"Another Look at Newman"

[Editor CFT: We have become frustrated at the praise lavished on Cardinal Newman. We have serious reservations about the prudence of canonizing him. He may be in heaven but there are better more stable theologians to canonize, for heroic vitue. Most have not taken a critical look at his writings. Newman may have been a man of good will, but that fact is not much of a consolation if his writings could be used in the future to cause confusion and spread heresy.

We are publishing a well research critique in a searchable format for those interested in a critical look. Since JPII got rid of the "devil's advocate" we now have the problem of theologians being canonized without a complete thorough review.]
https://www.traditioninaction.org/bkreviews/Internet_Files/A_028_Another_Look_at_Newman.pdf




 by Richard Sartino

Introduction


In spite of his talents and the nobility of his stated aspirations Newman was not the Catholic
hero and intellectual that the modern Catholic world has made of him, and it is the contention of this
paper that an investigation of his life will show conclusively that John Newman was neither a saint,
eminent theologian, nor champion of orthodoxy, epithets often applied to him. To establish this, a look at his life, work and writings is in order.



Life and Character of John H. Newman



The first conversion of Newman brought him to an Evangelical clergyman, Walter Mayers, who
impressed upon his young mind the doctrine of a trinitarian God, and gave him Mimer's Church
History where he first met the Fathers of the Church. Another book, Thomas Scotts' The Force of
Truth, convinced him that personal development is the key for interpreting the world, whether natural
or supernatural . "Growth is the only evidence of life" became his lifelong axiom, as his chief work
The Development of Christian Doctrine amply testifies. The importance of these early impressions
cannot be underestimated since they provide explanations for his mature thoughts and aspirations.

In 1816 Newman entered Trinity College at Oxford and met his lifelong friend, John William
Bowden, whose father was director of the Bank of England and had business connections with the
West India Company. M. Trevor says that Trinity "was certainly gentleman-like — nobody did much
work and everybody drank a lot of wine", and Newman was known to bring his violin to the wine
parties and provide entertainment. (In later life Newman enjoyed the musical company of Blanco
White, an apostate priest from Spain who reveled in throwing mud at the Church and Her ministers.)
In his second year at Trinity Newman attended lectures on minerology and geology with Shelley, the
author of The Necessity of Atheism, and he failed his final
examinations of 1820.

His father's bank finally went bankrupt in 1821, forcing the Newmans to sell all their
possessions. His father's attitude toward religion became evident when the two of them clashed
because of John junior's religious activities. His father warned him: "Have a guard. You are
encouraging a nervous and morbid sensibility, and irritibility, which may be serious. I know what it is
myself. It is a disease of the mind." Newman's sensitiveness and irritability gave him considerable
problems in later life with Catholic priests and bishops.

In 1825 Newman was made Vice-Principal of St. Alban's Hall where he was ordained a minister
in the Church of England, and in 1828 he became Vicar of St. Mary's at Oxford, a position he held
until 1830 when he resigned after a clash with the Provost.

In 1833 he embarked upon a Mediterranean tour, during which he composed his famous poem "Lead Kindly Light", and afterwards, in 1841, he published his famous Tract 90 during the height of the Tractarian Movement in Oxford. At this time he began his advance towards the Catholic Church. In 1845, after Newman composed the Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Saint Dominic Barberi, C.P, received him into the Church, and in 1847 he was ordained a Catholic priest in Rome joining the Oratory of St.Philip Neri.

From this time onward Newman propagated the Oratorian community in various places until he
finally founded the Birmingham Oratory where he spent the greater part of the remainder of his life.

From 1854 to 1857 Newman was Rector of the Catholic University of Ireland where his ambitions
failed due to his liberal views on education; and in 1859 he became involved with the Rambler, an
episode which added to the suspicion with which ecclesiastical authorities already regarded him. In
1867 Newman attempted to introduce Catholicism into Oxford University, a scheme which was
prohibited by the bishops, after which he wrote his Essay in Aid of Grammar of Assent in defense of
his liberal views. After the death of Pope Pius IX, who refused to raise him in the ranks of the clergy,
Newman was created a cardinal at the instance of the Duke of Norfolk; and on August 11,1890, at
8:45 p.m. he died.

The difficulty in understanding Newman's character is not due to lack of historical material, but
rather to the complexity of the man himself. Alfred Fawkes in Studies in Modernism characterised him as
...a great man of letters, and a master of English prose; his knowledge of certain sides of human
nature was instinctive; he was subtle and, within limits, an acute thinker; and he was one of the most
consummate advocates that ever lived. He possessed the temperament of the artist in an exceptional
degree... He was not easy to live with; Manning's view of him - and it was shared by more friendly
judges - was that he was "difficult to understand". His transports of emotion were tempestuous.
(p.26)

After relating the incident of Ambrose St. John's death and Newman's throwing himself on the
bed by the corpse, and spending the night next to it, Fawkes states that "such a temper is not normal;
one cannot mistake the overstrain."

Unquestionably Newman was an exceptionally talented writer, capable of analyzing
conceptions, terms and fine shades of meaning that few have since been able to match; yet underneath and behind his writings there is an ambiguity, which many have noticed, that gives the impression that Newman was more clever than straightforward.



Never consciously insincere, he constantly gave the impression of insincerity. You could not detect
the fallacy, but a true instinct told you it was there. Hence the distrust inspired by that subtle rhetoric
by which you are led downwards on an exquisitely elaborated inclined plane, from a truism to a
probability, from a strong probability to a fair probability, from a fair probability to a pious but most
improbable belief! (p.27)

With such a technique Newman could assuage the ire of ecclesiastics who frowned upon his
writings.

Newman's belief that the first principles of thought are rooted in personal traits reveals his own
modus operandi, for it was not per se an objective principle that motivated his likes and dislikes but4
rather his own temperament.

It would have been truer to say that temperament was the key to his career. It was temperament that
led him to the Tractarian Movement, to Rome, and to anti-Vaticanism;... the vulgarity of
Ultramontanism offended him; he was not of that world. The entourage of Plus IX left a bad taste in
his mouth... he was repelled by the "Univers", under Veuillot, and the "Tablet", under Herbert Vaughn.

He saw the policy of the Vatican was overreaching itself; it was in the interest of Catholicism that he
minimised the Syllabus and opposed the Definition of 1870. (p.45)

Catholics on Newman

Dr. Newman is the most dangerous man in England and you will see that he will make use of the laity
against your grace. — Msgr. Talbot

Newman's popularity was not as universal in his own day as after his death. Indeed, until the
Newman Clubs permeated the universities his fame was anything but glorious in the eyes of
contemporary Catholics, and there is a considerable amount of recorded history to indicate that
Newman was looked upon by fellow Catholics as recalcitrant, ambitious, scheming, disobedient, an
innovator and generally a continual problem for the authorities. As Meriol Trevor said:

 "Newman was thought a crypto-Roman while he was in the Church of England, as a crypto-Protestant when he was in the Catholic and Roman communion" (p. 5 8), and it will be useful to relate a few incidents and the reaction of various Catholics so that we can see Newman as Catholics did in his own day.

On one occasion Newman wrote about his supposedly profound mystical experience of grace
when he received Anglican communion, in order to defend the Catholicity of the Church of England:
"...if your soul has been, as it were, transfigured within you, when you came to the Most Holy
Sacrament... O! pause ere you doubt that we have a Divine Presence among us still, and have not to
seek it. . ." Lord Shrewsbury, a convert to Catholicism, wrote about Newman's experience:

Does this not sufficiently prove Newman's Vision to be an illusion of the Father of Lies, since they
take it in evidence of the truth of their system and in Justification of Schism?

On another occasion, Newman brought upon himself the disrespect of Bishop Ullathorne.

Their popularity with the parishoners did not altogether please Bishop Ullathorne, who had heard a
report., as Newman wrote with amusement to Faber, "that we were so familiar with our female
penitents that they said they could marry us next morning..." At this period, Ullathorne, unable to
believe that the converts were a real religious community, never called Newman "Father".

Here we see not only an example of ecclesiastical disapproval of Newman but also a piece of his
well-known humour which was more often risque than not. Among Englishmen today who know
better than others what Newman was really like, Newman's zesty and pungent humour is a truism.

In Newman's Journey by Meriol Trevor, a recent publication evidently written to acquit
Newman of his liberalism, we learn about Newman's failure and loss of prestige among his
contemporaries:

During the rest of the fifties... Newman was losing his prestige with the Catholic authorities in London
and Rome, so that by 1863, ruminating in his journal, he could feel that his work had been wasted
and himself regarded as a crypto-heretic and disloyal to the Pope, while among Protestants he was
almost forgotten, a fanatic who had outlived his reputation. This strange reversal of fortune is the
critical period of Newman's life, for the understanding of his mature character and the nature of the
influence he was to exercise after the success of his Apologia in 1864, which still continues, (p. 156)

On the occasion of his Letter to Dr. Pusey in which he simultaneously pointed out Anglican
misconceptions concerning the Blessed Virgin and denounced "Catholic excesses" in their devotion
to the Mother of God, Newman called down the ire of Msgr. Talbot, the Papal Chamberlain, as well as

5



Manning. "Talbot thought every Englishman naturally anti-Roman. 'Dr. Newman is more English than
the English. His spirit must be crushed!.'", said Msgr. Talbot, (p.224) Manning held the same view,
for he replied that he saw much danger of

...an English Catholicism, of which Newman is the highest type. It is the old Anglican, patristic,
literary, Oxford tone transplanted into the Church... In one word, it is a worldly Catholicism, and it will
have the worldly on its side, and will deceive many, (p.225)

These words of Cardinal Manning are very accurate, for he reveals the reason for the beautiful
eloquence of Newman's prose, "the old Anglican, patristic, literary Oxford tone" that appealed to so
many Catholics. If one reads carefully the writings of Newman, putting aside his attractive style, one
is surprised to find how little dogma is actually contained in them. One writer pointed out that
Newman never once quoted St. Thomas in support of any of his views.

Finally, another opponent of Newman's heterodoxy, E. R. Martin, who was the Roman
correspondent of The Weekly Register and who did not hesitate to assail Newman for causing so much
trouble in Rome, went so far as to argue that Newman's books should be placed on the Index.

Newman and Manning

That Cardinal Manning, along with the majority of old Catholics, considered Newman to have
departed from orthodox belief is agreed to by all biographers and historians who treat of their
antagonism. J. E. C. Bodley in Cardinal Manning And Other Essays dispels in unbiased terms the
mythical status of Newman's grandeur. "Mr. Ward" ~ Wilfrid Ward who wrote a biography of
Newman —

...forcibly exposes the suffering endured by Newman from such intellectual and social miseries. His
book is an enduring monument to the most attractive and most colossal egoist that ever lived. It
seems to reveal Newman as primarily neither a great Englishman, nor a great Oxford-man, nor a
great Catholic... but a great Newmanite. Newman's measure of men was regulated not by their faith
or their good works, but by their devotion to John Henry Newman.

Bodley was an intimate of Cardinal Manning and knew the Cardinal's mind about Newman, as
he knew Newman himself:

If it had been given to him to choose who should sit on his right hand and who on his left in the
kingdom of heaven, he would have preferred the agnostic Mark Pattison to Cardinal Allen and
Archbishop McHale or any of the Ultramontane Irish bishops who afflicted him; and the Catholics
admitted to the celestial band would have mostly been kind Oratorian fathers who were friends of
Oxford days, or their affectionate successors, (p. 22)

This is no exaggeration, for there was a cult around Newman in his day, as there is today by the
remnant of Oratorians at Birmingham who run a virtual museum of Newmaniana containing such
articles of devotion as Newman's shoe laces. The cause for his beatification, incidentally, was opened
in 1954 and is being propagated by his disciples; but to this day not one miracle has been reported.

Bodley continues to describe Newman's outlook on himself and others:

...Newman's conception of Paradise was a beatific Oxford Common-room where he elected the
members, and also chose the wines — as he did at Oriel — which in that sphere would symbolize the
cordial virtues of friendship. But he cannot have conceived a heaven without the survival of human
affection and sympathy. 'Ego diligentes me diligo' 1 was the rule which formulated the first instinct of
his nature, earthly and spiritual: though sometimes he followed a more strictly apostolic precedent in
his treatment of those who loved him not: Alexander aerarius multa mala mihi ostendit; reddet illi



1 1 love those loving me.



Dominus secundum opera ejus* (p.23)

Bodley, a protestant, is a worthy witness of Newman's character since his own thinking
naturally tended to coincide more with that of Newman's than Manning's, and it is therefore
remarkable that his experience of the two men drew him to Manning rather than Newman.

In the spiritual domain Newman's Gallicanism, for historical reasons, would have attracted me more
than Manning's Ultramontanism, and his liberalism would have appealed to a mind not insensible to
scepticism. But I know Manning. He was the only good man I have known intimately... (p.24)

The hypocrisy of the liberal lies in his reluctance and inability to help the poor for whom he
incessantly raises the banner of religion, whereas the virtue of the orthodox Catholic consists in his
doing the work of Christ without fail or fanfare. The same contrast was found in Newman and
Manning.

Manning's love for the suffering poor was higher and deeper than the specious altruism of politicians;
for he had no material recompense to gain from philanthropy. While Newman with his pen had given
joy to a select number of cultivated minds, and with his sympathetic amenity had bound in friendship
the few who were admitted to his circle, compassion for the multitude was gradually absorbing all the
genius of Manning. If there had been half a dozen Newmans born in this realm, England would have
enjoyed the goodly gift of five more illustrious writers in the Victorian age. If there had been half a
dozen Mannings, England would have run the risk of being converted... to Christianity, (p. 25)

Whereas Newman wrote, spoke, traveled a great deal and failed in his projects more often than
not, Manning wrote comparatively little, always for a definite purpose, refrained from appearing at
social events and brought immense help to the poor. "Yet to the ordinary mortal it would seem that by
the rules which regulate the commerce of human beings, Mannings policy was more honest than that
of Newman." Although one might think, considering Newman's teaching about the superiority of the
practical and concrete over the speculative and abstract, that Newman would have been the more
practical of the two, nevertheless Manning prospered in many of his projects while he rarely spoke of
them. Newman, on the contrary, was forever writing about his projects and defending himself in the
newspapers; he always had a new idea which was frequently just an idea. Prosperity in good works, it
must never be forgotten, always depends upon the recognition that the contemplative virtues are
superior to the practical virtues, for "Wisdom is the more active than all things", and it is an ironical
fact that those who deny this by eulogizing the practical life of man without reference to the
speculative will inevitably fail in their plans, or simply continue talking and talking.

J. E. C. Bodley held the same view as the old English Catholics:

It has always been incomprehensible to me why Manning's hostility to Newman should be imputed to
him as a sin, while Newman's hostility to Manning is held to be a virtue, (p. 15)

One evening while Mr. Bodley and Cardinal Manning recalled the Oxford Movement that
brought so many Anglican converts into the Church, Manning repudiated all connection with the
movement thinking there was something insincere about the whole thing.

"I became a Catholic off my own bat" he exclaimed to indicate the lack of conviction in the Oxford
converts. Afterwards the conversation moved to theological ground, and Manning's tone changed.
"From an observation you made", he said, "I gather that you are under the impression that Doctor
Newman is a good Catholic." I replied that such was my vague belief. He retorted: "Either you are
ignorant of the Catholic doctrine, or of the works of Doctor Newman" - he always said 'Doctor
Newman' in Oxford fashion, and never gave him the title of Cardinal. After asking me which of
Newman's books I had read, he proceeded to tick off on his tapering fingers, in his usual way, ten
distinct heresies to be found in the most widely-read works of Dr. Newman.



1 Alexander rendered many evils to me: may the Lord render unto him according to his works!

7



Manning, indeed, had read Newman carefully in the light of Catholic theology and judged his
writings accordingly. Mr. Bodley concluded the story of his conversation with Manning with a remark
that all Catholics of conservative persuasion who regard Newman as the greatest thinker since St.
Robert Bellarmine ought to keep in mind, for his remark is relevant to our own day:

Yet at the present hour, when the Modernists have claimed Newman as their precursor, supporting
their contention with many a passage from his writings, it would seem that Manning, as the exponent
of orthodox doctrine, was justified in his appreciation of Newman's teaching, (p.17)

Another influential writer during the last century was Lord Acton, who was famous for his
critical historicism and also renowned for his friendship with Dollinger. Acton was almost
excommunicated, as Dollinger was, but managed to maintain the appearance of orthodoxy and remain
in the Church. As liberal as Lord Acton was, and although he sided with Newman in fighting the
dogma of Infallibility, he came to the same conclusion as Manning regarding Newman's heterodox
position. In a letter written by Acton a few weeks before Manning's death, after mentioning the
'personal aversion to Manning' displayed by Newman he said,

Many will wonder how anybody who saw much of him could remain a Catholic — assuming that
Newman really was one. (p. 17)

Acton, although an ally of Newman in editing the liberal journal The Rambler, was not baffled
by Newman's prosaic tact: "Acton went much further than Manning in his strictures on his old ally.
He described Newman as 'a sophist, the manipulator and not the servant of truth." When men of
diametrically opposed beliefs, as Acton and Manning, agree in their judgment of another man whom
they so well knew, the assumption that they are not both in error is not unreasonable.

Of Newman and Manning, Manning, on the external evidence, was clearly the more sincere. His
conversion occurred at a time when he enjoyed immense respectability and success in the Anglican
Church, whereas Newman entered the Church only after "being castigated by Oxford and considered
by all as a moral failure. Bodley speaks of Manning's sincere conversion:

This is shown by the willingness with which he threw aside ambition, comfort, and prosperity, when as
the high road to the foremost and pleasantest preferments in the Church of England, to enter upon
the tedious life of a Roman Catholic mission priest. His new durance called forth from him no moaning
such as Newman poured out when he was sent to work in Ireland..., (p. 22)

Manning had everything to lose by becoming a Catholic, Newman had everything to gain. Mr.
Bodley was more than impressed by Manning's religion:

He was free from all pious, affectation, Yet in close contact with him one felt that he was always living
in the presence of an unseen Power, not as a pompous agent, but as its simple and humble
messenger. It has been my lot to witness some of the most imposing religious ceremonies of modern
Christendom; but nothing so impressive, so faith-inspiring has ever met my eyes as the sight of the
noble old Englishman in his threadbare cassock kneeling alone before the altar of his bare chapel.
(p.29)

After noting Manning's austerity, reservation, and his refusal to eat anything whenever he
attended social banquets, Bodley testifies to his suspicion of Newman and his followers:

Apart from the mutual antipathy of their temperaments, his dislike for Newman had a similar basis to
that of his dislike for other residents of Birmingham - the politicians of the Education League; he
believed their influence to be dangerous to Christianity... (p.32)

9 Newman on Education

In a recent book entitled The Death of Christian Culture John Senior asserts that Newman failed



in his university plans in Ireland because he was "too serious" to perform the functions of an
administrator. If we consider the records of that time, however, the case seems to be otherwise. Too
much seriousness was not Newman's problem; on the contrary he was not serious enough. His views
about the purpose of education clashed with the. traditional view held by the Irish authorities who
were unwilling to yield to his novel innovations.

Newman's idea of education was that Catholic laymen must be educated in the classics and
theology to prepare them to enter Protestant society in polished form. He did not want to nurture
staunch and unswerving Catholics who would make pleasant society with heretics impossible. He
wanted broad-minded men who could converse on most topics with erudition and attractiveness. He
promoted in every one of his educational endeavours liberal views that would promote "personal
development", the really important thing for Newman. "Thus in starting both the Oratory and the
University he made it his business to plant the right ideas in the basic minimum of structures which
should ensure freedom of development; he did not create or try to maintain a detailed plan for the
future." It was Newman's lack of disciplina that angered the Irish bishops.

The historical records of that period in Newman's life manifest the existence and nature of
Episcopal opposition to him,

...evidence has only recently come to light in the Archives of the Propaganda, which are opened, like
a 'serial judgment day, a hundred years after the arrival of letters, manifesting the words of the dead
to the world. There are (Archbishop) Cullen's letters persuading the Roman officials not to make
Newman a bishop because of the jealousy of Englishmen in Irish affairs... In later letters Cullen
complained of Newman's own behaviour and methods, which shocked him by the freedom he allowed
the students and the laymen he appointed to the staff, (p. 162)

Archbishop Cullen himself was willing to compromise in establishing a kind of lay seminary
controlled by priests, "but Newman expected the young men to keep horses and went riding with them
himself, he encouraged music and debating societies and even supplied them with a club room and a
billiard table." Newman's idea of undergraduate education was novel indeed, and the Newman Clubs
of the twentieth century finally realized his secular dream of integrating Catholic students in heretical
institutions, a practice which before then was condemned as a mortal sin due to the proximate
occasion of losing the Faith.

Newman wanted to increase "lay participation" in the Catholic universities and seminaries and
to secularize the religious education. "But Newman's attitude to laymen was one of the principal
causes of Cullen's suspicion; he appointed clever young laymen as professors and lecturers,
sometimes men who had been associated with the Young Irelanders; he was on friendly terms with
these dangerous fellows, and they were devoted to him, rallying to his aid in any emergency." Not.
only did he promote laymen to participate in positions normally held by religious but his comrades
were of the Masonic-Irish sort who belonged to 'the Young Irelanders. As time went on the lay
'sector' quite naturally came to predominate, thus severing the natural and supernatural relationship
between priest and layman. Consequently, the secular sciences took on primary importance while the
sacred sciences, architectonic by nature, were reduced to servitude. "And then Newman's educational
aims seemed startingly modern — scientific faculties and a school of medicine (which became the
most flourishing of all his foundations) sprang into being. What was more, Newman gave lectures to
the faculties assuring them a proper intellectual freedom, just as he allowed the students a proper
moral freedom." Newman had no scruples about invoking Mary, Seat of Wisdom, as patroness of all
these harmful liberties.

For moral and intellectual discipline Newman substituted a fatherly, pastoral approach to his
students. Instead of encouraging an ascetical self-discipline so compatible with the precepts of Christ
and the life of grace, Newman promoted the Vatican II father-image with which we are all familiar

9



today. An ex-Brother, Thomas Godwin, recalled Newman's family at the Birmingham Oratory:

Little does the outer world know how beautifully the family was managed — I think I can see the
Father sitting in his little room receiving first this one and then the other, directing, guiding, calling
each by their names as if he were their very father. Then there were the jolly recreations which might
be termed musicals or extempore plays or charades, we never lacked amusement... (p. 166)

Later, when the troubles crystallized between Fr. Faber and Newman and their respective
Oratories, Newman decided to resign from the university after a three-year term of office. He was
asked to remain as a figurehead and choose a compatible Vice-Rector, but he shocked the authorities
by his suggestion that a layman be appointed. Silence alone followed his suggestion. Years later
Newman recalled his endeavors in Ireland and determined the cause of his failure and unhappiness:

It was not Ireland that was unkind to me. The same thing would have happened in England or France.
It was the clergy, moved as they are in automaton fashion from the camarilla at Rome. (p. 184)

Newman's principles of education were too liberal for the hierarchy, and they let him know it;
but the seeds of pastoral personalism were planted and germinating and would some day find fruition
in Catholic universities the world over, and finally in an ecumenical council of which he would be
called the 'invisible father'.

Newman spoke with unusual clarity and force in a sermon called "Intellect, The Instrument of
Religious Training".

I wish the intellect to range with the utmost freedom and religion to enjoy an equal freedom... (p. 184)

Most Catholics quite naturally refused to heed Newman's liberalism but he continued to
propagate his ideas. After failing in Ireland he tried to get an Oratory established at Oxford, where Fr.
Faber believed young Catholics would lose their souls. In 1864 a five-acre plot was offered to
Newman, and Bishop Ullathorne agreed to send him there to open the Oxford Mission; but Newman
neither expected nor wanted the parochial responsibilities as his real hopes lay in setting up an Oratory
at Oxford "to influence, as far as an old man can, the tone of thought in the place, with a view to a
distant time when I shall no longer be there."

The Apologia had just appeared and was enjoying immense success among Catholics and
Protestants alike. Bishop Manning commented that the Apologia was "like hearing a voice from the
dead" and when he heard that Newman was returning to Oxford

...he became alarmed at the effect this voice from the past might have on the future, and immediately
began to take steps to prevent it, acting through Wiseman and Talbot in Rome. There was a bishops
meeting on 13th December and on 19th December Ullathorne called on Newman to tell him that
Wiseman wanted the universities prohibited under censure to Catholics, and had become very
excited when Ullathorne opposed him.

Up to this time Catholics were bound under pain of mortal sin to stay out of heretical institutions
but Newman's actions changed matters. "In the end, the prohibition was reduced to a dissuasive and
its publication was postponed till the matter had been referred to Rome." The laymen who came under
Newman's influence quite naturally reacted in protest and sent petitions to Rome to make their claim,
but Cardinal Barnabo, Prefect of the Propaganda, 1 rejected their pleas without discussion. As time
went on, however, the dissuasive was reduced to a warning, the warning was transformed into
acceptance, and acceptance finally became a social obligation. The importance of this initial move of
Newman to laicize and mix Catholic education cannot be overestimated.



1 The Propaganda was the highest organ of the Church for combating heresy and propagating the Faith in mission
countries.

10



Newman continued to fight to get an Oratory into Oxford University. The success of the
Apologia uplifted his crushed spirit and he was determined to get into Oxford no matter what:

...and because its success has put me in spirits to look out for some other means of doing good,
whether Propaganda cares about them or no. (p.222)

Instead of following the will of the Church in this matter, Newman, consistent with his
personalism, acted in light of his illative sense. As he once said,

In all these separate actions of the intellect, the individual is supreme, and responsible to himself...
(Grammar of Assent, p.353)

To enhance his position and acceptability he published The Dream ofGerontius, and in time he
would eventually succeed.

After the first plot of land was purchased by the university the lay disciples of Newman acquired
another site, and Manning, now Cardinal of Westminster, endeavored to block and even crush
Newman's scheme. "On 26 June Manning was writing to Talbot urging him to get strong declaration
from Rome against Protestant universities. 'I think Propaganda can hardly know the effects of Dr.
Newman's going to Oxford'", he said. So suspect was Newman that when Cardinal Reisach was sent
to England to inquire into the state of Catholic education, his visit was deliberately managed to
exclude him.

To the Church and Her authorities Newman reacted quite violently to their trying to stop him
from diluting Catholicism. He wrote to a Miss Bowles and most prophetically summed up the
situation by anticipating

... with equanimity the prospect of a thorough routing out of things at Rome — not till some great
convulsion takes place (which may go on for years and years, and when I can do neither harm nor
good) and religion is felt to be in the midst of trials. . .

Let he who reads understand. We today are witnesses of the great convulsion that Newman may
well have anticipated, a convulsion that his own dissident sentiments may have generated.

That Newman was promoting an insane and dangerous ecumenism is evident. "Instead of
aiming at being a world power, we are shrinking into ourselves, narrowing the lines of communion,
trembling at freedom of thought, and using the language of despair", the kind of language that Our
Lady of La Salette used in 1 846 (which apparition, incidentally, he never spoke about) to warn the
world away from its apostasy from God. Newman's idea of the Church being a world power, without
exercising its dogmatic and juridical powers, was not the one shared by Rome - who has always
desired to be the universal power to govern the nations, as Christ commanded Her to be. Newman
wanted the Church to be 'pastoral' and personal, using as little authority as possible to draw men to
the truth, a sentimental view that has always finally put Peter in chains. There are only two
possibilities in the relationship of the Church to the State: either the governments of the world are
obedient to Her or She is made subject to them. .

Temporarily, Newman succeeded.

On Christmas day 1866, Ullathorne sent Newman a copy of a letter from Propaganda, granting
permission for an Oratory at Oxford. But he had left out of it an injunction that Newman himself
should not be allowed to go there.

Unfortunately for Catholics, one of their shepherds omitted the ban on Newman and the first
door for entering a heretical institution was opened. Cardinal Manning did what he could to stop
Newman and even tried to get Newman to accept a bishopric, thereby hoping to bring the
jurisdictionally independent Oratorian under his authority. Newman, determined to Anglicanize the

11



Church, refused:

I declined — I wish to have my own liberty... He wanted to gain me over; now, he will break me if he



can.



By 1867, £5,000 had been subscribed to launch the Oxford mission and both Cardinal Barnabo
and Manning were at their wits end over the matter. Cardinal Barnabo had never experienced such a
successful troublemaker, and a certain Herbert Vaughn reported that

Barnabo said Newman gave him the stomach ache and added that if Newman wanted to found a
Catholic College "one could hardly feel a scruple at removing him from Oxford with a pitchfork " (d
229)

These are not light words coming from the Prefect of Propaganda. After a volley of attacks and
excuses in the Catholic press the indignation of Newman's lay supporters increased and began to put
into practice their prophet's doctrine outlined in On Consulting the Faithful on Matters of Doctrine!
They resented the priestly authority in Westminster and Rome and demanded appeal over the latest
directive from Rome, just as did the German and Dutch Catholics in the case of Hans Kiing in 1980 1 .
An article in The Rambler summarized the movement of the laity:

They wish to govern the Church in England by public opinion.

Finally, after an Oratory was functioning at Oxford, Newman heard that a rescript was coming
from Rome

...declaring Oxford university to be approximate occasion for mortal sin; parents who dared to send
their sons there would come under the censor. (231)

Anticipating the decree, Newman resigned from the Oxford mission, packed his bags, and
returned to Birmingham to wait for news of the First Vatican Council.

Grammar of Assent

Dr. Fairburn continued to believe that Newman distrusted Reason because his own intellect was
sceptical. He might have been surprised 'to know that Cardinal Manning agreed with him — he told
friends that Newman's works were riddled with scepticism.

In Newman's Grammar of Assent are found all of the elements that determined the character of
Newman's thought. The basis of his-peculiar form of liberalism that troubled Church authorities in his
day manifests itself in this his most mature essay, written in 1 870, five years after the Apologia. The
underlying current of the entire essay reveals an aversion for the traditional methods of philosophy
and theology on account of their being, as he would say, too abstract and impersonal. Newman's
preoccupation with personalism was a lifelong sentiment: he wrote, for instance, in the Apologia about
the development of his idea about angels:

My preference of the Personal to the Abstract would naturally lead to this view, (p.29) the view, that
is, that governments, states and religious communities are assemblages that "had their life in certain
unseen Powers.

It was also Newman's liberal personalism that made him reluctant to accept the definition of
Infallibility in its fullest sense and import, as can be seen from a letter he wrote in 1871 (after the
dogma of infallibility was defined) to Mr. Mashell, an Oxford convert who had published a pamphlet
against Cardinal Manning. After writing "I never; expected to see such a scandal in the Church." He



It is interesting that Hans Kttng appealed to Newman as his predecessor, invoking the same liberal principle of tolerance
in his behalf.

12



then congratulated Mashell and added:

Such scandals, I know, have been before now,... but I thought we had too many vigilant and hostile
eyes upon it, to allow even the most reckless, tyrannical and heartless ecclesiastics, so wounding, so
piercing religious souls, so cooperating with those who wish the Church's downfall, (p.242)

That is, so impersonal! These are the purest sentiments of liberal personalism which elevates the
human person above law, dogma, and doctrine so that these may dutifully serve the "development of
the human person". It must be remembered that Thomas Scott's book, The Force of Truth, implanted
this lasting impression upon young Newman: "Growth is the only evidence of life", and he never
mentions a retraction from this obviously erroneous statement. 1

An entire thesis, if not a small book, is required to do justice to the topic of Newman's position
in the Grammar of Assent; here only the chief position will be discussed and contrasted with the
philosophy of St. Thomas and those who follow him and the exigencies of reality. The philosophical
principles which the Church from time immemorial has upheld and which Newman rejected, or seems
to reject, are as follows:

(1) that the abstract and speculative is superior to the concrete and practical;

(2) that true science depends upon the admission that the nature of things can be known by the
mind by abstracting from the here and the now;

(3) that the natural order and the moral law are independent of men's perception of it and are not
based upon a man's personal characteristics;

(4) that causation in nature is discernable by the human mind without an a priori reference to
itself;

(5) that the existence of God is demonstrable by an investigation of nature and not merely by
examining a man's consciousness and his awareness of his conscience;

(6) that final causes are operative in the whole of creation and that God is the final cause, or
purpose, of all things;

(7) that logic is a noble and useful art which is grounded upon reality and aids the human mind
to understand the conspectus of reality without falsity;

(8) and that the dogmas and doctrines of the Church are apprehended by 'believers as they are in
themselves, and not in an uncertain personalist fashion.

I hope that the reader untrained in the fundamental principles of philosophy will be able to
perceive that Newman's thinking, however subtly and elegantly expressed, is opposed to and
incompatible with true Catholic philosophy.

In his own words, Newman relates the purpose of his treatise:



1 The Greeks, including Plato and Aristotle, spoke of two predominant characteristics of life; motion and knowledge (sense
perception), and they realized that of the two, knowledge is the more perfect manifestation of life. Growth, in its primary
sense, is classified under the category of motion; for a thing is said to grow when its body increases in quantity in various
directions; and it must be remembered that of the three modes of life - the vegetative, sensitive and intellective - growth
belongs to the first which is the most imperfect of them all. Hence, to equate life with growth is to reduce it to its lowest
possible level. St. Thomas, following Aristotle, makes the preceding distinction and then determines knowledge to be the
highest operation of a living being. And God, who is superabundant and infinite life, cannot grow, for growth is the
process of something from an imperfect to a perfect stage, and God is from eternity supremely perfect to a perfect stage,
and God is from eternity supremely perfect. Only when a thing finishes growing does it reach its perfection. And the Holy
Spirit has taught us in the Scripture that eternal life consists in knowing the one true God.

13



I have wished to trace the process by which the mind arrives, not at a notional, but at an imaginative
or real assent to the doctrine that there is One God, that is, an assent made with an apprehension,
not only of what the words of the proposition mean, but of the object denoted by things, (p. 7)

And:

...what I am directly aiming at is to explain how we gain an image of God and give a real assent to the
proposition that He exists, (p. 103)

Newman is very cautious in choosing his words; he knew their power and used them with
purpose. The importance of this cannot be overestimated, for he wanted to avoid every resemblance to
holding a demonstrable position; a position based upon first principles and logically springing from
them; a scientific position capable of reproof and rebuttal.

Indeed, the purpose of the Grammar of Assent is, ironically, to "demonstrate" that there is'
another way — a way other than demonstration and syllogistic inference — for arriving at knowledge
of God which is unquestionably certain. The purpose of the treatise is to support personalism and
liberty of conscience; for by establishing a 'personal' mode of assenting to truth which cannot be
experienced by other men in exactly the same manner, Newman has entered into the world of
individual 'idiosyncrasies', personal perception, and sceptical relativism. He continually says that he
is concerned with the concrete as opposed to the abstract, in the full knowledge that demonstration is
impossible in concrete matters (p. 8). He is outlining a manner of assent that is not based upon abstract
and universal laws, principles and reasons, but vivid impressions and images that produce "feelings"
in a man at the moment of assent. "Experience and images strike and occupy the mind, as abstraction
and their combination do not" (27). ' He calls this assent to the concrete accompanied by vivid images
a real assent ,' and contra-distinguishes it from notional assent , which is characteristic of theology,
philosophy and science, which are based upon mere abstract notions. Real apprehensions and assents
are stronger; and by stronger Newman means more vivid and forcible (11). They stimulate the
passions and affections and make things closer and more real to us. Real apprehension produces depth
of mind; notional apprehension causes the mind to be shallow (34), and real apprehension always
takes precedence over notional apprehension because it is the scope, end, and test of the notional
(p.34). Real apprehension has things for its objects (p.32). Real apprehension strengthens Assent;
notional apprehension weakens it (p.41). Theology is always notional; religion should always be real,
because it is personal. Notional assents contemplate the creation of our minds; real assent is directed
towards things, because things can only adequately be represented by images (75). Real assent is
proper to the individual and thwarts the intercourse of men (83). Real apprehension attains God
Himself by means of the imagination and the illative sense, as the Sovereign Judge of men. This is the
substance of Newman's thinking.

The consequence of Newman's artificial dichotomy between notional and real assents are
enormous, and deadly. Consider the following statement on page 119:

The proposition that there is One Personal and Present God may be held in either way; either as a
theological truth or as a religious fact or reality. The notion and the reality assented-to are
represented by one and the same proposition, but serve as two distinct interpretations of it.

Here we have the essence of Vatican II ambiguity and non-doctrinal pastoralism. Theological
truth and dogma are one thing while real, living, personal religion is another. What theologians
perceive is one thing; what the "living" faithful understand and interpret are quite another. Theology is
one interpretation of dogma; living religion is another.

The effect of this false dichotomy is to open the door for a Catholic to think one way and act in



This proposition contains the seed of existentialism for it implies that personal experience is superior to objective truth.

14



another, for it divorces the contemplative and speculative mind of man (which for Newman is
governed only by notional assents) from his practical intellect (the realm of Newman's real assents).
Hence, a dangerous independence of the practical mind from the speculative mind is created so that
what one thinks about something in the abstract can be different from what one thinks about the same
thing in practical terms: there are two distinct interpretations of the same proposition. If this is not
what Newman is implying then what could he mean when he says "the notion and the reality assented-
to are represented by one and the same proposition, but serve as two distinct interpretations of it"?

According to this view a man can interpret the 'dogma "Jesus Christ is the Son of God" in two
ways; either as an abstract doctrine which is objective and indifferent to the person believing it, or as a
concrete religious "fact" that is meaningful to the person accepting it. The error of this position lies in
defining a theological truth in relation to the person, as if something of the believer enters into the
definition of theological truth. Truth, consequently, becomes dependent on the person; that is, relative.

A very dangerous consequence of Newman's dichotomy is that real assents are confined to
realm of the concrete and imaginary so that a person cannot, simply speaking, make a real assent to a
theological truth as such. In other words, the act of faith is impossible; for an act of faith has
immaterial realities and truths for its primary object, not religious "facts".

This throws a great deal of light on Newman's hostility to the Syllabus and the Definition of
Infallibility, for he could not conceive how someone could unreservingly make an absolute and
unconditional assent to a rigid and unchangeable theological truth. Real assents do not have
theological truths, qua theological, as their object. It is no wonder, then, that he spoke of the
speculations of theologians as "subtle hallucinations of the intellect".

Another dire consequence of this position is that "living" religion, or religion in the concrete,
takes on primary importance while dogmas and theological truths become secondary. Hence there
arises the modernist heresy that dogmas are merely provisional formulas whose utility is determined,
not by themselves, but by their relevant and practical application to the here and now; and the norm of
their practical application is the person. The entire order of things is turned upside down, so that the
things that are naturally and supernaturally above man and demand his obedience become inferior and
subservient to "the development of the human person". It is as if the person becomes God.

This divorce of the practical intellect from the speculative intellect produces what we might call
a schizophrenic Catholic who will assent to Catholic dogma when sufficient pressure is applied, yet
acts in direct opposition to what he says he believes.

Springing out of this dichotomy flows every other monstrous divorce: councils without Popes,
experts without faith, and pastoral endeavors with shepherds that cannot feed. "Theology, properly
and directly, deals with notional apprehension; religion with imaginative" says Newman. Theology is
no longer the science of God, the real God, but only of our notions of God; and religion is no longer a
thing of the reason, but rather of the imagination. One error produces the other, since by severing the
mind and its science from things, the will sinks into the imagination. (All error, incidentally, begins by
distortions in the imagination which force the mind to view things through its own spectacles.
Temptations from the devil can work only on the imagination, not the intellect. Only one thing can
exist in the mind — the truth).

Newman asserted, however, that devotion must draw its inspiration from dogma: "...religion



1 "Divorce" is an apt term, for the speculative part of the soul has traditionally represented man the husband, while the
practical mind represents the woman as wife. Just as the wife is naturally subordinate to her husband, so is the practical
mind naturally and supernaturally subordinate to the speculative mind. Their union enjoys the blessing of God who makes
them fruitful; their divorce calls down a curse from heaven which produces havoc in everything.

15



cannot maintain its ground at all without theology." (120) He also asserted that "devotion is excited
doubtless by the plain, categorical truths of revelation, such as the articles of the Creed; on these it
depends; with these it is satisfied. It accepts them one by one; it is careless about their intellectual
consistency..." (146) Yet the reason for accepting the articles of the Creed, or any dogma, is not so
clear. Both the motive for assenting to revealed dogma and the faculty that accomplishes this assent
will determine what Newman means by religion and devotion.

Our guidance in all reasoning and devotion, says Newman, is the business of the Illative Sense. 1

It is the mind that reasons, and that controls its own reasonings, not any technical apparatus of words
and propositions. This power of judging and concluding in its perfection, I call the Illative Sense...
(353)

This Illative Sense is the sure and supreme guide for determining our moral actions and each
man is bound to heed its instructions despite all reasonings and authority.

...how does the mind fulfill its function of supreme control, in matters of duty... In all these separate
actions of the intellect, the individual is supreme, and responsible to himself... (353)

Newman continually takes pains to express his disdain for logic, which for him is mere words.
He says that absolute proof, or demonstration, "can never be furnished to us by logic of words" (345):
personal growth cannot rely upon "formulas and contrivances of languages" (349); in times of doubt
we cannot turn "to the dead letter of a treatise or code" but to a "living" authority; reasoning upon any
subject necessitates that "we proceed as far as we can by the logic of language" and then supplement
that with "the more subtle and elastic logic of thought; for forms by. themselves prove nothing". (358)
(Here we meet the modern error that words never signify our ideas adequately, nor are ideas the things
they represent. Newman fully assented to this, as we shall see later on.) Language and logic can help
us communicate with others, but "the mind is more versatile and subtle than any of its works, of which
language is one..." (36); when the mind detects the first principles of thought it "contemplates them
without the use of words, by a process which cannot be analyzed" (361); and "logical formulas could
never have sustained the reasoning involved in such investigations" (361); and finally, since the
Illative Sense is a rule to itself, it must forego "verbal logic" because unwearied diligence of the mind
"is impossible to a cumbrous apparatus of verbal reasoning". (361).

All of these statements savour of nominalism since they identify logic with language and
concepts with names. The truth of the matter is that logic is not a mere "verbal reasoning" (whatever
that is) but a science about our ideas and concepts and their relationship to one another as they reflect
and represent things.

If logic is severed from its foundation in reality, if it is not about things as conceived by the
mind, then it becomes an arbitrary mental gymnastics wholly dependent upon the fiat of each
particular person, as is the case of modern symbolic logic. By denying this and confining logic to the
realm of language Newman quite naturally asserted that there is a more subtle and elastic process of
reasoning that transcends the logic of scholasticism.

It is a kind of gnostic-logic that breaks through the defined limits of reality to directly
communicate with higher realities, which, more often than not, is nothing but the ego and
consciousness of the individual person. Newman's personal logic is scandalized by the mediation of
rules and definitions of traditional logic, a typical attitude of the gnostic who condemns the created
instruments God has given us to find, know and love uncreated truth. A person who holds such a
position (and today their number is legion) ridicules the proposition that words can be instruments of



1 "Illative" is a derivative of the Latin verb infero, inferre, intuli, Hiatus which fundamentally means "to infer".

16



conveying truth, or that ideas are instruments for knowing reality. 1

The above statements of Newman illustrate both his sceptical distrust of logic and his
misapprehensions about the real nature of logic, the great "ars artium". He asserts that logic is nothing
more than a linguistic tool, and creation of the mind, incapable of exerting any powerful influence
upon a rational mind. Newman probably inherited these false notions from Oxford where he first
learned logic from Protestant professors who sat in the Oriel Room all day long hurling sophistries at
one another. Newman himself said that the Oriel "stunk of logic".

When Newman says he wishes to show how, by means of an image of God, we can make a real
apprehension of, and a real assent to God, what he is in fact saying is that we cannot make a real
assent to God by means of our idea of Him, for if this is not what he means, why did he write the
treatise? What he says means in effect that because notions are not real objects, assents to notions and
assents based upon notions are not assents to things, but only to notions.

The following question could be put to Newman: If you call assents based upon notions notional
and deny they are real, why should assents based upon images be any more real? What hinders us
from calling assents based upon the imagination imaginary assents? And, in the final analysis, which
of the two, - images or ideas -- is more real? Which of the two -- images or ideas -- is the better
representation of things? The answer to this depends upon solving a prior question: what about things
themselves? Are they mere collections of qualities and quantities, without an underlying substance and
nature; or are they substances with natures whose proper and adequate effect upon the intellectual soul
of man is 'to produce ideas and universal concepts?

This, indeed, is the primary and important question. Newman's view of things was empirical. In
other words, he was an empiricist in the tradition of Francis Bacon and John Locke: what he says is
just what they say about things and their representations in the soul. Things, for the empiricist, are
accidental assemblages of perceptible qualities, so that their proper representation in the soul consists
in images, which in turn are also mere conglomerates of sensible qualities.

Undoubtedly Newman is following the erroneous assumption that notions and ideas are not
about things, but are merely abstract creations of the mind useful only for purposes of communication.
Real assent to anything, Newman says, requires an image, because images are about objective things.
Besides, they are vivid and forceful — just like things. 2

But, we must ask, are not ideas much more powerful than images? Does not their power derive
from their immateriality and universality, their unchangeableness and absoluteness which images do
not possess? Are not ideas more like God than images and do they not therefore serve as more suitable
instruments for the will to assent to and love Him? There is an hierarchical order among images, ideas,
the will and the intellect that Newman seems to be ignorant of, namely that images are the immediate
representations of sensible things and only after they are possessed does the intellect form ideas and
supply the will with its object.

If images were the instrument of the assents made by the will and intellect then the latter could
not have truth and goodness for their objects, since their objects are represented by ideas and not by
images. The Good cannot be represented by an image, and the Good as conceived by the intellect is
the formal object of the will. So much are ideas like God, that Plato even thought that God Himself
was an idea; and generations of Catholic thinkers followed him, although leaving behind the gnostic



1 It is interesting that the "scandal of mediation" is the age-old root of all heresy, for all heretics deny that creature can be
an instrument of the Creator.

According to St. Thomas, the difference between ideas and images consists in the fact that images are representations of
things, in their singularity, particularity, and concreteness, whereas ideas are representations of things in their universality.

17



elements of Platonism that contradicted Revelation.

Ideas certainly exist in God, ideas identical with His essence, and all things are governed by
them. Christ Himself is the Divine Logos, the Word or Idea of the Father, and man is said to be made
in the image and likeness of God, not because of his imagination, but because of his intellect. Images
have no place in God and their absence from the Divine nature assures the unlimited omnipotence of
his knowledge. The imagination is also the root of all deficiencies in devotion and spiritual life since
they are the root of our peevish conceptions of God, confining, as they do, the uncreated God to the
limitations of the imagination. If Catholics today had the idea of God that Catholics had in previous
times, things, no doubt, would certainly be different. Do we realize — that is, can we conceive —
what it means to believe that God is present on our altars?

The influence of empiricists, like Bacon and Locke, upon Newman is easily discernible.
Revealingly he has high words of praise for these forerunners of atheism and scepticism; for realizing
and appreciating Bacon's rejection of final causes (the final cause is the "causa causarum", the cause
of causes, without which no other causes would even exist) and his acceptance of only efficient, or
agent, causes in nature, Newman says of Bacon:

He took firm hold of the idea of causation... as contrasted with that of design, refusing to mix up the
two ideas in one inquiry, and denouncing such traditional interpretations of facts, as did but obscure
the simplicity of the aspect necessary for his purpose. He saw what others before him might have
seen in what they saw, but who did not see as he saw it. In this achievement of intellect, which has
been so fruitful in results, lie his genius and his fame. (372)

Newman's appreciation of Bacon's "achievement of intellect", nothing less than the first
impetus of an ever-growing avalanche of philosophical scepticism and consequent loss of touch with
reality, was opposed by more than three-hundred years of Catholic traditional theology (2,000 years,
to be more precise). How did it come about that Newman was apparently unaware of this?

The origin of Newman's scepticism can be traced in a few of his ideas about the nature of
knowledge. We have seen that Newman posited between real and notional apprehensions and assents
an artificial dichotomy or division, supposedly based upon the difference between ideas and things.
This erroneous division is itself based upon the twofold error that the mind itself cannot know things
in themselves, and that the proper object of knowledge is not universal truth, but concrete facts.

Firstly, Newman believed that empirical 'science' is the proper way of knowing things. Here are
some of the things Newman said about rational thinking:

We do not reason one way in chemistry or law, in another in morals or religion; but in reasoning on
any subject whatever, which is concrete, we proceed, as far as we can, by logic of language. (358)

Thus, Newman will not allow that there are various methods of reasoning proper to the various
disciplines. 1 The kind of reasoning that he believed is found in each discipline is revealed in another
statement, when he speaks of the use of the Illative Sense:

...in coming to conclusions, it proceeds always in the same way, by a method of reasoning, which is
the elementary principle of that mathematical calculus of modern times, which has so wonderfully
extended the limits of abstract science. (359)



1 The method of a particular science is determined by its subject matter and the light under which it is considered. Where
there are different subjects, there are different methods. Mathematics is concerned with abstract quantity wherein
contingency has no place, and so its method is properly a priori, precise and exact. In Ethics, on the other hand, human
actions are considered and in them contingency abounds. Hence, the method of moral science must be different than that of
mathematics. Spinoza refused to make the distinction and wrote and absurd treatise on ethics using geometry as his mode.
For him free will was a myth.

18



Newman does not describe the method "of reasoning which is the elementary principle of that
mathematical calculus", but he does assert that it is this sort of reasoning (and there is serious doubt
whether true scientific reasoning actually occurs in calculus 1 ) that is the universal method of arriving
at a conclusion in any field of knowledge. This is par excellence the thinking of an empiricist who
reduces all substance to qualities, all qualities to quantities, all quantities to numbers, all numbers to
symbols, and all mathematics to an arbitrary manipulation of symbols, each stage progressively
resulting in less being known about the subject under investigation until the point is reached when any
meaning whatever is lost. And just as the empiricist places the ultimate test of truth in man himself, so
did Newman place his ultimate test of truth in his Illative Sense:

...in no class of concrete reasoning, whether experimental science, historical research, or theology, is
there any ultimate test of truth and error in our inferences besides the trustworthiness of the Illative
Sense that gives them its sanction.

For Newman there is indeed objective truth, there is a Catholic Creed, but their interpretation,
their sense and their ultimate personal test depends upon our personal illative sense. As he said on
page 361:

(The Illative Sense) is a rule to itself, and appeals to no judgment beyond its own...

Newman's Illative Sense is a most dangerous thing. There is not, in fact, any such thing as an
illative sense in the nature of man, although there is something in man similar to it. The best way of
describing the Illative Sense is to call it a moral sense; but St. Thomas and all other conscientious
theologians were very careful never to call any personal trait or ability by a proper philosophical term,
since such a thing could never belong to the nature of man as such, and therefore to every man; and
consequently could never be a fit subject for science. The Illative Sense is a personal thing. It
"supplies no common measure between mind and mind, in being nothing else than a personal gift of
acquisition..." Here lies its danger, and Newman's personalism also. The moral man, he says, always
goes to himself for guidance and judgment and to find the ultimate norm for conduct. Laws, moral
treatises, and right reason are too abstract and impersonal, Newman says, for learning what we should
do in the concrete.

The danger lies in making the person the rule. Newman asserts:



1 Calculus is the invention of certain modern mathematicians, like Isaac Newton and Leibnitz, devised to give the scientists
a toll for a more precise measurement of physical bodies and their motions. In general terms it can be said that modern
methods of calculation (an employment, incidentally, which the learned Greeks assigned to their slaves; they believed it
was below the dignity of a man whose business is to know the natures of things, rather than to calculate their
measurements, to pursue such matters in earnest) are concerned exclusively with measurement which can be achieved by
means of equations. Simply speaking, an equation per se does not tell us anything about what a thing is but only what it is
equal to. The modern mathematician consequently confuses the equal sign (=) with the copulative "is", thinking, for
instance, that three plus four is seven, which is false. Three plus four is simply equal to seven; the former is not a definition
of the latter, nor are they identical. Otherwise two people of equal weight could be the same person. Just as a bronze statue
of Caesar is not defined by the bronze material It is made from, but rather by the form that makes the bronze be what it is,
i.e. a statue of Caesar, thus nothing is defined merely by the materials that constitute it. A man is not flesh plus blood plus
bones and nerves, but a rational animal; otherwise he would be the same as an ape, and finally all things would be nothing
but atoms and electrons. "Equality" expresses a relation of one thing to another; a definition expresses the essence of a
thing. Leibnitz, the father of differential calculus, consistent with his view 'about mathematical entities, posited 'monads'
as the essential elementary constituents of things, and his monads were conceived as relative to everything else. Each thing
comprises within itself a relation to the whole universe such that in order to know the whole universe each monad would
have to be known; and conversely, in order to know each monad the entire universe would have to be known. Here we see
someone taking calculus and equations to their extreme. When by means of calculus a mathematician determines the
'instantaneous velocity' (whatever that is) of a moving body he is not demonstrating to us anything about the nature of the
thing. And demonstration, which requires and searches for definitions, is what real science is all about. To realize how
convinced some modern physicists are about the utility of calculus, the reader is referred to the lecture series of the
Institute of St. Thomas wherein one enthusiastic calculator gives his equation for the creation of the universe!

19



Moreover, all reasoning being from premises and those premises arising in their first elements from
personal characteristics , in which men are in fact in essential and irremedial variance one with
another, the ratiocinative talent can do no more than point out where the difference between them
lies, how far it is immaterial, when it is worthwhile continuing an argument, and when not. (362)

Such an astounding assertion ought certainly to have brought Catholic theologians and censors
beyond the point of suspicion. What Newman is saying is that personal characteristics, varying with
each individual, are the ultimate source, and therefore the ultimate norm, of rational thinking, since
from personal characteristics spring the first principles of all thought. This is intellectual anarchy, and
virtually the complete denial of objective truth.

Newman describes the first principles earlier on page 65:

These so-called first principles, I say, are really conclusions or abstractions from particular
experiences; and an assent to their existence is not an assent to things or their images, but to
notions, real assent being confined to the propositions directly embodying those experiences... in
themselves they are abstractions from facts, not elementary truths prior to reasoning.

Newman is saying two things here. First, the first principles of knowledge acquired by notional
abstraction are inferior to the empirical concrete facts themselves because they depend in the first
instance upon the real apprehension of those concrete facts. How could abstract notions, which the
first principles are, be superior to concrete facts if they depend upon them? This is the sentiment of
scepticism which denies the validity, the excellence, and the superiority of any knowledge that
transcends the concrete things of experience.

Secondly, Newman is saying that the first principles are not "elementary truths prior to
reasoning", that is, real reasoning, because real reasoning must be about concrete experiences and
facts. Just why he calls them first is bewildering if they are not "elementary truths prior to reasoning".
His added epithet "so-called" qualifying his use of the terms "first principles" indicates his scepticism
not only regarding their validity and power, but perhaps their very existence, and there is no evidence
that he considers them to be principles at all, whether first or otherwise.

The upshot of all this is that he believes that our reasonings and judgments are conditioned by
our personal traits and characteristics; he believes, in other, words, in moral relativism. Although
Newman apparently did believe in an objective moral law (as he conscientiously admits after his
treatment of the first principles), nevertheless when he says "I am not of course dreaming of denying
the objective existence of the Moral Law", it reads either as if he fully realizes that his position tends
in the direction of denying an objective moral law or as if he at any rate suspects that the Catholic
theologians and ecclesiastical censors might believe that that is what he is doing.

His quotation about Cardinal Manning, who was the greatest obstacle to Newman's life-long
ambitions, bears unmistakable witness to this fact.

Another distinction that Newman confused was the difference between objects and the
apprehension of those objects.

I do not think it unfair reasoning thus to take the apprehension for the object. The mind is ever
stimulated in proportion to the cause stimulating it. (36)

Newman is saying here that although objects and apprehensions are different in reality,
nevertheless we are free to think of them as the same as one another. Apprehensions, therefore, are
objects.

Since we cannot draw the line between the object and the act, I am at liberty to say, as I have said,
that, as the thing apprehended, so is the apprehension. (37)

20



Catholic philosophers, on the other hand, have ever been careful to distinguish things and the
powers and acts by which we apprehend things. The consequence of this is the identification of things
in the soul with things outside the soul.. As a young man Newman's mind agreeably conformed to all
of this:

I used to wish the Arabian Tales were true... my imagination ran on unknown influences, on magical
powers, and talismans. I thought life might be a. dream, or I an Angel, and all this world a deception,
my fellow angels by a playful device concealing themselves from me, and deceiving me with the
resemblance of a material world. C 12)

Newman's thesis becomes clearer in another statement:

We may call it then the normal state of Inference to apprehend propositions as notions; and we may
call it the normal state of Assent to apprehend propositions as things.

The latter part of this statement — Assent is to apprehend propositions as things — sums up the
doctrine of the Grammar of Assent. A double inversion of the natural order of thinking occurs when
this is granted. First, propositions are taken as the things themselves, an error which Newman
supposedly tried to evade in the first place. The entire basis of his belief is that notional propositions
cannot be apprehended as things, but only as abstract notions, and yet for some unknown reason he
believes the same propositions, when accompanied by images that produce strong feelings in the soul,
are apprehended as things.

Secondly, Catholic philosophers have never taken any kind of proposition as the thing itself.
Ideas, notions, concepts, images, perceptions and propositions are about things; they refer to, stand
for, represent and describe things. Theology, philosophy, poetry and ethics are about things, not about
notions. Even logic, at once both a science and an art, is not about the notions of notions, or the-
notions of propositions, but about notions and propositions as things, otherwise it would not be a
science but merely an arbitrary creation of the mind, akin to calculus. "In its notional assents as well
as in its inferences, the mind contemplates its own creations instead of things," (75) Newman says,
and this is where he is wrong; this is the basis of his personalism.

A host of other errors arise from these, some of which Newman fell into. If the passages in
which he discusses causation are read we find more errors of empiricism.

The assent which we give to the proposition, as a first principle, that nothing happens without a
cause, is derived, in the first instance, from what we know of ourselves; and we argue analogically
from what is within to what is external to us. (66)

That is to say, our knowledge of causation derives ultimately from ourselves, not from things —
a reasonable conclusion for someone who takes apprehensions for things. This position is, ironically,
the view not of the empiricist but of the idealist since it posits an a priori awareness of causation in the
soul. Ultimately it is not paradoxical that an empiricist tend to idealism, or vice versa, since they are
both symptoms of the same disease; both reflect one another.

This belief of Newman is compatible with another one of his positions: "Our consciousness of
self is prior to all questions of trust or assent." (61) While it is true that at a particular moment of time
we can be aware of ourselves before we make acts of trust or assent, this fact is of no importance
worth mentioning. This is because it is in the first experience of things and ourselves that we are first
aware of things, and it is only afterwards that we are aware of ourselves. I can be aware that I am
seeing, or thinking, only if I have already seen something or thought about something.

Further on, Newman enunciates similar sceptical notions about causation:

It is to me a perplexity that grave authors seem to enunciate as an intuitive 'truth, that everything must
have a cause, (66)

21



Again he says:

Physical phenomena, as such, are without sense, and experience teaches us nothing about physical
phenomena as causes. (66)

To the very degree that someone assents to this proposition are the sciences, including
philosophy and theology, uprooted from reality. If we do not directly apprehend in nature things as
causes then there can be no knowledge or morality. How then do we come to think that there are
causes in nature? Newman relates his answer:

Since causation implies a sequence of acts in our own case, and our doing is always posterior, never
contemporaneous or prior, to our willing, therefore, when we witness invariable antecedents and
consequents, we call the former the cause of the latter, though intelligence is absent from the analogy
of external appearances. At length we go on to confuse causation with order; and, because we
happen to have made a successful analysis of some complicated assemblage of phenomena, which
experience has brought before us in the visible scene of things, and have reduced them to a tolerable
dependence on each other, we call the ultimate points of this analysis, and the hypothetical facts in
which the whole mass of phenomena is gathered up, by the name of causes, whereas they are really
only the formula under which those phenomena are conveniently represented. (67)

In other words, there are not really causes in nature; it is just that we think there are because
some things (consequents) exist after other things (antecedents) and what we know in ourselves by
willing can be applied analogically to the "phenomena". This is pure empirical scepticism. Notice that
Newman says that in applying the analogy of our own internal acts to the external appearances, where
the analogy falls short is in the fact that intelligence is absent from things, whereas it is present in us.

St. Thomas, on the contrary, tells us that the human mind knows real causes and effects in
nature and consequently that there is intelligence and order in nature, and that from the natural order
of things which act as if they possessed intelligence we can demonstrate the existence of God who is
the source of the order and causation in things. Newman's position, which shows him to be a true son
of Francis Bacon, does not only undermine the position of St. Thomas and of traditional Catholic
philosophy: it lays the foundation for the possibility of disbelief in God.

The sum of Newman's position on causation comes to this:

Starting, then, from experience, I consider a cause to be an effective will; and, by the doctrine of
causation, I mean the notion, or first principle, that all things come of effective will. (68)

And again:

...but when we come to the question of cause, then, as I have said, we have no experience of any
cause but Will. (72)

Interestingly enough, this is very similar to Robert Hugh Benson's quasi-pantheistic Will of
nature and man. Its consequence is to make man autonomous by placing the will above the reason and
independent of it. Newman certainly realized the relation of mind and order, but this did not prevent
him from leaving reason behind when talking about the will; nor does he believe that reason is a
cause, for we have no experience of any cause but Will. We cannot wonder that Newman looked upon
laws, moral treatises and codes, and theological prudence as cold, ineffective specimens of the dead
letter.

Taking modern empirical science as the paradigm and exemplar of scientific procedure Newman
proceeded to limit theology to the same ideas:

Hence in science we sometimes use a definition, of a formula, not as exact, but as being sufficient for
our purpose, for working out certain conclusions, for a practical approximation, the error being small,
till a certain point is reached. This is what in theological investigation I should call an economy. (47)

22



The same sort of thinking is almost universally believed by so-called theologians today.
Theological definitions are mere formulas, sufficient for practical purposes and progressive
investigation of the "content of revelation", useful approximations that enable the illative sense of the
theologian to ascertain what is relevant for religion today. Dogmas and definitions in this view are no
longer eternal truths, whose acceptance or rejection can lead a man either to heaven or to hell.

Newman's position looks upon the doctrine of Transubstantiation, for example, as the formula
sufficiently embodying the Catholic reaction of the Counter-Reformation and sufficiently expressing
Catholic doctrine on that point. Consequently, it could be interpreted that he would feel it rash, cruel,
and offensive to the human person to bind his conscience under pain of mortal sin to fully assent to
this doctrine as to God Himself. (To support this interpretation see page 47.) Newman's reaction to the
definition of Infallibility sufficiently indicates that this was his view.

Our notions of things are never simply commensurate with the things themselves; they are aspects of
them, more or less exact, and sometimes a mistake ab initio. (49)

Here is the crux of Newman's scepticism, which is just as unmistakably expressed in another
statement:

It is true indeed that I deny the possibility of two straight lines enclosing a space, on the ground of its
being inconceivable; but I do so because a straight line is a notion and nothing more, and not a thing,
to which I may have attached a notion more or less unfaithful. (51)

In other words, notions and conceptions are arbitrary creations of the human mind which cannot
be more or less unfaithful to the thing itself simply because they are not essentially related to the
thing.

I have defined a straight line in my own way at my own pleasure; the question is not one of facts at
all, but of the consistency with each other of definitions and of their logical consequences. (51)

And since our definitions and conceptions of things are the product of our mere fiat there is
nothing to prevent them contradicting one another:

Notions are but aspects of things; the free deduction from one of these necessarily contradicts the
free deductions from another. (52)

This is pure intellectual voluntarism and despair, a sceptical severance of the mind from reality.

This is the reason for his believing that we cannot recognize any intrinsic dependence of one
doctrine upon another, and that even if we can, it is not important.

Our image of Him never is one, but broken into numberless partial aspects, independent of each
other. (31)

And as regards the relation of devotion to dogma:

It accepts them one by one; it is careless about their intellectual consistency. (146)

Various theological definitions can never, Newman believes, be the concern of the ordinary
Christian:

...the greater number of them are more or less unintelligible to the ordinary Catholic... for what have
good Christians to do, in the ordinary course of things, with the subtle hallucinations of the intellect?
(148)

Is this a Catholic speaking, calling theological statements and definitions 'hallucinations of the
intellect' ? Certainly not, and such an attitude bespeaks the sad condition of his own mind.

Theological disagreement and doctrinal pluralism are natural consequences of this position; and

23



if believers should happen to agree it is not because of an objective truth that enlightens them but
merely the concurrence of their idiosyncrasies:

So again, as regards form; each of us abstracts the relation of line to line in his own personal way -
as one man might apprehend a curve as convex, another as concave... but still, even when we agree
together, it is not perhaps that we learn from another, or fall under any law of agreement, but that our
separate idiosyncrasies happen to concur. (373)

And this is exactly the position that Newman took with his ecclesiastical superiors. When
disputes arose they were simply the result, he would say, of misunderstandings which inevitably
spring from the differences of personalities. After all,

...in religious inquiry each of us can speak only for himself, and for himself he has a right to speak.
His own experiences are enough for himself, but he cannot speak for others; he cannot lay down the
law; he can only bring his own experiences to the common stock of psychological facts... (385)

Apologetics, consequently, is no longer a demonstration of the objective truth of the Catholic
Faith:

...and therefore his true sobriety and modesty consists, not in claiming for his conclusions an
acceptance or approval which is not to be found anywhere but in stating what are personally his own
ground for his belief in Natural and Revealed Religion...

It is difficult what to know by conclusions whose approval are not found anywhere; every
Catholic knows where to go for approbation of his faith. Or as he said elsewhere:

The Religion of Nature is not a deduction of reason... (404),

a view profoundly opposed to Catholic teaching. Ronald Knox expressed the same sentiment when he
said

The Creed is the expression of my opinions for which I am personally responsible.

His constant appeal to the "voice of mankind" and history is but the effect of his theological
scepticism, It is natural enough that these two authorities moved Newman so forcefully since he was
looking for strong moral feelings rather than intellectual conviction.

How it comes about that we can be certain is not my business to determine; for me it is sufficient that
certitude is felt . (Emphasis added)

Yet, we can ask, how does one know what certitude feels like if he cannot determine how
certitude comes about? In the great drama of history Newman found his primary inspiration and the
object for his illative sense. Momentous events, the great stage of mankind, the unsurpassing character
of concrete historical facts — these were the food of Newman's soul and the source of his august
sounding prose. This perhaps also gave Newman the conviction that, as he once admitted, he was
destined to do something great.

It is impossible for these ideas not to have affected Newman's theological positions. It is
necessary that we judge a man's position in view of all the positions that he held and not just by a few
select passages that seem to indicate orthodoxy. Now we can understand the motive that prompted
Newman to assert that devotion must be grounded in theology, and, in general, what he means by
assent to Revealed Dogma.

Lurking behind these and other orthodox passages is his personalist interpretation and illative
sense. What did Newman mean, then, by the knowledge of the Supreme Judge who enlightens our
consciences and makes His presence felt? Can we believe that this is the real, living God, or was it
perhaps Newman's personification of his personal feeling of his own moral authority? To whom

24



belonged his 'kindly light', God or Newman?

The foregoing ought to throw light on what Newman meant by the Development of Doctrine, a
belief that is so widespread today that it is impossible to talk with Catholics anymore without
reference to the Church developing in time. Liberals and modernists declare themselves to be sons of
Newman, as Hans Kiing has done, and others declare that Newman was decidedly anti-liberal and
unwittingly use his pre-Catholic writings to prove it.

Meriol Trevor, in an introduction to her book Newman's Journey, says that Newman's spirit is
what animated Vatican II:

Since I wrote, we have had the Second Vatican Council, of which Newman has been called 'the
invisible father' because so many of his views on the nature of the Church and its relation to
the world then received formal and collegiate ratification.

Much more could be said about the Grammar of Assent and many more notorious passages
could be cited to illumine the position of Newman's mind and his liberal-beliefs. The essence of it has,
I believe, been sufficiently outlined but the possible consequences of it are too numerous to examine.
The practical consequence of his position is to create an artificial antagonism between the intellect and
the will, between what we believe and what we do. It is a position that accepts, at least theoretically,
objective truth and morality, while simultaneously establishing a legitimate basis for acting in
opposition to these.

It is essentially the same antagonism that exists in the mind of the modernist who says he
accepts Catholic doctrine while in the concrete his actions are contrary to it. It is specifically the
heresy of praxis ; it is the paradoxical position expressed in his own words: "The rule of morals is the
same for all; and yet, notwithstanding, what is right in one is not necessarily right in another", a
position we are all too familiar with today.

Newman on Infallibility

Rarely was John Newman not engaged upon a tug-of-war with Rome, for almost every endeavor
he embarked upon found him in opposition to one or many of the Church authorities. His Ireland and
Oxford projects are cases in point, and we have seen how his doctrine of Assent and the Illative Sense
supplied him with many excuses for dodging ecclesiastical censure if he deemed it necessary. How
could Newman bend his neck in obedience to strict orthodox teaching when he believed that although
"the fact of revelation is itself demonstrably true, but it is not therefore true irresistibly... There is a
vast difference between what it is in itself, and what it is to us"? {Grammar of Assent, p.410)

Newman believed that "Propaganda was too rough and ready to understand intellectual
conflict", and when he said it "likes quick results — scalps from beaten foes by the hundred" he bore
witness to his own unorthodox mind and sentiments. When Pius IX issued the Syllabus of Errors
against the multiple of modernist heresies, Newman was reluctant to accept it. After reading the
Syllabus in the Times he wanted to write to the paper saying: "I beg leave to say that I do not subscribe
to this proposition," but an ex-Oratorian persuaded him to wait until opposition became stronger. After
an attack upon the orthodox interpretation of the Syllabus appeared in the press Newman decided the
time was ripe to increase the opposition. "My monkey is up!" he rejoiced as the opportunity to strike
orthodoxy appeared, and to his companion Ambrose he wrote sarcastically of Cardinal Manning,
Msgr. Talbot and W. G. Ward: "As to clamour and slander, whoever opposes the Three Tailors of
Tooley Street must incur a great deal, must suffer — but it is worth the suffering if we effectually
oppose them. " Newman was obviously much more certain of his own positions and purposes than
many Catholics who follow him and his supposed orthodoxy,.

25



Supposedly Newman was taking the 'moderate' view that mediates between irreconcilable
opposites, but his support came from the liberals and his opposition from the orthodox. "Newman's
position was the more delicate because those who opposed the Ultramontane line violently were men
who had been professors in his university or had taught in his school, or were associated with the
Rambler," that is, his position was delicate because of its essential agreement with heretics. In one of
his writings Newman asserted that the Syllabus, qua Syllabus, was not binding as an object of faith, in
other words, as a collection of condemnations decreed in the past it was not per se binding. This
allowed him to dodge the Decree with tact, but we can ask why the same could not be applied to the
Creed which is also a Symbol or collection of divinely revealed dogmas. This practice of Newman
was consistent with his belief that the mind is careless about the intrinsic intellectual relation of
dogmas and that faith is an assent effected by a grandiose historical impression of a revealed truth.

Before the revealed doctrine of Infallibility was defined Newman did what he could to delay the
definition. "As usual, friends begged Newman to write at length, but he resisted. It was not the time
for theological meditation, the important thing was to stop a dogmatic declaration being rushed
through like a political measure in an emergency." Or, as Newman himself said,

We do not move at railroad space in theological matters... The Church moves as a whole; it is not a
mere philosophy; it is a communion; it not only discovers but it teaches; it is bound to consult for
charity as well as for faith.

No post- Vatican II modernist could have put it better. What Newman is saying is manifold: a) it
is impossible to know revealed truth quickly, b) the Church discovers — whatever that means — the
truths revealed to Her to teach, c) unless the entire Church as a whole consents She cannot define
anything of great importance, d) as the modernist continually tells us, we cannot identify the Church
with "a" philosophy (which means that they do not believe there is such a thing as philosophy at all, or
even truth), as if the Church had never obliged Catholics by divine authority to hold to the philosophy
of St. Thomas, and e) Rome is bound to consult the "communion" of Catholics in matters of faith for
the sake of "charity". This last point defines the real spirit that moved him to write On Consulting the
Faithful in Matters of Doctrine.

The result of the definition of Infallibility was the subjection of the Papal States to the Italian
masonic government, and when Newman learned that this disastrous event had taken place he wrote to
his friend Mosnell: "The definition of July involved the dethronement of September", and to a Miss
Bowles he wrote: "as to Rome, I cannot regret what has happened. There is one thing worse than open
infidelity, and that is secret, and the state of Rome was such as to honeycomb the population of Italy
with deep unbelief, under the outward profession of Christianity." Newman apparently viewed Victor
Emmanuel's conquest of the Papal States as the just chastisement from God against the defects and
crimes of the Church, for he is not here denouncing secret masonic societies (which he never did
during his entire lifetime) but the so-called secret policies of the Ultramontanes and Jesuits (whom he
often denounced).

In another letter to a Mr. Maskell, Newman again related his sentiments of the effects of the
Definition:

I never expected to see such a scandal in the Church... Such scandals, I know, have been before
now, and Councils — but I thought we had too many vigilant and hostile eyes upon it, to allow even
the most reckless, tyrannical and heartless ecclesiastics, so wounding, so piercing religious souls, so
cooperating with those who wish the Church's downfall.

Nevertheless he was sure that God would heal the offence, and "that things will in time
gradually settle down and find their level... Their voice of the whole Church will in time make itself
heard, and Catholic instincts and ideas will assimilate and harmonize into the credenda of

26



Christendom, the living tradition of the faithful, who at present many would impose upon us, and
many are startled at, as a momentous addition to the Faith.." Notice that Newman is identifying the
voice of the Church with the faithful instead of the Papacy which had already made its voice clearly
audible in the definition. Consistent with his thinking, he believed that the real 'expression' of the
voice of the Church is found in the concrete historical faith of the people who require time to
assimilate new doctrine and develop it into practice. . Apparently Newman overlooked the fact that the
Definition of Infallibility was not a "momentous addition" to the faith since it was taught by Christ
and transmitted to the Church for all ages by the Apostles.

Following the masonic lead in Italy the news of the definition prompted Bismark, out of pure
malice against the Papacy, to begin his Kulturkampf ox persecution of Catholics in Germany. Newman
wrote a letter to the Times about the event in reply to an article that appeared saying that if the Pope
were to order another massacre of the Huguenots, Catholic opinion would now be bound to obey as it
were a divine command. Consider the following words from Newman:

No Pope can make evil good, no Pope has any power over those eternal moral principles which God
has imprinted on our hearts and consciences. If any Pope has with his eyes open approved of
treachery and cruelty let those defend that Pope who can.

Newman was convinced that the human conscience was a mediator between defined dogmas
and the individual, a position known as moderate liberalism and formally condemned by the Church.
In contrast to these convictions Catholics are bound to assent without hesitation, from the most
interior recesses of their souls, to all dogmas and definitions that Rome pronounces to be contained in
the deposit of Revelation. Also to be found in the above statement is Newman's conviction that the
Papacy has been guilty of numerous scandals of treachery and cruelty in Her history, errors he
imbibed from the German historicists who reveled in such nonsense, and with whom Newman was in
constant communication.

On another occasion Newman revealed his abhorrence of Papal authority in temporal affairs
when he wrote a letter to Manning saying that if he (Manning) was going to use his inaugural address
to the Catholic Academia to promote papal policy, he (Newman) would resign from membership.
Such was the attitude toward authority of a man who would in time be esteemed as an authority in
matters of philosophy and theology. As he wrote in 1860:

...while I have Him who lives in the Church, the separate members of the Church, my Superiors,
though they may claim my obedience, have no claim on my admiration, and offer nothing for my
inward trust.

Newman assented to authority in the exterior forum, but in the interior forum he dissented, a
position in perfect harmony with his doctrine of Assent and the Illative Sense, and his moderate
liberalism. Newman would certainly never fall into the pit of papalotry that his conservative followers
of the twentieth century have unwittingly done.

Hence, we see that both in theory and in practice (which never are antagonistic to one another --
as a man thinks so he acts) Newman adopted a position towards infallible doctrine and
pronouncements that could hardly be labeled orthodox. His beliefs as outlined in his two chief works,
The Grammar of Assent and The Development of Christian Doctrine sustained him in bringing
liberalism into the Church and it is important that Catholics read these works in the light of his
actions, and view his actions in the light of his writings.

Newman and The Rambler

The Rambler was a liberal Catholic journal which was begun by John Moore Capes, who, as a

27



married Anglican cleric, converted to Catholicism. Capes had difficulties with the Faith during the
fifties and finally left the Church, selling The Rambler in 1858 to Sir John Acton. Acton held two
shares in the enterprise, while Fr. Capes (John's brother) and Richard Simpson, the editor, held one
each. The journal was ultimately subsidized by Acton who used, it both as a political platform to
ensure his entrance into Parliament in the Whig interest of his stepfather; Lord Granville, and as an
opportunity to address Catholics whom he felt "needed to broaden their minds".

Richard Simpson was certainly a liberal in belief for

...like most converts, (he) was interested in theology, and would throw out speculations in the Oxford
style, expecting argument; unfortunately seminary professors took them as heresies and tried to get
The Rambler censured. (Newman's Journey, p. 191)

The whole life of The Rambler consisted in one continual battle with Church authorities and
men like Fr. Faber. The first clash erupted when Acton called St. Augustine the father of Jansenism,
but relatively little action was taken by Cardinal Wiseman to prohibit the journal. Later Dollinger, the
teacher of Acton and a good friend of Gladstone, wrote an article which attempted to demonstrate the
historical connection of ideas which caused Fr. Faber to have recourse to Wiseman in order to delate
Dollinger to Rome for heresy.

Fr. Faber, whom Dom Gueranger considered to be a saint, was not unaware of the real spirit that
motivated this new suspicious teaching about the development of doctrine. Newman, as usual, was
disgusted with the ultramontane intransigence. When he heard from Acton of Faber' s action, Acton
wrote that he "was quite miserable when I told him the news and moaned for a long time rocking
himself backwards and forwards over the fire like an old woman with a toothache."

So liberal was Newman that even Acton was surprised to find him talking about "the natural
inclination of men in power to tyrannize; and ignorance and presumption of would-be theologians".
From then on, Newman, the directing mind of The Rambler, urged Acton to avoid writing on
theological subjects in the magazine, and Dollinger concurred in this advice.

The journal escaped censure until another article appeared by Scott Stokes, a school inspector
who advocated Catholic cooperation with government measures. Finally Cardinal Wiseman "was
seriously annoyed and proposed to censure the magazine, which would effectively put it out of
business". But to dodge the censure "a last minute suggestion was offered: the paper would be spared
if Simpson resigned." Newman, however, was indignant and offered excuses in behalf of Simpson;
but Wiseman "was merely annoyed at what he called 'Dr. Newman's stipulations' and proposed to go
ahead with the censure."

The editorship of The Rambler passed into the hands of Newman, but he maintained the original
purpose of the paper, for

...not wishing to cast any slur on Simpson and Acton, he made no public reference to any change of
policy; indeed, he did not wish to change the principles of the magazine, but only its tone. . .

The bishops and seminary professors continued in their resentment of The Rambler even though
they were not aware of its new editor. An article appeared in The Tablet, the Cardinal's paper, which
sharply criticized the ideas supported by The Rambler, and Bishop Ullathorne paid Newman a visit to
persuade him to stop causing trouble. "Our laity were a peaceable set" he said, "the Church was at
peace. They had a deep faith; they did not like to hear that anyone doubted. . ."

Newman's scepticism had obviously struck the faithful with confusion, since his popularity and
grandiose prose gave him the appearance of authority. His answer to Ullathorne' s reasonable request
reflects his basic teaching concerning conscience and authority: "I said in answer that he saw one side,

28



I another". This is, indeed, the true purpose and practical effect of Newman's Grammar of Assent
which reduces a man's principles to personal characteristics. Afterwards Newman tactfully retorted to
the bishop that he would resign the editorship if the journal would be returned to the original owners,
Acton and Simpson, and to Newman's great surprise Ullathorne called his bluff by accepting his offer.
"It had not occurred to Newman that the bishops thought Simpson less dangerous than himself, as
they knew that his fame, priestly position, high sounding authority, and subtle errors would prove
more harmful than mere bare-faced liberals. Newman acquiesced in the bishop's directive and
managed to regain his lost respect by saying he could not act contrary to his bishop's declared wishes.
He was most tactful.

Newman's famous thesis, On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine, however well it
might read, was explicitly written to defend the rising laity in their desire to 'participate' in
ecclesiastical government. The thesis appeared in the July issue of The Rambler, with Newman both
apologizing for offending the hierarchy and arrogantly directing their minds to the fact that even the
bishops were consulted when the time came to define the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
Opposition came quickly. "Dr. Gillow, the leading theologian at Ushaw, not knowing that Newman
was the author of this paragraph immediately wrote to attack what he regarded as an heretical and
subversive idea." What, indeed, would Dr. Gillow say today?

Newman replied with his usual tact by saying he used the word 'consult' in the sense in which
we consult a barometer, but in fact he wrote the thesis to defend the desire of certain laymen of
participating in and determining their own Christian education. Later, at a Synod of Bishops,
Newman's article was held up to reprobation by Bishop Brown of Newport and Manning was deputed
to speak to Newman about the matter.

Manning told Newman to write theologically in order to avoid misconceptions, but Newman
took his advice as a mere suggestion and left it at that. Bishop Brown became indignant that nothing
was being done and therefore wrote to the Secretary of Propaganda denouncing Newman for writing
what he believed was "totally subversive of the essential authority of the Church in matters of Faith."
The bishop said Newman's writings were those of a Calvinist.

On December 3, 1859, Msgr. Talbot wrote to Bishop Ullathorne about Newman: "He has lost
the confidence of many in consequence and The Rambler is beginning to be looked upon as a very
dangerous periodical." Cardinal Barnabo related to Ullathorne that "le Pope est beaucoup peine" and
Propaganda sent Wiseman a list of suspect passages which, curiously, never found its way to
Newman. Meanwhile in 1861 The Rambler caused more trouble by carrying an article by Acton
concerning Dollinger's view of the Pope's temporal power. Cardinal Antonelli, the Papal Secretary of
State, sent a letter to Wiseman demanding that The Rambler be suppressed, and after Burns refused to
publish the periodical Acton transferred his paper to a non-Catholic publisher.

By 1862 Acton had turned The Rambler into a quarterly called the Home and Foreign Review,
whose "high quality was generally recognized and much esteemed by Newman, but the English
bishops continued to criticize it in their pastorals."

Newman on Evolution

Darwin 's theory did not shock Newman; he told a correspondent he was willing "to go the whole hog
with Darwin."

It is important to understand Newman's frame of mind concerning the false theories of evolution
in order to understand his notions of development. Darwin's book, Origin of Species, appeared in
1 859, a time when educated men and society in general scoffed at the idea of human evolution,

29



leaving such notions to the few mad scientific theorists, but Newman's empirical mind and distrust of
rational philosophy disposed him to accept whole-heartedly the notions of evolution. He had been
contemplating the evolution, not of man,, but of religion, long before the appearance of Darwin's
book; his first sermon on the development of Christianity was preached in 1843 while he was still an
Anglican and within two years the Development of Christian Doctrine was published, with Newman
entering the Church at the same time.

Newman was a pioneer of this new doctrine which shocked both Anglicans and Catholics alike.
Theologians until then had never considered his ideas of development, although many before him
justly contemplated the mystical and supernatural increase of the treasures of the Church. The
difference between Newman and earlier theologians in this matter is that Newman considered only the
material aspect of the Church's growth, not going beyond the temporal history of Her life on earth.
Earlier theologians, on the other hand, had considered the formal aspect of the Church, a viewpoint
which is vital to the believer who is obliged to view things with a supernatural eye.

Newman saw the Church in the light of history, whereas Catholics see history in the light of the
Church. Immersed in an academia of the staunchest historicists whose scepticism imbued the thinkers
of that time, Newman followed their lead and often kept up a correspondence with the worst of them,
as Dollinger and Acton. Their position confined the Church to Her history, and Her history to their
sceptical and critical minds. For these men the work of the Catholic mind is not to meditate upon and
adore Christ in the eternal truths of the Church but to subject these truths to historical analysis. What
is important for them is not the Incarnation but the development of the idea of the Incarnation. All this,
of course, is nothing but that age-old pride whereby the mind of man becomes the measure of religion.

With this in mind we can understand why Newman accepted so easily the errors of Darwin, for
there was nothing incompatible between the evolution of man and the evolution of religion and
doctrine. On the contrary, both complement one another to form a harmonious view of the whole of
creation. In fact, just as all errors begin in the highest part of the soul before they exercise their
universal influence on the subordinate faculties and sciences, thus does the evolution of eternal
doctrine precede the less radical errors about the evolution of man and social institutions. It is
understandable, and appropriate, therefore that Newman's novel thesis should have preceded Origin of
Species by sixteen years. As long as the mind of man is firmly rooted in the immutable and eternal
truths of the Faith the occasion will never arise to fall into any kind of evolutionary errors.

Several authors bear testimony of Newman's evolutionary ideas. A certain Mark Pattison who
knew Newman said he saw the whole development of human reason from Aristotle to Hegel as a
closed book, and in Studies in Modernism Alfred Fawkes also believes that the essay on Development
"is a strking anticipation of the Evolution philosophy; the application of this to theology marked a
turning-point in religious thought." (p. 47)

And another author, Percy Gardner in Modernism in the English Church, asserts that "it shows
the greatness of Newman, that before Darwin had set forth his theory of evolution, a foretaste of it
appears in Newman's Development of Christian Doctrine." (p. 118) So serious were Newman's
aberrations that one of the greatest living Roman theologians at that time, Fr. Franzelin, S.J., wrote an
entire treatise, De Divinia Scriptura et Traditione, in order to combat what he considered to be
Newman's departure from the Faith.

The "Development of Christian Doctrine"

The full force and implication of Newman's thinking are found in his doctrine known as
Development of Christian Doctrine. Characteristic of his personal qualities and life, this specific

30



teaching of Newman contains his ambiguity and ambivalence, in toto, so much so that it allures the
most opposed camps of thinkers. Its appeal is universal; to liberals and orthodox, to Protestants and
Catholics, to believers as well as infidels. Men of every persuasion find their opinions voiced in this
doctrine, for it is as pliable and flexible as Newman's supposedly transcendent and personal logic.

The essence of Newman's position consists in reconciling two contradictory propostions: first,
that Christinaity is unchanging , and second, that Christianity is changing . Apparent contradictions can
always be reconciled by a legitimate rational distinction, but Newman does not attempt to do this. His
Doctrine of Development does not assert that Christianity is unchanging in one respect, and changing
in another, and then delineates the consequent differences and properties from the various distinctions.
On the contrary, Newman's position admits simultaneously and in the same respect that Christianity is
changing and unchanging. To accomplish such a formidable task is not really very difficult, at least
for a mind enamoured with concrete living experience.

To reconcile these contradictions a principle of unity must be found that is eminently concrete
and contains within itself the germ of continuity that survives amidst opposition. The principle must
admit and foster adaptation to prevailing circumstances without being subservient to them; it must be
capable of explaining why the Church acted and thought one way in the past, another way in the
present, and be pliable enough to allow for further change in the future. It must be simultaneously a
principle of identity and diversity, of incorruption and corruption . In short, this principle must be a
vital principle: it must be life.

"Growth is the only evidence of life" was Newman's most fundamental principle that guided
every one of his endeavors, whether spiritual, intellectual or practical. If something is not growing it
must be either inanimate or dead, and, in either case, it could not be the object of spiritual purpose.
Newman's belief that the development of all philosophy from Aristotle to Hegel was a closed book
was a deduction from the primary premise about the necessity of living things growing by
development. He would not allow that any philosophical or theological proposition could be
absolutely true and adequately expressed by concepts and words; and therefore every dogma and
philosophical truth must be capable of continued expansion, interpretation and development. His was
the 'dynamic' approach.

For Newman life is the highest expression of reality, not truth or goodness. The true and the
good, by nature abstract and objective, are meaningful only in so far as they support and manifest life,
which is always subjective. By taking life as the beginning point, historical development logically
followed as the object of philosophy and theology.

The historical development of ideas, of institutions, the action of many minds working over long
periods of time, the importance of the conditions which limited their understanding, and the way in
which a central idea can change without losing its identity, how associated ideas can bring out or
obscure the main reality, how a new formulation may preserve the old meaning better than outdated
terms - all this was very new thinking when Newman composed his essay. (Newman's Journey,
p.111)

Canon William Barry, the official biographer of Newman whose synopsis of his life appears in
the Catholic Encylopedia, describes this novel idea of development: "Development, or evolution, was
however necessary from the nature of the case. Not the letter of the New Testament, nor any
assignable number of books, would 'comprise a delineation of all possible forms which a divine
message will assume when submitted to a multitude of minds.' 'The more claims an idea has to be
living, the more various will be its aspects; and the more social and political is its nature, the more
complicated and subtle will be its issues, and the longer and more eventful its course.' And so the
whole Bible is written on the principle of development.' {Newman, p.92) Barry quotes Newman
saying that ideas are true in so far as they are living, and the more life they possess the more multiple

31



will be their 'expression' in time. Is this not a formal approbation of pluralism and an affirmation that
truth can change?

Newman, no doubt, would say truth does not change, on account of its living identity and
continuity which can be determined by a sevenfold historical test: "Newman proposed seven tests —
preservation of type, continuity of principles, power of assimilation, logical sequence, anticipation of
the future, conservative, action on the past, and chronic vigour." These tests are similar to what
modern biologists use to determine the unity of a species, that is, a living species. Is it permissible to
use such a method in matters of Divine Revelation?

Percy Gardner in Modernism in the English Church also describes how Newman's novel idea
antedated biological theories concerning natural selection. It seems that for Newman the Church is
like a living species which advances and develops in time, acquiring different characteristics and
forms necessitated by its 'struggle for existence' in the midst of a hostile world. "In a remarkable
passage in his Development of Christian Doctrine Cardinal Newman describes the process by which
ideas, as he calls them, make their way into Christian belief and practice."

Gardner goes on to quote Newman:

When some great enunciation is carried forward into the public throng of men, and draws attention,
then it is not merely received passively in this or that form into many minds, but it becomes an active
principle within them, leading them to an ever new contemplation of itself, to an application of it in
various directions, and a propagation of it on every side. At first men will not fully realize what it is that
moves them, and will express and explain themselves inadequately. After a while some definite
teaching emerges; and as time proceeds, one view will be modified or expanded by another, and then
combined with a third, till the idea to which these various aspects belong will be to each mind
separately what at first it was only to all together.

Such is the manner in which he contemplates the 'growth' of Christianity and dogma, a view
that presupposes progress on the part of the Church as She becomes more and more "aware" of
Herself. "It shows the greatness of Newman, that before Darwin had set forth his theory of evolution,
a foretaste of it appears in the Development of Christian Doctrine," Gardner realizes how influential
Newman's treatise was on bringing converts into the Church since they could now look upon Rome
simply as possessing the more perfect form of Christianity, a form that was the logical perfection of
their own belief, instead of adopting Catholicism in opposition to their former heretical tenets.

Ever since Newman became popular English converts have felt comfortable in clinging to their
old ideas and sentiments, as is exemplified in Ronald Knox; few have felt the necessity of converting
Protestants since they also possess the truth, although imperfect, and they also have access to the
means of grace. However, although Protestants were being drawn to Rome via Newman's treatise,
"the Roman hierarchy itself has never looked on Newman's views with favour, but has distrusted their
thinking. And in fact they are not reconcilable with the teaching of intellectually absolute religion to
which Rome is irrevocably committed. They have been carried farther by certain Romanist writers,
such as Loisy and Duchesne, whose works found a place on the Index."

Others, as Alfred Fawkes, have discerned Newman's modernism in his idea of development,
Fawkes quotes Mark Pattison, an agnostic friend of Newman, who saw clearly the thrust of Newman's
ideas:

The force of his dialectic and the beauty of his theoretical exposition were such that one's eyes and
ears were charmed, and one never thought of inquiring on how narrow a basis of philosophical culture
his great gifts were expended. A. P. Stanley once said to me: 'How different the fortunes of the
Church of England might have been, if Newman had been able to read German!' That puts the matter
in a nutshell; Newman assumed and adorned the narrow basis on which Laud had stood two hundred
years before. All the grand development of human reason, from Aristotle down to Hegel, was a sealed

32



book to him. There lay a unity, a unity of all thought, which far transcended the mere mechanical
association of the unthinking members of the Catholic Church; a great spiritual unity by the side of
which all sects and denominations shrink into vanity. (Studies in Modernism, p.31)

This kind of unity, it should be clear, is not the one established by Christ in His Church, but a
quasi-pantheistic unity that transcends the happy limits of truth and goodness.

Roman theologians, including members of the Propaganda, were more than suspicious about
Newman's sceptical doctrine of development. The great Fr. Perrone, S.J., discussed the matter with
Newman, and although Mr. Ward, Newman's biographer, states that Perrone and Newman were
reconciled on the issue of development, the case was not quite so simple. Alfred Fawkes makes an
important distinction:

Perrone admitted the principle of development; and Mr. Ward argues that the difference between his
view and Newman's was one almost entirely of expression. No; what Perrone meant was a logical
unfolding: Newman, guarded as his language often is, held an organic process, For him ideas are still
unfinished. The world is still in the making, and mankind is in the making too , (pp. 36-37) (Emphasis
added}

The distinction is of the utmost importance, for "the latter admits of, and even invites,
applications which the former excludes." Newman's hypothesis admits progress, not only of our
understanding of dogma, but of dogma itself. Surely he must if dogmas are to be living historical
experiences. That he was intent on viewing the development of dogma biologically is made clear by
his own admission, because for him philosophy and theology

...necessarily arise out of an existing state of things, and for a time savours of the soil. Its vital
element needs disengaging from what is foreign and temporary, and is employed in efforts after
freedom which become more vigorous and hopeful as its years increase. Its beginnings are not the
measure of its capabilities, nor its scope. At first no one knows what it is, or what it is worth. It remains
perhaps for a time quiescent; it tries, as it were, its limbs, and proves the ground under it, and feels its
way. From time to time it makes essays which fail, and are in consequence abandoned. It seems in
suspense which way to go; it wavers, and at length strikes out in one definite direction. In time it
enters upon strange territory; points of controversy alter their bearing; parties rise and fall around it;
dangers and hopes appear in new relations; and old principles reappear under new forms, It changes
with them in order to remain the same. In a higher world it is otherwise; but below to live is to change,
and to be perfect is to have changed often . (Emphasis added)

Here Newman expresses perfectly his position that truth is both changing and unchanging in the
same respect, for it "changes with them in order to remain the same", a view that savours of hegelian
dialectics. His ability to discern growth and change is equal to some of the best natural historians, but
unfortunately his natural and empirical method does grave injustice to the transcendent supernatural
order of Revelation. The reader cannot help but agree with Fawkes when he said: "So spoke Faust to
Margaret in the garden", and he adds: "Not only Roman theologians demurred. 'He places Christianity
on the edge of a precipice, from whence a bold and strong hand would throw it over,' wrote Mr.
Gladstone; and Manning, then an Anglican: 'I am persuaded that Bishop Butler, if he were alive,
would in his quiet way tear the whole argument into shreds. Is it not a refuge for the destitute, who can
find no shelter in antiquity? It seems as if he thought the regulafldei, and the tradition of dogmas and
the whole oral confession of the faith seldom if ever crossed his mind.' They were right. Valid and
inevitable as it is, the Development theory can only be used by those who are prepared to follow it
out to its conclusions. Rome saw this from the first; and in our own time, though Newman's name was
not mentioned, both it and his doctrine of Probability have been repudiated, in the Syllabus of 1907 ,
and the Encyclical by which it was followed, the Church fell back upon the old lines.



1 It is important for the Catholic to realize that, contrary to these ideas of development, the Church has always taught that
the entire deposit of Revealed Dogma ended with the Apostles. Whatever the Church has taught in subsequent ages is

33



As stated earlier, Newman's theory of Development appealed to men of opposing beliefs.
"Newman was a man so various. A primer of infidelity," said Huxley, "could be compiled from his
works." But so could one of belief, of Ultramontanism and Cisalpinism; of traditionalism and science.
Each of these opposites appealed to a side of his complex personality, and he threw himself into each
with ardour.

This made him afrondeur; he was a man with whom it was difficult to deal. Mr. Ward compares
his attitude to that of Fenelon under similar circumstances. The comparison is apt. But we recall
Bossuet's comment on his great rival:

'M. de Cambrai continue faire le soumis de I'air du monde le plus arrogant' 2 That his views were
disapproved in Rome is not surprising.

Not only modernists like Loisy rallied behind the Development of Christian Doctrine but "this
famous treatise had been taken up by certain Unitarian writers in Boston; and the American bishops
were up in arms against it... His language on Probability suggested Hermes; on Faith, Bautain; the
Development theory started from the side of psychology rather than of logic: "Newman miscet et
confundet omnia' 3 was their view."

Newman found difficulty in reconciling the ancient, medieval and modern Church. He could
not, for instance, understand how the teaching of Transubstantiation could be reconciled with the
teaching of the Apostolic Church since never was a term like 'transubstantiation' ever used. Yet he
willingly submitted to the Church's authority despite his ignorance:

I cannot indeed prove it; I cannot tell how it is; but I say, "why should it not be? What's to hinder it?
What do I know about substance or matter? Just as much as the greatest philosophers — and that is
nothing at all... The Catholic doctrine leaves phenomena alone... it deals with what no one on earth
knows anything about — the material substances themselves.

Newman reveals his lack of theological training and his empirical mind in this statement. Did he
not know that there has ever been in the Church a profound understanding of the nature of matter, and
both natural and supernatural substance, and that this enabled Her to define with infallible certitude
dogmas about the nature, substance, person and ousia of Christ, as also the dogmas concerning
Transubstantiation?

How could the Church employ philosophers and theologians to articulate and defend these
dogmas if the greatest of them knew only as much as Newman did on such matters, that is, "nothing at
all"? And when has the Church purported to leave phenomena alone, limiting Herself to the 'mystery'
of material substance which "no one on earth knows anything about"?

Newman, it seems, approached these questions like one outside the Faith, looking for a logical
justification for his faith in history rather than revealed dogma. Perhaps Newman reversed the dictum
of St. Augustine "Credo ut intelligam" to "intelligo ut credam". Fawkes was right when he saw the
consequences of Newman's treatment of the dogma of transubstantiation: "The formula is saved by
being emptied of meaning. On such reasoning anything may be anything else, and everything
nothing."

Fawkes continues to describe the nature and import that Newman's theory of development had
on the world. "Newman's book burst like a bombshell on the religious world. On the one hand it cut
away the "Perpeuite de la Fof - the keystone... of orthodoxy; on the other it opened the door to



contained wholly in the original teaching given by Our Lord to the Apostles.

2 Monsieur de Cambrai (Fenelon) continues to make submission in the most arrogant spirit of the world.

3 Newman mixes and confuses everything.

34



uncertainty and error of every description." "Protestants distrusted it because it was devised in 'the
interests of Catholicism; Catholics because it represented Catholicism as 'another Gospel', an after-
growth contained only implicitly in the Gospel of Christ." Fawkes states what he believed to be
Newman's purpose and voices the opinion that the Syllabus of St. Pius X had Newman in mind:

His aim was to supply a philosophy of religion which, while justifying the Papal Church, should admit
a principle of progress, accounting for defects by the presence of a human element and the inevitable
discrepancy between the ideal and the actual. The Church, however, showed no disposition to accept
his apologetic - at which... at least two of the condemnations of the Syllabus of 1907 are directed...
In Newman the philosopher and the divine lie side by side unreconciled; the two lines of thought,
produce them as we will, do not meet. 1

It might be said that the empirical mind of Newman sought to make credible the theory that
revealed religion and dogma are the result of the development of a primordial religious fact. History,
we might say, becomes dogma. He admits this in the Parochial and Plain Sermons where he speaks
about the role St. Paul's Epistles played in developing and illustrating the Gospels, "raising history
into doctrine, ordinances into sacraments, detached words of actions into principles, and thus
everywhere dutifully preaching his person, work and will." What does Newman mean by St. Paul's
"raising history to dogma" and "ordinances into sacraments"? Does not the Catholic position 'assert
that St. Paul simply preached the doctrines revealed to him by the Incarnate Son of God Who taught
all things whatsoever that must be believed and Who instituted all of the sacraments?

Conclusion

Although the foregoing synopsis of Newman's life and thought is brief and far from
comprehensive, I believe sufficient evidence and argument have been mounted to expose the illusion
of his orthodoxy and the invalid basis on which his fame rests. His liberal activities have not been
made known to Catholics of our century, for the reason that all biographies of him have been written
from the liberal standpoint and have heavily over-shadowed his heterodox sentiments. Catholics of
conservative thinking turn to Newman for inspiration in defense of their anti-liberal views, for there is
no other author in the English language whom they feel wrote so eloquently on divine matters; and
they do this, I believe, because of the great absence of solid theologians, philosophers and apologists
that has been so prevalent since the French Revolution .

The real danger of Newman's influence, however, is now at last becoming fully apparent as
numerous modernists rally behind him as the prophet of their dream, the dream of the layman's
control of his godless secular religion.

Conservatives argue that Newman was decidedly anti-liberal and cite texts from his pre-Catholic
life in support of their contention. There are two main fallacies in their position. The first is that they
have failed to realize that it is essential, as I have already mentioned, to judge a man, his opinions and
his influence with reference to the whole of his writings rather than from a few carefully chosen
passages. The second is that they have not realized that what Newman called liberalism in those days
was the movement in Parliament to take privileges away from the Established Church and give them
to dissenters like the Catholics. It is well known that Newman opposed Catholic Emancipation (he
detested Daniel O'Connell), not for the same reasons as the orthodox Catholic bishops who distrusted
the liberals leading the movement for emancipation, but on the grounds that emancipated Catholics



1 The following proposition was condemned by St. Pius X in the Syllabus "Lamentabili Sane", No. 25: "The assent of the
faith ultimately rests on a mass of probabilities" This condemned proposition was explicitly upheld by Newman in the
Grammar of Assent when he says that his being suspicious of scientific demonstration urges him to "prove" the truth of
Catholicism by the argument of probability: "I prefer to rely on that of an accumulation of various probabilities" (411).

35



sitting in Parliament would undermine the unity and supremacy of the Established Church.

The liberalism that Newman opposed was far from that condemned by Pius IX in his Syllabus;
in fact, given that he saw liberalism as an attack on, rather than the fruit of Protestantism, his anti-
liberalism was more similar to the liberalism condemned by Pius IX than contrary to it.

He indeed despised the Tri-Colour, but during his pre-Catholic life he also believed that the
Papacy was an abominable thing. The best witness we have of his liberalism is, ironically, the
"consensus fidelium" of the nineteenth century, and in particular the Roman Curia and the Sovereign
Pontiff Pius IX. Cardinals Barnabo, Manning, Allen, Reisach, and even Wiseman, suspected and
deplored one or another of his writing and schemes; theologians like Perrone and Franzelin opposed
his ideas. And besides, how could a real Catholic find congenial company in men like Dollinger and
Acton who were determined to undermine the Faith?

Against this background, even the great number of converts who came into the Church as a
result of his conversion and his influence must be considered with reserve. Some indeed must have
embraced the faith wholeheartedly and submissively but the more far-reaching effect must have been
to flood the Church with Anglicans who did not materially alter their beliefs, thus both diluting the
English Catholic Church and bringing it more into line with, and therefore into a position where it
would compromise with the secular authorities and the world.

The reader, then, is called upon to consider Newman's case more critically in order to determine
his proper place in modern Catholic history. As aforementioned, he has been hailed as the "invisible
father" of Vatican II, and even though the modernists of today might take Newman too far by
stretching his meaning, nevertheless his elastic principles allow for such interpretation. The Catholic
world has not been getting better since the death of John Newman, and we have many justifications
for thinking that he was more of a cause than an obstacle to its deterioration. Cardinal Manning
provided a valid and fitting conclusion to this essay when he said that Newman generated a "worldly
Catholicism, and it will have the worldly on its side, and will deceive many."



36