John Henry Newman

Paper reprint from the 1988 imprint with a new foreword by Ian Ker. This classic text considers the growth and development of doctrine in the Catholic Church from the time of the Apostles to Newman's own era. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine

Donald

These are the most striking passages in the book:

The dogmatic principle: ‘That there is truth then; that there is one truth; that religious error is in itself of an immoral nature; that its maintainers, unless involuntarily such, are guilty in maintaining it; that it is to be dreaded; that truth and falsehood are set before us for the trial of our hearts; that our choice is an awful giving forth of lots on which salvation or rejection is inscribed; that "before all things it is necessary to hold the Catholic faith," that "he that would be saved must thus think" and not otherwise.’

The principles that lead to heresy: `That truth and falsehood in religion are but a matter of opinion; that one doctrine is as good as another; . . . that there is no truth; that we are not more acceptable to God by believing this than by believing that; . . that it is enough if we sincerely hold what we profess; that our merit lies in seeking, not in possessing; . . . that we may safely trust to ourselves in matters of Faith; and need no other guide.'

I read this with a group of Christians. I think I was the only non-Christian in the group, but I remember the whole room feeling very indicted by these paragraphs. We all saw some (or much) of ourselves in the 'principles that lead to heresy'.

Newman has a general theory of intellectual history + a particular theory of Christian intellectual history (not a phrase he uses). I paraphrase of Newman’s 'Antecedent Argument' thus:

Any Idea that is a fact – i.e., an idea that is “a subject matter of exercises of the reason” – will necessarily over time expand into a multitude of harmonious ideas that reflect the original Idea. This is so because the human mind cannot conceive of a whole object qua whole object (“whole objects do not create in the intellect whole ideas”); rather, the mind divides the whole Idea into a series of ideas that strengthen and correct each other. Further, an Idea with more vitality produces a greater multiplicity of harmonious ideas.

Christianity is such an Idea and thus develops according to those principles. One objection to this argument is that Christianity is a revealed Idea – should it not always reflect its original revealed source (i.e., the Bible)? But the revealed text does not communicate the whole revelation to the reader, and the reader (as above) is not capable of receiving the revealed Idea as a whole object. Any reading of a text is necessarily an interpretation of the text; it is impossible to read a text as a pure whole without any interpretation (“…all parties appeal to Scripture, that is argue from Scripture; but argument implies deduction, that is, development”).

Since Christianity is a universal religion, it is contemplated by people across a huge range of time, space, and culture. This results in a greater diversity of understandings. This diversity of understanding is directed towards understanding the whole Idea. Thus, it is inevitable that the Church will not understand or express the Idea of Christianity in the same way forever; the development of Christianity is natural and in keeping with the development of Ideas generally.

If that account of the development of Ideas is true and if it Christianity is a true Idea revealed by God, then God must also have established some authority to make sure that the development of Christianity does not go awry [note: this is very similar to the Rabbinic idea of ‘Oral Torah’ passed from Sinai alongside the written text]. It would be senseless for God to reveal the truth to man but not establish the means by which man could understand that truth. If that is true and God established an authority to guide the development of Christianity, the Catholic Church is the most probable authority of those that exist.

The consequences of the antecedent argument’s being true are the following: 1) the burden of proof re: the Catholic Church’s divine authority is shifted to the critics of the Church, not its defenders, 2) those rejecting the Church’s divine authority must either posit a plausible alternative authority that can be traced to the beginning of Christianity or reject Christianity as a true, divinely given Idea.

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I don't think Newman gives a proper account of the development of doctrine regarding development, which seems like it should have been one of the main parts of his (very interesting) ecclesiastical history. I also remain unswayed by Christological readings of the Hebrew Bible and, you know, the divinity of Christ.

Still, Newman is fantastic.

An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine

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