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5 Belief, Change and Forms of Life
5 Belief, Change and Forms of Life
Forms of Life
At the end of the last chapter I said that no serious account
can be given of religious belief which does not take note of the
way in which it is interwoven with the surrounding features of
human life. It is how a religious belief is acted out in this
context which determines what kind of sense, if any, it may
have. That is why the importance of Wittgenstein's remark,
'To imagine a language is to imagine a form of life' ,1 cannot be
overestimated. Becoming acquainted with a language is not
simply mastering a vocabulary and rules of grammar. It is to
know how things bear on one another in such a way as to
make it possible to say certain things and see certain
connections, but not others. The same must be said for
religion. It is a misunderstanding to speak of a religion as a
form oflife. What can be said is that it is impossible to imagine
a religion without imagining it in a form of life.
What happens to a religion in a form of life cannot be laid
down in advance.lt is a matter of its fate in a complex network
of influences and counter-influences. Among these influ-
ences, as we have seen, is the presence of philosophical
activity of various kinds. This too contributes towards deter-
mining religion's fate. In this chapter we shall examine
various relations in the form of life in which religion stands.
We shall begin by examining how philosophy may itself
threaten religion. This can be seen by examining the way in
which Wittgenstein's insistence on the importance of the
connection between language and a form of life has led to a
polarising of views in the philosophy of religion in the last
thirty years or so.
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80 Belief, Change and Forms of Life
said, will give one the most extensive control of all over
one's life. Indeed, it gives one control over what happens to
one after death. It provides eternal security as distinct from
temporal security.
Dominant conceptions of control may make it difficult, if
not impossible, to see religious reactions for what they are.
We have already seen the way in which some writers thought
that the harvest dance was causally related to the harvest.
They were blind to the celebratory character of the dance.
Ironically, if the confused account enjoys sufficient prestige,
the adherents of the dance may also come to think that unless
the dance is causally efficacious it has no point. Confused
reactions by believers to external threats may, in this way,
distort and even erode the character of religious belief.
At this point we need to consider the third context, in which
cultural changes may affect the character of religious
responses to human life. I have in mind changes which cannot
be said to be the fault of any single individual. Let us consider
some examples. First, consider the effect of the development
of birth control on the notion of life as a gift from God. How is
it possible for believers to regard the birth of a child as a gift
from God, while at the same time they urge their children to
take advantage of contraception? How is it possible for
believers to thank God for the birth of their child if they have
been trying to plan it to the day, if possible, to take advantage
of tax benefits? Perhaps it is possible, but at least there is a
tension, a question to be resolved, since the notion of
planning and that of a gift seem to be in conflict here. There is
a danger of the religious words, even if they are used, seeming
empty in the mouths of the believers. Again, religious
responses may be eroded in seemingly more innocuous ways
than this. It might be thought that traffic congestion has little
to do with conceptions of death, apart from death on the road.
Yet this is not so. Think of the ways in which the dead were
accompanied to their graves. People walked with them to the
end. They shared a last journey with them. Despite carriages,
no one except the infirm thought of doing anything but
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walking. Then came the car. At first all seemed well. Even if
people no longer walked, it was a solemn procession, one
which pursued its way slowly and which no other traffic would
cut across. As the car became economically within the reach
of more people, wider roads were needed. Traffic congestion
and the laws it generated became a problem for the solemn
procession of the dead. The procession went faster, and the
increased speed eroded the solemnity. Car-drivers no longer
thought it necessary not to break the funereal procession.
Slowly, but surely, factors which at first seemed to have little
to do with religion eroded a religious response. With the
coming of cremation, the mourners knew that they were not
really there at the end anyway. Whereas earth was thrown on
the coffin in their presence, everyone knew that the bodies
were not cremated during the cremation service. How soon
before it will be asked why, since we are not there at the end,
should we take the body anywhere? Why not have it collected
and taken to a central store from which it could be dispatched
economically and hygienically?
Consider a final example in this context. Could hills declare
the glory of God once gold has been discovered in them?
Well, they might. The gold may be regarded as untouchable
no matter how great the needs of the people. But if the hills
are mined could the hills declare the glory of God? Again,
they might. If the hills are only mined in face of real need, the
hills might come to be regarded as the Great Providers. But
what if the hills are mined because of the greed for gold? It is
hard in these circumstances to see how the very same hills
could declare the glory of God, since the act of exploitation,
the utilitarian attitude to the hills, would jar with regarding
the hills as belonging to God.
These examples may bring us to see why a second
religiously comforting picture has to be put aside. The picture
I have in mind may be called that of religious rationalism. It
appears to be something like this:
No matter what cultural changes may take place, the
validity of religious belief is secured by formal arguments
Belief, Change and Forms of Life 91
the third rope was still moving; being so light, the child was
still alive ...
For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling
between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes.
And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive
when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his
eyes were not yet glazed. Behind me, I heard the same man
asking: 'Where is God now?'
And I heard a voice within me answer him: 'Where is He?
Here He is - He is hanging here on this gallows ... '
That night the soup tasted of corpses. 19
He fails. He throws the new tape away and puts an old tape on
once more in an attempt to recapture a moment of passion
which happened long ago. But there is no comfort to be found
there either: