Newman, Plantinga and Darwin's Doubt

Chris Oldfield

The thought would be that John Henry Newman gave us a way of thinking about doubt, assent and inference in his essay in aid of a grammar of assent, that has been lost sight of. In the contemprary philosophy of mind and epistemology philosophers have tended to think of faith and doubt as equal/opposite positions or states of mind situated on a sliding scale from unbelief through degrees of credence to fullly justified, warranted, true belief or knowledge. In Newman's way of thinking, I will argue (following Antognazza 2024) that this way of thinking rests on a profound mistake, which is exhibited by Alvin Plantinga's reconstruction of  Darwin's doubt as an instance of Bayesian reasoning, or a premise in his argument against naturalism.