The Justification of Religious Faith in Soren Kierkegaard, John Henry Newman, and William James 9781463204013, 1463204019

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The Justification of Religious Faith in Soren Kierkegaard, John Henry Newman, and William James

Gorgias Studies in Religion

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In this series Gorgias publishes monographs on all aspects of religion in both the ancient and modern worlds. Gorgias particularly welcomes proposals from younger scholars whose dissertations have made an important contribution towards the study of religion. Studies on Judaism, Islam and early Christianity and Patristics have their own series and will not be included in this series.

The Justification of Religious Faith in Soren Kierkegaard, John Henry Newman, and William James

Paul Sands

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34 2014

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2014 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2014

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ISBN 978-1-4632-0401-3

ISSN 1935-6870

Reprinted from the 2004 Gorgias Press edition.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Cataloging-in-Publication record is available from the Library of Congress. Printed in the United States of America

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank Drs. Bob E. Patterson, Charles H. Talbert, Stuart Rosenbaum, and A. J. Conyers. Each one has been generous with his guidance and friendship, and to each I am grateful. I wish also to thank Richard and Frances Sands, without whose support this study would not have been attempted, much less completed. I only wish my father had lived to see this book in print. Never has a son owed so much to his parents. I am also deeply grateful to my best friend, Linda, whose winsome grace and cheer have lit up my life and our home for more than twenty years. Never has a man owed so much to his wife. Finally, I want to thank my daughters, Kristin Elizabeth, Allison Leigh, and Lauren Frances, for their unflagging patience and frequent words of encouragement. They will understand when I say, “There is more than one way … ”

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CONTENTS Acknowledgements............................................................... vii Contents ................................................................................. ix List of Abbreviations.............................................................. xi 1 Introduction..........................................................................1 Problem and Thesis........................................................................ 1 The Scope of This Study ............................................................... 2 Setting: The Problem of Religious Faith in Late Modernity.... 4

The Impact of the Probabilistic Revolution................................. 4 Pluralization and the Erosion of Certitude.................................11

The Continuing Relevance of Kierkegaard,.............................. 15 Key Issues to Be Examined ........................................................ 16

Evidence and Faith .........................................................................17 The Venture of Faith......................................................................17 The Adjudication of Truth Claims...............................................17

A Note on Sources ....................................................................... 17 The Plan to Be Followed............................................................. 18 2 Søren Kierkegaard and the Venture of Faith...................... 19 Introduction................................................................................... 19 Preliminary Issues ......................................................................... 20

Does Johannes Climacus Speak for Kierkegaard? ....................21 Does Kierkegaard Set Forth a “Justification of Faith”?...........24 Is Kierkegaard’s Religious Epistemology Relevant? .................34

Faith versus Rationality: The Leap of Faith ............................. 35

Evidence and Faith .........................................................................36 The Venture of Faith......................................................................59 The Adjudication of Truth Claims...............................................82

Kierkegaard and Religious Faith in a Probabilistic and Pluralistic World...................................................................................... 93

Contributions toward a Justification of Religious Faith...........94 The Challenge Unmet ....................................................................96

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CONTENTS

Conclusion ...................................................................................102 3 John Henry Newman and the Divinatory Mind .............. 103 Introduction.................................................................................103 Faith as a Kind of Reason: The Divinatory Mind .................106

Evidence and Faith .......................................................................106 The Venture of Faith....................................................................122 The Adjudication of Truth Claims.............................................139

Newman and Religious Faith in a Probabilistic and Pluralistic World ............................................................................................147

Contributions toward a Justification of Religious Faith.........147 The Challenge Unmet ..................................................................150

Conclusion ...................................................................................163 4 William James and the Will to Believe ............................. 165 Introduction.................................................................................165 Reason as a Kind of Faith: The Teleological Mind...............169

Evidence and Faith .......................................................................169 The Venture of Faith....................................................................191 The Adjudication of Truth Claims.............................................203

James and Religious Faith in a Probabilistic and Pluralistic World ............................................................................................231

The Challenge Unmet?.................................................................231 Contributions toward a Justification of Religious Faith.........243

Conclusion ...................................................................................251

5 Conclusions ......................................................................253 Søren Kierkegaard and the Venture of Faith .........................254 John Henry Newman and the Divinatory Mind....................255 William James and the Will to Believe.....................................256 Toward a Contemporary Jamesian Justification of Religious Faith ..............................................................................................257 Bibliography.........................................................................259 Primary Sources ..........................................................................259 Secondary Sources ......................................................................260 Index ....................................................................................289

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS William James LWJ LWL PP PR

RAT SR TC VRE

WB

The Letters of William James. 2 volumes. Edited by Henry James. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1920. “Is Life Worth Living?” In The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, 32-62. New York: Dover Publications, 1956. The Principles of Psychology. Great Books of the Western World. Volume 53. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952. Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking and The Meaning of Truth: A Sequel to Pragmatism. Introduction by A. J. Ayer. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978. “Reflex Action and Theism.” In The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, 111-44. New York: Dover Publications, 1956. “Sentiment of Rationality.” In The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, 63-110. New York: Dover Publications, 1956. Ralph Barton Perry, The Thought and Character of William James. 2 volumes. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1935. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. New York: Modern Library, 1936.

“The Will to Believe.” In The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, 1-31. New York: Dover Publications, 1956.

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Søren Kierkegaard CUP

Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. 2 volumes. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992.

JP

Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers. Edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, assisted by Gregor Malantschuk. 7 volumes. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1967-78. Practice in Christianity. Edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1991. Philosophical Fragments. In Philosophical Fragments and Johannes Climacus. Edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985. The Point of View for My Work as an Author: A Report to History and Related Writings. Translated by Walter Lowrie, newly edited with a preface by Benjamin Nelson. New York: Harper and Row, 1962.

PC PF

PV

John Henry Newman GR LD

OUS TP

An Essay in Aid of A Grammar of Assent. Introduction by Nicholas Lash. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979. The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman. Edited by C. S. Dessain, et al. Volumes 1-6, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978-1984; volumes 11-22, London: Oxford University Press, 1961-1972; volumes 23-31, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973-1977. Fifteen Sermons Preached before the University of Oxford. London: Longmans, 1898. The Theological Papers of John Henry Newman on Faith and Certainty. Edited by Hugo M. de Achaval and J. Derek Holmes. Oxford: Clarendon, 1976.

To Richard and Frances Sands, who for more than fifty years together ventured in faith … and found God faithful.

“Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things”. William James

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INTRODUCTION

PROBLEM AND THESIS Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), John Henry Newman (1801-1890), and William James (1842-1910) all defended the right of persons to embrace religious beliefs that are not strictly warranted by empirical evidence and logical argumentation. Acknowledging that indisputable proof for religious truth claims is not available, all three nevertheless insisted that faith must not be hampered by the demands of reason narrowly conceived. There are, however, important differences in the way each relates faith and reason. Kierkegaard emphasizes discontinuity: faith is a divine gift that opens a sphere of truth inaccessible to objectifying rationality. John Henry Newman stresses continuity: faith ventures beyond evidence, but only as the mind itself bridges the gap between proof and certitude by a subtle and flexible exercise of the “illative sense.” William James also emphasizes continuity, but he goes much further than Newman in relativizing reason by exposing its passional nature. If due allowance is made for the inevitable distortion of summary statements, one might say that Kierkegaard sets faith against reason, Newman views faith as a kind of reason, and James interprets reason as a kind of faith. All three authors contribute important epistemological insights that will be noted and discussed in the course of this study. It will be argued, however, that William James offers the best model of the three for a contemporary justification of religious faith. In particular, this study will maintain that James’ religious epistemology incorporates and transcends the best insights of Kierkegaard and Newman while offering a pragmatic method of verification that provides a modest, but workable approach to the rational adjudication of religious truth claims. In the pluralistic world of late 1

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modernity,1 criteria for distinguishing truth from falsehood are urgently needed, and James’ achievement in this area is an attractive feature of his religious philosophy.

THE SCOPE OF THIS STUDY This study offers a Christian appraisal of the justification of religious faith in Søren Kierkegaard, John Henry Newman, and William James. Several clarifying comments are in order. First, in this study “justification” denotes (1) providing a defense of the reasonableness of the so-called “leap of faith” and (2) establishing criteria by which religious truth claims can be rationally appraised. Although what counts as justification is a hotly contested issue in contemporary epistemology, rehashing the debate among foundationalists, coherentists, and reliabilists (to say nothing of internalists and externalists of various kinds) would bog this study down in currently irresolvable questions while yielding little more than contemporary labels in which to pigeonhole Kierkegaard, Newman, and James. Consequently, this study will allow the issues to unfold in due course as each author’s justification of religious faith is explained and evaluated in its own terms. Second, this study is concerned with the justification of “religious faith”—a generic term that seems to imply that Kierkegaard, Newman, and James were engaged in defending the same phenomenon. In reality, each philosopher wrote from his own distinctive standpoint. The “religious faith” of Kierkegaard was orthodox Lutheranism, and his justification of faith was part of his polemic against the moribund state church of nineteenth century Denmark. 1Some

would prefer to speak of “postmodernity.” Nothing of substances hinges on which label is chosen, but “late modernity” has the advantage of making clear that the sociological trends in the “modern” period have been extended, not reversed, in the so-called “postmodern” age. As the eminent British sociologist Anthony Giddens states, “Rather than entering a period of post-modernity, we are moving into one in which the consequences of modernity are becoming more radicalised and universalised than before. Beyond modernity, I shall claim, we can perceive the contours of a new and different order, which is ‘postmodern’; but this is quite distinct from what is at the moment called by many ‘postmodernity’.” Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford, Ca.: Stanford University Press, 1990), 3.

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The “religious faith” of the early Newman was high church Anglicanism; that of the later Newman, Roman Catholicism. His justification of faith was in response to the skeptical evidentialists of Victorian England. The “religious faith” of James was a rather vague theism. Like Newman, he defended faith against nineteenth century evidentialism, but of the three he is the only one who attempted to justify religious faith in general. The chosen title reflects the practical need to subsume the religious epistemology of all three philosophers under one title, not the intention to ride roughshod over the differences among them. Third, this study is “a Christian appraisal” of the justification of religious faith in Kierkegaard, Newman, and James. The qualification is important, for the project is meant to serve as philosophical prolegomena to Christian theology. The use of the indefinite article is a concession to the pluralism within the Christian tradition; the word “Christian” is left otherwise unmodified because no sectarian stance is being presupposed. The perspective of this study is that of “traditional Christian theism,” a stance more easily recognized than precisely defined.2 The essential elements of theism as here understood are belief in one triune God, Jesus Christ as God’s preeminent self-revelation, and Christian Scripture as the canonical witness to revelation.3 Fourth, except when specifically indicated, no sharp distinction between “faith” and “belief” is intended in this study. In the theological and philosophical literature, the former sometimes refers to existential commitment and trust (belief in), while the latter denotes mental assent to a proposition (belief that).4 Since this 2Basil

Mitchell, The Justification of Religious Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 3-4, points out that the term “traditional Christian theism,” however vague, nevertheless provides a recognizable intellectual structure. 3The term “Christian Scripture” is deliberately vague, since disagreements over the canonical status of various books is unimportant for the purposes of this study. 4On the distinction between “belief in” and “belief that,” the classic work is H. H. Price, Belief (New York: Humanities Press, 1969), 426-54. See also Dewey J. Hoitenga, Jr., Faith and Reason from Plato to Plantinga: An Introduction to Reformed Epistemology (New York: State University of New York Press, 1991), 39-40, 42-43, 176-77.

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study is concerned with the justification of religious faith in the pluralistic world of late modernity, the pressing issue is the adjudication of competing truth claims. In other words, the question is: How is one to decide which “belief that” to “believe in”? The focus of the discussion, therefore, will be on the “objective truth” of religious faith (belief that), even though Kierkegaard, Newman, and James each proposes in his own way that access to this objective truth is through subjectivity.

SETTING: THE PROBLEM OF RELIGIOUS FAITH IN LATE MODERNITY Any contemporary justification of religious faith must reckon seriously with two “givens” characteristic of early twenty-first century culture, namely, the intellectual hegemony of probabilism and the pluralization of the Western mind. Taken together, probabilism and pluralization have made confident religious faith difficult to attain. The Impact of the Probabilistic Revolution Recent scholarship has uncovered a major shift in the West’s epistemological assumptions that began with the questioning of authorities in post-Medieval Europe, became explicit in the “mitigated skepticism” of the seventeenth century, and through the triumphs of science became the conventional wisdom by the close of the nineteenth century. Labeled the “probabilistic revolution,” this intellectual shift stands virtually unchallenged at the dawning of the twenty-first century. Put simply, the probabilistic revolution has brought about a sea change in how truth claims are established. Instead of arguing on the basis of unquestioned external authorities (e.g., inspired scriptures, religious teachers), thinkers since the late seventeenth century have been expected to rely on internal evidence.5 This change is called “probabilistic” because empirical evidence and logical argumentation can establish the relative likelihood but not the cer-

5Ian Hacking, The Emergence of Probability: A Philosophical Study of Early Ideas about Probability, Induction, and Statistical Inference (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 31-34.

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tainty of truth claims.6 The upshot is that all “knowledge” is regarded as in principle revisable; “truth” is that which is believed “until further notice.” The complex story of how this shift in intellectual perspective came about has been told elsewhere and goes beyond the scope of this study.7 Nevertheless, a concise overview of the emergence of probabilism will throw light on the contemporary situation. The classical philosophical tradition dominant throughout the Medieval period followed Aristotle in distinguishing between scientia and opinio. Scientia designated “knowledge”; opinio was regarded 6Strictly

speaking, modern notions of probability have two aspects. Sometimes “probability” refers to the relationship between belief and its evidential warrant (“inductive” or “epistemic” probability); at other times, it denotes the stable statistical patterns found in some chance events (“statistical” probability). See ibid., 1, 12-13. In the above discussion, inductive or epistemic probability is in view. 7For historical perspective, see Hacking, Probability; Edmund F. Byrne, Probability and Opinion: A Study in the Medieval Predispositions of Post Medieval Theories of Probability (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1968); Henry Van Leeuwen, The Problem of Certainty in English Thought, 1630-1680 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1963); Barbara J. Shapiro, Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-Century England: A Study of the Relationships between Natural Science, Religion, History, Law, and Literature (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1983); F. D. David, Games, Gods, and Gambling: The Origin and History of Probability and Statistical Ideas from the Earliest Times to the Newtonian Era (New York: Hafner, 1962). Also helpful is Richard H. Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes (Berkeley, Ca.: University of California Press, 1979). For discussions that relate the probabilistic revolution to issues germane to this study, see Jeffrey Stout, The Flight from Authority: Religion, Morality, and the Quest for Autonomy (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), 25-176, passim; and Nancey Murphy, Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990), 1-87, passim. Peter A. Schouls, The Imposition of Method: A Study of Descartes and Locke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), argues that the major transformation from the medieval to the modern mind occurred when a general method of inquiry was applied to every kind of subject matter. This development is what Schouls calls the “universalization of method.” Although he approaches the issue from a different angle, Schouls is calling attention to the emergence of the concept of internal evidence (see below) and the universal application of probabilistic reasoning.

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as mere “belief.” Put differently, scientia referred to statements that were demonstrably true, while opinio denoted statements that were only probably true.8 Medieval thinkers did not, however, associate probability with evidence in the modern sense. Statements were regarded as probable when they won the approval of trustworthy authorities.9 In contrast, the modern notion of evidence is associated not with authoritative testimony (i.e., external authority) but with empirical facts and rational argument (i.e., internal evidence). In what Ian Hacking has called the “new probability,” the “testimony” of things or facts are primary; the testimony of authorities possess only a secondary, derived importance.10 What brought about this change in the notion of probability? First, beginning in the late Medieval era and extending into the seventeenth century, thinkers began to lose confidence in the possibility of attaining scientia. Stout identifies four factors that contributed to this trend: (1) The elevation of divine freedom and omnipotence by voluntarists. If God could intervene at any time in the natural order of things, the world contains an element of unpredictability that would seem to undermine quests for scientia. (2) The nominalist empiricism of Ockham and his followers. (3) New doubts about the powers of human reason. Protestant Reformers and Jansenists questioned the ability of human reason to discover indubitable truth—especially in theology and ethics. (4) The recovery of ancient skeptical writings in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.11 8Stout,

6.

9Hacking,

18-30. Byrne, 188, notes that medieval probability “refers to the authority of those who accept the given opinion; and from this point of view ‘probability’ suggests approbation with regard to the proposition accepted and probity with regard to the authorities who accept it.” 10Hacking, 31-34. Hacking acknowledges that internal evidence was used before the emergence of the new probability. He claims, however, that the concept of internal evidence as something distinct from external testimony was lacking. 11Stout, 40. On the intellectual impact of the ancient skeptical writings after their rediscovery during the Renaissance, see Popkin, History of

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Descartes’s attempt to reestablish scientia failed, resulting in more and more matters falling within the province of opinio. Second, the change in the notion of probability was the consequence of opinio itself becoming less stable as the authorities upon which it rested came increasingly under critical scrutiny. A crucial factor in this epistemological crisis was the multiplication of authorities during the Reformation. Stout observes, Where probability is a matter of what authorities approve, and the authorities no longer speak with one voice, it becomes anything but clear which opinions one should accept. This problem, which we may name “the problem of many authorities,” is the central social and intellectual difficulty of the Reformation. The domain of opinio, no less than that of scientia, had entered the sphere of the doubtful.12

Skepticism, 1-65; and C. B. Schmitt, “The Rediscovery of Ancient Skepticism in Modern Times,” in The Skeptical Tradition, ed. Myles Burnyeat, 22551 (Berkeley, Ca.: University of California Press, 1983). Franklin L. Baumer, Religion and the Rise of Scepticism (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1960), 101-8, notes that the “revival of antiquity” during the Renaissance brought to the attention of educated Europeans, not only skeptical writings, but also a host of discordant views on many subjects. This new awareness undermined the authority of the ancients in the minds of post-Renaissance thinkers and contributed to a mood of skepticism. 12Stout, 40-41. Cf. Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge, trans. Louis Wirth and Edward Shils (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1936), 12-13; Richard S. Westfall, Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1958), 3-5; and Baumer, Rise of Scepticism, 108-11. See also Nicholas Wolterstorff, John Locke and the Ethics of Belief (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 1-7, where it is argued that the epistemological crises of the sixteenth century was largely due to Luther’s success at persuading others that the “textual tradition” derived from the church fathers, councils, and popes were mutually contradictory on fundamental issues. Abelard’s Sic et Non called attention to “significant contradictions in the textual tradition,” says Wolterstorff, but only with Luther did the challenge to the tradition cut deeply enough to undermine the old authorities. According to Richard Popkin, the “rule of faith” followed by the Reformers amounts to nothing more than subjective certitude, that is, the

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Intractable religious disputes, vividly illustrated by the Thirty Years War, exacerbated the problem, making it increasingly evident that religious truth claims required a more reliable foundation than the “probability” conferred by authoritative church decrees, scripture, or the inner witness of the Spirit. The crucial step toward the new probability occurred at the Jansenist retreat in Port Royal.13 Blaise Pascal set the stage when he invented “decision theory,” but the key innovation was first published in the Jansenist textbook, Logic, or the Art of Thinking (1662). It was there that for the first time the calculation of probability on the basis of internal evidence was applied to such questions as the reliability of human testimony and the occurrence of miracles.14 Soon others followed, and by the seventeenth century there was a breakdown in the division between scientia and opinio. Knowledge was increasingly viewed as falling somewhere on a continuum from “mere opinion” to “probable” to “highly probable” to “morally certain.” Not only was there “an enormous expansion of the realm of the probable and a contraction of the certain,”15 but it had become possible to think of probability apart from direct dependence on the opinions of authorities. These developments, notes Shapiro, were particularly pronounced among the English, who were by and large more empirically inclined than their continental peers. The scientists associated dictates of the individual’s conscience. The obvious problem, however, was that Reformation Europe was teeming with theological disputes, and each disputant could appeal to his own subjective sense of certitude. All sides could appeal to “conscience.” Calvin’s effort to rest all religious authority on Scripture and the self-validating illumination of the Spirit was similarly vulnerable to the charge of circularity. “The criterion of religious knowledge,” says Popkin of Calvin’s position, “is inner persuasion, the guarantee of the authenticity of inner persuasion is that it is caused by God, and this we are assured of by our inner persuasion.” Popkin, Skepticism, 8-10. 13See Hacking, 73-80. 14Stout, 56-61. Although the authors of the Logic are unknown, Stout follows the conventional belief that Jansenist scholars Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole were largely responsible for the sections on probability. Stout’s discussion closely follows Hacking, 63-67. 15Shapiro, 4.

INTRODUCTION

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with the Royal Society, for example, were careful to report their findings in the language of hypothesis and probability. The developing ethos looked with disfavor upon claims to authority or “pronouncements of ultimate truth.”16 Indeed, the new science generated an “acute sense of human fallibility,”17 though skepticism was by and large avoided because it was believed that the cooperative inquiries of many investigators would, over time, lead to findings that were highly probable. These developments brought about major changes in how thoughtful persons approached religious truth claims.18 Latitudinarians followed Locke and continued to affirm the authority of revelation, but only as the putative revelation was warranted by internal evidence (e.g., by miraculous signs and fulfilled prophecy).19 Deists took matters a step further by applying the same probabilistic reasoning to the content of revelation, accepting only those theological tenets that were credible when judged in the light of independent, probabilistic evidence. Hume’s significance, Stout contends, lay in his willingness to apply the new probabilistic reasoning with greater consistency than either the Latitudinarians or the Deists. Against the former, Hume argued that miracle stories are themselves incredible on probabilistic grounds and therefore cannot serve as credible evidence for revelation. Against the later, he insisted that natural theology was unsustainable due to the ambiguity of the warranting evidence. Hume’s motto that “a wise man

16Ibid.,

17. 61. 18For the substance of this paragraph, see Stout, 114-25. 19In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke states this view with characteristic clarity: “Whatever God hath revealed is certainly true: no doubt can be made of it. This is the proper object of faith; but whether it be a divine revelation or not, reason must judge.” Essay, 4.18.10. Reason judges, he explains, by carefully proportioning belief to the available evidence. He states, “If the evidence of its being a revelation, or that this is its true sense, be only on probable proofs, our assent can reach no higher than as assurance or diffidence, arising from the more or less apparent probability of the proofs.” Essay, 4.16.14. Cf. ibid., 4.19.1. 17Ibid.,

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proportions his belief to the evidence” became the common conviction of many.20 Over the course of the next two centuries, the triumphs of empirical science gave enormous prestige to the new probabilism. The corresponding devaluation of traditional authorities made certitude—religious or otherwise—increasingly rare and tenuous.21 According to Croce, by the latter part of the nineteenth century “epistemic certainties largely disappeared from the intellectual landscape in America and throughout Europe as well.”22 He observes, In the cauldron of nineteenth-century culture, new scientific discoveries, the ebb and flow of religious debates, and the coexistence of sharply differing beliefs, theories, and ideologies left seeds of doubt that could not even be dreamt of in earlier cultures with less scientific inquiry, less diversity of peoples, and more respect for authority.23

Croce thus speaks of the emergence in the nineteenth century of “a culture of uncertainty.”24 “Once probabilistic thinking set in,” 20This position was adopted by one side of the “ethics of belief” debate in which both John Henry Newman and William James participated. On the nineteenth century “ethics of belief” debate and its origin, see Gerald D. McCarthy, The Ethics of Belief Debate (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1986), 1-16; James C. Livingston, The Ethics of Belief: An Essay on the Victorian Religious Conscience (Tallahassee, Fl.: American Academy of Religion, 1974). Aspects of this debate will be touched on in chapters three and four. 21On the effect of these changes in the eighteenth century, Cragg states that “all forms of traditional authority were suspect. In both the moral and the political spheres the new age subtly shifted the grounds of confidence. Nothing was to be taken on trust. Men were to be taught to rely on the evidence provided by nature or reason, not on the arguments supplied by tradition.” Gerald R. Cragg, Reason and Authority in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964), 2-3. 22Paul Jerome Croce, Science and Religion in the Era of William James, vol. 1, The Eclipse of Certainty, 1820-1880 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 3. 23Ibid., 3-4. 24Ibid., 16. Croce notes that although much attention has been given to the erosion of religious faith in the nineteenth century, the loss of certitude went beyond religious matters. Positivist “science watchers” notwith-

INTRODUCTION

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he states, “no social or scientific theory could go back to the brand of certainty that dominated European-centered thinking before the nineteenth century, just as no other philosophical outlook could blithely assume certainty as a starting point or working principle.”25 Probabilistic thinking continues to dominate the intellectual world at the dawn of the twenty-first century. As Hacking notes, in contemporary epistemology “there is only one fundamental kind of evidence, namely internal evidence.”26 This dominance is most clearly seen in science, which Clifford Geertz characterizes as an “institutionalized scepticism which dissolves the world’s givenness into a swirl of probabilistic hypotheses.”27 But can a vigorous religious faith be built on probabilistic hypotheses? A viable justification of faith in the contemporary context must somehow meet the challenge posed by the new probabilism. Pluralization and the Erosion of Certitude As the above discussion makes clear, the rise of the “new probability” was born out of the epistemological crisis precipitated by the multiplication of authorities in post-Medieval Europe. From a sociological point of view, the existence of multiple, conflicting authorities is one aspect of social pluralism. American sociologist Peter Berger points out that urbanization, the proliferation of communication media, and the spread of market economies and democratic political systems have given rise to social pluralism so widespread and entrenched that it has decisively shaped the modern individual’s subjective experience of the world. Berger calls this shaping of individual subjectivity pluralization. standing, practicing scientists in the late nineteenth century became increasingly sensitive to the probable and hypothetical nature of their researches. There was a deep and widespread movement toward uncertainty in the intellectual and cultural life of the century. Ibid., 4. 25Ibid., 7-8. Of course, previous centuries enjoyed relatively more certitude than the nineteenth century, but the probabilistic revolution had already began to erode old certitudes by the end of the seventeenth century—as Croce himself recognizes. See ibid., 7. 26Hacking, 83. 27Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 112.

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Essentially, pluralization occurs when the diverse beliefs and ways of life within a given society become a “set of options” for the individual. For the pluralized individual, the different cultures he encounters in his social environment are transformed into alternative scenarios, options, for his own life. The very phrase “religious preference” … perfectly catches this fact: The individual’s religion is not something irrevocably given, a datum that he can change no more than he can change his inheritance; rather, religion becomes a choice, a product of the individual’s ongoing project of world and selfconstruction.28

For this reason, Berger characterizes pluralization as “a movement from fate to choice,”29 a movement that places a heavy epistemic burden upon the individual. With no single group to provide an all-encompassing community of reference, each individual must weigh alternatives and decide what to believe and how to live. Under the conditions of modern pluralization, the self is inexorably “forced into solitariness and any worldview becomes a matter of deliberate choice.”30 Berger asserts that the individual faces a “heretical imperative,” explaining that the word “heresy” comes from hairein, a Greek work meaning “to choose.” Whereas premodern “heretics” resisted the dominant tradition and chose their own beliefs, modern pluralization forces everyone to choose his or her beliefs. Whether they want to or not, individuals in modern societies are compelled to be “heretics.”31 Of course, Berger does not 28Peter L. Berger, A Far Glory: The Quest for Faith in an Age of Incredulity (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 67-68. 29Ibid., 67-68. See also Peter L. Berger,The Heretical Imperative: Contemporary Possibilities of Religious Affirmation (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1979), 17. 30Berger, Glory, 86-88. 31Berger, Heretical Imperative, 27-29. Closely following Berger’s analysis, Craig M. Gay, The Way of the (Modern) World: Or, Why It’s Tempting to Live as if God Doesn’t Exist (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 198, states that “while religious faith remains a possibility in the modern situation, it can never be simply taken for granted. It must always be rather selfconsciously willed over and against any number of conflicting and competing alternatives.”

INTRODUCTION

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deny that modern individuals are shaped by the communities in which they participate, but the very plurality of communities renders the individual relatively independent of them all. Unlike premodern societies, individuals have at least some control over the communities with which they identify.32 Thus, pluralization means that each individual is “condemned to freedom.”33 Accompanying this shift from fate to freedom, says Berger, is a widespread loss of certitude in all matters that cannot be “scientifically proven.” Why? Because unprovable beliefs depend on social support for their plausibility. The greater the unanimity regarding a given belief, the more plausible that belief will appear to each individual. If the agreement is universal (or nearly so), no exercise of faith will be necessary—the belief will be taken for granted and counted as knowledge of “objective reality.”34 Berger calls the network of beliefs and practices that make some truth claims appear more credible than others a “plausibility structure.”35 He maintains that pluralization destabilizes plausibility structures. Confronted with a host of belief-options, individuals lose confidence in traditional authorities and experience doubt.36 32Berger,

Glory, 90. 90. Thomas Luckmann, The Invisible Religion: The Problem of Religion in Modern Society (New York: Macmillan, 1967), 98-99, speaks of the “pervasive consumer orientation” of modern societies and its effect on the “autonomous individual.” In an analysis close to Berger’s, Luckmann observes, “To an immeasurably higher degree than in a traditional social order, the individual is left to his own devices in choosing goods and services, friends, marriage partners, neighbors, hobbies and, as we shall show presently, even ‘ultimate’ meanings in a relatively autonomous fashion.” Cf. Giddens, 80-83, on individual “lifestyles.” 34Berger, Glory, 125-26; cf. idem., Heretical Imperative, 26-27. 35Berger, Glory, 125-26. 36Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Stanford, Ca.: Stanford University Press, 1991), 195, acknowledges that traditional authorities (including religious authorities) continue to exist in modern times, but they now function differently than in the past. “Except where authority is sanctioned by the use of force … ” says Giddens, “it becomes essentially equivalent to specialist advice.” Consequently, authority is no longer an alternative to doubt but is “fuelled by the very principle of doubt.” Why? Because “in assessing the claims of 33Ibid.,

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“The thought obtrudes,” says Berger, “that one’s traditional ways of looking at the world may not be the only plausible ones—that maybe those other people might have a point or two.”37 Old certitudes begin to waver, now viewed as reversible opinions held “until further notice.”38 In such circumstances, epistemological questions become urgent and religious truth claims come to be regarded as personal opinions—unproven and in principle unprovable. Claims to possess universal truth are met with incredulity. Robert Kane cuts to the heart of the matter when he notes, There is no one “spirit of the times,” but many—too many in fact—too many competing voices, philosophies, and religions, too many points of view on moral issues, too many interpretations of even our most sacred documents, our Bibles and Constitutions. Only the most unthinking persons can fail to be affected by this pluralism of points of view and not wonder, as a consequence, about the truth of their own beliefs.39

Echoing Nietzsche, Kane comments, “recognizing a thousand different tribes beating to a thousand different drums, we become the first people in history who are not convinced we own the truth.”40 The erosion of certitude is bewailed by some and celebrated by others, but the reality is undeniable. Berger calls for a realistic engagement with the problems generated by pluralization. “Accepting our social context,” he states, “means today acknowledging the fact that the certainties of a traditional, pre-modern or non-modern society are not available to us. If we are concerned with truth, we will somehow try to push on from that recognition. This is not

rival authorities, the lay individual tends to utilise that principle in the sceptical outlook which pluralistic circumstances almost inevitably presuppose.” 37Ibid., 38. 38Ibid., 68. 39Robert Kane, Through the Moral Maze: Searching for Absolute Values in a Pluralistic World (New York: Paragon House, 1994), 1. 40Ibid., 13.

INTRODUCTION

15

easy, but it is much better than denying the situation from which we must start.”41 Of particular interest for this study, Berger notes that pluralization has brought about a corresponding subjectivization of modern consciousness. Ever since Descartes, he observes, Western philosophy has turned toward the subjective individual—reflected in part in modernity’s preoccupation with epistemology. To a degree unimaginable in premodern societies, contemporary persons have become aware of themselves. Berger states, Fate does not require reflection; the individual who is compelled to make choices is also compelled to stop and think. The more choice, the more reflection. The individual who reflects inevitably becomes conscious of himself. That is, he turns his attention from the objectively given outside world to his own subjectivity.42

A viable justification of religious faith in the contemporary context must take into account this subjectivization of consciousness.

THE CONTINUING RELEVANCE OF KIERKEGAARD, NEWMAN, AND JAMES For at least three reasons, probabilism and pluralization have generated an intellectual setting hospitable to a fresh appraisal of the epistemological insights of Kierkegaard, Newman, and James. 41Berger, Glory, 17. Cf. James McClendon and James Smith, Understanding Religious Convictions (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), 183: If I believe in God (am convinced of God) in a pluralistic world, a world in which I know there are good men of good will who do not so believe, then my faith, if justified at all, must be a faith which takes into account that very pluralism which in part denies my faith … The pluralism which we envisage, then, does not obviate justification nor require narrowness of outlook, but it does require that the pluralism itself shall be internalized, so that it becomes a factor which my convictions take into account. 42Berger, Heretical Imperative, 20-22; see ibid., 69. Of course, few persons simply turn inward. Instead, greater awareness of the self is part of the modern attempt to better understand the world.

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First, all three thinkers begin where contemporary persons must begin, namely, with an awareness of the problems caused for religious faith by probabilism and pluralization. Kierkegaard, Newman, and James all sought to justify vigorous religious faith without dodging either the “scandal of probability” or the problem of religious pluralism; consequently, each would seem to have something substantial to offer contemporary persons who wish to retain both their faith and their intellectual honesty. Second, all three thinkers participate in the “subjective turn” precipitated by pluralization. Each in his own way attempted to establish the credibility of religious faith by appealing to personal subjectivity. Given the challenged posed by probabilism, it seems reasonable to explore the possibility that Kierkegaard, Newman, and James offer a more workable approach to the justification of religious faith than do attempts to find warrant in “objective” internal evidence. Third, all three thinkers focus their respective religious epistemologies on the individual believer. Although this focus risks obscuring the social forces that shape individual beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, under the conditions of late modernity the central role of the individual cannot be ignored. Today’s inherited traditions and communities do not constitute traditional communities, but rather a set of options for the choosing individual. Kierkegaard, Newman, and James were not unaware of the historical and social factors that contextualize individual choice, but they focused on the free individual rather than on the shaping context. Contemporary defenders of religious faith might wish to broaden the focus, but the centrality of the individual cannot be dismissed as mere “Enlightenment individualism” without, ironically, losing sight of the shaping context that has give rise to the “heretical imperative.”

KEY ISSUES TO BE EXAMINED In this study, the religious epistemologies of Kierkegaard, Newman, and James will be appraised in terms of how each addresses three key issues: the relationship of internal evidence to faith, the nature of the “venture” of faith, and the proper approach to the adjudication of disputed religious truth claims.

INTRODUCTION

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Evidence and Faith Since the triumph of probabilism, would-be defenders of religious faith must specify how faith should be related to logical argumentation and empirical fact, that is, to internal evidence.43 In this study, the manner in which Kierkegaard, Newman, and James relate evidence to religious faith will be examined and critiqued. Key questions include the degree to which religious beliefs should depend on warranting evidence, and whether or not they should be held with a firmness proportioned to it. The Venture of Faith Kierkegaard, Newman, and James each thought of faith as a venture beyond the safe waters of the proven (or even provable). This study will inquire into the way each author conceptualized this “venture” and the related questions of religious certitude and doubt. A key issue will be the role of the will in the formation of belief. The Adjudication of Truth Claims Because Kierkegaard, Newman, and James participated in the subjective turn associated with pluralization, one of the most pressing problems they faced was the need to establish criteria by which conflicting religious truth claims can be adjudicated. A closely related issue is falsification. If believers are within their rights to venture in faith beyond the warrants of evidence, what if anything would count against a given religious belief? Do Kierkegaard, Newman, and James allow for the falsification of religious beliefs? If not, how can such beliefs be held with integrity? If so, how does one know when a belief must be abandoned?

A NOTE ON SOURCES Although the authorship of each displays an inner unity, the thought of Kierkegaard, Newman, and James grew and changed over time. A historical study would canvass the entire literary corpus, note these developments, and carefully distinguish between “early” 43Henceforth, whenever the word “evidence” appears alone or without a modifier (e.g., “empirical”), “internal evidence” is in view.

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and “mature” positions. As a philosophical inquiry, this study is less interested in the historical development of each thinker than in their insights into faith and reason as set forth in key texts. The wider literary corpus will be used to illuminate the meaning of these texts. The most important works for understanding Kierkegaard’s views on faith and reason are the so-called Climacus writings, Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Both volumes are illuminated in relevant ways by the larger Kierkegaardian authorship, especially Point of View, Practice in Christianity, and his unpublished journals and papers. The key texts for Newman’s views on the justification of religious faith are An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent and the socalled Oxford University Sermons. An invaluable supplementary resource is Newman’s unpublished papers on faith and certainty. Less helpful but pertinent are Apologia pro Vita Sua, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, and Newman’s letters and diaries. The main features of James’ justification of religious faith are found in his collection of essays, The Will to Believe, and in his ground breaking Gifford Lectures, The Varieties of Religious Experience. Important supplementary texts are Principles in Psychology, Pragmatism, and The Meaning of Truth. Also helpful are The Letters of William James (edited by his son) and The Thought and Character of William James, a two volume work by Ralph Barton Perry. Perry was a Harvard colleague of James, and his study contains valuable primary material not published elsewhere.

THE PLAN TO BE FOLLOWED Each of the next three chapters will focus on a single thinker. Although the same general outline has been followed throughout, each author’s distinctive ideas have occasionally required flexibility in treatment. A brief closing chapter will summarize the results of this study in terms of the issues set forth in this introduction. References to frequently cited primary sources are shortened in both text and notes according to the conventions set forth in the list of abbreviations.

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SØREN KIERKEGAARD AND THE VENTURE OF FAITH

INTRODUCTION Once it is granted that religious truth claims cannot be rationally demonstrated, some believers respond by separating faith and reason into distinct domains. Religious belief does not depend on the tentative conclusions of human reasoning; hence, religious commitment may be unqualified without being rationally certain. In its most extreme form, this approach sets faith against reason, arguing that faith inevitably conflicts with human rationality. Søren Kierkegaard advocates an unusually powerful and nuanced version of this “faith against reason” stance.1 After setting forth the basic features 1After decades of debate, precisely how Kierkegaard relates faith to reason remains controversial. Many interpreters believe that Kierkegaard sets faith in opposition to reason. See, e.g., Herbert Garelick, The AntiChristianity of Kierkegaard (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1965); Brand Blanshard, Reason and Belief (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1974); Alastair Hannay, Kierkegaard (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982); and Louis Pojman, The Logic of Subjectivity: Kierkegaard’s Philosophy of Religion (University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1984). Other interpreters protest against any suggestion that Kierkegaard is an irrationalist (Pojman himself does not charge Kierkegaard with irrationalism, but denies it—see Pojman, Logic of Subjectivity, ix); consequently, they argue that he is better characterized as setting faith above reason. On this reading, Kierkegaardian faith embraces what is beyond human reason but not contrary to it. This group of interpreters adopt two basic strategies for dealing with Kierkegaard’s frequent assertions that faith and reason conflict with one another. First, some distinguish between the views of Kierkegaard and his pseudonyms, attributing the faith against reason stance only to the latter. See Alastair McKinnon, “Kierkegaard’s Irrationalism Revisited,” International Philosophical Quarterly 9 (June 1969): 165-76; Jerry H. Gill, “Faith Not without Reason: Kant, Kierkegaard and Religious Belief,” in Kant and Kierke-

19

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of his position, it will be argued that Kierkegaard ultimately fails to provide a workable approach to the justification of religious faith in a pluralistic and probabilistic world.

PRELIMINARY ISSUES Before launching an analysis of Kierkegaard’s religious epistemology, three preliminary questions must be addressed. The first question is one of interpretation. Does Johannes Climacus speak for gaard on Religion, ed. D.Z. Phillips and Timothy Tessin (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 55-72. Second, some maintain that Kierkegaard does not set faith against reason per se, but only against reason as it is instantiated in either (1) Hegelian rationalism or (2) sinful human beings. For (1), see Alastair McKinnon, “Kierkegaard: ‘Paradox’ and Irrationalism,” Journal of Existentialism 7 (Spring 1967): 403; for (2), see Merold Westphal, Kierkegaard’s Critique of Reason and Society (University Park, Penn.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1987); C. Stephen Evans, “Is Kierkegaard an Irrationalist: Reason, Paradox, and Faith,” Religious Studies 25 (September 1989): 347-62; idem., Passionate Reason: Making Sense of Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1992); Steven M. Emmanuel, Kierkegaard and the Concept of Revelation (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1996); Murray A. Rae, Kierkegaard’s Vision of the Incarnation: By Faith Transformed (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997); N. H. Søe, “Kierkegaard’s Doctrine of the Paradox,” in A Kierkegaard Critique, ed. Howard A. Johnson and Niels Thulstrup (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1962), 207-27. For an excellent discussion that attempts to carve out middle-ground between the faith against and the faith above reason positions, see Karen L. Carr, “The Offense of Reason and the Passion of Faith: Kierkegaard and Anti-Rationalism,” Faith and Philosophy 13 (April 1996): 236-51. All things considered, it seems best to say that Kierkegaard sets faith against reason, though careful qualifications are required to prevent misunderstanding. Kierkegaard should not be dismissed as an irrationalist, but full weight must be given to his repeated assertions that persons must believe against the understanding. As the documentation in this chapter will show, such statements can be found outside of the Climacus writings and thus cannot be dismissed as unrepresentative of Kierkegaard’s own views. Moreover, Kierkegaard does not specify that his critique of rationality should be construed narrowly as a critique of Hegelian idealism; consequently, attempts to so interpret him are arbitrary. Finally, the observation that Kierkegaard locates the source of the conflict between faith and reason in human sinfulness is correct but incomplete (see the discussion below on the “absolute paradox”).

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Kierkegaard? As noted in chapter one, this study focuses on two works in the Kierkegaardian corpus, Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript.2 On the title page of both books, the name “Johannes Climacus” appears as the author. Some interpreters argue that the views of the pseudonymous Climacus do not correspond to Kierkegaard’s; hence, a short discussion of Kierkegaard’s relationship to Climacus is necessary. The second question is one of purpose. Does Kierkegaard intend to set forth a “justification of religious faith”? Some scholars believe that Kierkegaard eschewed all apologetics, and it must be conceded that he makes disparaging statements about attempts to rationally defend the Christian faith. Consequently, space will be given to an examination of Kierkegaard’s ambivalent attitude toward apologetics. The third question is one of relevance. If Kierkegaard offers a justification of religious faith, does his apologetic speak relevantly to contemporary concerns? A preliminary answer to this question was given in the introduction, but the particularities of Kierkegaard’s historical setting make additional comments necessary. Does Johannes Climacus Speak for Kierkegaard? Johannes Climacus is one of a series of pseudonyms employed by Kierkegaard in his authorship.3 These pseudonymous authors are not fictitious names meant to deceive the reading public; rather, they are “poetic persons” who function as ideal representatives of

2Søren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1985); idem, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, 2 vols., ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1992). Future references to Fragments will be abbreviated to PF; Postscript will be shorted to CUP. 3Kierkegaard borrowed the name from the historical person, Johannes Climacus (“John the Climber”—c. 570-649), a monk who wrote the widely read Ladder of Paradise. Kierkegaard’s Climacus appears as the main character in the unpublished work, Johannes Climacus, and as the author of both PF and CUP. For a study of Climacus’ personality and character, see Andrew J. Burgess, “Kierkegaard’s Climacus as Author,” Journal of Religious Studies 7 (Fall 1979): 1-14.

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distinct “life-views.”4 In the case of Johannes Climacus, the lifeview is that of an interested unbeliever. Thus the question: Does the unbeliever Climacus speak for the Christian Kierkegaard? A full discussion of pseudonymity in Kierkegaard’s writings would raise literary and biographical issues only tangentially related to this study. For the present purpose, the essential question is whether or not Kierkegaard’s own views can be identified with those of Climacus. Counting against such identification is Kierkegaard’s own testimony in “A First and Last Explanation” attached to the end of CUP. Kierkegaard there acknowledges that he is the “author” of the pseudonymous works, but only insofar as he has created the pseudonymous personalities, who then speak for themselves. “I have no opinion about them except as a third party,” he states, “and no knowledge of their meaning except as a reader.”5 4“A

pseudonym,” says Kierkegaard, “is excellent for accentuating a point, a stance, a position. He is a poetic person.” Søren Kierkegaard’s Journal and Papers, vol. 6, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, assisted by Gregor Malantschuck (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1978), 6421. (Future references to Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers will be abbreviated to JP.) On the pseudonyms as ideal representatives of distinctive “life-views,” see Mark C. Taylor, Kierkegaard’s Pseudonymous Authorship: A Study of Time and the Self (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1975), 55. Louis Mackey, Kierkegaard: A Kind of Poet (Philadelphia, Penn.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971), 247, comments, A Kierkegaardian pseudonym is a persona, an imaginary person created by the author for artistic purposes, not a nom de plume, a fictitious name used to protect his personal identity from the threats and embarrassments of publicity. When Kierkegaard signed his books with impossible names like Johannes de Silentio (John of Silence) and Vigilius Haufniensis (Watchman of Copenhagen), no one in the gossipy little world of Danish letters had any doubts about their origin. Nor did he mean that they should; his purpose was not mystification but distance. By refusing to answer for his writings he detached them from his personality so as to let their form protect the freedom that was their theme. 5CUP, [626]. In keeping with the editorial decision of the Hongs, the page number has been placed in brackets to indicate that “A First and Last Explanation” appears without pagination in the Danish original.

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Although he accepts legal and literary responsibility for the publication of their works, Kierkegaard asks those who quote from the pseudonymous authorship to cite “the representative author’s name, not mine.”6 Kierkegaard’s own testimony must be given full weight, but it does not settle the question at hand. For one thing, his insistence that the pseudonymous authors speak for themselves leaves unstated the extent to which Kierkegaard agrees or disagrees with them. Nor does it settle the extent of his agreement with Climacus, the purported author of PF and CUP. Indeed, a review of Kierkegaard’s non-pseudonymous works and his unpublished journals and papers show many points of agreement with Climacus.7 Moreover, the genesis of the Climacus writings suggests that the two are close on fundamentals. Kierkegaard originally intended to publish PF under his own name as the first in a series of philosophical pamphlets. Only at the last moment did he change his mind and employ a pseudonym.8 Since the addition of Climacus’ name to the title page was accompanied by only minor editorial changes to the book (confined for the most part to the preface and conclusion),9 it would seem reasonable to conclude that PF sets forth Kierke-

6Ibid.,

[627]. is a close similarity, for example, between the views of Climacus and Kierkegaard on central concepts such as “indirect communication,” the “absolute paradox,” the “stages of existence,” and Christianity as an “existence communication.” C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard’s “Fragments” and “Postscript”: The Religious Philosophy of Johannes Climacus (Atlantic Highland, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1983), 8. 8Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, “Historical Introduction,” in PF, xvi-xvii. Rae, Kierkegaard’s Vision, x, also notes that in the case of the Climacus and Anti-Climacus writings, Kierkegaard attached his name to the title page as “editor,” suggesting a closer relationship to them than to the other pseudonyms. 9See Niels Thulstrup, “Introduction” and “Commentary” on the Philosophical Fragments (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1962), xxxvxxxvii, 146-54. 7There

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gaard’s own views from the perspective of the unbeliever.10 This verdict on PF may safely be extended to its “postscript,” CUP. Kierkegaard’s use of Climacus as a pseudonym and his comments in the “Explanation” are best viewed, not as a straightforward distancing of himself from the views expressed in PF and CUP, but as an instance of “indirect communication,” that is, an artful “withdrawal” of the author intended to lure the reader into a personal appropriation of the truth (see below). Hence, in this study it will be assumed that Climacus speaks for Kierkegaard, albeit from the vantage point of an “outsider” to Christian faith.11 In deference to Kierkegaard’s wishes, however, quotations from PF and CUP will be attributed to Climacus—with the caveat that this study remains an appraisal of Søren Kierkegaard’s justification of religious faith.12 Does Kierkegaard Set Forth a “Justification of Faith”? Some interpreters contend that nothing like a justification of religious faith can be found in PF or CUP. In general, this view is held for one or both of the following reasons. 1. Some scholars contend that PF and CUP do not offer a coherent philosophical position of any kind, let alone a “justification of faith.” According to Mackey, for example, Kierkegaard is a “kind of poet” who uses irony, pseudonymous masks, and indirect communication to sub10By writing from the perspective of an unbeliever, Kierkegaard hoped to “beguile” readers within Christendom into recognizing their own need of Christian conversion. See “My Activity as a Writer,” in Søren Kierkegaard, The Point of View for My Work as an Author: A Report to History, trans. with intro. and notes by Walter Lowrie, newly ed. with a preface by Benjamin Nelson (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1962), 145-46; and “My Position as a Religious Writer in ‘Christendom’ and My Tactics,” in ibid., 152. Future references to Point of View will be abbreviated to PV. 11According to Pojman, Logic of Subjectivity, 90, “what distinguishes Climacus from Kierkegaard is simply perspective. Kierkegaard writes about Christianity as insider; Climacus writes about it from the outside, as something to be entertained; but both agree on how one becomes a Christian and on the content of Christianity.” 12The positions staked out in PF and CUP will be correlated with quotations from other Kierkegaardian texts, each of which will also be ascribed to its purported “author.”

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vert attempts to identify what he does not offer, namely, a philosophical “position.” Commenting on PF, Mackey says that “by making light of everything he says, by accusing himself of plagiarizing God, he [Climacus] reneges the conclusions he implies and comes up with no result at all.13 He adds, It is imperative, therefore, when reading Climacus’ works, to respect their avowed fragmentary and unscientific character. Above all it is necessary to take him at his word when he says that he has no opinions and proposes no doctrines. For the matter under discussion is human existence, concerning which the point to be made—and it can only be made humorously—is that opinions and doctrines are besides the point.14

Similarly, Josiah Thompson asserts that Kierkegaard must not be read as a philosopher at all, for seeking “to earnestly elucidate the philosophy expounded or the metaphysics presupposed in this or that work, is to miss the point that ultimately they seek to show the vanity of all philosophy and metaphysics.”15 In the same vein, recent “deconstructivist” readings have ostensibly identified in Kierkegaard’s works multiple, mutually inconsistent meanings.16 13Mackey,

A Kind of Poet, 168. 137. Under the influence of deconstructionist writers, Mackey has recently become even more skeptical that a coherent point of view can be found in Kierkegaard’s works. “Once it is recognized,” he states, “that Kierkegaard’s writings are not to be arrayed under the rubrics of philosophy and theology, it is not sufficient (as some of us used to think) to call them ‘literary.’ … By virtue of his authorial self-restraint, his texts exhibit an almost complete abstention from determinate meaning and an almost perfect recalcitrance to interpretation.” Louis Mackey, Points of View: Readings in Kierkegaard (Tallahassee, Fla.: Florida State University, 1986), xxii-xxiii. 15Josiah Thompson, Kierkegaard (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1973), 146. 16See Roger Poole, “The Unknown Kierkegaard: Twentieth Century Receptions,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. Alastair Hannay and Gordon D. Marino (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 68-72. Poole applauds these new deconstructivist readings. For a critical appraisal of “postmodern receptions,” see Sylvia Walsh, “Kierkegaard and Postmodernism,” Philosophy of Religion 29 (1991): 113-22. Walsh’s general assessment, found on p. 121, is worth quoting: 14Ibid.,

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On the face of it, it seems implausible that Kierkegaard would write several thousand pages of highly dialectical prose to demonstrate the pointlessness of philosophy. Nevertheless, this view finds some textual support in Climacus’ ironical dismissals of his own work. “What I write,” he says, “contains the notice that everything is to be understood in such a way that it is revoked.”17 He instructs his readers not to ask about his beliefs: “Next to the question of whether or not I have an opinion, nothing can be of less interest to someone else than what my opinion is.”18 Climacus even declares that CUP is “superfluous,” warning anyone who appeals to it as an authoritative statement, “has eo ipso misunderstood it.”19 He adds— slyly—that being an “authority” is “too burdensome” for a humorist like himself.20 In the light of such statements, should we suppose that Kierkegaard is a “poet” who has created the pseudonymous character Climacus to subvert attempts to carve out a coherent philosophical position? Or is Kierkegaard perhaps a protodecontructionist delighting in the “play” of ideas and skeptical of all truth claims? There are substantial reasons to reject such interpretations of Kierkegaard’s authorship in general and of PF and CUP in particular.

Far from embracing deconstruction or irony except as a strategy for dismounting untruth in whatever form it may appear, Kierkegaard’s thought constitutes an implied critique of postmodernism just as much as it was explicitly as well as implicitly critical of Hegelian idealism and German romanticism. From his standpoint, which is not the standpoint of irony but of striving in and upbuilding in life, postmodernism would appear, I suspect, as another form or perhaps the culmination of romanticism, neither post-modern nor truly modern in its Nietzschean aestheticism. Also critical of deconstructivist readings of Kierkegaard is Emmanuel, Concept of Revelation, 16-17. 17CUP, 619. 18PF, 7. 19CUP, 618. 20Ibid.

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For one thing, Climacus’ coyness about the nature and value of his writing is an instance of “indirect communication.”21 According to Climacus (and Kierkegaard), “essential truth” (i.e., ethical and religious truth) is only “true” as it is instantiated in an individual life. Essential truth cannot be communicated directly as a “result” lest the “self-activity of appropriation” be hindered.22 Appropriation entails an inner transformation of the learner that is possible only as the free, reflecting individual embraces the truth with pathos. But the pathos of appropriation is the result of the individual’s “self-activity”; thus, the wise teacher “withdraws” from the learner to create space for the learner’s subjectivity.23 How is this withdrawal accomplished? By precisely the sort of irony that Climacus employs throughout his work. The teacher must instruct in “contrastive form,” that is, in a form that shuns “helping” the learner by the use of direct appeals.24 Climacus explains, “If what is said is earnestness to the writer, he keeps the earnestness essentially to himself. If the recipient interprets it as earnestness, he does it essentially by himself, and precisely this is earnestness.”25 “Understanding this,” comments Climacus, “comes naturally to a vagabond and a frivolous person” like himself.26 It is worth noting that Kierkegaard has modeled his indirect approach on two artful communicators—Socrates and God. By means of irony and his profession of ignorance, Socrates attempted to lure individuals into personal reflection. In this connection, Climacus notes that Socrates thought of his ugly appearance as an asset to his work as a teacher of ethics. “He was very ugly,” writes Climacus, “had clumsy feet, and more than that, a number of bumps on his forehead and other places, which were bound to 21On indirect communication, see Emmanuel, Concept of Revelation, 129-42; Pojman, Logic of Subjectivity, 148-54. 22CUP, 242-43. 23Ibid. 24Ibid., 263-64. As Climacus puts it elsewhere, God does not need or welcome the services of a teacher who communicates directly. Ibid., 7879. 25Ibid., 264. 26Ibid., 243.

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convince you that he was a depraved character.” This sort of appearance helped “to place the learner at a distance so that he would not be caught in a direct relation to the teacher.” The “repulsion” of Socrates’ appearance thus promoted the inwardness of the learner.27 God, too, is an indirect communicator. As one looks at the world, God is not directly present—that is, he cannot be seen or heard with eyes and ears. Is not God “like an illusive author,” asks Climacus, “who nowhere sets forth his result in block letters or provides it beforehand in a preface?”28 By communicating indirectly, God seeks to lure individuals into an inner, volitional response to the truth. He wants, in other words, to lead persons out of untruth by helping them to become true. God can accomplish this only by breaking the direct relation so as to promote “the actual breakthrough of inwardness, the act of self-activity.”29 It would seem that Kierkegaard creates Climacus (and his other pseudonyms) to emulate of the divine and Socratic examples. Thus, Climacus dismisses himself as a loafer and a mere “humorist,” makes light of his own work, denies all authority, warns the reader against searching for his “opinion,” and in the end revokes what he has written—all so that he may lure his readers into intense reflection, thereby eliciting from them an inward, subjective response to the truth. In other words, Climacus uses irony in service of a higher cause; he is not merely an ironist.30 27Ibid., 247-49. Cf. Kierkegaard’s journal entry: “The reason why several of Plato’s dialogues end without results is far more profound than I used to think. It is an expression of Socrates’ maieutic art which makes the reader or hearer himself active and so does not end in a result but in a sting. It is an excellent parody of the modern method of learning by rote which says everything as quickly as possible and all at once and does not have the effect of making the reader take an active part, but makes him learn it like a parrot.” JP, 4266. 28CUP, 243-44. 29Ibid. 30Kierkegaard states that “the presence of irony does not necessarily mean that the earnestness is excluded. Only assistant professors assume that.” Ibid., 277. As a “master of irony,” Kierkegaard uses irony “as an instrument and not as an end in itself.” Jacob Golomb, “Kierkegaard’s Ironic Ladder to Authentic Faith,” Philosophy of Religion 32 (1991): 72.

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Kierkegaard’s “poetic” side in no way compromises the coherence of his religious philosophy. Granted that he is a “kind of poet,” it must nevertheless be insisted that Kierkegaard is “a poet with a difference.” As Kierkegaard himself states, “I am a poet, but a very special kind, for I am by nature dialectical, and as a rule dialectic is precisely what is alien to the poet.”31 Thus, it is wrong to suppose that Kierkegaard’s “poetry” excluded rational and consistent thought (the dialectical).32 One might argue, of course, that Kierkegaard’s writings are rife with philosophical inconsistency, but it is wrong to suggest that he intended to set forth incoherent arguments in order to expose the futility of all philosophy and metaphysics. In his retrospective essay, The Point of View for My Work as an Author, Kierkegaard himself attributes an inner coherence to his entire authorship. “The contents of this little book,” he states, “affirm … what I truly am as an author, that I am and was a religious author, that the whole of my work as an author is related to Christianity, to the problem of becoming a Christian.”33 According to Louis Pojman, this “little book” (taken together with the brief pamphlet, “My Activity as a Writer”), provides a comprehensive interpretation by Kierkegaard of the purpose of his entire authorship: the pseudonyms, the semipseudonyms, and the acknowledged writings. These writings, individually and corporately, served but one major purpose, Kierkegaard tells us: to depict, as clearly and accurately as possible, what is involved in becoming a Christian. All other considerations of form and content, of dialectics and poetic expression, are to be seen as subservient to that overriding aim.34

Whatever his twentieth century interpreters may surmise, Kierkegaard himself clearly meant his writings to be read as a coherent whole.

31JP,

6226. “Fragments” and “Postscript,” 211. 33PV, 5-6. 34Pojman, Logic of Subjectivity, 2. 32Evans,

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Nevertheless, some scholars discount Kierkegaard’s testimony on the grounds that he only “discovered” the religious coherence of his work in hindsight and falsified history to conform to his new perspective.35 This reading of Kierkegaard depends heavily on a “hermeneutics of suspicion” that routinely substitutes speculation for evidence. In any case, it should be noted that Kierkegaard himself admits that the full significance of his work became evident to him only in retrospect. Indeed, he attributes the overall coherence of his work not to human contrivance but to divine “governance.”36 He even insists that his readers need not take his word for it: the works themselves reveal that a religious intention lay behind the whole authorship. He states, It might seem that a mere protestation to this effect on the part of the author himself would be more than enough; for surely he knows best what is meant. For my part, however, I have very little confidence in protestations with respect to literary productions and am inclined to take an objective view of my own works. If as a third person, in the role of reader, I cannot substantiate the fact that what I affirm is so, and that it could not be so, it would not occur to me to wish to win a cause which I regard as lost … But everybody will admit that when one is able to show with respect to a phenomenon that it cannot be explained in any other way, and that in this particular way it can be explained in every detail, or that the explanation fits at every point, then this explanation is substantiated as it is ever possible to establish the correctness of an explanation.37

35For example, see Henning Fenger, Kierkegaard, The Myths and Their Origins: Studies in the Kierkegaardian Papers and Letters, trans. George C. Schoolfield (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1980), 1-31, especially 26-31. See also Joakim Garff, “The Eyes of Argus: The Point of View and Points of View with Respect to Kierkegaard’s ‘Activity as an Author,’” Kierkegaardiana 15 (1991): 29-54. Garff charges that Kierkegaard is a “virtuoso of deception” and that PV is “documenta(fict)tion.” Ibid., 52, 41. For a brief summary and critique of Fenger’s view, see Emmanuel, Concept of Revelation, 508. 36PV, 71-73, 92. 37Ibid., 15-16.

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There is thus no doubt about Kierkegaard’s own view of his authorship, though he pronounces all readers free to form their own judgments on the inner unity and religious purpose of his work. Rae justly observes that although the scholarly debate surrounding PV is ongoing, “the resulting confusion can fairly be attributed to scholarly obfuscation rather than to Kierkegaardian ambiguity.”38 This study accepts Kierkegaard’s self-interpretation against his more skeptical interpreters. 2. Some scholars deny that PF and CUP offer a justification of religious faith because of Kierkegaard’s well-known aversion to apologetics. Expressions of this antipathy to apologetics are not hard to find in the Kierkegaardian corpus. “The first one to come up with the idea of defending Christianity in Christendom,” declares the pseudonymous Anti-Climacus, “is de facto a Judas No. 2.”39 Indeed, “Christianity ought not to be defended,” for “the more learned, the more excellent the defense, the more Christianity is disfigured, abolished, exhausted like an emasculated man.”40 For this reason, Kierkegaard declares that apologetics is a betrayal of Christianity.41 There are indications, however, that Kierkegaard’s repudiation of apologetics is not as sweeping as it at first appears. A close inspection of the context of the above passages reveals that Kierkegaard is repudiating, not a defense of true Christian faith, but a defense that is untrue to the Christian faith. In PV, he states that “from the time when there could be any question of the employment of my powers, I was firmly determined to employ them all to defend Christianity.” He adds that early on he recognized that Christianity is seldom “presented in its true form.” On the contrary, those who set themselves up as defenders of the faith “most commonly betray 38Rae,

Kierkegaard’s Vision, 1. Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening, ed. and trans. with intro. and notes by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980), 87. Anti-Climacus is the pseudonymous author of Sickness unto Death and Practice in Christianity. 40Søren Kierkegaard, Works of Love: Some Reflections in the Form of Discourses, trans. Howard and Edna Hong, with a preface by R. Gregor Smith (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 194. 41PV, 38. 39Søren

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it.”42 It is this betrayal that aroused Kierkegaard’s ire. In particular, he is critical of the sort of apologetics that removes the “offensiveness” of Christianity by justifying it in terms acceptable to “Christendom.” According to Kierkegaard, individuals who casually assume that they are Christians must be confronted with undiluted New Testament faith and made to see that they live in error.43 Direct attacks on the illusions of Christendom are ineffectual, however, for they tend only to arouse resentment and resistance.44 The proper approach, therefore, is the indirect method. Rather than declaiming as an “authority,” one must help persons toward faith “from behind.” By speaking from the standpoint of an unbeliever, pseudonyms like Johannes Climacus allow Kierkegaard to attack religious delusions without himself posing as a religious authority. Kierkegaard explains, I have never fought in such a way as to say: I am the true Christian, others are not Christians … I have attacked no one as not being a Christian, I have condemned no one. Indeed, the pseudonym Johannes Climacus, who sets the problem ‘about becoming a Christian’, does exactly the opposite: he denies that he is a Christian and concedes this claim to the others—the remotest possible remove, surely, from condemning others.45

In the same place, Kierkegaard notes that the non-Christian Climacus is “better instructed” than those who believe themselves to be Christians as a matter of course. He adds that, one must approach from behind the person who is under an illusion. Instead of wishing to have the advantage of being that rare thing, a Christian, one must let the prospective captive enjoy the advantage of being a Christian, and for one’s part have resignation enough 42Ibid., 76-77. Cf. Søren Kierkegaard, On Authority and Revelation: The Book on Adler, or a Cycle of Ethico-Religious Essays, intro. Frederick Sontag, trans. with intro. Walter Lowrie (New York: Harper and Row, 1955), 5962. 43PV, 90. 44Ibid., 25. 45“My Position,” in ibid., 153. See also “My Activity,” in ibid., 14546.

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to be the one who is far behind him—otherwise one will certainly not get the man out of his illusion, a thing which is difficult enough in any case.46

Thus, it would seem that Kierkegaard intends to undermine the illusions of pseudo-Christians with a kind of negative apologetic.47 This sort of apologetic is in keeping with Kierkegaard’s conviction that intellectual reflection can indirectly prepare the way for faith: For one does not become a Christian by means of reflection, but to become a Christian in reflection means that there is another thing to be rejected; one does not reflect oneself into being a Christian, but out of another thing in order to become a Christian; and this is more especially the case in Christendom, where one must reflect oneself out of the semblance of being a Christian.48

Kierkegaard refers to his approach as a “new military science,” and one would not be wrong to say that it is apologetic in intent even if Kierkegaard eschews the apologetic label.49 Kierkegaard does not, therefore, reject every effort to defend religious faith. Neither does Climacus. Indeed, the original subtitle for PF (removed by Kierkegaard before publication) was “The 46Ibid., 24-25. “But all true effort to help,” says Kierkegaard, “begins with self-humiliation: the helper must first humble himself under him he would help, and therewith must understand that to help does not mean to be a sovereign but to be a servant, that to help does not mean to be ambitious but to be patient, that to help means to endure for the time being the imputation that one is in the wrong and does not understand what the other understands.” Ibid., 27-28. 47Kierkegaard states that “the communicator is characterized by reflection, therefore he is negative—not one who says he himself is a Christian in an extraordinary degree, or even lays claim to revelations … ; but, on the contrary, one who even affirms that he is not a Christian. That is to say, the communicator stands behind the other man, helping him negatively—for whether he actually succeeds in helping someone is another question.” Ibid., 43. 48Ibid., 96. 49Kierkegaard reserves that term “apologetics” for the “old military science” that betrays the cause of Christianity by conforming the faith to the illusions of Christendom. Ibid., 38.

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Apologetical Presuppositions of Dogmatics or ThoughtApproximations to Faith”; and Evans has made a plausible case for reading PF as a sustained apologetic.50 As for CUP, Climacus himself states that he is dealing with issues that ordinarily fall under the purview of dogmatics and apologetics.51 A fair conclusion would be that Kierkegaard does set forth a kind of “justification of religious faith,” though admittedly a far from ordinary one. Is Kierkegaard’s Religious Epistemology Relevant? The last preliminary question is whether Kierkegaard’s justification of religious faith speaks relevantly to contemporary concerns. As already noted, this question arises because Kierkegaard was contending with philosophical idealism and established Christianity— neither of which are directly relevant to the problems raised by probabilism and pluralization. In this regard, two observations are in order. First, Kierkegaard’s religious epistemology deals forthrightly with the issues raised by the new probabilism. Indeed, Kierkegaard not only accepted the epistemological constraints imposed by probabilism, he insisted on them. As the discussion in this chapter will show, he argued that objective rationality cannot provide human beings with anything more than probable conclusions. Judging probable conclusions too thin a foundation for faith, he insisted that genuine religious faith neither consists in objective knowledge nor depends on it. Precisely how Kierkegaard relates probability and faith will be explained below. At this point, it need only be noted that the philosopher’s frank acknowledgement of the probabilistic limits of human knowledge gives a contemporary “feel” to his writing. Second, Kierkegaard’s emphasis on individual subjectivity parallels impressively Peter Berger’s notion of the “heretical imperative” discussed in chapter one. For both Kierkegaard and Berger, the individual must risk decision with no assurance that the 50See

C. Stephen Evans, “Apologetic Arguments in Philosophical Fragments,” in Philosophical Fragments and Johannes Climacus, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1994), 63-83. 51CUP, 15.

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right choice will be made. There is, however, an important difference between the two thinkers. Berger presents the heretical imperative as a psychological necessity brought about by modern social conditions; Kierkegaard, on the other hand, emphasizes that the nature of religious faith makes the heretical imperative a moral and spiritual necessity.52 It should not be overlooked, however, that Denmark in Kierkegaard’s day was undergoing a transformation in political and economic practices that promoted the rise of modern individualism, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion.53 These forces, however embryonic, contributed to a social setting in which Berger’s heretical imperative would become psychologically compelling. Whether and to what extent Kierkegaard himself was influenced by these nascent social conditions is probably unanswerable; however, his sensitivity to the existential choices confronting individuals makes his epistemology relevant to persons living under today’s social conditions of massive pluralization and scientific probabilism.

FAITH VERSUS RATIONALITY: THE LEAP OF FAITH The following discussion of Kierkegaard’s approach to faith and rationality will focus on three questions. First, how is evidence related to faith? Second, what sort of “leap” does the venture of faith require? Third, how might disagreements over religious truth claims be resolved? Of course, these three questions are intimately related. How one goes about adjudicating disputed truth claims depends on what sort of grounding is believed necessary to warrant a leap of faith. Similarly, questions of warrant cannot be separated

52“The

course of development of the religious subject,” says Climacus, “has the peculiar quality that the pathway comes into existence for the single individual and closes up behind him.” CUP, 67. On Kierkegaard’s concept of the individual, see Libuse Lukas Miller, In Search of the Self: The Individual in the Thought of Kierkegaard (Philadelphia, Penn.: Muhlenberg Press, 1962). It should be noted that the moral importance of the heretical imperative is not completely overlooked by Berger. See Berger, Glory, 86-89. 53John W. Elrod, Kierkegaard and Christendom (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1981), 42-46.

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from questions about how evidence supports—or fails to support—faith. Evidence and Faith Kierkegaard went beyond the relatively modest assertion that religious faith does not require evidential support (a position staked out in recent years by advocates of “reformed epistemology”). Rather, he argued that faith is undermined by the quest for supporting evidence. An examination of Kierkegaard’s Climacus writings suggests at least six reasons for this sharp separation of faith and evidence. 1. The warrants provided by evidence are incommensurable with the spiritual needs of the religious believer. According to Climacus, passionate interest in attaining eternal life leaves the religious believer dissatisfied with the fallible, ever-revisable conclusions attainable by objective inquiry. If one’s eternal happiness depends upon probabilistic conclusions, the mere possibility of error will generate profound anxiety. Even doubts about trifles will unsettle the believer, for “in relation to an eternal happiness and an impassioned infinite interest … , a iota is of importance, of infinite importance.”54 This self54CUP,

26. See also ibid., 31. Climacus believes that by its very nature faith entails an infinite concern for one’s own eternal happiness (or blessedness). Ibid., 24. The word “passion” does not denote mere impulsivity or emotionalism. Edward J. Hughes, “How Subjectivity Is Truth in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript,” Religious Studies 31 (June 1995): 200, explains, “Passion includes within its denotational orbit aspects of human existence such as emotion, decisiveness, will, skill, intuition and endurance … Pre-eminent, however, in all of passion’s varied meanings is the concept of infinite concern: concern for one’s existence.” For Climacus, says Evans, “Fragments” and “Postscript,” 39, “To have a passion is to care deeply about something or someone. A passion is a wholehearted realization of what we sometimes call, rather colorlessly and palely, a value.” Gregor Malantschuk points out that although “passion” and “pathos” are intimately related, for Kierkegaard the former is more comprehensive than the latter; that is, “passion” may denote something positive or negative, while “pathos” refers exclusively to “a positive passionate emotion.” Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers, vol. 3, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, assisted by Gregor Malantschuk (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1975), 851. See also David J. Gouwens, Kierkegaard as a Religious Thinker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 97.

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concern may generate further inquiry as the seeker attempts to “get it right,” but the tentative results of such inquiry will fail to satisfy the infinitely concerned individual. Climacus’ stance on the incommensurability of faith and evidence leads to some extreme statements—most notably his famous declaration that the results of critical biblical scholarship are irrelevant to Christian faith.55 No matter how vigorously research scholars pursue their work, says Climacus, they can never attain more than “approximation knowledge” (his term for fallible inferences based on probabilities). There is, therefore, an “eternal misrelation” between such approximation knowledge and a “personal, infinite interestedness in one’s eternal happiness.”56 “In historical knowledge,” says Climacus, “an approximation is the only certainty—but also too little on which to build on eternal happiness.”57 Indeed, “to be infinitely interested in relation to that which at its maximum always remains only an approximation is a self-contradiction and thus is comical.”58 At this point, two misunderstandings must be avoided. First, Climacus does not condemn objective scholarship as unimportant or unworthy in itself. Commenting on biblical and theological scholarship, Climacus states that, philological scholarship is wholly legitimate, and the present author certainly has respect, second to none, for that which scholarship consecrates. On the other hand, one gets no unalloyed impression of critical theological scholarship. Its entire effort suffers from a certain conscious or unconscious duplexity. It always looks as if something for faith, something pertaining to faith, should suddenly result from criticism. Therein lies the dubiousness.59

Scholarly inquiry thus has value (though what that value might be is not spelled out here), but Climacus denies that critical scholarship can serve as a ground for faith. 55See

CUP, 30. 24. 57Ibid., 30. 58Ibid., 31. 59Ibid., 25. 56Ibid.,

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Second, Climacus is not suggesting that the faith of infinitely interested individuals is put at risk by negative assessments of the Bible’s historicity or teaching. On the contrary, he insists that anxious doubting will inevitably accompany every effort to establish faith on rational probabilities. Climacus states, Grundtvig [a Danish hymn-writer and church leader] had correctly perceived that the Bible could not possibly withstand the invading doubt, but he did not perceive that the reason for this was that the attack and defense were both rooted in a method of approximation, which in its perpetually continued striving is not dialectically adequate for an infinite decision on which an eternal happiness is built.60

The mistake, Climacus insists, is to suppose that faith should be established on the probability calculations of objective inquiry. “It is of no avail to press forward along this road,”61 for evidence and faith are incommensurable. The tie that binds them must be severed. 2. Attempts to ground faith on evidence make faith psychologically unavailable to the would-be believer. Climacus notes that in objective inquiry, the goal is to be as indifferent to one’s own interests as possible. “To objective reflection,” says Climacus, “truth becomes something objective, an object, and the point is to disregard the subject.”62 Thus, in the quest for truth, the objective thinker cultivates a state of mind in which religious faith is impossible. Observes Climacus, The way to the objective truth goes away from the subjective, and while the subject and subjectivity becomes indifferent [ligegyldig], the truth also becomes indifferent, and that is precisely its objective validity [Gyldighed], because the interest, just like the decision, is subjectivity.63

60Ibid.,

36-37. 27. 62Ibid., 192. 63Ibid., 193. On the meaning of “subjectivity,” Gouwens, Kierkegaard, 43, explains, “By ‘subjectivity,’ Kierkegaard means not ‘subjectivism,’ the claim that a belief is true because one believes it to be true. Rather, the question is whether, and if so to what degree, the thinking person ‘lives 61Ibid.,

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The upshot is that, far from leading to faith, “straightforward scholarly deliberation” cultivates an objectivity that brings about the loss of the “infinite, personal, impassioned interestedness, which is the condition of faith.”64 For this reason, Climacus says that it is “ordinarily the case that passion and reflection exclude one another.”65 Of course, Climacus is not suggesting that objective scholarship excludes passion of every kind. On the contrary, he acknowledges that the “scientific researcher” may labor with “restless zeal” and tireless enthusiasm in search of truth. In this quest, however, the scholar turns away from subjective truth, that is, “truth of appropriation,” and rests content with objective truth.66 “Accordingly,” notes Climacus, “the inquiring subject is indeed interested but not infinitely, personally, impassionately interested in his relation to this truth concerning his own happiness.”67 Put differently, the objective inquirer possesses an esthetic rather than an existential pathos. In the former, the individual “loses himself in an idea”; in the latter, the person relates to an idea in a life-transforming way.68 3. The quest for evidence indefinitely postpones the decision of faith. In view here is the person who hesitates on the precipice of commitment. Wishing to venture but wanting to be sure, he postpones making a decision until the evidence tips the scale toward certainty. Climacus insists, however, that the quest for objective certainty opens a “parenthesis” that will never close. Between the subject who must choose and the verb of decisive choosing (“I … believe”) stands never-ending inquiry. The coveted certainty will never emerge, for at best such inquiry can yield only probable conclusions (“approximation knowledge”). The decision of faith is thus postponed, and while the would-be believer waits in suspense for the results that would warrant faith, he becomes as passionless as the detached scholar upon whom he depends. within’ the idea entertained or the belief that is held, despite the ‘objective uncertainty’ of the belief.” 64CUP, 29. 65Ibid., 611. 66Ibid., 21-22. 67Ibid., 21. 68Ibid., 387.

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Climacus maintains, for example, that one who puts off venturing until the reliability of the Bible has been vindicated by critical scholarship will never venture. He states, “The first dialectical difficulty with the Bible is that it is a historical document, that as soon as it is made a stronghold an introductory approximation commences, and the subject is diverted into a parenthesis, the conclusion of which one awaits from all eternity.”69 The same parenthesis is introduced if one attempts to support faith with rational “proofs” of God’s existence. Imagining his own predicament should he attempt such a thing, Climacus says that “even if I began, I would never finish and also would be obliged continually to live in suspenso lest something so terrible happen that my fragment of demonstration would be ruined.”70 According to Climacus, the heart of the problem is the erroneous belief that faith flows naturally out of objective inquiry. On the contrary, faith entails decision—and all decision is “rooted in subjectivity.” It is, therefore, an illusion to suppose “that this transition from something objective to a subjective acceptance follows directly of its own accord.”71 As a matter of fact, turning to objective inquiry in a quest for faith generates a spiritually passionless state that makes faith—as noted above—psychologically unavailable. “When the matter is treated objectively,” says Climacus, “the subject cannot impassionately relate himself to the decision.”72 He adds,

69Ibid.,

38. Climacus explains that attempts to establish faith on the “evidence” of a church or creed fares no better. See Ibid., 40-45. 70PF, 42. 71CUP, 129-30. 72Ibid., 31.

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With applauded heroism, the modest objective subject keeps himself aloof; he is at your service and willing to accept the truth as soon as it has been obtained. Yet the goal to which he aspires is a distant one (undeniably so, since an approximation can continue as long as it pleases)—and while the grass grows, the observer dies, calm, for he was objective.73

It might be objected that Climacus is here too pessimistic. After all, scholars can sometimes reach conclusions that are virtually certain, and surely that is enough for faith. Climacus demurs, however. No matter how near scholarship approaches to certainty, even a rumor that the scholar’s demonstration might be flawed in some detail would be enough to bring back the parenthesis.74 For the individual in quest of objective certitude, the parenthesis can never be closed. “The approximation can go on as long as it wants to,” notes Climacus, “and because of it the decision by which the individual becomes a Christian is eventually forgotten completely.”75 4. The quest for evidence betrays a misunderstanding of the nature of faith. Specifically, the quest for such evidence wrongly supposes that (a) faith consists primarily of intellectual assent and (b) faith is promoted when it has objective probability on its side. The discussion below will address these two assumptions in order. (a) First error: faith consists primarily in intellectual assent. Were faith a matter of intellectual assent, then the quest for evidence might be expected to promote faith. In Climacus’ view, however, the attempt to bring faith (he is thinking particularly of Christian faith) into the

73Ibid.,

32. Elsewhere, Climacus speaks of objective inquirers as “dud individualities” who “in the moment of decision clicks instead of firing.” Ibid., 229. 74Ibid., 28. 75Ibid., 607-8. Climacus asserts, “The subject’s personal, infinite, impassioned interestedness … fades away more and more because the decision is postponed, and is postponed as a direct result of the results of the learned research scholar.” Ibid., 28. Climacus is deeply suspicious of the motives behind the quest for reasons supportive of faith. Waiting for more evidence before making the decision of faith is an attempt “to evade some of the pain and crisis of decision.” Ibid., 129. It amounts to “utter procrastination.” Ibid., 279.

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“range of intellectuality” is a complete misunderstanding.76 Christianity is all about the “development and remaking of subjectivity,”77 and to this end objective inquiry is something of an irrelevance. He states, Objectively the emphasis is on what is said; subjectively the emphasis is on how it is said. This distinction … is specifically expressed when we say that in the mouth of this or that person something that is true can become untruth … The passion of the infinite, not its content, is the deciding factor, for its content is precisely itself. In this way the subjective “how” and subjectivity are truth.78

Climacus is careful to explain that the priority of “how” over “what” only pertains to “essential truth,” that is, moral and religious truth.79 Matters of fact must still be established by objective inquiry, and philosophical arguments must still be assessed in terms of rational cogency. In regard to essential truth, however, Climacus insists, “If only the how of the relation is in truth, the individual is in truth, even if he in this way were to relate himself to untruth.”80 It might appear that Climacus here advocates a full-blown existentialism that regards the content of faith as an indifferent matter.81 In other contexts, however, Climacus makes it clear that he views the “what” of faith as relatively rather than absolutely unimpor76Ibid., 327. On Christian faith as entailing more than an “opinion” or intellectual assent, see Søren Kierkegaard, Practice in Christianity, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1991), 141-42. Hereafter, Practice in Christianity will be abbreviated to PC. 77CUP, 130. 78Ibid., 202-3. Emphasis original. 79Ibid., 199. 80Ibid. 81E.g., W. T. Jones attributes to Kierkegaard the view that “the belief of a Hindu that Vishnu is God, the belief of a Mohammedan that Allah is God, the belief of a Nuer that kwoth is God—even the belief of an atheist that there is no God—are all true; providing only that in each of these beliefs an objective uncertainty is embraced with passionate intensity.” W. T. Jones, Kant to Wittgenstein and Sartre, 2d ed. (New York: Harcourt and Brace, 1969), 228.

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tant. In a crucial passage, for example, Climacus upholds the priority of the “how” without suggesting that the content (the “what”) of faith is unimportant. Now, if the problem is to calculate where there is more truth … whether on the side of the person who only objectively seeks the true God idea or on the side of the person who is infinitely concerned that he in truth relates himself to God with the infinite passion of need—then there can be no doubt about the answer for anyone who is not botched by scholarship and science. If someone who lives in the midst of Christianity enters, with knowledge of the true idea of God, the house of God, the house of the true God, and prays, but prays in untruth, and if someone lives in an idolatrous land but prays with all the passion of infinity, although his eyes are resting upon an image of an idol— where, then, is there more truth? If one prays in truth to God although he is worshipping an idol; the other prays in untruth to the true God and is therefore in truth worshipping an idol.82

Significantly, Climacus does not here assert that the individual who sincerely worships a false god is in an ideal epistemic state, but rather that such a person possesses “more truth” than the one who worships the (objectively) true God “falsely.”83 Since Climacus grants the “how” only relative priority over the “what,” it would seem to follow that objective inquiry is only relatively less important to religious faith than is ordinarily supposed, not that it is utterly irrelevant to faith. The problem is that it is the 82CUP,

201. L. Perkins, “Kierkegaard, a Kind of Epistemologist,” History of European Ideas 12 (1990): 13, states, “Kierkegaard is not denying the distinction between truth and falsehood. In fact, he reiterates this distinction by insisting that one can be subjectively related to what is not true as well as to what is true. Wishing, commitment, devotion, faith, or whatever will not cause what is objectively untrue to become true. If something is untrue, it is untrue whether one is committed to it or not.” Kierkegaard’s habit of combining different senses of “true” has mislead many interpreters. For the view that the confusion is Kierkegaard’s, see Paul Edwards, “Kierkegaard and the ‘Truth’ of Christianity,” Philosophy 46 (April 1971): 89-107. 83Robert

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latter, more radical claim that Climacus consistently makes. Here is a hint of the deep incoherence in Kierkegaard’s religious epistemology that will be explored in due course. In fairness, it should be noted that there is a strand in Climacus’ writings that might be viewed as an attempt to solve this problem. What Climacus needs is a way to reconcile the relative unimportance of the “what” with the irrelevance of objective inquiry in matters of faith. An attempt at such a reconciliation might be found in Climacus’ assumption that the right sort of subjectivity will lead an individual into objective truth. In a journal entry, Kierkegaard calls attention to this strand in Climacus’ thought. Kierkegaard states, In all the usual talk that Johannes Climacus is mere subjectivity etc., it has been completely overlooked that in addition to all his other concretions he points out in one of the last sections that the remarkable thing is that when the How is scrupulously rendered the What is also given, that this is the How of “faith.” Right here, at its maximum, inwardness is shown to be objectivity.84

He is even more explicit in Christian Discourses, where he states, God does not allow a species of fish to come into existence in a particular lake unless the plant that is its nourishment is also growing there. Therefore one can draw a conclusion in two ways: this plant grows here, ergo this fish is also here; but even more surely, this fish is found here, ergo this plant grows here. Truly, no more than God allows a species of fish to come into existence in a particular lake unless the plant that is its nourishment is also growing there, no more will God allow the truly concerned person to be ignorant of what he is to believe. That is, the need brings the nourishment along with it; … not by itself, as if the need produced the nourishment, but by virtue of a divine determination that joins the two.85

84JP,

4550. Kierkegaard, Christian Discourses and The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, ed. and trans. with intro. and notes by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997), 224-25. Similarly, Climacus observes that “the god [Guden] rescues from delusion the person who in quiet inwardness and honest before God 85Søren

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It seems likely that Kierkegaard is guided here by John 7:16-17, where Jesus declares that anyone willing to obey the truth will also come to know it. In any case, he clearly endorses Climacus’ belief that the right “how” brings with it the correct “what.” Preoccupation with the “what,” on the other hand, reveals a deep misunderstanding, namely, that faith is first and foremost a matter of intellectual assent. (b) Second error: faith is promoted when it has objective probability on its side. Climacus insists that objective probability does not promote faith. Indeed, he actually argues that faith requires objective uncertainty. He states, “Without risk, no faith. Faith is the contradiction between the infinite passion of inwardness and the objective uncertainty. If I apprehend God objectively, I do not have faith; but because I cannot do this, I must have faith.”86 Climacus goes on to say one can only remain in faith by keeping alive the feeling of risk associated with objective uncertainty.87 According to Climacus, objective certainty diminishes passion. His paradigm case is mathematics, which leads, he says, to objective truth, “but therefore its truth is also indifferent truth.”88 Although existing human beings must in most instances be content with “approximation knowledge,” the more closely probabilistic conclusions approximate certainty the more the truth in question becomes existentially indifferent for the individual. The operative rule is the more objectively certain a truth, the less passion one has for the truth; conversely, the more objectively uncertain a truth, the more intense the passion. Since faith is a passion,89 it follows that objective uncertainty actually promotes faith. Climacus states, An objective uncertainty, held fast through appropriation with the most passionate inwardness, is the truth, the highest truth

is concerned for himself; even though he is ever so simple, the god leads him in the suffering of inwardness to the truth.” CUP, 615. 86CUP, 204. 87Ibid. 88Ibid. Climacus believes that mathematics and logic can yield “certain” conclusions, but only when they remain in the sphere of abstraction. Once they are applied to the concrete world, mathematics and logic can provide only probabilistic conclusions. 89PF, 54, 59, 61, 92.

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THE JUSTIFICATION OF FAITH there is for an existing person … Objectively he then has only uncertainty, but this is precisely what intensifies the infinite passion of inwardness, and truth is precisely the daring venture of choosing the objective uncertainty with the passion of the infinite. I observe nature in order to find God, and I do indeed see omnipotence and wisdom, but I also see much that troubles and disturbs. The summa summarum [sum total] of this is an objective uncertainty, but the inwardness is so very great, precisely because it grasps this objective uncertainty with all the passion of the infinite.90

Climacus adds that “the definition of truth stated above is a paraphrasing of faith.”91 Thus, this passage indicates that faith entails a passionate embrace of an objective uncertainty, and without the uncertainty there can be no faith. Put differently: No risk, no passion; no passion, no faith. On the basis of this (dubious) psychology of faith, Climacus goes on to assert that faith is promoted, not simply through objective uncertainty, but preeminently by objective absurdity. This more radical claim will be discussed in connection with Climacus’ notion of the “absolute paradox.” For the present, the important point is that Climacus believes faith “feeds” off of objective uncertainty. The quest for evidence actually weakens faith, for if faith is rendered probable, it does not entail radical “risk.” Reduced risk means reduced passion, and reduced passion means diminished faith. Climacus’ belief that objective uncertainty promotes faith might appear to be inconsistent with his contention that “approximation knowledge” is incommensurate with faith. Why would probabilistic conclusions be an insufficient foundation for faith when objective uncertainty is the very thing faith needs to thrive? The answer is found in the phrase, “foundation for faith.” The objective uncertainty associated with “approximation knowledge” is only a problem when one attempts to make it the basis for faith. Faith involves an infinite interest in eternal blessedness; it cannot rest content on a foundation of tentative opinion. On the other hand, if objective uncertainty awakes the individual to fact that faith is rooted in subjectivity, then all is well. Put differently, if one attempts 90CUP, 91Ibid.

203.

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to make faith objective (i.e., a kind of knowledge), then objective uncertainty undermines faith; if one accepts faith as subjective, then objective uncertainty may be viewed as a kind of negative condition for faith. 5. Evidence can support historical belief but not faith in a transcendent God. Because the Christian faith confesses Jesus of Nazareth as the incarnation of God, many seek to strengthen faith in the Christian God by establishing the historical reliability of the New Testament gospels. Since historical truth claims are evaluated in terms of evidence, it follows that a faith strengthened by historical inquiry is in some sense dependent upon evidence. Climacus, however, rejects this entire approach to faith. God is radically transcendent, he asserts, and therefore cannot be directly perceived in historical events. Consequently, factual inquiries into those events cannot support faith in God. To shed light on Climacus’ position, it is helpful to examine one of Kierkegaard’s journal entries. Kierkegaard writes, God is spirit. As spirit, God relates paradoxically to appearance (phenomenon), but paradoxically he can also come to actuality that stands right in the middle of it, right on the street in Jerusalem. It is impossible for God to be identified directly, His majesty is so great that the most audacious inventiveness could not invent a phrase adequate to describe him as directly identifiable, … There is, after all, no analogy between humanity and this majesty, whose elevation is simply that nothing directly recognizable can express it and it can only be identified paradoxically.92

God’s transcendent nature is such, says Kierkegaard, that his reality and presence cannot be directly perceived even in the incarnation. How can “spirit” be seen in physical phenomena? How can majesty beyond all human analogy be seen in a human being walking the streets of Jerusalem? “There is,” says Kierkegaard in another place, “an infinite, radical, qualitative difference between God and man,”93 and one consequence of this difference is that even in his self-revelation God remains hidden from view. Of course, what is hidden from human observation must also remain hidden from 92JP,

3099. 1383.

93Ibid.,

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the historian; thus, historical inquiry can support historical beliefs about Jesus of Nazareth but not the belief that Jesus is Godincarnate. Climacus closely follows Kierkegaard’s analysis. He too emphasizes the “qualitative difference” between God and humans— deity is “the absolutely different.”94 As such, God is inaccessible to human understanding and not recognizable in observable phenomenon.95 Climacus explains, There exists [existere], then, a certain person who looks just like any other human being, … This human being is also the god. How do I know that? Well, I cannot know it, for in that case I would have to know the god and the difference, and I do not know the difference, inasmuch as the understanding has made it like unto that from which it differs. Thus the god has become the most terrible deceiver through the understanding’s deception of itself. The understanding has the god as close as possible and yet just as far away.96

In view of this uncompromising stance on divine transcendence, it comes as no surprise that Climacus denies that God can be directly perceived in a human being. God may come “as close as possible” to human beings through the incarnation and yet remain unrecognized. How could the “absolutely different” be directly perceived in one who appeared in the form of a human being? If he cannot, how could historical knowledge support faith in Jesus as God-incarnate? It might be assumed that those who saw and heard Jesus would have an advantage over those who came later, but Climacus insists that faith is equally difficult for both because the transcendent God is not directly recognizable. He writes, The contemporary can go and observe the teacher— and does he dare to believe his eyes? Yes, why not? As a consequence, however, does he dare to believe that he is a follower? Not at all, for if he believes his eyes,

94PF, 44. In the immediate context, Climacus identifies the “difference” as due to creaturely sin. See ibid., 47. It is wrong to assume, however, that other aspects of God’s transcendence are meant to be excluded. See the discussion of the “absolute paradox” below. 95Ibid., 45-46. 96Ibid.

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he is in fact deceived, for the god cannot be known directly. Then may he close his eyes? Quite so. But if he does, then what advantage of being a contemporary?97

Only by “closing one’s eyes” can one see God, says Climacus. As will become clearer below, this closing of the eyes corresponds to the “seeing” that accompanies the gift of faith. For the present purpose, it is enough to note that Climacus maintains that evidence, while capable of establishing historical facts, cannot provide support for faith. Were faith founded on simple historical fact, says Climacus elsewhere, being a contemporary of Jesus or having access to reliable historical information would be invaluable.98 However, since the deity of Christ is not a simple historical fact, “faith cannot be distilled” from even detailed and reliable historical records.99 Even if a person living in the first generation after Jesus “combined a tyrant’s power with a tyrant’s passion” and labored tirelessly to obtain a full and accurate account of Jesus’s every word and action, he would not thereby attain a knowledge generative of faith. Indeed, he would continually have to be reminded that he did not see or hear the god directly or immediately but saw a human being in a lowly form who said of himself that he was the god—in other words, he would continually have to be reminded that this fact was based upon a contradiction. Would this person be served by the reliability of the report? Viewed historically, yes, but otherwise not, …”100

97Ibid.,

63. 99. 99Ibid., 103. 100Ibid., 93. “Directly there was nothing to be seen,” says AntiClimacus, “except a lowly human being who by signs and wonders and by claiming to be God continually constituted the possibility of offense.” PC, 65. Elsewhere, Anti-Climacus observes, “If Christ is true God, then he must also be unrecognizable, attired in unrecognizability, which is the denial of all straightforwardness.” Ibid., 136. 98Ibid.,

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No one, says Climacus, can be “educated up to” the fact that God appeared in human flesh. Claims to the contrary amount to mere “blather.”101 6. The possession of evidence cannot render God’s paradoxical selfrevelation credible. As explained above, no amount of evidence can strengthen faith in God because deity is not directly recognizable. Climacus does not stop with this (relatively) modest claim, however. He goes on to assert that the incarnation itself involves the unthinkable: the eternal God has entered time as a human being. The incarnation, Climacus insists, is a “break with all thinking”102— an “absolute paradox” without analogy and absurd to human understanding.103 The implication is that evidence, far from establishing the probable truth of the central Christian truth claim (namely, Jesus Christ as God-incarnate), in fact demonstrates its rational impossibility. If one is to believe, it must be against the understanding. Precisely what Climacus means by the word “paradox” is not immediately clear. The etymology of the word suggests the meaning “conflicting with opinion” (from paradoxon), but this is too vague to shed much light on Climacus’ usage. A common misunderstanding is to suppose that the absolute paradox entails a formal, logical contradiction. Herbert Garelick, for example, asserts, This Paradox is the ultimate challenge to the intellect, for all attempts to understand it must conform to the laws of judgment and discourse: identity, contradiction, and excluded middle. Yet the paradox violates these laws … Rationally, the statement ‘God-man’ is a nonsensical statement.104

101PF,

64. 579. 103In general, the Hongs translate the Danish word Forstanden as “understanding.” Hegel and other German philosophers distinguished “understanding” (Verstand) from “reason” (Vernunft). They maintained that ultimate truth was accessible to the latter, but not to the former. Climacus does not make this distinction. See Andrew J. Burgess, “Forstand in the Swenson-Lowrie Correspondence and in the ‘Metaphysical Caprice,’” in Philosophical Fragments and Johannes Climacus, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1994), 110-22. 104Garelick, Anti-Christianity of Kierkegaard, 28. 102CUP,

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It is not difficult to find passages in Climacus (and Kierkegaard) that lend plausibility to Garelick’s interpretation. Climacus describes the incarnation as a “self-contradiction”105 that is “absurd” and can be believed only against the understanding.106 By themselves, such statements look like a repudiation of logic. A more careful examination of Climacus’ writings, however, show the untenability of this sort of “hard-irrationalist” reading. For example, Climacus follows Aristotle in asserting that one cannot deny the law of non-contradiction without thereby affirming it.107 Elsewhere, he explicitly states that his “hypothesis” concerning the incarnation is “unreasonable” (indeed, the “strangest thing of all”) but not logically self-contradictory.108 In the light of this denial, Climacus’ earlier reference to the incarnation as a “selfcontradiction”109 should be regarded as linguistic imprecision springing from his determination to uphold the rational impenetrability of the absolute paradox. In effect, Climacus does not regard all “contradictions” as equal. Some are “meaningless” selfcontradictions; others are incomprehensible mysteries that are profoundly true.110 How Climacus thinks one should go about distinguishing the meaningless from the mysterious will be explained 105PF,

87. 106Ibid., 52-53. 107Ibid., 108-109. 108Ibid., 101. 109Ibid., 87. 110“Ultimately,” observes Sylvia Walsh, “the absolute paradox, however improbable, absurd, contradictory, or paradoxical it appears to human consciousness, expresses only the obverse side of the truth, which is not only not improbable or impossible but is entirely possible because it is actual, having come into existence in the form of an individual human being in a decisive moment in time. From the standpoint of faith, all things are possible for God, even, we may presume, an entry into the forms and substance of the temporal order that are qualitatively different from the divine.” Sylvia Walsh, “Echoes of Absurdity: The Offended Consciousness and the Absolute Paradox in Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments,” in Philosophical Fragments and Johannes Climacus, International Kierkegaard Commentary, ed. Robert L. Perkins (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1994), 45.

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when the question of adjudication of truth claims is taken up below. On this issue of logic and contradiction, C. Stephen Evans helpfully explains that Kierkegaard usually follows the Hegelian practice of calling statements “contradictory” when contemporary thinkers would use the word “incongruous.”111 Evans points out, for example, that when Climacus sets forth specific examples of “contradictions,” none of them involve strict, logical inconsistency.112 So long as one does not reduce the paradox to a temporary mystery that is in principle explainable by human beings, it is probably right to follow Evans and say that Kierkegaard regards the absolute paradox as “an apparent contradiction” that bursts the wineskins of human concepts and entangles interpreters in paradoxical expressions.113 Although frequently in disagreement with Evans, on this narrow point Pojman agrees that for Kierkegaard “there is a coherent, necessary truth about reality—only it is God’s possession, belonging to His omnipotence, not man’s. God sees reality from eternity, sees it as complete. For man to presume to that vantage point is hubris of the most absurd kind.”114 111Evans, “Kierkegaard an Irrationalist?,” 350. For Hegelians, Evans observes, a formal, logical contradiction would be viewed as a special instance of the larger class of incongruous statements. See also idem., “Fragments” and “Postscript,” 213-14. 112Ibid., 350-51. See the lengthy note at CUP, 514-19. 113Evans, “Kierkegaard an Irrationalist?,” 353, explains, “In general, the discovery of a paradox is the result of an encounter with reality which our concepts are inadequate to deal with, a reality that ties us in a conceptual knot. When we try to understand it we find ourselves saying contradictory things, but of course this does not mean that the reality we have encountered is self-contradictory. It means that there is a problem with our conceptual equipment.” What Evans says here about “paradox” is preeminently true of the absolute paradox. 114Pojman, Logic of Subjectivity, 29. According to Pojman, Kierkegaard spoke of three kinds of “truth”: objective, subjective, and eternal. The latter consists in “the objectively true, comprehensive knowledge that [only] God possesses.” Kierkegaard believes, Pojman says, that the absolute paradox appears to be logically contradictory when viewed from the objective, human point of view; but Kierkegaard did not believe that the absolute paradox is contradictory from a divine, eternal point of view. See

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Why is the incarnation paradoxical to human understanding? Climacus locates the paradox in the unthinkable entrance of the eternal God “into existence at a specific moment in time as an individual human being.”115 “The eternal truth,” says Climacus, “has come into existence in time. That is the paradox.”116 Most strikingly, Climacus writes of the incomprehensible moment when “the eternal [i.e., God], previously non-existent, came into existence [blev til].”117 What does it mean to say that the “non-existent” God came “into existence”? The Hongs explain that blev til “refers to temporal and spatial modes of becoming and being.” As a timeless being, the eternal “does not come into being but comes into time and space as a specific embodiment of the eternal.” Thus, “existence is a mode of being, but not all being is existence.”118 The absolute paradox, then, appears to consist in the rationally unexplainable entrance of the eternal into the constraints of space and temporality. As Louis Pojman puts it, The incarnation is a contradiction because it suggests that the unchangeable and eternally existing God changes and comes into existence. Ordinary belief cannot comprehend how the eternal God can become temporal, hence belief in the incarnation must involve a

ibid., 59-60. Although McKinnon has a different view of the absolute paradox from that adopted in this study, he introduces a useful distinction between “ontological” and “epistemological” irrationalism. The former holds that reality itself is somehow absurd or irrational; the latter maintains that reality sometimes appears logically contradictory to human beings, but ultimately is not. See Alastair McKinnon, “Irrationalism Revisited,” 165-66. Using McKinnon’s terminology, one might designate Kierkegaard an epistemological irrationalist. However, the word “irrationalist” carries so much baggage that applying it to Kierkegaard is misleading and should be avoided altogether. 115CUP, 578. 116Ibid., 209. 117PF, 13. 118Ibid., 280.

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THE JUSTIFICATION OF FAITH faith that transcends the natural capacities of human beings.119

The incarnation thus represents a “leap” of eternity into time—a breakthrough into immanence from the outside that “would seem to annihilate reason, because it breaks with its direct movement.120 “Can there be a more evident infraction of the principle of reason,” asks Fabro, “than the affirmation that the eternal is in time, that the immutable is born and dies, that God atones for man’s sins?”121 Obviously, the answer is “no,” though Christopher Insole cautions, “It is clear that time and eternity are not logical contradictions, but existential contraries. The union of time and eternity is the union of what is experienced as conflicting, and so as tensionfilled, but not what is logically perceived as impossible because meaningless.”122 Against the above view, Evans argues that the paradoxicalness of the incarnation is not due to a metaphysical disjunction between the eternal, infinite God and temporal, finite existence. He points out that Kierkegaard consistently identifies eternality and temporality as constituent parts of human beings. “The paradoxicalness of the incarnation,” Evans states, “thus mirrors the paradoxicalness which is generally present in human experience.”123 According to Evans, the appearance of paradox is rooted in the epistemological constraints imposed by human sinfulness. He states, Human beings are sinful, and their sinfulness not only blocks them from a proper understanding of God; it is the reason the paradox is to us human beings a paradox. The difference, the absolute qualitative difference between God and man which makes the idea of the

119Pojman, The Logic of Subjectivity,100-101. Recall Pojman’s opinion, noted above, that Kierkegaard thinks that the incarnation is a “contradiction” from the human point of view. From God’s eternal perspective, there is no contradiction. 120Cornelio Fabro, “Faith and Reason in Kierkegaard’s Dialectic,” in A Kierkegaard Critique, ed. Howard A. Johnson and Niels Thurlstrup (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1962), 184. 121Ibid., 167. 122Christopher Insole, “‘Kierkegaard’: A Reasonable Fideist?” Heythrop Journal 39 (1998): 373. Emphasis added. 123Evans, “Kierkegaard an Irrationalist?,” 349.

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God-man incomprehensible to us is plainly said to derive from human sinfulness [Evans cites PF, 46-47], not the metaphysical qualities cited by Pojman as the heart of the paradox.124

Evans observes that since no one is innocent of sin, Kierkegaard “naturally thinks that there will be tension between our human thinking … and Christian faith.”125 He concludes, Ultimately, Kierkegaard thinks that the reasons why human beings have trouble believing in the incarnation have very little to do with esoteric metaphysical puzzles. We have trouble believing because we are selfish and we have trouble comprehending an action which is pure unselfishness. We have trouble believing because we are proud and do not wish to recognize that there are realities that we are unable to grasp.126

Evans is right when he observes that Climacus sees the incarnation as cutting across the grain of human sinfulness and overthrowing common sense expectations.127 Sinners are, says Climacus, “excluded” from the truth, incapable of recognizing and embracing it. “Polemical” in their opposition to truth, human beings are “bound” to “untruth.”128 They are too corrupt to trust their philosophical reflections (whether in its speculative “Platonic” mode, or, better, in its existential “Socratic” form) to lead them into truth129 and too blinded by sin to understand the absolute

124Ibid., 354-55. Evans is responding in part to Pojman’s Logic of Subjectivity, quoted above. For essentially the same view as Evans from a sociological perspective, see Westphal, Kierkegaard’s Critique, 88-89, 102. 125Evans, “Kierkegaard an Irrationalist,” 354. 126Ibid., 360. 127Contra Evans, this insight is not lost on Pojman. “The infinite qualitative distinction between God and man consists in man’s sin, his alienation from God. Sin’s corruption is total, affecting not only man’s will and intuition but even his reason. Common sense is non-sense when one judges divine truth.” Pojman, The Logic of Subjectivity, 20-21. For AntiClimacus’ remarks on the “offense” that arises when Christ challenges the accepted norms of the existing order, see PC, 86-94. 128PF, 15-16. 129CUP, 205-9, 583.

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paradox.130 Evans is wrong, however, to deny (or at least sharply minimize) the metaphysical aspects of the “infinite qualitative difference” between God and humanity. Climacus does stake out the position Evans attributes to him,131 but he also discusses the paradox in metaphysical categories. Says Climacus, The absolute paradox, precisely because it is absolute, can be related only to the absolute difference by which a human being differs from God; … But the absolute difference between God and a human being is simply this, that a human being is an individual existing human being … ; God, however, is the infinite one, who is eternal.132

This passage locates the “absolute difference,” not in human sinfulness, but in a metaphysical disjunction, namely, the entrance of the infinite, eternal God into finite, temporal existence. Similarly, Climacus says that the eternal “has become historical only against its nature.”133 The incarnation “is historical in such a way that its composition includes that which according to its nature cannot become historical and consequently must become that by virtue of the absurd.”134 As already indicated, Evans observes that Climacus views human beings as a composite of eternality and temporality, and on this basis he draws the conclusion that the eternal God taking on temporal existence is no more paradoxical (in a metaphysical sense) than human existence. Evans fails to observe, however, that Climacus makes a crucial distinction between the “contradiction” that is an inevitable part of human life and the “contradiction” of the incarnation. “A human being,” says Climacus, “according to his possibility is eternal and becomes conscious of this in time: this is a contradiction within immanence. But that the by-nature eternal comes into existence in time, is born, grows up, and dies is a break with all thinking.”135 Thus, the “synthesis of the temporal and the 130PF,

46-47.

131Ibid. 132CUP,

217. 578. 134Ibid., 385. 135Ibid., 579. 133Ibid.,

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eternal” that constitutes humanity136 is qualitatively different from the entrance of the eternal into time. The latter entails an invasion of the immanent by the transcendent that is discontinuous with human understanding in the way human existence is not. Evans wants to show that Kierkegaard is not an irrationalist, but this laudable aim has led him to overlook the “metaphysical” aspects of the absolute paradox. A more balanced view is taken by Reidar Thomte, who suggests that the paradoxicalness of the incarnation is the result of a metaphysical difference between God and humanity that has been accentuated by human sin.137 Ultimately, it is less important for the present purpose to determine the precise nature of the absolute paradox than to see that it is rationally impenetrable. Climacus never tires of emphasizing that the incarnation is opaque to human understanding. Those who imagine that they have apprehended the paradox, he says, may rest assured that they have misunderstood it.138 True understanding 136See

ibid., 56. Thomte, Kierkegaard’s Philosophy of Religion (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1948), 158. Cf. Patrick Gardiner, Kierkegaard (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 102, who notes that it has been argued that for Kierkegaard the paradox of the incarnation essentially consisted in its being an offense to our sentiments rather than to our understanding: God is felt to have appeared in a shockingly inappropriate form and to have suffered humiliations and indignities unworthy of his divine nature. There are certainly passages in various of Kierkegaard’s works, and particularly in Training in Christianity, which are consonant with the latter approach. Even so, much that he wrote in Postscript indicates that this was by no means all that he had in mind. He may have portrayed the incarnation as emotionally or morally outrageous in the sense of dumbfounding standard expectations or upsetting commonly accepted valuations; but the conclusion that he wanted to stress its offensiveness to the intellect as well seems irresistible in the light of his frequent asseverations to that effect. It was surely not for nothing that, when speaking of the ‘martyrdom’ of faith, he referred to it as a ‘crucifixion of the understanding’. 138CUP, 579. 137Reidar

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entails acknowledging that the absolute paradox will always elude comprehension.139 “To explain the paradox,” says Climacus, involves grasping “ever more deeply what a paradox is and that the paradox is the paradox”—that is, unexplainable.140 Just as it is “ludicrous” to pronounce an ordinary puzzle an incomprehensible mystery, so it is “equally ludicrous” to try to make sense of the “essentially paradoxical.”141 All attempts to “explain” the absolute paradox ultimately succeed only in explaining it away.142 In the end, “the absolute paradox is indeed distinguishable in such a way that every analogy is a deception.”143 The importance of this last statement must not be missed. If the absolute paradox is without analogy, then it cannot be assimilated into human thought. It is a singularity, a “strange” datum, an “absurdity” that cannot be rationalized.144 The upshot is that at best evidence can establish the absurdity of the absolute paradox. Were such evidence to render the paradox probable, it would remove the “absurdity”—and thereby do away with the paradox itself. Climacus states that historical inquiry cannot make certain (or even probable) “that which is absurd precisely because it contains the contradiction that something that can become historical only in direct opposition to all human understanding has become histori-

139PF, 59. Anti-Climacus asserts that Christ himself “knows that no human being can comprehend him, that the gnat that flies into the candlelight is not more certain of destruction than the person who wants to try to comprehend him or what is united in him: God and man.” PC, 77. A few pages later, he says, “The God-man is the paradox, absolutely the paradox. Therefore, it is altogether certain that the understanding must come to a standstill on it.” Ibid., 82. 140CUP, 220. 141Ibid., 561-62. 142Ibid., 218-20; PF, 53. Cf. PC, 81. 143CUP, 597. 144Cf. Anti-Climacus’ view that the “God-man,” as the unity of deity and humanity in a single individual, is rationally crazy: “Humanly speaking, there is no possibility of a crazier composite than this either in heaven or on earth or in the abyss or in the most fantastic aberrations of thought.” PC, 82.

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cal.”145 A contradiction such as this, says Climacus, can be believed, but it cannot be made believable by historical inquiry. He explains, A witness can testify that he has believed it and testify that, far from being a historical certainty, it is in direct opposition to his understanding, but such a witness repels in the same sense as the absurd repels, and a witness who does not repel in this way is eo ipso a deceiver or a man who is talking about something altogether different; and as such a witness can be of no help except in obtaining certainty about something altogether different.146

No matter how many witnesses rise up to testify that they have believed the absurd, Climacus goes on to say, the absurd becomes no less absurd.147 The Venture of Faith Since Climacus (Kierkegaard) repudiates every effort to establish religious faith on a foundation of evidence, it comes as no surprise that the riskiness of faith is prominently featured in his writings. For both Climacus and Kierkegaard, genuine faith is a bold venture that shuns the security of rational “proofs” and probabilities. Indeed, faith sensu eminentiori ventures not only beyond the understanding but against it as well. 145CUP,

211. 212. 147Ibid. Cf. PC, 26, where Anti-Climacus’ denial that historical inquiry can demonstrate the truth of the paradoxical incarnation: That an individual human being is God, that is, claims to be God, is indeed the offense κατ’ έξοχήν [in an eminent sense]. But what is this offense, that which offends? That which conflicts with all (human) reason. And it is that which one wants to demonstrate! But to “demonstrate” is, after all, to make something into the rational-actual that it is. Can one, then, make that which conflicts with all reason into the rational-actual? Certainly not, unless one wants to contradict oneself. Similarly, Anti-Climacus asserts that Christ is not a “merely historical person, since as the paradox his is an extremely unhistorical person.” Ibid., 63. 146Ibid.,

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Not all religious faith is faith sensu eminentiori, however. Climacus speaks of a kind of natural knowledge of God which is valid as far as it goes but falls short of the highest expression of faith, which is found in Christianity. To this kind of natural religion, Climacus gives the generic label, “Religiousness A.” It differs from Christian faith (which Climacus designates “Religiousness B”) in that it knows nothing of the absolute paradox. Religiousness A involves a passionate concern to conform all of life in accord with eternal truth (and for this reason is regarded by Climacus as a necessary precondition for Christian faith148), but as an “immanent religion” is does not concern itself with the eternal truth that has entered time, namely, the paradoxical incarnation. Climacus associates Religiousness A with Socrates, whom he credits with a venturesome faith in God and immortality. “When Socrates believed that God is,” Climacus writes, “he held fast the objective uncertainty with the entire passion of inwardness, and faith is precisely in this contradiction, in this risk.”149 Commenting on Socrates’ hope of immortality, Climacus observes, “He stakes his whole life on the “if”; he dares to die, and with the passion of the infinite he has so ordered his whole life that it might be acceptable—if there is an immortality.”150 Because Socratic faith (i.e., Religiousness A) ventures in the face of objective uncertainty, Climacus sometimes speaks of such faith as “paradoxical.” He cautions, however, that the nature of the Socratic paradox must be “understood correctly.”151 From the Socratic point of view the “eternal, essential truth” is not in itself paradoxical—there is nothing paradoxical, for example, about believing in God or immortality. The paradox within Socratic faith is rooted in the subjective individual’s willingness to risk everything on an objective uncertainty.152 Elmer H. Duncan explains, “The

148CUP,

556-57. 210. 150Ibid., 201. 151Ibid., 207. 152Ibid., 204-5. 149Ibid.,

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‘paradox’ of Religiousness ‘A’ is that the believer acts, and risks so much, on less than complete knowledge.”153 Faith sensu eminentiori—Christian faith—differs from Socratic faith in that it goes beyond embracing the objectively uncertain. It ventures everything on the basis of an objective absurdity, namely, the rationally impenetrable paradox of the incarnation. In comparison with this “risk” of faith, Socratic venturing “resembles Greek nonchalance.”154 There is, says Climacus, an “infinite” difference between the Socratic paradox of faith and Christian faith in the absolute paradox.155 For Climacus, both Socratic and Christian faith entail a venture without rational guarantees. However, Kierkegaard’s main interest is in Christian faith; consequently, the discussion that follows is primarily concerned with Religiousness B. A careful reading of the Climacus literature suggests that the faith that “ventures” is a gift of God, entails a free choice, and does not provide rational certitude. 1. The faith that ventures is a gift of God. Given the rational impenetrability—the “absurdity”—of the absolute paradox, it comes as no surprise that Climacus regards religious faith as a divine gift rather than an achievement of the understanding. God’s paradoxical self-revelation “offends” the understanding,156 and only the supernatural impartation of the “happy passion” of faith moves the understanding to willingly “step aside.”157 Frequently, Climacus refers to faith as the “condition” that the individual receives from God in “the moment” of divinehuman encounter: “How, then, does the learner become a believer or a follower? When the understanding is discharged and he receives the condition. When does he receive this? In the mo-

153Elmer H. Duncan, Søren Kierkegaard, Makers of the Modern Theological Mind, ed. Bob E. Patterson (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1976), 83. 154CUP, 210. 155Ibid., 206. 156PF, 49. 157Ibid., 59.

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ment.”158 Without this gift of faith, human beings cannot believe and embrace the absolute paradox. Climacus states, All extravagant talking and trumpeting from the housetops about being crafty enough, even though he did not receive the condition from the teacher, to discover the god’s incognito— … this is blather, by which no one becomes a follower but only mocks the god.159

Thus, “let no innkeeper or philosophy professor fancy that he is such a clever fellow that he can detect something if the god himself does not give the condition.”160

158Ibid.,

64. When Climacus uses the term “the moment” (Øjeblikket), he does not always have the moment of divine-human encounter in view. In some contexts, “the moment” refers to the historical incarnation (see, e.g., PF, 51-52). Interestingly, Climacus sometimes combines the historical incarnation and the divine-human encounter and refers to the two taken together as “the moment.” The idea seems to be that the incarnated Christ is actually present in the moment of encounter. In an exemplary analysis, Victoria S. Harrison, “Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments: A Clarification,” Religious Studies 33 (1997): 455-63, traces the interrelationship of these three usages in PF. Following Swenson’s translation of PF, she differentiates the three meanings of the term as follows: (1) “the Moment” (historical incarnation), (2) “the moment” (subjective appropriation of the Truth in a divine-human encounter), and (3) “the Moment” (the unity of the first two usages). Most commentators agree that the “condition” refers to the divine gift of faith. A few, however, have argued that the term should be interpreted as a reference to the “Teacher,” that is, to Christ. See Hannay, Kierkegaard, 112-16; W. C. Davis, “Kierkegaard and the Transformation of the Individual in Conversion,” Religious Studies 28 (1992): 147. Harrison, 463-67, does not think that, when taken alone, the view of Davis and Hannay is consistent with Climacus’ usage; but, in line with her study of “the moment,” she attempts (this time without strong textual support) to combine both views into a more comprehensive picture. For an excellent analysis of the debate over the precise meaning of the “moment,” see Emmanuel, Concept of Revelation, 78-83. 159PF, 64. Following the practice of Plato, Climacus uses the definite article when referring to God. This practice is in keeping with the design of PF, which attempts to show by means of a “thought experiment” that Christianity “goes beyond” the Socratic. 160Ibid. Kierkegaard states, “The human person achieves absolutely nothing; it is God who gives everything; it is he who brings forth a per-

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Of course, the “moment” of encounter may offend sinners rather than convert them. Nevertheless, wherever the truth is received, behind its reception is a supernaturally imparted faith that is as incomprehensible as the paradox it embraces. “Faith is a wonder,” says Climacus, “and everything that is true of the paradox is also true for faith.” Indeed, only a wondrous, miraculous faith could happily embrace the absolute paradox.161 Climacus does not deny that God uses means to impart faith. As Climacus sees it, faith is given with and through human testimony. Faith is not, however, dependent upon any human witness, as it would be if human witnesses were viewed as contributing to the strength of warranting evidence. Climacus does not view the inscripturated testimony of Christ’s contemporaries as evidence for those who come later but as an occasion for the divine impartation of faith. He explains, If we wish to state in the briefest possible way the relation of a contemporary who comes later—without, however, sacrificing correctness for brevity—then we can say: By means of the contemporary’s report (the occasion), the person who comes later believes by virtue of the condition that he receives directly from the god.162

Here Climacus comes close to using sacramental language. He appears to think of the testimony of Christ’s contemporaries as a medium “in, with, and under” which God communicates the grace of faith. Consequently, human witness is important, but not allimportant. In the final analysis, human witness is merely a conduit for God’s gift. One consequence of this quasi-sacramental view of human witness is that detailed historical information is unnecessary for faith—even for Christian faith that has as its object the appearance of the eternal in time. In a frequently quoted passage, Climacus says, Even if the contemporary generation had not left anything behind except the words, “We have believed that

son’s faith, etc.” He adds, “This is grace, and this is Christianity’s major premise.” JP, 1383. 161PF, 64-65. 162Ibid., 104.

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THE JUSTIFICATION OF FAITH in such and such a year the god appeared in the humble form of a servant, lived and taught among us, and then died”—this is more than enough. The contemporary generation would have done what is needful, for this little announcement, this world-historical nota bene, is enough to become an occasion for someone who comes later, and the most prolix report can never in all eternity become more for the person who comes later.163

Climacus is not, be it noted, insisting that detailed information about Christ is valueless, but only that the “little announcement” specified is sufficient to become an “occasion” for faith. Another consequence of this quasi-sacramental view of human witness is that the reliability of the witness is (at least relatively) unimportant. Were faith founded on evidence, then establishing the credibility of the witnesses would be of paramount importance. Since faith is a gift of God that accompanies testimony rather than depending on it, the credibility of human witnesses loses its overriding importance. According to Climacus, if faith depended upon the credibility of witnesses, then those witnesses would themselves be the bestowers of the “condition.” They would, in effect, replace God as the object of faith, a notion that Climacus dismisses as “nonsense.”164 Historical testimony is “merely an occasion” and nothing more.165 Ultimately, individuals do not come to believe because of “approximation knowledge” (i.e., evidence), but “by receiving the condition from the god.”166 163Ibid;

q.v., ibid., 59. 101-2. 165Ibid., 102. 166CUP, 576. Contra Rae, “Kierkegaard and the Historians,” 93-97, who falsely ascribes to Climacus the view that Christian faith can be falsified by historical inquiry. Among other things, Rae asserts that “Climacus considers the trustworthiness of the contemporary witness with respect to the historical a matter of legitimate concern.” Ibid., 96. Rae claims the support of PF, 103—which actually makes the opposite point. In the cited passage, Climacus states that the trustworthiness of the original witnesses is only of concern when the issue concerns something historical. But the gospel is not “a simple historical fact.” Indeed, “If the fact of which we speak were a simple historical fact, the historiographer’s scrupulous accuracy would 164Ibid.,

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2. The faith that ventures is a choice. Climacus’ stress on the giftnature of faith appears consistent with a strong predestinarianism.167 On the contrary, Climacus emphasizes that the gift of faith does not make room for itself but must be received and appropriated by the freely choosing individual. In an important journal entry, Kierkegaard states that this decision cannot itself be the outworking of a prior divine decree without slipping into a fatalism. He writes, In order to constrain subjectivity, we are quite properly taught that no one is saved by works, but by grace— and corresponding to that—by faith. Fine. But am I therefore unable to do something myself with regard to becoming a believer? Either we must answer this with an unconditional “no,” and then we have fatalistic election by grace, or we must make a little concession. The point is this—subjectivity is always under suspicion, and when it is established that we are saved by faith, there is immediately the suspicion that too much has been conceded here. So an addition is

be of great importance. This is not the case here, for faith cannot be distilled from even the finest detail.” Climacus’ position on this issue is not consistent with statements he makes elsewhere (see the critique at the end of this chapter), but he quite clearly repudiates the beliefs that Rae attributes to him. It should be emphasized that Climacus is deeply committed to the historicity of the incarnation. His concern is to show that faith in the incarnation is founded on a gift of faith conferred by God through the gospel witness—not historical evidence. See PF, 103-4. Cf. the following journal entry: “Believe that Christ is God—then call upon him, pray to him, and the rest comes by itself. When the fact that he is present [er til] is more intimately and inwardly certain that all historical information—then you will come out all right with the details of His historical existence.” JP, 318. Although he does not cite this journal entry, Evans, Passionate Reason, 152-60, picks up this aspect of Climacus’ thought and compares it to Alvin Plantinga’s notion of “basic beliefs.” Evans suggests that Climacus appears to view belief in the historical incarnation as “basic” in the sense that it is not founded on evidence but derived from a divine-human encounter. 167Kierkegaard was early on troubled by the doctrine of predestination and reflected frequently upon it. For his journal entries pertaining to this subject, see JP, 3542-3550.

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THE JUSTIFICATION OF FAITH made: But no one can give himself faith; it is a gift of God I must pray for. Fine, but then I myself can pray, or must we go further and say: No, praying (consequently praying for faith) is a gift of God which no man can give to himself; it must be given to him. And what then? Then to pray aright must again be given to me so that I may rightly pray for faith, etc. There are many envelopes—but there must still be one point or another where there is a halt at subjectivity. Making the scale so large, so difficult, can be commendable as a majestic expression for God’s infinity, but subjectivity cannot be excluded, unless we want to have fatalism.168

Kierkegaard here affirms an “incompatibilist” view of human freedom.169 The fact that faith is a divine gift does not, therefore, diminish the need for a free human response. In Pojman’s terms, the “synergistic motif dominates” in Kierkegaard’s (and Climacus’) thought.170 Once the condition has been given, the individual must still choose to make a leap of faith. The initiative belongs to God, but the final decision rests with the individual.171 Timothy Jackson concurs, observing that “it is clear that Kierkegaard rejects all narrow doctrines of election and any metaphysical account that would claim compatibility between determinism and freedom of the will.”172 As for the genesis of faith, Jackson concludes that Kierkegaard regards God’s grace as “indispensable but not irresistible, a necessary but not sufficient condition.”173 Thus, 168JP,

4551. is, Kierkegaard is asserting that significant freedom excludes complete divine predetermination of human choices. 170Pojman, Logic of Subjectivity, 12. 171Ibid., 17. 172Timothy P. Jackson, “Arminian Edification: Kierkegaard on Grace and Free Will,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. Alastair Hannay and Gordon D. Marino (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 238. 173Ibid., 241. Emphasis original. Kierkegaard occasionally seems to deny that human beings possess the liberum arbitrium (“liberty of indifference”). A close reading of the relevant texts, however, shows that Kierke169That

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Coming to faith is not a matter of Promethean selfcreation (since grace is required), but neither is it mainly a matter of accurate cognition or preordained experience. True freedom is, for Kierkegaard, a highly individualized libertas in which voluntary consent to grace takes the form of a passionate leap, a “Yes” to a Gifted Reality that, seen objectively, looks paradoxical.174

Jackson rightly calls attention to the fact that the consent to grace corresponds to the Kierkegaardian “leap of faith.”175 By using the metaphor of a “leap,” Kierkegaard emphasizes that the transition to faith does not come about by immanental necessity, but only as a result of logically non-necessary decision. Thus, the “leap” gaard means only that human freedom is always contextualized. In the Concept of Anxiety, for example, Kierkegaard denies only the existence of an utterly unencumbered liberum arbitrium, one “that can choose good as well as evil.” Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation of the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin, ed. and trans. with intro. and notes Reidar Thomte, in collaboration with Albert B. Anderson (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980), 112. The “perfectly disinterested will,” says Kierkegaard, is “a nothing, a chimera.” JP, 1241. For a “compatibilist” interpretation of Kierkegaard’s understanding of the human will, see M. Jamie Ferreira, Transforming Vision: Imagination and Will in Kierkegaardian Faith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 54-56. Lee Barrett thinks that Climacus’ view of the will is ambiguous, moving inconsistently back and forth from an Augustinian to a Pelagian stance. See Lee Barrett, “The Paradox of Faith in Philosophical Fragments: Gift or Task?” in International Kierkegaard Commentary: Philosophical Fragments and Johannes Climacus, ed. Robert L. Perkins (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1994), 261-84. Barrett overstates his case. He succeeds in identifying tensions in Climacus’ views of grace and freedom, but such tensions are hardly uncommon within orthodox Christian faith. 174Jackson, 251-52. Cf. Kierkegaard’s journal entry: “Man’s highest achievement is to let God be able to help him.” JP, 54. 175It should be noted that neither Kierkegaard nor any of his pseudonyms use the Danish equivalent for the phrase, “leap of faith.” Kierkegaard does, however, refer frequently to a “leap” whereby one enters the sphere of faith, that is, a “leap into faith.” See M. Jamie Ferreira, “Faith and the Kierkegaardian Leap,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. Alastair Hannay and Gordon D. Marino (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 207. In general, this study follows the longstanding practice of referring to the leap “into” faith as the leap “of” faith.

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involves, not a quantitative transition (as if the amassing of evidence would automatically lead from non-belief to faith), but a qualitative transition that entails logically uncoerced choice. As Kierkegaard explains, “Here as everywhere we must pay attention to the qualitative leap, that there is no direct transition … , but everywhere a metavbasi" eij" a[llo gevno", a leap, whereby I burst the whole progression of reason and define a qualitative newness, but a newness a[llo gevno".”176 Climacus frequently makes the identical point. It is an illusion to think, he says, “that this transition from something objective to a subjective acceptance follows directly of its own accord.”177 He states that “there is no direct transition to becoming a Christian, but on the contrary, there is a qualitative leap.”178 The leap itself, says Climacus, is “a category of decision”;179 consequently, by its very nature the transition to faith is an all-or-nothing affair. “What does it mean,” asks Climacus, “to assent to a decision is to a certain degree? It means to deny decision.”180 Talk of “leaps” and all-or-nothing decisions lures some commentators into supposing that Climacus advocates acquiring beliefs by an act of raw willpower. Climacus does make statements (particularly in the “Interlude” portion of PF181) that appear to support 176JP,

2358. 129-30. 178Ibid., 381. Similarly, Climacus applauds Lessing for recognizing that “the leap, as decisive, is qualitatively dialectical and permits no approximating transition.” Ibid., 103. 179Ibid., 99. 180Ibid., 221. 181Evans correctly notes that in the “Interlude” Climacus is primarily concerned with ordinary belief rather than religious faith. Ordinary belief concerns itself with “matters of fact,” while faith (in the eminent, Christian sense) entails faith in the absolute paradox. (The same Danish word, Tro, is used by Climacus for both.) Evans points out, however, that “faith in the eminent sense presupposes or includes ordinary faith as a component.” Thus, “everything Climacus says about ordinary faith must be true of eminent faith as well.” Evans, Passionate Reason, 120. Some commentators see a different relationship between faith and ordinary belief in PF. David Wisdo, “Kierkegaard on Belief, Faith, and Explanation,” Philosophy 177CUP,

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such a reading. “The conclusion of belief is no conclusion [Slutnig],” says Climacus, “but a resolution [Beslutning].”182 He adds that belief “is not a matter of knowledge but an act of freedom, an expression of will.”183 According to Pojman, such statements show that Climacus embraces a form of volitionalism, that is, the view “that we can attain beliefs by willing to have them, and that we ought to attain some beliefs in this manner.”184 Pojman distinguishes between direct and indirect volitionalism. The former supposes that beliefs can be directly chosen by an act of will regardless of the evidential status of the belief. The latter holds that the will influences belief formation indirectly by choosing specific actions and “life-policies” that make some beliefs appear more plausible than others. Both forms of volitionalism may be either descriptive (as a matter of fact beliefs are influenced by the will) or prescriptive (the will may and perhaps should influence beliefs).185 Relying primarily on the “Interlude,” Pojman interprets Climacus to be a direct volitionalist in both the descriptive and prescriptive sense. Both forms of direct volitionalism, Pojman argues, are flawed. A discussion of Pojman’s critique of Climacus on this issue of Religion 21 (1987): 106-12, thinks that Climacus sharply distinguishes ordinary belief from faith. On this reading, the “volitionalist” statements found in the “Interlude” refer only to the former. Faith itself, says Wisdo, is a miracle of grace and should not be thought of as a kind of belief. Benjamin Daise, “The Will to Truth in Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 31 (February 1992): 8-11, acknowledges that ordinary belief as set forth in the “Interlude” is in some ways analogous to faith. He thinks the analogy breaks down, however, because for Climacus “faith” in the God who has come into existence means an acceptance of the way of life exemplified by the incarnate God as a model for human life. In support of Evans’ position, see PF, 86-88. 182PF, 83. 183Ibid. 184Pojman, Logic of Subjectivity, 103. In general, Pojman attributes statements in PF and CUP directly to Kierkegaard. For the sake of consistency, “Climacus” will be substituted for Pojman’s “Kierkegaard” wherever appropriate. 185Louis Pojman, Religious Belief and the Will (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986), 143-48.

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is necessary because it trades on a common misunderstanding of what the latter means when he says that faith is a “choice.” First, Pojman criticizes what he takes to be Climacus’ descriptive volitionalism for mistakenly conceptualizing belief as an action rather than as an event or happening.186 Beliefs “happen,” says Pojman, as “the world forces itself upon the rational subject.” Accordingly, he asserts that “acquiring a belief is not something a rational subject does or chooses.”187 Rather, Beliefs belong to the class of things which happen to one, regardless of immediate wants, wishes, or choices. Hence a belief is not something I acquire by willing or doing anything, at least not directly. Believing is more like falling than jumping, catching a cold than catching a train, getting drunk than taking a drink, blushing than smiling, getting a headache than giving one to someone else.188

Climacus’ fundamental error, Pojman thinks, is his failure to distinguish assent to an action from assent to a belief. “Assenting to actions,” he says, “is voluntary, but assenting in a belief is not voluntary but automatic, ‘eventful.’”189 Concerning “theoretical beliefs,” Pojman says, Given a network of background beliefs, some theories “win out” in my noetic structure over others. For a theoretical explanation to force itself upon me as the best explanation, or as certainly or probably true, doesn’t preclude rejecting it as a plan of action, but it does mean that, in some sense, I don’t choose to believe what impresses itself upon me. Rather, it means that I can’t help but incline that way.190

186Pojman,

Logic of Subjectivity, 106, 48. 106. 188Ibid., 106-7. 189Ibid., 116. 190Ibid., 107-8. Wisdo, “Kierkegaard on Belief,” 103-5, criticizes Pojman for falling into a so-called “phenomenological fallacy.” Wisdo observes that “even though the rational subject claims that a ‘happening’ is experienced as something independent of his or her activity, this in itself does not justify the conclusion that a ‘happening’ is in fact independent of the subject’s activity.” Pojman is vulnerable to this criticism, but the issue 187Ibid.,

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Pojman thus rejects the premise upon which direct descriptive volitionalism is built, namely, that it is possible to directly choose what one believes. He goes on to argue that even if beliefs could be directly chosen, direct descriptive volitionalism suffers from a basic incoherence. Directly willed beliefs, he points out, would be considered true apart from the willing of the believer. To believe something, in other words, is to affirm that something is true whether one believes it or not. Otherwise, “beliefs would not be about reality but [only] about our wants and wishes.”191 Thus, directly chosen beliefs must be thought to be grounded in something other than the choosing itself. Since this position is incoherent, direct descriptive volitionalism is false.192 Second, Pojman criticizes what he takes to be Climacus’ direct prescriptive volitionalism for violating even a minimalist “ethic of belief.” By judging “it morally right or permissible to acquire beliefs by wanting, willing, or choosing to have certain beliefs without primary concern for truth considerations,” the direct prescriptivist, Pojman argues, reduces truth to merely instrumental value. He states, “In a sense, truth is the goal of the truth seeker’s believing whereas for the prescriptivist, believing is instrumental to other goods.”193 Like Hume, Climacus errs by supposing “that reason functions mainly as a rationalizer of the passions.”194 In the end, direct prescriptive volitionalism amounts to self-deception.195

need not be pursued because the more important point is that Kierkegaard is not a “direct volitionalist”—at least not in Pojman’s sense of the term. 191Pojman, Logic of Subjectivity, 110. 192Ibid., 110. For a similar argument against “direct volitionalism,” see Bernard Williams, “Deciding to Believe,” in Problems of the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 136-51. 193Pojman, Logic of Subjectivity, 113. 194Ibid., 115. 195Pojman, Belief and Will, 189. It should be noted that Pojman is more sympathetic to indirect volitionalism. Although believing is not an “action,” individuals can choose various actions and epistemic practices that make accepting particular beliefs more likely. According to Pojman, these indirect influences of one’s choices on belief-formation is sufficient

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If Pojman is right and Climacus is a direct volitionalist, the leap of faith may be dismissed as nothing more than the final stage of wishful thinking. The evidence suggests, however, that Pojman has it wrong. Climacus does insist that faith is a choice to believe against reason, but this choice is not a muscular exertion of willpower but a response to the gracious self-revelation of God. Two lines of evidence converge to falsify Pojman’s interpretation of the Climacean leap: (a) Climacus makes statements incompatible with the sort of direct volitionalism that Pojman attributes to him, and (b) Pojman’s inattention to the purpose of the “Interlude” lures him into misreading Climacus’ apparently volitionalist statements found therein. (a) Climacus makes statements incompatible with the sort of direct volitionalism that Pojman attributes to him. For example, Climacus identifies the leap as “the category of decision,” but then goes on to contrast it with the kind of “Münchausen” leap in which “one closes one’s eyes, grabs oneself by the neck, and then—then one stands on the other side.”196 In this text, Climacus seems to repudiate the idea (attributed to him by Pojman) that the leap involves a willful choice to believe whatever one wishes. Moreover, when Climacus says on the next page that one must decide to “accept in faith that which cannot be thought” (i.e., the absurd),197 it must not be overlooked that this decision involves an “acceptance”—there is a passive, receiving side to the Climacean leap. Faith is a choice, but in an important sense the choice entails a yielding to belief. One way in which this passive, yielding aspect of belief is brought out is by Climacus’ habit of referring to faith as “a passion.”198 Ferreira notes that in popular usage (in both English and Danish), “passion” is associated with passivity. She goes on to explain that Climacus (Ferreira says “Kierkegaard”) incorporates this notion of passivity into a more nuanced view that is similar to conto make one morally responsible for what one believes. See Pojman, Logic of Subjectivity, 113. 196CUP, 99. For the substance of this paragraph, see Ferreira, “Kierkegaardian Leap,” 214-15. 197CUP, 100. 198PF, 54, 59, 61, 92. Climacus does not assert that faith is accompanied by passion, but that faith is a passion.

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temporary philosophical discussions of emotion.199 Specifically, Ferreira observes that for both Climacus and recent thinkers, passions (or emotions) possess both a passive and active aspect. Passion is aroused as the individual is both acted upon and actively engages the object of passion through an interpretive process. Ferreira comments, “The category of passion substantively qualifies what leap or decision means in the case of faith.”200 No longer can the decision of faith be characterized as purely an action—it is a passive-active response. “At the very least,” says Ferreira, “this shared attribution undermines any one-dimensional voluntarist reading of the leap.”201 Interestingly, Pojman himself recognizes that Climacus’ habit of calling faith a passion has a non-volitionalist sound to it. He attempts to brush aside the problem by accusing Climacus of inconsistency. Pojman notes that Climacus first identifies faith as an act of will and then “seems to reverse himself, for in the very next breath he speaks of belief, not at all as an action but a passion.”202 Pojman observes, Kierkegaard does not explain this apparent contradiction between calling belief an act of the will, a leap, and calling belief a disposition, a passion. Perhaps the most constructive interpretation would be to say that there is

199Ferreira,

“Kierkegaardian Leap,” 224; q.v., Ferreira, Transforming Vision, 8-10, 22-31. 200Ferreira, “Kierkegaardian Leap,” 224. 201Ibid., 225. Elsewhere, Ferreira states, “A passion is not a compelled reaction, unavoidably dictated by things external to us—but neither is it a unilateral activity. It is precisely a response—which means that there is something affecting us to which we respond and, hence, features which contour (though they do not compel) our response.” Idem., Transforming Vision, 25. Similarly, Evans notes that passions have both a passive and active aspect. The passive aspect is evident in the fact that human beings cannot simply create a passion out of their own will. There must be something that elicits the passion. The active aspect of passion is revealed in the action of the passionate person. It is by acting that one cultivates passion and develops a character. See Evans, “Fragments” and “Postscript,” 3941. 202Pojman, Logic of Subjectivity, 99.

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As a matter of fact, Pojman’s “constructive interpretation” is speculative and gratuitous. It is speculative because Climacus nowhere distinguishes between faith as an act and faith as a passion in the manner that Pojman suggests. It is gratuitous because the apparent inconsistency is created by Pojman’s own mistake in labeling of Climacus a direct volitionalist. Another way in which the passive, yielding aspect of the leap is brought out is by Climacus’ characterization of faith as a “letting go.” For example, Climacus says that individuals only become aware of the existence of God when they “let go” of rational proofs designed to demonstrate that he exists. This letting go entails a “leap.” Climacus states, So long as I am holding to the demonstration (that is, continue to be the one who is demonstrating), the existence does not emerge, if for no other reason than that I am in the process of demonstrating it, but when I let go of the demonstration, the existence is there. Yet this letting go, even that is surely something; it is, after all, meine Zuthat [my contribution]. Does it not have to be taken into account, this diminutive moment, however brief it is—it does not have to be long, because it is a leap.204

Thus, Climacus can say that the existence of God only “emerges from the demonstration by a leap.”205 It is not immediately obvious how “letting go,” which implies a kind of acquiescence, would lead to belief in God. Perhaps a clue is to be found in a passage that Kierkegaard deleted from the final draft of PF shortly before publication. In the deleted passage, Climacus observes that unbelief results from an unwillingness to yield to what, on some level, one already knows to be true—namely, that God exists. He states that, just as no one has ever demonstrated it, so has there never been an atheist, even though there certainly have been many who have been unwilling to let what they

203Ibid. 204PF,

43.

205Ibid.

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know (that God exists) get control of their minds. It is the same with immortality … Therefore there has never been a man who has not believed it, but there certainly have been many who have been unwilling to let the truth conquer their souls, have been loathe to allow themselves to be convinced.206

Climacus is not here thinking about specifically Christian belief; rather, he has in view a general “knowledge” of God that is suppressed by individuals unwilling to accept it.207 The idea appears to track closely the apostle Paul’s analysis of paganism’s culpable ignorance of God (Rom. 1:18-23; Eph. 4:17-19) and Calvin’s notion of the sensus divinitatis by which all human beings “know” that God exists even as they deny it. For the present purpose, the significant point is that this passage, when read together with Climacus’ comments on “demonstrating” the existence of God, indicates that the leap entails a letting go of rational demonstrations and a willingness to be convinced of what, on some level, one already knows. The drift of Climacus’ thought could hardly be more out of harmony with Pojman’s volitionalist reading. (b) Pojman’s inattention to the purpose of the “Interlude” lures him into misreading Climacus’ apparently volitionalist statements found therein. As already noted, Pojman’s volitionalist reading of Climacus depends heavily on statements found in the “Interlude.” These statements must, however, be interpreted in the light of the central argument of the “Interlude,” which may be summarized as follows.208

206Ibid.,

191-92. Emphasis original. Cf. Climacus’ comment, “How could it occur to anyone to demonstrate that he [God] exists unless one has allowed oneself to ignore him; and now one does it in an even more lunatic way by demonstrating his existence right in front of his nose.” CUP, 545. 207See JP, 1318, 2301. Something like this idea seems to be assumed by Anti-Climacus when he states (in reference to specifically Christian faith) that “the relation of personality to Christianity, is not to doubt or to believe, but to be offended or to believe.” PC, 82. Doubt here appears as a ruse; the “doubting” individual is in reality offended and unwilling to believe. 208Climacus himself guides the reader on how to interpret the “Interlude.” See CUP, 98—especially the note found on the bottom of the page.

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Against the Hegelian view that historical truths are somehow necessary (and thus can be seen through retrospective reflection to be “necessary truths”), Climacus insists on the contingency of all historical events and the epistemological corollary that no statement about historical fact can be known with certainty. Historical beliefs always include the risk of error. Not everyone is willing to accept this risk, however. Climacus notes that, for fear of being deceived, ancient Greek skepticism cultivated doubt concerning every belief save those generated by immediate sensation or cognition.209 Reasoning was used, not to arrive at true belief, but only to preserve a doubting cast of mind.210 Climacus explains, The doubter, for example, does not deny his own existence, but he draws no conclusions, for he does not want to be deceived. Insofar as he uses dialectics in continually making the opposite equally probable, he does not erect his skepticism on dialectical arguments, which are nothing more than outward fortifications, human accommodations; therefore he has no results, not even negative ones … , but by the power of the will he decides to restrain himself and hold himself back … from any conclusion.211

Climacus characterizes this epistemological stance as a “withdrawing skepticism” that “doubted not by virtue of knowledge but by virtue of the will.”212 The skeptic wills to doubt; hence, such doubt “can be terminated only in freedom, by an act of will.”213 When Climacus says that belief is “an act of freedom, an expression of will,”214 he must be interpreted to mean that, unlike the skeptic, the believer is willing to risk error. Similarly, when he says 209Presumably, by “immediate cognition” Climacus means a priori truths that cannot be doubted without simultaneously affirming them (e.g., the laws of logic). 210PF, 83. 211Ibid., 84-85. 212Ibid., 82. 213Ibid. Climacus goes so far as to say that the idea that the ancient skeptics doubted “by way of necessity”—as if they could not help themselves in the face of inconclusive evidence—is a “stupid opinion.” 214Ibid., 83.

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that belief is a resolution rather than a conclusion, he is contrasting the decisiveness of the believer with the cautiousness of skeptics who “restrained” themselves through dialectical arguments lest they embrace error.215 This interpretation appears inescapable in the light of an important note in the “Interlude.” Climacus writes, When belief resolves to believe, it runs the risk that it was in error, but nonetheless it wills to believe. One never believes in any other way; if one wants to avoid risk, then one wants to know with certainty that one can swim before going into the water.216 Here is a “resolve” and a will to believe that amounts to a willingness to run the risk of error.217 Skeptics resolve to withhold belief out of fear of being deceived. They may thus be said to choose doubt. Believers, on the other hand, resolve to risk error, and may thus be said to choose belief. They are willing to “let go,” to “yield,” to “be convinced.” Returning to the earlier discussion of faith and human freedom, it may be said that when God gives the “condition,” individuals may resist or yield. Resistance may take many forms, but at the heart of it is always an unwillingness to take the risk entailed by committed faith. Yielding, on the other hand, is a willingness to embrace the risk; consequently, one who yields accepts God’s gift of faith. The active expression of this yielding is a “leap”—a decision. But the decision amounts to a willingness to believe and act on what appears (by divine revelation) to be true, though rationally “absurd.” It does not involve a direct willing to believe whatever one wishes. 3. The faith that ventures does not provide rational certitude. Just as the leap of faith is a venture accompanied by risk, so the life of faith remains a venture without the security afforded by objective certitude. Indeed, faith involves a “martyrdom”—the “martyrdom of believing against the understanding, the mortal danger of lying out on 70,000 fathoms of water, and only there finding God.”218 Climacus scorns the idea that this “crucifixion of the understanding” 215Ibid.,

84. 83. 217Cf. Kierkegaard’s remark: “The essential thing about subjectivity is that in resolution and the decision of choice one runs a risk.” JP, 4537. 218CUP, 232. 216Ibid.,

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eventually gives place after one leaps to a “higher understanding”219—as if faith were merely a temporary expedient until one comes to “knowledge.” As Climacus sees it, the one who “relinquishes” the understanding in order to receive it back in a higher form is like someone who renounces vanity in order to win human applause.220 The confusion, Climacus judges, is fundamental. It signals a failure to realize that, for existing persons, faith is higher than knowledge,221 and that every effort to transcend faith through a “higher understanding” is in fact a “retrogression.”222 Indeed, those who attempt to bolster faith with “reasons” have actually abandoned faith for “probability calculations.”223 Climacus warns that the believer must resist the “temptation” to seek objective certitude, lest it end with his succeeding … in changing faith into something else, into another kind of certainty, in substituting probabilities and guarantees, which were specifically rejected when he, himself beginning, made the qualitative transition of the leap from unbeliever to believer.224

Far from seeking support for faith in “probabilities and guarantees,” believers should “hold fast” to “objective uncertainty.”225 At this point, it is necessary to recall the earlier discussion of Climacus’ psychology of faith. Objective uncertainty, he insists, is an essential component of passionate faith. When discussing biblical scholarship, for example, he asserts that scholarly verdicts on 219Ibid.,

564. Christian faith, says Climacus, is a “break with all thinking.” To want to go on from faith to understanding is foolishness, since genuine understanding cannot “come to understand anything else except that it [i.e., Christian faith] goes against all thinking.” Ibid., 578. 220Ibid. 221Ibid., 291. 222Ibid., 234. 223Ibid., 211. 224Ibid., 11-12. 225Ibid., 204. “The believer cares so little for probability,” says Climacus elsewhere, “that he fears it most of all, since he knows very well that he is beginning to lose his faith.” Ibid., 233.

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the Bible are irrelevant to faith. Even positive results are useless; indeed, they are dangerous because they tempt people to confuse faith with knowledge.226 Should biblical scholarship confirm the authenticity of Scripture, the faith of many would actually suffer. “Whereas up to now,” Climacus declares, faith has had a beneficial taskmaster in uncertainty, it would have its worst enemy in this kind of certainty. That is, if passion is taken away, faith no longer exists, and certainty and passion do not hitch up as a team.227 Thus, Climacus can lay it down as a rule that “without risk, no faith; the more risk, the more faith.”228 In sum, Climacus emphatically denies that the leap issues in a “higher understanding.” The life of faith, like the leap of faith, requires that one believe against the understanding. As Climacus puts it, The person who has truly relinquished his understanding and believes against his understanding will always preserve a sympathetic respect for the capacity whose power he knows best by having it against himself. Moreover, in his daily efforts to keep himself in the passion of faith, which presses its way against the understanding (which is like rolling a weight up a mountain), in this effort he will be prevented from playing the genius on the score of his religiousness.229

That is, far from claiming a “higher understanding,” the believer is ever conscious of the full weight of the understanding’s opposition to faith.230 226Climacus

explicitly denies that faith is a kind of knowledge. See

PF, 62. 227CUP,

29. 209. 229Ibid., 565. “To disregard the possibility of error,” comments Robert Merrihew Adams, “is not be unaware of it, or fail to consider it, or lack anxiety about it. Kierkegaard insists that the believer must be keenly aware of the risk of error.” Robert Merrihew Adams, “Kierkegaard’s Arguments against Objective Reasoning in Religion,” The Monist 60 (1977): 230. 230Many commentators err by downplaying Climacus’ assertions that the life of faith remains a venture against the understanding. In staking 228Ibid.,

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It should not be overlooked, however, that Climacus does allow for a kind of certitude—one compatible with a venturing faith.231 This certitude is not, however, the result of demonstrations or probability calculations. Rather, it is a striving certitude that is rooted in subjectivity and triumphs over doubt. Climacus calls attention to this “certitude of faith” in a passage dealing with immortality, where he states that “the certainty of immortality is rooted in subjectivity.”232 He goes on to indicate that this certainty, though real, does not exclude “struggles with uncertainty”;233 hence, he can refer to the venture of faith as “arduous work.”234 The faith that “presses forward victoriously in the passion of inwardness” must withstand severe tests.235 Only in eternity, Climacus goes on to inout this position, some have seized on one of Kierkegaard’s late journal entries, which says, “When the believer has faith, the absurd is not the absurd—faith transforms it, but in every weak moment it is again more or less absurd to him.” JP, 10. Note, however, that Kierkegaard does not state that the absolute paradox becomes less paradoxical after Christian conversion, but only that the believer no longer regards the paradox as “absurd.” In what Climacus calls the “happy passion” of faith, the understanding yields itself to the incomprehensible; and from that point on, the understanding correctly judges the incomprehensibility of the paradox as a sign of its own absurdity. (See PF, 50-53.) It is crucial to see that the paradox remains incomprehensible. Furthermore, in the same journal entry Kierkegaard says that “the passion of faith is the only thing which masters the absurd—if not, then faith is not faith in the strictest sense, but a kind of knowledge.” Clearly, the understanding continues to experience the paradox as incomprehensible, but faith embraces the incomprehensible as the highest truth. When the believer grows weak in faith, however, the incomprehensible begins once again to look “absurd.” 231Kierkegaard even refers to Christian faith as “the highest certainty.” JP, 1148. 232CUP, 201. 233Ibid. 234Ibid., 149. 235Ibid., 225. As Climacus puts it, “Sitting calmly on a ship in fair weather is not a metaphor for having faith; but when the ship has sprung a leak, then enthusiastically to keep the ship afloat by pumping and not having to seek a harbor—that is a metaphor for having faith … While the understanding, like a desperate passenger, stretches its arms toward land,

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dicate, will believers enjoy “eternal certainty.” Until then, they must be satisfied with “a struggling certainty.”236 Faith thus provides a kind of certitude, but equally “faith is always a conflict”—and the possibility of defeat ever looms.237 Even though the believer has taken the leap of faith, the possibility of being offended remains “the continual fear and trembling in his existence.”238 “With regard to faith,” says Climacus, “one never celebrates triumphantly ahead of time, that is, never in time.”239 Of course, one might reasonably question whether what Climacus describes qualifies as certitude. Ordinarily, certitude is thought to be accompanied by “cognitive rest,” not continuing struggles with doubt. For this reason, it is best to say that Climacus views faith as providing a kind of certitude. Precisely what kind is not easy to determine, though a clue might be available in one of Kierkegaard’s journal entries. He writes, When everything goes against you, and you nevertheless perceive deep within you a testimony that you are on the right path and ought to continue further along this path where everything will probably go against you increasingly: this, you see, is the testimony of the Spirit.240

Admittedly, this journal entry deals generally with adversity rather than specifically with uncertainty and doubt. Nevertheless, Kierkegaard clearly affirms that one may experience a Spirit-inspired sense of well-being and confidence even while buffeted by trials. Perhaps Climacus has something similar in mind when he refers to “striving but in vain, faith works vigorously in the depths—joyful and victorious, against the understanding it rescues the soul.” 236Ibid., 226. 237PF, 108. 238CUP, 585. 239PF, 108. Sometimes the believer can struggle with doubts about the genuineness of his or her own faith. “It certainly is not inconceivable,” writes Kierkegaard, “that a man could live his whole life constantly troubled about not having faith and of whom it must be said and to whom it would be said: My friend, you did have faith and your concern was simply the pain of inwardness.” JP, 1115. 240JP, 242.

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certainty.”241 As one maintains faith against the understanding, there is a spiritual upholding that amounts to a kind of certitude. At the very least, this way of construing Climacean “certitude” appears plausible. The Adjudication of Truth Claims Kierkegaard’s stance on the venture of faith and its negative relationship to evidence raises the difficult issue of epistemological criteria. Put simply, does Kierkegaard leave any place for the rational adjudication of conflicting truth claims? And if so, does he thereby do what he deplores in others, namely, transform faith into a plausible hypothesis? As already observed, some scholars argue that Kierkegaard does not set forth a “justification” of religious faith. The reasons given for rejecting this thesis need not be revisited here, but a related objection deserves comment. Some interpreters acknowledge that Kierkegaard commends Christian faith to his readers, but they insist that such faith does not entail cognitive content that is subject to rational adjudication. Representative of this view is John H. Whittaker, who argues that for Kierkegaard “Christian claims … are not factual hypotheses but existential communications.” Accordingly, they are “logically immune from objective confirmation.” Whittaker maintains that Kierkegaard never suggests that Christian truth claims can be validated by external standards of any kind.242 Whittaker asserts, We are used to thinking that the content of a belief is simply a matter of knowing what it says descriptively about the world, as if this were independent of any atti241Wilhelm Anz, Kierkegaard und der deutsche Idealismus (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1956), 66, suggests that Kierkegaard allows for a higher certainty from God, that is, “die Gewissheit der Offenbarung.” Such statements must be carefully qualified, however. Neither Kierkegaard nor Climacus ever appeal to revelation as a “possession” upon which stable confidence can be built. Cf. Works of Love, 348, where Kierkegaard states that “the certainty of faith, … you must win at every moment with God’s help.” Whatever “the certainty of faith” entails, it is always intimately bound to the dynamic of the divine-human encounter. 242John H. Whittaker, “Kierkegaard on the Concept of Authority,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 46 (1999): 98.

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tudinal changes in those who believe. That makes us think that the truth of such claims depends solely on the accuracy of the factual descriptions that they entail, and further, that we must have some epistemological access to these facts if we are to determine the truth value of the claims involved. Kierkegaard does not deny that these assumptions are true of many truth claims, but he denies that they are true of all. The exceptions are subjective truths whose content cannot be appreciated apart from the changes that turn on their acceptance and on the new ‘seeing’ that they promise.243

Revealed doctrines cannot be verified, Whittaker continues, because by their very nature they are not the sort of truth claims that are testable.244 They are like ethical truth: “real” without being in any sense objectively verifiable.245 In On Authority and Revelation, Kierkegaard makes a statement that seems irreconcilable with Whittaker’s interpretation. Kierkegaard states, Christianity exists before any Christian exists, it must exist in order that one may become a Christian, it contains the determinant by which one may test whether one has become a Christian, it maintains its objective subsistence apart from all believers, while at the same time it is the inwardness of the believer. In short, here there is no identity between the subjective and the objective.246

Whittaker denies that Kierkegaard is here affirming that religious truth exists independently of the believer. On the contrary, this passage says that religious truths are “objective” only in the sense

243Ibid.,

90. 97. 245Ibid., 97-98. Whittaker comments that drawing an analogy between ethical and religious truths is “apt” because “Kierkegaard put ethical and religious judgments into the same logical category. They are both existence communications and their affirmation requires an existential realization; in the terms I have been using, they are truths to live by, or principles with a regulative aspect to their sense.” Ibid., 98. 246Authority and Revelation, 168. 244Ibid.,

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that they are not “created by belief.”247 Whittaker offers no textual support for this claim; instead, he simply asserts that for Kierkegaard “revealed doctrines will never turn out to be true or false in the way that descriptions do.”248 Why? Because Christian truth claims have no “descriptive content” apart from their subjective appropriation by believers.249 Whittaker’s non-realist reading of Kierkegaard depends on his judgment that religious truths fall into the same “logical category” as ethical truths and thus do not refer to an objective state of things that can be “checked out.” He fails to note, however, that immediately following the passage just quoted, Kierkegaard says, Though Christianity comes into the heart of never so many believers, every believer is conscious that it has not arisen in his heart, is conscious that the objective determinant of Christianity is not a reminiscence, as love is of the fact of falling in love, is not an apparently objective something which nevertheless is subjective, like love which as an objective something is an illusion and loving is the reality. No, even if no one had perceived that God had revealed himself in a human form in Christ, he nevertheless has revealed himself. Hence it is that every contemporary (simply understood) has a responsibility if he does not perceive it.250

The incarnation, in other words, has a hard facticity about it that places an epistemological obligation on those confronted by it. This facticity is the crucial difference between ethical truth (in the above passage, “love”) and religious truth.251 Climacus makes the same point when he explains that, unlike the ethical, faith is “infinitely interested in the actuality of another.” Indeed, faith in the strictest sense is to be judged by how it answers “the question about a fact: Do you accept as fact that he [the God in time] actually existed?”252 247Whittaker,

“Kierkegaard on Authority,” 96. 97. 249Ibid., 92. 250Authority and Revelation, 169. 251Of course, it is important to keep in mind that the religious truth here in view is that of “religiousness B.” 252CUP, 326. Climacus places great importance on the actuality of the incarnation and the dependence of faith on this historical fact. See 248Ibid.,

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Of course, the incarnation cannot be directly perceived or objectively proven, but the bare fact that Christian faith depends on the objective appearance of God in time would seem to falsify Whittaker’s non-realist reading of Kierkegaard. It also reopens the question of rational adjudication. To restate the issue in terms of Kierkegaard’s specific concerns, how can faith in Jesus Christ as God-incarnate be rationally justified in the face of competing truth claims? And if such faith can be justified, has faith thereby been transformed from a venture into a plausible hypothesis? An inspection of Kierkegaard’s writings reveals that he does think the central truth claim of Christianity (God’s appearance in time as a human being) can in some measure be rationally vindicated against rival views. Specifically, Kierkegaard suggests that at least some religious truth claims can be indirectly tested by reason and (perhaps) subjected to pragmatic verification. 1. At least some religious truth claims can be tested by reason. Were Kierkegaard to forbid all rational reflection on the credibility of religious truth claims, he would have no grounds for criticizing even the most ludicrous fancies. After all, if reason is excluded from the sphere of religion, who is to say that one “leap of faith” is inferior to another? As it turns out, Kierkegaard clearly affirms that rational reflection makes possible a modest adjudication of truth claims, albeit in an indirect and negative manner. His stance on this question is founded on a denial and an affirmation. CUP, 323-27. For a general critique of non-realist (or “anti-realist”) interpretations of Kierkegaard, see C. Stephen Evans, “Realism and Antirealism in Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. Alastair Hannay and Gordon D. Marino (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 154-76; idem., “Kant and Kierkegaard on the Possibility of Metaphysics,” in Kant and Kierkegaard on Religion, ed. D.Z. Phillips and Timothy Tessin (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 11-19. Michael Weston, “Kant and Kierkegaard on the Possibility of Metaphysics—a Reply to Professor Evans,” in Kant and Kierkegaard on Religion, ed. D.Z. Phillips and Timothy Tessin (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 25-44, denies Evans’ claim that Kierkegaard is a philosophical realist of the non-foundationalist variety. Weston’s case depends, however, on the theory that Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous authorship is an ironic repudiation of all metaphysics—a position that was discussed and rejected earlier in this chapter.

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First, Climacus denies that the religious sphere should be shielded from rational reflection. It is futile to stonewall the dialectical by appealing to authority, he says, because all that is accomplished is a shift in focus from the original truth claim to the legitimacy of the warranting authority.253 Moreover, attempts to insulate religious beliefs from rational appraisal foster, not genuine faith, but “superstition and narrow-mindedness.”254 The desire of earnest believers to render their faith unassailable is understandable, says Climacus, but the evasion of the dialectical is a cowardly evasion of the strenuousness of faith.255 Clearly, Climacus does not think that religious faith is served by simply throwing reason overboard. Second, Climacus affirms that rational reflection is capable of falsifying at least some religious truth claims. He notes that rational scrutiny is able to “penetrate” nonsensical claims and identify them as such.256 The paradox may thus be distinguished from mere nonsense by its impenetrability, though Climacus warns that “it is always a precarious business to pass off as the absurd, the incomprehensible, something that someone else can declare is easy to understand,”257 This distinction between the transparently false and the rationally impenetrable makes it possible to distinguish “nonsense” from the “absurd.” “Only superficiality,” says Climacus, supposes that “all sorts of absurdities are equally at home in the absurd.” On the contrary, The absurd, the paradox, is composed in such a way that reason has no power at all to dissolve it into nonsense

253CUP, 24. Kierkegaard states, “When one says that faith depends upon authority and, so saying, thinks he has excluded the dialectical, this is simply not so; for the dialectical begins with asking how it happens that one submits to this authority.” JP, 1112. In this and similar contexts, “dialectical” means “rational examination.” Evans, “Fragments” and “Postscript,” 211. 254CUP, 34-35. 255Ibid., 35. 256Neither Kierkegaard nor Climacus spell out precisely how reason is to identify “nonsense” when confronted with it. Presumably, logical incoherence or factual error touching core claims would suffice. 257Ibid., 568.

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and prove that it is nonsense; no, it is a symbol, a riddle, a compounded riddle about which reason must say: I cannot solve it, it cannot be understood, but it does not follow thereby that it is nonsense.258

Thus, although one must embrace Christianity “against the understanding,” faith does not entail an undiscriminating lapse into fantasy. Indeed, Climacus insists that the believer “cannot believe nonsense against the understanding, which one might fear, because the understanding will penetratingly perceive that it is nonsense and prevent him from believing it.”259 Kierkegaard goes on to explain that reason’s legitimate task in respect to adjudication is to distinguish the paradox from nonsense—“but no more.”260 The “no more” expresses Kierkegaard’s judgment that human reason can perform the negative role of setting nonsense aside, but not the positive role of giving reasons for faith. (How could “reasons” be given for that which is “against all thinking”?) Reason fulfills its purpose when it “notes” the rational impenetrability of the paradox and then “submits it to everyone for his belief.”261 Although rational reflection cannot demonstrate the truth of the paradox, it can falsify at least some religious truth claims and thereby give indirect confirmation to the paradox. The above analysis throws light on two statements—one by Climacus, the other by Kierkegaard. Climacus says, “Dialectic does not see the absolute [God], but it leads, as it were, the individual to it and says: Here it must be, that I can vouch for; if you worship here, you worship God.”262 Kierkegaard asserts, “For one does not become a Christian by means of reflection, but to become a Christian in reflection means that there is another thing to be rejected; one does not reflect oneself into being a Christian, but out of an-

258JP,

7. Only when reason is swollen with pride will it suppose that the incomprehensibility of the paradox is indicative of nonsense. See PF, 52-53. 259CUP, 568. Significantly, this statement is incompatible with the direct volitionalism attributed to Climacus by Pojman. 260JP, 7. 261Ibid., 11. 262CUP, 491.

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other thing in order to become a Christian.”263 In both statements, reason is assigned a limited, but crucial role in guiding persons to the true faith. 2. Religious truth claims are subject to broadly pragmatic verification. Kierkegaard appears to think that religious truth claims can be appraised in terms of the form of life that their instantiation entails. The qualifier “appears” is an important one, for Kierkegaard nowhere explicitly sets forth and defends a pragmatic approach to verification. Consequently, the analysis that follows must be regarded as a brief and tentative exploration of themes that are at most implicitly present in the Climacus writings.264 263PV,

96.

264Steven

M. Emmanuel, “Kierkegaard’s Pragmatist Faith,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 51 (June 1991): 279-97, makes the mistake of reading Kierkegaard as if he were a full-blown pragmatist. Emmanuel argues that the absolute paradox marks the “total incommensurability” between finite human reason and the infinite God. This incommensurability “clears logical space for faith,” for “where theoretical reason cannot decide the option between faith and unbelief, and where the attainment of an eternal happiness is effectively precluded by a failure to believe, the venture to become a Christian must be validated on practical grounds.” The principle flaw in Emmanuel’s thesis is its lack of textual warrant. His discussion is peppered liberally with citations from Kierkegaard’s writings (principally from the journals and the Climacus texts), but upon inspection it turns out that the passages cited do not support Emmanuel’s thesis. Instead, Emmanuel identifies and references prominent themes in Kierkegaard’s thought (e.g., the individual’s infinite interest in eternal life, the impossibility of “proving” religious truth claims, the necessity of venturing) and then imposes upon them a “Jamesian” schema. It is this schema, not the primary literature, that is responsible for “Kierkegaard’s pragmatist faith” as Emmanuel apprehends it. To confirm the justice of this criticism, one need only read pages 297-99 and carefully correlate Emmanuel’s assertions with the citations that ostensibly warrant them. It should be noted that Emmanuel’s pragmatist reading of Kierkegaard is different from the one defended in this study. Moreover, Emmanuel’s thesis is aimed at defending Kierkegaard from the charge of irrationalism; he does not directly address the question of adjudication. Robert C. Koons, “Faith, Probability and Infinite Passion: Ramseyian Decision Theory and Kierkegaard’s Account of Christian Faith,” Faith and Philosophy 10 (April 1993): 145-60, thinks that Kierkegaard sets forth a

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Climacus strikes a broadly pragmatic chord when he ridicules thinkers whose speculations cannot be appropriated by existing human beings. “There are speculative thinkers,” he says, “who merely write, and write that which, if it be read with the aid of action … proves to be nonsense.”265 Such speculations are nonsense because they are existentially useless, something even the “honored professor” should recognize “every three months when he draws his salary.”266 At this point, what matters is the operating assumption, namely, that at least some philosophical ideas may be judged false when, having been “read with the aid of action,” they are exposed as useless. The same (pragmatic) assumption appears to be at work in Climacus’ discussion of Socrates and his belief in the immortality of the soul. Climacus points out that Socrates ventured all on the mere possibility of immortality. Says Climacus, “He stakes his whole life on this ‘if’; he dares to die, and with the passion of the infinite he has so ordered his whole life that it might be acceptable—if there is an immortality. Is there any better demonstration for the immortality of the soul?”267 Clearly, Climacus would answer his own question with a “no”—the “risky faith” of Socrates is a better “demonstration” of the soul’s immortality than anything that objective rationality could devise. Of course, Climacus cannot mean merely that the sincerity of Socrates’ belief “proves” the soul’s immortality, for that would entail supposing that sincere disbelief constitutes counter-proof for the same. Apparently, Climacus thinks that the quality of Socrates’ life somehow verifies of the beliefs his life instantiated. In another passage, Climacus appears to adopt the same point of view. He quotes with approval the final words of the earlier work, Either/Or: pragmatic wager similar in many respects to Pascal’s. Koons attempts to “show that Kierkegaard’s hypothesis that Christian faith is an infinite passion can be formulated precisely and shown to be mathematically coherent.” (145) Nothing could be further from the spirit of Kierkegaard’s entire authorship than this sort of prudentialist faith. 265CUP, 191. 266Ibid., 192. 267Ibid., 210.

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THE JUSTIFICATION OF FAITH Only the truth that builds up is truth, for you. This the essential predicate in relation to truth as inwardness, whereby its decisive qualification as upbuilding, for you, that is, for the subject, is its essential difference from all objective knowledge; inasmuch as subjectivity itself becomes a sign of truth.268

The last phrase is crucial, for Climacus does not simply say that “subjectivity is truth,” but instead says that subjectivity “becomes a sign of truth.” He thereby indicates that he has another kind of truth—“objective truth”—in view. The edification of the individual, he asserts, somehow becomes a “sign” that the edifying “truth” is indeed truth. Once again, it appears that a certain form of life indicates where the objective truth lies. Objective truth is recognized by its power to edify existing human beings. The same idea may be implied when Climacus rejects the quest for rational proofs of God’s existence and asserts that one “demonstrates the existence of God by worship—not by demonstration.”269 If in this context “worship” is to be taken broadly as referring to a life lived in constant reference to God, then Climacus is here asserting that Christianity entails a form of life that “proves” God’s existence. Of course, this amounts to an informal, experiential “proof”—not the sort of rational demonstration that Kierkegaard elsewhere eschews. The above analysis hardly allows one to call Kierkegaard a pragmatist, but it may throw light on several well-known but puzzling statements regarding the relationship of subjectivity to objectivity. Climacus knows that his stress on subjectivity opens him to the charge that he has no way to adjudicate truth claims—after all, passionate faith is passionate faith, whether its content is Christian or pagan. As shown above, he attempts to meet this problem by allowing a negative role to reason. Reason cannot lead one into the truth of God, but it can “penetrate” nonsense and recognize it as 268Ibid.,

252-53. Emphasis original. 546. Cf. Kierkegaard’s journal entry on Anselm: “Anselm prays in all inwardness that he might succeed in proving God’s existence. He thinks that he has succeeded, and he flings himself down in adoration to thank God. Amazing. He does not notice that this prayer and this expression of thanksgiving are infinitely more proof of God’s existence than—the proof.” JP, 20. 269Ibid.,

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such. Climacus also suggests, however, that subjectivity somehow “tracks” objective truth.270 Climacus states, for example, that the “pathos of appropriation” must be defined “in such a way that it cannot be confused with any other pathos … In other words, the appropriation by which a Christian is a Christian must be so specific that it cannot be confused with anything else.”271 He states that “the appropriation is the paradoxical inwardness that is specifically different from all other inwardness. Being a Christian is defined not by the ‘what’ of Christianity but by the ‘how’ of the Christian. This ‘how’ can fit only one thing, the absolute paradox.”272 He goes on to explain that, to have faith is specifically qualified differently from all other appropriation and inwardness. Faith is the objective uncertainty with the repulsion of the absurd, held fast in the passion of inwardness, which is the relation of inwardness intensified to its highest. This formula fits only the one who has faith, no one else, not even a lover, or an enthusiast, or a thinker, but solely and only the one who has faith, who relates himself to the absolute paradox.273

Thus, “with regard to having faith (sensu strictissmo [in the strictest sense]), it holds that this ‘how’ fits only one object.”274 270Paul Edwards, “Kierkegaard and the ‘Truth’ of Christianity,” Philosophy 46 (April 1971): 98-99, calls attention to this feature of Climacus’ thought. He objects, however, that “the fact that a proposition was suggested by ‘passion’ does not make it reliable; and no how, regardless of how truly it is given, guarantees that its what is also given, i.e., that what is asserted is true.” Edwards’ main point is correct, but it may be based on an inaccurate depiction of Climacus (whom Edwards identifies with Kierkegaard). In brief, Edwards seems to assume that Climacus conceives of the “how” as a religious experience of such intensity that it must be connected with objective truth. The analysis in this study suggests a different interpretation: subjectivity gives rise to a specific form of life, and this form of life offers indirect “proof” for the objective truth of Christianity. 271CUP, 609. 272Ibid., 610-11. 273Ibid., 611. 274Ibid., 613-14.

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Climacus is saying that the “what” of Christian faith corresponds to a specific “how”—a subjectivity that differs from all others. When taken together with Climacus’ statements linking verification with form of life, the Christian “how” might plausibly be set forth as an experiential confirmation of the Christian “what.” Against this suggestion is the fact that Climacus does not explicitly make this connection. Instead, he states only that Christian subjectivity is exclusively tied to the absolute paradox, that is, that the Christian form of life (the “how”) cannot be generated by nonChristian beliefs (the “what”). Claims to exclusivity do not amount to claims of verification, and given Kierkegaard’s polemical purpose (namely, to distinguish genuine Christianity from the false faith of Hegelianism and “Christendom”), it may be best to stop short of finding verification here. Nevertheless, Kierkegaard does (1) link Christian truth claims with Christian subjectivity and (2) eschew every form of objective verification of Christian truth claims. Therefore, if Christian truth claims can be verified at all (other than in a purely negative way), it would seem that such verification must be through subjectivity. Perhaps Kierkegaard thinks that Christian truth claims can be confirmed by a distinctively Christian form of life. Of course, the validity of a specific form of life must be judged against some view of the nature of reality. Theravada Buddhism and orthodox Christianity entail different forms of life, and these differences cannot be evaluated apart from deciding which religion holds correct beliefs about the nature of the world and humanity. Given that Kierkegaard does not develop this (apparently) pragmatic side of his thought, he could hardly be expected to specify what sort of upbuilding—what form of life—would count as “proof” for particular religious truth claims. Were he to pursue this line of thought, however, it would probably be in terms of the holism that underlies his view of human life. By “holism” is meant Kierkegaard’s belief that human beings must not be reduced to mere “thinkers.” Against the dominant tradition in modern Western philosophy, Climacus rejects the notion that thought (at least as it concerns religion and ethics) can or should be divorced from other facets of human existence. For example, Climacus states, “The true is not superior to the good and the beautiful, but the true and the beautiful belong essentially to

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every human existence and are united for an existing person not in thinking but in existence.”275 Here Climacus refuses to separate the good and the beautiful from the true. He also rejects establishing a hierarchy in which the true dominates. All of this is in keeping with Kierkegaard’s preoccupation with existence, for in existence the intellectual (thought) cannot be separated from the ethical (the good) and the esthetic (the beautiful). Only a small step would be required to arrive at a broadly pragmatic approach to adjudication in which beliefs are judged to be “true” when, instantiated in existence, they produce what is good and beautiful. By way of contrast, when beliefs cannot be instantiated in human existence, or when their instantiation contributes to something less than the good and the beautiful, it follows that such beliefs are false. Once again, this analysis of the broadly pragmatic strands in Kierkegaard’s thought are tentative. Furthermore, even they could be successfully developed along the lines suggested, it is by no means clear that the result would be consistent with other Kierkegaardian claims (e.g., that faith is enhanced by objective uncertainty). Nevertheless, this aspect of Kierkegaard’s thought (at least as it is found in the Climacus writings) has been generally overlooked by commentators and therefore is worth noting.

KIERKEGAARD AND RELIGIOUS FAITH IN A PROBABILISTIC AND PLURALISTIC WORLD Does Kierkegaard’s religious epistemology make possible a credible justification of religious faith in today’s probabilistic and pluralistic world? Unquestionably, he makes several worthwhile contributions toward such a justification, but ultimately he fails to rightly relate 275Ibid.,

348. On the same page, Climacus makes the following objection to those who make thinking preeminent in human existence: They oust and dismiss poetry as a surmounted element because poetry corresponds most closely to imagination. In a scientific-scholarly process, it may be all right to classify it as a surmounted element, but in existence it holds true that as long as there is a human being who wants to claim a human existence, he must preserve poetry, and all his thinking must not disturb for him the enchantment of poetry but rather enhance it. It is the same with religion.

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faith to evidence and provide a workable way to adjudicate among competing truth claims. The analysis that follows will note these strengths and weaknesses. Contributions toward a Justification of Religious Faith Several Kierkegaardian insights are worthy of note. These contributions will not be explored in depth here, but each will be revisited in the course of this study. 1. Kierkegaard emphasizes that genuine religious faith must leap beyond the tentative conclusions of probabilistic reasoning. Whatever value evidence may have for religious faith, it cannot itself bridge the gap between proof and faith. Ironically, apologists sometimes acknowledge this fact but then go on to argue as if probabilistic arguments lead seemlessly from nonbelief to faith.276 Kierkegaard’s “leap” may not be the best way to bridge the gap, but it at least reflects a recognition that mere probability cannot adequately ground the unqualified commitment characteristic of religious faith. 2. Kierkegaard grounds faith in divine revelation. If faith is grounded in evidence, it is a mere inference; if it is grounded in pure freedom, it is arbitrary. Kierkegaard traces faith to the “condition” given in a divine-human encounter (the “moment”), thereby avoiding both errors. By carefully tying this “moment” to the biblical witness, Kierkegaard also avoids reducing Christian faith to a vague, mystical experience. The testimony to Christ is an “occasion,” a quasi-sacramental means through which God gives faith directly. In this way, Kierkegaard attempts—with some success— 276No contemporary attempt to justify faith on probabilistic grounds has eliminated the need for believers to venture beyond the warrants of internal evidence. Wolfhart Pannenberg has made the most impressive attempt in modern times to ground religious faith securely in evidence. According to Nancey Murphy, 15, Pannenberg meets head-on the challenge posed by Hume (see chapter one in this study) and defends “the knowledge claims of theology in the court of probable reasoning.” Holwerda shows, however, that even Pannenberg does not ultimately eliminate the need for a subjective “leap of faith.” See D. Holwerda, “Faith, Reason, and the Resurrection in the Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg,” in Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God, ed. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 265-316.

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to maintain the cruciality of the historical witness without turning that witness into probabilistic evidence. 3. Kierkegaard calls attention to the epistemological significance of sin. Philosophers working in the Christian tradition have in recent years given increased attention to the influence of sin on human noetic structures.277 Applying a so-called “hermeneutics of suspicion” to philosophical and religious questions, these thinkers have called into question the Enlightenment myth of the disinterested knower. Beliefs are no more immune to sin’s influence than are actions; consequently, estimates of epistemic probability are crucially shaped by the moral and spiritual state of the knower. It follows that at least some differences over religious issues may owe as much to the character of the knower as to the state of the evidence. Although the epistemic implications of sin for religious belief cannot be explored here, the role of character in the formation of belief will be revisited in the next two chapters. 4. Kierkegaard sets forth a justification that remains true to the faith it defends. Kierkegaard’s strictures against apologetics are a salutary reminder that “defenders of the faith” are prone to betray their own cause. This betrayal occurs, in Kierkegaard’s view, whenever the credibility of Christian beliefs are made to depend on a “plausibility structure” that is itself incompatible with Christianity. In particular, Kierkegaard opposes every “explanation” of God’s paradoxical self-revelation in Christ that reinterprets the incarnation in terms of whatever philosophy is currently fashionable. According to Kierkegaard, the absolute paradox is absolutely impenetrable to human reason, and a faithful apologetic will uphold the integrity of the faith by defending this impenetrability. No contemporary justification of faith can afford to overlook Kierkegaard’s penetrating

277See, e.g., Merold Westphal, “Taking St. Paul Seriously: Sin as an Epistemological Category,” in Christian Philosophy, ed. Thomas P. Flint (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 200-26; idem., Suspicion and Faith: The Religious Uses of Modern Atheism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993); Stephen K. Moroney, “How Sin Affects Scholarship: A New Model,” Christian Scholar’s Review 28 (1999): 432-51; James Kellenberger, “The Fool of the Psalms and Religious Epistemology,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 45 (1999): 99-113.

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analysis of “unfaithful” apologetics—as two recent studies have shown.278 5. Kierkegaard points to a plausible approach to adjudication in the pragmatic strand in his thought. Once again, the extent of Kierkegaard’s pragmatism must not be exaggerated. His thoughts on this matter are implicit and undeveloped—little more than hints and pointers more adequately set forth by William James. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that Kierkegaard’s preoccupation with existence encourages the development of a pragmatic approach to the adjudication of religious truth claims that holds promise in a probabilistic and pluralistic context. The Challenge Unmet Despite Kierkegaard’s contributions toward a credible justification of religious faith, he fails in crucial ways to meet the twin challenges of probabilism and pluralism. Although brief, the analysis below attempts to set forth the most serious shortcomings in Kierkegaard’s religious epistemology. 1. Kierkegaard does not escape his own critique of objectivity and the quest for evidence. By positing the absolute paradox, Kierkegaard thinks that he has cleared space for a passionate Christian faith within the sphere of subjectivity. In reality, Kierkegaard only appears to free faith from objectivity and its demand for evidence; hence, he fails to escape the problem of approximation that he associates with objective inquiry into religious truth claims. This problem arises for Kierkegaard because the outer boundary of human reason is not marked by the mere idea of an absolute paradox but by its factual existence. Paradoxical notions may be generated at will, but reason dismisses these as nonsense unless they have a factual basis. For example, the claim that God has taken on dog flesh and lives in a kettle is conceptually paradoxical but factually ridiculous. The question then is not whether the mere idea that 278See

Rae, Kierkegaard’s Vision, 172-212; and Robert C. Roberts, Faith, Reason, and History: Rethinking Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1986), 30-41. Each author draws on Kierkegaard to critique modern attempts to restate the Christian faith in terms of various non-Christian philosophies. Rae criticizes the work of John Hick; Roberts deals with Schleiermacher, Bultmann, and John Cobb.

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Jesus of Nazareth is God incarnate is paradoxical, but whether in fact he is such. Kierkegaard himself acknowledges as much when he says, “In the fantasy-medium of possibility, God can coalesce with humankind in the imagination, but to coalesce in actuality with the individual human being is precisely the paradox.”279 The problem is that the moment the absolute paradox is posited as a fact and not fantasy, the sphere of objectivity has been reentered. Historical inquiry and philosophical reflection once again come into the picture, and with them objective approximation. Faith is once more founded on mere probability. Kierkegaard slips into this error by too easily assuming that the Christian doctrine of the incarnation leaves human reason nonplused. Recall that Kierkegaard allows reason to function as a negative, indirect test of truth. Kierkegaard thinks that after objective inquiry has tracked every fact and plumbed the depths of philosophical reflection, human reason discovers in the incarnation a boundary to its powers. The God-man cannot be brought within rational categories and explained (and thus explained away). It so happens, however, that many biblical scholars have carefully reflected on the evidence and concluded that Jesus of Nazareth presents no paradox at all. He was a Jewish peasant who possessed remarkable spiritual insight—a religious teacher who was later deified by his devoted (if overzealous) followers. In the view of some scholars, Kierkegaard’s absolute paradox is an easily explained myth—or even nonsense born of religious fanaticism. Of course, other scholars would argue that the best critical work establishes the historical reality of a truly paradoxical Jesus—one who inexplicably displays both human and divine attributes. The point, however, is not that the scholarly consensus has overturned the doctrine of the incarnation, but that the existence of scholarly skepticism fatally undermines Kierkegaard’s assumption that the absolute paradox stands serenely outside the sphere of critical inquiry and its probabilistic verdicts.280 The paradox cannot be known to be absolute unless its factual basis has been established; but its factual basis 279CUP,

581. Climacus’ warning that “it is always a precarious business to pass off as absurd, the incomprehensible, something that someone else can declare is easy to understand.” Ibid., 568. 280Recall

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cannot be established except through the tentative conclusions of objective scholarship. Thus, the absolute paradox does not place Christian faith outside the sphere of probability calculations. By allowing reason even a negative, indirect role in adjudication, Kierkegaard has run afoul of his own critique of objectivity. If the quest for evidence is disavowed, then reason has no criterion for distinguishing truth from lunacy. Worshipping a dog is on par with worshipping Christ. Indeed, the idea of a God-canine is every bit as paradoxical as a God-man, and hence is just as likely to promote the religious passion that Kierkegaard values.281 Apart from the use of critical reason, nonsense cannot be identified; but the use of critical reason reintroduces the specter of probabilistic approximations. Kierkegaard cannot have it both ways. If faith is severed from all evidence, then it cannot be distinguished from lunacy; if faith is to be distinguished from lunacy, then it cannot be severed from all evidence. At best, Kierkegaard can retreat into pure fideism: God grants the gift of faith, and the individual embraces the absolute paradox—however absurd it may appear to human reason. In fact, Kierkegaard sometimes makes statements that reflect fideistic leanings.282 Unquestionably, fideism is self-consistent and—in a sense—unassailable. But in the pluralistic world of late modernity, it is a dead end. Instead of providing for adjudication, fideism promotes religious head-butting. Moreover, it counsels believers to do the impossible, namely, to ignore evidence when it impinges on religiously significant issues. The religious fall-out occasioned by the modern, critical study of the Bible is enough to demonstrate that the unworkability of Kierkegaard’s manner of relating faith to evidence.

281For

a critique of the idea that passion is enhanced by paradox, see the discussion of Kierkegaard’s psychology of faith. 282See, for example, his comments on the apostle’s authority in Authority and Revelation, 107-18. A representative statement is found on p. 117: “But now how can an apostle prove that he has authority? … He has no other proof but his own assertion.” It is not obvious how comments like this one can be reconciled with Climacus’ claim, noted earlier, that religious faith cannot be protected from the “dialectical” by appeals to religious authorities.

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2. Kierkegaard’s attempt to sever religious faith from evidence is motivated by a flawed psychology of faith. Kierkegaard sets forth an idiosyncratic and confused analysis of the psychological component of faith. Specifically, he supposes that objective uncertainty (raised to its highest level by the paradox) is a necessary condition for passionate believing. A corollary is that objective inquiry into evidence actually hinders the decision of faith by fostering an existentially disinterested state of mind and open-ended delay. In part, Kierkegaard’s radical severing of faith and evidence is inspired by these convictions. If it turns out that these convictions are false, the way is clear for a more positive view of the relationship between faith and evidence. First, Kierkegaard is wrong to suppose that objective uncertainty is a necessary condition for passionate faith. Passionate faith is a function, not of uncertainty, but of perceived existential significance. Put differently, passionate faith in God does not emerge out of rational doubt concerning God’s existence, but out of a deep persuasion concerning God’s worth and relevance. Kierkegaard’s own example, meant to demonstrate the connection between certainty and a passionless state of mind, illustrates his confusion. He suggests that mathematics fails to arouse existential passion because no uncertainty attaches to its results.283 It is obvious, however, that the failure of mathematics to inspire the “passion of the infinite” has nothing to do with certainty and everything to do with perceived existential significance. Eight-yearolds are reluctant to do their math homework because multiplication tables have no obvious connection to the sorts of things eightyear-olds regard as important. Similarly, although adults regard mathematics as a useful tool for balancing a checkbook or planning a retirement, they do not imagine that interest calculations are crucial for everlasting happiness. However, if a neo-Pythagorean sect arose and convinced the world that working mathematical equations would open the door to eternal bliss, then mathematics would inspire the “passion of the infinite”! Passion is a function of perceived existential significance and not objective incertitude.284 283CUP,

203-4. a small qualification is in order. Uncertainty combined with a determined will to believe does produce a passion of sorts. Sociolo284Perhaps

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Second, Kierkegaard is wrong to suppose that objective inquiry into evidence hinders the decision of faith. He errs because he falsely supposes that critical inquiry inevitably makes persons too “objective” to act decisively and too tentative to venture until the evidence is rationally coercive. Of course, no one doubts that some persons are “all brain and no heart,” lost in a world of abstract ideas, useless for anything that requires action. But surely objective inquiry into the evidence for religious truth claims need not give rise to indifference to one’s existential well-being. Might not such inquiry actually be inspired by passion and foster it?285 Consider a father who seeks a cure for his terminally ill daughter. Might not this father study medical journals with both passion and objectivity? Indeed, will not his passion for his daughter compel him to “bracket” his hopes and wishes in the interests of finding a reliable cure? Surely the issue is too important to be intellectually sloppy about the facts. At the same time, will not this father’s heart sink when days pass without a useful discovery? And will not his heart leap when he unearths a hopeful clue? (How does one describe the mental state of such a father? Would passionate objectivity capture the synthesis of subjectivity and objectivity that marks his inquiry?) Similarly, might not some persons, driven by heart-hunger for God, inquire into the factual basis of Christianity (or another religion) in quest of truth? As they gist Peter Berger, Glory, 43-44, observes that the discomfort of uncertainty will sometimes give rise to zealous fundamentalisms. However, the compulsive, tension-filled willfulness of religious zealots is not ordinarily considered praiseworthy. The faith of zealotry lacks the humility and honesty essential to genuine faith. 285Michael P. Levine, “Kierkegaardian Dogma: Inwardness and Objective Uncertainty,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 14 (1983): 185, notes, “Other passions may be based on knowledge (e.g., jealousy may be based on something that one knows or has observed).” With this in mind, he asks, “Why cannot a belief which is also a passion be based on something world-historical in character? (I am referring specifically to a passionate religious belief here.) Is Kierkegaard claiming that objectivity is necessarily antithetical to inwardness or is he making the quite different claim that an ‘undue’ concern for the objective, as a matter of fact, interferes with subjectivity?” Clearly, Kierkegaard is making the former claim, though his legitimate concerns would be met by making the latter, more modest one.

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weigh the evidence with both hope and caution, must such seekers become increasingly detached from their own subjective well-being, as Kierkegaard fears? Is it not just as likely that their inquiries will fuel their passion rather than douse it?286 Of course, Kierkegaard is right that decision is delayed by inquiry. Human foibles being what they are, some will no doubt procrastinate under the guise of seeking the truth. But while inordinate delay signals an unwillingness to venture, reasonable delay signals a determination to get it right. Surely a passionate individual is as concerned to make the right leap as to make a timely one. Kierkegaard’s exaggerated worry about open-ended inquiry seems to depend on his assumption that inquirers require logical certainty before they believe. They refuse to venture until they are certain, and since they can never be certain when dealing with approximation knowledge, they never venture at all. In reality, people commonly act decisively on imperfect evidence. They require not certitude but

286Pojman,

Logic of Subjectivity, 36-37, offers a parallel critique. He states that Climacus supposes that there is a disjunctive relationship between objective and subjective forms of inquiry. This disjunction is exclusive; that is, individuals cannot ask about the truth of something both objectively and subjectively at the same time and in the same way. Referring to Climacus’ view as the “cognitive disjunct thesis,” Pojman states, “Apparently, he [Climacus] would admit that in every act of knowing both an objective factor and a subjective factor are involved.” However, in each cognitive act a different pole is predominant. The essential issue for Climacus, Pojman thinks, is to match the proper frame of mind to whatever issue is being considered. “Climacus’ point,” he says, “is that there are things, or truths, which can only be known objectively, and there are truths which can only be known subjectively. Among things which can only be known subjectively are ethical and religious truths. He thinks it can be shown than objectivity fails in these areas.” This tendency in Climacus’ thought is inconsistent with the holistic strand identified earlier. Were he true to his own holism, Climacus (Kierkegaard) would not be trapped into separating faith and knowledge with a sharp either/or. For the view that Kierkegaard does not in fact posit such an either/or, see Valter Lindström, “The Problem of Objectivity and Subjectivity in Kierkegaard,” in A Kierkegaard Critique, ed. Howard A. Johnson and Niels Thurlstrup (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1962), 230-34. Lindström’s analysis depends on a selective reading of Kierkegaardian texts.

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confidence (perhaps occasionally rising to “moral certainty”).287 Because Kierkegaard fails to distinguish between the logical and moral certainty, he locks himself into a harsh either/or of choosing between objective inquiry and faith. Kierkegaard is wrong, therefore, to suppose that objective inquiry into the evidence for religious truth claims hinders the decision of faith. Such inquiry need not make individuals too “objective” to act decisively or too tentative to venture. Moreover, Kierkegaard is wrong when he suggests that passionate faith is fostered by objective uncertainty. Passionate faith is a function of perceived existential significance, not of uncertainty.

CONCLUSION Although this chapter has unearthed insights of permanent value in Kierkegaard’s religious epistemology, a fundamental incoherence has also been identified. On the one hand, Kierkegaard meets probabilism by severing faith from evidence; on the other, he quietly reintroduces evidence in order to meet the challenge of pluralism. Thus, he posits a leap beyond evidence and against the understanding but then relies on both in order to distinguish faith from lunacy. In other words, as Kierkegaardian faith meets the challenge of probabilism, it becomes vulnerable to the challenge of religious pluralism—and vice versa. Such is the inevitable consequence of setting faith against reason. How matters fare for faith as a kind of reason is the subject of the next chapter.

287Interestingly,

the notion of “moral certainty” emerged in the seventeenth century as a way to move beyond skepticism and hopeless attempts to recover scientia. The concept of moral certainty is, therefore, largely a child of the new probabilism. As the next chapter will show, John Henry Newman borrows from this idea of moral certitude, though ultimately he argues for the legitimacy of what he terms “speculative certitude.”

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INTRODUCTION John Henry Newman spent much of his life battling what he called “liberalism.” The term carries no political overtones and does not refer in the first place to a theological stance—though Newman viewed liberalism’s theological impact as disastrous. Essentially, liberalism was a set of beliefs and values that arose out of two fundamental convictions: (1) all beliefs should be based on producible evidence and (2) the rational person proportions belief to the strength of the warranting evidence.1 Of course, neither of these 1Newman states, “Liberalism in religion consists in looking at all conclusions (in religion) in proportion to the strength of their premises (Vid. Locke) or resolving all beliefs into opinions.” The Philosophical Notebooks of John Henry Newman, vol. 2, ed. A. J. Boekraad and H. Tristram (Louvain: Nauwelaerts, 1969), 170. Newman further specifies what he means by liberalism in his Apologia pro Vita Sua, ed. Ian Ker (New York: Penguin Books, 1994), 491-502. Liberalism took on a human face for Newman in William Froude, a scientist whose studies had led him into agnosticism. In 1859, Froude wrote to Newman that “even the highest attainable probability does not justify the mind in discarding the residuum of doubt” attached to all beliefs. Belief must, Froude went on to insist, be proportioned to the strength of the warranting evidence. Newman hoped to convert Froude to Roman Catholicism, and the Grammar of Assent was written in part with that end in mind. Gordon H. Harper, Cardinal Newman and William Froude, F.R.S.: A Correspondence (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1933), 120. For more on Newman and “liberalism,” see Thomas J. Norris, Newman and His Theological Method: A Guide for the Theologian Today (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 1-14; Terrence Merrigan, “Newman’s

103

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convictions was unique to nineteenth century England: they simply expressed the ethos of the new probabilism as it had been incorporated into the epistemologies of Locke, Hume, and others. For a variety of reasons, however, this “ethic of belief” became a hotly disputed issue in Victorian England—with Newman as one of the key disputants. Particularly among the younger generation of the educated class, unqualified faith in evidentially underdetermined religious doctrines came to be viewed by many persons as ethically wrong. A chaste agnosticism seemed the way of integrity—all the more so in light of the conflicting and irresolvable truth claims made by competing religious sects.2 Catholic Synthesis,” Irish Theological Quarterly 60 (1994): 39-48; Edward J. Sillem, Philosophical Notebook of John Henry Newman, vol. 1 (Louvain: Editions Nauwelaerts, 1969), 60-66; William R. Fey, Faith and Doubt: The Unfolding of Newman’s Thought on Certainty (Shepherdstown, W.Va.: Patmos Press, 1976), 1-4; Lee H. Yearley, The Ideas of Newman: Christianity and Human Religiosity (University Park, Penn.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1978), 106-10. Clyde Nabe, Mystery and Religion: Newman’s Epistemology of Religion (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1988), 4, updates Newman’s terminology and refers to the “liberals” as “rationalists.” Jay Newman, The Mental Philosophy of John Henry Newman (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1986), 29-34, maintains that Newman’s notion of liberalism possesses more political overtones than most interpreters (and this study) suggest. 2Christopher Hollis, Newman and the Modern World (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, 1968), 18, notes that even though Newman was born into a world in which outspoken unbelief was not as yet common, belief in the existence of God was no longer something to be taken for granted. Van A. Harvey, “Is There an Ethics of Belief?” Journal of Religion 59 (1969): 41-42, discusses the ambivalence of many Victorians concerning religious faith. Their situation can only be understood against the background of the new ideal of judgment that arose during the Enlightenment. Harvey summarizes the features of this new ideal in four points. First, the Enlightenment maintained that the thinker is autonomous. Reason, not external authorities, should dictate what beliefs an individual embraces. Second, as a free thinker the individual is duty-bound to carefully evaluate the pertinent evidence before forming beliefs. Third, having arrived at a belief, the individual is responsible to set forth his or her claims with the supporting reasons so that these claims may be publicly evaluated by the canons of reason. Fourth, “autonomy, inquiry, logical candor, and assessment culminate in what one might call judicious or

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In the face of this challenge to traditional religious faith, one would expect at least some believers to adopt a faith against reason stance. In fact, some did take this tack, though none approached the issue with the intellectual penetration and power of Søren Kierkegaard in Denmark.3 Newman, however, refused to “solve” the problem by setting faith at odds with reason. He argued instead that once the nature of human rationality is properly apprehended, faith and reason are entirely compatible. Indeed, in Newman’s view faith is a kind of reason.4 Moreover, Newman tried to show that religious faith can attain certitude even though it is rationally grounded in evidence which, logically speaking, is only probabilistic. At the center of Grammar of Assent, and of much of Newman’s writing on faith and reason, is the question: “How can religious balanced judgment, which is to say, the careful qualification of one’s assertions so that the degree of assent given to them is commensurate with the strength of the arguments that can be marshaled on their behalf.” As the following discussion will show, Newman vigorously opposed this “ethic of belief.” 3It is unlikely that Newman had ever heard of Kierkegaard. Bernard M. G. Reardon, From Coleridge to Gore (London: Longman, 1971), 127. 4In the preface to the third edition of his Oxford University Sermons, Newman explains that the relation of faith to reason depends on how “reason” is defined. Avery Dulles, “From Images to Truth: Newman on Revelation and Faith,” Theological Studies 51 (January 1990): 264, offers a concise summary of the substance of this preface: If reason is taken in the first sense to mean inference based on secular maxims, reason and faith may be said to contradict each other. If reason means, in the second place, logical proof based on evident data, faith and reason are not contradictory, but faith goes beyond reason, since it rests more on presumptions than on evidence. Finally, if reason is taken to mean the process by which the mind advances legitimately from things known to new knowledge, faith may be called an exercise of reason. “Newman convincingly shows,” says Norris, “that, while the term reason may frequently be employed in senses that are opposed to faith, there is a genuine sense in which one may speak of faith as an act of reason.” Norris, 10. Harper, 23, comments that Newman viewed faith as a kind of “super reason.”

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belief be justified, given that the evidence for its conclusion seems so inadequate to the degree of commitment?”5 In this chapter, Newman’s approach to the justification of faith will be summarized and assessed.6 Newman’s approach to relating evidence to faith is superior to Kierkegaard’s, and his remarks on adjudication contains insights of permanent value. Nevertheless, it will be concluded that Newman’s best insights are undermined by his insupportable claims for religious certitude.

FAITH AS A KIND OF REASON: THE DIVINATORY MIND Newman’s originality lies in his conviction that the movement from objectively uncertain evidence to subjective certainty does not require an irrational “leap” but can be accomplished through the normal, “divinatory” action of the human mind made possible by what he calls the “illative sense.” He thus posits a continuity between faith and reason that ostensibly meets the challenge to religious faith posed by probabilism. Evidence and Faith Newman refuses to posit a sharp separation between evidence and religious faith, but he carefully nuances his analysis lest he reduce faith to a probabilistic hypothesis. The basic features of Newman’s views on this subject may be set forth in three propositions.

5Anthony Kenny, “Newman as a Philosopher of Religion,” in Newman: A Man for Our Time, ed. David Brown (Harrisburg, Penn.: Morehouse, 1990), 100. 6As indicated in chapter one, the principle sources for Newman’s views on the relationship between faith and reason are his so-called Oxford University Sermons (Fifteen Sermons Preached before the University of Oxford [London: Longmans, 1898]—hereafter abbreviated to OUS) and his Grammar of Assent (An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, intro. Nicholas Lash [Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989]—hereafter shorted to GR). Although the former volume was first published while Newman was still an Anglican and the latter after his conversion to Roman Catholicism, the two works were regarded by Newman as in fundamental agreement. For the most part, commentators agree with Newman’s self-assessment. See, e.g., Dulles, “Images to Truth,” 252; Kenny, “Newman as a Philosopher,” 101.

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1. Christian faith is rationally warranted by evidence. Newman makes statements throughout OUS that, isolated from their context and Newman’s own clarifying notes, seem to suggest that reason stands opposed to faith. In reality, Newman explicitly distances himself from those who regard faith as incompatible with investigation, argument, and proof. Impious reasonings may have a deleterious effect on faith, but he dismisses fideism as extreme, unscriptural, and impractical.7 To set faith against reason and evidence overlooks the fact that faith builds on and elevates nature instead of replacing it.8 According to Newman, no belief, religious or otherwise, should be regarded as truth unless “approved by Reason.”9 Similar statements are found in Newman’s unpublished theological papers. In a paper titled, “On Certainty and Faith,” he states that faith “is based upon reason.”10 Indeed, he even asserts that the rational warrants for faith amount to a “valid proof”—a “demonstration” that is rationally “irresistible” when fairly examined.11 Seven years later, Newman expresses similar views in his paper, “The Evidences of Religion.” He states that “faith, not only ought to rest upon reason as its human basis, but does rest and cannot but so rest, if it deserves the name faith.”12 In GR, Newman states that truth “rests upon grounds intrinsically and objectively and abstractly demonstrative,”13 and he devotes the bulk of chapter ten to setting forth reasons (evidences) for believing in the truth of Roman Catholic Christianity. Clearly, Newman believes that faith finds its warrant in evidence. He does not, however, think that faith is an inference based 7OUS,

262. 181. 9Ibid., 182. 10John Henry Newman, The Theological Papers of John Henry Newman on Faith and Certainty, ed. Hugo M de Achaval and J. Derek Holmes (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976), 27. Future references to this work will be abbreviated to TP. 11Ibid. Of course, Newman recognizes that individuals are capable of resisting such “demonstrations” on the basis of what they take to be rational grounds. See GR, 318-19. 12Ibid., 86. 13GR, 318. 8Ibid.,

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on evidence. This crucial point will be explored more fully when Newman’s views on certitude are taken up. For the present purpose, it is sufficient to note that Newman regards faith as an assent rather than an inference.14 Inferences are logically related to premises and therefore are conditionally and tentatively held. Assents, on the other hand, are given unconditionally and without reserve.15 Al14For Newman’s discussion of this distinction, see ibid., 135-45. For a careful account of the development of Newman’s views on inference and assent, see Eric Steinberg, “Newman’s Distinction between Inference and Assent,” Religious Studies 23 (1987): 351-65. 15Newman often says that assents are held “unconditionally” and inferences “conditionally.” According to Pailin, “This conditionality is not the logical conditionality of an hypothesis but a psychological ‘conditionality’ which arises from the fact that the conclusion is entertained in connexion with premises.” David A. Pailin, The Way to Certitude: An Examination of Newman’s Grammar of Assent (London: Epworth Press, 1969), 179. Steinberg argues, however, that for Newman conditionality is a complex notion. Not only is a proposition held conditionally when it is viewed to be in some sense dependent on other propositions, but it is also held conditionally when it is judged to be less than certain. Thus, inferences are conditional because they are believed in relation to premises and because they are deemed to be only probably true. Assents, on the other hand, are unconditional because they are accepted apart from premises and without doubt. Steinberg notes that this complex view is evident in GR, 28: “Assent is unconditional … Inference is conditional, because a conclusion at least implies the assumption of premises, and still more, because in concrete matter on which I am engaged, demonstration is impossible.” Steinberg, 357, explains that an assent, which is unconditional, is a certain acceptance of a proposition which is not thought in relation to any proposition. An inference, which is conditional, is a less than certain acceptance of a proposition which is thought of in relation to or as dependent on at least one other proposition. For the entire discussion, see Steinberg, 354-58. Steinberg is essentially correct, though it needs to be emphasized that both senses of conditionality need not be present every time the words “conditional” and “unconditional” are used. Abstract truth, for example, may be arrived at inferentially (and thus be dependent on other propositions) and yet be certainly true (i.e., not merely probable). Steinberg’s focus is on “concrete inference” (357), so his silence on this issue does not imply unawareness of it.

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though usually following upon inference, assent is not proportioned to the weight of evidence. One either assents to a proposition or not—there is not such thing as a “half-assent.”16 Later it will become evident that this distinction is important to Newman because it enables him to uphold religious certitude over against “liberalism.” Of course, the distinction also creates a problem, namely, how can faith depend on evidence and entail unqualified belief without requiring a nonrational leap from inference to assent? Newman himself raises the question: “What presents some difficulty is this, how it is that a conditional acceptance of a proposition,—such as is an act of inference,—is able to lead as it does, to an unconditional acceptance of it,—such as is assent.”17 It will be argued below that Newman’s answer to this question, though in some ways brilliant and insightful, is crucially flawed. 16Newman cautions that he should not be “taken to mean that there is no legitimate or actual connection between them [i.e., inference and assent], as if arguments adverse to a conclusion did not naturally hinder assent; or as if the inclination to give assent were not greater or less according as the particular act of inference expressed as stronger or weaker probability; or as if assent did not always imply grounds in reason, implicit, if not explicit, or could be rightly given without sufficient grounds.” GR, 144-45. Nevertheless, once assent is given it is unreserved. “Halfassents” are no more assents that “half-truths” are truths. Ibid., 147-46. On the relationship between inference and assent, see Norris, 35-41; Zeno, John Henry Newman, Our Way to Certitude (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1957), 141-44. In his zeal to uphold the dogmatic character of Christianity against liberalism, Newman frequently speaks of faith in terms of belief in propositions. He does not, however, think that belief in propositions form the whole of faith (contra Pailin, 193). In this connection, it should be noted that Newman distinguishes between “real” and “notional” assents. As Norris explains, the “former are experiential, personal, and therefore selfinvolving categories, while the latter are explanatory, scientific and noninvolving categories.” Norris, Theological Method, 190. The two forms of assent are not mutually exclusive. Although Newman thinks that the distinction between these two forms of assent is important, the issue is not directly relevant to this study. Newman discusses the matter in chapter four of GR. On the different kinds of assent in Newman, see Zeno, 12432. 17GR, 135.

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2. The evidence that warrants Christian faith cannot be fully explicated. Although Newman insists that Christian faith is warranted by evidence, he admits that the manner in which human reason appraises concrete evidence makes it impossible to fully explicate the rational grounds for faith. The upshot is that there will always be at least the appearance of an evidential gap between faith and its supporting evidence. The human mind, observes Newman, does not typically reason through a chain of logical inferences. Rather, it moves from premises to conclusion by an “instinctive perception” as prompt and inevitable as acts of memory or sense. He explains, “We perceive external objects, and we remember past events, without knowing how we do so; and in like manner we reason without effort or intention, or any necessary consciousness of the path which the mind takes in passing from antecedent to conclusion.”18 Although he states that this sort of “informal reasoning” involves real ratiocination, Newman is struck by its mysteriousness. He cannot resist saying that the mind works by a kind of “instinct,” “intuition,” “perception,” and “divination.”19 Nowhere does Newman express more eloquently the subtle, complex, and untraceable movements of human ratiocination than in his sermon, “Implicit and Explicit Reason.” He states, The mind rangers to and fro, and spreads out, and advances forward with a quickness which has become a proverb, and a subtlety and versatility which baffles investigation. It passes from point to point, gaining one by some indication; another on a probability; then availing itself of an association; then falling back on some received law; next seizing a testimony; then committing itself to some popular impression, or some inward instinct, or some obscure memory; and thus is

18Ibid., 209. Newman sees an analogy between skill in ratiocination and “taste.” Once developed, both skills “are exerted spontaneously” and are unable to “give a clear account of themselves.” Ibid., 266. 19See, e.g., ibid., 262-63. Although he sometimes attempts to distinguish “instinct” and “intuition,” for Newman the terms are essentially interchangeable. See Gerard Casey, Natural Reason: A Study of the Notions of Inference, Assent, Intuition, and First Principles in the Philosophy of John Henry Cardinal Newman (New York: Peter Lang, 1984), 103-32. See also Fey, 1036.

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makes progress not unlike a clamberer on a steep cliff, who, by quick eye, prompt hand, and firm foot, ascends how he knows not himself, by personal endowments and practice, rather than by rule, leaving no track behind him, and unable to teach another … And such mainly is the way in which all men, gifted or not gifted, commonly reason,—not by rule, but by an inward faculty.20

In this masterful depiction of the process of human reasoning, Newman shows that the mind’s movements cannot be reduced to syllogistic form without substantial loss. What would remain after the translation would be “paper logic”—a superficial account of the flexible, penetrating, and subtle workings of the human mind.21 20OUS,

256-57. In GR, “implicit reasoning” is more commonly designated “informal inference.” See Harold Weatherby, Cardinal Newman in His Age (Nashville, Tenn.: Vanderbilt University Press, 150. 21Newman viewed his own conversion to Catholicism as the culmination of a long process of informal reasoning. He writes, I had a great dislike of paper logic. For myself, it was not logic that carried me on; as well one might say that the quicksilver in the barometer changes the weather. It is the concrete being that reasons; pass a number of years, and I find myself in a new place; how? the whole man moves; paper logic is the record of it. (Apologia, 264) Newman expresses similar views from a less personal perspective in OUS, 259: Clearness in argument certainly is not indispensable to reasoning well … The process of reasoning is complete in itself, and independent. The analysis is but an account of it; it does not make the inference rational. It does not cause a given individual to reason better. Interestingly, Newman elsewhere suggests that excessive reliance on formal reasoning may actually hinder clear thinking, much as the habit of writing notes to oneself can “weaken” the memory. “The clear-headed and practical reasoner,” he says, “who sees conclusions at a glance, is uncomfortable under the drill of a logician, being oppressed and hampered, as David in Saul’s armour, by what is intended to be a benefit.” GR, 265. In regard to logic, Jay Newman, Mental Philosophy, 137, faults Newman for failing to make use of the new, non-Aristotelian logic that was being developed in his day. However, as Meynell, 250, correctly points

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Of course, Newman is far from denying the legitimate role of formal inference in ordering thought, avoiding errors, and promoting critical analysis.22 He insists, however, that human ratiocination as actually practiced should not be trimmed to fit prescribed logical forms. Many of humankind’s most reasonable certitudes, he maintains, rest on “proofs which are informal and personal, which baffle our powers of analysis, and cannot be submitted to logical statistics.”23 Indeed, discoveries of genius frequently depend on reasonings too “intricate and recondite” to be translated into the “technical forms which the science of argument requires.” The “preternatural sagacity” of a great military general, for example, cannot be traced out—“all his most brilliant conjectures might be refuted, and all his producible reasons exposed as illogical” if he were ever called upon “to argue the matter in word or on paper.”24 Contributing to the difficulty of explicating the rational grounds for faith is the nature of the supporting evidence. According to Newman, Christian belief is rationally established as many independent strands of evidence—individually disputable— converge in a mutually reinforcing web. He states that “conviction for the most part follows not upon any one great and decisive proof … , but upon a number of very minute circumstances together, which the mind is quite unable to count up and methodize in an argumentative form.”25 The mind thus feels the weight of the cumulative evidence, though converting that feeling into sight is impossible.26 According to Newman, “proof” in concrete matter out, modern developments in logic do not speak to Newman’s issue, namely, how one moves from probabilistic evidence to unqualified assent. Newman’s thoughts on logic may be found in TP, chaps. 2-3. See also Zeno, 34-38, 183-90. 22See GR, 210-12. 23Ibid., 239. 24OUS, 216-18. In GR, Newman supplies other examples of the same phenomenon. He mentions, e.g., the genius of Newton and Napoleon and the inexplicable feats of “calculating boys.” GR, 262-63. 25OUS, 294. 26See TP, 19, where Newman distinguishes between truths which can be seen and those which can be felt. The former are necessary truths that can be “syllogized”; the latter are contingent truths based on probabilistic grounds. Truths that are felt, says Newman, “are gained, not by

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consists in “the cumulation of probabilities, independent of each other, arising out of the nature and circumstances of the particular case which is under review; probabilities too fine to avail separately, too subtle and circuitous to be converted into syllogisms, too numerous and various for such conversion, even were they convertible.”27

syllogism, but by induction, … not by one direct simple and sufficient proof but by a complex argument consisting of accumulating and converging probabilities.” Newman adds that “we are as rational when we feel as when we see the truth.” Ibid., 20. 27GR, 230. Newman notes that this sort of reasoning is used in courts of law. Juries are asked to base their verdicts on “probable reasons viewed in their convergence and combination.” These reasons, he says, “constitute a real, though only reasonable, not an argumentative proof.” Ibid., 258. Newman also used the illustration of a cable. The separate threads of the cable, when intertwined, are as strong as a rod of iron. See Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, ed. C. S. Dessain, et al. (London: Oxford University Press, 1961-1972), 21:146 (henceforth abbreviated to LD); Wilfrid Ward, Life of John Henry Newman, vol. 2 (New York: Longmans, Green, and Company, 1912), 43. Nabe, 43-44, points out that Newman does not suggest that the convergence of a collection of improbable and weak arguments produce a strong proof. Rather, he means that a cumulative case consists of many good arguments and bits of evidence, though taken individually each part of the case is disputable. On contemporary cumulative case arguments, see William J. Abraham, “Cumulative Case Arguments for Christian Theism,” in The Rationality of Religious Belief: Essays in Honor of Basil Mitchell, ed. William J. Abraham and Steven W. Holtzer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 17-37. It must be stressed that informal inference does not differ from formal (logical) inference except in the fact that it operates implicitly on concrete particulars. Newman explains that informal inference does not supersede the logical form of inference, but is one and the same with it; only it is no longer an abstraction, but carried out into the realities of life, its premises being instinct with the substances and the momentum of that mass of probabilities, which, acting upon each other in correction and confirmation, carry it home definitely to the individual case, which is its original scope. GR, 232-33.

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The upshot is that the evidence that supports Christian faith cannot be fully explicated. When believers produce evidences, they naturally set forth reasons that are most easily “exhibited in argument,” not “the highest, the truest, the most sacred, the most intimately persuasive.”28 Consequently, the rational warrants for faith typically appear to be weaker than they are. According to Newman, believers may have good reasons even though they cannot always give good reasons.29 3. Properly appraising the force of evidence depends crucially on nonrational factors. Newman recognizes that many persons would not grant his claim that Christian faith is well-supported by a convergence of mutually supporting probabilities. Indeed, in Newman’s day it was common to dismiss religious faith (at least orthodox faith) as rationally substandard: whereas reason requires evidence amounting to proof, faith is satisfied with far less. As Newman himself put it, many of his contemporaries supposed that “Reason requires strong evidence before it assents, and Faith is content with weaker evidence.”30 Because Newman is adamant that the evidential basis for Christianity is incontrovertible when rightly appraised, he naturally must offer some explanation for why so many people find the evidence thin and unconvincing. To make his case, Newman sometimes provisionally accepts the assumption of skeptics and argues as if the evidence for faith is quite weak. (The concession is a reasonable one, since Newman does believe that the evidence supporting faith is of the sort that cannot be fully explicated.) He then set out the issue in its starkest terms:

In chapter eight of GR, Newman discusses formal, informal, and natural inference, suggesting three different modes of reasoning. In fact, the difference between informal and natural inference is negligible. Merrigan, 209, speaks for most commentators when he says that “in natural inference the mind’s transition from the known to the unknown is effectively unconscious, in informal inference the antecedents are more or less explicitly prominent in the mind, though not in all details.” The difference between them “is neither great nor important.” See also Zeno, 140. 28OUS, 271. 29Ibid., 259; q.v., ibid., 304-5. 30Ibid., 185.

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Faith plainly lies exposed to the popular charge of being a faulty exercise of Reason, as being conducted on insufficient grounds; and, I suppose, so much must be allowed on all hands, either that it is illogical, or that the mind has some grounds which are not fully brought out, when the process is thus exhibited. In other words, that when the mind savingly believes, the reasoning which that belief involves, if it be logical, does not merely proceed from the actual evidence, but from other grounds besides.31

The “actual evidence” here stands for the explicit evidence that can be publicly produced and which falls short of demonstrating the truth of Christianity. Having accepted for the sake of argument the skeptic’s assumption, Newman goes on to respond to the skeptic’s challenge by offering an analysis of the phenomenology of belief. The way people come to belief in religious matters, he argues, is identical with how they come to belief in ordinary life. Specifically, he notes that people typically believe what they are predisposed to believe. “We do not call for evidence,” says Newman, “till antecedent probabilities fail.” He adds that it is scarcely necessary to point out how much our inclinations have to do with our belief. It is almost a proverb, that persons believe what they wish to be true … Men readily believe reports unfavourable to persons they dislike, or confirmations of theories of their own. “Trifles as light as air” are all that the predisposed mind requires for belief and action.32

“Such are the inducements to belief,” he says, “which prevail with all of us, by a law of our nature, whether they are in the particular case reasonable or not.33 31Ibid.,

208. 189. 33Ibid. Mitchell helps to clarify Newman’s thought on this point. The “predispositions” here in view are sometimes referred to as “antecedent probabilities,” “presumptions,” or “first principles.” Sometimes these terms denote a proposition that is taken for granted. At other times, they refer to “principles of rationality” that entail a basic trust in the reliability of human senses, memory, and reasoning powers. On other occasions, Newman is thinking about the needs and desires that motivate a 32Ibid.,

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In accordance with this universal tendency to believe what conforms to one’s predispositions, Newman says that faith originates as much or more in such predispositions as in explicable evidence. Faith is, in other words, the product of a rightly disposed mind meeting with the truth for which it is perfectly adapted. He states, If [faith] is created in the mind, not so much by facts, as by probabilities, and since probabilities have no definite ascertained value, and are reducible to no scientific standard, what are such to each individual, depends on his moral temperament. A good and bad man will think very different things probable. In the judgment of a rightly disposed mind, objects are desirable and attainable which irreligious men will consider to be but fancies. Such a correct moral judgment and view of things is the very medium in which the argument for Christianity has its constraining influence; a faint proof under the circumstances being more availing than a strong one, apart from those circumstances.34

Thus, even what some regard as weak evidence for Christianity is rationally sufficient to convert those who, possessing a “rightly disposed mind,” are inclined to believe it. Although Newman’s argument may be circular, it is not viciously so. That is, he is not simply equating the “rightly disposed mind” and Christian faith, as if the rightness of the former is proven when it embraces the latter. Rather, Newman thinks that the properly predisposed mind depends, not on arbitrarily selected particular individual, the temper of mind that shapes how he or she approaches or evaluates evidence, or “certain kinds of experience without which particular types of evidence cannot be understood.” Basil Mitchell, “Newman as a Philosopher,” in Newman after a Hundred Years, ed. Ian Ker and Alan G. Hill (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 231-36. “In general,” comments Jost, “an antecedent probability for Newman is anything we conjecture is likely to be—based upon experience, analogy, testimony, commonly accepted opinions, and the like.” Walter Jost, Rhetorical Thought in John Henry Newman (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1989), 41. 34Ibid., 191. Cf. ibid., 218. See Ian T. Ker, The Achievement of John Henry Newman (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 48-49.

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traits that make Christian belief appear plausible, but on a natural religiosity that can be rationally justified on independent grounds. Newman’s ideas on natural religion are heavily informed by Christian theology, but it would be unfair to accuse him of simply begging the question. As he sees it, the characteristics of the naturally religious mind can be established independently of Christian presuppositions. At this point, an explanation of the epistemological significance of natural religiosity is in order, though a lengthy exploration of Newman’s views on “natural religion” is not possible.35 Essentially, Newman believes that the human conscience gives direct epistemic access to religious truth. An individual obedient to the dictates of conscience will gain a general knowledge of God and a desire for spiritual benefits (e.g., forgiveness) and virtues (e.g., holiness). Under the influence of such knowledge and desire, individuals become properly sensitized to spiritual things. They acquire “spiritual discernment,” “moral perception,” a sense of “the suitability of the Gospel to their needs,” and “a keen sense of the intrinsic excellence of the message; and of its desirableness, and of its likeness to what seems to him Divine goodness would vouchsafe did he vouchsafe any, of the need of Revelation, and its probability.”36 Newman explains, “The divinely enlightened mind sees in Christ the very Object whom it desires to love and worship,—the Object correlative of its own affections; and it trusts Him, or believes, from loving Him.”37 Newman argues that unbelief is as much a product of antecedent predispositions operating out of “insufficient” evidence as is religious faith. He observes,

35For a concise summary, see Terrence Merrigan, “The Anthropology of Conversion: Newman and the Contemporary Theory of Religions,” in Newman and Conversion, ed. Ian T. Ker (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1997), 127-32. See also GR, 303-17; OUS, 16-53. 36OUS, 55, 59-60, 197, 203. 37Ibid., 236. Weatherby, 108-9, notes that Newman stands against the common assumption in European thought (dominant from Plato to just before Newman’s day) that “the capacity of the mind to apprehend metaphysical truths grows in direct proportion to the mortification of the passions.”

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THE JUSTIFICATION OF FAITH Unbelief, indeed, considers itself especially rational, or critical of evidence; but it criticizes the evidence of Religion, only because it does not like it, and really goes upon presumptions and prejudices as much as Faith does, only the presumptions of an opposite nature … It considers a religious system so improbable, that it will not listen to the evidence of it; or, if it listens, it employs itself in doing what a believer could do, if he chose, quite as well, what he is quite as well aware can be done; viz., in showing that the evidence might be more complete and unexceptionable than it is. On this account it is that unbelievers call themselves rational; not because they decide by evidence, but because, after they have made their decision, they merely occupy themselves in sifting it.38

Here Newman retracts the concession that he makes elsewhere, namely, that reason works with facts and proof while faith depends on presumptions.39 In reality, believers and unbelievers alike depend on antecedent presumptions. When an issue requires a sensitive, informal appraisal of convergent probabilities, attaining right belief hinges on the right preparation of the person. It is the lack of such preparation that explains unbelief. Newman states, For is not this the error, the common and fatal error, of the world, to think itself a judge of Religious Truth without a preparation of heart? … Gross eyes see not; heavy hearts hear not. But in the schools of the world the ways towards Truth are considered high roads open to all men, however disposed, at all times. Truth is to be approached without homage. Every one is considered on a level with his neighbour; or rather the powers of the intellect, acuteness, sagacity, subtlety, and depth, are thought to be guides into Truth. Men consider that they have as full a right to discuss religious subjects, as if they themselves were religious. They will enter upon the most sacred points of Faith at the moment, at their pleasure,—if it so happens, in a careless frame of mind, in their hours of recreation, over the wine cup. Is it wonderful that they so frequently end in becoming indifferentists, and conclude that Religious Truth is but a

38OUS, 39Ibid.,

230. 185-88, 223-24.

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name, that all men are right and all wrong, from witnessing eternally the multitudes of sects and parties, and from the clear consciousness they possess within, that their own inquiries end in darkness?40

Many similar passages could be quoted from Newman’s writings. Newman thinks that a recognition of the close connection between the subjective state of the individual and the assessment of evidence has two important implications: (a) it makes it evident that persons are morally accountable for what they believe, and (b) it helps to explain the shortcomings of evidentialism. These points shall be taken up in turn. (a) The close connection between the subjective state of the individual and the assessment of evidence makes it evident that persons are morally accountable for what they believe. Were faith merely a conclusion reached after an objective, dispassionate evaluation of evidence, it would be no more meritorious than correctly working a mathematical problem. Were unbelief merely an error in rightly applying “scientific rules and fixed standards,” it would be no more blameworthy than an accounting mistake.41 In fact, faith and unbelief are revelatory of a state of heart. Newman states, It is commonly and truly said, that Faith is a test of a man’s heart. Now what does this really mean, but that it shows what he thinks likely to be?—and what he thinks likely, depends surely on nothing else than the general state of his mind, the state of his convictions, feelings, tastes, and wishes. A fact is asserted, and is thereby proposed to the acceptance or rejection of those who hear it. Each hearer will have his own view concerning it, prior to the evidence; this view will result from the character of his mind, nor commonly will it be reversed by any ordinary variation in the evidence. If he is indisposed to believe, he will explain away very strong evidence; if he is disposed, he will accept very weak evidence.42

As Norris explains, Newman maintains that “accuracy and truth are not acquired or reached independently of the mood or spiritual 40Ibid.,

198-99. Cf. ibid., 61-62. 229-30. 42Ibid., 226. 41Ibid.,

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character of the person of the inquirer, as if human Reason was an absolutely mechanical or Platonic entity, totally beyond the region of the human passions and emotions.”43 In the end, what an individual takes to be true is consonant with the state of his or her heart.44 (b) The close connection between the subjective state of the individual and the assessment of evidence helps to explain the shortcomings of evidentialism. Because the crucial factor in generating belief is not the state of the evidence but the state of the heart, few people come to faith as a result of rationally weighing evidences for Christianity.45 Not realizing this, evidentialists like Paley make the mistake of arguing only on the basis of principles that all persons—“good or bad, rude or refined”—accept as legitimate.46 Inadvertently, the impression is created that God is on trial before the bar of reason, whereas in fact human beings are on trial before the bar of truth. Ultimately, says Newman, a “mutilated and defective evidence suffices for persuasion where the heart is alive; but dead evidences, however perfect, can but create a dead faith.”47 By placing so much stress on predispositions in the appraisal of evidence, Newman has opened himself up to the charge of subjectivism. That is, the more he emphasizes the crucial epistemic role played by antecedent factors, the more he seems to open the door to bigotry as well as faith. To his credit, Newman does not simply brush this question aside but raises it himself. He notes, Antecedent probabilities may be equally available for what is truth, and what pretends to be true, for a Revelation and its counterfeit, for Paganism, or Mahometanism, or Christianity. They seem to supply no intelligible rule what is to be believed, and what is not; or how a man is to pass from a false belief to a true.48

43Norris,

10. 227. 45See, e.g., ibid., 64-66, 225. 46Ibid., 271. 47Ibid., 199-200; q.v. ibid., 197, 225-26. 48Ibid., 232. 44OUS,

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He therefore asks the crucial question: “How are we to manage (as I may say) the Argument from Presumption in behalf of Christianity, so as not to carry it out into an argument against it?”49 Essentially, Newman’s answer is to propose what today would be called a “virtue epistemology.” He simply develops what he has already maintained, namely that a “rightly disposed mind” leads to right belief. He asserts, The safeguard of Faith is a right state of heart. This is what protects it from bigotry, credulity, and fanaticism. It is holiness, or dutifulness, or the new creation, or the spiritual mind, however we word it, which is the quickening and illuminating principle of true faith, giving it eyes, hands, and feet.50 Right Faith is the faith of a right mind. Faith is an intellectual act; right Faith is an intellectual act, done in a certain moral disposition. Faith is an act of Reason, viz. a reasoning based upon presumptions; right Faith is a reasoning upon holy, devout, and enlightened presumptions.51

Consequently, faith does not need “what is popularly called Reason” to protect it from credulity and superstition. Rather, faith is itself an intellectual act, and it takes its character from the moral state of the agent. It is perfected, not by intellectual cultivation, but by obedience … It is as before a presumption, but the presumption of a serious, sober, thoughtful, pure, affectionate, and devoted mind.52

Of course, Newman is not suggesting that virtuous people are infallible reasoners. He does, however, display a robust confidence in the reasoning abilities of the ordinary person.53 Perhaps surprisingly, he opines that human beings are less likely to err when they reason earnestly on religious matters than when they deal with more mundane questions.54 He also maintains that a religious frame 49Ibid. 50Ibid., 234. Of course, Newman views this “right state of heart” as a work of grace. Ibid., 235. 51Ibid., 239. 52Ibid., 249-50. 53Ibid., 211, 298-99. 54Ibid., 228-29.

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of mind, though perhaps prone at times to credulity, is better positioned in respect to truth than “that cold, skeptical, critical tone of mind” that is characteristic of unbelief.55 The Venture of Faith For Kierkegaard, rational certitude and faith are incompatible: the venture of faith begins with a “leap” against the understanding. In contrast, Newman insists that a venturing faith requires certitude. He states, Rational, sensible men, as they consider themselves, men who do not comprehend the very notion of loving God above all things, are content with such a measure of probability for the truths of religion, as serves them in their secular transactions; but those who are deliberately staking their all upon the hopes of the next world, think it reasonable, and find it necessary, before starting on their new course, to have some points, clear and immutable, to start from; otherwise they will not start at all. They ask, as a preliminary condition, to have the ground sure under their feet.56

55Ibid.,

220-21. As Chadwick puts it, Newman thinks the credulous mind is superior to the sagacious mind. Says Chadwick, Newman, 38-39, Newman asked a question which only he could ask. Which is better, to receive too much or to receive too little? If we are submissive to everything that comes our way we shall take what is false for what is true. We shall believe what no sensible man could ever believe. We shall be credulous. If we stay cold, and keep our distance, and analyse, and do a balancing act, and say Yes it might be true, we shall fail to take the most precious truths offered to our moral lives. Which is the worse danger, the danger of believing too much or the danger of believing too little? Can credulity ever be a good state of mind?—not good as an ideal, but good because less bad than the other course of diluting faith with so much worldly reason that it ceases to be the gift which came from beyond the veil? 56GR, 193.

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As long as “Christian earnestness” exists, says Newman, “it will presuppose certitude as the very life which is to animate it.”57 For Newman, therefore, the legitimacy of the venture of faith depends on the legitimacy of religious certitude. If certitude in the absence of rationally coercive evidence can be justified, then the venture of faith can be justified. Thus, the following discussion of Newman’s views on the venture of faith will consist of an analysis of his views on religious certitude. His position on the issue may be set forth in four propositions.58 57Ibid., 193. Elsewhere, Newman argues that a faith founded on probabilities, however decent, remains religiously defective: “Without certitude in religious faith there may be much decency of profession and observance, but there can be no habit of prayer, no directness of devotion, no intercourse with the unseen, no generosity of self-sacrifice.” Ibid., 180. On the meaning of “certitude,” Newman stipulates, “Certitude is a mental state: certainty is a quality of propositions.” Ibid., 271; q.v., ibid., 162. In his unpublished papers, however, he frequently uses “certainty” for “certitude,” and in GR his usage is sometimes ambiguous. See TP, 125-31; GR, 195-96, 258. M. Jamie Ferreira, Scepticism and Reasonable Doubt: The British Naturalist Tradition in Hume, Reid and Newman (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 172, suggests that Newman’s ambiguous usage is best accounted for by taking “certainty” (or certitude) in GR to mean “justified certitude.” Later in this study, Newman’s ambiguous use of “certitude” will be discussed and critiqued. 58It should be noted that Newman sometimes distinguishes between “divine faith” (fides divina) and “human faith” (fides humana). The former differs “in nature and kind” from the latter and affords a transcendent certitude not attainable through “ordinary laws of thought.” GR, 155-56. For three reasons, the following discussion of certitude does not distinguish between “supernatural” and “natural” certitude. First, Newman himself does not treat the distinction as crucial to his argument. For example, though he states that GR concerns only human faith (see ibid., 156), his discussion throughout assumes that genuine religious faith is in view. Second, Newman’s distinction between divine and human faith is qualified by his own refusal to posit a sharp separation between the natural and supernatural realms. For example, he carefully explains in his unpublished theological papers that “supernatural faith” does not supplant human faith; rather, human faith depends on the stimulating grace of God working in and through natural human faculties. TP, 36-39. Thus, he writes that faith “is, we know, the Gift of God, but I am speaking of it as a hu-

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1. Certitude is a distinct state of mind in which one “knows that he knows.” It has already been noted that “assent” is unconditional— “an adhesion without reserve or doubt to the proposition to which it is given.”59 Newman distinguishes, however, between “simple assent” (which is exercised “unconsciously”) and “complex assent” (which is made “consciously and deliberately”).60 He explains that often simple assents are “merely expressions of our personal likings, tastes, principles, motives, and opinions, as dictated by nature, or resulting from habit.”61 Indeed, they “are often little more than prejudices.” With reflection and experience, however, simple assents are corrected or confirmed. The result is “an assent, not only to a given proposition, but to the claim of that proposition on our assent as true; it is an assent to an assent, or what is commonly called a conviction.”62 Convictions are thus “complex” (or “reflex”) assents in which, after deliberation, one explicitly affirms that a particular proposition is true. When the proposition is in fact true, the conviction amounts to “certitude.”63 Newman states, “Certitude … is the perception of a truth with the perception that it is a man process and attained by human means.” Harper, 77. Third, Newman maintains that divine and human faith differ formally but not materially. In other words, both kinds of faith concern to the same truths, though only divine faith assents to them because God has revealed them. In sum, human faith does not consist in graceless belief, and divine faith does not bypass normal human ratiocination. Distinguishing between them is not pertinent to the issues dealt with in this study. For more on Newman’s views on divine and human faith, see LD 24:49; 21:270; 29:120; TP, 3638, 132-34; Philosophical Notebook, 2:196-96; Fey, 38-49, 174-76; Ferreira, Doubt and Religious Commitment, 131-38; Pailin, 79-82; John R. Connolly, “Newman on Human Faith and Divine Faith: Clarifying Some Ambiguities,” Horizons 23 (1996): 261-80. Connolly prefers to speak of “Catholic Divine Faith” rather than “divine faith.” 59GR, 145. Newman concedes that one may assent to a particular proposition as doubtful, but in that case the assent remains unconditional: one assents unconditionally to the doubtfulness of the proposition. See GR, 147-48. 60Ibid., 157. 61Ibid. 62Ibid., 161-62. 63Ibid., 162.

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truth, or the consciousness of knowing, as expressed in the phrase, ‘I know that I know.’”64 By associating certitude with complex assent, Newman at first appears to place religious certitude beyond the reach of the simple, unreflective believer—a disastrous move given Newman’s claim that vigorous religious faith requires certitude. To head off this problem, Newman maintains that simple assent may sometimes amount to “interpretive certitude.”65 He explains, I call it interpretive, signifying thereby that, though the assent in the individuals here contemplated is not a reflex act, still the question only has to be started about the truth of the objects of their assent, in order to elicit from them an act of faith in response which will fulfill the conditions of certitude, as I have drawn them out.66

Of course, not all simple assents can be converted into certitude on demand. Sometimes upon reflection assents must be abandoned as false.67 Nevertheless, Newman believes that the “virtual certitude” of an unreflective believer is sufficient for a living religious faith. Newman maintains that certitude has an affective dimension that is unique to itself.68 “It is a feeling,” he says, “of satisfaction and self-gratulation [sic], of intellectual security, arising out of a sense of success, attainment, possession, finality, as regards the matter which has been in question.”69 Just as a good deed is accompanied by the glow of a self-approving conscience, “so the attainment of what is true is attested by this intellectual security.”70 Along with this intellectual security comes a kind of “magisterial intolerance” that will “spontaneously and promptly reject, on their first suggestion, as idle, as impertinent, as sophistical, any objections which are directed against its truth.”71 It follows that certitude 64Ibid.,

163. uses various terms for the same idea, including “material certitude,” “implicit certitude,” and “virtual certitude.” 66GR, 174. 67Ibid., 175. 68Ibid., 172. 69Ibid., 168. 70Ibid. 71Ibid., 164. Newman is proceeding descriptively. He is not arguing that individuals should reject every truth claim that conflicts with their own 65Newman

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is incompatible with inquiry, for “he who inquires has not found; he is in doubt where the truth lies, and wishes his present profession either proved or disproved.”72 Certitude is not, however, incompatible with investigation. According to Newman, one may investigate the evidence for particular assents in order to convince others or “to fulfill what is due to ourselves and to the claims and responsibilities of our education and social position.”73 Of course, investigation may “issue in the reversal of the assents which they were originally intended to confirm,” but the vague awareness that one’s researches into a question may precipitate a change of view does not imply actual doubt.74 views, but only that certitude, by its very nature, entails the swift rejection of contrary views. In this connection, Newman says that certitude does not ordinarily issue in a promise never to abandon this or that belief. He observes, “What belief, as such, does imply is not the intention to never change, but the utter absence of all thought, or expectation, or fear of changing … We do not commonly determine not to do what we cannot fancy ourselves ever doing.” However, should circumstances call for it, a person who is certain would promise to maintain belief against all temptations to doubt. Ibid., 160-61. Moreover, Newman asserts that a certain amount of self-monitoring is necessary lest one’s “moral changeableness” lead to unfaithfulness to the truth. Ibid., 165. 72Ibid., 159. Newman does not forbid religious inquiry. Indeed, he insists that for doubters “inquiry is both lawful and necessary.” He is simply observing that it is psychologically impossible for a person to doubt a proposition while simultaneously assenting to it. See ibid., 159. 73Ibid., 158-59. 74Ibid., 160-61. Newman lays it down as a general principle that “to fear argument is to doubt the conclusion, and to be certain of a truth is to be careless of objections to it.” Ibid., 168. He does not deny, however, that genuine believers may experience a kind of doubt. See Ibid., 159. John R. T. Lamont, “Newman on Faith and Rationality,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 40 (October 1996): 69, states that Newman is attempting to distinguish “between doubt as a feeling, and doubt as a doxastic attitude.” He explains, A paranoid man can have an overwhelmingly strong feeling that his friends are lying to him and deceiving him, while recognizing that he is paranoid, and that his feelings are due to his paranoia and have no rational basis. A jealous man can have doubts about the fidelity of his wife, while recognizing that these doubts have no

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2. Legitimate certitude does not require logical certainty. As already noted, Newman attempts to uphold the rational legitimacy of certitude in the absence of logically coercive evidence. His case relies heavily on a common sense analysis of human belief. Essentially, Newman thinks that the fact of certitude implies the legitimacy of certitude. Newman observes that people are frequently certain about matters that “admit of nothing higher than probable reasoning.”75 To show that many of these certitudes are rationally justifiable, he sets forth numerous examples of commonly held beliefs that are nondemonstrable yet unquestionably true.76 Perhaps his best known (and certainly his favorite) example is the proposition: Great Britain is an island. Although he had never circumnavigated the island and could not answer every conceivable objection, Newman professes that he is certain—justifiably certain—that Great Britain is indeed an island. According to the “ethic of belief” advocated by “liberalism,” Newman is not entitled to such certitude apart from strict demonstration. In Locke’s classic phrase, certitude in nondemonstrable matters constitutes a “surplusage of belief” that is unwarranted— all assents should be “proportioned” to the evidence. For his part, Newman accuses Locke (and by extension, the “liberals” who followed him) of failing to apply his own principles consistently. Universal human experience, Newman contends, compels Locke to admit that some matters are so overwhelmingly probable that certitude in the absence of logically coercive evidence is justified.77 Newman observes, Locke’s theory of assenting more or less according to the degree of evidence, is invalidated by the testimony of high and low, young and old, ancient and modern, as continually given in their ordinary sayings and doings.

foundation in reality. Such feelings are not actual judgments that certain propositions should be doubted rather than assented to. These feelings are the kind of doubt that it is possible for believers to have, since they are not incompatible with religious faith. 75GR, 148. 76Ibid., 148-50, 234-39. 77Ibid., 136-37.

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THE JUSTIFICATION OF FAITH Indeed, as I have shown, he does not strictly maintain it himself; yet, though he feels the claim of nature and facts to be too strong for him in certain cases, he gives no reason why he should violate his theory in these, and yet not in many others.78

In other words, if an individual is rationally justified in being certain that Great Britain is an island, then the Lockean “ethic of belief” cannot be consistently upheld. In effect, Newman criticizes Locke for being insufficiently empirical. Rather than rooting his epistemology in the natural operations of the human mind, he has created an abstract theory of the mind and then stipulated that true rationality consists in conformity to it. Newman objects, Instead of going by the testimony of psychological facts, and thereby determining our constitutive faculties and our proper condition, and being content with the mind as God made it, he would form men as he thinks they ought to be formed, into something better and higher, and calls them irrational and indefensible, if (so to speak) they take to the water, instead of remaining under the narrow wings of his own arbitrary theory.79

Thus, the fact of certitude implies its legitimacy. Even those who in theory deny this legitimacy are in practice forced to allow it. An obvious retort to Newman’s argument would be that is does not imply ought. Human beings may be prone to inflate probability into certitude, and, against their better judgment, philosophers may slip into the same practice themselves. It does not follow, however, that one is rationally justified in doing so. Indeed, many would argue that intellectually responsible persons will resist the feeling of certitude on principle, much as one might resist a temptation to sin. It is unreasonable to be certain in the absence of logically coercive proof. Newman anticipates this objection and answers by reasserting that human nature compels one to accept the legitimacy of certitude in the absence of demonstration. He explains, 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 aim at concluding … I cannot

78Ibid., 79Ibid.,

148. 139-40.

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avoid being sufficient for myself, and to change me is to destroy me. If I do not use myself, I have no other self to use. My only business is to ascertain what I am, in order to put it to use. It is enough for the proof of the value and authority of any function which I possess, to be able to pronounce that it is natural. My first elementary lesson of duty is that of resignation to the laws of my nature, whatever they are; my first disobedience is to be impatient at what I am, and to indulge an ambitious aspiration after what I cannot be, to cherish a distrust in my powers, and to desire to change laws which are identical with myself.80

Put more succinctly, Newman maintains that one cannot criticize the laws of the mind without simultaneously submitting to them. The same person who denies the legitimacy of certitude is nevertheless certain about many things not rationally demonstrable.81 What use is a standard of rationality that violates the laws by which the mind operates? Ultimately, human beings have no choice but to reason with the minds they have. This fact need not be lamented, however, for “assent on reasonings not demonstrative is too widely recognized an act to be irrational, unless man’s nature is irrational, too familiar to the prudent and clear-minded to be an infirmity or an extravagance.”82 On this point, Ker credits Newman with anticipating Wittgenstein’s insight “that one cannot stand outside or escape from the human mind and its thought and language. There is no alternative rationality we know, to which we can appeal whether to justify or invalidate our thought.”83 80Ibid.,

272-73. states, “None of us can think or act without the acceptance of truths, not intuitive, not demonstrative, yet sovereign. If our nature has any constitutions, any laws, one of them is this absolute reception of propositions as true, which lie outside the narrow range of conclusions to which logic, formal and virtual, is tethered; nor has any philosophical theory the power to force on us a rule which will not work for a day.” Ibid., 150. 82Ibid. 83Ker, Achievement, 71. On Newman’s habit of arguing on the basis of “the nature of things,” see Terrence Merrigan, Clear Heads and Holy Hearts: The Religious and Theological Ideal of John Henry Newman, with a forward by Ian Ker (Louvain: Peeters Press, 1991), 29-36. Merrigan refers to 81Newman

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How does the mind bridge the logical gap between proof and certitude? According to Newman, the properly functioning human mind is able to discern when converging probabilities amount to legitimate certitude. He turns to geometry to illustrate his point: We know that a regular polygon, inscribed in a circle, its sides being continually diminished, tends to become that circle, as to its limit; but it vanishes before it has coincided with the circle, so that its tendency to be the circle, though ever nearer fulfillment, never in fact gets beyond a tendency.84

The same “tendency” to verge toward a limit occurs as evidence accumulates. Newman explains, In like manner, the conclusion in a real or concrete question is foreseen or predicted rather than actually attained; foreseen in the number and direction of accumulated premisses, which converge to it, and as the result of their combination, approach it more nearly than any assignable difference, yet do not touch it logically.85

Thus, one attains certitude not by the application of invincible logic, but by means of “a sure divination that a conclusion is inevitable” given the strength of mutually supporting strands of evidence.86 Although strictly speaking a “proof” requires logical demonstration, Newman maintains that in concrete matters “proof is the limit of converging probabilities.” A proposition may thus be “as good as proved” even though it is not formally established.87 Newman’s trust in “the nature of things” as “philosophical realism.” See also Ferreira, Scepticism, 207-226. 84GR, 253. 85Ibid., 253-54. 86Ibid., 254. 87Ibid. When Newman says that a proposition is “as good as proved,” he means something more than what might be termed “practical certitude.” Unlike Joseph Butler, from whom he derived the idea that converging probabilities may constitute a proof, Newman argued for the legitimacy of “speculative certitude.” According to Newman, “Butler tends to reduce certainty to a practical certainty, viz that it is safer to act, as if the conclusions were true; I maintain that probabilities lead to a speculative certainty legitimately; so that it is quite rational to come to that conviction.” LD, 21:270 (emphasis original). When Pailin, 159, says that Newman holds that some conclusions are “so highly probable that we consider

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Ferreira offers a subtle analysis of Newman’s conception of the movement from probability to “proof.” Newman’s polygon illustration, she states, indicates that he views the transition from objective uncertainty to subjective certainty as neither a simple “leap” beyond the evidence nor as the inevitable consequence of the accumulation of evidence. Says Ferreira, The metaphor of the polygon in the circle thus concedes a discontinuity (the polygon’s sides do ‘not touch it logically’) even while it cancels it (there is in the end no ‘assignable difference’). Conversely, the very idea of a polygon tending to “become” a circle ‘as to its limit’ implies the achievement of a qualitative transition through imaginative extension (the circle is the limit of the polygon), but the concession that there is something ‘logically’ lacking seems to install the discontinuity implied in the common notion of the ‘leap.’ This is logical discontinuity, however, with respect to demonstrative completeness, allows for non-demonstrative continuity.88

Thus, when Newman says that cumulative evidence converges on a conclusion, he is well served by the fact that the verb can denote either tending toward or actually meeting. Ferreira thinks that Newman is able to give place for both rational continuity and discontinuity in the transition to certitude because he is thinking in terms of what she calls a “threshold concept.”89 Some transitions, says Ferreira, happen completely or not at all. For example, heating explosive material may cause a gradual rise in temperature, but an explosion, if it happens at all, will occur all-at-once when a critical threshold has been reached. Similarly, when water is heated, the increased heat is registered in the gradual increase in water temperature. At the critical threshold, however, a

ourselves morally obliged to assent to it and to act as if it were objectively certain,” his words are better applied to Butler than to Newman. 88M. Jamie Ferreira, “Leaps and Circles: Kierkegaard and Newman on Faith and Reason,” Religious Studies 30 (December 1994): 383. On the role of imagination in informal inference and assent, see Gerard Magill, “Imaginative Moral Discernment: Newman on the Tension between Reason and Religion,” Heythrop Journal 32 (1991): 496-99. 89Ferreira, “Leaps,” 385-86.

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qualitative transition takes place: the water boils.90 Ferreira applies this latter analogy to Newman’s apprehension of how converging evidence leads to certitude: The transition achieved in reaching certitude is a qualitative transition—it is an all-or-nothing kind of movement—yet although it is not a quantitative accumulation by degrees, it is nevertheless anchored in what precedes it. Evidence, like heat, can be registered during a process, even though the qualitative transition only occurs as the critical threshold is reached. A qualitative transition need not be simply discontinuous with what precedes it.91

Put in Newman’s vocabulary, this qualitative transition entails the movement from a conditional inference to an unconditional assent. Newman maintains that this qualitative transition is effected as the human mind, divining the truth through an act of personal reasoning, “determines what science cannot determine, the limit of converging probabilities and the reasons sufficient for a proof.”92 No logical calculus will enable a person to arrive at certitude, for it is the “living mind” that rightly appraises the import of converging probabilities.93 “For genuine proof in concrete matters,” says Newman, “we require an organon more delicate, versatile, and elastic than verbal argumentation.”94 Newman calls this organon the “illative sense.” He states, “It is the mind that reasons, and that controls its own reasonings, not any technical apparatus of words and propositions. The power of judging and concluding, when in its perfection, I call the Illative Sense.”95 He compares this “sense” to 90Ferreira notes that Newman himself adopts this illustration of the water boiling to illustrate the transition to faith. LD, 27:161-62. See also Ferreira, Scepticism, 186-88. 91Ferreira, “Leaps,” 385-86. 92GR, 281-82. In the same place, Newman explains that “it is only under its penetrating and subtle action that the margin disappears [i.e., the logical gap is closed], which I have described as intervening between verbal argumentation [formal inference] and conclusions in the concrete.” 93Ibid. 94Ibid., 217. 95Ibid., 276. Although he does not explicitly say so in GR, Newman undoubtedly believes that certitude is achieved as divine grace works in

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Aristotle’s concept of phronesis (or “judgment”), the difference being that whereas phronesis pertains to concrete ethical decisions, the illative sense pertains to “speculative” questions; that is, the illative sense judges not what is good but what is true.96 Owen Chadwick explains, He coined the expression [i.e., “illative sense”] to describe the act of assent in the mind based on a body of grounds in their totality, even though the mind is not aware of all the grounds treated as separate arguments, and may be resting on half-articulate experience as well as argument. This was the assent that turned the accumulation of probabilities into certitude.97

In reality, Newman’s “illative sense” is little more than a name for a mystery.98 Left unexplained is how the mind can legitimately and through the movements of the illative sense. In Apologia, 292, he states, He who has made us has so willed that in mathematics indeed we arrive at certitude by rigorous demonstration, but in religious inquiry we arrive at certitude by accumulated probabilities—inasmuch as he who has willed that we should so act, co-operates with us in our acting, and thereby bestows on us certitude which rises higher than the logical force of our conclusions. 96Ibid., 276-78. In LD, 29:115, Newman speaks of an “inductive sense” which “answers to Aristotle’s phronesis.” This inductive sense enables one to “pass from inference to assent.” 97Owen Chadwick, Newman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 36. For a good overview of Newman’s concept of the “illative sense,” see Zeno, 17-31. 98Cf. M. C. D’Arcy, The Nature of Belief (London: Sheed and Ward, 1931), 148-49, who regards Newman’s illative sense as a deus ex machina that will “make the philosophic purist wince.” D’Arcy’s criticism is partly based on a misunderstanding, however. He supposes that the Newman sets forth the illative sense as a substitute for rational thought—an “instinct” that cannot be criticized. D’Arcy, 150-51. Charles Stephen Dessain, “Cardinal Newman on the Theory and Practice of Knowledge: The Purpose of the Grammar,” Downside Review 75 (January 1957): 8, rightly points out that Newman refers to the illative sense as an “instinct,” not because it operates irrationally, but because it functions spontaneously. Dessain explains, “The illative sense is simply our intellect, our reason, working unconsciously, and arriving at its conclusions in an intellectual

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make the transition from objective probability to certitude without a “leap” of faith. This issue will be revisited at the end of this chapter. 3. Certitude is under the jurisdiction of the will. Because Newman emphasizes the personal nature of reasoning, it is not surprising that he sometimes emphasizes the role of the will in the emergence of certitude. To simply label him a “voluntarist,” however, does not do justice to the subtlety of his analysis of the volitional element in belief. It must be admitted that Newman makes some statements (particularly in his unpublished papers) that at first glance suggest that certitude emerges from probabilistic proofs by a sheer act of will. He says, for example, that assent follows inference “by an act of will,”99 and even declares that “absolute assent” follows an “opinion” by “a mere act of will.”100 Although some assents come automatically (much like sense perceptions), reflex assent “cannot be done without the will.”101 The transition from certitude to doubt (or vice versa) is accomplished, he says, “simply by an act of will.”102 Taken by themselves, such statements seem to suggest that certitude is the result of a self-conscious decision to believe what is not, strictly speaking, evidentially warranted.103 In reality, Newman’s stress on the will in belief-formation is only one facet of his and reasonable manner. Newman is not an intuitionist, nor, in philosophy, a mystic.” Dessain, 12-13. See also Zeno, 96-97. Zeno, 136, explains that “it is clear that the illative sense cannot be called intuition in the current meaning of the word … The operation of the illative sense must be called reasoning, but it is reasoning without the formal application of the rules of logic and without clear insight into the road taken by the mind.” Still, precisely how the illative sense is able bridge the gap between objective uncertainty to subjective certainty remains a mystery that Newman never explains. 99TP, 11. 100Ibid. Emphasis added. Newman later refers to “absolute assent” as “assent”—whether simple or complex. By “opinion,” he means an inference based on probability. 101Ibid., 130. Brackets original. 102Ibid., 13. 103So Pailin, 169-77, interprets Newman.

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larger purpose to highlight the personal nature of human ratiocination. For example, in the same unpublished paper in which he makes much of the will’s role in assent, Newman associates volition with the personal appropriation of a conclusion rather than pure decision to believe. He observes that, upon an inference of any kind there is a natural spontaneous act of the mind towards it of acceptance or the reverse, which I have expressed under the word Assent, and said to be under the jurisdiction of the will. E.g. when we believe another’s statement, we make it our own, and reaffirm it as if with our own lips.104

In this passage, Newman states that the movement of the mind from (a probabilistic) inference to assent is “under the jurisdiction of the will.” Interestingly, however, he indicates that assent begins with “a spontaneous act of the mind” following an inference and is consummated as one appropriates a truth claim (“we make it our own, and reaffirm it as if with our own lips”). Voluntarist language is strikingly absent.105 In this connection, it may be significant that Newman says that the will cannot generate certitude but may only “obstruct and stifle” it. Certitude is “under the control of the will,” he says, and thus “the will may suppress, extinguish the feeling.”106 He adds, “The will cannot absolutely create it, for it is the natural 104TP,

14.

105Elsewhere,

Newman notes that certitude is an assent, and that assent “is a free act, a personal act for with the doer is responsible.” GR, 189. Nothing is said about generating belief by an arbitrary choice; free will is said to entail a personal action that carries responsibility—nothing more. On human freedom and ratiocination, Thomas Carr, Newman and Gadamer: Toward a Hermeneutics of Religious Knowledge (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1996), 91, correctly observes, The first thing to be said about Newman’s epistemology is that its starting point is the rational and holistic freedom of the self as a thinking, willing individual in his or her concrete existence. Newman conceives of his epistemology in terms related to personal modes of thinking; he approaches the mystery of human thought not in any abstract sense, but in the way it is found reflected in and known through the medium of the person. 106TP, 15.

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and direct result of conviction, but the will can hinder that direct result from taking place … The will then, though it cannot create certainty, can stifle it.”107 Clearly, Newman emphasizes personal volition, but he does not advocate volitionalism. Nor does he suppose that the will only enters in at the end of the evaluation process, as if personal volition takes over after dispassionate reason has done its work.108 According to Newman, some arguments reveal their force only as one freely enters into them, provisionally viewing the world through them by an act of imagination.109 Certitude is thus under the “jurisdiction” of the will in the sense that individuals must freely adopt a standpoint that makes it possible to “see” the force of the evidence, refuse to stifle certitude as it rises in the heart, and choose to appropriate what is judged to be true. 4. True certitude is indefectible. For Newman, indefectibility is a key component of certitude. He states that assents may and do change, but “certitudes endure.”110 They endure because the truth itself does not change. When the human mind lays hold of truth, it experiences cognitive rest and becomes as stable as the reality is apprehends. “Whoever loses his conviction on a given point,” says Newman, “is thereby proved not to have been certain of it. Certitude ought to stand all trials, or it is not certitude.”111 Hence, he lays it down as a rule: “once certitude, always certitude.”112 Does not such indefectibility presuppose the infallibility of the one who is certain? Newman insists that it does not. Just as a person can be certain about events from the previous day without supposing the infallibility of his or her memory, so individuals may be certain about many things without imagining themselves incapable of error. Infallibility, Newman judges, denotes a “faculty or gift” that makes error impossible, whereas certitude is only “directed to this or that particular proposition.”113 Were certitude sub107Ibid.

Brackets original. Ferreira, “Ethics of Belief,” 368-69. 109GR, 249. 110Ibid., 180. 111Ibid., 206. 112Ibid., 181. 113Ibid., 183. 108See

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ject to frequent lapses, Newman admits, it would be an unjustifiable “extravagance of the intellect.”114 He therefore thinks it important to show that “failures of what is taken for certitude are the exception; that the intellect, which is made for truth, can attain truth, and, having attained it, can keep it, can recognize it, and preserve the recognition.”115 The problem is that human certitude does not appear to be indefectible. People commonly change their minds today about matters they regarded as certain yesterday. Moreover, the new beliefs are often characterized by the same certitude that the old ones enjoyed.116 To explain this problematic fact, Newman is forced to maintain that there are false certitudes as well as true; and while the latter are indefectible, the former are not. Unfortunately, Newman does not provide a criterion by which true and false certitudes may be distinguished. In fact, he actually admits that there is no “distinguishing mark” by which either can be recognized.117 “Certitude does not,” he says, “admit of an interior, immediate test, sufficient to discriminate it from false certitude.”118 Using the word “conviction” to cover both true and false certitude, Newman concedes that any conviction, false as well as true, may last; and any conviction, true as well as false, may be lost. A conviction in favour of a proposition may be exchanged for its contradictory; and each of them may be attended, while they last, by that sense of security and repose, which a true object alone can legitimately impart. No line can be drawn between such real certitudes as have truth for their object, and apparent certitudes … What looks like certitude always is exposed to the chance of turning out to be a mistake.119

In view of this admission, Newman’s assertion that certitude is indefectible appears vacuous. If true and false certitude cannot ultimately be distinguished, and if both may or may not persist, then the so-called indefectibility of certitude is a non-falsifiable hy114Ibid.,

181.

115Ibid. 116Newman

himself admits as much. See ibid., 196. 181. 118Ibid., 205. 119Ibid., 181-82. 117Ibid.,

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pothesis. As a practical matter, however, Newman is fairly confident that true and false certitude may be distinguished. The above statements notwithstanding, he sometimes speaks as if it were a simple matter to separate “opinion” and “prejudice” from certitude.120 In the absence of a criterion, however, it appears that Newman’s confidence rests primarily on his own subjective judgement, that is, on his own illative sense. Even if one sets aside the problem of distinguishing true and false certitude in specific instances, the fact that false certitudes exist at all remains a difficulty for Newman. Put simply, how can any certitude be trusted when some certitudes are known to be false? Newman recognizes this problem and responds by acknowledging that “the experience of mistakes in assents … are to the prejudice of subsequent ones.”121 He does not, however, think that the problem is insurmountable. He states, It must be recollected that certitude is a deliberate assent given expressly after reasoning. If then my certitude is unfounded, it is the reasoning that is in fault, not my assent to it. It is the law of my mind to seal up conclusions to which ratiocination has brought me, by that formal assent which I have called certitude … Errors in reasoning are lessons and warnings, not to give up reasoning, but to reason with greater caution.122

Thus, once one has taken into account the cause of the error, there is nothing to prevent one from accepting other propositions with certitude.123 Says Newman, False certitudes are faults because they are false, not because they are (supposed) certitudes … Assent is an act of the mind, congenial to its nature; and it, as other acts, may be made both when it ought to be made, and when it ought not. It is a free act, a personal act for which the doer is responsible, and the actual mistakes in making it, be they ever so numerous or serious, have no force whatever to prohibit the act itself.124

120See

ibid., 165-66, 204-5. 186. 122Ibid., 186-87. 123Ibid., 188. 124Ibid., 189. 121Ibid.,

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Newman goes on to maintain that sometimes the loss of certitude is apparent rather than real. For example, he argues that even the conversion of religious believers to another faith does not prove that certitude is defectible. He explains that “assent and certitude have reference to propositions, one by one.”125 Religious systems, on the other hand, consist of bundles of beliefs. One may surrender many of the beliefs in the “bundle” without necessarily surrendering the specific beliefs that are certitudes. Thus, as persons move from one religion to another, they can take previous certitudes with them.126 Newman opines, “It is conceivable that a man might travel in his religious profession all the way from heathenism to Catholicity, through Mahometanism, Judaism, Unitarianism, Protestantism, and Anglicanism, without any one certitude lost, but with an accumulation of truths, which claimed from him and elicited in his intellect fresh and fresh certitudes.”127 The Adjudication of Truth Claims Because Newman stresses the implicit and informal nature of human ratiocination, he does not think that disputed truth claims can be resolved by the mechanical application of rational criteria. Indeed, he argues that the ultimate judge of truth claims is the human mind itself as it personally appraises evidence by means of its illative sense. “The sole and final judgment,” says Newman, “on the 125Ibid.,

196. 201. Newman states, “There are few religions which have not points in common; and these, whether true or false, when embraced with an absolute conviction, are the pivots on which changes take place in that collection of credences, opinions, prejudices, and other assents, which make up what is called a man’s selection and adoption of a form of religion, a denomination, or a Church.” Ibid., 200. Undoubtedly, Newman’s views on the continuity of certitudes through conversions is shaped by his own experience. Avery Dulles, “Newman: The Anatomy of a Conversion,” in Newman and Conversion, ed. Ian T. Ker (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1997), 21-36, shows that Newman saw his own conversion from evangelical Anglicanism through Anglo-Catholicism to Roman Catholicism as marked by a constancy of certain basic convictions. 127Ibid., 202. Newman insists that he is not overlooking the fact that apparently identical doctrines may be affirmed quite differently in different religions. Ibid., 202-3. 126Ibid.,

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validity of an inference in concrete matters is committed to the personal action of the ratiocinative faculty, the perfection or virtue of which I have called the Illative Sense.”128 As the “ultimate test of truth or error,” the illative sense is “a rule unto itself, and appeals to no judgment beyond its own.”129 The “validity of a proof” is thus established by the personal reasoning of the mind and not by the application of some “scientific test.”130 Of course, problems of adjudication arise because an individual can always claim the sanction of his or her illative sense for beliefs that others challenge.131 It would seem that some sort of criterion is needed to gauge the reliability of this or that illation. In fact, Newman does sets forth several criteria for adjudication truth claims, though they should be viewed as general guidelines rather than “tests” to be rigidly applied. According to Newman, “there is no ultimate test of truth besides the testimony born to the truth by the mind itself”;132 hence, what follows are signposts rather than rules—penultimate criteria that cannot yield the final word on truth and error. 1. Religious truth claims are subject to logical evaluation. As already indicated, Newman does not regard formal inference as the whole of human ratiocination—or even its most important element. Nevertheless, he argues that formal inference, when kept subservient to the illative sense, has an important role in the adjudication of truth claims. One can reason well without resorting to “a formal juxta-

128Ibid.,

271. 281. Moleski comments, “In the last analysis, Newman’s Grammar of Assent declares that there are no rules adequate to determine the conditions of legitimate assent; it is only our own personal judgment that determines whom and what to trust.” Martin X. Moleski, “Illative Sense and Tacit Knowledge: A Comparison of the Epistemologies of John Henry Newman and Michael Polanyi,” in John Henry Newman: Theology and Reform, edited by Michael F. Allsopp and Ronald R. Burke (New York: Garland, 1992), 191. 130Ibid., 321. 131Newman himself notes that the illative sense differs from individual to individual. There is no “common measure” between minds that makes unanimity of judgment possible. Ibid., 321. 132Ibid., 275. 129Ibid.,

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position of propositions,” says Newman, but the logical ordering of propositions can help to direct inquiry and verify truth claims.133 Logical inference can contribute to adjudication in a variety of ways. It can both save one from making “hopeless mistakes” in reasoning and “verify negatively” by identifying error.134 Although it lacks the illative sense’s power to ascertain truth in concrete matters, logical inference is able to discern where probabilities lie, to identify weak arguments, and to recognize where more evidence is needed.135 Perhaps most importantly, logical inference allows individuals to identify specific areas of disagreement and engage in the give and take of rational dialogue. “It enables,” says Newman, “the independent intellects of many, acting and reacting on each other, to bring their collective force to bear upon one and the same subject matter, or the same question.”136 In this way, ideas are tested in the fire of debate. When consensus remains elusive after lengthy discussion, it is logical inference that recognizes when differences of opinion are rooted in first principles and therefore not resolvable. Disagreements over first principles cannot be resolved, Newman judges, because logic assumes first principles—it cannot generate or demonstrate them. Thus, first principles are often defended as being “self-evident,” which is another way of saying that they are derived from intuitions that cannot themselves be rationally justified. The upshot is that logical reasoning, intended to provide a rule for impartial adjudication of truth claims, proceeds on the basis of intuitively derived first principles that are themselves the subject of “interminable controversy.”137 Without a rational criterion for distinguishing true from false first principles, logical inference cannot provide an ultimate criterion for adjudication. 2. Religious truth claims can be assessed according to how convincingly they account for the whole range of evidence. Newman maintains that a 133Ibid.,

239-40. 217. 135Ibid., 228. 136Ibid.; q.v., ibid., 211. 137Ibid., 216; q.v., OUS, 200-1. For Newman’s views on first principles, see Casey, 205-303; Ferreira, Skepticism, 145-71; Zeno, 75-82; Norris, 120-26. 134Ibid.,

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proposition is verified in part by its success in providing the best available explanation for the evidence taken as a whole. This approach to confirmation, commonly referred to as an “inference to the best explanation,” fits well with Newman’s view that “proof” in concrete matters consists in the convergence of probabilities as they are personally appraised by means of both formal and informal ratiocination. Newman thinks that an inference to the best explanation can be used both positively and negatively to support religious truth claims. Positively, he states that “a conclusion is to be accepted (in part) because it throws light upon a multitude of collateral facts, accounting for them, and uniting them together in one whole.”138 Negatively, Newman points out that some truth claims collapse under their inability to account adequately for the “facts.”139 He uses both the positive and negative forms of the argument in his defense of Christianity. For example, Newman thinks that “the history of the rise and establishment of Christianity” constitutes convincing evidence in favor of Christian truth claims. He acknowledges, however, that several writers, foremost among them being the celebrated historian Edward Gibbon, account for the rise of Christianity in terms of merely human—not divine—forces. Newman rehearses the five “explanations” offered by Gibbon and in response argues that each one fails to account plausibly for the phenomena it purports to explain.140 He then follows this negative assessment with an alternative explanation of the rise of Christianity—one that presumes the truth of the Christian faith.141 His purpose is to “see whether the facts of the case do not come out clear and unequivocal” when placed within this different explanatory scheme.142 Of course, Newman believes that the evidence is best accounted for on the assumption that Christianity is true. The obvious problem is that judgments regarding what counts as the “best” explanation are subjectively rendered and thus are themselves in need of some sort of justification. In fairness to 138GR,

255-56. 238, 254. 140Ibid., 354-58. 141Ibid., 358-75. 142Ibid., 358. 139Ibid.,

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Newman, however, a priori skepticism about the prospects for general agreement on what constitutes the “best explanation” is unwarranted. Contemporary work in the philosophy of science and related fields have shown that there is an irreducibly informal, subjective element in all inductive judgments.143 However, objective reality imposes some epistemological constraint; consequently, the 143Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 125, comments, Today, a host of negative results, including some powerful considerations due to Nelson Goodman, have indicated that there cannot be a completely formal inductive logic. Some important aspects of inductive logic can be formalized (although the adequacy of the formalization is controversial), but there is always a need for judgments of ‘reasonable-ness’, … Later, Putnam, 192, observes, “Formal rationality, commitment to the formal part of the scientific method, does not guarantee real and actual rationality.” He states that there is no reason to suppose that any set of rules “could distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable priors [i.e., “prior probability functions”—a term roughly equivalent to Newman’s “antecedent assumptions”] and which would be any simpler than a complete description of the total psychology of an ideally rational human being.” Says Putnam, The hope for a formal method, capable of being isolated from actual human judgments about the content of science (that is, about the nature of the world), and from human values seems to have evaporated. And even if we widen the notion of a method so that a formalization of the psychology of an ideally rational human scientist would count as a ‘method’, there is no reason to think that a ‘method’ in this sense would be independent of judgments about aesthetics, judgments about ethics, judgments about whatever you please. (Ibid., 192-93) Similarly, Hugo Meynell, “Newman’s Vindication of Faith in the Grammar of Assent,” in Newman after a Hundred Years, ed. Ian Ker and Alan G. Hill (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 249, observes, “It is by now notorious that the business of excogitating theories and hypotheses in any area of inquiry is a matter which cannot be reduced to logic; and just the same applies to the matching of such hypotheses with phenomena supposed to corroborate or falsify them.”

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subjective appraisal of evidence need not degenerate into mere subjectivity. Still, the fact that an “inference to the best explanation” cannot be made according to formal, specifiable rules does mean that disputes over truth claims cannot be settled simply and decisively. 3. Religious truth claims are subject to pragmatic verification. Newman regularly links verification with outcomes, suggesting in many places that disputes over truth claims are sometimes irresolvable until future events settle the matter in favor of one view or another. For example, he states, “Faith is a process of the Reason, in which so much of the grounds of inference cannot be exhibited, … that it will ever seem to the world irrational and despicable;—till, that is, the event confirms it.”144 Similarly, he compares faith to actions that “seem perilous, and yet succeed, and can be only justified on looking back upon them.”145 Thus, when an impasse over truth has been reached, “What but the event can settle the difference of opinion … ?”146 Statements like these make it clear that Newman thinks actual outcomes can contribute to the adjudication of truth claims. Taken by themselves, however, such statements do not illuminate how outcomes can validate many of the religious truth claims that Newman wishes to establish. If one makes a prediction, then outcomes might serve as a relatively straightforward test of truthfulness. If, on the other hand, one wishes to establish the truth of orthodox trinitarian doctrine, it is not obvious how an “event” can settle any difference of opinion. Although Newman does not speak directly to this issue, he could respond by reasserting two points he makes in other contexts. First, Newman could argue that Christianity involves a single, unified set of beliefs; therefore, any “outcome” that supports the truth of Christianity as a whole also supports individual propositions contained within the whole. Newman takes pains to emphasize that “the matter of revelation is not a mere collection of truths, … but an authoritative teaching, which bears witness to itself and

144OUS,

218. 219. 146GR, 261-62. 145Ibid.,

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keeps itself together as one.”147 Since it is not a mere “assemblage of opinions,” individuals “are not left at liberty to pick and choose out of its contents” according to their own private judgment. Rather, they must accept or reject it as a whole.148 It follows that “outcomes” which substantiate the general truth of Christianity also substantiate the truth of individual propositions that together constitute Christian doctrine.149 Second, Newman could argue that Christian faith results in outcomes that are epistemologically relevant. Specifically, he thinks that the ability of Christianity to satisfy universal human needs testifies to its truth. Already in OUS, for example, Newman asserts that people become Christians not so much because of the supporting evidence as because of the perception that the gospel effectively addresses their needs.150 In GR, he elevates this simple observation on the phenomenology of belief into the epistemological claim that one mark of religious truth is that it meets human needs. He commends the layperson who reckons Catholicism true because it has brought spiritual blessing into his or her life.151 Newman also speaks of a “poor dying factory-girl” who in the midst of her daily suffering exclaims that her sanity hinges on the existence of a God who will “wipe away all tears from all eyes.” Newman comments, “Here is an argument for the immortality of the soul.”152

147Ibid.,

302.

148Ibid. 149Cf.

John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 6th ed. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), 107, where Newman states that because “the doctrines [of Christianity] make up one integral religion, it follows that several evidences which respectively support those doctrines belong to a whole, and must be thrown into a common stock, and all are available in the defense of any.” 150OUS, 139. 151GR, 174. Of such arguments, Newman says that “if the particular argument used in some instances needs strengthening, then let it be observed, that the keenness of the real apprehension with which the assent is made, though it cannot be the legitimate basis of the assent, may still legitimately act, and strongly act, in confirmation.” 152Ibid., 247.

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Of course, strictly speaking the emotional needs of the factory girl do not constitute any argument at all. Indeed, longings and needs are not usually taken for arguments, and it is disconcerting that Newman does not here provide an explanation for why they should be so taken in this case. Why, in other words, does he think that the factory girl’s needy belief constitutes justified belief? A sympathetic reader, however, does not find it difficult to divine Newman’s intention. The factory girl illustrates Newman’s conviction that human needs are epistemologically relevant. If human beings need water to survive, then water must exist; if human beings need faith in God to survive—or to thrive—then God must exist. If, to take the argument a step further, Christianity contributes to human flourishing, then that fact points to the truth of Christianity (and to individual doctrines that are part of the single, authoritative Christian revelation). Adjudication then becomes a matter of showing that Christianity addresses the needs of humankind more adequately than any other religion (or nonreligion). As it turns out, Newman explicitly argues in favor of Christianity over against other religions on the grounds that the former “tends to fulfill the aspirations, needs, and foreshadowings of natural faith and devotion.”153 Better than any other religion, he asserts, Christianity addresses the “sense of sin” aroused by natural religion. Newman states, “It [Christianity] has with it that gift of staunching and healing the one deep wound of human nature, which avails more for its success than a full encyclopedia of scientific knowledge and a whole library of controversy, therefore it must last while human nature lasts.”154 He adds that Christianity’s “very divination of our needs is itself proof that it really is the supply of them.”155 For the present purpose, the issue is not whether Newman is fair to non-Christian religions (he is not), nor whether he convincingly shows that the “needs” he identifies do not depend on a previous acceptance of Christian truth claims (he does not). Rather, the important point is that Newman thinks religious truth claims can to some extent be adjudicated in terms of their pragmatic use153Ibid., 154Ibid., 155Ibid.

333. 376.

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fulness. His view is based on the conviction that human needs somehow “track” the truth—an assumption that comes easily to a theist, but a controversial one to say the least. If such an assumption can be justified, it would doubtlessly have to be on the basis of an “inference to the best explanation.”

NEWMAN AND RELIGIOUS FAITH IN A PROBABILISTIC AND PLURALISTIC WORLD Does Newman set forth a credible approach to the justification of religious faith in a probabilistic and pluralistic world? It will be argued below that he does not, but a balanced assessment must take into account both the strengths and weaknesses of Newman’s project. Contributions toward a Justification of Religious Faith Whatever shortcomings mark Newman’s religious epistemology, his contributions toward a justification of faith in a probabilistic and pluralistic world are substantial and should be preserved. Newman’s four most valuable contributions are set forth below. 1. Newman steers a middle-course between evidentialism and fideism. Evidentialists place moral strictures on all “surplusage of belief” beyond that which is strictly proportioned to the strength of the warranting evidence. Fideists, on the other hand, refuse to let evidence count either for or against faith. One might say that evidentialism sacrifices faith on the altar of probabilism, while fideism substitutes self-assertion for adjudication when challenged by religious pluralism. To his credit, Newman does not slide off into either extreme. He neither follows the evidentialists in reducing faith to a tentative hypothesis founded on inference, nor the fideists in positing a leap against probability. 2. Newman humanizes religious epistemology. Newman is sometimes accused of conflating the psychology (or phenomenology) of belief with epistemology. The result, say the critics, is a muddling of descriptive and normative categories. As will become evident below, Newman is not innocent of this charge. At his best, however, Newman does not so much confuse human psychology with epistemology as humanize epistemology by attending to its psychological (or phenomenological) aspect. Newman’s humanization of religious epistemology is reflected in his determination to justify faith in a manner consistent with the

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way actual human beings come to belief. In particular, he takes pains to incorporate into his epistemology both the non-rational factors that shape belief and the informal, subtle, and tacit dimensions of human rationality. Of course, it is precisely this recognition of the personal nature of reason that tempts many to embrace cognitive relativism with all the accompanying problems for religious belief. The alternative, however, is to attempt a justification of faith on grounds other than those undergirding the real-world faith of religious believers. To his credit, Newman refuses to defend Christian faith by advocating standards of rationality that no human being, epistemologists included, could uphold. Newman’s humanization of religious epistemology is also reflected in his refusal to supernaturalize epistemology in such a way that a wedge is driven between grace and nature. As Newman sees it, persons come to faith as God works in and through ordinary human faculties. Religious faith may rise above nature, but it does not require a repudiation of it. Put differently, Newman upholds the priority of grace and revelation as much as Kierkegaard without falling into the error of setting faith against the understanding. 3. Newman firmly upholds the moral nature of religious belief. For Newman’s “liberal” opponents, the morality of belief is strictly a question of evidential warrants. A person is morally justified in believing when his or her belief is proportioned to the evidence. To this end, one was counseled to seek truth dispassionately and objectively. Newman recognizes that human rationality is far less objective than the liberals imagined. Like Kierkegaard, he is conscious of the epistemological relevance of sin. More profoundly than Kierkegaard, Newman perceives the epistemological significance of virtue. Good character promotes and even generates good intellectual habits as surely as bad character promotes the opposite. If Kierkegaard anticipates the so-called “hermeneutics of suspicion,” Newman anticipates the contemporary revival of “virtue epistemology.” Newman’s incipient virtue epistemology contributes to his justification of religious faith. As explained in chapter one, pluralization threatens to undermine the confident faith of religious believers. Confronted by a variety of mutually exclusive religious worldviews, believers are liable to question whether their own faith can credibly be upheld as the truth. A contemporary justification of faith must, therefore, provide insiders with a plausible explanation

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for the unbelief of outsiders. By explaining unbelief in moral terms, Newman makes at least some sense of pluralism from the standpoint of Christian faith. That is, Newman sets a hedge against the debilitating effects of pluralization by arguing that character crucially shapes how persons appraise evidence. Of course, this sort of apologetic is not likely to please Jews, Muslims, atheists, and others who do not think themselves morally inferior to Christians. It must be admitted that dismissing one’s opponents as “sinful” is hardly more conciliatory than calling them “ignorant”—regardless of how emphatically one attributes Christian virtue to divine grace. The present point, however, is not that a justification of Christian faith in terms of virtue epistemology will impress non-Christians, but that it provides Christians with a plausible (on Christian assumptions) explanation for the religious pluralism around them.156 Providing such plausible explanations is crucial to the maintenance of vigorous religious faith under the conditions of pluralization described in chapter one. 4. Newman’s cumulative case approach to adjudication is promising. Like Kierkegaard, Newman thinks that truth claims are subject to both logical and pragmatic verification. The pragmatic strand is more explicit in Newman than in Kierkegaard, though in both cases the focus is on the capacity of particular beliefs or beliefsystems to promote human flourishing.157 Newman goes well beyond Kierkegaard, however, when he proposes to adjudicate truth claims in terms of their explanatory power. Indeed, for Newman logical and pragmatic verification should be viewed as part of a larger cumulative case argument in which one attempts to set forth the “best explanation” for the evidence taken as a whole.

156Jay

Newman fails to see that arguments which are unconvincing and offensive to unbelievers may nevertheless serve to buttress the faith of believers. Consequently, his vigorous critique of John Henry Newman’s “virtue epistemology” misses its target. See Jay Newman, Mental Philosophy, 84. 157Of course, one might question whether or not a “pragmatic strand” can be found in Kierkegaard at all. See the discussion in chapter two.

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The Challenge Unmet Unfortunately, Newman’s contributions toward a credible justification of faith are marred by inordinate claims for human certitude. The error is not incidental. It penetrates his entire religious epistemology, and, like a computer virus, disables parts of the system that would otherwise function effectively. In the end, Newman’s individual insights noted above must be salvaged from his failed project. Newman’s error in regard to certitude can be traced to his habit of conflating subjective and objective certainty.158 Subjective certainty refers to a psychological state in which one feels sure that a particular proposition is true. Objective certainty concerns the truth of what is known: a proposition that is objectively certain is certainly true. Ordinarily, the word “certitude” is used for subjective certitude, leaving unsettled whether a given proposition is objectively certain (that is, whether it is true). Newman, however, thinks of certitude as ordinarily entailing both subjective and objective certainty. As a result, he repeatedly assumes that his arguments for the validity of subjective certainty also demonstrate the validity of objective certainty. Proof that Newman often muddles the distinction between subjective and objective certainty is not hard to find. For example, he states, “Certitude is a mental state: certainty is a quality of propositions. Those propositions I call certain, which are such that I am certain of them.”159 Here Newman distinguishes subjective and objective certainty (the former he calls “certitude,” the latter “certainty”) only to conflate them: propositions are (objectively) certain when one is (subjectively) certain of them. He makes the same move when he writes: [L]et the proposition to which the assent is given be as absolutely true as the reflex act pronounces it to be, that is, objectively true as well as subjectively:—then the assent may be called a perception, the conviction a cer-

158Jay

Newman, Mental Philosophy, 127-29, addresses the same issue when he observes that Newman frequently fails to distinguish between epistemological and phenomenological certitude. Similarly, Pailin, 179-85, faults Newman for failing to consistently keep in mind the difference between logical and psychological issues. 159GR, 271.

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titude, the proposition or truth a certainty, or thing known, or a matter of knowledge, and to assent to it is to know.160

Once again, Newman distinguishes subjective certainty (“certitude” in the above passage) from objective certainty (“certainty”) only to conflate them when he categorizes both as reflex assents that are “objectively true as well as subjectively.” As he states elsewhere, “Certitude … is the perception of a truth with the perception that it is a truth.”161 Newman’s concept of certitude is, therefore, a complex one. True certitude includes both subjective and objective certainty. In order to facilitate analysis, the following discussion will make use of the following abbreviations: SC ..............subjective certainty, whether or not it is associated objective truth OC..............objective certainty S/OC .........subjective and objective certainty inseparably joined SC/OE ......subjective certainty joined with objective error S/OC corresponds to Newman’s use of “certitude,” and SC/OE denotes what Newman means by “false certitude.” The discussion below will show that Newman’s arguments for the rational legitimacy of certitude speaks to SC but not S/OC, that his commit160Ibid.,

162. Emphasis original. 163. Newman at times makes statements that appear to maintain a clearer distinction between subjective and objective certainty. For example, he writes to Froude that he uses the word “certitude” for a state of mind and “certainty” for a quality of propositions. He then concedes that “certitude” is attainable though “certainty” is not. See Harper, 201-2. However, Newman’s point is here subtly different than the one being made in the passages quoted above. When writing to Froude, Newman admits that no proposition dealing with the concrete can be objectively certain in the sense that it cannot be proven in terms of logic and fully explicable evidence. He is not for a moment suggesting that propositions cannot be known to be objectively certain. On the contrary, certitude for Newman includes the notion of objective certainty—at least in most contexts. The objective certainty of a proposition is recognized as individuals personally appraise the cumulative evidence, not as it is supported by irrefutable syllogisms. 161Ibid.,

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ment to S/OC leads him to adopt untenable epistemological positions, and that his basic concerns could be satisfied by a weaker form of “certitude” than he is willing to accept. 1. Newman’s defense of certitude speaks to the legitimacy of SC but not of S/OC. When Newman attempts to show that mistaken certitudes (SC/OEs) do not invalidate all certitude, he actually defends SC rather than S/OC. For example, he states, Assent is an act of the mind, congenial to its nature; and it, as other acts, may be made both when it ought to be made and when it ought not. It is a free act, a personal act for which the doer is responsible, and the actual mistakes in making it; be they ever so numerous or serious, have no force whatsoever to prohibit the act itself … No instances then whatever of mistaken certitude are sufficient to constitute a proof, that certitude itself is a perversion of extravagance of his nature.162

In this passage, Newman appeals to what is “natural” to the human mind in order to throw the burden of proof upon those who would deny the legitimacy of certitude. However, the certitude in view is SC, not S/OC. Although SC might be justified—in spite of past errors—on the grounds that it is “natural,” it does not follow that S/OC can be similarly defended. On the contrary, the existence of SC/OEs places on Newman the obligation of showing why it should be assumed that SC tracks OC in the way suggested by S/OC. Rather than taking up this task, however, Newman simply trades on his ambiguous use of the word “certitude,” supposing that he carries the day for S/OC when he shows that SC is “natural.” Two pages before the passage just quoted, Newman makes a similar appeal to what is “natural.” He states, It is the law of my mind to seal up the conclusions to which ratiocination has brought me, by that formal assent which I have called a certitude. I could indeed have withheld my assent, but I should have acted against my nature, had I done so when there was what I considered a proof; and I did only what was fitting, what was incumbent upon me, upon those existing conditions, in giving it.163

162Ibid., 163Ibid.,

189. 186-87.

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Thus, the human mind acts only according to its preexisting, natural inclinations when it assents unconditionally to propositions that it regards as proven. Once again, even if Newman’s point is conceded, it follows only that previous SC/OEs do not automatically make SC illegitimate—not that S/OC is justified. Clearly, it is one thing to feel certain (SC) even after one has fallen into mistaken certitudes (SC/OEs), but it is quite another to assume one possesses S/OC when SC/OEs are so common. 2. Newman’s stance on S/OC commits him to untenable positions on several epistemological issues. Specifically, Newman’s stance on certitude forces him to gloss over human fallibility, obscure the leap of faith that his epistemology requires, defend the implausible idea of indefectibility, and undermine his own insights on adjudication. (a) Newman is forced to gloss over human fallibility. On the face of it, S/OC assumes that human beings are capable of infallible judgments. Since human beings are not infallible, it follows that claims to possess S/OC cannot be rationally justified. Newman dissents from this conclusion, but he cannot do so without claiming for human beings infallibility. Of course, Newman denies that S/OC assumes human infallibility. However, his denial is based on the dubious claim that infallibility is a “faculty or gift” that relates “to all possible propositions in a given subject-matter.”164 According to Newman, certitude about what one ate for breakfast is possible without supposing that one is infallible in all memory beliefs. Newman fails to see, however, that S/OC does assume that under specific conditions human beings are capable of making infallible judgments. For example, S/OC (not SC) concerning today’s breakfast menu supposes that in the matter at hand and under the specified conditions (e.g., good health, proper rest), one’s memory cannot err. What is this but a claim to infallibility? Newman’s stance on S/OC thus requires human infallibility—however circumscribed the range. Perhaps one could say that he ascribes to humans “situational infallibility.” The problem is that a claim to infallibility is falsified by a single error—as Newman himself admits.165 Since human error is common, it is incumbent upon Newman to specify the areas in 164Ibid., 165See

183. ibid., 185.

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which and the conditions under which humans never err. If such specification is impossible, then it is at least likely that “situational infallibility” does not exist. Of course, Newman never makes the attempt to demarcate the range of infallibility; instead, he is satisfied to rely on a tendentious definition of infallibility, show that certitude does not require its possession, and then declare that S/OC is consistent with human fallibility. The untenability of Newman’s position is made evident when he attempts to answer Chillingworth’s charge that one cannot know that the Roman Catholic church is infallible without an infallible means of determining the fact. Newman balks at the epistemological implications of this assertion, asking incredulously, What is this but to say that nothing in this world is certain but what is self-evident? that nothing can be absolutely proved? Can he [Chillingworth] really mean this? What then becomes of physical truth? of the discoveries in optics, chemistry, and electricity, or the science of motion? Intuition by itself will carry us but a little way into that circle of knowledge which is the boast of the present age.166

Developments over the last century have undermined the naïve confidence in science that Newman here evinces. What scientist working today would claim that any scientific theory has been “absolutely proved”? Indeed, some of the scientific “certitudes” (SCs) of Newman’s day have been overturned in the twentieth century (i.e., shown to be SC/OEs). Although Newman thinks he can reduce Chillingworth’s position to absurdity by appealing to scientific progress, he instead reveals his own naïveté. Indeed, Newman’s attempt to find instances of justified S/OC in modern scientific theorizing is permeated with irony. As noted in chapter one, science arose out of the mitigated skepticism that substituted probabilism for the old scientia. Newman thus attempts to use the discoveries made possible by fallibilism to prove the legitimacy of his own “situational infallibilism”! (b) He is compelled to obscure the leap of faith that his own epistemology requires. As already indicated, Newman admits that there is a gap between what evidence logically warrants and what he takes to be S/OC. The problem for Newman is that if he admits that this gap 166Ibid.,

185.

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can only be traversed by a leap of faith, he in effect reintroduces risk into religious belief. One who leaps may possess SC, but not S/OC. Newman therefore thinks he must find a way to bridge the logical gap without positing a nonrational leap. As explained earlier, Newman’s notion of the “illative sense” is meant to serve this purpose. The logical gap is bridged by the “versatile and vigorous” action of the concrete human mind, for it is only under its penetrating and subtle action that the margin disappears, which I have described as intervening between verbal argumentation and conclusions in the concrete. It determines what science cannot determine, the limit of converging probabilities and the reasons sufficient for a proof.167

By “reasons sufficient for a proof,” Newman does not mean a logically coercive argument but a convergence of probabilities that persuade. Thus, the “margin” that disappears cannot be a logical one; it is instead a psychological one. Newman is not careful to keep the logical and psychological aspects of the issue separate, but assumes that the logical gap has been bridged (the “margin disappears”) when the mind has been persuaded. But this assumption is unjustified. The logical gap remains even after one attains SC. Newman’s talk of an illative sense, “divination,” “supra-logical” reasoning, and the like merely obscures the need for a “leap of faith”—it does not eliminate it. Although he does not directly address the above critique, Nicholas Lash resists the suggestion that Newman’s religious epistemology requires a leap of faith. “Newman never ‘leapt’ anywhere in his life,” says Lash. “If we keep in mind the image of the polygon expanding into a circle, our question more appropriately becomes: Is it or is it not the case that we discover the margin to have been cancelled, the gap to have been closed?”168 Closely following Newman, Lash asserts, “We grow, rather than leap, into conviction.”169

167Ibid.,

282. Lash, “Introduction,” in John Henry Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), 17. 169Ibid., 18. 168Nicholas

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Lash’s apologetic evinces the same confusion found in Newman. The “margin” in view is a logical one, and Newman himself acknowledges that the image of an expanding polygon does not eliminate the logical margin.170 Like Newman, Lash supposes that because one grows into certitude gradually under the influence of converging probabilities, no “leap” is necessary. In reality, a leap over the logical gap must be taken, though the gradualness of the transition might make the metaphor “leap” a misleading one. The fact remains that there is a logical gap to be traversed, and no description of the psychology of conversion can eliminate it. In Kierkegaardian language, the leap from probabilistic evidence to unqualified faith involves a qualitative transition. Because one cannot quantify oneself into a qualitative transition, no piling up of evidence can move one seamlessly from nonbelief to faith. Put in terms of Newman’s discussion, inferences are qualitatively different from assents; hence, the amassing of evidence can strengthen an inference but cannot lead by immanental necessity to assent (whether simple or complex). Kierkegaard’s virtue is his frank acknowledgment of the necessity of a leap; Newman’s failure is his unwillingness to do the same. (c) He is trapped into defending the indefectibility of certitude. Were Newman satisfied to posit some sort of “practical certitude,” he would reintroduce an element of “risk” into his view of faith. It would be evident that, lacking the warrant of rationally coercive evidence, faith entails a leap. The result would be a significant concession to “liberalism,” specifically, the acknowledgment that even the firmest conclusions are corrigible. Of course, Newman is not satisfied with practical certitude—he insists on the stronger S/OC. But when he thus links subjective and objective certainty, he is forced to argue for the indefectibility of certitude. Why? Because if what is taken to be S/OC is defectible, it follows that individuals may be certain yet wrong, since either the original or the new certitude must be false. Concession on this point, Newman judges, would call into question the viability of the heavily dogmatic faith he is defending. He thus sets about trying to show that “the intellect, which is made for truth, can attain truth, and, having attained

170See

GR, 254.

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it, can keep it, can recognize it, and preserve the recognition.”171 Ironically, by the time he is finished making the needed qualifications to his notion of indefectibility, he is left with the risky leap of faith that he attempts to avoid. Newman tries to establish the indefectibility of certitude by arguing that what is taken for lost certitude is usually nothing more than the loss of false certitude. That is, what appears to be the failure of S/OC is in reality a failure of SC/OE. It has, however, already been noted that in the absence of a criterion for distinguishing true from false certitude, Newman’s position amounts to a nonfalsifiable, ad hoc hypothesis. More interesting for the present purpose, however, is Newman’s attempt to explain away the loss of certitude occasioned by religious conversion. As previously explained, he argues that certitudes concern individual propositions one-by-one; hence, they may persist even when one converts from one religion (or bundle of propositions) to another. On this point, Newman relies on the dubious assumption that individual propositions may be neatly extracted from the web of beliefs of which they are a part. The assumption may be granted, however, because Newman ends up admitting that religious conversions sometimes do bring about a loss of certitude.172 He then raises the key question: how is the loss of such certitudes to be reconciled with his doctrine of indefectibility? He continues, What conviction could be stronger than the faith of Jews in the perpetuity of the Mosaic system? Those, then, it may be said, who abandoned Judaism for the Gospel, surely, in so doing, bore the most emphatic testimonies to the defectibility of certitude. And, in like manner, a Mahometan may be so deeply convinced that Mahomet is the prophet of God, that it would be only a quibble about the meaning of the word “certitude” that we could maintain, that, on his becoming a Catholic, he did not unequivocally prove that certitude is defectible.173

Remarkably, Newman here dismisses as “quibbling” precisely what he himself argues when he claims that lost certitudes are false certi171Ibid., 172Ibid., 173Ibid.

181. 203.

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tudes. In any case, he here admits that religious conversion sometimes requires a paradigm shift that entails the surrender of old certitudes. What is to be made of such changes? Essentially, Newman argues that such conversions do not undermine his claims for indefectibility because they have rarely taken place. He notes, for example, that most of the first century Jews who converted to Christianity were less certain of their own beliefs and more open to new ones than convinced Pharisees like Saul (whose conversion Newman attributes to miraculous intervention). “Ordinarily speaking,” Newman assures his reader, “it was not the zealots who supplied members to the Catholic Church.”174 Here is a striking example of how Newman’s habit of conflating subjective and objective certainty leads him astray. By his own reckoning, Jews and Muslims possess false certitude.175 Thus, when Newman defends the indefectibility of certitude by pointing to the rarity with which true zealots are converted, he establishes only the indefectibility of SC/OE, not S/OC! In effect, he is arguing that those who have already made up their minds are unlikely to change them even when they are wrong—an unremarkable conclusion, though one which undermines Newman’s often repeated assertion that false certitudes are defectible. Newman muddles matters further when he admits that true certitudes (S/OCs) may sometimes be lost. He explains that because human beings are morally changeable, they are capable of being untrue to the truth.176 One might, for example, balk at the moral commitment required by Roman Catholic faith and yield to the temptation to doubt. The problem, of course, is that one can never be sure whether the old or new belief is the result of moral weakness. Thus, one might wonder whether the abandonment of Roman Catholicism or the original conversion to it was the fruit of moral inconstancy. Merely attributing the loss of certitude to moral factors hardly helps one to recognize which certitude is S/OC. Once all the qualifications of indefectibility have come in, Newman turns out to have surrendered virtually every point to the 174Ibid.,

204. course, Newman would grant that they may embrace many individual truths. 176Ibid., 165. 175Of

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liberals through the back door. The bottom line is that a lost certitude may be either a S/OC or a SC/OE. On the other hand, a certitude that persists may be either one as well! Ultimately, Newman defends the (unremarkable) thesis that persons who are subjectively certain are unlikely to change their minds. Although intended to establish the fact that certitude entails true knowledge, indefectibility amounts to the common sense claim that people who think they are right are strongly disposed to persist in their confidence. d. He undermines his own insights into adjudication. Newman views adjudication as a function of personal judgment proceeding informally rather than by rule. Thus, disputes over truth claims cannot be settled decisively through a mechanical application of this or that criterion. For Newman, adjudication depends less on explicit “verbal reasoning” than on intellectual virtues. To rightly discern the truth, the individuals must weigh the evidence, impartially assess its force, willingly consider the matter from a variety of viewpoints, and at last make a judgment. This approach to adjudication is a modest one; it does not pretend to lay down a procedure that makes the settling of disputed truth claims easy or universally successful. Nevertheless, it holds out the hope that at least some disputes can be resolved through a serious and sustained dialogue. Newman’s approach to adjudication presupposes, however, good faith and open minds—intellectual virtues inconsistent with Newman’s uncompromising stance on certitude. When Newman compares Christianity with it competitors, the tendency of his brand of certitude to undermine honest adjudication becomes evident. Of all the world religions, says Newman, only Christianity (he means, of course, Roman Catholic Christianity) “tends to fulfill the aspirations, needs, and foreshadowings of natural faith and devotion.”177 One would expect a strong claim like this to be followed by a careful comparison of Christian beliefs with those of other major religions. As it turns out, however, Newman dismisses the religions of the world in barely a page and a half. He writes, As far as I know, the religion of Mohamet has brought into the world no new doctrine whatever, except, indeed, that of its own divine origin; and the character of its teaching is too exact a reflection of the race, time, place, and climate in which it arose, to admit of its be-

177Ibid.,

333.

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THE JUSTIFICATION OF FAITH coming universal. The same dependence on external circumstances is characteristic, so far as I know, of the religions of the far East; nor am I sure of any definite message from God to man which they convey and protect, though they may have sacred books.178

Newman goes on to assert that Christianity,

is the depository of truths beyond human discovery, momentous, practical, maintained one and the same in substance in every age from its first, and addressed to all mankind … [I]t has had a grand history, and has effected great things, and is as vigorous in its age as in its youth. In all these respects it has a distinction in the world and a pre-eminence of its own; it has upon it prima facie signs of divinity; I do not know what can be advanced by rival religions to match prerogatives so special; so that I feel justified in saying either Christianity is from God, or a revelation has not yet been given to us.179

Newman’s obvious ignorance of Islam and the “religions of the far East” is typical of Western churchmen and intellectuals in the nineteenth century. Still, his cavalier dismissal of non-Christian religions is astonishing. Without making even a token effort to understand the world religions he is rejecting, Newman feels “justified” in asserting the superiority of Christianity. He does not even make a pretense of unbiased analysis. Why should he? He is certain that Roman Catholic Christianity is true, and by his lights certitude entails a “magisterial intolerance” that summarily rejects “error.”180 Of course, Newman could defend his high-handed procedure by another appeal to what is “natural.” He could argue, in other words, that facts trump theory. The fact is that certitude entails an “involuntary contempt” (his term) for alternative views, and no epistemological theory can invalidate a psychological law of human nature. As he states in GR, “If a man has a sufficient conviction, if 178Ibid.,

334. Emphasis added. 334-35. Emphasis added. 180Jay Newman, “Newman’s Advice to Victims of Anti-Catholic Prejudice,” in Personality and Belief: Interdisciplinary Essays on John Henry Newman, ed. Gerard Magill (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1994), 139-40, shows how little effort Newman gave to dealing fairly with his opponents. 179Ibid.,

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he is sure that Ireland is to the West of England, or that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ, nothing is left to him, if he would be consistent, but to carry his conviction out into this magisterial intolerance of any contrary assertion.”181 The problem is that Newman falsely assumes that because some persons feel equally certain about Ireland’s geographical position and the pope’s religious authority, one may in both instances innocently reject contrary views with “magisterial intolerance.” In reality, the two examples are crucially different. Although all well-informed persons agree that Ireland is west of England, many well-informed persons disagree—and disagree vehemently—over the religious authority of the pope. If one is justified in dismissing the assertion that Ireland is on the east coast of Australia, it is not simply because one is personally certain—it is because everyone is certain. That is, “magisterial intolerance” is defensible when all reasonable persons agree. Where reasonable people disagree, however, only hubris would refuse even to consider alternative truth claims. It follows that those who believe the pope is the vicar of Christ are not entitled to “magisterial intolerance,” and, if such intolerance is a natural by-product of certitude, they are not entitled to certitude either. This last point must be made carefully. Holding firmly to a controverted truth claim is not necessarily a sign of hubris. It is wrong, however, to dismiss summarily the views of earnest, wellinformed persons. Newman’s highhanded dismissal of views with which he disagrees is unhelpful in a religiously plural world. 3. Newman’s legitimate concerns would be satisfied by a weaker form of certitude. As already noted, Newman thinks that certitude (or “interpretive certitude”) is a necessary condition for vigorous religious faith. He is wrong. Less-than-(subjectively)-certain beliefs frequently issue in all-or-nothing commitments. Such beliefs can be sufficient to generate the religious devotion that Newman wishes to promote. Consider, for example, the all-or-nothing decision that confronts a woman who receives three proposals of marriage. She may be reasonably confident that one of the young men is the “right one,” but she may nevertheless lack what Newman would call certitude. If, however, she is sufficiently confident in her belief to 181GR,

164-65.

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commit herself in marriage to the young man she prefers, her lessthan-(subjectively)-certain belief will lead to an all-or-nothing decision. Moreover, having make her decision with less than full certitude, she may then go on to become a devoted and loving wife. If all goes well, her happy marriage will confirm that her “risky” faith was well-placed. Although the commitments in religion and marriage are not analogous in every respect, the above illustration serves to highlight the key point, namely, that confidence without certitude may result in total commitment and complete devotion. Newman’s claim that vigorous religious faith requires full certitude is false. In general, a belief strong enough to lead to commitment will not be re-examined daily; hence, such beliefs will not be marked by incessant questioning. If the belief is true, one would ordinarily expect that it would grow more stable over time (as in the above example). Thus, commitment on the basis of less-than-(subjectively)certain belief may result in a kind of practical certitude. But this “soft” certitude will frankly acknowledge that religious faith “leaps” beyond the evidence and that error ever remains a possibility.182 Thus, were Newman willing to settle for “soft” certitude, he would not be committed to a tentative, self-doubting faith. On the other hand, he would be forced to surrender his narrow dogmatism. This loss would be fortuitous, for it would free Newman to put into practice in good faith the approach to adjudication that he himself advocates. Interestingly, in his Anglican years, Newman was content to live with a “risky” faith.183 Only after his conversion to Roman 182Newman

could hardly argue that this acknowledgment of risk undermines religious devotion: he himself says that a vague awareness that one might be wrong does not amount to real doubt. Ibid., 160. Since he also concedes that certitude, though ordinarily marked by repose of mind, may sometimes be accompanied by anxiety (see Ibid., 159), Newman would also have a hard time explaining why faith’s “riskiness” necessarily undermines religious devotion. 183Faith relies “on grounds which do not reach so far as to touch precisely the desired conclusion, though they tend towards it, and may come very near it. It acts, before actual certainty or knowledge, on grounds which, for the most part, near as they may come, yet in themselves stand clear of the definite thing which is its object. Hence it is said, and rightly, to be a venture, to involve risk.” OUS, 223-24. As he explains

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Catholicism did his stance harden into the one here criticized. Perhaps it is not unfair to suggest that his uncompromising defense of certitude was prompted, not by a fresh analysis of the phenomenology of belief, but by the requirement that he conform his epistemology to the dogmatic scholasticism of pre-Vatican II Roman Catholicism.

CONCLUSION Newman’s religious epistemology glistens with insights and at times verges on a cogent justification of religious faith in a probabilistic and pluralistic world. He meets the challenge of probabilism by giving a positive role to evidence (contra Kierkegaard) without yielding to the miserly “ethic of belief” mandated by evidentialism. He speaks to the challenge of pluralism by setting forth guidelines for adjudication and by positing a “virtue epistemology” that provides believers with an internally consistent “explanation” for unbelief. Unfortunately, Newman verges on a cogent justification of faith only to veer off into a defense of dogmatic certitude. For religious believers who lack Newman’s robust self-confidence, such certitude is impossible to maintain in the contemporary world. For one thing, even an accumulation of converging probabilities yield only logically probable conclusions; hence, a risky “leap of faith” cannot be avoided. For another, today’s massive religious pluralism has rendered all claims to infallible religious knowledge implausible. Ultimately, Newman’s failure derives from his attempt to turn faith into knowledge—an error not unrelated to his view of faith as a kind of reason. In the next chapter, it will be argued that viewing reason as a kind of faith provides a better approach to meeting the challenged to religious faith posed by probabilism and pluralism

elsewhere, faith “ventures and hazards,” and thus demands courage. See ibid., 219, 239.

4

WILLIAM JAMES AND THE WILL TO BELIEVE

INTRODUCTION Although not himself conventionally religious, William James devoted much of his professional life to vindicating the right of individuals to embrace religious beliefs that cannot be rationally established by probabilistic evidence. In setting out what has become known as his “will to believe” doctrine, James contested the maxim of skeptical evidentialists like William K. Clifford: “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”1 Against this stringent “ethic of belief,” James

1Quoted

by William James, “The Will to Believe,” in The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (New York: Dover, 1956), 8. (Future references to this essay will be abbreviated to WB.) Hollinger criticizes James for misrepresenting Clifford’s views, but the issue is a historical one and has no impact on this study. See David A. Hollinger, “James, Clifford, and the Scientific Conscience,” in The Cambridge Companion to William James, ed. Ruth Anna Putnam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 69-81. For more on Clifford’s views in relation to James, see James C. S. Wernham, James’s Will-to-Believe Doctrine: A Heretical View (Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1987), 69-74. For an excellent survey of the personal, religious, intellectual, and cultural influences that shaped James’ thought, see Henry S. Levinson, The Religious Investigations of William James (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1981), 3-24. On pages 25-68, Levinson traces the development of James’ religious thought by identifying the central concerns of each of his published writings and placing them within their historical context. For a concise survey of the various persons who shaped James’ religious

165

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argued that the religious believer has a right to venture in faith beyond the warrants of “objective” evidence. Although James did not think religious faith should be restricted to the tentative conclusions of human reasoning, he refused to set faith against reason like Kierkegaard. Nor did he follow Newman in supposing that faith is a kind of reason, that is, that the mind through its “illative sense” is capable of converting probabilistic inferences into rationally justified certitude. For James, faith is more a function of religious experience than rational inference; and in every case religious faith entails the “risk” of going beyond what is rationally demonstrable.2 By emphasizing the interested, passional nature of human ratiocination, James treated reason as a kind of faith. All beliefs— from the conclusions of physical scientists to the convictions of religious mystics—are suffused with subjectivity and marked by fallibility. Hence, all of life depends on unproven faith; everyone alike must venture beyond the warrants of evidence.3 Of course, not all leaps are equal. The religious believer takes greater risks than the scientific researcher. Nevertheless, James argued that under certain conditions a “risky” religious faith is rationally justified. thought, see George P. Graham, William James and the Affirmation of God (New York: Peter Lang, 1992), 33-120. 2Cf. Gerald E. Myers, William James His Life and Thought (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986), 457: He [James] subscribed neither to Tertullian’s assertion that certainty arises from impossibility nor to Kierkegaard’s notion of faith as a floating upon seventy thousand fathoms of water, but he did believe that some sensible questions resist rational solutions, that actions must sometimes be undertaken without any guarantee of their rationality, and that justifiable motives for action are not always the result of reasoning. 3According to Graham, James believed that “subjective factors of choice are involved in every kind of knowledge.” Indeed, “faith is not understood as a religious act or limited to the acceptance of religious theory. Faith extends to all areas of the intellectual life.” Throughout his writings, says Graham, “James was consistent in seeing faith as a central act of the mind in religious and secular matters, in science, and in philosophy.” Graham, 139, 145, 146. The exposition that follows will confirm Graham’s conclusions.

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Of course, James does not grant any particular religion or sect a monopoly on the right to believe.4 He was not a confessing theologian, but a psychologist and philosopher with a lifelong interest in religion. Consequently, when he set forth a defense of religious faith, he concerned himself with religion in general—he had no interest in defending any group’s orthodoxy.5 Nevertheless, James 4Throughout this study, “will to believe” and “right to believe” are used synonymously. James himself used both designations for the same doctrine, though he came to prefer the latter. See Ralph Barton Perry, The Thought and Character of William James, vol. 2 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1935), 244-45. (Future references to this work will be abbreviated to TC.) 5James never attempts to set forth a single, normative definition of religion. In his view, discussion of religion may commence without first identifying its elusive “essence.” William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (New York: Modern Library, 1936), 27-28. (Future references to Varieties will be shorted to VRE.) Thus, he usually satisfies himself with broad, functional definitions that allow inquiry to begin. For example, he states, “Were I asked to characterize the life of religion in the broadest and most general terms possible, one might say that it consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto.” Ibid., 53. Cf. WB, 25-26. See Levinson, Religious Investigations, 87-91. James’ personal religious convictions are a subject of debate. In general, scholars agree that the early James affirmed a vague theism. Over time, however, his views evolved into what he called “pluralistic pantheism” (as opposed to the “monist pantheism”), and scholars debate the precise significance of this change. Some argue that James affirms (particularly in Pluralistic Universe) a genuinely pantheistic view of God. See Miles Gerald Bradford, “Practical Theism and Pantheism: Two Approaches to God in the Thought of William James,” Ph.D. diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 1977. Other scholars view James’ “pantheistic” comments as only an attempt to emphasize the divine immanence and to purge theism of the effects of dualism. See Bernard Brennan, William James (New York: Twayne, 1968), 119. Unquestionably, James believe in a “finite” God—a fact that does not square with ordinary notions of pantheism. James’ later views resemble what has become known as “panentheism.” In any case, no issue relevant to this study rides on deciding the question. James himself states that his philosophy “is theistic, but not essentially so.” William James, The Letters of William James, vol. 2, ed. Henry James (Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1920), 203. (Future

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was acutely aware of the problem religious pluralism poses for would-be believers. Granted the right to believe, in which direction is one to “leap” when so many options are available? Are there any criteria for distinguishing true from false religious claims? As it turns out, James offers several criteria for adjudicating disputed truth claims—all of which are best viewed as aspects of his pragmatic method of verification.6

references to Letters will be shorted to LWJ.) He claimed that his epistemology could be placed in the service of different metaphysical views. See William James, The Meaning of Truth: A Sequel to Pragmatism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978), 281. For more on James’ views on the nature of God, see Robert J. Vanden Burgt, The Religious Philosophy of William James (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1981), 87-117; Julius Seelye Bixler, Religion in the Philosophy of William James (Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1926), 122-44. For the view that James is best thought of as a polytheist, see Amos Funkenstein, “The Polytheism of William James,” Journal of the History of Ideas 55 (January 1994): 99-111. 6In James, “pragmatism” does not refer to a single concept. Rather, the term can denote either a “method” or a “theory of truth.” William James, Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978), 32-33, 37. (Future references to Pragmatism will be abbreviated to PR.) The latter proposes an account of how propositions “correspond” to reality; the former denotes an approach to establishing the meaning of propositions and verifying their truth. As a theory of truth, pragmatism incorporates meaning and verification into one coherent epistemology. James himself insisted, however, that his “will to believe” doctrine can be assessed independently of his pragmatic theory of truth. He states, As regards the “Will to Believe” matter, it should not complicate the question of what we mean by truth. Truth is constituted by verification actual or possible, and beliefs, however reached, have to be verified before they can count as true. The question of whether we have a right to believe anything before verification concerns not the constitution of truth, but the policy of belief. (TC, 2:249) Accordingly, in this study the focus will be limited to James’ will to believe doctrine and his pragmatic method as it impinges on verification. For more on the diverse meanings of “pragmatism” in James, see Vanden Burgt, 120-36; Levinson, Religious Investigations, 209-39, especially pp. 220-

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In the discussion that follows, James’ justification of religious faith will be summarized and assessed. It will be argued that he sets forth a model for a justification of religious faith that is superior to that offered by Kierkegaard and Newman. In particular, it will be argued that James is able to incorporate and transcend the best insights of those two thinkers, and that his pragmatic method of verification provides a modest but workable approach to the rational adjudication of religious truth claims.

REASON AS A KIND OF FAITH: THE TELEOLOGICAL MIND For James, the human mind is active and purposive. Put differently, the mind functions “teleologically”: all human perceptions, cognitions, and actions are rooted in specific interests and practical purposes. James’ view of the mind as a “teleological mechanism” crucially shapes his approach to evidence, the venture of faith, and adjudication. Evidence and Faith James does not set evidence against faith (Kierkegaard), nor does he fuse them into a kind of higher knowledge (Newman). The basic features of his views on the relation of evidence and faith may be set forth under four propositions. 1. The ultimate source of faith is found in human subjectivity rather than in evidence. James does not simply dismiss the importance of evidence for religious faith. He does, however, vigorously object to “intellectualism in religion.” Against intellectualism’s attempt to generate religious belief “out of the resources of logical reason alone, or of logical reason drawing rigorous inference from nonsubjective facts,”7 James maintains that “ratiocination” is a “superficial and unreal path to the deity.”8 Ultimately, religious faith is rooted in subjectivity. A viable defense of religious faith cannot, therefore, be constructed exclusively out of evidence.9 25; T. L. S. Sprigge, “James, Aboutness, and His British Critics,” in Cambridge Companion, 130-31. 7VRE, 424. 8Ibid., 438. 9According to James, “This inferiority of the rationalistic level in founding belief is just as manifest when rationalism argues for religion as

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When James locates the ultimate source of religious faith in subjectivity, he means that faith arises out of (a) personal religious experience and (b) the religious needs of human nature. These two aspects of subjectivity will be taken up in turn. (a) Religious faith is founded on personal religious experience. According to James, “the evidence for God lies primarily in inner personal experiences.”10 Such experiences have a self-authenticating character that diminishes the need for evidentiary support. As James puts it, if such experiences “cannot stand on their own feet, surely abstract reasoning cannot give them the support they are in need of.”11 However vigorously rationalists may complain, says James, as “a matter of psychological fact, mystical states of a wellpronounced and emphatic sort are usually authoritative over those who have them. They have been ‘there,’ and know.”12 At least they think they know. The mere psychological fact that faith is rooted in religious experience does not prove that such experiences are veridical. James is quick to concede this point, admitting that religious experiences do not constitute cogent public evidence. “No authority emanates from them,” he says, “which should make it a duty for those who stand outside them to accept their revelations uncritically.”13 He does, however, think that such experiences have two valid epistemological consequences. First, James argues that those who have religious experiences are within their epistemic rights to believe that their experiences are veridical even if unsupported by independent evidence. Profound mystical experiences, he says, “usually are, and have the right to be, absolutely authoritative over the individuals to whom they come.”14 when it argues against it.” He adds that a rational defense of religious faith is only cogent when it is supported by nonrational “feelings.” He states, “The reasoned and verbalized philosophy is but a showy translation into formulas. The unreasoned and immediate assurance is the deep thing in us, the reasoned argument is but a surface exhibition. Instinct leads, intelligence does but follow.” Ibid., 73. 10PR, 56. 11VRE, 445. 12Ibid., 414. 13Ibid. 14Ibid.

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For James, such experiences are akin to the perceptions of the physical senses; indeed, religious experiences are as convincing to those who have them “as any direct sensible experiences can ever be.”15 He observes that “as a rule” such experiences are “much more convincing than results established by mere logic.”16 Rationalism may “challenge you for proofs, chop logic, and put you down with words,” but in the end the religious believer “cannot help” regarding his or her religious experiences “as genuine perceptions of the truth.”17 Second, James states that religious experiences undermine general skepticism regarding the existence of an unseen spiritual realm. Such experiences break down the authority of the non-mystical or rationalistic consciousness, based upon the understanding and the senses alone. They show it to be only one kind of consciousness. They open out the possibility of other orders of truth, in which, so far as anything in us vitally responds to them, we may freely continue to have faith.18

15Ibid., 72. On the perceptual nature of religious experience, James adopts the position that there is no a priori reason why physical senses should be accepted as veridical when religious experience are not. He states, Our senses, … have assured us of certain states of fact; but mystical experiences are as direct perceptions of fact for those who have them as any sensations ever were for us. The records show that even though the five senses be in abeyance in them, they are absolutely sensational in their epistemological quality, … that is, they are face to face presentations of what seems immediately to exist. (Ibid., 415) On the same page, James goes on to note that “faith-state and mystic state are practically convertible terms,” suggesting that the perceptual nature of religious experience need not necessarily be restricted to overtly “mystical” experiences. For an argument against viewing such religious experiences as analogous to sense perceptions, see Wayne Proudfoot, “William James on an Unseen Order,” Harvard Theological Review 93 (2000): 51-66. 16VRE, 72. 17Ibid. 18Ibid., 414.

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Therefore, even though these experiences fall short of positive proof that a spiritual world exists, they suggest the possibility and counter the unbelief of dogmatic skepticism.19 Many among James’ contemporaries thought that science had fatally undermined belief in a spiritual realm, but James refused to yield. He points out that the science of their day had revealed that the world is more “vast and mysterious” than the scientists of previous generations had supposed. “If we are to judge by the analogy of the past,” he continues, “when our science once becomes oldfashioned, it will be more for its omissions of fact, for its ignorance of whole ranges and orders of complexity in the phenomena to be explained, than for any fatal lack in its spirit and principles.”20 The astounding scientific successes of the nineteenth century must not be allowed to obscure the inherent limits of the scientific enterprise.21 James asks, Is it credible that such a mushroom of knowledge, such a growth overnight as this, can represent more than the minutest glimpse of what the universe will really prove to be when adequately understood? No! our science is a drop, our ignorance a sea. Whatever else is certain, this at least is certain,—that the world of our present natural knowledge is enveloped in a larger world of some sort

19James makes statements elsewhere suggesting that he held a higher opinion of the evidentiary value of reported religious experiences than he sometimes lets on. For example, he writes, I find it preposterous to suppose that if there be a feeling of unseen reality shared by the best men in their best moments, responded to by other men in their “deep” moments, good to live by, strength-giving,—I find it preposterous, I say, to suppose that the goodness of that feeling for living purposes should be held to carry no objective significance, and especially preposterous if it combines harmoniously with our otherwise grounded philosophy of objective truth. (TC, 2:350) 20William James, “What Psychical Research Has Accomplished,” in Will to Believe, 326-27. 21William James, “Is Life Worth Living?” in Will to Believe, 52-54. (Future references to this essay will be shorted to LWL.)

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of whose residual properties we at present can from no positive idea.22

Therefore, science has no right to dismiss summarily the existence of a spiritual world. Indeed, in the light of religious experiences like those recounted in VRE, James thinks it a fair guess that the “larger world” science has yet to discover includes barely understood spiritual realities. (b) Religious faith is rooted in the subjective needs of human nature. According to James, religious faith corresponds to the deepest moral and spiritual needs of human beings. Commenting specifically on theistic faith, James says that there is “not an energy of our active nature to which it does not appeal, not an emotion of which it does not normally and naturally release the springs.”23 “Materialism,” on the other hand, will never prevail with a majority of persons because it does not offer “a permanent warrant for our more ideal interests,” nor does it fulfill our “remotest hopes.”24 According to James, The notion of God, … however inferior it may be in clearness to those mathematical notions so current in mechanical philosophy, has at least this practical superiority over them, that it guarantees an ideal order that shall be permanently preserved … [W]here He is, tragedy is only provisional and partial, and shipwreck and dissolution are not the absolutely final things. This need for an eternal moral order is one of the deepest needs of our breast.25 22Ibid.,

54. For a discussion of James’ views on the relationship between religion and science, see Vanden Burgt, 35-43. 23William James, “Reflex Action and Theism,” in Will to Believe, 127. (“Reflex Action” will henceforth be abbreviated to RAT.) 24William James, “Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results,” in The Writings of William James: A Comprehensive Edition, ed. with intro. John J. McDermott (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 354; q.v., PR, 55. 25James, “Philosophical Conceptions,” in Writings, 354; q.v., William James, “The Sentiment of Rationality,” in Will to Believe, 88-89. (Future references to “Sentiment” will appear as SR.) Interestingly, in answer to a questionnaire about his own religious faith, James indicated that this belief in God was based, not on rational arguments, but on his own need to believe. LWJ, 2:75. Similarly, James writes to Carl Stumpf, “I never felt the

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James does not pretend that this correspondence between human religious needs and theistic faith proves the truth of the latrational need of immortality as you seem to feel it; but as I grow older I confess I feel the practical need of it more than I ever did before; and that combines with reasons, not exactly the same as your own, to give me a growing faith in its reality.” LWJ, 2:142. Because James ties religious faith so closely to human need, some interpreters have maintained that James commended faith itself rather than faith in God. Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer, “Religionsphilosophie nach William James,” Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 33 (1991): 74-87, argues, for example, that James regards as arbitrary such beliefs as the objective existence of immortality or God—the true content of religious belief is its good effect on believers. Similarly, Ludwig F. Schlecht, “Re-Reading ‘The Will to Believe,’” Religious Studies 33 (1997): 218-25, claims that James defends, not theism, but religiosity in the broadest sense. Schlecht states, “For James, religion provides a basic perspective on life which affirms that ultimately human existence and endeavor have value—the universe is a place where our spiritual yearning for harmony and at-homeness can be satisfied.” (220-21) Religion is a matter of deciding how to exist in the world—“It is not a proclamation regarding an external creator, but rather regarding life that is ‘worth living’.” (224-25) Cf. idem., “William James on Faith and Facts,” International Philosophical Quarterly 39 (September 1999): 345-46. Interestingly, James explicitly distances himself from this severe misreading of his thought. Meaning of Truth, 315: “When I call a belief true, and define its truth to mean its workings,” says James elsewhere, “I certainly do not mean that the belief is a belief about the workings. It is a belief about the object.” See also ibid., 172. The following observation by Vanden Burgt, 83-84, is pertinent: Probably the underlying reason that has led some to interpret James as believing only in belief is the very character of his concern about religion. Had he attempted to develop proofs of God’s existence like others did, or had he developed a systematic theology bearing on God’s attributes, the question would not have arisen. But James was interested in the God question as it actually took hold of a person’s life … So most of his attention was trained on man and the dynamics of his experience … Undeniably, his religious philosophy was interested in enhancing life. But none of this means that he was not interested in the reality of God.

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ter. He does believe, however, that this correspondence increases the likelihood of theism’s truth. For example, he speaks of the “dumb region of the heart in which we dwell alone with our willingnesses and unwillingnesses, our faiths and our fears.” He then adds, “Here is our deepest organ of communication with the nature of things; and compared with these concrete movements of our soul all abstract statements and scientific arguments—the veto, for example, which the strict positivist pronounces upon our faith— sound to us like mere chatterings of the teeth.”26 James’ confidence in the epistemic relevance of human needs is rooted in their past success in directing humanity into truth. He notes, for example, that the chief difference between human beings and “the brute” is to be found in the “exuberant excess” of “subjective propensities.” Human preeminence is the direct result of the “fantastic and unnecessary character” of human wants, whether physical, moral, esthetic, or intellectual.27 Conscious of this fact, humans should draw the conclusion that human wants “are to be trusted.” However far off the gratification of these needs may be, “the uneasiness they occasion is still the best guide” to human life and are likely to lead to realities that at present are beyond “present powers of reckoning.”28 Although James thinks that the correspondence of subjective human needs to religious faith is epistemically significant, at times he is satisfied to assert only that they might be so. He asks, “Is it not sheer dogmatic folly to say that our inner interests can have no real connection with the forces that the hidden world may contain?” He continues, In other cases divinations based on inner interests have proved prophetic enough. Take science itself! Without

26LWL, 62. When James speaks of “positivists,” he has in mind “scientific rationalists.” However, because this study focuses on the relationship between internal evidence and faith, these scientific rationalists are here frequently referred to as “evidentialists.” Of course, the two terms are not strictly synonymous: one can be an evidentialist without being a scientific rationalist. But James’ opponents (e.g., William Clifford, Thomas Huxley) were generally both scientific rationalists and evidentialists, so for the present purpose the terms can be used as rough synonyms. 27RAT, 131. 28Ibid., 131-32.

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THE JUSTIFICATION OF FAITH an imperious inner demand on our part for ideal logical and mathematical harmonies, we should never have attained to proving that such harmonies lie hidden between all the chinks and interstices of the crude natural world. Hardly a law has been established in science, hardly a fact ascertained, which was not first sought after, often with sweat and blood, to gratify an inner need … But the inner need of believing that this world of nature is a sign of something more spiritual and eternal than itself is just as strong and authoritative in those who feel it, as the inner need of uniform laws of causation ever can be in a professionally scientific head. The toil of many generations has proved the latter need prophetic. Why may not the former one be prophetic, too? And if needs of ours outrun the visible universe, why may not that be a sign that an invisible universe is there? What, in short, has authority to debar us from trusting our religious demands?29

In the end, James declares that “each one of us is entitled either to doubt or to believe in the harmony between his faculties and the truth; and that, whether he doubt or believe, he does it alike on his own personal responsibility and risk.”30 29LWL,

55-56. 116-17. In the same place, James states that this “subjective anchorage” in human nature confers a psychological benefit that ensures the permanent appeal of theism. He does not, however, immediately leap from this observation to the stronger claim that human needs verify the truth of theism. Says James, Our gain will thus in the first instance be psychological. We shall merely have investigated a chapter in the natural history of the mind, and found that, as a matter of such natural history, God may be called the normal object of the mind’s belief. Whether over and above this he be really the living truth is another question. If he is, it will show the structure of our minds to be in accordance with the nature of reality. Whether it be or not in such accordance is, it seems to me, one of those questions that belong to the province of personal faith to decide. Cf. Meaning of Truth, 171: “I had supposed it to be a matter of common observation that, of two competing views of the universe which in 30RAT,

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2. Faith is positively correlated to evidence, but the selection and appraisal of evidence depends on personal, subjective factors. James attempts to balance objective and subjective factors in his justification of religious faith. Consequently, the important place he gives to religious experience and subjective human needs must not be interpreted as a repudiation of the religious relevance of evidence. On the contrary, James frequently reminds his readers that the rational credibility of religious faith is enhanced when it incorporates into its vision the “facts” of science and other fields of rational inquiry. For example, James commends rational reflection on empirical evidence as crucially important in finding religious truth,31 and he insists that paying heed to empirical fact is an antidote for “a premature, short-sighted, and idolatrous theism.”32 Indeed, the “habitual neglect” of such evidence by theologians is inexcusable— no fact should be “left in the cold.”33 James thus praises a group of Unitarian ministers for keeping one eye on evidence as they constructed their theology: they had “burst the bonds of a narrow ecclesiastical tradition, by insisting that no fact of sense or result of science must be left out of account in the religious synthesis.”34 He lays it down that faith is one of humanity’s “inalienable birthrights,” but cautions that faith must be accompanied by inquiry to determine which beliefs are most probable.35 Clearly, James does not question the importance of evidence for faith.36 He does, however, challenge the notion that the selecall other respects are equal, but of which the first denies some vital human need while the second satisfies it, the second would be favored by sane men for the simple reason that it makes the world seem more rational.” 31WB, 17. 32RAT, 128. 33Ibid., 130. 34Ibid., 133. 35William James, “Faith and the Right to Believe,” in Writings, 737. 36The important place that James gives to evidence in his religious epistemology is not always recognized. One reason for the oversight might be the failure to take fully into account the character of the audiences to whom he addressed his “will to believe” doctrine. In the preface to the collection of essays, The Will to Believe, James notes that his writings on this topic were originally delivered as lectures to academic audiences for whom religious faith had become difficult due to the dampening influ-

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tion and appraisal of evidence can proceed with strict objectivity. Against evidentialists like Clifford, James argues that human cognition is inevitably suffused with subjective tendencies and commitments. In the paragraphs below, the role of subjectivity in (a) selecting and (b) appraising evidence will be taken up in turn. (a) James maintains that the mind selects evidence in accordance with its own practical interests. Put differently, James believes that the purposes of inquiry determine what counts as evidence in any given case. Since James’ views on this subject follow inevitably from his analysis of the broader question of human perception as elaborated in Principles of Psychology and elsewhere, a brief discussion of the “teleological mind” as it is found in the relevant works is necessary. According to James, every individual is continually bombarded by a “stream” of sensations. These sensations possess no inherent order—they constitute a chaos of appearances. Consequently, when human beings perceive order in this stream, that order has been imposed on the flux by the human mind itself. The primary means used by the mind to create order is selective attention. James explains, The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as a sculptor works on his block of stone. In a sense the statue stood there from eternity. But there were a thousand different ones besides it, and the sculptor alone is to thank for extricating this one from the rest. Just so the world of each of us, howsoever different our several views of it may be, all lay embedded in the primordial chaos of sensations, which give the mere matter to the thought of all of us indifferently … . Other sculptors, other statues from the same stone!

ence of the evidentialist ethic of belief. In combating this austere “ethic,” James emphasized the legitimate place of subjectivity in the formation of belief. He did not, however, intend to promote intellectual irresponsibility. On the contrary, in his preface he agrees with his skeptical critics that most persons should be more cautious and self-critical in their religion. The “cardinal weakness” of such persons, says James, is that they “let belief follow recklessly upon lively conception, especially when the conception has instinctive liking at its back.” William James, “Preface,” in Will to Believe, x.

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Other minds, other worlds from the same monotonous and inexpressive chaos.!37

Elsewhere, James explains that the choice to attend to this or that element in the stream of sensation is a function of the mind’s practical interests. “The human mind,” he says, “is essentially partial. It can be efficient at all only by picking out what to attend to, and ignoring everything else,—by narrowing its point of view.”38 Thus, while it might be said that a person “experiences” the entire stream of sensation, for James a person only experiences what he or she notices. Says James, A man’s empirical thought depends on the things he has experienced, but what these shall be is to a large extent determined by his habits of attention. A thing may be present to him a thousand times, but if he persistently fails to notice it, it cannot be said to enter his experience.39

The importance that James places on practical interests in the selecting and sorting of sensations can hardly be overemphasized. “It is far too little recognized,” he says, “how entirely the intellect is built up out of practical interests.”40 The human mind is a “teleological mechanism,” motivated and guided by subjective interests even in its theoretical activity.41 Indeed, the theorizing mind “is a 37William James, The Principles of Psychology, Great Books of the Western World, vol. 53 (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952), 187. (Henceforth, Principles will be abbreviated to PP.) 38William James, “Great Men and Their Environment,” in Will to Believe, 219. 39PP, 186. In his exposition of James’ thought, Perry explains, “The mind is not a ‘mirror’ which passively reflects what it chances to come upon. It initiates and tries; … The mind, like an antenna, feels the way for the organism.” Perry notes that James does not suggest that the mind simply creates its own ideas: “Its ideas are not of its own making, but rather of its own choosing … The mind is essentially a selective agency.” Ralph Barton Perry, Present Philosophical Tendencies (New York: Longmans, Green, and Company, 1912), 351. 40SR, 84. 41RAT, 118. “As James sees it,” says Levinson, “there simply is no sort of knowledge or activity … that is disinterested or indifferent. Every specifiable aspect of human behavior attends to some need, responds to some problematic situation, is committed to some tendency or other: in

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transformer of the world of our impressions into a totally different world,—the world of conception; and the transformation is effected in the interests of our volitional nature, and for no other purpose whatever.”42 For James, the mind is as selective in attending to empirical evidence as it is in attending to sensation. Nowhere is James more emphatic on this point than when he discusses the nature of scientific inquiry. Science, he says, is an expression of a “one-sided subjective interest.”43 Indeed, the “popular notion that ‘Science’ is forced on the mind ab extra, and that our interests have nothing to do with its constructions, is utterly absurd.”44 Like all human conceptions, scientific concepts are “teleological instruments” subservient to specific human purposes.45 Even fundamental laws of mechanics, physics, and chemistry are not empirically observable— they must be sought by an active, interested human mind.46 Thus, science transforms the “given” world into a conceptually useful form—the “usefulness” being measured against subjective human purposes.47 sum, holds some interest.” Henry S. Levinson, Science, Metaphysics, and the Chance of Salvation: An Interpretation of the Thought of William James (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1978), 10-11. 42RAT, 118. When James here refers to the “volitional nature,” he is thinking in terms of the practical purposes that motivate and guide the theorizing mind. Paulsen comments, “James thus sees our cognitive activities—concept formation, belief acquisition, theory construction, and so on—as instruments molded by our desires and interests whose natural endpoint is action or conduct.” David Paulsen, “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and (William) James,” Journal of Speculative Philosophy 13 (1999): 115. According to Patrick K. Dooley, “The Nature of Belief: The Proper Context for James’ ‘Will to Believe,’” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 8 (1972): 146, James believes that “since we are primarily creatures of action, our conceptions are not had for their own sake (contemplation) but they are for the sake of action.” 43PP, 866. 44Ibid., 883. 45SR, 70. 46PP, 864; q.v., RAT, 118-19. 47Comstock clarifies, “James does not deny that certain important beliefs about the world are established through scientific methods that

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The implications of James’ teleological view of human cognition are far-reaching. If the mind attends to sensation and empirical evidence selectively, then every conception of “reality” is inherently incomplete.48 Moreover, these gaps in human apprehension are a function of practical interests. So-called “objective evidence” is just a fraction of the whole—portions of reality selected, clipped, and shaped to fit during a process of subjective appropriation. Therefore, faith may be positively correlated to evidence, but the decision about what counts as evidence is itself shaped by subjective factors. “As a rule,” says James, “we disbelieve all facts and theories for which we have no use.”49 When these words are interpreted in the light of the above analysis, it becomes evident that they are meant seriously rather than cynically. As James explains in PP, an “object” will be regarded as “unreal” unless it appears both interesting and important. Says James, In this sense, whatever excites and stimulates our interest is real; whenever an object so appeals to us that we turn to it, accept it, fill our minds with it, and practically take account of it, so far is it real for us, and we believe it. Whenever, on the contrary, we ignore it, fail to con-

are, in a sense, disinterested. Nevertheless, the detachment is a relative factor, since, in his view, all conceptual activity has a teleological, valueoriented aspect.” W. Richard Comstock, “William James and the Logic of Religious Belief,” Journal of Religion 47 (July 1967): 192. Similarly, Vanden Burgt, 40-41, states, It is important not to misconstrue the point James is making here. He is not calling into question the impartiality of the method employed by science in verifying or falsifying hypotheses. He accepts that method as the glory of science and incorporates it into his own philosophy. But while its method in settling issues within its domain is a model of impartiality, that does not mean that science as a whole, the scientific enterprise as such, is more than a partial account of reality. It is partial, not full and exhaustive, because it issues from particular interests we have. If we have other interests as well, they have as much right to be given a hearing as scientific ones. 48SR, 67-69. 49WB, 10.

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THE JUSTIFICATION OF FAITH sider or act on it, despise it, reject it, forget it, so far is it unreal for us and disbelieved.50

If one has no use for specific facts or arguments, one will not attend to them. If one does not attend to them, they will cease to appear “real.” In the end, they will be disbelieved. Thus, evidence—even when supportive of particular religious truth claims— will not overcome the disbelief that is rooted in purposes and interests incongruent with the object of belief. Objectivity is trumped by subjectivity.51 (b) James maintains not only that the mind selects evidence according to its practical interests, but also that it appraises evidence in accordance with its purposes, native sensitivities, preferences, and temperamental bent. He cautions, for example, against naively supposing that “intellectual insight is what remains after wish and will and sentimental preference have taken wing.”52 As a matter of psychological fact, all human beliefs are shaped by “such factors as fear and hope, prejudice and passion, imitation and partisanship, the circumpressure of our caste and set.”53 Later in the same essay, he refers to the “passional tendencies and volitions” that “influence our convictions.”54 50PP,

643-44.

51Interestingly,

James sometimes traces religious (or quasi-religious) disbelief to the purposes of the teleological mind. He asserts, for example, that scientists typically ignore evidence for mental telepathy because they have no “use” for it. Should they find some use, he opines, their verdict on the strength of the supporting evidence would correspondingly become more positive. WB, 10. Similarly, religious beliefs are sometimes cast aside when they no longer conform to the purposes and values of believers. “To-day a deity who should require bleeding sacrifices to placate him,” observes James, “would be too sanguinary to be taken seriously. Even if powerful historical credentials were put forward in his favor, we would not look at them.” VRE, 322-23. Why bother to look at evidence for that which holds no interest? 52WB, 8. 53Ibid. 54Ibid., 11. “Pretend what we may,” says James elsewhere, “the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. Intellect, will, taste, and passion co-operate just as they do in practical affairs; and lucky it is if the passion be not something as petty as a love of personal conquest over the philosopher across the way.” SR, 92. Morton White, Pragmatism and the American Mind (New York: Oxford University

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According to James, it is “almost incredible” that philosophers would suppose that “any philosophy can be, or ever has been, constructed without the help of personal preference, belief, or divination.”55 Pretenses notwithstanding, philosophical systems depend more on esthetic feeling, the inclinations of the “heart,” “faith-tendencies,” and temperament than on the “objective” appraisal of evidence.56 Such factors make individuals “peculiarly sensitive to evidence that bears in some one direction.”57 He adds, It is utterly hopeless to try to exorcise such sensitiveness by calling it the disturbing subjective factor, and branding it the root of all evil. ‘Subjective’ be it called! and ‘disturbing’ to whom it foils! But if it help those who, as Cicero says, “vim naturæ magis sentiunt,” it is good and not evil.58

By emphasizing the role of subjectivity in both the selection and appraisal of evidence, James pushes to the limit his challenge Press, 1973), 118, calls attention to “the whole man” strain in James’ thought. White states, “When this strain comes to the fore in his thinking, he emphasizes that a decision to accept or reject a metaphysics is dictated by a blend of considerations that are logical, empirical, and emotional.” Pappas explains, “In James’ view reason is not a faculty apart from impulses, emotions, and habits. There is no radical dualism between impulse and reason, between the non-cognitive and the cognitive. Instead there is a continuity between these distinct and complementary functions.” Gregory Fernando Pappas, “William James’ Virtuous Believer,” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 30 (Winter 1994): 97. In this connection, Rorty errs when he criticizes WB for accepting a division in the mind between intellect and passion. Says Rorty, “James accepts exactly what he should reject: the idea that the mind is divided neatly down the middle into intellect and passion, and that possible topics of discussion are divided neatly into the cognitive and the noncognitive ones.” Richard Rorty, “Religious Faith, Intellectual Responsibility, and Romance,” in Cambridge Companion, 90-91. Admittedly, in WB James does sometimes appear to assume that the intellect and the passions can be neatly demarcated, but he explicitly states that the passional infuses all human intellection. See WB, 8-11. 55SR, 93. 56PP, 886; WB, 22-23; “Faith and the Right to Believe,” in Writings, 736, PR, 11, 25; Meaning of Truth, 305. 57SR, 92. 58SR, 92. Elsewhere, James refers to “insight-giving passions.” Meaning of Truth, 307.

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to “objective rationality.” In the process, he flirts perilously with epistemological subjectivism. When practical purposes, native sensitivities, personal preferences, and temperament play a large and unavoidable role in belief formation, how can subjectivism be avoided? The answer is found in his pragmatic method of verification, which will be explored in due course. 3. The demand for rationally coercive evidence might make it impossible to apprehend God even if God exists. James raises the possibility that the God of theism may remain forever outside the apprehension of those who adhere to the evidentialist’s ethic of belief. Why? Because the refusal to believe without first securing rationally coercive evidence may cut one off from God’s self-disclosure. This possibility corresponds to the common conviction among religious believers that religious truth claims must be greeted with “active goodwill, as if evidence must be forever withheld from us unless we met the hypothesis half-way.”59 If this widespread conviction is justified, it follows that some measure of faith must precede evidence if the “evidence” for faith is to come at all.60 To make his case, James compares religious faith to the “logic” of personal relationships. Friendship requires each party to exercise some measure of precursive faith in the other. A person who makes no friendly advances toward others, but instead demands “a warrant for every concession” and believes no one without proof, would soon find himself cut off “from all the social rewards that a more trusting spirit would earn.”61 Analogously, it may be that a person “who would shut himself up in a snarling logicality and try to make the gods extort his recognition willy-nilly, or not get it at all, might cut himself off forever from his only opportunity of making the gods’ acquaintance.”62

59WB,

28. second use of evidence is placed within quotes to signify that, for James, evidence is being taken in a sense broader than “internal evidence.” For example, James sometimes speaks of inner religious experiences as “evidence” even though it is not the sort of publicly accessible internal evidence that is required for adjudication. 61WB, 28 62Ibid. 60The

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Significantly, James does not here assert that God exists or that he discloses himself to precursive faith. Rather, he merely notes that if God exists, it might be the case that coming to know that fact requires the willingness to respond trustingly to religious truth claims. Were such precursive faith a necessary condition for encountering God, “then pure intellectualism, with its veto on our making willing advances, would be an absurdity; and some participation of our willing nature would logically be required.”63 On these grounds, James declares, I … cannot see my way to accepting the agnostic rules for truth-seeking, or wilfully agree to keep my willing nature out of the game. I cannot do so for this plain reason, that a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if these kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule.64

Of course, a faith that precedes evidence carries considerable risk of error—much more than a faith founded on highly probable inferences. James believes, however, that when precursive faith is required before confirming “evidence” can appear, then under certain conditions (to be identified later) the risk is rationally justified. This discussion of precursive faith raises two questions that are best dealt with at this point. First, is a “trusting attitude” prior to the reception of evidence equivalent to genuine religious faith? Second, is faith in God an instance of what James sometimes calls “self-verifying” faith? These two questions will be taken up in turn. First, is the trusting attitude prior to the reception of evidence equivalent to genuine religious faith? Clearly, this sort of precursive faith does not rise to the level of firm conviction (let alone the certitude professed by Newman and others). One might suspect, therefore, that when James speaks of such faith he really has in mind something more like “hope.”65 It is certain, however, that James himself viewed a trusting attitude in advance of evidence as a legitimate expression of religious faith. To see this, one need only 63Ibid. 64Ibid.

Emphasis original. the case that James is defending “hope” rather than faith, see James L. Muyskens, “James’ Defense of a Believing Attitude in Religion,” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 10 (1974): 44-53. Contra Muyskens, Wernham, “Will-to-Believe,” 7. 65For

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recall that his “justification of faith” in WB is said to be “a defense of our right to adopt a believing attitude.”66 The two phrases are clearly synonymous. James regards belief as admitting of an entire range of degrees. In PP, he states that he uses the word “belief” to mean “every degree of assurance, including the highest possible certainty and conviction.”67 Obviously, the certitude of a religious mystic differs substantially from the tentative trust of a religious inquirer, but James views the difference as one of degree rather than kind. The strength of a person’s faith is measured by the same standard as the liveness of a hypothesis, namely, the willingness to act.68 The “willingness to act irrevocably” indicates that a particular hypothesis has a “maximum of liveness,” and, in practical terms, this sort of hypothesis amounts to belief—though James notes that “there is some believing tendency wherever there is a willingness to act at all.”69 Thus, precursive faith can be genuinely religious, though admittedly it falls short of the strength that moves one to act irrevocably. Second, is belief in God an instance of what James sometimes calls “self-verifying” faith? The short answer to this question is “no,” but a word of explanation is required. According to James, a self-verifying faith is one that brings into existence the fact that is believed. By way of illustration, he describes a mountain climber trapped in a situation in which his only hope for escape is to successfully hazard a treacherous leap across a deep chasm. Survival may hinge, says James, on summoning up the faith that one can and will succeed in leaping safely to the other side. If one fearfully refuses to leap, or suddenly lunges forward in a fit of despair, death is ensured. “Refuse to believe,” says James, “and you shall indeed be right, for you shall irretrievably perish. But believe, and again you shall be right, for you shall save yourself.”70 According to James,

66WB,

1. Emphasis added. 636. 68WB, 3; q.v., ibid., 29. 69Ibid., 3. 70LWL, 59-60. 67PP,

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“often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come.”71 Here and there James offers other instances of self-verifying faith.72 In each instance, the logic is the same: some fact can come into existence only when it is preceded by faith. “And where faith in a fact can help create the fact,” declares James, “that would be an insane logic which would say faith running ahead of scientific evidence is the ‘lowest kind of immorality’ into which a thinking being can fall.”73 James concedes that many facts are set whether humans believe in them or not, but in every fact into which there enters an element of personal contribution on my part, as soon as this contribution demands a certain degree of subjective energy which, in turn, calls for a certain amount of faith in the result,—so that, after all, the future fact is conditioned by my present faith in it,—how trebly asinine would it be for me to deny myself the use of the subjective method, the method of belief based on desire!74

The merits of James’ notion of self-verifying faith have been assessed elsewhere and need not be rehearsed here.75 For the present purpose, it is enough to point out that James nowhere makes the absurd claim that God’s existence is somehow dependent on the prior faith of human beings.76 Without precursive faith, an in71Ibid.,

59. Emphasis original. see WB, 23-24; LWL, 62. 73WB, 25. Emphasis original. 74SR, 97. 75See Graham, 149-53; O’Connell, 70-83. 76At first glance, one passage in LWL might appear to make God’s existence dependent upon human faith. The text reads: I confess that I do not see why the very existence of an invisible world may not in part depend on the personal response which any of us may make to the religious appeal. God himself, in short, may draw vital strength and increase of very being from our fidelity. (LWL, 61) In interpreting this passage, careful attention must be given to the way the second sentence qualifies the first. With the words, “in short,” James makes it evident that “the very existence of an invisible world” (first sentence) should be read in terms of the words, “God himself … may draw vital strength and increase of very being” (second sentence). 72E.g.,

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dividual might remain unacquainted with God, but God’s existence (should he exist) would hardly be imperiled.77 Thus, belief in God is not an instance of “self-verifying” faith. 4. The demand that faith be warranted by rationally coercive evidence is itself a subjective preference that cannot be objectively justified. Here the issue is not the influence of subjective factors in the selection an appraisal of evidence, but rather the way subjective preferences determine a person’s “belief policy.” James begins with the uncontroversial premise that epistemically responsible persons will aim at attaining the highest possible ratio of true to false beliefs. To this end, individuals are guided by “two separable laws,” namely, one should seek truth and avoid error. Neither “law”—or, better, “strategy”—is sufficient unto itself. One who seeks truth may at times throw the net too wide and drag in error. On the other hand, those who attempt to root out all error may sometimes confuse the wheat with the chaff and lose truth. It would seem, therefore, that responsible persons must utilize both strategies in some kind of optimum balance. James would undoubtedly grant this point, but he thinks it is significant that most people allow one or the other strategy to dominate in their cognitive lives.78 James explains that the dominant strategy employed by an individual determines how he or she will correlate belief with evidence. For example, the positive strategy to seek truth will in genApparently, James thinks that human beings may be capable of partnering with God in such a way that God’s “being” would somehow be increased (enhanced? strengthened?) and the invisible world would thereby take on a new form or quality. In any case, the passage does not say that God comes into existence as a result of precursive faith. 77Cf. Robert W. Beard, “‘The Will to Believe’ Revisited,” Ratio 8 (1966), 173-74. 78Perhaps more precisely, James seems to believe that individuals show a certain consistency in applying one strategy or the other in specific areas of inquiry. Interestingly, James believed that “the only original point” in WB was “the emphasis laid on the distinction between the two risks, that of losing the truth and that of incurring error.” This quote is from a letter to C. S. Peirce (February 3, 1899) located among James’ unpublished papers in the Houghton Library at Harvard; quoted in Dooley, 141-51.

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eral allow the latitude to embrace (at least provisionally) beliefs that are suggested but not determined by evidence. On the other hand, the negative strategy to avoid error mandates greater caution, counseling agnosticism where the evidence is not rationally coercive.79 Both policies, James opines, entail epistemological risk. The positive strategy risks embracing error; the negative strategy risks losing truth. The point James wants to drive home is that subjective preference determines which risk an individual is willing to run because neither policy can be justified on objective grounds alone. Ultimately, the grounds for choosing one policy or the other are passional rather than intellectual. Says James, We must remember that these feelings of our duty about either truth or error are in any case only expressions of our passional nature. Biologically considered, our minds are ready to grind out falsehood as veracity, and he who says, “Better go without belief forever than believe a lie!” merely shows his preponderant private horror of becoming a dupe. He may be critical of many of his desires and fears, but this fear he slavishly obeys. He cannot imagine anyone questioning its binding force.80

James himself does not hesitate to question the “binding force” of the positivist’s belief policy as it is applied to religious faith. He declares, To preach scepticism as a duty until ‘sufficient evidence’ for religion be found, is tantamount therefore to telling us, when in the presence of the religious hypothesis, that to yield to our fear of being in error is

79According

to James, the positive strategy to seek truth is employed by scientists when their focus is discovery rather than verification. “Science would be far less advanced than she is,” says James, “if the passionate desires of individuals to get their faiths confirmed had been kept out of the game.” WB, 21. The negative strategy to avoid error, James says, is the normal and proper procedure for testing scientific hypotheses. By applying stringent rules of verification, there is the risk of “losing” some truth; but in the long run trying to avoid error is likely to ensure the maximum ratio of true to false beliefs. See ibid., 20. As will be explained below, James rejects a rigidly cautious belief policy whenever the issue in question is a “genuine option” in which the “long run” does not exist. 80Ibid., 19.

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THE JUSTIFICATION OF FAITH wiser and better than to yield to our hope that it may be true. It is only intellect with one passion laying down its law. And by what, forsooth, is the supreme wisdom of this position warranted?81

Of course, James does not contest the right of positivists to focus on avoiding error, but he does deny that they have the right to impose their preferred form of risk on everyone else.82 James is right to emphasize the risk associated with either belief policy, but he overreaches when he suggests that positivist demands for evidence originate out of fear. (Clifford’s brimming selfconfidence hardly looks like craven fear.) As it turns out, however, James seems to place little stock in his own analysis of the positivist’s mindset. Elsewhere, he indicates that the positivist’s policy of belief arises, not out of fear of error, but out of a passional preference for a world without God. Positivists are, says James, set against religious faith from the beginning. He explains, When the Cliffords tell us how sinful it is to be Christians on such ‘insufficient evidence,’ insufficiency is really the last thing they have in mind. For them the evidence is absolutely sufficient, only it makes the other way. They believe so completely in an anti-Christian order of the universe that there is no living option: Christianity is a dead hypothesis from the start.83

Similarly, James asserts that “the agnostic ‘thou shalt not believe without coercive sensible evidence’ is simply an expression … of private personal appetite for evidence of a certain peculiar kind.”84 That is, the positivist wants hard facts that can be counted, measured, and cataloged—the “evidence” of religious experience or personal human needs is not allowed to count in favor of faith. It is an “absurd abstraction,” however, to suppose that human beings base 81Ibid.,

26-27. 18-19. “It is James’s task,” says O’Connell, “to show not only that the risk of faith commends itself, but that his adversaries, instead of offering a life without risk, would have us risk all the meaning of our human lives through a timorous submission to a one-sided epistemological rule.” Robert J. O’Connell, William James and the Courage to Believe (New York: Fordham University Press, 1984), 26. 83WB, 14. 84LWL, 56. 82Ibid.,

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their beliefs on careful, objective calculation of probabilities.85 Positivists purport to reason with strict objectivity, but in fact they delude themselves.86 The Venture of Faith When discussing faith, James slips time and again into the vocabulary of uncertainty. Faith is a venture that entails “risk” and “peril.”87 To believe is to take a “chance”—even a “leap in the dark.”88 The venture of faith may be likened to a wager in which one “plays his stake,” “backs the field,” and takes risks in order to get on the “winning side.”89 Faith must act with no guarantees and with everything on the line; hence, it may be regarded as a form of courage.90 When it comes to the venture of faith, James clearly has more in common with Kierkegaard than Newman. At the same time, James’ position differs from both in important ways. His views may be set forth under three propositions. 85SR,

92-93. 131. 87See, e.g., SR, 110; WB, 27, 29-30. As has already been indicated, James also views religious unbelief as a faith-stance. As such, it too entails risk and peril. 88VRE, 515; WB, 31. Although the phrase “leap in the dark” is Fitz James Stephen’s, James quotes it approvingly. 89WB, 26-27. John Hick, Faith and Knowledge, 2d ed. (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1966), 42, seizes on such language and criticizes James for approaching faith as if it were a “prudent gambler.” Wernham, Will-to-Believe, 3, 101-5, maintains that James sometimes approaches faith as a prudent gamble. Cf. idem., “James’s Faith-Ladder,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 28 (1990): 114. This reading of James depends on a wooden handling of a common metaphor. As O’Connell, 25, observes, “Life involves risk, and the human person’s total commitment in religious faith is surely one of life’s largest risks: the betting metaphor, even if Pascal’s classic argument had never given it general circulation, would come naturally to mind to express that risk.” 90SR, 90. “Faith, whereby we assume a risk in the cause of knowledge, is analogous to courage, whereby we assume a risk on behalf of some other interest of ours.” Bernard P. Brennen, The Ethics of William James (New York: Bookman Associates, 1961), 116. 86RAT,

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1. A venture of faith is both unavoidable and justified when it concerns a “genuine option.” Because James defends the right to believe in the absence of rationally coercive evidence, many interpreters accuse him of giving license to wishful thinking. James bristled at such criticism, insisting that he had carefully hedged his will to believe doctrine with “restrictions and signposts of danger” sufficient to prevent flights of fancy.91 Specifically, James “hedges” his doctrine by restricting the right to believe to what he terms “genuine options.” To clarify what he means by “genuine option,” James posits several definitions and distinctions. He begins by noting that a hypothesis is “anything that may be proposed to our belief.” When a hypothesis strikes a particular person as credible (in the weak sense of believable), the hypothesis is said to be alive for that person. If a hypothesis lacks all credibility, it is said to be dead.92 When faced with a decision between two hypotheses, says James, an individual is confronted with an “option.” He classifies options according to how they fit within three dichotomies. First, an option may be living or dead. This distinction depends on the status of the hypotheses that constitute the option: “A living option is one in which both hypotheses are live ones.”93 Second, an option may be forced or avoidable. Here James is thinking of a choice between two hypotheses that allows no middle-ground. “Every dilemma based on a complete logical disjunction,” he explains, “with no possibility of not choosing, is an option of a forced kind.”94 Finally, James maintains that an option may be momentous or trivial. A momentous choice is one that is unique, significant, and irreversible.95 It follows that a trivial choice is one that is common, insignificant, and reversible.

91LWJ,

2:207. 2-3. James notes that “deadness and liveness in an hypothesis are not intrinsic properties, but relations to the individual thinker.” Consequently, the same hypothesis may be alive for one person but dead for another. 93Ibid., 3. 94Ibid. 95Ibid., 3-4. 92WB,

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According to James, a “genuine option” is one that is living, forced, and momentous. He argues that whenever one is confronted with a genuine option and the issue cannot be settled on intellectual grounds, he or she has the right to believe an evidentially underdetermined hypothesis.96 Why? Because when face to face with a genuine option, neutrality is both logically and existentially impossible.97 As James puts it, “We cannot escape the issue by remaining sceptical and waiting for more light, because, although we avoid error in that way if religion be untrue, we lose the good if it be true, just as certainly as if we positively choose to disbelieve.” To withhold judgment in the face of a genuine option is to choose “a particular kind of risk,” namely, the risk of losing truth.98 Although James uses the term “genuine option” only in WB, what might be called his no neutrality thesis shows up in other essays as well. In SR, for example, he states that in practice it is frequently “impossible to distinguish doubt from dogmatic negation.” He says, He who commands himself not to be credulous of God, of duty, of freedom, of immortality, may again and again be indistinguishable from him who dogmatically denies them … The universe has no neutrals in these questions. In theory as in practice, dodge or hedge, or talk as we like about wise scepticism, we are really doing volunteer military service for one side or the other.99

It follows that when confronted with certain options, one must choose without the luxury of rationally coercive evidence to light the way. What cannot be avoided cannot be forbidden; hence, in such circumstances individuals have the right to believe and act on what they cannot prove.100 96Ibid.,

29. neutrality is impossible because the option is forced; existential neutrality is impossible because the option is momentous. 98Ibid., 26. 99SR, 109; q.v., LWL, 54-55; “Faith and the Right to Believe,” in Writings, 736. 100One might question whether the “religious hypothesis” is truly forced and momentous. A forced option allows a simple choice between two alternatives, but surely there is a third option midway between belief 97Logical

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Eager to emphasize this point, James sometimes indulges in the sort of rhetorical flair that encourages misunderstanding. He states, for example, that “we have the right to believe at our own risk any hypothesis that is live enough to tempt our will.”101 Some interpret this remark as an authorization of wishful thinking, but in fairness it must be read in the light of his denial that a person cannot be “tempted” by a hypothesis that he or she already knows to be false. Thus, “the freedom to believe can only cover living options which the intellect of the individual cannot by itself resolve.”102 Moreover, it has already been shown that for James the right to venture in faith obtains, not when one is confronted by a living option that cannot be resolved intellectually, but when such

and disbelieve: one could withhold judgment. Moreover, ex hypothesi a momentous option must be “unique” and “irreversible,” but only deathbed conversions seem to meet the criteria—ordinary believers can and do change their minds on religious matters, sometimes repeatedly. For James, however, the religious hypothesis is forced because from a pragmatic perspective there is no middle ground—one may withhold judgment in a theoretical sense, but the practical result would be to “lose God.” Furthermore, although the religious hypothesis is not usually momentous when viewed from a specific point in time, it might well be truly momentous when viewed from the perspective of a life taken as a whole. One is confronted with the unique and irreversible choice of whether or not to stake one’s entire life on the assumption that God exists. On this latter point, see Ellen Kappy Suckiel, Heaven’s Champion: William James’s Philosophy of Religion (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996), 28-31. It is crucial to recognize that the “religious hypothesis” here in view is an abstraction that no one encounters in real life. Rather, individuals must choose between actual religions (or non-religions) that are made up of a cluster of less global hypotheses. Whereas the abstract, general religious question may be forced and momentous, many of the specific hypotheses of concrete religions need not be. Thus, James is not committed to the position that religious belief-options are always forced and momentous. 101WB, 29. 102Ibid.

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an option is both forced and momentous. In other words, a living option may not be a genuine option.103 When confronted with a living but non-genuine option, James believes that wisdom is found on the side of caution: one should withhold judgment until there is evidence sufficient to tip the scales decisively in one direction or another. “Whenever the option between losing truth and gaining it is not momentous,” he says, “we can throw the chance of gaining truth away, and at any rate save ourselves from any chance of believing falsehood, by not making up our minds at all until objective evidence has come.104 As James sees it, in “scientific questions this is almost always the case.” He adds that even in ordinary, non-scientific situations the “attitude of sceptical balance is … the absolutely wise one if we would escape many mistakes.”105 2. The venture of faith is a free act of the willing nature. James assumes that religious faith is in some sense a function of the will: human beings choose to believe. Accordingly, his justification of reli-

103Nathanson notices these qualifications, but he supposes that James actually sets forth a second, more radical belief policy in which the qualification is deleted and persons are said to be rational “to accept any belief that promises significant benefits to the believer.” Nathanson states, “In this form, James’ account supports the adoption of beliefs on passional grounds which are, on evidential grounds, thought to be false. All that is required for justification is a significant enough advantage.” Nathanson reaches this conclusion because he thinks that James views belief as a kind of action, and because actions may be considered rational whenever they succeed in fitting means with ends. The bottom line: James sanctions “rational” self-deception. Stephen L. Nathanson, “Nonevidential Reasons for Belief: A Jamesian View,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 42 (June 1982): 575, 577-79. Against Nathanson is the fact that nowhere in WB (or elsewhere) does James retract the qualifications he sets forth under the label “genuine option.” 104WB, 20. When James speaks of “objective evidence,” he is adopting the vocabulary of his audience. Strictly speaking, he does not think that any evidence is purely objective—it is always selected by the teleological mind. 105WB, 20.

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gious faith focuses on establishing “the lawfulness of a voluntarily adopted faith.”106 Words like these might suggest that James is what Pojman calls a “direct volitionalist.” In reality, James insists that the direct voliting of belief is a psychological impossibility. “Does it not seem preposterous on the very face of it,” he asks, “to talk of our opinions being modified at will? Can our will either help or hinder our intellect in its perception of the truth?”107 James expects his readers to respond with a firm “no”; and it is clear that for him direct volitionalism is out of the question. He notes that one can claim to believe what is patently false (e.g., that Abraham Lincoln never existed), but in reality one is “absolutely impotent” to believe it.108 James further maintains that the attempt to directly will this or that belief can only result in pseudo-faith without religious substance. On these grounds, he criticizes Pascal’s famous Wager for “trying to force us into Christianity by reasoning as if our concern with truth resembled our concern with the stakes in a game of chance.”109 A faith “adopted wilfully” after a calculation of odds would “lack the inner soul of faith’s reality.”110 James later seems to reverse his appraisal of Pascal’s Wager (see below), but only because he judges the French thinker to be innocent of the volitionalism that is commonly ascribed to him. At this point, James is focused on allaying his readers’ suspicions that he himself is advocating a directly willed, prudentialist faith. He wants to make it clear that he is not “sentimentalist who comes blowing his voluntary smoke-wreathes, … pretending to decide things out of his own private dream.”111 106WB, 2. James immediately clarifies that a voluntarily adopted faith is “philosophically lawful”—meaning epistemically lawful. 107Ibid., 4. 108Ibid., 4-5. 109Ibid., 5. 110Ibid., 6. 111Ibid., 7. On James’ initial criticisms of Pascal, O’Connell, 47, observes that James “is bending over backwards to show his audience how well he can understand their prejudice against all such volitional views of belief; it is only when he has softened, and then corrosively attacked, that prejudice that he unveils the more sympathetic view of Pascal’s fundamental contention he has been backing the whole while.”

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Clearly, when James defends “the lawfulness of a voluntarily adopted faith,” he does not intend to defend the direct voliting of belief. Rather, he argues that a person confronted with a genuine option has the right to believe whichever hypothesis he or she is already inclined to accept. In other words, James maintains that one has the epistemic right to reject the positivist ethic of belief and yield to the promptings of one’s passional nature.112 James concisely explains his position when, in a letter to a friend about his will to believe doctrine, he expresses the wish that he had named his key essay “The Right to Believe” instead of “The Will to Believe.” Had he chosen the former title, says James, readers would have been less likely to suppose that he meant to defend an irresponsible volitionalism (i.e., wishful thinking). He explains, “What I meant by the title was the state of mind of the man who finds an impulse in him toward a believing attitude and who resolves not to quench it simply because doubts of its truth are possible.”113 In other words, James does not argue that authentic faith can be generated at will, but that faith is released when the will yields to an already existing inclination to believe—an inclination that Clifford and others would quench by their stringent ethic of belief. Vanden Burgt explains, As James conceives it, such belief is a matter of allowing the self to follow its natural leaning toward lifesupporting beliefs. He is not encouraging an artificial adoption of some belief that is foreign to the person … The question becomes one of whether the person should allow himself to be pushed away from that toward which he is deeply inclined, or whether he should allow the weight of his total experience to follow its natural path. Too often James has been interpreted as encouraging beliefs that have no stronger basis in the self than a simple act of will exercised on any want we may have.114

The above interpretation finds support elsewhere in James’ writings. For example, he speaks of “not-resisting our faith tenden112Cf. the discussion of Kierkegaard in chapter two under the heading, “The Venture of Faith,” point 2. 113TC, 2:244-45. 114Vanden Burgt, 48-49.

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cies”115 and of disobeying the “veto” placed on faith by positivists.116 Too many people, says James, “lie paralyzed and terrified” by an excessively rigid ethic of belief. He therefore sets forth his own more liberal policy so that “the stifled soul may escape from pedantic scruples and indulge its own faith at its own risks.”117 For himself, James says that he refuses to allow the positivist to put an “extinguisher” on his nature by forbidding him to believe unless intellectually coercive evidence is available.118 Clearly, for James faith is released, not generated, by the will. As it turns out, James believes that Pascal’s Wager is defensible—if interpreted in terms of the above analysis of the will’s relation to faith. “Pascal’s own personal belief in masses and holy water,” James surmises, “had far other springs” than a self-interested calculation of odds.119 The Wager is a desperate ploy, a last-resort maneuver meant to break through hardened unbelief. James observes that the “option offered to the will by Pascal” will have no effect on anyone “unless there be some pre-existing tendency to believe.”120 This “tendency to believe” a particular truth claim corresponds to James’ own notion of a “live” hypothesis. When someone is confronted with such a hypothesis, says James, “Pascal’s argument, instead of being powerless, then seems a regular clincher, as the last stroke needed to make our faith in masses and holy water complete.”121 It must be admitted that the above discussion smooths over what James admits is “a mixed up state of affairs.” In actuality, the relationship between faith and the human will is “far from simple.”122 Why? Because the pre-existing inclination to believe this or that proposition is itself the product of earlier “passional tendencies and volitions.”123 Tracing back the links of the chain, every 115“Faith

and the Right to Believe,” in Writings, 736. 2:207. 117SR, 110. 118WB, 27-28. 119Ibid., 6. 120Ibid. 121Ibid., 11. 122Ibid. 123Ibid. 116LWJ,

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decision to “yield” to belief is conditioned by a virtually endless regression of previous passional tendencies and volitions. The teleological mind is always at work. At this point, it becomes evident why this study maintains that James treats human rationality as a kind of faith. For him, subjective factors shape our convictions “all the way down.” More radically than either Kierkegaard or Newman, James calls into question the objectivity of human ratiocination. At no point is the mind a dispassionate blank slate. Nor are beliefs, strictly speaking, “coerced” by evidence—the mind tests and tries without guarantees. Human intentions and needs shape the selection and appraisal of evidence, make possible some sorts of religious experiences and not others, and infuse each individual’s temperament and characteristic turn of thought. At bottom, the conclusions of reason are expressions of desire and faith. 3. The faith that ventures never attains rational certitude. James distinguishes two ways of holding what is taken to be true, namely, the “absolutist way” and the “empiricist way.” Both the absolutist and the empiricist believe that human beings can know the truth, but only the former believes that they can know when they know.124 As James sees it, empiricism has largely prevailed in science, while absolutism has more or less had its way in philosophy. James himself takes the side of empiricism and science; thus, he fully embraces modern probabilism and the epistemological fallibilism that comes with it. Of course, the experience of certitude is far from uncommon. Newman tries to capitalize on this fact by arguing that the naturalness of certitude establishes its validity. James himself rejects the legitimacy of religious certitude, but he is quick to concede the empirical fact that certitude is “natural.” Indeed, he describes the common experience of feeling certain in language similar to Newman’s. Says James, Of some things we feel certain: we know, and we know that we do know. There is something that gives a click inside of us, a bell that strikes twelve, when the hands of our mental clock have swept the dial and meet over the meridian hour. The greatest empiricists among us 124Ibid., 12. “To know is one thing,” says James, “and to know for certain that we know is another.”

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Thus, all persons are “absolutists by instinct.” The only question is whether or not this “instinct” should be endorsed or resisted.126 James advocates resisting the certitude of absolutism. “Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with,” he notes, “but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they to be found?”127 Empirical investigation and rational reflection may lead one closer to truth, but all human opinions are fallible. Regarding such opinions, James insists that, to hold any of them—I absolutely do not care which—as if it never could be reinterpreted or corrigible, I believe to be a tremendously mistaken attitude, and I think the whole history of philosophy will bear me out.128 Of particular importance is that James’ critique of certitude is founded not only on probabilism, but also on pluralism. Indeed, he makes a special point of emphasizing that rational certitude is impossible in the face of the persistent disagreements among philosophers and theologians. James states, Apart from abstract propositions of comparison (such as two and two are the same as four), propositions which tell us nothing by themselves about concrete reality, we find no propositions ever regarded by any one as evidently certain that has not either been called a falsehood, or at least had its truth sincerely questioned by some one else.129

125Ibid.,

13-14. 14. Graham, 167-76, briefly compares James’ religious thought with Newman’s and leaves the false impression that the two adopt essentially the same position on certitude. In fact, this study has shown that James and Newman disagree fundamentally: the latter defends certitude (S/OC) while the former explicitly rejects it. 127WB, 14. 128Ibid. Absolutists fail, says James, to reckon seriously enough with the fact that “the intellect, even with truth directly in its grasp, may have no infallible signal for knowing whether it be true or no.” Ibid., 16. It should be noted that James does allow that the belief in “the present phenomenon of consciousness exists” is incorrigible, but the concession is too trivial to factor into the main argument. 129Ibid., 15. 126Ibid.,

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James goes on to point out that “no concrete test of what is really true has ever been agreed upon.”130 As proof for this assertion, he offers a quick survey of mutually incompatible philosophical and theological proposals that have failed to win anything close to universal acceptance. Philosophical partisans claim the support of “objective evidence,” but the claim is an empty boast. Says James, The much lauded objective evidence is never triumphantly there; it is a mere aspiration or Grenzbegriff, marking the infinitely remote ideal of our thinking life. To claim that certain truths now possess it, is simply to say that when you think them true and they are true, then their evidence is objective, otherwise it is not. But practically one’s conviction that the evidence that one goes by is of the real objective brand, is only one more subjective opinion added to the lot. For what a contradictory array of opinions have evidence and absolute certitude been claimed!131

It should not be supposed that James regards epistemological fallibilism as inevitably linked with an anxious, groping faith. Put differently, James does not think that the mere admission that one might be wrong promotes crippling religious doubt. On the contrary, he insists that, to admit one’s liability to correction is one thing, and to embark upon a sea of wanton doubt is another … If we claim only reasonable probability, it will be as much as men who love the truth can ever at any given moment hope to have within their grasp. Pretty surely it will be more than we could have had, if we were unconscious of our liability to err.132

130Ibid. 131Ibid., 15-16. As the above passage makes clear, James’ rejection of certitude is determined not only by probabilism but also pluralism. 132VRE, 325-26. Elsewhere, James makes the slightly stronger claim that some persons actually thrive on “a certain amount of uncertainty in their philosophical creed, just as risk lends zest to worldly activity.” Even in the average person, says James, “the power to trust, to risk a little beyond the literal evidence, is an essential function.” SR, 90-91. James here notes in passing a psychological fact that Kierkegaard exaggerates and mandates. Cf. LWL, 58-59, where James defends the legitimacy of living on a trust in what may be true:

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“Dogmatism will doubtless continue to condemn us for this confession,” says James. “The mere outward form of inalterable certainty is so precious to some minds that to renounce it explicitly is for them out of the question.” Nevertheless, “the safe thing is surely to recognize that all the insights of creatures of the day like ourselves must be provisional.”133 James therefore never minimizes the risk associated with religious faith. He defends the individual’s right to believe, but he does not suggest that it is always safe to trust one’s subjectivity—as if the “heart” always leads truly. Rather, James argues that one has the right to run the risk that his or her “passional need to take the world religiously” is trustworthy. As for himself, James states that he refuses obedience to a rigid and narrow ethic of belief in any situation “where my own stake is important enough to give me the right to choose my own form of risk.”134 James thus combines fallibilism and faith in such a way that the risk of faith is emphasized. The feeling of risk, however, may be expected to diminish over time if and when the particular religious belief is pragmatically confirmed. In effect, James splits the difference between Kierkegaard and Newman. With the former, James denies that faith can ever be entirely free from intellectual uncertainty; with the latter, he affirms that faith is (ordinarily) accompanied by religious confidence and “cognitive rest.” Precisely how But “may be! may be!” one now hears the positivist contemptuously exclaim; “what use can a scientific life have for maybes?” Well, I reply, the ‘scientific’ life itself has much to do with maybes, and human life at large has everything to do with them. So far as man stands for anything, and is productive or originative at all, his entire vital function may be said to have to deal with maybes. Not a victory is gained, not a deed of faithfulness or courage is done, except upon a maybe; not a service, not a sally of generosity, not a scientific exploration or experiment or textbook, that may not be a mistake. It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. Here James once again emphasizes the faith-dimension of human rationality. 133VRE, 326. 134WB, 27.

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James accomplishes this balancing act will become evident in the discussion of adjudication below. The Adjudication of Truth Claims Given his emphasis on the non-intellectual aspects of religious faith, the teleological nature of human rationality, and the right of individuals to risk believing what they will, James might be expected to have little interest in the rational adjudication of religious truth claims. In reality, James gives considerable attention to this matter—far more than either Kierkegaard or Newman. James’ general approach to verification (on which, of course, adjudication depends) has already been labeled “pragmatic,” but in fact his pragmatic method encompasses more epistemological territory than is sometimes realized. After a brief discussion of two preliminary issues, the various features of James’ pragmatic method of verification will be fleshed out in some detail. The first preliminary issue concerns the relationship between adjudication and religious pluralism. Here and there James makes statements to the effect that religious pluralism is ineradicable in practice and desirable in principle.135 If religious pluralism is truly inevitable and legitimate, it would seem to follow that the rational adjudication of religious truth claims is both impossible and unnecessary. Does James believe—contrary to the position taken in this study—that the attempt to adjudicate disputed religious beliefs is pointless? Certainly, James is convinced that in matters of religious faith “it is hopeless to look for literal agreement among mankind”; hence, one must not attempt to “mark out a narrow orthodoxy” to which all must conform.136 Even an ecumenical theology, were it confined to a single faith tradition (e.g., Christian or Muslim), would be regarded by James as too restrictive. Nevertheless, James does not commend the sort of religious agnosticism that gives up the quest for the truth amid the diversity of truth claims. On the contrary, he thinks that clear, critical thinking on religious questions can lead one progressively closer to the truth.137 He even holds 135See

VRE, 120, 326-27, 477; SR, 110. 110. 137VRE, 327. 136SR,

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holds out the hope that an inductive, scientific approach to religion will one day establish a body of knowledge with “public status” and (potentially) universal acceptance.138 Once philosophy adopts this scientific approach, James opines, it can function as a “mediator amid the clash of hypotheses.” Ideally, the result would be “a consensus of opinion” in religious matters akin to that found in other areas of inquiry.139 After nearly a century of inductive inquiry, Religionswissenschaft has not produced anything resembling a “consensus of opinion.”140 Although this failure does not demonstrate that adjudication is impossible, it certainly underlines the difficulty. At present, however, the important point is that James’ defense of religious pluralism does not entail a repudiation of the attempt to rationally adjudicate disputed religious truth claims. Indeed, his stance of religious pluralism is in part determined by his commitment to discovering and verifying truth. As James explains his position, he does not want to lose truth by pretentiously supposing that he already possesses the whole of it.141 Diverse religious experiences and beliefs are to him so much “data” to be sifted and evaluated by means of his pragmatic method. The second preliminary issue concerns what James calls the “sentiment of rationality.” Because he emphasizes the subjective aspects of human ratiocination, it comes as no surprise that James refuses to set down rigid, formal rules by which the reasonableness of beliefs can be identified. How, then, is one to distinguish reasonable and unreasonable judgments? This question is important because, though James maintains that religious beliefs can be verified pragmatically as they succeed in leading persons into a satisfactory relationship with the world, deciding when the “satisfactory relation” obtains requires rational judgment. Essentially, James maintains that human beings regard as rational any belief that is accompanied by what might be termed cogni138Ibid.,

423.

139Ibid. 140For an indication of James’ familiarity with the “science of religions”—a relatively new discipline in his day—see Levinson, Religious Investigations, 72-76. 141VRE, 327.

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tive rest. The subjective marks of this cognitive rest include a “strong sense of ease, peace, [and] rest.” As one moves “from a state of puzzle and perplexity to rational comprehension,” there is an accompanying feeling of “lively relief and pleasure.” According to James, “As soon … as we are enabled from any cause whatever to think with perfect fluency, the thing we think seems to us pro tanto rational.”142 Perrett explains that, the experience of rationality is a sense of the absence of irrationality, i.e., a negative feeling similar to the experience of easy breathing. Thus we feel no particular pleasure so long as our breathing is unimpaired but we experience distress if something does impede our respiration. Similarly the mark of rationality is our experience of the smooth fluency of our thinking. An irrational thought is one that impedes this fluency by refusing to fit and thus provoking us into trying to eliminate the obstruction.143

Perrett acknowledges that this account of rationality might appear vague or unduly subjective, but he notes that “it is difficult to see

142SR, 64. James also refers to this “perfect fluency” in thought as “plenary freedom” and “unimpeded mental function.” Ibid., 63-64. It should be noted that James also maintains that the “peace of rationality may be sought through ecstasy when logic fails.” He explains that in moments of mystical religious consciousness, the world appears to be divinely ordered and “intellectual questions vanish.” In mystical experiences, one feels no need to explain, account for, or justify his or her belief—one simply rests in the inspired vision. Thus, when James maintains that the sentiment of rationality is present whenever one is “enable from any cause whatever to think with perfect fluency,” he intends to include mystic states of consciousness within the sphere of the rational. Indeed, were the mystical state of mind turned into “a systematic method,” the result “would be a philosophic achievement of first-rate importance.” SR, 74. As it turns out, James thinks that these mystical states are too rare and unpredictable to be transmuted into philosophical gold. It is significant, however, that he does not draw a sharp line between human rationality and mystical states of consciousness. Nowhere is it more evident that James thinks of human reason as a kind of faith. 143Roy W. Perrett, “William James on Rationality and Religious Belief,” Scottish Journal of Religious Studies 8 (Spring 1987): 36.

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what we could offer as a better one given the ‘grass roots’ level that James is operating on here.”144 One might object that the feeling of rationality does not guarantee the presence of rationality. After all, nothing is more common than disputes among persons who all possess the “sentiment of rationality” even as they advocate incompatible views. James is hardly unaware of this fact, however. When he argues that certitude, though psychologically natural, is epistemically unjustified,145 he assumes that a feeling of rationality is no guarantee of truth. Far from reducing rationality to mere sentiment, James is highlighting the normal affective aspect of epistemic rationality. When confronted with empirical anomalies or logical incoherence, for example, the mind is no longer able “to think with perfect fluency.” It is afflicted with “ceaseless uneasiness” as it seeks a view that restores

144Perrett, 36. The precise relationship between feeling and rationality is a complex and difficult issue. The matter will be touched on when defending James against the charge of epistemological subjectivism. In the present context, it is sufficient to note that critics of James need to show in a non-question begging way that human judgments regarding what counts as “rational” can be made without ultimately appealing to the affective dimension of rationality. Given that the “laws” of logic are themselves discerned by human intuition, making such a case would not be easy. Even if one were to argue that a clear line may be drawn between intuitions and feelings, nothing damaging to James would result, since what he calls the “sentiment of rationality” takes in intuitions. Interestingly, Alvin Plantinga, Warrant and Proper Function (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 91-92, seems to appeal to something like the “sentiment of rationality.” Although his remarks refer specifically to perceptual beliefs, the grounding of empirical evidence on perception suggests that his observations have a wider application. Says Plantinga, Upon being appeared to in a familiar way, I may form the belief that I perceive a branch of a certain peculiar jagged shape … That belief has a certain felt attractiveness or naturalness, a sort of perceived fitness; it feels like the right belief in those circumstances. I try on a different belief: that what I see is, say, a small walrus. That belief feels different, somehow; it feels strange, inappropriate, wrong, wholly ridiculous. 145See WB, 12-16.

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plenary freedom to thought.146 Perhaps one could say that James’ analysis of the “sentiment of rationality” concerns the psychology of inquiry, and as such it provides insight into the actual manner in which the pragmatic method of verification proceeds. However, the goal is always epistemically rational belief, not merely a feeling of rationality. Setting aside preliminary issues, the various features of James’ pragmatic method of verification may now be fleshed out. His position will be summarized under five propositions. 1. The pragmatic verification of truth claims is oriented toward the future. That is, rather than appraising beliefs in terms of their origin, James looks for confirmation in their consequences. This orientation toward the future is the heart of James’ pragmatic method. Indeed, James himself identifies this forward-looking approach to verification as a crucial feature distinguishing his own position from rationalistic epistemologies. He states, Our great difference from the scholastic lies in the way we face. The strength of his system lies in the principles, the origin, the terminus a quo of his thought; for us the strength is in the outcome, the upshot, the terminus a quem. Not where it comes from but where it leads is to decide.147

Consequently, the source of this or that belief is of little moment. The truth-seeker, says James, “may have acquired it [i.e., a belief] by fair means or by foul; passion may have whispered or accident suggested it; but if the total drift of thinking continues to confirm it, that is what he means by its being true.”148 As will become evident below, the “total drift of thinking” takes in considerable territory—far more than what is commonly attributed to pragmatic epistemologies.149 At present, however, the 146RAT,

125. 17. 148WB, 17. James here explicitly equates confirmation with truth— something he does not do elsewhere in WB. In time, James will work out the implications of this statement into his pragmatic theory of truth. 149Elements of the more familiar “correspondence” and “coherence” theories of justification show up in James’ pragmatic method of verification. For James, however, the dominating idea is that truth claims are confirmed as they successful lead persons into experience and thought. 147WB,

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crucial point is that James looks for verification in the future consequences of a belief. The pragmatic method, he says, entails a distinct “attitude of orientation,” namely, “the attitude of looking away from first things, principles, ‘categories,’ supposed necessities; and looking toward last things, fruits, consequences, facts.”150 A truth claim should not be viewed as an answer upon which one may rest, but rather as an instrument that leads one into the world of experience and thought.151 thought. Of course, usefulness in leading will entail conceptual coherence and some sort of correspondence with reality. Levinson, Chance of Salvation, 70-71, notes that “to read James either as a correspondence theorist or as a coherence theorist is to miss the point of his being a pragmatist, which is to shift the burden of justification from the antecedent conditions of belief to their consequences … “Leading” is the key term.” Both correspondence and coherence are “subordinated” to an idea’s “expected epistemic utility.” Ibid., 72; emphasis original. Cf. idem., Religious Investigations, 222. 150PR, 32. Cf. VRE, 20: “Origin in immediate intuition; origin in supernatural revelation, as by vision, hearing, or unaccountable impression; origin in direct possession by a higher spirit, expressing itself in prophecy and warning: origin in automatic utterances generally—these origins have been stock warrants for the truth of one opinion after another which we find represented in religious history.” 151PR, 32. In the same place, James states, “Theories thus become instruments, not answers to enigmas, in which we can rest. We don’t lie back upon them, we move forward, and, on occasion, make nature over again by their aid.” Cf. ibid., 103: Agreement thus turns out to be essentially an affair of leading—leading that is useful because it is into quarters that contain objects that are important. True ideas lead us into useful verbal and conceptual quarters as well as directly up to useful sensible termini. They lead to consistency, stability, and flowing human intercourse. Although James opposed positivists like Clifford, according to Andrew J. Reck, Introduction to William James: An Essay and Selected Texts (Bloomington, Ill.: Indiana University Press, 1967), 50, pragmatism resembles positivism with this forward-looking approach to verification. Says Reck, “Unlike traditional empiricism, … positivism assigns an anticipatory role to ideas. For the positivist, the idea (concept) is a planned operation that anticipates the reaction of experience. Whereas traditional empiricism seeks the meaning of an idea in the sense experience from

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James maintains that attempts to find “tests for truth which might dispense us from appealing to the future” are motivated by a futile quest for epistemic security. Individuals seek a “direct mark” that protects them “immediately and absolutely, now and forever, against all mistake.”152 As a fallibilist, James views every belief (“I absolutely do not care which”153) as corrigible; accordingly, he regards the search for objective certainty as hopeless. Indeed, he even finds it difficult to take the quest seriously. “Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things,” says James. “In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.”154 By looking for verification in consequences rather than origins, James would seem to accomplish three things. First, he meets the challenge to religious belief posed by various forms of reductionism. Second, he bypasses the problems associated with classical foundationalism. Third, he escapes the trap of epistemological subjectivism. These three byproducts of James’ pragmatic method will be briefly discussed in order. First, James’ future oriented approach to verification meets the challenge to religious belief posed by reductionism. Given that his own psychological analysis of religion in VRE might strike some readers as reductionistic, James takes pains to explain that a scientific account of religious experiences does not invalidate a larger

which it is derived, positivism locates its meaning in that future experience which is pertinent to its verification.” Unlike positivism, James’ pragmatism accepts as “evidence” empirical data that is not scientifically measurable. See PR, 40. 152VRE, 19. James notes that as a practical matter most religious believers have been forced to adopt a consequentialist approach to appraising religious experiences and truth claims. He states, “Among visions and messages some have always been too patently silly, among trances and convulsive seizures some have been too fruitless for conduct and character, to pass themselves off as significant, still less as divine.” Of religious experiences and truth claims in general, “By their fruits ye shall know them, not by their roots.” Ibid., 21. 153WB, 14. 154Ibid., 19.

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religious meaning.155 More to the point, he argues that attempts to establish the truth of religious beliefs or the veridicality of religious experiences on the basis of their purported divine origin plays into the hands of skeptical reductionists. Alternative origins for such beliefs and experiences can always be suggested, but reductionists “are effective in their talk of pathological origin only so long as supernatural origin is placed on the other side, and nothing but the argument from origin is under discussion.”156 As James sees it, verifying beliefs in terms of their consequences renders disputes over their origins irrelevant. “Not where it comes from,” says James, “but where it leads is to decide.”157 One need only call to mind the critiques of religious faith set forth by modern “masters of suspicion” (e.g., Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Foucault) to recognize the legitimacy of James’ concern and the potential value of his response. Second, James’ future oriented approach to verification bypasses problems associated with classical foundationalism.158 Classical foundationalism originated in the Cartesian quest for certainty as thinkers sought incorrigible foundations for knowledge. Today, it is commonly conceded that this quest for certain knowledge built upon absolutely reliable foundations has failed. Proposals for what propositions belong in the foundation have been shown to be either subject to the “infinite regress” problem or too thin to ground substantial knowledge. When James turns away from establishing truth claims on the basis of “first things,” “principles,” “categories,” and “supposed necessities,”159 he has abandoned this Cartesian quest for incorrigible foundations. Instead, he defends the right of persons to begin with fully-funded beliefs. Verification of such beliefs depends not on linking them by a logical chain of reasoning to incorrigible foundations, but on the success of those be-

155See

VRE, 7-22. 20. 157WB, 17. 158On classical foundationalism, see Alvin Plantinga, “Reason and Belief in God,” in Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God, ed. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 16-93. 159PR, 32. 156Ibid.,

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liefs in leading individuals into the world of experience and thought. Third, James’ future oriented approach to verification escapes the trap of epistemological subjectivism. It has already been shown that James emphasizes the personal nature of human ratiocination. The teleological mind selects and appraises evidence in terms of the subjective needs and interests of the knower. By taking this position, James at first appears to open the door to pure subjectivism. As it turns out, however, the teleological mind is constrained by the world’s objectivity. Not just any belief “fits” reality. It follows that not just any belief will be accompanied by the “fluency” of thought that characterizes the “sentiment of rationality.” This issue will be discussed more thoroughly in due course. 2. Religious truth claims are verified pragmatically when they remove uncertainty from the future. As was indicated earlier, for the purposes of verification James treats religious beliefs as hypotheses subject to testing.160 Of course, the tests envisioned would rarely involve controlled, scientific experiments.161 Nevertheless, James does think that religious beliefs contain implicit expectations that may or may not be fulfilled in the course of experience and inquiry. He therefore proposes as a “first principle” that a philosophical 160Many commentators object to the way James equates religious faith with “hypothesis.” E.g., see Dickinson S. Miller, “James’s Doctrine of ‘The Right to Believe,’” Philosophical Review 51 (1942): 547; Wernham, Will-to-Believe, 127. Scientists, it is argued, adopt hypotheses provisionally and tentatively; religious believers, on the other hand, commit themselves to their creeds wholeheartedly. As already noted, James thinks some measure of belief is present wherever there is a willingness to act. On this reckoning, a hypothesis is an expression of faith—however tentative. See Graham, 147. It should be added, however, that it is possible to hold firmly to a particular belief even as one “steps back” (as it were) and treats it as a hypothesis to be “tested.” Of course, James insists that all beliefs are corrigible; consequently, no matter how firmly one holds to this or that belief it may always remain something of a hypothesis. 161The tests would “rarely” involve controlled, scientific experiments—but the experimental would not be entirely excluded. Contemporary research into the health benefits of religious faith and prayer could be part of a Jamesian program of verification. Were he alive, James would undoubtedly be fascinated by scholarly inquiries into so-called near death/out of body experiences.

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proposes as a “first principle” that a philosophical conception “must, in a general way at least, banish uncertainty from the future.”162 With this “first principle,” James thinks that he proposes an approach to verification that conforms to the natural workings of the human mind. He observes that “our consciousness at any given moment is never free from the ingredient of expectancy.”163 Moreover, he maintains that “in the ultimate explanations of the universe which the craving for rationality has elicited from the human mind, the demands of expectancy to be satisfied have always played a fundamental part.”164 When unsure of what to expect, the mind is uneasy; when past experience indicates that the future will conform to expectations, the mind is at peace.165 James thus concludes, We may then, I think, with perfect confidence lay down as a first point gained in our inquiry, that a prime factor in the philosophic craving is the desire to have expectancy defined; and that no philosophy will definitively triumph which in an emphatic manner denies the possibility of gratifying this need.166

One might object that this talk of “expectancy defined” is vague and misleading. Scientific hypotheses possess a specificity that allows for falsifiable predictions; religious beliefs, on the other hand, provide only vague expectancies that can be tested only in a general way. To speak of religious “hypotheses” is therefore misleading—it suggests a closer parallel between scientific and religious verification than in fact exists. This objection is an important one, but it must be remembered that the difficulty attaches to any attempt to verify large-scale truth claims. Even within science itself, it is notoriously difficult to 162SR, 76-77. Emphasis original. Of course, James does not mean that any philosophical conception can “banish uncertainty” in the absolutist sense. 163SR, 77. 164Ibid., 79. 165Ibid., 78. 166Ibid., 82. It is worth calling attention once again to the manner in which James emphasizes the personal nature of human reasoning. He speaks of a “philosophic craving” and of “gratifying” a need to have expectancy defined. Even when focused on the verification of beliefs, James never loses sight of the non-intellectual dimension of cognition.

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confirm or falsify broad research paradigms. Such paradigms consist of a network of mutually dependent hypotheses; since they cannot all be tested at once, whatever tests are performed necessarily assume the truth of the paradigm of which the tested hypothesis is a part. As a result, scientific paradigms as a whole are resistant to falsification. If one moves from the physical sciences to the human sciences, the problem of testing paradigms is multiplied by the increased complexity of the subject (e.g., one must deal with human self-consciousness and freedom as well as “quarks”) and the greater generality of the predictions made and tested. If one moves from the human sciences to the humanities, the problems are multiplied yet again. By the time large-scale “worldview” questions are raised, the complexity of the belief-network and the difficulty of making specific predictions combine to make the adjudication of competing truth claims extraordinarily difficult. Who can blame those philosophers who give up the quest and say that differing worldviews are “incommensurable.” Once again, the crucial point to notice is that these difficulties attach to any attempt to adjudicate differences over general, large-scale truth claims. Thus, the problem here identified is not specific to James’ claim that religious beliefs may be tested in a way analogous to scientific hypotheses. In any case, James is hardly unaware of the difficulties. As will be explained below, he cautions that agreement on religious issues should not be expected except as a distant goal. The best that can be hoped for is verification “on the whole” and “in the long run,” though he clearly thinks that considerable progress can be made before the “consummation.” Indeed, he has no doubt that religious beliefs can be verified as the unfolding of experience or inquiry answers to the expectations that they raise. For example, he states that true ideas guide one into the “particulars of experience” and make possible an “advantageous connexion with them.”167 On the other hand, false beliefs create expectations that future experiences will disappoint. “Woe to him,” declares James, “whose beliefs play fast and loose with the order which realities follow in his experience: they will lead him nowhere or else make false connexions.”168 The entire process of discovering and verifying the truth consists in 167PR,

99.

168Ibid.

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an encounter with “reality.” He states that “facts come independently and determine our beliefs provisionally.” These beliefs in turn lead to concrete acts, each of which is suffused with expectations concerning how “reality” will respond. In one way or another reality does respond, and through a kind of feedback loop “new facts” are brought into view “which re-determine the beliefs accordingly.”169 As James puts it, “Experience … has ways of boiling over, and making us correct our present formulas.”170 Perhaps two examples culled from James’ writings will clarified how he sees expectancy and experience interacting in pragmatic verification. The first concerns the question of whether or not the universe is at root a “moral” entity.171 The second deals with the verification of “mind-cure” teachings. Each of these examples will be taken up in turn. First, James asserts that one must adjudicate the question of whether or not the universe is a “moral” entity by proceeding “exactly as does the physical philosopher [i.e., scientist] in testing a hypothesis.”172 He explains that, the verification of the theory which you may hold as to the objectively moral character of the world can consist only in this,—that if you proceed to act upon your theory it will be reversed by nothing that later turns up as your action’s fruit; it will harmonize so well with the entire drift of experience that the latter will, as it were, adopt it, or at most give it an ampler interpretation, 169Ibid.,

108. Dooley, 143, comments, “These actions, consequent upon belief, correct our belief in terms of successful or abortive interaction with the world.” In this way, says Dooley, an “adjustment” in one’s belief is “coerced.” Ibid., 149. 170PR, 106. Emphasis original. In real life, even “true” beliefs are being constantly modified by experience, thereby growing “more true.” 171When James raises the question of whether the universe is at bottom moral or unmoral, he “is not asking whether the universe is good or bad, but whether it is coordinate with the inner lives of persons, their desires, and their purposes. The sense of “moral” here is not restricted to ethics, but is the sense in which the moral sciences (comprising what we now call the humanities and social sciences) were contrasted in the nineteenth century with the natural sciences.” Wayne Proudfoot, “Unseen Order,” 51. 172SR, 105.

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without obliging you in any way to change the essence of its formulation. If this be an objectively moral universe, all acts that I make on that assumption, all expectations that I ground on it, will tend more and more completely to interdigitate with the phenomena already existing.173

Alternatively, if the universe is not at root a moral entity, acting on the assumption that it is will lead to one frustration after another. According to James, the course of experience will throw ever new impediments in the way of my belief, and become more and more difficult to express in its language. Epicycle upon epicycle of subsidiary hypothesis will have to be invoked to give the discrepant terms a temporary appearance of squaring with each other; but at last even this resource will fail.174

Second, James cites the “palpable experiential results” of “mind-cure” teachings as an example of the pragmatic verification of a religious truth claim. According to mind-cure teachers, one need only act on the belief that there exists a friendly higher power ruling the universe to experience concrete benefits. Impressed by the surging popularity of mind-cure teachings in his day, James was confident that at least some of the promised benefits were regularly actualized.175 He thus feels justified in comparing the verification of mind-cure teachings with those of science, asserting that mind-cure “carries on an aggressive warfare against the scientific philosophy, and succeeds by using science’s own peculiar methods and weapons.”176 In both of the above examples, James maintains that religious beliefs function like scientific hypotheses. When such beliefs arouse expectancies that “fit” experience, they are verified—otherwise not.177 Both examples suffer from the vagueness already men173Ibid.,

105-6. 106. 175See VRE, 117-18. 176Ibid., 118. The structure of pragmatic verification is here clearly set forth whether or not James rightly assessed the effectiveness of “mindcure.” 177Cf. “Preface,” in Will to Believe, xii, where James speaks of “fit” in terms of “working.” He states, 174Ibid.,

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tioned. However, it turns out that James elsewhere speaks of “testing” expectations that possess greater specificity. Interestingly enough, he makes these important comments when he takes up the issue of indirect verification. The basic idea in indirect verification is the same as explained above: beliefs are confirmed as they lead one forward in such a way that experience conforms to the expectations prompted by the belief. Unlike the direct confirmation of truth claims, however, indirect confirmation relies more heavily on circumstantial evidence. For example, one knows that Japan exists not because one has directly confirmed the fact by a personal visit, but because the belief works—“everything we know conspiring with the belief, and nothing interfering.” Such beliefs are verified, says James, when acting on them leads “to no frustration or contradiction.”178 According to James, historical beliefs are indirectly confirmed in this way. The past cannot be directly accessed, but it is indirectly present in verbal testimony and the lasting effects of earlier events. Applying James’ pragmatic method, one would say that a belief about the past is verified to the extent that it leads one into successful connection with the relevant testimony and lasting effects. Here “success” refers to the ability of true beliefs to enable the mind to engage “flowingly” with the extant evidence. When accomplished, the mind will experience “a general freedom from clash and contradiction.” Alternatively, “failure” would occur whenever a belief leads If religious hypotheses about the universe be in order at all, then the active faiths of individuals in them, freely expressing themselves in life, are the experimental tests by which they are verified, and the only means by which their truth or falsehood can be wrought out. The truest scientific hypothesis is that which, as we say, ‘works’ best; and it can be no otherwise with religious hypotheses. Religious history proves that one hypothesis after another has worked ill, has crumbled at contact with a widening knowledge of the world, and has lapsed from the minds of men. Some articles of faith, however, have maintained themselves through every vicissitude, and possess more vitality today than ever before: it is for the ‘science of religions’ to tell us just which hypotheses these are. 178PR, 99.

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to “foiled and barren thinking,” that is, when the encounter with the evidence throws up one anomaly after another.179 In short, James thinks that historical beliefs are confirmed as they work, that is, as they lead one into fruitful inquiry marked by the sentiment of rationality. Historical beliefs are disconfirmed as they raise expectations that are continually frustrated by the facts uncovered by inquiry.180 James thus thinks that sound historical judgments depend on making “inferences to the best explanation.” What is distinctive about his approach is that he places such inferences within the context of a forward-looking, pragmatic method of verification. As a result, his approach generates not static conclusions but ongoing inquiry that remains open to correction even as it confirms the truth of this or that judgment. In any case, once one moves from global “hypotheses” (e.g., the universe is “moral”) to concrete historical truth claims, the “testability” of particular beliefs becomes more manageable. James himself left this aspect of his thought largely undeveloped. But this feature of his pragmatic method can provide a stronger model for the verification of religious truth claims (at least for historically based religions) than is sometimes supposed. Finally, it is worth noting that James thinks that any belief that “defines expectancy” will be felt to be rational even if it cannot be rationally explicated. “An ultimate datum,” he says, “even though it be logically unrationalized, will, if its quality is such as to define expectancy, be peacefully accepted by the mind.”181 Put differently, even a rationally paradoxical belief will be accompanied by “cognitive rest”—if that belief succeeds in removing uncertainty from the future. One thinks in this connection of Kierkegaard’s absolute paradox—an “ultimate datum” without clarifying analogies. Once again, James does not develop this idea, but it will be argued below that it provides a way to incorporate and transcend Kierkegaardian insights.

179Ibid.,

103. Justification, 54-57, counters the suggesting that historical inquiry is irredeemably subjective. Evidence can and does constrain interpretation, though of course not with the specificity of the hard sciences. 181SR, 79. 180Mitchell,

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3. Religious truth claims are verified as they cohere with other wellestablished beliefs. In the above discussion, it was noted that religious beliefs are “indirectly” verified as they give rise to expectations congruent with the extant circumstantial evidence. Here the focus remains on indirect verification, but the perspective is broader. In view is not the circumstantial evidence that supports this or that belief, but rather the whole range of “background beliefs” that form the plausibility structure within which specific beliefs are appraised. Essentially, James maintains that religious truth claims can be rationally embraced only when they cohere with this web of background beliefs. The word “cohere” is not here being used in a technical, philosophical sense.182 James himself is satisfied to talk of coherence loosely as a kind of “fit” between concepts.183 Rather than defining the precise nature of the fit, he more or less assumes that the congruence will be evident to the careful thinker.184 He relies, in other words, on the sentiment of rationality to signal the presence of rational coherence. When one is able to make fluid cognitive transitions from one belief to another, an objective state of coherence is (presumptively) present.185 182A

fully satisfactory delineation of what constitutes “coherence” is notoriously difficult to come by. Logical consistency among a set of propositions is an obvious component, but as a complete account it is plainly inadequate. Two propositions may be logically compatible without “hanging together” in any significant way (e.g., “this house is large” is logically—but insignificantly—consistent with “astronauts drink Tang”). Perhaps coherence is best thought of as a logically consistent set of propositions that are related to one another through mutually supporting inferences. There is substantial disagreement among philosophers over how “tight” the inferential connections must be to constitute coherence. For a discussion, see Laurence BonJour, The Structure of Empirical Knowledge (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), 93-101. 183PR, 103. 184Of course, there is nothing in James’ stance that would forbid a more technical and nuanced approach to identifying coherence among beliefs. 185It has already been noted that such cognitive transitions do not always depend on full intellectual insight or strict logical consistency. Mystical religious experiences can give rise to a feeling of rationality without providing “answers” to intellectual questions. Moreover, beliefs that suc-

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James complains that pragmatism is often criticized unjustly because interpreters fail to note the important role assigned to background beliefs in the appraisal of truth claims. Such critics falsely suppose that pragmatism labels as “true” any belief that “works” in the narrowest sense of the word. On the contrary, pragmatic verification assesses truth claims against a background of “older truths”—“loyalty” to these older truths is said to be the “first principle” of verification.186 Thus, to qualify as rationally credible, religious truth claims must cohere with all other solidlygrounded beliefs. Every belief about God, for example, “has to run the gauntlet of all our other truths.”187 Indeed, every belief places every other belief on trial. “Our final opinion about God,” says James, “can be settled only after all the truths have straightened themselves out together.”188 This requirement that religious truth claims cohere with wellestablished background beliefs places firm constraints on what counts as “rational.” It means, for example, that religious beliefs that are “scientifically absurd or incongruous” may be tossed aside.189 The coherence requirement also means that religious beliefs should be rejected when they are logically inconsistent with such background beliefs. Given the stereotypes attached to pragmatism, this appeal to logic might seem to some like a bolt out of the blue. However, James frequently reminds his readers that pragmatism does not emphasize concrete facts to the exclusion of “purely mental ideas” and the logical relations among them. He explains,

cessfully “define expectancy” will be accompanied by cognitive rest even if they remain “logically unrationalized.” 186PR, 35. 187Ibid., 54. 188Ibid. 189VRE, 445. Elsewhere, James states that much of what passes for religious faith would benefit from being “broken up and ventilated” by the “northwest wind of science.” “Preface,” in Will to Believe, x. He goes on to suggest that the religious faiths most likely to stand the test of time are precisely those that incorporate well-established scientific hypotheses into their system of beliefs. Ibid., xii. Of course, James does not grant this sort of veto power over religious belief to scientism.

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James thus repudiates the irrationalism of which he is sometimes accused. Logical relations between ideas “coerce” the mind of rational persons. “One thing our ideas do,” says James, is to “contradict other ideas and keep us from believing them.”191 Far from advocating wishful thinking, James insists that one’s “ideas must agree with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract, be they facts or principles, under the penalty of endless inconsistency and frustration.”192 190PR,

100-1. This statement may appear to be inconsistent with the claim that “logically unrationalized” beliefs will be accepted by the mind when they “define expectancy.” When James speaks of the mind peacefully accepting unrationalized beliefs, he is thinking of practical rationality. On a theoretical level, it is always assumed that the truth is self-consistent. 191William James, “The Energies of Men,” in Writings, 680. On the same page, James says, “Our philosophical and religious development proceeds thus by credulities, negations, and the negations of negations.” 192PR, 101. Levinson, Chance of Salvation, 221, says that the most common error made by interpreters of James is the assumption that, because he defends the right to adopt a believing attitude in the absence of logically coercive reasons, he accepts the notion that there are logically coercive beliefs. “Both his psychology and epistemology,” says Levinson, “precludes the notion of logically or epistemologically coercive belief.” In the light of the Jamesian statements quoted above, Levinson’s observation must be carefully qualified. As a fallibilist who emphasized the subjective aspects of ratiocination, James clearly does not believe that literally coercive reasons can be given for belief. In a practical, functional sense, however, he clearly does think that logic and facts coerce the mind. Also, Robert F. Goodman, “William James: Rationality as a Pragmatic Choice,” History of European Ideas 20 (1995): 951, asserts that James does not “believe in the existence of a transcendental logic. Whatever logic there is to be found in the world emerges from the human organism’s encounter with its natural

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Since on James’ reckoning coherence is ultimately recognized by a feeling of rationality, adjudication cannot proceed through the purely formal analysis of ideas. Nevertheless, James appears confident that human “sentiments” are similar enough for meaningful, rational debate to commence. The important thing is to place every fact and argument on the table for fair-minded assessment. As James puts it, pragmatism’s “only test of probable truth is what works best in the way of leading us, what fits every part of life best and combines with the collectivity of experience’s demands, nothing being omitted.”193 4. Religious truth claims are verified as they promote human flourishing. As explained above, James views religious faith (specifically theistic faith) as corresponding to the deepest moral and spiritual needs of human beings. This correspondence is epistemically relevant, James judges, because human needs somehow “track the truth.” In support of this thesis, he notes that it is by the “exuberant excess” of their needs and wants that human beings rise above the “brutes.” Even scientific inquiry is founded on the subjective human desire to find a rational order beneath the flux of appearances. James concludes that human needs are reliable clues to the nature of reality. The upshot is that religious beliefs may be appraised, in part, by their success in satisfying these needs. Put differently, one way of adjudicating conflicting religious truth claims is to ask which opinion best promotes “human flourishing.”194 As noted earlier, James does not think that the correspondence of human needs and theism proves the latter in any rigorous way. At times he avoids the language of proof altogether, maintaining only that the “subjective anchorage” of theism in human nature gives individuals the right to believe even in the absence of ration-

environment.” Although James clearly thinks of logic as discovered in the course of human-environmental interaction, does his theism require that logic is in some sense a “transcendental” reality? 193PR, 44. 194No hard and fast distinction is being made between “needs,” “wants,” “desires,” and similar terms. Obviously, one may want what is not needed, or need what is not desired. Nevertheless, James often uses these words as rough synonyms whenever he is focused on the spontaneous (or natural) yearnings of the human heart.

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ally coercive proof.195 However, James generally takes this tack only when seeking polemical advantage over positivism. By understating the epistemic trustworthiness of human needs, he frees himself to focus on making the easier case that one has the right to believe when confronted with a genuine option. In reality, James does believe that human needs “track the truth.” On the basis of this conviction, he defends the thesis that success in meeting these needs substantiates the truth of the relevant religious beliefs. Thus, to return to the language of this study, James thinks that religious truth claims are pragmatically verified as they promote human flourishing. In addressing this issue, attention should be given to an important discussion of rationality in SR.196 James notes that different conceptions may sometimes be “equally consistent with the facts.” He then raises the question of whether or not there are any “tests of rationality” that can be applied in such cases. In answer to his own question, he sets forth two tests. First, the more rational philosophical conception is the one that removes uncertainty from the future more successfully than its competitors. This criterion has been dealt with above and need not be revisited here. Second, James maintains that a philosophical conception will win wide acceptance when it is congruous with the subjective needs of humans.197 What stands out about this second criterion is that it does not appear to be a criterion at all. Certainly winning widespread support differs from proving truth. The former deals with persuasion, the latter with rationality; and sad experience demonstrates that the two frequently run on different tracks. Nevertheless, James states explicitly that he means to set forth “tests of rationality,” and it is prima facie unlikely that he is guilty of a sophomoric confusion of categories. 195RAT,

116. the content of this paragraph and the next, see SR, 76-88. 197“No philosophy,” says James, “will permanently be deemed rational by all men which (in addition to meeting logical demands) does not to some degree pretend to determine expectancy, and in some still greater degree appeal to all those powers of nature which we hold in high esteem.” SR, 110. Emphasis added. 196For

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Why then does James freely co-mingle the language of persuasion and proof when discussing rationality? The most plausible answer is that he sees no cause to separate them in view of the personal nature of human ratiocination. Human reasoning does not exist apart from concrete persons, and each individual brings his or her whole subjectivity to the appraisal of truth claims. Moreover, since the distinguishing mark of rationality is a felt fluidity of thought, no sharp line can be drawn between persuasiveness and reasonableness. James can assert, therefore, that “of two conceptions equally fit to satisfy the logical demand, that one which awakens the impulses, or satisfies other æsthetic demands better than the other, will be accounted the more rational conception and will deservedly prevail.”198 It is important to note that James here links persuasiveness (“will be accounted the more rational”) with rationality (“will deservedly prevail”).199 If theism is in general verified by its success in meeting human needs, non-theistic systems are called into question by their failure to do the same. “The whole array of active forces of our nature stands waiting,” declares James, “impatient for the word which will tell them how to discharge themselves most deeply and worthily 198SR, 75-76. Awakened “impulses” and satisfied “æsthetic demands” are two specific expressions of human flourishing. 199As James puts it elsewhere, “no conception will pass muster which violates any of these essential modes of activity, or which leaves them without a chance to work.” A system of belief will rightly lose support if “it has left one or more of our fundamental active and emotional powers with no object outside of themselves to re-act on or to live for.” RAT, 125. Similarly, James states that an otherwise unimpeachable philosophy will be rejected if its “ultimate principle … baffles and disappoints our dearest desires and most cherished powers.” SR, 82. He states, “If we survey the field of history and ask what feature all great periods of revival, of expansion of the human mind, display in common, we shall find, I think, simply this: that each and all of them have said to the human being, ‘The inmost nature of reality is congenial to the powers which you possess.’” Ibid., 86. Perrett, 39, comments, “If a particular world view produces such an impediment by being antipathetic to some of our most fundamental values and desires then, given that a theoretically permissible alternative world view is available, the rational option is to support the alternative and hence remove the impediment that gives rise to the experience of frustration.”

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upon life.”200 But non-theistic belief fails to provide the needed guidance, leaving the individual’s “active powers … with no proper object on which to vent their energy.” The result is that these powers “must either atrophy, sicken, and die, or else by their pent-up calculations and excitement keep the whole machinery in a fever until some less incommensurable solution, some more practically rational formula, shall provide a normal issue for the currents of the soul.”201 In short, James regards alternatives to theism as “irrational because they are inadequate stimuli to man’s practical nature”202—that is, they do not promote human flourishing. It follows that the ability to promote such flourishing is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for a fully rational philosophy or religious faith.203 On these matters, James relies on his conviction that the human mind is a practical, teleological instrument. “It is far too little recognized,” asserts James, “how entirely the intellect is built up of practical interests.”204 He attributes this practical bent, at least in part, to the evolutionary history of cognition. When dealing with “the lower forms of life,” says James, it is widely recognized that cognition is essentially “a guide to appropriate action.”205 Human cognition is no different, though James admits that through the “hypertrophied” development of the human cerebrum, “a vast amount of theoretic activity over and above which is immediately ministerial to practice” has arisen. Even theoretical flights, however, have at least an indirect practical bearing.”206

200RAT,

126. 126-27. 202Ibid., 133-34. More colorfully, James remarks, “In nightmare we have motives to act, but no power; here we have powers, but no motives.” SR, 83. 203Cf. Meaning of Truth, 272: “The pragmatist calls satisfactions indispensable for truth-building, but I have everywhere called them insufficient unless reality be also incidentally led to.” Emphasis added. 204SR, 84. 205Ibid. 206Ibid., 85. 201Ibid.,

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James therefore thinks that the practical, teleological mind is the fruit of human evolution.207 Viewed in these terms, human reason cannot be abstracted from the concrete needs of human beings—as if the mind were some kind of self-subsistent thinking machine. Rather, [f]rom its dawn to its highest attainment, we find that the cognitive faculty … appears but as an element in an organic whole, and as a minister to higher powers,—the powers of the will.208 Moreover, he asserts that there is no reason to suppose that anything will effect a change in the mind’s teleological nature. “On the contrary,” James states, it is more than probable that to the end of time our power of moral and volitional response to the nature of things will be the deepest organ of communication therewith we shall ever possess.209 In other words, the most reliable guide to the true nature of reality is not the “objective,” theoretical mind, but rather the practical, personally engaged mind. James makes a plausible connection between the evolutionary history of human cognition and its practical, teleological nature. 207For

Darwin’s influence on James, see Levinson, Chance of Salvation, 17-33; idem., Religious Investigations, 124-31. According to William C. Spohn, “William James on Religious Experience: An Elitist Account?” American Journal of Theology and Philosophy 15 (January 1994): 40, James always “retained a surprising amount of confidence in basic human needs because they had enabled the species to withstand the test of evolution: they must be in working touch with actual conditions.” Gail Kennedy, “Pragmatism, Pragmaticism, and the Will to Believe—A Reconsideration,” Journal of Philosophy 55 (July 1958): 578-79, commends James for being “among the first philosophers to take the Darwinian theory of evolution seriously” and for applying it “with consistency to the problems of philosophy and psychology.” He states, “For James, … the theory of evolution implies that the mind has emerged as an instrumentality of survival, and therefore the pursuit of ends and choice of means are the marks of the mind’s presence. This guiding principle is the key to all of James’s subsequent thought.” 208RAT, 140-41. 209Ibid., 141.

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However, he gets into trouble when he assumes without explanation that this evolutionary history somehow ensures the epistemic reliability of the mind. Evolutionary fitness is correlated with survival, not truth; and it is conceivable that survival may at times be promoted by useful delusions. Indeed, some socio-biologists believe that precisely this happened when intellectually groundless moral and religious beliefs promoted evolutionally useful “altruistic” behavior. James is on firmer ground when he bases his confidence in the epistemic reliability of the teleological mind on the practical success humans enjoy as they engage the world— particularly through the avenue of science. Should someone object that success in the discovery and verification of scientific truth does not guarantee the same success in religious matters, James could argue that distinguishing in this way between scientific and religious beliefs is arbitrary.210 As Vanden Burgt comments, “There is no telling ahead of time which interests may prove themselves compatible with the reality we confront. The scientific interest has certainly been thus compatible. Perhaps our interest in conceiving the world theistically will turn out likewise.”211 James could also appeal to every individual’s right to believe. If religious truth claims are pragmatically verified as they promote human flourishing, the question naturally arises: what constitutes “flourishing”? Essentially, James equates flourishing with the actualization of human potential. Most famously, he commends living in the “strenuous mood,” wherein human beings expend their full energies in the pursuit of ideals. For James, human beings are most “alive” when living “strenuously,” and they are best able 210As

John H. Whittaker, “William James on ‘Overbeliefs’ and Live Options,” 210-11, points out, the success of science “does not prove that its working hypotheses are true.” However, he adds that we are generally willing to accept the achievements of science as some sort of evidence for scientific claims, and the reason for this is that we are willing to accept the logically prior assumption that technological progress would not be possible without at least some measure of true understanding … Why not the same of religion? Why shouldn’t spiritual achievements also depend on some measure of true understanding? 211Vanden Burgt, 46.

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to sustain this commitment when their energies are fired by theistic faith.212 How is one to decide what counts as “flourishing”? What criterion does James use, and on what grounds does he adopt it? These questions are not new—they were raised in similar contexts in the previous two chapters. Put simply, the problem is that determinations about what counts as flourishing depend crucially on prior judgments about the nature of reality in general and human beings in particular. But if “flourishing” is defined in terms of prior truth claims regarding the nature of things, how can these same truth claims be verified by their success in promoting human flourishing? James does not speak to this issue with the clarity that one might wish. For the most part, he quietly assumes that what counts as human flourishing will be evident to common sense. In today’s so-called postmodern era, this facile assumption makes an easy target. Critics can always accuse James of arbitrarily elevating his parochial perspective into a universal norm. Would a Daoist sage regard life in the “strenuous mood” an instance of human flourishing or folly? Although a complete answer to this critique would require a full-scale study of its own, it is only fair to note that postmodern incredulity regarding universal criteria for flourishing is itself rooted in assumptions that are far from incorrigible. In particular, postmoderns typically assume that what has traditionally been called 212Ibid., 14-15, 20. What James says concerning the strenuous mood should be enough to protect him from the charge that he advocates choosing whatever beliefs makes one “happy” in some superficial sense. Of course, he does assert that “men come to regard happiness which a religious belief affords as proof of its truth.” He adds, “If a creed makes a man feel happy, he almost invariably adopts it.” VRE, 77-78. James cautions, however, that not just any sort of happiness should be equated with human flourishing. He states, What immediately feels most ‘good’ is not always most ‘true,’ when measured by the rest of experience … If merely ‘feeling good’ could decide, then drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience. But its revelations, however acutely satisfying at the moment, are inserted into an environment which refuses to bear them out for any length of time. VRE, 17.

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“human nature” is a fluid, socially constructed collection of convictions and practices. On this basis, they reason that what counts as flourishing is similarly fluid, subject to ever changing definitions as social configurations evolve. Religious beliefs might satisfy needs, but these needs are the product of the same cultural forces that gave birth to the religion that meets them. Thus, human flourishing cannot provide independent verification of religious truth claims— at least not claims that are held with what Michael Polanyi called “universal intent.” Precisely how one would go about establishing the validity of this sort of postmodern critique is not obvious. Indeed, such claims suffer under the same burden that afflicts relativism in general, namely, the reliance on a universal truth to invalidate universal truth claims. Put sharply, how can the postmodern critic escape the charge that his or her own viewpoint is merely a social construct? Undoubtedly, James’ criterion for what counts as human flourishing is not neutral in the sense that it would be equally acceptable to a Protestant Christian and a Daoist. The same charge could be made, however, against any criterion meant to distinguish truth from error. To satisfy postmodern critics, James would have to forswear adjudication of religious truth claims altogether. Doing so would make sense only if he shared postmodern assumptions about human nature, which he does not. If a criterion for what constitutes flourishing is to be found, then it would probably have to be pursued inductively. That task James has left for others. 5. The pragmatic verification of religious truth claims is not precise or immediate. James never loses sight of the practical difficulties connected with the adjudication among competing religious beliefs. Consequently, he is careful not to oversell what his pragmatic method of verification can achieve. Even when successful, the pragmatic method usually verifies religious truth claims only in a general way and in the long run.213 James often speaks of religious faith as a “working hypothesis.” As already noted, real world faith always consists in a bundle of hypotheses—most of which cannot be separated out and 213The word “usually” is inserted because individual truth claims within this or that religion can sometimes be confirmed or falsified more readily.

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“tested” by themselves. Consequently, religious beliefs can be verified only in a general way. Moreover, the “tests” that can be applied to religious truth claims, though empirical, are not really experimental. That is, James looks to facts and experience for confirmation, but in most cases he obviously cannot devise controlled experiments that can produce precise, definitive results. Thus, the “tests” applied to religious truth claims are never “sharp.”214 James even admits that “the reproach of vagueness and subjectivity and ‘on the whole’-ness can be urged against his empirical approach “with perfect legitimacy.”215 Undoubtedly, it would be a great advantage to possess criteria that allow for decisive, authoritative judgments. Still, lacking such criteria, it is no small achievement to establish credible procedures for more general, less definitive appraisals of religious truth claims. Not only does James propose that religious beliefs can be verified only in a general way, he also maintains that they can only be verified in the long run. He explains, For the sake of simplicity I have written as if verification might occur in the life of a single philosopher,— which is manifestly untrue, since the theories still face each other, and the facts of the world give countenance to both. Rather should we expect, that, in a question of this scope, the experience of the entire human race must make the verification, and that all the evidence will not be ‘in’ till the final integration of all things, when the last man has had his say and contributed his share to the still unfinished x.216

214VRE,

325. A few pages earlier, James exclaims, “‘On the whole’—I fear we shall never escape complicity with that qualification, so dear to your practical man, so repugnant to your systematizer!” Ibid., 321. 216SR, 107. Similarly, James observes that while some hypotheses can be falsified in minutes, “others may defy ages.” Indeed, some complex theories (e.g., Darwinism) “may exhaust the labors of generations in their corroboration.” Each persons “tests” the hypothesis by acting on the assumption that it is true. “The longer the disappointment is delayed,” says James, “the stronger grows his faith in his theory.” Ibid., 95. 215Ibid.

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James is, in other words, “an end-of-inquiry realist,” with reality being “simply that account of things that would be left standing were inquiry to end due to complete epistemic satisfaction.”217 Thus, James does not suggest that religious differences would disappear should his pragmatic approach to verification be universally adopted. Rather, the final determination of what is true will come only at the “final integration of all things”—after each person has freely exercised his or her right to believe. Says James, If religious hypotheses about the universe be in order at all, then the active faiths of individuals in them, freely expressing themselves in life, are the experimental tests by which they are verified, and the only means by which their truth or falsehood can be wrought out.218

Significantly, James here maintains that the verification of religious truth claims depends on the willingness of individuals to venture freely in faith without prior verification. James’ will to believe doctrine, often dismissed as an invitation to wishful thinking, turns out to be a crucial element in adjudication. Full verification awaits the future, but in the meantime “the freest competition of the various faiths with one another, and their openest application to life by their several champions, are the most favorable conditions under which the survival of the fittest can proceed.”219 217Levinson, Chance of Salvation, 218-19. James offers an important clarification in Meaning of Truth, 311: “No pragmatist needs to dogmatize about the consensus of opinion in the future being right—he need only postulate that it will probably contain more truth than anyone’s opinion now.” James’ notion of that truth claims can be corroborated in the “long run” would seem to parallel a similar idea expressed by Peirce. Levinson, 32-33, thinks the differences between James and Peirce on this point are important; Putnam is inclined to emphasize the similarities. See Hilary Putnam, “James’s Theory of Truth,” in Cambridge Companion, 167-71. 218“Preface,” in Will to Believe, xii. James is speaking loosely when he refers to “experimental tests.” As already noted, the “tests” he has in mind are in most cases better thought of as “experiential” rather than experimental. 219Ibid. Cf. PR, 144, where James states that “we do not yet know certainly which type of religion is going to work best in the long run. The various overbeliefs of men, their several faith-ventures, are in fact what are needed to bring the evidence in.”

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JAMES AND RELIGIOUS FAITH IN A PROBABILISTIC AND PLURALISTIC WORLD In the two previous chapters, the appraisal of Kierkegaard’s and Newman’s epistemologies began with their contributions before addressing their shortcomings. Because it will be argued below that James succeeds where Kierkegaard and Newman fail, the procedure for this chapter will be reversed. First, two commonly alleged shortcomings of James’ religious epistemology will be set forth and answered. Second, his lasting contributions toward a credible justification of faith in a probabilistic and pluralistic world will be highlighted. The pages that follow are crucial to sustaining the thesis announced in chapter one, namely, that William James sets forth a model for the justification of religious faith superior to that offered by either Søren Kierkegaard or John Henry Newman. The Challenge Unmet? James’ religious epistemology has been widely criticized. Many of these criticisms have been answered in the course of the foregoing exposition, but two are substantial enough to merit detailed attention here. James is sometimes accused of giving license to wishful thinking and of lapsing into epistemological subjectivism. These two criticisms will be taken up in turn. 1. Does James give license to wishful thinking? Of all the criticisms generated by James’ defense of religious faith, the most persistent is that he provides too much latitude for wishful thinking. Typical are the comments of John Hick, who complains that James’ will to believe doctrine “authorizes us to believe (‘by faith’) any proposition, not demonstrably false, which might be advantageous to us.”220 By promoting the idea that “we should all believe in that religion or philosophy which we most desire to be true,” James has set forth “an impressive recommendation of wishful thinking.”221 220John

Hick, Faith and Knowledge, 42. 44. In the same place, Hick asks, “is he not saying that since the truth is unknown to us we may believe what we like and that while we are at it we had better believe what we like most? This is certainly unjust to James’s intention; but is it unjust to the logic of his argument? I do not see that it is: and I therefore regard James’s theory as open to refutation by a reductio ad absurdum.” 221Ibid.,

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Many others have expressed similar judgments. According to Paul H. Beattie, for example, James cherishes religious belief more than truth itself.222 One of James’ contemporaries, Bertrand Russell, caustically observed that James defends belief in God because he thinks religious faith makes people happy—an expression of “benevolence, not philosophy.”223 No scholar has more capably argued the charge of wishful thinking against James than Dickinson S. Miller. According to Ralph Barton Perry, Miller was at the forefront of the most important discussions set off by WB.224 James himself referred to Miller—a friend and former student—as his “most penetrating critic.”225 A review of the literature shows that Miller’s criticisms of James have been frequently rehearsed but not improved. Consequently, the following appraisal of the wishful thinking charge will focus on Miller’s critique. In a 1942 article, Miller offers a stinging assessment of James’ will to believe doctrine. “His writings upon this topic,” says Miller, “seem to me one tissue of ingenious sophistry from outset to end.” Indeed, James had encouraged “the worst weakness of the human mind, bribery of intelligence, and set it up as a kind of ideal.”226 The problem, according to Miller, was that James authorized the “intervention” of the passional nature into the process of forming beliefs. Sound rational judgments are only possible, however, when the “interference” of the passional nature is resolutely resisted.227 Miller laments the fact that James encourages individuals to regard their needs and desires as revelatory of truth, arguing that “he who feels that because we need something we shall have it has not yet 222Paul H. Beattie, “The Will to Believe in James and His Father,” Religious Humanism 21 (Summer 1987): 117. 223Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1945), 818. Cf. A. J. Ayer, The Origins of Pragmatism (San Francisco: Freeman, Cooper and Company, 1968), 213: “The main point for James is that so long as people are psychologically able to have religious faith, and so long as it gives them emotional satisfaction, the beliefs which are its embodiment may be allowed to pass for true.” 224TC, 2:240. 225LWJ, 2:48. 226Miller, “James’s Doctrine,” 552. 227Ibid., 552-53.

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learned the first lesson of philosophy, even the first lesson of life.”228 Because human needs and desires do not “magically control reality,” truth-seekers must learn to focus “on fact alone.” For Miller, the ideal epistemic stance is one of disinterested objectivity. “Our wishes are one thing,” he states, “the stubborn necessities of the world in which we have to attain them by action is another.”229 In prose reminiscent of Clifford, Miller declares, “If you represent a state of things as existing merely because desirable for the purpose of rousing and inspiring us, you are dangerously misrepresenting the actual, so far as we know it, and thus sinning against the life-sustaining function of the mind.”230 Elsewhere, Miller solemnly warns that “the deception, which begins at home, may be expected in due course to pass on to others.”231 To indulge belief unsupported by evidences, as James does, “is in deadly enmity with human progress.”232 Miller is too careful a reader to suggest that James authorized a direct voliting of belief. Nevertheless, he does insist that James allows the will an illegitimate role in the forming of belief. At the very least, says Miller, James maintains “that a mind is not to be blamed for consciously letting partialities or antipathies determine its belief, when in greater or lesser degree it might check them for critical reasons. And this letting is a volitional decision.”233 Thus, Miller criticizes James for allowing non-epistemic factors to influence belief. The upshot is that the Jamesian will to believe is nothing more than “a will to deceive oneself.”234 Instead of promoting the disinterested pursuit of truth, James authorizes the 228Ibid.,

553. 553-54. 230Ibid., 554. 231Dickinson S. Miller, “‘The Will to Believe’ and the Duty to Doubt,” International Journal of Ethics 9 (1898-1899): 173. 232Undated letter from Miller to C. J. Ducasse, quoted from the unpublished original in Peter H. Hare and Edward H. Madden, “William James, Dickinson Miller, and C. J. Ducasse on the Ethics of Belief,” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 4 (1968): 123. 233Miller, “James’s Doctrine,” 553. 234Ibid. 229Ibid.,

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intentional employment of “processes of a non-rational nature to produce the state of mind desired.” In other words, he countenances “hypnotizing one’s self into a belief.”235 Miller’s critique misfires because he ignores the restrictions that James builds into his will to believe doctrine. As already explained, James argues that individuals have the right to believe whatever they wish when confronted with a “genuine option” that cannot be resolved on intellectual grounds (i.e., in terms of evidence). Miller notices these restrictions,236 but then criticizes James as if they had never been put into place. As a result, Miller fails to deal with the very safeguards meant to prevent the wishful thinking he reprobates. By restricting the right to believe to genuine options, James indirectly commends a conservative, wait and see policy for most evidentially underdetermined truth claims. When a belief-option does not logically and existentially require a decision, the way of wisdom is to suspend judgment and await further evidence. James therefore accepts the principle that belief should be proportioned to evidence whenever the principle is practicable. Sometimes, however, the principle is not practicable, and in such instances James insists that the leanings and longings of the heart have a legitimate role to play. This concession to the exigencies of life is hardly equivalent to “self-deception.” By limiting the right to believe to belief-options that cannot be resolved on intellectual grounds, James indirectly maintains that some “faith-tendencies” should be rejected due to countervailing evidence. Indeed, he explicitly states that most persons should be more cautious and self-critical in their religious beliefs than they are. The “cardinal weakness” of many persons, says James, is that they “let belief follow recklessly upon lively conception, especially when the conception has instinctive liking at its back.”237 These matters have already been explored in some detail and need not be rehearsed here. It is noteworthy, however, that Miller overlooks the importance James attaches to evidence and then criticizes him for ignoring it. 235Ibid.,

556. 542. 237“Preface,” in Will to Believe, x. 236Ibid.,

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Actually, Miller does more than ignore key Jamesian statements on the importance of evidence; he actually lifts phrases out of context and then misconstrues their meaning. For example, Miller quotes James as saying that “there is no test of truth.”238 After assuring his readers that this phrase expresses a key postulate in James’s epistemology, Miller proceeds to abuse him for spouting nonsense. Is not logic a test of truth? Are not observation, experiment, and the “close study of the import and consequences of ideas” reliable tests of truth?239 Miller’s incredulous tone is intended to suggest that James simply casts aside all reasonable tests of truth in order to make room for religious faith. In reality, James discusses such tests at length and affirms their importance (as this chapter has shown). It turns out that Miller has seized on a phrase plucked out of context. When James says that there is no “test of truth,” he refers only to infallible tests capable of warranting the certainty claimed by absolutists.240 Surely Miller would not wish to argue that James countenances wishful thinking simply by insisting on fallibilism! At this point, the most fruitful question to raise concerns possible causes for misunderstanding. Why is James so often thought to authorize wishful thinking? Three possible answers come to mind. First, James is sometimes misunderstood because his interpreters focus on a small section of his writings. Hick, for example, caricatures James on the basis of a questionable reading of just two essays. While a careful reading of these essays hardly warrants Hick’s wishful thinking charge, it is certainly true that misunderstanding them is made easier when the wider Jamesian corpus is ignored. Second, James is sometimes misunderstood because his interpreters read him through the lenses of their own rationalistic epistemologies. Under the sway of Enlightenment ideals, rationalists like Miller tend to think of human cognition in terms of stark alternatives: either one strives for perfectly dispassionate objectivity, or one yields to the unreliable promptings of subjectivity. It is pre238Miller,

“James’s Doctrine,” 542, 551. 551. 240See WB, 12-17. 239Ibid.,

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cisely this sharp either/or that James rejects. For him, objectivity and subjectivity form opposite poles of one continuum, with human cognition falling somewhere between the two extremes. One pole or the other will be dominant in a particular act of intellection, but both are and should be present at all times. Thus, when James refers to the inevitable and legitimate role of the passional nature in human ratiocination, he is hardly casting objectivity to the winds. Convincing Enlightenment thinkers of this fact is difficult, however. When they hear James speak of the “sentiment of rationality,” “divination,” and the like, they quickly assume that the restrictions he places on the right to believe are only cosmetic. Third, James might sometimes be misunderstood because he emphasizes the precursive role played by the passional nature in the formation of belief. As explained earlier, James regards the mind as a teleological instrument that selects and appraises evidence in accordance with subjective purposes, interests, and preferences. This process is at work from the beginning of cognition; consequently, the subjective factors influencing belief are “always already there.” Accordingly, what counts as a “live” hypothesis depends on what an individual selectively attends to and preferentially regards. Moreover, judgments regarding whether or not a particular beliefoption is intellectually resolvable depends not on “pure intellection” (which does not exist), but on the mind as preconditioned by subjective purposes, interests, and preferences. Therefore, even when James emphasizes the importance of evidence, epistemological subjectivism casts its shadow. By highlighting and approving of the precursive role of the passional nature, James might thus be thought to provide grounds for wishful thinking.241 The worry is unwarranted, however. For one thing, James insists that “objective reality” constrains an otherwise unbridled subjectivity. Motivated and influenced by subjective factors, the teleological mind is nevertheless forced to cope with a world that is not infinitely malleable—it has a hard facticity 241Surprisingly,

this aspect of James’ thought, widely recognized by James scholars, is not usually seized upon by those who accuse James of authorizing wishful thinking. It is probable, however, that a vague awareness of these matters troubles such critics; hence, it is appropriate to suggest that the precursive role assigned to the passional nature by James might be a major source of misunderstanding.

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that in the long run checks flights of subjective fancy. For another thing, the mind itself ordinarily cannot rest when it perceives that its web of beliefs is internally incoherent. Indeed, James views human subjectivity as itself demanding that one’s beliefs logically cohere with one another. Undoubtedly, James’ notion of the teleological mind calls into question what he would regard as the myth of dispassionate objectivity, but only those still enamored of the myth would leap to the conclusion that its denial entails a commendation of wishful thinking. 2. Does James lapse into epistemological subjectivism? In this context, epistemological subjectivism denotes the thesis that individual feeling or apprehension constitute the only (or at least primary) criterion of truth. It has already been noted that James tempts the charge of subjectivism when he asserts that the teleological mind selects and appraises evidence in accordance with a variety of subjective factors. Not surprising, critics of James have not been slow to press the charge. Noteworthy among such critics is Gerald E. Myers, who argues in his magisterial study, William James: His Life and Thought, that James’ defense of religious faith does indeed lapse into subjectivism. First, Myers contends that James lapses into epistemological subjectivism when he assumes that human needs correspond to extramental reality. Put in terms adopted by this study, Myers criticizes James for supposing that human needs somehow “track the truth.” Says Myers, “The fundamental premise upon which his [James’] philosophy of religion rested was that our subjective natures, feelings, emotions, and propensities exist as they do because something in reality harmonizes with them.”242 Myers takes this premise to mean that “[b]ecause we want the world to be a certain way, our desire actually makes it so.” He objects, “No philosopher has ever proposed a more outrageous premise for faith than this.”243 Similarly outrageous, in Myers’ view, is the closely related Jamesian assumption “that something in our feelings and experience tells us that an objective reality will fulfill our deepest yearnings.”244 James sometimes writes, says Myers, as if rationality were 242Myers, 243Ibid. 244Ibid.

William James, 461.

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somehow “built into need itself.” Were this conviction true, the need to believe would be “inherently rational”—an unacceptable idea in Myers’ estimation.245 Apparently, Myers regards James’ confidence in the epistemic relevance of human needs as too outrageous to require detailed critique. He offers the judgment that needs are sometimes “pathological” and therefore—presumably—not trustworthy,246 but in general Myers’ complaint is simply that James is making an unwarranted assumption. Why assume that need reveals something of the nature of reality? When so many human hopes and wants are left unsatisfied, what grounds are there for assuming that they track the truth? Second, Myers thinks that James lapses into epistemological subjectivism when he unduly psychologizes rationality. According to Myers, “the Jamesian philosophy links certain psychological phenomena with rationality by construing rationality itself as a psychological phenomenon.247 Myers asserts, James employed this subjectivist concept of rationality to legitimate the religious impulse. Since only those ideas which produce specific psychological effects are considered rational, it follows that religious ideas are rational if they can produce emotional and intellectual ease or satisfaction.248

Myers complains that this view of rationality overlooks “the obvious counterexample of a person who is disturbed by being shown that a belief he had accepted as unreasonable is actually reasonable.” From this counterexample he draws the lesson that mental disturbance may sometimes accompany “the discovery of rationality.”249 Moreover, Myers maintains that by psychologizing rationality, James fails to recognize “the requirement that rationality must be independently recognizable, such that the correlation between it and its psychological earmarks occurs subsequently.”250 Put more 245Ibid.,

455.

246Ibid. 247Ibid., 248Ibid.,

457. 458.

249Ibid. 250Ibid.,

457.

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clearly, Myers is suggesting that specific psychological states cannot be known as signs of rationality unless rationality itself can be recognized apart from such signs. Despite Myers’ erudition, his criticisms of James have little merit. In the discussion below, his two major objections will be addressed in reverse order. (a) Myers is wrong to maintain that James lapses into epistemological subjectivism by unduly psychologizing rationality. Myers’ main concern appears to be that, by focusing on the psychological “symptoms” of rationality, James fails to uphold the independent integrity of rationality itself. As a result, James encourages people to count any belief as rational so long as it is accompanied by the psychological effects ordinarily associated with genuinely rational beliefs.251 Myers’ concern would be warranted if James regarded the “sentiment of rationality” as an infallible mark of rational belief. As already explained, however, James does not regard any human belief as infallible—even when accompanied by a strong feeling of certitude. Since James insists that individuals may be wrong even when they feel right, it is not easy to see how he deserves Myers’ strictures. Myers might reply that the recognition of error requires an objective standard of truth. The rules of logic, he could argue, must sit in judgment upon the sentiment of rationality, otherwise there is no practical way to distinguish true beliefs that feel rational from false beliefs that feel the same. Put differently, without an objective standard distinguishable from the psychological marks of rationality identified by James, one will inevitably slip into subjectivism— James’ commitment to fallibilism notwithstanding. Myers could make this argument, but it would serve him poorly. Although the rules of logic may ultimately have their source in some transcendent sphere (e.g., the mind of God), their more immediate source is the human mind itself. Specifically, the rules of logic are abstracted from the concrete ratiocinations of properly functioning minds—much as the rules of grammar are abstracted from “properly” structured discourse. Just as the prescriptions of grammarians can facilitate lucid writing, so the prescriptions of lo251James’ comments on the “rationality” of religious mysticism would be an example of what Myers has in mind.

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gicians can promote clear thinking. Nevertheless, both grammar and logic are descriptive before they are prescriptive.252 The upshot is that logic cannot ultimately be separated from human psychology. Its rules of inference are codifications of the concrete inferences that “feel” right to concrete thinkers; its list of fallacies explicate and put in order turns of thought that seem forced and unnatural to human beings. Whatever relation logic might have to a transcendent sphere, on the mundane level it cannot be separated from the sentiment of rationality. Therefore, James’ psychological account of rationality should not be seen as an alternative to logical reasoning but its presupposition. What about Myers’ claim that by psychologizing reason James fails to account for the “mental disturbance” that sometimes accompanies the discovery of truth? Contrary to Myers’ expectations, James not only can account for such cognitive disturbances, he predicts them. As has already been noted, James anticipates that experience will sometimes challenge an individual’s beliefs. Some firmly held opinions will be discovered to be false; some “absurdities” will begin to ring true. The key point is that the transition from one set of beliefs to another will be accompanied by some degree of cognitive disturbance. New evidence and arguments have to be sized up and incorporated into one’s total view of things. Until this process is complete, the feeling of ease associated with fluid cognitive transitions will give way to the “distress” of obstructed thought.253 Thus, the “mental disturbance” cited by Myers is caused, not by the “discovery of rationality,” but by the temporary disarray within one’s noetic structure. James’ account of human rationality would lead one to expect exactly this kind of disturbance. (b) Myers is wrong to maintain that James lapses into epistemological subjectivism by assuming that human needs are epistemically relevant. Because

252The

analogy between logic and grammar is not perfect. For example, while there are many languages with diverse and evolving grammars, the rules of logic are universal and stable. Such differences do not undermine the key point, namely, that both grammar and logic are abstracted from human practice. 253See SR, 64.

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the major features of this issue have already been addressed,254 the discussion that follows will be limited to three responses to Myers’ specific charges. First, James’ assumption that human needs “track the truth” is not entirely groundless. As already pointed out, James notes that human have often been led successfully into the world of experience and thought as they have acted on the assumption that their subjective needs and demands are trustworthy guides to the nature of reality. Science, for example, has marched from victory to victory by turning the human desire to find a simple, lawlike regularity beneath the chaotic flux of experience into a method of inquiry. In the light of such successes, James wonders why humankind’s moral and religious desires should be regarded with a priori skepticism. Given the fact that human beings instinctively trust their own faculties and devote their energies to satisfying the basic needs, it would seem reasonable to assume the reliability of such faculties and needs unless good reasons for not doing so are produced. As William J. Wainwright says, Trust in the reliability of our powers is itself a basic need, a demand of human nature. Hence, other things being equal, views which affirm the trustworthiness of our faculties are more satisfactory than views that do not. Therefore, in the absence of compelling reasons for mistrusting them, one should believe in their reliability.255

It is not enough to point out that James does not give logically compelling reasons to believe in the epistemic relevance of human

254See

the first and fifth propositions under the heading, “Adjudication of Truth Claims” in this chapter. 255William J. Wainwright, “James, Rationality and Religious Belief,” Religious Studies 27 (June 1991): 235. Sukiel, 52-53, comments that “it seems gratuitous to take our deepest sensitivities, preferences, and desires and consider them as pre-eminently subject to validation by intellectual criteria alone.” She adds, “[J]ust as it would not make sense to hold that the fulfillment of our aesthetic, emotional, social, or biological sensitivities must be legitimated by the intellect, it does not make sense to hold that the fulfillment of our religious sensitivities must depend on their intellectual acceptability, even if our religious sensitivities, perhaps more obviously than the others, lead us to make metaphysical claims.”

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needs. The burden is on Myers to provide cogent reasons for doubting such relevance. Second, James does not suggest that just any need or desire is epistemically relevant. Rather, he regards it as more likely than not that deep, universally felt needs provide a clue to the nature of reality. Since James does not suppose that even deep, universal needs are fated to be satisfied, critics who notice that “we do not always get what we want” miss the point. Human hunger and thirst are not always satisfied, but it would be passing strange if the world contained hungry and thirsty creatures but no bread or water. Third, James ultimately does not build his justification of religious faith on the assumption that human needs open a window into the nature of reality. He does argue that in certain situations individuals are within their rights to believe at their own risk whatever falls in line with their own yearnings and inclinations. But in general James follows his policy of seeking verification for truth claims in consequences rather than origins—“not where it comes from but where it leads is to decide.”256 Accordingly, he does not hesitate to accept provisionally beliefs inspired by moral and religious needs, but in the end the truth status of such beliefs will be decided by the criteria discussed above. In fact, it is theoretically possible that the verification process may overturn one’s confidence in the epistemic reliability of the religious impulse.257 Most commentators overlook this possibility because they see only James’ confident anticipation of a different verdict.258 However, the mere fact that James puts forward a method of verification capable of overturning his own cherished assumptions proves that he has not lapsed into epistemological subjectivism.

256WB,

17. Of course, an aspect of James’ forward looking approach to verification is concerned with the success of particular beliefs to promote human flourishing—a criterion that assumes a correlation of human needs with “reality.” This criterion, however, is only one of several others that do not make this same assumption. 257See SR, 106, where James describes how one would go about substantiating a materialist view of the universe. 258E.g., see PR, 143.

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Contributions toward a Justification of Religious Faith In order to sustain the thesis that James sets forth a model for the justification of religious faith that is superior to that offered by Kierkegaard or Newman, it must be shown that James can incorporate and transcend the best insights of those other two thinkers. Consequently, the discussion that follows will depart slightly from the pattern of the previous two chapters. Instead of delineating the strengths of James’ religious epistemology on its own terms, his superior insights will be correlated with the already identified virtues of Kierkegaard and Newman. James and Kierkegaard. James is able to incorporate the strengths of Kierkegaard’s justification of religious faith without succumbing to its weaknesses. How James accomplishes this feat will be delineated under five propositions. 1. No less than Kierkegaard, James liberates religious faith to venture beyond the warrants of evidence. Kierkegaard recognized that “approximation knowledge” cannot lead by itself to vigorous religious faith. Faith requires a total commitment; evidence provides only probabilistic warrants. Persons who await rationally coercive evidence before leaping end up not leaping at all. The mistake, thinks Kierkegaard, is to suppose that religious faith, like ordinary belief, is positively corrected to evidence. James too is sensitive to the incommensurability of probabilistic reasoning and vigorous faith. He therefore focuses on defending the right of would-be believers to venture beyond the warrants of evidence—only without severing faith from evidence altogether. Unlike Kierkegaard, James does not distinguish sharply between religious faith and evidentially based belief; consequently, religious believers are free to correlate their faith commitments with the available evidence. However, when logically and existentially compelled to embrace one side or the other of an evidentially underdetermined belief-option, individuals are not duty-bound to proportion faith to the strength of the evidence. On the contrary, they are justified in following the deepest urgings of their hearts. The indefinite delay of the decision of faith that vexes Kierkegaard is thereby avoided without dismissing the relevance of evidence for faith altogether. 2. Kierkegaard’s strong emphasis on divine revelation can be accommodated within James’ religious epistemology. If faith is grounded in evidence, it is a mere inference; if it is grounded in pure freedom; it is

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arbitrary. Kierkegaard attempts to avoid both errors by grounding faith in revelation: individuals receive the “condition” (faith) in the “moment” of the divine-human encounter. Of course, Kierkegaard ties this “moment” to the biblical witness: the testimony of Christ becomes the “occasion” of a quasi-sacramental divine selfrevelation. In this way, Kierkegaard has some success in maintaining the cruciality of the historical witness to Christ without turning that witness into merely probabilistic evidence. When considering whether or not James’ religious epistemology could accommodate Kierkegaard’s robust concept of revelation, two things must be kept in mind. First, James holds to a vague theism that would fall under Kierkegaard’s “Religiousness A” (the religion of Socrates). Second, James’ starting point is “from below”—his empirical analysis of religious belief focuses on epistemology and the psychology of faith. Taken together, these two facts ensure that any notion James has of the divine-human encounter will lack the specificity of Kierkegaard’s, whose theological analysis begins “from above” with explicitly Christian presuppositions. These limitations do not imply, however, that James’ religious epistemology cannot absorb and make use of Kierkegaard’s views on divine revelation. When James analyzes the “faith-tendencies” that contribute to religious faith, he defends the right of those who have them to regard them as “prophetic.”259 Similarly, he grants the right of believers to regard their religious experiences as rooted in secret, divine inspiration.260 To incorporate Kierkegaard’s robust theology of revelation into James’ epistemology would be a simple matter of addition: add a theological analysis of faith to James’ psychological analysis. Of course, a theological analysis requires something more than James’ threadbare notions of God—some sort of substantive religious tradition would have to inform the analysis. There is nothing in James’ religious epistemology that would forbid working out of that sort of religious tradition (though its truth would be 259See,

e.g., WB, 27. this connection, notes prepared by James in preparation for his Gifford Lectures are illuminating: “In religion the vital needs, the mystical overbeliefs … proceed from an ultra-rational region. They are gifts. It is a question of life, of living in these gifts or not living.” TC, 2:328. Emphasis original. 260In

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subject to pragmatic verification). Thus, a Jamesian could affirm that the Christian gospel sometimes becomes an “occasion” for a quasi-sacramental encounter between a human being and God. Of course, no one can prove that this experience of the divine is veridical, but one has the right to believe it so—at least under certain conditions. 3. Kierkegaard’s insights into the epistemological significance of sin can be incorporated into James’ notion of the mind as a teleological instrument. Kierkegaard anticipated the contemporary repudiation of the Enlightenment myth of the disinterested knower. He recognized that beliefs are not immune to sin’s influence; a person’s convictions depend as much on the state of his or her state of heart as the state of the evidence. From the point of view of Christian theology, James may be justly criticized for not sufficiently taking into account the role sin plays in human cognition. Not only does he lack Kierkegaard’s insight into the shadows of the human soul, he shares his own generation’s insensitivity to the quiet influence of sinful social structures and cultural assumptions on human belief. Nevertheless, James was profoundly sensitive to the subjective forces that shape human opinion. If his concept of the mind as a teleological instrument were placed in the service of Christian theology, important insights into the psychology of unbelief would accrue. Unbelief would be seen as the result of the selective attention of the sinful teleological mind. A Jamesian analysis would show that God sometimes seems “unreal” because the signs of his presence are overlooked by those who regard him as neither useful nor interesting.261 “Blind” by their own choosing, such persons are culpably oblivious to the evidence for God’s existence and presence. Christian theology would affirm the need for an act of grace to transform the inclinations of the sinner’s heart, turning the mind to attend to the evident signs of God’s “eternal power and divine nature” (Rom. 1:20). In this way, James’ concept of the teleological mind could be integrated with Paul’s theological analysis of unbelief in Romans 1. The result would be fresh insight into the epistemological consequences of sin.

261Cf.

WB, 14, where James comments on the unbelief of positivists.

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4. Kierkegaard’s “absolute paradox” can be accommodated within James’ concept of rationality. As noted in chapter two, Kierkegaard rejects every attempt to enhance the credibility of Christian truth claims by reinterpreting the faith in terms of some currently fashionable philosophy. In particular, he insists on upholding the rational impenetrability of God’s paradoxical self-revelation in Christ, judging that “explaining” the absolute paradox betrays the faith it is meant to defend. The problem is that Kierkegaard’s insistence on the rational impenetrability of the absolute paradox ends up being a diatribe against reason. He elevates the “absurdity” of the paradox and then demands that people believe it. Obviously, Kierkegaard can only do this because he thinks that the presence of the eternal in time somehow or other “makes sense.” Unfortunately, he never explains how this is so. James provides the conceptual tools for embracing something like Kierkegaard’s absolute paradox without slipping into a faith against reason stance. He points out that even an unrationalized datum will be peacefully received by the mind (i.e., produce the “sentiment of rationality”) when it defines expectancy.262 Thus, a Jamesian would approach to the absolute paradox as a “working hypothesis” and subject it to the test of experience.263 Does this incarnate God deliver on his promises? Does a life conformed to his teachings promote human flourishing? Does inquiry into the gospels yield historical evidence of person who is both human and divine? Do these claims for Christ cohere with other wellestablished beliefs? Although itself rationally impenetrable, does the hypothesis that Jesus Christ is God-incarnate throw light on collateral issues and cohere with the total drift of experience? These are the sorts of questions that James would teach people to ask. Plausibly, such questions could give a “feel” of reasonableness to the incarnation without in any way explaining the mystery. One of Kierkegaard’s major concerns would thereby be satisfied without calling on would-be believers to accept an inner split between head and heart. 262See

SR, 79. explained above, a religious truth claim may be regarded as a hypothesis for the purposes of verification even as it is held with firm conviction as a matter of faith. 263As

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5. James avoids the problems associated with Kierkegaard’s sharp distinction between objectivity and subjectivity. Kierkegaard tends to think of objectivity and subjectivity as mutually exclusive states of mind. As a result, he sees reason and faith as in competition. Accordingly, Kierkegaard’s religious thought has a deep fideistic strain that makes it difficult for him to show how faith can be distinguished from lunacy or how disputed truth claims can be adjudicated. Kierkegaard tries to address this problem by (furtively) reintroducing a small core of objectivity into faith, but he thereby falls victim to his own critique of objectivity. James eliminates this entire problem by doing away with Kierkegaard’s sharp distinction between objectivity and subjectivity. For James, “objectivity” is but a strategy of inquiry employed by the subjectively interested individual. Indeed, if the mind is a teleological mechanism, then “objectivity” is grounded in the passional nature and always includes a sizeable element of faith. Consequently, James need not regard objectivity as the enemy of passionate religious faith; rather, the passionate individual can employ objectivity as a method to promote desired ends.264 In particular, the passionate individual can employ reason to distinguish faith from lunacy and adjudicate religious disputes. James’ refusal to sharply distinguish objectivity and subjectivity has another notable advantage: it allows him to improve upon Kierkegaard’s psychology of faith. According to Kierkegaard, objective inquiry generates a state of mind incompatible with passionate faith. James improves on this thinking by showing that objective inquiry is an expression of subjective interest; accordingly, if objective inquiry quenches passion, the culprit is not objective inquiry but defective subjectivity. Stated plainly, inquiry rooted in nonreligious purposes will rarely result in religious passion. A Bible scholar, for example, might study the gospel narrative to find material for a journal article, to satisfy intellectual curiosity, to prove an enemy wrong, to acquire hope during a season of trial, to find a rationalization for sin, to gain inspiration for obedience to the ways of God, to secure the personal salvation, or to pass the time on a pleasant summer afternoon. Depending on which subjective pur264The father who pursues a cure for his ill daughter with “passionate objectivity” (see chapter two) exemplifies the Jamesian balance.

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pose drives the inquiry, “objectivity” will be accompanied by very different states of mind. Whether or not religious faith is marked by passion depends on the purpose—not the “objectivity”—of inquiry. James and Newman. James is also able to assimilate the strengths of Newman’s justification of religious faith without succumbing to its failings. 1. Like Newman, James avoids the extremes of evidentialism and fideism. Newman adopted a mediating epistemology, refusing to follow the evidentialists by reducing religious faith to a tentative inference or the fideists by recommending a leap against probability. By adopting this stance, Newman attempts to address the twin challenges of probabilism and pluralism. Although their approach to religious faith differs in many respects, James joins Newman is steering a middle course between the shoals of evidentialism and fideism. The two differ in that they lean in different directions. Viewing faith as a kind of reason, Newman leans toward evidentialism. Given Newman’s vigorous repudiation of Locke’s “ethic of belief,” this assertion may seem surprising. But Newman’s debate with evidentialism was always over the appraisal of evidence. He never doubted that evidence fully warrants Christian faith; he insisted that the strength of the evidence could be appreciated only when the mind, through a subtle and sensitive operation of the illative sense, discerns the limit of converging probabilities. Viewing reason as a kind of faith, James leans toward fideism. He thinks the evidence for faith is ambiguous and the venture of faith as inherently “risky,” though subsequent experience may confirm its truth. 2. Like Newman, James humanizes religious epistemology. Newman attends to the psychological aspect of human ratiocination, thereby constructing a justification of religious faith that deals realistically with the way flesh and blood human beings actually reason. At the same time, he refuses to treat religious faith as a purely supernatural endowment with little or nothing in common with ordinary belief. Except for the greater sophistication of his psychological analysis, James differs little from Newman in this respect. 3. Newman’s incipient virtue epistemology can be easily incorporated into James’ justification of faith. Newman challenges the notion that belief is subject to but one moral imperative, namely, that it be exactly proportioned to the weight of the warranting evidence. He lays

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bare the crucial role played by moral character in the discernment and appraisal of evidence. Like Kierkegaard, Newman discerns the epistemological significance of sin, but he sees more clearly than Kierkegaard the positive principle that good character promotes and even generates good intellectual habits. It has already been shown that James’ concept of the teleological mind can provide an illuminating account of how sin influences human cognition (see above). A virtue epistemology like Newman’s could also be accommodated by a modest extension of the same concept. Perhaps a good beginning could be made by exploring the almost preternatural ability to discern truth that James (like Newman) ascribes to genius. Might such persons share common “intellectual virtues” that are themselves rooted in moral purposes? Significantly, O’Connell has attempted to extend James’ thought in such directions. He argues that James belongs to a long philosophical tradition that regards the practiced eye of a virtuous human being as the surest path to truth.265 For James, the “power of judging” is an aspect of a properly developed character.266 O’Connell sometimes seems to find in James what he want to find, but there is no denying that his influential monograph shows the ease with which a virtue epistemology like Newman’s can be integrated into James’ justification of faith. At the same time, James’ justification of faith does not depend on virtue epistemology. It is crucial for James that the credibility of a truth claim does not depend on the purity of its origin. “It matters not to an empiricist,” says James, “from what quarter an hypothesis may come to him.” Whether acquired “by fair means or by foul,” its confirmation depends on its usefulness in leading one into experience and thought. Thus, virtue epistemology can be incorporated into James’ justification of faith without providing an easy target for reductionists and postmodern genealogists. 4. James avoids the problems Newman creates by defending certitude. By conflating objective and subjective certainty, Newman is forced to defend the indefectibility of certitude. He thus places himself in a position where he must gloss over human fallibility and defend a 265O’Connell, 128. The tradition O’Connell has in mind includes Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas, and others. 266See O’Connell, 92-106.

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dogmatic frame of mind. Of course, such dogmatism makes the fair-minded adjudication of truth claims extraordinarily difficult. Had Newman been satisfied with a confident rather than certain faith, he would have better addressed the challenge of probabilism and pluralism. It is precisely this sort of confident but not certain faith that James commends. Of course, James recognizes that some common beliefs are virtually certain, but this is Locke’s doctrine, not Newman’s. In any case, James is less inclined than Newman to suppose that religious beliefs fall within the category of “virtually certain.” For James, religious faith is always a risky venture, though he would no doubt allow that as a practical matter one’s religious faith may grow strong and stable as it passes the test of experience over the long run. Vigorous religious faith does not require certitude, but only a “feeling” of rationality and a confidence strong enough to prompt action. In view of human fallibility, it is difficult to see how more can be demanded. 5. James develops the pragmatic strand in Newman’s thought. It was noted earlier that a pragmatic strand can be identified in both Kierkegaard and Newman. The strand in Kierkegaard, however, is barely more than a hint; and, in any case, can serve little purpose in a religious epistemology committed to a faith against reason posture. Newman’s “pragmatism” holds more promise. Like James, he looks to “outcomes” for verification—at least for some truth claims. Again like James, he regards deep, universal human needs as epistemically relevant. As a result, Newman thinks that beliefs that promote human flourishing are to some degree confirmed as true. Unfortunately, Newman could not build on these insights because of his insistence on certitude. Pragmatic verification requires an open, fallibilist stance toward truth claims—even those to which one is firmly committed. James transcends the pragmatic strand in Newman by developing it as one part of a self-consistent epistemology which does not require the prior assumption of theism. Influenced by evolutionary theory and his own psychological investigations, James developed his concept of the teleological mind. As a purpose-driven mechanism, the mind selectively attends to the world in order to facilitate fruitful action. Consequent experience provides feedback, and a series of mid-course corrections ensue. Pragmatic verification in religion is little more than the extension of this teleological view

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of the mind extended to cover religious beliefs.267 But the fact that it is an extension of a more general theory of the mind ensures that it is not an ad hoc expedient to justify wishful thinking. Moreover, the fact that it can be defended without assuming the truth of theism in advance (an assumption that is necessary if one appraises Newman’s “pragmatism” strictly on its own terms), makes it a useful tool for the adjudication of disputed truth claims.

CONCLUSION William James embraces probabilism without seeking refuge in fideism or submitting to evidentialist strictures on religious faith. He takes pluralism with full seriousness without giving up on the adjudication of truth claims. He argues that in carefully delineated circumstances, individuals have the right to believe in accordance with the longings and leanings of their hearts; and, by each one exercising this right freely and with mutual tolerance, people of good faith can await the verdict of experience. Admittedly, James’ justification of faith cannot secure the easy triumph of any one religion over another—his pragmatic method offers verification only “on the whole” and “in the long run.” But unlike many efforts in apologetics, this result is secured after taking in the full measure of the modern crisis of faith. In the next and final chapter, this study of Kierkegaard, Newman, and James will be summarized in terms of the issues raised in chapter one. Only then can the achievement of William James be fully appreciated.

267Cf. John J. McDermott, “Introduction,” in Writings, xl: “When put in context, pragmatism is for James a specifically epistemological statement of the sprawling implications of the Principles [of Psychology].”

CONCLUSIONS In chapter one, it was asserted that a contemporary justification of religious faith must come to terms with the intellectual hegemony of probabilism and the pluralization of the Western mind. Taken together, these two forces have brought about the demise of scientia and certitude. What is left is opinio based on probabilistic evidence and destabilized by pluralism. The challenge these developments pose for religious belief is all too evident. How can fully-committed faith be sustained on the basis of probabilistic evidence? How can religious convictions be held with confidence when so many intelligent people of good will affirm contrary views? How can disputes over religious truth claims be adjudicated when there is no universally recognized authority to impose a criterion? In this study, the issues raised in chapter one have been explored by taking a detailed look at the religious epistemologies of Søren Kierkegaard, John Henry Newman, and William James. In chapter four it was argued that William James sets forth a model for the justification of faith that is superior to that offered by Kierkegaard and Newman. In particular, it was maintained that James’ religious epistemology is able to incorporate and transcend the best insights of those two thinkers, and that his pragmatic method of verification provides a modest, but workable approach to the rational adjudication of religious truth claims. In this concluding chapter, the ground covered in the previous three chapters will be reviewed in terms of the issues set out in the introduction. The purpose of this review is not to develop further issues already discussed, but to give a concise overview of the central line of argument that supports this study’s thesis.

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SØREN KIERKEGAARD AND THE VENTURE OF FAITH From the perspective of this study, Kierkegaard’s faith against reason stance is best viewed as an attempt to rescue religious faith from the snare of probabilism. Determined to precipitate a recovery of authentic Christianity within Christendom, he advocated a passionate, all-or-nothing faith incommensurable with probabilistic evidence. He felt compelled to insist on a sharp either/or: either sever faith from the tentative conclusions of objective scholarship, or admit that New Testament Christianity had perished at the hands of calculation and common sense. Of course, Kierkegaard the believer could not allow his repudiation of evidence to empty faith of its Christian content. He therefore secured this content by insisting that Christian faith is tied to the gospel witness by the appointment of God. God uses the testimony of the gospel as an “occasion” to give the “condition” (i.e., faith) directly to the individual. The gospel narrative in the Bible is thus regarded, not as evidence for the historical basis of Christian faith, but as a quasi-sacramental conduit through which God grants faith. Unfortunately, Kierkegaard demands decision without giving much in the way of direction. He has severed faith from evidence and called upon individuals to leap, but he had not explained how the would-be believer can determine where to leap. Given that one must shun probabilities and venture, in what direction should one set out? With no evidence to guide and a cacophony of voices claiming to speak for God, how is the infinitely interested believer to distinguish truth from error? Surely inner intuitions alone provide inadequate guidance for the “pluralized” individual. Recognizing the need to provide some means for distinguishing truth from error, Kierkegaard reintroduces a tiny core of objective fact into faith. Every other Christian truth claim may be cast to the ground, but the center holds if only God has entered time as a human being. By positing this small historical core, combined with his claim that logic indirectly and negatively confirm the absolute paradox, Kierkegaard thinks he has secured the content of the Christian faith and established a hedge against “lunacy.” As argued at the end of chapter two, Kierkegaard’s reintroduction of objectivity into faith runs afoul of his own critique of “objectivity.” In effect, he severs faith from evidence to meet the challenge of probabilism, only to rely on evidence (however fur-

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tively) in order to deal with pluralism. Thus, Kierkegaard’s response to probabilism makes him vulnerable to pluralism, and vice versa. This result follows directly from Kierkegaard’s decision to pit faith against reason.

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN AND THE DIVINATORY MIND Newman was confronted with probabilism in the form of the evidentialist “ethic of belief.” He attempted to meet the challenge by setting forth faith as a kind of reason. Whereas Kierkegaard sought to free faith from evidence, Newman attempted to show that evidence provides rational warrant for incorrigible religious faith. Of course, Newman did not mean that a formal analysis of the available evidence fully warrants unqualified faith; rather, he maintained that when the evidence for faith is viewed as a network of mutually supporting probabilities and appraised by a properly predisposed mind, a fully warranted certitude will result. Put simply, Newman believed that informal ratiocination can discern the inevitable upshot of converging probabilities. Newman’s account of informal rationality is perceptive and at times profound. His attempt to bridge the gap between proof and religious faith by turning to subjectivity (i.e., the illative sense) was a genuinely creative attempt to meet the challenge of probabilism. Unfortunately, Newman overreaches when he in effect turns faith into knowledge—that is, when he tries to justify religious certitude. The problem, of course, is that many people claim certitude for mutually incompatible propositions. How is one to decide whose certitude is to be trusted? How can adjudication proceed when every partisan dismisses competing truth claims with the “magisterial intolerance” Newman sanctions? Newman strives to overcome this problem, but the critique in chapter two shows that his inordinate claims for certitude make a workable approach to the adjudication of religious truth claims impossible. What must be emphasized is that Newman’s insistence on the attainability and necessity of religious certitude is a direct consequence of viewing faith as a kind of reason. If effect, Newman attempts to turn beliefs based on probabilistic evidence (opinio) into knowledge (scientia) by appealing to subjectivity (the divinatory powers of the mind). He ultimately fails because he cannot adequately provide for the adjudication of truth claims in a religiously plural world.

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WILLIAM JAMES AND THE WILL TO BELIEVE James neither sets faith against probabilistic reasoning (Kierkegaard) nor looks to transform probabilistic evidence into certitude by mental alchemy (Newman). Rather, he steers a middle-course: maintaining the connection between evidence and faith, but rejecting the legitimacy of certitude. Religious faith always entails the risk of error, and human reason cannot secure certain knowledge and thereby eliminate the risk. The key concept in James’ justification of faith is the teleological mind. As an instrument that selectively attends to sensation and evidence according to subjective purposes and interests, the mind decisively shapes what a person “sees,” experiences, and regards as “real.” As a goal-oriented instrument, the mind leads the individual forward into the world—supposing, trying, evaluating, and learning. Since this leading is “experimental,” every act of intellection is suffused with an element of faith. It follows that both religious belief and nonbelief are shaped by subjectivity and are expressions of faith. With this concept of the teleological mind, James is able to deal creatively with the challenge of probabilism. Evidence is an important component of faith, but subjective factors crucially shape what counts as evidence and how it is appraised. Moreover, in an evidentially underdetermined situation, individuals are often compelled to venture in one way or another. James lays down criteria for determining when a conservative, wait and see policy of belief is the way of wisdom, but he insists that ultimately the policy one applies will express a passional preference and entail risk. In the final analysis, even evidentialists must violate their own “ethic of belief” and venture. Since he does not repudiate evidence like Kierkegaard or insist on certitude like Newman, James is able both to defend the right to believe without rationally coercive evidence (meeting the challenge of probabilism) and provide a method for the adjudication of disputed truth claims (meeting the challenge of pluralization). His forward looking, consequentialist approach to verification has been labeled “pragmatic,” but it has also been shown that this pragmatism incorporates considerably more epistemological territory than is ordinary supposed. Of course, James does not pretend that his pragmatic method provides criteria that can produce quick and definitive results—at

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least not when dealing with large-scale, worldview questions. But the problem of pluralization would not exist at all if adjudication of such issues were easy and clear-cut. James provides a workable approach to verification that allows for agreement to be reached on the whole and in the long run. The modesty of this claim is a virtue rather than a fault: it takes pluralism seriously without giving up on adjudication altogether. As a fallibilist, James is able to meet the challenges of pluralism with humility and confidence. Humility is prompted by the realization that all of one’s beliefs are corrigible; confidence is developed as the venture of faith “works” over the course of time.1 The result: adjudication can proceed with genuine, open-minded inquiry even as individuals confidently live out their faiths. In short, a Jamesian justification of religious faith navigates the treacherous waters between the shoals of probabilism and pluralization. Following James, one can accept probabilism without becoming either a fideist or an evidentialist and face pluralization without succumbing to triumphalism or despair. Of course, to follow James into these waters means throwing overboard dogmatism and “hard certitude.” It also means acknowledging that the right to believe imposes an obligation of religious tolerance.2 But surely such “losses” are gains.

TOWARD A CONTEMPORARY JAMESIAN JUSTIFICATION OF RELIGIOUS FAITH From the standpoint of Christian theology, James’ justification of religious faith requires development in areas only dimly perceived by James himself. These areas have already been identified in passing: the epistemological ramifications of sin and virtue, historical inquiry as a possible means of providing greater specificity to the 1Of

course, what counts as “working” must be defined in terms of the expectations raised by the religious belief being appraised. 2“No one of us ought to issue vetoes to the other,” says James, “nor should we bandy words of abuse. We ought, on the contrary, delicately and profoundly to respect one another’s mental freedom: then only shall we bring about the intellectual republic; then only shall we have that spirit of inner tolerance without which all our outer tolerance is soulless … ” WB, 30.

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“religious hypothesis,” and the interplay of divine grace and the teleological mind. From the standpoint of epistemology, a Jamesian justification of faith must do more to show that human needs are not purely social constructions and that under specifiable conditions they reliably “track the truth.” The success of religious beliefs in promoting human flourishing can only count as verification if human needs are shown to be epistemically relevant. For one working in the Jamesian tradition, progress in the above areas will depend less on philosophical speculation than on empirical inquiry. Insights drawn from psychology, sociology, linguistics, anthropology, and neuroscience will be integrated with philosophical and theological analysis. In effect, the Jamesian will turn to science instead of metaphysics (as in classical natural theology) to establish the public credibility of religious truth claims. Of course, the living faith of individuals will not be saddled with a restrictive ethic of belief. Each person retains the right to venture in faith without waiting for a releasing word from scientist, philosopher, or theologian. Nevertheless, for the purpose of verification, a Jamesian will eschew the dead end of fideism and insist on appraising religious truth claims in terms of public and non-question begging criteria.

BIBLIOGRAPHY PRIMARY SOURCES James, William. The Letters of William James. 2 volumes. Edited by Henry James. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1920. _____. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. New York: Modern Library, 1936. _____. The Principles of Psychology. Great Books of the Western World. Volume 53. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952. _____. The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. New York: Dover Publications, 1956. _____. The Writings of William James: A Comprehensive Edition. Edited with introduction by John J. McDermott. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977. _____. Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking and The Meaning of Truth: A Sequel to Pragmatism. Introduction by A. J. Ayer. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978. Kierkegaard, Søren. The Point of View for My Work as an Author: A Report to History and Related Writings. Translated by Walter Lowrie, newly edited with a preface by Benjamin Nelson. New York: Harper and Row, 1962. _____. Works of Love: Some Reflections in the Form of Discourses. Translated by Howard and Edna Hong, with a preface by R. Gregor Smith. New York: Harper and Row, 1962. _____. Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers. Edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, assisted by Gregor Malantschuk. 7 volumes. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1967-78. _____. The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation of the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin, ed. and trans. with intro. and notes Reidar Thomte, in collaboration with Albert B. Anderson. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980. _____. Philosophical Fragments. In Philosophical Fragments and Johannes Climacus. Edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1985. 259

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_____. The Sickness unto Death. Edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1989. _____. Practice in Christianity. Edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1991. _____. Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. 2 volumes. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1992. Newman, John Henry. Letters and Correspondance of John Henry Newman During His Life in the English Church. 2 volumes. Edited by Anne Mozley. London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1891. _____. Fifteen Sermons Preached before the University of Oxford. London: Longmans, 1898. _____. The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman. Edited by C. S. Dessain, et al. Volumes 1-6, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 19781984; volumes 11-22, London: Oxford Universtiy Press, 19611972; volumes 23-31, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973-1977. _____. The Theological Papers of John Henry Newman on Faith and Certainty. Edited by Hugo M. de Achaval and J. Derek Holmes. Oxford: Clarendon, 1976. _____. An Essay in Aid of A Grammar of Assent. Introduction by Nocholas Lash. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979. _____. An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. 6th edition. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989. _____. Apologia pro Vita Sua. Edited by Ian Ker. New York: Penguin Books, 1994

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Adams, Robert Merrihew. “Kierkegaard’s Arguments against Objective Reasoning in Religion.” In Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology of Contemporary Views. Edited by Melville Y. Stewart, 3348. Sudbury, Mass.: Jones and Bartless Publishers, 1996. _____. “The Problem of Total Devotion.” In Rationality, Religious Belief, and Moral Commitment. Edited by Robert Audi, 169-94. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986. _____. “Truth and Subjectivity.” In Reasoned Faith. Edited by Eleanore Stump, 15-41. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993. Alexander, Gary. “The Hypothesized God of C. S. Peirce and William James.” Journal of Religion 67 (July 1987): 304-21. Allam, Edward Joseph. “An Exposition of John Henry Cardinal Newman’s An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent with an Evaluation of Some of Its Philosophical Implications and Contribution.” Ph.D. diss., University of Utah, 1997. Allison, Henry E. “Christianity and Nonsense.” In Essays on Kierkegaard. Edited by Jerry H. Gill, 127-49. Minneapolis, Minn.: Burgess, 1969. Alston, William P. “On Knowing that We Know: The Application to Religious Knowledge.” In Christian Perspectives on Religious Knowledge. Edited by C. Stephen Evans and Merold Westphal, 15-39. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993. Annis, David B. “A Contextualist Theory of Epistemic Justification.” In Empirical Knowledge: Readings in Contemporary Epistemology. 2d edition. Edited by Paul K. Moser., 205-18. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996. Anz, Wilhelm. Kierkegaard und der deutsche Idealismus. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1956. Armour, Leslie. “Faith, Reason, and Love: A Reply on Behalf of Cardinal Newman.” Scottish Journal of Theology 34 (1981): 43746. Artz, Johannes. “Newman und die Intuition.” Theologische Quartelschrift 136 (1956): 174-98. _____. “Newman’s Philosophische Leistung.” In International Newman Studien X. Edited by H. Fries and W. Becker, 169-229. Nürnberg: Glock und Lutz, 1978. Audi, Robert. “The Dimensions of Faith and the Demands of Reason.” In Reasoned Faith. Edited by Eleanore Stump, 70-89. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993.

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INDEX Absurd, 46, 50, 51, 52, 53, 56, 58, 59, 61, 72, 77, 80, 86, 91, 97, 98, 154, 180, 185, 187, 190, 219, 246 Adjudication, 1, 4, 16, 52, 82, 85, 87, 88, 93, 96, 98, 106, 140, 141, 144, 147, 149, 153, 159, 162, 163, 169, 184, 203, 204, 213, 221, 228, 230, 250, 251, 253, 255, 256, 257 Antecedent probabilities, 115 Anti-Climacus, 23, 31, 49, 55, 58, 59, 75 Apologetics, 3, 21, 31, 33, 34, 95, 149, 156, 251 Approximation knowledge, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 45, 46, 64, 96, 97, 101, 243 Assent, 3, 9, 41, 42, 45, 68, 70, 105, 108, 109, 112, 124, 125, 129, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 138, 139, 140, 145, 150, 152, 156 Assent, complex, 124, 125 Berger, Peter L., 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 34, 35, 100, 262 Clifford, William K., 11, 165, 175, 178, 190, 197, 208, 233, 270, 272 Cognitive rest, 81, 136, 202, 205, 217, 219 Coherence, 29, 30, 71, 207, 218, 219, 221

Criterion, 2, 8, 17, 82, 98, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 157, 159, 168, 194, 222, 227, 228, 229, 237, 241, 242, 253, 256, 258 Emmanuel, Steven M., 20, 26, 27, 30, 62, 88, 266, 272 Epistemology, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 20, 34, 35, 36, 43, 44, 53, 54, 71, 76, 82, 83, 84, 93, 95, 96, 102, 117, 120, 121, 128, 135, 143, 145, 147, 148, 149, 150, 152, 153, 154, 155, 160, 163, 168, 170, 171, 175, 177, 184, 189, 190, 197, 199, 201, 203, 206, 208, 209, 211, 220, 222, 226, 230, 231, 233, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 248, 249, 250, 251, 253, 256, 257 Eternal, 36, 37, 38, 46, 50, 52, 53, 54, 56, 60, 63, 81, 88, 99, 173, 176, 220, 245, 246 Eternity, 40, 52, 54, 64, 80, 178 Ethics of belief, 10, 71, 104, 105, 127, 128, 163, 165, 178, 184, 197, 198, 202, 248, 255, 256, 258 289

290 Evans, C. Stephen, 20, 23, 29, 34, 36, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 65, 68, 73, 85, 86, 261, 267, 268, 287 Evidentialism, 3, 119, 120, 147, 163, 165, 175, 178, 184, 248, 251, 255, 256, 257 Fallibilism, 154, 199, 201, 202, 235, 239 Ferreira, M. Jamie, 67, 72, 73, 123, 124, 130, 131, 132, 136, 141, 268 Fideism, 98, 107, 147, 248, 251, 258 Foundationalism, 85, 209, 210 Free Will, 6, 13, 17, 22, 35, 66, 67, 69, 71, 73, 76, 77, 94, 134, 135, 136, 185, 186, 193, 194, 195, 197, 198, 205, 207, 213, 216, 225, 230, 233, 243, 257 Froude, William, 103, 151, 272, 276 Genuine option, 189, 192, 193, 195, 197, 222, 234 Hacking, Ian, 4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 271 Heretical Imperative, 12, 16, 34, 35 History, 5, 14, 16, 17, 21, 30, 37, 40, 47, 48, 49, 56, 58, 59, 62, 63, 64, 76, 84, 95, 97, 100, 142, 160, 165, 176, 182, 200, 208, 216, 217, 223, 224, 225, 244, 246, 254, 257 Human flourishing, 146, 149, 221, 222, 223, 224, 226,

INDEX

227, 228, 242, 246, 250, 258 Hume, David, 9, 71, 94, 104, 123, 273 Hypothesis, 9, 51, 82, 85, 89, 106, 108, 138, 147, 157, 184, 186, 189, 190, 192, 193, 194, 197, 198, 211, 213, 214, 215, 216, 228, 229, 236, 246, 249, 258 Illative sense, 1, 106, 132, 133, 138, 139, 140, 141, 155, 166, 248, 255 Incommensurability, 36, 37, 38, 88, 213, 224, 243, 254 Indefectibility, 136, 137, 153, 156, 157, 158, 249 Indirect communication, 23, 24, 27, 28 Infallibility, 136, 153 Inference, 94, 105, 107, 108, 109, 111, 112, 113, 114, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 140, 141, 142, 144, 147, 156, 166, 169, 240, 243, 248 Justification of faith, 1, 2, 3, 4, 11, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 24, 31, 34, 93, 95, 96, 106, 147, 148, 150, 163, 169, 177, 186, 196, 231, 242, 243, 248, 249, 251, 253, 256, 257 Kane, Robert, 14, 273 Leap of faith, 2, 35, 66, 67, 72, 77, 79, 81, 85, 94, 153, 154, 155, 157, 163 Liberalism, 103, 109, 127, 156

INDEX

Locke, John, 5, 7, 9, 103, 104, 127, 128, 248, 250, 275, 278, 283, 288 Logic, 45, 51, 52, 76, 111, 129, 130, 134, 141, 143, 151, 171, 184, 187, 205, 206, 219, 220, 231, 235, 239, 240, 254 Mackey, Louis, 22, 24, 25, 275 Miller, Dickinson S., 35, 211, 232, 233, 234, 235, 271, 277, 286 Moment, The, 2, 41, 61, 62, 97, 113, 118, 227 Myers, Gerald E., 166, 237, 238, 239, 240, 242, 278 Newman, Jay, 104, 111, 149, 150, 160 Objective inquiry, 36, 38, 40, 42, 43, 44, 96, 97, 99, 100, 102, 247 Objectivity, 39, 44, 90, 96, 97, 98, 100, 101, 178, 191, 199, 211, 233, 235, 237, 247, 254 Occasion, The, 63, 64, 94, 115, 175, 208, 244, 245, 254 Opinio, 5, 7, 8, 253, 255 Paradox, 20, 23, 46, 48, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 67, 68, 80, 86, 87, 88, 91, 92, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 217, 246, 254 Paradox, Absolute, 20, 23, 46, 48, 50, 51, 52, 53, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 68,

291 80, 88, 91, 92, 95, 96, 97, 98, 217, 246, 254 Pascal, 8, 89, 191, 196, 198 Passion, 36, 39, 42, 43, 45, 46, 49, 60, 61, 72, 73, 74, 79, 80, 89, 91, 98, 99, 100, 182, 190, 207, 247 Passional, 1, 166, 182, 183, 189, 190, 195, 197, 198, 202, 232, 236, 247, 256 Pathos, 27, 36, 39, 91 Plausibility structure, 13, 95, 218 Pluralization, 4, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 34, 35, 148, 149, 253, 256, 257 Pojman, Louis, 19, 24, 27, 29, 52, 53, 54, 55, 66, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 87, 101, 196, 281 Pragmatic, 1, 85, 88, 89, 92, 93, 96, 144, 146, 149, 168, 169, 184, 194, 203, 204, 207, 209, 214, 215, 216, 217, 219, 228, 230, 245, 250, 251, 253, 256 Pragmatism, 96, 168, 208, 219, 221, 250, 251, 256 Precursive faith, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188 Probabilism, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 15, 16, 17, 20, 34, 35, 36, 45, 46, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 102, 104, 105, 106, 112, 134, 135, 147, 154, 156, 163, 165, 166, 199, 200, 201, 231, 243, 244, 248, 250, 251, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257

292 Probabilistic revolution, 4, 5, 11 Proof, 1, 87, 89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 98, 105, 107, 112, 113, 114, 116, 118, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 139, 140, 142, 146, 152, 154, 155, 157, 170, 172, 184, 193, 201, 221, 223, 226, 227, 245, 247, 255 Pseudonymity, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 29, 31, 32, 67, 85 Qualitative transition, 68, 78, 131, 132, 156 Religious experience, 91, 166, 170, 171, 172, 173, 177, 184, 190, 199, 204, 209, 218, 244 Revelation, 3, 9, 33, 47, 50, 61, 72, 77, 82, 94, 95, 144, 146, 148, 160, 170, 208, 227, 243, 244, 246 Risk, 34, 38, 45, 46, 60, 61, 76, 77, 79, 155, 156, 162, 166, 176, 185, 189, 190, 191, 193, 194, 201, 202, 203, 242, 256 Science, 4, 9, 10, 11, 33, 43, 112, 132, 143, 154, 155, 166, 172, 173, 175, 177, 180, 181, 199, 204, 212, 215, 216, 219, 226, 258 Scientia, 5, 6, 7, 8, 102, 154, 253, 255 Sin, 48, 55, 57, 95, 128, 146, 148, 245, 247, 249, 257 Socrates, 27, 28, 60, 89, 244 Stout, Jeffrey, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 284

INDEX

Subjectivism, 38, 120, 184, 206, 209, 211, 231, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 242 Subjectivity, 4, 11, 15, 16, 27, 34, 38, 40, 42, 44, 46, 65, 66, 77, 80, 90, 91, 92, 96, 100, 144, 166, 169, 170, 178, 182, 183, 202, 223, 229, 235, 236, 247, 255, 256 Suspicion, 30, 65, 95, 148, 210 Teleological mind, 169, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 195, 199, 203, 211, 224, 225, 236, 237, 245, 247, 249, 250, 256, 258 Vanden Burgt, Robert J., 168, 173, 174, 181, 197, 226, 286 Venture of faith, 35, 80, 82, 122, 123, 169, 191, 192, 195, 248, 257 Verification, 1, 85, 88, 92, 144, 149, 168, 169, 184, 189, 203, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 226, 228, 229, 230, 242, 245, 246, 250, 251, 253, 256, 257, 258 Virtue epistemology, 121, 148, 149, 163, 248, 249 Volitionalism, 69, 70, 71, 72, 87, 136, 196, 197 Whittaker, John H., 82, 83, 84, 85, 226, 287 Will to believe, 77, 99, 165, 167, 168, 177, 192, 197, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234

293

INDEX

Wishful thinking, 72, 192, 194, 197, 220, 230, 231,

232, 234, 235, 236, 251