Koncepcja wiary Johna Henry’ego Newmana jako przykład dziewiętnastowiecznej krytyki oświeceniowego racjonalizmu .......... 493

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN ON RELIGIOUS FAITH. A 19TH-CENTURY CONTRIBUTION TO THE CRITIQUE OF ENLIGHTENMENT RATIONALISM

The article presents selected aspects of the philosophical and theological views of John Henry Newman, considered in their opposition to Enlightenment rationalism. In the first part of the text, I discuss the epistemic status of religious beliefs and set the ideas of Newman against the ideas of Ludwig Wittgenstein on “hinge beliefs,” contained in On Certainty. I argue that by rejecting the evidentialist approach, Newman can legitimately equate religious beliefs with the beliefs that are (usually) considered to constitute knowledge. This makes it possible for him to abandon a strict distinction between “knowledge” and “faith”. The second part of the article, on the relationship between faith and reason, presents Newman’s criticism of the enlightened reason as an “usurper” in the domain of morality and religion that ignores the “given” deriving from non-rational sources, especially the “voice of conscience.” However, as I suggest, this criticism can be mitigated by the fact that by relating religious beliefs to the ethical domain Newman is capable of maintaining the rational character of these beliefs.