A View of Natural Theology: Newman pt. 1

The book of Romans assures man that God exists and that man has no reason to not acknowledge Him as God and pay Him the piety He deserves. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians takes this manifesto a step further illustrating that by external nature we see God at work and His existence and by internal nature man receives divine blessings of wisdom and revelation. It is important to note that Paul is not drawing a dichotomy here between the physical and the spirit but rather demonstrating their unity. Before tackling how this works in natural theology, John Henry Cardinal Newman illustrates the basic empiricism of philosophical theology and its foundations for natural theology.
By what means man comes to a belief is of great importance to Newman. He divides that consent of knowledge to three methods: doubt, inference, and assent. When one doubts a piece of information he is, in a way, making an acknowledgement of some belief, in this case by doubting one thing he acknowledges its antithesis. An inference is a conditional act because it relies on some other experience or proposition to understand (a posteriori). Finally, one believes by assent, which is unconditional or knowledge a priori. When man assents to something he considers it for its own sake and in its intrinsic sense. In order to assent to something, however, it requires apprehension of the matter asserted. A person must have an adequate comprehension of the predicate of the proposition to possess a comprehension of the subject asserted. In other words, as Newman uses as an illustration, if one is seeking to comprehend what ‘Trade’ is, and finds that, ‘trade is the interchange of goods,’ then he must be able to apprehend what ‘the interchange of goods’ means before he can assent to this definition of ‘Trade.’
Newman further demonstrates that it is possible to apprehend without understanding. Being aware of a natural law or the habits of the cosmos may yield apprehension and assent without explaining how and why such natural phenomena take place. Newman suggests, “I may take a just view of a man’s conduct, and therefore apprehend it, and yet may profess that I cannot understand it.” Apprehension is simply an intelligent acceptance of the idea.
Apprehension varies in strength and is stronger when concerned with propositions more familiar to the person. Human nature, Newman argues, is more likely to be affected by concrete images and notions than by abstract ones. Furthermore, experiences and their images strike and occupy the mind, as abstractions and their combinations do not. In matters of religion, therefore, it makes sense that the more tangible the evidence and experience with the Supreme Being that stronger the assent in the belief of that Deity. An act of assent “is most perfect and highest of its kind, when it is exercised on propositions which are apprehended as experiences and images which stand for things.” Newman asserts then that real assent, or belief, does not lead to action. Rather, “the images in which it lives have the power of the concrete upon the affections and passions, and by means of these indirectly become operative.”