John Henry Newman Quotes on Knowledge
John Henry Newman (1801–1890), the Anglican-turned-Catholic theologian whose Grammar of Assent (1870) gave Victorian religious epistemology one of its most subtle statements, develops at length the distinction between notional assent — abstract intellectual acquiescence in propositions — and real assent, the concrete and life-shaping conviction that follows from the imaginative apprehension of what the proposition is actually about. The corresponding doctrine of the "illative sense" — the personal, practical judgment by which converging probabilities issue in genuine certitude beyond what formal demonstration could ever supply — frames Newman's distinctive alternative to the more rationalist epistemologies of his Victorian contemporaries.
Quotes
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“Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.”
Ch. V, p. 239 -
Attributed to John Henry Newman:
“An idea is an ambiguous thing; you cannot reach it without long preparation.”
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Attributed to John Henry Newman:
“It is as absurd to argue men, as to torture them, into believing.”
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“Persecution , st. 3 (1832)”
Time hath a taming hand. -
“Sin can read sin, but dimly scans high grace.”
Isaac (1833) -
“Christian! hence learn to do thy part, And leave the rest to Heaven.”
St. Paul at Melita , st. 3 (1833) -
“St. Paul at Melita , st. 3 (1833)”
Christian! hence learn to do thy part, And leave the rest to Heaven. -
“The Pillar of the Cloud , st. 1 (1833)”
Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on! The night is dark, and I am far from home— Lead Thou me on! Keep Thou my feet: I do not ask to see The distant scene,—one step enough for me. -
“And with the morn those angel faces smile Which I have loved long since and lost awhile.”
The Pillar of the Cloud , st. 3 (1833)