Although relatively little of Wittgenstein's voluminous writings directly concerns religion, his impact on the field of philosophy of religion has been significant. The lack of explicit discussion of a topic is not in itself an indication of the importance it plays in the work of a philosopher. At the same time there is a danger that in the absence of a developed discussion scattered remarks and conversations later recalled can encourage an overconfidence in ascribing particular ideas to Wittgenstein for which the textual evidence is thin or non-existent. It is one of the many merits of Wittgenstein and Natural Religion that Gordon Graham sets himself the task of offering a modest interpretation of Wittgenstein's understanding of religion, and to state clearly where his own use of ideas derived from Wittgenstein takes over.
At the centre of Graham's interpretation of Wittgenstein is his contention that whereas most previous attempts to understand Wittgenstein's views on religious belief have focused on questions of belief and justification, Wittgenstein's primary concern was with religion as a natural human practice. In this respect Graham argues that Wittgenstein has a great deal in common with various modern philosophers such as Hume, Reid, Scougal and Schleiermacher, who in their different ways sought to show how religion is part of the natural history of human beings. Chapter 1 thus provides an overview of the topic of natural religion in the modern period, in which it is distinguished from natural theology and later sociology of religion. Graham argues that unlike natural theology accounts of natural religion did not aim to provide a rational justification for religion, but to show how it is part of the natural development of human beings. It is also distinguishable from most contemporary sociologies of religion, for unlike these it has ‘normative ambitions’ (p. 6). This raises the question of how we are to understand human nature, and here Graham turns to Henry Scougal's claim that religion is ‘indeed a real participation of the divine nature’ (p. 14).
The following three chapters have the largely negative aim of showing where previous understandings of Wittgenstein and religion go wrong. Graham divides these previous interpretations into those approaches which attempt to apply Wittgensteinian ideas to religion (chapters 3 and 4), and those which draw parallels between Wittgenstein's way of doing philosophy and religious belief (chapter 5). In both cases Graham argues that there is a tendency to go beyond the textual evidence in ascribing to Wittgenstein views which owe more to the particular author's own concerns. These discussions are well argued and provide some valuable observations, such as those concerning the dangers of failing to distinguish between Wittgenstein's notion of a world-picture and that of a system of belief (ch. 4). Graham does, however, tend to overplay the differences between his own reading of Wittgenstein and those of previous commentators.
This becomes evident in chapter 6, where he presents his own reading as one which builds upon Wittgenstein's characterization of his later philosophy as therapeutic. Graham notes that this conception of philosophy ‘is neither unique nor revolutionary a conception as it has sometimes been represented’ (p. 92). In particular Graham wishes to show the affinity here between Wittgenstein and the philosophers of natural religion he has introduced in Chapter 1. To this end Graham argues that in his later thought Wittgenstein set about developing a practice of philosophy which involved the assembling of reminders with the purpose of returning us to our natural human reactions. These reminders involved the remarks which Wittgenstein made of seeing aspects which form a central theme in his later work and through which he sought to open us to aspects of life we have become blinded to. Such a reading of the later Wittgenstein is already well developed, and has been used by Fergus Kerr, for example, to provide an understanding of the relevance of Wittgenstein for religion (the influence of Stanley Cavell is here clear to see). What is arguably new with Graham are the parallels he draws with modern thinkers who sought to help us return to true religion: ‘The key issue, then, is whether we can distinguish, as Spinoza and Jonathan Edwards, among others aimed to do, between the cases in which a sense of the sacred issues in ‘true religion’ and those in which it does not’ (p. 113).
Graham develops his reading of Wittgenstein in chapter seven by turning to the influence of William James's Varieties of Religious Experience upon him, and the significance for his understanding of religion of his remarks on J. G. Frazer's The Golden Bough. The purpose of these reflections is to show how for Wittgenstein religion is not a matter of experience or of causal explanation, but is a practice which is natural to human beings. At the same time Graham cautions against reading too much into Wittgenstein's Remarks, but argues that ‘they do provide guidance on ‘how to go on’ with this application of Wittgenstein's philosophy’ (p. 134).
In the final two chapters Graham follows this guidance in developing a conception of natural religion as a practice which springs from our natural human reactions. Here Graham returns to Scougal's notion of religion as a participation in the divine. His purpose is to avoid the intellectualism of natural theology, whilst at the same time showing how (true) natural religion is not merely expressive of human aspirations, but contains dogmatic truths. Throughout these chapters Graham skilfully carries out a dialogue between opposing positions, and attempts to show how the Wittgensteinian approach he is developing can find a path between extremes (such as that between deontologists and consequentialists). He does not, however, question the nature of these division and how they arose in the modern period. This entails that he continues to oppose natural theology to natural religion, and more generally metaphysics to the kind of philosophical practice he is seeking to develop. Yet, the very notion of participation in the divine is one which is derived from Platonism (here the influence of the Cambridge Platonists on Scougal), and opens up the possibility of a fruitful dialogue between those modern thinkers who sought true religion and those who see metaphysics as arising from our natural human reactions (e.g. Thomas Hibbs). Such a discussion promises to be fruitful for participants on both sides.
