The phrase "he lost his faith" doesn't, upon examination, make sense. A man can lose his keys, or his wallet, maybe even his mind. But faith isn't something simply misplaced. My friend Wilson assures me this is something Wittgenstein would have said. Whether or not that's true, it is certainly true that we often say things that don't make sense. I say this, not merely to make us think carefully about the language we use, but to make us think about what we're actually trying to say, what we're trying to speak about. The real problem with the phrase "he lost his faith" isn't the inadequacy of the phrase itself. The real problem with the phrase "he lost his faith" is the idea of faith that underlies it. If we come to realize we've thought about faith as something we can "lose" the way we can lose our keys, then we'll begin to understand - perhaps not what true faith is - but at least what it most certainly is not.
Friday, March 27, 2009
losing faith
The phrase "he lost his faith" doesn't, upon examination, make sense. A man can lose his keys, or his wallet, maybe even his mind. But faith isn't something simply misplaced. My friend Wilson assures me this is something Wittgenstein would have said. Whether or not that's true, it is certainly true that we often say things that don't make sense. I say this, not merely to make us think carefully about the language we use, but to make us think about what we're actually trying to say, what we're trying to speak about. The real problem with the phrase "he lost his faith" isn't the inadequacy of the phrase itself. The real problem with the phrase "he lost his faith" is the idea of faith that underlies it. If we come to realize we've thought about faith as something we can "lose" the way we can lose our keys, then we'll begin to understand - perhaps not what true faith is - but at least what it most certainly is not.
