Abstract
A book titled, Wittgenstein for Theologians suggests an introduction to Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy that theologians (and perhaps more widely, scholars concerned with religion in general) could find useful in their academic work. In this respect, Brad Kallenberg's slim volume might disappoint. There is relatively little in the way of explicit discussion of Wittgenstein's thought in the book. However, a certain Wittgenstein-inspired approach to language, life, and Christianity is certainly conveyed by the author.
Kallenberg has chosen to illuminate four key ideas of the later Wittgenstein's work: language-games (chapter 1), grammar (chapter 2), forms of life (chapter 3), and aspect-seeing (chapter 4). These main chapters are placed between a short introduction and the final chapter titled “The Un-Conclusion,” suggesting that Wittgensteinian ideas cannot be wrapped up in the form of a proper conclusion.
Far from being a mere exposition of Wittgenstein's views, Kallenberg seeks to trace out their significance for our life with language, especially religious (including Christian) life. The work is rich in examples, biblical and everyday—perhaps even too rich. The reader learns about feeding dogs and feeding someone's pride (13), steering bicycles (18–19), exotic birds in Minnesota (35), the colors of Rembrandt's painting in the Hermitage Museum (35), children's development (68–69), the cultural (including musical) background of the Wittgenstein family (72–73), Jesus in his hometown (85–87), the geography of Lake Superior (97), and many other things.
One obvious question, left unclarified by Kallenberg, is what theology actually is. To whom is the book primarily written? It seems that the intended audience is not as much the community of academic researchers but more broadly people needing instruction in what it means to use religious language or be engaged in religious forms of life. (The book might have been titled, “Wittgenstein for Religious Believers.”) Indeed, the goal of the discussion, as stated in the introduction (xiv), is to show how Wittgensteinian “conceptual lessons” may “free us from some of today's most common, but unwanted, conceptual baggage in the hopes that, thus unburdened, we become better ‘walkers.’” Here, for Kallenberg, “walking” is associated with the idea of “walking with God on God's path” (xii). One risk in such an articulation of Wittgensteinian “lessons” is that Wittgensteinian ideas may become tools for apologetics—which, clearly, is not the author's intention. Indeed, the critical stance taken toward Christian apologetics is one of the main strengths of the book (see 21–27).
Many Wittgensteinian points are only briefly outlined. The idea of “theology as grammar” (51–57) would have deserved a substantial discussion. In reflecting on the grammar of prayer, in particular, Kallenberg might have cited D. Z. Phillips's work; Phillips was not only a leading “Wittgensteinian” philosopher of religion but wrote an early book (1965) on the concept of prayer. What Kallenberg actually says about Wittgenstein—too little, in comparison to the examples receiving lengthy consideration—is basically sound, however.
I have only minor reservations. For example, I would not say that rules are “real things” (39), because rules, constraining language-games, are rather something that enables us to get in touch with real things at all. Furthermore, it is anachronistic to claim Wittgenstein's Tractatus to have made “novel advancements to the paradigm of analytic philosophy” (94)—a paradigm that did not exist in 1921 when that work was published, playing a constitutive role in the emergence of analytic philosophy. (The term, “analytic philosophy”, became widely used only a few decades later.) Moreover, why claim that “no human being has unmediated access to the ‘real world’ which is ‘out there’” (95)—as if this were a contingent claim about facts of the matter concerning human beings in particular, rather than a conceptual point about the way in which any (conceivable) access to reality is always already enmeshed in language-use (as the earlier chapters of the book can, plausibly, be taken to argue)?
Finally—to return to the worry that what might be on offer is apologetics by other means—it is noteworthy that Kallenberg proposes “immersion into the authentic Christian community” as something that could lead one to focus on seeing the world “under the aspect of Jesus” (112). While “personal knowing” of God can presumably be plausibly compared to what Wittgenstein called “aspect-seeing” (118–19), Kallenberg does not develop these ideas into a critical discussion. Can anything challenge those viewing everything under the aspect of divine presence or the Christ? Is any criticism of religious outlooks impossible insofar as only the immersed can really understand Christian language?
Appreciating the “personal knowing” (124–25) at work in religion may be central to theology. However, a critical stance toward religious language-use or forms of life should also be something that even Wittgensteinian theology at least considers possible.
