In contemporary discussion of the philosophy of religion, or for that matter of any branch of philosophy, the names of Whitehead and Wittgenstein are not often linked. Whitehead's later work is, for the most part, treated as a rather specialized interest, an attractively under-cultivated field for the enterprising thesis-writer perhaps, but well away from the main centres of current philosophical activity. And what he has to say about specifically religious or theological issues (apart from the often quoted or misquoted ‘Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness‘)1 becomes simply one ramification of an ingenious but somewhat eccentric system. Nonetheless, there is at least this much justification for considering it in relation to the much more influential and widely discussed views of Wittgenstein. Whitehead has some original things to say about God, Wittgenstein some original reasons for thinking that Whitehead's brand of originality is here radically misplaced. And the possibility or otherwise of such theological originality is an issue of very considerable importance for the philosophy of religion.

It is a fact that human beings attempt to discourse about God. The question is: can they? In this paper I want to discuss the problem of man's endeavour to speak and write meaningfully about God. In the first part of the paper, I will discuss the informative function of language and the conditions under which one can use language intelligibly to communicate information about a particular concrete individual or object. In the second part of the paper, I will attempt to apply my remarks to the problem of discourse about God and to show how God can be understood as a concrete individual by employing the metaphysical categories of C. S. Peirce.

A good deal has already been written on the possible relevance of Niels Bohr's principle of ‘complementarity’ to various theological issues. Bohr, himself, suggested that the concept might be useful in discussions concerning the relation of intra-mundane causality and divine providence, or that of human freedom and divine sovereignty. These suggestions have been taken up and developed by C. A. Coulson and D. M. Mackay, but they have also seriously been criticized, notably by I. G. Barbour. The principal difficulty encountered in regarding God and the world as ‘complementary’, in Bohr's sense of the term, is that Creator and creature are generally thought to be two distinct ‘entities’, in Christian ‘theism’, rather than two ‘modes’ of a single entity as ‘wave’ and ‘particle’ are two ‘complementary’ modes of an atomic object in physics.

Although an immense amount has been written about miracles by philosophers – and theologicans of a philosophical turn of mind – to the point where no one wants to read any more on the subject, there are still two very good reasons for writing about miracles: (1) the concept of a miracle commonly employed simply will not do, so that most of the talk of discovering whether or not some event is miraculous is beside the point; (2) the proper way of looking at what a miracle is involves one in clarifying the very perplexing notions of agency and explanation, and both of these notions are interesting in their own right.

In his masterly book Christ and Culture H. Richard Niebuhr identified five main attitudes which Christians have taken towards secular culture. The first emphasizes the opposition between Christ and culture. In the New Testament it is best seen in Revelation (where it is complicated by a situation of persecution) and in the First Epistle of John. But it appears in its most radical form in Tertullian, though even he is not wholly consistent. Men are under illusions from their very culture (Apol. 21). Graeco-Roman society was shot through and through with what Tertullian regarded as superstition and idolatry, as well as immorality. So Tertullian repudiated political life, military service, many aspects of commerce, philosophy and the arts (apart from the amount of literary training needed for expression).

Rāmacaritamānasa is a truly remarkable work, and the celebration of the fourth centenary of its composition calls for some recognition. Consider the artless guile of its author: at the start he protests that he is no poet, without skill in letters, lacking in all arts and sciences, lacking in all literary skills; and yet he has presented us with a creation of extraordinary skill and beauty, revealing, within the Indian context, a broad grasp of learning and a zeal to reconcile divergent doctrines. On the one hand Tulsīdās protests that he has done the work simply for his own personal satisfaction (svāntaḥ sukhāya), and on the other he proclaims that its virtue is the infiniteness of its theme. This is why Rāmacaritamānasa deserves attention, and why its study can be so rewarding.

I can illustrate what seems to me your fallacy. Every man who exists has a mother, and it seems to me your argument is that therefore the human race must have a mother, but obviously the human race has not a mother. B. Russell

Martin E. Marty, in his foreword to a volume on the thought of the late H. Richard Niebuhr, offered the comment, ‘I wonder whether since Jonathan Edwards there has been a systematic theologian of such organizing brilliance as H. Richard Niebuhr.’1 Marty's judgement that Niebuhr shares with Edwards a significant position in the American theological tradition is particularly suggestive when one is aware of Niebuhr's indebtedness to Edwards in his own constructive theological programme. One of the most precarious exercises in the writing of intellectual history is that of demonstrating the ‘influence’ of one thinker upon another. Unless there is an explicit citation or a confession of dependence upon the thought of a mentor in the writings of a theologian, the lines of influence are elusive and difficult to establish. It is therefore more prudent and manageable to speak of ‘similarities’ of thought or the ‘possibility’ of influence. Nevertheless the author of this study is convinced of the importance of Edwardsean influence on Niebuhr.