Abstract

In this paper, I argue that the preambles to the preambles to the faith cannot be determinate claims about being. Rather, they are dispositions of the person that enable the search for knowledge which gives rise to determinate claims about being. My essay is a consideration of confidence, a foundational disposition of metaphysical inquiry. Based on my interpretations of Augustine and William Desmond, I examine confidence as a disposition of trust in others that moves me to seek to know with the belief that I can know and that others are knowable. This disposition is a metaphysical orientation in that it is always confidence in what is other to thought thinking. From this confidence, we can seek to know being and so can discern the metaphysical principles that act as preambles to the grace of faith which initiates us into the Christian pilgrimage to the Truth.