594 - Is Religion A Language Game? A Real World Critique of the Cultural-Linguistic Theory

Is Religion A Language Game? A Real World Critique of the Cultural-Linguistic Theory
By C. John Sommerville

Recently, some of us were jolted by a television sit-com episode in which an ethnic Catholic brightly suggests to an ethnic Jew that he might "throw" a Seder for their assorted small town friends. It was odd to imagine religious theme parties, I guess, and one could empathize with the Jewish figure who admitted that he felt "uncomfortable" with the idea. But playing at religion takes several forms in our culture, and there may be a popular conception that even theologians indulge in such activity when they use the phrase "language game" in reference to philosophical and religious systems. We normally think of game rules as basically arbitrary, so that being "comfortable" with one's religious tradition, if it took on the character of a "language game," would mean loosening one's hold on reality.

Such loose play is not exactly what Ludwig Wittgenstein meant when he first used the phrase "language game." Certainly, it is not what Yale theologian George Lindbeck meant in 1984 when he followed suit, recommending a "cultural-linguistic" understanding of religion over what he termed the "cognitive" and "experiential-expressive" theories. ¹ But theologies get debased with careless handling, and I would like to suggest some corrections to the approach of Lindbeck (and others) in order to counter the relativizing appearance of this "postliberal" theory of religion. In essence, I will argue that Lindbeck would have to hang on to all three of the elements he speaks of-the linguistic, the expressive,

C.John Sommerville is Professor of History and Graduate Coordinator at the University of Florida. He is the author of The Secularization of Early Modern England: From Religious Culture to Religious Faith (1992) and The Discovery of Childhood in Puritan England (1992).

¹ In fact, Lindbeck offers a powerful statement of how a religious linguistic can bond religious communities, consolidate a necessary authority, and draw the whole world into a foundational text (see "Scripture, Consensus, and Community," in Biblical Interpretation in Crisis, edited by Richard John Neuhaus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989], pp. 74-101).

595 - Is Religion A Language Game? A Real World Critique of the Cultural-Linguistic Theory

and the cognitive-in order to end up with an adequate definition of real world religion.

The basis of Lindbeck's postliberal thesis rests on the linguistic, philosophical, and anthropological evidence for the idea that one cannot even experience something that one is not programmed to interpret. ² That evidence persuades him that a linguistic type mental structure must precede not only the expression of an experience but also the experience itself. Lindbeck argues that religious experience is not different in this regard; one must have a religion before one can have a "religious experience." But one begins to wonder what anchors religion, understood as a language, in any extra-linguistic reality.

The evidence Lindbeck cites gave him the confidence to assert the superiority of a cultural-linguistic model over its rivals. That is, it is not just one way of conceiving religion but the only really satisfactory way Briefly, he presents the "cognitive theory" as one that supposes that the essence of a religion is a matter of propositions (doctrines) and their truth claims. He defines the "experiential-expressive" view as one in which the essence of religion is thought to lie in unique experiences, personal feelings; or "existential" orientations. ³ The cognitive understanding has been fading for some time, as he notes, and the expressive concept is now

"… theories of 'religion' are not theories of God. Theories of religion refer to the human subject rather than to the divine object."

dominant. But nontheological students of religion have been moving on to the linguistic understanding, and Lindbeck urges theologians to follow suit.

Our critique starts with that initial point: Our religious experience depends upon our already having a religious awareness or mental structure. The "phenomenological" school in religious studies (for example, Rudolf Otto, Gerardus VanderLeeuw, and Mircea Eliade) thinks otherwise. They suggest that the experience of the "numinous" depends on a prior non-religious awareness, rather than a religious one. That is, our sense of the "holy" or "sacred" is striking precisely because it is an anomaly within our general expectation of ordinariness. The holy is initially experienced as alien and uncanny. If this is true, then the numinous experience precedes any religious expectations and creates the need for a religious language. In Lindbeck's metaphors, the "words"

² George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984), pp. 37-38. He cites the works of Wittgenstein, Noam Chomsky, and Clifford Geertz, especially.
³ Ibid., p. 16. He calls these "pre-reflective and non-discursive."

596 - Is Religion A Language Game? A Real World Critique of the Cultural-Linguistic Theory

would come first (or at least weird sounds), and a language is then learned or constructed so that such words could be used expressively. ⁴

This is a critical point, worthy of being restated in a different way. The school of thinkers to which Lindbeck appeals argues that there is no uninterpreted experience and that anything that counts as an experience goes beyond an immediate intuition. Wayne Proudfoot, for example, insists that an "epistemic element" is an essential feature of all religious experience and that it amounts to an idea of the explanation behind the experience. But this does not differentiate between two moments in experience: (1) awareness of something truly anomalous and, therefore, outside the normal world of experience and (2) the identification of that awareness or experience as religious. ⁵ I am arguing that an essential feature of the first moment, as described by the phenomenological approach, is its uniqueness among all experience, unique precisely because it baffles any normal or natural interpretation. So, the sense of its being unexplained suggests the second moment, explanation by forces of another kind, for which we naturally use the word supernatural. If this distinction is meaningful, religion can begin in direct intuition, rather than with an interpretive system.

In time. a language is produced for that experience-a language of religion. Then there may be other ways to produce a sense of the holy. It may be induced by rituals developed for the purpose, or it might result from inference or simply from religious education. Lindbeck and Proudfoot were mainly thinking of those (cultural) methods of generating religious or mystical experience in which the explanation is prior to the experience. They were not thinking of blundering across the boundaries of the sacred when one was not expecting to. But it makes a difference if anybody at all is surprised by that more direct experience, for it seems to validate religion for the rest of us. And it doubtless indicates something about the historical origins of religion. Of course, none of this actually establishes the object of this religious sense; theories of "religion" are not theories of God. Theories of religion refer to the human subject rather than to the divine object.

Lindbeck might object that very few of those who count themselves religious are original mystics or have really had this numinous experience in its immediate, original force. Most religious people hear about the experience and only then recognize something like it in their own lives. He is right that there is an interplay between "raw experience" and mental and cultural structures. But if our position is correct, it allows us to reverse the order that he insists upon and to put religious experience before religious language. He could only insist that the numinous experience was not yet religious until it had words to conceptualize it as

⁴ I am not using "numinous" as a noun but as an adjective; it characterizes a certain moment within experience. If we called it an experience, it would face all the suspicions with which philosophers treat nouns (things-in-themselves).
⁵ Wayne Proudfoot, Religious Experience (Berkeley: University of California, 1985), p. 187 and passim.

597 - Is Religion A Language Game? A Real World Critique of the Cultural-Linguistic Theory

religious. But that would be an arbitrary decision with regard to definition, for he has not yet defined religion.

To be sure, Lindbeck never exactly says that he is going to define religion. In fact, he turns verbal back-flips to avoid it when he finally is ready to offer his "identifying mark of religion," the "class name" for the cultural system he is describing, as against competing "notions of what religion is." Whatever the source of his reluctance, he finally comes out with it: Religions are "idioms for dealing with whatever is most important-with ultimate questions." ⁶ It is a definition.

It is what is called a functional definition, since it does not specify what kind of idiom deals with the "most important" or "ultimate." Like many functional definitions, it is incomplete. When Paul Tillich announced his similar, functional definition (that religion is one's ultimate concern) he soon had to admit that many people put things in the position of ultimacy that were not truly ultimate. They were, therefore, idolatrous-worshipping business success or their nation, for example. ⁷ So there were two possibilities for the scholar. Either one decides that any idolatry is a religion (which Tillich was unwilling to do) or one goes on to specify the sort of thing one had in mind-the substance of religion-as part of a more complete definition. In other words, either a functional definition

Religion is a kind of response to a kind of power. If that makes it more a verb, or adverb or adjective, than a noun, this may be pointing in the right direction.

gets entangled in approving some religions and disapproving others, which seems out of place in scholarly discussion, or it is only preliminary to what we will call a "substantive" definition.

Functional definitions of religion are inadequate in that they do not see religion as unique or sui generis. That is, religion is not unique if it is understood in a functional manner but falls into a wider category of all the other things that serve the same function, whatever that is thought to be. Definitions should be more specific than that. After all, there may not be just one function that all religions serve. A given religion may even serve different functions in different societies or at different times. For example, there have been many situations in which religious sects have been pitted against established religions over precisely the ordering "function" that sociologists of religion most often assume.

Lindbeck's functional definition makes religion part of the category of a society's (or individual's) cultural idioms. Obviously, he is not interested in all those linguistic structures but only in the "religious" ones. So, he

⁶ Ibid., pp. 40-41.
⁷ Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (New York: Harper, 1957), pp. 11-12.

598 - Is Religion A Language Game? A Real World Critique of the Cultural-Linguistic Theory

has still got to distinguish the religious ones from the non-religious ones. (That will amount to his defining characteristic.) "Most important" is sure to be too slippery, as Tillich found. So whatever one chooses for the substance of the definition will be in terms of content (hence "substantive"). That is, it will be either in the area of doctrine or experience, both of which Lindbeck had tried to transcend.

So a cultural-linguistic or a "language-game" model turns out to be only half of a definition. We must still distinguish a religious from a non-religious consciousness. And we will have to do so substantively. Were Lindbeck to do so, it appears that he would put the substance of religion-the ultimate questions-in the area of doctrines and truth claims. He often refers to "truth" but almost never refers to what I would take to be the more primitive substance of religion: power. This betrays a secularized consciousness and is the aspect of the book that would be most troubling to many readers.

A discussion of religion that never mentions power will seem empty to those who think of religion more as a thing of the "spirit" than of the "mind," and this is connected to secularization. In a recent treatment of early-modern institutional secularization, I adopted a definition of religion from the aforementioned phenomenologists, as developed by some ethnographers. Religion, at the dawn of the modern period, seems to have been viewed as that which gives access to supernatural powers or to the presence of such powers. ⁸ Only after a long process of institutional secularization did religion wither to the point that it could be thought of as little more than a kind of philosophy.

In modern usage (unlike some ancient schools) we recognize a difference between philosophy and religion. Holding a religion makes more demands. Simply considering a philosophy would make one a philosopher, but one can be a student of religion without being religious. On this understanding, "theology" falls into the category of philosophy; it is only reflection upon religion and is not "religion" itself. All this goes back to the fact that religion engages with power, while philosophy stops at the level of truth claims. While I would hesitate to offer the above definition of religion as the best formulation for any period, the elements of power and of personal demands deriving from that power would seem to be indispensible. Religion is a kind of response to a kind of power. If that makes it more like a verb, or adverb or adjective, than a noun, this may be pointing in the right direction. It would make religion less inert.

In his capacity as a scholar, Lindbeck views religion as a way of thinking. In his professional capacity, at least, he is not concerned with religion as a means of salvation, which is an exercise of power. So his theory of religion has to do with considering religion's claims, not in being religious; it is about theology, not religion in its wider sense. As a Christian believer, of course, Lindbeck recognizes that there are persons

⁸ C. John Sommerville, The Secularization of Early Modern England From Religious Culture to Religious Faith (New York: Oxford, 1992), p. 7.

599 - Is Religion A Language Game? A Real World Critique of the Cultural-Linguistic Theory

who and communities that have only a latent religion, having learnt the "language" (form) but not having the spirit or power (substance) of the thing within them. ⁹ Persons who had only learned the language of religion might be said to be potentially religious, but only after responding to a message in the language would they be positively religious.

This is my point. Knowing the idiom does not make a person religious; only responding to a statement or proclamation could do that. Lindbeck points this way when he says that Christians believe that one "becomes a new creature through hearing and interiorizing the language that speaks of Christ." ¹⁰ He means something more than accepting language rules, more like embracing some message in the idiom.

So the cultural-linguistic or "language game" theory implies a more complex model, of which it is only a part. It is a necessary cause, but not a sufficient cause, of religion. To take account of origins one must include experience. To offer the distinguishing characteristic of a religious linguistic, one needs something substantive, either from the cognitive or experiential areas, and in order to turn a potential for religion into the phenomenon of religion, we need a cognitive element.

The cultural-linguistic element to which theologians have drawn attention is a vital addition to our understanding. But a fuller definition would overcome the hints of self-consciousness, relativism, and lack of seriousness that seem to hang about this postliberal position and would taint its evangelistic endeavors. If one's religion doesn't include a sense of urgency and maybe even compulsion, it won't hold our own attention very long, and it won't excite anyone's else's curiosity. For it isn't just ultimate "questions" that religion deals with. It is ultimate experiences and ultimate commitments.

⁹ Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, p. 62.
¹⁰ Ibid.