Religious Language can be understood in the context of religious belief

Wittgenstein used the example of 'soul' to illustrate the problems of trying to use words in the wrong language 'game'. He felt that the problems stemming from the word 'soul' are caused because people try to see it as a physical object. Such problems would disappear if people realised that the 'physical object game' didn't apply in this case.

It was argued that language is a social product, therefore individuals could not have their own private language as one could not be certain that language was being used correctly. Wittgenstein therefore rejected Descartes view that he had proved his existence because of his private thoughts 'I think therefore I am'.

Wittgenstein believed that only solutions to language were possible. The term 'language games' implies that it is part of an activity. He argued that is usage and meaning is dependent upon its function and society uses language in a specific and agreed way. Wittgenstein called these rules 'grammar', for example, to say that 'God has big feet' is not playing to the rules of the game because a convention says it is inappropriate to God.

Wittgenstein said that 'philosophy may in no way interfere with the usage of language only describe it'. However, to change the description of a language game can have dramatic effects. D.Z. Phillips used the example of 'God is love', which he argued was not a description but a rule for how the word 'God' is to be used. Statements about religious belief are actually descriptions of the grammar of the religious game.

This implies that something cannot be both a rule of grammar and at the same time a description of reality. This approach leaves the religious language game forever defining its own rules. The question is then prompted that if religious language does not get beyond itself to explore reality, how did it get started at all.

Felicity McCutcheon drew some parallels between games and language. This led some to the view that each language games is immune from charges of incoherence and irrationality because it has its own internal criteria of coherence and intelligibility. This presents the danger that each area of life develops its own unique criteria of truth and meaning. McCutcheon illustrates this with the question 'Was Jesus God?', for Neo-Wittgensteinians this cannot be given a yes/no answer but depends on which language 'game' you are in, for instance either the Jewish or Christian game.

Fideism, associates with Luther and Kierkegaard argues that faith is immune to rational investigation and can be internally justified.

Neo-Wittgensteinains argued that religious language cannot be understood as reality depicting. Wittgenstein, however, never made this judgement, only his followers such as D.Z. Phillips.

Wittgenstein's idea of seeing language as a 'game' has been criticised. It is suggested that people of different faith traditions would be caught in their own respective language games and so theoretically should not be able to communicate. However, it is very apparent that they can. Also people of different denominations could be seen to have slightly different rules, akin to the differences between rugby leagues and union. This would imply that they would also not be able to, or have great difficulty in communicating, but they can.

Religious believers are also involved in other language games because they are involved in other aspects of life. This means that religious language is not totally isolated and there will be some common ground with other 'language games'. This may suggest that the non-believer may be able to understand religious language and decide if it holds any meaning for them. It is also argued that if anything, non-believers may be able to understand religious language better than a believer, as they can be more objective about it.

It seems that Wittgenstein was mistaken as seeing religious language only being intelligible in the context of religious belief. Many religious statements entail a truth which is not dependent upon context, but statements such as 'Jesus died to bring salvation' are though of as true for everyone.