John Henry Newman's An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent is a commonly cited source for the idea that religion and ethics are in some fashion mutually implicated, and specifically the idea that religious belief can be grounded in our moral experience.1 In this paper I aim to do two things. First of all, I shall try to show that Newman's account of the relationship between religious and ethical understanding, as expounded in the Grammar, is more richly nuanced (...) than one might suppose from reading the work of his commentators, and indeed anticipates a great deal of recent discussion in the philosophy of religion. Secondly, I shall argue that one strand of Newman's case in particular merits further attention in the context of current debate; here I shall argue that Newman's position is reminiscent of recent discussion in the philosophy of mind concerning the sense in which feelings are intentional, and articulates a view which is at best underdeveloped in recent work in philosophy of religion. (shrink)

This paper defends the view that philosophical propositions are merely relatively true, i.e. true relative to a doxastic perspective defined at least in part by a non-inferential belief-acquiring method. Here is the strategy: first, the primary way that contemporary philosophers defend their views is through the use of rational intuition, and this method delivers non-inferential, basic beliefs which are then systematized and brought into reflective equilibrium. Second, Christian theologians use exactly the same methodology, only replacing intuition with revelation. Third, intuition (...) and revelation yield frequently inconsistent output beliefs. Fourth, there is no defensible reason to prefer the dictates of intuition to those of Christian revelation. Fifth, the resulting dilemma means that there are true philosophical propositions, but we can't know them (scepticism), or there are no philosophical propositions and the naturalists are right (nihilism), or relativism is true. I suggest that relativism is the most palatable of these alternatives. (shrink)