Michael Lacewing Religious belief, hypothesis and attitudes THE STATUS OF THE RELIGIOUS HYPOTHESIS A hypothesis is a proposal that needs to be tested (and confirmed or rejected) by experience. We use experience to infer its truth or falsehood; its truth is not something that we can experience directly. The religious hypothesis is that God exists. Is this a hypothesis? When we test a scientific hypothesis, we look for experiences that will show that it is true or false. If God exists is an empirical hypothesis, a statement of fact, then it must be possible to imagine the conditions under which we would say that it was not a fact. For example, the theory of evolution by natural selection is a hypothesis; if aliens came to Earth and demonstrated that they had planted fossils (which actually they had made) for us to find, we would give up the theory. What would make us give up the claim that God exists? We can argue that there are no tests of this kind, so God exists is not a hypothesis. We could reply that God s existence is experienced directly, in our experience of human life as an encounter with God. It is no more a hypothesis than the claim that this is a fork. But, to this, we can object that the same argument applies. Just as with hypotheses, when we talk of what we can experience directly, we can imagine situations in which we would withdraw our claim that this is an x. The fork may be a hologram; or it could be a clever illusion, so that when we turn it around, we see it is not a fork at all, but a knife that has been painted; and so on. To be able to say this is a fork meaningfully, we have to know what kinds of situation would lead us to say this is not a fork. So if we say human life is an encounter with God, what kinds of experience would lead us to say, no, it was just an illusion, it isn t an encounter with God? There is nothing that means one has to withdraw one s claim about encountering God. This suggests that God exists is not something we know directly from experience. However, we can object that this argument has a very limited view of meaning. It assumes that for God exists to state a fact, we have to know how to test whether that fact is true or false against experience (and sensory experience at that). But we could argue that the meaning of God exists is related to and secured by making sense of facts. For example, we could use the argument from design to infer that God s existence is the best explanation for the nature of the universe (or use the problem of evil to infer that God does not exist). In this case God exists is a hypothesis, but not a scientific hypothesis, since we use philosophy, not science, to test it. What we mean by God exists will be shown by these arguments. Alternatively, we could argue that philosophical arguments aren t the natural foundation of religious belief, so God exists gains its meaning not from philosophical arguments but from how people experience human life.
RELIGIOUS BELIEF MIRRORS ATTITUDES RATHER THAN FACTS The arguments so far still understand God exists as a statement of fact. But we can challenge this. First, as we have already noted, if it is a statement of fact, it is peculiar in that we do not test it against empirical experience. Second, religious belief is clearly not purely intellectual. If one experiences the world as an encounter with God, that involves a disposition to serve God. Third, people don t normally acquire religious beliefs by argument or testing evidence. Instead, they come to an understanding of the world that is expressed in values and a way of living. When someone converts to a religion, what changes isn t so much intellectual beliefs, but their will, what they value, how they choose to live. We can argue, then, that religious belief is not really a genuine form of belief at all. So what is it? To say it expresses feelings is too shallow. Religion is not just about feeling, it is about ways of living. Every religion pays close attention to what people do and gives guidance on how to live. So we can say that religious beliefs are expressions of attitude and commitment, attitudes towards other people, nature, oneself, human history and so on that put the world in a certain light and which support commitments to act in certain ways and to mature as a spiritual being. The core of accepting a religious faith, on this view, is the intention to follow the way of life prescribed by that religion. This is not to say that we can turn any particular religious belief on its own into a rule that guides action. Unlike moral beliefs, such as abortion is wrong, which are directed onto some specific action or policy, religious beliefs always come together, a whole set of beliefs, and the set as a whole indicates a whole way of life. Objections We can object that there is much more to religious beliefs than a commitment to a way of life. What can we say about different religions that recommend similar ways of life? If commitment to a way of life is all that matters, then does it matter at all what one believes? Many religions have thought it does; some have even argued that how one lives is not the main point at all. Religious belief is not the same as a general moral system. Furthermore, many Christians, for instance, would say that they live a certain way because God exists and showed us how to live. But if this answer only expresses the commitment to live a certain way then it doesn t answer the question why live that way. If religious belief is just a commitment, what supports that commitment or is it arbitrary? To answer these objections, we might add that religious beliefs relate to specific stories or myths. These stories differ in different religions, and they don t appear at all in purely moral systems. In Christianity, obviously the stories about Jesus life and death are central. But then, doesn t this make religious belief about facts again? No, we can say, because the stories do not need to be believed to be true; they need to be believed as stories. The story is considered meaningful, rather than literally true, and it supports the commitment to a certain way of life. This might explain the difference between religions and between religion and morality. But, we can still object, a story isn t the right kind of answer to why live like that?. Suppose a boy says that he wants to be a detective when he grows up, and to the question why?, tells you a Sherlock Holmes story. This is fine. Now suppose a Christian, to the question why love your enemy as yourself? tells a story about Jesus. Is this a good answer? If all the stories about Jesus are false, and God doesn t exist, then it is not a
command from God that we should try to live this way. So why should we? If religious beliefs are just commitments to a way of life supported by stories, then they seem to be subjective. Many religious believers would not accept this interpretation of belief. WITTGENSTEIN ON LANGUAGE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF To deepen our understanding of these issues, we first need to think more about meaning. In his Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein argued that we cannot understand language without understanding the ways in which language is used and how it interacts with how we live and what we do. He attempted to illuminate the nature of language by comparing language to games. In particular, like games, language is an activity guided by rules in games, rules governing what one can do, in language, rules governing meaning; and second, meaning is learned from the rules governing the use of the word/sentence, like pieces in a game are understood by how they can be used. Meaning, then, is often a matter of how words are used. Appreciating this requires a distinction between surface grammar and depth grammar: words or sentences in one context describing objects or an event may be similar on the surface to ones that in another context that do nothing of the sort, e.g. the bus passes the bus stop, the peace of the Lord passes understanding. To understand a particular piece of language, one must look at how the language is used, as meaning is not given by the form of words alone. When looking at how words are used, we need to look at the language game that bit of language and the rules it follows which gives the words their meaning. (Wittgenstein lists as examples of language games asking, thanking, cursing, praying, greeting, and so on.) The idea of language games emphasises the foundation of language in activity. Wittgenstein says that a language game is the speaking part of a form of life. A form of life is far broader than any specific language game, it is the foundation out of which language games grow, the collection of cultural practices which embed language games. The very foundation is biology, and Wittgenstein often emphasises how our natural reactions form the basis for language games. (Think of talking about pain or colour or even responses to music.) But the biology is always taken up in a particular culture, and what is natural is often only natural within a particular way of living as a human being. Human nature involves both biology and culture. Religious belief So religious language must be understood as part of a religious life. Religious life and language contains the many different language games of praise and worship, prayer, miracles and so on; but it can also be understood as forming a game in its own right, governed by particular rules those displayed in the analysis of its depth grammar. Wittgenstein argued that religious language has a depth grammar quite distinct from its surface grammar. Its surface grammar can look empirical, as though, like science, religious language is talking about things and events. This is misleading. A central part of Wittgenstein s analysis is that God exists is not a statement of fact. It is not about a thing, an object that exists as part of the world like natural objects do. It is not a claim about an entity at all. Of course, if it is not an empirical statement, then believing it is not an empirical belief:
a religious belief could only be something like a passionate commitment to a system of reference. Hence, although it s a belief, it s really a way of living, or a way of assessing life. It s passionately seizing hold of this interpretation. (Culture and Value, 64) He argued that if we look at how the statement is used, what it expresses for people who believe it, we see that it is not used as a description, it is used to express a form of commitment. This can illustrated by talk of the Last Judgement. This is not a hypothesis about a possible future event; if it was, it would be utterly bizarre (what s the evidence? how is such a belief formed?). The Last Judgement is a picture, an understanding of life by which the believer is guided through life. Another example is provided by D Z Phillips, who defended and developed Wittgenstein s theory. He argues that if someone thinks that prayer is a means to obtaining something, they have misunderstood the nature of religion, and their belief has become superstition. Religious language expresses an emotional attitude and understanding of life and a commitment to living life according to that understanding. It is not a description of the way the world is. In Religious beliefs and language games, Phillips argued that this means that God is not logically prior to religion, some thing to which religion is a human response. Talk of God only makes sense within religious practices. To understand religious language is to understand the place of certain statements in the life of the believer and religious community. And the nature of religious faith and morality shows that these statements are not factual. Discussion An important implication of the view that religious belief is not empirical, but mirrors attitudes and commitments, is that we can t criticise or support religious beliefs by using evidence. Religion cannot be criticised on the grounds that it is not true or highly improbable; for this presupposes that it makes factual claims, and it does not. So, for example, both the argument from design and the problem of evil are irrelevant as attempts to prove or disprove the existence of God. This, we might argue, cuts religious belief off from reason too severely. However, Phillips points out that this doesn t mean there are no grounds for accepting or rejecting religious belief. Religion is part of a form of human life: Religion has something to say about birth, death, joy, misery, despair, hope, fortune, and misfortune. If religious faith makes no sense in the light of such experiences, we will rightly reject it. The problem of evil could be relevant here. Not any set of attitudes and commitments makes sense. But, as we noted in our discussion above, we can object that this interpretation of religious belief as not factual conflicts with how many believers think of God and their faith. Wittgenstein s account looks like a reinterpretation of religious belief, not an analysis of it. It also makes what you believe much less important, as religious faith is about how we live. Yet many religious believers who act in similar ways and hold similar values argue there is something distinctive and important about the different beliefs they hold. Furthermore, within the history of any religion, there have been heated arguments about how to interpret a particular doctrine (e.g. in Christianity, the Incarnation), when it is very difficult to see how the different interpretations could make any impact on
different ways of living. All this suggests that religious language is intended to be true, i.e. fact-stating, and not just expressive. We can argue that Wittgenstein was right to point to the expressive use of religious language. But he was wrong to think that because religious beliefs express attitudes, they cannot also be empirical. There is no reason to think that they cannot be both. After all, religious believers do think they are saying something factual when they say God exists. It has this use.