Newman on reason
– Man acts on the basis of assumptions, that is of acts of faith:
"Life is for action. If we insist on proofs for every thing, we shall never come to action: to act you must assume, and that assumption is faith."
– According to Newman, this is not a matter of opinion, it is just a fact, self-evident if we look at the way people reason and act:
"that we are so constituted that faith, not knowledge or argument, is our principle of action, is a question with which I have nothing to do; but I think it is a fact, and, if it be such, we must resign ourselves to it as best we may."
– No logical inference or abstract reasoning is able to lead man to action. However, an assumption (that is, an act of faith) can lead to action, provided that this is not just an abstract assumption, but that it is grounded on some kind of real experience, which involves the whole of our humanity:
"The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason [in this context: logical inferences], but through the imagination [living images left in the mind by direct experience], by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will live and die upon a dogma: no man will be a martyr for a conclusion. A conclusion is but an opinion; it is not a thing which is, but which we are 'quite sure about;' and it has often been observed, that we never say we are sure and certain without implying that we doubt. To say that a thing must be, is to admit that it may not be. No one, I say, will die for his own calculations: he dies for realities. This is why a literary religion is so little to be depended upon; it looks well in fair weather; but its doctrines are opinions, and, when called to suffer for them, it slips them between its folios, or burns them at its hearth."
– The reason for this is that:
"After all, man is not a reasoning animal; he is a seeing, feeling, contemplating, acting animal. He is influenced by what is direct and precise."
– This fact has important consequences, as it destroys any modern idea of teaching moral ideas through theoretical reasoning. A class lection on tolerance is not able to make people tolerant, as logical argument removed from experience has no power of persuasion on the human mind. The
"attempt to make man moral and religious by libraries and museums is pure nonsense".
– So the basis of the Christian claim to rationality lies not in trasforming an assumption (faith), formed in the mind by a certain experience, into an inference or a sillogism, but in showing the reasonableness of that assumption:
"I would rather be bound to defend the reasonableness of assuming that Christianity is true, than to demonstrate a moral governance from the physical world."
Selections from "Grammar of Assent", pp. 89ff.
"Life is for action. If we insist on proofs for every thing, we shall never come to action: to act you must assume, and that assumption is faith."
– According to Newman, this is not a matter of opinion, it is just a fact, self-evident if we look at the way people reason and act:
"that we are so constituted that faith, not knowledge or argument, is our principle of action, is a question with which I have nothing to do; but I think it is a fact, and, if it be such, we must resign ourselves to it as best we may."
– No logical inference or abstract reasoning is able to lead man to action. However, an assumption (that is, an act of faith) can lead to action, provided that this is not just an abstract assumption, but that it is grounded on some kind of real experience, which involves the whole of our humanity:
"The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason [in this context: logical inferences], but through the imagination [living images left in the mind by direct experience], by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will live and die upon a dogma: no man will be a martyr for a conclusion. A conclusion is but an opinion; it is not a thing which is, but which we are 'quite sure about;' and it has often been observed, that we never say we are sure and certain without implying that we doubt. To say that a thing must be, is to admit that it may not be. No one, I say, will die for his own calculations: he dies for realities. This is why a literary religion is so little to be depended upon; it looks well in fair weather; but its doctrines are opinions, and, when called to suffer for them, it slips them between its folios, or burns them at its hearth."
– The reason for this is that:
"After all, man is not a reasoning animal; he is a seeing, feeling, contemplating, acting animal. He is influenced by what is direct and precise."
– This fact has important consequences, as it destroys any modern idea of teaching moral ideas through theoretical reasoning. A class lection on tolerance is not able to make people tolerant, as logical argument removed from experience has no power of persuasion on the human mind. The
"attempt to make man moral and religious by libraries and museums is pure nonsense".
– So the basis of the Christian claim to rationality lies not in trasforming an assumption (faith), formed in the mind by a certain experience, into an inference or a sillogism, but in showing the reasonableness of that assumption:
"I would rather be bound to defend the reasonableness of assuming that Christianity is true, than to demonstrate a moral governance from the physical world."
Selections from "Grammar of Assent", pp. 89ff.