Witt and Wisdom

“I believe that one of the things Christianity says is that sound doctrines are all useless. That you have to change your life. (Or the direction or your life)

It says that wisdom is all cold; and that you can no more use it for setting your life to rights than you can forge iron when it is cold.

The point is that a sound doctrine need not take hold of you; you can follow it as you would a doctor’s prescription. – But here you need something to move you and turn you in a new direction. – (I.e. this is how I understand it.) Once you have been turned round, you must stay turned round.

Wisdom is passionless. But faith by contrast is what Kierkegaard calls a passion.

Religion is, as it were, the calm bottom of the sea at its deepest point, which remains calm however high the waves on the surface may be.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value

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"If a person tells me he has been to the worst places I have no reason to judge him; but if he tells me it was his superior wisdom that enabled him to go there, then I know he is a fraud." Conversation with Rush Rhees

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'Wisdom is grey.' Life, on the other hand, and religion are full of color."  Culture and Value.

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"Wisdom is something I never would expect from Freud. Cleverness, certainly; but not wisdom" (Lectures and Conversations, p. 41).

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"It seems to me that, in every culture, I come across a chapter headed 'Wisdom.' And then I know exactly what is going to follow: 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.'" Conversation with Rush Rhees