On Certainty is not a book about religion, or religious belief. It deals, however, with many topics that are relevant also for religion. Knowing and believing, doubt and certainty, world-picture, language games, acting, mysticism and mythology, and, finally, God are concepts alluded to in the book. Together, they help to clarify some aspects of Wittgenstein’s attitude towards religion.
Does a religious believer know about God or does he just believe in his existence and properties? That is a question which probably is not a concern of believers, but it is important for a philosophical, epistemological understanding of religious belief.
In OC 13 Wittgenstein explains the difference between “he knows”, which implies knowledge, and “I know” which only expresses my conviction, but not necessarily knowledge, as long as I have not provided satisfactory justification for it:
For it is not as though the proposition "It is so" could be inferred from someone else's utterance: "I know it is so". Nor from the utterance together with its not being a lie. - But can't I infer "It is so" from my own utterance "I know etc."? Yes; and also "There is a hand there" follows from the proposition "He knows that there's a hand there". But from his utterance "I know..." it does not follow that he does know it. (OC 13)
As a consequence of the rule that knowledge requires justification, Wittgenstein adds: "What is the proof that I know something? Most certainly not my saying I know it.“ (OC 487, my emphasis) My saying “I know that p” is no acceptable proof for p as long as I cannot provide objective evidence for p. Wittgenstein: “Whether I know something depends on whether the evidence backs me up or contradicts me. For to say one knows one has a pain means nothing.” (OC 504)
One says "I know" when one is ready to give compelling grounds. "I know" relates to a possibility of demonstrating the truth. Whether someone knows something can come to light, assuming that he is convinced of it. But if what he believes is of such a kind that the grounds that he can give are no surer than his assertion, then he cannot say that he knows what he believes. (OC 243)
This aphorism could be relevant for religious belief: can a believer ever provide grounds for his belief that are surer than his mental state of conviction? If not, he does not know – in a philosophical sense - what he believes.
We can also imagine a case where someone goes through a list of propositions and as he does so keeps asking "Do I know that or do I only believe it?" He wants to check the certainty of each individual proposition. It might be a question of making a statement as a witness before a court. (OC 485)
In this context, “do I know that?” is equal to “can I provide empirical or logical evidence for it?” Without evidence the judge will take my testimony just as a belief.
The following aphorisms also take the mental state of the believer into consideration: the mental state of conviction is the same, regardless of whether the agent has knowledge or only belief, even false belief. In any case he is in the mental state of believing:
One can say "He believes it, but it isn't so", but not "He knows it, but it isn't so". Does this stem from the difference between the mental states of belief and knowledge? No. - One may for example call "mental state" what is expressed by tone of voice in speaking, by gestures etc. It would thus be possible to speak of a mental state of conviction, and that may be the same whether it is knowledge or false belief. (OC 42)
A specific mental state can comprise belief or knowledge, because subjectively those feelings are identical, there is only an epistemological difference.
Wittgenstein asserts that in two further paragraphs: “What I know, I believe.” (OC 177) and “So here the sentence >I know...< expresses the readiness to believe certain things.” (OC 330) Though epistemologically knowing and believing are different, they result in the same mental state – that of conviction.
There is only one occurrence of religious belief in On Certainty:
If the shopkeeper wanted to investigate each of his apples without any reason, for the sake of being certain about everything, why doesn't he have to investigate the investigation? And can one talk of belief here (I mean belief as in 'religious belief', not surmise)? All psychological terms merely distract us from the thing that really matters. (OC 459)
It tells us that Wittgenstein differentiated between surmise and religious belief and, as far as I can see, that he thinks that everyday activities like selling apples in a shop are not subject to belief but rather subject to rule following. We don’t believe in the foundations of our everyday activities, we just carry those out in the way we have ever done them.
Certainty has to do with knowing, but it is not the same. “One might say: > 'I know' expresses comfortable certainty, not the certainty that is still struggling.<” (OC 357) or “I know = I am familiar with it as a certainty.” (OC 272)
“I know” signifies individual certainty and absence of doubt, but not knowledge in an epistemological sense:
If someone replied: "I also know that it will never seem to me as if anything contradicted that knowledge", - what could we gather from that, except that he himself had no doubt that it would never happen? (OC 365)
Wittgenstein asserts that between knowledge and certainty there is a categorial difference: “'Knowledge' and 'certainty' belong to different categories. They are not two 'mental states' like, say 'surmising' and 'being sure'” (OC 308). I think he wants to say that knowledge involves objective truth based on empirical facts or logical conclusions, while certainty is a mental state, a mental state of conviction:
One may for example call "mental state" what is expressed by tone of voice in speaking, by gestures etc. It would thus be possible to speak of a mental state of conviction, and that may be the same whether it is knowledge or false belief. (OC 42, my emphasis)
How does certainty come about, and what does it feel like? What is the difference between subjective certainty, objective certainty, and “nonepistemic” certainty?
Wittgenstein differentiates between two forms of certainty: subjective and objective certainty. Subjective certainty is based on belief, objective certainty on knowledge.
To whom does anyone say that he knows something? To himself, or to someone else. If he says it to himself, how is it distinguished from the assertion that he is sure that things are like that? There is no subjective sureness that I know something. The certainty is subjective, but not the knowledge. (OC 245)
Subjective certainty is expressed in conviction and absence of doubt, whatever they are based upon. I think that religious belief is a typical instance of this kind of certainty. For objective certainty, Wittgenstein claims that a mistake must not be possible and he seems to imply that a mistake must be logically excluded:
With the word "certain" we express complete conviction, the total absence of doubt, and thereby we seek to convince other people. That is subjective certainty. But when is something objectively certain? When a mistake is not possible. But what kind of possibility is that? Mustn't mistake be logically excluded? (OC 194)
What does Wittgenstein mean when saying that mistake must be logically excluded? OC 494 provides a clue: "I cannot doubt this proposition without giving up all judgement”. That brings objective certainty into the realm of a rule, the violation of which would be completely unreasonable. Danièle Moyal-Sharrock explains objective certainty as follows: “the only objective certainty that would be categorially distinct from knowledge is a certainty which would not depend on justification” (2005: 16).
In the next aphorism, Wittgenstein leaves the dichotomy of subjective and objective certainty behind and goes a step further to a certainty that “underlies all questions and all thinking”:
And in fact, isn't the use of the word "know" as a preeminently philosophical word altogether wrong? If "know" has this interest, why not "being certain"? Apparently because it would be too subjective. But isn't "know" just as subjective? Isn't one misled simply by the grammatical peculiarity that "p" follows from "I know p"? "I believe I know" would not need to express a lesser degree of certainty. - True, but one isn't trying to express even the greatest subjective certainty, but rather that certain propositions seem to underlie all questions and all thinking. (OC 415)
Since “I am certain” signifies only subjective certainty and “I know p”, as we have seen, implies only grammatically that p, Wittgenstein moves on to a form of certainty that “underlies all questions and all thinking”.
Wittgenstein introduces the metaphorical term “hinge” to signify a foundation for belief that stands fast beyond any doubt:
That is to say, the questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn. (OC 341)
Raising questions and expressing doubts makes sense only when there is a firm basis from which to question and to doubt.
But it isn't that the situation is like this: We just can't investigate everything, and for that reason we are forced to rest content with assumption. If I want the door to turn, the hinges must stay put. (OC 343)
Here Wittgenstein makes it clear that a hinge is not to be compared with an assumption that we adopt just because we cannot investigate everything. To the contrary, hinges are at the very foundations of our convictions: “I have arrived at the rock bottom of my convictions.” (OC 248)
The mathematical proposition has, as it were officially, been given the stamp of incontestability. I. e.: "Dispute about other things; this is immovable - it is a hinge on which your dispute can turn." (OC 655)
Mathematical propositions and rules are generally accepted as being unassailable and immovable. In a dispute (if it can be decided by means of mathematical calculations), they are the hinges that must go undisputed.
We are guided by our hinges in all conceivable situations of our life, be it in science or in everyday life:
One cannot make experiments if there are not some things that one does not doubt. But that does not mean that one takes certain presuppositions on trust. When I write a letter and post it, I take it for granted that it will arrive - I expect this. If I make an experiment I do not doubt the existence of the apparatus before my eyes. I have plenty of doubts, but not that. (OC 337)
Hinge beliefs are not grounded by reasons or otherwise justified, nor do they rest on empirical knowledge. They are intrinsic certainties. Moyal-Sharrock calls the type of certainty involved with hinge beliefs nonepistemic certainty. It is not the result of reasoning, nor is it empirical in a scientific sense. It is the certainty of our world-picture, which “is the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false” (OC 94).
Wittgenstein liked metaphors involving some alien cultures, like the Martians, to illustrate his reflections:
430. I meet someone from Mars and he asks me "How many toes have human beings got?" - I say "Ten. I'll show you", and take my shoes off. Suppose he was surprised that I knew with such certainty, although I hadn't looked at my toes - ought I to say: "We humans know how many toes we have whether we can see them or not"?
Exotic as this analogy sounds, it is a particularly descriptive example of a hinge belief. A belief that is not based on reasoning, is not justified, and, nevertheless, is indubitable. We can say with true nonepistemic certainty that we have five toes, whether we can see them or not.
A good deal of our world-picture is made up of unconscious hinge beliefs, which one never disputes. Most of them we have implicitly learned by our rule following, without ever satisfying us of their correctness. They are kind of inherited from our familiar and cultural environment and build the scaffolding for our moral decisions:
But I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness; nor do I have it because I am satisfied of its correctness. No: it is the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false. (OC 94)
Wittgenstein compares our world-picture with a game that we can learn by just playing it. Learning by doing, no need to learn explicit rules:
The propositions describing this world-picture might be part of a kind of mythology. And their role is like that of rules of a game; and the game can be learned purely practically, without learning any explicit rules. (OC 95)
The hinge beliefs provide us with a comfortable set of convictions:
"Here I have arrived at a foundation of all my beliefs." "This position I will hold!" But isn't that, precisely, only because I am completely convinced of it? - What is 'being completely convinced' like? (OC 246)
With this question, Wittgenstein wants to demonstrate, I think, that in fact we don’t have reasons for most of the hinge beliefs of our world-picture. We are acting according to them because it does not occur to us to doubt them.
How do we acquire this world-picture? Michael Kober explains it as follows:
Wittgenstein's overall picture here is that humans are 'born into' a specific cultural tradition and are 'trained' to accept its peculiar practices, its standards of rationality, and its world-picture, which is a set of convictions and values a cultural community shares. (Kober 2007: 232)
As already said, a world-picture is not based on rational consideration and judgment. It is acquired by a kind of training rather than by ratiocination and insight.
Wittgenstein does not mention language games in connection with religious belief in On Certainty and it is not clear, whether he saw something as complex as a religious belief as a specific language game. We can assume, however, that particular utterances within religious belief, such as prayer or other texts spoken in religious ceremonies, are language games in Wittgenstein’s sense. If that is true, religious or atheistic utterances cannot be mistaken:
Sure evidence is what we accept as sure, it is evidence that we go by in acting surely, acting without any doubt. What we call "a mistake" plays a quite special part in our language games, and so too does what we regard as certain evidence (OC 196).
“God exists” or “God does not exist” are utterings in a religious or an atheistic language game, respectively. They cannot be verified or falsified and thus they cannot be considered to be a mistake.
Language games are not true or false because they are not based on grounds:
You must bear in mind that the language-game is so to say something unpredictable. I mean: it is not based on grounds. It is not reasonable (or unreasonable). It is there - like our life. (OC 559)
Thus, a religious language game cannot be judged by epistemological standards.
The series of aphorisms about acting is, to my opinion, one of the most relevant to religious belief. From the ungroundedness of our hinge beliefs, Wittgenstein draws the conclusion that those beliefs are not first acquired and then used to decide how we act. No, Wittgenstein turns the succession around by postulating that by our acting we reveal the hinge beliefs we unconsciously have. “Our form of life conditions those beliefs, though it does not justify them” as Moyal-Sharrock puts it (2005: 97).
As if giving grounds did not come to an end sometime. But the end is not an ungrounded presupposition: it is an ungrounded way of acting (OC 110).
Wittgenstein demonstrates here, as well as in the following aphorism, that we cannot give grounds for everything we do. Our acting implies ungrounded certainties:
Why do I not satisfy myself that I have two feet when I want to get up from a chair? There is no why. I simply don't. This is how I act. (OC 148)
Our hinge beliefs are not explicitly justified. Our judgment consists in acting according to them:
"We could doubt every single one of these facts, but we could not doubt them all." Wouldn't it be more correct to say: "we do not doubt them all". Our not doubting them all is simply our manner of judging, and therefore of acting. (OC 232)
Sometimes, Wittgenstein compares human behavior with animal behavior. In OC 357 and OC 359 he uses the word “animal” as an adjective: “>I know< expresses comfortable certainty” (OC 357). “But that means I want to conceive it as something that lies beyond being justified or unjustified; as it were, as something animal.” (OC 359) Here he compares human behavior with that of a squirrel:
The squirrel does not infer by induction that it is going to need stores next winter as well. And no more do we need a law of induction to justify our actions or our predictions. (OC 287)
We wouldn’t get very far if we had to rationally justify every movement and every activity of our everyday life – many things we just do without thinking about it, like animals do.
Where does a world-picture come from, when it is not the result of reasoning and judgment, as we noticed earlier? “The propositions describing this world-picture might be part of a kind of mythology.” (OC 95) says Wittgenstein, in accordance with his understanding of hinge beliefs. They are not taught and acquired consciously, but rather passed on like mythical narratives. Those are stable over long periods of time, but not entirely unalterable – they can adapt to a certain degree, like a river-bed that changes over time:
The mythology may change back into a state of flux, the river-bed of thoughts may shift. But I distinguish between the movement of the waters on the river-bed and the shift of the bed itself; though there is not a sharp division of the one from the other. (OC 97)
Wittgenstein’s theory of magic is not instrumental, as the following statement shows:
Men have judged that a king can make rain; we say this contradicts all experience. Today they judge that aeroplanes and the radio etc. are means for the closer contact of peoples and the spread of culture. (OC 132)
In Remarks on Frazer, Wittgenstein explains his opinion in this respect by rejecting an instrumental view of rituals that would imply that the savages arranged rain dancing in order to evoke rain:
It is, of course, not so that the people believe that the ruler has these powers, and the ruler knows very well that he doesn’t have them, or can only fail to know I if he is an imbecile or a fool (CF: 73)
Brian R. Clack argues that Wittgenstein was neither instrumentalist nor expressionist, but rather explained ritual action as a way of seeing man as a “ceremonial animal” (Clack 2001: 24, quoted from RF: 67). This emphasizes, in my opinion, the concept of acquiring a world-picture by acting within a community.
In the following aphorism, Wittgenstein uses a Catholic belief to demonstrate that different world-pictures result in different beliefs about matters that cannot be empirically proved.
Catholics believe […] that in certain circumstances a wafer completely changes its nature, and at the same time that all evidence proves the contrary. And so if Moore said "I know that this is wine and not blood", Catholics would contradict him (OC 239).
I interpret this paragraph as a relativistic juxtaposition of two epistemic systems: the scripture-based system of Catholicism believes wafer and wine to change their nature, because it is so postulated in the holy book. The evidence-based system of science assumes that they remain unaltered, because no change in the molecular structure can be observed.
Mythical narratives result in hinge believes that cannot be justified or disputed by means of evidence-based methods.
Wittgenstein’s On Certainty is not about God, at least not in a religious sense. The first reference to God is neutral, using the belief in a God just as an example of a belief that can be taught to a child:
Isn't this altogether like the way one can instruct a child to believe in a God, or that none exists, and it will accordingly be able to produce apparently telling grounds for the one or the other? (OC 107)
Anyhow this paragraph asserts how Wittgenstein understood the process of acquiring a belief in God.
The second reference to God is to show how believe can be based upon dogmatic sources:
But I might also say: It has been revealed to me by God that it is so. God has taught me that this is my foot. And therefore if anything happened that seemed to conflict with this knowledge I should have to regard that as deception. (OC 361)
Wittgenstein seems to think that at the basis of such dogmatic certainty is a decision rather than a process of reasoning or empirical experience: “But doesn't it come out here that knowledge is related to a decision?” (OC 362) The decision to accept a holy book as a source of wisdom and guidance results in the development of the appropriate hinge beliefs.
The next reference is a bit enigmatic, if read only in the context of On Certainty:
Is God bound by our knowledge? Are a lot of our statements incapable of falsehood? For that is what we want to say. (OC 436)
Wittgenstein has dealt with this question already in the Tractatus. Even God is bound by the strict laws of logic:
It used to be said that God could create everything, except what was contrary to the laws of logic. The truth is, we could not say of an “unlogical” world how it would look. (TLP: 3.031)
By and large it appears that Wittgenstein, at the time of his writing On Certainty, used the term God more in a metaphorical, secular way than in a religious sense.