NOTES
Chapter Three
Human Certitude in Concrete Matters of Truth
The central element in Newman’s mature Catholic notion of faith is certitude. Human certitude in concrete matters of truth serves as the basic analogy for Newman’s mature understanding of Catholic faith. In A Grammar of Assent, Newman presents a systematic and clear, although challenging, justification of certitude, both human certitude and the certitude of Catholic faith. Through this analysis of the rational justification of certitude, he overcomes the limitations of his treatment of this question in the University Sermons and provides a framework for responding to the objections of William Froude. This chapter presents an analysis of the basic terms that are central to Newman’s understanding of human certitude and explains the relationship between the different terms. In addition, a description of Newman’s understanding of the process by which a person arrives at human certitude in concrete matters of truth is presented.
In A Grammar of Assent, Newman divides the analysis of the justification of certitude into two parts. The first part deals with the relation of assent to apprehension and seeks to show that it is legitimate to believe what one cannot fully understand. In the second part, he treats inference, assent, certitude, informal reasoning, and the illative sense in order to show how a person is justified in believing what one cannot prove. Edward Caswall, a fellow Oratorian of Newman, confirms this interpretation in a note that he wrote in his copy of A Grammar of Assent after a conversation with Newman: “Object of book twofold. In the first part shows that you can believe what you cannot understand. In the second part that you can believe what you cannot absolutely prove.”1
THE FIRST QUESTION: BELIEVE WHAT YOU CANNOT FULLY UNDERSTAND
In the first part of A Grammar of Assent, Newman sets out to explain what he means by assent, and the main forms of assent. He classifies assent as an assertion. 2 Assent is unconditional.3 It is the absolute acceptance of the truth of a statement.4 Assent admits of no degrees;5 it is an either/or reality. Either you assent to a statement or you do not; there is no middle ground. He describes assent as “an adherence to a proposition without reserve or doubt.”6 If a person unconditionally accepts the truth of such statements as “Great Britain is an island,” “I shall die one day,” or “George Washington was the first president of the United States,” then that person has given an assent.
Apprehension
Newman reminds us that assent to the truth of these types of statements does not require a complete understanding of the particular statement. However, assent does require what he calls apprehension. Before one can assent to the truth of a statement, there must be some intelligent apprehension of it.7 Newman states that by apprehension, he means “our imposition of a sense on the terms of which they are composed. Now what do the terms of a proposition, the subject and predicate stand for?”8 Explaining it further, Newman states, “Apprehension then is simply an intelligent acceptance of the idea, or of the fact which a proposition enunciates.”9 In the statement “Great Britain is an island,” one can easily grasp the sense of the subject and the predicate. The subject refers to “Great Britain” and the predicate to that characteristic which is attributed to it—namely, it is an “island.”
In discussing what measure of apprehension is necessary in order to give assent to a statement, Newman says that we must at least understand the predicate. A statement is apprehended when the predicate is apprehended. The subject need not be apprehended per se (in itself) in order to give assent, for it is the thing that the predicate has to elucidate and make known. But, obviously, the predicate cannot do this unless it is known itself. In the statement “Trade is the interchange of goods,” Newman says that this statement is apprehended when the predicate, “the interchange of goods,” is apprehended.10 What becomes clear is that apprehending a statement is not the same as understanding it. Newman says that he is deliberately using the word apprehension and not understanding because the meaning of “understanding” is uncertain, “standing sometimes for the faculty or act of conceiving a proposition, sometimes for that of comprehending it, neither of which come into the sense of apprehension.”11 For Newman, it is possible to apprehend a statement without understanding it. The statement “John is Richard’s wife’s father’s aunt’s husband” can be apprehended even if its full meaning, “John is great-uncle-in-law to Richard,” is not understood.12
After explaining the meaning of apprehension, Newman distinguishes between two forms of apprehension, notional and real. The distinction between the two forms of apprehension is rooted in his understanding that propositions, statements of truth, are either real or notional. The apprehension of a notional proposition is called “notional.”13 Notional propositions are common nouns that stand for abstract, general, and nonexisting entities. In notional apprehension, things are perceived not as they are in themselves, but as they stand in relation to each other.14 A person is not an individual but a member of the human race who possesses a human nature. The person is “attenuated into an aspect, or relegated to his place in a classification.”15 A person becomes a definition.16 Things are “diluted or starved into abstract notions.”17 Notional apprehension comes from abstraction, rather than from experience. The apprehension of the statement “Man is an animal” is an example of notional apprehension.
The apprehension of real propositions is called “real apprehension.”18 Real propositions are composed of “singular nouns” and stand for things external to us that are unit, particular, and individual. Real apprehension is an experience or information about the concrete. It is the apprehension of experiences that we become aware of through our bodily senses or our mental sensations, such as when we say, “The sun is shining.”19 Memory is also another medium that enables us to experience things. “Memory consists in a present imagination of things that are past.”20 Real apprehension is available through all of the senses, the smell of a rose, the scent of clean, fresh air, the memory of a song, the flavor of a peach,21 and, I might add, the feel of hitting a solid golf shot. Real apprehension is the apprehension of things based on experience. The apprehension of the statement “Great Britain is an island” is an example of a real proposition.
Newman goes on to say that some propositions may be apprehended with both notional and real apprehension. It is possible for one person to apprehend a proposition as a notion and for another person to apprehend it as real. He gives this example: A nurse who gives a child candy may say “notionally,” “Sugar is sweet,” while the child tasting it assents to the “real” experienced particular proposition, “This sugar is a sweet thing.”22 It also is possible for the same person to simultaneously apprehend the same proposition as both notional and real.23 In a classroom experiment, the students may have a real apprehension of the proposition “fire burns paper,” and, at the same time, have a notional apprehension of the general law of nature that “fire burns paper.”
Comparing notional and real apprehension, Newman states that each has its own excellence and serviceableness, and each has its own imperfections. Notional apprehension provides a certain breadth of mind but, at the same time, includes an element of shallowness. It is the principle of the advancement of knowledge. Real apprehension is to be deep, but narrow-minded, and is the conservative principle of apprehension.24 Newman does think that real apprehension takes precedence over notional apprehension. Real apprehension is the scope, end, and the test of notional apprehension. Although real apprehension does not impel to action any more than notional apprehension, it does excite and stimulate the affections and passions. As a result, real apprehension can indirectly affect action in a way that notional apprehension never could.25
Of the two forms of apprehension, Newman says that real is the stronger. By stronger, he means “the more vivid and forcible.”26 Explaining further, Newman says that real apprehension is stronger than notional because the object is more powerful. The concrete reality makes an impression on the mind that nothing abstract can rival.27 Real things are more impressive and affective than notions. He writes, “Experiences and their images strike and occupy the mind, as abstractions and their combinations do not.”28 The variations in the mind’s apprehension of a statement of truth, Newman says, lead people to speak about strong and weak assents. This gives the impression that there can be degrees of assent. However, he rejects this, pointing out that even though apprehension can be more or less, assent is always unconditional and therefore admits of no degrees.29
Assent
Assent, similar to apprehension, can also be either notional or real. Notional assent is the assent given to statements of truth that have been apprehended as notions, statements that are general and abstract. In notional assent, the mind contemplates its own creations rather than things.30 An example would be I assent to the statement that “man is an animal.” In A Grammar of Assent, Newman discusses five types of notional assent: profession, credence, opinion, presumption, and speculation.31 Real assent, on the other hand, is the assent given to statements of truth that have been apprehended as things, or real objects, through the imagination and experience. Real assent is directed toward things represented by the impressions that the object has left on the imagination. These images, when assented to, exercise an influence on both the individual and society that mere notions cannot exert.32 Newman also refers to real assent as belief, conviction, and certitude.33
One important characteristic of real assent is that it is a highly personal response. Real assents are the specific assents of distinct and individual persons. They have this characteristic because they are based on personal experience, and, as Newman states, “the experience of one man is not the experience of another.”34 Another important characteristic of real assent is its relationship to action. According to Newman, neither notional assent nor real assent in itself leads immediately and automatically to action. Nevertheless, real assent—or belief, as Newman calls it here—may indirectly lead to action. “The concrete images experienced through real assent have the power to move the affections and the passions and, thereby, indirectly to lead to action.”35
Through the discussion of apprehension and assent and the relationship between the two, Newman has given his answer to the first question raised in A Grammar of Assent, how can one assent to what one does not understand? In our everyday life, there are many concrete truths that we accept that we do not fully understand. For Newman, this process is not irrational or against our nature as long as we can apprehend the predicate of a statement of truth. The truths and beliefs that we accept have to make sense—that is, be intelligible—and we have to see how they make sense, but we do not have to have a complete understanding of them.
THE SECOND QUESTION: BELIEVE WHAT YOU CANNOT ABSOLUTELY PROVE
Newman addresses the second question, how in concrete matters of truth one is justified in believing what one cannot prove, in chapter 6 of A Grammar of Assent. The context for his answer to this question is found in his understanding of the distinction between assent and inference. This insight came to Newman in 1866 when he was in Switzerland, and it provided the breakthrough that enabled him to complete A Grammar of Assent. Of this experience he writes, “At last, when I was up at Glion over the lake of Geneva, it struck me. You are wrong in beginning with certitude—certitude is only a kind of assent—you should begin with contrasting assent and inference.”36 For Newman, the basis of this distinction lies in the fact that assent is unconditional, while inference is conditional. In developing this section of A Grammar of Assent, he states that he is going to consider three points: the act of assent, the act of inference, and the solution to the question of how a conditional verification of a proposition can result in an unconditional assent. 37 He begins this discussion by analyzing a particular form of assent: certitude.
Certitude
As a form of assent, certitude is the unconditional acceptance of the truth of a proposition with the awareness that one consciously knows that the statement to which one assents is in fact true. An assent of certitude takes the following form: “I accept the statement that I shall die one day is true and I know that the statement is true.” As such, the act of certitude for Newman includes two moments, the moment of simple assent and the moment of complex assent. Certitude occurs when both come together.
Simple assent is the unconscious acceptance of the truth of a statement.38 In simple assent, a person accepts the truth of a statement without reflecting on what he or she is doing.39 Simple assent is the nonreflex acceptance of a proposition. According to Newman, the overwhelming majority of the assents on which we base our everyday living fall into this category.40 It is clear that, for Newman, simple assent is not certitude. He calls it “material certitude” or “interpretive certitude,” meaning that all one has to do is raise a question about the truth of a simple object in order to elicit from the person a response that will fulfill the conditions of certitude.41 Even though simple assent is not itself certitude, it is the basis and foundation of certitude.
Complex assent is an assent that is made consciously and deliberately. Newman calls this type of assent reflex assent.42 A complex assent is an assent not only to a given statement but to the claim that the statement to which one assents is in fact true. Newman says it is an “assent to an assent, or what is commonly called conviction.”43 Complex assent is the characteristic element of certitude.44
However, certitude itself is a complex act that includes both simple assent and complex assent.45 The assent of certitude always includes a simple assent, either real or notional, to the truth of a given statement. But an assent of certitude involves more than this because certitude is “the perception of a truth with the perception that it is a truth, or the consciousness of knowing as expressed in the phrase, ‘I know that I know.’”46 Certitude is therefore an assent to a truth with the awareness that what one is assenting to is true. It is always a reflex act. And it is this conscious reflex act, a complex assent, that distinguishes certitude from simple assent and is the essential element of certitude. To the extent that it is a reflex assent, certitude is an assent to a notional proposition. The predicate of a reflex assent is always the abstract term true. For example, the assent to the statement “that I shall die one day is true” has a general term, true, as its predicate and is therefore a notional assent.47 Consequentially, certitude is always also a notional assent.
In certitude, the simple assent can be real or notional, but the complex reflex assent is always notional. For example, an assent of certitude to the proposition “Great Britain is an island” includes a real assent to the statement as well as a complex notional assent that “I know that the statement ‘Great Britain is an island’ is true.” On the other hand, an assent of certitude to the statement “man is an animal” includes a notional simple assent as well as the complex notional assent that “I know that the statement ‘man is an animal’ is true.” Certitude combines the keenness of simple assent with the persistence of a reflex, complex assent.
Certitude and Doubt
The assent of certitude excludes doubt. As an assent, certitude has the characteristic of all assents, which means, as Newman states in A Grammar of Assent , that it is the acceptance of a proposition without reserve or doubt.48 In an earlier work in 1853, he describes the state of certitude as follows: “First by the very word [certainty] is implied the absence of doubt; if a person doubts ever so little, he is not certain; and if he does not doubt, he may be called, and is truly called, certain.”49 In A Grammar of Assent, he describes the type of doubt that is incompatible with certitude as “suspense of mind.”50 Defined in this sense, doubt is the state of withholding assent to the truth of a statement. It is a refusal to make a judgment. As such, it is neither a yes nor a no.
From this definition of doubt, it is clear that certitude and doubt are incompatible on the basis of their very definitions. You cannot have certitude about the proposition “Great Britain is an island,” that is assent to its truth, and at the same time withhold assent to this proposition. Logically and psychologically, it is impossible to hold the two states of mind toward the same statement at the same time. According to Ferreira, Newman understands doubt to include not only withholding assent to a proposition but also withholding assent to the alternative contradictory proposition. Doubt is the refusal to assent to both “p” and “not p.”51 However, while the assent of certitude by definition is incapable of coexisting with doubt, the propositions to which we assent are not in themselves beyond doubt in an absolute sense. Therefore, while certitude excludes actual doubt at the moment of assent, it does not exclude the possibility of doubt.52
The Indefectibility of Certitude
Certitude also has the characteristic that Newman calls “indefectibility.” This means that certitudes are persistent and never fail. The object of certitude is truth, and, therefore, for Newman, it has the quality of being correct. Truth, Newman states, cannot change; “what is once truth is always truth; and the human mind is made for truth, and so rests in truth, as it cannot rest in falsehood.” 53 Since it is the law of the mind to seek truth, when it finds it and takes possession of it, it never lets it go. When the mind reaches certitude, it has found truth; therefore, it rests in that state.54 Indefectibility is the characteristic of certitude that ensures its endurance. It also serves as a kind of test of certitude. If a certitude persists, it is true; if it does not persist, then it is false. It is also important to point out that, for Newman, indefectibility is the general rule to which there can be exceptions. He does not present it as an absolute.55
Although Newman insisted on indefectibility as a characteristic of certitude, he does not identify indefectibility with infallibility. Certitudes, for Newman, are not infallible. Certitude is a disposition, not a faculty, of the mind relative to a definite and particular proposition, while infallibility is a faculty and relates the mind to “all possible propositions in a given subject matter.”56 Infallibility is a general gift applicable to every particular case that may arise, but certitude is directed to a definite concrete proposition. To say that a person possesses certitude is not to affirm that he or she possesses infallibility. 57
That certitude is not infallibility is also evident from the fact that Newman holds that a person’s certitudes are often false and mistaken and can be changed.58 Certitudes can be false, not because they are not real certitudes but because they are founded on faulty reasoning. As an assent, certitude is always preceded by a process of reasoning that presents truth to the mind. If there is any error in certitude, it is the reasoning process that is false and not the assent. Newman states that it is a law of nature to assent to what reasoning presents as true. We would be acting against our nature if we withheld assent from a statement that we considered as being proven true.59 False certitudes do exist. However, to argue against the validity and reasonableness of certitude because of the existence of mistaken certitudes would be like arguing against the use of clocks because some of them go wrong from time to time.60 When it comes to distinguishing true and false certitude, Newman admits that there is no interior, immediate test. However, he holds that indefectibility serves as a kind of negative test—if the certitude does not persist, then it is false.61 But, perhaps the best safeguard against false certitude is the stipulation that certitude should be given only after careful examination and investigation.
Inference and Assent
After examining the assent of certitude, Newman next sets out to further explain inference and its relation to assent. In general, inference is the process of reasoning, either implicit or explicit, in which the mind proceeds from premises and evidence to a conclusion. Inference focuses on the reasons and the evidence for and against assenting to the truth of a statement. It considers the cogency of a proposition. To be rational, assent should have grounds and reasons; therefore, it needs to be preceded by inferential acts. However, assent does not automatically follow from inference. Even if the reasons are good, assent may be withheld, or, if given, it may be withdrawn.62 Inference and assent are distinct acts of the mind, and they can be made independently of one another.63
What inference and assent hold in common is that each is the acceptance of a proposition, a statement of truth. However, inference holds a proposition conditionally, while assent is the unconditional acceptance of a proposition.64 For Newman, this is the main quality that distinguishes inference and assent. Inference is conditional; assent is unconditional. The strength of an inference depends on the cogency of the evidence. This is not the case with assent. Assent is not given in proportion to the strength of the evidence. It is not given in degrees but, rather, is an unconditional acceptance of the truth of a statement. In assent, you either accept or you don’t, and, if you do, your acceptance is unconditional.
Some interpreters of Newman find his explanation of the distinction between inference and assent to be a bit ambiguous. Commenting on this ambiguity, William Fey states that the inference/assent distinction “should not be taken merely as a distinction between ‘thinking about an inference’ and ‘actually inferring,’ or between an ‘inclination’ to accept the conclusion of an inference and actually accepting it.”65 Fey thinks that the inference/assent distinction is best expressed as a distinction between merely concluding and knowing. He gives the following example: An astronomer may conclude from his many calculations that there should be an unobserved planet. However, he assents (knows) through a complex intellectual activity that he is presently sitting on a chair.66 Ian Ker reminds us that in the inference/assent distinction, Newman only intends to make a logical distinction “between two kinds of acts and the linguistic forms of proposition expressing them.”67 Ker goes on to point out that the distinction between inference and assent is not the difference between recognizing reasons for assenting and actually assenting. Conditional inferential propositions express conclusions and imply a dependence on other propositions, whereas assents accept propositions without any such implications. What the distinction really points out is that there are different kinds of intellectual and verbal acts involved in assent and inference. 68 Inference and assent are not two totally separate acts but distinct moments in the acceptance of the truth of a proposition.
Forms of Inference
In developing his understanding of inference, Newman distinguishes between three forms, or phases, of inference: formal, informal, and natural. Formal inference is logical and syllogistic reasoning. It is the conceptually clear and explicit passage from one assertion to the other. As such, the Aristotelian syllogism is its model; because A is B and B is C, A is C.69 Formal inference is “verbal reasoning” of whatever kind as opposed to mental.70 It is ratiocination “restricted and put into grooves.”71 Formal inference is the type of inference used in mathematics.72 This type of reasoning focuses on mental abstractions. It begins with the abstract and leads to the abstract.73 Formal inference can only lead to an abstract notional assent that seems hypothetical as far as real existence is concerned.74
Informal inference is that form of reasoning that is concrete and can lead to real assent. In describing the characteristics of informal inference, Newman states that it is one and the same with formal inference, except that it, unlike formal inference, does not deal with abstraction, but is carried out in the realities of life.75 Also, he states that the process of reasoning in informal inference is “more or less implicit, and without the direct and full advertence of the mind exercising it.”76 Finally, he reminds us that informal inference, like all inference, is conditional and therefore dependent on its premises and evidence.77
The process of informal reasoning is best illustrated by what Newman calls “the cumulation of probabilities.”78 Taking the example of the proposition “I shall die,” he describes the process that informal reasoning follows in arriving at conclusions in concrete matters. It is a fact, as certain as we are alive right now, Newman reminds us, that we shall die one day. But, he asks, on what evidence can we be certain of this concrete truth? There are no logical arguments that can demonstrate the truth of this statement. In fact, it is not possible to logically demonstrate a future event. So, what evidence do we have? We have been taught that there is a general law of death, “all humans shall die.” We sometimes actually see people die and attend their funerals. Also, we do not know of anyone who was born two hundred years ago who is alive today. All of these, and others not mentioned, are reasons that informal inference considers when reflecting on the proposition “I shall die.” However, none of these reasons in themselves prove the truth of the statement. Each represents probable evidence of the truth of the statement.79 It is informal inference that enables the mind to move from the cumulation of probable evidence to the assent of certitude to the statement that “I shall die.”80
Natural inference, which Newman also calls material inference, is reason as a simple act, not as a process. It is, Newman says, our most natural mode of reasoning “from things to things, from concrete to concrete, from whole to wholes.”81 It is not reasoning from proposition to proposition. This form of reason deals “with things directly, and as they stand, one by one, in the concrete, with an intrinsic and personal power.”82 There is no conscious process involved in natural inference. Newman says that it proceeds without any conscious media and without any conscious antecedents.83 It can be called an instinctive process of reasoning if one means by instinct “a perception of facts without assignable media of perceiving.”84 He also calls natural inference “spontaneous ratiocination (reasoning).”85
This type of reasoning is natural to all human persons, but interestingly enough, Newman says, it belongs more to women than to men.86 To illustrate natural inference, he gives the example of a weather-wise peasant who knows what the weather will be tomorrow because “he feels at once and together the force of various combined phenomena, though he is not conscious of them.”87 As an example of natural inference, Newman also mentions a physician who excels in the diagnosis of illnesses without being able to demonstrate his or her decision to another doctor. Newman also sees Newton’s perception of mathematics and Napoleon’s military genius as illustrations of natural inference.88 These illustrations help highlight one of the main characteristics of natural inference. It is a type of reasoning that is attached to a given subject matter and varies from individual to individual. A person’s ability to exercise natural inference is restricted to a given area of knowledge. It is, as Newman states, departmental and cannot be exercised in all areas of knowledge. Some may have this faculty in mathematics, some in medicine, some in politics, and some in matters of religion, but not everyone has it equally in all areas of knowledge.89
The Process of Arriving at Certitude
Having examined certitude and the various forms of inference, we now come to the main issue that occupies Newman in A Grammar of Assent, his explanation of the process of how the human mind reaches certitude in concrete matters of truth. At the beginning of this discussion, it is important to recall that certitude is an assent and, as such, is preceded by an act of inference. Also, certitude is both a real assent to a concrete reality and a notional assent recognizing that the proposition to which one assents is in fact true. The question being discussed here really is, Which type of inference, formal, informal, or natural, is best able to facilitate and prepare the person for the assent of certitude in matters of concrete truths such as “Great Britain is an island” or “I shall die”?
It is unambiguously clear that, for Newman, formal inference cannot lead to certitude in concrete matters of truth. For one thing, formal inference can only hold notional propositions and lead to notional assent. Certitude is at one level a real assent. Newman goes on to point out and demonstrate that in concrete matters of truth, formal inference can only conclude probabilities. He presents and analyzes two reasons in his discussion of this point: First, the premises of formal reason are assumed and not proved; second, the conclusion of formal inference can only lead to abstract truth, not concrete truths.
Informal inference through the cummulation of probabilities is the form of reasoning that facilitates a person’s ability to arrive at certitude in matters of concrete truth.90 As a form of reason that holds real propositions, informal inference can place the mind in contact with real things and, therefore, lead to a real assent. However, informal inference is always inference and is therefore always conditional. Informal inference in itself cannot lead to an unconditional assent of certitude. The mind requires another faculty to enable informal inference to move through its own conditionality to an unconditional assent of certitude. The specific nature of this faculty, the illative sense, will be examined after the discussion of natural inference.
The role that natural inference plays in this whole process is rather puzzling. Ferreira points out that, since the chapter on inference in A Grammar of Assent is divided into three sections—formal inference, informal inference, and natural inference—one is led to assume that natural inference is a third kind of inference, on the same level with formal and informal. However, in fact, she says, Newman seems to see the discussion of natural inference merely as a continuation of the section on informal inference.91 If this is the case, then natural inference can be understood as an unconscious and spontaneous form of informal inference. Informal inference is the deliberate, conscious, mediated, and explicit form of reasoning that places the mind in touch with the concrete and the real. Natural inference is an unconscious, unmediated, implicit form of reasoning that also places the mind in contact with the concrete and the real. Natural inference means making a judgment in the concrete world by going from facts presented by what’s out there to a conclusion driven by them, but without using any middle terms. One looks at the sky and says it will rain tomorrow.
Ferreira suggests that “natural inference may be the most immediate form of informal inference—differing in degree of conscious mediation.”92 Adding to the difficulty of understanding natural inference is the fact that Newman himself calls it the illative faculty; “Sometimes, I say this illative faculty [natural inference] is nothing short of genius.”93 Consequently, the precise role of natural inference in the process of reaching certitude in matters of concrete truth remains somewhat unclear. Yet, because of where Newman places his discussion of it, natural inference appears to be a bridge between informal inference and the illative sense, the crucial element in Newman’s explanation of certitude in matters of concrete truth.
The Illative Sense
One question still remains unanswered in Newman’s attempt to explain how a person arrives at certitude: Does the mind have any criterion for determining the validity of its movement from informal inference, which presents probable evidence and can lead only to conditional conclusions, to the unconditional assent of certitude? He states the question as follows: “[I]s there any criterion of the accuracy of an inference, such as may be our warrant that certitude is rightly elicited in favour of the proposition inferred, since our warrant cannot, as I have said, be scientific?”94 For Newman, there is such a criterion, and he calls it the illative sense. In answering his own question, Newman writes, “I have already said that the sole and final judgment on the validity of an inference in concrete matters is committed to the personal action of the ratiocinative [reasoning] faculty, the perfection or virtue of which I have called the Illative Sense.”95 Clarifying his answer, Newman states that he is using the word sense in a meaning parallel to how it is used in “good sense,” “common sense,” and a “sense of beauty.”96 The illative sense is, as Newman puts it, “a grand word for a common thing.”97 He calls it the “architectonic faculty”98 and a “living organon.”99 It is the power of “judging and concluding” in its perfection.100 Newman states that the illative sense “has its function in the beginning, middle, and the end of all verbal discussion and inquiry, and in every step of the process.”101 He compares it with the term phonesis (judgment), which Aristotle used to designate the faculty that guides the mind in matters of conduct.102
Newman summarizes his understanding of the illative sense in four points. First, the illative sense is exercised in one and the same way in all concrete matters. We do not reason in different ways in different areas of knowledge. Our reasoning is the same in chemistry or law as it is in morals and religion.103 However, as the second point shows, the exercise of the illative sense by an individual person is restricted to a particular area of knowledge. One person may possess it in history, another in philosophy, and so forth. No one person possesses it in all branches of knowledge.104 Third, in proceeding to its conclusion, the illative sense proceeds by that method of reasoning that is “the elementary principle of that mathematical calculus of modern times, which has so wonderfully extended the limits of abstract science.”105 Finally, Newman states that the illative sense is its own sanction. In all areas of concrete reasoning, whether it be experimental science, historical research, or theology, the “trustworthiness” of the illative sense is the “ultimate test of all truth and error in our inferences.” 106 Elaborating on this aspect of the illative sense, he states that it is “a rule to itself” and it “appeals to no judgment beyond its own.”107
When it works in its perfection, the illative sense enables the mind to sift through probabilities to obtain the assent of certitude. It is the illative sense that accumulates the probable evidence, perceives the probabilities as a whole, recognizes that the conclusion toward which they converge cannot be other than true, and then judges the conclusion to be true. Philip Flanagan says that it is the power of reasoning correctly that enables the mind “to see how much the evidence contains and of judging correctly the point at which it becomes sufficient to justify certitude.”108 The illative sense needs evidence, but the evidence never gets beyond a tendency.
Newman uses the example of a polygon. A polygon inscribed in a circle tends to become that circle as its sides are diminished. However, the polygon vanishes before it coincides with the circle. It never gets beyond a tendency to become a circle.109 Likewise, probable evidence never gets beyond a tendency to conclude to a truth. However, the illative sense can lead the mind beyond this tendency to a conclusion to a truth. In comprehending the premises, it perceives the legitimate conclusion in and through the premises. Newman says that “the practiced and experienced mind is able to make a sure divination that a conclusion is inevitable, of which his lines of reasoning do not actually put him in possession.”110 Though the evidence does not provide logical proof, the judgment of the illative sense through informal reasoning can lead the mind to certitude because there is “genuine proof.”111 Therefore, Newman can say that a proposition arrived at in this way is “as good as proved” and that the conclusion is undeniable “as if it were proved,” and the reasons for it amount to a proof.112 At this moment, the assent of certitude becomes the only rational reaction. The mind makes a real assent to the truth of the proposition while acknowledging through a notional assent that “I know that I know” that this proposition is true.
It is clear that, for Newman, the illative sense is a faculty of the mind. He calls it a “ratiocinative (reasoning) faculty.”113 However, the illative sense is not really a distinct faculty added to the normal operations of the mind in order to serve the special functions of certitude. Rather, it is part of the normal operation of the mind that the mind always follows in concrete matters of truth. The illative sense is not just a feeling or a moral quality, but it performs a valid intellectual function of the mind. It is a power of concluding that tells one that the evidence is sufficient to make a conclusion. Edward Jeremy Miller writes, “the illative sense leads a person to conclude that a particular insight is the upshot of it all, that no further evidence is needed, and that now is the moment to decide.”114 As an intellectual faculty, its conclusions are not merely practical but judgments of truth. What Newman is really saying is that the illative sense is a rational operation of the mind, which is perfectly in accord with the normal and legitimate operations of the human mind. Our certitudes are not unfounded feelings or irrational guesses, but they are rationally justified assents.
THE PERSONAL NATURE OF THE ASSENT OF CERTITUDE
The process of arriving at certitude through informal reasoning and the illative sense is not a rational process that automatically and logically forces a person to accept the truth of a given concrete proposition. Certitude for Newman is a highly personal act. As such, it involves the response of the whole person, including such elements as antecedent considerations, rational reflection through informal inference, the operation of the individual’s illative sense, the freedom of the will, and the element of personal commitment.
Antecedent Considerations
For Newman, the process of arriving at certitude begins with elements that exist before one even begins to investigate the available evidence. Newman calls these “antecedent considerations.” Perhaps the most basic of these antecedents is the individuality and the uniqueness of the person. Newman says that we must assume that we exist and that we exist in a certain way, with a particular mental constitution. We each have a particular standpoint that must be taken into consideration.115 He writes:
I am what I am, or I am nothing. I cannot think, reflect or judge about my being, without starting from the very point which I am concluding. My ideas are all assumptions, and I am ever moving in a circle. I cannot avoid being sufficient for myself, for I cannot make myself anything else, and to change me is to destroy me.116
It is clear that what Newman means here is that, when we begin to reason and reflect on a truth, we must begin by acknowledging who we are and what we know at the moment. It is clear that he does not mean that a person cannot change and develop. He qualifies the previous statement when he states, “It is that, though man cannot change what he is born with, he is a being of progress with relation to his perfection and characteristic good.”117
One of the elements that a person brings with him or her in the search for certitude is what Newman refers to as “assumptions.” These include a person’s first principles “on which the Illative Sense has to act, discovering them, following them out, defending or resisting them as the case may be.”118 Newman points out that the way in which we view things is often “intensely personal,” that individuals abstract in a personal way, and that there are a variety of principles of interpretation.119
In addition to first principles, Newman states that we often begin our reasoning process with the “implicit assumption” of certain propositions and the “arbitrary exclusion” of others. 120 He objects to those who hold that we should not make any assumptions but should begin the reasoning process with a universal doubt. But, as Newman points out, the universal doubt is itself the greatest of all assumptions and so would have to be rejected on its own grounds.121 Although he cautions us against arbitrarily making assumptions, he would prefer that we begin by accepting everything that is presented to us, rather than begin with the universal doubt. Following this approach, we would soon be able to see what is the truth and what is error. As we proceed through our reflection, the error would fall off from the mind, and the truth would be able to develop and occupy it.122
Even some of the reasons employed in the process of arriving at certitude are present at the beginning of the process. Newman calls these “antecedent reasons.” These reasons, Newman states, are “in great measure made by ourselves and belong to our personal character.”123 Antecedent reasoning, according to Newman, is safer when it is negative. As an example of a negative antecedent reason, he cites Butler’s argument that objections against the divine origin of Christianity do not hold any force unless they also argue against the divine origin of nature.124 As another example of “antecedent reasoning,” Newman mentions the argument from the order of nature that unbelievers use against a Christian’s belief in miracles. He admits that theological conclusions are often made on the basis of antecedent reasons. He also says that, even though it is not clear, it may be true that some conversions to Christianity have been made on the basis of antecedent reasons.125
The Personal Nature of the Illative Sense
The personal nature of the assent of certitude is further supported by the fact that the illative sense is a personal form of reasoning. So personal is the judgment of the illative sense that it is unique to each individual. Newman writes, “It is seated in the mind of the individual, who is thus his own law, his own teacher, and his own judge in those special cases of duty which are personal to him.”126 He goes on to state that the illative sense is “nothing else than a personal gift or acquisition.”127 Philip Flanagan, commenting on the illative sense, states that Newman insisted on the personal nature of the operation of the illative sense.128 A. J. Boekraad describes the illative sense as being emphatically personal.129 In a recent book, Martin X. Moleski highlights the personal nature of the illative sense, calling it “the capacity of personal judgment.” 130 Describing its operation, Moleski notes that it is the illative sense that tacitly governs the personal reasoning of informal inference and secures personal certitude in matters of concrete truths.131
Certitude as a Free Response
The personal nature of the assent of certitude can also be seen in the fact that, for Newman, certitude is a free response of the person. Describing the assent of certitude, Newman states that “it is a free act, a personal act for which the doer is responsible.”132 However, the freedom of certitude must be understood in the context of the reasoning process involved in arriving at certitude. In the authentic operation of informal reasoning and the illative sense, the mind sees the truth of the conclusion as evident and proved, even though it has not been logically demonstrated. Newman says that, on the basis of our personal reasoning, we are bound to accept the conclusion. We see that the conclusion could not be otherwise and recognize that it would be impossible to doubt it. In fact, Newman says, we would be idiots not to believe it.133 Developing this point further, Newman states, “It is a law of my mind to seal up the conclusions to which ratiocination has brought me, by that formal assent which I have called certitude. I could have withheld my assent, but I should have acted against my nature, had I done so when there was what I considered a proof.”134
Reflecting on these statements, Ferreira holds that there is an element of personal constraint in the process of arriving at certitude, what she refers to as “the constraint of a rational evaluation.”135 The significance of this insight, as Ferreira points out, is that, when Newman says that certitude is a free act, he does not mean that it is the result of a totally arbitrary choice.136 The key to understanding the freedom of certitude is the realization that certitude is not impersonally compelled by the intrinsic force of the arguments. Certitude is not reached by a “scientific necessity” independent of the person. Certitude is not dictated by the “compulsion of logical deduction.”137 For Ferreira, Newman’s understanding of the freedom of certitude resides in the person’s “active recognition” of the truth of the conclusion.138 The person’s “active recognition” is free because, even though it is constrained by the rational evaluation, it is not compelled by it.139 It is, therefore, legitimate to say that Newman views certitude as a free decision of the person as long as one does not see the act of certitude as a completely arbitrary choice, made independent of the constraint of the personal evaluation of the evidence.
The Role of the Will
From what has been discussed so far, it is clear that Newman sees certitude as a personal act and a free decision. Since this is the case, it is evident that the will is involved in the act of certitude. Most interpreters of Newman seem to agree that the will does play a role in the act of certitude, but they disagree on his understanding of the precise nature of the role of the will in certitude. The discussion of the role of the will in the act of certitude centers on the question of whether or not there is a gap between conditional inference and unconditional assent that has to be bridged by an independent act of the will. Since the evidence arrived at through informal inference always remains probable and cannot in itself lead to an unconditional assent, does the will not have to enter into the process and make a distinct decision in order to make up for insufficient evidence? This would mean that the evidence cannot rationally lead to certitude and so the will would decide and accept the proposition as true. The acceptance of its truth would be the result not of the illative sense’s judgment of its credibility, but of the will’s choice to intervene and accept it as true in spite of the intellect’s inability to rationally demonstrate its truth. If this is the case, then this would mean that Newman ultimately views certitude as an arbitrary act of the will. Some authors interpret Newman as understanding the role of the will in certitude precisely in this way. Others reject this interpretation and suggest that he understood the role of the will in certitude in such a way that the operation of the will was compatible with the cogency of the rational evaluation of informal inference and the illative sense.
David A. Pailin is an example of an author who maintains that Newman views certitude as an arbitrary choice of the will. According to Pailin, Newman ultimately views assent as an act of the will. Pailin writes, “In the end, it is our will which determines whether or not assent is granted. The move from antecedent reasoning to assent is a logical type-jump which no degree of conclusiveness can ever entail.”140 Newman, Pailin maintains, does not see certitude as deriving from the process of informal reasoning and the illative sense. According to Pailin, “Not even the most convincing illative reasoning can logically entail assent or certitude.”141 Although Pailin admits that Newman sometimes seems to have wanted to place certitude in the logic of reasoning, he ultimately regarded it as a leap made by an act of the will.142 Summarizing his interpretation of Newman, Pailin writes, “This means that for Newman assent is basically the willed state of accepting something as if it were unconditionally true rather than the unwillable state of accepting it without reservation.”143
William Fey, on the other hand, is an example of an author who does not think that Newman views certitude as an arbitrary act of the will. Fey does think that Newman is ambiguous on the question. According to Fey, there are passages in Newman’s works in which he sometimes speaks of the assent of certitude as if it were a decision of the will that makes up for insufficient evidence. 144 At the same time, Fey points out that in many other passages, Newman speaks of certitude as an act in which the intellect recognizes the truth of a proposition. Fey’s own interpretation is that, even though Newman is ambiguous, he does not view certitude as a decision in which a person decides that one knows.145 As Fey understands Newman, certitude is not the result of an arbitrary and independent act of the will but an intellectual recognition, which is both personal and free, that we have grasped that something is true and that we know that it is true.
Ferreira also rejects the notion that certitude for Newman is the result of an arbitrary act of the will, and, in so doing, she offers a very helpful and plausible explanation of how Newman does understand the role of the will in the act of certitude. Ferreira suggests that Newman’s understanding of the role of the will in certitude might best be read in light of a distinction between two roles of the will. She distinguishes between the role of the will in reaching certitude and the role of the will in confirming certitude after it is experienced. 146 The role of the will in reaching certitude is described as being non-deliberate and nonintentional. The role of the will in confirming certitude is said to be deliberate.147
In explaining Newman’s understanding of the role of the will in reaching certitude, Ferreira says that Newman does not view certitude as the result of an arbitrary act of the will. She states her position as follows: “Certitude is not reached through a choice distinct from the reasoning process, but is an active, uncompelled yet constrained recognition.”148 Ferreira also refers to this operation of the will as “active recognition.” What this means is that the will is indeed involved in the personal process of reaching certitude through informal inference and the illative sense. As Ferreira says, “we do not assent or become certain without or against the will.”149
Ferreira is attempting to find a way of understanding Newman’s notion of certitude that avoids two extremes. One extreme would hold that certitude is a direct willing to believe. The other extreme maintains that certitude is an automatic, involuntary, reflex action involving no freedom and no act of the will.150 Ferreira points out that Newman does see certitude as deriving from the rational evaluation. However, the rational evaluation does not compel certitude. The will, which is constrained but not compelled by the rational evaluation, actively recognizes the truth of the proposition and the person assents to it. What Ferreira seems to be saying is that the will is involved in an active personal way in the whole process of reaching certitude. It is not as if informal inference and the illative sense go so far, then the will jumps in, and certitude happens. The will is involved, but it does not force certitude.
However, according to Ferreira, the role of the will in certitude is not exhausted by the function it fulfills in the process of reaching certitude. The will has a second role to play after certitude is reached. Since certitudes can be stifled and given up, it is necessary for a person to deliberately affirm his or her certitudes.151 After certitude is reached, a person, through an act of the will, affirms his or her commitment to the truth of the proposition accepted. Such a personal act of the will is necessary if our certitudes are to endure. Ferreira describes this second act of the will as the “deliberate act of intending to adhere.”152
According to Ferreira, this second role of the will is also helpful for understanding Newman’s statements on certitude. When Newman focuses on the role of the will in certitude and speaks of certitude as a state that ultimately depends on the will, Ferreira thinks that he is more likely describing this second role of the will. In these instances, Newman, Ferreira maintains, is not referring to the role of the will in reaching certitude.153 Also, when Newman speaks of certitude as a choice, Ferreira thinks that Newman is speaking more of the role that the will plays in this affirmation of certitude.154 Again, here the will is involved not in the creation of certitude but in its affirmation after certitude is reached. In this second role, the act of the will is not a source of certitude but a consequence of it.155
Ferreira also thinks that the second role of the will in affirming certitude highlights Newman’s understanding of certitude as a commitment.156 Acceptance of truths in concrete matters not only involves acceptance of the truth of a proposition but also includes a living personal commitment to the reality it reveals. For Newman, certitudes are beliefs that are part of us and touch us as persons. They engage us in our everyday living. Since certitudes are fragile in the sense that they can be stifled or given up, at times it is necessary to affirm them and renew our commitments to them. This is especially true in moral and religious certitudes. As Ferreira points out, Newman thought that, in the face of intellectual and moral weakness, it was necessary to encourage confirmation of and commitment to our certitudes.157 So, in the sense of this second operation of the will, we can understand how, for Newman, certitude is a free choice that engages the whole person in the totality of one’s being.
Although Ferreira’s distinction between the two roles of the will does not solve all the problems, it does offer a helpful framework and context for understanding Newman’s complex notion of certitude. For Newman, the act of certitude is both a rational act as well as a free personal decision. The distinction between the two roles of the will enables one to visualize how Newman could maintain a balance between two seemingly incompatible elements. In the first role of the will as active recognition, it becomes understandable how certitude can be obtained as a result of the rational evaluation, which results from the process of informal inference and the operation of the illative sense, and still be free. The mind, through a valid reasoning process, is led to accept the truth of a proposition. The will does not force the person to assent, but it also does not, as it could, stifle the certitude. Rather, the will cooperates nondeliberately in actively recognizing the truth of the proposition. Through the second role of the will in the affirmation of certitude, one can understand how Newman can speak of the act of certitude as a free personal choice and how certitudes are commitments that engage us in the totality of our personal beings.
Also, perhaps, this twofold nature of the act of the will in certitude can help one understand more clearly the relationship between the two main dimensions of the assent of certitude. On one level, the act of certitude is a simple real assent to the truth of a proposition. At this level, one can see how the acceptance of the truth of the proposition is reached through the convergence of the rational evaluation and the role of the will as active recognition. At the same time, certitude is a complex, reflex assent through which a person consciously affirms that what one knows is in fact true. It is through this second role of the will that a person reflects on the truth of one’s certitude, affirms and confirms it, and appropriates it in a personal way. At this level, certitude can be understood as also being a free personal choice.
In the next chapter, Newman’s understanding of human certitude and his analysis of the process of arriving at certitude in concrete matters of truth will be applied to his Catholic understanding of the notion of faith. Chapter 4 presents a systematic summary of Newman’s mature notion of Catholic faith.
NOTES
1
Charles Stephen Dessain, John Henry Newman (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1961), 148. Dessain quotes Caswall’s note without giving the original reference.
2
GA, 5 and 13.
3
GA, 8, 35, 172, and 259.
4
GA, 13.
5
GA, 174.
6
GA, 6 and 172.
7
GA, 8.
8
GA, 9.
9
GA,20.
10
GA, 14.
11
GA, 19.
12
GA, 19-20.
13
GA, 9.
14
GA, 31.
15
GA, 31.
16
GA, 31.
17
GA, 31.
18
GA, 10.
19
GA, 23.
20
GA, 23.
21
GA, 24-25.
22
GA, 10-11.
23
GA, 11.
24
GA, 34.
25
GA, 34-35.
26
GA, 11.
27
GA, 36.
28
GA, 37.
29
GA, 35, 37–38.
30
GA, 42, 75.
31
GA, 42-74.
32
GA, 75.
33
GA, 87.
34
GA, 83.
35
GA, 90.
36
AW, 270.
37
GA, 158.
38
GA, 189.
39
GA, 211.
40
GA, 189.
41
GA, 211–12.
42
GA, 189.
43
GA, 195.
44
GA, 215.
45
GA, 216.
46
GA, 197.
47
GA, 214.
48
GA, 172.
49
Newman, “Papers in Preparation for A Grammar of Assent, 1865–1869,” Theological Papers, 4. Newman uses the word certainty here, but it is clear from the context that he is speaking about the state of certitude and not the objective certainty of a proposition.
50
GA, 7. Newman adds here that if the word doubt is taken to mean the deliberate recognition of a thesis as being uncertain, then it is actually an assent, “an assent to a proposition at variance with the thesis.” See GA, 7–8.
51
M. Jamie Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment: The Role of the Will in Newman’s Thought (Oxford: Clarendon, 1980), 19.
52
Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 108–9. Ferreira interprets Newman to be saying that certitude excludes all reasonable doubt, not the absence of the possibility of doubt.
53
GA, 221.
54
GA, 221.
55
GA, 221.
56
GA, 224.
57
GA, 224–25.
58
GA, 223: “It is a fact of daily occurrence that men change their certitudes, that is, what they consider to be such, and are as confident and well-established in their new opinions as they were once in their old.”
59
GA, 229.
60
GA, 223.
61
GA, 255—56.
62
GA, 171–72. Newman does say that there are times when inference seems to force assent. He writes, “Certainly, one cannot conceive a man having before him the senses of conditions and truths on which it depends that the three angles of a triangle are together equal to two right angles, and yet not assenting to that proposition” (GA, 170).
63
GA, 171.
64
GA, 172.
65
William R. Fey, Faith and Doubt: The Unfolding of Newman’s Thought on Certainty (Shepherdstown, WV: Patmos, 1976), 147.
66
Fey, Faith and Doubt, 148.
67
Ker, Newman: A Biography, 647.
68
Ker, Newman: A Biography, 647.
69
GA, 266–67.
70
GA, 263–64.
71
GA, 263. In the section on formal inference, Newman sometimes uses the terms logic, inference, and formal inference to mean the same thing.
72
GA, 265-66.
73
GA, 268.
74
Fey, Faith and Doubt, 150.
75
GA, 292.
76
GA, 292.
77
GA,293.
78
GA, 288.
79
GA, 298–300.
80
GA, 300-301.
81
GA, 330-31.
82
GA, 331.
83
GA, 333.
84
GA, 334.
85
GA, 338.
86
GA, 331.
87
GA, 332.
88
GA, 332-34.
89
GA, 338-39.
90
GA, 288.
91
Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 39.
92
Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 40. Actually, Ferreira thinks that the matter is even more complicated. Since natural inference operates without either conscious antecedents or conscious mediation, Ferreira suggests that natural inference might be qualitatively different from informal inference. Speculating even further, she raises the hypothesis that perhaps natural inference is not really a form of inference at all. Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 40–41.
93
GA, 333.
94
GA, 345.
95
GA, 345.
96
GA, 345.
97
LD, XXIV:375.
98
GA, 342.
99
GA, 316.
100
GA, 353.
101
GA, 361.
102
GA, 354—58.
103
GA, 358—59.
104
GA, 359.
105
GA, 359.
106
GA, 359.
107
GA, 361—62.
108
Philip Flanagan, Newman, Faith and the Believer (Westminster, MD: Newman Bookshop, 1946), 104.
109
GA, 320—21.
110
GA, 321.
111
Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 35.
112
GA, 321.
113
GA, 345.
114
Edward Jeremy Miller, John Henry Newman on the Idea of Church (Shepherdstown, WV: Patmos, 1987), 28.
115
GA, 347.
116
GA, 347.
117
GA, 349.
118
GA, 371.
119
GA, 373—74.
120
GA, 375—376.
121
GA, 377.
122
GA, 376—77.
123
GA, 381.
124
GA, 382.
125
GA, 382—83.
126
GA, 354.
127
GA, 362.
128
Flanagan, Newman, Faith and the Believer, 105.
129
A. J. Boekraad, The Personal Conquest of Truth According to J. H. Newman (Louvain: Nauwelaerts, 1955), 302.
130
Martin X. Moleski, Personal Catholicism: The Theological Epistemologies of John Henry Newman and Michael Polanyi (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2000), 108.
131
Moleski, Personal Catholicism, 103.
132
GA, 232.
133
GA, 317.
134
GA, 239.
135
Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 60.
136
Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 60.
137
Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 60.
138
Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 60.
139
Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 61—62. Ferreira holds that “active recognition” can be a free decision as long as it is not entailed or compelled.
140
David A. Pailin, The Way to Faith: An Examination of Newman’s Grammar of Assent as a Response to the Search for Certainty in Faith (London: Epworth, 1969), 131.
141
Pailin, The Way to Faith, 159.
142
Pailin, The Way to Faith, 177, 190.
143
Pailin, The Way to Faith, 191—92. Pailin interestingly enough goes on to criticize Newman’s understanding of certitude as an independent act of the will as being inadequate. It should be noted that in his discussion of the role of the will, Pailin does not always clearly distinguish between human certitude and the certitude of divine faith.
144
Fey, Faith and Doubt, 114, 140, 148.
145
Fey, Faith and Doubt, 117.
146
Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 71.
147
Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 75.
148
Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 71.
149
Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 72.
150
Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 72—73.
151
Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 73.
152
Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 75.
153
Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 73. She admits, however, that this is a possibility.
154
Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 75.
155
Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 75.
156
Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 75.
157
Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 74.