← The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture
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Welcome back to the Word on fire show. I'm Dr. Matthew Petrusyk, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show. Thank you as always, for joining us. Friends, in honor of St. John Henry Newman's recently being named a Doctor of the Church, we're bringing you Bishop Barron's entire Word on Fire Institute lecture series on John Henry Newman. In these final weeks, we'll wrap up our series on one of Bishop Barron's spiritual and intellectual heroes. As always, enjoy.
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We are continuing our study of the Grammar of Assent, Newman's masterpiece on religious epistemology. How do we come to know an ascent to religious truth? This next section is on ascent in relation to inference. And his dialogue partner here is the philosopher John Locke. I mentioned earlier how he both kind of loved and balked at Locke. Here he's rather powerfully disagreeing with the great English philosopher. Locke had argued this that our assent to a proposition ought to be in direct proportion to the quality of inferential support we can find for the proposition. It's a fancy way of saying, look, if you got a good argument for it, your assent should be strong. You got a midland level argument for it, your assent should be kind of middle level. You got a lousy argument. Your assent should be very restricted, okay? Assent should be correlated very strictly to the quality of inference that supports it. Here's Locke. It is not only illogical, but immoral to carry our assent above the evidence that a proposition is true, to have a surplusage of assurance beyond the degrees of that evidence. That's just what I was saying there is that you got a bad argument, but you're giving full assent. That's going beyond what you're justified in doing. So it's not only illogical, it's kind of immoral. Now, with this doctrine of John Locke, John Henry Newman is in total disagreement. He doesn't think it's the case. Maybe it's the case with angels, but with us it is not the case that the quality of our assent is always in direct proportion to the quality of inferential support. Newman will argue. In fact, we give often unconditional assent to propositions for which we do not have clear and unambiguous inferential support. So what brings us to the point of assenting to things for which there's no clear or absolute inference? That's going to be the subject matter of this part of the Grammar of Assent? Here's a couple of quotes to make the point now from Newman. He said we sometimes find men loud in their admiration of truths which they never profess. The point there is. Yeah, that's a strong argument you got there. That's a really good inference. But I don't believe it. But I don't assent to it. And then turn the thing around. A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. So you browbeat someone into submission by throwing arguments. But it's contrary to his will. He really hasn't been convinced. It's not the case that being convinced is simply a matter of summoning arguments. See, Newman, who loves arguments, as we'll see but he thinks there's much more to it than simply argument. That's his point. Now, here's some famous examples that he gives. People always quarrel with me here because just the use of the word England. I'm referring to that whole island that contains Scotland and England and Wales. Okay? That's what I'm referring to here. That thing we say is an island. Now, is there anybody in the world outside of insane asylums who would deny that England is an island? No. I mean, everyone knows that, that England is an island. I don't hold back on my assent. I don't give conditional assent. I totally assent to that proposition. But can I muster absolutely convincing inferential support for it? Well, no. There's no syllogism. There's no clinching argument I can make. So how come I do assent to that proposition that England's an island? Well, says Newman, every history book we read presents it that way. Every map we've ever seen presents it that way. Every person we ever talk to about England assumes it's the case. Our own experience going to the shore in various parts of England ratifies the truth of it. It's by a whole series of evidences and intuitions and hunches and experiences that we are led to the unconditional assent that England's an island. Even though we can't muster absolute argument for it. We believe that on planet Earth there are great cities that go by the names of London, Paris, New York. Do we know it? Absolutely. Well, I mean, maybe we've visited, some people have. But maybe you just seen them on maps. Maybe you just read about them in books. Maybe you've heard people talk about them. For all those reasons, we come to assent to this proposition, we all believe that one day we will die. You got an argument for that? You've got a clear, absolute, inferential support for that? I can't find one. But does anyone hold back from that? Claim anyone you know, say, well, I don't fully assent to that. No, because I mean, we don't know anyone that's over the age of, let's say, 120. I mean, everyone that's ever come before us has in fact died. People around us die all the time for all these different reasons. We assent to the proposition that one day we will die, but we can't find a clear convincing argument for it. Here's a nice summary. Assent operates outside the narrow range of conclusions to which logic is formally tethered. See the point he's making? There's formal logic, okay, but our ascent goes way beyond what logic can justify. Our ascent gives us this feeling of intellectual satisfaction. I love how Newman describes it. A feeling of satisfaction, self gratulation, of intellectual security arising out of a sense of success, attainment, possession, finality. As regards the matter which has been in question. I have that feeling, that whole range of feeling. Though I can't begin to bring forward clinching arguments now. See, where's that coming from? That's what he's interested in. What is it that makes us find that certitude in even apart from formal inference? Okay, so let's take two steps now to get to that point. First we'll look at formal inference. We'll look at argument, we'll look at syllogism and all that. And then we'll look at what he calls informal inference and how the two of them are related. Okay, so first of all, formal inference or argumentation. Here he relies on the great Aristotle and in fact in the idea of university he says in in most cases to think rightly is to think like Aristotle. He had great affection for him. And Aristotle is the inventor of the syllogism, this sort of formal mode of argumentation. All men are mortal. Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal. The sort of A, B, C, quality, major premise, minor premise, conclusion. And that dominates the logic that's used throughout Western civilization. And Newman says that formal inference usually is reducible to some form of the Aristotelian syllogism. Now are they valid? Yeah, as far as they go. Do they point in the direction of the truth? Yeah, they do. The trouble is, a syllogism tends to remain too abstract. Here's his all men have their price. Fabricius is a man, therefore Fabricius has his price. Okay, is it true? Well, the formal logic of it works just fine A, B, C. But the proposition in fact is true only in the measure that that second premise covers this very particular person. Fabricius. Now it's a goofy name. Maybe he's the one guy that doesn't have a price. I mean, I know major premise, all men have their price. Yeah, that's generally true, but maybe this guy Fabricius is the one person that doesn't have a price. And therefore in this case the syllogism is not going to hold. It's not going to be completely convincing or completely valid. Listen now to Newman. Thus it is that the logician turns rivers, full, winding and beautiful into navigable canals. To him, dog or horse is not a thing which he sees, but a mere name suggesting ideas. Are you getting notional and real assent here, by the way? Syllogisms are ordered to notional assent, to universals, to abstractions and propositions. Real ascent has to do with particulars. Are syllogisms valid? Yes, in the measure that they trade in abstractions, but they tend not to reach to the particular level and that makes them less than perfectly convincing. Newman's summary. Let units come first, see the particular. Let so called universals come second. Let universals minister to units, not units be sacrificed to universals. That's a very important point because we can be seduced very easily by syllogistic abstract logic. I'm trading in universal abstractions and I convince myself I've come to all this definitive knowledge. And then there's the stubborn world of the particular, of the factual. And that can't always be caught by the syllogism. Now listen to this. This is helpful for what's good about this kind of reasoning. Though it does not go so far as to ascertain truth in all cases. Still, it teaches us the direction in which truth lies. Nor is it a slight benefit to know what is probable and what is not. So see what he's saying here. I like syllogisms. They're good, these abstract forms of reasoning. They point in the direction of the truth, but just don't think. They descend to the level of the particular in every case so that we can always know what's true on the ground. You need the play between the universal and the particular. You know, I'm going to give an example here. Remember the movie Juno some years ago about the young teenage girl who becomes pregnant and she endeavors to get an abortion? She goes to the abortion clinic, and outside the clinic one of her classmates is there as a protester and she's kind of shouting arguments and slogans at her about abortion. She walks by her, she goes into the clinic, then she sits down. But you know, Just before she entered, the young protester had said, you, baby has fingernails. She goes into the waiting area, she checks in, and then the camera focuses on all the fingernails, drumming on tables and people cleaning their fingernails and people biting their fingernails. Juno takes all this in and then she bolts out of the clinic and she resolves to have her baby. Now, what's my point? Are there arguments you can make in favor of the pro life stance? Of course there are. Are there good syllogisms? Sure. Are there slogans that are valid? Yeah, sure there are. Do they point in the direction of the truth? Absolutely. But see, what Juno in that film needed was this particular, this real ascent, that line. Your baby has fingernails. And then seeing the particular fingernails on the people in the room, that's what pushed her to assent, to say, yes, I'm going to keep my child. Argument's good, but argument usually supplemented by something else. Okay. And that something else is what Newman calls informal inference, above and beyond formal inference. And see, with this we come, I think, to the heart of the grammar of assent. How, in fact, do we come to say, yes, this is true? Here's Newman's summary. We do so through the accumulation of probabilities independent of each other, arising out of the nature and circumstances of the particular case. Probabilities too fine to avail separately, too subtle and circuitous to be convertible into syllogisms. There, if you want everybody, is the central argument of this whole book, I think, in those lines, how do we come to assent? Syllogisms, arguments, formal propositions play a role. I'm not badmouthing them or denying them. They play a role. But beyond that, the accumulation of probabilities independent of each other, arising out of the nature and circumstances of the particular case. Probabilities too fine to avail separately, too subtle and circuitous to be converted into syllogisms. Think of England Island. How do I know that? Well, this whole range of intuition, experience, hunch, witness, et cetera, et cetera, that I'm going to die. How do I know that by availing these probabilities from all kinds of sources? And so it goes. Newman's going to argue in the area of religious assent. But see, what's interesting about it is it's not just religion here. It's the way we human beings typically come to assent. We come to certitude is by the same sort of process. Here's a nice summary going back to England, Great Britain being an island, Newman says, thus we've been taught from childhood that England is an island. It's been so described on every map we've ever seen. Everyone we know has spoken of England, assumes its insularity. The entire history of Great Britain implies it and assumes it. In our own explorations of England, this presumption has been borne out. Those are the range of probable arguments that have led the mind to. To ascend. Think of you're trying to lift a great weight and you take one little strand of steel and that's not enough. But then wrap another one around it. That's not enough. Wrap a third around it and wrap a fourth and a fifth and a sixth. Wrap 25 around. Now you got a great cable that's capable of lifting that weight. The mind sort of functions that way. Or think of water that's coming to boil, so you put a little heat on it. It's not enough, but then put more heat and then more heat and more heat. And finally the accumulation of all that heat leads the mind, leads the water to boil. So it goes with the mind. What will convince us? Well, arguments. Okay, that's turning up the heat a bit. But then this experience, that witness, this hunch, this intuition, that person. Here's an example that Newman gives. He says sometimes an idea, a conviction can float on the surface of the national life. But it takes a real application to make it sink in. Now, here's the instance. Think of the opposition to slavery. First in England, but then in our country. Were there lots of people making arguments about slavery?
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Read the abolitionists. Read William Lloyd Garrison and everybody else. Could you construct syllogisms? You know, all people are worthy of respect. Black people are human beings, therefore black people are worthy of respect, therefore they shouldn't be slaves. Yeah, sure, it's a good argument, valid argument. But see, these things floated on the surface of national life until what? Until Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. This book comes out that so got into the imagination of the country that it shifted people's opinions about slavery. That's why when Lincoln greeted her at the White House, he said, there's the little lady who wrote the book that started this great war. Lincoln intuited the truth of that. It wasn't the arguments of the abolitionists. It was that particular book that galvanized the country and led it in a way to assent to the proposition that slavery is a bad thing. So it goes in the way that we know. I like this. Newman says a judge who makes a decision in a case ought to make it clearly and firmly. He should never give the reasons why Though now why listen? It is this which was meant by the judge who, when asked for his advice by a friend on his being called to important duties which were new to him, bade him always lay down the law boldly, but never give. His reasons for his decision was likely right, but his reasons sure to be unsatisfactory. In other words, the judge came to it because of a whole range of things that he probably couldn't begin to articulate fully. All right. What is the faculty in us that enables us to avail all of these hunches, probabilities, arguments, and bring the mind to a sense? Newman coins a term for it. He calls it the illative sense. Now, he's a master of the Latin language. Right. Phere means to carry, like a ferry boat, right? An inference, a transference right to carry. Latus is the fourth principal part of phere. And so the ilative sense is the sense that carries me from formal inference through informal inference to assent. He thinks we have this in us the way we've got conscience at the moral level. That tells us that's the right thing to do. So the illative sense tells us, yes, that's the right thing to believe, but it governs this whole range of both formal and informal inference. That's how we come to know truth in general. It's especially how we come to know religious truth.
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Matthew Petrusyk here again. Thanks so much for joining us on the Word on Fire show. As always, if you'd like to learn more about how Word on Fire can help you grow closer to Christ and become a better evangelist with and for others, visit institute.wordpressfire.org that's institute.WordPress.org we'll see you next time. And God bless and protect you.