The Consequences of Wittgenstein's Later Views for Religion and Religious Belief

Abstract

This article concentrates on the later Wittgenstein. The main problem is how we can apply his later philosophical thought to religion and religious belief. The result is that, according to Wittgenstein, religious beliefs are not such as scientific hypotheses and need not being supported by rational arguments and evidence, but they are pictures on which believers arrange and set out their forms of life. So, according to the article, Wittgenstein neither accepts nor rejects language game of religion. He just says that this form of life exists and has its limits and prejudices. Religion, like any other conceptual schemata, logically depends on bounds and frontiers or, in better words, on social or contextual rules. If this language game is to be played and adopted, we’ll have to adopt and follow such limits and rules.

Keywords

• language game
• form of life
• religion as a picture
• theology as grammar
• the later wittgenstein