Reason and Belief

Abstract

Newman’s religious epistemology provides a theoretical foundation of religious morality in his writings. His religious epistemology uses the concrete reasoning of informal inference in an interpretative process that justifies assent in matters of belief and morality. This interpretative process can be construed as his hermeneutics. The mental faculty in this process is called the Illative Sense. Informal inference is a concrete mode of reasoning that recognizes when there is a convergence of probabilities (or sufficient reasoning) to justify a conclusion. When this occurs the conclusion can be held as true in its own right in the assent of certitude – the conclusion that arises conditionally from the inferences can be held unconditionally in certitude. The subtlety here is that the subjective process of informal inference is used to justify the assertion of an objective truth in the assent of certitude: there is no subject-free objectivity in matters of religious belief and morality. The convergence of probabilities that constitutes sufficient reasoning represents a moral demonstration to justify moral certitude – this differs from practical certainty where a conclusion is merely reliable to act upon. Many analogies are used to illustrate this complex theory, such as comparing converging probabilities to the strands of a cable that make it sufficiently strong to bear weight (as inference can be sufficient to justify a conclusion). In this process, judgments in religious morality can be held as objectively true in the assent certitude.