Finally, integrity, faith and happiness

In search of integrity

Assessing my physical, psychic, social, economic, and spiritual integrity is a daily practice. I am thankful for the possibility to sit down in my armchair every morning and to practice meditation. Assessing my holistic integrity, my dignity and freedom and the right to do this exercise does not exclude spiritual exercise. The first point in my meditations is the assessment of body integrity focusing on the physical, psychic, social and economic aspects of my health. I learned the concept of integrity as a holistic description of health from the theory of human medicine of Uexkuell and Wesiack (Uexkuell, Thure von, und Wolfgang Wesiack. 1973. Theorie der Humanmedizin. München: Urban & Schwarzenberg). At the beginning of the 1990ies, Wesiack was my supervisor during my medical training at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Wolfgang Wesiack taught me to understand health as an agency of the individual person (Leher, Stephan. P. 1997. Ethik im Krankenhaus. 26-36. Springer Medizin: Springer Wien NewYork).   

Together with Uexkuell, Wesiack developed the concept of health as an individual’s activity to uphold her or his bio-psycho-social integrity. I prefer this operational description of a concept of health to the idealized concept of the World Health Organization (WHO). The Constitution of the World Health Organization states that “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (World Health Organization 1948. “Constitution of WHO: principles.” World Health Organization. http://www.who.int/about/mission/en/). The claim to “complete physical, mental and social well-being” rarely meets its validity condition, that is the realization of “complete well-being”. Health must be considered a function by which individuals operate their holistic integrity and give meaning to their life. External and internal variables that constantly arrive in the brain must be coordinated and processed to produce the bio-psycho-social equilibrium that constitutes one's personal integrity. These variables concern biological aspects such as blood pressure, weight, etc. There are psychological and social aspects like family life, education, job situation, economic situation, friends, etc. There are also political aspects like security, political participation, legal situation and a basic realization of the rule of law, cultural aspects like, for example, religion, mass and social media. It is a fact that the individual possesses a limited faculty to organize his or her health, because the resources that the individual possesses are limited.

I learned the concept of integrity as a holistic description of health at the age of 35, that is very late in my professional formation. During my medical studies at the University of Vienna, Austria, I regularly experienced a feeling of alienation from the medical system. I felt at home and at ease, when reading the Prophets of the Hebrew Bible. Listening to the Prophets’ testimony of their rescue from persecution, despair, and all sorts of dangers, gave me consolation, empowered my life, and made me feel ok. To sit down in silence every day for about 5 to 10 minutes was suggested to me in a homily. I was not yet familiar with meditation at that time. I was trying to cope with the requirements of medical studies.  

The last 250 years our geological era, call it Holocene or already Anthropocene, was not favorable for silent meditation that brings inner equilibrium, integrity, peace and calm. Rather stress, distress, and exhaustion from ruthless competition, from producing economic growth and financial profit characterize the highways of low living in the rich countries of the world that consume 90 per cent of the world’s resources without caring little about the deteriorating living conditions for 80 percent of world population.

At the end of the last Ice Age, about 11,700 years ago, a stable and mild climate rapidly helped emerge agriculture-based civilization. For 10.000 years the favorable climate sustained the development of civilization (Earth for All. A Report of the Club of Rome. Written by Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Owen Gaffney, Jayati Gosh, Jorgen Randers, Johan Rockström, Per Espen Stoknes. New Society Publishers. 15). This geological epoch is called Holocene, that translates “the whole new”, and could have lasted a further 50.000 years, if men, women, and queer on earth would have respected the limits of natural resources and the boundaries of growth (ibid.). Women, men and queer invented science, the steam engine, the combustion engine and all the techniques and machines that started industrial production of goods in the 19th century (ibid.). The empirical sciences brought knowledge that women, men and queer lacked for millennials.

The understanding of energy as a product of the velocity of light and mass enabled not only a better understanding of the laws of the universe, but the development of the atomic bomb also enables mankind for the first time in its history to extinguish itself. The explosive growth of the insatiable burning of the natural resources of planet earth produced terrifying results. Beyond 1950 the Great Acceleration becomes apparent, that is the explosive growth of the Industrial Revolution and its direct destabilizing impact on Earth’s life support system (Earth for All. A Report of the Club of Rome. 2022.15). The Great Acceleration delineates the Holocene from the Anthropocene. In the Holocene the climate changed civilization, by 2000 CE civilization changes the climate. In 1972 The Club of Rome published The Limits of Growth, by 2000 CE “Earth has entered a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene” (ibid. 13). (See my Posting “Anthropocene”).

The history of industrial civilization, for many that is capitalism, changes the history of the Earth system and the history of life. “The new geophysical agency of humans” … “has allowed them to change the climate of the planet for the next one hundred thousand years” (Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2021. The climate of history in a planetary age.          136. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press). In the last 300 years modernity treated nature “as a background to human dwelling on the planet”, and the life-support-system of the planet, “the system that supports all life, not just human life – gets increasingly broken” (ibid. 183). Humans experience their individual, finite, and singular lives today threatened by a multitude of human activities, “not least in the increasingly important question of migration and refugees, both human and nonhuman” (ibid. 184).

I cannot answer the question if our consumerist and capitalist civilization will turn to a civilized human future. As a young man it was important for me to acquire the capabilities to take part in the race for social status and operational knowledge. Yet, after having completed my medical studies, I entered at the age of 24 years a religious order that nurtures scientific activity and a contemplative life of meditation. I knew I needed medical studies to get respected in the professional worlds of science, technology and profit. Having secured my social status, the need to find a quiet place without alienating inputs from an outside society that runs for everything but inner awareness of one’s situation, became more important than a professional career.

Looking from the perspective of an old man at the young man of then, I am convinced, that my subconscious struggle for integrity wanted me to turn to the traumas of my family and my prenate history of trauma. I searched for a social surrounding that permitted me to confront and heal my traumas. My father and my mother, being pregnant with me in the fifth month, suffered a car accident where my three-year-old brother John died of a skull brain trauma. The accident was the fault of a production defect of the car’s left door that catapulted my brother into deadly trauma. A motorized vehicle, a car, a symbol of the industrial revolution’s technology, did not help enhance life. My mother told me the story, and I grew up with the knowledge about the faults of technology and the suffering that technology failures produce. My father was a mechanical engineer and proud of the possibilities of technology. That a failure of technology killed his beloved son, was a trauma that shook his life till the end.

It is a privilege that life allowed me to pursue a path that is based on the practice of meditation. The first year of formation as a religious introduced me to meditations on verses of the Bible. In my late twenties I started practicing yoga. My “guru” was a young fellow French Jesuit. To make it easier for me to work with yoga, he gave me a book of Christian yoga. I do not like the link of the predicate “Christian” to the predicate “yoga”. Yoga is yoga, in my caseHH Hata yoga. The book was very helpful nevertheless (Déchanet. Jean. 1964. Yoga chrétien en 10 lecons. Desclée De Brouwer). Probably the benedictine monk Jean Déchanet had to baptize his yoga practice to pass his bishop’s censorship. The method of yoga helped me to concentrate on my inner world. Yoga became for me a method of psycho-physical attention to my body that stimulated and equilibrated body functions, and brought pacifying calm, energetic strength, and the soothing scent of appeasement. I had to change from chest breathing to abdominal deep breathing. I learned to pay attention to my breathing, to control my breathing and to practice a good respiration. I follow my respiration, I think of my respirations, I practice slow and deep respiration intentionally.

In my early thirties a religious Chinese brother helped me practicing Thai Chi. Thai Chi brings power to me by breathing too, by concentrating on the mind and the strength of the body. I refreshed my body, relaxed my mind, and enjoyed the slow flow of loose movements of my body. It took me 10 years to make peace with the meditation method of the founder of my religious order, the so-called Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola (Loyola, Ignatius de. 1987. Ejercicios espirituales, introduced and annotated by Candido de Dalmases, S.I. Santander: Sal Terrae). Leading up to the 400th anniversary of the death of Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), the founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner (1904-1984) prepared a series of articles on the Spiritual Exercises and their significance for the spiritual life of the contemporary Christian (Rahner, Karl. 1964. The Dynamic Element in the Church. London: Burns & Oates). Rahner expressed his surprise that Saint Ignatius received the Church’s legitimation for his Spiritual Exercises that ground on the principle of the individual’s religious experience in meditation. The validity condition of this experience is dignity, freedom and rights of the practicant. Rahner claims as a possible religious experience in meditation, that a “fundamental central experience of direct relation to God must be assumed to be present and of prime importance” (ibid. 159). (See my Posting “Spirituality needs emotions, feelings, and choices”).

Sitting in my armchair I am assessing my integrity. There is no need to assess my physical, social, economic, and cultural integrity. I am enjoying a physical health that corresponds with my age, and I have the privilege to live in a democratic well-fare state that pays me and my wife a good monthly pension. The Republic of Austria is a democratic state, that is Human rights are fundamental rights and therefore guaranteed by the constitution. These fundamental rights bind the legislative, administrative and judicial branches of the government and the constitutional court helps the citizen assert these fundamental rights. In short, I enjoy my dignity, freedom and rights. My wife and me could buy a nice house on a plateau that is 70 meters above the river. This means, I am secure, even in these days when my province of Lower Austria has been declared a disaster area because of unprecedented rainfalls that caused unprecedented floods. Climate change had worsened heatwaves, starting in the spring and ending mid-September, bringing droughts and floods. I participate in the distress that my country is facing in these days. Half a year’s rainfalls had turned the streams into a torrent within three days. My psychic integrity copes with the stress of the floods and heatwaves, I was able to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, I can cope with the sharp rise in energy and cost of living prices, with inflation and with the disgusting stress caused by the inhumane Russian military aggression of Ukraine. My comfortable economic situation is a privilege, I am conscious of this privilege and thankful for it.

In the morning assessment of my integrity, first I ask my body to give me integrity. I must assess that the wounds of my prenate trauma, that I had accepted as part of my life long ago, stop making me suffer for the moment. I am banning any thought or mental activity from my conscience. I am asking my body to give me my integrity and keep concentrating on my empty consciousness. After a minute I am ok, after five minutes I feel fine, my state of disconnection is gone as if I never had experienced angst or my wounded integrity. Thankfulness flows through my body with restored integrity. Experiencing my integrity, I am just fine, but I am not happy.

Pursuit of happiness

On July 4th, 1776, the thirteen united States of America signed the Declaration of Independence. The second paragraph reads:

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and happiness” (US Citizenship and Immigration Services. Declaration of Independence. M-654.pdf (uscis.gov)).

In this Declaration of Independence, pursuit of happiness is listed as an unalienable Right that is given by the Creator. “The consent of the governed”, that is the people, institute governments that must secure these “unalienable Rights”, such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (ibid.). The separation of state and religion that is expressed in the above paragraph of the Declaration of Independence institutionalizes a precious principle. Although there is belief in an “Creator”, the people are responsible to secure their rights. Not Go’d is responsible for securing the rights of pursuit of happiness, life and liberty, but the women, men and queer citizens. There is no right to happiness in the Declaration of Independence, the right concerns the pursuit of happiness.

Assessing my integrity, I may say that I am fine, that I enjoy wellbeing, health and quality of life. In short, I assess that I am ok. Personally, I am fine, if I enjoy wellbeing and health. I do not need complete wellbeing and health to feel ok, I am happy if I am just fine. For me happiness concerns not a subjective state of wellbeing. The expression happiness is used to describe states of emotions and feelings of joy, satisfaction, contentment and fulfillment.  Assessing my integrity, I am saying that I am ok, that I enjoy contentment, but I am not speaking of fulfillment or joy. Yet, assessing my integrity and saying I am fine and ok has to do with my practicing self-care, treating myself with kindness and compassion and cultivating strong relationships. In my eyes, a positive law does not lead to happiness. I am happy, if a piece of desired legislation gets promulgated by the government, happiness is a different state of affairs.

I experience happiness in meditation, after having assessed my integrity. In meditation I try to concentrate on the present, and the present only. I am assisting my empty consciousness creating presence, empty presence. In meditation, I am not trying to balance emotions, the more positive emotions and the more negative feelings and bad moods. In meditation, I am chasing and banning bad feelings and thoughts. When my concentration gets porous and bad thoughts try entering my conscious state of meditating, I tell myself that I do not want to lose myself in sadistic pleasure, Machiavellian power fantasies, or pride narcissism. I take the social choice of wanting to pursue happiness and willing wellbeing, inner and outer peace and social relations that realize the good of the persons I relate to. Although I am thankful that a strong will leads to inner peace, I always try to empty in meditation my consciousness experience. I do not even want to be conscious of my consciousness in meditation, I do not want to think of consciousness, I stop speaking to me. When there are no words, descriptions are not any more possible. It would be nonsense to speak in the moments of meditating empty silence. It makes sense to say that I experience a strange feeling like familiarizing myself with the upcoming present.

How to speak about Go’d?

Assessing my integrity is the possibility condition for experiencing happiness, real and intense happiness. I experience happiness in meditation and this meditation has to do with my religious believes and realizing the spiritual aspect of my body by contemplating on Go’d. Before showing what I mean when writing about an experience that is given and that I cannot consciously cause, I must assess philosophically what I can say with sense about experiencing a feeling that seems to be connected with Go’d. Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language helps me to clarify my use of the expression “Go’d”, that is, what I mean, when speaking about Go’d.

We learned in the twentieth century that sentences and significant propositions are the logical pictures of thoughts and thinking, as Ludwig Wittgenstein shows in his Tractatus logico-philosophicus. Wittgenstein published the Tractatus logico-philosophicus in Ostwald’s Annalen der Naturphilosophie in 1921. In this blog I usually cite from the Tractatus according to the translation by Ogden and Ramsey (Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1922. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung. Side-by-side-by-side edition, version 0.42 (January 5, 2015), containing the original German, alongside both the Ogden/Ramsey, and Pears/McGuinness. London: Kegan Paul. http://writing.upenn.edu.library/Wittgenstein-Tractatus.pdf).

Wittgenstein claims, “We make to ourselves pictures of facts” (Tractatus 2.1). Our picture making uses language. To think we need to use language. Thinking about thinking and doing philosophy is philosophy of language, that is thinking about our use of language. “In the proposition the thought is expressed perceptibly through the senses” (Wittgenstein. Tractatus 3.1) and “A thought is a proposition with sense” (Wittgenstein. Tractatus 4). Using concepts like consciousness, self-consciousness, freedom, spirit, etc. is using expressions of language and elements that are put together in sentences and used in a language game. Today we understand speaking as explicit self-awareness or as the realization of the agency to speak. We realize this agency to say what the case is and doing things with words in speech-acts.

When we are speaking, when we are expressing significant sentences and propositions, we are using language according to rules that we learned as children. Usually adult women, men and queer are not conscious of the fact that they realize the expression of their thoughts by using language. Thinking is not possible without language. Adults are usually not conscious of the fact that they use language to picture their world and that we make ourselves these pictures of facts with language.

The apriori of the sense of a sentence is a kind of philosophical thesis, a creative insight that characterizes philosophizing in the Tractatus. Today we see the conviction of the a priori of the sense of the sentence in connection with Philosophical Investigations (Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 2001. Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell) and with Wittgenstein’s later teaching, like his lectures on aesthetics and on religious belief in and around the summer of 1938 (Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1966. Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief. Edited by Cyril Barrett. Oxford: Blackwell. vii), where Wittgenstein writes on the use of words, on language games and that we are taught to use words. When we speak, we use words as we have been taught to use them and at the same time, we create our own pictures using words in a way that makes sense again (ibid. 1-2).

The philosophical a priori of the whole Tractatus is the a priori of the sense of a proposition. We read in Tractatus 4.022: “A proposition shows its sense.” The a priori of this sense of the propositions refers to the individual speaker and his or her spoken sentence. The sense of the proposition is prior to any affirmation or negation of the proposition. In Tractatus 4.064 we read: “Every proposition must already have a sense: it cannot be given a sense by affirmation. Indeed, its sense is just what is affirmed. And the same applies to negation, etc.” The a priori of the sense of the proposition thus points to the personal value-system of the speaker who is the originator of this sense. All thinking is linked to language and Tractatus 4.0031 concludes this thought: “All philosophy is a critique of language.” It is the aim of philosophy to clarify this sense. Speaking is a social choice, is a human behavior, is a language game that expresses pictures of beliefs, reasons, feelings, desires, intentions and claims. Language is a social institution, and we learn to speak according to the rules of language games. Learning or teaching a language is doing something, is an action. When children play the circle game ring-a-ring-a-roses, they dance in a circle around one child of the group while singing the song. At the end of the song the slowest child stopping to dance must take the place in the center. Wittgenstein considers the singing and dancing a language game, the language and the actions form one language game. As babies we learn the rules of language communicating with our parents or other related persons. The rules of language concern the use of language, the use of words and concepts, the making of pictures with language.

In the first months of life, and in part before birth, humans feel, think, and behave surprisingly complex (Hackenbroch, Veronika. Koch, Julia. 2024. “Guck mal, wer da denkt!” In: Der Spiegel. Nr. 12. 16.3.2024. 86-92. 87). Newborns cannot walk and speak, two or three years later children walk and speak, feel empathy and help others without any advantage for themselves (ibid.). Never again, a human effortlessly learns so much in this time. There is no other animal on earth showing these social and cognitive capabilities. Magnetic resonance imaging and measuring electric brain waves are indirect methods for studying what is going on in the brain of babies and children. Teams of researchers study the competence for learning of unborn babies and the development of thinking. Scientists record thousands of baby screams and try to find universal patterns from which language evolves (ibid.). Newborns have not seen their face; they never had seen anybody else, yet after a few days, newborns imitate facial expressions of others, they react by sticking out their tongue or opening wide their mouth (ibid. 88). Six months old babies start focusing, they learn from experiences that often repeat and help to orientate in the world.

Koch und Thimm interviewed the anthropologist Kathleen Wermke who studies the screaming of new borns and asks what do the screaming babies want to say (Koch, Julia. Thimm, Katja. 2024. “Je modulierter das Weinen, umso sprachbegabter” In: Der Spiegel. Nr. 12. 16.3.2024. 94-96. 94)? Wermke studies the crying of babies as an important activity in the early development of speaking. Crying is one of the first sounds which a baby expresses. The melody of the crying leads to speaking a language, crying is a kind of practicing for speaking. Wermke calls all sounds of babies “songs” (ibid. 94). The babies hear the melodies of their mother language in the uterus, and these melodies can be found later in the sounds of the crying. It depends on the language the baby hears, which vocabulary, syntax or grammar develops. This capability is innate. The way that words can be put together, or are put together, in order to make sense, is syntax. The origin of language we find in the song of all the babies of this world (ibid. 96). Languages differ by their melodies, and characteristic intonations. At two and a half years, babies who produce rather complex melodies of screaming, have a better understanding of the language and are better able to speak (ibid. 95). The process of making the melodies more complex, to vary the rhythm of the melodies and the insertion of consonants in the melodies correspond with the maturation of the brain. Parents reliably understand what crying babies try to communicate, if they listen carefully and with love. They understand this language of emotions, they understand if the baby communicates hunger or if the baby needs to be close to a parent. Crying is always a message, and the adults must try to understand what the baby wants to express. It helps the baby to develop their capability to speak if the parents react to the sounds of their children with love and show interest in them (ibid. 96). The babies like to hear the parents sing, but they do not like too much of a stimulation by all sorts of sounds. Already babies need to rest and to have peace. For Wermke language acquisition of babies pictures the evolution of language in time lapse. Understanding the development of a child is our best chance to get to understand how our ancestors began to speak. As far as we know today, the babbling and whining of babies resembles the singsong of our ancestors who were sitting around the fire one or two million years ago (ibid.).

Wermke started her research on baby crying in 1982. In 1938 Wittgenstein speaks about the use of the expression “good” and investigates what we are doing when discussing a word. In 1938 the study of baby talk was not of much scientific interest. Yet, Wittgenstein comments on how children learn to use words. We find some very interesting answers concerning the use of the expression “good” in our everyday language when reading the notes that Wittgenstein’s students Yorick Smythies, Rush Rhees and James Taylor took at Wittgenstein’s lectures on aesthetics and on religious belief in and around the summer of 1938 (Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1966. Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief. Vii. Edited by Cyril Barrett. Oxford: Blackwell). Wittgenstein did not see or check the notes, and he probably would not have approved of their publication (ibid.). They reflect many of Wittgenstein’s opinions on life and on religious, psychological and artistic questions that in the published writings of Wittgenstein are only briefly touched on (ibid.) and therefore are of particular interest on the topic of how Wittgenstein thought we use the expression “good” in our language. We read in the lectures on aesthetics: “One thing we always do when discussing a word is to ask how we were taught it. Doing this on the one hand destroys a variety of misconceptions, on the other hand gives you a primitive language in which the word is used … If you ask yourself how a child learns ‘beautiful’, ‘fine’, etc., you find it learns them roughly as interjections. (‘Beautiful’ is an odd word to talk about because it’s hardly ever used.) A child generally applies a word like ‘good’ first to food. One thing that is immensely important in teaching is exaggerated gestures and facial expressions. The word is taught as a substitute for a facial expression or a gesture. The gestures, tones of voice, etc., in this case are expressions of approval. What makes the word an interjection of approval? (Rhees continued asking and answered: And not of disapproval or of surprise, for example? The child understands the gestures which you use in teaching him. If he did not, he could understand nothing). It is the game it appears in, not the form of words” (ibid. 1–2).

In 1914 Wittgenstein suggests in his Notebooks to compare the construction of a sentence to the way a judge views the evidence and constructs the case: “In the sentence a world is, as it were, put together experimentally. (As when in a law-court in Paris a motor-car accident is represented by means of dolls, etc.)” (Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1961. Notebooks 1914–1916. Edited by G. H. von Wright and G. E. M. Anscombe with an English translation by G. E. M. Anscombe. New York: Harper & Brothers.7e).

The judge reconstructs what had happened, what the case is; he reconstructs the state of affairs of the car accident. The speaker of a sentence puts together words and expressions and constructs a sentence. Wittgenstein understands the words and expressions we use for building a sentence as facts, not as things. The dolls in the reconstruction of the motor-car accident represent facts, the facts of the case, which form a state of affairs. Similarly, facts – words and expressions of language – form the facts of the case, the state of affairs that the sentence shows and affirms. The facts, the facts of the case and the state of affairs of the sentence constitute the basis for the logical investigation of sentences. The speaker of the sentence puts the facts together, “experimentally” she or he constructs a whole “world” and, “The world is everything that is the case” (Tractatus 1).

Wittgenstein omits in Tractatus 4.031 a reference to the case in the law-court. The second sentence in Tractatus 4.031 reads: “One can say, instead of, This sentence has such and such a sense, This sentence represents such and such a state of affairs.” Wittgenstein presents a definition of the term “sense”. Sense is the facts of the case, the final state of affairs that puts all the facts together to form the sentence. Tractatus 4.064 tells us that the sense of a sentence does not depend on assertion or denial. Affirmation or negation is not a criterion for being able to understand or to not understand a sentence. “Every sentence must already have a sense; assertion cannot give it a sense, for what it asserts is the sense itself. And the same holds of denial, etc.” (Tractatus 4.064). Sense is given together with the sentence; the sentence shows its sense, and sense is a priori to any logical investigation.

The differentiation between “to show” and “to say” is one of the fundamental ideas of the Tractatus. A sentence shows something and says something. Wittgenstein affirms the fundamental differentiation between “to show” and “to say” in Tractatus 4.021: “The sentence shows its sense. The sentence shows how things stand, if it is true. And it says, that they do so stand.” The sentence itself cannot decide whether what it says is true. The sentence only says what the case is if it is true. We still must find the truth of the sentence, that is logical truth of the sentence. Wittgenstein assesses in the Tractatus the two truth-possibilities “true” and “false,” we speak of a two-valued logic. Computers, databases, the internet, and social media still work based on a two-valued logic. Our contemporary world relies on a two-valued truth for the possibilities and realizations of globalized communication. (See my Posting “Sentences and facts, sense and dignity”).

When we use concepts like consciousness, self-consciousness, freedom, spirit, etc. we must be clear if these expressions of language are part of a language game of a two valued logic with the truth values “true” or “false” that we play in empirical science, or if we just do not know and cannot know because there is no empirical method for verifying or falsifying what the sentence shows.

Tractatus 6.522 clearly identifies the inexpressible that one cannot put into words and speak of: “There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical.” We learned about the mystical from Tractatus 6. 44: “Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is.” The question was, is there a third possibility, that would allow to speak logically about themes like the mystical that the Tractatus thought one must be silent on? Vladimir Richter answered the question (Richter, Vladimir. “Logik und Geheimnis.” In Philosophische Grundlagen, theologische Grundfragen, biblische Themen. Vol. 1 of Gott in Welt. Freiburg: Herder. 1964. 188-207). Richter demonstrated that the desired third possibility consists of a logic that accepts not being able to positively prove a sentence right or wrong. This logic accepts a third truth value, that is the value “I do not know”. Too many theologians still have the problem that they do not accept that sentences of religious beliefs such as expressed by words like “the mystical, creation or creator”, cannot positively be proven to be the case and cannot be attributed to the truth-value true or false of the two-valued logic of empirical science. Richter insists that theology needs to demonstrate its awareness of the difference between the refutation of the refutation and positive demonstrability (Richter 1964: 196). (See my Posting “Sentences, sense, and logical truth”).

In March 1928 Wittgenstein went to Vienna to listen to L. E. Brouwer speak on mathematics and logic and voice his criticism of the principle “tertium non datur” (Richter 1965: 42). Thereafter Wittgenstein abandoned the two-valued logic and the underlying principle “tertium non datur”. He opened to the world of language games and was ready to affirm: “The way you use the word ‘God’ does not show whom you mean – but, rather, what you mean” (Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1980. Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology. 51e. Vol. 2. Edited by G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell).

The ban of pictures of Go’d

Wittgenstein was warning to speak about God as about a thing or a person: “The way you use the word ‘God’ does not show whom you mean – but, rather, what you mean” (ibid.). Wittgenstein’s warning reminds me of the First Tablet of the Ten Commandments, that is Exodus 20, 2-11 (Exodus 34, 28 and Deuteronomy 4, 13 speak of the Two Tablets as of the Ten Words, therefore the name Ten Commandments).

A faithful Jew not even pronounces the word Go’d when he reads the Thora. Coming to the tetragram, that is the four consonants JHWH signifying Go’d, a faithful Jew reads “Adonai”, which means “The Lord”, but never reads Jahweh. Faith-sentences do not describe persons and things; they do not say who Go’d is, they say what we think and how we feel about Go’d. I use the sign “Go’d” because we can say only what we mean but we cannot say who God is. Using of the comma when writing God shows what I want to say. I want to say that we cannot say who God is.

Moses announces at the beginning of Exodus 20 that Go’d takes the word and speaks (Exodus 20, 1). In Exodus 20, 2 Go’d begins with a self-presentation. Go’d makes remember Israel that “I am Jahweh your God who brought you out of Egypt, where you lived as slaves” (Exodus 20, 2). Christians forgot for about almost 2000 years that the so called Ten Commandments start with the presentation of Go’d’s salvation of Israel from Egypt, that Go’d did something great for the people of Israel, the people of Go’d. Go’d does not start with a commandment but with remembering the history of salvation of the people of Israel.

The first and second commandment of the Hebrew text in Exodus 20, 3-7 concern the ban of foreign gods, the ban of pictures, the ban of images and the ban on cursing, that is the misuse of “the name of Yahweh, your God”. The wording and interpretation in Exodus 20, 4-7 and in the parallel in Deuteronomy 5, 8-10 differ (Deuser, Hermann. 2002. Die Zehn Gebote. Kleine Einführung in die theologische Ethik. 13. Suttgart, Germany: Philipp Reclam jun.). We do not know a single Jewish sanctuary with a representation of Jahwe in an image. The Temple in Jerusalem is the place of the invisible present Go’d (ibid. 45). Images and statues of Go’d are not possible because of Go’d’s invisibility. Therefore, cultic veneration of images and statues is impossible.

Language pictures are evidently excluded from the ban of images. Instead of pictures and statues, Go’d’s name must be vernerated. East of Ethel “Abraham built an altar to Jahweh who had appeared to him” (Genesis 12, 7b). And “there he built an altar to Jahweh and invoked the name of Jahweh” (Genesis12, 8b). Moses tells the people of Go’d’s laws and customs that the people of Go’d must “observe every day that” they live in Israel, that is they must “destroy all the places where the nations you dispossess have served their gods, …, burn their sacred poles, hack in bits the statues of their gods and obliterate their name from that place“ (Deuteronomy 12, 1-3). Towards Jahwe they must behave differently (Deuteronomy 12, 4), “You must seek Jahweh your Go’d in the place which he will choose from all your tribes, there to set his name and give it a home: that is where you must go” (Deuteronomy, 12, 5).  

For the Catholics and for Martin Luther alike, the ban of images and statues does not show up in the Ten Commandments. For Luther faith in Go’d “the Only” is important, then do follow the Ten Commandments (Deuser. 2002,17). For Martin Luther Jesus Christ is an image of Go’d (ibid. 47). Nevertheless, one could say Luther respects the ban of images of Go’d, because Jesus is a man and “Go’d said, ‘Let us make man in our own image, in the likeliness of ourselves” (Genesis 1, 26a). Man is forbidden to fabricate images and statues of Go’d, Go’d is allowed to create an image of herself. Looking at the whole verse Genesis 1, 26 we have to interpret very carefully, “God said, ‘Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves, and let them be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all the wild animals and all the creatures that creep along the ground’” (Genesis 1, 26).

We must not interpret the Bible as an answer to the problems of our contemporary world. It is true that women, men and queer exploited the resources of planet earth in the last two hundred and fifty years to an extent that produced a destabilizing impact on Earth’s life support system. The destruction of planet earth’s ecosystem is the responsibility of women, men and queer at the end of the Holocene, it is not the result of Go’d’s plan to give man mastery over nature. The upcoming Anthropocene is not the result of responsibility or mastery. On the contrary. It is fundamentalist exegesis if one would ask on the other side, if an image of Go’d would be as stupid as to destroy its own resources of life?

The Bible gives answers to the problems of the authors. From this follows that our hermeneutical method must look at the answers of the biblical authors and we will get an idea about the problems the authors faced.  In the first paragraph of number 12 of the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum the Second Vatican Council affirmed, we “should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended”, that is what they wanted to communicate and did communicate, because it is “by means of their words” that Go’d wanted to manifest what He “wanted to communicate to us”. The second paragraph of number 12 of Dei Verbum teaches how to come to understand the sense that the authors of the Bible intended. Interpretation must pay attention to the literary genders and forms as well as to the circumstance of the edition of the text, that is the historic and cultural context of the texts. Concerning the final editors of the Thora and certainly of the book Genesis we must speak of the historic context of the Babylonian Captivity. The King of Judah Jehoiachin had not paid taxes to Babylon for three years. In 597 BCE he and his family, his elite and thousands of workers were sent into exile to Babylonia (https://www.britannica.com/event/Babylonian-Captivity). There took several deportations place, always as results of uprisings in Palestine. In 586 BCE Nebuchadrezzar destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple. The exiled Jews could return to Palestine in 538 BCE, when the Persian King Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and allowed the Jews to return. “Although the Jews suffered greatly and faced powerful cultural pressures in a foreign land, they maintained their national spirit and religious identity” (ibid.).

Babylonian influence on the ancient world was tremendous in cultural, intellectual and artistic achievements. The chief god of the city Babylon was Marduk, the national god of Babylonia (Marduk | God, Tiamat, Mesopotamia, Description, & Facts | Britannica). Marduk rose to preeminence over a cosmos of gods and goddesses, after having conquered the monster Tiamat, Marduk’s consort was the goddess Zarpanitu, and he dominated as “Lord of the gods of Heaven and Earth” the destiny of kingdoms and subjects, of nature and the whole of humanity (ibid.). The Babylonians used astronomical observation for agriculture and venerated the stars. Jupiter was Marduk’s star (ibid.).  

It was a challenge for the deported Jews in Babylonia to keep their religious identity, the religion of Babylon was as powerful as its emperors. No wonder that the editors of the Book of Genesis insisted on their belief on Jahweh, the “One and Only”, their religious identity was grounded in monotheism. Therefore, Jahweh was the creator of the universe, God “created the firmament and divided the waters”, and God made the lights in the firmament, Jahweh was the creator of the stars and the sun (Genesis 1, 1-18). God created the animals and created man and nobody else gave man any power, responsibility, and agency but Jahweh (Genesis 1, 24-27). Go’d is Go’d of male and female is the message of Genesis 1, 27b, the author of this verse did not intend to establish the norm of heterosexuality. Would we write Genesis today, we would speak of the creation of women, men and queer with equal dignity, freedom and rights, as we read in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) (“Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” United Nations, http://www.ohchr.org/). The Preamble of the UDHR affirms “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, …” (ibid.). The expression “inherent dignity” does not speak of Go’d or Jahweh as the principle of this “inherent dignity”, the UDHR contents itself affirming that without recognition of this “inherent dignity” there is not freedom, justice and peace in the world. Nevertheless, in the 21st century CE, a believer in Go’d will confess that she or he believes in “inherent dignity” because of her or his belief in Go’d.

From Augustin (354-430 CE) to Martin Luther (1483-1546 CE) the First Tablet does not include Exodus 20, 2 (ibid. 17) and was interpreted as commandment of love of Go’d, as we read in Deuteronomy 6, 4f. (ibid. 14), “Listen, Israel: Yahweh our God is the one, the only Jahweh. You must love Jahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6, 4-5). The Second Tablet (Exodus 20, 12-17) was interpreted from Augustin to Luther as commandment of love of the neighbour according to Leviticus 19, 18: “You will not exact vengeance on, or bear any sort of grudge against, the members of your race., but will love your neighbour as yourself. I am Yahweh”. The First Tablet is about how man must behave before God, the Second Tablet is about what man owes his neighbour (bid. 14). This interpretation of Augustin and Luther was not very blessing for generations of Christians who were not told that Leviticus 19, 18 speaks not only of love of the neighbour, but commands also love of oneself. Love of oneself is the scale for love of the neighbour. If I do not love myself, I cannot love the neighbour and if I cannot love the neighbour I do not love God. Augustin and Luther tried to sell the Christians the threefold commandment of love of the Hebrew Bible, that is Deuteronomy 6,4f. and Leviticus 19, 18, and of the New Testament (Matthew 22, 37–40; Mark 12, 29–31; Luke 10, 25–28) as a twofold commandment.

Jesus gave his disciples the threefold commandment of love: love of Go’d, love of one’s neighbor, and love of oneself (Matthew 22, 37–40; Mark 12, 29–31; Luke 10, 25–28). Faith in the threefold commandment of love is the cornerstone of a Christian existence, self-love is just another word for caring for one’s integrity. Putting the assessment of my integrity first in meditation and prayer follows from the commandment of self-love as possibility-condition of love of neighbour and love of Go’d. Do the Ten Commandments speak of self-love? We have to read Exodus 20, 3-17 in the context of Exodus 20, 2, that is in the context of the self-presentation of Jahweh as the one who saved the people of Israel from Egypt. Jahweh’s initiative empowered slaves to become daughters and sons of Go’d. Jahweh procures integrity to the people of Israel, so that the women, men and queer of the people of Go’d assess their integrity. Keeping the commandments of Go’d is a promise of Go’d in the history of salvation.

Elaborating a theology for the social realization of the threefold commandment of love within the Roman Catholic Church must establish equal dignity, freedom and rights for all Christians within the Roman Catholic Church. Christian theology must be clear that the threefold commandment of love of the Lord Jesus Christ, empowers the construction of an egalitarian community of the People of Go’d.

From a logical point of view, the question of Go’d’s or Yahweh’s violence, warrior behavior, or chaos fighting does not make sense, because the way we use the word Go’d does not show who Go’d is. The use of the word Go’d in connection with predications of commanding to kill, to destroy people, enemies, and foes, to exercise violence and make exercise violence, to fight wars and behave like an invincible warrior, show what the authors of these predications mean. In other words, these predications express the convictions, mind sets, and precariousness of the authors. In article 11,1 of the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum there is indeed one affirmation that the Sacred Scriptures are inspired by the Holy Spirit and that Go’d is their author. Then follows in the same article the new teaching of the Second Vatican Council, where the chosen men who wrote down the Bible are called “true authors” of the Sacred Scriptures (Paul VI. 1965. “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum.” The Holy See).

Therefore, there is no need for aggressive polemics of Christians against the violent Go’d Yahweh of the Old Testament and there is no need contrasting violent, omnipotent Yahweh to the loving father Go’d of the New Testament. Religious science documents the uncountable predications about Go’d in a multitude of religions and writes about the development of religious believes over time and history of peoples and cultures. Surprise, we already find the use of the predicate “father” for Go’d in the Hebrew Testament.

Twenty times the predicate “AB”, that is father in Hebrew, is given Jahweh in the Old Testament (Schattner-Rieser, Ursula. New Books. Review: Georg Schelbert, ABBA-Vater. Der literarische Befund vom Altaramäischen bis zu den späten Midrasch- und Haggada-Werken in Auseinandersetzung mit den Thesen von Joachim Jeremias. In:  Early Christianity (EC) Volume 4 (2013) / Issue 1 pp. 141-147). We read “Father of orphans, defender of widows, such is God – Elohim - in his holy dwelling” in Psalm 68, 5. In Psalm 89, 26 Go’d says about David, “He will cry to me, ‘You are my father, my Go’d -El -, the rock of my salvation!’”). In Psalm 103, 13 David sings, “As tenderly as a father treats his children, so Yahweh treats those who fear him”. Isaiah 63, 16 implores the mercy of Jahweh, “After all, you are our Father. If Abraham will not own us, if Israel will not acknowledge us, you Yahweh, are our Father, ’Our Redeemer” is your name from of old”.

During the Hellenistic period – that is from the conquest of Palestine by Alexander the Great to the end of the Hasmonean rule in 63/4 BCE -, in Jewish literature the use of the predicate “Father” for Go’d enjoys growing popularity. See especially in the book of Tobit and The wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach that is Ecclesiasticus (ibid.).

In the time between the Old and the New Testament we find in the literature 50 times the Aramaic term “Abba” used for Go’d (ibid.).

In the New Testament the predicate “father” for Go’d is used 261 times (ibid.). In the Gospels and in Acts Jesus uses the predicate “father” for Go’d and in the Epistles the authors use the predicate “father” for Go’d about a hundred times. I do not use the pictures “father” or “mother” for Go’d. For me the picture ban makes sense and I try so say what I mean when speaking of Go’d.

Faith

Vladimir Richter learned from Karl Rahner (1904-1984) that it was fundamental to theologize based on a reflected logic for theological knowledge and insight (Richter, Vladimir. 1964. “Logik und Geheimnis.” In Philosophische Grundfragen, theologische Grundfragen, biblische Themen. Vol. 1 of Gott in Welt: Festgabe für Karl Rahner 1, edited by Johannes Baptist Metz, Walter Kern, Adolf Darlapp and Herbert Vorgrimler. 188–207. 189. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder).

There were Catholic theologians in 1964 who had studied the philosophers of the Enlightenment and who payed attention to a logic of theological knowledge. The turn from a two-valued logic to the criticism of the principle of the excluded third was important for speaking about themes like the mystical that the Tractatus thought one must be silent on. It is very interesting to see that when investigating the use of psychological concepts in day-to-day language, Wittgenstein in his Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology includes a paragraph that deals with the concept of “metaphysics”:

“Philosophical investigations: conceptual investigations. The essential thing about metaphysics: that the difference between factual and conceptual investigation is not clear to it. A metaphysical question is always in appearance a factual one, although the problem is a conceptual one” (Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1980. Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology. Vol. 1. Paragraph 949. Edited by G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell).

How many theologians in 2024 - not to speak of Christians in general -, are ignorant about the difference between factual and conceptual investigations, and will stay ignorant and blind? Metaphysics is a conceptual construction, not factual. In 1987 The New Dictionary of Theology still ignores the fact of the difference between metaphysics and physics. Physics and empirical science follow the two-valued logic with the truth values “true” and “false”. Metaphysics follows a three-valued logic with the truth values “true”, “false”, and “I do not know”. With Metaphysics there is no empirical knowledge, because we are in a conceptual investigation. John H. Wright, a Jesuit brother of Karl Rahner and Vladimir Richter, in 1987 affirms Go’d as “a reality existing independently of our experience” because our “common human experiences” of Go’d “converge upon a single transcendent referent” – that is outside of space and time –, “the origin and ground of being, purpose, truth, beauty, value, love, order, etc.” (John H. Wright. 1987. “God”. In The New Dictionary of Theology. Joseph A. Komonchak, Mary Collins, Dermot A. Lane editors. 423-436. 424-25. M. Glazier: The Liturgical Press. Collegeville, Minnesota). How is it possible to affirm who God is, if it is not possible to verify or falsify the human experiences that affirm God? A human experience of Go’d is a human experience, a precious experience or a frightening experience, I do not know, but always an experience of an individual that does not allow for any generalization. Anyways, how is it possible to verify or falsify in time and space a hypothesis that lies outside of space and time? It is not possible.

Further, I do not believe in an unmoved mover, almighty, eternal – that is outside of time -, immense, incomprehensible, infinite in intellect and will and every perfection, independent of the existing universe, not being subject to change, etc., I believe in Go’d.

Happines

I believe in Go’d, because believing in Go’d makes me happy.

As babies we already learn to distinguish between what makes us happy and what does not make happy.

The science of anthropology of babies helps to understand a little bit better how children are empowered in later life for a good development (Hackenbroch, Veronika. Koch, Julia. 2024. “Guck mal, wer da denkt!” In: Der Spiegel. Nr. 12. 16.3.2024. 86-92. 87). Babies learn very soon to distinguish and differentiate. Right after birth babies start selecting from their surroundings what is important for their survival, and they construct categories, and separate what is important and not important for their survival (ibid.). I would like to know if babies who hear a soft assuring voice speaking to them later in their development trust this voice when saying a prayer. We learn to pray as children from loving and attentive persons to our needs. I would like to know about investigations, where children reject prayers from people who do not respect their needs.

After having assessed my integrity in meditation, I turn saying in silence “I believe in Go’d”. Sometimes I simply turn concentrating on the word Go’d. Sometimes I say nothing and continue to stay silent with eyes closed; I am waiting and when fullness and happiness come to my conscience I try to stay still with the feeling that I am safe and secure. With this happiness goes together that I feel the need to behave good, better, I want to behave good. This kind of happiness is not the experience of an extasy, it is the best happiness I am able to experience and at the same time all possible thoughts and feelings, good or bad, are not present. Unfortunately, this does not mean that all thoughts and feelings, good or bad, are banned from conscience forever. Being thankful for that happiness is assuring and keeps bad thoughts and feelings away for a while. During meditation there is no disturbance from other people, there is no good input from other people either. I can thank for all the good that I have received in my life from a multitude of people, I can thank for having overcome the bad inputs I had suffered in my life. Becoming a better person is difficult. Happiness does not make me a better person. Trying to stay happy is a kind of guide for good choices. Meditation is a daily practice. Meditation is part of the spiritual aspect of my life. When I am losing the daily practice of meditation, when I content myself just being fine and enjoying my integrity, I will begin longing for the experience of happiness.

Saying “I believe in Go’d” is sometimes not evident; in these circumstances I am lacking concentration, seriousness and determination. It is not that I do not believe in Go’d in these circumstances, I am just looking around me but not very deep into me. For comming back to my existential confession “I believe in Go’d” it helps to hear from other women, men and queer how Go’d’s happiness made them happy and encounter the world with love and peace and ended their suffering from fatigue and routine. Sharing spiritual experiences and testimonies with brothers and sisters celebrating the Eucharist, were experiences of this kind of comforting peace. When ordinary experiences are shared in a context of belief in Go’d in celebration, the ordinary is seen from the spiritual perspective of my body and the daily routine and work gets a meaning that encourages to go on with strength and confidence. Spiritual experiences are not reserved for Christians. I am convinced, that spiritual happiness, empowerment, sharing, encouraging and celebrations are for all women, men and queer who believe in Go’d, independently of their religion. I am convinced that the spiritual aspect of our body is part of our integrity. The spiritual aspect of our body concerns meanings, hopes, beliefs, feelings, memories and much more. Claiming the spiritual aspect of our body being part of our integrity is a claim, it is an empirical hypothesis that aspects verification or falsification. The validity condition for this claim is discourse about spiritual needs such as comfort, inner peace, or happiness.  

The literary executors of the manuscript material left by Wittgenstein commissioned G. H. Wright to arrange and select the numerous notes that do not directly belong to works of Wittgenstein. The philosophical notes were translated by Peter Winch and edited by G.H. Wright (Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1980. Culture and Value. Edited by G. H. von Wright, translated by Peter Winch. Oxford: Blackwell).

In Wittgenstein’s notes from 1947 we read:

“It strikes me that a religious belief could only be something like a passionate commitment to a system of reference. Hence, although it’s belief, it’s really a way of living, or a way of assessing life. It’s passionately seizing hold of this interpretation. Instruction in a religious faith, therefore, would have to take the form of a portrayal, a description, of that system of reference, while at the same time being an appeal to conscience. And this combination would have to result in the pupil himself, of his own accord, passionately taking hold of the system of reference. It would be as though someone were to first let me see the hopelessness of my situation and then show me the means to rescue until, of my own accord, or not at any rate led to it by my instructor, I ran to it and grasped it” (Wittgenstein1980: 64e).

I used this citation from Wittgenstein’s notes in my Posting “Wittgenstein on religious belief”. I want to return to the citation and comment more differentiated, because now I am looking at my sentence “I believe in Go’d” from the point of view of my meditations and not from religious instruction in school. Wittgenstein’s important claim that the instructor must not “at any rate” make the pupil grasp her or his rescue and that the pupil must run to his rescue “of his own accord”, is old wisdom in the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. If a wise man or woman is not asked, she or he will stay silent. A wise woman and man will not tell a novice of spiritual life what to do but will help that the novice will find her or his way. A spiritual master may be concerned about the wellbeing of the exercitant during spiritual exercises, but the spiritual master must not mingle with the experiences of the exercitant with Go’d. All a spiritual master has to do is to accompany the spiritual novice with patience and empathy. We read in number 15 of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) (Loyola, Ignatius de. 1987. Ejercicios espirituales, introduced and annotated by Candido de Dalmases, S.I. Santander: Sal Terrae) the rule for the person who accompanies the Exercises: This person must impartially respect the fact that “the Creator works directly with his creature and the creature with its Creator and Lord” (Rahner, Karl. 1964. The Dynamic Element in the Church. London: Burns & Oates. 90).

I want to cite a saying from the first centuries CE from the Egyptian desert fathers, that is from the Sayings of the Elders where the spiritual master, “the great teacher Abba Nistero” insists that the monk who asks for his advice searches the best for his life on his own accord (The book of mystical chapters. 2003. 15. Translated and introduced by John Anthony McGuckin. Shambhala: Boston & London). The Sayings of the Elders, or the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, is a Latin collection of the Egyptian wisdom sayings, that had a wide dissemination and was recommended reading for monks throughout the Middle Ages (ibid. 190).

“One of the monks asked the great teacher Abba Nistero: ‘What should I do for the best in life?’ And the abba answered: ‘All works are not equal. The scripture says that Abraham was hospitable, and God was with him; it says that Elias lived quiet, and God was with him; it says that David was humble, and God was with him. So, whatever path you find your soul longs after in the quest for God, do that, and always watch over your heart’s integrity” (ibid. 16f.).

I want to comment on the first part of the above note from Culture and Value from 1947:

“It strikes me that a religious belief could only be something like a passionate commitment to a system of reference. Hence, although it’s belief, it’s really a way of living, or a way of assessing life. It’s passionately seizing hold of this interpretation” (Wittgenstein1980: 64e).

I do agree very much with Wittgenstein’s description of a religious belief. I am thankful to Wittgenstein for this description because it helped me a lot to find my expression and my sentences about religious belief. When I am meditating today – I have become an old man since the young days when I discovered my “passionately seizing” Wittgenstein’s sentences -, my central intention in a meditation is saying with all my heart “I believe in Go’d”, and then staying still and concentrating without any distraction from thoughts, feelings, fantasies or the like. If I am then granted the gift to experience unimaginable happiness, to feel comforted and safe, I am not committing to a system of reference, a way of living, a way of assessing life. No, first I am passionately searching for a system of reference, a form of life, a way of assessing life, because I had been drawn to a system of reference, a form of life, a way of assessing life that was shown to me by a form of life of a person or persons, by persons who showed me by their credible example or model of their form of life and their way of assessing life that it is worth to search for this kind of way of life and reference system in my life too.

My grandparents suffering from Nazi persecution, their way of life in strong disagreement with Nazi ideology, tyranny and aggression, the strength for persevering with their Christian reference system, all this and more, impressed me since childhood and sustainably shaped my ways of life. That my mother joined my grandparents in her open refusal to subject to the Nazis’ way of life as demonstrated by the many Nazis in town, the coping of my mother with the death of her mother, whom the Nazis refused medical treatment, her life-long suffering from the death of my brother John, and her selfless respect for my life-decisions, strongly influenced my experimenting with religious beliefs and ways of life. I am thankful for all the many persons who showed me elements of a way of life and ways to discover for me a Christian reference system.

On my way of life, I searched and found my way of meditating and my practice-to-practice meditation regularly, and I am thankful how often and intense I receive the gift of happiness, security, comfort, the assurance that nothing will happen to me that takes my happy integrity away. I am helped by a remarque of Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations in my effort to say what I mean when speaking of my saying in meditation that “I believe in Go’d” and experiencing a feeling of being safe and secure. My description of my experience of feeling safe and secure is incomplete. My descriptions may not be seen as a kind of defining my feelings. Describing my experience of happiness in meditation I must complete with the assessment of a kind of judgement that goes with the feelings of happiness and being safe and secure. “If language is to be a means of communication there must be agreement not only in definitions but also (queer as this may sound) in judgements” (Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 2001. Philosophical Investigations. Number 242. 75e. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell). The first part of Philosophical Investigations had been completed in 1945, that is two years before the notes of 1947 were written. Whatever the context of this citation is about, be it speaking about colors, human behavior and rules of mathematics, or all kinds of sensations, inner experiences, feelings, moods, etc., Wittgenstein made me discover the judgement aspect when speaking of my happiness. The judgment aspect of my happiness is a kind of judgement about my future social choices, it is the judgement to go from this experience with social choices and behavior that is good for me and good for others. In other words, good social choices sustain my happiness. Bad social choices have nothing to do with my happiness. In short, the first criteria for what is good for me and what good I want to do, is my experience of happiness.

The validity condition for the good of the judgement is the equal dignity, liberty and rights of the involved persons, and the range of validity must get defined. The range of validity for the claim that I am assessing a good judgement first concerns the integrity of the involved persons in the discourse. Integrity means physical, psychic, social, economic, cultural and spiritual integrity. If there is no integrity of the discourse partners, there is no realization of the validity condition of the claim to validity for happiness. If the validity condition for a claim in a discourse cannot be applied to the range of validity, or to the scope of the claimed validity, I am pretending an empty promise. If the range of validity for my claims is clear, discussion starts, if the validity condition for my claims is realized withing the scope of validity.