what we say a nd think about lhC'm.
 Wittgenstein on language and ritual 91
In almost the next com ment, speaking of the Scottish ministe r 's
a ccount of drawing the bits of cake from a bonnet as lots to choose
'the devoted person' and his remark, 'There is little doubt of t hese
inhuman sacrifices having once been offered in this country ... '
(The Golden B ough, p. 619), Wittgenstein says :
H ere it seems as though it were the hypothesis that gave the matte r
depth ... What gives this practice depth is its connection with the burning
of a man.
The way we loo k on t hese practices gives the ir connexion with
our though ts . When the hypothesis strikes us as plausible or very
probable, we think of t he Beltane fe stival in its connexion with
the sacrifice of a human being by burning him. This is the setting
or context in which we see or think of it. (This is part of what
we m ean by 'the impr ession ' we have when we read or think
of it.)
But 'it gets its depth from the hypothesis' is m isleading, since
it suggests that the impression of depth will be j ustified or shown
to be illusory by the results of t he historical inquiry. And its
'connexion with some ancient ritual sacrifice' would b e an 'external'
connexion. This would not belong to the way in which we t hink
of the festival, or to the concept which forms our thinking
of it. And 'concept' goes here with 'possibilities', in the sense of
Wittgens tein's remark: 'What is true and interesting is not to say
this derives from that, but this could have been d erived in that
way' (Synthese 17, p. 252 [not translated in The H uman World]).
It is similar with the r emark which begins: 'Here something
looks like the ruins of a casting of lots. And through this aspect
it suddenly gains d epth ' (The Human World, p. 39) . When
Wittgenstein speaks of 'aspect' we think (or I do) of Philosophical
Investigations II, xi, with th e discussion of his examp les in which
'seeing' and 'thinking' run together, not as components of a
complex have to be thought of toge ther, but as concepts may 'run
together', and what we should mean by 'seeing' is also what we
should mean by 'thinking' here.
1lcnce the flashing (Aujleuchten) of an aspect on us seems half visual
r xpc ri ence, half thought. (p. J97e)
... but what 1 perceive in the dawning (Aujleuchten) of an aspect is
11 01 a properly or the object, but an internal relation between it and
111 lirr obj('!'t s. (p. 2 l 2c)
92 Religion and reality

(These go with other sorts of examples there, but they hardly

need touching to make them fit our case.)
The notion of Tiefe (depth) here is akin to that in an earlier
manuscript: 'A proposition, when I understand it, acquires depth
for me.' Partly this is the difference between a sentence on the
page when I do not understand it and the way in which it sho"".s
connexions with other things I have said and heard, the way it
suggests questions, etc., when I do (as though what is printed on
the pao-e
0
were only an index). More important , probably, 'It now
engage s with my life.' A cogwheel meshes with others in a rr_iech-
anism, I give it a kind of attention I did not give to the printed
signs on the page before I understood them, it may change the
way I look at something else, etc. . .
But there is more, which this analogy ('A propos1t10n, when I
unde rstand it .. .') does not bring out. 'This practice is obviously
age-old.' If we asked 'How can anyone know this?' we should come
back to the character of the festival itself. If
I see a ruin and say: that must have been a house once, for nobody
would construct a heap out of hewn and irregular stones like this. And
if someone asked, how do you know that? I coul.d only say: from my
experience of people.

If what the children are performing here is obviously age-

old, this gives it a depth. It would be different if we were told that
these children just took to doing this, on their own invention,
because of some recent happening that had never been known
before. When we think of what they do as something their fathers
observed and practised every year at this time and generations
long before their fathers, we see it as something pervasive and
lasting: anything but an idiosyncrasy of a man or a group. Not
as something that sometimes happens and is of no consequence. I
quoted just now Wittgenstein's: 'by the thought of man and his
past'. Why has the 'thought of his past' such importai:ce?
4. Whatever gives us the impression that a practice must be
age-old - this is what is important. The actual tracing of its
descent from a fire ritual of human sacrifice - once this has been
established - is 'uninteresting' or superfluous for the question
Wittgenstein is asking. But he sees that Frazer and t_hose who go
his way have recognized something important about rituals, some-
thing which leads them to e mphas ize I he history of a ritu al and
 Wittgenstein on language and ritual 93
to recognize that a ritual as we watch or read of it now is a
continuation or deve lopment of rituals in earlier times.
There is one conviction that underlies [or is taken for granted in) the
hypotheses about the origin of, say, the Beltane festival; namely that
festivals of this kind are not so to speak haphazard inventions of one
man but need an infinitely broader basis if they are to persist. If I t ried
to invent a festival it would very soon die out or else be so modified
that it corresponded to a general inclination in people. (The Human
World, p. 40)

If the people celebrating here are following a ritual, this gener-

ally has been handed down to them, and most of those taking
part have grown up with it. If a ritual, like that of human sacri-
fice, were something anybody could invent, at least he must have
lived long among the people t o whom he proposed it; he must
have known the chronicles and the traditions of their history and
the songs - all the ways in which these people thought about the
earlier history of their tribe or nation. Even then it wou ld be hard
to imagine.
At first sight a comment which Wittgenstein makes a little
later seems hard to square with this:
All these different customs show that it is not a matter here of one thing's
being derived from another, but of a spirit common to a number of
things . A person might himself have invented or made up a ll these cere-
monies. And the spirit in which one invented them would be the very
same as the spirit common to them all. (Synthese 17, p. 251 [not trans-
lated in The Human World])

T do _not think this means that any one of us could invent or make
up all these ceremonies without having studied ceremonies which
we did not invent; still less that any of the actual ceremonies came
into being on the directions of someone who invent ed them. In
the passage I quoted earlier (p. 88) Wittgenstein speaks of some-
1 hing like an 'association of ideas' which we might call an
'association of practices'. And this suggests the sense in which he
speaks here of inventing different ceremonies. It would have
analogy to 'inventing' variations on a musical theme; but this is
Ii rn i ted, and could mislead. The idea is that what brings all these
1'itu al practices together, so that we study them from the same
lnt cres t, is not that they have all come about in the same way,
1>1' have a similar sort of ances try; nor is it because they are alike
94 Religion and reality
in any 'external' features (which we might describe or draw) ; it
is because we can see a common Geist (spirit, inward nature, ch ar-
acter ... ) through all of them. Wi ttgenstein refers to this when
he says the Beltane festival (for example) gives an impression
not only of something deep but also of somet hing sinister (finster:
the word has a stronger sense of 'dark' and of 'gloom' than
'sinister' does in English; but it does mean 'sinister ' in the sense
in which gloom or obscurity may be sinister).
H e explains the ph rase 'the spirit of the festival' when he asks
(on page 38) if what we find sinister in the Beltane fire-festival
ce lebrat ed by Scottish children in the eighteenth century is som e-
thing to do with t he fes tival itself, or whether we shall find it
sinister only if the conj ecture that it origina ted in human sacri-
fice has been well established. His a nswer is:
I think it is clear that what gives us a sinister impression is the inner
nature of the practice as performed in rece nt times ... When I speak of
the inner natu re of the practice I mean all those circumstances in which
it is carried out that are not included in the account of the festival, because
they consist not so much in particular actions which characterize it, but
rather in wha t we might call the spirit of th e fest ival: which would be
described by, for example, describing the sort of people that take part, their way
of behaviour at other times, i.e. thei r character, and the other kinds of games
that they play. And we sho uld then sec that what is sinister lies in the
character of these people themselves. (RR 's ita lics throughout)

What in other passages he calls the 'evide nce' or the 'grounds'

for t aking this to be a survival from a practice of human sacri-
fice, would count among those 'circumstances' which give us the
Geist, the 'inner nature' of the festival. T he phrase 'inner nature'
here is akin to, say, 'the inner life of though t a nd fee ling'; neither
need be mysterious.
So far, this does not explain 'a spirit common to all these cere-
monies'. But we can find this in two remarks I quoted earlier
(p. 93) . He had asked whether the thought that the casting or
lots by drawing bits of cake from a hat was once a step in the
sacrifice of a human being, whether this thought was not e nough
to explain the uneasy a nd sinister impression we have. And he
a nswered, 'Yes, but what I find in those accounts is some thin g
they have from the evidence or grounds for that thou ght - includin g
evidence that does no t seem directly connected with it: fro111
refl ecting on men, mankind and th e past of nrnnkind , on a ll tlrnl
 Wittgenstein on language and ritual 95
is q ueer (and dangerous to meddle with) which I see in myself
and see and have seen and heard in others.' Th is helps to explain
the other passage, in which he says that what is disturbing in the
idea of human sacrifice is just as obscure and perplexing as
the impression we get from the accounts of the celebration
and the burning of a straw man in eigh teenth century Scotland.
What is deep and sinister about this celebration by t he children
does not become clear and obvious if all we are told is the origin
and history of t he external movements performed in it; 'No, .. .
we impu te it from an experience in ourselves.' 'An experience in
ourselves': this is what we have observed in our own selves and
what we have observed and heard in our concourse with others
the strangeness ... '
He had said of the Beltane festival as 'played' by the children,
that when it is clear that what we find sinister belongs to the
spirit of the festival, and when we r eflect on all those circum-
stances that show it, 'we should then see that what is sinister lies
in the char acter of these people themselves'; that is, in t he char-
acter of those who make up the community in which it is
performed as well as those who take part in it. But the other
reflections place it in ourselves and th e rest of mankind. This
may be clearer when we see what it does for the remark about
inven ting all those ceremonies.
Wittgenstein has said:
I In all t hese practices we sec some thing that is si milar, a t any rate,
to the association of ideas and related to it. We could speak of an asso-
ciation of practices. (The Human World, p. 3 7)
2 All these different customs show t ha t it is not a matter here of one
thing's being derived from another, but of a spirit common to a number
or things. A person might himself have invented or made up all these
<·c remonies. And the spirit in which one invented them would be the
vny same as the spirit common lo them a ll.
3 There is one convention that unde rlies the hypotheses about the
origin of the Beltane festival, namely that they are not what you might
ndl one man's haphazard inventions but need an infinit ely broader basis
i I" they are to persist. lf I tried to invent a festival it would very soon die
m1l or e lse be so modified that it corresponded to some general propen-
Ni ly in people.
';\ gcncra l inclination in people' is not the same as 'the
Mpi l'i t co111111on lo alI l hesc cc re monies '. If I could imagine a ritual
96 Religion and reality
practice of a ny one tribe or nation, it would h ave to fit in with
some inclination tha t was general or universal among the people
of tha t tribe, in earlie r times as well as in the present. The
ex ternal form of the ritual, the external actions a nd moveme nts
in it, would have to be (or become) some thing to which nearly
everyone in this tribe would feel inclined. For it is the external
actions or the external form of the festival, which that re mar k
emphasizes : tha t which make this festival so noticeably differ e nt
from an y other. The Geist of the fe stival is not external in this
sense. When Wittgenstein says it is common to all the diffe rent
practices a nd differ ent ceremonies, this is not like describing a
general form tha t is common to a variety of d a nces (call them
square da nces) as though it might be formula ted in such a way
as to provide for the special varie ties of it.
Suppose someone said, 'There might also be a ritual of this sort'
(naming various features it might have). H e would be guided in
this by what he knows of actual rituals, those he has seen or
heard d escri bed. And the 'invention' would come 'by association'
- 'associa tion of customs, or of cere monies'. (This is an awkward
phrase if we go on to think: 'association by similarity', where this
m eans simila rity of farm between one ceremony and a nother.) We
might say tha t what is common (gemeinsam) is the 'medium' in
which a description of cere monies actually seen may lead me to
imagine others: but the condition of this is tha t I know this same
spirit in myself. 'The spirit in which one invented them would be
th e very same as the spirit common to t hem all.' Othe rwise I
could not understand what they we re, nor imagine them.
 E SS AY N I N E

R eligious practices

I I

'We must begin wit h the mis take and find out the tr ut h in it . That is,
we r;iust uncover the source of the error; o therwise hea ring wha t is true
won t help. us. I t canno t pe ne tra te whe n somet hing is taki ng its place.
T o convm ce someone of what is true, it is not enough to sta te it; we
m us t find the road from err or to tru th.'2

You say tha t both St Augustine a nd the Buddhist 'would think

they wer e in possession of the one a nd only tru th'. (Whether this
~olds of the Buddhist or not, I do not know; it does of Augustine.)
They were both concerned with ma ki ng converts. And then the
quest ion of erro r com es ve ry mu ch to the fo re.'
But this is not the sense of 't ru th ' a nd of 'er ror' which Wi tt-
genst ei~ .is using ~t the begin ning of his 'R emarks'. Wittgenstein
was wn tmg, I thmk, with refer ence to stateme nts of Frazer's
like the o~e I have given in a footnote ~o page 29, whe re we
re~d, ~ .g. After all, what we call truth is only the hypo thesis
which is found to work best. The refore in r eviewing the opi nions
and practices of ruder ages a nd races we shall do well to look
with leniency upon their er rors as inevitable slips made in the
search for truth . . .'
Frazer is not saying this about St Aug ustine. But he shows as
grea t a misunderstanding as if he had been.

1
f rom a letter to his closest fri end, M. O 'C. Drury dated 19 J u ne 197 1. On 15 J une
,197 1 Dru ry had se n.t .a le tt~r to Rhees thanking him fo r a copy of The Human World
3, (M~y 1971) contamrng Wmgenstein's 'Remarks on Frazcr's Golden Bough', trans. A.
C. Miles a n.cl R~sh Rhees and Rhees' introductory notes. Rhees is responding to Drury's
rom mcnts 111 l11s letter (Ed.).
~ W 111g1·
' ' , ' I'~cmark son h' azer's Golden Bough', p. 28. I nserted to clarify Rhees' later
11s1<• 1n
1f'fn1• 111·c· (Ed.).

97
98 Religion and reality
You say that Augustine was concerned with doctrine, rather than
with ritual; and that he would have said that he was con cerned
with the only true doctrine.
(a) You will agree that it would make no se nse to say that the
doctrine to which Augustine adhered is 'one which a fuller
experience has proved to be inadequate' - i. e. one which the
development of science and the multiplication of scientific
discoveries has proved to be inadequate .
And so you would agree that 'doctrine' does not mean 'theory'
in the sense in which you speak of a theory in astronomy or
in geology.
(b) The point of calling it 'the one and only truth' would b e to
distinguish it from the teachings and practices of other reli-
gions (?Mithra) and from h eretical - and in this sense false
- doctrines advanced or espoused within the Christian
communities (?Manicheeism).
Obviously this is not a theory which will be proved by 'expe-
rience' to be adequate or inadequate: Where 'adequate' refers
to empirical testing, measurement and explanation.
If Augustine did say 'this is the one and only truth' in speaking
about particular articles of theology or of the creed - then I think
he has introduced a certain vulgarization by comparison with
'I am the way and the truth'. And if I wanted to understand the
use of 'truth' in religion, I think I'd want to start with that saying
of Jesus.
But the main point is this: if I say 'I think the doctrine which
Augustine was propounding is the true one' - what this is, is just:
adopting that doctrine, adhering to it.
It does not mean: I think it will be found that the facts really
are as they are described to be in that doctrine. (As a contem-
porary of Galileo's might have said this about Galileo's theories
of the solar system.)
The position is just the same as it is when we ask: 'Which is
the true morality?'

Apparently Plato thought there must be some reality to which

a tru e morality would be adequate - in much the same sens<'
as a true theory in astronomy would be adeq ua te lo the rcnl
movements and distribution of th e h eave nly bodi es. Othcrwis1·
 Religious practices 99
he feared relativism and subjectivism: i. e. it seemed to him
that morality, moral j udgements, would be arbitrary.
Wit.tgenstein tho~g~t this a bad misunderstanding (although
obv10usly not a tnvial or unint elligent one) .
And his p~int was : To say 'Th at is the only true morality' is itself
to mak.e a judgement ef value: i. e. to express adherence to that
morality.
Whe~eas to say: 'Galileo has given the right account of the
relat~on.sof sun ~nd earth' n eed not be a judgement of value:
and it is somethmg that stands or falls by what is shown by
furth er observation.

Similarly: to say 'Christianity is the only true religion' is to

make a de~laration of faith - whether expressed in the Nicene
Creed or simply (and much better) just in 'Rabboni!'.
~ know practical!y nothing about Buddhism. Suppose we speak
of Buddhist doctnne'. I suppose that if someone were ' · h '
' Ch · · . weig mg
u~ nstian d~ctnne and. Buddhist doctrine - even suppose we
said he -:as t.rymg ~o d~ cide ~hich doctrine was 'preferable' _
I ~o not im ~gme he d thmk this was a question of the empirical
evidence which favoured the one or the other of them
You. say 'it is a i:nistake to introduce the religions ~hich are
· d doctrinal
essentially · mto the same discussion abo u t very pnmit1ve
· · ·
ntes an magic'.
But on this coordinate I do not think there is much diffe re nce
between t hem.

The story of the Passover; Christ's institution of the Mass on

Maundy Thursday.
~ feel there is a lot that would have to be said here. I can only
pomt roughly with my finger.
You say that within the meaning of the rite 'we have "opinion "
ll nd "hypothesis" and the pos sibility of error'.3

1 Drury had wri tten : 'I was reading the other day t h e account of th p
1 " H' · h h' e assover cere-
1 1on1cs. c 1e t e c ildren are told to ask the head of the household " h t
by these cerc1~011ies?" and then t h e fat he r goes on to give a n accoun~ o7 t~ mean! ye
dt·ath dc.s t roy1 ng the first born of the Egyptians, and passing over the ho~s:n;fe tl~;
.Jnvs. I fl' c l l ha t this q ues tion of the meaning of rites mtist have bee f I
rn' s<'cl . .· · · ' n requent y
1, .1~ n p1 11 11111v1· JH'OJ1l1· b1·1·1111 1c· morr sophist icaLrd. Jn otl1<'r words a n opin ion,
100 Religion and reality
You mean an historical hypothesis.
But is it an hypothesis that the Angel ef Death destroyed the
first born of the Egyptians and passed over the houses of the
Jews? The belief which children give it is not like belief in an
hypothesis.
What sort of historical evidence would either confirm or over-
throw that?
If you admit that what happened might be explained in some
other way you are no longer talking about the rite.
Christ 'instituted the rite of the Mass on Maundy Thursday'.
In the first place: Christ - not just a Nazarene called Joshua.
And this is not a hypothesis.
In the second place: instituted the rite ef the Mass. Or let me
begin again: instituted what?
Suppose the (precocious) child asks : 'What is it that makes it
the rite of the Mass?' - Do you answer this with an historical
hypothesis?
But the main point, as far as Wit tgenstein's r emarks are
concerned, is: is the Mass itself a hypothesis?
Is it in any way comparable to: Many neurotics can be
cured by Group T herapy? Could it be imagined to be even the
most crude beginning of this sort of thing: as though that (or
something comparable) were what the disciples were blindly
seeking.

'Laugh, if you can.'4

P lease remember wha t Wittgenstein is wntmg about here.
The question in this particular remark is whether anyone could
take some thing like the sacrifice of the King of the Wood to be
an absurdly naive or fantast ic attempt to influence the course
a n hypothesis was part of the ce remony on a g reat many sessions. For a Catholi1
su rely it is an esse ntial part of the Mass to bdievc that this rite was instituted hy
C hrist on Ma undy Thursday. And her e it se ems to me you have "opinion" and " hypo1l1
csis" and the possibility of error ' (Ed.).
~ With r efe re nce to the sacrifice of the King of the Wood a t Nemi, Wittge nstein Wl'Oll' :
'One would like to say: This is what took place here; laugh, if you can' ('Remark•',
p. 30).
Drury commented: 'No I don' t eve r think of laughing, but if he had written " hr
shocked if you can". Then I would have re plied that in ma ny a ccounts of rrligi1111 ,
rites I am indeed shocked . "Tatum religio potest suaderc ma lo rum ." I a m shoe kt-d
when I read about human sacr ifice, eve n too abo ut the ritua l sla ught<'r of ani111 .il~
And the Cove nante rs going into ba ttle with the cry ''.Jesus ancl 110 qua rtn." 11111 I
needn't add to the list for you to know whal I would go on snyi11g' (Ed.).
 Religious practices 101
of events - as we in la ter ages have learned to influence them
by science .
If my friend is always backing horses, and if he tries to guide
his be ts by, say, the first thing he notices when he gets out of
a bus - I might want to say 't he crazy idiot' and either laugh or
be sorry for him. It would be nothing li ke t he sacrifice of the
King of the Wood.
You say that although you would never la ugh, you are often
shocked by the accoun ts of rituals.
I think the word 'shocked' is vague; at least I do not know just
how to take it.
Wittge nstein says, on page 30: ' ... that something strange and
terrible is happening here. And that is the answer to the ques-
tion "why is this happening?": because it is terrible. In other
words, what strikes us in this course of even ts as terrible, impres-
sive, horrible, tragic, etc, ... that is what gave birth to them .'
If you were shocked at these practices, would you express it in
some other way than Wittgenstein's? You say you are shocked
when you read about human sacrifice, and this is exactly what he
is writing about in this passage.
In particular: Please read again the last four pages of the
remarks: pages 38-4 1. And perhaps especially the last paragraph
of all. 5
'Shocked' is not a word he would have used here, and neither
would I.
We may say we ar e shocked by what happened at My Lai; or
a t Lidice.
I would not say I was shocked by the practice of child sacrifice
in a really living religion, say in some part of Africa.

If I learned that a group of people were prac tising child sacri-

fice in some house in London at the present day, this would
be entirely - repeat: entirely - different.

1
' But why should it not rea lly be (partly, anyway) just the idea tha t makes the impres-
sion on me? Aren' t idea s frig hte ning? Can I not feel horror from the t hought that the
cake with the knobs once served to select by lot the victim to be sacrificed? Hasn't
the tliouglit some thi ng te rrible? - Yes, but that which I see in those stories is some-
th ing they acquire, after a ll, from the evidence, including such evidence as does not
see m directly conn ected with them - from the thought of ma n a nd his past, from the
strangc rwss of' wha t I sec in myse lf and in othe rs, what I have se e n a nd have heard'
(p. ~ I ) (Ed .).
102 Religion and reality
I would think the African practice was terrible - or I might say
som ething of the sort. But I should have a deep respect for it.
And I should certainly not say tha t people from other la nds ough t
to break it up.
I am assuming that th e practice of child sacrifice means some-
thing d eep to the people who ta ke pa r t in it; a nd, gene rally, to
the victim.
The re was nothing of the sort, I ta ke it, in t he m assacre ~t. My
Lai. For this reason we may say that this massacre was v1c1~u s
savagery, the worse when one thinks of the culture from which
the kille rs came.
Andre Malraux in his story L a Condition humaine is writing about
C hina in 1927, wh en Chiang Kai Check was gaining victories o:er
the communists (who were abandoned by M oscow, supportmg
C hiang). When the communist resisters were ~au!?ht, they were
killed in horrible ways, some of the m thrown alive mto a furnace.
_ If I learned that in the religion of Maloch hum an victims were
thrown into the fire, I should not have a l all the sort of disgust
tha t I have when I read of C hiang's treatment of his p risoners -
although I migh t have a strong sense of some thing terrible in the
Moloch rites.
If you were to say tha t there was no differe nce between the
two cases then I do not see how we could discuss it.
I do n~t assume that there was m alice a nd spite and cruelty
and vengeance in the practice of the M aloch rites. But there was
in Chiang's treatme nt of his prisone rs.
In those last four pages, to which I just referred you ,
Wittgenstein is saying tha t ther e is something frightening and
'sinister ' (the word he uses is finster, which also means the dark
of a da rk night) in these practices. And this is because of what
en ter s into our con templa tion of them 'from the thoug~t of ma11
and his past, from the strange things I see in myself and m others,
wha t I have seen a nd heard'.
This would not mean tha t less frightening rituals would IH·
more admirable or more enligh tened. - In fact, I doubt ii
Wittgenstein would speak of 'more enligh tened ' or 'less enlight
ened ' in this connexion.
 Religious practices 103
II6
On your first page you write:
It has been argued, for example, tha t religio n forms a language gam e
on its own, having its own standards of reason, a nd is therefore not suliject
lo criticism.from outside. 7 (My italics)
I do not think I ever said this. And I do not think Winch has
said it either.
For one thing, 'criticism' might mean a ny of a dozen different
things he re.
And I would never have said that reli gion 'forms a language
game on its own'.
One thing I have done is to ask a bout the notion of 'truth' in
religion, as this ent ers when people have as ked whe the r Judaism
or the religion of the Assyria ns is the tr ue religio n; when people
distinguish be tween true r eligion a nd idola try; or again, whe n
they ask whether the religion of the Cath a rs or the religion of
the Church of Rome is true C hristia nity - and so on. In such
discussions, the distinction be tween true and false is not like the
distinction be tween 'true' a nd 'false' in physics or in biology, nor
like the distinction be tween true a nd false testimony in a law
rourt. In othe r words, if I say that Judaism is the true r eligion,
or that the doctrine of the Church of Ro me is the true doctrine,
I am in this sta te ment expressing adherence to this doctrine, I a m
making a sta te ment of religious faith. I a m not saying that the
doctrine is a correct d escription of fact s which can be indepen-
dently observed.
So this use of 'tru e', whe n we say tha t this is the true expres-
~ i on of C hristian belief, or tha t the for m of worship is truly the
worship of God - this is no t like the use of 'true' when we speak
of' a true prediction in physics.
ff we say that a problem in physics has to be d ecided by exper-
1111cn t, we can put this by saying th a t it is confirmed or falsified
liy something 'outside' physics. T his is one of the ways of speaking

1
'Frnm a letler to H . 0. Mounce dated 2 1 J une 1971 in response to Mou nce's paper
'IJ11<k rsta11d ing a P rimitive Societ y', Philosophy 48 ( 1973). Mounce's paper was itself a
diN<'t1ssio11 of Pete r Winch's paper 'Understanding a Primitive Society', American
l 1hilo111phirnl QJ111rler{y I ( 1964). Rcprint<'d in Peter W inch, Et/ties and Action (London :
l(u11 tl!'dg1·, 1972) (Ed.).
' ~ 1 1111 1 1<<'. 'l l 11d1·rNta ndi11g ;1 l'ti111 itiVI' S1wi1·1r'. p. :l47 (Ed .).
104 Religion and reality
of the difference b e twee n physics and pure mathematics, for
instance. .
And in this sense it may be said that discussions about what is
true or what is false in religion are not settled by appeal to some-
thing 'outside' religion - in the sense, namely, in which a problem
in physics may have to be settled by appeal to what happens (the
result of the experiment).

Even if all the important details of what happens co~ld be

reached by an understanding of the physical theory with~ut
performing the experiment - as Galil~o's law of ac~ele~at10n
of falling bodies may have been - st:ll,. the happening is not
found in the theory, and this is what is important: the exper-
iment has to be performed.
This may raise the notion of 'reality' - which you mention
several times, although I have not yet understood what you are
saying about it.

Of course this does not mean that the language of rel~gion i.s
'cut off from the use of language outside r eligion. Otherwise re~i­
gious teaching and religious worship a nd pray~r coul.d not be_said
to have any bearing on the rough and tumble hfe which a believer
generally has to lead, i. e. it would not be what most people take
religion to be. .
8
'Has its own standards of reason .. .' .
This seems to refer to some analogy with mathe matics, and
with questions about 'the foundation~ of mathematics' .. Here
Wittgenst ein has discussed the quest10n whether th~re. is ~ny
way of proving or guaranteeing that our ways of dist1.nguish-
ing betwee n correct calculation and incorrect calculat10n arc
enough to show us what correct c~lculation - or the cor~e:tne s~
of a calculation - really is. May it not be that our declSlon as
to what is correct mathematics is quite 'arbitrary'? .and so o~.
There is of course no single or short answer to questions of thi s.
sort. For one thing, there have been so many different so.rts ol
'foundations' suggested. But Wittgenstein has s~ggested - rn th<'
course of a great variety of discussions - that it would be crazy
or nonsensical to say, 'Perhaps everything that we have be(' II
» Presumably this rC'fC'rs back 10 th l' op!'11ing quotation f't-0111 Mo1111c(" s \l· :H7 (Ed.).
 Religious practices 105
calling mathematics has rea lly been all wrong; perh aps it has
not really been mathematics at all.' And h e would say further:
If you ask whether this mathematician was justified in developing
his calculat ions in this way; or: whether he was justified in working
out a calculation of this sort in seeking the answer to such-and-
such a problem in mathematics - then this use of 'justified' has
sense within mathematics - i. e. you learn what it means when
you learn math ematics - and it would be nonsense to ask in this
sense wheth er there was any justification for doing mathematics
at a ll. i.e. If you want to criticize the calculat ions performed,
we should naturally expect you to use the notions of 'correct' a nd
'incorrect' th at belong to mathematics.
This is all of it so obvious that I should not mention it if I were
not perplexed by some of the things you say.
If you say that religious rites and creeds and doctrine do not
look much like mat hematics, and the criticism of any doctrine
proposed would n ot be m u ch like the criticism of the solution
offered for a mathematical proble m - then, of course, I agree.
On the other hand, there are certain analogies which it is some-
times important to emphasize between (a) certain misconceptions
regarding 'the foundations of mathematics' and (b) misconcep-
tions in the notion of 'th e philosophy of religion'. As though the
philosophy of religion were an attempt to establish religion.
The confusing notion h ere would be 'establish'.
In this connexion one might ask whether there is any sense in
' religion is true' or ' religion is not true', or in asking 'Is religion
lrue?'

At arry rate: This would not have the sense of 'true' which enters
when we speak of the true God or true worship. And it is not
yet clear what sense it would have.

There is no need to go into the details of this: the suggestion

I hat religion is a delusion, and God is a fiction, etc., etc. - The
woman believes her son is still alive, although I saw him killed
111 a motor accident and I was present at his burial. People h ave
lolci her again and again but she clings to her belief. We may
~ :i y she is deluded.
Th e psalm ist says 'The H eavens d eclare the glory of God'; and
I 111ay shrug my should e rs, hul l do not say h e is deluded.
106 Religion and reality

Etc., etc.
These may be some of the considerations that have led your
bag of nitwits to say the things you say they do.
I am only trying to guess.
You do not solve a problem of mathematics except by doing
mathematics. If there is any sense in talking of 'putting mathe-
matics right' - or of putting right any part of mathematics - this
cannot b e done by philosophy or logic. It can only be done by
mathematics.
This is the sense, and the context, of Wittgenstein's remark
that 'Philosophy leaves everything as it is.'

To keep repeating this remark without reference to its cont e~t,

and without even mentioning the sentence that comes after it,
- this seems to me wonderfully stupid. 9

The discussion of 'justification' and of 'criticism' in connexion

with social philosophy raises somewhat different considerations;
and you have hardly tried to raise them in your paper. If I under-
stand you, you have kept to a discussion of what Wmch says about
religious practices and ritual.
I think that if you were to come to terms with what h e does
say, you would have to keep in mind what the main poi~t of his
paper is. And I think this is social philosophy, not the philosophy
of religion.
In opposition to Evans-Pritchard, Winch puts ro.rwa:d the following
argument. When Evans-Pritchard says that sc1ent1~c, as ~pposcd
to magical, explanations are in accord with :eahty~ his a~sert10n has
sense only if he can specify a notion of reality w~1ch is m~ependenl
of both the practices to which he refers. But this not10n 1s not a11
intelligible one. Reality is not something which un.derlies language_ and
gives it sense, but rather, 'what is real and what is unreal shows 1tst:ll
in the sense tha t language has'. Moreover, within a language one will
find not one but a great number of ways of distinguishing between tli r
real and the unreal. Consequently there need be no common m easun·
of reality by which both magic and science may be a_ssessecl. Tiii'
notion of what is real that is found in science may be differ en t fr<>111
the notion of what is real that is found in magic. Evans-Pritcha rcl 'H

9 See Philosophical Investigations Part 1: para. 124. 13ut read from 122. ·1: hr s~·o t r 111 '
following 124 reads: 'It a lso !raves rnath i:matirs as it is, <'Ind no m<'ll h1·111at teal cl1 srovt' 1I
ca n advance it' (Ed.).
 Religious practices 107
proced ure seems plausible because his appeal to the concept of reality
is o nly apparently an appeal to something which is independent of the
practices he is considering. What he does, in fact, is to use the scien-
tific notion of reality as a standard by which to assess magic. But this
w~uld be justified only if he had first shown that m agic is a kind of
science.
This argument seems to me sound. What it proves, however, is not
that the magical practices of the Azande contain a genui ne concept of
reality but simply that they may do so. We have s till to consider the
practices themselves, to see whe ther they do in fact make sense.' 10
Here I am so puzzled that you should say the things you do
tha t I am certain I have not und erstood them. I must try
according to my lights but you would be best advised to skip.
Winch says: 'Nevertheless we could not in fact distinguish the
real from the unreal without understanding the way this distinc-
tion operates in the language.'
I'd have thought that what he was talking about was fairly
plain. If someone asks what is meant by 'real', or 'unreal' in
connexion with the work and discoveries of science, then we might
begin by asking: 'Well, look at the ways in which, in this or that
particular science, the scientist tries to find out what is re al and
what is not (whether something is ...).'
Of course it is not necessary that the scientist should use the
expressions 'r eal', 'unr eal', 'exists', 'does not exist' when he is
doing this. The main point is: they show what they mean by it
when they show what they take as a criterion of it.
In this sense we may say that the conception of reality has
been different at different periods of the history of science.
(So the Marxists speak of a changing reality, etc.)
Winch is suggesting that in nonscientific language, when people
are talking about matters of fact (mixed as much as you like with
talk which is not about matters of fact) they h ave something like
~l distinction of 'yes' and 'no', something like a distinction of being
right and being mistaken; and that insofar as this is so, there is
:1 distinction of reality and unreality. - But this can take a great
1nany different forms. H ere again, I think we must keep in mind
I hat if we were to ask what 'reality' means, we should have to
<'onsider how people find out that something is so, or that it isn't

111 Mot111C<', 'Understa ndi ng a Prim itive Socie ty', p. 34·8. Inserted i n full to give reference
10 RIH·c·s' c·o 11111wn 1s (Eel.).
108 Religion and reality
so. - And of course there may be considerable differences in the
notion of finding out.
We can call these - if you will wait a minute - we can call
them 'differences of language game'. But I agree, and I would
emphasize, that we have not yet said anything very definite with
this. And if the remark were to be of any use at all, we should
have to go on and describe and specify, 'Namely, ... ' To call it a
difference of language game might be very important nonethe-
less. And when we recognise that in this place it would not be
very definite, this would not reduce the importance of calling
it that.
But: in this place Winch does not call it that.
The suggestion is that Winch argues from ' the premiss that
we are confused if we think of reality as something on which
language depends, because the concept of reality is something
which itself falls within language ((Did Winch say 'falls within'?))
to the conclusion that the practice of magic or science must
contain its own concept of reality'.
Is there any 'must' suggested? The question is whether in the
practice of magic there is the sort of thing that we'd call 'distin-
guishing what is real from what is unreal' in science. And I do
not see that this raises the question of whether 'magic or science
is itself a language'. That question could be variously answered.
But I think we should have answered. Consider what you would
have if you dropped the article, for instance; and consider how
you would reply if someone said 'Science is not language'. All
right, all right. But if someone says

Science is language
and Magic is language

Then there are important differences in the sense of 'language"

in the one case and in the other; and at the same time impor-
tant connexions.
But Winch's suggestion that if one spoke of the way in whirh
those engaged in magical practices thought of reality and unreality
one would have to look at what they were doing; and not to ask
whether this is the real reality, or something of that sort - this
does not require us to imagine a people for whom magic or scic tH't'
is language itself (whatever that might mean).
 Religious practices 109
You say that both scientific activities and magical practices
would be found among people who had a great many other activ-
ities and used language in a great many other ways as well. I
agree, and I think Winch would agree.
Scientists may reject certain suggestions as pseudo-science. A
biologist (Medawar) may say that what Teilhard de Chardin
writes about the evolution of species is sham biology. A scientist
may say that a great deal of what is done in seances and called
'Psychical research' is not science, whatever else it may be. Or
he may criticize the pseudo-science of ESP. Etc., e tc. - Part of
the point then, of course, is that these activities do claim to be
playing on the same ground with science.
But suppose a society which does not have what we'd call
science . As, perhaps, the Aztec society did not. Suppose such a
society exists now; suppose perhaps even that the people are not
impressed when they learn how scientific we are. And they
continue; continue with their magical practices also.
Now what kind of criticism of their concepts (??) would you imagine
that we could or should make?
Obviously you did not mean that we could show that their
procedures were not scientific.
And I do not think you mean that we could argue that
they will always remain 'a backward society' if they go on like
that.
If you want to say that we could show that these people are
deluded, then I think you need a lot more discussion that you have
given.
Of course they are deluded, if they are trying to do with their
magic just what we are trying to do with our science. But this is
the point at issue, isn't it?

Incidentally, if you say that the scientist can criticize the

magician, the n - from your position - I suppose you would
agree that the magician might criticize the scientist; even
though we might find it hard to recognize this as criticism.
Would you say then that one of these forms of criticism was
in a ny way superior to the other?

Or arc they on an equal footing?

110 Religion and reality

I do not think you mean:

Tha t the difference between science and magic is j ust a differ-

ence of method. And tha t the m ethod of scie nce has proved
more trustworthy, get s better results.

Winch does not say that any large-scale practice must neces-
sarily be immune from criticism; and I cannot see that he says
a nything to imply or suggest this. Wha t d oes 'immune from crit-
icism' mean?
You say:
[Winch] is not committed to accepting Lhe rationaliLy of magical prac-
Lices as such. T here are some magical practices, he says, Lha t he would
not accept as rational and h e mentions, as an example , the magical
practices of our own society. These practices a re irrationa l because they
a re paras itic on, a nd perversions of, other practices, such as C hristia nity
and scie nce.
Now certa inly a practice which is a perve rsion of a nother may be said
to be irrational. The difficulty is, however, that Winch seems to allow
of no other possibility. Wha t h e implies is t ha t a practice which is not
a perversion of another cannot be irrational. This is why, in discussing
t he magical practices of our own society, he makes a point of saying
that they, unlike the magical practices of the Azande, are not one of
t he principal fo undations of a whole socia l life . Where a practice does
have a fund ame ntal place in a socie ly, where it is not derived from
a nother, th e conclusion to be drawn is tha t one cannot raise doubts
about its sense.
Now give n this ass umption it will be un necessar y even to consider
wha t the magical practices of the Azande act ually involve. Pla inly these
practices do h ave a fu nda mental place in the Aza nde society; plainly
t hey a re not paras itic on any other activi ty, such as science - the Azanck
do not even have a science . Doubts about the sense of these practices
11
will the refore be ruled out before ha nd.

Whe n Winch speaks of a n 'irrational' practice as ' parasitic' 011

some othe r, this is incidental to the main distinction he is making.
T his distinction he in troduces on pp. 14-15 of his ar ticle:
I t is important to distinguish a system of magical beliefs and practi('<'~
like tha t of the Azande, which is one of the principal fou nda tions ol

11 Mou nce, pp. 34·8- 9. The long quotalion has bC"cn inscrl <"d lo proviclt· a rcfC'rt'IH'<' 1111
the comm cn ls Rhees gors on lo m ake (Ed.).
 Religious practices 111
their whole social. life ~nd, on the .other hand, magical beliefs tha t might
be held, a nd magical ntes tha t might be practiced, by pe rsons belonging
to our own culture.
r. thought this distinction was pretty plain, a nd I can ha rdly
beli eve you would wa nt to question it. - In pa rticular, it makes
plain the point he then emphasizes, tha t if we'd speak of 'criti-
cizing' magical beliefs or magical rites which we found in our own
cullure, this would be a sense of 'criticize' that we could under-
st~nd easily enough; whereas a 'criticism' of the magical beliefs
of the Azande would not be this, wha tever it might be. - This is
not saying tha t the magical beli ef and practices of the Azande
are 'immune' to criticism. But it does raise the q uestion of what
you would call criticism of these beli efs . Of course you can say
they are not scientific; but you could also say t his of a song or a
joke. Does it show there is some thing wrong with the practices?
You fas ten on the notion of as trology. Winch speaks expressly
of 'the contemporary practice of as trology'. And we have no reason
to think he meant his remarks to apply to the astrology of ancient
Ba bylonia (when, as you point out, there was no distinction between
as trology a nd astronomy) . It see ms to me tha t your remarks
simply draw a tten tion away from the sort of practices Winch is
referring to. I do not think Winch meant the columnists in the
evening papers, nor O ld Moore's Almanack. I imagine he meant
serious astrologers, like Dr Thorburn, who used to be a lecturer
in philosophy at C ardiff. I know nothing of wha t these astr ologers
teach. But I know their expositions included a n immense a mount
of calcula tions (T horburn would cove r a whole blackboard with
the m, I believe). And here alre ady we have one element of what
Winch is calling parasitism : these astrologers want to make
as trology 'scientific', and they presumably believe Ka n t's remark
that a study has just as much science as it has ma thema tics. In
other words, I do not think tha t they would try to develop their
astrology in the ways they do if there were not certain obvious
cha racteristics of wha t we call 'science' or 'exact science'.
Wha tever the Babylonian astrologers may have done, they can
hardly have been 'trying to be scientific', for ther e was no inde-
penden t science for the m to ape.
1 suppose the knowledge which supplies the material - the 'ha rd
rans' from which their conclusions are d eve loped - in con tem-
porary as trology, does come largely from ast ronomy.
112 Religion and reality
But I would r epeat: I do not think this example is in the least
vital to the point which Winch is making.

I was disappointed in what you say of 'superstition'. I thought

your quotation of the two sentences from .C he sterton was
promising. But for some reason I lost whoever it was:
(a) Pluck this flower a nd a princess will die in a castle beyond
the sea.
(b) In the hour whe n the King extinguished the candle his ships
were wrecked far away on the coast of H e brides. 12
Generally you don't need to explain the word when - in ordi-
nary conversation - you speak of superstition. But in this ~resent
context I think it does need explanation. And I do not thmk you
give it. . , . . , .
I gathe r that to call a belief or a p ractice superstition. is to
say tha t it is objectionable; and this is partly, but not ~imply,
because the belief is mistaken. (You wouldn't call every mistaken
belief a superstition.) ..
You also speak of the 'fascina tion' which a supe rstlt10n has for
those who hold to it. And I wished you had developed this. You
say that the fascina tion of those two sentences 'depended directly
on their being an expression of wha t is impossible'. H ere I start
saying 'Yes, yes, go on' - and you go on to something e~se: you
speak of misconceptions about superstition, a nd about different
kinds of superstition.
I think it is plain then, if it was not before, that the word
'superstition' is not the na me of any one class ~f beliefs and prac-
tices that could be specified. I mean: the word is used very widely,
and there is no set of cha ract eristics that will cover everything
that may be called superstition.
I do not know what you want to do with the word. And I do
not know what d ifference - if any - you are drawing betwee n
superstition a?d ,magic, ~~r i,n stance. I gues~ that i.C ~o.u. cal,l a.
magical practice superst1t10n , you mean this as a cnt1c1sm of
it. But I am not clear on this.
Would it not have been better if you had given three or four
clear examples of the sort of thing you are calling 'superstition '

12 Quoted by Mounc(• 011 p. 35B (Ed.).

 Religious practices 113

now, m this discussion? Examples which would also show how

the mention of superstition bears on Winch's discussion which
you are criticizing. I do not think the sentences from Chesterton
do this.

Il l 13

The term 'superstition' is used so widely - for such a wide variety

of beliefs and practices - that it would be foolish to start on any
discussion that would apply to all of them.
Perhaps we speak of supe rstitious practices more commonly than
of superstitious beliefs by themselves .

People have said and believed that 'one of the pieces of

evidence that the ear th is round, is that we can see the circular
(or semi-circular) shadow of t he earth on the moon'. I do not
know how this teaching got started. I'd not call it a super-
stition.
People sometimes believe that plants will grow abnormally fast if
they are sown when the moon is waxing, and will grow more slowly
if sown when it is waning. (Or: If you get your hair cut when the
moon is waxing . .. etc.) And I have known of people who were
very careful not to plant during the waxing moon, for this reason.
I suppose we should call this superstition more readily.

In such cases, 'That's just supers tition' may mean simply: That's
contrary to fact. People who adhere to the practice may deny that
it is superstition a nd say they have seen too often what happens
if you don't observe it: they speak of it, that is, as something
based on observation.

Many miners in South Wales believe that if you wash your back
(i.e. when you are a miner who works at the coal face) then
you are su re to get rheumatism. I knew a miner in Swansea,
who was immacula tely neat a nd clean when he was in his street
dress - but he never washed his back. He had been a corporal
in the RAMC d uring the war, and knew more of medicine than
most layme n. Anothe r ex-army man, now a male nurse in the
"1 Fro111 a 111a11usrrip1 dal«d 11 .J uly 197 1 (Ed.).
114· Religion and reality
hospital, was present when Tom was speaking of this; and he
said 'Oh that's bullshit'. 'That's not bullshit boy!' said Tom, in
the tone of voice of one who had seen too much to be ta ken
in. In more squeamish company he would have said 'That's not
superstition'. And for all I know he was right; although my
natural reaction is that of the other man.

'If you bring hawthorn blossom into the house, it will bring bad
luck.' This is unlike the last example in this: that it is hard to
imagine two disputa nts collecting evidence which shows that
it really is so or evidence which shows that it really is not so.
I should hardly understand what was meant by 'evidence which
would show tha t it was not so' . - And, by the way: it does not
seem so plausible to say that this sort of superstition is going t o
be removed by the advance of science . It might be said that
'If a mine r washes his back, he will get rheumatism ' is a kind of
false science or false medicine - a t any ra te, mistaken empirical
knowledge . I do not know whether in fact the growth of physi-
ology and medicine has had much effect on beliefs of this kind.
But those who have said tha t scie nce frees us from superstition
have proba bly thought it has.
Has this way of speaking - 'Scie nce frees us from superstition'
- has this been prominent in 'the conflict be tween science a nd
religion'?
I have heard it said that a belief in The Last Judgeme n t, and
in a 'resurrection of the body' is superstition.
Clearly it is different from the belief abou t pla nting during a
waxing moon, or the miner's care not to wash his back. - One
obvious differe nce is that these two are concerned with what will
happen to your work as a farm er or your work as a miner.
Whe reas, if we say that a belief in the resurrection of the body
is concerned with 'wha t will happen', then I suppose we add some-
thing like : 'Wha t will ha ppen aft er the end of the world, at the
Last Judgement'. And this does not even pretend to be a predic-
tion which might be tre ated like som e proposition of e mpirica I
science. - I doubt if a physiologist would say 'There can't be any
such thing as a "glorified body".' H e could say only tha t the phrast·
means nothing in physiology.
I have seen a biologist 's criticisms of some of the things wh ich
Teilhard d e Chardin wrote (apparen lly) a bout the evolutio n ol
 R eligious practices 115

plant and animal sciences . These criticisms maintained that what

T eilhard de Chardin wrote is sha m biology. And I think the writer
(~edawar, I think, b ut I forget) regarded this sham biology as a
disre putable for m of special pleading for r eligion. But I doubt if
he would have called it superstition, unless he were using that
term as a general term of abuse .
I do not think that we'd generally call som ething superstition
unless it were a more or le ss general practice or a more or less
generally held belief.
Superstition is something to which human beings fall prey.
In this sense it is clearly not synonymous with 'pseudo-science'.
What about t he combatting of su perstition within a ch urch, or
within a body of religious teaching?
H ere it does not m ean the same as heresy, or false doctrine.
For instance, Docetism was pronounced a heresy. I think, in the
early centuries of the Roman a nd Byzantine C hurch.
I do not know what Simon Magus practised. But the obj ections
to it would not have been like the objections to Docetism .
I believe the early Fathers, say up to the time of Augustine
(and including him) spoke of 'theurgy!' 14 And I think Augustine
associa ted it especially wit h the teachings of the Neoplatonists
(about whom I know little or nothing). - When I look in a dictio-
nary or r eference book I read that the urgy then was the doctrine
that ther e were certain special practices (?cer emonies, some-
times? probably not) by which believer s or their priests might
influence or secure the intervention of God in the world, or direct
the aid of Providence towards the salvation of souls. (Perhaps this
la tter is not right: I think the critics of the Neoplatonists on this
score emphasized that the r esults to be expected were results in
this life.)
Perhaps the Protestan ts of 1000 year s later r egard ed what they
call ed the 'devotion to empty ceremonies' in the Catholic Church
somewha t as Augustine r egarded the Neoplatonists . - T his may
have gone with their insistence on 'salvation by faith, not by
works'. But this shows how difficult it is to make general rulings
in these things.
I have heard a Catholic priest describe Luther's teaching on
I hi s point in this way: 'All tha t matters is that you believe deeply:
lkr ivl·d from C?r~rk 'thcos' {God) and 'ergos' {working); Latin 'theurgia' for sorcery;
11

~r1 t•m of magic 111t1·11drd to conj ure up be nevole nt spirits a nd miracles (Ed.).
116 Religion and reality
you can sin deeply at the same time, but it is only your belief
that makes a difference to your salvation.' This is a caricature.
But then, so is much of what Protestants have said about 'empty
ceremonies'. You can, probably, find examples of Protestants who
took Luther's teaching much as that Priest described it. And you
can find examples of Catholics who say everything is all right so
long as you clock in regularly and go through the motions.
T his is the form of dispute between Catholics and Protestants
which especially sickens me.
I have read of Tibetans (?) who turn what in translation is
called 'a prayer wheel'. I once saw photographs of some of them
doing this - and evidently they were very earnest abou,~ it; ~rima
facie, this would strike a Westerner as _an example ?f irrat10nal
superstition', and when I first read of it I thought it was: or at
best I thought it was weird. Then I read a comparison by a woman
Catholic writer - a comparison between turning a prayer wheel
and lighting a candle in a church. And it seems to me that turning
the prayer wheel may be as truly an act of devotion as lighting
a candle is. Some Protestants would call lighting a candle 'empty
ceremony', and they might call it superstiti.on. It may be em?ty,
of course. But it may equally be an expression of pure devotion,
or of pure love of God - no less so than singing a hymn, for
instance. And so may the turning of a prayer wheel.
On the other hand, if someone said that all that matters is
purity of heart, or the pure love of God, and that traditional forms
of worship and of prayer don't matter - then the phrase 'pure
love of God' may become as empty as any 'dead' ceremony is.
What is the mark of any religious practice (or teaching) which
would lead one to call it superstitious?
I cannot think of any general answer.

Compare: (1) Belief in witches.

(2) Belief in guardian angels, in patron
saints ...

'Witches': this idea is complicated because it is connected with

belief in Satan, satanism, evil, the power(s) of evil; 'possession'
by evil spirits, etc. But I was thinking especially of its expres.s io."
in the witch hunting of the fift eenth century. - To me this 1!'4
terrible because of the epidemic character it took on, especially.
 Religious practices 117
I suppose many would use the word 'superstition' here. I do not
know if this is the sense in which Doctrines of the Church would
condemn certain practices as superstitious, or not.
If it were not for the practice of burning witches and of
denouncing people for having to do with witches - then the belief
that certain people were possessed by evil spirits might be called
superstitious, or it might not: I do not know.
Many Catholics have believed, and many believe now that each
human being (or each believe r?) has a guardian angel through
the whole of his life. I do not know whether Protestants gener-
ally have called this superstition. Less readily, I imagine, than
they would call a belief in witches superstitious.
'In 1348-9', says Trevor-Roper, 'on the approach of the Black
Death, the Jews were massacred throughout Switzerland and
Germany ... in city after city the Jews were rounded up and
burnt alive .. .'
From 1934 to 1945 the German National Socialists extermi-
nated hundreds of thousands of Jews. This was to purify the race.
This recent extermination was supported by sham science,
genetics and anthropology. I do not think I have heard it called
superstition.
Perhaps the fourteenth century burning of the J ews would be
called so.
 ESSAY TE N

Notes on religion and reductionism 1

If the statements in r eligion are intelligible, it is not because they

refer to physical objects. It is because they have certain roles,
because it is sensible to make certain kinds of responses to them,
and not sensible to make others, because it makes a difference
what you say in religion; though this is not like the difference
between referring to one physical thing or another.
Anderson, Feuerbach and others would say that it is only
because the stat ements made in r eligion do refer to physical
objects - whether their users recognize the fact or not - that they
can have any meaning. Manifest and latent content. (Probably
that Freudian idea is very important here. And it may be impor-
tant to try to show what is wrong with it. A way of reducing the
language of dreams to something else. Compare putting state-
ments into 'logical form' in order to bring ou t what they really
say. 'Really say'? What is the point of the 'really'?
'Ein schoner Traum.' Was it not a beautiful dream?)
Idea that people are reacting all the time to physical object
statements, even when they think they are reacting to statements
of another kind. But the only r eason for saying this is that you
can show some sort of correlation between the other religious
statements and physical obj ect statements. If you say they could
not have any other meaning, this means just that you have
decided not to allow it.
You can do the same thing with works of literature, of course.
You can try to find a correlation between what is said in the story
or the poem, and some matter of fact which the author was reall y
wanting to refer to. You can show that all the language of fiction
is really concerned with actual facts . Only, then you miss tht·

I rrom notes dated 3 .Janua1y 1955 (Ed .).

1lfl
 Notes on religion and reductionism 119

sense of the work of fiction altogether, you do not understand

what is being said there.
No doubt the language of fiction is in some sense based on the
language of fact . It is the same language that we use in talking
of matters of fact. We do not use any special expressions here,
nor in poetry. And to that extent, religion is rather different. But
the majority of the expressions that are used in religion are also
used outside religion, though in a different way. This does not
mean that when they are used in religion they are 'really' being
used, or understood, in the other way.
Part of the strength of the 'reduction' position comes from the
idea that when we talk about God or about eternal life, we are
'talking about' in the same sense as we should be if we were
talking about Jones and about life in Swansea, only that we are
talking a bout objects and conditions of a very special and myste-
rious kind. Then it becomes at least plausible to argue that we
are concerned with an illusion. Illusions, hallucinations, etc., are
substitutes for physical objects.
If I say we are not talking about physical objects, I do not mean
'but objects of another kind'. I should not object if you argued
that in so far as we are talking about objects at all, we are talking
about physical obj ects. But I should still insist that this was not
what is being said. It is a question of what 'saying something'
consists in here; and it does not consist in 'talking about objects'.
The idea that the 'real content' of religious discourse is about
obj ects of this world, i.e. about physical objects, is too vague and
general to help much anyway. You may say that the bowing to
divine authority is really just a particular representation of the
bowing to worldly authority, that the exaltation in the idea of
heavenly love is really a wish for earthly love, shorn of its diffi-
culties, and so on. And if you leave it in these fairly general terms,
it may seem as though you could (a) show why religious practices
occur as they do, and (b) show why religious statements appear
to have any meaning at all.
But if this means that from the fact that people are subj ected
lo authority and that they do not like it, and so on, you could
Ii ave predicted the growth of religions, and of all that we mean by
I he worship of God, then that is not true. That is one difficulty
about the 'reduction'. Given th e exis tence of religious statements
wit hin a n a lready ex ist ing reli gion (i.e. religious practices and
 Religion and reality
120
concerns), you may in many cases be able to find a correlation of
such statements with statements about physical things and
worldly affairs; and you may think such correlations are very inter-
esting. But this does not show that religious language and
religious practices are or ever could be a regular substitute for
secular practices. As though you had found a way of translating
from one (dishonest) language into another (honest) one. If that
were so, then it should be possible to make the translation the
other way. It should be possible to translate any worldly concerns
into a form of religious devotion. That never is done, and it cannot
be done. (Whatever you attempted in that way would be artifi-
cial. It would not have any religious sense or significance; the
concern for worldly things cannot be translated into a religious
concern in that way. And this is a ground for doubting whether
the religious concern is 'really' a concern for worldly things, and
whether what is said in religion is really said about physical
objects and activities; or that these are what people are really
reacting to.)
As I say, even the plausible interpretations have been found
for only a relatively small part of religion. And it is supposed that
they somehow show the character of all the rest as well. But is
there any ground for thinking - if that is the suggestion - that
all the rest must be capable of being ' interpret ed' on similar
lines?
Anyway, the fact is that, as you have interpreted it, it is not
religion. Any more than the interpretation of the dream is a
dream. You do not understand any better what there is about
the dream that makes it a dream, i.e. you do not understand
what the dream is - that is different from waking thoughts. Nor,
I think, do you understand the 'significance' of the dream any
better; you do not understand the kind of significance it has -
what is meant by the suggestion that the dream means some-
thing - why it is that the dream is thought to stand in need of
'interpretation' at all. All that is obscured by the reference to latent
contents. And the whole idea of causal explanation helps to
obscure it.
Similarly, no attempt to give a causal explanation of religion
will help you t o understand the kind of significance that religious
statements have. The id ea that they must mean something in
the physical obj ect grammar is just an excuse for ignoring lh e
 Notes on religion and reductionism 121
question. But the idea is attractive l b .
provide a causal explanation of wh a so ecause it_ see~s to
as well as showing what th l" . y people take part m religion,
I d e re ig10us statements mean
0 not suppose there is an ·
people dream. Any more than y one_ reason or one cause why
why children play Or an there is one cause or one reason
laugh at jokes. . y one cause or one reason why people

t~e ~ame wa~, why

But in any case, you would not show what the
different moves happened when the did
discovered
I the cause why chi"ldren were yl . ' an
p aymg so on, if you
do not know any one reason wh l .
supposing I could know this, it would ~ofeop e play chess. But
compli~ated game. For that I should have toe:~~~ers%~~ot[ollow a
- not simply know wh . e game
significance of the mo~:Se:~ldp ayetdhitl. (And ~nowing the 'real'
1 1
no e P me either )
B rentano does
in that sort of waynot t t ·
ryd o ghive a caus~l explanation· of religion

religious statements. But he does thi k f any _sue re u~t10n of

' nor oes e try to give h d .
religious belief as an attempt t o answern o certam
reh?ious
qu teachmg
t"
and
h" h
couHld dhave arisei:i independently of religion altoget~:r10ns w ic
But ehe oes notthink
does /~10n
thmk fof rel" · as a su bsti_
·t ute for practical
· affairs.
thinks that hiloso oh re ig10~ as a ~ubstitute for philosophy. He
ligibl ~ p y c~n give the intelligible account, the intel-
. e ~uestions and the intelligible answers that relig· . . .
m an imperfect wa And h. . . 10n is g1vmg
intelligibility or th/"sense otfis l~g~m is an attempt to find the
. re ig10us statements · h"
t h at is not religion at all It is a f ·1 . m somet mg
someth~ng rel~~i~~e i~o ;i~~~;en~:e
or intelligibili.ty in say~ng
f that
somethmg or intelligibility in philosophy o r m . science.
. rom saymg
 ESSAY E L EV EN

'The divide ) between religion and

'scientific method)

Ii

I am very glad you se nt me the copy of your lecture to the

International Schweitzer Society. - I have read only The Mystery ef
the Kingdom ef God (Das Messianitiitsgeheimni_s) _and The Mysticisr:z
ef the Apostle Paul and his short book The Psychiatric Study qjfesus (Die
psychiatrische Beurteilung J esu ). Long ago I looked at his book ~n
Kant's Philosophy efReligion, but did not read more than a part of it.
I have never read Civilization and Ethics or the volume before
it. I know only a number of quotations from them in a book about
Schweitzer. But I am going to ge t them - I am sure I can borrow
them through the Inter-Library Loan. . .
You say that 'the rigorous search for truth .which charact erises
science results in an account ef the world which casts doubt on
the Christian account' (my italics). May I leave aside, for the
moment, the 'casts doubt on the C hristian account'? I wond~r
what the application of scientific me thod was which resulted m
an account of the world. You may have been refe rring to that
department of astronomy which has been developed in t~e past
50 or 60 years and has been called (in newspapers and wireless)
'cosmology'. Or you may have thought of Einstein's ' unification'
of physics. But I do not think either of these or the .two ~ogether
offer an account of the world in the sense you have m mmd. You
are thinking of an account which provides you with a way. of
looking at the world; and so, in some sense, with a way of looking
at life (by which I do not mean the problem~ of mol~cul ar
biology). It would have to give a way of lookm g at hi story,
somehow, wouldn't it?
1 From a letter to John Lovell dated 15 J anuary 1984· responding lo his lcrtur.- to 1111•
International Schweitzer Society (Ed.).

122
 'The divide' between religion and 'scientific method' 123
Marx seemed to think he had a scientific account of t he world
in this sense. Of course ther e are masses of special problems still
to be worked out. But they are all of them probl ems of science
(or of what he called 'dialectic', which combines p hysics and devel-
opment but has laws which a re like laws of science) and their
solutions are certain and determined by 'the method'. He seemed
to speak as though one could know what was happening and what
was going to happen in any par t of the world. We shall extend
our knowledge more and more (I guess he would have welcomed
modern computers) . I was going to pu t into his mouth something
like: 'We are limited only because ther e are still so many things
happening which we do not observe.' But there the 'only' would
be wonderful. When we thin k of p redictions of historical devel-
opment s, especially, the verdict is generally, 'It did n't turn out
that way.' Things, our data, were not just what we thought they
were; and especially, there were so many factors intruding which
we had not taken account of. It is not like this with the predic-
t ions of eclipses, and so on, in astronomy. But the theories of
astronomy - regarding outer nebulae , regarding 'holes' in inter-
stellar space, etc., etc. - are not what they were 100 years ago.
And I do not think an astronomer would predict what they will
be 100 years from now. - Marx would have been glad to say that
the theories change and will change. But he seemed to hold that
with a knowledge of science (or dialectic) he'd know what the
cha nges would be.
Wittgenstein said to me in conversation that he often felt like
asking Marx: 'Don't you ever feel uncertain? Don't you ever tell
yourself that you don't know just what will happen here or there,
where so much may enter in that you have not examined?' But
this would have been at odds with the way Marx looked on the
world. It would not be scientific. - In this sense, Wittgenstein
said, Marx's view of the world was not at all religious. H e said
that an elemen tary or 'minimum' religious sense migh t find
expression in Job's: 'The Lord gave , the Lord hath taken away:
blessed be the name of the Lord.'
Things happen which we'd not foreseen (sometimes we call them
d isasters, somet imes good fortune) . And we have no explanation
of' this. We may, with hindsight, explain the particular disaster,
and make pl ans to preven t its repetition. Th en as often as not our
/1lr11111i11g, and I he measures wr take, have conseq uences which we
124 Religion and reality
had not foreseen. And we have no explanation of this. In other
words, although we may explain the unexpected happenings as
they come, we do not explain the fact that things happen we had
never foreseen. And Job's words were not an explanation either;
weren't meant as such. They do express an attitude towards what
has happened.
Someone who was not Job a nd had not Job's religion might still
have used words like his, a nd said perhaps: 'By "God" I m ean:
the way everything is.'
A character in one of Gottfried Keller's short stories ('Das
verlorene Lachen') says, 'I suppose I have something like the fear
of Goel, in that I cannot scoff at life or the way things have gone.
I believe I ought not to ask that things should go well everywhere
and as a matter of course; no, I am afraid that here and there
terrible things will d evelop, and I hope nevertheless that they will
turn again towards what is better.' ·
This is not a resul t of a training in scientific method . But
neither does the practice of scientific method in those fields where
the method is at home (experimental scie nces, technology, medi-
cine) conflict with it. I have said that I do not think that scientific
method establishes a view of the world or a view of life. The idea
of a scien tific view of the world seems to m e a confused one, and
I referred to Marx in order to suggest this.
An u tterance like that of Job is not a theory. It would have no
meaning to ask for evidence in support or in disproof of it.
The ways ef thinking - including forms of speech, familiar tran-
sitions - in experimental science a nd in religion are differen t.
Thi s makes it hard, ve ry often, for scientists to find any sense in
r eligious meditations, services and discourses. And, I suppose
equally, t he othe r way round. It is this, and also the characteris-
tics of an industrial society, I think, that creates the 'divide' of
which you speak. Not a conflict between rival accounts of the
world.
You say that you switched from Classics to medicine becaus<'
you wanted to study human nature in some other way than by
reading Latin and Gr eek, and the medical tutor advised you to
come back after the war and read medicine.
His 'If you wan t to study human nature, you must study it 11
pathology' is partly metaphor, and I a m not sure I have it I he·
right way up. Did he mean that human ill nesses and injuri es a1·c·
 'The divide' between religion and 'scientiftc method' 125
the pathology of human nature? T hen 'normal' human nature _
correspondi.ng to 'n~rmal ph ysiology' - would be just that portion
of human kmd that is not afflicted by injury or disease - including,
no doubt, many who betray their friends, many who practise
cruelty 'for its own sake': cruelty to animals, to children, to
worr:e.n, and to weaker men; those who try to ruin others by
mahc10~s scandal-mongering; those who place pres tige above
everyth1~g and are ~nscrupulous in seeking it; etc., etc. Obviously
the medical tutor .did not want to sa y or imply this. If anything,
he .would ha:e said that the traits I've mentioned could begin
a list - a still unfinished list, I guess - of different forms of
'pat hology' of human nature, together with disease and maim-
ing. But then if we think of human nature when it's not
'pathological', we have a conception which is m uch wider than
'physiology', and much more difficult to explain or describe
and - I think you would have said - in some contexts more im~
portant. And it is not at the centre of medical studies as
physiology and pathology are.
~ometin;ies you speak ~f 'the desire to help other people in an
act1.ve way - not of a desire to study human nature. You say this
desire to help people was your outlet for the ethical Protestant
Christianity which you had been taugh t. I do not know whether the
study. of human na.ture would have a place in your grandfather's
doctrines. (If we thmk of Calvin, we might say that human nature
is always evil. But I do not believe you were taught this.)
You say 'I enjoyed little about medicine until I discovered
ge.ner~l practice'. And later you speak of your 'acceptance of
scient1~c knowledge and medical experience'; and especially
of the mflue nce on your thinking of 'the scientific method' and
its 'rigorous search for truth'. Science and scientific method
created a conflict with the religious ideas in which you had been
brought up.
. T he ~onflict with religious ideas came also from general prac-
ti ce, which brought you face to face with suffering and injustice.
- At first I was going to ask whether the training in scientific
method came into conflict with that 'interest in the lives of
di fferent people' which belongs to general practice. But I d o not
rind any su~gestion that you felt a conflict here . I could imagine
I hat you might have done so. But you will tell me I am talking
through my hat.
126 Religion and reality
When I imagine you might have felt a conflict there, I
remember the respect with which we may speak of this or that
man's knowledge or judgement of human beings, and the obtuse-
ness we find in others. Think of our convictions of the genuineness
or the sh amming in the expressions of feeling (of friendliness, of
bodily pain ...) in others. Some people are much better judges
he re than others. And with experience a man (not everyone)
may become a better judge than he was: someone perhaps on
whom you would rely when wondering what to expect. You can
learn from him too, and become more perceptive yourself.
But this is not like learning a method or a technique. 'You learn
to judge correctly. There are rules also, but they do not form
a syst em and only someone with experience can apply them
correctly, sensibly. Not like rules of calculation.' (The words I
have just put in quotes are translations of Wittgenstein's
remarks.) 2
I suppose this sort of understanding of human beings is impor-
tant for a general practitioner. And it comes gradually, doesn't
it? (It is not what is reported at a conference of physicians and
surgeons, I imagine.) .
I am not a religious man, although I often (constantly) wish I
could be. One strong influence in this is the devout lives I have
known in one or two close fri ends. I know the 'explanations' of
such lives by behavioural scientists and psychologists, and I am
not impressed. But I also find much that is wonderful in religious
practices and writings, although I only dimly understand them.
There is religion in the lat er works of Michelangelo and in the
music of Bach (I was going to mention just the B minor
Mass, but of course this does not stand alone). If the behavioural

2 Philosophical Investigations Part II, § xi, p. 227 e reads:

ls there such a thing as 'expert judgement' about the genuineness of expressions
of feeling? - Even here, there are those whose judgement is ' better' and those
whose judgement is 'worse'.
Correct prognosis will generally issue from the judgements of those with bettc1
knowledge of mankind.
Can one learn this knowledge? Yes; some can. Not, however, by taking a cours<'
in it but through 'experience'. - Can someone else be a man's teacher in th is~
Cert~inly. From time to time he gives him the right tip - This is what 'lcarni1111'
and 'teaching' are like here. - What one acquires is not a technique; one learns
correct judgements. The re are also rules, but th ey do not form a sys11·m, and 011ly
ex pe rienced people can apply them righ1. Unlikr ralr11la1i11g-ntlc s ( l~cl.) .
 'The divide' between religion and 'scientific method' 127
scientists and psychologists try to 'explain' the lives of Michel-
angelo and of J. S. Bach, they show a stupidity that would make
a genuine scientist turn the other way.
I admire also what certain saints have done as I have read of
it. I think of St Peter Claver, for instance, and what he did for
the bewildered and terrified and stinking human beings from the
hol~s of the slave ships which called at Tangiers - stinking with
their own filth and that of the corpses which had been left where
they were in the overcrowded hold until they reached Tangiers -
St Peter then putting his arms around one and then another of
these survivors and kissing him as a human being ... Would you
explain this by Peter Claver's 'human need for support'? I cannot
imagine arry support that would enable me to begin to do what he
did. - If anyone explained it by 'over-compensation' showing an
even g_reater need of support in Peter Claver - you would agree
there is. nothing scientific about that at all. But I would say it
was obvious that Peter Claver was deeply religious in what he
did. You don't have to be a religious yourself in order to recog-
nize this.
You are familiar with Schweitzer's short monograph 'The
Psychiatric Account of Jesus', replying to two essays by German
psychiatrists who explained the teaching and the death of Jesus.
If I find religious lives and works and practices wonderful, I do
not mean they are evidence of God's existence, or of the truth
of Christianity.
Some of your trouble comes from thinking of Christianity
and of a belief in God as a kind of theory. And then it seems
as though, if we were clear about it, it must be either science or
pseudo-science. (Certain scientists, especially some flag-waver s
fo~ science, speak sometimes as though science shows every-
thmg that can be truly said, and that our rough and tumble
talk is primitive mumbling of what might be said in scientific
terms. The prestige of science helps to keep us from recognizing
that there are other ways of speaking in other matters that
conce rn us.)
E.g.: 'If a .belief in God is true, then the evidence for or against
it should be we ighed just as the evidence from the Doppler effect
that the out er nebulae are receding is weighed. If we find no
<'vidcncc that can be tested, but only prejudice, then a belief in
C od is mistaken.'
128 Religion and reality
' ... nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.' - If you asked
'is that mistaken or is it true?' I should not know what you were
trying to ask.
'My peace I give you. Not as the world gives, give I to you.' I
may only dimly understand this. But this does not mean: I am
left wondering whether it is correct or mistaken.
If I had listened to St Francis praying in a religious service,
and said to my friend 'I am sure that none of this is true', this
could only mean: 'I'm sure he is an imposter - he's only
pretending to pray.' .
I agree that there are difficulties which, for someone wh? is
not a religious believer, are barriers in the way. - If I am nght
in taking your chief difficulties to be
1. the idea that the World and the Universe - Nature - provide
evidence of the goodness of their Creator;
2. the prevalence of terrible suffering, and especially the 'injus-
tice' in the 'distribution' of the suffering; and I think you might
add the prevalence and persistence of evil - which includes
much that the term 'suffering' does not cover;
- these are barriers for me as well.
My inclination is to try to say something about the second of
them, especially. But I have spent a long time now and have not
made anything clearer, and I must control my self-conceit. I'll say
just: there are deeply religious people who are more acutely and
constantly aware of the suffering of others (close at hand and far
away) than I could ever be; though I may wish I might. I think
especially of Simone Weil. I don't know if you have read her Attente
de Dieu. It is not long, and you would get a lot out of it. - In
contrast are those sickening apologists who 'reconcile' suffering
with religion (God's love) by saying how it may 'ennoble' the
sufferer. Granting that it sometimes does, the suffering that is
both all-consuming and persistent degrades the spirit as well as th e
body. Simone Weil comes back to this again and again. And he r
realization of it is near the centre of her religious belief.
What I wish I could bring out is: that the difficulties and
barriers that separate those who are not religious from those who
are - are not like the difficulties (say) that separated the views
of Einstein and Niels Bohr (before Einstein was finally 'converted'
to quantum theory). The 'divide' is not a divide be tween two
 The divide' between religion and 'scientific method' 129
theories. But neither is it a divide between conscientious mves-
tigation and the assertions of prejudice.
I have never known of anyone who was brought to religious
belief by argument and the presentation of evidence. Nor do you
find anything of the sort in any of the great religious teachers
(think of the Hebrew Prophets, of Jesus, of the apostles; of
Mohammed, of Buddha). What are now known as 'the argu-
ments for the existence of God' were the product of apologetics:
to provide replies to sceptics regarding God's existence, lest t he
sceptics bemuse and weaken the faith of some believers. They
probably belonged also to polemic between rival schools of
theology.

IJ 3

Returning to your account of a divide, amounting even to conflict :

On the one side is a d eep concern for accurate, consiste nt knowledge
about the Universe, the World, Life, Man, oneself, based on questioning,
analysis and t esting of beliefs. On the other side is a way of responding
to the same things through feelings which range fro m love to hatred, from
ecstasy to the Valley of the shadows ...
I have italicized that phrase because I think it is misleading.
In my earlier letter I said I thought it was a mistake to think
of religion as a theory in the sense in which you would speak of
the theory of quantum mechanics (in the discussion betwee n
Einstein and Bohr), of Robert Mayer's kinetic theory of heat, of
some theory of mutations in biology ... as theories.
When you say that 'On the one side ( (the side of scientific
method)) there is a deep concern for accurate knowledge about
... Life, Man .. .', with the capital letters - is there any scien-
tific theory of Man or of Life in the sense which your capitals
suggest?
Somewhere in Browning's The Ring and the Book (I haven't a
copy here) there is a scene in which one man is speaking to
nnother about the difficulties and the alternatives facing him; and
he ends with, 'But bear life, my friend.' Would scientific method
have given an unde rstanding of what he had to bear?

~ Jlrom a lc:l tt"r to J ohn Lovell dated 6 J unc 1984 continuing the discussion of his lecture
lo lhc l111t• 1·11a tionnl Schwe itzer Society (Ed.) .
130 Religion and reality
A remark by Macbeth to the Doctor, shortly after Lady
Macbeth's sleep-walking scene (near the end of the play):
Cure her of that.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, ...

A wonderful feature is Macbeth's idea that there must be some

way of removing her trouble by medicine or surgery. No concep-
tion of what it is. Of what human life is.
(sorrow?)
St John of the Cross. What he called 'the dark night of the
soul'. (The phrase has been quoted now at second or third hand
and applied where it is almost trivial. And then it has los t what
he meant by it.)
The stupidity of any psychologist who imagined that he could
'deal with' that.

P erhaps if you injected him with a particular drug, or gave him

electric shock therapy, his whole state of mind would change;
for a time, at least - but let's say permanently. Would you say
then that 'by the methods of medical psychology we have found
the answer to his difficulties': that psychology could relieve
them more efficiently than religion could?

All without ever understanding what his difficulties were .

'Given a difficulty, a darkness that can see no light, - then the

only problem is how to remove it.'

I know of course that you would not say this. But I am puzzled by the
sentence which begins ('offer alternative explanations').
'He would have been happier.' Maybe so. But he was concerned
with something much more important to him than happiness.
Something which you and I can only dimly understand. I do not
see how he could have worked through the dark night of his soul
in any but the religious way in which he finally did so.
You speak of 'a human need for support, guidance and peact·
of mind'. I was almost going to ask if you knew how you wou Id
recognize peace of mind in St John of the C ross. - But a ce nt ml
trouble for me is your use of the word 'need'. fn many cases, ol
 The divide' between religion and 'scientific method' 131
course, we can distinguish between what a person wants and what
he needs. And the danger then is of falling into saying that we
know better than he does what he needs. But what are your
criteria - yours or mine - for saying that he does need this or
that? Would you say that St John of the Cross needed peace of
mind, for instance? I would never say that. Partly, I'd never know
what I should call peace of mind in him. More important: he
himself would say he didn't want it. - He had a vision, of which,
near the end of his life, he told a lifelong friend (another monk).
In the vision Christ spoke to him from the cross and asked him
to say what he would wish from him in reward for the service he
had shown. St j ohn said he would wish to suffer and to be despised
and scorned. If you say that 'we - i.e. Psychology - can explain
the vision' - all right. I may make one remark, but that will be
by the way. My point here is that St John was deeply serious in
his answer, both within the vision and when it had passed. And
it now sounds flat when I repeat that there were things much
more important to him than peace of mind. - I do not think you
will say 'But of course it was what he needed.'

If you said psychology could explain the vision, and if you meant
something like Freud 's analysis of dreams - I do not think such
analysis explains why the dream occurred. It provides informa-
tion about t he patient, but it does not show why the dream
occurred. (In discussion of this point I'd have to refer you else-
where.)
To say 'psychology could explain the vision' suggests t hat such
a vision is a familiar phenomenon and something which you or
I might have had. That would be a serious falsification. It does
not understand - I had almost said: does not try to understand
- what we are talking about.
You cannot speak of the vision of St John of the Cross apart
from the importance it had in his life - all through the rest
of his life. This would have no counterpart if I had had 'such
a vision': my life might have changed, but not to become what
his was. And this means also that you have to take account of
what he was before and at the time when he had the vision.
All of this belongs to what we must try to understand by 'the
vision which St J ohn of the Cross had'.
132 Religion and reality

You would not explain Stjohn's vision -you would have no idea
what it was - unless you could explain what it was in his life.
If you asked for a d escription of the vision, and if you meant
something like a description of a painting ... yes, you or I
might have dreamed of seeing a pa inting like that. Wha t would
this show?
I am not saying 'So his having the vision was evidence of divine
intervention.' So far as I am concerned, it was not 'evidence' of
anything at all. It was what it was. What do you want to explain?

In 1916, at a time when he was on night duty, unde r shell fire,

all night, Wittgenst ein wrote in his diary: 'It is only dea.th that
gives life its meaning.' (Or: 'It is only from death that hfe gets
its meaning.')
Ought this be tested by scientific me thods?
To return to the phrase of yours which I underscored:
'On the other side is a way of responding to the same things
through feelings .. .' I think it is only the capital letters in your
list which lets it appear both as a list of subjects which have
bee n investigated scie ntifically, and also of matters which enter
in religious prayers, religious medita tions, refl exions on what is
important or unimporta nt in hope a nd despair . ..

((My brain is a half-dead battery, and whe n the engine stalls,

it won't turn over again. I thought I knew the road for a bit.
Much help that is.))

I have been trying to ask whether the 'divide' which you fell
can be described quite as you picture it.
I hope that scientists at work a re as free from prejudice as you
suggest.
It is prejudice if they think tha t whenever something is said ,
it must communicate information or be gibberish. - If this wen·
so, they'd never understand the bus conductor.
Compa re:
(a) 'My daughter is ill. She has been in a co ma for two weeks .'
(b) 'Please help my da ughter if you can! '
(c) 'Then may it go with her as Goel wills.'
 'The divide' between religion and 'scientific method' 133
Here (a) gives you information. You may wonder whether it is
true or false, or whether it is accurate .
(b) gives you no information, and you do not ask if it's true or
false . But you wouldn't call it empty.
Of (c) you cannot ask 'is it accurate' either; and it is not
addressed to you as (b) is. But you understand it.
Obviously (c) would not be a statemen t in a theory any more
than (b) would.
If my intelligence were less sunken, I would try to illustrat e
analogous differences between, say,
(d) 'talking about the life that has been found in Antarctica' or
'talking about the difference between living seeds and boiled
seeds of the same pla nt ';
(e) 'talking about life' in, say, the remark from Browning's poem
that I quoted.

Here (saving t he pedantry) we might say the sense of 'talking

about' is differ ent.
. It won't do to say tha t the characte r in Brownin g's poem was
simply talking about 'feelings'. - He was talking about problems,
if you like. At any rate, the problems we may think of there are
real enough. But of course, to say he was talking of them would
not mean that he could as well have given a list of them and
compared one with another. If anything could take the force from
his remark ...
When you speak of 'difficulties in the Ch ristian tradition'
cr eating 'a divid e amounting even to a conflict', this is (I imagine)
a conflict be tween religious statements (or utterances) a nd scien-
tific statements. We have conflicting statements about the same
things; conflicting answers to the same problems.
I a m suggesting that in many cases what is meant is not the
same, and especially that the problem - what we think of as a
problem - is not at all the same in religion a nd in science:
although if we look at the words a nd do not keep in mind the
different situations in which we use the m and the different inter-
ests that engage us in the one field and in the other, we may be
misled.
Thi s kind of discussion is difficult because we start by using
I he term 'religion' as though it were a word like 'physics':
wltcrcas, even if we kee p to the Christian religion, to the churches
134 R eligion and reality
and individu als professing Christianity, the re is such a wide
variety in what they say and insist on a nd practise, and if on e of
us says 'religion does not say so and so', the oth~r can find a
sta t emen t by some religious body or person which does say
just tha t. T hink of the diffe rence in attitudes towards scripture.
Som e de nominations or sects insist on 'a literal interpreta tion'
of every page in the Bible (I do not know how t h.is "."~rks in ~ra~­
tice). With other d enomina tions a nd o ther mdiv1duals it is
diffe rent.
The story of the C reation a nd the st ory of the Fall (or if you
like: the 'id ea' of C reation and the idea of the Fall) are deeply
importa nt in many form s of C hristianity and of Judaism. I think
I can see why this is. (Or wha t I think it is.) . .
Cr eation of the world. There is a sense of wonder m which
men have wondered at the existence of the world. Wittgenstein
refe rs to this in a slightly differen t con text, in an early lect~re
of which I'll enclose a copy here. Say that I wonder at the exist-
e nce of the world when I am in the st ate of mind in which I
think to myself: 'There might never have been anyt~ing a t .all.:
And from this to, 'Isn't it extraordina ry that there is anything.
I a m not in this state of mind when I am hurried a nd ha rried by
practical affairs. P erhaps it is less a t home ~n. an industrial
society than in a simpler agricultural one. But it is r ela ted t o a
ma n's reflexions on his own existence - if he has awakened to
a gra titude for his own existence (awakened from bitterness a~d
exasper a tion, pe rhaps). Or it m ay be the o ther way: the world m
which we ar e placed, in which we are caught.
T her e might never have been a nything at all. This .(I'm_
suggesting) is the idea of the first two chapters of Genesis. ~I
someone said 'But surely you can't expect us to take that seri-
ously as history!', I suppose we'd say he was comic wit hout
meaning to be. . . .
H owever you reflect on your own existence, this is not i~~c-
pend en t of the existence of the world (including the absurdittcs
of this phrase which Wittgenstein m en tions).. . . ·~·
'Does anything force me to reflect on my exis tence m this way.
Of course not.
The story of the Fall. I think this has to d~ with ou r sense '.11
what is sinister a nd m erciless and d egrading ID ourselves a ncl 111
other huma n beings, a nd with ou r se nse of I hi s as pu lling us down
 'The divide' between religion and 'scientific method' 135
from what we might have been or could be. (I ought to prefix 'I
can only guess' to every sentence, but you must take this as read.)
The r ecognition or realization of this is put in the form of a story.
If s~ meo ne should say, 'Such a story may have been all right for
earlier peoples who were ignorant a nd simple-minded, but we
know now . . .' - No, I don't think so. I t was not because our
ancestors didn't know any better. They knew, I guess, more about
these things than we do. They had thought about them as we
ha~e not and .cl~ not. They had marvelled at t he boni et mali cognito4
which the re is m men and not in animals, a nd wha t it has done
to men.

nr
I did ge\ a co~y of ~chweitzer 's Ethik und Kultur (includi ng the
first two Pa r ts : I believe the two further parts or volumes which
he in tended were never published). I have been disappointed in
it. I n his works of biblical scholarship he has his feet on t he
ground, and he makes it clear what he is talking about in this
~ent~nce and in that one. When he is writing of St Paul's teaching
m his Le tters, or the teaching and the re marks of J esus in the
~ospels, I may feel d oubtful if he has made his point, bu t he
~i tes the t exts that he is discussing, and the q uotations from other
mterpr eters whom he is challenging, and I think I see what he
is saying. In most of E thik und Kultur I miss this . H e uses the
phra~es Weltanschauung ('view of the world' or 'view of things'),
der _Sinn des_Lebens ('the meaning of life'), Denken ('thinking') .. .,
which are importan t - bu t they are vague, and t hey call out for
d efinite examples before we can know at all what he is doing with
th em. - In the last 40 pages of the volume he is explaining what
he means by 'reverence for life', and in this he is more inter-
esting. I will try to say one or two things about it at the end of
th is letter (you will have stopped reading before then) .
_Here I will ~ay j ust : I do not think what Schweitzer says in
I his volume will show you a way across the 'd ivide' of which
you, spoke i~ ~our lecture . ~en. he speak.s of 'De nke n' ('think-
ing) here, it is always the thmkmg of philosophy. He does not

1
'Tht' knowledge of good and rvil ' (Eel.) .
1 Frn111 it-lt l'l'S
10 .John 1.ovc· ll d1111•d 4 .J1111c 19fM· and 9 September 1984 (Ed .).
136 Religion and reality
mean the practice of 'scientific method'; formulating variable
hypotheses, experiment, measurement, samplin? a.nd ~tatis~ics,
conclusions from sta tistics ... and so on. The thmkmg m philos-
ophy may be reftexions about scientific meth~ds: although
Schweitzer never says anything to suggest this. When he
speaks of being willing to ente r 'the desert of scepticism rega~d.ing
knowledge of the world', he is talking of philosophical scept1c1sm
(p. 94) . . .
One thing that a ttracts you in Schweitzer 's account of his 'view
of the world' - or: his account of wha t is needed in the construc-
tion of a satisfactory view of t he world - is his emphasis upon
'thinking'. T his seem ed to show a kinship between his me thod
and the me thods of experime ntal science. H is view of the world
was somehow a n expression of 'will'. But since the view of the
world was criticized by thinking and somehow met the 'require-
ments' of thinking, it was not subj ective a nd arbitrary as a m ere
expr ession of fee ling (for or against) would be.
H e spoke in a similar way of 'a view of life' or 'how one regards
life' (Lebensau.ffassung). H e speaks in parallel ways of 'optimism'
and 'pessimism' regard ing (one's) life and of op timism a nd
pessimism in one's view of the world. In both cases he would . s~y
that worki ng towards an optimistic view is wor thless unless it is
disciplined by thinking; and also : tha t such a conclusion cannot
be r eached by thinking or founded on knowledge . It cannot be
the expression of a scientific conclusion. It must be adopted by
an act of will.
In t hese con text s the 'thinking' of which he speaks - the
thinking which 'all of us' must exercise if we are to preven t the
decay a nd extinction of culture - is the thinking which we find
in the writings of philosophers a nd religious teachers. He would
identify it, I suppose, by the problems which th~se p~ilo~ophers
whom he mentions have treated. H e does not identify it by a
sketch of the experimen tal me thods of Faraday and Maxwell and
R utherford; or those of Pasteur or Barcroft or Adrian. H e docs
not give a n illustration from the thinking he exercised in his own
diagnosis and t reatme n t.
Schweitze r respected scientific method a nd fel t 'that he could make .h i~
way into the deserts of scepti cism with con fi dence', no lo nger fee ling
this way of searching for Truth to be a threat to other v<1 l11es.
 'The divide' between religion and 'scientific method' 13 7
I think that the ~lause you quote is from the fifth pa ragraph
from the end of his preface to Part II of his Ethics. But there his
ph rase is: 'the desert of scepticism regarding a knowledge of the
world' (or: 'scepticism regarding coming to know t he character
of the world '). T his knowledge is what the scientific method of
which you speak migh t provide. And turned towards the world
. . . . . '
it is scepticism ; .It leaves us. facing a desert. W hen Schweitzer says
?e can enter this deser t with peaceful courage, it is not his trust
m the met ho~s of science that supports him. Trying to use t he
~ethods of science t o reach an understanding of t he world - this
is what led people to nothing b ut a desert. Schweitzer enters it
with confid ence beca use for him the 'principle' for an under-
standing of the world is not knowledge, but 'Will'. H e com es back
to this assertion again and again (sometimes with more rhetoric
tha n at others). See, for instance, pp. 6 and 7 (?? pp. 7 and 8) of
that same preface, e.g. the paragraph beginning:
I believe I am the first among Western thinke rs to date to admit this
s~at te ri ng r~sul t of our increase in knowledge and to be absolutely scep-
tlca.1 ~e~ard.mg our knowledge of the world, without abandoning an
opt 1m1stic view of the world and of life.
By '.knowi~g' ~r 'increasing our knowledge' he generally means,
I thmk, scientific investigation.
What he calls 'thinking' belongs both to 'will' (or 'willing'?)
~nd to 'kno':ing' (arriving at knowledge and being guided by
it). In the third or fou r th paragraph of chapter XXI of Part 11 he
says,
Thinking is the discussion ((co ming lo terms with one anothe r)) between
willing a nd knowing.

I believe you und erstand that sentence better than I do. This is
not the thinking of scientific investigation or of historical inves-
tigation; so much is clear: we know something of what it is not.
But w~at it is? Schw~it.z:r t~lls ~s we all ought to become thinking
men, if culture or c1v1hzat10n is to survive. Does he make clear
what it is that we ough t to practise? T he sentence I quoted j ust
now is no help at all.
But ~her: a re common uses of the word which proba bly have
1m111eth1ng m co mmon with his use of it. - 'T hinking' in t he sense
nl' bci ng critical - examining the proposals a nd opinions which one
1• 11 rn1111t1·rs; l'.Xamin ing and crit icizing views which I myself have
138 R eligion and reality
held and still hold etc.... ; in a somewhat analogous sense:
examining one's own life.
Still - I might have mad e a practice of critical thinking in this
sense without ever thinking of optimism or pessimism in my view
of the world, and without ever coming to a view of the world at
all.
Reflecting on the worth or worthlessness of the !if e I am living
need not bring me to an 'affirmation of Life', in Schweitzer's
sense. The extreme case might be of someone who has known
only defeat and suffering and who is unable to ask any questions
except 'Wiry?' Schweitzer must have met this often enough. Why
then does he give the rhetorical exhortation: 'We must all become
thinking people'?
You find a stumbling block in 'a God "out there" '. But a
Weltanschauung or a view of the World which may save us from
dege neration is itself a conviction about the character of what is
'out there': beyond any test or confirmation. 'An optimistic view
of the world' is nothing I can justify by any tests or evidence. I
cannot even give sense to the notion unless I recognize 'a mystical
union' between my own 'will to life' and 'the will to life of the
World'. And then - does 'the World' cease to be 'out there '?
(Through a defect in my temperam ent I find the thoughts stifling
and I wish that either it, or I, were out there .)
Schweitzer's phrase Lebensbejahung could mean either 'saying
"yes" to or being grateful for my existence', or, for instance: the
will to live in a nearly drowned swimme r. - There are so many
different uses of the word 'life'. Pe rhaps they, too, come toge ther
in a mystical union.
Schweitzer was a great man. My respect for him makes me
wish that he had not written Kultur und Ethik. But in saying this
I seem to se t myself up as judge; which is absurd.

IV 6
I have not found any statement of Schweitzer's suggesting that
he thought that the Earth or 'M a n' was 'th e centre of tlw
Universe '.

6 From notes on J ohn Lovell's lectu re to the lntcrna tiona l Schw<"itzc r Sod cty d111c·d 1·1
October 1984· (Ed.)
 'The divide' between religion and 'scientiji.c method' 139
Lovell speaks of Schweitzer as 'accepting (in 1922) the pre-
vailing egocentric (sic) view of our place in the universe'.
((nota bene: Schweitzer's proble m was not regarding 'our place
in the universe' in that sense at all.))
He says 'Today, more tha n sixty years lat er, we have a theory
of the universe which transcends (??) the localised world-view of
Schweitzer' (who, by the way, had no 'theory of the universe').
I have italicized the expression which seems to me sloppy
in such a discussion, although others will understand it as I
do not.

I do not think Lovell has understood what Schweitzer was trying

to say about 'eine Weltanschauung' or why Schweitzer thought it so
important. - Schweitzer had reasons for saying that (scientific)
knowledge of the world would never provide a found ation for an
optimistic view of the world ((Weltanschauung)). Lovell thinks that
in modern astronomy 'our modern concept of the universe is
indeed an integrated world-view of precisely the character tha:
Schweitzer desired.'
I have hardly understood 'our modern concept'. But even so, I
think that Schweitzer was worried about som ething different. You
have to try to understand first what (in Schweitzer's view) the
role of a Weltanschauung in a society might be and ought to be,
and why the d ecay of culture has gone with the lack of and
indifference to any Weltanschauung. For him it goes toge ther with
a conviction that there is some sens e in life, a convic tion tha t
there is some m eaning in life even if one does not feel that one
has found it. - These are difficult ideas for some people, for others
Ib ey are obvious . They may go with a feeling that it ma kes a
difference how you live - and some thing analogous for the life of
a community. A conviction, in certain circumstances, that 'then
lif'c would have no sense'; which makes it possible to resist a nd
rri licize certain waves of feeling or of cynicism or general
111diffe rence which may spread in a society. It is in this way that
ii Weltanschauung and the sense of, or search for, a meaning in
lif'c• - is connected with what Schweitzer calls Denken or thinking.
When Schweitzer criticizes the views of various philosophers
lrnrn early tim es to the present, he often tries to show how
I lie· view of 1hi s or that philosophe r was lacking or inadequa te
140 Religion and reality
to provide a Weltanschauung for the time in which that .philoso-
pher was writing. Such a review could not be something t~at
would become part of the lives of people. If it were mostly a side
issue for them, something about which they would generally
shrug their shoulders, it would not have the importance of a
Weltanschauung.
Do many people feel that what Lovell calls 'our present under-
standing of the basic structure of the universe' has any. such
importance? Does it give you a sense of where you stand on 1~su~s
which come up in your life and in the life of the community in
which you live?
Lovell holds that modern astronomy gives an account of 'the
universe' which Schweitzer could not have imagined. Astron-
omy had made observations .and , draw~ con~l~si?ns in. this
short time which are 'extraordinary and surprising. And if we
now ask,
Does our existence depend on any features of the universe other than
the localized region of the solar system? The surpris.i~g answer (si~)
appears to be that our presence here today dcp~nds cnt1cally on condi-
tions that existed in the early phases of the universe .

The old woman in my head says 'Just imagine!'

Of course over that distance the expression 'depends on' is
vague. Perhaps this is why Lovell uses the expressions 'entwined'
and 'involvement with':
It is here that we find the ultimate enlwinement of man with the entir<'
cosmos.
It seems to me that man's involvement with the universe is complete·
and absolute.
This is given as something which science has shown or made irr('
sistible. And we can understand why Schweitzer called out fo1
'thinking'.
Someone says 'If certain things had been different before t lw
time, whenever it was, at which the Earth originated, and ii
atmosphere and other conditions had not existed o.n the Ea.rt" :
- there would have been no evolution of plant and animal spccH·~ .
What's new about that? Is it an idea that had neve r occurred I n
Schweitzer?
When Lovell writes of ' the Big Bang' a 11cl says:
 'The divide' between religion and 'scientific method' 141

The ra~e at which the universe was expandi ng at that epoch narrowly
determmed ~('narrowly'??)) whether biological evolution became possible
· . . The delicacy. of the ba lance at that epoch, ten billion years ago,
appears extraordmary. ((??)) It has been calculated that a difference in
the expansion rate of only one part in a million million one way or the
other would have made human existence impossible .. .

. 'Again the balance was one of extreme delicacy ... ' - this may
impress some readers. The 'breath-taking' aspects ('Just one false
step and ... ! ... 'We're lucky to be alive!'); the 'it has been calcu-
lated .. .', with n? mention of the probability theory and other
forms of calculation employed - maybe this is not what I was
going to say it is; but I do say it is irrelevant to a discussion of
Schweitzer.
S~h':e~tzer spoke of a 'will to life' ('der Wille zum Leben') in
an ind1v1dual human being, and also of a ' universal' will to life
or the will to life of the world. The reality of this universal o;
world will to lif~ is not b~ rational investigation. It is something
~ come t? k~ow in the ethical development of my own will to life,
m a reahzat1on of a unity with the universal will. Schweitzer calls
this a form of mysticism (Mystik).
Lovell thinks, appar~ntly, that what Schweitzer was trying to
suggest can be shown without any mysticism, in the account which
astronomy now gives of the universe. - The history of the universe
~nally m~de possible the existence of this planet, with the condi-
~10ns :Vh1ch made possible life and the evolution of species
mcluding man. In view of the 'extreme delicacy of the balance'
etc., Lovell seems inclined to say that we have in the univers~
so~ethi.ng akin to a purpose or will to make life possible - a will
to .hfe, in .that sense. Lovell does not explicitly say this. He does
write, for mstance, the otherwise banal sentence: 'In other words
the conditions in the first few minutes and years of the life of
the universe had to be exactly what they were in order to le ad
to the universe in which we live.'
And his final paragraph begins:
Ind eed one ~an only be fu ll of humanity at the series of events, defying
l'<.ll1:1pre hens 1on (?) that have led to the presence of ma n on earth. Ten
lllllion years ago a beginning ... Over three billion years la ter we a re
lint· today. Surely we h~ve . an inherent cosmic ethic leading to the
rn1.1 ccpl of reverence for lire 111 a world view which embraces the entire
lllll V(' l'8C .
14·2 Religion and reality
The universe's will to life is just the careful preparation of
conditions that would make life possible.
Lovell thinks that the reason why Schweitzer did not say
things like this was just that he did not have the astro~omi~al
knowledge available. - This is his most obvious and crucial mis-
understanding of Schweitzer.
Schweitzer speaks both of 'a view of life' (Lebensanschauung) and
of 'a view of the world' (Weltanschauung). These are intercon-
nected, but it is the 'view of life' which is primary. - It is
important that we should think through to a view of life a nd a
view of the world which is optimistic: very roughly, that we become
able to say 'yes' to life, and able also to say 'yes' to the world or
the way things are. - I can find no grounds for optimism in empir-
ical evidence - from my own observations and the records of what
has been found to be so and of how things happen and recur.
As Schweitzer puts it: 'not through any interpretation of the world'.
Here any creative will is met by a des tructive will, not only in
this place but in the same person; etc. - Schweitzer never speaks
of anything he would want to call 'a cosmic ethic' in the world
about him. An optimistic Weltanschauung is one that is fed by the
energies of the will of him that holds it ; the possibilities or hopes
that come from my ethical convictions. Possibilities that are not
just dreamed; possibilities within myself (of becoming somehow
a better man) , and possibilities in the world (other roads and
other reactions).
Even if, per impossibile, Schweitzer had written with the discov-
eries and theories of the astronomy of 1982 before him, he would
not have derived a Weltanschauung from them. It would make no
sense to think of those results as yielding a Weltanschauung as he
meant the expression. When he says, 'My knowledge of the world
is an external knowledge and is never complete', he is not
lamenting the incomplete state of scientific knowledge in 1922.
H e is contrasting physical knowledge altogether with the kno"".1-
edge that he has from his will: 'But the knowl~dge from my _will
is immediate ((not 'external')) and is rooted m the mysten o.us
impulses of life as it is in itself.' It is not as though the mat crn~l.
supplied by physics and astronomy would serve well enoug h 1I
only we had more of it.
The Weltanschauung comes from a view of life, or from 'e thics'.
T he optimism of an ethically imbued will 'suppli es the ass ura ll <'<'
 The divide' between religion and <scientific method' 143
that ~he cours.e o~ the world is somehow towards a spiritually
meamngful objective and that an improvement of conditions in
the world and in society assists the spiritual and moral growth
of the individual'.
Not that the optimism is always there on the shelf when you
n~ed it .. 'So our life is a striving for under standing between our
will to hf: and the world, in which we have again and again to
fight agams~ ~ny weakening of the will to life. The struggle
between optimism and pessimism in us is never ended. We are
~lways ~and e ring along the cliffs edge of the abyss of pessim-
ism ...
I do not think that a better knowledge of astronomy would help
much; not most people, anyway.
A Weltanschauung, for Schweitzer, is a conviction that the world
a.s a whole ?as so~e sense or purpose; and there can be no ques-
t10n of finding this empirically.
So in Chapter XVII of Part 11,
In bringing about and maintaining a particular species or form of life
nature always proceeds in a wonderfully purposive manner. But she doe~
not seei:n interested_at a ll in bringing these different forms of purposive
ada~tat1~n for particular ends together in one general purposiveness.
Letting life come together with li'.e and form a total life, is something
she do~s not undertake. Nature 1s a wonderfully creative a nd at the
same time senselessly destructive force. We stand before her without a
clue. Meaningful into meaningless, meaningless into meaningful: this is
the nature of the universe .

Lovell asks 'a most critical question: What is the relation of

man ~o the universe of .m odern cosmology?' - For 'man' he might
substitute, as he does m other sentences, 'the presence of man
on earth'.
In such a discussion, e.g. in a discussion of Schweitzer, this
would normally be understood as asking about the r elation of the
presence of man to the innumerable other processes of creation
and des truction in the world. And with the 'the' of 'the relation'
it would seem to be asking what the presence of man on earth
contributes to the character of the whole or universe of innumer-
a ble and unexamined processes. - I do not see how there could
IH' any answer to this at all.
Love ll might say: it all de pends on when and how far you can
rx ln1polatc. And thi s of course is a question which only an
144 Religion and reality
experienced astronomer can d ecide. That is obvious regarding the
data and laws of astronomy and physics. But the 'relation' in his
'critical question' is not like that.
He tells us how important the development of new methods of
measurement has been in astronomy. But what sort of measure-
ment would he use he re? And what would he be measuring?
But Lovell may underst and 'the relation of man to the univer se'
only as 'the relation of man to the events which led, after billions
of years, to his presence on the Earth'.
I suppose these a re also the events which will lead to man's
extinction - to his disappearance from the Earth.
And 'man's relation to the universe' must be his relation also
to the events and conditions - perhaps billions of years - that
there will be after man is extinct. (I do not know how one would
think of any special sequence of events in this case.)
When Lovell says 'one can only be full of humility a t the se ries
of events .. . that have led to the presence of man on earth' -
this is because the presence of man on earth has a special impor-
tance for him. And he was not led to this by the discoveries of
astronomy. Of course I do not question his feeling of humility.
But the existence of human life may be seen differently by one
ma n a nd by another.
Some will feel d eeply humble at the thought that it did begin
and does go on, while others tha nk God that one day it will be
over. And if astronomy gives 'impact' to one of these attitudes,
it could equally well have been the other.
I do not understand the expression 'all the stars' as I think
some 'cosmologists' in astronomy use it. - Lovell does not use it
in this lecture, but he speaks of 'the unive rse' in ways that make
m e suppose tha t he does speak of 'all the stars' in some other
writings.
The difficulty of the expr ession, or the idea, comes in to my
trouble when he speaks of
the objects which comprise the universe
the entire material of which it is composed ((my italics)) would be found 10
be in a highly condensed state.
I know that this is a way of referring to some highly compli
cated mathematics which I could not follow or unde rstand al
all. Although Love ll speaks as though the mathe mat ics llild
 'The divide' between religion and 'scientific method' 145
established som ething we, or at least Schweitzer, ought to be able
~;;)d)e~s~~nd. -Anyway it allows Lovell to speak of 'the ((repeat:
1
mitia condensate', and to say,
In t?e initia l momei;it of this highly condensed universe what was
outside? The answer 1s a negat ive since the entirety of time a~d space was
contained within the initial condensate.

Sometimes Lovell writes as though he were describing the

d.ev~lopmen_ts and P?ssibilities of a closed system . ('nothing out-
side ) · - This has an importance for astronomy which the layman
cannot guess.
And therefOre it does have an importance for the layman. (?)
He does grant that
we '.11ay contend. that our language a nd the structure of our ma the-
r at1cal a nd p~ys1c~I theories are capable only of devising a cosmological
ramew~rk. which simply fits ourselves. In this event the totality of the
cosmos 1s imme nsely greater and more s ubtle than the human mind
can ever comprehend.

But ,ev~n if one take.s this view, he says, 'it seems to me that
man s mvolvement with the universe is complete and absolute'.
Just as, I suppose, a cockroach's involvement would be. _ But I
do not understand the 'complete and a bsolute', and I do not know
how astronomy would determine this.
 ESSAY TWELVE

Difficulties of belief 1

'You can only try to say what it is to "believe in God"! You can
only describe religious worship and practices. You cannot try to
say "whether there is anything in it or not" .' (Cf. 'What about
this God stuff?')
Contrast physics and engineering, where you can point to
results, and where, also, there are methods of criticizing to find
out what has gone wrong, when the predicted results do not
appear.
Temptation to point to 'the results of religion' in the lives of
men as a 'vindication' of it. But these results, the results of
believing, can be explained in other ways. It is not as though from
what is believed, you could have predicted the m. They do not
happen with any regularity.
Reducing religion to a kind of yoga.
'If you cannot prove religion, this leaves it just like mumbo-
jumbo.'
Response:
1. Mumbo jumbo is a way of trying to influence nature like
quackery.
2. This ignores what religion is: what is done in religion, what
religion is about. (Religion and culture.)
3. Compare: 'If you cannot prove music, this turns it into mumbo
jumbo.'
The difficulties of belief. This springs from the trouble in under-
standing what is said in religion, or in r eligious doctrine. In the
believer , the love of God is evidently warm a nd powerful. Brother
Lawr ence on 'the presence of God'.

1 T hese remarks a rc taken from notes dalr cl 1961 (Ed.).

146
 Difficulties ef belief 147
The difficulty of understanding what is loved. You could not
love a gaseous planet. And what would love of a diffused spirit
be? The latter is nearer, though. For it has something to do with
gratitude (not just acceptance) for one's exis tence, and in this
sense love of the world.
Whether one loves one's life; or whether one 'sees', or has a
kind of joy in one's life. Not 'enjoying life', obviously. But making
one say 'pr aise God'.
There is nothing to prove here, any more than you can prove
that this is music and not just a sequence of sounds with perhaps
some ritualistic significance.
You cannot 'say what God is' without believing in God. That
is why the proofs are idle. But for the same r eason 'atheism'
seems empty too. You may offer a proof that ther e cannot be a
being of such and such properties. But to assert 'there is such a
being' is not the declaration of religious belief.
Take the idea of turning to God for help. Trusting in God's
help 'The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away.' 'It is in the
hands of God.' 'There are some things which you have to leave
to God.' The folly of 'we shall - by technology - become masters
of our fate.'
'Wha t ever you do - and whatever preparations you make - you
d epend upon the help of God.' This might be supported by refer-
ences to 'an act of God' when an engineering project meets with
some disast er - floods, whirlwinds, earthquakes, etc. But it has a
somewhat different, and more import ant , sense in connexion with
human affairs.
Still, it is different ifl ask God to help me at a particular junc-
ture, in a particular difficulty or 'crisis'. 'Help me to find the
solution': almost as though one prayed for special instruction,
rather than a t rust in 'how things are'. But it is not clear how
far these two can be distinguished.
'God is as vague, and as unlike an individual, as the world is. '
Need the sense of dependence on God be thought of as depen-
dence on an individual? Or is this not a confusion of symbol and
reality?
The r efere nce to 'dependence on I know not what ' may not be
11s stupid as Locke seemed to think it.
But certainly confusing if you put this on the same line with
'cl l'pt:nckncc on clim a te' or 'weather', or 'pressur e depends on
148 Religion and reality
temperature', etc. - as though, if one did 'know what', it would
be something comparable to that - 'only much greater'.
'I do not know what I shall do - it all depends on what comes
along.' Here, what does come along will rule out certain possi-
bilities. ('Whereas for God all things are possible.')
Whereas with the idea of God - as far as the dependence on
God is concerned - anything may happen.
Why is it natural to say 'It depends on God' but not 'It depends
on the world'?
'How things are.' God as the form or the spirit or the soul of
the world.
Not, 'It depends on all things' or 'It depends on everything.'
'That's God's fault, not yours.' It was due to God that I was
born at the time that I was, with such faculties, etc. (This does
not mean - in other than a figurative sense - there is an external
agent or engineer with a plan who directs things accordingly!)
'That's God's fault' - That is how you were born, that is what
you have to accept. In some respects you have made yourself
what you are, but not in that. This distinction may be important.
(Cf. 'Masters of our fate.')
The idea of the knowledge of God. Growth in the understanding
of God as growth in understanding one's relation to God. Father
Sergius. 2 The idea of a pilgrimage: Bunyan.
All this suggests that one can make mistakes - misunderstand-
ings of God and of one's relation to God. And for Sergius, terrible
mistakes. This would be turning away from God and not true
belief.
The question of heresy: and of ways of guarding against such
mistakes. Question whether there is any guarantee. Would that
not require phariseeism?
Why call it a mistake? T he recognition that one has sinned, and
the connection with pride and misconception. St Peter's denial -
3
the change that this brought in his relation to Christ. Pashenka
- Recognition that God is God and man is man. The love of God
and the love of man - how Sergius had misunderstood this.
Heresy: Can you say that if the intention or the feeling is
right, the doctrine ('the cup it is served in') does not matter?
(Cf. criticisms of religious fanaticism.)
2 See Tolstoy's short story Fallter Sergius (Ed.).
3 Ibid.
 Dijficulties of belief 149

The importance of the idea of 'the word of God', and, in this

connexion, of authority, as in a church.
What is meant by 'God speaks to m e' or 'The Lord hath spoken
unto Malachi'? The difficulty that when a man believes that God
has spoken unto him, no one else can teach him anything, and
his religious under.standing does not grow. This is the difficulty
when there is manipulation of sects as in the early stages of
Protestantism. On the other hand, such an authority runs the
danger of becoming a worldly authority - a religion of the world.

Seeking understanding, and seeking freedom from illusions

(Simone Weil)

Evil. Most of it seems to come, not from false doctrines, so

much as from the curious and persistent ways in which people
get into a mess with one another.
'The evil comes from man.' But not from any one man. And if
men are to live together, life ought not to be like that. If it is
true that suffering is not brought on men simply by their own
wrong doing Qob), well neither is the vileness and the evil to
which they sink.
'They could have refused.' Could they? ('We who have not
fallen' - the fall that there is in that. Circumstances by which
people are defeated.)
Faulkner: Pantaloon in Black. Because he could not stand his
own grief. Should he not love deeply, then? Should one remain
detached - and miss altogether what there is in genuine devo-
tion? And would anyone say such a man was 'weak'?
The liberty to discern between good and evil.
'They ought to have left that to God; if they knew what was
good for them.'
I guess they ought. If they could. But then they would not have
lived at all.
It is not so much that there is suffering (Somerset Maugham4 ).
1t's that people go to pieces. So that life has no sense.
1 Rhl'cs is referring to what Maugham witnessed in hospi tal wards as he trained for
the nwdica l profession:
At tha t tim e (a time to most people of sufficie nt case, when peace seem ed certain
and prosp('l'ity sc·curc) ther l' was a school of writers who enlarged upon the moral
val111· of' s ufft~ r i ng. T hey cla im ed that it was sa l11ta ry. Th ey cla imed that it increased
150 Religion and reality
Once again: what are we asked to believe? What sort of prayer
can this be?
To look on it as God's world - the religious view of the world
- is to look on it as the best world: to have some sense, however
indefinite (and it may be dee p for all that) of the world, the way
things happen, as expressing the will of God: that even in tragedy
one can see something: sense of the et ernal which one does not
understand.
But the protest is that one does not find it so. That things
happen in a way that makes no sense. 'To say such things make
you believe can only be hypocrisy. '
'Are you not setting yourself up to judge what God ought to
do?' No. But I do not find sense in life. (I do not find anything
but insanity; 'festoons of fish es'. 5 I know there are some who say,
'I turn to God because there is nothing else I can do'. But the
way things go has drained the idea of anyone to whom I can turn.
And for some - to say she ought or might have turned to God,
is m eaningless.
'After life's fitful fever he sleeps well.'6 Is that religion?
'You do not know what it may m ean in the world as a whole .'
No. But this gives m e no sense of 'the world as a whole'.
'Believe. Pray.' I have prayed constantly: and ther e is no way
out. (Tell me that despair is wrong; or that one can live.)
If I say, 'I would not say it was anyone's fault. Things happen
that way' - I am not sugge sting the sociologist's 'men's lives are
made by their environment'.
I'm not blaming God for the mess I've made of my life. I'm
not blaming God for what happened to his life either. It is just
sympathy and enhanced the sensibilities. They claimed that it opened to the spir it
new awareness of beauty and enabled it to get in touch with the mystical kingdom
of God. They claimed that it strengthened the character, purified it from its human
grossness, and brought to him who did not avoid but sought it a more perfec1
happiness ... I set down in my note-books, not once or twice, but in a dozen places,
the facts that I had seen. I knew that suffering did not enable; it degraded. II
made m en selfish, mean, petty, and suspicious. It absorbed them in small t h ing~ .
It did not make them more than men; it made t hem less than men; and I wrOtC'
ferociously that we learn resignation not by our own)uffering, bu t by the sufferinl(
of others. (W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up, Harmondswor th: Penguin
Books, 1971, pp. 44-5) (Ed.) .
Among the coral crypts beneath the sea,
Festoons of fis hes weave insanity
(Alfred Kreymbu rg) (Ed.)
6 Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 2. Said by Macbeth of Duncan (Ed.).
 Difficulties ef belief 151
that the way things go, I don't see how you can talk about any
God to blame.
'All the people need is adequate housing, good food, a job,
enough leisure and a television set.' Then nothing will ever go
wrong. Because people will never have anything to do with one
another, I suppose. 'Social worker, then.'
Once again the idea that there is a way of avoiding such diffi-
culties; a way to rid the world of evil.
T he march towards deliverance. Ecclesia militans. (God deliver
me from that.)
What is the issue between believer s and unbelievers? Is it
'There is a God', 'There is no God'? What kind of mistake would
be involved, either way? And what is one asking, when one asks
'Is there a God?' (Cf. 'Under what circumstances, or when would
one ask this?') Would it have sense to ask this question unless
you assume the 'surroundings' in which it has sense to talk a bout
God? (If you use a different language or a different grammar in
talking about God, then how ar e you to speak of his relation to
the world, or to particular persons and things? Must there not
be a common discourse?)
'People get along all right without religion.' Some do; some do
not. For the believer, the remark that 'people get along all right'
is irrelevant or question-begging, since (he would say) it assumes
that 'the present life ' - or 'the visible life' - is all that ma tters:
that there is no other recourse than weal or woe in the world.
God sends his rain alike on the just and on the unjust. (Are
the )ust' here taken to be believers?) 'The ungodly are not so,
but are like the chaff which the wind bloweth away.' Samuel
Beckett's characters: trying to find some meaning or centre to
life in a world without God.
But if this be a way of saying that life may be meaningless
without religion, this is not the importance which believers think
il has. It leaves open the suggestion that 'if others can find remedy
elsewhere, there can be nothing to be said against this' . Perha ps
you can tell the blasphemer of the enormity of what he has done,
and get him to ask God for forgiveness (persuade him that his
bl asphemy could never be justified, perhaps). But not so with the
atheist.
'The scanda l of atheism is that it is an offence against God.'
But lhi s is somc t hin g the ath eist can neve r know. (Do questions
152 Religion and reality
of the truth of religion enter here?). St John of the Cross on the
mistake of emphasizing the good or 'the refreshment' which reli-
gious devotion brings to the soul of the believer - as though it
were here that the importance of religion rested. It is because of
God - not because of what I am - that it is important to worship
him.
Does it have sense to ask which view is correct?
Those who recognize that they cannot go on, that they are lost
except they turn to God. Those whom religion has saved, in this
sense.
Some object to the publication of atheistical or sceptical views,
since they 'may upset a young man's most deep-going convic-
tions'. And they are right in saying that this may be a shattering
experience.
But so may religious doctrines lead to deep disturbances and
breakdowns. Especially obvious in certain forms of preaching.
Qoyce and the le nten sermon.) 7 And for many, the promises
which religion offers - of a new life, etc. - are not fulfilled.
Life still makes no sense - there are too many difficulties which
religion does not meet. And the second state may be worse than
the first.

What I saw then

made life a wilder mystery than ever,
And earth a new illusion.

Perhaps the chief folly to which atheists have sometimes been

led, is the idea that 'we may be masters of our destiny.' (Or
maybe: that men may be gods.) Confusion of God's business and
man's. (The difficulty of making that distinction within religion
as well.) But although this view could hardly be held without
atheism, not all atheists hold it. Similarly with optimistic ideas
about science in human affairs and in human problems.
In these ways it would influence ideas of what human life is,
and understanding of human life. 'We'll soon put that righl. '
Failure to understand what the difficulty is, or to ask whe t hn
there is any solution. Insofar as religion checks this, it is good .

7 See J a mes J oyce, Portrait ef the Artist r1s a Younf! Man .

 Difficulties ef belief 153
Similarly with 'promoting human happiness'. That h uman
beings can find the solution of the difficulties of human life, _in
that sense. The stand of religion against 'the world'.
What is the difference between 'We are (or shall become) the
masters of our d estiny', and 'We are the chosen of God' (Ecclesia
militans)?
The evil of having a mission in the world - and especially of
trying to realize God's Kingdom in the world (cf. Jonathan
Cannon). The evil of trying to realize something supernatural in
any social order.
As far as achievements in this world are concerned, religion -
i.e. acts and policies and teachings which followed from religious
convictions and were sponsored by churches and religious com-
munities - has brought both good and evil. And more serious
believers will admit this.
Per contra, the idea that when evil appears in the wake of reli-
gion, then this cannot have been a consequence of religion or of
religious belief. The ring of Gyges.
En appreciant le christianisme, on met le mal a part ... mettre a part
soi est la crime que l'on commet. 8
'Can't philosophy decide whether there is a God or not?' If it
were like that, the question would not have the importance it
has.
If God were an object , like a nebula, or a kind of atmosphere
surrounding the visible universe , or what you will - t hen the ques-
tion of our relation to God might be interesting (if you are
interested in that sort of thing) but it would not be 'everything'.
And those who ask 'Can't philosophy decide whether there is
a God?' do not understand what they are asking. Supposing you
are mistaken about this - either that the believer is mistaken or
that the atheist is - what sort of mistake is this? How will it
appear - or can it appear - that he has gone wrong?
'Is it just a matter of how you see the world? or the way you
see your life?' You could put it so. But this does not mean
that it is 'something subjective' in the way in which a particular
associa tion of colours with numbers may be subjective. Nor is
' I know there is a God' just a way of saying 'I have (at such and
11 ' In cvnl ua ting C hristifl nity, one is pu tt ing evil asid e ... The crim e one is committing
iH to put Olll"Hdf' :i~ i rh- .'
154 Religion and reality
such a time) these particular feelings. ('I know there is a meaning
in life ' could not be read so either.)
If you say that it expresses a feeling, this may be true, but it is
also ambiguous and misleading. Not in the way in which a moan
or a shout of joy does. For it is connected with reflection about
one's life, or about life - with asking questions about life and
about existence. It is only by seeing this context that you can see
what sort of feeling it is. But this also helps to show why it is
not a question about the existence of a certain sort of object.
Growth in the understanding or knowledge of God. Can one
point to what one has learned - mistakes corrected - that has
brought the growth? (Not as demonstration.)
A path each must go for himself.
If you talk of learning - this makes it look too much as though
it could come from you. And this is a misconception of the whole
relation of creature and creator. It destroys all the notion of 'Ganz
Anderes' 9 - which leaves you without anything with which you
can begin to learn. All you can do is wait (Attente de Dieu). 10 This
is probably also the reason why Simone Weil speaks as she does
about 'imagination' - because that does suggest that it might come
from you.
Then what is the connexion of faith and will? (The notion of
'will to believe' does not seem to be wholly wrong, even though
it may be misconstrued or distorted.) Freedom of the will - you
can either accept or reject. (Something that is offered; not some-
thing you construct.) Still more: what is the sense of seeking
God? ('Seek and ye shall find.') Certainly there is something to
be learned - from writings (S. Weil, Kierkegaard), from sermons
(Donne) and from psalms.
'Whether you believe, does not depend on the cogency of th e
argument. Whether you believe depends on you - on your faith. '
(This may apply to particular doctrines - the revealed truths of
Christianity. T hat is why revealed religion is distinguished from
natural religion.)
Why do Judaism and Christianity insist so strongly that you
cannot see God, or that his nature is unknowable: that you can haw
no apprehension of it by natural means?

9 'The Wholly Oth er.'

10
By Simon<' Wc·il (Ed.).
 Difficulties ef belief 155
'You can no more say what your knowledge of God is, thar.i you
can say what your knowledge of your self is' (cf. Hume: 'bundle
of percep tions', etc.). The idea of the soul: 'only don't tr y to make
yourself a picture of it'.
Judaism after the exile-deutero Isaiah. The idea of the word of
God as a message for all men: the only message for all men. And
with this the idea of proselytizing. Teaching religion in this sense .
'Bringing the message.' 'Teach all nations.'
The differ ence between 'preaching the Gospel' and 'spreading
the Kingdom of God on earth'. The error of thinking that there
could be a social order which were in itself holy.
'You do not know a nything about God's evocation (Job). You
cannot question or criticize what happens. Not say, "This is what
God ought to have done" or "This is not consistent with the good-
ness of God".'
This leads to strange conclusions. Abraham. If the sign of error
in religion is falling into sin - then was not Abraham in error?
Or Simone Weil waiting for whatever comes. 'It seems unholy to
me, but I know it is the will of God.' Or: 'Will you do whatever
the Church enjoins?'
It seems that 'you have to weigh probabilities'.
How do you distinguish between God and the Devil?
The notion of 'absolute (or unconditional) obedience '.
'Otherwise I should be deciding what is to be d one.' (Cf. Adam
and Eve, and the knowledge of good and evil.) 'Submit your intel-
lect to him', seems to be part of 'submit your will to him'. To
what extent is this notion of absolute obedience connect ed with
religion? Fries (and Kant) and the notion of 'obedience to the
law', i.e. moral law. 'And here I depend on my own insight, not on
revelation; admi tting that my insight is fau lty and that I am often
perplexed.'
If you say God has spoken to you, this is not like another man
speaking to you - for one thing, because in a sense God is not
separate from you (even thought you would say also that you were
infinitely r emoved from God). You do not have a 'face to face '
apprehension of God. Nor do you have 'face to face' communi-
rnt ions from him (except it be in dreams and visions - and even
1 lwsc ar c often 'in parable' and obscure).
/,a co1111aissa11ce surnaturelle . H ow does one r ecognize this?
( )r liow do('s o ne rcrng·nizc wlrnt is 's11rnaturef' a nd what is not?
156 Religion and reality
(Cf. Otto's 'Numinous'.) How is one justified in trusting to reve-
lation more than to one's own compre hension? 'How can you be
sure that the revelation (Miracle) shows you the truth? the true
word of God? How can you be sure that God is not deceiving
here?' The idea of believing something which you could not know;
for which you could not have rational evidence.
The difficulty from the existence of many religions. 'Is there
any reason to believe that God would always reveal himself
through our religion? and not often a time through a nother?' The
idea of God's church .
To keep alive the idea of learning in r eligion. Seeking God:
seeking to know God. Did not the Israelites learn through the
captivity? Idea of progress in religion (cf. Otto's 'Numinous'). And
then the idea of more perfect and less perfect religions; primi-
tive and developed religions, e tc. What criteria?
'It's cl ear that we were wrong about that. That is not what God
requir es of us.'
 PART TWO

Religion) life and meaning

 ESSAY THIRTEEN

Gratitude and ingratitude for existence 1

There are contexts in which we should be careful not to confuse

moral a nd religious considerations.
Take the question 'Is life worth living?'. And then consider any
answer to it. Some have tried to answer in ethical terms: by
considering the amount of good and the amount of evil in our
lives and around us; by considering what we can expect; by consid-
ering the value of endurance and courage even in clefeat; by
examining the j udgement that everything is futile; and so on .
I tried at various time s to do it that way myself. Perhaps there
is something to be said for it, but it does not appeal to me now.
Because, there is another sense of the question, to which that
sort of answer seems irrelevant. 'The best thing is not to be born
at all' - I think the chorus says this, and I am not sure just
what is meant. But I suspect it says something different from,
for instance, W ebste r's 'Pleasure of life, what is it? The good
hours I Of a long ague.'2 The protest against life is not the sa me
as a complaint at the sickness and the pain of life. (When
Macbeth says, 'After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well ',3 he is
getting nearer to it, perhaps, - and incidentally speaking much
greater poetry.)
Pe rhaps what I want to say is said by the Book of Job; I do not
know. I am speaking of finding a sense in life, where this does
11ot mean 'something which will not be frustrated'. If I speak of

1 From a letter to G. E. M. Anscombe and a revised version of it both dated 28 September

1955. On the revised version Rhees wrote later: 'I do not think this is satisfactory. If
l were to keep it, I should have to take much more deeply the story quoted in paren-
thesis on p. 16 1.' This deepe r development, connecting 'gratitude for life' with 'life as
a sacrifice to God' is found in 'Re ligion, Life and Meaning - A and B' in B. The whole
l'Ssuy is relevant, but see, in particular, the opening section in B (Ed.).
v .John W\;bstcr, The Duchm ef Maiji, Act 5, Scene 4 (Ed.).
'1 AltrdMth , Act 3, See m: 2 (23) (1\d.).
160 Religion, life and meaning

this as 'finding some good in life', then I think I am using 'good'

differently from the way it is used in moral judgements. 4 It is as
though I were to speak of the good of existence; or question it.
And so it is connected, I guess, with questions of optimism and
pessimism: - the goodness of the world, the question whether it
wou ld have been better that nothing should exist at a ll. Akin,
perhaps, to the sense in which people speak of the goodness of
God. - Perhaps what I am saying is that when they speak of the
goodness of God they are not making a moral judgement at all.
Anyone trying to say what 'believing in God' is, will say some-
thing stupid. (Describing different examples, as James did in his
Varieties, 5 would be the only way to start, I suppose. When I do
try to understand it, I want to say something like: to believe in
God and to believe in the goodness of God are the same. And
perhaps: that we mean nothing different by 'the goodness of God'
from what we mean by 'the existence of God'.
At any rate, to believe in God is also to believe something about
the world and about my own existence. Not so much a belief in
how it is caused, as rather - may I put it so - an expression of
gratitude.
But I must say something about this.
'The best thing is never to be born at all.' A protest against
life, I called it. The protest would end, if man could feel grateful.
I am not speaking from a wide knowledge of men, and it is not
an e mpirical generalization. I feel like saying that the protest
against life is a form of ingratitude. But that looks like a reproach,
and I do not mean it so. It looks as though I were saying that
the man has failed to show gratitude where it is due. And I do
not want to say that it is due.
Because, in certain circumstances, a man might turn and
ask, 'What have I to be thankful for? What is there to be thank-
ful for?' It is even more difficult than his questions show: because
if I could show him something he should be thankful for, this
would not be to the point. If I tell him that thanks are due
for this or that, ... I have not said thanks are due for life or for
existence.
4 Or some of them. People speak as though 'moral judgements' had no less unity than
'funeral orations' has. There are simi larities, but not on this cou nt.
5 William J ames, The Varieties ef Religious Experience (London : Longma11s, Cin·c·n 1111<1 Cu,
1941 (Thirty-Ninth I mpression) (Ed.).
 Gratitude and ingratitude for existence 161
To be without gratitude is a terrible condition. But I do not
know any arguments to help someone fixed by it. For a man may
know how much good fortune has come his way - how fortunate
he is to have had friends, and how much he owes to them . ..
and still he is without gratitude for life, and the friendship only
makes the whole thing more of a nightmare.
The terrible words of the leading character at the end of
Toller's Hoppla!: 'Wir sprechen und horen uns nicht . . . Wir
hassen und sehen uns nicht ... Wir lieben und kennen uns nicht
... Wir morden und filhlen uns nicht ... MuB es immer, immer
so sein? .. .' 6 If I say there is want of gratitude in this - it is not
that I imagine I'd bring his attention to something he hadn't real-
ized ifl tried to tell him so. I couldn't tell him anything he hadn't
r ealized. (And if I did try to talk I hope someone would tell me
to shut up and go back to my tea.)
~A phras.e like 'feeling grateful for my life, feeling grateful for
e:c1stence' is almost always nauseating, because it is the expres-
s10n of smugness and Phariseeism and hypocrisy. The woman in
Flannery O'Connor's short story Revelation, full of gentle cheer-
fuln ess, kind, '"If it's one thing I am", Mrs Turpin said with
feeling, "it 's grateful. When I think who all I could have been
b~ side. ~yself a.n d wha~ all I got, a little of everything, and a good
d1sposit~on besides, I JUSt feel like shouting, 'Thank you, Jesus,
for makmg everything the way it is!' It could have been different!"
.. .'And then the 'neurotic' girl who sees thro ugh this pride hurls
a book at her.)7
And yet I do want to call the protest against life ingratitude.
It may appear as a kind of exasperation. But the protest need
not be formulated; and the exasperation may show itself in the
way the man lives. ('You didn't need to do that.' 'Yes I did. You
don't know how badly I needed to do that.') Until sometimes it
occurs to him that he could feel grateful: not because anything
has changed, and not because he has come to think that 'things
6
'We speak a nd we do not hear one another ... We hate and we do not see one a nother
... We love and we do not know one another. We murder but are unaware of one
another. Must it always be so - always' (27 1-2). Ernst Toller, Hoppla, wir Leben!
(Stuttgar t: Recla m, 1980), 5 Akt, I Szene; English translation by H. Ould, 'Hoppla!
Such a life!' in Seven Plays, ed. Ernst Toller and Hermann Kesten (London: The Bodley
!lead, 1935), Act 5, Scene I (Ed.).
7
This parenthesis was added later (Author). See Flannery O'Connor Revelation in Th e
C:omplete Short Storirs (New York: Farrar, Siraus and Giroux 1981), p. 499 (Ed.).
162 Religion, life and meaning
could have been worse still' or anything of that sort. And 'in spite
of everything'. For one thing, gratitude makes it possible to accept
even one's own passions and one 's own vileness . I do not mean
discounting them as faults, or thinking that what I am is really
not so vile after all. I mean recognizing my vileness for what it
is - and in some way being grateful nevertheless. I do not say I
can manage this, but I think it does happen. And then a man
may recognize the foul way he has acted, and still look beyond;
instead of being ridden by it.
But I would emphasize: if such a change does come, it is not
because he sees any reason for it. I do not know what 'a reason'
would be, here. He sees that another attitude is possible; that
is all.
I am trying to emphasize the difference between: (1) being
grateful for life, and: (2) being grateful for particular fortunes or
favours. And the similar difference between protesting against
life, and protesting against some special injustice I (or we) have
suffered. It is hard to keep this clear, because if I am grateful, I
suppose this will appear in the thanks I feel for the particular
kindness shown me as well. And simila rly with the protest.
So that it may be hard to see what I am distinguishing.
You might say, 'If it is not thanks for this or that - not grat-
itude for anything done or received - then why talk of gratitude
at all?' - Certainly I have not received life, in the sense in which
I have received food or received an education; if only because I
was not there to receive it. (I wonder if this is akin to certain
difficulties in the idea of divine creation: God gives reality to
things.) But if I have not received life - if it makes no sense to
say 'I might have gone without life' as I might say 'I might have
gone without an education' - then who am I to be grateful for
it? Or: what is it I am grateful for?
Consider certain forms of gratitude to God, and on the othe r
hand, being grateful to one's parents. I may be grateful to them
for all they have done for me. But I may also be grateful to them
for life. Or: grateful to them because they are my parents. If it
were simply the love and gratitude I fe el because of the sacri-
fices they have made and the love they have shown - then I migh t
have felt the same for the foster pare nts who have brought nw
up. But towards my parents I feel some thing else, a kind ol'
respect (I was going to say r eve re nce), not because ol the kind
 Gratitude and ingratitudefar existence 163
of people they are or what they have done, but just because they
are my parents. For this it may not matter whether the personal
affection is strong or weak or non-existent. My sense of duty
may be connected with this; and my attitude to life: courage,
seriousness, or the want of t hem. This is not the same as wishing
I might live up to what my parents expect of me. It is not that
at all.
Or think of a man's exasperation with his parents. This may
be centred on some maltreatment or injustice he has suffered
from them, or on their want of understanding. Yet he may feel
that respect towards them I have mentioned, because they are
his parents. And I'd call this feeling grateful; although it may go
with deep resentment and carry no personal warmth.
On the other hand, he might have had considerate and loving
parents, and acknowledge this. He may be careful to show his
appreciation in every way he can. Or I might have said 'show his
gratitude ', the gratitude he feels. But, to himself, he often feels
like adding, 'And yet .. .' - shrugging his shoulders, maybe.
If this is so, his appreciation of their care and affection can only
make him deeply unhappy.
What is it he can't thank them for? Or what 'thanks' does the
respect I mentioned carry? If I do know this, for what am I
thanking them?
I thank them for being my parents. I thank them for life - in
spite of all the mess I've made of it, in spite of every reason
I have to say it were better I'd never lived, in spite of the fact
that nothing in the future will change any of this. Perhaps there
is some analogy here to what is meant by belief in the mercy
of God.
(What is especially terrible about father murder? Not j ust
that it is a terrible act against a human being. It is not compar-
able even with the murder of a friend. Partly that it includes
something like cursing my existence; the depravity recognized
in that.)
It is in my gratitude for life that I may come to love the world.
I I I am grateful to my parents, then I am grateful for t he
world. So it must go, I think. To be thankful for life is to view
t be world so. Or I might have said, to be thankful for life is to
be able to say 'Thank God'. For although you may thank God for
thi s special fo rtun e, it cannot ever be for this alone. You cannot
164 Religion, life and meaning

thank God at all unless you just: thank God. Thank God
absolutely, perhaps. And you cannot do that unless you are
thankful for your existence.
Now supposing it were said that we love God on account of his
manifest Goodness. That cannot be it, I think. No more than a
man loves his parents because of their goodness. As though it
were our experience of God's goodness that led us to love God.
No, unless we know the love of God - or, as I may say here, unless
we could say 'Thank God' - we should not know even what was
meant by 'God's goodness'.
It is a matter of being able to see the goodness of God in what
happe ns in the world - even though that would not be good by
any human standards. (Here is the wonder of the Book of Job
again.) It is a matter of being able to thank God for the exist-
ence of the world, - no matter what the world is like.
I want to return to the question of 'Is life worth living?' or 'Is
there any good in existence?' If I say there is, then I think this
is an expression of gratitude. It is terrible when a man is not
grateful. But is tha t gratitude a moral judgement, e mploying
moral conceptions? It does not see m so, to me. For one thing,
there is a kind of deliberation that is often characteristic of moral
judgements - asking whether it is good or not, asking whether it
is right or not. And we do not have that same kind of delibera-
tion here.
There may be a kind of doubt, in connexion with the gratitude
for life. But that is much more a religious doubt, and I do not
think that moral perplexity is generally the same thing. It is
connected with it, sometimes: moral perplexity may run into reli-
gious perplexity. But there a re differences too. Religious do ubt
(when it concerns the gratitude I mean, too) is wavering which
may lead to despair, wavering between despair and hope. And
many of what are commonly called moral judgements are not
concerned with that, or not directly. So with Wittgenstein's man
who says, 'I think you have acted like a beast'. 8
The good of life, in the sense in which I am speaking of it ,
seems to be anterior to moral issues. It seems to say 'Whe ther
or not: no matter what the answer' to moral questions.

B See 'Wittgenstein's Lec ture on Ethics II. Notes on Talks with Wiugenst<'ill Ft i1·cl1 it h
Waismann ', Philosophical Review 74 ( 1965), p. 5 (Ed.).
 Gratitude and ingratitude far existence 165
On the other hand, the question is certainly closely connected
with moral conceptions. And it may be that neither can be under-
stood without the other. But I have not gone very far in this.
 ESSAY FOUR TEEN

Religion) life and meaning: A and B

A1
It is almost always hard to say whether any institution or any
person is good or bad. Because generally it is b.oth. .
If you look at what religions do and hav~ done m human s~c~e.ty,
you can see ways in which they have stimulated. good. ~ctivi ties
and helped to keep back evil ones. But in all this, religions are
shot with evil themselves.
T he special evil of religion is that it. ~laim s to offer deliver-
ance - the deliverance of the human spmt from bondage. Here ,
religion calls to what is deepest in human life. And in doi.n?. so
it has sometimes helped to rouse men's souls to those activities
which are the spirit 's liberation. It has called attention to the
futility of 'worldliness'. A life which knows on~y worldl~ car~s (~r
worldly ambitions) is a life of everlasting servitude. It is a hf~ i.n
which the spirit never wakens, but is only dragged about. This is
what is meant by saying that 'the world' is Satan's realm, and ~o
remain there is to remain in hell. In emphasizing this, and m
holding out the hope of a life which was an escape from bonda?e,
religion may have helped to stimulate those mov~ments which
are the spirit's freedom and deliverance from servitude. .
But the deliverance which religion offers is false. What it calls
for, and where it is successful - what it imposes, is a servility
that is the more vile because it is more deeply rooted; a serv-
ility which would cripple the striving after freedom where it might
have wakened.
What a 'worldly' life lacks is activities which have .some 'sense'
beyond their connexion with particular personal circumstanccs
1 Undated, but clearly earlier than any material which has a date in the collection. Thr
remarks a re influenced by the views of J ohn Anderson, one of Rhees' first tcadu·rN 111
Edinburgh. The contrast between A and B is st riking, but both essays show how powr1
fully Rhees argued for these very different viewpoints (Ed.).

166
 Religion, life and meaning: A and B 167
and personal needs. What it lacks is initia tive, and above all
creation, - something one can work at. It is a life which moves
as circumstances dictate, and a life to which the man himself
seems to contribute nothing. It is a recognition of this if you point
to the importance of being able to shape or plan your own life,
- to work out the activities you are engaged on. Some have said
that all that matters to them is having three square meals a day.
I cannot tell whether they are serious. Perhaps they only mean
that you cannot do anything if you are always hungry. But then
they should not say that that is all that matters. For then they
are voicing contentment with a swinish existence and so making
it worse. It is the senselessness of this existence that leads men
to concentrate on enjoyments and pastimes, - i.e. on consolations.
Though these do not change the way of living.
I spoke of being able to work out the activities you are engaged
on. And the escape from servitude, if there is any, is in activities
that are free and creative, - where the work is undertaken and
developed because of what it is, because it is worth working at;
so that it has an importance of its own account and independent
of one's momentary personal needs. Artistic investigation may be
one example; so may scientific investigation; but so may the
organization and development of industrial production. In these
fields the work which brings - or which is - individual initiative
is also work in a movement in which the individual participates
and to the growth and development of which he contributes. So
that the sense and the importance of the movement - the impor-
tance of art or of science or of developing production, - and the
sense and importance of what you do in it, are not tied to your
personal situation. So that your work of criticism and your work
of innovation are free, - springing from your view of what is being
done and how it might be developed. And it is only then that
rriticism, the activity of the spirit, is free; because it is not bound
from behind, so to speak; because it is not bound by personal
anxieties. The spirit operates then as spirit, - or as intelligence,
i r you like.
That is why these are called spontaneous activities. What the
sp irit - mind, intelligence - goes on to, the new paths it tries,
11pring from its own activities and interests. It is the exercise of
i11t1·lli gcncc that leads on to the exercise of intelligence. It is from
whn t it is doing, from i Ls own exercise, that i l takes the lines
168 Religion, life and meaning

that it does. Though of course this exercise is strengthened and

largely kept a live by the life of the movem ent you are working
m.
Your own creative work, your own enterprise, is possible only
because it is a type of work that goes on independently of you.
And your work could neve r be free if tha t were not so. This is
true of the organization and development of production. But it
is also tru e of art. Your devotion to art is bound up with the stan-
da rds of an artistic tradition. You may be taken up especially by
the new discove ries and revelations which you a r e bringing.
But unless there were a movement, - unless there were a 'world',
an art or a literature you were bringing them to, - you would be
empty and your work would b e nothing.
I do not ove rlook personal affection. I know that love and friend-
ship can make men free, and that there would hardly be other
freedom without it. But here, too, the freedom is found in some-
thing tha t takes a man out of himself, and is incomparably more
important than the cares of his worldly exist ence. And h ere again
the love is kept alive through its own exercise a nd through the
love of him who shares in it. It moves and lives in spite of special
circumstances and difficulties, and it n ever s prings from or follows
their bidding. Your love is something that you bring to love, and
it may grow deeper as it never could if it were something wholly
yours.
A poet, says Cummings, is one who gives. And for him life is
giving, and acquisitiveness is sh rinking and d eath. We might say
tha t freedom and creat ion and generosity go toge ther. And
creative work in one field may lead m en naturally to welcome
such free and creative work as springs up elsewh er e.
Now r eligion does not do this. And this springs from qualities
in religion by which it t ends to stultify and poison free activiti es,
a nd to keep the spirit in the servitude from which it seemed to
call it. I mean especially the view that there can be nothing good
except it spring from the love of God and acceptance of the faith;
the view that unless a man believes, h e is lost.
'Anything good that I do', you may say, 'comes not from m1·
but from the grace of God.' I should o ften say much the saml'
myself, though I might say it was a matter of luck; and may Goel
h elp you. But this is not to say that the ' help' you ge t d cpcndH
on religious b elief, and that it was on ly from your beli ef I h a t h1•lp
 R eligion, life and meaning: A and B 169
came.2 If you say that it was, that your experience shows that to
you, then at a ny rate you h ave no reason to say th at activities
th at are fine and good - even just as fi n e and good as those which
God has h elped you to - could not have come about in any other
way. People may be generous a nd h eroic, they may make discov-
er ies or create great and revealing works of a rt because they want
to give, because they love, because th ey are devoted to a cause
or d evoted to some form of art, and not because they have asked
God to h elp them. You may say, if you like, that it is still by the
grace of God that they d o these things rather than something
evil. But you may not say that it was only through a belief in God
that their achievements were possible. 3
Yet I think that Christians, and probably those of other reli-
gions, do want to say that there is nothing really fine unless it is
done from religious beli ef, or from the love of God. And that is
an expression of meanness and spite. It shows a want of generosity
and a want of honesty: a failure to recognize or greet what is fine
wh ere it does appear. How docs it differ, really, from saying that
'h e is not one of our brotherhood, and ther efore what he does
cannot be really good'?
That is the spiritual pride of the sor t the Church has
condemned . But although the C hurc h has condemned it, the
Church must a lso foster it. Religion must hold that it is only by
b elief th at th e grace of God can be found a n d evil be avoided.
That is the basis of preaching. (There is n o preaching in the
practice of generosity any more than ther e is generosity in
preaching.) And it is the basis of th e C hurch 's fight against the
evil of the world: it is only by belief that evil can be conquered
or even resisted. If t he Church did not hold this it would have
no mission.
And in this religion distorts the view of human living. It distorts
one's view of the deepest human tragedies and the deepest human
aspirations. I do not say that no man can be religious without
falling into this mistake. Because, for one thing, a man may be
reli gious without being a n adherent of a religion at a ll. But he
rnn not preach religion, he cannot recognize the mission of any
tT ligion in the world, without being a party to i t.

~ Com ran• t h(' Op('ni ng paragraphs or Essay 6 (Ed.).

'I Aga in, 1f'. opl'11i11g of' Essay (i (Eel.).
170 Religion, life and meaning
Religion misunderstands t he life of the spmt because it is
essentially hostile to it. And the salvation which it offe rs works
to keep people in hell. It neither saves them from it nor brings
them out of it.
For religion turns men's deepest aspira tions towards servility.
Whatever it may say of another life, it is servitude and the impo-
tence of the spirit that it fosters here. What it offers to the soul
is consolation, but not freedom. There is no fre edom in a life of
propitiation and sacrifice. And there is no generosity in accepting
one 's lot.
And the turning of everything into service of the master,
making one's life an offering to him, goes with the emphasis on
personal salvation. This is just the sort of egoistic concern about
one 's lot, that has to be overcome if freedom is to be possible at
all. The fact that religion calls for an other-worldly concern does
not make it any less frustrating to the growth of a fre e and
independent life of the spirit. It weakens, if it does not kill,
any wholehearted participation in a work which is shared with
others and which is regarded as more important than one's
personal fate.
Christianity speaks of love and of one's fellows. And in St J ohn's
epistles this is nearly identified with the love of God. But like the
love of God, this love should spring from repentance. It is thus
self-seeking, and is an expression of one's sense of sin. There is
nothing here that is like a red, red rose. And religion works to
kill the love that might exalt men. (The interference and control
of sexuality is connected with this.)
'But', it may be asked, 'what about great artistic creations
that are obviously religious? What about Beethoven's 'Missa
Solemnis', Mozart 's requiem, Michelangelo's chapel or Gothic
architecture? If these things thrived under religion, and were in
fact inspired by it, how can you say that religion brings d eath
to the spirit?'
Religion does touch on and appeal to the d eepest feelings
in men. It is this that has kept religion going; and art, especially,
has kept religion going. For art has its inde pendent sourer.
And if that were not so, there would never have been great reli-
gious art. Michelangelo was more a product of th e Renaissanr c·
than of Christianity, - and the Re na issance did no t have :1
primarily religious origin. And the same goes for othe r work.~,
 R eligion, lift and meaning: A and B 171
including Gothic architecture. Since relig ion calls to wha t is
deepest in the huma n spirit, it is not surprising that som e of the
greatest responses of the huma n spirit should find their m a terial
in the subj ects religion treats of; or even be, in one sense,
religious. There can be gr eatness in religious ideas. And ce rtain
Christian ideas, - t he story of the C rucifixion , especially - a re
profoundly symbolic o f human as pirations a nd huma n suffering.
But the artists and musicians have always brought so me thing new
to these ideas, something which did not come from th e religious
masters.
But the inspira tion of th ese works is not wha t religion preaches .
It is the life of Christ, the story of the creati on th at are the
subj ects of religio us art. It is not the C hristia n principles, - re pen-
tance, forgive ness of injuries, and the rest. And I doubt if these
could eve r be the subj ect of art. Art can neve r preach, a nd reli-
gious a rt as little as a ny other. Wha t it does is to reveal. We may
find salvation , perhaps, in trying to understand what these artists
are saying, and in trying to go that way. But going that way is
not going th e C hristian way. Wha t they have offered and what
they have present ed is a salvation of the human spirit. It is not
a submission to the bringer of salvation. T hey have brought it
themselves; they have worked it out themselves .
And just as none of these works preaches, they have not th e
exclu siveness of religio us preaching. They speak togethe r with
other affirm a tions of the huma n spirit, including man y tha t a r e
not religious. (In fact art has had to fight its way against relig ious
prohibitions. Th e H ebrews discouraged it altoge the r. And one
may ask whe the r C hrist would not have condemned Michel-
angclo's work in the Sistine C ha pel.)
Art gives a nd reveals. It never preaches. R eligion always docs.
This goes togeth er with its doctrine of a higher authority - which
is wha t art r ej ects.
If a rtists have shown us the gr eatness tha t may lie in these
religious ideas, they have shown us wha t th e preachers of religion
11 cver can. And they have shown how we m ay escape from the
l>onclage and spiritual death to which the preacher s of religion
<' ii II us.
172 R eligion, lije and meaning
B4
One thing which puzzles me now (though it is one of a good
many) is the way in which an account of religion seem s to lie
b etween the view of Tolstoy, and that b elieving in God is the
same as b elieving that the belief in God is a theoret ical belief
about the origin a nd the cause of things. I think it is plain that
that view of Tolstoy's will not do. (Wittgen stein adopted it to
som e extent in 1915-16, wh e n he was working on the Tractatus.
He had bee n impressed by Tolstoy's 'Short Statement of th e
Gospels' al tha t time, I think.) I think that someone might fi nd
a meanin g in life and yet not believe in God; - though I a dmit
it is hard to know how to decide, often , whethe r to say that a
man does not be li eve in God. In any case I think that Tolstoy's
way of putting it confuses morality and religion wh ere I sh ould
think it important lo distinguish them . I have tried lo summa-
rize the matter by saying that w hereas the belief that there is a
meanin g in life is largely a belie f tha t it is important h ow you
live th e belief in God is much more a belief in th e importance
' (th e mere fact of life, not the manner of it). I should want
of life
to e mphasize this in various connexion s, a nd I should t ry to under-
s tand the r e lation of the creature to the creator in terms of it.
(A belief in the importance of life might almost be called a belief
in the holiness of life. Anyway, I should try to speak of sin and
of redemption from this angle.)
But wh en I say that, I am r ecognizing that Tolstoy had some-
thing in what he was saying. T h e be li ef in Goel is not just a
concern with th e meaning of life; it is a con cern with God. But
you cannot say what t ha t is wit hou t considering the con cern with
life which does seem to form so m uch of it. Even if it is a n in sist-
en ce on th e n eed to turn away from life - which J esus m ay have
m e ant in his saying that 'whosoever seek eth his life, sha ll losl'
it', though h e ce rtain ly did not mean only that - even that is a
special sort of con cern with life.
And evide ntly it would not be religion or it would not be a
be lief in God without that. Again, the belief in God is often la rge I)
a seeking for God ('Lord I believe; help thou min e unbc lic l'').
And what is important here is on e's re lation to God . Th a l is what
one seeks to find and what one see ks to und r rsla nd . This is not
" From a lette r wriue n to M. O'C . Dn11y lwtw,.< 11 I:! May :111d :,!<) l\ 1.1y lll!Hi ( l·'.d.),
0
 Religion, Life and meaning: A and B 173

jus t seeking the answer to a theor:t.ical ~ue st ion - though it is

not asking what makes life worth livmg either ('He who seeketh
his life, shall lose it ').
What is it that one is seekin g? I wish I could answer that. And
I have an idea th a t this wish is someh ow a fool ish one and based
on a misunderstanding.
I have asked in this connexion how it is possible to seek the
true life at a ll; or how it is possib le to wond er about the meaning
of life at al l. By which I m ean: how can such a qu estion have
sense? You might say: a life is a life, and that is that. This man's
life may h ave been happy, and t hat man's may h ave been .full ~f
suffering and disaster. T his man generally su cceeded 111 his
projects , and in that man's hand s everything, unaccountably, went
wrong. Observations of that kind have nothing s trange about
them. But how can one sor t of life mean more than a nother? H ow
can one life be deeper th a n anoth e r? What a r e yo u saying about
it if you say that? Are you really describing how one life d~rs
from anoth er (as you a re wh en you say that it was a h appy ltfe
or th at it was a chain of disas ters)?
I t seems to me that t h er e is som ething analogous here to what
we find in a rt. I think I mentioned on ce Wit tgenstein's compar-
ison of Schubert's Wiegenlied a nd Bra hms' Wiegenlied. H e said that
Schuber t's was clearly deepe r th an Brahms'. But he said you
might wonder how one sequ en ce of notes a nd phrases cou_ld be
de ep er than another. (Sometimes a very little change - t?e 111tro-
duction of a grace n ote, perhaps - makes all the d1fferen~c
between what is wonderfully d eep and what is banal.) And his
answer was that 'Obviously Schubert's Wiege nlied is deeper only
within our whole musical language.' This is a n idea t hat I have
returned Lo again and again. And I think it lead s to a lot. He~e
I want to say that if we can talk about depth or shallowness 111
a way of living - the explanation is something similar. O?ly,. ~e re
one h as not only to recogn ize th e importance of language .1~ living,
but one has also to th ink of th e common life - t he Lrad1uon and
t he institut ions in which anyone carries on his life, an d which
s how themselves in the in tercourse of t hose who live and wor k
1lwm - one has to think of th e common life itself as something
like a language.
174 Religion, life and meaning
15 May. Maybe I am wrong in speaking of one life as 'deeper'
than another at all. Maybe nobody ever does speak that way. But
it has seemed to me that unless you could understand what was
meant by that, you could not understand what religion is. You
could not understand even what was meant by prqfessing religion
- even though those who do profess it lead pretty shallow lives.
(It is the shallowness of their lives that makes their profession
of r eligion so empty; that makes even their claim to be concerned
about religion so empty.) But I am confused; I do not know. You
see, religion cannot play the part in a man's life that an occu-
pation or a vocation does. Of course, some people may be more,
and others less, absorbed in the vocation they follow. But religion
is not a vocation. And no matter how completely a man may be
absorbed in his vocation, it never becomes religion on that
account. Certainly he may try to serve God in the vocation h e is
following - he may try to make his vocation the service of God
- and if he is a deeply religious man he will. But obviously that
does not mean that for him being absorbed in religion is anything
like being absorbed in his vocation; on the contrary. And the same
would apply lo any interest, like an interest in art, for instance.
For a r eligious artist, his work is an expression of the love of
God, everything h e does in his art is that. But ... his religion is
not an 'interest in something' in a comparable sense. It is not
even like an interest in art.
Supposing a man devotes his life to art. He lives for art, and
everything else is considered simply and solely for its relation to
that. His judgements of value on all other things are governed
by it. And yet - I suppose the difference is partly that for the
religious man it is not a question of subordinating everything e lse
to a particular interest or occupation, not in that kind of way.
The religious man tries lo let everything he does be an expres-
sion of his religion. And that is what the artist cannot do: his art
cannot play that kind of role in his life. His art dominates hi s
!ife, but it doe s not tran.ifOrm his life in the way religion may. Ycs,
I know his art makes his life what it is, and it makes it some-
thing very different from the life of a man who has no serious
interests. But all the same, the important thing h ere is the art,
not the life. And in religion it is not like that.
It is hard to keep from saying what is misleading, in a ll thi s.
If you said that in religion the life is the important thing-, t lirn
 Religion, life and meaning: A and B 175
you are back at the kind of confusion I th ink Tolstoy made . 'He
who seeketh his life, shall lose it.' It is very important not to lose
it. That is what you see in religion. But you also see the sense
of that remark (which has the sort of bottomless profundity that
so many of Jesu s' sayings have). You see how it is perverting
things if what you seek in the worship of God is the joy and satis-
faction that it brings you. (You see how the passion and crucifixion
show what the worship of God is. Or better: how they are the
revelation of what the worship of God is; what the love of God
is. You see in them wh at it means to glorify God. And that is the
religious sense of the sacrifice.) You see that you cannot find your
!ife, unless fo r you your life becomes nothing. So people speak of
paradox here - foolishly, I think, because to say that does not
help in the least.
What I am t rying to emphasize is the difference between 'a
life devoted to God' and 'a life devoted to art'.
It is important to see that the worship of God is the devotion
to something in comparison with which my life is nothing at all.
Yet how does one know that? how does one come to know God?
How does one show that one realizes the nothingness of one's
own life and existence? Not by sacrificing oneself for some cause,
as an artist might, or as a scientist might. What the martyrs
showed was something different, I think. 'My life is not impor-
tant in comparison with the cause.' That would not have .been
religion at all. 'My life is not importan t in comparison with the
work I am doing, or the work to which I am trying to contribute.'
That would not be religion either. I used just now the phrase 'in
comparison with which my life is nothing at all' when I was
thinking of turning one's thoughts to God, and in a way that is
a silly way of speaking. It is silly, b ecause it suggests that you
are saying something comparable with 'the cause, in comparison
with which my life is not important'. The point is that th e compar-
ison of the importance of my life and the importance of God, is
really foolish; whereas it is not foolish, or need not be, to compare
Lhe importance of my life and the importance of the cause. No,
the realization of my nothingness before God is something of a
cliffer enl sort. And ifl wish that I might suffer for God, and even
l hat I might suffer death for God, this is not like wishing that
I mig ht sacrifice my life for the cause . The latter might well
have somc t hing or vanity about it. When it does not, it is more
176 Religion, life and meaning
a willingness to sacrifi ce one's life than a wish for it. But in religion
it is differ ent ; because the sacrifice is a different kind: it is a
religious sacrifice here - not 'self-sacrifice' in t he ordinary se nse .
The religiou s sacrifice is a way of glorifying God. And if I long
to suffc r some sacrifice for Goel ... I long to be allowed to glorify
God. It is much the same as praying: 'O le t me love thee more
and more.' 'Le t my life be a sacrifice to Thee': that is more the
sense of it tha n 'Let me sacrifice myself for T hee' - which I think
would be absurd.
Both a bsurd and blasphemous. If I sacrifice myself to make
some scientific experime nt possible - or if I sacrifice myse lf to
save som ebody from drowning - here the re is somethin g which
depe nds upon the help I can give . I make something possible by
my sacrifi ce which would not be possible otherwise. T hat is why
it would be a bsurd to talk a bout sacrificing myself for God, in
that sense.
'The not hingness of my life befo re God', means some thing
different then. And when I say tha t my devotion to God is not
like my devotion to art, it is connected with that. It is not like
my devotion to my friend, either. Similarly for serving God.
Suppose we say that the artist shows a 'selfless' devotion to his
art, and that his wife shows a 'selfless' devotion to him. Can the
d evotion to God be selfless in that sense? I do not think so. But
that docs not mean that the man 's devotion to God is a selfish
concern for the fate of his own soul, or anything of that sort. The
point is that you cannot make that sort of con trast here. I may
be selfish in my rela tions with other men, or I may be unselfish.
But I a m neither selfish nor unselfish towa rds God. T hat would
make no sense. Certainly I may be selfish in my prayers, fo r
instance. But tha t is not a selfishness towards God. A sinfulness
towards God, maybe. But I can no more be selfish towards Goel
t ha n I can be generous to him.
If my life is a sacrifice to God, there is not un selfishness in
that. T here is, if my devotion is genuine, an abandonment of prid1•
- a selflessness in that sense . And with that goes a love.
Is it sacrificing my life for something else, t he n? or for tlw
suprem ely importa nt thing in it? No, I do not think so . It is
ma king my life a sacrifice: it is glorifying God.
W e pray to God to accept this sacrifice. And if my life lw ro1 c·
God is nothing, my life is a sac rifice acce ptab le to Cod, is ii
 Religion, life and meaning: A and B 177
glorification of God, has all the reality anything could have. T hat
is why in being nothing befor e God it may approach God and to
reality - and not otherwise.
To worship God is to pray to God; to worship God is to glorify
God. And what I pray for, is to be allowed to offer my life to God.
So the worship of God has something importa nt to do wit h the
reality of life. The belief in God has something to do with the
belief in the reality of life.
Religion is not a vocation (though the pri esthood may be).
If you did think of it as a vocation - devoting your life to reli-
gion, as another might d evote his life to art - that would suggest
too strongly tha t there was somet hi ng like a special talent in the
practice of religion, as the re is in art. It mig ht even suggest that
a ve ry religious man would be a man of special powers. Was not
St Pa ul talking pa rtly against this id ea in I Corinthia ns x m ?
He is speaking of t hose who have th e gift of tongu es, especially,
but also of other powers and insights (he has talked a bout the m
particularly in Chapter XII). And he emphasized that although
such gifts may com e from the H oly Spirit, and although their
exercise may be the expression of the Holy Spirit in a man, the
exercise of the m without love is nothing. The presence of the
H oly Spirit need not show itself in special powers, if I understand
rightly. And anyway, the love which is a lmost the same as faith
a nd hope, is not itself a special power in tha t sense.

22 May. My ques tion has bee n of wha t is meant by 'seeking one's

li fe' or by 'losing one's li fe': wha t it is to seek your life, or to Jose
it, or to find it.
I a m sugges ting t hat to find one's life, in this sense, is closely
bound up with what is meant by finding God - a nd tha t it may
in fact be the same thing.
At any ra te, th e conceptions of 'seeking' and 'findin g' ar e mu ch
I he same in these two cases. And in both cases, they are very
d iffer ent from anything like seeking the source s of a river, or
lincling th em . It is something similar wit h t he conceptions of
'rn ming nearer to God' or ' turning away from God': ther e is so me-
1lii11g of o ne's attitude to life in this - of what one ta ke s one's
lik t o be.
I dwe ll on th is because or its connex ion with a view like
l'olstoy's I h;i t to IH' lil'vc I he re is mea nin g in li fe is th e same thing
178 R eligion, life and meaning
as to beli eve in God. Certain ly the finding of God is no t like
the finding of any physical object; it is not like finding the
sources of the river. (Neither is it like finding the solu tion to a
m athematical problem.) One is tempted to say that it is finding
out someth ing about life, or that it is finding ou t something about
the world - but again this is not like finding out anything
about uranium: it is not like finding out anything that could be
discovered. It is not finding out any matter of fact about life or
a bout the world either.
The relation between religious statements and judgements
of value is not clear - not to me, anyway. You can learn some-
thing by attending to the relation between them. But it is
certainly confusing to suppose that you can learn a lol. I mean:
there are such important differences be tween religious state-
m ents and what we call judgements of value in matters of morals
and aesthetics, for instance . T his has been part of my point in
emphasizing the difference between religion and vocation.
Consider the expression I used j ust above: 'what one takes one's
life to be'. Somehow the idea of a distinction between appear-
ance and reality comes into this - or may. Perhaps there is the
idea that all this that we are doing would be an empty show
unless there were something more. And the idea of 'finding
God' is in some way connected with that. I mean: the idea of
what one takes one's life to be, has something to do with one's
relation to God. And in this there is the conception of something
differe nt from this world, or of 'another world'. That in itself
is a curious conception, certainly. And of course one is inclined
to think in images, of what there is beyond the sky, or one may
think of something analogous to what there is under the surface
- under the surface of this rock, for instance. 'Deep' and 'super-
ficial' are words we should rightly use. And yet of course it is not
in that sense that we are contrasting anything with what W('
observe here and now at all. (What is deep in any physical sense,
could have nothing specially important about it.)
What I take my life to be. Appar ently this is not some thing
I can decide just by keeping a record of what I am doing, f'OI'
instance. Nor by measuring its successes or its failures. It is
almost as though I had to concentrate on some thing else. (Ma)
I emphasize again that this is not th e sam e as as king what is t ""
most important thing in life; nor of what my chi ef dut y is.)
 Religion, life and meaning: A and B 179
The distinct ion between appearance a nd reality. The distinc-
tion be tween the temporal and the eternal. These come in, both
in philosophy and in religion. And yet I cannot get over the convic-
tion that they come in in different ways - or that they have a
differen t sense here and there.
Philosophy is concerned with the nature of reality. And I am
suggesting now that the question of what I take my life to be
raises the idea of some contrast between appearance and reality
- of some thing 'beyond', pe rhaps, but also of someth ing which is
the reality of all this. And that may make it seem as though that
question of what I take my life to be were also the question
that is studied in philosophy - as though perhaps it were the
question about the nature of reality.
Was not Plato saying that they are the same? And is this not
one r eason why Plato's philosophy has seemed to many to come
so close to being a kind of r eligion?
I said just now that it is as though you had to concentrate on
someth ing else. And here of course one is reminded of the paral-
lels between the work of Socrates in asking men to give an account
of their lives - by which he did not mean an itinerary of any sort;
and the work of the r eligious teacher who urged men to 't hink
again' or repent.
You might say that Plato's concern over what he called 'the lie
in the soul', and Socrates' insistence that the worst thing is to
be unaware of one's own ignorance - that these were ways of
insisting on this question of what one may take life to be.
But Plato thought that was a question for philosophy. And I
suppose Socrates did too. And this is connected with the fact - I
do not know what is reason and what is consequence in all this
- that Plato takes the question about life to be one about the
intelligibility of life. It is in that sense that he places the emphasis
which h e does upon the unity of life, which he connects with the
Parmenidean unity of being, or unity of discourse. I think th is is
i rnportant in lots of ways, bu t I might note at the start how far
th is is from the Hebrew and Ch ristian concern with life: how
l'ar it is from the idea of making one's life a sacrifice. Plato speaks
• in the Tlzeaetetus, for instance, - of the importance of becoming
.1s like to God (or to the divine) as possible. And he thought the
way to th is was through philosophy. I do not think he ever changed
111111 view, from the Phoedo onwards, although he changed lots of
180 R eligion, life and meaning

othe r things. But I cannot see a nything here of the conception

of sacrifice. And neither - this is more important, I think - neither
can I see that the striving to becom e more like the divine is what
is meant by seeking God in the H ebrew and Christian re ligions. I
do not mean that it has no relation to it. It has; and it is that
that puzzles me.
But if there is a difference th e re, then there is a difference in
the question about life, too. I mean: if the conception of seeking
God is absent from Plato - and I think it is - then so is the
conception of seeking life, in the se nse of which J esus spoke of
it. And the question of what I take my life to be was only partly
the same for Pla to and Socrates, on the one hand, and for H ebrew
or Christia n beli evers on the othe r.
Plato generally wanted to und ersta nd life in some sort of analogy
with the divine; a nd I m ean analogy in the mathematical sense.
(At least it was mathe matical analogy that was the model or the
standard. ) What he says about imit ation, about the relation of
an image to the original that casts it, and gene rally a bout like-
ness, is on the same point. His whole treatment of coming to be
and passing away is developed in th ese terms. And so is hi s
conception, which I referred to above, of the need to become as
like to the divine as possible. Now I know that one might empha-
size the similar ways of speaking in H ebrew a nd C hristian
religion: the idea that man is made in the image and likeness of
God; and perhaps the precept: Be ye perfect, even as your Father
in H eaven is perfect. I confess that I do not unders ta nd this
precept of J esus. But in a ny case, it seems to me that the r ela-
tion of the huma n creature to God in C hristianity cannot be
a nything like th e image or imitation or analogy of which Plato
was speaking. I do not think that the end of the Book of Job could
be transla ted in to Plato's te rms.
It is partly for this reason tha t I do not see much room for
worship in Pla to - not in the Hebrew or C hristian sense, anyway.
Probably this goes with the fact that there is no creator, in t llt'
H ebrew sense, in Plato. I know that som e people in rccl' n t
times have said tha t they cannot see a ny real obj ecti on to t l1t•
idea of a finite god. I can only say that I do 'no t unde rsta nd
the idea at all. I can imagine believing tha t the re is so me w1)
powe rful being, and it may be th a t I should ad mi re or f'1·a r s 111 Ii
a being. But that is not what th e C hri sti a n means by worship
 R eligion, life and meaning: A and B 18 1

This is to e mphasize the difference in the conception of 'religion '

in connexion with polytheism, in contrast with monothe ism,
too. If I a m not the creature of him I worship, and if his power
is limited - by other gods, or by other things which he did not
create - th en as I say, I do not understand well what the worship
is. (For the same reason, I do not unde rstand very we ll what the
sacrifices to the gods were in Gr eek religious practices. To a
supe rficial view it seems so much a matter of appeasement, or
of ingra tiating yourself - which is quite a diffe re nt thing from
glorifying God as the later H ebrews and Christians have under-
stood it.)
I almost want to say th a t in Christianity one's re lat ion to God
is the worship of God. That may be an unhappy way of putting
it. But if anyone should ask wha t the r elation of the creature to
God is, t he n one might most readily point to the worship of God,
as if to say: 'Look there, you'll see.' And thi s is not the sort of
thing tha t is suggested by Pl a to's idea of becoming as like to the
divine as possible. You might even feel like saying that it is just
the opposit e.
When Plato speaks of the form of good in the R epublic, he does
not say tha t the sensible world, and earthly life, is any sort of
imitation or like ness of th a t. H e insists t hat there cannot be a ny
repr ese ntation or appearance of the good. The relation of the
sensible to the intelli gibl e is t hat of image to original. But the
form of good is what makes tha t relation possible; it is not itself
anything tha t it imagined. By th e same tok e n, the form of' good
cannot be that which men should try to become like. (In th e
Timaeus we have the intelligible cosmos, on which the sensibl e
world is modelled; and what makes that like ness, or 'analogy'
possible is eith er the Artificer or - what may be Plato's more
serious view - the world soul.) Yet I do not find much suggest ion
or the form of good as an obj ect or wors hip. And I do not think
th a t Pla to's conception of aspiration towards a n ideal can be mu ch
like the C hri stia n conception of seeking God.
Pe rha ps I can put that by saying that the relation of one's li fe
to God is not the rela tion of one's life to an id eal.
You may ask: H ave I not just d enied that the for m of good is
.ui id eal, in Plato? Well , it is not some thing which you try to
i111it alc. H111 it is not some thin g which you wors hip either, or seek
l o 'gloriry' in th e C: hri st ian se nse. And you rn ulcl no t ma ke sense
182 Religion, life and meaning
of such a statement as 'He who seeketh his life shall lose it' m
r elation to th e form of good.
Perhaps that is another way of saying tha t the form of good
does not stand to the world as a creator does; not to a human
being as a creator. The form of good makes intelligible what is
intelligible and it makes visibl e what is visible, and it makes
possible coming to be and passing away. I think it is possible to
give se nse to all that. It is harder to show just how it differs from
the Hebrew conception of a creator, but there arc some things
that ar e clea r. Perhaps the chief of the m is that there is no
concep tion of sin in connexion with the form of good. Supposing
we say that it makes human life possible - as I think we may.
Somehow it is natural to leave it in those general terms. There
is not the relation to the individu al hum a n being; and I suppose
that is necessary for the conception of sin . It makes human life
possible; but I am not inclined to talk about the form of good as
'my maker'.
The form of good may be importan t in a discussion of the
nature of reality. But I do not think it is very relevant to the
questio n of what I take my life to be, as that is asked in religion.
What Plato and Socrates were concerned with, you might say,
was the intelligibility of life. And they understood that in a partic-
ular way. Socrates tried to get men to give an account of their
lives, and he thought that the most important t hing in life was
unde rstanding. We run into difficulty when we ask ' understanding
of what?'. W e might answer to start with either ' understanding
of life' or 'understanding of reality' (those two expressions would
be inte rchangeable). Anyway, he thought it especially evil when
men supposed that they understood their lives and really did not.
Plato took the same view, I think. And when he spoke of thr
importance of 'being one man and not many' he seems to have
thought of this as one of the conditions of intelligibility in one's
life.Just as there must be unity in discourse - just as word s must
mea n the same on different occasions, and especially: just as the
word is must mean the same, if discourse or language is to I)('
int elligible at all; just as, we might say, language must have "
single logic if there is to be any intelligibility in it - so then·
must be a unity in life if the life is to be int elligible at a ll.
I think I must dwell on that poin t a moment, because P la to'M
conception of an int elligible life is so much bound up with ii.
 Religion, Life and meaning: A and B 183
P!ato us~d to speak of 'the conditions of the possibility of
discourse . And although I do not remember that he ever uses
s ue~ a ~hrase as ' the conditions of the intelligibility of a life'
I thrnk it would have fit ted in with what he was saying. Now in
the !?epublic he thought that the conditions of the in telligibility
of discou rse and the conditions of the intelligibility of life went
to?ether - i~d eed that they were the same. The principles of
science - whic? he seems to have thought of as the purest object
of knowledge 111 the Phaedo - a re not intelligible in th emselves.
~ot to .h uman beings, anyway. They must ap pear arbi tr ar y, except
i~ their connexion with life, or with the actual practice of
di scourse. Pla to had constantly to clefend himself against mis-
und erstandings on this point, because t he Sophists had also said
that the whole meaning of the pri nciples of science is to be found
in their connexion with life - meaning that their sense and their
reality as science is to be found in their utili ty. That was not
what_ Plato meant; and ye t he was insisting strongly enough that
nothrng could be intelligible to us except in its connexion with a
f~r m of life. T~ e main P?int here is one that he puts in slightly
different ways 111 o ther dialogues. In the Parmenides, for instance,
he argues that we cannot say anything inte lligible exce pt in refer-
ence to what is in time and what a ppears. The point is that the re
cannot be a ny discourse that we can understand which is
concerned j ust with pure forms. And in the Republic I think he
i~ including a way of living and a form of society among the condi-
L!ons of intelligibility for any sort of account or a ny science.
'!"_e must add 'as far as we a r e concerned', because he says in the
Timaeus that what he calls 'a completely tru e account' does belong
to the a bsolutely real, but it is not something that we can ever
~mde~s~a~~- The i~t~lligib i lity that we know is never complete
111telhg1bihty. But rt rs something which we can learn to distin-
gui.sh '.mm ~ninte lligi bility nevertheless; a nd it is something
which 1s possible only under certain cond itions.
The conditions of an intelligible life . Well, for Plato this meant
a t least a !ife in which there could be discussion; a life which was
rarried on through discussion, I suppose. And he opposed the
Sophi sts because (in ter alia) they ignored the distinction between
di:"n.1ssion. and rhetoric. Or in other words, they d enied the reality
of d1srus~1<_>n a llog.c ther; th at is what it came to. La nguage is a
111<·a11s of 111flu c11c 111 ~ people, 011 thi s view. The id eal is not to
184 Religion, life and meaning
make your speech intelligible, but to make it effective. (They
would have d enied that the re could b e a ny distinction between
intelligibility and effectiveness of speech.) Th ere was no question
of trying to find out something. It was simply a matter of trying
to win. For Plato this was not only a misuse or a destruction of
language; it was a lso a d estruction of socie ty. P erhaps he wou ld
h ave said that it was a destruction of the true relations between
m en. Anyway, it des troyed any chance that men shou ld under-
stand one another: where this meant not only that they could not
unde rstand what was said, but a lso that they could not under-
stand the lives that people were leading. And for Plato this meant
that they could not unde rstand the lives that they were leadi ng
them selves either.
There must be such a thing as intelligibility, as distinct from
effective n ess or persuasiven ess, as distinct from effectiveness or
successfuln ess, of living. And for both the r e must b e unity, not
only in th e life of th e individual man, but also in the society in
which he is living. One of the points h e makes in the Republic is
that ther e cannot be an intelligibility in the life of a man unl ess
it is a life lived in an intelligible society.
It is fairly easy to see why this is necessary for the inte lligi-
bility of discourse, I think. Plato does n ot put it in this way, and
pe rhaps I am giving an unwarranted gloss. But we may recognize
that there cannot be a purely private language. The intelligibility
of any expression goes with the fact tha t it is an expression that
has a regular use, so that it may be understood and may also be
misunderstood. I think this is part of wha t Plato is meaning when
h e says that int elligibility is made possible by the form of good,
because I think h e connects the form of good with a form of life.
I think it is also suggested in his whole em phasis upon educa-
tion. Intelligibility is som ething th at we learn. It is something
which we may gain in our lives with other people, then, a nd nol
otherwise. So the intelligibility of what any man says - the int cl
ligibility to himself even depends upon the fact that it is spoke n
in an inte lligible language.
And it is similar with the intelligibility of life. If I lead an inl <'I
ligible life at a ll, then what I do can be under stood a nd ca11 lw
criticized. Otherwise I am called mad. I may wonder why yo11 did
what you did in that situation yesterday. But T do not wo 11cl1 ·1
this a bout th e sort of perso n we call mad (or not i11 t lrnt s1·11111,
 Religion, life and meaning: A and B 185
it would be a question which a physician migh t put about the
cause of his actions) . I may think that your action was a curious
sort of thing to do, an d I may wonde r what the explanation is.
Anyway, I am curious about it and try to unde rstand i t. What I
sugges t is th at this sort of q uestion and criticism is possible
because t he actions we perform are actions that belong to - shall
we say - a general way of behaving, rather in the way in which
our u tter ances belon g to a language. I say ' rath er in the way',
because I think t hat a lthough there is an impor tant analogy,
there is also considerabl e d iffer ence. Pla to seems to have found
the analogy m uch st ronger than I can see i t. O r perhaps we should
say that h e did not attend to th e differe nces which I think are
import ant in t his connexion . H e really seems to have thought
that the conditions of th e intelligibility of language were th e condi-
tions of th e intelligibility of - or as we say, the 'rationality' of -
th e actions and lives of men. Almost as though there were no
ultima te differe nce between the standards by whi ch we criticize
statements and arguments - say th e standards of tr u e and false
and of validity and invalidity - and the stand ards by which we
criticize t he actions and lives of men. I think that is a serious
mistake, and I think it has considerable consequences for the
question which I am trying to discuss, n amely the q uestion of
what you take your life to be.
I cannot emphasize stro ngly enough my admiration for the
depth to which Plato has seen h ere. And if I say that he has made
a mistake, I must add that I sh ould n eve r have been a ble to see
Lhe issues at all unless I ha d learn ed from him, and learned what
I h ave never foun d anywhere else . The analogy between leading
a life a nd carrying on discourse is, I think, extremely important.
Most of what distinguishes what we mean by the life of a human
being and wh at we mean by th e life of an a n imal depend s on
that . And so does the conception of responsibility, for instance.
I had be tter not try t o go into that just now, though. I t is no less
important to emphasize that d iscourse is not intelligible - and so
is nol discourse - excep t when it is something in which th e lives
or people ar e being carried on togeth er. That is some thing which
Wit tge nslci n has emph asized.
13uL WiLtgenstc in has emphasized a lso tha t there is no one way
ol' r11n ctioni ng-, for instance, which is the way in which lan guage
f11 11rt ions. Then· is 11 0 O i l(' fundamenta l form or lan guage, and
186 R eligion, Life and meaning

there is nol just one form of understanding. I ntelligibility and

Understanding are names which cover famili es of related activities.
Plalo seems to have thought, as Wittgenstein himself did at one
time that there is some one fundam en tal form which must
' in all discou rse in so far as it is to be intelligible or is to
appear
be discourse at all. And I think he was thinking especially of
mathe ma tics. Ile see ms to h ave thought that the stat e me nts
of ma the matics were the paradigms of intelligibility, and that all
other statements were intelligible only in t he degree to which
they showed analogy to the forms of the sta tements of mathe-
mati cs. Nothing else could be true understanding and nothing
else could be true intelligibility.
Now this influ ences Plato's view a bout the intelligibility of life,
and in cu rious ways. He thought, as Socrates had, that to have what
we might call a wrong view of life, was a terrible thing; to think
tha t you know the sort of life lha l is worth living, and to be mis-
taken in th at, for instance . That is why he thoug ht that education
was so important - by which he did not mean preparation for any
special calling or craft, but rather the growth of unde rstanding.
This comes out especially in what he says of th e sche me of higher
education in the Republic, though I should hold tha t it can be shown
to be his view in connexion with the earlier education as well.
Anyway, he thinks it is importan t for his intending rulers to study
the mathematical sciences. And his reason for this seems to be t hat
it is only through a schooling in the mathem a tical scie nces that
one can get a real familiarity with the form a nd nature of under-
standing and of knowledge, a nd so be a ble to discriminate between
genuine understanding and apparent understanding. In other
words: the study of t he ma thematical sciences is of the first impor-
tance for the und ersta nding of Jifc - just because it is so impor-
tant not to think that you understand life when what you have is
not understanding but something else.
The understanding of life a nd the understa nding of the sciences
- the form of understa nding mu st be the same in both. But of'
course it can be seen much more clearly in ma thematics.
Now if this view, that unde rstanding or intelligibility is always
one thing, is a mistake, as I think it is, then a ny question about
an ideal of intellig ibility, or any notion of perfect intellig ibilit y,
is probably confused. At least it has not the clear sense whic h
Plato seemed to think it had .
 R eligion, life and meaning: A and B 187
T he re is, so to speak, not j ust one point of language. You are
no t always doing or trying to do the same thing when you are
speaking. You a r e not always trying to do the same thing when
you a re trying to make yourself understood or when you a re trying
to understand. And I think this m eans that if we do ask about
the intelligibility of our lives, it is not so obvious that we should
gu ide our search by looking to th e kind of intelligibility that is
sought in science .
But I think there may be a further diffe rence. The life I lead
is something which I carry on in connexion with other people.
The things I do can be understood and can be criticized. From
this I think there must be something analogous to what we call
rules of language, within which certain connexions of actions
make sense and others do not. But the connexion is nol just the
same as the connexion of discourse. It sometimes see ms to me
as though Plalo thoughl it were. The point is that we can speak
of institutions - established ways of carrying on our lives. I
suppose language is one institution itself, a nd of course it ente rs
into all others. We learn to live in somewhat the way in which
we learn to speak, and we learn to live as we can learn to speak
(or: in lea rning to speak) . But the rules, as I am calling them,
which ma ke up these institutions, are not just rules of language.
And the criticism - which is possible just because we do have
fairly regula r ways of living - the crit icism of actions is by rather
different sta nda rds th an the standa rds of truth and falsity, or
those standards of int elligibili ty which we e mploy in examining
and criticizing what is said. There are standards of other kinds.
Many of them have grown up rather in the way in which the
aesthetic standards which we use in judging good or poor writing
have grown up. They have grown up in co nnexion with our regula r
ways of acting, a nd perha ps I may call them jusl various stan-
da rds of excelle nce, for the moment (even though tha t obscures
their varie ty).
My present point is tha t understanding the lives of people and
criticizing the lives of people go toge ther. And lhat this may oft en
be some thing different from criticizing speech and arguments. If
it were not that, I do not think we should ever get to the ques-
t io n of 'Whal do we think of the man?', for instance. My judgement
of' anot her 111<111 is something which I could not have a part from
I ht· Iii'<" in wlii C"h I a m t ;1king- part with ot hn pcopk . T ha l is true.
188 Religion, life and meaning

And there is the important analogy with language there. But my

feeling of admiration or of contempt for men, for instance, is not
something which j ust flows from my admiration or condemnat ion
of discour se. No doubt Plato neve r said that it did; and you could
quote a good deal from the Phaedrus he re. But I do think his posi-
tion is open to that criticism all the same.
If I a m righ t in t hat, it is impor tant. My concern for my own
life is likely to be guided by the same standards by which I admire
or conde mn the men I have to do with. (I may praise myself more
easily than I p raise others, but the point is that the praise means
the same in this case as it does the re.) And if I am right, my
concern for my own life is not just a concern for inte llig ibi lity in
Pl ato's sense. That is one point. And this bears perhaps especially
on t he question of what we arc to make of moral judgeme n ts.
For I imagine that Plato's view of morality is much too narrow.
I suspect - though I will not try to work this out here - I imagine
that Pla to's failure to conside r any moral problems involving
self-sacrifice may be a result of this. (Plato is concerned with
purification, and also with the achieving of a development that
is not illusory: t he achieving of a waking life, and the emergence
from the d reaming state. But he never considers whether a m an's
circumstances m ay not be such that he is morally bound to
sacrifice his own bes t developm en t for the sake of someone else.)
Your thoughts a re not naturally led to self-sacrifice if you are
thinking of lives that are intelligibl e in the way that a discussion
is in telligible.
But there is another point that is differe nt from that. I have
said ( I) that language itself has not one essenti al form, as Plato
imagined; a nd (2) that our understanding of one another's lives
and action s is not always like our unde rsta nding of something
that is said. These (1 and 2) a rc not independent of one anothe r.
Our admiration or con te mpt for men would not be wha t it is if
we did not speak a la nguage. And the la nguage we speak, or much
of it would not be what it is - by which I m ean that it wou ld
not have the fo rm that it does, it would not have the kind of'
intelligibility that it d oes or make the kind of sense tha t i ~ clew s
- if we had not come to live a life in which we mad e such .i11d g('
ments and criticisms. But my present poin t is th a t it is possible ·
to be puzzled abou t life in a way in whir h o ne wo11ld not lw
puzzled about a ny so rt of discourse. Thi s is prnb:1hl y c·o 11 11c ·c tc·cl
 Religion, life and meaning: A and B 189
with the matter I referred to j ust now, r egarding the question of
what a man 'thi nks of another person's life, and what he thinks
of his own. I was considering moral judgements there. But it is
possible to be puzzled about one's life in another way too. And
here I mean again the question of what one takes one's life to
~e . P.lato thought th at would be a question of understanding one's
life, m the only sense which he thought that could have. That is
why he thought that the question regarding the reality of life was
fundamentally the same as the question concerning the intelligi-
bility of things.
. The q uestio~ of. how people have come to ask the kind of qu es-
tion I am cons1denng, would need a complicated answer, I expect.
Some of what has been written abou t the origin of r eligions may
be relevant her e; I am not sure . Maybe nobody would ever have
asked such a thing if men had not bee n impressed by death .
Maybe it would not have be en asked unless there had been some-
thin ~ like the rcflexion that we find in moral judgements about
the lives of people. (I am t hinking even of primitive forms, where
per.haps a. head h~nt er is honoured for the booty that he brings,
or is m disgrace if he brings none.) In any case, it is clear that
the question cou ld not have been asked exce pt by someone who
led a life together with other people.
It i~ plainly not simply a question of what my life might be, or
~he kmd of life I migh t live. T hat is where those who interpret
it as a search for a substitute for the present life - 'the opium of
the ,pe~ple', etc., - go wrong. It is not that ki nd of reflexion upon
one s hfe. I should never have reflected upon my life a t all, if I
had not refle cted on the lives of others. But my present concern
is not to find some more favo urable view of my life - perhaps
through comparison with others - than I would take a t first
glance. It is not th a t kind of contemplation, or that kind of
~eflexi on. (Plato's ~u estion is not of that kind either. Tha t is why
it looks so much hke the one I am considering.)
I t springs from a perplexity about my life, a nd from a wish to
und erstand.' in so~e way. Bu t it is nearer to a perplexity regarding
what .to. thmk of it, what sort of value judgement to pass on it,
~han 1t is to the question of what it is that I essentially want, for
instance. I do no t th ink it is j ust tha t concern with a value j udge-
rn r nt. But the ' understanding' in qu estion is nearer to that than
it is to t h<' rn lw rc nr(' and intelligibility in Plato's sense.
190 Religion, life and meaning
One reason why I think it is not a q ues tion of value judge-
m ent is tha t it does not depend upon evidence, or is not affected
by evidence of a kind that would affec~ a ~alu e judgeme nt. I may
come to believe tha t the life I am leading is pre tty worth.less, a nd
I can point to various consideration~ tha t m ake me think tha t:
I have not succeeded in my prof ess1on, there has bee n a good
deal of fraud and hypocrisy in wha t I do, I a m a burde n to my
friends, a nd so on. But for this othe r question of wha t I t~ke m~
life to be, those ma tters a re not relevant, or a t least n? t m t~at
way; they do not d ecide the answe r. And w~1ate~er I might thmk
or say by way of an answer, it is doubtful 1f this could be argued
one way or a nother. . .
You migh t say, 'That is a queer sort of perplexity, then, 1f ther e
can be no pros and cons; if you never say ." And ~et on the other
hand . . ."' W ell, I suppose there is some thmg a km to tha t, some-
times . Only, it is not a matter of giving r easons, so ~uc?. Pe rhaps
it is more a ma tter of trying one view and findmg 1t unsat~s­
factory. In some ways, I think, rat~1er as a pain.te r :nay fin~ a tnal
ske tch or a first conception unsatisfactory, which is gene1ally not
a ma tte r tha t can be a rgued either. Th e painter may fina~ly be
a ble to show you the one which he thinks is bette r - that is all.
O r, if you a re a painter yourself, you. may be abl ~ ~o suggest a
conception to him which he will agree is bet ter. This .1 s a comp.ar-
ison tha t ought not to be pressed too far ; but there · ~ somethrng
simila r in speaking of perplexity in such a case a nd 111 ours.
The big differ ence is tha t wl~at the painte.r finally r~ache~, what
you can call his answer, re mam s pers~n~l m a .way m which th e
religious ma n's does not. (If he is a rehg10u~ pa1.nter~ he i:na~ also
be concerned with just this religious quest10n m his p~mtmg. I
do not think this alters wha t I a m trying to say.) If .he is a great
ar tist the n wha t he offe rs is profound and revealing. And you
migh~ feel like saying that the conception which he h a~ wor~ed
ou t here is less pe rsonal tha n the purely religious c~ns1derat1on
is - just because it is some thing tha t can b~ s~ar~d 111 th~t waY_.
And yet, if you a re considering just the artistic side of his wo1k
_ I mean, if you neglect the fact that he may be c~nce rncd with.
a re ligious subj ect - his work still belongs to the mtcrcoursc ol
men with one a no ther, somehow. It does mu ch to transform a nd
to enable tha t intercourse; this is the sort of thing we ca ll ~·ult. lll'(',
I suppose . It helps to give d epth to our thought s <i nd kl' l111gs,
 Religion, life and meaning: A and B 191

a nd our lives a re different beca use of it. But it belongs to our

lives, all the same. I t is a pa rt of our lives, - the lives we live
with one a nothe r, I mean. And I meant it was pe rsonal in the
way in which a ny contribution to this living may be personal.
Whe reas the religious answer to the question about what I take
my life to be, is not like that. In a way, this answer cannot be
my contribut ion to a nything.
I t is ha rd to make this clear. It looks as though I we re de nying
the work of religious teachers, fo r insta nce . And of course I do
not want tha t . When I say that the r eligious conception (what I
take my life to be) is not a contribution to human intercourse,
in the same way as a work of art is, I mean tha t I am not inclined
- a nd I think no religious per son would be - to spea k of it as my
own conception; and still less as my work.
Nor is it as if the artist wer e inspired; as if Blake wrote or
drew wha t a n a ngel told him. Tha t is not the point a t all. I a m
no t conce rned with how I come by the conception, but with the
sort of concep tion it is. Blake's work would still be important as
a contribution to culture; it would still be e nnobling in that way,
the way in which great art is e nnobling. It would still be some-
thing tha t ennobled human intercourse and huma n lives; lives as
we are leading them, lives as we live them her e. Tha t is the point,
really. What Blake answers, or wha t an a rtist a nswers, may be
some d eep quest ioning regarding the sense of life as we lead it.
And he a nswers, almost, by doing som ething to tha t life ; by doing
some thing to the media and to the conceptions in which we live.
The artist's conception and the artist 's vision - is still concerned
with earthly media. It is still concerned with human intercourse.
Without an a udience, art is nothing. It is still conce rned with the
sense of things as we live. I do not say tha t the r eligious quest-
ion has no connexion with this, but I do say tha t it is something
different. And if the religious answer is illumina ting, it is not illu-
mina ting in tha t kind of way.
Croce said that art is expression. The re we re confusions in tha t ,
a nd the critics have made these familiar now. But in a sense it
is true tha t a rt is expression. And you cannot say that religion is
expression. The a rtist 's vision itself is a n expression, and its
importance is in that; it is in tha t that it is wonderful. If we speak
of a religious vision - well , its importance would be of another
kind .
192 R eligion, life and meaning
What I take my life to be. Th e answer that I come lo, is not
one of which I migh t say, 'into this answer I have put my whole
soul'. I do not appear as answerer at all. And it is not the form
of the answer that is important.
Certainly it is an answer that concerns me personally; much
more so, you might say, than the artist's answer concerns him
personally. But the answer itself is no t personal, in the way in
which the artist's is. (This is one reason why one d oes not speak
of 't alent ' or 'ability' here.)
I am still concerned with the kind of perplexity tha t this is,
a nd with the kind of conce rn about life tha t it is. I think perhaps
it is natural that Tolstoy took the line that he did, just because
he thought so much as a n artist. I think it may often be said that
an a rtist is trying lo find the meaning of life, and tha t the impor-
tance of his work lies in what it reveals in that way. I agree too
that the re may be something akin to a religious interest in this.
But if you say that that is religion, you leave out the love of God.
For the great saints, the love of God was not a matte r of find ing
the meaning of life . If I do love God, then I pray tha t I may love
him more perfectly. And I want to say: I cannot love God without
offering my life to God. But it is turning things u pside down to
say that this is first and foremost a concern with the m eaning of
life· or even that it is a conviction that there is some meaning
' Anyone to whom the love of God was important because it
in life.
gave meaning to life, would be only imperfectly religiou s. For the
religious person the love of God is important because of God. It
cannot be for any other reason. (I know tha t it is sometimes said
that il is important for a man to find religious faith, 'in order
that he may secure for himself everlas ting happiness in the world
lo come'. But I think the great saints have r ej ected that notion.
I am thinking of a poem tha t has been ascribed to St T her esa,
in which she is speaking to God, a nd says even if I could not hope
as I do hope, I should still love as I love.) And if you cannot
understand what the C hristia n love of God is, then of course you
cannot understand what the Christian takes his lifc to be.
I doubt if you can understand this without the relig ious co nr<' P
lion of sacrifice, a nd without a host of other conce ptions whi <"h
belong, we may say, to religious discourse or lo reli gious languagt·.
Here I am emphasizing once again the variety of' f(m11 s o l
discourse, which I said Plato ncglcclccl. Then· is ;i w;1y i11 whit 11
 R eligion, life and meaning: A and B 193
lan_g~age is used in r eligion - what we may call the grammar of
religious language - which is different from other uses of
language . This appears especially in connexion with certain
ex~r~ssions whic~ a re the same here and in language that is not
r elig10us, but which have a different grammar here. We use such
expression s as ' under standing', 'teaching', 'accepting' 'followino-'
'~eliev~ng', 'asking', 'doub ting', 'seeking', .. . we use ;uch expre s~
0

s10ns 111 the language of religion, and we use th em outside

religion. But they do not mean the same h ere and there.
Those expressions are also fundamental. I mean that we could
n~t give an a~count of what was meant by using la nguage at all
without referring to understanding, asking, believing and the rest
of them. And if they are different, then the language is different ·
the use of l ang~age_ is diffe re n t, what we mean by its bein~
language a t all 1s different; though of course it has thino-s in
c~mm on too. As Wittgenstein would say, we are pl ayi~g a
d1fferent game.
~ t_hink it is plain tha t those expressions are used differently in
r~hg10n. Take the conception of 'following', for instance. I empha-
size that because some professing C hristians seem to speak as
though to follow J esus were hardly different from following the
example of someone whom we greatly admire. But if one does
say 'Christ by his life has given a n example for us to follow', then
one can hardly neglect the cen tr al point or climax in the life of
Christ, namely the passion and the crucifixion and r es urrection.
Now if Christ gave us some thing to 'follow' in that - well what-
ever_ tha t ~ea_ns, it_ cannot mean that we should tr y as ne,arly as
possible to 1m1 tate 1t as we would imitate the examp le of a great
man. For none of us can be God incarnate. God crucified and
God r_isen ag~in. I cannot myself see any sense in speaking of
~ol~ov:rng Chnst, a_part from the e ucharist. If someone says that
1t I S 111 the e uchanst tha t we a re followers of C hrist t hen I can
understand him, at least partly. Put it otherwise: th~ crucifixion
was not simply the killing of an innocent man. Th e crucifixion
was t he sacr_ifice of the lamb of God to take away t he sins of the
world. Now 111 wha t sense can I follow Christ in that? There is a
s~nse in the doctrine of the eucharis t, but I cannot see a ny other-
w1 ~e. And ~hat sense of 'following' is a particularly religious one.
fhc ord1 nary se1:s~ of 'tr ying to follow someone's example'
111 t1y come i11 10 rcltg1ous thoug ht and practices too, of course.
194 Religion, life and meaning
So I may learn some thing of what religious d evotion is from
reading the lives of the saints; and I may try to come nearer to
that sort of d evotion in my own life. But 'following C hrist', if that
means following the sacrifice of Christ, must be some thing very
different.
And if you say t hat following Christ means accepting the
teaching of Christ, the point still holds. In the first place, we
might ask wha t were the teachings of Christ? And I suppose
we must put something like 'I am the way a nd the truth' in the
centre of the m (I do not think this is peculiar to the fourth
Gospel). In other words, Christ was not teaching some thing
which anyone else equally gifted (if ther e should be such a man)
might also have taught. This is a point tha t Kierk?gaard makes
whe n he is comparing C hrist a nd Socrates:'i And it m eans tha t
'teachin g' is being used in a special way here as we ll. 'Accepting
C hrist's teaching' means accepting Ch rist. It does not mea n
simply believing that what he says is true, as I migh t believe tha t
a pa r ticula r th eory is true. And what 'accepting C hrist' means -
well, it certainly includes accepting the Incarnation and the
Atoneme nt. And 'accep ting the Incarnation ' or 'beli eving in the
Incarna tion' is certainly not believing that som ething is a mat ter
of fact - like believing t hat someone has unusual powe rs, for
insta nce. If you want to know wha t it d oes mean to believe in
the Incarna tion, I suppose you will have to understand the role
it pl ays in the religion and in the lives of the believ.e rs. Anyw.ay,
you cannot unde rstand it by supposing that there is s ~methmg
which people believe in the sense in which they do be heve that
something is a fact.
Something analogous could be said about doubting: . ab0l.1t
the diffe rence be tween doubting in religion and doubtmg m
other connexions. But there is ha rdly need for me to go into
that . I will only note that both in doubting a nd in believing
the question of what I take my life to be comes in (as it does
not in connexion with doubting or believing ma tt ers of fact, of
course) .
I would e mphasize especially the way in which we speak or
' understanding' a nd of 'perplexity' in religion. If the other expres-
1
sions I have m entioned have a special use the re, the n obviousl)
5 See Philosophical Fragments, ed . and trans. H owa rd V. I long a nd l•:dna 11. 1101111. (Nrn
J ersey: Princeton U niversity Press, 1985) (Eel.).
 Religion, life and meaning: A and B 195
these m ust. No doubt there is considerable variety in what we
may call perplexity in religion. I think of the firs t part of J ob, for
instance; and probably one could poi nt to some of the psalms.
Bu t it seems to me that most of what we should call r eligious
perplexity centres about the question of one's r ela tion to God -
tha t was so wi th J ob, certainly - and I have an idea t hat the
extreme form, to which the others may be approximations of
various kinds, is j ust t he perplexity of relig ious belief itself, or
what we may call t he perplexity r egarding God 's existence or
God's reality. I should like to b ring that ou t if I could.
In perplexity I do not und erstand. Now I have said that a man
m ust be familiar with the grammar of religious la nguage if he is
to underst and the statements that are made in it. There are
plenty of parallels to this, of course. A mathematical expression
may be in English words. Bu t the words will mean nothing to you
unless you know how to do the kind of calculations to which they
be.long. You would not know whether anything sensible was being
said at all. You must understand the 'language', then. But what
we.call perplexi ty comes when one does unders tand the language.
It is because I am familiar with the calculus, that I cannot see
how it goes at this point; it seems to be tangled. And similarly
in religion: the perplexity comes to someone who is familia r with
rel igi~u.s concepts. T he man who did not unders tand the language
of reh g10n would never know this perplexity.
T he parallel with mathematics does not go very far, t hough.
The per plexity of mathematics and the perplexity of r eligion are
what I am calling difficulties with concep ts . And the point of that
is chiefly that in neither case is it a difficulty that com es because
we do not yet know enough; it is nothing for which we can wait
on the result of some fur ther observation. It does not come from
ignorance, it comes from a confusion of concepts. That is impor-
tant. But when we have recognized that, we can see that
perplexity in religion is also diffe rent from that in mathematics.
In mathematics t he trouble migh t be exp ressed as, 'I do not see
how this makes sense'. Or pu t it so: If you understand mathematics,
that is all there is to it. The perplexity comes because there is
something tha t you cannot understand in the sense that you
cannot make it wor k. And if you have got rid of that difficul ty,
everyt hing is clear. You could not say, I think, that someone
u nclnstancls mat hematics pcrfectly, bu t does not believe it. T here
196 Religion, life and meaning

is not this distinction between beli ef and understanding here. But

in the case of religion it is not so clear. I have said that a man
must understand the la nguage of religion before he can know
religious perplexity; but I wonder if that is enough. Supposing he
und erstood the language of religion, but was quite unfamiliar
with religious belief: his perplexities about what makes sense in
religious la nguage would not then be what we call religious
perplexities, because those concern belief. So you mig~t. even
question whether I am right in saying that the perplex1t1es are
difficulties with the concepts of religion.
I still do want to say that. But on this particular ma tter the
example of mathematics is certainly not very helpful - unless we
do emphasize the differences between the grammar of mathe-
matics and the grammar of religion. (Even 'concept' does not
mean quite the same here.)
When would you say t hat a man understands the language
of religion? He wou ld have to be able to discuss religious
questions with believers, I suppose. Perhaps he could clear up
certain difficulties for them; perhaps he could ask them ques-
tions, and they could clear up difficulties for him. But now, in
this last sentence we have already come upon our question again :
is it possible to understand re ligious discussions without believ-
ing? and in particular, is it possible to discuss and to solve ?i_ffi-
culties in religion wit hout believing? I do not see my way to g1vmg
a clea r answer. Certainly there is a lot of discussion that is carried
on between religious believers, and others who are not believers
but who are interested in religion - as we might say: who would
1ike to understand religion better. And there are certain difficul-
ties of the believers which their irreligious friends might help
th em to clear up. But I have a fee ling that ther e are limits to
that; though here I confess I am very unclear about what I am
saymg. . . .
At best there are certain peculiarities here . When we d1sltn-
guish between understanding what is said and believing wha t is
said, we t hink most readily of statements concerning matters or
fact, which may or may not be true, and which can be c hcck<'d ;
where we can carry out an investigation to sec whether it is :m
or not; and if it turn s out that it is not so, wrl l, still it rnigl11
have been, and sometimes is. What is impor tan t is that it is sonw
thing that can be checked. That is wha t is i11volv!'d in sayi 11 g t 11 :11
 Religion, life and meaning: A and B 197
it is so; and it e nte rs into what we mean by 'what is said'. It is
at least not clear how we should disting uish between 'under-
standing it' and 'believing it' if we were to d epart from that.
And we have departed from it in religion. Already when we
talk about distinguishing between understanding what is said and
believing what is said, we are using expressions that are out of place.
In religion it is not really a question of believing what is said,
altho ugh it may be a question of beli eving.

29 May . My difficu lty was that someone may be a bl e to discuss

religion wit hout being a believer himself. This seems to show that
one may understand r eligion without accepting it.
There is no difference between unde rstanding a mathematical
proof and accepting a mathe matical proof; or in general, between
understanding mathematics a nd accepting mathematics. But
there does seem to be a difference between unders tandi ng a
relig ious doctrine a nd accepting a religious doctrine; and even
be tween understanding t he liturgy and the rest of a religious
faith, and accepting that faith.
It may be said that beli eving in God is not just a matter of
usi~g religiou s la nguage : not just a matter of uttering a prayer,
for insta nce. For some men may pretend lo believe in God when
they do not. They may go through the forms of worship and say
the words although these mean nothing to them.
What is the difference, then? W hat is the d ifference when
the words do mean some thing to them? Is it not just the feeling
which the believer has at the time when he is saying wha t he
does. I doubt if we could mention any such feeling which the
sceptic might not also have when he was uttering the same words.
Certainly a sceptic who is taking part in worship may have fe el-
ings of solemnity, and he may have somet hing whic h we would
call feelings of reverence for the worship which he sees going on
and which he deeply respects. The point is, of course, that it is
not a reverence towards God. But that is just the question: wha t
is i l to feel reverence towards God?
Or again: what is it that we mean when we say that the believe r
' ta kes the words seriously'? Or when we say of the sceptic that
I ry as he will he cannot make the words his own?
What is it to be sincere in your prayers? to feel that you are
rrnll y praying-? Is th e op posit e of thi s like t rying lo imagine that
198 Religion, lift and meaning
there is someone at the other end of a telephone line when you
really doubt if he is there? . . ,
I do not think it can be that. I do not think that the sceptic s
trouble is just in trying to convince himself that the re is someone
th ere. His trou ble is that he cannot imagine what it would be
like if the re were. That is why he cannot make sense of prayer.
Some people find it hard even to think of God. Others do not.
Why is that? What is it to be able to think of God?
Brentano under took to show that the conception of God was not
self-contrad ictory. T hat is how he began his lectures on the exist-
e nce of God .6 But it see ms to m e a misunde rstanding. The
difficulty in thinking of God - the difficulty of ma king sense of the
conception - is not that the conception of an absolute nec~ssary
being who is omnipotent and omniscient !s self-contradictory.
Or rather: I do not think that this is the difficulty that bothers
religious scepti cs. .
The difficulty is, if I may put it so, in having the conce pt10n.
This is not just the difficulty of being able to say what the con-
ception is. It is not the difficulty of seeing h~w it _can be
self-consiste nt, either. At least those are not the d1fficult1es that
make it so hard for the language of religion to 'mean anything'
to the sceptic.
In one sense we may say that the sceptic can unde rstand a
good deal of religion. That is why he may be ~ble _to discuss i~.
But I r epeat that I think that in one sense lus ch1e~ trouble is
that he does not unde rstand, in the sense that he JUSt cannot
think anything of the sort.
But this is not like the difficulty of getting hold of a math-
e matical conception. That is where I think Brentan? has mis-
understood it. H e speaks alrµost as though, when we thmk of God,
we were employing the same kind of concepts as in ma thematics
or in physics; as though 'infinity' and 'existence' would mean the
same he re, for instance. I think it is plain that they do not, and
that the difficulties of religious belief are not of that kind.
If you are to have the concepts of r eligion, they h~ve to pl'_t)
a part in your life. They must, in a way, ~a~e certa m .roo~s, '."
other parts of your thinking, outside religious worship. 1111:-l
belongs to what we should mean by saying that th ey had i llt )
reality for you. I think this is very important, but l do 11ot kno"
6 Brentano, Vom Darrin Go/11•.1, pp. 11 , (i i ff. (Ed.).
 Religion, Life and meaning: A and B 199
whether I can make it clear. You cannot have the idea of God
apart from religious worship. You could not explain to anyone
wh~t. we mean. by 'God' withou t pointing to all that belongs to
religious worship (~r~yer, confession, praise and so on). But on
the other han? religious worship itself is not hing if it does not
have any bearing on the rest of the beli ever's life . I will try to
show wha t I mean.
Th~ difference between the believer who worships and the
scep tic "".ho mer~ly_ goes through the form of worship is that the
believer I~ c_ommlttrng himself by what he says and does, whereas
the scep t.1 c 1s not. Here there is an a nalogy with the ordinary us e
of la~1guag~. When you say some thi ng, you have committed your-
sel~ rn various ways - unless you did no t mean what you were
saymg. If wha t you say is inconsistent with what you said a
moment, ago, you may be expected to retract one of your state-
m~nt_s. ( H ow can you say that you saw him in town, when you
said JUSt now that he was in Cardiff?') If you said that he ·
c ard 1·ff~ 1t· 1·s expected that other things you say will be consis-
was m
tent :v1th t hat. You may be expected to be able to answer
~ uest10ns on t?e same_ subject. You may be expected to behave
~n a. way consisten t .witl~ what you have said (you will not say
H e is my dea:est fnend and the n kick him down stairs) _ and
~o on. Other"."1se your use. of la nguage wou ld be just crazy. But
~f ~ou can cl~1m that you did not really mean what you said, then
it is all off. 1 he language was not in gear so to speak Or th ·
l · · 1 · ' . ra er.
t u s ts .w rnt it would amount to to sqy tha t you did no t m ean what
you_s~1~. Now I am sugg~s ting that the re is something analogous
rn r el1g10n, although I thmk that there are importan t differences
her e.
My question was: what is it to 'accept' the religious worship?
What do we mean when we say that the worship is real to one
man ~nd not to another? And I think there is some analogy with
meanmg what you s_ay and not meaning what you say, in ordi-
~ary speech. O ne thmg that distinguishes the believer's worship
is th e hop~ w_hich h_e may have after he has prayed, for instance;
or .the anx1el1 es which go wit h his reflexion on the will of God _
~~d11 ch may ap~car in the conduct of his life. If we wanted to ques-
t 10 11 the grn umcness of someone's religion, it is her e that we
should look: whe t he r he was worri ed by his sins; whether he was
( '() l l('('J'll('(I OV<'r t hC' f1 tllll 111cnl or l'{' lig ious duti es, and so on. And
200 Religion, life and meaning

the genuineness of what he does during the worship is what I a m

calling now a matter of 'committing himselP in tha t sense.
If we say that for the sce ptic the worship does not ' bite in', or
that he is not behind it - we mean that it is not an actual move
that he is making; he is not committed.
I said that there are differences between the way in which you
commit yourself here a nd the way in which you commit yourself
in what you say to other people in your ordinary affairs. Because,
so much of what is said in religion is not a reply or a suggestion
to anyone. It is not as though what you say makes a differe nce
to him or to the course of the conversation. Taking part in reli-
gion may some times seem analogous to ta king part in a da nce -
the sort of da nce in which all are doing the same thing. At any
rate, whe n we say that you commit yourself, we do not mean
primarily that you commit yourself vis-a-vis othe r people; you are
not making a move in a game with them. Or not directly, anyway.
It has not the same kind of analogy with playing a game that
ordinary conversation has.
Perhaps we may put this by saying that in ordinary language
you are responsible for what you say (unless you did not m~an
it); but th a t the responsibility in religion is of anothei: kmd.
Perhaps we can call it responsibility to God. I expect thi s goes
with what people mean whe n they say that r eligion is something
personal a nd private. (I do not question the importance. of
community in religion. But it is not the importance of havmg
various people in a discussion.)
But taking part in religious worship is unlike taking part in a
dance, just because we should not say tha t you had really taken.
part in the worship unl ess it had some importance in the rest of
your life. You can take part in t he dance without t~at, ?f course
- it may be a recreation. If anyone cannot see thi s differenrl' ,
then he will hardly see that religious wor ship is anything morT
than going through the motions.
I referred earlier to the question of what diffe re nce it mak<'~.
or how you would distinguish, whether the words a nd songs Wl' I 1·
addressed to God, or whether they were simply recited, pnhnp:-;
for the be nefit of other peopl e. What I have bee n rcfcrri ng I ()
very generally as 'the language of relig ion' is rcal~y rn mplc x :'. 11cl
various, though I think that th e various parts of 11 haw h<'<il 111 g
on one another. At a ny ralc one very i111por1<1111 pnrl uf" n ·li gi1111
 Religion, Life and meaning: A and B 20 1
is the language that is addressed to God. And one of the diffi-
culti es in understanding religion is in understanding what tha t
means. What does it mean to say that the words and the singing
he re were addressed to God. And once again I do not think that
we can a nswer except by seeing the connexion between the words
here - t~e worship and t he lives of the several believers. T hey
play a differ~nt role fr?m any other sorts of statem ents in any
othe~· connex10ns: that is what I want to say, anyway. And this is
nothing you can find in the immediate circum stances in which they
are utte red.
'The scep tic did not really address his words to God. ' We know
well e_noug h what that means - even though it is not easy to say
what 1t means.
'W_e speak familiarly enough of addressing one's words to a
particular . pe rson, (out of several present, perhaps), or again
of add r~ssmg one s words to a la rge audience; or again, of not
addressm g _one's words Lo a nybody, but simply talking to one-
self. Th.e difference be tween addressing a particular person and
addrcssmg a large gathering would lie in the different roles
~hey played. They w?uld not call fo r responses in the same way
m the one case and m the other, for instance; in the first case it
would be part of a conversation, in the second it would not, and
so on. That all belongs to what makes it the one sort of utterance
or the olher. (Again , it is not a ma tter of a special feeling in the
one or the other case. And it is not simply a matter of whethe r I
happen to ~ e lookin.g al the particular person, for inst a nce. I may
not be lookmg a l him when I address my re marks to him a nd I
may b~ looking a t him when I address my remarks to the' whole
ga_then_ng.) But what makes it addressing my words to God is not
pnma nly the role they pl ay in my relations with other people. It
1s the role they play in my !ife.
. T~ at doe~ not tell you m_uch, because the role they play in my
~ife is ~ot lik e the role which my business correspondence plays
m my life, and I should have to say where the diffe rence lies. I
do not wan~ to try. to do that in detail now. But le t m e say this:
lhe connex10n which my business correspondence has with the
res t of my li'.e - my life at home with my family, my life when
I 111 C'C' l my ~n c nds in _tl'.e evening - is externa l, in a way in which
the co nn cxwn of rcl1g1ous language is not. My business corre-
spo11d <' rl <'<' 111ay ill' on my mind all th a t time. But the meaning of
202 Religion, life and meaning
what I say in my business correspondence does not depend on its
bearing on the rest of my life; and the meaning of what I say in
religious worship does. That leaves it vague. But it may suggest
where you have to look if you want to understand what is meant
by saying that th e words are addressed to God.
T his quest ion of whethe r you feel that you have committed
yourself to something in your praye rs or your confession, for
instance; or whether things that happen in your life seem to you
an occasion for prayer and for confession - this seems to d e ter-
mine whether you are able to think the con cepts of religion, or
whether you can never do more tha n recite the words. But that
explains very little, if we leave it there. The ques tion is why some
people are able to take it in that way, and more especially why
it is so difficult for others. If I try to persuade myself of the reality
of God, and am unable to do so, my trouble seems to be that I
cannot get t h e right way of looking at it . Perhaps it seems to me
too much at odds with the othe r every-day beliefs that I hold.
And you will reply then tha t I a m mis understanding things; that
I am looking at the beli ef in God as though it were a belief of
another kind. But it is easier to te ll me this than it is to tell m e
h ow to look at the question differently.
'The reason why you and I are not r eligious .. . ' may be that
we live in a scie ntific age. We have grown up in a way of thinking
about things and about me n and about human affairs which
makes it very difficult to turn to a religious way of thinking about
them. T h is is not a matter of conflicting evidence. It is a matt er
of being able to think in this way at all.
We are generally concerned with doing som eth ing, or with what
can be done, and with results. Our thinking is connected with
mechanisms, with construction and with experiment; and above
a ll, with certain sorts of testi.ng. W e consider me n more and more
in terms of their functions and the capacities; our ideas of educa-
tion are centred on that as well. What we think of as ' problems'
and as 'difficulties' are generally concerned with what can or
cannot be done, and we think naturally of some sort of invesl i-
gation to discover the remedies. W e are led naturally to think or
things in t erms in wh ich they can be compared with one a nol her,
and in terms of measurement. And difficulti es a rc rnca s u n·d
against resources and capacities and methods. Now my poin t is,
first of all, that this way of thinking may h aw l wrn 111 1· so 1111wl1
 R eligion, life and meaning: A and B 203
a part of us, that an ything which cannot be tr eated in this way
just does not seem t o make sense. And even if we d o try to think
about God, for instance, we may soon find that it is running
aground because we cannot keep it free of this technical and
empirical way of th inking.
Especially we fi nd it hard to think of our lives in the way in
which religious per sons do. The d ifficul ties which are important
in religion just do not seem to us to be difficulties at all. We
think of a difficulty as someth in g that you can get out of - or
could , if you were given the materi al and resources and expert
advice .
I do not mean that this makes religion impossible. There are
plen ty of religious people now. I am simply trying to suggest what
makes it har d for some people to h ave r eligious ideas. And I
should like to suggest in this way how it is tha t religious ideas
may be connected with the way of thinking that people h ave in
th e rest of their lives. For instance, if we do think of difficulties
as something which an exper t, an)".vay, could r emedy, then the
religious conception of sin, and with it the wh ole con ception of
d ependence upon God, may b e hardly int elligible. Difficulties
d eman d r esources and capacities for th eir solution. Is the concep-
tion of 'salvation' something like saving us from a terrible
predicament? It may be hard for us to think of it otherwise - and
yet that idea has hardly anything to do wi th religion.
'We cannot get along without God's help.' But I wond er if the
sense of that is obvious t o most of us. A religious friend of mine
r emarked once that we may be confident that there is talent and
r esourcefulness among men to solve their technical and their
economical problems. They can surely do that. But only God
Almighty can save a human soul. T hat seems to me the r eligious
view. (Perhaps St Paul's 'Hath not God made foolish the wisdom
of this world?' was on th e same lines .) But I fancy some would
find it hard to grasp, if only becaus e th ey would start some such
thou ght as 'save from wha t?' - and then perhaps wonder why you
lhink that only God Almigh ty can save it from that. (As if it were
a question of God 's capacities in comparison wit h the capacities
of expe rts.)
This is why I said t hat Brentan o seemed to have mis-
1111dc rslood lh c difficulty that th ere is in thinking of God. What
is cliffo·ull is 1<> have the conce pt - not simply to be sure that it
204 R eligion, life and meaning
is free of contradictions. H aving the concept is not just a matter
of being able to say what it is.
When someone asks, 'Is there a God?', then that may be a
genuinely r eligious question - one, I m ean, that springs fro~ wha t
I have been calling religious perplexity. And then the difficulty
is not one of finding evidence that will decide the question, or of
finding proof. Neithe r is it really a ques tion of having the will to
believe in the face of difficulti es (like my resolution not to lose
my belief in my friend's innocence, or like a mother's dogged
belief that her son is alive) . T he difficulty is rather that the whole
conception has come to seem empty, or threatens to d o so. The
qu estion is much more like, 'W ha t can it mean to say that there
is a God?', or 'How can ther e be a God?' That is what we gener-
ally mean by religious doubt, I think.
That is in some ways a curious kind of doubt. It seems
like wondering whether this whole way of speaking makes sense.
And under most circumstances, this would be a stra nge thing to
ask; or we migh t wonde r what it was that was being asked.
Suppose I could ma ke nothing of the discussions which people
have about moral questions; I could no t see what they were
ta lking about. And suppose I asked th em, 'Do people really under-
sta nd one another when they talk this way together?' - we ll
obviously they do. Maybe we cannot follow them; but obviously
people are asking questions and answering t hem, they are
surprised at the answers, th ey raise obj ections, or t hey express
agreement and go on to supplement what was said, a nd so on;
they even misunderstand one another on occasion, and correct
the misunderstanding. So if I persis ted in asking, 'But can that
way of speaking mean anyt hing? Can they m ean anything by
wha t they are saying?', you might either wond er what I was
asking, or you might take it that I was asking for help in fo llowing
what they meant. But in the la nguage that is add ressed lo God,
the case is different. This is not a language in whi ch people arc
raising questions, agreeing and disagreeing, answering object ions
raised, and so on. So if what you are sayi ng in your utterance has
a point - it is not in that way. T hey obviously mean somc lhi 11g-
in their discussion. But it is not obvious in th e same way I hal
you mean something in your worship. For, whal docs that lll!':111
here - to mean something in your wors hip? This is 1lw q11 <·s1 io11
we have had a lready.
 Religion, life and meaning: A and B 205
The doubt about the sense or the reali ty of wors hip begins, I
s us~ect , by looking _at worship as though it were something
by itself; as though 1t were comparable wit h a conversation or
discussion. And then you may feel t hat it is more like a recitation
t?an a discussion. If you look al what goes on in the worship
simply, then I think it is not only hard but impossible to see what
the ~ors hipper is doing. Then it may see m eithe r as though it were
a feigned address to someone, as you might feign an address to a
hu man being (for the Freudians I suppose it is some thing like
a dream); or else it may seem to be just a communal recitation
and sin ging. I do no t think that this kind of mistake arises so
easily in conn exion wit h a ny other use of language; because there
is no other use of la nguage which does have the kind of relation to
the rest o~ one's lif~ that worship does - so that its being language
and meanmg anythrn g depends rather on that relation than on the
rela tion to what other people are saying at the time.
It is easy to become puzzled about worship. And that puzzle-
ment is of a kind ('Can this way of speaking mean anything?')
which we hardly meet with elsewhere.
I think this may help a li ttle to understand why it is that a
man who does not believe may be able to discuss religious matters
- so that he must understand t he language in which believers
speak of them; while on the other hand we may feel tha t he has
not grasped how religious la nguage is used, and that in that sense
he cannot really unders ta nd it. I have said tha t relig.ious concepts
are rooted part ly in the way we think of things and of our lives
outside specifically rel igious practices. And this is at once what
makes i~ pos~ibl e ~or irreligious people to understand somet hing
of what is be mg said; and also what makes it impossible for t hem
to go further. T his ought to be shown in greater detail than I
can attempt now.
I am still suggesting, then, that religious perplexity is what we
may call want of understanding; being unable to understand how
it can be thought or how it can be meant. The d iscussion of
'doubt', which I touched on just now, should lead us to a consid-
e rat ion of the 'r eality' of God - of how that expression is used
here. But I cannot ent er on that now.
 ESSAY FIFTEE r

Death and immortality 1

'There can be nothing after death' is wrong in one obvious sense,

of course· for all sorts of things will still go on after I am dead .
P eople will try to clean up the m ess I have left behind, etc.
A rather stupid theology student once asked me, 'What do you
think is going to happen to you when you die?' In. one sense
certainly nothing will 'happen to me' after I have died - what-
ever may happen to my body. If I could suffer or be inspired I
should not be dead. 'I won't know anything after I am dead' can
be confusing if it be thought of as parallel to 'when I am asleep'
or 'when I am unconscious' - as though 'when I am dead ' meant
'when I am in a certain stat e' - as 'when I am unconscious'. I
shall not be in any sort of state. I shall not be at all.
This last sentence - 'I shall not be at all' - may be puzzling,
may seem hard to understand, because 'I do not exist' is not even
false it is nonsense. This is because of the use of 'I'. If someon e
were' to say 'Ru sh Rhees does not exist' I could ~how him that
this stat ement was false - for he would be makmg a perfectly
m eaningful statement. But 'I do not exist' does not m~an any-
thing. - And for simil ar reasons it is hard ,t~ see "".hat 1s , meant
by 'I shall not exist'. 'I shall not be there 1s a~l 1;1?ht. ( I shall
not be at the football match. ') But 'I shall not exist 1s - or seems

1 The materia l fo r the various s ections of this essay has been select ed from the foll01~i11g
sources: (a) a le tte r to M. O 'C. Dru ry dated 15 Septembe r 1963; (b) no tes dated I.lb.>,
(c) a lette r to G. E. M. An scombe d ated 18 May 1966 w hich is the context fo1 1h1·
discussion in section 1v; (d) a let ter to a Mr Smith d a t ed 15 IVla rch 1967; ('.') ·~ l'.' 11 1"1
LO J. R . J ones da t ed 29 March 1970; (f) notes dated !9 70; (g) a kt ll' r t o D. Z. I 111ll 1ps
which was a response to Death and Immortality (Macmil la n , 19!0); (h~ 1101 .. s d;i1 "~I I <>7 1
Cons ide ra t ions of re pe tit ion, change of topics, CIC., mad(' 11 1111 poss1hk I n pt1hhs h 1l11s
mater ia l ch ronologically. I am respons ible for t 111· s('lt·ct i1:11 ~~,t~I a1· n~111-11· 1 1 '.1· 1 11 ol . 1111'
publis hed mate rial, but nothing has bcr n add1'<I to IH11•1·s 0111;111111 d 1s1 11ss 1<J11s (1'.tl )

20()
 Death and immortality 207
to be - different . (I shall not be at the football match - I am
going to stay at home.)
You may rightly ask whether 'I did not exist' is not in the same
case. And I think it is. Of course I can say 'I did not exist at the
time the battle of Waterloo was fought' - although it would be
more natural English to say 'I was not alive.' And similarly I can
say 'I shall not exist at the next centenary of the signing of Magna
Chart a.'
But somehow these are different from 'I shall not exis t when
I have died. ' The trouble with this sentence is that I want to say
to it 'of course'; and at the same time I cannot find any definit e
meaning to which I could say 'of course'. (So I may want to shrug
my shoulders. And then my neighbour misinterprets this and says
'He is not sure whether he is going to exist then or not.')
This seems crazy; from some points of view, anyway. 'I shall
not be alive when I have died' means just 'I shall be dead when
I have died.' This does not seem to have anything more puzzling
than 'Harold Wilson will be dead when he has died.' So why should
'I shall not exist when I have died' be any different?
Similarly, 'I did not live anywhere before I was born' might
sound a bit silly, but probably it would not puzzle anyone. No
more than 'I did not breathe before I was born.' (This latter would
be based on information which I suppose would apply to anyone.)
But 'I did not exist before I was born' may be puzzling - although
it is less likely to be so than 'I shall not exist when I am dead ',
perhaps because this has some suggestion of something I can
expect ('Expect? What do you mean? You can't expect something
that you never can .. .' Never can what?)
It seems to come back again and again to the use of 'I',
somehow. And almost to the question whe ther I am talking to
someone else or talking to myself.
'The lease-hold on this house has 99 years to go, so I shall not
be alive when it runs out.' This is something I might have said to
another man. And I might have asked 'Is this lease likely to expire
while I am still alive?' Whereas if I say 'I shall not exist after my
death ', this is more like something I might say to myself. And then
I do not know what I am saying. And with the question: 'Shall I
ex ist after my death?' it is just as bad - what is it that I want to
know? (C ertainly I am not asking 'Shall I be around?', any more
1han I am aski ng 'S hall I appear and haunt people?')
208 Religion, life and meaning
The suggestion tha t we say 'he is departed' because he is no
longer here. - It is common to use the substantival form: ' the
departed'.
It is not simply because we wish the de parted were here again,
and it is not simply because we ourselves are afraid of dying -
although both of these come in. We say we know the d epa rted
are beyond r ecall, that they a re behind a veil we a re powe rless
to draw aside, e tc. And yet we know that they a re not 'there', in
that sense.
We may speak of people who have died as 'the de parted '
because they are not here; they are no longer a mong us. When
my brother dies it is obvious - too obvious - tha t he is not among
us. But if I thought it must have se nse to speak of 'wher e he is'
or to say 'he must be somewhere', this would show a confu sion
of g ra mmar. And this may be because the gram mar of personal
na mes a nd personal pronouns is not clear to m e.
H ere the point is tha t the grammar of these expressions won't
apply to the corpse . Even though we say that we ar e 'burying
him', and so forth. And in this sense we do seem almost compelled
to say 'he is no longer here', 'he is no longer a mo ng us'. And
then our language - the common habit of our language - would
allow for the question, 'Well, where is he?' What 'must be some-
wher e' is the body, the corpse . But of this we ar e not saying that
it has departed, in the sense in question. Now we do use the
pe rsonal pronoun for the corpse, when we say 'we are b urying
him', that 'this is where he is buried', a nd so for th. And ye t the
greater par t of the sense or the gra mmar of the pronoun - what
we mean by it - won't apply to the corpse . And it seems obvious
that when I am talki ng of 'him' I a m not talking of this corpse.
'He' is the man I have known, who acts in ways that I recognize,
of whom I can think of asking ques tio ns, of when I expect thi s
or tha t, a nd so on; and I cannot even try to think of the corpse
in this way. And it is he of whom I say he has d eparted. Even
when we are stand ing in front of the coffin we may say he is no
longer among us.
When my brother was alive, you could have asked me 'H ow tall
is he? H ow much does he weigh?' And whe n he is dead , you rn11 lcl
ask in a simila r sense, 'Where is he?', and I a nswer 'In Mt C<1 ri11 l' I
Cemetery.' But when I say 'he's no lo nge r among 11s' I :1 111
thinking of my living broth e r (who incid rnl a ll y 11111 y ltn w lwrn
 Death and immortality 209
6ft tall and weighed 13 stone) . - 'How am I going to talk a bou t
him unless I talk a bou t him as a living person?'
I t is interesting that I do not say: how a m I going to talk about
the house I have kn own a nd which has been pulled down, unless
I talk about it as a house that has not been pulled down? -
although I might ask this. - The difference between a living person
and a d ead pe rson is not just like the difference between an
existing house and a house that does not exist any more. Perhaps
the plaines t sign of this is that wh en a man has died we d o speak
in these ways of his body, and in other ways of 'him'; and there
is nothing like this when the house is d es troyed.

II
Difficulties centring about the notion of the soul or the self; its
or igin and its perishing. Idea that there is somet hing absu rd about
the notion of the soul's pe ris hing. (Thus the doctrine of immor-
tali ty is no t an e mpirical p roposition anyway.) Connected also
with the idea that the self is not an obj ect. What is it you believe
if you believe you a re immortal (or a nyone else is). Different from
beli eving t hat you will live for ten years more, or t ha t you will
sur vive the war. And this affects th e sense of asking for evidence
of immor tality - or evidence against it. Would a nyone say he had
a fai rly good chance of being immortal? Or that his chances of
surviving death were 2 in I 00 or 2 in I O? Suppose one asks for
a scientific investigation of whether persons who have di ed in the
biological sense continu e to show signs of life. One difficulty is
that then the signs of life a re said to be such because they wou ld
be taken to be signs of biological life . And it is certainly not clear
what would be mean t by ' the nex t world' on th at view. The
evidence would seem to be some sort of persiste nce in this world .
Though persistence of what, God only knows. Persistence of some-
thing that 'sends messages'. T hough again that phrase gets its
sense from activities of human be ings, including bodily move-
me nts.
ff you try to think of an individual as something abstracted
fro m the process of genera tion and flou rishing and perishing, then
1here is th e q uestion of whether you are thinking of anything at
a ll. 11' I say my father survives, I mean so meone who had that
lii sl or) wlio is lii slor ira l in th at se nse. And so I mean too,
1
,
210 Religion, life and meaning
someone who died. If I referred to some 'part' of him that did
not die, those could not have any characteristic I could recognize.
(It would not be something that came to be and matured and
declined and got sleepy or offended or happy, as everything else
that I know about him did.) It would not be something that had
parents, for instance; that is important.
Might say one ought to have gone through all the evidence
provided by 'psychological research' before one can pronounce on
the question. But it is not on evidence of this kind that most of
those who believe in an afterlife base this belief. And it is not
obvious that what they believe is something to which that
evidence would be relevant.

'Cowardly. Unwilling to face the facts.'

Would this cover a belief in possible or likely damnation, for
instance? And would you call martyrs, e.g. a cowardly people?
This quite apart from the question whether it is correct to say
the belief in immortality is an unwillingness to face the facts.
(What are 'the facts' that the sceptic or atheist face?) 'It is
cowardly because he is unwilling to face extinction.' Granted that
he is unwilling to believe in extinction, it does not follow that
this is cowardice. If he said, 'Oh no, that is too terrible to think
of, there must be something else', then perhaps so. But this
certainly does not seem to be the line of thought or the way to
the belief in all cases.
I may fear death - perhaps most people do; and I long for the
one who has died. Sometimes, perhaps, an overpowering fear or
longing has made someone cling to what we should call a delu-
sion. After the battle her son was listed as 'missing', and for 17
year s, right up to her death, she insisted that he was alive and
would come home. But generally when people use the imagery of"
'sleep' or 'departing this life', they are not deluded about what
has happened; they do not question that the man is dead. And
when I watch these children I may guess at what they'll be likt·
15 years from now, and add, 'Of course I won't be here thc11 '
without expressing any fear of death.
The difficulty is in showing how a belief in immorta lit y i ~
different from a belief in a theory or in a matter of fact.
But if there is a question, say, of 'fin ally' see ing your l\lakc1
face to face, that cannot be understood as som('t hi11g- lik<· wl1.1t
 Death and immortality 211
we here call seeing, which you could not achieve before, simply
because you never had access. Otherwise it would make Sense to
a~k why it shou~d not be possible in this world. If it m eans having
direct observat10n of God's existence - as you can observe the
sun - it is nonsense. And that is not the point of it whatever the
images that may be employed. '
'I s?all m_eet, my Maker' is not like 'I shall meet the Pope.'
Even if I said, I shall meet the Pope', you might ask, 'How do
you know?' and I might answer, 'I don't know, I just feel perfectly
sure I shall some day.' But that is still an entirely different sort
of statement and entirely different sort of belief from the belief
that some day I shall meet my Maker. And this latter does not
function as a prediction in the way the other one does, at all.
(It would be meaningless to make a bet on it, and not just because
you can't imagine how you would collect.)
Mother who refuses to believe her son is killed in action. In
some ways like the belief in survival but in other ways clearly
not. My mother does not doubt that my father died and does not
expect ~im to 'turn ~p' one day. ('Turn up', but not in this life.)
The belief that he will turn up does not involve any special belief
about human existence or destiny. Nor do any of the refusal-to-
face-~acts beli~fs. The~e. would be beliefs in survival. And perhaps
nothmg especially rehg10us about them. Religious beliefs centre
rather on t~e notion of eternity - also on human destiny (heaven
or hell), which need not be connected at all with the other kinds
of belief in survival.
It _is _easy to say that 'we live on in some sense' is all poppycock.
But it is not easy to put it down more precisely and show what is
wrong with it. Generally you just have nothing to do with it because
it 's poppycock and that's that. (Like believing in ghosts. Though
you might not be able to say why you don't believe in ghosts either.
It just seems too silly to think of looking for reasons. And proba-
bly one of the points is that you are not sure just what it is that
you would be looking for in seeking reasons for or against. It is the
sort of belief that has no place in a scientific outlook.)
The question whether acquired characteristics are inherited
might be decided experimentally, I suppose. It might be hard
to devise the experiments, especially since they would take so
long. But the point would be that if acquired characteristics are
inherited , the n such-and-s uch happenings should show such-and-
212 R eligion, life and meaning

such results. And if they don't and you still go on believing

acquired cha racteristics ar e inhe rited, you a re believing what
conflicts with observed fact s.
The t rouble is tha t the beli ever in su rvival does not con tradict
any observed facts; or claims he does not (and ce rtainly it is not
easy to show that he does). This is one of the reasons why the
question has no meaning for some. H e admits everything which
the biologist says he observes a nd he admi ts every one of the biol-
ogist's predictions. So wha t a re you going to do? If you've been
soaked in scie n tific ha bi ts you won' t agr ee with him. You d islike
saying a nd believing things for which the re are no checks one
way or the other. Bu t can you say a nything more tha n th at you
dislike these statements and these beliefs? W hat is wrong with
them? T ha t they ar e con tra ry to fact? But tha t is just wha t is
hard to show.
'That t he re is no room to beli eve anything of the sort.' M aybe
not. I don't know that the believer will adm it t his. And a nyway,
this again is ha rd to decid e un til you have seen what sor t of thing
it is tha t is being believed.
T he refuta tion of th e belief might have to take the fo rm of
showing that they were trying to ride two hor ses at once; that
after all it is a case of saying that a man is not d ead afte r he
has died. You migh t try to show tha t whe n the believer t ries
to give a ny sense a t all to his sta te men ts he is assuming that
'm en' a nd 'living' have the same se nse as t hey do in biology. But
again t his would be hard. If the believer admits i ~ whe?- ~ou
suggest it to him, well and good. But if he does not ; if he m s1sts
tha t what he means has certain analogies with wha t we mean by
living when we speak of living orga nisms, but is not just the same
... So long as he does not try to explain anything in biology -
answe r a biological proble m - by his belief, biology ca n do no thing
about it.
'Live on in som e sense. Does not j ust end. T here is not j us1
the activities of the organism, there is somet hing more.'
H a rd to know wha t is being said, for a ppa re ntly he docs 1101
m ean that ther e is something which the bio logist ought l o havt·
noticed and has left ou t. Not as if he had supe rior ins1ru nwn ls,
a nd as though wha t he learnt throug-h these C' <t ll IH' of' he lp 1t1
the biologist in accoun t ing for so11w 1hing he rn uld no l n pl:1i11
before . Simila rly: no t li ke 1he IH" li t' I' i11 j11 ju .
 Death and immortality 213
This is all parL of the point that it d oes not play the role of a
scie ntific belief.
If a mother who learns that her son has commi tted a crime
the n persists p resen tly in he r belief that he did not commit it -
this may be shown to be in con fl ict with the facts. And if yo u
show the similari ty between belief in survival and beliefs of that
sort you may do something to discr edit it. But if the believer says
tha t in this case you cannot show the conflict with observed facts,
a nd that in this case the belief is not of that sort ...
'Death is not perishing.' Perhaps adding: 'Because existence is
not me rely living.'
'If you can believe tha t, you can believe a nything.' I don 't know.
Tha t is what people do: a nd in la rge par t t hey don 't 'believe
anything'.

'The soul survives the death of the body.' Like 'The seed
survives the death of the tree.' The soul as a kind of gaseous
organism which 'lives on', rather as a seed lives on. Idea of the
soul as living or 'dwelling' in the body. The body as a garment.
(Antiquity of this view: Phaedo .)
Interesting that these sta tem en ts ar e com monly made in
general like that. Less na tural to say tha t my soul is now dwelling
in my body (someone migh t ask 'H ow do you know?') or that I
am dwelling in my body (might also ask, 'As opposed to what?').
It has a point to say I a m now dwelling in Swansea because I
sometimes dwell elsewher e. So why should one pu t in the 'now':
'My soul is now dwelling in my body'? T o allow for t he sta tement
that at a la ter d ate it may dwell elsewhe re. T he seed is still in
the pa ren t plant. O nly in t he la tter case you can see tha t, and
you can distinguish be tween the parent a nd the seed. (The temp-
tation to think of the soul as a gaseous organism.) Confu sed use
of 'I'. Com pare: 'where is here?'.

I suppose tha t whereas belief in ghosts has never tr a nsfor med

a whole life, beli ef in immort ality has. And here it is belief in
imm ort ality not j ust in su rvival. Belief in eternal life, perhaps.
'Tra nsfo rmecl a whole life' is vague, but perhaps it may remain
so. Th is 'life' is not the subj ect of biology exactly. Bu t obviously
II() <il l t' S1ion of' lll y 1ho logy 01' fan tasy ei th er .
214 Religion, life and meaning

There hardly seems to be sense in asking 'What is the truth

about these matters?' - i.e. the notion of ' the truth about these
matters' has no meaning. (It would follow that it has no meaning
to say that the belief in immortality is 'illusory'.) The question
is whether you can discuss it at all; whether you can give reasons
or evidence for or against it . Certainly it would be foolish if
someone should ask, 'Can you convince me of an after-life?'; just
as it would be (now, at any rate) to ask 'Can you convince me of
the existence of God?' It is not by reason, like that, that the belief
comes about. And you make nonsense of the belief when you try
to make it a matter of evidence in that way. The man who believes
he is immortal because Jesus told him so is better off than one
who said he believed it on scientific grounds. (A priori arguments
are rather different.)
Question whether it is not wrong-headed to say, 'None of us
can know until we die' or 'We'll find out then anyway.' Partly
because in a sense this is question-begging. But more because
this is assuming again that it is something that can be found out
if only you get into the right position; bringing it closer to scien-
tific beliefs again.
It can't be just because we lack some data or some source of
knowledge, and that we must wait, patiently until these are
supplied. The sort of thing that could be found out by experi-
ment.
Inclined to say that it must always remain just as much a
mystery as it is now; that this is part of what the belief involves
and implies. (Compare Kierkegaard's remarks on what divine
revelation would furnish .) 2 The sort of belief that it is is not some-
thing that can be turned to knowledge by having a certain
experience. Certainly, no experience you had after death cou ld
show you whe ther you are immortal or not: just that you had
survived that one, whatever that might mean. (As if after death
you can go somewhere, and move about, though invisible. But
then it ought to make sense at least to ask where.) Then Llw
questions of 'Why can't the dead return and give us some clcal'
indication?' would really make sense. Whereas they don't. 01' nl

2 See S0ren K.ierkegaard, On Authoril:)I and Revelation: Thr Book on Ad/rt, or fl Cwlt o/ l•.' th1111
Religious Essays, trans. Walter Lowrie (New .) t'rs1·y: P1 inc·1·ton lJ11iv1·1 ~i t y 1'1 ,·ss, I '1 '11)
(Ed.).
 Death and immortality 215
any rate it is not the belief in that sort of survival that trans-
forms the whole of life.
'Is your sou l in such a condition that you would be prepared
to die?'

III

Suppose somebody asked you about belief in immortality; and

suppose the form of his question was: 'What's in it?' or 'Is there
anything in it?' The idea tha t the study of philosophy should be
able to show you what's in it - 1Nittgenstein would have said that
this was a fundamental misunderstanding; a misunderstanding of
'belief in immortality', especially.
I do not mean that in the course of discussing belief in immor-
tali ty you should never say or show what your attitude is, if you
have one. And if you do this, you will no doubt say some thing of
why you rej ect other forms or expressions of belief in immor-
tality. But this is not to say that the philosophical inves tigation
itse lf is offered as justification of your belief. (Wittgenstein would
reject airy justification.) Nor that philosophical investigation shows
tha t other ver sions are spurious.
The description of the different forms of the belief; the exam-
ination of the kind of utterance that the utterances of the belief
are - this will certainly not be an answer to the man who wants
to know whether there is anything in it. - Seen ex ternally, his
question is t hat of someone who has heard a report that cancer
can be cured by such and such a regimen or treatment, and
~ants to k.now whether there is anything in it. Or it might seem
like: wantmg to know whether perhaps death is not so terrible
after all.
He says to me that since I am a philosopher, obviously I have
thought a lot about im mortality, and so he wan ts to know what
my opinion is; what do I think? This comes to asking whether
there is any justificat ion for a belief in immortality (or whether
I think there is any justification for it) ; or whether philosophical
study shows that it 's all illusion.
The question is not generally put in terms of probability, for
or against. And the re probably are reasons for this. The question
lie is asking ('Is there anything in it?', 'What do y ou think?') is
1H1l .i 11s l like asking whet he r there is good reason to think I shall
216 R eligion, life and meaning
r ecover from this disease, or wh ether there's reason to think I'll
survive a dangerous operation. I think writers have mad e this
comparison - or assimilation - much too eas ily. I doubt if many
would be misled because they imagined the question about
immortality was of this sort.

'St Paul was a sch oolman.' - Formal canons of argument,

d e monstrations, proof, r ebuttal; testing 'to se e wh e ther the
preferred conclusion r eally does follow'.
W e may wonder why Paul took a discussion in this form to be
a proof at all. 'A forma l (deductive) proof of the immortality of
the soul.' If we read such a proof as formulated by St T homas
we may wonder 'what it is m eant to do'.
NB. It belonged to a tradition and practice of argument, d emon-
stration and criticism unlike ours. There was not the emphasi s
on scientific me thod, on statistics, evidence in favour of or upset-
ting an h ypoth esis; machines, design of machines, t esting these
over a long period or correcting them; e tc., etc. by which we are
surrounded and which shapes our thinking and phraseology.
'What has been found in a long series of trials .. .'; 'what has
be en observed under widely varied conditions .. .'This determines
what we regard as 'rational' or 'irrational', what is 'obvious' or
what is 'patently absurd'; 'plausible' or 'just rubbish '.
'Logical n ecessity.' 'The certainty of a logical proof.'
'Die Art der Sicherheit ist die Art des Sprachspie ls.' 3
For a yo ung monk in the twelfth century it would not be a
ma tter of course to think in this way. And for him, a deductive
proof of the immortality of the soul might have a role which i1
could not have in our speech and thinking.
Wittgenstein: 'I can imagine such a man might be de epl y
impressed by each step in su ch a proof. He might go through it
carefully, and at the end h e might say, "Yes; so that really do('s
prove that the soul is immortal." '
Such a sentence in the mouth of someone at the present d:1y
would mean hardly anything.
[If in the e leventh ce ntury there were 'demo nsl ral io ns ol
survival' - 'supern atu ral phe nome na' or 'evid en ce of surviva l' li k1·

3 'The kind of certa inty is th e ki nd of lanl-(11:11-(t' ga nH·'; Wi11 gl'll~l 1· i11 , /'/11/i1111/1/1111il
Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell , 1978). p. 22 I<- ( l·:d .).
 Death and immortality 21 7

thos e by th e Society for Psychical Research - the monk would

probably make nothing of them; nor see how anyone found th is
interesting.]
What was r egarded as demonstra tion in eleventh century
Europe might not be called so tod ay. The function of de monstra-
tion a t tha t tim e - what it amounted to wh en this or that was
taken as finally d emonstrated or proved - would probably be
foreign to us. [How th e demonstration hangs together with t he
r es t of their thinking, their thinking about things, e tc., testing
conj ectures per haps, etc.]
'Die Art der Sich e rheit ist die Art des Sp rachspiels.'
'Das Schlief3 en ist Teil eines Sp rachs piels.'4
The Sprachspiel to which t heological speculation belonged in t h e
eleventh century is not one in which we join, or could join, n ow.
We emphasize this in opposi tion to the idea that: 'If it really is
proved, if the conclusion really follows, then this must follow from
tha t "in reality" - independ ently of h ow our thinking is affected
('causally?') by these a nd those circumstan ces - it must be
measu red against some connexion that is already there.'
This wer e parallel to: 'Geom etry is a kind of physics of geomet-
rical objects.'
If we discard this way of speaking - treat it as useless a nd
h ighly misleading - then we should say: it would h ave no point
or sense to ask whether those who thought the argum ent for th e
immortality of the soul a proof tha t r eally shows some thing ,
were right in this, or wh e ther we a re righ t in sayin g that such a
proof is an emp ty play with wor ds, and th a t d emonstration (if we
could speak of it here at all) would have to have a different form .
By what measure - independent measure - would this question be
decided?
It is possible that, say, the Brah mins have formed me thods of
proof and criticism which would find no p lace as proofs in Western
thinki ng.

Sh ould n ' t our question be some thing like this : Why is it so d iffi-
cu lt to say what people mean by ' belief in immor tality'? And one
vrry rough a nd ready answer would be this: it is because what
prn plc mean by belief in immortality has so many and such

1 'f\ lak i11g a11 i11 1't'l'1·11n · is pa rt of' n la lll-(UHl-(l' ganll'' (Ed .) .
218 R eligion, life and meaning

widely separa ted roots: because it res ts on (or: is an expression

of?) various aspects of their lives which a re important to them . -
T his is not what raises difficulties for the believers. But I think
it does mak e it difficult when we try to understand their belief,
in philosophy. Even in philosophy the trouble does not start with
this variety. If often starts with the images in which the belief is
expressed. P eople use the language in speaking of 'wha t is beyond
the grave' that they use to tell of what they are going to do or
what they expect next week . Yet they are not making empirical
predictions, and they are not spinning fantasies. There is a series
of images, like the image of sleep a nd waking, for instance . When
a m an speaks this way, it does not keep him from the terrible
r ecognition that his brother is no t asleep but dead: he does not
try to wake the corpse, and he knows it would make no sense to
speak of waking it. There is no need to ask him, 'Don 't you
know what death is? Don't you know what it is when someone's
dead?' H e would not bury or cr emate his brother when he was
asleep. And ye t he may go on using this imagery. It is quee r that
those broken by bereavement can still use this imagery. For it is
not just a polite convention. Simila rly with the imagery of
'departing' - beyond a veil, e tc. In some ways these images express
a way in which people think o f death. They are not euphe misms.
The man whose brother has just died would be in no mood fo r
euphemisms. Ye t he does not think that his broth er is asleep.
So why on earth ... ?
Suppose you asked someone who has come to believe in immor-
tality, although for many years he did no t, why he cha nged, why
he believes after all - he might answer, for instance, that he has
had a vision . And this is the answer; it is his answer to 'Why?' It
would be stupid, I t hink, to say, 'That is the cause of his believing,
not a reason for it .' In the more usual sense this is not a 'reason
to believe in it', since if it were a reason it should be one that
could be seen for assessed as a reason by anyone else as well.
Whereas we do not even know what he means by 'I have had ;i
vision.' - What he says is: 'I never believed ther e could be a1 1
after-life. But I have had a vision a nd now I know the re is.' And
there it must be left. 5 H e may say in the same way: 'T know th a t
my wife (who died years ago) is waiting for me th e re.'

5 But compare Rhees' remarks on p. 21~ a 11cl 011 pp. ::/'lo t - ~> (Eel .).
 Death and immortality 2 19
Das R dtsel des Lebens in Raum und Zeit. Wittgenstein, in
T ractatus 6.43 12, speaks of 'the riddle of life in space a nd time'
and sugges ts tha t this would remain, no ma tter how long the time
migh t be. I guess there have been r eferences of this sort from
the earliest beginnings of p hilosophy a nd of poet ry. - Some have
spoken of the 'limitations' imposed by the place and the time in
which one is born and in which one finds oneself, as though such
a life must be incomplete - as knowledge and understanding are
incom plet e and limi ted by the place, the circumstances, in which
one seeks it (if indeed the circu mstances allow one to seek it at
all). And it is as though they measured this poverty or mean-
inglessness of human existence by some idea of an existence
without such limit a tions.
'Das Ratsel' in the world o f space a nd tim e. 'Wozu?' and
'Warum?' 6 (cf. Simone Weil's 'Pourquoi ').
Perhaps the same thought is expressed when people comment
on remarks like 'If I were in his shoes ... ', 'If I had his oppor-
tunities . . .' (or the twin themes of 'money is the root of all evil'
and 'poverty is the cause of crime') - when the comment is,
roughly, that what you gain on the swings you lose on the round-
abou ts: that the blessings of wealth can deprave men just as the
blessings of poverty can; that 'eq uality of oppor t unity' (supposing
this mean t some thing definite) would not give a ny more sense to
human life.
Born in this place and at this time: this settles what is within
my r each (what I learn or hear of), and also what I can aspire
t o. I am subj ect to the influences, evil a nd good, of people among
whom I find myself. I am loaded with illusions a nd errors in which
I grow up, e tc., e tc.
People seem to have dwelt more on time in this connexion
than on space. For instance, the constant intrusion of what is
unforeseen, of 'accident '. Bereave ment - the kind of bereavement
that makes no sense: the woman loves her son just as he has
become an adult, etc. - H aving to sacrifi ce the only sort of
work tha t means anything to you, because of illness in the family,
because of economic circumstances, etc. - Being at the mercy of
war. ('H e had spent his whole life and worn himself out in trying
lo . .. a nd then j ust when he seemed on the poin t of achieving

" 'Wl>:u f'oi·? Why?' (Ed.).

220 Religion, life and meaning
it this happened.') (We want to raise the intellectual sta nd ards
of the mass of the people - enabl e them to read and write.
We do teach them to read and writ e. And then ... ) 'It didn't
turn out that way.'
Being placed and born here, at this time; subj ect not only to
these limitations a nd these iniluences - the influ ences of the
people a mong whom one lives, for example - but also subj ect
(?subjected) to these errors, these illusions. - Perha ps to some
extent the sort of thing that Dreisc r a nd others have emphasized
in what they suggest as a kind of sociological d e terminism: 'You
didn't make your cha racte r, did you C lyde?'
Something that had not been reckoned with. The best laid plans
gan a'gley. 7 'Die Traume eines Mensche n verwirklichen sich so
gut wie nie.'8 What Wittgenst ein says a bout this matter of
Traume, und ihrer Verwirklichung 9 may have bearing on this in
other ways.
Simone Weil's remarks about longing or striving for justice and
a t the same time being situat ed in a world where at bes t nothing
is possible without co mpromise . 'Der H andelnde ist immer ohne
Gewissen.' 10
Time has been looked on both as d es tructive (Chronos devours
his children) a nd as oppressive (the curse of Adam) . It is time - the
particular tim e in which one is living and acting or trying to act -
this is what we speak of when we speak of frustrati on a nd futility.
The idea that human beings are 'prisone rs' or that they are in
'bondage' seems a kin to this, though it may have features tha t
a re differen t. Think of saying that a human soul is 'imprisoned'
in its body, for instance. Or the simil e of the cave in the Republic.
- In a different, but not unrelated sense Spinoza speaks of 'huma n
servitude'.
And then th ese writers look on the lives and strivi ngs of men
as a striving (enlightened or unenli ghte ned) for release from
bondage. - I suppose they may take this view of hum an life
without supposing that the release will ever be achi eved.
7 'Gone awry' (Ed.).
'One's dreams almost never come true.'
'Dreams and cheir real ization ' (Ed.).
10 'The man of action is always without consciC'ncr .' This is part of (:octlw 's ''1'111· 111.111
of action is a lways without conscience; no onr has a co11sci1·11n· 1·x<'<'pl 1h1· ohs1'1\<'1',
from 'Spr liche in Prosa' quoted in Cedankfn r111 .1 (,'111•/hr\ 111,.,J.1•11 , llh 1'!!11 , 1·d . 111·1111.11111
Levi (tvfu nich : F. llrn ckman n AG , 11.d.), p. 80.
 Death and immortality 221
Where the emphasis is o n 't he limitations of space and time', the
rel ease (the answer to the riddle) would be thought of as outside
space a nd time.
(Notice that in this connexion Plato uses the figure of 'dream-
ing - being awake' - cf. Republic VIII, for insta nce - a nd others
have done so: perhaps more often in poetry. - But notice also
that he re death is the beginning of the waking state. When
someone speaks in this way, he might add that in their earthly
existence me n ar e only half alive. If he did, then the use of the
image would not be in such compl ete contrast to the familiar talk
of 'sleep' which I was mentioning.)
H ebrew a nd Christian writers have generally not looked on
huma n life as the Greeks did , but in this particula r matter there
are at least points of analogy. The idea of 'liberation from orig-
in_;;i.I· si n' - or from the 'alie nation' from God which it brings -
has a nalogies (if limited) with 'libe ration from the wheel of birth'
from 'the prison of the body', e tc. ('Purification' in the Phaedo
with its bearing on the sort of ' belief or 'hope' that beli ef in
immortality is.)
I should imagine that ideas of this sort play a large part - en ter
in large pa rt - whe n bel ief in immortality is expressed as belief
in anothe r sort of ex istence . And also, that they are part of what
is meant by speaking of th e belief in immortality as hope.
Is it a hope for som ething that is going to happen? It has not
always been expressed in tha t way (taken that form).
'Every m an has a n imm ortal soul.' This ex presses, among
other things, a conviction tha t the re's some significance 111 any
huma n life.
At the e nd of C hekhov's play Tlze Cherry Orchard, the old servant,
who has been left locked in the d eserted house, says: 'Life has
slipped by as though I hadn't lived.' 11 I suppose Chekhov meant
us to think, as we do, th a t this was a terrible thing to say. And
someone mi ght protest , 'No matte r who he is, that he has lived
makes a difference. You can't say of anyone's life that it 's no
matter. Otherwise we could thin out the popu la tion as we thin a
cabbage pa tch, throwing the superfluous ones away. (Swift's
Proposal) . In Crime and Punishment Raskolnikov thought like that -

11
/\111<111 ( :ll<'k hov, 'J'l1r Chm)' Orchard and Oiiier Pla)'S, trans. Constance Garnett (London:
<:11.11 10 .1 11d Wi 11d11s, nd) , l'llcl of' /\rl I (l·:d .).
222 Religion, life and meaning
or rather, he thought he could think like that, - about t he d espic-
able old money lender who would be missed by nobody.'
(What it is to beli eve in immortality is in some respects the
same as what is involved in the recognition that murder is
wrong.)
I have just called this a sense tha t th ere is some 'significance'
in the fact that this ma n, or that man or whoever it may be, has
lived or is alive. T he word 'significance' invites misunderstand-
ings, in this context especially. The thought I've just mentioned
has nothing to do with any idea of 'the meaning of life' . - Still
less would it give sense to asking 'what the significance of this or
that life is' .
The belief in immor tality as hope.
Whe n this is expressed as a hope for some thing that is going
to happen - and this seems to be the commone r form - it would
be ha rd to say clearly what is expected, or in what sense it is
expected to happen . Suppose one begins to speak of its 'happe ning
outside time' for instance. Here there are images and they must
be left as images . W e might call some of them deep and others
tawdry, that is all. But this does not mean that the distinction
between what there is and what the re will be is unimportant; or
t hat we can give an equivalent expression of the belief in which
the difference of 'now' and 'then' has vanished. I suppose in other
cases this might be done. I suppose there are forms of the belief
in immortality in which time is important only as t he time it
takes me to come to an unde rstanding that 'we are eternal'. But
these are diffe rent form s of the belief - or different beliefs. And
we shall dull or impoverish our understanding of the term if we
try to minimize the diffe rences.
I a m suggesting that you can see something of what is common
to them, and also that you can see more clearly how it is that
they have so often (appare ntly) the same importance for those
who hold them, if you conside r the different sources that go to
for m what we mean by the expression. Here we should keep in
mind Wittgenstein's distinction between 'a unitary meanin g'
and what he called 'a fam ily of cases'. For I think it is obvious
that a 'family' is what we have here. And when we do consick 1
'what goes into the meaning' - the variety of co nsid cra1ions t li nt
go into it - we shall probably find tha 1 th e 111 ix1un· is 1101 1lw
sam e throughout.
 Death and immortality 223
I have not even begun to indicate the differ ent sources (as I
a m calling them, not happily) he re. Much that is important in
most forms of the belief will hardly show connexions with
anything I have said. For example, I have said nothing about the
idea of Las t J udgem en t, a nd for many this is more importan t
than anything else. - But besides this, of the things I've
mentioned I have left some so truncated that you m ay ask what
was my idea. This applies especially to the way I me ntioned time.
The role that this notion plays in ideas of immortality is certainly
one of the most important and the most difficult to discuss. P eople
have sometimes spoken here of 'the relation of time and eter-
nity'. One can dismiss this as nonsense; which is easier than trying
to unders tand what it is a bout the belief in immortality that has
made people say things like that.

IV
Wittgenstein's r emark, 'If immortality is something that can be
p roved, then I don't wan t it. ' I am constantly uncertain of the sense
of this. Sometimes I have thought I saw the point in a way that I
forget later. This evening I forget what I did think I saw.
H e said it with strong feeling and with a tone of protest.
(I cannot r em ember what we had been saying about immortality,
or what I had been asking, just before .)
You ask about the rejoind er: 'Who said it was som et hing you
would want?'
Your formulation: 'If it can be proved I don't want it and I
don't fear it' - I think this does get the sense of his r emark.
You remember what Waismann records of Wittgenstein's
remarks which began with a comment on Schlick's book on ethics
(printed as an appendix to the Lecture on Ethics, pp. 13, 14):
' ... Ich meine, daB die erste Auffassung die tiefere ist: Gut ist,
was Gott befiehlt. Denn sie schneidet d en W eg einer jeden
Erklarung, "warum" es gut ist, ab, wahrend gerade die zweite
Auffassung die flache, di e rationalistische ist, die so tut, als ob
das, was gut ist, noch begrtindet werden konnte .. .' 12
12 ' I 1 hink that the first conception is the deeper one: Good is what God orders. For this
cut s off tlw path to any and every explanat ion "why" it is good, while the second
rn11r!'pl ion is pn·dsdy the superficial, the rationalistic one, which proceeds as if what
is gond rn11 ld st ill b<' giw11 some fou11dat ion .. .' (p. 15) (Ed.).
224 Religion, Life and meaning
And then, a little la ter (p. 14):
'Wenn man mir irgendetwas sagt, was eine Theorie ist, so wUrde
ich sagen: Nein, nein! das interessiert mich nicht. Auch wenn
die Theorie wahr ware, wUrde sie mich nicht inter essieren - sie
wUrde nie das se in, was ich suche. Das Ethische kann man nicht
lehren. Wenn ich einem Andere n e rst <lurch eine Theorie das
Wesen des Ethischen erklaren konnte, so hatte das Ethische gar
keinen Wert .. .' 13
The conve rsation of which I spoke came thirt een to fifteen
years later than this. But there is a parallel in the ' .. . so wUrde
ich sagen: Nein, nein! das interessiert mich nicht . . . s1e
wUrde nie das sein, was ich suche.'
Is there not some thing of this already (although there are
differences) in Tractatus 6.43 12: ' ... sondern vor allem leistet diese
Annahme gar nicht das, was man immer mit ihr erreichen wollte,
. . . Die Losung des Ratsels des Lebens in Raum und Zeit liegt
azif.Jerhalb von Raum und Zeit.
(Nicht Probleme der Naturwissenschaft sind ja zu losen.)'
This use of 'auBerhalb' could be puzzling. I suppose th e sense
- or something of the sense - is expressed in an isolated remark
he wrote in MS Volume III (on 15 November 1929):
'Man kann die Menschen nicht zum Guten fUhren; man kann
sie nur irgendwohin fohren. das Gute liegt a uBerhalb des
Tatsachenraums.'

(The small 'd' after the full stop is in the manuscript; almost
as though he were undecided whether to begin a new sentence
or use some other punctuation.)

Here 'Tatsachenraum' is comparable with 'logischer Raum',

'Farbenraum' etc.; i.e. the emphasis is on logic or grammar. And
the 'auBerhalb ' clearly has the sense of 'has no place in this way
of speaking or this grammar'.
The first sente nce would be relevant to attempts to bring mc11
to a better life through political and economic reforms. But also
13 'If anybody offers me a theory I would say: No, no, that doesn' t in u·1Tsl m<·. Evt'11 JI
the theory were true that would not interest me - ii would no1 hi' what I s<·t·k. '1'111·
e thical cannot be taught. If I needed a tlwory in order to t•xplai11 Ill .1 1101111'1 lhc
essence of the ethical, the e thical would have no valul' a t all ' (p. I ~>) (l·:d .).
Both quotations are from 'Wi1Lgcns1cin's Lt·ct1 1n·s 011 1·:1hit ' II. Not1·s 011 'l'.tlb w11l1
Wittgenstein - Fri edri ch Wai smann ', Plti/0.111/1/iirnl N1•r1i1w l 1 (I 'lfi.'i ) (1·:11. ).
 Death and immortality 225
to an individual person's feeling that when he learns of some-
thing deplorable he must do something abou t it. You will
remember that Wittgenstein disliked this tendency to the end of
his life. He said it was very strong in his sis ter, Mrs Stonborough,
for instance. And he said, 'I do not feel that way.' Of course he
was no more indiffere nt to the evils than she was./ ((And by the
way, he was not free of such tendencies him self. I guess he knew
this.))
To look back at the Tractatus:
'Nicht Probleme der Naturwissenschaft sind ja zu losen.' 14
And the next remark but one :
'Die Tatsachen gehoren alle nur zur Aufgabe, nicht zur
Losung.' 15
The Losung (des Ratsels des Lebens in Raum und Zeit) must
come in an Entscheidung - an act of will; which would include, at
any rate, a judge ment of value .
He might have said then (at the time of Tractatus) that such
a de cision (cine Anschauung der Welt sub specie aeterni) could
not be expressed in language; although it would be shown in the
life one leads (which would include the things one says) .
The Tractatus says nothing positive about a connexion between
such a 'solution' and a belief in (or sense of) eternal life. It says
only that if you think of 'e te rnal life' as 'living on and on forever'
then it cannot be what people want (erreichen wollen) when they
long for a solution of des Ratsels des Lebens in Raum und Zeit.
But the sense of 'immortality' that did 'int erest him ' was bound
up with a sense of the problems of life or the riddle of li fe. This
was still true much later, when he made that remark to me;
although he might have developed the idea in a somewha t
different way then.
Wh ere the Traclatus says 'Nicht Probleme der Naturwissen-
schaft sind ja zu losen', he lat er said ' ... kcine Theorie'. This
comes into the beginning of his notes on Frazer, you reme mbe r;
a nd elsewhere. It is vague, and sometimes open to a mbiguiti es;
I think he knew thi s. Though it is not ambiguous in criticism of
Sch lick.
11
' II is rc·1·1ai11ly not the solution of any problems of natural scie nce that is required ',
"fifll/11/111 l.t1,~irn - l'hilmophirn1
6.4312 (Ed.).
1
' 'Tl11· l.111 s .di <"<>11trilH1t1· only to s1·11ing the· prnblcm , not Lo its solut ion', ibid. 6.432 1
( l•:d .) .
226 Religion, life and meaning
In Waismann 's notes to that discussion Wittgenstein says that
at the end of the lecture he is speaking in the first person, and
he adds, 'Ich glaube, daB das etwas ganz W esentliches ist .' 16 I do
not think v\Taismann understood Wittgenst ein's remarks on these
matters, and I would not bank on the details of his record. But
the idea that in judgements of value 'I speak in the first person'
stayed with him, in one form or another, throughout his life, I
think. 'If it is a judgement of value at all, then it must come
from me.'
A great deal could be said about this - and you and I would
find ourselves at loggerheads. (For certain changes or devel-
opments in Wittgenstein's views, see 'Notes on Talks with
Wittgenstein - Friedrich Waismann'. 17) I will mention only a
r emark Wittgenstein made to me after a talk Farrington
had given to our Philosophical Society. 18 Farrington 19 spoke
on 'Causality in History', in which he advanced some version of
the Marxian 'dialectic', with the idea that this shows that in the
course of history there is 'progress on the whole'. In the dis-
cussion Wittgenstein showed easily enough the incoherence of
Farrington 's discourse. And when he was walking home with me
afterwards he said how he disliked this kind of 'optimism' which
was supposed to result from demonstration (from a theory of
history, or of how history must go) . 'If a man says "C ertainly
things look black at the moment; and if you look at past history,
you can find plenty that might lead anyone to be depre ssed. But
in spite of all that, I am still optimistic." - then I can admire this,
even if I do not agree with him. But if his optimism is just the
outcome of a scientific proof - the scientific study of history -
then .. .' That seemed to Wittgenstein a weak and mealy-
mouthed sort of optimism, I think ; and one with a sor t of
smugness to it. It was not really facing the problem it pretended
to face; it was painting it over.
You may say this has nothing to do with belief in immortality.
T hen I know what you mean. I think there are analogies at
certain points - that is all.
l6 Philosophical Review 74, p. 15.
11 Philosophical Review 74 (Ed.) .
18 Benjamin Farrington, Professor of Classics at Swansea read a pape r on 'Causal Laws
a nd History' to the Philosophical Society in l 943 (Ed.).
19 See Rhees' Postscript to Recollections of Wittgenstein (Oxford: Oxford U11iv1·rsi1y l' r1•ss,
1984), p. 20 1 (Ed.) .
 Death and immortality 227
Suppose I said that the interest in immortality is not a theoret-
ical interes t. V\Thether I want it or wh ether I dread it ... will
make no difference to this point.
What were wrong with:
A. 'I can prove to you that when you die you will have to
suffer everlasting torments.'
B. 'I see. Well, I must try to bear with it as best I can.'
Or why should we not say: 'A truly courageous man will never
shrink from the torments of hell'?
In this sense the dread of hell is not a dread of anything you
can describe or predict for me. And it is not the dread of 'the
unknown' either.
For many believers I suppose the dread of the Judgement is
more vivid than the dread of Hell (if they separate these). And
her e again we touch the ideas of the m eaning of life, the problem
of life, the riddle of life in space and time.
(I think it was in that same conversation that Wittgenstein said
he could under stand how anyone should believe that he would
have to stand with a queer sort of body (ein em verklarten
K6rper) 20 before a judgement when his life was done. He thought,
I gathered, that anyone who takes life and its difficulties seri-
ously would be inclined to think that way.)
People have spoken of hell as being cut off from God. But to
und erstand what this means, you have to know what despair is.
So the dread of hell is ... well, anyway, we are pretty far from
theoretical belief.

v
Thinking about death is so largely thinking about life: its tran-
sience especially.
'Well, I have nearly finished with this life; and is there anything
beyond? Or is this all?' Queer expression - 'this life'. In certain
contexts question-begging. Just in case it makes sense to talk of
something else.
Connect ed with reflections on what one has made of one's
li fe, on what life has turned out to be. And so connected with

20 (a tra11s fig11n·d body) (Eel .).

228 Religion, life and meaning
reflections on t he fact that you d o not get a second chance (adding
perhaps 'at any rate not in this life'); you cannot go back and
start over and make a better job. 'If that is all, it is a queer
game. ' Perhaps death should be seen here as typical of so much
that is inevita bl e in huma n existence - what is done is done. And
you won't be able even to ma ke amends. 'So that's all there is.'
(What are you con tras ting it with? W hat expectation?)
'Is not death a n extreme form of illness?'
'Is not death an extreme form of injury?'
No.
Not even if it were true that it is only illness or mJury that
brings death .
Whe n the day comes.
Whe n night com es.
When death comes.
Bu t here the analogy is false.
It is sometim es said that facing death is something purely
personal, nothing a bout which a man can ask another or speak
to a nother. In a se nse this is true. But it may express confusion
too, which is close to confusion a bout solipsism. For instance,
some writers say that death is 'unimaginable' - or rather, my own
death is unimaginable.
When som eone you have loved has died - then you may on ly
gradually come to realize what this means. But you do speak of
'realizing what it means that he is d ead'. - Similarly you may
dread the death of someone who is still living: you have to im agin e
what it will be like when he is not there.
Obviously, I cannot 'imagine what it will be like when I die' -
in this sense. Of cou rse not. But wh y should philosophers write
as if this wer e something remarka bl e? It is connected with such
id eas as: 'Only I can make my own decision.' 'Nobody can solv<'
my personal proble ms - t hey are not problems in the same way for
someone else.' Think of what Kierkegaard says in The Conce/Jl q/
Dread about th e a nxie ty or dread in the realization that on e mu s l
choose (what to do, how to live) and that you 'can' choose 10 go
that way, or to go this way. 'So far, the re is nothing.' T hin k also
of Kierkegaard 's discussion in Sickness Unto Death of" 1he clrc;id ul
losing one's self or one's identi ty. H ow much spec ulation has g11 11 1
round about tha t. And how often it has b<'c n co11111·r1t·d w i1 Ii 1 lu
thought of d eat h.
 Death and immortality 229
lL is important to be able to say Jarewell' to life . And to take
that seriously.
In a way, the t hought that death is near may narrow your hori-
zons - you cannot take ot her matters, other interests, as you
might if you had nothing else to worry about.
But in a sense, it may widen it. K eep you from thinking t hat
these trivia in which I, fo r example, am constantly engrossed -
that I have a headache, t hat I do not feel like working, tha t I
cannot plan my day properly - that these are what matters.
A schoolmat e of mine wrote a terrible poem which included,
0 great rock, da rk, forbidding,
Where never a sound is heard,
Save the ocean's cease less chiding
Or the far cry of a bird.

But he was writing of desolation in life. H e was not writing of

dea th.
One confusion that may bring horror is the thought tha t one
wou ld be cut off from what one has known, the people and places
and undertakings to whi ch one has d evoted oneself. As though
you were condemned to a sort of solitary confinemen t; 'the sile nce
of the grave'. ('Si lence' may have a positive significance, but not
in this context.)
This is imagining that you have not died: although you can no
longer 'live' in t he only sense in which living is not worth it. As
though deat h were a form of existence that is everlastingly deso-
late. The graves of those you love are silen t when you visit the m,
and they do not answer.
A human being may be desolate - a man who is los t, or a soli-
tary prisoner. But a grave a nd what fills it is not - no more th an
a mountain is, or a river.
If you know you are near th e end, perhaps life - having lived
- seems trivial. As though it might never have happe ned.
One might say: 'Of course my life - the fact that I have lived
is not important to the world. But it is important to me.' And
I hi s could mean: it is important how I have lived; not in the
sl'nsc of whet her I have made a significant contribution to this
or 1liat ('made a mark on History') but in the sense of 'how I
l1;1w wa lkl'cl'. I am I hinking part ly of the quotation in the collec-
1ion /))'ill,!!, I Vi• U r!/'; I h<' prisoner Erns l von H arnack before his
230 Religion, life and meaning
execution: 'The decisive thing is not attaining the goal, but rather
holding to the right road.' 21
It may be a blessing, I imagine, to have a period before one's
death in which one can be still: when one has not to try to win
over people, to fight back, to hurry, to listen to what is said by
those or by them, and then hurry ...
There are two questions which have been bothering me espe-
cially. One (which seems to be with me always) is the ques-
tion of what account to give of video meliora proboque, deteriora
sequor: what sort of delusion or mistake enters into this sort of
state?
Perhaps the second question is more a sense of gloomy aston-
ishment than anything else. Astonishment - at how easy it is to
fall back into a cheap and trivial concern with what is day-to-day
(paying my newspaper bill, meeting so and so at the College, etc.,
etc.), and forget that there are questions of any other kind. I was
in a friend's house last evening, and he played a gramophone
record of Bruckner's ninth symphony. There is a theme in the
first movement which has been said to be a 'farewell to life' (the
whole symphony is d edicated to 'dem liebe n Gott' - dedicated to
God, or in the love of God) and the first movement altogether
seems to m e the expression of a way of looking at death: at one's
own death. I find it just as wonderful every time I hear it. When
I liste n, I can grasp it to some slight extent; and part of what
makes the music wonderful for me is the realization that someone
could look at d eath like that. I wish I might some day have a
better sense of what Bruckner is expressing (although of course
I shall never come near). As it is, I can say that he gives m e a
deeper sense of what is involved than I had ever known before I
heard this music. Some of the remarks of Simone W eil about
death lie in the same direction. 22 And last evening I thought (with
something of a jolt) of how easily I seem to drift into a cheap
and supe rficial attitude towards my affairs - as though these othe r
reflections had never occurred to me.
In Albert Camus' L 'Homme revolte (the title of the English t rans-
lation is 'The Rebel') there is his discussion of the char acter ol'

21 Dying We Live, ed. Hellmut Gollwitzer, Kathe Ku h n, R einhard C. Ku hn (Glasgow:

Collins, 1983) , p. 137 (Ed.) .
22 See, for example, Lett er iv of her 'Spiri tual Autobiogra phy' in Waiti11.~ 0 11 (:od, t 1 :i1 1 ~.
Emma Craufurd (London a nd Glasgow: Fo n tana Books, 1959) p. 29f (Ed.).
 Death and immortality 231
Ivan in The B rothers Karama;::,ov. I like the whole book, bu t I like
this passage especially. H e speaks of Ivan as refusing salvation
and r efusing immortality - as though there could not be the one
withou t the other. Are they the same, I wonder? They are
commonly thought to be. Is this because people think there can
be no salvation until one is in the p resence of God, as one cannot
be d uring this process of growth and ageing and decline t o d eath?
Salvation in the vision of the Grail. ('Enshrined in light it holds
a cup immortal, tha t he who sees from earthly sin is cleansed' -
which is a bad t ranslation of Wagn er's bad poetr y, but it has been
bet ter expressed elsewhere if only I could re me mber.) Or salva-
tion through vision of the eternal. Simone W eil said more t han
once of the me re presentime n t that there is a puri ty which is
e ternal, '<;ela suffi t':23 there is no need to believe or to hope that
we ourselves shall have eternal life . ('We need not believe in
eternal life - for the only evidence of such a life lies in the p resen-
timen ts of e ternity which we have her e below. And these
presen timents are enough. Certainly they assume/su ppose/ the
fulln ess of eternal life . But not necessarily for us .') And yet I am
not sure of the sense of this 'r':5 ela suffit '. Salvation ) in her view'
would be the achievement of purity, or being on the road t o this.
And I doubt if she would say tha t the ' presen timents of eternity'
suffice for this. They might open one's eyes to the need of salva-
tion: to t he long a nd bitter j ourney that will be needed in order
to find one's way back to God. She migh t also say tha t they opened
one's eyes to the significance of death. (I thin k ther e might be a
parallel in what Socrates' teaching did for Alcibiades. Do you
r eme mber the Symposium?) And in this connexion it may open my
eyes to 'my relation to time'. ('My r ela tion to time', she says in
the Notebooks, 'forms the tissue of my life.')
Simone Weil speaks of death as the most p recious gift of God
to m en. Love is next - but she puts it second to d eath. There is
a d eep impiety in the misuse of d eath, as t here is in the misuse
of love.
'La ma rt est ce qui a ete don ne d e plus precieux a l'homme.
C'est pourquoi l'impiet e supr em e est d'en mal user. Mal mourir.
Mai tu e r. (Mais comm en t echapper a la fois a u suicide et au
mc urtrc?) Aprcs la ma rt , l'amour. (Proble me anaJogue: ni

21 'T hal is r 11ough' (Ed.)

232 R eligion, Life and meaning

mauvaise j o uissance, ni mauvaise p rivation.) La guerre et "e ros"

sont Jes d eux sources d 'illusion e t de m en songe par m i Jes
hommes; (le ur m ela nge est la plus grande impure te) .'24
In th e view sh e expresses, and in tha t of Bruckner's music,
death must b e te rrible, a nd in a se nse bi tt er. Otherwise it would
n ot bring us t o God: otherwise it would not be our r e turn to
G od. For Simon e W e il the high est r ealization of this was the
crucifixion . ('Every time I t hink of the crucifixion I fall into
t h e sin of envy.') 25
I become absorbed in t he bu siness of living, as in a kind
of Jorgeifulness : a fo rge tfulness of death, a nd so a forge tfulness of
wha t life is . As thoug h life were t he m omen t-to-mom e nt of t he
here and now. (And then d eath would be t he cessation - like the
cessation of a m ild a nd meaningless noise .) I cons ta ntly fall back
into this.
The diffe re nce betwee n life and death - something more than
a diffe re nce be tween ' now' a nd ' no longer '.
If I sh ould speak of ' the rela tion between myself a nd r eality',
this may seem to be g iven in dea th as nowhere else.

Pro ba bly w hat I sen se whe n I listen to Bruckne r's m usic, or to

Bach 's, is la rgely a m isundersta nding of it. Think of Bach's
Canta ta numbe r 140, for ins ta nce. T o write t his, h e must have seen
or understood som ething which could be gr asped only in long and
d eep devotion - a devotion such as is possible only to on e whose
whole life h as been given to il. And a life which were given to th e
achievemen t of such devotion, would be a life of gr eat 'puri ty', in
Simon e W c il 's sen se . Since mine has been a life of weakness and
incon stancy a nd defil ement of what I have received, - defil ement
eve n of such unders ta nding as I h ave had - I shall never be abk
to see or understand wh at Bach r ealized . It is a case of 'pr esc nti
me nts' which arc in me ve ry faint. And even these do not h old nw
sufficie ntly to keep me from treading on them .

24 ' Death is t he mos t prec ious t hing w hic h has been g ive n to man . T hat is wl 1) I h1
supreme impi e ty is to make a bad use of it. To die amiss. To kill nmiss. (H111 h1111
can we escape at t he same t ime both fr om suicide and m urd1· r?) /\f11·1 ch.. 11 Ii, 111\1
An analogous problem: neither wrong enjoyment nor wrong priva 1io11. W:u .111d I .111
are the two sources of illusion and falsehood among 1111·11. T lll'ir 111i~111ri· "'1'"'"'11 1
the very g reatest impurity' ('Viole nce' in (;rrwil)• (I/It/ (.'mrr, 11:111s. 1·:111111.1 C:1.111l111d
Lo ndon : Routledge a nd Krgan Paul, 1952, p. 77) {Ed.).
25 'Spiritual Au to b iography', p. 119 {Eel .).
 Death and immortality 233
Wh en I mention ed Bach 's Cantata 140 I did not m ean that
this is a n exp ression of an attitude to death (as the first move-
me nt of Bruckner's 9th is), but simply that in it h e shows an
understan ding of wha t Si mon e W eil would h ave called 'l'E ternel'
- an u nderstan ding of which I am aware only indistinctly and at
a long distance . But Mozart's Requiem is preoccu pied with deat h,
of course; it wo uld ill ustrate what I was trying to say, j ust as well
as the Bruckner did. (Obviously the two are diffe rent in all sor ts
of ways. I migh t want to say th at Mozart's R equiem gives me
more stron gly the impr ession of the soul standing on the
threshold it mu st cross, with out being able to see beyond, but
knowing that the re is an abyss and a j udgemen t. T h ere is more
than this; bu t Mozart's sen se of d eath is perhaps more plainly in
te r ms of the Ch urch's teachi ng t ha n Bruckner's . Bu t th is is all
sp eculation , a nd it may be wrong.)
In the p assage which I quoted from Simon e W eil - 'La Mort
est ce qui a e te donne de plus precieux a l'homme. C'es t pourquoi
l'i mpie te supreme est d'en ma! user. Mai mourir . Mai t uer.' - I
fi nd the p hrase 'C'est pourquoi . .. ' especially impressive. 26 If
m urder or suicide are th e worst for ms of impiety, this is not
b ecause li fe is a gift from God, b ut becau se death is.
I spoke of Bruckner's farewe ll lo life, and I spoke of the first
m ove men t of t ha t symph ony as a reflexion on death. But it would
be a misunderstanding if someon e s hould say that this seems as
though Br uckne r wer e tr eat ing the end of h is life, and thus his
own exist ence, as somet hing supremely important. If, wh en I am
facing death, I recogn ize the importance (and wi th this the terror
and the mystery) of d eath - this need not m ean that my preoc-
cupation with d eath was 'person al'. And Bruckner's was not.
I am concerned wi th my own death , certainly. But if I re cog-
ni zed a nything deep a nd importan t in it, th is is not because of
its relation to nry life . This is what Simone W eil is sayin g when
she says t ha t d eath is a gift from Goel : from this come t he impor-
1a nee and the dept h and the maj esty of it.
What is the 'sen se of the unknown ' in connexion wi th death?
To ask this is to raise t he question - or th e mystery - of creation
:iltogct her.
11 is in d ea t h t hat I cease a ltoge ther to seek aft er p ersonal

'" S1·<· liio111011· 2·1 abov!'.

234 Religion, Life and meaning
satisfaction: that I sink into nothingness before God. This is what
Simone Weil would call the achievement of purity. While I have
been living as a particular man, the imperfections in all this have
prevented me from sinking into nothing before God: I have not
been able to remove entirely the 'je' - I have not been able to
recognize my nothingness before God, and this has prevented me
from recognizing the majesty of God. (i.e. I cannot recognize the
majesty of God without literally becoming nothing. 'No man can
look on the face of God and live.')
In these ways death is very like love; is in fact the culmination
of love . In love as in death all personal requirements subside, and
my own existence is of no account. (Both are like the recognition
of beauty, in this way.)
Bruckner's profound reflex ion on death is one side of his expres-
sion of a love of God. This is why it is not concerned with the
importance of his own life.

'The ideas of eternal life quicken not so much in the immor-

tality ( a8avaofo) as rather in the incompatibility ( acp8aQota) of
the spirit ... ' (Fries, vol. 12, p. 103).
The different senses of 'destruction' in: (a) 'destruction of the
body' (death, decomposition, etc.) (b) 'destruction of the soul'.
We might speak of the destruction of the soul where we would
speak of the soul as ' last', and perhaps as 'damned'. - This
suggests that hope ef salvation and hope ef eternal life are one and
the same.
Suppose someone asked: 'Will death be the Loss of the soul in
this sense?' We might say 'What d'you mean? it has nothing to
do with that .' And then we might add, 'It might depend on how
the person dies.'
Suppose I say of some woman, 'She met her death in that
terrific explosion. She was simply blown to pieces.' And someotw
asks, 'Do you think her soul was destroyed then?' - The troubk
with this is that it makes it sound as though it were conceivable·
that one could discover whether it was or not - by some sort ol
empirical investigation. ('A human soul may remain eve n nf"tn :1
blast like that.' If I say 'Her sou l was not destroyed', clot's t Iii ~
mean 'H er soul is st ill ... '? Still what?)
The loss (damnation) or salvation of a soul is 11 01, as it 1w11 ,
a quality of something (like the s111ootll 111·ss of" wr i11 kl<'d1wss 111
 Death and immortality 235
contortedness of a man's features, face). The loss of, or the
remaining hope for his soul - this is not something of which a
careful historian could give an account (trace its course .. .). Nor
would it mean much to say 'After careful examination we can see
that he has still not quite lost his soul, - his soul is still not quite
ruined.' (This language, of course, would suggest that the next
time we look it may be utterly lost.)
If someone said, 'Of course we cannot discover the answer in
this life, but we can di scover it later, in a life that comes after
this' - I think this would show just as bad a misunderstanding.
To say 'The soul cannot be entirely lost' is not at all that sort of
statement. No-way comparable to 'Gold cannot be dissolved in
sulphuric acid. ' It is not a conviction to which anyone comes by
looking to see whether something is still there or still going on.
(I think this is connected with Wittgenstein's idea that damna-
tion is not something that takes time.)
It is a statement of faith; not a conclusion that is reached from
any evidence. It has nothing to do with a belief that something
is going to happen, or that something will last for ever. You can
call it a recogn ition of the love of God: this is what 'the soul is
never totally lost' would be.
'that I love you'; ' . . . that I love you eternally' (' . .. with eternal
love') . This would be commonplace if it meant merely ' . .. that I
shall never cease loving you.' - In fact it does not use the future
tense at all. It is an utterance regarding her love - something
like saying it is a love that cannot be depraved: not saying how long
it is going to last.

The great revelation of religion: that when it is clear that one's

own life is a disgrace - bette r not to have lived than to have lived
in this way - that then death can appear as something wonderful
and holy.
Would a truly religious pe rson object, and tell me that my death
will be as evil - or as godless - as the life I have lived?
I know only that when I see my life for wha~ it is - see myself
for what I am: when I see how incapable I am of directing my life
to anything holy - then the contemplation of death is the greatest
lto/Je. (And I do not mean this in a negative sense: that here at
last wil l be a n end of my own adding to my degradation.)
11 is partl y that even when I t(lke se riou sly the quantus tremor
236 Religion) lije and meaning
est Juturus 27 ..• - I know that with death I shall reach something
not myself. That - saving possible nonsense in this - even my
damnation will have something divine about it.
. . . . cum resurget creatura
judicanti responsura. 28

That (even that) I should know the full depth of my depravity,

and know it by the judgement of God. That I should be rid at
least of the double-mindedness and self-deception that d efiles my
view as long as I live.
There is some relation between weakness and self-deception
which I cannot get clear. In a sense the greatest danger here is
the mediocrity, the shoddy material which shows itself in weakness
- it is this which may prevent me from keeping before my mind
the majesty of death (which now is what lifts my soul from that
worst form of despair: the despair which does not even know what
it is and seeks a faint-hearted, i.e.Jalse view of death).
God help me to keep a pure view of d eath: God help me to
welcome whatever death is to be for my soul: God help me to
keep from falsifying this.
I can see, though dimly, that the death I long for must come
from God; that if it were my own doing then it would be afalse
death (that is not an absurdity although it sounds like one).
The death which is the majesty of God's will as it appears
in his creation. Unless death be an answer to fiat voluntas tua ,29
then it has nothing of the nomen tuum 30 either; that for which our
santi:ficetur31 is an expression of thanks.
I know it is evil to write as I am now: because, perhaps, to
despair of my life in the world, is to despair of the world. What
I wish came more deeply from my heart were a thanks for this
life of innocent defilement and degradation: since otherwise tlw
majesty of death - lachrymosa, dies illa - would have no meanin g-.
My tendency to write melius Juerit non vivere 32 is an expression or
that same unwillingness to know - which - if it masters me - will
kee p me from seeing death as the sole bea uty and maj es ty; ;1s
27 'H ow great a terror there will be' (from 'Dies Irae', R equi em Mass) (Eel.) .
28 'When creation rises again to answer the j udge' (ibid.) (Ed.).
29 'Thy will be done ' (Ed.).
30 'Thy name' (Ed.).
31 'Hallowed be' (Ed.).
32 'It would have been better no t lo livr' (Eel.).
 Death and immortality 237
the centre of 'Thy will be done.' To look on death if this means
looking away from the world, even looking away from my own
d efilement of the world - is again a form of deception: a failure
to see death as the word of God .
I know also that I am without love of God, and without love
of God's creation (unless it be of those utterances of his hallowed
name which show in the beauty of nature and in the nobility of
certain men).
This is what especially falsified my longing for death and makes
it a form of idolatr y.
(Is this the tendency which finds its most vulgar expression in
'That will be Glory for me'?)
It is not simply that. If I say that t he thought of death is what
lifts my soul, and if this is in a ny way 'fantasy', and not from my
soul - then it is blasphemy. But although there be will in it - it
is not wholly that: my recognition may be partly, or largely, false.
But it is here that I turn to God, in so far as ever I can.
To think of death apart from life - were to think of it as some
sort of apocalypse into which one might escape. In some way
Death is something in which one loses one's self. (What St Paul
often called 'the flesh'.) This is why I used the capital D: for in
a way, the fact that it is nry death is not important. On the other
hand, if I think of it without thinking of it as my death, then I
a m thinking of a phantom.
This goes with the fact that the death of which I think is in
some important sense the death which the soul has to meet; that
which has bee n and is being defiled now; which longs for j udge-
ment and may hope for judgeme nt.
But it is not just a metaphor when me n speak of the de struc-
1ion of the soul or the death of the soul through the life one lives.
'Woe to him whose soul has died before the death of his body.'
God grant that I may find in death what my soul has sought,
and from what it has most persist ently turned away. Domine quia
/ii llS es.33 I do not understand how this is possible.
Tomorrow I shall tend to think again of death as a way out (in
whi ch the re is no reality or majesty at all). God help me then to
hope that my death may be bitter: and so bring me back to what
ii is I lo ng for.

n ' l.ord , for t liou a 1·t fa it hfu l' (Ed.).

 ESSAY SIXT EEN

Election and judgement

11

Your quotation of Wittgenst ein's remark 'I would never dare

cnt1c1ze a man like Calvin' 2 has brought vaguely to my mind
isolated remarks in which Wittgenstein came back again and
again to the notion of 'Gnadenwahl' - or election. (What is the
full phrase in English? is it 'election to Grace', or 'election for
Grace' or 'election in Grace'? or none of these?) Wittgenstein was
often referring to St Paul when he wrote of this; and I suppose
he had in mind Romans chapter XI for instance. But sometimes
he may have been referring to Calvin, although I do not
remember that he ever names him. (He does name Karl Barth,
but I do not know if he does so on this question. In the contin-
uation of the passage which I tried to translate for you last time
he says: 'How do I know that two people mean the same when
each of them says he believes in God? And we could say exactly
the same about the Three P ersons. //Wittgenstein's point is that
the religious belief, or what is meant in this sense, finds expres-
sion in a man's life: and you have to look there rather than to
his words.// Theology which lays weight on the use of particular
words and phrases and bans others, makes nothing clearer. (Karl
Barth). It brandishes words, so to speak, with words, beca use it
wants to say some thing and does not know how one can express
it. Practice is what gives the words their sense.')
In two entries towards the e nd of 1937 (one in September a nd
one in Nove mbe r) he speaks of the notion of election as one whir Ii
he cannot understand. In the remark on 20 November 1937 111·
says 'It must be that in religion ther e is a mode of exp ress ion

1 From a letter to M. O'C. Drury dated 3 June 1968.

M. O'C. Drury 'Conversations with Wittgenstein ' in Recol/ectio111qf l Vi t/~1·111/1'111,1•1 1. R1111h
Rhees (Oxfo rd University Press 1984), p. 166 (Ed.) .

23fl
 Election and judgement 239
which corresponds to each level of religiosity (or better English:
of religious life) and which at a lower level would have no sense.
For someone who is now a t the lower level, the doctrine which
has meaning at a hig her level is null and void; it can only be
misunderstood, and so these words do not hold as far as this man
is concer ned .
For example the d octrine of election in Paul is, on my level,
irreligious, a piece of objectionable nonsense. It does not belong
there for me, since I can only make a wrong application of the
picture tha t is offered me . If it is a pious a nd good picture, t hen
it is so at an en tirely different level, a level on which it must be
applied en tirely different in life than I can apply it.'
But in remarks entered towards the end of his life he was begin-
ning to find a meaning in it. - In one d a ted 26 June 1948 (was
he in Ir~land t hen?) he is still puzzled, if in a differen t way:
'If God really chooses the people destined to be saved, then there
is no r eason wh y he should not choose them according to nations,
races or temperaments; why the choice should not have its expres-
sion in the laws of nature. (He could even choose so that the
choice follows a law of nature.)
'In a selection from the writings of St John of the Cross I have
read that some people have been ruined (lost ) because they did
not find a spiritual guid e (or leader) at the right moment.
'And then can one say (or: can one still say) that God does not
tempt a man above that which he is able?
'I am inclined to say here that wrong concepts have done great
harm, but the truth is that I don't know what brings salvation and
what brings harm.'3

If God really does choose those who are to be saved, the re is no reason why he
should not choose them according to their nationality, race or temperament. O r
why the choice should not find expression in the laws of 1,1ature. (Certainly he was
able so to choose that his choice should follow a law.)
I have r ead excerpts from the writings of St J oh n of the Cross where he says that
people have fallen into the pit because they did not have the good fo rtune to find
a wise spiritual director at the right moment.
And if that is so, how can anyone say that God does not try men beyond their
st rc ngth?
What l really felt like saying here is that distorted concepts have done a lot of
111isrhir.I', bu t the truth is that I just do not know what does good and what does
111isd1i <" f'. (Culture and Value, trans. Peter Winch, ed. G. H. von Wright in collabo-
1'111 io11 wi1 h I ll'i kk i Nyman, Oxfo1·d: Bas il J:ll ackwcll , 1980, p. 32c.) (Ed.) .
240 Religion, lift and meaning
I suppose part of the sense of this is: if we say that God will not suffer
a man to be tempted above that which he is able (r Corinthians x, 13),
then when a man does capitulate and is lost, we cannot explain this by
anything except the man's unwillingness to do something which it was
within his power to do. Thus we cannot say that he went to pieces because
he did not meet with a spiritual leader who might have saved him. For
then, for want of a spiritual leader he was not able etc.
Then six months later, 22 December 1948, he entered a remark
which I will quote almost in full, although only the second half
of it refers to 'election':
'The greatest happiness (or: good fortune) of a man is love.
Suppose you say of a schizophrenic: he does not love, he cannot
love, he will not love - where is the difference?
"He will not ... " means: it is in his power. And who would say
this?
Of what would one say "it is in my power"? We say it where
we want to make a distinction. This weight I can lift, but I don't
want to lift it; that one I can't lift.
"God has commanded it, therefore one must be able to do it."
That means nothing. There is no "therefbre" here. At most, both
expressions could mean the same.
"He has commanded it" means here roughly: He will punish
anyone who doesn't do it. And nothing follows from this regarding
what a man can do. And that is the sense of "election in Grace".
But this does not mean that it is correct to say: "He punishes,
although a man cannot do anything else." - But one might well
say: here punishment is inflicted, where a human being would
have no right to implement it. And the conception of punishmen t
altogether is changed here. T he old illustrations can no longer
be applied here, or they must be applied entirely differently .. .'4
Man's greatest happiness is love. Suppose you say of the schizophrenic: he docs
not love, he cannot love, he refuses to love - what is the difference?!
'He refuses to .. .' means: it is in his power. And who wants to say that?!
Well, what kind of thing do we say 'is in my power'? - we may say this whe n we·
want to draw a distinction. I can lift this weight, but I am not going lo do iI; I
cannot lift tha t one.
'God has commanded it, therefore it must be possible to do it.' Thal m eans 1101 li i1111,
There is no 'therefOre' about it. At most the two expressions mig h1 mean 1111· 1111111•
In this context 'He has commanded it' means roughly: I le will p1111ish a11yhocly wh11
doesn't do it. And nothing follows from that a bou t wha t anybody rn 11 m c;11111111 cl"
And that is what 'predestination' mea ns.
 Election and judgement 241
NB : 'God has commanded it, therefore one must be able to do
it.' - Is not this the more natural expression of what Kant had
in mind with his: 'I ought, therefore I can'?

And finally, from the last no tebooks (although I am not sure

whether this bears on 'election' or not):
'How God judges men, one cannot imagine. If he does really
take into account the stre ngth of the temptation and the weak-
ness of nature, whom can he then condemn? But if not, the n the
resultant of these two forces gives the goal to which the ma n was
predestined. H e was so made, that through the interplay of forces
he would conquer, or he would go under. And this is not a reli-
gious idea at all, but rather a scientific hypothesis.
If you want to stay with what is religious, you mustfight.' 5
Although Wittgenstein says there, 'And that is the sense of
"election in Grace"', and although I find this more illuminating
than any other comment I have seen on the idea, ... I am not
sure that Wittgenstein would have said even then that the idea
was one which he could 'apply in his own life'. - Some things he
said suggest to me that he would. And these were generally
gloomy (as far as his own life was concerned).
(Of course he would never have asked whether the doctrine
was 'true' or not - as though it might have been put forward as
a probable conjecture.)
I think he used often to come round to the notion of election
when he was thinking about free will. And to a considerable
extent I understand this, but not altogether: I think he saw or
sensed something important here which I am missing.

But that doesn't mean that it's right to say, 'He punishes you eve n though you
cannot do othe rwise.' Perhaps, though, one m ig ht say in this case punishment is
inflicted in circumstances where it would be impossible for men to infli ct it. And
then the whole concept of 'pu nishment' changes. For now you can no longer use
the old illustrations or e lse you have to apply them quite differen tly .. .' (Culture
and Value, trans. Peter W inch, p. 77e) (Ed.) .
I-low God judges man is somet hing we cannot imagine at a ll. If he really takes
strength of tem ptation and the frailty of nature into account, whom can he
condemn? But othe rwise the resultant of these two fo rces is simply the end for
which the man was predestined. In that case he was created so that the interplay
of' fo rces would make him either conq uer or succumb. And t hat is not a religious
icln1 al a ll, but more like a scientific hypothesis.
So if you want to stay withi n the religious sphere you must struggle. (Culture and
V11il11', 11·;111s. P1·1..r WinC'li, p. B6c) (Ed.).
242 Religion, life and meaning
sensed something important': I mean, he thought that
Paul's, and maybe Calvin's, idea of election did express some-
thing which sits deep in many people (including perhaps himself)
when they are worried about free will.
H e said to me once that there was not much that could be
written down about free will. What could be written down, was
fairly short. But what lies behind the question - and in this se nse
the source of the perplexity - is anxiety. (He meant this in
Kierkegaard's sense, I think: what is translated in the English
word as 'dread'.) 'And you can't write down anxiety.' - This was
in 1937, and he might not have spoken quite in this way later:
he might have said later that there was more to be discussed:
but maybe not.
Wh en he considered 'predestination', I think he would have
said that here most people fai l to distinguish between the
picture and what is done with it. Even if people seem to go
into weird details, and say that everything happens according to
God's plan, and that the plan has existed from the beginning
of time; that the details of my life were already written down
from the first moment of my life, the last page already
finished in detail, etc. - they clearly do not mean anything like
'The script which the actors are following is all written down.'
The actors, or the prompters, can consult the script. And the point
about God's plan is that it cannot be consulted, cannot be seen.
If it could, then it would lose entirely the point which it has in their
thinking.
It would make no sense to speak of checking to see whether
things really are going according to God's plan or not, or as accu-
rately as they should.
When people speak of predestination, is it part of what they
mean that I move blindly, I wonder? [That the good or evil which
I do - the question whether my action will be noble or base - is
never something within my power.]
For instance: whatever I do, however much heart-searching 1n
know my own motives, however much attention to conseque nces,
etc., I can never be sure that my decision has not been eviI.
Only God knows my heart, the degree of my self-d ecep tion , !' I <'.
So I feel that I am morally responsibl e, a nd ycl whether I do
good or evil is not something that I can decide ; it docs 1101 li l' i11
my hands.
 Election and judgement 243
I can see ground here for anxiety as Kierkegaard spoke of i t,
I think.
Compare the Gospels: We never really know when, or whether,
we are acting from the love of Christ.
If this be uncertainty, then it is nothing like an uncertainty
about physical events. (This is why the scruples about conse-
quences are probably foreign, or at any rate subordinate in this
problem.)
Kierkegaard's answer, sometimes anyway, was: cast all your
cares upon the Lord.
But I want to ask whether anxieties of this sort are part of
what people have expressed by election of Grace. (I have not ..
beard Wittgenstein say anything on just this point, and it may
not be a point at all.)
I have known some Catholics to say, 'So long as your will or
your intention was right, then even if you did make a blunder, it
will be right in the sight of God.' Which obviously begs or misses
the question. How can I know that my will or my intention was
right? etc.
I am not defending that kind of scrupulousness. But I think it
might start people thinking about election without supposing
anything like a 'pattern'~
By the way, is there some thing like an antithesis to Calvin's
idea (or Paul's) in Pascal, when h e imagines God speaking to a
I roubled heart 'Tu ne me chercherais pas, si tu ne me possedais.
Ne t'inquiete done pas.' 6
I never heard Wittgenstein refer to this remark of Pascal's. But
somehow - for all his difficulty in understanding the doctrine of
t·lcction, and finding it so often repulsive - I feel that Paul's and
( :alvin's doctrine was more to his way of thinking about religion
I han Pascal's was. - Including the passage in Ron:ians IX, perhaps:
'Therefore he hath mercy on whom he will; and whom he will,
hi' hardeneth.
Thou wilt say therefore to me: Why doth he then find fault?
for who resisteth his will?
() man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing
lorn1ccl say to him that formed it: Why hast thou made me thus?'

" 'You would 1101 hl' looking for me, unless you had already fou nd me. So, do not worry'
(l•:cl .).
244 Religion, lift and meaning
(And then follows the strange passage on the potter and the
pots.)
I have often found that remark of Pascal's wonde rful, as I
thought of it. And yet I also feel that there is something super-
ficial about it as compared with St Paul's teaching he re. (It is for
this reason also that I imagine that I understand what Pascal was
saying; whereas I only see a little way in trying to understand St
Paul.)
To this extent I could dimly sense what Wittgenstein might
have meant if he had spoken of Calvin as deep. (And I doubt if
one would call Pascal deep in comparison.)
I am sorry Wittgenstein did note r ead or write more about St
John of the Cross. Was there with him (St John of the Cross) a
much more profound realization of the idea which Pascal was
suggesting there?
I know little of Calvin. Stories I have heard suggest that he
was arrogant. But if his doctrine of election was really like St
Paul's the n there is in it a d eep humility. A special (and very
difficult) sense of submission to the will of God.

n1
I imagine that Wittgenstein connected 'election' with the idea of
Judgement. He-would not have said that he believed in aJudgement
after death. But he did say, repeatedly, I think, that he under-
stood how such an idea or belief comes to be important in a man's
reflexion on his life and his sense of responsibility: that some day
one will have to answer for it, that one will appear before God
'in a queer kind of body' (a 'glorified' body) and be judged.
How we should inte rpret that phrase 'some day' - or indeed the
use of the future here at all - and what is the sense (or tlw
'weight' ) of the phrase 'appear before God' - Wittgenstein did nol
ask. I think he would have said that such phrases or utterancl's
cannot be discussed, in the most ordinary sense of 'discussion '.
And that if one tried in some way to open the book to someone·
for whom such expressions were an entirely closed book,
this would need a very special talent. Still, there is Lhc ickci ()I
Judgement (I myself might recommend someone who asked a bot II

7F rom a letter to M. O'C. Drury 2 1 .) 111 11· l ~)(iB (Ed .) .

 Election and judgement 245
it to listen to Mozart's R equiem ; or perha ps almost any setting of
the Requiem Mass, for the idea of Judgement is all through it:
toge ther also with 'et lux perpetua luceat eis') . - What St Paul
says about election seems connected with it. And are not such
parables ofJesus as that of sowing tares among the wheat, casting
back into the sea of the mass of fishes - are not these also
connected with the idea of Judgement?
I suppose in fact that the phraseology of 'the Judgement' a nd
the phraseology of 'entering into the Kingdom' coincide pret ty
much.
Wittgens tein might have said: Whoever has an idea of Divine
Judgemen t has to have a differen t idea of the significance of
his life than someone who does not have any idea of Divine
Judgement.
E lection. Some find this a stu mbling block because it seems to
say that God's message is not for everyone. (Many are called, bu t
few are chosen.) 'Then why did he create us?', etc. St P aul: 'Who
ar e you to question the j ustice or wisdom of God?' Man is b y
nature utterly depraved (Calvin?) . That God should nonetheless
choose some for salvation, is unintelligible. But that I, who am
utterly depraved, should be cast into the outer darkness, is not
unintelligible. P erhaps Calvin would have said that those who find
Election a stu mbling block speak as though every man had a right
to salvation; or at least a right to try to qualify, so to speak. And
this robs the notion of Grace of its meaning. And I think this would
be St P a ul's idea in Romans.
Rejection of the very early idea of a Covenant between God
and his people. I cannot count myself in God's grace, cannot coun t
myself as chosen, just because I am of t he seed of Abraham. - I
Lhink there may be something of this in Isaiah ·as well, with his
new conception of what it means to be the chosen people: to be
I he suffering people . And if St P aul used a phrase that is trans-
lated by 'election' (what is the Greek?) I suppose the idea is the
same as t ha t of 'chosen people'.
The Scribes and Pharisees though t of keeping the Covenant
(or the Law) rather as though it were keeping a temporal contract.
' I r I have scrupulously fulfilled all the terms of the contract,
yo11 have no complaint against me.' But further: ' ... and I am
c· 11t it led to expect you to fulfil your side of the contract.' - And
111'1'1' W(' haw just th a t id ea or Grace or Salvation or Redemption
246 Religion, life and meaning
as a right - the idea against which I think Paul and Calvin were
inveighing. And I guess this was one of the reasons for Christ's
denunciation of the Pharisees.
Am I right in thinking that the Gospels tell of a new concep-
tion of a covenant with God? ' ... Hie est enim Calix Sanguinis
mei, novi e t aeterni testaman ti: mysterium fidei: qui pro vobis et
pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum.' 8 (I have not
looked to see how far the notion appears in the first three
Gospels.)
Is not part of the emphasis in the Gospe ls on a different notion
of Redemption? - expressed also in such sayings as 'My Kingdom
is not of this world' of which there is some premonition in Isaiah's
point that earthly suffering is not a sign that one is abandoned
by God, rather the contrary: that the idea of Divine punishment is an
entirely different idea .from that of earthly punishment. And with this goes
the idea that God's Testament is not like an earthly contract;
that being a servant of God is not like being a servant of an
earthly master; that obedience .to God is not like obedience to an
earthly master, etc., etc. - What I am trying to say is that all
this can be seen as a way of saying that God's Testament is an
act of Grace - not a contract. It may be that Luther was trying
to emphasize this when he taught (or so I am told) that it isfaith
- i. e. I suppose, prayer - not works that is essential for salvation.
(The parable of the man who knocks and knocks at the door and
finally by his very importunity gets the landlord out of bed.)
Luther may have thought that an emphasis on works would make
it too much like the fulfilment of a contract - and this leads to
Phariseeism. (Luther could hardly have seen what is familiar now
of the misconceptions and abuses to which 'salvation by faith
alone' could be put.)
But is there not still a difficulty about Election? Granting that
redemption is not a right, but an unintelligible act of divine
Grace. To whom is the Testament of Christ's Blood being offered~
When I hear this preached, it seems to be suggested tha t it is
offered to me. But what reason have I to think it is? 'Whosoever
believeth in me .. .' - I feel sure there is some misunderstandin g
in this difficulty. I dare say that the r efere nee to predestination

tt 'For this is the chalice of my blood, of the New and Et!'rnal T1·st:u111·111: th1· 111 y.~'' ' )
of faith, which shall be shed for you and for ma11y, unto 111<· rc·111issiu11 ol si11s' ( l•:d )
 Election and judgement 247
- that the elect of God were so when he cr eated them, etc., -
I dare say that this is just a way of emphasizing that God's
Grace is eternal, and that its bestowal is not an 'act' at a partic-
ular time and situation. It may have something akin to the remark
that this Lamb was slaughtered at the beginning of the world.
And perhaps: 'Before Abraham was, I am.'
There would then be difficulties regarding the notions of time
and eternity: the constant danger of confusion here. Speaking of
what is eternal as though it were 'before' what has happened or
is happening in time.
'Everything was preordained' is like 'Everything happens
according to God's plan.' And as I tried to say in my earlier letter,
it is essential to this idea that you have no access to the plan: it
is not something you can know beforehand (access to secret docu-
ments) or which you can compare with the way things have in
fact gone. 'God's plan was drawn up beforehand' can be disturbing
if it makes you feel that you have no real choice. 'You only imagine
thatyou decide what you'll do. God had everything decided before
you were born.' H ere once more it is the 'before' that causes the
trouble; and in this context it is just a misleading figure of speech.
This is treating the eternal as though it were temporal.
In 'Thy Will be done' there is no idea of a particular occasion
on which God's will (about this situation) was form ed or uttered.
One of the difficulties with the Torah, one of the notions that
leads to Phariseeism, is the idea that God's will was formulated
and written down at a particular time. And is not this a. part of
what Christ was opposing? and that by studying the Torah we can
decide whether we have followed it or not.
What I am trying to suggest is: to ask 'Why should I even try
to profess my belief in Christ, why should I even try to take up
my cross and be his disciple, if those who are his disciples has
already bee n decided anyway, regardless of what I do?' - to ask
this is to show a misunderstanding of such a statement as 'It is
the elect of God who are the followers of Christ' (which can be
simply converted). And the trouble centres round the 'alrea<fy
derided'.
248 Religion, life and meaning
III 9
In your earli er letter you mentioned the difficulty you have felt
in connexion with Wittgenstein's re.marks s uch as 'I wouldn' t dare
criticize a man like Calvin .' I know what you m ean. And I know
how one cannot suppress criticisms that one feels in connexion
with various things in the New Testament, for ins tance. - But in
one sense, surely, Wittgenstein would not have h esitated to 'crit-
icize' Calvin: i.e. to express the difficulties he felt with Calvin's
views, and the obj ections he felt towards them. I do not mean
that he would have expressed these in print. I imagine he would
have done so in conversations with his friends. I have n ever heard
him criticize Calvin in this way. But I have heard him express
criticisms which were more an expression of impatience with
certain difficulties in religion. And he had no objection to nry
voicing objections, even though they were none _he would h.ave
voiced - provided that these were really expressions of feehng.
' Blowing off steam ', or 'complaining' were expressions h e some-
times used. - On the other hand, these criticism s or complaints
were not like criticism s he might have passed on Russell 's views
on logic: where h e would suggest that Russell was confused and
was m aking these and these mis takes. H e might have said about
Calvin's views, as h e did say of the positions of certain Catholics
(e.g. Miss Anscombe) that h e, Wittgen stein, could never believe
what they believed - or could never believe what Calvin seemed
to believe. But this is n ot sayjng that Calvin was confused or was
making mistakes . He would criticize Russell in logic, because he
knew the criteria and the standards or r equirements which were
relevant to this. H e would say a lso that h e unde rstood what
Russell was trying to do. But he would not say a ny of this with
r egard to Calvin, I imagine. .
For one thing, Calvin's views a bout religion and about ethics
are not the sort of thing that can be discu ssed, in the sen se in
which questions in logic can. But m ore important: Wittgen-
stein would have said tha t Calvin was a man of great depth, I
imagine: that Calvin saw proble m s and s~w the ~e igh~ of con-
sider a tions pro and contra, by which W1ttgens tem might flTI
attracted or repelled, but of which he did not feel abl e to say
'Yes, this is where your thinking on these matters ough1 lo le- ad
9 From a le tter to M. O'C. Drury 30 .Ju11r I 9(ill (l·:d.).
 Election and judgement 249
you' or ' this is superficial, and deeper thinking would turn you
away from this'.
When I was speaking to Wittgenstein about conflicting moral-
ities, and the question whether one could try to find some way
of settling the issue between them , I mentioned Christian
morality (as understood by Nietzsche), and Nietzsche's criticism
or opposition to it. Wittgenstein said something like, 'Well, if
you want to try to find a way of d eciding between such a con-
flict, - go ahead, and good luck to you. It is nothing I could do
or dream of doing. I might say that one of these moralities was
deeper than the other.' But (and I think this was his point) it is
not like trying to see whether the one is 'more free 'from objec-
tions' than the other. I think Wittgenst ein would have said he
did not know what were meant by 'obj ections' in such an arbitra-
tion. Although, as I say, h e knew what he m eant by voicin g his
own obj ections to certain things St Paul said, for example. But
this did not mean that Wittgenstein would ever have said: St Paul's teaching
was defective on these and these counts . If ever a question of that sort
were raised, Wittgenstein would certainly have said that he was
never in a position to criticize St Paul.
It would be partly analogous if he h ad said h e would never dare
criticize the music of Mozart or Beethoven. On the other hand,
l have heard him express his puzzle ment or annoyance .when
li stening to Beethoven's violin concerto: 'And now he goes back
and repeats the whole theme again, . . . and then again .. .' -
almost with an expression of disgu st, b ecause the thing seemed (to
Wittgen stein then, anyway) so senseless. And yet Wittgenstein would
not have said that 'far these reasons he did not think the violin concerto
was a great piece ef music'. Still less would he h ave said that
Bee thoven ought not to have written it in that way. H e would
never have had the slightest doubt tha t Beethoven knew what h e
was doing; a lthough h e, Wittgen st ein, did not.
llc said sometimes, too, tha t one wanted strongly to object to
1he world as it is, and to complain; and that some times it was right
10 do this. - I think he had something t he sam e idea as tha t
which Kie rkegaard expresses som ewh ere when he speaks in admi-
1.11 ion of.Job, a nd says that job was right to voice his complaints:
wlii('h docs not m ean that Kierkegaard was losing sight of the
1 los i11g passages of.Job, rat her th e contrary. But Kierkegaard was

'i11gg·(·s1i11g, if' I rrn1 c mhcr, 1ha1 nowadays people complain too little
250 Religion, life and meaning
against God. And I guess h e thought this tendency makes their
religion half-hear ted and hypocritical. - Wittgenstein never
mentioned this passage of Kierkegaard's to me, and I cannot say
if he knew or remembered it. But I remember when som eone
began, half jokingly, 'You know, there is one thing God h as
arranged wrongly ... ' and Wittgenstein said (I probably h ave not
the words correctly) with fervour: 'Oh, there are many things God
has arranged wrongly .. .' - and he went on with clenched teeth.
There was nothing blasphemous about this; no more, I think, than
there is about j ob's complaints. And Wittgenstein would have
accepted the 'Where wast thou ... ?' passages at the end.
Of course this does not meet the special points of which you
are speaking in connexion with the New Testament. - It is irrel-
evant to your point, and it may be blatantly silly, if I imagine
someone saying: 'Don't read the New Testament as you might
read the Hibbert Journal. Don't pick and choose as though you
were reading that: 'This is really good; that is not so good - I
could have done as well myself.' etc., etc. - Or suppose someone
says that the New Testament is a book from which you can learn
a great deal. (That would make you as sick as it does me.) to
If it is true that you cannot do philosophy without being hurt,
I suppose it is even more obvious that you can't be a Christian
without being hurt. Which would mean, in part: without letting
go beliefs you are attached to, and without accepting what sticks
in the throat.
On the other hand, one cannot accept what sticks in the throat
just by saying that one is willing to do so: or by resolving to do
so. (And that is where I am.) - This is where I stumble over the
idea of 'sacrifice of the intellect'. I guess I have not understood
this notion either; but as I have met the expression sometim es
it seems to me unholy and blasphemous. Perhaps it is only
Catholics who do speak in this way. Suppose someone says h e
feels strong sympathy with Christian beliefs and teaching and
ritual, and would like to declare himself a Christian ('profess tlw
Faith'); but that he cannot in honesty say he accepts the demon-
stration of God's existence from Natural Theology, and th a t lit·
cannot say h e believes certain statements in connexion with t lie·
Incarnation. He goes to a priest with his difficult ies, a nd is told

10
See Essay 22 of this collerc ion ( Eel .).
 Election and judgement 251
finally that it would be an essential part of his faith that he submit
his intellect to God - meaning, apparently, that he should
swallow his scruples and profess the faith all the same. T o me
this does not seem like religion at all.
This is not the same sort of question as you wer e raising - in
your difficulty with Christ's vehement an d wholesale condemnation
of the Pharise es, for instance. I agree with you. I am deeply
impressed by the criticism of Phariseeism (and always astonished
that it receives such scant notice in the Epistles of Paul and Pe ter
and John). But J esus is reported as condemning the men them-
selves, in a way that many of us find hard to square with, e.g.
'Father forgive th em, they know not what they do.' - I find much
the same tr ouble with 'He that believeth not shall be damned'
(Mark XVI, 16, and similarly elsewhere). But about this I have
more s trongly the fee ling that I am missing the point.

IV 11
I meant to try to say something to your remark that you were
never happy with the way in which th e New Testament distin-
guishes between the sheep and the goats; and that you found the
Gita more satisfactory in this connexion. - I have often fe lt uneasy
or repelled by those remarks in the New T estamen t to(). But
different considerations tend to get mixed in my pondering, and
I find it hard to sort them.
Some of the questions we talked about r egarding Calvinism
and 'election through grace' have a bearin g on this one, I guess;
but I will not try to show this.
Christians whom I admire have said to me that unless a
believer is willing to make sacrifices for his faith, his religion will
never go deep in him. And they seem to have meant first and
foremost, putting obedience to the will of God before per sonal
advancement in the world; putting devotion to things of the spirit
before one's position in the world, the recognition by men, and
the earning of wealth. Catholics would mean also: r ecognizing
that marriage is a sacrament and that divorce is impossible. -
This matter of th e sacrament of marriage and t he impossibility
of' di vorce is obviously different from much (or most?) of what

11 l' ro111 ;1 1" c11·1 10 M. O'C. D n 11')' dated 5 December 1969 (Ed.) .
252 Religion, life and meaning
we'd take as examples of the life of the spirit as distinct from
the !ife of the world. I imagine we must include this example of
the sacrament of marriage, if we want to understand what they
mean by the Christian life, and their contention that a Christian
is committed in particular ways which he must recognize if he is
to believe. But I do not understand what they mean by a sacra-
ment here (although I can see various ways in which marriage
must be connected with religion for those who enter it). - This
means, I suppose, that I am insensible to the whole sense of the
'Either/Or' which Christians contemplate.
If I try to say anything now, I shall only say, at greater length,
that I do not understand.
I think I never understand why accepting Christ should make
the difference that, in Christian teaching, it does. I suppose P eter
gave expression to this acceptance when he answered Christ's
'And whom say ye that I am?' - Christ added, if I unde rstand at
all, that it was only Divine Revelation that made Peter say this.
Christians would say that some who never have believed in Christ
may not be damned - provided they have never heard the word
of C hrist, or neve r been told; but if they have heard the word of
God and then have not believed, they are damned. (e.g. Mark XVI,
16 - and at least five or six other places in the Gospels.)
It is this, apparently - accepting Christ and professing your
faith - which divides the sheep from the goats. Not the distinc-
tion between, say (1) a life dominated by compassion and by the
wish to unde rstand and to join others in seeking understanding
- and (2) a life dominated by personal ambition a nd the wish to
be famous.
The important division between a life of the spirit and a life
of a mbition or of seeking wealth, has been recognized by many
who were not Christians, nor religious in tha t sense at all. I a m
thinking of many Stoics, for instance, a nd especially the Cynics.
And some of them (such as Epicte tus, perha ps) did pre tty well
in practising what they preached. If I understand Christians, thr y
would say that this teaching and practice of the Stoics was
admira ble (barring special points like their attitude to suicide
and he re we do come to the division); but tha t if they w1·1T
given the cha nce to believe and did no t be li eve, the n t hry wou ld
be as surely damned as the most worldly tyrant wo11ld be if' lt r
did not believe.
 Election and judgement 253
And I do not get the impression that Christ was in a mild or
meek mood when he said they are damned.
When Catholics say 'You will have to make certain sacrifices
i( your religion is going to have any depth' - they seem to mean:
'You will have to accept certain points of doctrine - no matter
what disadvantages these may bring for your life in the world. '
I suppose that for Buddhism there is nothing like this.
The Beatitudes say, 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they
shall see God.' - Kierkegaard wrote his 'discourse for confession'
on Purity of Heart (taking his text from St James). But the purity
he speaks of there might be called as much Platonic as Christian
- or so it strikes me at the moment. I do not remember anything
in the discourse that makes the belief in Christ (as St Peter
believed in him) essential.
I have mentionedJesus' remark that 'Whoever does not believe,
is already damned.' And we have spoke n before of his language
in attacking the Pharisees. And we have been as tonished, as
others have, at the wonder of his behaviour during the Passion:
what he says to Judas when Judas kisses and betrays him; telling
Peter to put away his sword; his remark to the servant of the
High Priest when he has struck J esus in the face; and above
all, 'Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.'
Franz Brentano said about this: 'It is as though the re.mark:
"He increased in wisdom and in grace", which was said of him
as a boy, was proved true in regard to meekness only in the
evening of his life.'
'Why should the question whether a man believes be so impor-
tant?'
I suppose that if you cannot understand why this should make
all the difference, then you do not unde rstand what the Christian
religion is. And this applies to me.
But maybe I am wrong about this too. For the actual reference
to the separation of the sheep from the goats, which you mention,
comes in a reference to the Last Judge ment (Matthew XXV,
3 1-46). And here Jesus says (verse 40) 'And the King shall
answe r ... Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of
t hcse my brethren, ye have done it unto me.' - I do not under-
sl and the se nse of the phrase ' unto one of the least of these my
/111'1h re11'; and it might be take n to refer on ly to those who believed
i11 hilll . 13111 in I he correspond ing re ma rk lo I he 'goats' (verse 33)
254 R eligion, life and meaning

the words 'my brethren' are not added . - Anyway, the suggestion
of the words seems to be that people might have served C hrist
without professing belief or faith in him. I say 'seems to be'. I do
not know if this is how the passage should be read. I think Simone
W eil does read it in tha t sense.
Anyway, the passage does include the absolut e separa tion, a nd
the r ema rk, 'D epa rt from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire
prepared for the devil a nd his angels.' - This must make m any
wonder, 'Is he speaking of people who have no good in them at
all? If even one single failure to show the compassion one ought
to have shown, is enough to b ring this judgem ent on one .. . how
many will there be who are not cursed? And if the goat s a re those
who have never shown a glimmering of compassion fo r "one of the
least of these" ... ?' I suppose we should have to add: 'who have
never shown compassion, a nd have never repented of this.' Eve n
so, I want to ask, 'Is it unthinkable tha t God, who understa nds
how the goats have come to be what they are, should show
compassion in some form towa rds them?'
I find it difficult to characterize a man 's whole life as good or
to cha racterize a whole life as evil. And the Gospel is not saying
that this would be possible for a huma n being; only that we must
believe that it is possible for God. - If a huma n being did try to
judge t he godliness or d evilishness of a whole life - say the lives
of two diffe re nt people who have recently died - the n it is ha rd
to see how he would proceed without some sort of balancing
or weighing of evil against good in the life in ques tion, a nd look-
ing to some result of the calculation at the end. Tha t is t he
way of crass stupidity, I thin k. And if one holds to the idea
of a Judgeme nt a t all, then it is im porta nt to e mphasize tha t
judgeme n t' here m eans som ething possible only to God: some-
thing of which we can have no idea.
So perhaps a Christia n would answer me: 'O f course,you ought
not to se parate me n into sheep a nd goats. But this is not to say
tha t God can't. Also, you cannot say there has bee n absolutely
nothing good in tha t ma n's life: that he has never known even "
mome nt's true repen tance, for instance; but God can say this.'
Of those who are to be told, 'Depar t from me, ye cursrd.' I
want to ask: would it not have been better if they had never lived:'
But the C hristian would (quite righ tly) tell me, th at 1 alll ht·r1·
trying to adopt a point of view I can not com pr(' hc ncl .
 Election and j udgement 255
Wittgenstein said in conversation some times tha t he could
understa nd how people could believe in a Last Judgement. T here
was some thing in the idea of 'being answerable for ' wha t he had
done, a nd for the kind of life he had lived; and also something
(I think) in the idea of 'paying for it' - which see med to him
involved in his own value judgements on, or his own concern
about, his actions and his life. - I think this went together with
ideas which he expressed in the Tractatus a nd in the N otebooks
before it. The idea that wha t I do (in those situa tions which call
forth moral conside ra tions) - what I do has a significance which
'goes beyond' the present circumsta nces, it has to be se en 'with
the whole world as its background'. I a m thinking of the way in
which he spoke of 'absolute value' in the L ecture on Ethics, for
ins ta nce.
Those phrases ma ke me think of: 'Heaven and Ea rth shall pass
away, but my Words shall not pass away.' But I never heard
Wit tgenstein quote this in this connexion, and he mig ht say it
was inappropriate .
In this context I can imagine saying: 'The consequences of an
evil deed are bottomless' (where of course 'consequences' does
not mean wha t it meant for the utilita rians: it does not mean
'wha t effects the action has in the socie ty in which it is
performed'). And when I do say this, I think I have some glimmer
of what migh t be meant by Judgement.
H e may have had in mind som ething also of wha t Simone Weil
speaks of often: that then the souls of all men will sta nd naked
before God.
 ESSAY SEVENTEEN

That man is made for Heaven 1

I
If someone said this, would it have sense to ask 'How do you
know?'?
Would it express a view that was based on any sort of observa-
tion of human beings: what human beings are like, or what they
strive after?
This is what one might suppose if one understood the remark
to be something like 'Men and women were made for one
another.' If this meant that it is better that men and women
should live together than that they should live separately or
alone, then t his is something which one might question. Or again,
one might say that it were something which would hold for
some human beings or for some men and some women, and not
for others. But I do not think the remark in question is of this
kind: if anyone did make it, I do not think he would agree that
it were more accurate to say that some men a re and some are
not; not that the question of accuracy would have much meaning
here.
It is not comparable t o any statement regarding what were best
for most human beings, in view of what long and widespread
observation has revealed about them .
Neither is it meant to hold at a particular time or period,
leaving it open for someone to say that with a new civilization in
the future this will no longer be so.
You might more correctly say that the remark is meant in denial
of any statement said to be based on observation of what hum an
beings are like or what human life is like.
1 Selections from notes Rhees wrote in preparation for a student dcbntt· n tt ''l'h.11 111 .11 1
is made for heaven'. The notes are written between 25 Scpl<' t11bl'r a nd B Ol'tolw1 I%'\ ,

256
 That man is made for H eaven 257
For instance, someone might tell me that the important thing
is to 'look after yourself - to take what you can get and remember
that your own happiness is the most important consideration with
which you will ever be concerned. And in answer I might just
shake my head and say, 'Man is made for Heaven': that all th ese
considerations of how to find the best bits or the warm corners
are not what concern me or worry me. It might mean tha t such
considerations of the most profitable balance are not what any
man ought to concern himself with: that there are other consid-
erations which are much more important than that.
In this case, I think it would be absurd to ask what reason I
have for saying this. Certainly I cannot offer a reason in refuta-
tion of those which he has been bringing forward; for what would
count as a reason in his case would be just irrelevant to what I
am saying. My statement was a way of r ejecting his whole way
of looking at life.
'Life with a view to achieving an existence in which all sinful-
ness will have fallen from you.'
Here we have again the idea of considerations or preoccupa-
tions which are 'worthy of man'.
Some might use the expression 'fulfilment' - the fulfilment of
his higher nature, or some thing of this sort. But I find this phrase
obscure and difficult.
Nor need we say, I think, 'Man is called to something higher';
nor, 'No earthly objective will satiif.j man' - for if you put it in
this way, then the objection is always at hand that plenty of people
are satisfied with earthly objectives. And we might say that many
would be satisfied with such objectives if they could reach them.
(This latter could be disputed, but so could the statement that
they would not be satisfied with such objectives if they did r each
them.)

Camus suggests that 'revolt' includes some idea of 'the na ture

of man' (perhaps of Menschenwiirde). 2 But I wonder.
I may protest against the cruelty of humiliation inflicted on
someone even though I have been fighting against him (say in
war). P erhaps some Romans of Caesar's time felt this way
abou t th e treat ment of Vercengetorix. When I do, I may use some

2 'I lu llla11 dig11 ity' (Ed.).

258 Religion, life and meaning
such phrase as 'anyone, I don't care who it is' (. . . ought not to
be inflicted on anyone ... ).
But if we then speak of 'human nature' or of 'huma n dignity',
this suggests that there is some property or charact eristic which
all men have, in virtue of which they d eserve better treatment.
Wittgenstein would have called this metaphysical. It is a pseudo-
theory, supposed to explain why I feel this way about 'anyone'.
Simone Weil is much better when she emphasizes the 'imper-
sonal' - the importance of the imper sonal in human beings. H e re
th ere is no suggestion of a property which is the same in each
one. Nor is she committed to anything like the 'solidarity' which
Camus thinks he finds in the r ecognition of ' the nature of man'.
('I would feel the same way, no matter who it was', does not
mean 'I fee l this way because he is a man', or 'because I recog-
ni ze him as a man', or 'recognize him as a fe llow being' or
a nything of that sort. As though wha t outraged me were the
offence done to that nature which all men sha re: to the general
idea. Because I wbuld feel the same way about anyone, it does
not follow tha t I am not feeling this way a bout this man in partic-
ula r. I protest against the treatment of him; a nd not simply
because he happens to be a man .) My 'anyone, no m a tter who it
was' came in reply to the obj ection, 'But he was trying to kill
you; what are you worried about him for?' It does not show that
I have a ny fee ling for all mankind.
There a re similar (metaphysical) misconceptions in speaking
of 'what man is made for', or of 'what the worth of man consists
in' or 'required'. 'You cannot treat a being who has this nature
in any other way than . . .' As though this were a general prin-
ciple into which one has some sort of insight; one which you ought
to recognize, or may be expected to recognize . (Suppose there
were a question of completing a geome trical figure or an arith-
metical series or operation. Someone might want to say, 'you
cannot complete the operation in a ny other way than ... ' Or
think of the notion of 'a fitting end ing to the cere mony', 'This
was r eally worthy of all that had gone before. Nothing else would
be worthy.'
If we consider what man is, we see tha t no destiny but H eaven
would be worthy of him.)
'That would be all right for a n a nimal. But you cannot trC'a l a
man that way.' 'You cannot treat a m a n like a pig.'
 That man is made for Heaven 259
Perhaps it is natural to think and speak in this way if you have
said that 'God created man' - 'created man in his own image'
perhaps. (That use of 'image' is mysterious.) Some might want
to go on to say something a bout what man as originally created
by God must have been like.
Bu t suppose I say instead: 'God created me', then in the first
place the whole phraseology seem s ou t of place and impious -
you might want to ask 'Why you?' - a nd in the second place there
is nothing her e to suggest that I have any specia l natu re which
you d o not sha re : a nature which m akes any other treatment tha n
taking me into H eaven something inconsistent with my worth; or
which makes a different treatment appear contrary to what is
called for. Granting that God cre a ted me, he created these other
animals too; and there is certainly nothing her e to show why I
should be treated differe ntly from the way in which you would
treat an animal.
Suppose you say that it is because I have an immortal
soul that there is only one d estiny which is the proper one for
me. This again looks like an explanation of something. And it is
saying that the presence of this property in me makes
me deserving - or gives me the right??? - to H eaven as a
des tiny.
'I must have a differ en t destiny - and I a m worthy of a different
I reatment - because I have a soul' -
this is in no way bett er than
'I am worthy of special treatmen t or a differ en t destiny because
of my unusual gifts, or because I know algebra, or because I have
I he manner of a gentleman or because I have money.'
It is no better than, 'I am deserving of a special des tiny because
1 belong to a special race.'
If it were said that it is because I have a soul that I have certain
n:sponsibilities or that I a m capable of good and evil -
then I should answer that having such responsibilities is part
of' what is meant by having a soul; it is not in any way a conse-
11111•11ce of it. And similarly with 'being capable of good and evil'.

II
'1'1 1 say 'God created the souls of men' means, I suppose , that the
~ll1d s or ll H' ll (II'(' d ivin e. C: f. Simone Weil's 'partie immortelle de
260 R eligion, Life and meaning

l'ame'. 3 It becomes confusing when it is suggest ed that this is the

explanation of the origin of some thing, in the way that embry-
ology gives a n explanation of the origin of something; as though
we might without ambiguity distinguish between those elements
in a human being which have had a natural origin a nd those
which have had a supernatural origin. There would be an ambi-
guity in the expression 'origin'; just as in the other way of putting
it there is an ambiguity in 'created'.
If we say that God created this man's soul, we have no clear
image of 'creation', unless perhaps that of breathing life into the
body (as it were, resuscitating).
We do not know what it would mean to say 'This soul must have
been created.' (Simone W eil's reference to 'la partie immortelle'
is to the 'part' which has not been created. I think that she would
say that everything which has been created must have come
about.)
To say that biology cannot give an account of the origin of a
huma n soul, can mean only tha t this question about the origin
of a human soul is not one which would have any meaning in
biology; it does not mean that there are certain problems which
a rise in biology and to which biology cannot find the answers.
Suppose:
'To say that man is made for Heaven is a way of expressing
one's conviction that God loves men; or that God loves each man
individually.'
I do not think that this conviction could be matter for argu-
ment, although it would be possible to ask why one felt unable
to believe anything of this sort; a nd perhaps in certain cases there
could be an explanation of why one did feel convinced.
The difficulty is that it would not be relevant - or would not
make sense - to say 'Perhaps God does not love men, but on the
whole it seems probable that he does.'
What Simone Weil says in her Prologue, for instance, seems to
be something different. 'I am sure that God cannot love me; and
ye t I cannot help hoping that perhaps he does.' 4 Certainly this is

3 'Im mortal part of the soul' (Ed .).

4 '.Je sais bie n qu'il ne m'aime pas . . . Et pourtant au fond de moi qu clqu<' chos1', 1111
ponit de moi-meme, ne peut pas s'empecher de pe nser e n lre mblant d(' pt:ur q 111· 1u·111
etre, malgre tout, ii m 'aime' La Connaissance surnalurelle (Paris: Galli111a1d, 1950) p. 111
(Ed.).
 That man is made for Heaven 261

not a case of insufficien t evidence or inconclusive evidence -

leading one perhaps to carry out further and more careful obser-
vations or experiments. And you would not ask for the opinions
of other people in the hope that they might have been in a better
position to observe than you were yourself. For one thing, she is
the only person who can know at all clear ly why she says that
she is sure that God cannot love he r; and it would be nonsense
for another person to tell her that she was misjudging the
situation.

Again and again it seems as though the central questions were

concerned with hope and d espair .
Or per haps: optimism and pe ssimism. Apparently Brentano
thought that this was a matter which would be discussed, and for
which there was a right decision and a wrong one.
The distinction between despair and hope. And perhaps espe-
cially the type of hope which prevents one from falling into
despair because of the inevitability of death. The suggestion that
death and evil are the two features of human existence which
seem to make it pointle ss. (Or : the two features of creation which
lead people t o p rotest against creation and against the Creator
of it.)
Fro m this point of view - emphasizing considerations of this
kind - 'That man is made for Heaven' may have been the expres-
sion of Christianity; although the need to believe in the divinity
of a particular person does not seem included.
But why are death and evil placed on the same foo ting?
Why should people have looked on death as the most terrible
/1unishment, inflic ted on h uman beings because of their sins or of
their sinfulness? ('The wages of sin is death.')
Contrast the view of Simone Weil, that d eath is the most
precious gift of God to men:5 Death would be the fulfilment of
I he hope of the eternal part of the soul; and the destruction of
the temporal or the bodily part of the soul (the flesh). (Just as
Simone Weil could see little of religious significance in the resur-
rc-rt ion of Christ, neither does she seem to have found any sense
or value in the idea of the resurrection of the body of each
lwli l·vcr.)

1 s.. ,. iii id. f(>ot 1101" p. 2 16 (F.d.) .

262 Religion, lift and meaning
I doubt whether most people at the present time are as cast
down by the thought of the inevitability of death as men of the
first centuries BC and AD may have been.
At the present time many seem - or profess - to be cast into
hopelessness and apathy by the thought that death will probably
come to them before they have had a chance to carry out the
kind of activities or to live the kind of life which they seem to
think they are entitled to live. (This notion of 'being entitled'
is a queer one.) And this is disgust or despair over the world of
men and over human affairs - not just a protest against God's
creation. [The nearest it could be to this would be as a protest
against History: withdrawing from History - whatever this could
mean.]
In this kind of discussion I think one ought to distinguish
between one's own death and the death ef some one else or of other
people.
People seem to feel sick at heart or bitter because they are to
be robbed of the enjoyments or of the achievements and the
opportunities which they would naturally look forward to.
But this 'looking forward', although it is a species of hope, is
not the sort of hope which preoccupied the Epicureans and the
early Christians .
Consider this:
'Well, suppose you imagined that you had no hope of Heaven.
What then? Would you be able to come to terms with - would
you be able to stand the situation in which you found yourself?'
Someone might even say, 'It is better not to hope for heaven.
It is better to learn to accept the evil as we ll as the good, and
to recognize that neither of them is more real than the other. It
is better to accept yourself - even with the recognition that you
are never going to be any better than what you are.'
I do not say that this is an argument. It is simply a statement,
which might be put forward in reply to the person who makes
that cry of hope 'That man is made for Heaven' - which seems
to be a rejection of man on earth (albeit with hope for man in
Heaven) . This is one criticism which has been passed on it.
Consider Simone Weil's remark that m en need someth ing j(n
which they can live. And consider in relation to this the ncgrn
in Faulkner's 'The Fable' - with his remark that 'I bears wit IH 'ss
to man.'
 That man is made for Heaven 263
W he ther men, with all the imperfections, may not be some-
thing that one can bear witness to. Whether human life - the
contemplation of it, the attempt to understand it - may not give
one, in some sense , something to live for. (Faulkner's own poem
for his epitaph.) 6
This has nothing to do with the kind of 'humanism' which
[aspires to] scientific method. (Which is pretty near to hell.)
Neither does it have anything to do with a sense of solidarity with
all men - of all standing together, or even the feeling that we
have all to help one another.
What made me inclined to agree that a man needs something
to live for, was the thought that a man has other needs than any
that can be provided for: that can be made the concern of rational
planning, etc. Of many men, we can say that what he needs is
not something which can be provided for him. Neither is it some-
thing which can best be provided by experts: or, for which experts
can design the best methods.
We might speak in this way when we are discussing human
beings in their relations to human institutions . I do not know
that it leads directly to any sort of religious conception. And in
particular the notion of 'God's plan' or of 'heavenly providence'
would seem to be as undesirable as the help of experts. No doubt
there are fundamental differences; and the task would be to bring
th ese out.

III
I should not want to be in H eaven if others were in Hell.
'Although we believe in Heaven, we do not believe in H ell.'
Is this possible?
" Towards the end of his biography of Faulkner, J oseph Blotner quotes the following
poe m, although he does not say that it is a poem for Faulkner's epitaph.
rr there be grief, let it be the rain
And this bu t silver grief, for grieving's sake,
And these green woods be dreaming here to wake
Within my heart, if I should rouse again.
But I shall sleep, for where is a ny death
While in these blue hills slumberous overhead
I'm rool eel 1ikc a tree? Though I be dead
Th is soil I h a1 holds 111c fas I will find me breath.
Q11ol!'d i11 F111tl~11n, /\ lliowaflhy (New York: Ra ndom
l l1111sc-. ID7 1), Vol. 11 , p. 1846 (Ed.).
264 R eligion, life and meaning

You think of H eaven, I suppose, as some state or condition

which me n may reach, and which is the fulfilment of wha t they
are . (Rather as we may say that the maturity of the plant is the
full development of a ny plant of that species, even though we
know that many die before they reach this.) If reaching H eaven
is not an achievem ent of some sort, then it loses its importance.
But to say that it is an achievement implies tha t some men fail
or do not reach it.
Cou ld one say that the continuation of creaturely existence
were H ell? (If so, why was Adam's d eath a punishment?) Or could
one say that simple extinction with death were Hell? Surely not .
Death as something which men dread - is this not going to
reach them in any case - Heaven or no Heaven? I a m not sure
what sort of differe nce et ernal life, or an 'after-life' is supposed
to make to this. (What is the significance of the qualification
'after'? Is it recognition tha t you are not using 'life' in the same
sense here? It must be a !ife in whi ch there were no se nse in
asking whether som eone / in this state/ is alive or d ead: it is a
!ife which cannot end in death, a nd which is not contrasted with
d eath. Whether it would be contrasted with anything inanimate,
I do not know. But the word life seems to have nothing of the
sense which it has in connexion with the earthly life and death
of human beings.
If someone speaks of 'salvation' as being saved from death, -
then normally this would be understood to mean tha t the man
has been kept alive, i.e. that he has not died. And we know how
to t ell whe ther a man has died or whether he has not.
Unless there were criteria for de termining whether a man be
dead or not - and unless they did d ecide - the n 'death' would
have no definite meaning, and the re would be nothing to show
that the man is dead and also that he is still alive. And one of
the things which you would mean in saying that he is alive, is
that he is not dead (although the re may have been a mistaken
report that he was).
If someone should say that you never really live until you are
dead - then 'live' here means something radically and fund a-
mentally different from 'live' in the ordinary sense. (If I a111
charged with th e murder of someone who has been fou nd dead ,
then it will not help me to plead that the man is sti ll alive. U nl<-ss
I can produce him in court.)
 That man is made far H eaven 265
. I do not say that. ther e can be no sense in speaking of e ternal
life or of an afterlife. But I hardly understand wha t this se nse
m.ay be; and .it is importan~ not to imagine that it is in keeping
with the ordma~y use of 'life' and 'death'. This may be impor-
ta~t al~o for trymg to unde rstand what is meant by the fulfilment
wh~ch .1s supposed to be possible only in heavenly existence _
which is some sort of existence of something or other.
!t is pa~ticularly difficult when someone says that a heavenly
existence is wh~t men - or men of good wilJ - aspir e to. ('A heav-
enly r~ce aw~its . thy zeal .. .') On this view, we aspire to
so~ ethmg which is cut off from our strivings. It is something to
which our efforts cannot bring us: which we can reach only by
the grace of God and by a miracle.
If one meant something like Spinoza's 'freedom from the
affe cts' in the present life, the n one would be talking about some-
thing differe nt.
Woul.d it. be possible to speak of H eaven (which men may reach,
and which IS the fulfilment of wha t they are) without holding that
some will be in Hell?
[This is comme nt on: 'I should not want to be in Heaven if
others were in H ell .' The conception of 'the elect'. The godly and
the ungodly, etc.]
If reaching heaven is not an achievement of som e sort then it
does not seem very important. '
And to say it is an achievement implies that some fail or d o
not reach it.
'Heaven' has something to do with divine condition or divine
C" xist ence .

Otherwise id~a .of a be tter kind of extreme than creaturely

existence . This Is not the same as being more fortunate or being
better ojf.

Probably has something to do with relation to time. But more

especially with being able to look on the face of God and not
die. (This latter is perhaps the source of 'fear of the Good ' of
which Ki erkegaard and Simone Weil speak.)
There is. so me th.ing .not only unsatisfactory but also incomplete
:ihoul ex iste ncein t 11ne or ex iste nce as a hu man being.

( Rol wrt Frost: ' I 1:il<t· 111 y i11rn1npkt c ness with th e rest'.)
266 Religion, life and meaning
v
The one reason why I dislike the humanism of Barbara Wootton
or Margaret Knight, is that this includes no sort of belief in
man or in mankind. It is all concerned with healthy functioning;
with what can be achieved in the way of eliminating obvious
forms of disease and obvious forms of 'unhappiness' or 'mal-
adjustment' or whatever it be that these social scientists do
concern themselves with. But there is no sort of belief involved;
there is no more belief in man in this sort of regulation of human
life than there is belief in wheat on the part of the botanical
geneticist.
There is a servility to the formulae, the methods - or rather
the ritual - of scientists and this is considered more important
than any nobility in the life of any individual.
Parallel with this, Barbara Wootton and those who think
with her seem to show no sense or appreciation of the loss of
faith in man. The general t endency to think that no human
being is other than worthless - and in this way to think that human
life is worthless: not worth sacrificing one's life for, for instance.

If we say 'The presence of Christ is our salvation', then 'salva-

tion' may mean 'deliverance from evil'. To be in the presence of,
and to be able to contemplate, anything pure: an experience
which we may find in the contemplation of natural beauty; also
in created beauty in the arts; and in the contemplation of human
nobility and saintliness in the lives of any persons where that has
appeared.
Through contemplation of this sort, we may in some ~easurc.
- though it does not happen all at once - become purified of
double-mindedness: the kind of double-mindedness that there is
in practically all the evil that we do, and that belongs to sufferin g-
when this is itself evil.
Even when, to begin with, there is something evil and degrading
that we bring to our contemplation of beauty or of purity of spi riI ,
this is gradually eliminated if the contemplation per sists: if W('
are able to persist in it. (Which, by the way, is a big if )
This is a matter that belongs to the que stion of the se nse, I Iii'
importance and the character of education. And cs pcrinll y 111
university studies.
 That man is made for H eaven 267
In relation to the sacraments: 'La beaute est quelque chose qui
se mange. ,7 .
If we think of this purification as personal salva tion, we should
emphasize also that it takes one away from preoccupation with
personal considerations, by widening the horizon. (Think of how
one may be brought to bear w.ith grief.) By fre eing one from t he
Einengung des Horizonts. 8 So that the thought of personal grat-
ification or personal happiness becomes unimportant or is lost.
The personal d emands are weakened or lost or disregarded. What
is important is the beau ty that there is; the holiness or the
nobility that there is.
If we can believe that ther e is one human life that is not worth-
less then it is possible for others of us to show nobility of spirit.
The implication seems to be that where you cannot believe this,
then not only can you not see any worth in the lives of othe r
people, but you are robbed of any sense in any sort of no?ility or
heroism in your own life. (This is connected with the pomt that
one must believe that it is worth sacrificing one's life for human
beings: that in the lives of human beings there can be some thing
which is worth every sacrifice.)
One 's 'belief' (being able to believe), one 's recognition that
not everything is contemptible, depends upon one's belief in
other people (in at least one human life which is not worth-
less).
I do not think this commits one to saying 'faith in h uman
nature', which can be misleading and may seem to support 'me ta-
physical' conclusion about 'solidarity with all mankind': 'the lot
of man', 'in virtue of being a man' and so on.
How is this matter of faith in man connected with a discussion
of death or of attitudes towa rds death? and so with the q uestion
of 'after-life'?
The idea of a life that is worthy of man. Or of a destiny tha t
is worthy of man. That it would be blasphemy to suppose that
any divine being would have made a creature like man (:-Vhich
111 a n did he make?) and have consigned him to the same kmd of
rnd as is awarded to cabbages. (Does this imply that it would
have se nse to say 'Men are be tter than cabbages'?)

7 ' llc-:111 1y is somdhing tha( consumes itself' (Ed.) .

11 ' l.i111 ils ol 1111· horizon' (Ed.) .
268 Religion, life and meaning
Again and again it seems as though the central questions were
concerned with hope and despair.
H ere the discussion of faith in man or the loss of faith in human
beings does enter.
But in this context does 'hope' mean some sort of belief abou t
one's destiny? This notion of destiny itse lf is anything but clear.
I should agree that what makes it possible for people to show
nobility is not a confidence of success in their under takings. It is
rather the conviction that it is worth sacrificing oneself for men
or for human lives.
That men are wort h showing nobility far .
(I ought to discuss this conception of nobility, or at least give
several examples of it.)
When we admire someone for his selfless dedication to a nything
whatever - whether it be a r aid on the enemy lines to get
anchovies, for the sake of showing that the standards and the
actions of a 'gentle man' do have a place in the sort of milita ry activ-
ities we are carrying on: that even in these circumstances, it has
se nse to bear in mind what me n are, and the kind of conduct which
is owed to them or which is worthy of them; or whether it be the
dedication of someone to painting or to music or to science - in
these 'cultural' works there is always in some sense the assump-
tion of an audience; just as there is the hope that the paintings I
am producing or the r esearches I a m carrying out will fructify and
will be joined by the work of others. This notion of a c ulture in
which one's work is taking place is importa nt. And with it goes the
distinction betwe en culture and philistinism: the idea of the pros-
titution or the degradation of one's a rt or one's science.
Wha tever else 'nobility' means, it means a t least tha t the action
is free from self-seeking or from ulterior motives .
In a great many ways, the emphasis on 'equality' and on
'equality of esteem' discourages a ny sense of nobility or any
perception of it. We are discouraged from paying any regard to
exce llence. We a re d iscouraged from thinking tha t an ything is
important except comfarts and security . These a re wha t we may try
to m ake equal. (A university education is something like a car.
No ma n should be without one if he wants one.)
If you do say tha t God could not have created man fo r an
unworthy e nd, you ar e raising the quest ion of how lo inte rpre t
that sta tement - tha t God created ma n.
 That man is made far Heaven 269
Faulkner's discussion is importa nt because it is prior to the
question whethe r one is a ble to say 'God created man' or whether
one is not.
It is possible to say 'There is at least one human being that is
not worthless', withou t saying that human beings are created by
God (or: This human being was cr eated by God).
'Man was made for a different sort of existe nce than this
earthly existence.' This idea of diffe rent sorts of existence is diffi-
cult, if it has m uch meaning at all. It means that you are speaking
of different sorts of objects ('thing' will have a different meaning
if 'existence' does) . So that what we ar e calling m en, in our daily
lives, is something quite different from what would be called men
in H eaven. I suppose this is pa rt of the reason for speaking of
men before the Judgemen t with 'transfigured' bodies.
You may speak of a miserable existence, or an easy existence
or an eventful existence or a glorious one; and here you are distin-
guishing the lives and the circumstances of people who are born
a nd die on earth. But heavenly existence is supposed to be some-
thing differen t from a ny of these. It is so little comparable with
those 'different forms of existence' that we do not know wha t the
reference to it as 'better' might mean. It is not something which
might (even conceivably) be achieved through the progressive
perfecting or improvemen t of lives or of human qualities as we
know them .
'Surely the human race cannot have been cr eated for no
purpose. You cannot imagine that it is just a sort of senseless
freak. '
We might answer: is tha t any hard er to believe, than it is to
believe that the huma n race was created for a purpose? (or: that
in 'huma n history' ther e is anything which you could call a
purpose?)
If man was made for Heaven - and this is supposed to be a
holy and sain tly state - then why put him into Creation? into the
sort of exis tence which for the great number works so heavily
a,i:ainst holiness? (Plato's 'necessity' a nd the corruption of t he best
natures .)
Put in its most vulgar fo rm, the Motion might read:
'Accept this life as you might accept a long and painful medical
rnn-, or a painful and exha usting surgery - because you fee l so
1111wli lw tt <'r nf'11·1warcls.'
270 Religion, life and meaning
In this case, he who says that man was made for Heaven would
be agreeing that those people are right who find nothing of value
in the present life, or nothing of value in human beings in their
present condition.

It is late in the day to suppose that I shall ever be better at

mastering or avoiding my more contemptible faults; or that they
will ever become any less loathsome. If I should ask myself, 'Were
it better that I had never lived?', then very likely I should say
'yes' .9 If nonetheless I say that I will live on, this is not because
I see anything of value in irry existence . It is because I have seen
people whose lives I admire; so that I feel 'If I can manage to do
something (that would help at all to keep that spirit alive), then
there would be sense in this: it would be worth bearing with all
that I abhor.'
I do not look to any destiny which 1s quite unlike anything
I have seen in the lives of men here.
No thought of men's destiny which is quite unlike anything I
have seen in the lives of men here.
No thought of men's destiny would make me think it worth
sacrificing my life for this man or for that (and it may be someone
I have never see n) ; nor make me wish to live.
I may admire the patience or the courage or the compassion
of those who do hope for H eaven; and I may recognize that their
hope is important in their bearing. But it is still for wha t they
are and what they believe, not for what awaits them, that I raise
my hand (hat?) .

VI
There is something queer in the idea of a 'm etaphysical revolt';
just as there is (or would be) in the idea of a metaphysical accep-
tance or metaphysical obedience . This needs to be emphasized,
because obedience to the will of God is supposed to be something
very different from obedience to the will of any earthly power. It
is for this reason that Simone Weil can say that obedience to tlw
will of God does not include any sort of servility.

9 But see Essay 13, p. 16 l f. (Ed.).

 That man is made for Heaven 271
P erhaps there would be similar remarks to be made about a
metaphysical hope.
And similarly of a metaphysical despair. This is wh y the concep-
tion of 'the lot of man' or 'the condition of man' is so difficult to
grasp. As is the idea of revolting against the condition of man,
where this is a metaphysical revolt.
This is connected with the notion of 'man's place in the world'.
Some would say that the idea of the condition of man is involved
in the idea of tragedy - at least as tragedy was conceived by the
Greeks.
This is also the question of the r elation of men to their destiny.
(It has been said that if you rule out the idea of destiny, then
you can think of human existence only as an affair of chance or
accident.)
It is for this kind of reason that Wittgenstein said that his
philosophy leaves no room for tragedy or for anything like an
epic. Perhaps because of the relativity (which he has to recog-
nize) in judgements. It looks as though at the time when he made
that remark he seems to have thought that those who speak of
tragedy - or at any rate those who speak of tragedies as actually
occurring - were subj ect to some sort of delusion: a delusion which
philosophical or logical analysis would dissolve.
P erhaps one need no t speak of tragedy; perhaps one could raise
the same question in terms of pessimism and optimism. This
is what Wittgenstein does in the Tractatus when he speaks of
'die Welt der Glilcklichen und die W elt der U nglilcklichen'. 10 In
this he is bringing in the idea (which is difficult) of 'die Grenze
der Welt ' and of 'die Grenze der Sprache'. This is connected with
the idea of 'what can be said' and of intelligibility. (What cannot be
said, what cannot be thought - darilber milssen wir schweigen.)
But arry r eference to 'die Welt' in this connexion - where I suppose
'die Welt' is what makes it possible for marks or sounds to have
meaning - this suggests that the understanding of the happy
per son is different from the understanding of the unhappy: that
in some way, which he does not discuss, the same statements
which were concerned with the same Sehverhalten 11 would belong
lo a differen t language - 'language' - in the unders tanding of

10 'Tiu· world of tll(' happy a nd the world of the unhappy' (Ed.).

11 'W11y of ~r 1 · i 11 1-1, p1· 1c·1·p111al rn11duc1' (P.d.).
272 R eligion, life and meaning

the happy pe rson and in the under st anding of the unhappy one.
This would suggest tha t they can understand one a nother only to
a limited exte nt: less competen tly than they might understand a
third person of the same view of the world as themselves: but
this is not clear.
Might we say: the re can be no such thing as tragedy if
you are speaking in purely huma n terms. The tragedy must
have some significance over and above the fat e of this pa rtic-
ular individual. It might show some thing about the r elation
of this individual to divine or cosmic forces. Call it 'fate ' or
'destiny'.
Following the lot or the pattern which belongs to the lot of
man.
Cf. Wittgenstein's discussion of Freud's 'mythology', a nd
especially wha t he says about the 'Wiederholungs trieb'. 12 (I see
my distasteful a nd abominable actions as the tr aversion of a
course tha t is in the nature of things .)
I suppose there would be somewha t simila r difficulties with the
ideas of the 'end of the world' a nd wit h the idea of 'the divine
judge ment'.
T he re mark tha t ma n is mad e for H eaven belongs with the
notion that a ma n's life has some sor t of cosmic or world signif-
icance.
P erha ps the same is true of the ideas of 'Divine Providence'
a nd of 'd oing God 's will'.
Similarly, of course, when Simone Weil speaks of two kind s of
action in the world: that of gravity a nd tha t of divine grace .
Or suppose someone said t hat the re is some sort of cosmic
significance in life and in d eath - especially in d eath . Perhaps
this is ge tting neare r to the heart of the ma tter, because of the
idea that 'die W elt und das Leben sind eins'; 13 and because of
the sorts of r eflexion tha t do ce n tre round solipsism.
Simone Weil under stood death as a 'precious gift from God to
men '.
T here a re difficulties in the phrase 'mad e for' - when it is
said that ma n is made for H eaven: introducing some idea of
God 's purpose, pla n, in tention. How close d oes this use of thcst·

12 'Compulsion to do the sam e again' (Ed .).

13 'The world a nd life arc onl' ' (Ed.)
 That man is made for H eaven 273
expressions come to their use when we speak of human plans a nd
purposes a nd intentions?
It is being said tha t things which are not and cannot be obj ects
of huma n creation are obj ects of divine creation. Here 'cr eation'
is being used in a differen t way. And the idea of the ordering of
parts, events, proj ects e tc. in accorda nce with wha t is being
created must be differen t as well.
If we say 'This is a propeller ' we a re saying wha t it is mad e
for. If we say 'This is a n oak tree' ther e is nothing of this kind .
Generally we should not say tha t a n oak tree has been mad e,
neither should we know wha t was meant by this: and so we should
not understa nd the question wha t it was made for.
Because we can and do say tha t houses a re mad e, we can not
say tha t they grow. Whereas we should say (if the confusion did
arise) tha t oak trees a re not made: they grow.
Gra n ting that in bota ny a nd in agriculture pla nts a re bred fo r
special purposes, and animals too - still, even supposing that some
men breed other huma n beings for one purpose or another, it
would make no sense to ask wha t man is bred for. 'Man' is not bred
at all , in tha t sense . (The common use of the phrase 'The creation
of man' is part of wha t m akes it difficult to see how 'cr eation' is
being used.) We could ask only wha t these particular huma n beings
were bred for; a nd this is not a ques tion which would be relevant
to the discussion of divine creation or divine p rovide nce.
One of the difficulties with 'm an is made for Heave n' is the
ge ne rality of tha t term and the vagueness of it. We do not know
whe ther the person who asserts it would want to hold tha t there
is a personal immortality. Even if Simone Weil had spoken in
some sense of the immortality of human beings, she would
certainly not have spoken of a personal one.
If you do not hold to some view of per sonal immortality, then
I he idea of d ivine judgement is lost; and so is the kind of cos mic
sig nificance which human life may be sup posed to have .
Wha t is the a ttitude of Tolstoy in The K ingdom of God is within
)I() // ?

IDo those who speak of 'tra nscending one's selr - or of 'self-

1ransce ndence'?? - mean just wha t, e.g. Simone Weil does whe n
-. hr speaks o f love and of 'attention' as taking a man out of
hi111 s<"lf? In thi s sC' nsc, th e po int see ms to be tha t one ceases to
lw 111·1·0\T11pi1·d witl1111 H· 's ow11 <·o n n ·rn - 'Tfow can I ge t this or
274 Religion, life and meaning
that?' What is going to happen to me?' etc. Conferre 'the post-
poning of personal considerations, and devotion to the cause.
But then I think it natural to say that a man 'realizes himselr
by doing this; or that he 'finds his true being there'.] 14
What is meant by a man's 'relation a son destin'?
'That man was made for H eaven.' ('To know thy God and copy
him.')
The idea of 'des tin'. E.g. being at the mercy of violence.
The idea of 'the meaning of life' (or: 'whether there is any
meaning in life'). [Might one say that 'man is made for H eaven'
would be the expression of someone who had found a meaning
in life?]
But this is not something which can be discussed. I do not see
how people could argue on the question of whether there be a
m eaning in !ife.
'Man is of the earth, earthly.' 'Made of earth and returning
to it.' [The q uestion cannot be one about what happens to
people.]
It has something to do with the point of human existence. (And
the generality - 'human', not 'nry' is part of the trouble), or with
the question of the terms in which you can measure or understand
human existence.
The ques tion of what events in human lives are important: la
condition humaine. You cannot give an account of this (of what?)
without recognizing that a sense of good and evil is important in
human life.
The emptiness of trying to discuss different occupations,
different ways of living, different ambitions, etc., in terms of
'biological advantages': and this possibly means that this is not a
question for a scientific discussion or a scientific account.
Emptiness of discussion in terms of 'happiness'.
'Telle est la condition humaine.'
'Such is the lot of man! Reformers who are trying to 'improve'
or 'raise' the lot of man. Fortschritt. Popper. 'Raising our-
selves above the beasts.' Marxism: 'Man becoming master of his
destiny.'
Those who say 'man is made for heaven' may be rejecting any
such [faith] trust in 'the future'. ['The future is made of the sam<·

14 Cf. A in 'Religion, life and meaning: A and B' in Essay 14 (Ed.).

 That man is made for Heaven 275
material as the present.'] [Vide 'Pensees sans ordre sur !'amour
de Dieu. '] 15
So far, this would leave the statement entirely negative.
The importance of the idea of achievement. Whether many could
tolerate a life in which the labours were that of Sisyphus.
But here again - is the issue one of fact? Would it be relevant
to argue, for example: 'Since everything - and all human life -
on the earth will pass away, perish - since there cannot be any
lasting achievement here, therefore we must believe in some 'non-
earthly' achievement which does not pass away?'
This would be a mixed and confused sort of argument.
'Whether one achieves this goal does not matter greatly. What
matters is the road you t ake.'
[In other words: 'There is no real distinction between "goal"
and "road".']
'But all this will pass. What will not pass is what you do to
your soul.'
I would agree that this is saying something very important, and
it was a stupid misunderstanding to accuse the speaker of 'super-
stition '.
In such circumstances it is wonderful to be able to say some-
! hing like that. ['In such circumstances' - because in other
circumstances the statement would be incongruous and shocking.]
Does this mean that: 'In order to be able to say this you have
l o believe that a man has an immortal soul'? But why say 'in order
lo'? What is the difference between the belief in an immortal
~ou l, and that statement about what will not pass' - i. e. whose
iinportance [and thus realiry] is not effected by what does pass.
Simone Weil's question of whether there is 'une partie eter-
11l'lle de mon arne' 16 which is not at the mercy of (cannot be
.1rbitrarily destroyed by) n'importe qui. 17
If someone said 'Man is made for Heaven' - and if this were
1 11-arly the expression of some personal conviction of his - then

I shou ld (I hope) feel deep respect for him.

But not if he went on to say 'and therefore Marxism (e.g.) is
\\I <>11g'. Marxism can be cri ticized in various ways. But these

1
~ Paris: Gallimard, 1962 (Ed.).
lh 'An 1·11·rn1il pnrt of my soul' (Ed.).
11 'A11y11111·' (l•:d.).
276 Religion, life and meaning
criticisms do not depend on the proposition that man is made for
Heaven, nor do they commit one to it.
[I do not think of his sense to speak of anything as committing
him to that proposition: as though there might be arguments or
proofs to show it. What were meant by showing it? If you could do
this, then the statement would lack its value - would no longer
call forth respect - as an expression of personal conviction.
I am not speaking of amor fati - accepting my lot, taking what
is coming. Nor: accepting what I am, because God has made me,
and my situation, because God has placed me in it.
All these views are an expression of bitterness, without admi-
ration for anything there is.
For you, all is simple. Where there is a will, there is a way. So
if he did not make things exist, it is because he did not want to
make things easier. So he is heartless, he is a monster, etc.
It is a wonderful principle.
Hamlet should have pulled himself together.
Jesus should have found a way of convincing the Pharisees.
Samson should have found a hair tonic.
 PART THREE

f?_eligion and morality

 ESSAY EIGHTEEN

Living with oneself

JI

Examples, whether they ar e serious or less so, remind me that I

do not grow better, and that I probably never shall. I shall go on
with the sort of shoddiness that I have and that I am. And then
the danger is, either I become exasperated with myself - and
that not only d rives me to do stupid things, but what is even
worse, it keeps me from trying to do things which I still might.
Or else I try to keep from exasperation by suggesting to myself
that what I a m is r eally not so bad, or that I shall improve even-
tually and so these present slips should not be too discouraging.
I shall not improve, I know that. And this kind of deception or
smugness is, if anything, wor se than the exasperation. What is
difficult is to recognize that wha t I am really is so bad, and at
the same time to accept this and not become divided on it. That
is part of what there is, a nd that is what I am, and I am here;
and now what can I do? But I cannot ask 'And now, what can I
do?' unless I can r eally accept that othe r with both hands.
Accept it, for all that I recognize its vileness. And that is what I
often find difficult. Accept it - which cannot mean 'be comfort-
ably content wi th it'. But it does mean recognizing that is how
things are, a nd that this is the way I must go. And without exas-
per a tion - perhaps even wit h peace of mind, sometimes; not
because I have forgotten what I am, but beca use I can also look
about me, a nd because there are still things I can do. I say I find
it hard to r each this, but I think it is possible.

1 Undated. Ea rlier than any materia l in the collection which has a date. T he view
cxprc•sst·d cont rasls wi th the re ligious views discussed in the second section. Compa re
tlw cn111 rnsts i11 l•:ss11)' l!J (E,1.) .

279
280 Religion and morality
It may be that this is what is sometimes meant by 'not having
faith in oneself'. Which would not mean faith tha t one will be
able to overcome one's faults and achieve fine things ('I can,
because I ought'). You would have to think life was pre tty simple,
to believe that. Some people overcome some of their fault s, but
I guess a lot of people keep the fault s t hey have and develop
worse ones. And in spite of that - in spite of the fact that I may
know I am going to grow worse - one can still speak of not losing
faith in oneself. I do not find it easy to m ake that clear, but I do
not think it is just e mpty either.
I suppose this is connected in some ways with what some people
called a 'faith in Man' - although in more funda mental ways it
is differe nt, just because it is a personal proble m as that is not.
Or maybe it is a personal problem , too, but then of a different
kind. But I suppose the sense of that phrase - 'faith in Man' -
has cha nged almost more than the other.
Whe n people use it now, I do not think they mean anything
like what the 'Enlightenment' people may have meant, a nd still
less do they mean what was meant by Comte and others in the
nineteenth century. At that time people were occupied with 'faith
in huma n progress' and in 'the perfectibility of man'. But I' do not
believe that that would mean much to anybody .now; partly
because we have seen where progress leads us, arid we are not
thrilled by the thought of more of it; pa rtly far other reasons.
Anyway, the problem that worries peopl~now, I think, is not
whether man is perfectible, and whether we are capable of orga-
nizing our reso urces to that end. What troubles people is the
problem of what to make of - what attitude to adopt towards -
human existe nce altogether. Or towards Ma n. 'Man', notice, not
'Socie ty'. Ma n with a big M, certainly, a nd it does not mean 'the
Individual', or anything like that. But I have my doubts whether
many people are v~ry deeply interested in 'Society' or in 'for ms
of social organiza:fion', now. And I suppose this is because th ey
recognize that although certainly some forms of society are much
worse than others, still none of them seems to make any diffe r-
ence to the really fundame ntal issues. And people do not any
longer believe that when once we have comple ted the nex t or
final stage of human evolut ion, everything will be a ll ri ghl.
Things will not be all right. They may ge l bette r for a t im c 0 1'
they may get worse for a tim e - th a t is anyon e's guess hut t IH·y
 Living with oneself 28 1
will not be all right. We used to think that our evils were tran-
sitory. Enlightenment, science, progress - science in Society - and
we shall gradually be rid of them. Well, if we do not believe that
- and I think hardly anyone does now - then the question of what
to make of human existence, and the ques tion of faith in Man,
~ay lo.ok different. I do not mean t hat everyone is troubled by
It. I thmk that, for many, the result of this situation is a growing
indiffer ence to things, a more and more superficial attitude
towards anything that is done, and an enormously growing philis-
tinism. That is on the one side, and that side includes most
people, I guess. But the question of acceptance or r evolt against
human existence, and the question of faith in Man, is agitating
a conside rable number of people, all the same. I say 'the ques-
tion', but of course it is really understood in different ways by
different people. Still, I think they do have important points in
common.
May I emphasize again that I think it does have very impor-
tant marks in common with the question of faith in oneself, as I
have called it? We know that men will not become wiser, just as
we know that men will not be perfected. (We thought that 'we'
might perfect them, until someone discovered that 'we', the
knowledgeable perfectors, were not so hot ourselves.) There will
always be colossal folly, and there will always be vileness and
pettiness and cruelty, especially in those the people trust. Well,
and so what? This difficulty may be r esponsible for some of the
re turn to religion a t the present day, bu t for some reason I do
not think that this will provide people with a very solid or lasting
answer. But there may be sense in speaking of a faith in Man,
I' Ve n if you mean nothing like perfectibility or salvation.

II2

Whe the r morality is possible without religion. What sort of ques-

t ion is this? Whether any men have led admirable lives withou t
lwing religious; whether there can be 'grounds of conscience'
which do not derive from injunctions - the will of God - in some
1 c·lig-ion ; Whether there is something in 'the recognition of oblig-
.11 ion s' which impli es belief in God; Whether there can be a ny

1
F11>111 llO IC' N clnlc•cl 7 J11ly 1955 (Ed.).
282 Religion and moraliry
justifications of moral injunctions (of a particular morality) a par t
from the will or p urpose of God.
Whe ther r eligion is possible witho ut morality. Whet her a man
might be since rely religious a nd yet be q uite indifferent to
whether decisions he made were decent or foul; Whether a man
migh t be 'morally weak' a nd still be religious. Probably we'd say:
yes. W hether a man migh t be religious and yet consist ently mean,
greedy, tyra nnical, cruel. What is the connexion be tween ' being
religious' and 'being holy' or ' being saintly'? Whether being reli-
gious implies living a practical kind of life .
H er e part of the trouble see ms to be in the notion of 'being
religious'. For this is a differen t q uestion from the question
concerning the nature of faith or religious belief. T he notion of
a religious person. A pe rson in whose life religious belief or faith
is extre mely importa nt; a life of devotion; a life d evoted to doing
God's will. Then a religious life as contrasted with a life of sin;
or at a ny ra te contrasted wit h a life of unrepentan t sin.
The idea tha t there can be no deep morality which is not
r eligious. H ere we have distinctions between diffe rent sorts of
morality. This may connect in som e ways with P aul's point a bout
the law and grace and repen tance a nd faith. Moral seriousness
as implying recognition of failings; so perha ps of sinfulness.
So it might be suggested that moral seriousness implies longing
for salvation. T his is the general idea tha t concern abou t morality
leads to concern abou t religion. (Though da nger of assu ming that
it does if you assume it ought to.)
For Paul, r eligion would be essentially con nected with morality,
because it is essentially connected with sin and with salvation (this
la t ter being not a ttainable by morality alone. Grace is extended to
sinners - if they have faith - not as a reward for merit; in which
la tter case morality could be demanded as a right).
Slightly obscur e in his position what the value of morality is;
what is the value of 'works'. Partly because in r eference to things
like circumcision he seem s to ma ke 'works' almost a matter of'
ritual observance . And rituals a re perfor med because of the merit
they bring, or the absolution t hey effect, I suppose. T his may be
the sort of external view of morality which Jesus opposed; and,
perhaps in a different way, Socrates d id too. W ha t is the pos it ion
of love here? 'Love is the fulfi lling of the law.' Seems to be a soi t
of general benevolence.
 L iving with oneself 283
. Galatians II, 21: 'I do not frustrate the grace of God; for if
righteousness came by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.'
Galatians III, 23, 25: 'But before faith came we were kept under
the law, shut up into the faith which should afterwards be
revealed. _Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us
unto Chnst, that we might be justifi ed by faith. But after that
faith is come we are no longer under a schoolmaster.'
I t is n?t so much a question of whether I shall get better, or
how I migh t get better. It is a question of what I ought to do
now - of where I should walk. I would accept a nything as penance:
I would walk in that, in that way. Only that I may not pretend
to myself, nor to other men either, that I am what I am not.
Whether there is p ride and vanity in my wish to resign, too ('to
make a gest ur e') . 3 But I do not thin k it is only tha t.
I suppose what I am seeking is grace with God. Trust in God's
mercy. The importance of avoiding pride. Trying to find how I
may se~ve God. But how? Not in every walk, not in every
occupation would that be possible, for certain sorts of sinners. I
suppose that may be the sense of penance.
Could bear perhaps eve n increasing depravity, increasing vile-
ness, so I know I am not abandoned by God (cf. the difference
between Hell as pu nishment and the pact with the Devil.) The
impor tance of punish ments and penance - to recognize that the
vileness is really vile.
T he differ ence between suffering and sickness unto death.
Suffe ring may even be welcomed. Sickness unto death - a ban-
doned by God! A sinner can be a servant of God. (Is this peculia r
lo Christianity?) And yet at the same time recognize his despi-
cabl~ character as a sinner (contra Phariseeism). T hinking that
one is better than other men because one worships God - that is
j ust what is false . Divine grace does not confer any merit on one.
And the sinner who is saved is no less sinful, no less vile than
the one who is not . Not pride in being a servant of God. (This is
I he point of 'totally d epraved' I suppose: everyth ing lies in God's
Ill e rcy.)
There must be some way still for me to walk and to serve God.
I 11secl sometimes to say (and, I think, believe) that it would have
hc<·n bette r if l had never lived. I now think that is an unholy
1
T lu·11· wc·11· 111.111)' "" .1sio11s wlw11 Rh1·c•s s1niggle-cl wi1 h Lh(' qurs1 ion of whether he
sho11 lcl 11-.si1-1 11 1111111 Ids 1rnd1i111-1 p11~ 1 (J•:c l. ).
284 Religion and morality
and terrible thing to say.4 But how to reconcile this conviction with
the realization that I always go on growing more depraved and
causing harm to others - I do not easily understand. It must mean:
even in this, then, there is some way in which I can serve God. And
yet when I think of the vileness of what I have done - there was
certainly no service of God in that. I must find some way of serv-
ing God appropriate to one who has shown that vileness.
In one sense, there would be something wrong if one were
not discontented. On the other hand, I am constantly giving way to
a discontent with myself which amounts to thinking that what
I am - my existence, my life - is important, in a way in which it
certainly is not (least of all when I am thinking along those lines).
One of the big difficulties - and you mention it when you ask
'How does one save and cleanse oneself?' - is tha t one is never
able to 'start a new page' . (I have never understood such passages
as: 'Though my sins be as scarle t ... Wash me and I shall be
whiter than snow' ... I unde rstand something of what is meant, I
think . But I do not know what the writers meant when they used
just this language. And when contemporary writers or speakers
suggest that you can get rid of the evil your life has had and still
has, this seems to me a deep misunderstanding of 'evil'. This is
the kind of problem which comes up when one tries to see the
relations between the 'm ental illness' which is treated by psychi-
atry, and evil or sin - which cannot be 'cured' in that way. When
I say 'cannot be', I mean that it makes no sense to talk in that
way. In some way St Peter was profoundly changed after Christ's
Passion and Resurrection. Since I do not understand the concep-
tion of the Resurrection, I have thought of what brought the
change particularly in his 'denial' of C hrist during the trial. Peter
knew the depth of the evil in him as he had not known this before.
But if one says - a nd if he said (though I do not think he did)
- that he had become a new ma n, this was not because he had
been cured of the evil, as a schizophrenic might be cured of his
delusions. I feel rather like saying that he carried the evil differ-
ently. And he was a saint, as we are not, so this stood out
overpoweringly. But he was a much deeper man, just because h('
had not had the evil eradicated. I think the traditional story or
his insistence that he be crucified head downwards - a nd the

'1 cf. Essay 13, pp. 16 l f. and Essay 17, p. 270 (Eel.).
 L iving with oneself 285
reason he gave - is marvellous. But it is of a piece with the much
earlier remark: 'Depart from me, 0 Lord, for I am a sinful man.'
The schizophre nic who has been cured may say, rightly, 'I am
well now.' No one who had gone through what Peter did could
say, 'I am free from sin now'; still less: 'I no longer have to carry
the sins of my past.'

III 5
The curious attempt to show that the teaching of Jesus was
rational, in some such way as that could be said of the teachings
of some e mpirical science (connecting this perhaps with the idea
that what J esus taught was the supreme truth - as though this
were comparable to the truth of empirical science, only more so;
as though it were the truth to which empirical science can attain
only imperfectly) . T his sort of view is associated with J esus'
re mark that whoever shall live by his words will see that they are
from God. The suggestion of all this seems to be that J esus is
telling us that this is the way to live, and that you can see that
for yourself. The trouble then is that this should be something
which might have been found out independently, and without the
personal teaching ofJesus at all. That is certainly what we require
of the teachings of empirical science, a nd that is why the a ppeal
to divine reve lation is mea ningless there. But it is just as mean-
ingless to ascribe the other sort of teaching to Jesus.
This m a tter of the different cha ract er of religious teaching is
connected with the different character of religious language, or
be tter: the different grammar of religious language. And it is
connected in that way with the different sense of 'truth' in reli-
gion; and so also with the different sense of 'reality'. It sometim es
helps one to see this if we call a ttention to the different grammar
of discussions in moral matters - the different conception of a
reason there for instance, of evidence in favour a nd against, and
so on.
The possibility of supernatural revelation is connected with the
~pccia l position of the teacher in religion; a nd so, I suppose, with
t 11(• conception of a holy man or man of God, and perhaps wit h
in spi ration.

1
' F111111 .1 1111111m1•11pl cl 11 1 rd () Mny I!).')(j (Ed.).
286 Religion and morality
It is also connected with the very difficult conception offollowing
J esus, - or, I suppose, following any religious teacher. That is
something very different from acce pting the theory of anyone in
science or in questions of historical research. It is also why the
notion of an expert is foreign to religion . But I think it is also why
it is nonsense to talk about the rational justification of religious
beliefs .
T he first point is that following J esus might be said to be
keeping his commandments; but it also might be said to be trying
to live as he lived. But this latter must include in some way
what was the culmination and the sense or point of the life of
J esus, namely the Passion and the Crucifixion. It is in this
connexion that Jesus' emphasis on the need for anyone who would
follow him to 'take up the cross' would come in. And I do not
know how that can be understood except in terms of the Eucharist
- the conception of the Holy Communion as a sacrifice, and as
the repetition of the sacrifice of J esus on the cross. But this is
all getting right away from anything like empirical following; or
from anything like accepting the teachfr1g that might be met in
that spher e. It is a wholly religious conception and it cannot be
understood in any other context.
Compare the conception of 'being told something, and believ-
ing it'. That is quite a different game here. And that is one
reason why 'believing it' must be under stood so differently here.
It is one r eason why it would be so absurd to speak of belief in
God as belief in an hypothesis; and why it would be so absurd
to speak of believing the teachings of J esus as belief in an
hypothesis.
It is why the conception of 'accepting it ' is so different here
from the conception which is at home in statements about matters
of fact, where one can speak of conj ecture and of confirmation,
and so on.
Incidentally, this notion of confirmation is one that is misun-
derstood in connexion with t hat statement of J esus, that whoever
shall live by his word will know that it is from God. There is <I
possibility of illusory confirma tion in empirical m atters. If'
someone t ells m e that such and such is th e best way to grow
potatoes - the way that will bring the most satisfacto ry rcs u It s
then I may have some experience that will see m to me lo co nfirn1
this, and it may later turn out tha t I was mistakc:n in th is. B11t
 L iving with oneself 287
the difficulty in the case of the words of J esus is that of know-
ing that one has lived according to his word. This may be some-
thing like the difficulty of knowing whether one is living in the
grace of God (and it might be suggest ed that you could not live
according to the word of Jesus otherwise). I suppose you might
be deceived in the matter of 'seeing that they were from God'
as well. Anyway, that sort of 'seeing' would have to be a matter
of religious faith, or if you like of r eligious insight; anyway, it is
not a matter of empirical observation. This is as true here as it
would be in connexion with seeing the divinity of anything at all;
in fact it cannot be so very unlike seeing the divinity of Jesus
himself.
What we have to emphasize then is that the conception of
teaching and of discussion, of believing and of accepting and of
following, of confirmation and of evidence and of guaranteeing -
all these have a very different grammar here than they have in
connexion with physical-object statements or with science.
The conception of what it is that you are taught, what it is
that you try to understand - and of what 'trying to understand'
here is at all - and together with this, of what can be meant by
growing in knowledge, or of deepening one's knowledge; the char-
acter of meditation, of puzzlement, and again: of trying to
understand; the conception of 'enlightenment ', of what it means
to say, 'I see now': or again, 'I do not see', or 'Lord I do not
understand' - this kind of darkness again is different from any
darkness regarding matters of fact; and that is why it is not the
sort of thing that could be relieved at all by any sort of causal
explanation. If you like, it is why no scientific explanation of
things will ever be able to throw any light on religious perplexity;
or not directly, anyway.
Religious perplexity is what is found to some extent in the Book
of J ob; also in Donne's 'Devotions'; also perhaps in some of the
Psalms; perhaps in such stat ements as 'Lord, I believe; help Thou
mine unbelief.'
No doubt it is connect ed with religious doubt - or som etimes,
f'or there are no doubt forms of religious perplexity which do not
involve religiou s doubt in this sense or any tendency to lose one's
lwli«f in God - and it may be that I ought to emphasize the
diffncnce between such doubt and a ny doubt concerning matters
of' fa r t. It is : 1 t<~ ndcn cy to lose faith ; it is not a matter of
288 Religion and moraliry

wondering whether after all something is there - whether there

is life on Mars - or whether after all a certain theory is true -
whether species can have evolved through chance variations,
whether communism is really the answer to our social ills,
whether most of the troubles with which we are faced come from
the institution of private property, whether the state is just the
instrument of economic forces, and so on. Such beliefs may be
held passionately enough, and if one does begin to doubt, this
may be a considerable experience. But it is not analogous to reli-
gious doubt.
Sursum corda. If the religious doubt has gone far, then tha t is
not possible. And that is not an exte rnal consequence. It is part
of what is meant by religious doubt. The main point is tha t one
has begun to change from being religious to not being religious;
call this a different way of looking a t the world, if you like - but
that is in some ways inadequa te, because when one has ceased
to believe that economics is the fundame ntal thing, this may bring
som e thing which you could call a different way of looking at the
world as well. It is true of religion, but that is not enough to tell
you what is mean t by loss of faith. Neither need it mean, in one
sense, that one has become hopeless or pessimistic. Some have
come to fe el a kind of release, like Keller's character who
repeated, 'Ist es nicht eine Freude, zu leben?' 6 It means that one
can no longer worship and no longer pray; or that one 's heart
has gone out of these things.

6 'Isn't it a pleasure to be alive?'

 E SSAY NINETEEN

The sinner and the sin 1

I was r eminded of the way in which Simone Weil took up the

suggestion of some of Plato's dialogues (the R epublic in particular,
perhaps): when she says that the goodness of God, or the true
good, is not something that has evil as an opposite. I do not under-
stand this ve ry well (if at all). But she says, and maybe Plato
does, that although we may speak in our own difficulties and
decisions and criticisms of trying to do good and avoid evil, in
fact there is some evil in everything good we do; and perhaps
that there is some good in the evil we avoid. - Still, this is not
very enlightening when I put it in the very general form; and I
am too dull to bring it alive . - It would be crazy, of course, to
conclude that 'therefore it doesn't much matter what you do'. No
one who knows remorse or discouragement could think that.
It is easier for me to make the general statement that t here
is evil in anything good one does (though I should try to avoid
the generality if I could) - this is easier than it is to say gener-
ally 'there is good in any evil that is done'. (I have quo ted too
often the case of which I read, in which a so-called spiritualist
medium, a man, fleeced an elderly widow, whose husband had
just died, of all her life savings, by telling her that he was in
louch with her husband's spirit and that her husband needed
money in the next world and that he (the medium) was able to
ronvey it to hi m. What I found so foul in this was his taking
advantage of the t er rible and unbalanced state of mind in which
I he widow's grief had placed her - a state of mind in which one
l'cc: ls one would sell one's soul to be able to speak for five minutes
I o the one who has died. - I am too dull to find a nything good
1 A ll'l tc r lO D. Z. Phi llips d ated 16 Novem ber I 971 in response to his 197 1 inaugural
lrl'l111·c· 'So1111· Li1 11 it ~ to Moral Endcavo11r' re prin ted in Interventions in Ethics (London:
M.1n11 ilil111, N1·w Y111 k: Sl JN Y, i<J<n) (Ed.).
290 Religion and morality
in that medium's action.) - On the other hand, if I condemn a
foul act 'absolutely', perhaps I shall be said to be wanting in
Christian charity (as I am). But I have not listened carefully
enough to know what the next move is.
I h ear it said that Christ hated the sin but loved the sinner.
I think I see something of what this means. Or rather, in marry
cases, I can certainly see what it means. I am thinking especially
of people whom I know, and who have done som e pretty shabby
things, and this has not always made m e care for these people less.
(I say 'not always'; and I suppose it would be said that it never
should make me care for them less. I do not know if I could agree
with that 'general principle' .) Anyway, the fact is , I think, that some-
times it does make me care for them less . Sometimes I'd agree it
would be better if this were not so . Sometimes I don't know that
I'd say it would be better. - The talk about these things becomes
terribly confused, largely because the expr ession 'love' is so vague.
I may wish I had been able to pity Hitler, in some of the positions
in which he was placed, especially at the end of his life. I am less
inclined to call this pity 'love'. But wh en it is the expression of a
deep religious belief, the case is different. And then, nota bene,
I would say that this is som ething that can not be discussed;
certainly not in books on ethics - nor elsewhere either, I think.
(If you love /with agape/ the sinner deeply - how strongly, or
how absolutely do you hate his sin? Is it that you wish he hadn't
fallen to that? or is it that you think that was an indescribably
evil thing to do?
I am sure t hat my own attitude is not the sam e at all times -
not eve n towards the sam e sort of case. Sometimes I feel one
way, sometimes another.)
On paper, there is something queer about separating the sin
from the sinner. It cannot mean that the sinner was not involved
in it. ('They know not what they do' was a wonderful - immea-
surably wonderful - rem ark. - But if someone suggests that it is
something which the rest of us can 'apply' in our lives, I hardly
follow.) In the obvious or philistine sense , if he did not know what
he was doing - it was not deliberate murder, for instance. The
answer would be: he did not know the enormity or th e sinfuln ess
of what he was doing: not fully. But I cannot go far on this lin e
without losing my way. - Maybe I am a corrupted academi c;
anyway, I want to ask somethin g like: 'Wha t would ii hav<" bee n
 The sinner and the sin 291
like if he had had a full realization of the sinfulness of what he
was doing?' And still academic: I want to know what kind of knowl-
edge this is. Not theoretical knowledge. Is it the same thing as love?
And if you were to say something like ' ... for he has no love or
pity', would this be a reason for forgiving him? Perhaps it would: I
think so.
Well, please forgive me; for I am confused.
'Separating the sin from the sinner': probably one needs some
Christian idea of the soul - something that is 'he' and the same
through everything he does.
What would your attitude towards Charles Manson be? If I
speak of the evil he has done, I would not emphasize the murders
he may have committed, but more especially the corruption of
other people who associated with him.
The cliches about deprivation of maternal affection in his child-
hood are obviously not relevant. From one angle, it probably is
relevant to an understanding of what h e did if we learn that he
started in a rather 'undergraduate' and foolish way doing - on prin-
ciple - certain things that were lousy but perhaps not so very
terrible; and got carried along further and further to more
terrible things, by the momentum of what he had started. This
makes sense to me, anyway, whether it is what happened or not.
And I can imagine it happening to me, no less than to him. Still,
once he has got well along in the avalanche, or whatever we want
to call it - I wonder if you can talk of the man, or 'the person',
as though it were not what is involved and r evealed in what he
did, in the corruption he exercised and so on? Is 'Charles Manson'
the name for something else? Perhaps. I am not saying 'no'. But
I am puzzled when I hear it said, e.g.: 'You have to distinguish
hctween what he does and what he is.' I say I am puzzled. I do
11ot mean there is nothing in that.
Sometimes it means something like: 'He is still capable of
n·pentance. H e is still capable of recognizing the enormity
of" what he has done, and repenting of it.' - And this of course
1s a religious remark. It is not based on empirical observation. As
I hough 'in the overwhelming majority of cases it has been found
I hat . . ., and so you may be sure .. .' (That way of speaking does
not fit the notion of 'repentance'. It fits the ideas and methods
ol" Dr Eysc nck.) 'Tt is /Jossible he will r epent' is not a statement of
psyd1ology; like· ' ii 's possible he will become quiet and gentle'.
 ESSAY TWENTY

The Church and moral law 1

I wish we could sort out some of the things that came into the
discussion last evening. But I feel very confused. Obviously the
term 'morality' is one with a certain amount of a~biguity: people
understand it in rathe r different ways. And that is one thmg that
makes discussions about morality so often difficult; one has the
feeling that it has all been beside the point. There was some-
thing of this about the discussion last night, I s~pp.ose: I\ seem.ed
to me, as it may have seemed to you, that the o.b~ect1ve consid-
erations which Father Wheeler was emphas1zmg were ~ot
questions of morality at all. And I suppose he. thought somet.hmg
the same about us. We seemed just to be talkmg about emot10nal
conflicts (he could not see that these were moral co~flicts), and
I suppose he might say that the difficulty you ment10ned must
be a psychological difficulty and not ~ moral one ..
I have an idea that some of our m1sunderstandmgs may have
been rooted in views about the relations of morality a nd r eligi?n.
But I am extre mely vague about this, and there may be nothing
in it. I would say that Father Wheeler had mixed them, to th <·
detriment of an understanding of morality, but equally to t~c
detriment of an understanding of religion. (Notice how dogmat1<·
it is when I say that. It is like saying, 'So you call that morality?',
or 'So you call that religion?' - as if I knew the right way to us1·
those expressions. Still, I do not know how el~e to ~eel my way
forward at the moment.) He talked about various kmds of law:
natural law, positive Jaw, moral Jaw, divine law. And he was alwa ys
emphasizing the connexion between moral standards and kg :il

1 A lett e r to D. z. Phillips dated 17 Novembe r 1956 in n's!ions~· 10 ,'' 1'"1''' 1 "'.' 111 "' ,ii
dilemmas Phillips read to the Newman Societ y at l he· lJ111w1st1y ( .ollc·f:•' uf Swu 11M•"
(Ed.).
 The Church and moral law 293
norms. I thought there was some confusion when he suggested
that whatever is contrary to nature is wrong; and when he seemed
to identify 'natural' and 'normal'; still more so, when he seemed
to identify 'normal' with 'usual'. I should imagine that none of
the Apostles, and probably none of the saints, was normal, on
this view; and by that argument their lives must have been wrong.
Father Wheeler would not want to say that, but I am not sure
just what his answer would be. Anyway, I think he might stick to
his appeal to the natural law, and to his view that 'you cannot
run a society' without having recourse to some such 'objective'
criterion of what is right and what is wrong.
This idea of the standards which you must observe if you are
to run a society - or perhaps: without which society could not go
on? - suggests something of his ideas about morality; and it goes
with his tendency to look to what is judged right by the gener-
ality of men. It suggests to me the concern which the Church
has, to find some rule of life by which the great mass of human
beings may be kept sufficiently near to a life of holiness to make
salvation possible: to make salvation a practical proposition, so
to speak. Perhaps that is a travesty. But anyway, the Church does
seem to be looking for norms which the generality of men might
reasonably be expected to fulfil.
If I am right, then t his whole conception of morality goes with
I he idea of the Church's mission as, so to speak, the pastor for
all mankind. It is in that role that the Church is a teacher of
morality. It must lay down precepts which all men - or all reason-
able men - can follow; precepts whose observance will keep men
rrom turning away from God. If men will follow these p recepts,
1hey will be able to t urn towards God and they will be in a posi-
t ion to receive God's graces. These graces are sufficient, if men
would really take them, to make all men saints. But few do take
1hem. Most of us ignore the greater measure of God's grace that
is at hand. In the measure in which we sink into sin, we grow
ll' ss and less able to receive th e graces which God offers at all.
A11cl the natural morality which the Church prescribes is intended,
I suppose, as a kind of fence, to keep us within the pale, or to
kl'l'P us in a spiritual stat e in which we are still capable of
r t'tT iving th e grace of God.
When 1h(' C hurch thinks of morality, it seems to think of rules
whil' h 111:1y IH' l.1id d ow11 for all nwn si111ply because they arc men.
294 Religion and moraliry
And there is a definite aim or purpose in all this. Morality serves
an end. That is why they are able to talk a bout it as something
'obj ective' in the way they do. Perhaps it would also go with the
view that there is a 'reason' for all, or almost all, moral rules. As
though you might always look for ajustification for any particular
moral rule or duty. Anyway, I think that the ideas (a) that the
question of what I ought to do must always have an 'objective'
answer, and (b) that there is always a reason which will justify
the answer reached (or that the right answer can always be found
by reason) - go together.
It is because the Church thinks of morality in this way, that
there is such a kinship between morality, as they conce ive it, and
law - especially Roman law. I suppose there are historical circum-
stances which have helped this view. With the gradual weakening
or dissolution of civil authority in the Roman empire, the Church
seems sometimes to have made its religious authority into a civil
authority as well. Anyway, the Church seems to have had an idea
of its responsibilities, which was akin to that of those who had
been r esponsible for developing and administ ering civil law. When
jurists consider what sort of action is justifiable and what is
culpable - when they consider what should be r egarded as exten-
uating circumstances, for instance, or when they consider what
the severity of the sentence should be in a particular case - I
believe that they often employ an idea of what could reasonably
be expected of a decent man. A man may consent to certain
things, or reveal some thing damaging to another person, if he
has been subjected to severe torture, and most people would not
condemn him; whereas if he did it simply because he was offered
a bribe, they would. Or suppose an unmarried girl is responsible
for the death of her ba by - this might have happened in circum-
stances which would reduce very greatly the blame which most
people would want to attach to her. 'Even a decent woman might
have done that in her situation.' Now the standard of what a
r easonable man, or a decent man, would do in such circumstances,
may vary from one historical period to another, and from one
society to another. I suppose they might call it a norm; t houg li
there are norms of other sor ts too. Anyway, it is connected wit li
the idea of the average decent man, or the generality or dece nt
men. You do not hold a man to blame, just because a 1:lainl would
have kept from doing what he did. You must not plarl' yo ur 11o nn:-1
 The Church and moral law 295
too high - otherwise the law will be r egarded as 'unreasonable'.
It is the idea of what you can 'reasonably expect' of a man.
No ?ou~t there are. reasons for this. There is no point in trying
to mamtam a la_w.whr~h hardly .anyo~e can fulfil; or in punishing
~eopl e for not h vmg m a way m which practically no one could
hve anyway. The law would j ust have no authority, then. And you
would weaken the r espect for law altogether.
Something of this idea seems to have gone into the Church's
conception of moral law, or of morality. Maybe they want to think
of moral law as founded on the conception of what is 'natural' to
men; I am not sure. But they do seem to think of the question
of whether you are justified in acting in this or in that way - as
though that must rest on a rule which most men can be expected
to recognize ..And this goes together with the view of morality
~lmo~t as a kmd of admi.nistration ('You could not run a society
rf ... ). If the moral law rs to have any authority, then most men
must be able to see the reason for it - it must be a rule which
can be shown to be reasonable.
This sometimes makes it hard to see the difference between
moral and civil law; almost as though a treatise on m orality would
be ~n account ?f _what civil law ought to be. (I am using 'civil
law to cover cn mmal law as well; perhaps I should say 'positive
!aw'). But I think that even for this conception of morality, t he
importance .of preservin~ order would be secondary - although it
would .cert~mly be prominent ('Then you would have anarchy') .
What is primary - and what is the point of the order - is the
kind of life which the generality of men may reasonably be
expected to lead. The moral law is, so to speak, much more peda-
gogical than civil law is. C ivil law is not concerned with improving
men, whereas I suppose moral law is. Still, it is a question of
what .can be made, so to speak, of the whole human family. And
that is one reason why the question of order is important.
I suppose there are certain rules which the members of a reli-
g ious community, or those entering a monastery have to observe.
They are more severe than any that most men ~ould follow. But
1h<'y are prescribed in order that the spirit ual side of the life in
I he comm unity may be allowed to develop. It seems to me that
~lien .the Church thinks of morality, it is thinking of some way
111 which 't he whole or mankind' migh t be considered as a reli-
gio us ron rn n111i ty or o rcln. And the rul es or morality are the rules
296 Religion and morality
of that orde r - once again, with the view to making possible the
development of the spiritual life, which is the important matter.
In orde r to receive spiritual grace, you have to cultiva te a way
of life. That is what the rules of the religious order are for; and
tha t is what morality is for.
And the abbots, or those responsible for the 'running' of the
religious community, have to conside r both what can be expected
of those who enter, and also what must be de manded in order
tha t the spiritual development should be possible. 'What can be
expected of those who enter', is, in our case, what can be expected
of a huma n being.
My point is that if it looks like a queer conception of morality,
the r eason is partly that it is understood as some thing that must
be suppleme nted by religious devotion a nd by the grace of God.
If you were to forge t that, the n you might well object that that
kind of 'reasonable' morality could never have the deep impor-
tance for anyone which moral questions do seem to have. I do
think tha t is a serious obj ection. But before we press it, we should
remember tha t the point a nd sense and importa nce of morality
lies, for the Church, not really in its reasona bleness, but in the
fact that it is a preparation for the grace of God. It is because
immorality excludes you from that, that it is terrible; not because
it is something inherently unreasona ble.
I suppose it is because the Church views morality in this way,
that the C hurch claims to be infallible, not only on matters of
religious dogma, but on matters of morality as well. I have gener-
ally found that strange, and rather repulsive. I can see, to some
ex tent, the sense in saying tha t the C hurch must be infallible on
matters of dogma; though the question of wha t is meant by infal-
libility her e, is difficult. But to say that the Church was infalliblr
on questions of morality, seemed to me quite a diffe rent propo-
sition. And I still think it is. But given the special view of morality
which the C hurch adopts, and which I have tried to suggest here ,
I think I can see some sense in saying t hat the infallibility i11
morals must follow from the infallibility in the othe r. The wholt·
point a nd sense in morality, on this view, lies in its bearing 011
the spiritual life. And only those who have the true unde rsta ncli11g
of the spiritual life and its requirement - what is rcq uirrd h)'
God - can measure the importance of a ny d cvia l ion in a ruk ol
conduct. So I imagine the C hurch mig ht a rgt1 (', a11 ywa y.
 The Church and moral law 297
Like you, I feel that all this ignores much of what is impor-
tant in morality. And it hardly recognizes the reality of moral
difficulties. But it hardly cou ld, could it? I mean, what would a
moral difficulty be, on this view? It would be a difficulty regarding
the way of acting which would be best suited to lead men to a
life in which they might ser ve God. And that is a matter really
for the expert to decide. Of course tha t is not wha t you and I
mean by a moral difficulty at all. But if Fathe r Wheeler takes
this view of morality, he can hardly und erstand wha t it is that
you a re finding difficult - so he thinks it is just a question of
e mo tional conflict , and so on.
One reason for this may be that a pa rt of what you and I find
to be d eep and important in moral difficulties, is something which
he mig ht assimilate to religious or spiritual difficulties. (And her e
again of course he would say that the difficulty would have to be
resolved by those who have received the word for God.)
What I often suspect a nd fear is tha t religious people, and it
may be especially Catholics, think that r eligious difficulties are
all tha~ is r.eally i~portant; and that for this reason, they hardly
rccogmze d1fficult1es of other sorts. Nothing is of a ny importance
in comparison with the salvation of a man's soul: I suppose that
might be their position. And furthe r: the salvation of a man's
soul depends upon his relation to God, and especially on religious
faith. So a religious per son could hardly make sense of the state-
llH' nt that the loss or the life of a man's soul could ever depend
on anything else. Or he might think tha t any such suggestion
rnust be atheistic a nd perhaps blasphemous.
I do not think that is so. And it seems to me - though I a m
loo much in darkness to see much - it see ms to me that wha t I
111i~ht call the n:ior~l importance of religion lies in some thing
which the Catholic view, as I have imagined it here, hardly recog-
1111.1·s. !f I s p~ak in this way of the moral importance of religion,
\ ou might thmk I should say something also about the religious
1111 por1 a nce of morality. It is tha t - the religious importance of
111oralit y - that a Catholic like Father Wheeler would emphasize,
I -.11pposr. And I feel myself especially incompe t ent to spea k about
11 . For I should tr eat it very closely with the moral importa nce
t1I 11·ligio11 ; a nd hr would say that this was wrong.
l\l y <'lii cf poin1 would be wlrnl we have di scussed fai rly often.
.\ 111.111 's n ·; il i:1.:1lio11 llia1 lie · lias clo11 c lnribl <' 1hings a nd th at he
298 Religion and morality
has treated people in ways in which he would have thought
himself incapable; and his growing conviction that he will neve r
really grow better - that he will always be the sort of man he
had hoped he might avoid becoming; all this may be shattering
in a way that no other sort of failure can be. As though there
were no point in his existence - as though he were shut out from
that. Almost analogous to what there might be if he could never
find anything but contradictions in anything that were said: every-
thing had become unintelligible. This is something which you
might describe, I suppose, as a disaster to the man's soul, and in
one sense as the loss of his soul. My first point is that this situation
is terrible, and that it is not simply because such a man is shut
off from the grace of God, that it is terrible. It may be that he
will feel that he has sinned against God, and that will be terrible
as well. But I want to emphasize that this is something different ,
and that what I am calling the moral disaster might occur without
the other at all; although when they do occur together, it might
be hard to distinguish what went with one and what with the
other.

n2
The relation between the Catholic and the Aristotelian views of
morality. Aristotle and self-sacrifice. Is it, for Christianity, a form
of self-realization? Is it important for the salvation of one's soul ?
If one objects to that as a view of morality, it is not because
one thinks that saving one's soul is unimportant. It is just tha1
the matter of morality and the requirements of that seem in soml'
ways to be rather differe nt.
My point would be: you lose your soul by immorality - or mort·
especially, when there seems no chance of your becoming better .
But that is .. . It will not do to say simply that this is because i I
is not pleasing to God, or because it excludes you from God '.~
graces. It may be that in a way it does that. But the importa nc1
that morality has, is somehow distorted if you place the emphasi.,
there. Why it is that the realization that one may never be al>l1
to lead a decent life (that one is a failure in that sense) may 111
so shattering - that is one thing that seems Lo be ovcrlook1·d

2
From notes dated 18 Novcmbn a nd 3 .January l<J.'i 7 ( I·:d.).
 The Church and moral law 299
he:e. Certainly the idea of sinning against God, and of possibly
bemg shut. off.from.co?verse with God, that is important and may
be shatte~mg m a s~m1lar sort of way, but it is not the same thing.
. And this sort of i~strumental morality - whether it is a ques-
~1on o~ what makes 1t possible for society to go on, what makes
it possible for men to live together in an orderly way, or whether
it is the idea of living the sort of life that would make it possible
to re~eive divine graces - it makes morality in a way external.
~n,d i.t d?es, not comm~nd i.t a~y more if you call that making
it objective. Nor does it bnng 1t any nearer to an appreciation
of moral difficulties.
In religion one thinks a bout sins, and one's life in relation to
God is much concerned with them. There are particular practices
(!yin~, forni~ation, etc.) or habits. Perhaps habits especially, or
pract1ce.s which co~ld ?e habits. I suppose much of the thinking
about virtue and vice is on the same lines .
But the difficulties and complications and perplexities in which
one commonly finds oneself, seem not to be of this kind. These
have to do especially with our relations with other people.
(Perhaps there is nothing quite similar in one's relation to God .)
And what we are concerned with in these difficulties - it is hard
to think of it first and foremost as part of one's relation to God.
rt is hard to think of it in terms of keeping or not keeping his
c·or:imandments. Just as it is hard to think of it as something in
which one may or may not make 'progress'. Faults or failings
which one may gradually master.
(Cf. 'the art of living'. Life as a task, etc. God or Jesus has
shown the way.)
It seems to me that the difficulties of life are not like the diffi-
nrlties one mee ts with fulfilment of a task; howeve r much we may
s.p.cak ?f 'failure'. - ,'if one has failed in one's marriage one has
f :rded m everythmg - and of longing to be better.
Th e reference to marriage is in place, because that is not a
I ask for which there is a suitable technique, either. The difficul-
t in; which these two people have found will probably not be an
'111stance' anyway. They are too much bound up with their own
I wo I ivcs. And al though they may know when it has failed, they
pr oh;.1bly do not know what success would have been.
You may find yoursel f involved with two people, so that you do
11<11 S<'<' how yo1 1 t·:111 k1·1·p f'ro111 harmin g one of them wha teve r
300 Religion and morality
you do. It may be tha t the con tinuation of the present situation
is a wrong to both, but the breaking of it on either side would
be also. Now in all thi s, one may wish to implore God 's help. But
it does not seem tha t the question of keeping from sin is wha t is
the chief trouble.
 ESSA Y T WEN T Y - ONE

Suffering

JI

The prevalence of suffering, like the prevalence of evil, has been

taken as a ground for rejecting Christianity. And I should have
thought that the Christian apologist ough t to try to meet such
obj ections in their own terms. To say 'Well, of course in r eligion
we talk differently' will look too much like a n evasion.
The ter m 'suffering' is a n extreme ly wide one, and I think you
ought to take more account of the varieties which it covers. T his
means that you ough t to have referred much mor e oft en to exam-
ples. T his is the principal shortcoming all th rough your essay;
and it is one you can remedy - although thin king of good exam-
ples is not easy.
The re a re also certain gener al distinctions which should be
brough t out in the beginning and kept in mind. T here is suffering
pain: a nd by this we mean first of all bodily pain of some sort.
You use the phrase 'mental and spiritual pain' but this is too
vague to be of a ny use without examples to show what you are
speaking of. (Cf. Simone Weil's essay on 'The Love of God and
Afflic tion' in he r Waiting on God.) Bodily pain is fund amen tal for
anything tha t can be call ed pain; and it is one extremely impor-
1an l sor t of suffering.
There is also what we migh t call suffering adversity - e.g. I
lllsC all my money, my house burns down, my children are killed
111 a n aeroplane accident.
Bolh these - suffering pain and suffering adversity - may
li.1p pcn lo a man even when he has suffer ed no injustice. Ye t the
111os l I rr ri ble forms of suffering are generally the suffering of
111 j11 sl ire. And l his presen ls p roblems for 'theodicy' which cannot
1 A li- 111•1 111 1'1·1 c·1 (;011ld clal !'cl 22 .July 1963 (Ed.).

:Ill I
302 Religion and morality
be covered by any discussion of ' the problem of pain'. Religious
apologists often neglect it. T here is one illustration of it when
people are taken into slavery. But ther e are very many others.
(Cf. Simone Weil's The Needfor Roots.) T he question 'Why?' - What
kind of question is it?
The questioner might be asking about causes . But this would
assume tha t 'suffer' has one meaning - as though the question
were parallel to 'Why do men die?' . T his is not the question which
you want to conside r. But if the questioner is not asking about
causes, what is he asking?
In your account of the views of the Psalmists, it seems to me
that 'Why does God allow suffering?' is taken to mean 'Why does
God allow just men to suffer?' (You speak, a little later, of 'the
proble m of innocent suffering'.)
That evil men should suffer, presents no problem. Eve n though
their sufferings have no connexion with the evil they have
done .
(Your Psalmists distinguish between just men and evil men;
the godly and the ungodly. So that I think of the Pharisee in
J esus' parable.)
In a similar way, people are wont to speak of 'law-abid ing citi-
zens' and 'criminals' as though this wer e a moral distinction. But
it is not. If I have committed no crime, this does not show that
I a m morally a ny be tter than many convicted criminals. I may
not have embezzled money; but I have done worse things than
that - which do not happen to be forbidden by law.
('The godly a re inside, and the ungodly are outside.' Pfui!)
'Of course the evil shall suffe r. Woe to the m! There shall be
weeping and gnashing of tee th.' J esus wept because he saw wh a t
would happen to the people of J erusale m. Evidently he did not
see any problem in it, though.
If a nyone quotes Tertullian's remark addressed to the Roman
pe rsecutors of Christians which begins, 'How shall I d elight, how
I shall rejoice .. .' when I look down from Heaven and see you r
sufferings in Hell hereafter - the obj ection is gener ally that th is
is not a fair statement of the Christian view. But isn't it?
I wonder whether you have consulted Augus tine's De Civit(lf1•
Dei, in this connexion. I suppose he wrote this aft e r Ala ric h:id
sacked Rome. People wanted to know how God cou ld a llow su< lr
things to happen. Here again Au gustine seems to lw w f(n111cl 1111·
 Suffering 303
principal difficulty in justifying the atrocities done to the virtuous
- and especially to C hristian virgins.
Notice, by the way, that his problem would not have been just
the same if Rome had been d es troyed by an earthquake. The
soldiers of Al a ric must have been doing the will of God by
inflicting the most horrible injustice. They got into Rome through
the action of someone inside who betrayed the city to them. Etc.
etc.
You refer to the second Isaiah, and you use the phrase 'vicar-
ious suffering' without any direct explanation of it. As far as I
can see, it can be used only when you are speaking of suffering
punishment.
When I was in Aust ria in 1933 the National Socialists were
committing various acts of violence as part of a campaign to make
the Dollfuss governmen t's position impossible. The government
was unable to catch the actual people who committed the acts of
violence; and they said that for every such act, some other National
Socialist - someone whom they did know - would be punished by
imprisonment. T hat would be called vicarious punishment, I think
(and it is generally a sign of weak government) . It does not
suggest a sign of perfect justice .
So I suppose that when you say that Isaiah spoke of vica rious
suffering, you mean that he was still thinking of suffering as
/JUnishment. Otherwise I do not think the phrase 'vicarious
suffering' can make a ny sense a t all .
If you start by thinking of all suffering as punishment , the n of
rourse you have given the 'probl em ' a very special form a t the
outset.
I think the notion of 'vicarious suffering' is getting you into
I rouble. E.g. you ask: 'Do other me n suffer for Christ, or does he
suffe r for them?' Is it the same sense of 'suffer for' in each case?
You say '. . . because Christ suffer ed so much for him '. What is
I he sense of this ' because'? Why does Ch rist 's suffering create a
111•f•d for me to suffer? (I do not say these questions cannot be
.1nswcred . I say only that from your statement it is not clear how
you would answer them.)
11· wha t is suffered is good, then how does suffering differ from
1l1<· e nj oyme nt of blessings or of good fortune?
C )r supposC' we sa id : if everything tha t happens to me comes
lrrnn (;od , a nd il'<·W1)1ll1i11 g llral rn mes fro m God is good, then I
304 Religion and morality
never suffer evil - i.e. I never suffer. (This is one way of solving
the problems.) What does this tell you about the nature of God?
I wish especially that you had given examples - and not simply
spoken of 'suffering for Christ' . If a man is broken by the antag-
onisms and the hatred of his family - or by his wife's hatred of
him - what, I wonder, is ' the value of doing this for Christ'?
What is the value of suffering like that in King Lear?
What was the value of the degradation that belonged to the
sufferings in the concentration camps? When, for instance, a man
is going to pieces morally and knows it. '.Joyful acceptance'???
Finally, what is perhaps my most important criticism:
You speak of the attitude I may take towards my own suffer-
ings. But what should be my attitude towards the sufferings of
others? Should I accept these as God's will? (Someone should have
told Nathan, before h e spoke to David about Uriah.)
Can you look on the terrible injustices done to other people -
the extermination of many tribes of the North American Indians,
for instance - can you look on this as a wonderful example of .. . ?
If I could put my questions more strongly, I should do so. For
I think that religious apologists have generally been irresponsible
and frivolous in writing about this matter. They have deceived
both themselves and others by such phrases as 'suffering for
Christ', 1oyful sacrifice', etc.
Some suffering may be ennobling. But severe and prolonged
affliction generally degrades and depraves him who suffers it.
For six year s the captured Gallic general Vercengetorix was
kept shackled, solitary, in total darkness, except on one day of
each year when h e was brought out in his chains and exhibited
for the scorn and ridicule of the Roman mob. Do you honestly
think anybody would be ennobled by that? Or: if he 'joyfully
accepted it' how long would h e keep this up - remember that he
never spoke to anyone from one year's end to the other? Take
any saint you like and try to imagine it.

n2
Kierkegaard has a passage in which he addresses Job, asking why
he remained silent seven days and seven nights; and he says,

2 From a letter to M. O'C. Drury dated 23 Apri l 197 1 (Ed.).

 Suffering 305
' . .. It is you I need, I need someone who can complain so loudly
that heaven echoes with it, where God takes counsel with Satan
to frame plans against a man. Complain, the Lord does not fear
it, h e can defend himself well enough. But how could he clefend
himself if no-one dared complain as a human being.
'Speak, raise your voice, speak loud, for God can speak louder,
h e has the thunder - and thunder is an answer, an explanation,
trustworthy, faithful, genuine, an answer from God himself, which,
even when it breaks a man, is more wonderful than all the talk in
the town and all talk of the just governance of the world ...
'I h ave never possessed the world, I have never had seven sons
and three daughters, but it is possible for someone to have lost
everything who never had much, and someone may so to speak
have lost sons and daughters when h e has lost what he loved; and
h e also has been, so to speak, smitten with vile wounds, who has
lost honour and self-respect and with them the strength to live
and the sense of living ... '
It is the idea that on occasion one should not shrink from
complaining to God, which struck me here when I first read it.
And I think it is important.
Wonderful as it is, the Book of Job keeps to a somewhat
restricted theme. In one se nse, the afflictions he suffers are
'external'. There is obviously nothing here comparable to the
Passion. And so no occasion for: 'Forgive them, they know not
what they do.'
It is those who know not what they do, that are in some ways
more trouble to anyone thinking of evil than are losses and afflic-
Lions like Job's. I am not thinking now of Christ's own sufferings
(and Simone Weil has emphasized the difference between this
and the sufferings of any martyrs, even if their bodily torments
were greater: emphasizing especially the disgrace, which even his
companions could not brush aside. 'The Messiah shouldn't come
with spittle on his face .'). I am thinking of the condition of those
who were involved in inflicting it on him. - But I think first and
111ore often of what is more familiar to us. I don't know whether
you have rea:d Frarn;ois Mauriac's Therese Desqueyroux. In a sort of
for<'word h e quotes a passage from Baudelaire (and I wish I know
wl11·nce he had take n it):
' La vie fourmi ll c de monst rcs .i nnocents.' - Seigneur, mon Dieu!
Vo11s, k C:rC::il«111', vo11s, k Malt re; vow; qui avcz fa il la Loi et la
306 Religion and morality
Liberte; vous souverain qui laissez faire, le juge. qui pardon~ez;
vous qui etes plein de motifs et de causes, et qm avez pe.ut-etre
mis clans mon esprit le gout de l'horreur pour convertir mon
coeur, comme la guerison au bout d'une lame; Seign~ur, ~yez
pi tie, ayez pi tie d es fous et d es .fo!les! 0 C~ea~e ur ! pe ut-~l . exist.er
des monstres aux ye ux de Celm-la se ul qm sait pourquo1 ils exis-
tent , comment ils se sont faits, et comments ils auraient pu ne pas
sefaire ... 3 . . ..
Mauriac was a Catholic writer. In this book he is wn tmg of
someone for whom we want to repeat those words of Ba udelaire's.
Not because Therese was 'm ad ' in any legal or psychiatric se nse.
' . .. peut-il exist er des monstres aux yeux de Celui-la se ul qui
sait pourquoi ils existent, comment ils se sont faits . . :?'
Mauriac doesn't answer, in this book. As we might say he
repeats the question. And he leaves us with it.

The M a uriac r eference is: Fra ncois Ma uriac, 'Therese Oesqueyroux ' in Oeuvres
romanesques et thtatrales computes (Pa ris: Gallimard, 1 9~9), Vol. 2, p. 15, taken from
Baude laire: 'Mada me Bistouri' in Oeuvres completes (Pa n s: Laffont, 1980), p. 208.
Life abounds in innocent monsters. - Lord, my God! you, the Creator , you, the
Master; you, who has made Liberty a nd the Laws; you, the sovereign who does not
interfe re, the pardoning j udge; you, who a re ber eft of reasons and causes, a nd who
has pe rhaps implanted in my mind t~e tas.te of. horror , 111 order to convert my
heart, in the manner of a surgeon cunng with his blade; Lord, ha~e mercy, have
me rcy, on madmen and madwom en. 0 C reator! Can monste rs e xist. in His. eyes,
who a lone knows why they exist, how they have made themselves hke tha t, a nd
how they could have chosen not to have made themselves like that . . . (Ed.).
 ESSAY TWENTY-TWO

Picking and choosing

II

I can only guess a t what Wittgenstein may have m eant by 'You

mustn't pick and choose ' (you once told me it was in r eply to
your r emark about the bears devouring the boys who ta un ted
Elisha); 2 a nd your guess would be be tter than mine.
I'd guess that his remark was direct ed in part agains t the
attempt to show 'the r easonableness of Christiani ty', or concen-
trate on what can be shown to be reasonable, a nd perha ps to
purge it of the rest - as though this were a way of commending
Christianity, showing reasons why one should agree to it, or a t
least neutralizing obj ections to it. (The R easonableness ef Christianity
was the title of one of Locke's tracts, I think. And apparently this
sort of writing was common at the turn of the seventeenth to
cighteenth centuries. 'Ch ristianity Not Mysterious' was the name
of another work - bu t I forget who wrote it. 3 I do not mean that
Wi ttgens tein was thinking of these when he spoke, or even t hat
he knew of them. And of course I do not mean that you were
thinking on similar lines.) (Wittge nstein would have pref erred
someone who said credo quia absurdum - although, again, I never
heard him refer to this phrase or to T ertullian a t all. )
lle often spoke against - or turned away from - anything
like the suggestion: 'I ca n see that this is the word of God be-
lflltse .. .' And I suppose he might have objected in a simila r way
lo: 'I feel that this cannot be the word of God, because (surely God
would never .. . etc.)'.
If you 'pick a nd choose', then your cri terion may seem to be:
wha l it is reasonable to attribute to God; or wha t it is reason-
1
Frn11i a lt•t tt·r to M. O'C. Drury dated 9 O ctobe r 1970.
1
KirrA' 11 , :.! I (Ed .).
1
,l oh rr T ol.111d (N•·w Yor k: C: :11'1:11ul, t<J7B) (11·pri 111 of 1696 ('dll ) (Ed.) .

'llJ I
308 Religion and morality
able to look on as the wilJ of God. And Wittgenstein was wont
to r efer to the closing passages of the Book of J ob; and he some-
times quoted Broad's gloss that 'you can 't a rgue with someone
who has created a hippopotamus'.
In any remark which I heard him make, Wittgenstein never
showed special respect for those who were interested in ' psychical
research'. Sometimes he could see what drove them to it (as in
Wisdom's case, after the death of his mother), a nd then he would
never mock. On the other hand I have heard him express impa-
tience with Carnap, a nd perhaps Broad, for the ways in which
they went on trying to find some thing of 'scientific value' in it. I
im agine that it was not only that he thought this was sham (sham
scie nce), but also that it was a d egradation both of science and
of religion. - But I think it would be chiefly the sham that repelled
him: a sham that kept the devotion to it (psychical r esearch) in
one way half-hearted - kep t it from expressing a nything that
really 'sat deep in' the people who were writing about it.
T he notion of 'what sits deep in a man' was important almost
always in what Wittgenst ein said about religion or about judge-
ments of value; from his earliest writings right on to the end. -
And it does not conflict with this if he sometimes speaks of reli-
gious unders tanding as something that 'comes from without '.
But it can lead to consequences that are hard to take. And
perhaps it led him to such (I am uncertain because I unde rstand
him dimly).
I know next to nothing about the r eligion of Maloch. I hav<·
heard that it included child sacrifice in certain of its rituals. And
it may have included other practices which people in Western
countries today would call cruel or worse . I never hea rd
Wittgenstein speak of this. But if he had heard someone conden111
such a religion because it included child sacrifice, he wou lei
certainly have obj ected. H e would have said that you would n(ll
know for your life what the state of mind of the people was wit"
practised that religion and sacrificed the children. You could nol
know what this meant to them, or even what it meant to the chi I
dren who were being sacrificed. And you could not begin lo a ppl \
the standards by which you may judge actions in the socie ty 111
which we live. - If there were a group of people in Dundn1111
today who began to practise child sacrifice - tha t would be so 111c
thing different.
 Picking and choosing 309
Elizabeth Anscombe once wrote in the course of a letter to
me: ' ... An irreligious man rqects certain conceptions; he is not
innocen t of them. Don't misunderstand me: there are forms
which such conceptions can take, such that a ma n is better off
if he rejects them than if he retains th em in these
forms. I would rather a man were like Bertrand Russell than
that he were a worshipper of Dourga. (I rather believe that
Witt genstein would not: he'd certainly have me up for thinking
I could say anything about a worshipper of Dourga.) ... '
I am sure she is right in thinking Wittgenstein would react in
that way./

When I am discussing as we are now, I feel I can see why

Wittgenstein spoke in that way. If it affected some practical deci-
sion I had to make, perhaps I'd waver ; I cannot be sure.
When I said his view can lead to consequences that are hard
to take, I meant first that a form of worship like the worship of
Dourga should have the respect due to a form of worship, and
should not be j udged as though it were a depraved practice in
our own community. But I meant also that it led Wittgenstein
sometimes to view certain actions - which on first view are
horrible and r epulsive - to view them as tragic; a nd this means
that they are seen in a different way, not jus t as morally abom-
inable. D uring one of his visits to Swansea in the early years of
the war ( 1942, I think) he had seen in some cinema a 'docu-
mentary' film of German planes bombing Polish towns or villages
(and perhaps troop positions, I do no t remember). What struck
him was that there was a musical accompaniment of Wagner's
music. And this, he said, brought out what was tragic in these
.1ctions of the German air force. By this he did not mean, of
rnurse, that they wer e producing 'tragic res ul ts' or 'tragic destruc-
t ion ' in the villages that were being bombarded. Still less did
't r·agic' mean 'pitiful' or that we should feel sorry for them. His
poin t was ra ther that the music enabled one to see the evil
111issions on which these pilots were engaged as something like
I ht· moves of the hero in a tragedy - moves which he makes
' 111 spit e of himself ', call it tragic inevitability or destruction
(1 f. Anti gone, Orestes ... ) or how you will. Not that this in any
~c· 11 sc')11st?fied what they wnc doing, but that when you view them
111 I his way t hc·rc· is 11 0 <p1t·s t ion of wha t wou ld be justified or what
310 Religion and morality
would not. (Most of this is my own gloss on Wittgens tein's remark,
for I did not ask him to expound it.) When you view it as 'tragic'
- then you have m oved away from the question wh ether the policy
was the right conclusion to draw from such and such d elibera-
tions, or wh ethe r it was the prudent course to take in view of the
circumstances, or even (and this is wher e I'm less certain of my
inte rpretation) to ask whether it sh owed the consideration for
other m en that it might h ave shown. - He once said to m e that
Le nin's d ecision to carry through th e Blosh evik revolution in 19 17
was 'tragic' - by which of course h e did not m ean tha t it was a
disaster; the contrary, if anything. H e meant tha t it was not the
'logical' or 'scientific' application of Marxist ideas - eve n though
Lenin t ried to make out that it was. Wittgen s tein would have
said t hat no scientific application of anything would ever be a
revolution (in the se nse in which we speak of th e revolutions of
1789 and 1917) . Science is always conservative: it keeps strictly
to the tracks laid down. And we are j ust misunderstanding the
sort of move the Bolsheviks made if we do try to look on it like
that . I m en tion this in order to elucidate, if I can , th e way in
which Wittgenstein was using the word ' tragic' when h e said that
the Wagnerian music enabled one to see wh at those German
pilots wer e doing as ' tragic' .
Perhaps h e would have said that Luther's move, with its 'Hier
stehe ich , ich kann nicht a nders .. .' 4 was tragic. Certainly it was
not like 'I am certain that this is the best policy'.
This is not yet what I'd m ean by 'hard to ta ke'. At least, I should
not find it ha rd to go along with Wittgen stein in these judgements.
But sometim es the terrible things a tragic h ero does a r e the
expressions of a very r eal and d eep despair. Wittgen stein used to
speak of Lenau's 5 Faust as an example of this. In Goethe's drama
Faus t is finally saved. In Le na u's h e is not. But also the despai1
which leads Lenau's Faust to sign the pact with the devil, a nd
the sense of horror and desola tion that Lenau brings out whrn
the pact has been sign ed (cutting off from God and cutting o il
irrevocably) - this is som ething which Goethe could hard ly ha w
portrayed - alth ough h e was much the greater poet and a lthoug h
his Faust is certa in ly the greater work . Wittgenstein said o l Lc11 :111
tha t 'he knew wh at despair looks like'.
4 ' H ere I stand , I can do no other' (Ed.).
5 N ikolaus Lenau, German poc·l ( I B02- I 1150) (Ed .) .
 Picking and choosing 3 11
Wittgen stein would some times recognize despair in depraved
actions (and I do not say wr ongly) and so perh aps come near to
viewing them as ' tragic', in this sen se . About 1943 there was
a murder trial in France, in which the man accused was a
physician who had murdered (it was said) about 20 people - not
b ecause h e had a ny h ostility towards the m in particular.
Wittgenstein spoke of the very deep despair tha t must h ave led
the man to do this. H e added, 'I could q uite easily imagine myself
doing something like t ha t.' I told h im h e was wrong; because
however much he might think h e'd feel tha t this was the only
t hing to do, when it came to th e point h e would not be able to.
I said, 'You couldn't even m u rde r on e p er son. And if you had
done so, you certa inly could not go on to murder the r est.' And
Wittge nstein agreed. He even elaborated the point : the accursed
doctor is supposed to have welcomed the peop le into his
consulting room , asked t hem very politely to sit down, and t hen
killed them in some way from behind. And Wittgenstein said that
obviously h e would b e quite incapable of doin g anything like that.
((I think this is incidental. My point was that he would not have
be en able to murder th em anyway - n ever m ind that fin esse.))
Murder has often h ad r eligious significan ce or r eligious con-
n exions which other forms of evil d o n ot h ave, I suppose;
beginning with the fact that it is 'th e ta king of life', perhaps,
a lthough this is likely not the most important thing. And I
suppose it has often been important in tragic dramas.
There ar e other forms of evil with wh ich Wittgens tein would
ge t disgusted in the same way: meanness, hypocrisy, spite, envy,
maliciously spreading slander or suspicion (Iago), Phariseeism
disgusted him more than murder would.
I once quoted to you a remark in one of his n ote books:
'"Envy is something on the surface" - that is: t he ch aracter-
istic colour (hue) of envy does not go d eep - further down the
passion h as a differ en t colouring (That does not make envy any
k ss real.)' 6
Pe rhaps we could say that envy does n ot 'sit deep' in a man,
i11 the se nse that th e d esp air does of which Wittgenstein often
spoke. And similarly for meanness, hypocrisy a nd others.
" 'l•:11vy is a superficial t hi11g - i.e. the colour ch aracteristic of envy does not go down
dc·c·p rurtlw1 clow11 pnssio11 has a diff<'rent colour. (That, of course, does not make
1· 11vy .111y 1 II<' 1 1'.~N " " " ·)' (l.'11/11111• 1111d V11/11r, 1ra11s. P ctc•r Winch, p. 3.5c) (Ed.).
312 Religion and morality
These vices are sometimes connected with a form of smallness
and half-heartedness. And we may think of them with contempt
more easily than with horror. On the other hand, some writers
seem to speak of them as though they were worse than more
te rrible actions would be. I am thinking, for instance, of the
way in which Kierkegaard so metimes speak of 'mediocrity'. I
forget whether he quotes the Scripture: 'Because thou are
neither hot nor cold ... I will spew thee out of my mouth.' In
an article on Chekhov's stories Frank O 'Connor shows how
again and again the character who brings inexcusable evil is
someone who commits only venial sins; with the plain sugges-
tion, often, that it would have been incomparably better if he
had had the courage and the character to commit the cognate
mortal sin. - I will not try to discuss this. But these are real
difficulties, I think.

I have wandered far from a discussion of the Old Testament

too far for a decent return, I guess. I had meant to suggest
some reasons why Wittge nstein m ight not want to 'reject' the
Old T estament because of this or that in it which he did not like.
(Obviously it would be nonsense to try to prune or revise it into
something more acceptable. But this is not what is relevant.)
I can get no clear impression of the way (or ways) in which
the New Testament writers looked on the O ld Testament; or of
the way in which Jesus looked on it (it seem s as though 'the
Scribes a nd the Pharisees' were puzzled about this too). And like
you I cannot help finding it strange tha t they neve r seem to regard
one part of 'the Scriptures' as more important than another. (So
long as we do not understand this, I suppose we are pretty far
from understanding the New Testament.) - I think I have some
dim conception (sometimes) of the way in which Christian
believers think of the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament;
or perhaps I should confine this to 'Christian believers who arc
not acquainted with " the higher criticism" of the texts'. But I
guess that the attitude of the first Christians (say of the times
portrayed in The Acts of the Apostles) towards the Scriptures of
the Old Testament was something different .
St Paul is wont to speak of the stories told in the O ld Tes la m(' ll I
almost as allegories telling of events in the New, or illusl n 11 ing
teachings of J esus. His letters wou ld suggest that thi s way ol'
 Picking and choosing 313
understanding the Old Testame nt was not entirely strange to
the congregations to whom he wrote. But I may be wrong here,
and perhaps Paul was the first to 'interpret' the Scriptures in this
way. (The editors of various Catholic Missals have often taken
this to be the best - or easiest? - way to make the Old Testament
readings intelligible. I have not seen a Missal that has been
produced since the 'reform ' of the liturgy.) This way of reading
them does not go so naturally with holding up the lives of patri-
archs or their wives as models for us. You point to the passage
in the First Epistle of St P eter in which he t ells C hristian wives
of examples they may find in Old T estament wives (and I agree
with you that the example of Sarah, a t a ny ra te, is bizarre - and
I do not think Wittgenstein's 'don't pick and choose' can bear on
this) . Is there anything quite like this in any of the other Epistles?
I cannot reme mber it. - As I remember the Gospels, the refer-
ences to the Scriptures come either in the answers which Je sus
gives to the Scribes or Pharisees who a re trying to catch him out
- presumably so that they might charge him with blasphe my, but
anyway to discredit him; or else lo show that J esus was the
Messiah of which the Scriptures spoke. I do not remember any
special praise or admiration for the characters portrayed in the
Old Testament. (Brentano remarks that although.Jesus condemns
adulte ry, he does not condemn polygamy; a nd he suggests that
this may have been because he did not want lo criticize Abraham.
I suppose many m ay have called a ttention to this before
Brentano.) J esus speaks of Abraha m in tones of respect which his
audience would expect, I suppose. But I do not remember that
he says anything at all about a nything Abraham did. (I ought to
have looked to see before I made these sta tements.)
St Paul's 'allegorical' r eading of the Old Testament was
~c rtainly only part of his way of regarding it ; a nd maybe not very
important. When he says tha t he worships the God of Abraham
and the God of Isaac and the God of J acob, he is thinking of the
history of the Hebrew people , not of a n allegory.Just as the.Jews
of J esus's time were, I suppose, when they spoke of 'Father
Abraham'. I suppose this goes with the idea of the promises to
Abraha m by God as promises of an earthly redemption of his
pt·opl c. This notion of God as the God who had led this people
<>1 11 of Egypt, who had spoken to their prophets, etc., etc., is,
I i111aginc , i111111 c11 sc ly important for the kind of religion they
314 Religion and morality
had and the import ance they attached to the Scriptures (which
contained, inter alia at least, the record of the Covenant between
God and his people) . I do not happen to know of any other religion
which has a nything quite like this - unless it might be Islam ,
which I think of ignorantly as an offshoot of Judaism. This seems
to make the Old Testament Scriptures and the Bhagavad Gita
very hard to compare. I should think it might sometimes give to
the Hebrew Scrip tures a depth which the Gita does not have.
But I cannot make this less vague than that, and probably it is
balderdash.
The difficulty you and I both feel - that we cannot think of
the Old Testament scriptures as one block, and tha t if we place
on one side the books of the prophets and the P salms, we have
to pay attention to the lives and the deeds and the histories that
the Scriptures tell of - this is still with us. No doubt one cannot
separate the words of the prophets, nor the Psalms either, from
the lives and the fortunes of the people. And I think some of the
writings of the prophets (the few that I think I understand) are
very great. But when I put it like that I am already picking and
choosing. Then, for the significance of the fortunes and the strug-
gles and the catastrophes of the people, it seems to me we have
to understand as best we may, and we cannot keep entirely from
expressing either admiration or shock. - Obviously it is next to
impossible for a twentieth century academic or professional
Englishman to understand much of what was said and done by
Hebrew nomads between Egypt and Canaan. But if we try to
understand at all, we cannot exclude expressions of admiration
and of blame. And if we do not try to understand, I do not sec
that we can get much from a phrase like 'the God of Abraham
and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob'.
That is how it seems to me now. In some way I think it is
wrong. And I feel sure that Wittgenstein would say it is stupid.

n1
I like particularly to listen to musical settings of the Roman Ma ss;
or at any rate, to the music of Monteverdi, Bach, Mozart ,
Beethoven a nd Bruckner. I have heard only recorded ex tract s ol

7 From a n undated lette r to M. O 'C:. Drnry ( l•:d.).

 Picking and choosing 3 15
chants of the Eastern Orthodox mass, and I wish I might hear
more. But it would not mean just what the singing of the Roman
mass does, so long as I am not very familiar with the Eastern
mass, the liturgy, itself. The music for the mass of the composers
I've mentioned is music for the same words, the same prayers.
And I should get less from it if this were not so.
When it was announced that one of the Sunday masses in the
local church would be in Latin, I went to that one, because I had
missed the Latin mass - the mass in 'the vernacular' never was
just the same. But I was disappointed to find that so much of the
Latin mass also (except for the Canon) was not different. - The
purpose of having one of the Sunday masses in Latin was, I had
understood, to keep the Latin mass 'alive'. And I had supposed
this m eant: to preserve the mass as it was, for instance, in the
seventeenth and eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when the
great music was written for it. Even apart from the music, the
mass in that form was an important part of our heritage. And if
it were still celebrated, then it would not become something
known only to special scholars, ref erred to in footnotes of learned
works, e tc. I do not see how the revised Latin mass can ever gain
a place comparable to it. (If I remember, there is not even a
Kyrie now.)
If I want to 'come in contact with' the Christian religion now,
I must turn to the 'forms' that are present in our culture and
that have long histories: churches and the saints and teachers
that have been connected with them, and the music and the art
and literature connected with t hem. Although I do not belong to
a church, and although I do not unde rstand the doctrine (or
doctrines) of the relation of Christ to his church - still, the reality
of his life and teaching, if I'm to have any se nse of it at all, must
be what I find in the tradition, the li turgy (including the scrip-
tures) and the music as I have access to them now.
The word 'tradition' has been pull ed about so that it may
obscure more than it helps. I say 'These prayers, this form of
worship . .. this is Christianity; this is what I must try to under-
sta nd or come to terms with.' And ye t someone may tell m e,
'Wha t you see now has departed very far from its origins.' The
lirst a nswer is 'Of course it has.' But the remark may be meant
to suggest th a~ the tradition isfalse, in some sense. And the n I
wo 11dn wli :1 t /1he point is.
316 R eligion and morality
I can understand when someon e may say, 'That's no longer
C hris tianity.' (I wonder if anyone said this of Innocent III ~t t~e
time of his Papacy.) But then I may try to under~tand the cnte n .a
by which the speaker h as measure d the ~ra.ct1~e and found it
wanting. If h e says, 'That is not the Chnstiam~y of the ea~l_Y
Christian communities', then I suppose h e may thmk of the spmt
in which the p eople of that time worshipped and lived. His fe eling
is: 'to be C hristian is to worship and live in that spirit'. But then
the point tha t this was the spirit in which t.he ~hristi~n~ of the
first or second centuries worshipped - this pomt is only mc1de ntal.
The speaker might h ave found his standard exemplified in some
later time. - On the other h a nd, the emphasis m ay be the o ther
way round: he may think historical research h as brought to light
the form a nd the order of the praye rs in the early liturgy, the
routine of the early C hristian calendar, etc., e tc. H e may then
re ason that since these people were nearer to the life of Christ
on ea;th, h aving been taught by his disciples or ?Y immediat:
pupils of the m, t he spirit in which they lived and which they m a m-
fested must have been as close to the true Christian life and
worship as anyt hing we can find. And although we c~n ~now only
the externa l expressions of it (th e liturgy, the orgam zat1on of the
churches), we can at any rate be sure that these are the forms
in which the true spirit must be expressed. So we have here a
measuring rod by which to assess the liturgy and the rest of the
tradition of the present d ay. . .
Probably I have caricature d this 'second' way of thmkmg,
although I have not meant to.
When someone says, 'Let's try to rid our religion of what we
can see to be distortions from its original form s', or 'Let's try to
bring it back to what it was' - then I wonder how anyone at this
time can make the compa rison. P e rha ps the r ecords now show
that t he liturgy of the first century included or did not include
these and those prayers. But if we say that the liturgy (recon-
structed by his torians) was the right liturgy for the people of that
time : that for them this was the clearest expression of the holy
spirit - it is not obvious that the holy spirit would find expre~­
sion among us in just th at form. If we know the forms of their
p rayer s, we do not know very much of wh at the ir. praying was
like. T here was too much else that was so totally d1ffcrcn t fro111
the way in which we live and feel a nd inquire . Wr do not know,
 Picking and choosing 317
except in t he m ost general a nd vague way, what that liturgy meant
to the p eople of t h at time . And there is no r eason to be lieve tha t
we sh all be n eare r to them in spirit if we model our missals on
it for our use now. - Is it not more plausible to suggest that the
changes that have com e in the forms of worship in the course of
other historical deve lopments are not like ly to be forms in which
we can turn to God, than is a resurrec ted liturgy tha t is foreign
to us?
I have spoken of the Roman Mass, say from the start of the
seventeenth century. The first apostles did not worship in Latin.
And the first Roma n chu rch es did not h ave this m ass, except
perhaps for the canon. But this Roman Mass h as per sisted for
three centuries or more in pretty much th e sam e form. And for
this reason I am sorry to think it will cease to be a 'living
language'.
If anyone asked m e now, 'Do you m ean, then, t hat you think
everything in the history of Christianity is holy?', I should tell
him not to be stupid. There are plenty of developments (I have
referred to the secular power of Innocent III; I might add the
d estruction of the Albigeneses, etc.) of which I can only say
'Thank God that's past.'
But tha t which has meant much to saints - that which has
done most to r ege nerate and purify and make humble those
sections of the churches which have degenerated into worldly
power and splendour - this I wish we could cling to.
Becau se, . .. 'Lord, to whom should we go?'
I do not see why, in Europe, the Latin mass a nd the mass in
the vernacular should not be kept a live a longs ide one an oth er. I
say 'in Europe' since there would not be the reason for i t else-
where.
+
 PART FO U R

Reflections on Christianity
 ESSAY TWENTY-THREE

Miracles

11

I have often felt the same difficulty about the emphasis on the
miracles in the Gospels. ( I remember being put off by it espe-
cially when I re-read St Luke after a long time, some years ago.)
- I have never well u nd ers toad the a nswer ofJ esus to the followe rs
of J ohn the Baptist when they asked him 'Art thou he that should
come, or do we look for a nother?' T his passage is almost iden-
tical in M a t thew XI, 3 a nd Luke VII, 19. And both passage s end
wi th the remark which is also obscure to me: 'And blessed is he,
whosoever shall not be offended in me.' (I suppose this may have
referred to the 'stu mbling block' which some Pharisees and others
fo und in the idea tha t 'H e tha t should come' d id not come as a
king in his glory.) That passage (the reply to the followers of
J ohn) has become all the more a stu mbling block to me because
I have heard people explain it as J esus' 'showing his credentials';
which seems to me revolting nonsense .
T here is some in terest in noticing the order of the various mira-
cles (I think there are just seven in the Fourth Gospel, are there
not?); a nd their connexion with other features of J esus ' life and
leaching; there is a sort of d evelopment in the character of the
miracles performed, which goes with the d evelopmen t of his
ministry. But t his does not answer you r difficulty (and mine)
about the importance which they eviden tly had in the tradition
that gave birth to the Gospels.
I suppose that for those who saw the miracles (or some of t hem)
a nd 'from tha t hour' believed, it must have see med t hat the mira-
cl es carried a message that nothing else could carry. I suspect that
1ltc force which I he miracles d id have for them, came from the

I F1 111 11 II 11· 11 1· 1 I ll M. o•c. Dr ury 15 Sept.ember 1969 (Ed .).

322 R efl,ections on Christianity
person who was performing them. If someone else_ had cast out
d evils, mad e the blind see, the la me walk, had raised the d ead,
etc, .. . this would no t have had anything like this fo rce. - But in
this case, what was there so special about his performing miracles?
Would there not have been the same n ecessity to believe if you
saw and heard him, whatever he was doing or saying?
In a ny case, the list s of miracles form a fairly closed chapter
for us now : they cannot , as written record s, have the force which
the actual working of the miracles had for those (or rather: some
of those) who saw them. This is the theme of.. Lessing's short
essay 'On the Proof of the Spirit and the Power ' (Uber den Beweis
des Geistes und d e r Kraft) which is the best discussion of your
ques tion (or: the bes t state ment of the kind of difficulty we have
her e) tha t I have read. Kie rkegaard quo tes consider able passages
from this essay in the beginning of his Concluding Unscientific
Postscript, but fo r our purposes it is better to read Lessing ~y
him self, not in the context of the special point Kie rkegaard is
ma king.
T his essay is almost certain to be in the paperback volum e of
tra nsla tions of Lessing's essays on religion . But I do not know
what the translation is like.2
I do not know of any recen t discussion of the em p hasis on mira-
cles which is worth r eading. - There was so much time and ink
wasted in the discussion whe ther 'belief in miracles' was compat-
ible with 'scientific d eterminism' - perhaps this kept people from
posing the qu es tion.
I a m not bothered by the ques tion whether the miracles
recorded in t he Gospels are 'possibl e' or not. P erhaps this is pa rtly
because the idea of a single 'mecha nis m of na ture', with the d eter-
minism of a mecha nical system (Laplace's demon, etc.) has not
th e prestige of being science a ny more. - Raising Lazarus from
the dead after fo ur days, etc., would be astonishing in ma ny ways,
a nd mig ht seem to invite a hunt for an explanation - but if it
ha ppened it happened, a nd in a way it were stupid to say it couldn 't
have happened. O n the other hand, if I believe that this a nd th<'
oth er miracles, including Jesus' resurrection (however we a rc lo
understand the descript ions of this) - if I beli eve tha t t hese things
happe ned I shall not the reby feel that I have accep ted t lw
2 'On the P roof of the Spirit and of Power' in Go1Ll1old l ~pli raim l.!'ssi11g, 'l'l11'11/111111ril
Writings, trans. H enry Chadwick (London: Adam and C:ha rl t"s Hl .1ck, I %!)) (1,:d.).
 Miracles 323
Incarna tion. (Simone Weil: 'Hitler could die a nd return to life
again fifty times, but I should still no t look upon him as the son
of God.') 3
But of course, when I say I would not call raising Lazarus from
the dead 'absolutely impossible', I te nd to look on it as an unusual
and astonishing natural occurrence . In other words, I am not
thinking of it as a miracle. And my chief trouble with the whole
question is that I do not know wha t it would be to look on it as
a m~ra.cle . 'B~li eving in miracles', in the sense in which the early
Chnst1ans did, does not mean: 'Believing that such works are
possible' . (But conferre Wittge nstein's remarks on 'looking on
some thing as a miracle', in the L ecture on Ethics .) 4
I can only guess that the early C hristians found the miracles
J esus wrough t so entirely congruent with the divinity of his person
or his character as they had known it , tha t m en tioning the mira-
cles see med the most na tural way to d elineate his character, or
~how th~ divinity of his person. (Som e thing like a 'physiognomy',
m the eighteenth century sense.) Wher eas it migh t have seemed
more na tural to us to give, if we could, [to give] some portrayal
of the way he moved, of his voice, or his features. I do not mean
tha t their recounting of the miracles would be on{y this. But they
recounted the m because they thought the miracles revealed some-
thing impressive and more : tha t they revealed something divine
about him. But not just by being miracles. (Jesus said that the
Apostles would perform greater miracles tha n he had performed,
a nd tha t the Anti-C hrist would perform miracles as well.)
In a nother picture, these lines or strokes would not have
anything revealing or breath-taking about them . But in this
picture they do.
I repeat, I can only guess it must have been some thing like this.

Il s

You say tha t 'we are now acquainted with a very la rge body of
religious writings in which miracl es a re emphasized, and ... a

I Si mone Weil, Letter to a Priest, trans. from Lettre a UI! religieux (195 1) by A. F. Wills
(1.onclon: Rou1lcdgc & Kegan Pa ul, 1953), p. 55.
1
1·:1·?111 .'Wi t1gc: 11st l'i n ';~ Lc:cturcs on Ethics 11. Notes on talks with Wittgenstein -
hlt'drwli W:11,'!11:i1111 , l'/11/ow/1/trcal Review 74 ( 1965) p. 11 (Eel.).
' F111111 :i 11·111·1 111 ~ I . CJ 'C:. D1111-y d all'CI 9 Ck1obn l!l6B (Ed .).
324 Reflections on Christianity
critical examina tion can show the growth of such legends.' I d o
n ot know whether the comparatively recent 'form study' (have I
the name right?) of the early Christian t raditions in which the
Gospels were formed has shown a nything in teresting a bou t the
accounts of miracles in them .
It is interesting tha t this sor t of lege nd should have grown up
abou t people who a re pa rticula rly r evered. 'H e could do m iracu-
lous things.' Why should your devotion to him, or admiration for
him, d epend on that? (The reverence for Pythagoras: the tradi-
tion ascribed miracles to him. Also, a body which was not a n
ordinar y human body: 'a golde n thigh' - but I do not know the
gram mar of this, I do not know how it was taken, what it was,
for those who said it.)
Do not the accounts of miracles multiply, very often, a mong a
later genera tion, among people who did not know the Holy Man
personally - or knew him when they were very young? I.e. for
whom he is not a very defini te or individual figure.
'H e could do anything.' Confe rre: t he stories of H erakles, where
the exploits were not though t of as miracles. (Is this connect ed
with the fact tha t he was not a H oly Man, as Pythagoras was?)
T he miracles which wer e evidence of the divinity of J esus (or:
of his Messiahship - I am never su re how far this comes to the
same thing) were not t hough t of simply in the spiri t of 'he could
do anything', I suppose. And those for whom they did furnish such
evidence must have seen something in them which was not seen
in the miracles of the O ld Testam ent - in Egypt, in the
Wilderness, under J oshua, by Elijah, by Elisha, etc., etc. And yet
to me many of the miracles in the Gospels seem remarkably lik e
miracles perfor med by Elijah and Elisha, for ins tance. (I do not
know just what J ohn the Baptist's followers were aski ng him with
'Art thou he tha t should come' - this has been taken to mean ,
'Art thou Elij a h?', hasn't it?) Elijah brough t the widow's son back
to life (I Kings XVII, 17) (or rather : in response to the praye rs
of Elijah God brought the widow's son back to life: and this may
be a n importa n t difference from the story of the widow of Nai11
in Lu ke); Elisha (II Kings IV, 42) fed a hu ndred people wit Ii
twen ty loaves, etc., etc.
T his is why I have suggested that the chief d iffe re nce wit.it
mad e them into the special kind of evidence t hey wcr!' 11111 st
have come from the cha ract er a nd the prese nce of t lw pt· rst 11 1
 Miracles 325
performing them: Fron: those who witnessed them I imagine
there was somethrng akm to what Simone Weil called 'des sensa-
ti?ns de presence'. (She was speaking of mystical experiences.
Vid e L a Connaissance surnaturelle, p. 150, centre.)
I would suggest further: that just as there could be nothing
you would call . an explanation of a mir acle (only the explanation
of a n alleged miracle: you cannot bot h believe it is a miracle and
suggest an explanation of it), in a somewhat similar way there
;annot really be a description of a m iracle. We might even say,
Small wonder that the accounts of the m iracles seem fiat to us
when we read them .' - Perhaps this is nonsense; and I admit I
do not know what I am talking about.
About Lourdes: the o~erwhelming majority of invalids who go
there are not cured (which does not say 'they might as well not
have gone'). Some few are cured. Of these, some a re cases of
'religious mania' or one or a nother fo rm of hyst eria. T he Church
knows this, and does not want to pronounce it a miraculous cure
when it turns out that it was all along hysterical paralysis, etc.
H ence the very long examination on the part of the C hurch before
it will say that this or that par ticular cure was miraculous. - On
the o.ther hand I have been told of cases which eviden tly were not
of this sort (a man cured of tuberculosis of the spine which had
spread in to h~s abdor:ien, for instance). I have heard this man give
the bare ou tline of his case, together with others in a five minute
wir~less programme . And I do not feel that I mu~t say he was not
te~lrng the tru.th, or. that?e was d eluded . T he tribe of scientifically
mmd.ed men 1.s so impatient and scornfu l with any such account
that it (the tnbe) would thin k it was degrading even to look into
the case. Someone has compared this to the attitud e of the Church
to Galileo. T here are diffe rences, bu t for the scientifically minded
'that way of thinki ng is entirely foreign to th eir mind and
therefore it i_s rubbish, and moreover pernicious rubbish'. Well, I
cannot feel hke that. If it happened, it happened. I do no t think
t his mean~ that physicians should change their ways of treating
t uberculos1s; nor that the physicians who told this man his case
was too far advanced to be cured were wrong. I do not mean
that when they are doing medicine they should always take into
account what happened at Lourdes. If I say anything, it would be
th a t th ey shou ld sec th eir practice of medicine in a wider environ-
11 11·11 t - whic h clews not det ract a t all from its importance.
326 R eflections on Christianity
On the other hand, when I accept a man's account of what
happened to him at Lourdes, this does not have a ny special reli-
gious significance for me, I think . In a sense it makes me ponder.
And in som e way I cannot explain, it does bring some sense of
humility. But I can imagine that for the man himself it would have
a very deep religious significance; so tha t what has happened to
him is something much more than simply being res tored to
health. And certainly this is not the sort of thing I should call a
delusion in him.
You say 'the belief in a God who selects certain people for
miraculous cures is a degradation of the idea of a God'. I am not
sure about this. M aybe. Is it sense if I ask: why is not the idea
of a world creat ed by God, bu t a world in which everything
happens according to natural laws with the result~nt crazy
fort unes a nd misfortunes - why is this not a degradation of the
idea of God? - Where no miracles happen, still some people are
cured, aren't they, a nd some are not? Forgive me if I say that
you seem to talk as though the distribution of ~ir~culou~ cures
was a distribution of favours. But in what sense ts it? Is it clear
that a man miraculously cured would simply 'go on his way
rejoicing'? Might he not be almost intolerably puzzled and
weighed down by the experie nce? (Lazarus brought ? u t of th.e
tomb. I do not know what the rest of his life was hke. But it
cannot have been just as though the whole thing had neve r
happened. I always think of him as mostly silent , unable to unde~­
sta nd what had happened to him: unable to underst a nd wha t i t
m eant, why it had happened to him, and what he was supposed
to conclude from it. Som ething like that would be too much for
a huma n being.) You remember the remark of Simone W eil's
which Thibon q uotes in his preface to 'Gravity and Grace': 'All
these mys tical phenomena ... are a bsolutely beyond me. I do ~ol
understand the m. They are meant for beings who, to start with ,
possess the elem entary moral virtues .. .' . .
(That is Emma C raufurd's tra nslation, and it discolours whal
she said: 'Tous ces phenomenes mystiques ... sont absolumc111
hors de ma compet ence. 6 j e n'y COnnais rien. Ils SOill reserves ,I
d es etres qui possedent, pour commencer, les vcrt us mornl1·..,
elementaires. J'en parle au hasard. Et je nc suis mrml· p.1 ~

6 'Absolutely bl·yond 111y grasp' (Ed .) .

 Miracles 327
capable de me dire sincer ement que j'en parle au hasard.')
(Connaissance surnaturelle, 205 infra, 206.)
. Almost as tho ugh the experience made life less intelligible and,
m a sense, less bearable than it had been.
I ha~e wondered sometimes at the occasions on which J esus
was evidently reluctant to perform miracles. The resurrection of
Lazarus was one - and the one I understand least. It is as though
he found th~ ~erformance of the miracle immensely depressing;
and to m e It is not clear why. (This comes only in the fourth
Gospel.) The passage in Mark IX, 16-28, in which he excises the
'dum~ spirit' from a boy at the request of the father, gives
ostensibly the reason for his r eluctance in tha t the 'incr edulous
?eneration' would not ' believe' without a sign. And simila rly
m othe r places. (John IV, 48, 'Except ye see signs and wonders
ye will not believe.') - In the majority of the accounts there i~
no m ention of such r eluctance . But where there is - would this
be .one of the natural accretions which grow with the la ter
telhngs? I t see ms something different. And it has m ade me
wonder what J esus' attitude to the performance of miracles gener-
ally was.
I suppose there are somewhat r elated difficulties in trying to
understa nd the conception of answers to prayers. And also about the
conception of prayer altogether - of the importance of prayer. - I
do ~ot m ea~ that this has all the same puzzles tha t go with the
notion of mlfacles. But I think there are points at which they a re
near.

IJ 7

Sp~aking of the cures at Lourdes, you say 'I can't see myself
saymg the re can't be a natural explanation for this cure.' I
think this is important. In passing, I wonder how you interpre t
the statement, 'There must be a natural explanation for this cure',
or 'It can't have happened without som ething which would be
I he na tural explanation of it .' It is easy to confuse a sta teme nt
of this .ki~d with: 'Your diabe tes can't be the result of taking
saccha rin m your tea.' But they are very differe nt.
O r compa re: 'It is possible that some cancerous growths d evelop
1 1
1 111111 ·' lt11 .. 1 10 M. O ' C:. Drury dated 25 October 1968 (Ed.).
328 R efi,ections on Christianity
without any infection', and: 'It is possible that some cancerous
growths develop although nothing has caused them .' These both
look as though they were st a temen ts which might be made in
connexion with some causal investiga tion. But the second - 'It is
possible that ... although nothing has caused them' - would not
be. It would have no sort of relevance to any causal inquiry. It
would rather be a way of saying: 'It is not that sort of investiga-
tion; we are not looking for causes here. We are not seeking that
form of understanding.'
If I said 'Some fo rms of cancer are caused by a virus, and some
are not', you would understand this (whether or not it be true) .
But if I said 'Some forms of cancer have causes a nd some don't',
you would not understand this. It would seem to you stupid, chiefly
because it looks like part of a discussion of what the causes are,
as the first one is. Or: It looks as though it we re the conclusion
I had reached in an inq uiry into the causes of cancer. And in that
role it would be nonsense.
Suppose I am beset by a physiological psychologist, who tells
m e that all 'mental phenomena' are caused by chemical happen-
ings (?) in the blood or ne rvous system. H e starts telling me about
brain damage, disorders of speech a nd vision, the developments
in psycho-pharmacology . . . a nd in order to check the flood I
tell him tha t this is irrelevan t to a large part of our discussion
of what goes on in a man's mind, or belongs to his men tal life.
And I may mention decisions, saying tha t although the re has been
a great deal of discussion abou t this, and although it is some-
thing which puzzles me and I wish I had more u nderstanding of
it - I would never try to find the cause of a decision. Certainly
not in the sense in which I might try to find the cause of a brain
lesion. Mr C ha rles Davis d ecided to leave the Catholic pries t-
hood. I may wish I could und ers tand his decision, a nd I m ay
specula te on what could have led him to it. Bu t not: 'what caused
it'. I t is not tha t sor t of speculation, it is not that sort of qu cs
tion, and the u nder sta nding I seek is not a n unde rstanding of
causes, empirical laws, etc.
Some scientists wear heavy blinders, a nd they canno t lw
brought to see that the re are other forms of investigatio n tha11
causal investigation.
On the other ha nd, if I shou ld say: 'Decisions ofte n happrn
without causes', this would be ve ry mi slcacl in g, sin ce it looks .1 •1
 Miracles 329
though I were saying some thing a bout d ecisions in connexion with
causal inquiry. Whereas my point is simply: that we do not ask
f?r causes here. Not that we have carried out a causal investiga-
tion a nd found that these decisions have none. That would be
nonsense. The point is that we do not car ry out a causal investi-
gation he re at all. And I would add: we do not know what would
be meant by 'a causal investigation' here.
(Of course my example has nothing to do with the case of a
man who is unable to make decisions a t all. I do not say that
ther e cannot be a causal investigation here. And as a result a
doctor m ay give him treatment, so that he is able to make d:ci-
sions. That is not at all like the question: 'Why did he come to
this decision, rather than that? Why did he decide to leave the
priesthood, ra ther than remain?')
But it would be nearer to your rem arks if I r eminded you of
Wi~tgenstein 's example, in which he imagines two seeds, one of
which grows in~o a poppy, the other into a cornflower. Suppose
you are a botamst and you examine the two seeds, and you cannot
find any diffe rence between them. And yet when you plant them
and they ger minate, that is the result. Obviously a botanist would
say that there must be some difference in the seeds to star t with
a.lthough we have not found it yet. And (Wittgenstein empha~
sized), he would be stupid if he did/ said anything else. Or rather:
at the present time, he would be st upid if he said anything else. But
we can imagine a situation developing which would change this.
Suppose t~at we have in this lot seeds coming from poppy and
seeds commg from cornflowers. The seed which comes from a
c:ornflower always grows into a cornflower, the seed which comes
from a poppy always grows into a poppy. But no scientis t is able
I o find any internal or structural differ ence in the seeds at all.
And this goes on over a great many years, even though the most
rnmpetent bo~anis~s have tried again and again, and in every
wa~ they ea~ 1m~gme, to find such a difference. Then, Wittge n-
st_<'.in says, .1t might be that people would give up looking for
'. '"·ferences m t?e seeds themselves ; a nd would say simply that if
11 .•s .a seed whi ch came from a poppy, it will give a poppy, and
tf 1l is a seed which came from a cornflower, it will give a corn-
fl owe r. Wittgenstein would repeat with emphasis that of course
11 would be stupid lo say this now. But we can im agine a situa-
1 ion in wliid1 ii wo1ild 110/ be stupid. - We give u p asking a
330 Reflections on Christianity
question for which we cannot even imagine a m ethod of finding
the answer. - This would be a big r evolution in the conception
of a botanical inquiry.
I have meant this to be a propos of your remark: 'I can't see
myself saying there can't be a natural explanation of this cure.'
And I would say. 'Of course not'. - (I am not sure whether you
want to go on to say positively: 'Of course there is a natural expla-
nation ... ')
I do not know when the description of a miracle as an event
'which cannot be explained by natural laws' was introduced. I t
sounds like the nineteenth century. - But if it is absurd, then the
idea of proving that something is a miracle is also no less absurd.
I agree with you on this. I do not know whether the Catholic
Church would speak of proving that such and such a cure was
miraculous, but I do not think they would. I think their exami-
nation is to make sure that none of the explanations which could
be suggested at the present time would explain it. If this has any
significance, this could only be because there was some prima
facie case for calling it a miracle to start with, I suppose. But
here I am guessing.
You reject (and naturally): 'There can't be a natural explana-
tion of this cure.'
What about: 'Perhaps there isn't a natural explanation of this
cure' (said, maybe, after long examination). Do you feel the same
way about this? - I agree that it would be difficult to see wha t
this could mean. And the person who said it would, or might,
have in mind some idea of supernatural explanation.
'I only know I had tuberculosis of the spine, and now I am well.
And it did not come about through medical treatment.'
One feels like saying that there must be a natural explanatio1i.
It seems almost dishonourable, fiddling with the accounts, I 1:
suggest anything else. - This looks like the expression of a v<· 1)
strong prejudice.
I know it is not that.
And you know that it were stupid to say: 'It has been pro/ll't!
up to the hilt that there must be.' That would be humbug.
'There must always be a natural explanation' is not the sorl 11 1
statement you could prove: what sort of proof would you imag i1 w•'
- It is not a statement in the ordinary sense anyway. TI is a .rlll81111 ,
all right, then: call it a principle. Anyway, l do not 111 <' : 111 111
 Miracles 33 1
express any contempt for it when I say that. I say simply t hat
it is not the statement of something that anyone could dis-
cover.
(We have been using 'natural explanation' in contrast to 'super-
natural explanation'. And we have left it vague. You might want
to say: it must be an explanation which would be recognized in
medicine; the sense of 'explanation' must be the sense which it has
in_ medicine. - If someone explains the cure as 'suggestion ', you
will agree that he has not said much.)
Down another street: Would you say 'There must always be a
natural explanation of religious conversion'? Don't think of reli-
gious conversion in general; think of what happened to this
particular man.

IV 8
The account of the trial of a woman accused (???) of being a
witch. (Contrast the attitude of Jesus towards certain men
possessed by devils.)
The judge: 'If you cannot account for - give a certain account
or explanation of - the phenomena by natural causes, they must
have been produced by supernatural causes - i.e. by the devil.'
This is said to be a preposterous inference.
But consid er the case of a woman cured of cancer; who is ce rtain
the cure was the intervention of God in answer to prayer: the
physician alas (in a sense, anyway) cannot account for it by
natural causes; he had every reason, from empirical evidence and
past experience, to say she would not recover. And he says he has
no objection to saying it was a divine miracle.
Is one as ready to call this preposterous as the others? And
why?
nota bene: It would not mean that one here accepted the expla-
na tion by some (natural) cause which medicine had been u nable
to discover and control. (Cf. explaining something by abnormally
strong radio-activity from the sun.)
If you asked 'the cash value' of 'it was the intervention of God '
- the answer might be something like giving thanks to God, the
growth of a new humility, etc., etc.

11
Fr 0 111 11 0 1e·s ditlcd 24 August 197 1 (Ed.).
332 Refl,ections on Christianity
In the witchcraft case: we may feel that the judge's ruling is a
kind of special pleading for an irrational vindictiveness. (If many
more witches than wizards were burnt, this might also be said to
speak of irrational prejudice.)
Someone who believed in witches might be someone with a
st rong sense of evil and fear of evil - the former may often be
called fear of the devil. A sense of something sinister in many
forms of evil; and unable to see clearly what this 'sense of some-
thing sinister' comes from: - only, a sense that it is (some how)
not confined to these particular acts or particular person. T his is
something many people now might have (e.g. in reading accounts
of the Charles Manson trial).
Greater medical knowledge (and greater r espect for medical
opinion by the courts) might have saved the woman. In the
circumstances in which she was brought to trial at all, I doubt it.
(Can this really be imagined??)
It seems that no medical knowledge will save Charles Manson.
(Maybe we do not want it to. Is this relevant?)
This raises questions about the r espective rol es of courts and
of physicians. Cf. the idea that 'all crime is illness' - perhaps that
the accused should have compulsory treatment.
Sometimes I think I hear:
'One of the good results of the growth - and growth in prestige
- of science, is that it has de stroyed barbarous superstition' -
when this just means:
'One of the good results of the growth of science is that it has
removed obst acles to the growth of science' (in this case: to the
growth of medicine?) - as though this is what is meant by super-
stition; and as though the evil of superstition were that it hinders
the growth of science.
Suppose someone said superstition was an evil practice.
Suppose someone said Dr Christiaan Barnard's experiments
were hardly different from - and no more worthy than - vivi-
section. Will the growth of science make people see this more
clearly?
Witchcraft. If you asked why the court and others thought th al
witches ought to/ must be burned alive -
I wonder if one can answer (i.e. reconstruct this thinking, 11 0 1
propose unconscious motives); and give a clear reason l o t hi11 k
that more developed medicine would h ave prcvenlt:d this i<lt-:1
 Miracles 333
(even if it prevented condemnation of women who were merely
epileptic)?
It is true that 'there are witches' is not a proposition that would
be taken seriously in any scientific discussion.
It is also true that 'if there were not natural causes, there must
have been supernatural causes' would mean nothing in medicine.
But - just for this reason - we obviously cannot say that science
or medicine has proved that there are no witches; nor that there
are scientific ways of showing that Mrs So-and-so is not a witch.
Further: the serious contemplation of evil as something that
cannot be identified with the causes and processes studied in medi-
cine. This may be much more clear seeing than is the idea that
there is only 'normality' and 'abnormality - sometimes patho-
logical' in the lives of human beings.
(If you think of 'evil' as a shadowy physical reality requiring
study and control by some study other than medicine - a physics
of shadowy objects - we may call this superstition.) (But I do not
know to what extent the hunters and judges of witches did think
of it in this way.)
 ESSAY TWENTY-FOUR

Mescaline, mysticism and

religious experience

II

I never read the thing Huxley wrote about mescaline. I have read
numbers of references to it and discussions of it, with some quota-
tions. So I ought not to try to talk about the matt.er at all. - I
find I cannot even re member precisely what you did say on the
matter in your paper, although I think I r~member ~our general
point. I was interested in that, and I am interested m what you
say here. , ,
There was the idea that we are dependent upon our sense ~
for what we know. This raises the question of whether th~ r: is
any precise measure to distinguish normal from abnor~al v1s10n,
hearing, tactile sensations . . . But also: w~eth:r it me~ns
anything to say (as Socrates seemed to be saymg i:i the begm-
ning of the Phaedo) that we are hindered by our senses m our search
for knowledge. .
If I re member , there was the f~rther question of ~hethe1:
certain stimulants, such as mescaline , could take us .beyond
the limitations which our normal senses impose on us. !his seen:s
to be suggesting that when Huxley had taken mescalm: he still
depended on his senses, in some sense, but they . ~ere given n e~
powers. (This would be different from the position. of Socrall s
in the beginning of the Phaedo, since he was suggestm? that tl1t·
real truths could be reached only by pure thought, without. a 11y
contribution from the senses at all. //nb., this position is mod1ri1·d
in Plato's later dialogues, and even in the la tter part of t lw
Phaedo./I)
You say her e tha t ' the smell of incense always has a profou11dl)

1 From a letter to M. O 'C. Drury da ted 14 May l!J()CJ (l·:d .).

334
 Mescaline, rrrysticism and religious experience 335
stirring effect on m e, like hearing a church bell '. And you ask
'Isn't the use of incense comparable to the use of a drug?'
In some ways, obviously. But: it would not be by itself an agent
bringing you face to face with truths or realities you could not
apprehend in any other way, would it? You say that the solitary
use of incense would be in some way a degradation of it. And I
imagine it is not simply that there is a congregation, but also
that there is the church lighting, music, the architecture of the
building itself, the stages of the liturgy. What you see and hear
can have an effect analogous to the incense which you smell. You
added: 'Like hearing a church bell.' - P erhaps we could say that
all these surroundings (among which smells are important: m ay
be spiritual or d egrading or differ in other ways - the smell of
beefst eak and onions would be an invasion, not a help) - these
surroundings 'go with' the frame of m ind in which one worships.
Sometimes a natural scene, if you are alone - and perhaps espe-
cially at evening - m ay have an analogous effect . In any case, I
do not think you wou ld say that you could not worship God without
the incense, the music, the lighting and the atmosphere of the
church. And this makes these things different from what Huxley
was claiming for m escaline - or does it not? Perhaps I am
confused.
Protestant sects like the W ee Free Church of Scotland would
forbid incense, organ music and much else that belonged to the
'popish' liturgy. And yet I have no doubt tha t there have been
Wee Free Christians who were deeply d evout.
When I say, as I have been saying just now, that Huxley
supposed there were experiences induced by mescaline which he
could not get without mescaline - this was wrong and confusing,
I guess. For I think his point was ra ther: tha t he a nd others can
be brought to a view of reality, an apprehension of reality or real-
ities, by taking m escaline - the same view that certain other people
have known in mystical expe riences, connected with lives of reli-
~ious devotion. But the point is still: that the re are certain
realities, or certain 'realizations', which he and r eligious mystics
have had; and that these are not to be reached by ordinary sober
observa tion, by conclusion from data collected, etc., etc.
r guess that Huxley was philistine and supe rficial in his under-
sl anding of wha I is involved in ' the experiences of mystics'. The
111osl obvio11s poi111 to me is that a 'mystical expe rie nce' like that
336 Reflections on Christianity
of St Paul or those of Simone Weil will have some profound effect
on the life of the person who has had it. If someone tries to tell
me about some 'mystical experience' - including a vision of Christ
on the Cross, perhaps - but does not have anything about his
life or even his way of telling of this experience, which is at all
an~logous to that which impresses me in St Paul, Simone Weil,
St Theresa (though differently), St J ohn of the Cross, Eckhart
.. . then I conclude that whatever he is trying to tell me , it is
not what I take the experiences of the great mystics to have been.
(That is badly phrased, since it suggests that I think I can imagi~e
what their experiences were - and I cannot.) I cannot make this
at all explicit, as I ought to. - What I want to say first is that
Huxley seems to me to have neglected this feature of what we ca!l
'mystical experience' or 'religious vision' a~toget?~r. I .doubt if
one could give any sort of account of mystical vis10ns m terms
chiefly of sensory experiences.

I am reminded here of Simone Weil's remarks on the fact that

St J ohn of the Cross and others have used the phrases and the
imagery of sexual love (and of bride and brid egr~om) when. they
are writing of the pure love of God. 'Reprocher a des mystique~
d'aimer Dieu avec la faculte d'amour sexuel, c'est comme s1
on reprochait a un peintre de faire des ta bleaux avec des
couleurs qui sont composees de substances materielles. Nous
. . ~
n'avons pas autre chose avec qu01 aimer.

Suppose we lump 'mescaline experiences' and 'm.ystical expe-

riences' together. Is the idea this: tha t these 'experiences' rr:iake
it possible for people to know certain things, say about the objects
surrounding them, which the rest of us might learn ~y more. plod-
ding, everyday methods? Or do they learn somethmg which no
one would learn by ordinary methods? I think Huxley meant the
latter. But I find this hard to understand - not least because 1
should not know what were meant by the trustworthiness of these
(mescaline) experiences. .
Do they have any bearing on normal experiences? And do
normal experiences have any bearing on them?
2 'To reproach th e mystics for loving God wi th t h e facu lt y of sexual lovt' is liki-
reproaching a pa inter fo r pa inting his pictures witl.1 ~o lo.11rs I hat an· ('0111po sf'd ol
ma terial s ubs tances. W e have nothmg else to lovt' with (Jo,d.).
 Mescaline, mysticism and religious experience 337
I think this question preoccupied Simone Weil. And in her
last writings - La Connaissance surnaturelle, pp. 150, 153: 'Tout le
probleme de la mystique et des questions connexes est celui du
degr e de vale ur des sensations de presence.' 3
Does not the trouble come partly from comparing

(a) ordinary perception,

(b) extraordinary (mescaline) perception - almost as though this
were like comparison between
(i) what you can see with the naked eye,
(ii) what you can see with the microscope or telescope.

As though the drug enabled you to go beyond the limitations

of your normal vision, rather as the microscope d oes?
I have wondered if it were like the comparison between the
knowledge you reach through investigation; what you 'know by
intuition'.
Wittgenstein imagines a medical student who tells his tutor
that he knows anatomy by intuition. The tutor replies, 'All right,
but you'll have to sit an exam with the rest of them.'
But maybe this is not relevant here.
It is the term 'reality' that plays hell with discourses like
Huxley's, I imagine. 'A greater reality', 'a new sense of reality',
etc. , etc.

II 4

I was extremely int erested in your account of your v1s1t to the

site of your first army camp. And the way you wrote of it made
me realize a little of what it meant to you.
But I am not surprised that the effect of this and of other
cognate experiences which you had during the same period should
now be hard for you to reca pture. I say 'the effect', and I am
thinking of the sense of understanding and the sense of peace,
perhaps reconciliation, which you had at these times. I imagine
1
Simone Weil, La Co1111aissance surnaturelle (P a ris: Gallimard, 1950) p . 150. 'The whole
problem abn111 mys tery a nd re lated quest ions concerns the exten t to which feelings of
ldivi 111'j p11·s1·1ir c· lo.1v1· any value' (Eel.).
1
Frn111 :1 l1·tt 1·1 In V1•111011 Yl'll tc·s elat ed 17 S1:pte 111bcr 1969 (Ed .).
338 Reflections on Christianity
there are other effects, less sensible, which do not fade in the
same way.
Those emotional experiences are valuable in themselves. But
generally they are not the beginnings of a complete change in
one's life, as they may seem at the time. And if religious convic-
tion r ested only on them, it would go out with the tide. This is
one reason why the Catholic Church is distrustful of what it calls
'emotionalism' in religion. (The C hurch - or some Catholics,
anyway - go on to say, 'therefore faith must be grounded in reason'.
I think this is just as bad, though in a different way.) We may
think, perhaps, of the ephemeral 'conversions' in the Welsh
Revival.
'A confession must be part of a new life .' - But I imagine few
are. A confession may be relatively easy (though that depends) .
At any rate, you might say you would know what you would have
to do if you were to make a confession. But to lead a new life
.... . . ? And granting that you know it would be a life in which
you at least tried to recognize that other things are more impor-
tant than those that generally worry you now (say) - how does
one actually begin to live in this way? I do not know any answer.
But confession and repentance have their importance on!J in
connexion with living so, I imagine.
It has its character in the role that it plays in his life. Not
chiefly in what you can see or hear at the time.
With the mystical experiences of genuine mystics - St Paul,
say, or Simone Weil - I suppose it is different in various
ways. But this is something the rest of us know nothing about. I
spoke of 'genuine' mystics, and I would distinguish these people
from others who may tell us they have had mystical experiences
- and who undoubtedly have had experiences of some sort
(including visions, maybe). If I said I did not believe their
experiences were genuinely mystical, I should be inclined to add
that I did not see it in the lives they lived: as one does see it i11
St Paul and Simone Weil, for instance. Certainly each of thcrn
was an unusual character - showing a selfless devotion to a cau ~w
which the rest of us cannot a pproach - before the mystical cx pc
rience. Their lives - Paul's as a zealous Rabbi, Simone W(·il 's
as an atheist revolutionary - wer e 'un-worldly' and unspari11g
of themselves . And I imagine it is only someone who has li wd in
such a way that is capable of the mys ti c::i l cxperi c11rcs wli i1 11
 Mescaline, mysticism and religious experience 339
th ey had. But for all that, their lives were different after their
mystical experiences. And it is this that impresses the rest of us,
even though we can have no conception of what the 'experiences'
we re.
. (I knew a woman member of the staff of the University College
m Swansea, who maintained in a discussion in the 'Don's Reli-
gious Group' that she had had j ust such an experience hers elf.
And I do not believe it . I believe that she had the vision or the
dream which she described. But it was nothing of the sort
that Pa.ul's and Simone Weil's experiences were. And I say this
categorically because I think that if it had been then she and
her life would have been impressive in a way that' they were not.
I d? ~ot mean that she would have said illuminating things about
relig10n. I mean that it would have shown in what she said
about the lives and affairs of people in this world. - Of course it
may be tha t there was some side to her which I had never see n
and I may have been wrong. But the side of her which I did se;
was too incongruous with such an idea.)
On the other hand, it happens to genuine mystics too that the
exaltation of (almost: the 'possession by') the mystical experience
passes; they no longer have the sense of the presence of God or
the union. with God which they knew then; and they cannot
r~cover this.' however much they long for it . I am thinking of
Simone. Weil, and (I believe) St J ohn of the Cross; but I think
somethmg the sam e has been true for others. It may seem as
though they were left in a world which (in a sense) they are less
abl.e to u~der~tand than ever. Bu t whatever the feeling of deso-
lat10n this brings, there is evidently no question for them of
turning. from t.he path on which they have started. H ere again is
somethmg which the rest of us can recognize only from a few
~>are external signs. The question of 'how it is possible', 'what it
is t ha~ makes them able to' etc. - such questions do not have any
111 canmg at all that I can recognize. That is how these people do
Iivc; that is all.
. It would. obviou~ly ~e crazy fo r anyone to seek for mystical expe-
1 wnces; still crazier if he hoped that then a new life would be
.Hldcd unto him.
 Refl,ections on Christianity
III5
I was inter ested especially in what you go on to say with your
re ma rk ' .. . but a pe rsonal affection for Jesus is something I ha~e
never really felt', for this is one area (among s_eve:al) m
C hristianity where I have a lways felt blind. (For me this d1ffic~lty
is generally associated with difficulties in the idea of Incarnat10n;
but this may show confusion.)
People who do speak of a pe rsonal affection for Jes~s have do~e
so in different ways - as far as I can see. There is a place m
Swansea called The Bible College, where the students or members
ho ld to some sort of 'lite ra l reading' of the Old and New
T estaments - they are impatient (or were when I s~oke with some
of them) with any distinction between the Synoptic ~o~pels a~d
the Fourth Gospel - a nd they used to talk of ' meetmg J~s u~ m
a way that sounded no diffe re nt from meeting, say, the Prmc1pal
of the College. I never could unde rstand any of this, but it never
sounded like what I should normally call r eligion. Jesus is here
as one of us, although h e is someone who can a dvis_e and tell us
what to do. I could not find anything in what they said tha t would
suggest or lead on to: 'sanctus, ~anctus,_ sanctus. ?amine Deus
(Saving the irreverence, consultmg _Jesus seemed no
different from consulting another human bemg.)
( ) 11 a different level: some years ago I heard a sermon from

t Ill' priest a t a Christmas morning mas~ h ere in ~ondon. He spoke

i, 1ic·lly a nd without flourish es, and with a seriousn ess which_ I
t ltrn1g ltt fitt ed the mass. He spoke of the birth ~f ~esus, and said :
'S11u·c· th a t time, nobody n eed ever be alone agam. I guessed t~at
trn 111 :.ny or most of the worshippers this was either. s?i:n~thmg
t lll' y'd have been ready to say, o~ it opened up possibilities fo1~
t hnii · so tha t for a time at least, it would strengthen the fervou t
nl t h('ir' worship.
' - I h ave h eard reference to the though~ t h a t ' I
a 111 not a lone' - r eferring to the presence of Jesus - m wha t
!'rot estants say as well. I suppose it n eed not amount to thr_
persona l affection for J esus you mentioned, but it r:1ay be _part ol
it . nola bene, the priest was speaking of some thmg ~ w~1 ch hcis
lwen possible, evide ntly, only since the birth of J esus.. [h is wo~ild
111 ak(' it something diffe rent from what is expressed •.n the 23 n~
Psalm , 'The Lord is my shcphC' rd ... For t.hou a rt with llH' · · ·
~ F101 11 , 1 lt· 11 1· 1 111 M . O'C:. D1111 y do11 1·cl lfi Clliob1· 1 l<Jh'l (l•:d.) .
 Mescaline, mysticism and religious experience 341
And I have n ot much idea what it is. But h e spoke with a
simplicity and a dignity that impressed me.
I once quoted to you a remark in one of Wittgenstein's ma nu-
script books which I have only partly understood: (it loses through
my translation)
'What would our feelings be if we had never h eard of Christ?
Would we have the fe eling of darkness and of being abandoned?
Do we not have it/this feeling/ only to the extent that a child
does not h ave it, wh en h e knows there is someone in the room?
Religion as madness is madness from want of religion.'
(This last phrase mor e verbally parallel to the German written:
' . .. is madness from irreligiosi ty'.) 6
I think he wrote this in 193 1. Is the sense partly something
like this: Anyone who got from religion the sort of comfort that
a child gets from knowing ther e is someon e in the room - would
be getting a form of madness (perh aps: a delusion??) . If he had
had any genuine r eligion, then the sense of desolation from the
fact that there was n o other person present, would not drive him
to this fo r m of madness. H e would not be so dependent on the
sense that a particular person was presen t in a particular place,
the place where h e himself was. Perhaps Wittgenste in might
have referred to the Book of Job in this connexion - I do not
know.
(In the Book of J ob 'I know that my redeemer live th' is often
taken to r efer to Christ, to J esus of Nazar eth, isn't it? Do you
think it can mean that?)
Like you, I have found it curious that wh en Simone Weil speaks
of anything like a 'per sonal relation ', sh e speaks generally of 'le
Christ', not of :Jesus'. In h er letter to Father Perrin, which is
called 'Autobiographie spirituelle' in Attente de Dieu, she says 'C'est
au cours d'une de ces recitations que ... le Christ lui-meme est
d escendu et m'a prise.' 7 And then, in the n ext sentence (the start
6
What would it feel like not to have heard of C hrist?
Should we feel left alone in the dark?
Do we escape such a fee ling simply in the way a c hild escapes it when he knows
the re is someone in the room with him?
Religion as madness is a madness springing from irreligiousness
(Culture and Value, trans. Peter Winch, p. 13e) (Ed.)
1
Simone We· ii, 'A111obiographir spirituellc' in Attente de Dieu (Pa ris: La Colombe, n.d.),
p. 38. '11 w11~ d111 inµ; 0111· or 1h1·s(· n·citations tha1, as I 1old you, Christ himself came
dnw11 11 11d 11111~ l' "~~1''l'l i1111 111' 111t·.' IV11ili11,11 1m (:od, p. 3.'i (Ed.).
'·.H2 Refl.ections on Christianity
or lhc next paragraph: '. . . j e n'avais pas prevu la possibilite de
c;ela d'un contact reel, de personne a personne, ici-bas, entre un
il t re' humain et Die u.' 8 U sing 'le Christ' and 'Dieu' interchange-
a bly; as she would apparently have liked also to use 'le Chris: '
a nd 'la verite' interchangeably. - H ere of course our trouble is
that she is writing of her mystical experiences, and we sho':1ld be
uncommonly stupid if we put on heavy spectacles and tned to
ferret out her meaning. And the same holds for what she says,
a bout two pages later (Eng. tr. beginning centre of p. 38), of her
experiences when reciting the p~ter noster i~ Gree_k; end~ng at the
bottom of that page (Attente de Dieu, p. 41 ): Parfois aussi, pendant
celte recitation OU a d'autre s moments, le C hrist est present
en personne, mais d'une presence infiniment plus reelle, ~~us
poignante, plus claire et plus pleine d'amour que cette premiere
fo is ou il m'a prise .' 9
I've said she seemed here to use 'le C hrist' and 'Dieu' inter-
changeably. Yet a year late r, when she was writing L 'Enracinement
she speaks against thinking of God as a person, although she
says we have to think of him as something like ~ p erson . (W,e
should remember that in Attente de Dieu she was wntmg to P ernn
- who, apparently, was shocked by much of what . she said in
[, 'Enracinement: I cannot remember whether he specifically men-
tion s this matter of God as a person or not.)
I guess we ought to remember also that s_he did n~t think ~he
Hc·s11rn:ction important in the Gospels: certamly she did not thmk
11 showed anything of the divinity of C hrist, and she _seeme_d
.d111os l sorry that it was included in the account. I m ention ~his
lw1 .111s1· someone, in writing of the doctrine of the Resurrect ion,
ri pok1· of a ppearances of J esus, not only to Cephas and the 500
,111d t o Paul, but also to certain people in lat er ce nturies, 'for
c·xa111plc Simone W eil'. - I cannot make out what th: appe~r­
:llH 'l'S recorded in the Gospels were. But when she says le Chnst
l11i-meme est descendu et m'a prise', or when she says 'le
( :hrist est present en personne' - she does not seem to have

11 Jlttl'ltlr de Diw p. 38. 'l had n ever fo reseen t he possibi lity of that, of a r ea l con tact, pe rson
1o pi·rso11, he;<. below, bc 1wrc n a h uman be ing and God' (Wai ting 011 Cod, P· 69) (Ed.).
'1
1
\11m1r dr J)ir 11 , p. 4 1. ' Som etim es, a lso, d uring t his rcci~ at.i on ? r at o ilwr 111011H· 111 ~,
( :111 is l is pn ·si·11t wi t h 01 (' in p1:rson, bu t his prcs('nCt' is 111 fimtrl~ m ore· n ;aI, " " ' ''''
k 11mvi1t)\, 111011· dra 1 t han 011 that fi rsc ocras io11 whrn lw took possc·ss1011 of1 111· (I V111 l 111J:
,,,, (;111/, p. 7'2) (Eel.).
 Mescaline, mysticism and religious experience 343
r eacted in the way the disciples did when they ran and t old others:
'We have seen the Lord.'
I am t empted to mention two or three other points h ere,
although they may have no bearing on what you wrot e of:
l. I said just now that she would apparently have liked to use
'le C hrist' and 'la verite' interchangeably. But it would be more
accurate to say that for her 'la verit e', in these cont ex ts, is equiv-
alent to the Holy Spirit. This is plain at the end of L 'Enracinement,
wher e she says also that she would pref er not to speak of 'la
verit e' but rather of '/'esprit de la verite'. - This does not make
is easierfor me to understand what she is saying, but it may allow
one to recognize the way she is using certain na mes or expres-
sions. (E.g. perhaps: in that sam e passage of Attente de Dieu 'Le
Christ aime qu'on lui prefere la verit e, car avant d 'e tre le Christ
il est la verite.' 10 I do not know how this would square with
'Filioque procedit' 11 in the creed, and I think she was puzzled
about that clause as so many others had been.)
2. In La Connaissance surnaturelle she writes: 'Tout le problem e
de la mystique et des questions connexes est celui du degre de
valeur des sensations de presence .' I do not know just what she
has in mind in speaking of 'le degre de valeur'. 12 At first sight
we might think it was something parallel to asking whether we
can trust our senses. But I do not believe it belongs in t hat
context. - I am not sure what she means by 'des questions
connexes': what she would include here.
3. In tha t letter (written in May 1942) 13 she writes in
the present tense of her experience of the personal presence of
C hrist during her recitation of the pater noster: as if this were
still so at the time she was writing. But other re marks suggest
that after a time they ceased. T he passage which suggests
this to me most vividly is in the 'Prologue' printed at t he begin-
ning of L a Connaissance surnaturelle: 'Un j our il me d it: "Maintenant
va-t'e n. " . . . .. .' 14 But in other more literal writings she says,

10
Attente de Dieu, p . 38. 'Chr ist likes us t o prefer the t ru th to h im b ecause b efore be ing
C h r is t, he is t ruth' (Waiting on God, p . 69) (Ed.) . '
11 'It proceeds from t he son' (Ed.).
1
~ See pp. 150 a nd 133 (Ed.).
l'I Simone Weil, Ecrils de Lo11dres et demieres lettres (Paris: Gall imard, 1957), p. 205. U ndated
lr t t cr to Ma11ri<·<· Schumann (F:d.) .
11
l'rologul', l fl ( .'1m11111111mrr 111rn11111rclle, p. 10. 'On!' day he said to m e: "Now, go away"
() I "Now, fll' I th1·1· 111· 111 1·"' (t-:d .).
344 Reff,ections on Christianity
e.g. (Pensees sans ordre): 'C'est pou.r no~~ que Dieu doit. faire .le
plus long chemin s'il veut aller jusqu a nou~. Quand il a pns,
conquis transforme nos coeurs, c'est nous qm avons le plus long
chemin' a faire pour alle r a notre tour jusqu'a lui. L'amo.ur e~t
proportionel a la distance. ' 15 - There are several remarks m this
sense in the Cahiers, but I cannot give you the reference now.

15 Simone Weil Pensees sans ordre concernanl ['amour de Dieu (Paris: Gallimard, 1962), P· 39.
'It is our beiicf that God if H e wants to reach us, must make the longest. JOU·~~~·
When he has taken posse'ssion of, conquered, transformed our hearts, the.n 1l i'.:: .e
up to us to make the longest journey if we, in turn, want to get to Him. ve is
proportional to distance' (Ed.).
 ESSAY TWENTY- F IVE

Difficulties with Christianity

I'
It was extremely generous of you to set down so carefully the
material concerning the divinity of Christ. I want to think over
wha t you say, for a longer time. And maybe it is fooli sh of me to
try to say anything at all just yet.
I am pretty confused about the whole question. You lay most
emphasis onJesus's own assertions of his divinity. And you suggest
that if his claims were false, then he was either an impostor or
a madman; and from the rest of wha t we know of him, you cannot
believe that he was either. Neither can I. But this does not leave
things as clear to m e as it should.
I wonder if I can put at all the sorts of difficulty I feel. When
I give this difficulty free rein, I do not want to say: Jesus claimed
to be God, but I think he must have been wrong.' No, what I fee l
like saying is: J esus claimed to be God, but I just do not under-
stand what tha t m eans; I d o not understand what he was
claiming.' For tha t reason, I should never want to say tha t he
was wrong. But for the same reason, I do not know how to go
about believing that he was right. If you say that I should ta ke
his word for it - and even perhaps that I ough t to be willing to
take his word for it - well, yes, but take his word for what? I can
see the point of saying that I ought to be willing to believe - if
I knew how.
Please, I am not saying 'If someone would explain to me the
inexplicable mysteries, I might believe them.' I know tha t tha t
would be folly, a nd makes no sense. And I should really be neare r
to my difficulty if, instead of saying 'I do not know what Jesus
was claiming', I said ra ther that 'I do not know what it would be
1
F 11111 1 11 ll-111 · 1 I n Fathe r O 'Kccfc dated 28 July 1957 (Ed.).
346 Refl,ections on Christianity
like to believe that J esus was God.' I am not asking to understand
the Incarnation, as one might try to understand something in
science, say. For I see enoug h to know that that would be a
misconception of what the doctrine of the Incarnation is. What I
wish I could understand, is what it is to believe in the Incarnation;
what it is to believe that Christ was God. How such a belief
'works', if I may put it so. Or better: what it is to worship Christ;
that is the point, really.
Tha t is why most of the discussion or argument around the
subject passes m e by. For it is not as though there were some
proposition which seems to me problematical, but which I might
believe if only someone would make it convincing (or a ttractive)
to me. No, I do not know what the proposition is - if there is
one. And, if someone says, 'I think you ought to admit that Christ
was God, because ... ', then I am stumped before he has gone
any further.
What it is to worship Christ. Maybe I shall understand that
some day; I do not know. Tha t is what I have hoped to get from
the Mass, and from other devotions, and from meditations which
were fre e of speculation. At one time I thought I had come pretty
close to understanding; close enough, I hoped, to let me enter
the Church. Why this has dissipated to such an extent now, I do
not clearly know. I suppose that my earlier progress, or appear-
ance of progress, must have been pretty largely what the Church
calls 'emotionalism' . And reflexions and discussions now leave me
with nothing I can fasten.
I will confess that I have certain secondary difficulti es in under-
standing the words of Jesus in the Gospel passages such as those
to which you have referred me. I fear it may be impertinent fo r
me to mention them; for I shall seem to be challenging the
Church's interpretation - as though I would pit my own reading
against H ers. Please believe that I do not want to do that. Bui
if I must conclude anything from the Gospel passages themselves,
then I must confess that I do not find their import quite cl ear.
For instance, you refer to these passages to show that J es us
claimed to be God. But am I not right in saying that in all ol
them he claims to be the Son of God? I do not remember all)
place (though there may be such) in which he act ually says I h:il
he is God. H e says 'I and my Father are one', and th al ' I nm Ill
the Father and the Father in me.' But he also says or pra ys 1li :11
 Difficulties with Christianity 347
he and his disciples may be one: 'That they all may be one; as
thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one
in us' etc. (John XVII, 2 1ff) . That is in some way figurative
language; he does not mean that the Apostles are God, nor that
they are the Son of God either. And it sugges ts to me (forgive
my blindness) that it is some such figurative language when he
says 'I and my Father are one.' In other words, I am not sure
what sort of identity he is claiming. In J ohn X, 33 Uust after he
had said 'I and my Father are one ') the J ews accused him of blas-
phemy 'because that thou, being a man, makes t thyself God'.
J esus answers by referring to Psalm 82, in which judges are called
gods because of their calling in administering the law. H is sugges-
tion seems to be that he has a more eminent right to be called
god than they. Th7 judges do God's work, and so does he. But
what language or w hat claim of his is he clefending in this? The
judges were called gods in a derivative sense. Would it no t be
sophistical if he were to use this example to justify his own use
of the name in an entirely dijferent sense? Would that not have
been 7 cowardly evasion? But there is no cowardly evasion in what
he _goes on to say immediately afterwards. Only, there he repeats
that he is the Son of God. And the whole passage suggests to me
that he meant the reference to Psalm 82 really to illuminate what
he said about himself.
May I repeat that I am more t han ready to believe that my
exegesis is all wrong her e. But this passage and many others do
suggest to my very untutor ed mind that while J esus was certainly
claiming to be the Messiah, he was not claiming to be the God
who cr eated heaven and earth.
You wou ld say, I think, that when he claims to be the Son of
God, tha t is claiming to be God, since it is claiming to be the
second Person of the Trinity. But as far as our present discus-
sion is concerned, I suppose that is the same difficulty over again.
You say here that he claimed to be 'equal in all things to the
Father'. But did he claim that always?
(Cf. Matthew X IX, 17; also Mark XIII, 32, et al.)
But these difficulties, I say, are rather secondary. For whatever
J esus was claiming, he did think that men should 'believe in'
him, and worship him. Difficulties of the kind I have been
mentioning may affect the question of the kind of wor ship that
shou ld IH'. /\lld 11! :1I iI should be worsh.ip at all, is puzzling enough
348 Reflections on Christianity
to one who stands as far away as I do. (I am not sure whether
there is only one explanation or one answer that could be given
here .) . . . . . .
You say that the clearest proof of his divm~ty 1s his R esur-
rection. I cannot even try to get clear about this. I do not want
to question the fact. I am puzzled by certain things in the gospel
accounts: I do not understand how Mary Magdalene and the
various apostles to whom he appeared should have f~iled ~o r ecog-
nize him - sometimes even after he had been talkmg with them
for a long time. I should have though t it wo~ld have ~een unmis-
takable. And I am slightly puzzled by the discrepancies between
the accounts of the resurrection in the various gospels. (Or rather,
not the accounts of the resurrection, but the accounts of when
and where and how he a ppeared after it.) But these are minor
m atters, and they do not weigh. My difficulty is that I do not _see
how the resurrection could prove that he was God. It certa mly
proves that he was not an ordinary man. And we ma~ put it _much
more strongly than that. But to me it would not be m conceivable
that another man, at some time somewhere, should declare that
he would rise from the d ead, a nd do so. And then I should be
as tonished, a nd view the ma n with awe and deep wonder. But -,
especially if I had not seen the man myself, but had only a very
reliable account of what had happened - I should not feel that I
ought to worship him. . .
I have missed the importance of the resurrect10n, m some way.
The story of the Passion, and especially of the wor?s. of J_esus on
the cross, does make me wan t to think of him as d1vme, m some
sense. But the resurrection does not seem to me to add much. I
know that this shows there is some big clefect in my conception
of his life, and even of his Passion. But I do not know how to
correct it.
I can see, for instance, that the resurrection gives a special
force and importance to J esus' promise of eternal life (and resUl:-
rection of the body) to those who believe in him. (Of cou rse it
does not prove that he was competent to promise that. It migh t
even show less than the resurrection of Lazarus did. But I do nol
think it is a matter in which 'proving' can enter in that way.)
And I suppose this is connected, in some important ":ay, with I hr
idea of him as redeemer. If I could sec tha t, I might src t h1·
significance more clearly than I do.
 Difficulties with Christianity 349
At any rate (once again, forgive me if I am being impertinent,
for I do not want to be) the mere fact that he said he would rise
from the dead a nd did so - this fact by itself, does not make me
want to call him divine, although it might make me think of him
as rather unearthly. So far as I know, it has never happened with
anyone else. But I do not think it were inconceivable that it should.
The only thing that would rule that out would be the thought
that it were contrary to the will of God. And that is a conviction
that you have because you are a C hristian. I t is not an idea from
which you can start in order to argue to C hristianity.
As far as I can se·e , then, the resurrection has its importance
as part of the general idea of Christ as redeemer. I suppose that
is in many ways the most important idea in Christianity. But it
is one of which I can grasp at most only a certain fringe . If I
think of Christ as God, I think of him as redeemer. It is as
redeemer that he comes so close to being creator. If he is my
redeemer, then it is in him I live and move and have my being.
Apart from him, I am nothing. (Apart from him, we might say,
I have no soul.) If I could come to see more clearly here, I should
come more nearly to recognize the divinity of Christ, I think.
Redemption is the same kind of miracle that cr eation is, I
suppose. And my d ependence on the creator is of the same kind
as my dependence on the redeemer. It is important to insist on
that when people tend to think of the relation of the creature to
the creator as som e kind of causal relation . But I know there are
all kinds of complications here, and I have already said more than
the Church would sanction.
The re can be no question of trying to prove that Christ was my
redeemer, a nyway. Even if the fulfilment of prophecies showed
that he was the promised Messiah (I think there are a great
many difficulties in that, but I will not go into them) - even if I
believed that - I should not be believing that he was my redeemer,
in the sense of which I was just speaking. To believe that he is
my redeemer, is not that kind of belief. It is not a belief that
can be established 'externally' in that kind of way. And as far as
the prophecies ar e concerned, someone might have been the
promised Messiah, and still not have been the r edeemer of men's
souls, as C hrist claimed to be. (I suppose he might have been
'he who wou ld redeem Israel' in the way in which the Jews
1·x pcct eel I h:11.)
350 Reflections on Christianity
Christ claimed to be the redeemer. And, as I say, that seems
to me much the most powerful reason for saying that he claimed
to be God. But I am still too blind, and I stumble here again.
You say that if he were not God, he could not have atoned for
the sins of mankind by his death. No man, by going to his death,
could do that. And there I would answer, 'No, I agree'. At leas t,
I could not make sense of that. But if you say that God, by going
to his death, could atone for the sins of mankind - then I cannot
make sense of that either.
I have an idea that we are thinking about this in the wrong
way; or that I am, anyhow. And this seems to land us in absur-
dities which really show only that we have got off the road
somewhere. For instance, when we have start ed on this line -
when we say that by submitting to death on the cross he atoned
for the sins of mankind - then I say that I cannot see what sense
there would be in speaking of God as being punished; or what it
could mean to speak of putting God to death. But if one says
that it was as man that he accepted punishment, and as man that
he was put to death - well, then I ask: was it as man that he
atoned for the sins of mankind, then? For we had just said that
this was nonsense. On the other hand, you cannot say that it was
as God that he was punished, or as God that he was put to death.
At least I can make no sense of that at all.
Behold the Lamb of God. It was in that sense, I suppose, that
he was the Son of God, too. And in that capacity he was able, in
some way, to r edee m men by making himself a sacrifice to God.
But - to the outsider - that idea of the Lamb of God is very diffi-
cult. It is supposed to have some sort of analogy with the lamb
which Abraham would have sacrificed (and with the r am which
he did). But a difference, too. The idea of the Lamb of God is
as different from the idea of the lamb of Abraham, that it is hard
or impossible for one such as me to know what is meant at all.

n2
'If you believed in the reality of the resurrection, then becausr
science could make nothing of that, you might want to say t hilt
the whole of science was an illusion.'

2 From not e dated 17 October 1957 titled Christinni(l' (Ed.).

 Difficulties with Christianity 351
There is some confusion there. Are you suggesting that science
ought to take account of this fact? If so, then it might mean that
scie.ntists would have to revise their present theories in a very
radical way. And of course that might be done.
But that is clearly not what you want to say. You do not mean
that there is something which science has failed to take account
of, and that therefore science is at present defective. For that
would be nothing which need shock a scientist. And - what is
more important - you would not be willing to admit that scien-
tists might revise their theories so as to take account of the
resurrection. In some way, you want to hold that the resurrec-
tion was something of which scientific theories could not take
account.
Or in other words: you are not saying 'Here is an important
fact of which biology and physiology have so far not taken
account. ' Because then you would presumably admit that it is
something of which they ought to take account (and you do not
really want to say that); and that implies that it would be at least
conceivable that they should do so.
You are not wanting to say that science is an illusion in the
se nse tha t scientific theories have so far been inadequate, and
that they need to be revised or corrected.
You are not even saying that it is a/act, in that sense - in the
sense of something by reference to which the adequacy of scien-
tific theories could be tested.
Probably this means tha t there is something queer in talking
about historical evidence, here.
As there is in the idea of the miracles as evidence for anything;
or of drawing conclusions from them.
It is also not clear in what sense miracles are supposed to be
events or facts which are 'contrary to the laws of nat ure'.
If the resurrection is really something of which science could
not give any account, then it is not som ething that confounds
science.

II I3
[ was looking at the altar and at the crucifix a bove it, and I had
in mind Simone W eil's conception of prayer as attention or
1
F111111 · ' 11'1 l l'I' to M. O'C. Drury dated 19 July 1970 (Ed.).
354 Reflections on Christianity
Grace: how it may be known, if it operates (if that word is applic-
able), a nd so on.
Stupidities of this kind show that in some way our thinking has
got twisted. But when I say 'stupid' I think also of Wit tgensteii:'s
phrase 'prefoundly stupid ' - i.e. - anything but 'silly'. For the twist
has root s tha t go deep. (Wittgenst ein said to me he thoughtjulian
the Apostate was probably 'profoundly stupid' . And he added,
'I think that you and I, Rhees, when we talk about these things
ar e being profoundly stupid.' By 'profoundly' he did not mean
'extremely'. It is akin to his remark that the mistakes of magic
are profound mistakes; and that they are akin to the mistakes of
metaphysics, not like the mistakes of an ignorant person trying
to do science . Compare the stupidity of Julian t he Apostate a nd
the stupidity of Frazer.)
'How are we to think of the Incarnation? What would it m ean
to say that a particular m an was also God?' - Simone Weil sees
that these are akin to difficulties which we meet when we try to
understand human thinking or human knowledge altogether. She
brings it together with the mathe matical (geometrical) idea of
'analogy'. She takes the use of 'analogy' by the Pythagoreans and
by Plato, and she wants to suggest a way of looking at the world
in these te rms.
'The relation of God to the world' - this is a differe nt sort of
conception from, say, the relation of a general law in physics to
a particular case in which the law holds. And yet Simone Weil
wants to suggest there is an important kinship as well, appar-
ently; although I find it hard to follow a great deal of what she
says on this. She wants to show how we can think of the phys-
ical world as subj ect to the will of God, for instance so that a
love of the world - amor fati - can be taken as a love of God. It
is a question of the purity of the love of the world (and then it
amounts to recognizing the beauty of the world), or the purity of
our submission to it. - This leads her to a very confusing treat-
ment of scien tific id eas, in which she would expound them as
terms in an analogy of som e sort. I think this doe s more to confuse
than to illuminate he r religious pe rceptions.
O n the other hand we can see difficulti es - which, if you wi ll
bear with me, I will call difficulties in the phi losophy of logic
which remind us of certain of the difficu lties whi ch Simon<'
Weil expresses when she is speaking of a 1rn logy. All hi s Iii'<·
 Difficulties with Christianity 355
Wittgenstein kept coming back to what he some times called the
'gap' between the general rule and the particular case which
'falls under' it - i.e. the particular case ef that rule. The diffi-
culty of: how we see that the particular case is in agreement
with the rule; or: how we recognize that, if we a r e following the
rule, then at this point we must do this. He was thinking of 'a
rule' as what we find in arithmetic, for example, or any calcula-
tion: when we recognize that 'when you ge t that result, then you
have to .. .'
H e gener ally emphasized tha t it is pointless to try to mediate
between the rule and the particular case: as though another
rule would tell you whether this was really in accordance with
the rule. or not; for this would simply bring the same difficulty
over agam.
But he did see this as one of the big and recurrent difficulties
in understanding human thinking and inquiry - in underst anding
logic, calcula tion, proof and so on. Because it does not make any
sense to talk of the rule as having some sort of existence inde-
pendently of the particula r cases which are said to 'agr ee' with
it. And on the other hand, how can the rule itself tell us what
does agree with it or fall under it? Yet we cannot be acting just
arbitrarily when we treat this or that as the next step in accor-
d a nce with the rule.
Unless we could see that this is a case of multiplication - or
that it is a sum of two prime numbers, etc., etc., - we could not
move an inch in mathematics.
So: there are cer tain purely formal simila rities between recog-
nizing a particular case as a step in accordance with the rule,
and recognizing a particular man as the son of God.
In so far, Simone Weil would be justified in extending the diffi-
culty, or assimilating it with what prevails in human thinking
altogether.
If you say 'This is the Son of God' - you need a guardian a ngel
to tell you so.
If you say 'This is the way to calculate in this place' - you
need, or so Wittgenstein would say, a guardia n angel here as
well.
356 Refl,ections on Christianity
I V5
T here is a side of Christianity which I do not understand at ~ll.
I mean what is said in the Scriptures about the Second Commg
of Jesus and about the transformation of t.he w?rld ""'.hi.eh. there
will be then. - I do not under stand the way in which this 1s impor-
tant to those who say and accept it: how it is that this goes d eep
into the souls of those who say and believe it . What is the cry
from the soul that we can somehow understand in this teaching?
This is what puzzles me. I am not puzzled to know 'wheth er they
really mean this as a prediction or a forecast' .
I can see, though vaguely, somet hing of how one comes to
believe in a Last Judgement: as though this were part o~ the sense
of the life I ought to lead, of what it is for m e to fail as I do,
and so on. And I agree also that it would be hard to express the
kind of importance it is which gives meaning to judg~mer:t of my
life ('what I have done and what I have failed to do) - it wo~ld
be hard to express w~at this is .except i1? the t~ou~~t ~f standing
before a judge: standing, as Wittgenstein put 1.t, .w1:hm a queer
sort of body'; by which he meant whatever Chnstiamty s~eaks of
as a 'glorified' body. - I can unde~s ta~d h?w someone might say
that there'd be nothing of meamng m life unless one h eld to
something like this.
In a way this forms part of what Christians .say whe1? they speak
of the Second Coming, I suppose . So they might say It ought not
to be difficult for me to go on to the rest. But I just do not see
what this 'going on further' is. Not yet, anyway.
The Book of Revelation speaks of 'a new H eaven and a new
Earth'. And I would guess that these ideas relate to now. existi.ng
Heaven and Earth in some way analogous to the way m which
the idea of the 'new' body with which I shall stand before
Judgement relates to this existing body of mine. .
Am I wild when I say that this would be something analogous
to a ' resurrection' of t he physical Earth and physical Heaven after
their destruction in 'the e nd of the World'?
But I do not know into what problems in the lives of believers
this fits. I do not know which difficulties and attitudes of b1·
lievers lead them to say and repeat these things as they arc givc.11
in Scripture.
5 F rom letters to M. O'C. Drury dated 29 May 1974 and II .J111w I!17'1 (l·:d.).
 Difficulties with Christianity 357
I suppose my trouble is that I think too much of my own life
and body and my own standing before Judgement; or at best, of
mine and of the lives a nd bodies and judgement of those who are
personally deeply important to me. But Heaven and Earth? I
repeat, I do not know which problem finds expression here. -
Should one think of the History of the World? I do not know how
- or maybe I have not u nderstood what is meant.
Does this mean also that I do not think seriously of a Creator?
Our difficulties about the scriptural statements r egarding the
Second Coming and regarding the 'new world' (from the d estruc-
tion of the present world?) are not quite the same. Or rather, I
think I recognize the difficulties you mention and I stumble over
them when I try to understand expressions like 'eternal life' and
'life to come'.
You emphasize the contrast between Gospel passages which
speak as though those who are 'chosen' at any rate as being
'now' in Christ and in God (I think of chapter XN of St John's
Gospel and ff.) - and passages which say explicitly (or seem to)
that some tremendous event is going to happen, at a particular
time which God has not revealed to us, and that at this time sheep
will be separated from goats, etc.
For an untroubled believer (if there be some) these statements
are not incongruous I suppose. And our difficulty is partly that
we've been corrupted by ways of speaking (scientific, business,
etc.) that do not provide for any statements like these of the
Gospels, and we do not know how to make clear the difference
between the one way of speaking and the other. For example, we
are likely to say that the Gospel language is 'figurative' in
both when it seems to speak as though 'eternal life', 'life in the
presence of God', 'the judgement of God' (I should like to speak
about this last one, but I doubt if I can) were somehow present
in our lives, or at any rate in the lives of saints; and also
when the Gospels seem to speak so emphatically and ominously
in the future tenses. I am sure that to call this language 'figu-
rative' shows a deep misunderstanding; but I do not know how
to avoid it.
The misunderstanding is obnoxious and evil when it suggests
that the 'figurative' language is a kind of 'second best' and
that it ought l o be reducible to some la nguage which is not
fl gu ral iw.
358 Reflections on Christianity
I am not referring to - for example - St Paul's analogy in I
Corinthians XIII, 11: 'When I was a child I spake as a child,
I understood as a child . .. but when I became a man I put away
childish things ... ' This expresses an important part of what
we are discussing - 'but then face to face .. . but then I shall
know ... '
I cannot pretend that I understand the contrast that St Paul
is making. . .
But my immediate, and less important, concern is with our
grasp and description (characterization) of . St. Paul's language.
E.g. I called it the use of an analogy, and this is mostly bosh.
Anyway, I was suggesting that many of those who heard of _the
teaching of Jesus and the teaching of Paul would not find JUSt
that incongruity between 'present tense' and 'future tense'
when speaking of souls in the presence of God wh~ch w~ do. And
how do I know this? I don't. But I fee l pretty certain of it, all the
same.
There is an incongruity in Plato's writings similar to this. It
sometimes belongs with his contrast between 'that which is always
the same', and 'that which is never the same'. But in the Timaeus
the unchangeable model of the world includes, in some wa'!, the
forms of 'divisible existence' or 'bodily existence': and this has
some of the idea belonging to the H ebrew-Christian idea of a
'glorified body' - perhaps: perhaps not.
The contrast between a man's life (with the unity of a temporal
process) - and the man or soul who lives it.
I am responsible for what I did in the past - long ago - 'Why?
Why can't I be judged for what I am? - i.e. am now?' And what
does that mean? 'What I am now?' - The sort of thing my employn
or headmaster would state in character reference? - He probably
could give the same character references for a number of different
people.
'But now you would not do the contemptible things you did
then.'
Perhaps not. (Although in fact I might .) But the phrase ' t l1t·
man I am' would be used falsely if it were taken as though :di
that 'I have left behind me' could be left out.
On the other hand, we stumble and we utter confusions wlw11
we try to speak of 'the soul that was born in me and is i11 1111 1

still' - cf. 'personal identity' etc.

 Difficulties with Christianity 359
Plato's image (?) of the soul as belonging to two worlds; the
world of forms and the world of sensible things.
The soul's motions are partly the motions of material happen-
ings - OELoµ6<;, random, 'disordered' movements - partly likeness
of the motion of the circle of fixed stars, which is eternal.

'Damnation - judgement - is not something added on to the

evil deed.' (This would make it 'eternal', and this is wrong,
somehow.)
'Eternal damnation (of this man's soul) may be realized in a
movement of time without any duration at all.' - Wittgenstein
used to say this was one way, and a very real way of speaking of
it. Cf. the notion of signing a pact with the Devil - in this life.
Lenau's Faust: As soon as he has signed, his soul is utterly aban-
doned, cut off from God. - On the other hand I think he would
have said that the 'future form' - 'I shall stand naked before my
Judge' - was generally the more natural.
I want to suggest that we should not treat these two ways of
speaking as incongruous or inconsistent.
Plato often (I was going to say 'generally') spoke of these
matters in myths at the end of his dialogues. E.g. the Phaedo, the
Gorgias, the Republic ...
I do not believe he would have said that what he says in the
myths could also be said in a 'precise' or 'mathematical' or
'completely true account'.
I suppose those who understand the myths would understand
how it is important to lead one kind of life rather than another:
the sort of importance this is. 'It is not just for this life .. .'
I know this is not religious in the sense in which the Gospels
and St Paul's letters and Revelation are. It has not the kind of
urgency that there is in them.
And 'the kind of urgency' is connected with 'apocalyptic' ideas
(e.g. of Revelation) in some way. Perhaps we ought to emphasize
this.
Further, the spirit and the sense and the urgency of what is said
in the apocalyptic passages in the Gospels and in Revelation - is
something we do not find in Plato's myths, I think. But I do not
know how to express this without making it stupid.
I am not saying that Plato was anything but deeply serious in
those myl hs.
:wo Reflections on Christianity
I le was deadly serious.
But this is where the 'historical' character of Christianity makes
itse lf felt. The idea of one history of the world - in contrast to
the everlas ting recurrence of cycles.
In one way, the 'cyclical' view - or the view that there is not
a history of the world with a beginning a nd a n end - would add
to the impor tance of what is eternal. The more primitive notion
of 'the whee l of birth' recognizes this. But it does not bring a
sense of 'the eleven th hour', or 'now, before it is too late' that is
part of the se tting of Christianity.
I think I can see - somewhat - how one might have an idea
of ' the e nd of the world' and how one might ponder on this and
dread it. How it might have a n overwhelming importance in one's
thinking of 'human existence'. Overwhelming and terrific (if only
that word were not shapeless through misuse).
What I do not understand is how one comes to the idea of a
new world, which is pa rt of the notion of Christ's Second Coming.
Nor do I unde rstand the importance for a believer that the
Second Coming has. I do not doubt, of course, that it has great
importance. I am saying only that I am blind.
Michelangelo portrayed C hrist pronouncing the Judgement. So
far as I know, he did not portray the Second Coming. And appar-
<"11 t ly the Second Coming is something more than the Judgement.
Bnt l a m unclea r about how they are related.
Et iterum venturus es t, cum g loria,
judicare vivos et mortuos; cujus regni
non erit finis. 6

I Inc the 'he will come again' sounds like a re turn to earth, from
which he depa rted in the Ascension. And how the n are we to take
I h<' words, 'It is expedient for you that I go; for if I did not go
I he Pa raclete could not come ... ' The idea that the bodily pres-
1·11cT of J esus would make it ha rd or impossible for the discipl es
to rece ive th e Holy Spirit in the way they did - would mak e it
hardn to shake off the H ebrew conce ption of the Mess ia h.
Bnt 1 h<" 'cuju s rcgni non e rit fini s' sugges ts that he will ncw r
!1·r1111• 1 he !'art h again. T ha t the Kingdom of I leave n wil l be 011
C". 111 h.
" 'i\ 11d 111• • 111111 101111· a14. oi11 wi 1lo 14lm y In judg1· ho1 lo llu• livi11g .1nd IIll" d1·.ul; of wl111'1
1\.111141111111 1h1•11· •h.oll lw 1111 rnd ' (C:11·1·d ) (Ed.),
 Dijjiculties with Christianity 36 1
Bu t then the earth also must be different from the earth which
shall be d estroyed at the end of the world.
Kierkegaard says somewhere that a belief in immortality may
transform a man's whole life, a nd that this is what it is impor-
t ant to understand (t ry to understand) about it. 7
In this sense, I do not understand what the belief in the Second
Coming and in the Kingdom of H eaven on Earth 'does for people'.
I am sorry if that sounds cheap, and I ough t to be a ble to put
the matter differently.
Perhaps I think of it too unimagina tively - as though what were
promised to those who are saved were an everlasting life: which,
saving the irreverence, were a destiny to make me shudder even
on a 'new earth'. '
I think of the Sybil in the bottle as me n tioned by Petronius.
She had angered Apollo, and in revenge he mad e it imposs ible
for her to die. When Aeneas encountered her, all of he r had with-
ered away but her voice, which was preserved in a bottle. Ae neas
asked her if there was anything she wanted. She a nswcn·d
ano8avew 8Ef...w.8
But I have no idea what Christ's r eign on the new earth wou ld
be. And perhaps the notion of a life that will neve r e nd woul d
not seem so t errible - so destructive of all hope - if I saw this:
if I had a real sense of 'Christ the King'.

7
See Kierkegaard, !'urity ef Heart, Lrans. Douglas Steere (New York: Harper Torch books,
1956), p. 154. T his may not be the reference Rhees had in mind (Ed.).
8
'I want to die' (Ed.).
 ESSAY TWENTY-SIX

Christianity and growth

of understanding

11

I am glad you agree with m e that in religio~ t?ere is much to

be learned outside Christianity, as well as w1thm. However one
takes the doctrine of the Incarnation, J esus was a man; and ~o I
suppose he was subject to many of the limitations of the time
and circumstances in which he grew up. A~d wh~n I .speak, of
'circumstances' I mean, for instance , that he grew i~ wisdo1?. as
an orthodox Jew, through the teachings of the,Jewis~ tradition.
We might add 'as a Jew of the first century BC. And if someone
asks, 'How could a man whose understanding was taken so m~ch
from the time and place where he taught, speak a m~ssage which
is equally important and equally sufficient for all times and. all
places?' _ then I suppose this is just one form of the g~neral d.1ffi-
rn lt y of how God could become incarnate at one particular ~ime
and place rather than a nother, - a nd still b.e God .. How c.an it be
1lit· word of God, and still be the word of t~is p~rucu~ar time and
place? I think there is some misunderstandmg m askmg that, but J
I do not want to discuss this now. .
The Hebrews were a r emarkable people, but they were m some
ways queer and limited. I dare say they could not have develo~ed
1heir religion as deeply as they did, if they had be:n otherwise.
But th ey seem to have had practically no secular literature, fo.r
insta nce. I suppose they banned the plastic arts. And I do~~t if
1hey had any secula r music; how far they deve loped rehg10u s
tllusic Thave no idea. I do not know what the Templ e atJe rusale~ 1 .
was like. But I gath er they did not have much in arc~1tectu re, if
wt· ro111 pare I he.111 W ith the Egyptians or th e Assyn a ns or th <·

I 111 1hr mai n, from a lc-111·1· 10 M. o·c. Dn11 y datr<l 7 l'vl.11 ch l'l~l!I (Ed.) .
 Christianity and growth of understanding 363
Persians or the Greeks. Now I think this means t hat there was
a lot, even in the field of religion, which they simply missed. I
cannot lay claim to much religious insight. But such as I have
known, I have often found through music, for instance. And I am
sure you would say the same. Music may help you to understand
Hebrew and Christian t eaching, of course. But it is not only that.
I happened to think of it especially ·when I was listening to some
Chopin studies on the wireless the other eveni ng. T here is an
opening up of possibilities in the human spirit, which we have
from music and the other a r ts, and which I should often call reli-
gious. And it seems to me that both the Hebrew and the early
Christian teaching (the O ld and the New Testaments, in other
words) entirely neglected t his. They we re not interested in the
human spirit in that way. Christ was interested in the red em p-
tion of sinners; and in a wonderfully deep sense he brought hope
to sinners. But the realization of the human spirit wh ic h (e.g.)
Chopin can bring to us - and which may be called a lso a real-
ization of the spirit's relat ion to God, in ways we may have: been
blind to heretofore - of all this there is neve r a suggest ion in
Chri st's teaching. And will you forgive me if I say tha t I woncln
whether it would have interested him? Perhaps I am bei ng ve ry
foo lish t here. He was teaching with a great sense of urge ncy, for
some reason which I do not entirely understand ('It is expedient
to you that I go'). And his message, which was immeasurably
deep, was also a limited one. So perhaps I should say on ly tha t
I do not know what attitude he would have take n to those othe r
questions. Only, it seems to me that he would have been a strange
J ew if he had shown a sense of the problems which Homer knew,
or Aeschylus, or Praxiteles; or so many ot he rs later. You may say
th a t he was a st range J ew a nyway, and of course he was . But his
teaching, for all its new profundity, and for a ll its greater breadth
and light, was still something that grew out of the H ebrew
teaching; and we can see that. And what the Greeks brought was
so mething different.
'Is t he study of comparative religion possible?'
'Can comparative religion be taught?'
Distinguish between:

I . The study of d iffcrrnt reli gions, so that we a rc less liable to

1·xp1Tss 011rs1· lws in ways wh ich wi ll he 111isundr rstood,
364 R rrfiections on Christianity
whe n we ar e explaining Christianity, say to Buddhists or
Moha mmeda ns.
2. The study of a nother religion with a view to learning some-
thing from it.
Here ( l) would be like ma king yourself familia r with. the
c ustoms of a la nd you are to visit (or in which you intend to live).
You might say that unless you do this, you will never come to
know the people the re. . .
[Cf. Max Beerbohm , a reside n t in Italy most of his h fe, and
never learning Italia n.]
Whe reas (2) is some thing few could do (a nd, probably, few
would want to do).
Simone Weil studi ed Buddhism in this spirit.

n2
I shall be eager to hear wha t observations you have to n:ake as
you do r e-read the prophets. (I wish I m ight r ead along with you.
But if I read the m at all - as I should like to - it will be very
slow and may not ge t far. )
You rema rk here - paraphrasing Rena n,3 I think: 'T?e n
suddenly you get the prophetic writings, Amos, H osea, _Isaiah,
with their profoundly monotheistic and righteous God.Justice a nd
respect for the poor a nd weak against the rich and strong. None
of the other na tions exhibit this developme nt. I don't think I have
thought e nough about this in the past. ~ wonder did _Simone W e! l?'
I imagine Simone Weil neglect ed important sides_ of J ewi_sh
religion . Probably she gave too little a tte ntion to J ewish i:nyst1cs
aft er Old T esta me nt times as well. Thi s has bee n emphasized by
M . M. Davy in her study (a poor one, on the whole) of Simone
Weil. And I think it is possible tha t Simone W eii wou ld have
made qualifications and additions late r if she had lived. Bu t I _a n1
not sure tha t I have grasped j ust the point you are ma king.
(Or tha t Re na n is ma king, as you paraphrase him.)

2 Fro m a le tte r to M. O 'C. D ru ry dat ed 2 J a nua ry 1967 ( Ed.). . . ,

I h ave never read R e na n 's History ef the Peo/1/e ef Israel. I hav<' .o lt <' ll w1s lH'd I 1111glit ,
but I believe t he book is fo ur volu m es, a nd I ge t through so hi t It- of wha t I h,1\'I' ttt
r ead that I am not very hope ful. R e na n is a m o r e int l'rl'St ing w1it <' I t h.111 111nst, 111 t It•
little of him I have read. A nd L am su r<· t h<' !Ji.11111.J• 11/ /11111'1 wo11 ld H·:id1 11 11· ·' 101
 Christianity and growth ef understanding 365
Is it for insta nce chapte r II of H osea which shows th a t he
preached a righteous God? I ask this genuinely, for I d o not
pre te nd to understand this chapter. In Amos chapter v I think I
can read it a little more plainly; a nd also the beginning of chapter
VI. But I should have to read a nd re-read these books before I
could begin even feebly to understand them. There seems to be,
in Amos especially, a beginning of that freeing of God from a
particula r place or country - the different conceptions of a chosen
people, which we find in the la tter part of Isaia h. So Amos seems
to be speaking differen tly of J ehova than, say, J oshua might have.
(Yet Amos thought , I suppose, tha t J ehova was be tter pleased
with J oshua tha n with the men of his own time.)
M. M . Davy says tha t Simone Weil never really understood the
conception of a t es ta me nt or contract be tween J ehova a nd his
people. I can believe she did not. And I suppose this ba rs one
from und ersta nding H ebrew religion to a ny great extent. On the
other ha nd, until we come to C hrist it does seem as though
th e keeping of the covena nt, the fulfilment of the promise, is
a lways thought of as a temporal one. The third from the last verse
of the book of Isaia h (LXVI, 22) reads: 'For as the new heavens
a nd the new earth, which I will make, shall re main before me,
saith the Lord, so sha ll your seed a nd your na me remain.' Again
I ha rdly unde rstand this, but it sounds still like a te mporal
p ro mise, a nalogous to the promise to Abraha m. In fact, I wonder
whe the r a concentra tion upon the covena nt be twee n God and his
people would have done a nything to weaken the principal obj ec-
tion of Simone Weil. If it is still a temporal victory, which is to be
assured by th e keeping of God 's comma ndments, the n - she would
say - the prophe ts exhort the people to turn from one form of
idolatry to another.
I admit I am not clear a bout the idolatry which the Israelites
did practise . Or rather: I a m not clear on the sense of the obj ec-
tion to it. Or ta ke the r ej ection of burnt offerings. I can imagine
tha t burnt offerings might be m ade in a way which was unholy,
perhaps almost cynical. But it need not be; the burnt offerings
need not be any more 'purely mate rial' tha n is any other form
of rite (say fas ting). - Of course I do not mean tha t the prophe ts
we re supe rfi cia l or confused here. It is just tha t I have not under-
stood in wha t th ey saw th e unholiness of that which they were
d c 110 111 1(' itt g .
366 Refl,ections on Christianity
When Micah says 'What does the Lord thy God require of thee,
but to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God'
- this has generally been taken to place the emphasis upon som e-
thing other than rites. And if the people were so 'at ease in Zion'
(Amos) that they thought, say, burnt offerings were enough to
win the favour of God, and that acting justly, loving mercy and
walking humbly with God could be neglected - then obviously
this was an evil. Closely parallel to that for which Christ
denounced the Pharisees, I suppose. Or at least . . . until we
remember that the God is the God of Israel; and that the justice
a nd the m ercy were perhaps to be confined to others of the chil-
dren of Israel. It need not be read so. But there is always (in
Hosea a nd Amos) the r eturn to God's promise to his people and
the certainty of its (te mporal) fulfilm ent.
I imagine Simone Weil might have said that the devotion to
such a God (the God of Amos, say) was in many ways a more
corrupting devotion than is an e mpty trust in the performance
of visible rites and sacrifices. For this crass and crude devotion is
not one which will attract the higher parts of the soul. And when
the higher pa rts of the soul do make themselves felt , there is
more chance tha t the man will see that this is idolatry. If we say
that the devotion of Amos - or , shall we say, of St Paul before
his conversion - called forth the higher parts of the man's soul,
then in one sense we are agreeing that such d evotion is more
noble, is something higher, than a trust in the pe rformance of
visible rituals. I do not think Simone Weil would have denied this.
But the deception is deeper. And when the deception afflicts these
parts of the soul, the calamity is greater. - Which does not m ean
that it is fatal: Simone Weil would never say anathema sit in such
a case. Especially in this fi eld, people have to make mistakes if
they are to distinguish true religious devotion from false. All the
same: a man may well become dissatisfied with 'meaningless'
rites, and be left with nothing at all - with le vide. For the re li-
gious Hebrew this is less likely.
(But in all this I am interpola ting, and perhaps Simone Weil
would not have said anything of the sort.)
I do not know whe ther one could say anything a nalogous a bout
the difference be tween monotheism and polytheism. I fee l that
it is gene rally a different sense of ' religion' wh('ll o ru· speak s ol
polytheistic religion. But I am too confused aho11t t liis to s pl'ak
 Christianity and growth ef understanding 367
of it. Probably a belief in a Creator, or of a God in Whom we
live and move and have our being, has to be monotheist. And the
conception of 'the will of God' which there may be here, is p rob-
ably ruled out of polytheism (but again I am not sure). On the
other hand: if we are to speak of 'higher' and 'lower' forms of
religious devotion, th en I do not think it obvious that a monothe-
istic form must be superior to a polytheistic one. I want to say
something stupid like, 'It all depends on the sort of monotheism
it is.' And a monotheism which went with a doctrine of a chosen
race which was, perhaps, the only race on earth that could know
God's will - this would not seem to me an advance on a belief
in a more r estricted nationalistic God, who contended with God s
of the people.
The H ebrew monotheism of the Old Testament see ms to have
clung to the doctrine of the covenant between God and the Hebrew
people. This seems to have been in part responsible for the empha-
sis upon the Law and on the Torah: so that all that was of value
in hum an life lay in fulfilme n t of the law, and nothing outside it.
This meant that the H ebrew view of life and of holiness was
extre mely narrow. And I do not see that it becomes less so as it
becomes more mono theistic. - By mor e narrow, I mean that there
can be nothing except obedience. The re can be no creation no
blossoming through the beauty of poetry or of sculpture or of p~int­
ing or of music or of science. There is wonderful poetry in some of
the Psalms, in the Book of J ob and in Isaiah. Th ere are (though
seldom) remarks like 'The H eavens declare the glory of God, the
firmament showeth his handiwork.' But there is no suggestion that
one's life might be changed through contemplating the glory of the
Heavens. And the poetry does little or nothing to show what
the life of human creatures is, or how God 's handiwork is shown
in the misery of this life. Not even in the Book of Job; not even
when Isaiah speaks of the chosen people as a suffering people .
Nothing like Greek tragedy - or drama of any kind.
In this way there is nothing in Old T estament writings to
compare with the Homeric poems. I suppose none of the H ebrew
prophets would have seen th e Iliad as a religious poem. Bu t
S_imone Weil has shown that it is a poem which expresses compas-
sion - a compassion which is possible only in recognizing t he way
in which hum a n lives and huma n motives are subject to 'force'.
You will 1T1 111· 11tlwr her sugges tion also t hat the Trojan war so
 Reflections on Christianity
i11 1pr('sscd the Greeks and deepened their understanding that it
inllul·nccd the whole deve lopment of ancient Greek culture. The
I kbrcws knew wars e nou gh ; bu t none of them was seen as the
Ili ad sees the war of Troy. In particular, there was none of that
('0 111passio n for enemies, which does come into certain speech es of
the Lliad - and which was to distinguish C hrist so sharply from
the earlier H ebrews.
You say that t he writings of Amos and Hosea and Isaia h are
or a God of 1ustice and respect for the poor a nd weak against
th e rich and strong', a nd you a dd 'None of the other nations exhibit
this development' (scilicet 'at this time'). May we suppose th at
the Homeric poems were composed round about 1000 BC - i.e.
pe rhaps a little before the beginning of the reign of David? - But
or course I agree that there was a religious development showing
in the Hebrew prophets for which there is no paralle l among the
Greeks. I underscored 'religious', and I a lmos t wanted to u se some
s uch phrase as 'religious in the strict sense'; but t hi s can lead to
woollin ess and confusions. I would say, though, that t he H ebrew
re I igious development was truncated.
Considering J esu s as he was, we cannot imagine his appearing
a 11d starting his teaching in any other nation but the Hebrews .
Th e depth which his r eligious teaching has, seems to grow from
I h1· I le brew prophe tic tradition. Simone Weil would have said also
t h:il he would not have taught as he did if there had not been
( ;, 1Tk cu lture and Greek ideas. Sh e thought h e must h ave known
( ;, 1Tk (c hiefly, I think, b ecause she felt that the Greek version
111 I hc 1.ord's Prayer must be his - but she a lmost certainly h ad
111 lw r reasons as well) . - The Hebrew prophets are said to have
Im 1· 1o ld his life and (?) his teachings (??). I wonder how many of
1l1t·111 would have admitted him as the Messiah. (Is it clear that
.Jo l111 the Baptist did?)
What I mi ss, in H osea and in Amos, for ins tance, is anything
lik1· rnm passion. If they and Micah a nd others condemn the prac-
1 in· or burnt offerings (as Samuel had - perha ps not for the same
1T:iso11s), there is no t hing in this which foreshadows the thirtn·11
1 l1aptns of I Corinthi ans: 'Thoug h I g ive m y bod y to be burn<"d ,
1·t<'.' (1losca's simile of th e bridegroom and spouse to clcpirt tl 11·
11·l.11 io11 of c:od to hi s people , is ra111i liar, but it h:i s not hill !{ to
d o with thi s poi11t , has it ?) Tl11·y still s1·c cl('ka t and s 11ffni 11 ~ .i s
( :ocl 's p1111isli1tl t' ll( of' t h1· llllf"i g lill'Oll S: t lil'y had 1101 I llt' llllcl r 1•
 Christianity and growth ef understanding 369
standing which appears in the Book of Job. Do you think t hey
would have ques tioned 'Cursed be he that h angs on a tree'?
(Someone might ask, 'What abou t the apocalyptic passages in the
Gospels? Do these not voice the same idea of s uffering - earthly
suffering - as punishment for sins?' They do; and I d o not know
what to make of them. Some, like that in L uke, on the way to
Calvary, seem incongruous in thei r con texts ; and I do not know
wheth er they are 'genuine'. In any case, Simone Weil has empha-
sized o ther passages, in wh ich the t eaching is that God maketh
the sun to shine and th e rain to fall upon the just and upon the
unjust. And these say plainly that temporal prosperity and
temporal misfortune can not be seen as God's rewards and punish-
ments. 'Woe to the rich , for t hey have their reward.')
Job is supposed to have b een written after the exile, is it not?
Those who re turned from the exile had learned from the captivity.
They had learned th rough suffering - the sort of th ing Isniah
teaches. But I wonder whether they had not learned a lso f'ro111
the beliefs and teachings of the people amo ng whom th ey h:id
been living. Is anyth ing known which would a nswe r this posi t iwly
one way or a nother? If a change like that shown in J ob docs co111c
partly from what the auth or has learned through intercourse wi th
people and p eoples in Babylon - then is it safe to say th ere was
no comparable r eligious development among any of t he neigh-
bouring nations?
Maybe Simone Weil makes too much of the r eferences to
M elchisedek in Gen esis and in the seventh chapter of Hebrews.
And I am too ignorant of the works of scholars to know what they
say about this. Of cour se Melchisedek was long before the
prophetic writings, and you may say the refe r en ce is irrelevant
to your point abo ut the developmen t which does appear in the
prophetic writings. I think Simone W eil's point might be that the
H ebr ews do seem to have learned from people of other countries
- and that they did not learn only idolatry.

III 4
I have often wondered at the importance which C hristian doctrine
attached to t he uniqueness of the Incarnation in Jesus. The only
1
Frn111.1l1·11c·1101\1.0'C. D1111 )• d.11c~d2:~Sr·p1l'111lwr 197 1andno11·sda11·d20S<'plC'mbcr
l'l7I ( l·:d)
:~ 70 Reflections on Christianity
begotten Son; a nd it were blasphemy to suggest that there might
be another: blasphemy or idolatry. Well, but from 'the only
begotten Son', does it follow that the Son can have only one
Incarnation? - Here I am out of my d epth. When I hear speak
of the Trinity it seems sometimes as though the 'unigenitum' 5
and the 'genitum non factum' 6 were prope rties of the Son prior
to the Incarna tion. And then I wonder why it is out of the ques-
tion tha t there should have been other incarnations. On the other
ha nd, it may be that Christians want to say that the begetting
of the Son is the incarnation of the Son; so that if we said God
has been incarnate in other places a nd a t other times, this were
equivalent to saying that there have been marry Sons. I can see,
although dimly, that there might be difficulties in this, whe n we
think of the importance of the doctrine of the Trinity: the divi-
sion between God the Father a nd God the Son, the division
between God the Creator and God among men (the meaning and
importance of creaturely existence). But I still do not see why the
recognition of several incarnations should weaken a nything here.
It ne ed not obscure the importance of the distinction between
the love of God and idolatry: this is something which Simone
Weil's writings bring out especially.
I have wondered dimly whether the importa nce of monotheism
led early C hristians to take it for gr anted that there could only
be one incarna tion. Pe rhaps this is partly the same point as the
one about idolatry, which I just mentioned.
Am I right in thinking that the H ebrew prophets - during and
after the Exile, especially - came to think of monotheism more
and more as rejection of idolatry: as the rejection of any mate-
rial or earthly p roperties which might distinguish one god from
anothe r (continuing thus from the earlier rej ection of ma king a
picture or a graven image of God)? I have in mind such things
as Isaia h's new conception of 'a chose n people' as a sziffering people
(rather tha n a people favo ured by a God mighty in battle).
But the n I suppose the ways of thinking a nd speaking of 'the
Messiah' m ay have lingered, even with t hose who no longer
thought of him as 'He who should have r edeemed Israe l'. But
this is all of it ignorant speculation.

1
· 'O nly-begotten' (Ed.).
6 'Begotten, not made' (Ed.).
 < 'h111/ 1r111ity and growth of understanding 371
Som(· Ii 1111' ~ 1f ·w 1· 111 s:
Tha l tn i11:-t1N t 1111 the uniqueness of the Incarnation at that time
and in t li.1 t pl.11 1 , 1s wry like insisting on the connexion of the
God of lsr:11 i 1111 i1 till' promised land: which I thought Isaiah was
rejecting.
T he a p1w.d i111 i1111ds for the Catholic foreign missions; and the
remincln oi ~ 11111111<· Wcil's remark that she would not give 'un
sou' towards 11 111 1g11 111issions.7
H er vi<·11 1 ~ l1.1s1·d on the da ngers of trying to impose a n ew
form of c:x p1 1 'l~i 1111 , 1H·w ritual, new mod e of devotion, or pre pa-
ration for fi ll' 11·1l' ption (acceptance) of divine grace, etc., on
people. Slw s1 1f.\f',1·s1s t hat this imposition could be as harmful as
trying to incl1111· .i prnple to express what is deeply important to
them in a 11 oti ll' 1 l.111g-1mge than their own.
This rcm i1Hls 11111· or reminded me - of the way in which she
tried again a nd .1 g.1i11 to show how the folklore of different coun-
tries, whc r(' t lwrl' was not a Ch ristia n tradition, did give
expression to wit.if sli1· took to be the most importan t ideas, aspi-
ra tions a nd vi1·,,s .1hout the world and about human life, which
we find also in (: lt rist ianit y.
I t went wi t h hn nj ection o f the idea of one and only one
Incarnation.
Reflecting o n this, rd k cti ng on t he importa nce that she
attached to trying to u ndns tancl folklore - with the proviso that
it is hardly possible fo r someone who is outside the culture in
which tha t folklore g rows up to achieve much understa nding there
- reflecting also on what she says of Christianity and Buddhism,
reminded me strongly of how far she was from wha t one would
normally take to be the Christian position. Far, a nyway, from the
position of the Church expr essed in the appeal for funds for
fo reign missions.
She was far from the Christian tradition. But how much more
reverent (or so it seems to me), how much more a n attempt to
see the world in its r elation to God, in contras t to the traditional
Hebrew and C hristian views - which seem to narrow everything
a nd refuse to recognize the world about them a t all.

7 S1·1· l .1'111'1' lo 11 Pril'.fl, p. 33. (l•:d.).

372 Reflections on Christianity
I V8
I have felt questions a lso in reading your summaries of the differ-
ences between Catholicism and Protestantism. And again it were
stupid to raise these. What you say does make one feel that the
questions M. Guitton discusses are alive and importa nt. And for
this reason it is hard to ke ep from treating your report as though
it were meant to op en a discussion.
Because I am blind to the conception of C hu r ch , a nd of dogma
a lso, I re main outside - Cat holic or Protes tant. If I overhear a
phrase or sentence from those who speak of 'church unity' - of
the nee d or of the possibili ties of it - I am interested, a nd I
wonder. I wond er wha t th e unity wo uld be like: or what is hoped
for by those who care abo ut it (i. e. what differ ent concepti ons of
it fire the diffe rent sides of the discuss ion). And I wonder wh e the r
arry ' unity of all the churches' would do for religion what some
p eople hope (apparently) that it may.
It would be stupid to ask what C hristianity would h ave bee n
like by, say, the fifteenth century, if Rom e and Byzantium had
not divided, or if C hris tianity ha d been able to contain Islam. But
I wish I knew a little of why it was that Rome and Byzan tium
did divide; for I thi n k I might se e a lit tle be tter what the issues
are. I know one m ay say th a t the situa tions then and now a re so
different that the comparison wer e e mpty. And I s till think one
m ight learn from it.
Since I can speak only from prejudice , I will say I dislike the
idea of ' unity' - and that of ' unifi cation' s till more. I think of one
form of unification which was achieved a t the beginning of th e
thirteenth century under Innocent III. Probably one could say
both tha t this saved C hristia nity, an d a lso that it corrupted it.
Perhaps because of my pr ejudice, the corruption seem s to m e
plaine r. I do not mean especia lly that factions were especia lly
fi erce in connexion with the successions of Pop es for the r es t of
the thirteenth century. I m ean th a t th e idea which came into
clarity with him has the idea which th e later Popes tried to
enforce. And I would guess t hat this was a disaster. 'My Ki ngdom
is not of this world .' Fra nz Brent a no once remarked tha t untfac

" From a lette r to Miss Elguerra, da ted 2 1 March 1965, respo11ding 10 her n·virn• ol
J ean Guitton's 'Vers !'unite cla ns !'amour' ( Pa ris: Crossel, I CJfi:~). and 11011·s 011 " " '
review (Ed.) .
 (,'/11i.1lia11ity and growth ef underslanding 373
et impera is so 1_11<· f i 111<·s b_c llcr politi cs than divide et impera. I should
guess th at till s w;is so 111 C hriste ndom .
Com~arc C~ r<·gor~ V il a nd a ny of th e las t ha lf dozen Popes up
to and rnc1ud 1ng flit s on e: in r espec t of ( I) t he r elation between
Po pe and people, ;1ncl (2) the rights of the Curia and of the
Church. I suppos~· th at Lh e Authority of Rome was weak during
m?st _of t!1c twc lll h ce ntury. And in th at time r eligi on did come
alive: 1~ d~ffc renl P<~rts of Europ e. Mostly it was h e resy - ergo not
Chn st1anity - a nd 1t was killed. So was much else. But the id
f 'h , . 1r ea
o e,resy was 1tsc 1 a comparatively new one - a result or 'side
effect of the te nd ency towards unification, I should guess.
. From t he . on e or two books I h ave looked at, I gather that
with the unity e nforced in the thirteenth century the Church
of Rome was more th an ever cut off from Byzantium and from
Islam.
Once .unity is achieved, wha t must be h eld or en forced in order
to keep 1~? 'The ag.c o_f r eligions is over, and now R eligion begins.'
An~ · · · Are yo u rns1de or out?' Wha t is the significan ce of the
capital le tter?
. I cannot fin? a nything in a~y form of Protestant Christianity
to comp ar e with what ther e 1s and has been in the Catholic
Church. (I know h ardly anything a bout the Eastern Church.) I
h ave long thought that th e 'exclusiveness' of the Cath olic Church
was a serious obj ection to it. (I know that some Protestant
sects ar e worse.) But I cannot think that the cure lies in a
move for 'C~~rch unity'. I imagine then a new exclusiveness.
Openness, ability to m eet a nd talk wi th one a nother and to learn
from one another - this does not come, I think from unifi cation
~ut ~ doub t if I have unde rstood at all wh a t /ts advocates hav~
m mmd.

The~e are notes I h ave made in reading M iss Elgue rra's review
?f Gmtton's 'Vers !'unite clans !'amour'. They have no mor e
importance nor more sense than a pursing of the lips a t this
~assage or at th at. And it would show more understa nding if the
hps were not parted.
I ca~not discuss the q u.estions to which sh e refers, (1) because
I am 1gnora~t of Catholic a nd of Protestan t Theology; (2) be-
cause 1 a m. ignora nt of Church history; (3) because I h ave n ot
reri d M. C:1 1111 0 11 's book.
374 Reflections on Christianity
If I give numbers to my notes, this is only to show some
se para tion of one from another; and even this may be confused.
The numbe rs do not show any order of the ideas in the notes
themselves.
I am not always sure how far Miss Elgu e rra is giving a precis
of wha t Guitton says, a nd how far she is explaining the problem
by comments and interpretations of her own. If I speak of some-
thing which 'she says', I do not mean to ascribe it specially to
her ra ther than to Guitton.
( 1) I hardly unde rstand the conception of ' unity of the churches'
(or however 'oecume nism ' be d escribed), because I do not under-
sta nd the conception of a church. This is my fault, for e nough
has been said and written in explana tion of it. (I have no idea
what is meant by M a tthew XVI, 18.) I ha ve thought that it does
not mean the same to all Catholics - i. e., tha t even those to
whom the Church is trem endously important do often have
different conceptions of it (and so of its importa nce) . It see ms
even plaine r that the term is used in different ways in diffe re nt
forms of 'Protesta ntism '. And I put tha t t erm in inverted commas
because I wonder whether it has a single positive meaning, any
more than 'infidel' does.
At the same time I recognize tha t some thing like 'common
worship' a nd 'forms of worship' seems insepara ble from wor ship
altogether. I say 'see ms', for there have been those who were
deeply religious and adhe red to none. But it may be argued tha t
their religion was d erivative - that unless religious ideas and
religious devotion had been d eveloped in the positive religions,
the d evotion of such individuals would be inconceivable. I a m not
convinced by the argument in that form. It is clear that a r eli-
gious view like that expressed in Goe the's 'Ganymed ' has been
influenced by r eligious ideas already d eveloped - though not
m er ely by Christian ones. But if tha t poem is r eligious, then I
a m not prepared to say tha t the re could have been no religious
poetry, for example, if there had not been churche s or organized
cults and r eligious doctrines. It seems to me tha t wha t we most
readily call religious in Greek poe try deve loped in opposition I o
the ideas of wha teve r priesthood there was. And I so metimes wan I
to say that churches - 'the religious communi ty' - have done mo n ·
to stifle the growth of religion than to fos te r it. But l know I <llll
speaking in ignorance, and proba bly I a m speaking wildl y.
 C:/11 i.rl ir1 nity and growth of understanding 375
C f. wh a t Si111 otH' Weil found in 'folklor e'. W as such folklore
mad ~ poss ibl e by the existence of organized form s of worship? or
was it the other way a bout? All right , the question is stupid . But
the n it is begott en of another stupidity: tha t of asserting that
withou t th e ex iste nce of a common ritual, tradition, holy obj ects
a nd so on, re ligious ideas would never have arisen .
P ar allel: the id ea tha t without the institution of the sta te a nd
of state powe r, the re could have been no 'socie ty' a nd no culture.
All we can say is that there have been states and ther e have
been churches. T ha t culture and relig ion have grown up within
the m is true. It is also true that culture - and, in one sense
religion - have had to figh t against them in orde r to kee~
going at all. Science com es between peopl e and the understand-
ing of na ture; the church has come be tween people and a n
appreciation/ u nd ersta nding of the 'mysteries' of life, of d eath,
of begetting, of m adness and suffering, of the seasons a nd of
rain; the state comes between the relati ons of people with one
anot.her a nd their under sta nding of one another. I do not say tha t
the influence has been only of tha t kind; but I think it has been
heavily so.
If a ny of this is relevan t, it is because it is connected wi th the
idea of religious d octrine a nd of religious teaching. 'La seme nce
chre tie nne'. Miss Elguerra says tha t 'the exist entialist cha racter
of Protestant th eology, its insistence on ma n "cla ns sa condition
presen te".' has 'added a n enormous d imension to C hristia nity'.
Would this pa rt of Protes tant theology be included in la semence
chretienne? Is la sem ence the same as !'essence? I a m confused by
the rem ark tha t '! 'essence es t toujours r evetue d e l'accident'.9
I know that this metaphor is the traditional one, but I have
neve r found it helpful. P eople have spoken of language as the
clothing of ideas, too, but if you take tha t seriously, ideas turn
out to be nothing at all. But in any case, if we do distinguish
between !'essence and !'acciden t in this way- and (?also) be tween
la semence and le terrain - to which of the m has the dimension
been added by Protestan t theology? I suppose Miss Elgue rra
would say it has been added to the 'clothing' - but then is it
also an addition to !'essence? or was it somehow in )'essence all
a long?

11
"1'111· c·ss1·111i: il i.• nlwnys d11·ssC'C I u p i11 lhC' co11ti ngcn t' (Ed.).
376 Refl,ections on Christianity
I am obtuse in the sam e way about la semence and le terrain.
Is M. Guitton asking what se mence we ought to use for the present
terrain? This would fit the metaphor. For a different soil you oft en
are advised to sow a d ifferent kind of wheat. And I suppose the
agricultural botanists may try to produce a species of wheat more
suitable for this soil. But I do not believe thal M. Guitton would
want to ext end the me taphor in this way. And yet - what ques-
tion is he asking, then? What is the qu es tion of the relation
between la sem ence and le terrain?
Miss Elguerra may protest that the meaning is obvious. And
to a large extent it is. The lives which people lead in the indus-
trial societies of Europe today are diffe rent from the lives which
people led in first-century Palestine. W e have inherited problems
which wer e unknown to them, and we are ignorant of most of
theirs. But we recognize good and evil, and they did; and this
often leaves us with comparable probl ems: leaves us with no way
out, and so with despair. The question is what we can learn from
the life a nd teachings of J esus, which would bear on such prob-
le ms; and also what we can learn from the early C hristians, such
as St Pa ul, St J ohn, St Peter. Do t he different surroundings of our
proble ms mean t hat the !ife and teachings of J esus and those of
his early followers cannot bring to us what they brought to the
people a mong whom they moved and spoke? " .
But this is not the main part of the problem. fhe problem is
whether a religion can grow in mode rn European society of which
we could say that it had the spirit of C hristianity - and also that
it had an 'esse ntial' historical connexion with the r eligion of J esus
and his immediat e followers? Such a religion would have to be
a great part of people's lives, it would have to find expression in
what they did and built - as it once did in a rchitecture or
in music. So that the religion in the lives of the people would be
something to wonder at. And: tha t in all this the historical
connexions with the origin of C hristia ni ty were plain.
'La seme nce' seem s to mean: ( 1) what is truly or vividly reli-
g ious in the devotion of the people, and also (2) the life a nd words
of J esus.
Someone might say: 'No one could be a C hrist ia n if he had
neve r heard of J esus or of what he said a nd wha t he d id.' B11 t
even this would not be e nough. Suppose Lh al people d id IH·rnnw
deeply religious throughout E urope. And supposl' I hal t lwy
 C/11 i.11 ir111il) 1 011d .l!,rowlh ef understanding 377
constantly studi ed tli1· lik and teac hings ofJ esus: that they recog-
nized him as th<' gr<':t tc·st rt'l igious teacher there had been - not
only through his words but through his life; and that they know
that their own n·l ig-io11 rnulcl not have been at all what it is if it
we re not for what tlicy had learned from him - still, this would
not be what M. G11it ton a nd Miss Elguerra look for, and they
could say that ii was not C hristianity a t a ll.
'La semencc' must mean: (3) revelation (the revelation of J esus
as God), in so me se nse which cannot be understood unless
one is a Christi an oneself. It is for this reason tha t I cannot even
begin to ask whal M. Guitton m eans by the relation of la semence
a nd le terrain. I find myself wondering what he means, but this
is all.
T his is why I mentioned the notion of religious teaching on page
375 above. The word does not mean what it means outside reli-
gion. And it is similar with the not ion of 'message' or gospel.
Perhaps Miss Elguerr a would say that this is where the Church
is indispensable.
'La semence' must also include a conception of history which
you cannot have unless you are a Chris tian. (Maybe a H ebrew
could come near to it : I do not know.) The C hurch emphasizes
its historical con tinuity with its foundation by J esus. But what is
of first importance is the 'christo-ce ntric' conception of the history
of the world.
For instance, M . Guitton's question co uld no t be p u t by as kin g
what the form of Jesus' life and teaching would be if he wer e to
be born and live and teach at the present time . I t would not be
'la semence' if there were a different Incarnation. It has to be -
could only be - that Incarnation in Pales tine at that time. And if
I were to ask why this is so, I should be showing that I do not
understand what he means by Incarnation at all.
But I repeat: I could not understand what he means by
Incarnation, unless I could understand:
1. the expression 'the history of the world' (for this is not the
sense of 'his tory' in which it is the study of historians);
2. speaking of 'the meaning' or 'the signifi cance' of the history
of the world. (Perhaps I should be one step on the way if I could
unders tand speaking of 'the meaning of history' at all.)
O ne can not come to und ersta nd these expressions by being
/(111g!t1, i11 Iii<' ord in a ry se nse'.
 378 Reflections on Christianity
On her last page, Miss Elguerra paraphrases and quotes
M. Guitton: 'We are living a dramatic, extremely unce rtain
moment "qu1. rape 11 e, par cette nu d.1te,
, l e moment d e l'O ngme
. . " . ' 10
(I.e. l'Origine de l'Idee chretienne.) I do not suppose h e m eant
that perhaps for our time l'Idee chretienne need not be 'revetue
de l'accident'. 11

y1 2

I am not surprised that you were puzzled by my r e mark that

those inside the Church seemed to me blind to many of the trou-
bles of those who are without . I wish I could explain; but it would
ta ke lon g, even if I wer e more alive than I am now. It is not that
the Church requires sacrifices of those who believe. I know that
the Catholic faith could not have the depth that it does without
I ha t. It is a doctrine which does offer diffi culties, of course - espe-
cially in the form which some have given to the requirement of
'abandoning one's own will entire ly' (where this does not mean
simply abandoning 'wilfulness ' or self-assertiveness). But these
arc nol what I had in mind wh en I wrole tha t. Or rath er, th er e
;ir(' rnnnexions, I think; but this is not the centre aro und which
I was moving.
( :liri sl ia ns some limes seem to me to be saying something like
'Tlwn· wou ld be less trouble in the world if men tried to help
11111· o11101 hn more.' And if I cannot say 'yes' to that, i t is because
I c ,1111101 f'orgcl the ways in which trying to help people so
1c111111 11111 ly 1nakes things worse. If we take the story of the Good
\, 1111.11 i1:111 lite rally, well then yes. That kind of case is pre tty
'l l 1.1igli1 li >Iward. But that is not the sort of case that brings mos t
111 1111· troubl e. J esus apparently intended that it should illumi-
11.111· o l hn sorts of case - oth er sorts of difficulties than those of
.1 111:111 who has been beaten and robbed - and I can only confess
1l1al I am blind. I know of cases like those of St Peter Claver and
1lw slave s hips; and I profoundly admire him. I know a lso tha t

1
" ' \Vh11 h 1h1 011gh chi s nakt•clnl'ss, r<"calls tht· monwn1 of origin' (i .... of cite o rigin of chi·
( :!11C'l11111 idc·a) ( Ed .).
11
'' 1 lw C:l11is1iow lclc·a' nt•<'d 1101 lw 'd r!'sst'd up in 1hc· 1·0111i11g<' 111 '.
1' 1•111111 .1 11·111·1 lo H:11h.1r,1 () ' '1·i ll cl:i11·d 21 .Jul) l')[ifl a 11d lro 11111u1n da1c·cl l'ah11 S1111clo1)
ltihl "'" ' " '111 lo llal'lrn 1a ()'Nt' ill , who was a clt"v11111 C:o11l111l i1 lu1 wlu1111 Rl11•c·s h.11 1
H' 4·, 11 11 ".q lt'c t.
1
 Christianity and growth ef understanding 379
there are crying scandals enough of that kind in the world. Bu t
if you try to illustrate all the troubles of human !ife by reference
to the~ - then, with all r esp ect I can only say that yo u seem to
m e to ignore muc~ of what is happening. In the Gospel the story
of the good Samaritan seems to be intended to give the sense of
'Thou shallt love thy neighbour as thyself; a nd this command-
me nt ... or am I wrong? I was going to say that Christians seem
to look on this commandment as a rule which, if only it were
followed, would solve all the difficulties in human r e lations. And
when I think of it in that crude form, my j aw drops.
. St Peter Claver did not know the people he was helping . The ir
distr ess was on ly too obvious, a nd he m inister ed to t hat as best
h.e could. The .Samaritan did not know the man from .Je richo
either; and agam , there was n o qu estion of w ha t th e in1nwcli:i1c·
distress was, or how it could be served.
Well - forgive me - is the rul e one for Olli' 's 1'1' l.11 i()11 s 111
comparative strangers in dire dis tress? Th ose <'i1sc·s :1n· i111pn1
tant; I am not questioning that. But th<'y do 1101 11·1 1 \'011 111 11111
about your r ela tions with people you haV<' to liV<' ''ii Ii <1:1, 11, 11, 1, .
'Where ther e is love t her e is undc rslancling.' ·
I often wonder how anyon e could say that. I f' ii w1 T1· l:1i111 I)
true, I suppose ther e would not be ha lf 1he t ragccly 1hnl' is. ls
it not w'. th love that. the mo.sl te rrible mis und e rstandings begin
- the m1sunderstandmgs which a r e t he stuff of tragedy? And if
there were no love, they would never be. I d o not know th e answer
h ere. Certainly I am not sugges ting 'So bett er not love'. No, I
have no answer. Only, it seems to me that Christians are often
strangely blind to the difficulty.
I am not thinking only of love be tween m en and women here
-:-- though this is enormously important - and astonishingly ignored
m the sources of Christian teaching. I am thinking of friends hi p
between m en and men and between women and women; and also
- and especially - of love between parents and children.
If we knew only that we should be prepared to a ct like t he
Good Samaritan - we should know very little.
Or even if we knew that we should be prepared to forgive. If
Lhe re were no love present, that might work.
Th e way in which Christ ia ns speak of love se ems to m e one of
tl1('ir nios1 pnplex ing rind (for me) on e of th e mosl discouraging
sicl l's of' I he ir I 1·:1<" lii11g-.
380 Refl,ections on Christianity
We are told that St J ohn used to say, 'Children love one
another: This is the command of the Lord, and if you have done
this you have done enough. ' If we have done what? Does this mean
simply showing compassion? God knows that is important. But
... 'If you have done this you have done enough'??
With St John my difficulty comes largely from the way in which
he practically ide ntified the love of 'one a nother' and the love of
God. Of course I do not mean that they can be separate. And if
the misunderstandings be tween men can bring catastrophe, so
can a m an's misunde rstandings of his relation to God; a nd this
may ruin his relations to m en. That goes very deep, a nd I think
it is immeasurably important.
And yet - here Ch ristia ns must leave me be hind - I do no t
think tha t the search is th e same; any more than I think that
the diffi culties in connexion with one's relation to God are the
same as the difficulties tha t lie in the deeper misunderstandings
and want of unde rstanding among men.
P erhaps if I did have fait h, I should see tha t they really are
the same. But when I read a writer like a Ke mpis, for instance,
I doubt thi s. H e recommends (if I understand him) that we should
never have very intimate fri e ndship with other me n, just because
if you do you become 'involved ', a nd this brings a host of diffi-
culties. Well, it certainly does. But this is not an understanding
of the difficul ties which men do have . And it is not any help in
solving the m. 'Difficulties? Don't get into difficulties.' Fine. And
this may be love of God (though I doubt it). It does not even look
a t love a mong men.
And thi s trouble goes very far. What I have spoken of (too
vaguely) here as 'wan t of understa nding a mong men' is the source
of most of the hollowness and the want of sense or meaning in
the lives that men lead. I say that dogmatically, and if I were to
try to explain it, as I should like, it would take a long tim e. I do
not fi nd tha t Christian teaching faces th e difficulty, or even sees
that it is the re. Likely as not I am wrong in this, but this is how
it looks to me now.
There a re question s closely connected with th is, regarding th <·
'se nse of good and evil ', for insta nce. Most of what [ haw bc<' ll
speaking of as tragedy is concerned with tha t. (Cf. ll a rd y's .f11rll'
the Obscure, for instance .) It is th e se nse that 111 C ll have or g-orn l
and evil, and their perplexities abou t ii (whi(' h <«-1111101 lw n·cl11t·c·d
 ( .'/1111/ 1r111i/ J' ""d growth ef understanding 381
to a SI l'llgg l•· w1 1l1 ' 1l1t· flt- sh') ... And yet without a sense of good
~nd evil 1lw1 c· is 1111 Iii(·. Tha t sense is the reality of life; and it
is th e rl':il1I ) ol' 0111· 's r<' la tion to others. But ... what is the
meanin g of' I Ill' sl 111 y of' Abraham when he was asked to sacrifice
Isaac? l s 1101 1llC' I t'.i('hing here that men should g ive up all sense
of good a ncl l' V i I. /\ncl is it not much the same through the later
Scriptures ?
T~i s sec llls lo 11 H' like denying the reality of the difficul ty.
Takrng Llw s1·11s1· ou l of th e tragedy. And - forgive me - I cannot
see that it is a11 answer to it.

VI
I am writing after coming home from mass, because I want to
try to sort ?u t a few thoughts that came to me there. 13 They
will hardly mt erest you, and I hope you will not try to read or
follow them. I am writing them to you, because I had thought
of speaking to you: but the only request I make is that you
should not try to read what is cloudy or what goes against the
grain. I have nothing to say, excep t t ha t I am puzzled, on this
poi?t and that. If I criticize anyone, or seem to, this is a way of
sayrng that I cannot understand him. It is not a way of saying
that I know the answer, or that I know how he should have done
it; I do not.
Canon O 'Keefe spoke of a broadcas t discussion on crime, rn
which psychiatrists, criminologists, sociologists and a convicted
criminal gave their opinions, but in whi ch there was no mention
of God. He wondered why attention should be given to t he social
circu_mstances and to the emotional problems of criminals, when
~othmg was said about bringing to people some inspirat ion, some
ideal, some aspiration towards a different kind of life. I gather
(I did not hear the broadcast) that the speakers treated the
matter as though it we re a complex and difficult problem of
medicine or of technology, which they were trying to 'solve'.
Canon O 'Ke efe said, in words something like this: 'We Catholics
alone can, by our example, ma ke people conscious of an ideal,
so that aspira tion may begin to enter their lives.' He also said
tha t the Catholic Church alone has 'the pa nacea' for all the ills
11
TI ,.. 11n11·s d at1·d l':il1 11 S1111day ICJ6'1 begin here (Ed .).
382 R efl,ections on Christianity
of the world. H e was speaking of the importance of a ttending the
religious service provided by the C hurch.
Now I agree tha t the evil in crime is not some thing which can
be understood, let alone dealt with, in medicine or sociological
terms. And I agr ee especially tha t you have not come near to
unde rstanding the subj ect if you do not see the importance of
aspiration and of a sense of good and evil.
But I am puzzled (and I mean just that, and nothing else) by
his reference to a panacea, a nd by his confide nce in the results
that would follow if all Catholics showed a more constan t devo-
tion t o mass and t o religious offi ces . Wha t I may say on this will
be disord er ed; believe me, please, that I do not wish to offend
a nyone.
The 'social scie ntists' a nnoy m e par ticula rly when they speak
as though they had all the answers; or a t a ny rat e, that they knew
how all the questions should be answered (a nd could a nswer them
if the governmen t would only give the m free rein and plenty of
money). T his is pha riseeism, a nd no less stifl ing tha n its earlier
form .
But in the sam e way, I am bothered by a ny body, even the
Church, whe n it offe rs a pa nacea.
At one period in my life the C hurch gave me a help which I
do not think I could have found a nywhere else or in any other
way. And I do not know that I should have found this even in the
Church if it had not been for Canon O 'Keefe. I hope I may never
forge t this. I wish I could be of some help to the Church, if only
because I hope it may always be there for those whom it can help
when nothing else can . (This will sound inadequa te a nd cheap to
you, and I ask pa rdon.)
I am doubtful if the Church could be a help to everyone always;
or could bring the a nswer to every kind of evil. I know that Canon
O'Keefe was voicing a faith in something d ivinely revealed; while
I speak withou t fai th a nd withou t much understanding. I have
small und erstanding of evil, however much I move and live in it ;
and of good I understand still less. But I a m repeating the obvious
whe n I say tha t t here have been those whom the Chu rch has not
saved, and there have been some who were regular in observance
of offices who have done grave evil (whether or not it were publicly
cond emned as crime) . When I say this I do not su ppress my
wonder at the saints a nd a t so m an y othe rs who hm11• fo und lif<·
 <.'l1111!1n111/J 1 ""rl.f!,rowth efunderstanding 383
in the C lt11 11 11 I do 1101 sugges t that a nything else could have
take n its pl.1<·1· lrn t l1 <'st· people. All I am saying is: there are
others lo wl11>111 11 j11 sl dot's not speak at all. If you say, 'This is
their fau lt: 1lt q ft.I\ c· rlost'd t heir hearts against its message, and
wilfully rcjtTlc·d ii' W<" ll , even so, there is evil there in this wilful
rejection, is I lt<' 1c· 1101 !> J\ ncl has the Church the remedy for this?
If not, wt·r1· ii 1101 f>c' ll n to keep from speaki ng of a panacea?
. I think it 11st'd lo I><" said sometimes that 'once a man has given
his soul to t Ii <' ck vil, there is nothing C hrist can do'. But then
this wou ld 111 c:1 11, would it not, tha t Ch rist can do nothing about
a lot of th e ('Vi l i11 I he world.
And if you say that we cannot believe t hat the evil doe rs that
we come upon (or that we a re) have given their souls to the devil
- still, th ey are a pparently beyond the reach of the Ch urch. The
evil has gone on and has grown, and the Ch urch has been there
all the while.
I know that I am over-simplifying, and I do not know how to
speak .of these matters otherwise. I think my fault here springs
from mcompetence, no t ill will (though of course I may be
deceiving myself ).
Canon O'Keef e was speaking to a Catholic congr egation, and
I do n.o~ suggest that he should have g·one into the questions I
am ra1smg. I was there as a n in truder, a nd I do not want at all
to suggest that he should not have given the address he did. But
I did feel difficulti es - from the devil or no - and I wish I knew
someone to whom I migh t speak of them .
Supposing - (although I strongly q uestion it) - suppose that
everyone ~ho has. been made fairly acquain ted with Christianity
and has r ej ected it, must have been swayed by concupiscence or
pride or some for m of ill will; and suppose the same be said of
everyone who was a believer and has ceased to be so: is Canon
O'Keefe saying that the evil wills of such people would weaken
if only more Catholics would set a good example by their lives
and by the religious d evotion which they show?
(This raises the question of why all Catholics d o not set a good
example in their lives - why has the remedy for this evil been
wanting - but I do not want to press this now.)
I agree that the examples in the lives of people we know and
m~e t are i?1portant - perhaps more impor tan t than anything else
- 1n enablin g most of us to ove rcome any evil at all in our lives.
384 R eflections on Christianity
(Some of those who have been examples for me in this way have
been Christians; others have not.)
Must part of a Catholic's example lie in convincing the others
that Catholics are different? Almost as though the outsiders
should be brought to ask, 'Wha t have they got that we haven't
got?' I should be prone to remember such an example as 'Lord,
we thank Thee that we are not as other men are.'
You know as I do, that many a re put off religion by the sugges-
tion that people who go to church are better than those who do
not. (There is a story I like, that when someone obj ected to thi s
to a young curate, the cura te replied, 'Maybe they're worse, and
that's why they go.')
It would make more se nse, to me in my darkness, if Catholics
tried first and foremost to convince themselves tha t they a re not
better, a nd do not lead better lives, than those who are not
Catholics. I think that if I were a Catholic and wanted to speak
with someone, or get within speaking distance of someone who had
rej ected Christianity, I would think it my duty to try with all my
heart and soul to think that tha t ma n was right in his rej ection.
Then I might make a beginning of understanding what his diffi-
culty was. And he might begin to think I was facing the difficulty
with him - instead of speaking to him as a me mbe r of those who
have received the Grace of God (maybe, aft er all, I haven't), or
as a spokesman of a C hurch which knows all the answers and has
known them for centuries.
Priests are wont to say that there are no new sins and no new
diffi culties . I know what they mean. But in a sense this is wrong.
For the problems and the difficulties of everyone to whom religion
is more than a formality, are new difficulties. And - for what my
opinion is worth - they should be treated so.
 Index ef names

Aaron, R. I., wii Caesar, 257

Abraharn, '.i:l, 17, 7!i, 155, 247, 3 13-14, Calvin, ]., 125, 238, 242-6, 211!
350, 36.'>, '.lll 1 Camus, A., 64, 230, 257- H
Acton, I f. B., xvii Cannon, J ., 153
Adam, 220, 2M Cantor, G., 69
Adrian, E. D., 136 Carnap, R., 308
Aeneas, 36 1 Cephas, 342
Aeschylus, 363 Chardin, T c ill1ard de" I OIJ, 11 I I 1
Alaric, 302-3 Chaucer, G., 40
Alcibiaclcs, 23 1 Chekhov, A., 22 1, '.! I:.!
Amos, 364-6, 368 Chesterton, C. K., 11 :l I 'I
Anderson, J., xiv, xvii, I 18, 166n Chopin, F., '.lfi:l
Anscombe, G. E. M., 159n, 248, 309 Chronos, 220
Anselm, Saint, 19, 20, 23 Churchill, \V., Ill
Ant igone, 309 Claucl1·I, I'.,'! I
Aquinas, Saint T homas, I 9, 22 Clav<·•, S,11111 l'1·1c 1, l''l, I/II IJ
Aristotle, I, 9, 3 I, 298 Col1111d11", c... 1111
Arthur, King, 43 Cra1il 111 d, I·:., 'l'.'h
Augustine, Saint, 97-8, I 15, 302 C:IU( '" I!., I 'I I
Ayer, A. J., xi C:111111111111-\·'• I'.. I·:., •I I , Ihi!

Bach,]. S ., 85, 126-7, 232-3, 314 l ),1\'1d, K111).(, :Hill

Barcroft, 136 l>:ivi ~. Cl1arlt-s, 32H
Barnard, C., 332 1),1\'). r. f. r. I., 364-5
Ba rth, K., 238 lkscarl<'s, R., xvii, 7, 19
Baudela ire, C., 306 Dollfuss, E., 303
Beckett, S., 151 Don nc, J., 154, 287
Beerbohm, M., 364 Drciscr, T ., 220
Bee thoven, L. van, I 70, 249, 314 Drury, M. O'C., 97, 99n, IOOn, 238n,
Berkeley, G ., 25, 57 244n, 24811, 251n, 304n, 307n, 3 14n,
Blake, W., 191 32 1n, 323n, 32711, 340n, 356n, 362,
Bohr, N., 128-9 364-n, 369n
Boole, G., xviii
Brahms, J., I 73, 2 I 7 Eckhart, Meister, 336
Brentano, F., xv, xviii, I , 4-6 I I 30 52 Eastman, G., xii
58, 64, 12 1, 203, 253, 26'1, 3'13, 311' Einstein, A., 122, 128-9
Br ittan, K., xviii Elguerra, Miss, 372-8
Broad, C. D., 308 Elijah, 324
Browning, R., 129, 133 Elisha, 307, 324
Bruckn er, A., 230, 232-4, 3 14 Emery, xvi
Buchman, F., 47-8 Epictetus, 252
Buddha, 129 Ernst, P., 71
ll 111l)':t l1, .J ., 76, 148 Evans-Pritchard, E. E., I 06
:rn.'i