Babies Who Believe: Social Epistemology in William of Auxerre

Abstract William of Auxerre’s religious epistemology appears radically individualistic: faith is based on what God alone reveals to one’s soul, without any human teachers. However, he develops a social epistemology when discussing whether baptized infants have faith. Against the intuitively more plausible claim that infants can’t have beliefs, he says that they have the habit of faith, but cannot put it into act. When a teacher tells children about religion, this prompts them to look within themselves, see what God has placed in their soul, recognize that it corresponds to what the teacher is proposing, and then assent to it. Their beliefs are still grounded in God’s revelation to their soul and not the authority of their human teacher, but they need a teacher to articulate that revelation propositionally for them. Even though faith is strictly speaking something that happens between God and the soul, one requires a religious community in order to make a conscious act of faith.