The first view of Wittgensteinian Fideism is “that religious beliefs are logically cut off from all other aspects of human life” (26). Phillips argues that prayer, for instance gains its meaning from other aspects of life – a person prays about other events that have happened in one’s life. With nothing else to reference, prayer has no meaning. He argues that the hermeneutics of recollection and suspicion “often…do divorce religious beliefs from the human phenomena that lie behind them” (27).
“The second thesis Wittgensteinian Fideists are supposed to hold is that religious belief can only be understood by religious believers” (27). Phillips argues that it is possible to compare beliefs and thought patterns with each other. He states that “a person …may see the kind of thing atheism is and still reject it” – and he says the same thing about religious belief (27). I’m not sure that I agree with him on this point. Understanding conceptually seems to differ from understanding experientially. Do I truly understand what it means to live in Japan if I study the matter but never live there? He states that those who argue that “rational evidence” should be used to assess beliefs are begging the question about what is rational. Here we have a problem, because naturally, each group will assume that their means of measurement will be correct – including the “objective” philosopher.
“The third view which Wittgensteinian Fideism us supposed to hold is that religious language determines what is and is not meaningful in religion” (28) Phillips argues that religious people can be conceptually confused, just like anyone else. For instance, a person who believes that if she went into space that she would see God, for Phillips, this person is confused. He also refers to “superstition” as distinct from religion. This does not seem to directly answer the question, however, because being conceptually confused differs from prioritization of ideas.
“The fourth thesis Wittgensteinian Fideists are supposed to hold is that religious beliefs cannot be criticised” (29). He responds by stating that there are criticisms based on conceptual confusions and what he refers to as “superstition,” as just mentioned, and also criticism from “anti-religious moral perspectives…[and] interreligious criticisms. Some will be called ‘false’, ‘higher’ or lower. But these are personal judgments” (29).
“The fifth view attributed to Wittgensteinian Fideism is that religious beliefs cannot be affected by personal, social or cultural events” (29). Phillips responds that “believing is not an isolated activity” – believers are affected by cultural changes just like everyone else. Phillips states that he has “criticised various attempts to make religion logically immune from such threats” (30). He does not accept that “the heart is a secret place where a relationship with God is immune to all that surrounds it” – he states that if the person looses this sense of the concept heart in its spiritual sense, that this approach falls apart. For those who believe that faith can be held to like a set of rational proofs, he states his thought that it is “not the proofs that ground faith, but faith which breathes into the proofs whatever life they had” (30). He also rejects what he believes to be either a priori pessimism or optimism concerning the ability of religious beliefs to accommodate cultural changes. He clearly states that “personal, social or cultural events can affect religious belief” (30). Phillips states that “[i]n presenting examples of irreducibly religious meanings,” we have “an invitation to consider these examples, without prejudice, and to consider whether naturalistic explanations do justice to them” (30). He wants to “give this kind of attention, in religious studies” – what seems to me to be a perspective of intellectual curiosity, not misplaced judgment.
