Dewi Zephaniah Phillips

1. Introduction

Dewi Zephaniah Phillips (1934–2006) was a Welsh philosopher whose work helped reshape the analytic philosophy of religion in the late twentieth century. Best known as D. Z. Phillips, he developed a distinctively Wittgensteinian approach that treats religious belief not as a scientific or metaphysical theory, but as a complex form of life whose meaning is disclosed in practices such as prayer, worship, and moral deliberation.

Working primarily at Swansea University and later at Claremont Graduate University, Phillips opposed both traditional natural theology, which seeks rational proofs for God’s existence, and various forms of reductive atheism that dismiss religious discourse as mistaken quasi-science. He argued that both sides misconstrue the grammar of religious language by forcing it into explanatory and evidential frameworks that are foreign to the practices in which it is at home.

In influential works such as Religion without Explanation (1976) and Faith after Foundationalism (1988), Phillips advanced an anti-theoretical and post-foundationalist conception of philosophy of religion. The philosopher’s task, he maintained, is not to defend or refute theology, but to describe carefully how religious concepts actually function in people’s lives and to clarify the limits of justification and explanation.

His writings on evil and suffering, especially in The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God, articulated an influential anti-theodicy: the claim that attempts to justify suffering in terms of divine purposes are both conceptually confused and morally troubling. Across his work, Phillips combined minute attention to language with an insistence on the ethical seriousness of religious life, making him a central—though often controversial—figure in late twentieth‑century philosophy of religion.

2. Life and Historical Context

2.1 Early life and education

Phillips was born on 24 November 1934 in Swansea, Wales, into a Welsh‑speaking Nonconformist (Calvinistic Methodist) community. Commentators often emphasize that this bilingual and devout environment familiarized him with the rhythms of preaching, hymnody, and lay piety, shaping his later sensitivity to the lived “grammar” of religious belief. He studied philosophy at the University College of Swansea, then pursued graduate work at Oxford, where he encountered both ordinary language philosophy and the emerging Anglophone reception of Ludwig Wittgenstein.

2.2 Academic career

Phillips began teaching at Swansea, eventually becoming Professor of Philosophy in 1970. Swansea became a nucleus of what later came to be called the “Swansea school”, associated with detailed textual study of Wittgenstein and resistance to large‑scale systems. In 1989 he also assumed the Danforth Chair in Philosophy of Religion at Claremont Graduate University (California), dividing his time between Wales and the United States and broadening his international reach.

2.3 Historical-intellectual setting

Phillips’s career unfolded against several overlapping developments:

Phillips died in Swansea on 25 July 2006 following complications from heart surgery.

3. Intellectual Development and Influences

3.1 Formative Welsh and religious background

Commentators commonly trace Phillips’s enduring concern with religious practice to his early immersion in Welsh Nonconformist life. The preaching tradition, congregational singing, and communal discipline of his youth are often cited as sources for his later insistence that religious meaning is embedded in communal practices rather than in abstract theories.

3.2 Early Wittgensteinian turn

During his student years in Swansea and Oxford (1950s), Phillips encountered Wittgenstein’s later philosophy and the ordinary language movement. The focus on linguistic use, context, and the dissolution of philosophical “problems” strongly influenced him. By the mid‑1960s, in essays and in The Concept of Prayer (1965), he began applying Wittgensteinian ideas to religious language, questioning whether prayer could be understood as a request addressed to a supernatural agent in the same sense as ordinary asking.

3.3 Swansea school consolidation

In the 1970s and early 1980s, as professor at Swansea, Phillips helped consolidate a distinctive Swansea style of philosophical work: close readings of texts, suspicion of system‑building, and emphasis on the “grammar” of key concepts. This environment, shaped also by figures such as R. F. Holland and Peter Winch, reinforced Phillips’s orientation toward descriptive rather than theory‑driven philosophy of religion. Religion without Explanation (1976) and Faith and Philosophical Enquiry (1979) mark this phase.

3.4 Post-foundationalism and later concerns

From the late 1980s, partly prompted by debates about foundationalism, rationality, and pluralism in North American philosophy and theology, Phillips clarified his stance in Faith after Foundationalism (1988). At Claremont he interacted with theologians and religious studies scholars, extending his work to questions of pluralism, literature, and the moral dimensions of religious discourse, including evil, death, and immortality. His later writings reflect an increasing preoccupation with the ethical implications of philosophical approaches to religion and with the limits of what philosophy can responsibly say about suffering and hope.

4. Major Works and Central Themes

4.1 Overview of key works

4.2 Recurrent themes

Several interconnected themes run through these works:

• Religion without explanatory theory: Across multiple books, Phillips argues that religion should not be construed as an explanatory hypothesis about the cosmos that competes with science.
• Grammar of religious concepts: He investigates how concepts such as “God,” “prayer,” “forgiveness,” “hope,” “death,” and “immortality” function in everyday and liturgical contexts.
• Limits of justification: In Faith after Foundationalism, he challenges the idea that faith must rest on universally compelling foundations, while also rejecting easy relativism.
• Evil and anti-theodicy: The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God develops a sustained moral and conceptual critique of attempts to justify suffering in terms of divine purposes.
• Ethics and literature: In works like From Fantasy to Faith, he uses literary narratives to illuminate moral and religious concepts, suggesting that stories can reveal aspects of human life that theoretical argument may miss.

These writings collectively articulate his distinctive philosophical stance: descriptive, anti‑systematic, and focused on the interplay between religious language, practice, and moral life.

5. Core Ideas: Religion, Language, and Form of Life

5.1 Religion as a form of life

Central to Phillips’s thought is the idea, inspired by Wittgenstein, that religion is a form of life—a network of practices, attitudes, and concepts woven into everyday existence. Religious beliefs are not primarily theoretical claims about hidden entities; they are expressions of a way of living that includes worship, repentance, gratitude, lament, and hope.

Proponents of this reading of Phillips emphasize that, for him, asking whether “God exists” functions differently within such a form of life than asking whether electrons exist in physics. The criteria of sense and correctness for religious utterances are internal to practices and traditions, not supplied by an external theoretical framework.

5.2 Grammar of religious language

Phillips uses grammar (in a Wittgensteinian sense) to refer to the rules and criteria governing how religious terms are used. The task of philosophy, on his view, is to “describe the uses of religious concepts so that their point in people’s lives can be seen.”

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“The philosopher of religion has no theological or anti-theological theory to advance; his task is to describe the uses of religious concepts so that their point in people’s lives can be seen.”

— D. Z. Phillips, Faith and Philosophical Enquiry (paraphrased)

This grammatical focus leads him to question whether many traditional philosophical disputes—about proofs for God, divine attributes, or miracles—rest on misunderstandings of how such concepts actually function in religious practice.

5.3 Non-competition with science

For Phillips, religious discourse does not offer explanations of natural phenomena in rivalry with science. Instead, it offers ways of seeing the world—for example, as created, forgiven, or redeemed—that are expressed in distinctive practices. Supporters argue that this view dissolves many conflicts between religion and science by showing that they occupy different logical and practical roles.

Critics, however, contend that Phillips underestimates the extent to which many religious believers do treat doctrines as factual claims about reality. Debate continues over how far his “form of life” and “grammar” approach can accommodate doctrinal, historical, and metaphysical dimensions of religious traditions.

6. Methodology: Grammatical and Anti-Theoretical Philosophy

6.1 Descriptive, not constructive, philosophy

Phillips characterizes his method as grammatical investigation: careful, context-sensitive description of how words are used. He resists both system-building and the construction of new theories—whether theological or skeptical—about religion. On his account, philosophy is not another discipline alongside theology and science; it is an activity that clarifies what is already before us in language and practice.

6.2 Anti-theoretical stance

In Religion without Explanation, Phillips criticizes what he sees as the philosophical drive to turn religion into a theory that explains the world, human experience, or morality. He applies this critique both to natural theology and to atheistic accounts that treat religion as a failed explanatory hypothesis. Proponents of his approach argue that by refusing to offer replacement theories, Phillips avoids simply adding yet another “philosophy of religion” system to those he criticizes.

Some critics respond that his anti-theoretical stance is itself a substantive philosophical position—one that may smuggle in contested assumptions about meaning, reference, and rationality under the guise of mere description.

6.3 Attention to examples and practices

Methodologically, Phillips frequently turns to concrete examples—prayers, funeral rites, pastoral situations, literary narratives—to illuminate the logic of religious concepts. He often asks what would count as understanding or misunderstanding a religious utterance in its natural setting, and what role such utterances play in the lives of believers.

6.4 Limits of philosophy

Phillips insists on limits to philosophy’s reach. Once conceptual confusions are cleared away, remaining difficulties may belong not to philosophy but to life itself—grief, guilt, or the struggle to forgive. He argues that philosophy should not seek to replace pastoral care, liturgy, or personal transformation.

Supporters see this as a safeguard against philosophical overreach; detractors sometimes worry that it curtails legitimate critical scrutiny of religious beliefs and practices.

7. Faith, Foundationalism, and Rationality

7.1 Critique of foundationalism

In Faith after Foundationalism, Phillips addresses debates about whether religious belief requires neutral, universal foundations—self‑evident truths, incorrigible experiences, or shared rational criteria. He argues that the demand for such foundations misconstrues both faith and the limits of justification.

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“To ask for foundations for faith which would be acceptable to those who do not share it is to misunderstand both the nature of faith and the limits of justification.”

— D. Z. Phillips, Faith after Foundationalism (paraphrased)

On his view, faith is embedded in a form of life; its intelligibility and support come from within that context rather than from an imagined neutral standpoint.

7.2 Post-foundationalism without relativism

Phillips describes his position as post‑foundationalist but seeks to avoid relativism. He maintains that religious beliefs remain open to criticism—conceptual, moral, and practical—even though they are not grounded in universal proofs. Critique operates from within or between traditions by clarifying what commitments actually involve and by exposing distortions, confusions, or moral failures.

Supporters argue that this approach preserves both the historical particularity of faith and the possibility of responsible criticism. Some opponents contend that without shared foundations it becomes difficult to adjudicate between conflicting religious and non‑religious outlooks.

7.3 Rationality as internal to practices

For Phillips, rationality is not a single, context‑free standard but is partly constituted by the rules and aims internal to practices. The rational assessment of religious belief, therefore, requires understanding what counts as a good reason, a sincere confession, or an appropriate act of trust within a given religious form of life.

Critics from more traditional apologetic perspectives often argue that Phillips underplays the role of evidence and argument for or against God’s existence. Others, especially some Wittgensteinian and pragmatist thinkers, welcome his attempt to reconceive rationality in more practice‑oriented terms while continuing to debate how far this reconception should go.

8. Evil, Suffering, and Anti-Theodicy

8.1 Critique of theodicy

In The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God, Phillips develops a sustained critique of theodicy—philosophical attempts to justify God’s goodness in the face of evil and suffering. He argues that such projects are often both conceptually misguided and morally objectionable.

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“When evil is used as material for theodicies, suffering is no longer suffered with but explained away; the sufferers themselves disappear from view.”

— D. Z. Phillips, The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God (paraphrased)

On his view, transforming concrete suffering into data for theoretical justification risks trivializing the reality of loss and pain.

8.2 Anti-theodicy and religious response

Phillips’s anti-theodicy does not deny that religious people seek meaning amid suffering, but he contends that appropriately religious responses involve lament, protest, compassion, and trust rather than intellectual justification of evil. Within some Christian traditions, he interprets talk of the cross, resurrection, or providence not as explanations of why specific evils occur, but as modes of living with suffering and hope.

Supporters of anti-theodicy draw on Phillips to argue that faith should stand with sufferers, not over them with theoretical reconstructions. Critics, including some philosophers and theologians, reply that certain forms of theodicy aim precisely to support sufferers’ faith and can be offered with pastoral sensitivity; they question whether Phillips’s position unduly restricts theological reflection.

8.3 Conceptual analysis of evil and God

Phillips also re-examines the concepts of “evil” and “God” involved in the problem of evil. He suggests that when God is treated as a kind of moral agent among others, responsible for distributing benefits and harms, the ensuing problem may be a product of a distorted grammar of “God”. His investigations seek to uncover alternative ways religious language portrays God’s relation to suffering, sometimes focusing less on causal explanations and more on presence, judgment, or solidarity.

Debate persists over whether his reconstrual adequately addresses the depth of the problem of evil or sidesteps it by redefining key terms.

9. Impact on Philosophy of Religion and Theology

9.1 Influence within philosophy of religion

Phillips became a leading figure in a Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion that challenged the dominant evidentialist and natural theological paradigms in Anglophone philosophy. His work encouraged a shift from constructing arguments for and against God’s existence toward conceptual analysis of religious practices. The Swansea school amplified this influence, mentoring students and producing scholarship that extended his methods into ethics, social philosophy, and the philosophy of the social sciences.

Some philosophers welcomed this redirection as a needed corrective to overly abstract debates. Others argued that Phillips’s approach marginalized traditional apologetic and metaphysical questions, prompting an ongoing discussion about the proper scope of philosophy of religion.

9.2 Engagement with theology

Theologians and religious thinkers have responded to Phillips in diverse ways:

His work became a reference point in debates about whether Wittgensteinian approaches relativize theology to language‑games or, conversely, illuminate the internal logic of doctrinal traditions.

9.3 Interdisciplinary reach

Phillips’s writings on literature, death, and common life influenced discussions in religious studies, ethics, and pastoral theology. His analyses of prayer, repentance, and consolation provided conceptual tools for scholars examining specific religious practices.

At the same time, some critics in religious studies argued that his close focus on language and practice left broader historical, sociological, and comparative questions underexplored, stimulating further work that sought to integrate his insights with wider empirical approaches.

10. Legacy and Historical Significance

10.1 Place in twentieth-century philosophy

Phillips is often regarded as one of the most prominent exponents of a Wittgensteinian, anti‑theoretical approach to religion. Historically, he stands as a counterpart to contemporaries who revitalized natural theology and analytic theism. While they sought rigorous arguments for God’s existence, Phillips questioned whether such arguments captured what is most characteristic of religious belief.

10.2 Contribution to reconfiguring the field

His work contributed to a reconfiguration of philosophy of religion by:

These contributions have made him a regular point of reference in surveys of late twentieth‑century philosophy of religion.

10.3 Continuing debates and reassessments

Phillips’s legacy remains contested. Admirers see in his work a powerful reminder of the ethical responsibilities of philosophers of religion and a model of close, text‑sensitive analysis. Critics continue to question whether his emphasis on grammar neglects historical development, metaphysics, or inter‑religious comparison.

Subsequent scholarship has variously extended, revised, or opposed his positions, leading to ongoing discussions about:

• How to balance descriptive and critical tasks in philosophy of religion.
• Whether forms‑of‑life and grammatical approaches can accommodate doctrinal and metaphysical commitments.
• How anti-theodicy relates to pastoral care and political responses to suffering.

Within this evolving landscape, Phillips is widely viewed as a key figure whose work helped define one major trajectory in the contemporary study of religion and philosophy.