University of Rhode Island DigitalCommons@URI Open Access Master's Theses 1983 John Henry Newman and the Significance of Theistic Proof Mary Susan Glasson University of Rhode Island Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/theses Recommended Citation Glasson, Mary Susan, "John Henry Newman and the Significance of Theistic Proof" (1983). Open Access Master's Theses. Paper 1530. https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/theses/1530 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@URI. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@URI. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. - JOHNHENRY NEWMAN ANDTHE SIGNIFICANCE OF THEISTICPROOF BY MARYSUSAN GLASSON A THESISSUBMITTED IN PARTIALFULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTSFOR THE DEGREEOF MASTEROF ARTS IN PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITYOF RHODEISLAND 1983 ABSTRACT The central problem of this paper is to decide the significance of formal argument for God's existence, in light of John Henry Newman's distinction between notional and real assent. If God in fact exists, then only real assent to the proposition asserting his existence is adequate. Notional assent is inadequate because it is assent to a notion or abstraction, and not to a present reality. But on Newman's view it is notional assent which normally follows on a formal inference, therefore the significance of traditional formal arguments is thrown into question. Newman has claimed that our attitude toward a proposition may be one of three; we may doubt it, infer it, or assent to it, and to assent to it is to hold it unconditionally.