An A–Zand indivisible Light is seen only by the blessed inhabitants of
heaven; here we have but such faint refl ections of it as its dif-
fraction supplies; but they are suffi cient for faith and devotion.’
However, Newman also realised, I think, there is a limit to
the certitude that can be arrived at by such methods, that limit
depending upon the matter in question. In particular, you may
have certitude about God’s existence, when all things in life
are considered. But what that doesn’t give you is faith in, say,
Christianity and not Islam. The specifi cs of different theistic reli-
gions, which are so important, seem equally probable from this
probabilistic point of view, which is to say that each has a coher-
ent, persuasive story to tell, to account for the fullness of your
experience. (Perhaps, if the question of parentage can be made
analogous to that faith, this is like acknowledging that while
it’s not unimaginably improbable that you’re wrong about your
parents, it is that you’re wrong about having parents at all.)
Probability alone cannot tell you which theism to follow
because the likelihood of any particular revelation seems
so similar. ‘If the abstract probability of a Revelation be the
measure of genuineness in a given case, why not in the case of
Mahomet as well as of the Apostles?’ he asks. Quite so, acknowl-
edging the limits of probabilistic assessments when it comes to
faith.
Newman overcame these limits by his trust in the Catholic
Church: he reasoned that each of the many members of the
church contributes their real assent to the faith held within the
traditions of the church, and that accumulation of witnesses
was convincing to him. There, though, I must part company
with him.
What I take from him, nonetheless, is that it’s possible to arrive
at a certitude about God by a holistic probabilistic approach such
as his – though, for me, God comes as a question – but that certi-
tude about Christianity or Islam, or Anglicanism or Catholicism,
requires something else. I generally opt for Anglicanism when
I go to church for different reasons: it is a serious tradition, and
the tradition I know best, so if I want to be serious about the