On Certainty and Religious Belief

Abstract

Logical positivism and its derivatives cast a sustained philosophical shadow over religious faith and theological reflection. Any number of issues continue to surface in explicit and subdued forms, all of them relating to the status of religious beliefs. In fairly recent years, much fruitful discussion is dependent on the later writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein's last notes, collected in On Certainty, are still largely unmined by those wishing to gain clarity about religious belief. It turns out, however, that these pages promise to be among the most helpful. In what follows, therefore, there is first offered a summary of the dominant themes of On Certainty – Wittgenstein's critique of G. E. Moore and his treatment of Moore's truisms of common sense. By a painstaking analysis, Wittgenstein shows that the truths defended by Moore are among any number of other fundamental propositions which have an extraordinary logical role in our language and judgements about the world. Next, partly by reference to Wittgenstein's lectures on religious belief and other collected notes, it is argued that many beliefs in Christianity share significant logical features with those fundamental propositions. Not least is the fact that, like the latter but unlike scientific hypotheses, Christian beliefs are removed from the ordinary traffic of verification and falsification. Despite the likenesses, notice is also taken of various dissimilarities which further set the peculiarity of Christian articles of faith into bold relief. The disparities, however, do not impugn the logically fundamental role which those beliefs have in the language and lives of those who embrace the faith.