popular pragmatism and religious belief

POPULAR PRAGMATISM AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF

Over the centuries the philosophers who have sought metaphysical and religious knowledge have shown surprisingly little interest in what leads ordinary, non-philosophical men to hold the religious beliefs that they hold; being 61itists, philosophers have tended to assume that if the non-philosopher has reason for holding the religious beliefs he holds, those reasons probably are not profound or worth taking seriously. In the last few centuries, several philosophers (e.g., Pascal, I .H. Newman, lames, and F. C.S. Schiller) have reacted to this assumption and argued that we learn more about the reasonableness of religious belief when we consider the simple believer's reasons than we do when we analyze the arguments found in metaphysical tomes. I agree and also believe that ordinary, non-philosophical people are attracted to a particular conception ef metaphysics; for want of a better name, I shall call it "popular pragmatism," and in the pages that follow I discuss this conception of metaphysics, mainly in the hopes of shedding some light on the nature of religious belief.

Put two metaphysicians together and you get at least three theories about the nature of metaphysics. Even historians of philosophy have trouble seeing what Heidegger's use of the term "metaphysics" has in common with Bergson's or what Bergson's has in common with Aquinas'. The founder of the science of metaphysics, Aristotle, himself, had many different views about the essential nature of "first philosophy." The ordinary person is not concerned with most subjects that metaphysicians discuss--time, universals, the existence of external objects, etc. But almost all men are concerned about what Aristotle calls the "highest objects," and many if not most non- philosophers do struggle with the question of what to believe about God or higher spiritual forces. So, ordinary men have some interest in the ultimate nature of reality; when they try to formulate, clarify, or choose their religious beliefs, they are doing a kind of metaphysics.

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And like Aristotle and Spinoza and Bergson, they have ideas about the procedure of arriving at religious beliefs. Ordinary men are not concerned with the "science" of metaphysics; they are simply concerned with metaphysical questions--whether or not God exists, what God is like, whether or not men have souls, what happens to the soul after the body dies, etc. Most men could not answer you if you asked them about their conception of metaphysics; but they could tell you how they arrived at the religious beliefs that they hold. Their stories would be similar, much more similar than those told by Aristotle, Spinoza, Ber, gson, and other metaphysicians.

Most men do not believe in the possibility of religious or metaphysical knowledge; few non-philosophers actually believe that the existence or non-existence of God can be proved or demonstrated by means of philosophical or empirical arguments, and even those who believe that the words of the Bible or some other sacred work are true will be quick to point out that their religious beliefs are articles oJ faith. When they talk about their "faith," they fire usually telling us that they do not believe that one can show religious propo- sitions to be true or false in the way that he can show empirical propo- sitons to be true or false. They are telling us that to hold a religious belief is to have made a decision rather than a discovery. They are not saying that they have no reasons for believing what they believe about God and souls. But they are saying that their reasons do not give them knowledge, just grounds/or believing. Now the non-philosophers with whom I have spoken about religious subjects may be atypical; but if they are not, then here is how most non-philosophers think about the origin of religious belief: "We cannot know in this life whether or not God exists. Perhaps we will be able to know at some time in the future; but it is clear that we cannot know now. But we must decide whether or not to believe in a personal God. 'Agnosticism' will not do; it is a dishonest position, for most people who profess to be 'agnostics' act like atheists and in their heart of hearts are atheists. The existence of a personal God is too important a subject on which to suspend judgment; believing (or not believing) that God exists has a profound effect on one's life in a way that believing (or not believing) that it is now snowing in the Yukon does not. We are aware of our having to choose from among fairly clear alternatives. As children we had little or no choice in religious matters and accepted uncritically whatever our parents told us. Now that we are mature, rational, responsible human beings, we

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must make our own commitments to positions on religious questions. Since we cannot know whether or not God exists, we must decide which alternative view it is better to hold; we can make this decision by evaluating each of the alternative views in terms of a certain criterion of what it is good to believe. We have to decide what beliefs about God and the soul will prove to be most satisfying to us over a long period of time. If belief in God brings peace of mind or is an incentive to morality or gives one the feeling that life is meaningful, it is a good belief to hold. People have the same basic values, needs, and aspirations, and that is why religious belief is so widespread." I call this view of how men arrive at religious beliefs "popular pragmatism"; it is a kind of pragmatism in tha~ it sees religiotls beliefs as growing out of considerations of value and utility, and I tall it "popular" both because it is a popular view and because it should be distinguished from the philosophical pragmatism of philosophers like Peirce, James, Schiller, and Dewey. Now, the ordinary fnan does not deny that one of the reasons why he or other men believe in God is that the existence of God explains certain phenomena or data. Believing in God is one way of dealing with such mysteries as creation, infinity, and design in nature. But though he would gladly admit that religious belief can be intellectually satisfying, the non-philosopher would probably be reluctant to infer that metaphysicians like Aquinas and Descartes have actually proved that God exists and have shown us that we have knowledge about God.

If the popular pragmatism that I have described in the last para- graph does not sound familiar, you need not bother reading on further; if it does seem familiar, then join me in considering what kind of conception of metaphysics we have here. Popular pragmatism belongs to a family of conceptions of metaphysics, and its brothers are historicism, philosophical pragmatism, fictionalism, the theory

that metaphysical theories are aesthetic objects, and the theory that metaphysical theories are expressions of neuroses. I have elsewhere described this family as the family of metaphysical "relativisms," but here I will just say that what all of these theories have in common is that they are commitments to the view that while metaphysical beliefs are meaningful and important, objective metaphysical knowledge is not possible? One understands popular pragmatism better

1 Cf. Jay Newman, "Metaphysical Relativism," The Southern Journal of Philosophy, XII (1974), 435-448.


if he understands its family background. Most metaphysicians have followed the founder of metaphysics, Aristotle, in believing that metaphysics is a science which leads us to knowledge about divine things, the highest objects, and the ultimate nature of reality. For centuries, metaphysicians have described ultimate reality for us and presented arguments to show that the description that they have given is an accurate one. They believe that if we read their books, we will acquire the knowledge that they already have. But some philosophers have given up the search for metaphysical knowledge. They point out that after many centuries, metaphysicians have not come to agree on very many things; and they also observe that metaphysical beliefs are extremely peculiar beliefs, different from ordinary verifiable beliefs (i.e., empirical beliefs, mathematical beliefs, and beliefs about language). But they do not agree on why it is that metaphysical beliefs are so peculiar. Historicists believe that metaphysical beliefs are purely historical phenomena which arise in the unconscious. Philosophical pragmatists believe that while metaphysical ideas are verifiable, truth is itself more subjective than has been generally recognized, and metaphysical ideas are true in an especially personal way. Fictionalists believe that metaphysical beliefs are artificial thought-constructs which we must hold even while being conscious of their being fictions. Some philosophers have suggested that metaphysical theories are like poems or paintings, things which we admire for their beauty and other aesthetic qualities. And some modern philosophers think that metaphysical beliefs are fantasies which arise unconsciously from the psyches of sick intellec- tuals. Though all of these theories are interesting, none of them is an adequate explanation of how metaphysical beliefs arise and why metaphysical beliefs are so peculiar. Each of the theories has serious flaws in it. But we can see why philosophers have been attracted to such theories. Common sense does dictate that metaphysical beliefs are very different from ordinary verifiable beliefs; and since metaphysicians have never been able to agree among themselves, much less convince ordinary people of the accuracy of their descrip- tions, it is difficult to believe that objective metaphysical knowledge is possible. And here is where popular pragmatism comes in. Like historicists, fictionalists, et al., the typical non-philosopher does not believe that metaphysical knowledge is possible, that so*"~'-~ ~-'~


about the origin of metaphysical beliefs. He believes that people hold the metaphysical beliefs that they hold for simple, personal reasons, that a person's views about God and the soul are personal things which reflect that person's background and his special needs and interests. If we ask Miss X, for example, why she believes in God, it is not likely that she will present Anselm's "ontological" proof or anything of its kind. What she will say is something like this: "When I was a child, I was sent to a Baptist school by my parents, fine people, people I have always admired. Growing up with pious people, studying at a Baptist School, I developed a Christian vision of the universe and my place in it. Now that I have grown up, my ideas about God and the soul are more sophisticated than those I had when ! was young. But I still hold on to the basic ideas that I learned when I was a child. I cannot even conceive of a world without God, a materialistic world in which there is no order or ultimate purpose. I cannot conceive of a world without a beginning, without a meaning. The Christian vision of the universe seems to me to be a deeper, richer vision than the materialist's; and I think it enables a person to lead a deeper, richer, more meaningful life. I realize, of course, that my religious beliefs cannot be shown to be true or false, right or wrong; they represent my personal commitment, my personal way of coming to grips with the mysteries of life. Since I am a reasonably charitable, considerate person, no one has good reason to discourage me from holding the religious beliefs that I hold. Anyway, we all have to have faith in something, and my faith is a healthy one, not only for me but for the people I come in contact with." Most metaphysicians will not take Miss X's views on religious belief very seriously; but I suspect that most non-philosophers will take her at her word and will regard her account as a reasonable explanation of why she holds the religious beliefs that she holds.

Various factors have contributed to the popularity of this kind of pragmatism. One is that most rational non-philosophers are humble enough to recognize that it is not likely that most of the people who do not share their religious beliefs are simply stupid or unenlightened. Though a Baptist, Miss X can accept the fact that her Methodist, Roman Catholic, and lewish friends have personal reasons for holding the particular religious views that they hold. She sees that they have certain interests, certain needs, and a background which is rather different from her own. Miss X may even be able to accept the fact that some of her friends have good reasons for being atheists.


And while she may attempt to show all these people that Baptists have a rich, rewarding life, she will probably be willing to admit that her defense of Baptist Christianity is no more "objective" than the Methodist's defense of Methodist Christianity, the Roman Catho- lic's defense of Catholicism, etc. Miss X can see, for example, that her Orthodox lewish opthalmologist, Dr. Y, is not simply a recal- citrant fool. She can see that he is capable of rational reflection on religious questions, as are the religious authorities whose guidance he follows. She can see that her atheistic lawyer may well have re- flected on religious questions, too. Only philosophers and irrational people are arrogant enough to believe that people who do not share their religious and metaphysical beliefs are stupid. Another factor which has contributed to the popularity of popular pragmatism is the inability of ordinary peop,le to grasp complex theological and metaphysical arguments; for though ordinary men have a natural instinct to believe things on the basis of reasons, they simply cannot understand the kinds of reasons that one finds in philosophy books. And so they fall back on considerations of common sense, which are often related to values and morality.

Popular pragmatism is more plausible than its academic brothers. Unlike the historicist, Miss X sees that people can and should ra- tionally and consciously decide, on the basis of reasons, what religious beliefs they should hold. Unlike the fictionalist, Dr. Y is not forced to regard his metaphysical "thought-constructs" as fictions; for Dr. Y, they are simply beliefs whose truth-value cannot be known. Unlike the philosophical pragmatist, Miss X agrees with the historicist and fictionalist that we cannot attain religious knowledge. The philo. sophical pragmatist has a unique conception of the nature of truth and believes that religious beliefs can in some sense be known to be true. For him, utility is a test of truth, but for Miss X and Dr. Y and most non-philosophical pragmatists, the utility or value of holding a belief has nothing to do with that belief's truth. Popular pragmatism is thus not plagued by the weaknesses that render similar conceptions of metaphysics untenable; yet it incorporates their main points. Like historicism and fictionalism, it rejects the possibility of metaphysical knowledge, and like philosophical pragmatism, it points to utility or value--psychological and moral--as the general criterion by which to determine what to believe about the ultimate nature of reality. Ordinary people do not see our reasons for holding particular metaphysical beliefs as "data" or "evidence" which suggests

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that the belief is probably true. For ordinary people, who believe that metaphysical and religious beliefs are essentially articles of faith, these reasons, pertaining as they do to our values, interests, and background, point only to what we ought to believe and not necessarily to the way that ultimate reality actually is.

In explaining it in somewhat technical terms, perhaps I have made the ordinary man's pragmatism appear rather artificial. But the attitude is very much in harmony with common sense. We know that there is considerable disagreement as to whether or not God exists, and if so, what God is like. We know that our own religious beliefs and those of most people close to us have not arisen in a vacuum, out of the darkness of some mysterious uncenscious. We also know that few people who claim to belief in Ged consider their belief to be a fiction. And a good many people who believe in God will readily admit that they do not feel that they k n o w He exists; their belief, they will say, is an article of faith. How, then, do mature, rational, non-philosophers arrive at their religious beliefs? Some do believe that they have access to a special kind of data or evidence which somehow points to the way that ultimate reality is; but most defend their religious and metaphysical beliefs by showing how their metaphysical beliefs grow out of psychological or other practical needs, usually needs of a personal nature. These people do not regard metaphysical reasons as a kind of data or evidence which points in the direction of truth. They will say such things as, "My religious beliefs enable me to lead a richer, more productive, more satisfying life," while at the same time refusing to interpret this fact as having more than subjective significance. A religious world-view may indeed be decided upon in the way that a vocation is. For the non-philosophical pragmatist, the reasons which induce a person to believe that God does or does not exist tell us no more about the nature of reality than the reasons which induce a person to become an engineer or a journalist, although in both cases decisions are being made in a rational way. But popular pragmatism is not only a theory which explains how men come to hold beliefs about God, souls, freedom, and other metaphysical entities; it is indirectly a theory of what philosophers and theologians can and ought to do (although this dimension is not usually recognized by the non-philosopher). When we draw out the implications of popular pragmatism, we see that it limits philosophical and theological activity. It tells us that while it is all right for metaphysicians ~,d tho,"Ic~:~::; ~: ~-:--:k: : :_=:_ _.

POPULAR PRAGMATISM AND RELIGIOUS B E L I E F 101

arguments for holding particular beliefs, these reasons and arguments do not serve the purpose which philosophers have historically seen them as serving. They do not tell us about the ultimate nature of reality. They persuade people to adopt a particular world-view; they show how holding this world-view enables people to lead happier, richer lives. According to this view, Aquinas and Spinoza are important as psychotherapists who provide a cure for spiritual sickness, confusion, and unfulfillment. They aim at making men happier--in a meaningful sense of the term--and morally better. Indirectly they aim at making society better, too. Aquinas and Spinoza saw themselves as scientists, not as therapists. But there was no psychotherapy in their time, and so they always talked about showing people the truth. Perhaps Aquinas and Spinoza were simply unable to foresee what the ultimate value of their metaphysics would be for subsequent generations; for few people today consider Aquinas and Spinoza to be genuine scientists. For most modern readers, the question is not whether Aquinas has presented an accurate description of ultimate reality; the question, except for philosophers, is whether Aquinas has presented a satisfying description of ultimate reality.

Popular pragmatism is one of the more satisfactory of the various approaches to metaphysics which rest on the belief that objective metaphysical knowledge is impossible. It is very hard to convince a sceptic that metaphysical knowledge is possible; and most people are firmly convinced that the gap between facts and religious and metaphysical speculations is too broad to be bridged. Of the various con~ ceptions of metaphysics which grow out of this belief, popular pragmatism is perhaps the one which takes religious and metaphysical reflection most seriously. The non-philosophical pragmatist is sen- sitive to the influence of metaphysical beliefs on life and action. To those who are frustrated by the historical failure of philosophers and theologians to come to any significant agreement on the precise nature of ultimate reality, and yet are convinced that metaphysics and theology are important disciplines, popular pragmatism must be a rather attractive theory. But popular pragmatism hardly takes metaphysics and theology seriously as sciences. Science and techno- logy, as Aristotle has observed, proceed from different motives. The scientist is concerned with understanding reality. Metaphysicians and theologians have traditionally seen themselves as inquiring into the ultimate nature of reality. But a man who constructs theories of reality in order to make people happier, better, or intellectually and spirit-


ually satisfied is not a scientist. He is a technologist. And if he is not a scientist, can we really regard him as a metaphysician or a theologian? In any event, the non-philosopher is not too worried about how philosophers conceive of themselves or what they call themselves; as we have seen, non-philosophers turn to popular pragmatism partly because they cannot understand the complex reasons and arguments which are found in philosophy books. When the non- philosopher looks through a philosophy book, he is usually looking for ideas, visions, and perspectives, not for arguments which point the way to truth.

How should the philosopher react to popular pragmatism? That he should react to it, not ignore it, is plain enough, for if the non- philosophical pragmatist is right, philosophers have not understood the real importance of what they have been doing. And there are other reasons why the philosopher and the theologian ought to be disturbed by what non-philosophical pragmatist is saying. For one thing, though popular pragmatism leaves a place for reason, it runs perilously close to irrationalism. If you challenge Mr. W to explain why he holds the religious beliefs he holds, he can give you the blunt answer, "Because I find those beliefs satisfying." Who can argue with him? Even if one does not like the reasons he gives for finding those beliefs satisfying (e.g., they give him peace of mind, or they make him feel less alienated from his environment), one cannot deny that he finds those beliefs satisfying. One might argue that he would find other beliefs more satisfying and that if he does not consider these alternative beliefs, he is being irrational after all. But then he could respond that as reasons for holding religious beliefs are rather personal things, we should not browbeat him. Now, popular pragmatism is clearly a relativistic theory, and it is dangerous in the way that all relativisms are dangerous. Also, the limits it places on philosophy and theology as forms of inquiry force us to revise radically our views of traditional philosophy and theology. One is tempted to see the defender of popular pragmatism as an intellectual coward, someone who refuses to evaluate specific arguments and hides behind the view that traditional philosophical and theological inquiry is futile. Still, as much as we challenge him on this point, we cannot explain away the fact that philosophical and theological arguments have rarely if ever been absolutely con- clusive, for we can all see that philosophers agree on very few things-- at least where religious belief is concerned--and that it is hard to

turn back "opinion."


the view that philosophies are essentially matters of

I I

Popular pragmatism cannot be directly refuted in the way that historicism, fictionalism, and the other esoteric kinds of relativism can be refuted. But we are not completely stymied here; there is a fruitful line of response to the non-philosophical pragmatist, and it focuses on the nature of personal reasons. We can hardly understand (much less criticize) popular pragmatism if we have not con- sidered the concept of a "personal" reason, for this is the central concept of popular pragmatism. The first question that we must invite the non-philosophical pragmatist to consider is when (if ever) desires, emotions, and feelings, count as (good) reasons. Consider these exchanges:

A. Teacher: Why did you steal your classmate's pet turtle? Student: Because I wanted to. Teacher: That's not a very informative answer. It's quite obvious that you wanted to steal it; otherwise you wouldn't have stolen it. But I want to know why you did something which you know is wrong. Student: Because I felt like doing it.

B. Prosecutor: And so you killed your wife because you found her in bed with the milkman? Defendant: Yes. I was swept away by my emotions. I was furious, irrational. I didn't even realize what I was doing.

C. Y: How could you do something so terrible to your friend? He's always been so good to you. Z: I had my reasons. Y: What were your reasons? Z: I can't say; they're personal.

In the first exchange, the teacher is trying to show the child that he did not have any good reasons for stealing his classmate's property. She knows that in some sense the boy wanted to steal the turtle and felt like stealing it. The boy's act was obviously not unmotivated, uncaused; but the child was not being rational. For the teacher, the


answers, "I wanted to" and I felt like doing it," are not informative. At best they are bad reasons; and it is possible that they are not reasons at all. In exchange (B), the defendant is telling us that it was not reason but emotion which led him to murder his wife. He did not even realize what he was doing. And in (C), it is not clear that Z actually did have reasons for harming his friend. It may be that Z is simply too embarrassed to admit to Y that he had no (good) reasons for doing what he did. Perhaps he too acted on the basis of emotion rather than reflection and is simply hiding behind the ne- bulous suggestion that his "reasons" were "personal." After all, Z knows that Y has no access to Z's "personal reasons"; and he knows that nothing that he says will change Y's opinion of his action. Now, I am not going to commit myself here to any theory about how reasons differ from causes and motives. But I think that it is important to draw the non-philosophical pragmatist's attention to the fact that even though the concept of reason is not as sharply defined as most of our concepts, it is not up to the individual to determine what counts as a good reason, an acceptable reason, or even a reason. In various situations of everyday life, people have become accustomed to expecting certain kinds of responses when they inquire after one's reasons for having believed or done something. The responses of the non-philosophical pragmatist are usually given in terms of desires, emotions, and feelings, and he considers these responses adequate. But many people find such responses inadequate. Religious beliefs, after all, do exert a great influence on one's behavior and hence on the lives of those with whom one comes into contact. Heliogabalus and Hitler wanted to believe what they believed and felt like doing what they did. They may well have thought they had good reasons for believing what they believed and doing what they did. Yet, we would not have thought them rational if they simply told us that they had personal reasons. Holding religious beliefs is quite different from holding the beliefs of a Heliogabalus. But religious beliefs and the actions that grow out of them are not trivial or unimportant. And the non-philosophical pragmatist agrees with us on this point.

Next it is worth considering why the non-philosophical pragmatist considers his reasons "personal" in a way that most reasons are not. He could argue that these reasons cannot be articulated. If he takes this line, the people with whom he is speaking may wonder whether he has any reasons at all. To say that one has reasons is not to show that one has reasons. There are cases, as in exchange (C), where


one may want to pretend that he has reasons (so as not to appear irrational, stupid, callous, etc.). To say that one has reasons which cannot be articulated is to invite the suspicion that he does not have genuine reasons but only desires, emotions, and feelings. On the other hand, one could argue that his reasons are personal because they are rooted in a value-judgment, a value-judgment which is in turn rooted in this particular temperament. He could insist that it is futile to argue about religious beliefs with a person who does not evaluate beliefs by the particular pragmatic criterion which he himself employs. Here, though, we find him presupposing that pragmatic evaluations are themselves purely subjective and incapable of being questioned. This presupposition is a dubious one. For one thing, as any student of the history of moral philosophy knows, it is possible to criticize a pragmatic criterion or any other basic value. If Mr. W defends his religious beliefs by arguing that he finds them "satisfying," one can offer various rational arguments to show him that being satisfied may not be the only important thing in life. There are, for example, good Aristotelian and Kantian reasons why a human being should consider more than satisfaction or pleasure. These reasons may not convince Mr. W to change his religious beliefs. But perhaps he has a moral and intellectual obligation to consider these reasons and arguments. And perhaps he has a moral and intellectual obligation to consider metaphysical reasons and arguments, too. More- over, one can argue that the non-philosophical pragmatist has not applied his own criterion properly. One can argue against Mr. W that even though he may find his present religious beliefs satisfying, he may find other religious beliefs (which he has hitherto not even con- sidered) even more satisfying. Men know what they like, but they do not know whether they like something until they have tried it. Besides, tastes change. The pragmatist can see for himself that atheists become theists and vice versa.

So the non-philosophical pragmatist appears to be faced with a dilemma. If he argues that his "personal" reasons cannot be articulated, he leaves himself open to the objection that his beliefs may not be based on reasons at all but on desires, emotions, and feelings. Perhaps he is simply deceiving himself in believing that he is being rational about religious belief. On the other hand, when he specifies his pragmatic criterion for choosing metaphysical beliefs and des- cribes how he has arrived at his particular religious beliefs, he


is bringing out into the open a criterion and a procedure which are, though in sense "personal," vulnerable to critical analysis. If he refuses to defend his criterion or his specific applications of the criterion, he can no longer talk casually about rationality and good reasons; he has retreated into dogmatism and irrationality. But if he makes the effort to defend his criterion and beliefs, he is no longer taking advantage of his view that his reasons are personal. Now, challenging his pragmatic criterion is not the same as directly challenging his religious beliefs. But it does amount to challenging his right to hold those beliefs. If Mr. Z defends his religious beliefs on the grounds that they make him a morally better person, then in challenging his criterion--or his assumption that his religious beliefs make him a better person--we are not in any way showing that his religious beliefs may be faIxe. We have to play the game according to his rules, and in his game, truth and falsity are irrelevant here.

The only way that the non-philosophical pragmatist can escape this dilemma is by devising a more sophisticated theory of the nature of a "personal" reason. Now, the kind of man who is attracted to popular pragmatism is not sufficiently philosophical to arrive at such a theory. So here philosophers must step in. Few philosophers are interested in stepping in at this point; most are rationalists, and the rest are mainly positivists, historicists, etc. But there have been a few philosophers who have been sufficiently interested in the ordinary religious consciousness to try to develop an adequate theory of "personal" reasons. It is no coincidence that these men--Pascal , Cardinal Newman, lames, and Schiller--have often been regarded by philosophers as "irrationalists" who are disloyal to philosophy. About his predecessors, F.C.S. Schiller writes,

Thoughtful theologians have always perceived what their rational- istic critics have blindly ignored, viz., that religious truths are not, like mathematical, such as directly and universally to impose themselves on all minds. They have seen, that is, that the religious attitude essentially implies the addition of what was called "faith" for its proper appreciation. This "faith," moreover, was conceived as an intensely personal act, as an emotional reaction of a man's whole nature upon a vital issue. It followed that it was unreasonable, on the part of rationalists, to ignore this specific character of religious truth or to treat it as irrational. And it was this perception which prompted a Pascal to array the "reasons of the heart" against the (abstract)


reasons of "the head," a Newman to compile his Grammar o] Assent, and a Ritschl to spurn the pseudo-demonstrations of (a Hegelian) philosophy, and to construct an impregnable citadel for the religious sentiment in the exalted sphere of "judgments of value."

Accordingly, when that great student of the human soul, William lames, proclaimed the right of inclining the nicely weighted equipoise of intellectual argumentation by throwing into the scales a will to believe whichever of the alternatives seemed most consonant with our emotional nature, it might well have seemed that he was merely reviving and rewording a familiar theological expedient... The new philosophy, moreover, as we have seen, has been taught, by the sceptical results to which the old abstractions led, that knowledge cannot be depersonalized, and that the full concreteness of personal interest is indispensable for the attainment of truth?

With one eye on respectability among the "tough-minded," James and Schiller decided to invest most of their emotional cash in an untenable theory of truth. The most important attempt to construct an adequate philosophical theory of "personal" reasons remains that 9f Cardinal Newman. There is a theory of "personal" reasons in some of his earliest sermons, and throughout his life he revised and refined this theory. In the Grammar of Assent, he argues,

It is plain that formal logical sequence is not in fact the method by which we are enabled to become certain of what is concrete; and it is equally plain, from what has been already suggested, what the real and necessary method is. It is 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 convertible into syllogisms, too numerous and various for such conversion, even were they convertible. As a man's portrait differs from a sketch of him, in having, not merely a continuous outline, but all its details filled in, and shades and colours laid on and harmonized together, such is the multiform and intricate process of ratiocination,

F. C.S. Schiller, "Faith, Reason, and Religion," in Studies in Humanism (London: Macmillan, 1907), pp. 351-352.


necessary for our reaching him as a concrete fact, compared with the rude operation of syllogistic treatment?

Here is an interesting attempt to avoid the dilemma of popular pragmatism. Newman is warning us here that we must be careful not to assume that "informal inference" or personal reasoning is a simple process. The personal reasoning of the man in the street is far more complex than the formal reasoning of the mathematician or the logician. His personal reasons are not simple desires or isolated pragmatic criteria. Rather, a personal reason is a datum which only points to a conclusion when it is combined with other data. Applying a phenomenological method, Newman then proceeds to give examples of informal inference from everyday life. Here is a simple one:

A learned writer says, "In criminal prosecutions, the circum- stantial evidence should be such, as to produce nearly the same degree of certainty as that which arises from direct testimony, and to exclude a rational probability of innocence." ...[A]nd "rational" is used in contradistinction to argumentative, and means "resting on implicit reasons," such as we feel, indeed, but which for some cause or other, because they are too subtle or too circuitous, we cannot put into words so as to satisfy logic .4

And have you ever noticed how, without being able to explain why, we can tell that a book has been written by a certain author? When one has no doubt about the authorship of a book, "The reasons of his conviction are too delicate, too intricate, nay, they are in part invisible; invisible, except to those who from circumstances have an intellectual perception of what does not appear to the many. They are personal to the individual." 5 Now, my aim here has not been to resurrect Cardinal Newman's theory of the nature of "personal" reasons. My point is simply this: if one goes to the trouble of de- veloping a sophisiticated theory of "personal" reasons, he may well end up with a conception of metaphysics that is not at all like popular pragmatism. For though Newman believes that "faith, though

3 John Henry Newman, An Essay in A id oJ a Grammar of Assent, Ch. 8, Section 2, introduction. 4 Ibid., Ch. 8, section 2, part 3, example 2. 5 Ibid., Ch. 8, section 2, part 3, example 3.


an intellectual action, is ethical in its origin" and "that as for the reasons of believing, they are for the most part implicit, and need be but slightly recognized by the mind that is under their influence," he believes that "personal" reasons lead us to the truth and that religious beliefs are not merely "opinions.""

Now consider the problem from anothe~ perspective: are the reasons which one encounters in phi~losophy books really all that "impersonal"? A recent philosopher, Bergson, has written that, "If there exists any means of possessing a reality absolutely instead of knowing it relatively, of placing oneself within it instead of looking at it from outside points of view, of having the intuition instead of making the analysis: in short, of seizing it without any expression, translation, or symbolic representation--metaphysics is that means." 7 And in suggesting that the metaphysical apprehension of ultimate reality involves intuition, Bergson has not advanced a revolutionary theory but has simply echoed the words of most of the great metaphysicians. For Plato, knowledge of the Forms involves a special kind of perception; absolute essences cannot be defined in language. And though the highest objects are timeless, transcendent, and unchang- ing, apprehension of them requires a highly personal, mystical experience. For Augustine and Aquinas, metaphysical inquiry is file soul's preparation for a beatific vision. The rationalist Spinoza tells us that there is a kind of knowledge higher than ratio, and it is scientia

intuitiva. And, of course, the founder of metaphysics as a formal discipline, Aristotle, warns us that philosophical wisdom differs from ordinary scientific knowledge in that it involves an element of intuitive reason. The famous theological argument in Book Lambda of the Metaphysics rests on the assumption that there can be no infinite regress, and the reasons Aristotle gives (at Metaphysics 994) for holding this assumption are not any more impersonal than the reasons of which the non-philosophical pragmatist speaks. "And so again," Cardinal Newman writes, "from the experience of causes which we have in the world, we rise to the idea of a First Cause, from whom they all proceed." s Perhaps there is something highly personal in the way that the religious believer rises to an intellectually satisfying idea; but why then dismiss the ideas of Book Lambda

6 John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development o] Christian Doctrine, Ch. 7, section 2, part 1.

Henri Bergson, An Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. T. E. Hulme (2nd ed.; Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1955), p. 24.


or Aquinas' five ways as "impersonal" and irrelevant to the practical problem of what to believe?

On the other hand, what is a matter of intuition to one man is a matter of mere opinion to another. And even if he can be made to acknowledge the fact that metaphysicians do not consider theological knowledge to be as impersonal as ordinary empirical knowledge, the non-philosophical pragmatist is still likely to express dissatisfaction about the conflicting intuitions of metaphysicians. Fair enough; we still owe him an explanation of why all forms of metaphysical relativism are inadequate. But at least we have made him see that there is an element of dishonesty involved in hiding behind the claim that one's reasons are "personal." Most philosophers have had the courage of their convictions and have been willing to defend reasons which they have made explicit. If the non-philosophical pragmatist is not prepared to do the same, it is not because philosophers rarely agree with one another but because he is somewhat less rational than the philosopher.

JAY NEWMAN

University of Guelph

s The Theological Papers o] John Henry Newman on Faith and Certainty, ed. Hugo M. de Acheval, S. J. and Derek Holmes (Oxford" Clarendon Press, 1976), p. 97.

popular pragmatism and religious belief

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