Ludwig Wittgenstein: "What inclines even me to believe in Christ's resurrection? I play as it were with the thought...

Ludwig Wittgenstein: "What inclines even me to believe in Christ's resurrection? I play as it were with the thought.–If he did not rise from the dead, then he decomposed in the grave like every human being. He is dead & decomposed. In that case he is a teacher, like any other & can no longer help; & we are once more orphaned & alone. And have to make do with wisdom & speculation. It is as though we are in a hell, where we can only dream & are shut out from heaven, roofed in as it were. But if I am to be REALLY redeemed,– I need certainty–not wisdom, dreams, speculation–and this certainty is faith. And faith is faith in what my heart, my soul, needs, not my speculative intellect. For my soul, with its passions, as it were with its flesh and blood, must be redeemed, not my abstract mind. Perhaps one may say: Only love can believe the Resurrection. Or: it is love that believes the Resurrection."

What are ya'll guys' thoughts?

"We might say: Redeeming love believes even in the Resurrection; holds fast even to the Resurrection. What combats doubt is, as it were, redemption. Holding fast to this must be holding fast to that belief. So what that means is: first you must be redeemed and hold on to your redemption (keep hold of your redemption) - then you will see that you are holding fast to this belief. So this can come about only if you no longer rest your weight on the earth but suspend yourself from heaven. Then EVERYTHING will be different and it will be 'no wonder' if you can do things that you cannot do now. (A man who is suspended looks the same as one who is standing, but the interplay of forces within him is nevertheless quite different, so that he can act quite differently than can a standing man.)"

I think he was lucky he was handsome.

>If he did not rise from the dead, then he decomposed in the grave like every human being. He is dead & decomposed.

Reminds me very much of The Idiot.

Here is something from Ray Monk's biography of Wittgenstein about Nietzsche:

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More stimulating was a writer whose view could not have been more antithetical to the Tolstoyan Christianity that Wittgenstein had come to embrace: Friedrich Nietzsche. Wittgenstein had bought in Krakow the eighth volume of Nietzsche's collected works, the one that includes the Anti-Christ, Nietzsche's blistering attack upon Christianity. In it, Nietzsche rails against the Christian faith as a decadent, corrupt religion, 'a form of mortal hostility to reality as yet unsurpassed.' Christianity has its origins, according to him, in the weakest and basest aspects of human psychology, and is at root no more than a cowardly retreat from a hostile world.

This hatred of reality, the idea to which it gives rise, of the need for redemption through the love of God, are, in Nietzsche's view, the consequence of: 'an extreme capacity for suffering and irritation which no longer wants to be "touched" at all because it feels every contact too deeply . . . The fear of pain, even of the infinitely small in pain - cannot end otherwise than in a religion of love.'

Though 'strong affected' by Nietzsche's hostility towards Christianity, and though he felt obliged to admit some truth in Nietzsche's analysis, Wittgenstein was unshaken in his belief that: 'Christianity is indeed the only SURE way to happiness':

. . . but what if someone spurned this happiness? Might it not be better to perish unhappily in the hopeless struggle against the external world? But such a life is senseless. But why not lead a senseless life? Is it unworthy? -L.W.

Even from this it can be seen how close Wittgenstein was, despite his faith, to accepting Nietzsche's view. He is content to discuss the issue in Nietzsche's psychological terms; he does not see it as a question of whether Christianity is TRUE, but of whether it offers some help in dealing with an otherwise unbearable and meaningless existence. In William James's terms, the question is whether it helps to heal a 'sick soul'. And the 'it' here is not a BELIEF but a practice, a way of living. This is a point that Nietzsche puts well:

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"It is false to the point of absurdity to see in a 'belief', perchance the belief in redemption through Christ, the distinguishing characteristic of the Christian: only Christian PRACTICE, a life such as he who died on the Cross LIVED, is Christian . . . even today such a life is possible, for certain men even necessary: genuine, primitive Christianity will be possible at all times . . . Not a belief but a doing, above all a not-doing of many things, a different being . . . States of consciousness, beliefs of any kind, holding something to be true for example - every psychologist knows this - are a matter of complete indifference and of fifth rank compared with the value of instincts . . . To reduce being a Christian, Christianness, to a holding of something to be true, to a mere phenomenality of consciousness, means to negate Christianness." -F.N.

This, we may feel sure, was one of the passages in The Anti-Christ that persuaded Wittgenstein that there was some truth in Nietzsche's work. The idea that the essence of religion lay in feelings (or, as Nietzsche would have it, instincts) and practices rather than in beliefs remained a constant theme in Wittgenstein's thought on the subject for the rest of his life. Christianity was for him (at this time) 'the only sure way to happiness' - not because it promised an after-life, but because, in the words and the figure of Christ, it provided an example, an attitude, to follow, that made suffering bearable.

old related thread

Nietzsche on Hamlet:

>In this sense the Dionysian man has similarities to Hamlet. Both have had a real glimpse into the essence of things. They have understood, and it now disgusts them to act, for their actions can change nothing in the eternal nature of things. They perceive as ridiculous or humiliating the fact that they are expected to set right a world which is out of joint. The knowledge kills action, for action requires a state of being in which we are covered with the veil of illusion. That is what Hamlet has to teach us, not that really venal wisdom about John-a-Dreams, who cannot move himself to act because of too much reflection, too many possibilities, so to speak. It’s not a case of reflection. No! The true knowledge, the glimpse into the cruel truth overcomes every driving motive to act, both in Hamlet as well as in the Dionysian man. Now no consolation has any effect. His longing goes out over a world, even beyond the gods themselves, toward death.

>Now no consolation has any effect. His longing goes out over the world, even beyond the gods themselves, toward death. Existence is denied, together with its blazing reflection in the gods or an immortal afterlife. In the consciousness of once having glimpsed the truth, man now sees everywhere only the horror or absurdity of being; now he understands the symbolism in the fate of Ophelia; now he recognizes the wisdom of the forest god Silenus. It disgusts him.

>Here the will in in the highest danger. Thus, to be saved, it comes close to the healing magician, art. Art alone can turn those thoughts of disgust at the horror or absurdity of existence into imaginary constructs, which permit living to continue. These constructs are the Sublime as the artistic mastering of the horrible and the Comic as the artistic release from disgust at the absurd. The chorus of satyrs in the dithyramb is the saving fact of Greek art. The emotional fits I have just described play themselves out by means of the world of these Dionysian attendants.

I have read all three writers, Wittgenstein, Tolstoy and Nietzsche.

It was through Wittgenstein that I discovered Tolstoy and came to accept Christian practice as a way of life rather than a set of literal beliefs, The Gospel in Brief and The Kingdom of God is Within You had a profound effect upon me which I shall never forget.

I never knew Wittgenstein read Nietzsche, I too came upon Nietzsche's criticisms of religion and found myself agreeing with him to an extent but I could not doubt that the practice of living a moral life, swaying back and forth and to the tune of the Christian faith and the principles laid out by Christ on the Sermon on the Mount was the key to living a good life, a moral one and one without the abyss that lay before me.

It is ultimately a choice, that is what people must understand.

It is no different to any other choice in life except in its ability to ease one's soul and help them live in tandem with the world and feel at ease rather than erratic.

What interest do you have in posting these threads, OP?

Have you come to agree with Wittgenstein?

I think it is too sentimental and not well rooted.

That being said, I enjoyed the sentiment.

I feel torn between two ways of thinking and have a feeling there could possibly be a third way that synthesizes both that I am not seeing. All of the long quotations I posted seem to be hinting to something I have not grasped yet but it is probably simpler than I think and right under my nose.

Are you trying to reconcile Tolstoy's Christian way of life with Nietzsche's rejection of religion?

This would be an interesting thing to try and rectify, and may be very applicable in the 21st century.

Kirkegaard maybe?

>accept Christian practice as a way of life rather than a set of literal beliefs

This is me. To me it's more of a sovial philosophy based around cooperation and love

Have you read Heidegger or any of the phenomenologists? H is quite a theological guy and in many ways is right there in the space between Catholicism and Nietzsche.

>he does not see it as a question of whether Christianity is TRUE, but of whether it offers some help in dealing with an otherwise unbearable and meaningless existence. In William James's terms, the question is whether it helps to heal a 'sick soul'. And the 'it' here is not a BELIEF but a practice, a way of living.
The assumption that life has to be meaningful could be a spook that comes from religion. The soul is corrupted by what sets out to heal it. The word "meaning" might be at the root of the problem with there being two different meanings of the word meaning.

Spooks don't matter within Wittgenstein's own philosophy.

Maybe, but I am suspicious of him.

I read most of Being of Time while I listened to the accompanying Hubert Dreyfus lectures. Then there were a couple of essays and some secondary sources. He has a few good ideas but he embeds them in a lot of confusing nonsense. He seems dishonest to me and I dislike some of the blood and soil aspects of his philosophy. He is the philosophical version of romanticism.

What puts you off K? He influenced Witty and prefigured some of Nietzsche's critiques. very much worth the effort of understanding

Spooks don't ever fucking matter. It's a way for people on Veeky Forums to weasel out of deep thought.

I don't understand him well enough to substantiate my misgivings without sound close-minded. Maybe he is someone I need to look into more.

How does he differ from Wittgenstein and Tolstoy on Christianity as a way of life?

Yes, I know.

It's the typical effeminate male witticism that plagues academia.


>Man says x
>"Haha, that's a spook! ye know"
>"What? Why are you acting like a retard, loser?"
>"h-haha, em spook! you're spooked!"
>"Go away, retard."

We'll I can't speak on Tolstoy because I've yet to read him. But in comparison with Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard offers more prescription than description and a more comprehensive set of arguments. There's also a greater emphasis on conscientious action and individuality. What I understand of Wittgenstein often resembles Kierkegaard's thought but abstracted and less ""human"".

Talking about spooks has got me feeling spooked

Me too m8 - regarding Wittgenstein's influence i mean. First came Wittgenstein, then Dostoevsky, then Kierkegaard. I'm something of a Catholic Atheist. I don't know what I believe. . . Certainly not in the literal truth of the scriptures, but analyzing them as "untrue" also seems to completely miss the point. Not to mention that describing them as "false" also seems somewhat inaccurate as well. On would not, for example, read the works of Kafka or Goethe and criticize the story as being "false".

I guess it comes down to answering a few questions: How useful is Christianity as a way of life, as an example to follow? How important is belief in comparison to practice and is it possible to practice Christianity as a way of life if you do not have faith? Is it possible to have faith today after Copernicus, Darwin, and other scientific breakthroughs? Is there a better alternative, namely, rather than justifying life ethically, justifying it aesthetically and embracing its absurdity? Is a religious outlook and asceticism necessarily hostile to life and can it be reconciled with a humanist outlook?

What should I read?

Orwell could be right.

>According to Tolstoy, the aim of every human being is happiness, and happiness can only be attained by doing the will of God. But doing the will of God means casting off all earthly pleasures and ambitions, and living only for others. Ultimately, therefore, Tolstoy renounced the world under the expectation that this would make him happier. But if there is one thing certain about his later years, it is that he was not happy. On the contraty he was driven almost to the edge of madness by the behaviour of the people about him, who persecuted him precisely because of his renunciation.

Then there is Wittgenstein:

>Christianity was for him (at this time) 'the only sure way to happiness' - not because it promised an after-life, but because, in the words and the figure of Christ, it provided an example, an attitude, to follow, that made suffering bearable.

When I think happy, I don't think Wittgenstein. But would a Christian even care if their belief system and way of life led to happiness? You can separate belief in Christianity from Christianity as a way of life and live it as a way of life but without actually believing it then maybe you are still left without meaning or a justification of life.

Was a leap of faith even necessary in the Middle Ages? Once you find yourself in that situation then maybe it is already too late. Then it was much easier to believe in Christ's resurrection and man's importance in the universe.

>How useful is Christianity as a way of life, as an example to follow?

This seems antithetical to Christianity in any form. A self-indulgent game. These cancel each other out. What are you justifying, to whom? Is 'life' something to be fixated on, affirmed, justified?

What is a humanist outlook? Is that a code or a team you have to follow because of when you were born? Did greeks or medieval men describe themselves as religious?

Were you raised Christian? I won't pretend to be one to talk to about Christianity.