All
that is left is my Goodreads review.It’s
a lengthy review, and so I think I captured the essence of the book and Newman’s
conversion.I think all of the posts on Apologia Pro Vita Sua are insightful,
but if you are only going to read one post, I would read this one.
My
Goodreads Review
This
is one of the great conversion stories in the history of literature, and a
wonderful defense of the Catholic faith.Perhaps it is not as stirring as St. Augustine’s Confessions, but it is written by an equally great theologian, an
equally great writer of prose, and an acknowledged saint in the Catholic
Church.Of course Newman would not know
in his lifetime, but he would be canonized in 2019 and should now be referred
to as St. John Henry Newman.
I
gave this work five stars, but that is not to say all readers will enjoy this
work.It is a difficult read.There are several difficulties. First, it was
written in the 19th century, so there's a style gap between Newman and us.
Second, he's very intellectual, so there is a lot of knowledge that is assumed
the reader knows. Third he's dealing with finer points of apologetics. Fourth,
there's a historical time and place context. The history of the Anglican Church
is not something we are generally taught.These definitely make reading this book difficult.
Still
it is worth it.John Henry Newman has
the reputation of being one of the great prose stylist of the English language.There are numerous passages that are so
eloquently written that a students of prose can map out paragraphs and
sentences for their edification.Lovers
of fine prose can just bask in the pleasure of his artistry.Here’s a short example of a description of a
friend and colleague.
To mention Mr. Hugh
Rose's name is to kindle in the minds of those who knew him a host of pleasant
and affectionate remembrances. He was the man above all others fitted by his
cast of mind and literary powers to make a stand, if a stand could be made,
against the calamity of the times. He was gifted with a high and large mind,
and a true sensibility of what was great and beautiful; he wrote with warmth
and energy; and he had a cool head and cautious judgment. He spent his strength
and shortened his life, Pro Ecclesia Dei,
as he understood that sovereign idea. Some years earlier he had been the first
to give warning, I think from the University Pulpit at Cambridge, of the perils
to England which lay in the biblical and theological speculations of Germany.
The Reform agitation followed, and the Whig Government came into power; and he
anticipated in their distribution of Church patronage the authoritative
introduction of liberal opinions into the country. He feared that by the Whig
party a door would be opened in England to the most grievous of heresies, which
never could be closed again.
I
should write about how the Apologia
was inspired.His Apologia was published nineteen years after being received into the
Catholic Church.It seems that just
before 1864 Newman had been wanting to write about his conversion, and was
scribbling notes in preparation but an occasion came upon him that focused the
memoirs.A certain Charles Kingsley, a
novelist, historian, and ardent anti-Catholic, in a review of a recently
published History of England written by James Anthony Froude, which strongly
defended the English Reformation, insulted the Catholic clergy by twisting
words of Newman’s written prior to his conversion.
So
the dispute was not over some deep theological issue but over a crass statement
by what today might be called a bigot.Newman found the opportunity to expose Kingsley and defend the
burgeoning Catholic Church in England.This
came at a critical moment in the Catholic Renaissance in England.Catholics thanked Newman, Protestants read
the Apologia and started to if not
accept Catholics at least drop some of their erroneous notions, and a number of
prominent Englishmen converted to Catholicism.Without Newman’s Apologia we
might never have had the conversions of Gerard Manly Hopkins, Robert Hugh
Benson, and G.K. Chesterton.Newman’s
autobiography was one of those rare books that had a lasting societal impact.
The
book takes us from Newman’s youth, where from a religious experience brought
him to Evangelical Protestantism, then in his collegiate education, fixed into
the Church of England, becoming an Anglican theologian at Oxford and a parish
rector.Newman takes us through some
twenty years as an Anglican apologist, combatting the Liberal Protestantism
that was infecting England—one might argue that Liberal Protestantism has
completely won the day in today’s Anglican Church, which might not surprise
Newman at all—and the Catholic Church, which to Newman felt had deviated from
Apostolic tradition through her many accoutrements.In Newman’s mind it was the Anglican Church
that had maintained Apostolic tradition, and to what Newman called “primitive
Christianity,” and he tried to show how the Anglican Church was the via media, the middle way between the
traditional Protestantism of the Reformers and Catholicism.And then he suddenly realized he was wrong.
So
what converted him to Catholicism?I’m
going to put this under spoiler in case you want to let the book unfold the
story for you.
And
then Newman read Church history.“To Be
Deep in History Is to Cease to Be Protestant.”That is a famous quote from Newman which does not come from this
book.I've known that quote for a long
time and not having read the context I imagined it was because Newman reading
the Church Fathers saw the sacraments from their origin and concluded
Protestantism had deviated and that Catholicism had not. I imagined he looked
into the past and could not find Protestantism in the early Church. But High
Church Anglicanism still had the concept of the sacramental system. So it was
not that at all. The history that converted Newman was the history of the
heresies and how Rome dealt with them. He came to see Protestantism as just
another heresy.
In
studying the Monophysite heresy, he realized how similar they were in standing
and argument with Luther and Calvin.The
Monophysitic heresy was over the nature of Christ.The Council of Nicaea determined that Christ
was of two natures, divine and man.The
Monophysites were those that declared that Christ was only of one nature, of
strictly divine.The Monophysites
pointed to Biblical passages to justify their claims.The Catholic Church rejected those claims,
arguing the Monophysites were bringing in a new thought from the Apostolic
tradition.Luther and Calvin pointed to
Biblical passages to justify their claims.The Catholic Church equally rejected their claims as non-Apostolic.Just because you can point to a reading in
the Bible doesn’t mean that’s how the Apostles meant it to be read.
In
understanding the Monophysitic heresy, he noticed Pope Leo the Great’s response
to the heresy and he noticed the Monophysitic reaction by attaching themselves
to political power, which was exactly what the Protestant Reformers did, and he
came to a startling realization.
I have nothing more to
say on the subject of the change in my religious opinions. On the one hand I
came gradually to see that the Anglican Church was formally in the wrong, on
the other that the Church of Rome was formally in the right; then, that no
valid reasons could be assigned for continuing in the Anglican, and again that
no valid objections could be taken to joining the Roman. Then, I had nothing
more to learn; what still remained for my conversion, was, not further change
of opinion, but to change opinion itself into the clearness and firmness of
intellectual conviction.
And
so, he even realizes that his Via Media
had actually a lesser claim to challenge Rome than the other Protestant
denomination.Luther and Calvin had put
forth a different theology, however incorrect, than Catholicism.Anglicanism was essentially a qualification
to Catholicism, and so had even less of a right to protest.In time Newman would realize that the
Catholic accoutrements were not novelties as Protestant theology is but
developments from kernels that had been there since the beginning.He would later show this in his great
theological work, The Development of
Doctrine.
Finally
Newman leaves it completely unambiguous that he has converted to Catholicism
with his whole heart and that he accepts all the doctrines and dogmas the
Church has declared.
And now, having thus
described it, I profess my own absolute submission to its claim. I believe the
whole revealed dogma as taught by the Apostles, as committed by the Apostles to
the Church, and as declared by the Church to me. I receive it, as it is
infallibly interpreted by the authority to whom it is thus committed, and
(implicitly) as it shall be, in like manner, further interpreted by that same
authority till the end of time. I submit, moreover, to the universally received
traditions of the Church, in which lies the matter of those new dogmatic
definitions which are from time to time made, and which in all times are the
clothing and the illustration of the Catholic dogma as already defined. And I
submit myself to those other decisions of the Holy See, theological or not,
through the organs which it has itself appointed, which, waiving the question
of their infallibility, on the lowest ground come to me with a claim to be
accepted and obeyed.
It
is interesting Newman uses the form of the word “submit” three times in that
short paragraph.It is a conscious
effort to contrast himself from Martin Luther, who refused to submit himself to
Church authority, and, if I may, contrast himself to Lucifer who refused to
serve God.What a fine book by a future
saint.
In
the final chapter, Newman, couched in his thoughts since his conversion, gives
a vindication of the Catholic Church, an apologetic of the Catholic faith, and
a final rationalization for his conversion.Newman touches on some key doctrines: the Catholic Church’s acceptance
and assimilation of science, the nature of the human condition as fallen but
not wretched, and perhaps most importantly to Newman the Catholic Church’s
claim as infallible authority.Finally
Newman makes clear, that even when he has difficulties accepting some of the
Church’s positions or manners of devotion, his submission to the Church’s
authority, a submission he sees as necessary of a world drifting into
relativism.
###
There
really isn’t much to say about this chapter.I think it provides some great passages of apologetics.Let me quote a few.Let’s start with the opening paragraphs of
the chapter.
From the time that I
became a Catholic, of course I have no further history of my religious opinions
to narrate. In saying this, I do not mean to say that my mind has been idle, or
that I have given up thinking on theological subjects; but that I have had no
variations to record, and have had no anxiety of heart whatever. I have been in
perfect peace and contentment; I never have had one doubt. I was not conscious
to myself, on my conversion, of any change, intellectual or moral, wrought in
my mind. I was not conscious of firmer faith in the fundamental truths of
Revelation, or of more self-command; I had not more fervour; but it was like
coming into port after a rough sea; and my happiness on that score remains to
this day without interruption.
Now
bear in mind he is writing this in 1864, some nineteen years from his
conversion.He has been ordained a
priest in the Catholic Church but he is still fifteen years away from being
promoted to a Cardinal, a title he had no expectation of achieving.So for all that time he has had no regrets
and is totally at peace.I love the simile
in his final sentence, coming into port after a rough sea.He goes on.
Nor had I any trouble
about receiving those additional articles, which are not found in the Anglican
Creed. Some of them I believed already, but not any one of them was a trial to
me. I made a profession of them upon my reception with the greatest ease, and I
have the same ease in believing them now. I am far of course from denying that
every article of the Christian Creed, whether as held by Catholics or by
Protestants, is beset with intellectual difficulties; and it is simple fact,
that, for myself, I cannot answer those difficulties. Many persons are very
sensitive of the difficulties of Religion; I am as sensitive of them as any
one; but I have never been able to see a connexion between apprehending those
difficulties, however keenly, and multiplying them to any extent, and on the
other hand doubting the doctrines to which they are attached. Ten thousand
difficulties do not make one doubt, as I understand the subject; difficulty and
doubt are incommensurate. There of course may be difficulties in the evidence;
but I am speaking of difficulties intrinsic to the doctrines themselves, or to
their relations with each other. A man may be annoyed that he cannot work out a
mathematical problem, of which the answer is or is not given to him, without
doubting that it admits of an answer, or that a certain particular answer is
the true one. Of all points of faith, the being of a God is, to my own
apprehension, encompassed with most difficulty, and yet borne in upon our minds
with most power.
And
so he does not have any trouble with any of the Catholic doctrines.Sure there are difficulties, just as there
were difficulties in creeds shared by Catholics and Protestants.There are difficulties in all matters of
faith, that’s why it’s faith.I love
this wonderful quote: “Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.”Because one has difficulties to one with
faith, it is a far cry from having doubts.
###
So
Newman addresses one of the most prominent of the Catholic difficulties, that
of Transubstantiation.The quote on
Transubstantiation is from one paragraph but I’m going to break it apart to
show the development of his thought.
People say that the
doctrine of Transubstantiation is difficult to believe; I did not believe the
doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it, as soon as
I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God, and that she
had declared this doctrine to be part of the original revelation. It is
difficult, impossible, to imagine, I grant;—but how is it difficult to believe?
It
is interesting how he believed it immediately upon becoming Catholic.Once the Church had “declared it to be part
of original revelation” then if you accept Magisterial authority, then you just
accept it.Newman points out, yes it is
difficult—impossible even—to imagine it, but belief is not understanding.It is faith.Side note: I find it strange how Protestants talk about justification by
faith and yet when Jesus asks of you to have faith in His presence in the
Eucharist they fail.Every time one goes
up for communion at Mass it is an act of faith that you are demonstrating when
the priest says “Body of Christ” and you respond “amen.”Amen literally means “it is so.”Back to Newman’s paragraph.
Yet Macaulay thought it
so difficult to believe, that he had need of a believer in it of talents as
eminent as Sir Thomas More, before he could bring himself to conceive that the
Catholics of an enlightened age could resist "the overwhelming force of
the argument against it." "Sir Thomas More," he says, "is
one of the choice specimens of wisdom and virtue; and the doctrine of
transubstantiation is a kind of proof charge. A faith which stands that test,
will stand any test." But for myself, 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 of substance or matter? just as much as the greatest
philosophers, and that is nothing at all;"—so much is this the case, that
there is a rising school of philosophy now, which considers phenomena to
constitute the whole of our knowledge in physics.
By
“Macaulay” I assume he is referring to the British historian and politician in
Newman’s day, Thomas Babington Macaulay, who Newman says needed the witness of
Thomas More for him to think Catholics truly believed it.Newman goes on to say that he cannot prove Transubstantiation, but he responds,
“Why should it not be?”“What do I know
of substance and matter?”Material
phenomena does not constitute all of reality.He continues.
The Catholic doctrine
leaves phenomena alone. It does not say that the phenomena go; on the contrary,
it says that they remain; nor does it say that the same phenomena are in
several places at once. It deals with what no one on earth knows any thing
about, the material substances themselves. And, in like manner, of that
majestic Article of the Anglican as well as of the Catholic Creed,—the doctrine
of the Trinity in Unity. What do I know of the Essence of the Divine Being? I
know that my abstract idea of three is simply incompatible with my idea of one;
but when I come to the question of concrete fact, I have no means of proving
that there is not a sense in which one and three can equally be predicated of
the Incommunicable God.
The
Catholic Church, Newman argues, leaves the possibility of phenomena beyond the
sense experience.He compares the idea
of Transubstantiation with the idea of the Trinity, which is accepted by most
Protestants.Similarly he asks, “What do
I know of the Essence of the Divine Being?”We can’t conceptualize the Trinity.Why does one think that they can conceptualize Transubstantiation?Newman is a master at argument.
###
Newman
brings his apologetics all the way back to justifying God’s existence.I won’t go into the details of that, but he
provides this magnificent sentence, which is set aside as a paragraph.It is a single sentence and a paragraph.
To consider the world in
its length and breadth, its various history, the many races of man, their
starts, their fortunes, their mutual alienation, their conflicts; and then
their ways, habits, governments, forms of worship; their enterprises, their
aimless courses, their random achievements and acquirements, the impotent
conclusion of long-standing facts, the tokens so faint and broken of a
superintending design, the blind evolution of what turn out to be great powers
or truths, the progress of things, as if from unreasoning elements, not towards
final causes, the greatness and littleness of man, his far-reaching aims, his
short duration, the curtain hung over his futurity, the disappointments of
life, the defeat of good, the success of evil, physical pain, mental anguish,
the prevalence and intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries, the corruptions,
the dreary hopeless irreligion, that condition of the whole race, so fearfully
yet exactly described in the Apostle's words, "having no hope and without
God in the world,"—all this is a vision to dizzy and appal; and inflicts
upon the mind the sense of a profound mystery, which is absolutely beyond human
solution.
To
comprehend the sentence, start with the first phrase, “To consider the world in
its length and breadth,” and then he provides a litany of historical facts and
developments which have led to the present moment under the guiding hand of
God, ending with the predicate “all this is a vision to dizzy and appal; and
inflicts upon the mind the sense of a profound mystery, which is absolutely
beyond human solution.”So put those two
halves together and you get: “To consider the world in its length and breadth…
upon the mind the sense of a profound mystery, which is absolutely beyond human
solution.”William Faulkner would
appreciate a sentence like that.
###
This
is an absolutely great quote on the fallen state of man and how we find
ourselves in this universe:
Thus only should I be
able to account for the contrast between the promise and the condition of [man’s]
being. And so I argue about the world;—if there be a God, since there is a God,
the human race is implicated in some terrible aboriginal calamity. It is out of
joint with the purposes of its Creator. This is a fact, a fact as true as the
fact of its existence; and thus the doctrine of what is theologically called
original sin becomes to me almost as certain as that the world exists, and as
the existence of God.
And
yet Newman finds in the Catholic Church the proper perspective of man’s
relationship with his creator.
In like manner she has
ever put forth, with most energetic distinctness, those other great elementary
truths, which either are an explanation of her mission or give a character to
her work. She does not teach that human nature is irreclaimable, else wherefore
should she be sent? not, that it is to be shattered and reversed, but to be
extricated, purified, and restored; not, that it is a mere mass of hopeless
evil, but that it has the promise upon it of great things, and even now, in its
present state of disorder and excess, has a virtue and a praise proper to
itself. But in the next place she knows and she preaches that such a
restoration, as she aims at effecting in it, must be brought about, not simply
through certain outward provisions of preaching and teaching, even though they
be her own, but from an inward spiritual power or grace imparted directly from
above, and of which she is the channel. She has it in charge to rescue human
nature from its misery, but not simply by restoring it on its own level, but by
lifting it up to a higher level than its own. She recognizes in it real moral
excellence though degraded, but she cannot set it free from earth except by
exalting it towards heaven. It was for this end that a renovating grace was put
into her hands; and therefore from the nature of the gift, as well as from the
reasonableness of the case, she goes on, as a further point, to insist, that
all true conversion must begin with the first springs of thought, and to teach
that each individual man must be in his own person one whole and perfect temple
of God, while he is also one of the living stones which build up a visible
religious community. And thus the distinctions between nature and grace, and
between outward and inward religion, become two further articles in what I have
called the preamble of her divine commission.
What
I see in this passage is a conscious effort to contrast the Catholic Church
from the Protestant conceptualization of human nature.“She does not teach that human nature is
irreclaimable, else wherefore should she be sent?”This is in contrast to the Lutheran notion of
total depravity.Here is Newman in that
paragraph: “She recognizes in it real moral excellence though degraded, but she
cannot set it free from earth except by exalting it towards heaven,” and
implied in there is the notion of man’s free will, which contrasts with the
Calvinist (and implied in Luther) of a chosen elect and predestination.Newman here captures the beauty of the Catholic
Church’s understanding of humanity and her mission to elevate man.Newman, writing here, has fully become
Catholic.
###
I’m
not quite finished with Apologia.One last defense of Catholic teaching that
Newman takes on is Catholic Church authority and her stance on Papal infallibility.First he presents a comparison between
Protestantism and Catholicism and denies the oppressiveness of Church
authority.
It is the custom with
Protestant writers to consider that, whereas there are two great principles in
action in the history of religion, Authority and Private Judgment, they have
all the Private Judgment to themselves, and we have the full inheritance and
the superincumbent oppression of Authority. But this is not so; it is the vast
Catholic body itself, and it only, which affords an arena for both combatants
in that awful, never-dying duel. It is necessary for the very life of religion,
viewed in its large operations and its history, that the warfare should be
incessantly carried on. Every exercise of Infallibility is brought out into act
by an intense and varied operation of the Reason, both as its ally and as its
opponent, and provokes again, when it has done its work, a re-action of Reason
against it; and, as in a civil polity the State exists and endures by means of
the rivalry and collision, the encroachments and defeats of its constituent
parts, so in like manner Catholic Christendom is no simple exhibition of
religious absolutism, but presents a continuous picture of Authority and
Private Judgment alternately advancing and retreating as the ebb and flow of
the tide;—it is a vast assemblage of human beings with wilful intellects and
wild passions, brought together into one by the beauty and the Majesty of a
Superhuman Power,—into what may be called a large reformatory or
training-school, not as if into a hospital or into a prison, not in order to be
sent to bed, not to be buried alive, but (if I may change my metaphor) brought
together as if into some moral factory, for the melting, refining, and
moulding, by an incessant, noisy process, of the raw material of human nature,
so excellent, so dangerous, so capable of divine purposes.
What
is implied in that paragraph is that the Church’s doctrinal pronouncements are
based on a long discernment of reasoned between internal factions—between
“willful intellects and wild passions”—that sometimes lasts centuries before
reaching a conclusion.It is not an
impulsive pronouncement but a judgement made on the tradition and development
doctrine.Newman is writing Apologia and this argument in 1864, just
ten years from one of the most controversial of the Catholic Church’s
declaration of an infallible dogma.
We priests need not be
hypocrites, though we be called upon to believe in the Immaculate Conception.
To that large class of minds, who believe in Christianity after our manner,—in
the particular temper, spirit, and light, (whatever word is used,) in which
Catholics believe it,—there is no burden at all in holding that the Blessed
Virgin was conceived without original sin; indeed, it is a simple fact to say,
that Catholics have not come to believe it because it is defined, but that it
was defined because they believed it.
And
Newman goes on to say that it took eight centuries, and that it is rare for the
Church to even make such dogmatic declarations.
Now the instance which I
have been taking suggests another remark; the number of those (so called) new
doctrines will not oppress us, if it takes eight centuries to promulgate even
one of them. Such is about the length of time through which the preparation has
been carried on for the definition of the Immaculate Conception. This of course
is an extraordinary case; but it is difficult to say what is ordinary,
considering how few are the formal occasions on which the voice of Infallibility
has been solemnly lifted up. It is to the Pope in Ecumenical Council that we
look, as to the normal seat of Infallibility: now there have been only eighteen
such Councils since Christianity was,—an average of one to a century,—and of
these Councils some passed no doctrinal decree at all, others were employed on
only one, and many of them were concerned with only elementary points of the
Creed.
Finally
Newman leaves it completely unambiguous that he has converted to Catholicism
with his whole heart and that he accepts all the doctrines and dogmas the
Church has declared.
And now, having thus
described it, I profess my own absolute submission to its claim. I believe the
whole revealed dogma as taught by the Apostles, as committed by the Apostles to
the Church, and as declared by the Church to me. I receive it, as it is
infallibly interpreted by the authority to whom it is thus committed, and
(implicitly) as it shall be, in like manner, further interpreted by that same
authority till the end of time. I submit, moreover, to the universally received
traditions of the Church, in which lies the matter of those new dogmatic
definitions which are from time to time made, and which in all times are the
clothing and the illustration of the Catholic dogma as already defined. And I
submit myself to those other decisions of the Holy See, theological or not,
through the organs which it has itself appointed, which, waiving the question
of their infallibility, on the lowest ground come to me with a claim to be
accepted and obeyed. Also, I consider that, gradually and in the course of
ages, Catholic inquiry has taken certain definite shapes, and has thrown itself
into the form of a science, with a method and a phraseology of its own, under
the intellectual handling of great minds, such as St. Athanasius, St.
Augustine, and St. Thomas; and I feel no temptation at all to break in pieces
the great legacy of thought thus committed to us for these latter days.
It
is interesting Newman uses the form of the word “submit” three times in that
short paragraph.It is a conscious
effort to contrast himself from Martin Luther, who refused to submit himself to
Church authority, and, if I may, contrast himself to Lucifer who refused to
serve God.What a fine book by a future
saint.
###
Peej
Comment:
I’m curious if
Anglicanism was lacking in the regard of theology on the topic of human nature
and sin.
My
Reply:
Good question PEEJ. I
can't say I know definitively but it wold not surprise me if Anglicanism did
not have a dogmatic answer. Since Anglicanism can span from Low Church
Puratanism to High Church Anglo-Catholic I can see them not having a position
since a position would cause an internal dispute. But that is just speculation
on my part.
Peej
Comment:
Indeed, submission does
come up frequently in this final chapter. I consider the virtue of “docility”
or “openness to be taught” for Catholics. This can only come by true love of
Christ and his body the Church. For docility is usually considered a negative
thing in our culture, but for Christ it is not only acceptable but necessary.
My
Reply:
Yes, "Blessed are
the Meek, for They Will Inherit the Earth."
Chapter
4: History of my Religious Opinions from 1841 to 1845, Part 1
Summary
In
Part 1 of this chapter, Newman finds himself in a sort of no man’s land, neither
in the Catholic Church, which he is now convinced of her authority, nor with
his heart in the Anglican Church which has fallen in his eyes.He recapitulates why the Catholic Church is
holy and why the Via Media is
lacking.He speaks of the rise of a new
Oxford movement, one in which he mostly looks on from the outside, finding
himself in a difficult position given it is now apparent he has Catholic
sympathies.He spends a good deal of
space in this half chapter rebutting the charges he has been a closeted
Catholic all along, refuting individual claims against his theology.He ponders what his future might look like,
continuing in this half in, half out state, still deciding he could never
convert to the Catholic Church.
###
There
isn’t much in this first section of chapter four that I think needs a lot of
discussion to tease out the thought.I
think the summary captures it well.But
there is this one paragraph that I found interesting, and as I look at it might
be considered the whole of Section 1 of Chapter Four in a microcosm.It’s a really long paragraph, and it has
several twists and turns of thought which baffles me as to why Newman wrote it
this way.When a good writer writes a
paragraph, he normally considers a paragraph thesis that holds it
together.A paragraph thesis might be
contain subdivisions, and so a writer has to decide if each subdivision is a
thesis onto itself, and thereby create multiple paragraphs, or the thesis is so
cohesive that a single paragraph does it justice.I will say that writers in contemporary times
trend toward breaking up large thoughts into multiple paragraphs.Newman is not a contemporary writer.
So
here’s the paragraph.I’m going to break
it up to show his progression of thought, but remember it’s all one
paragraph.Here’s the first chunk.
While my old and true
friends were thus in trouble about me, I suppose they felt not only anxiety but
pain, to see that I was gradually surrendering myself to the influence of
others, who had not their own claims upon me, younger men, and of a cast of
mind in no small degree uncongenial to my own. A new school of thought was
rising, as is usual in doctrinal inquiries, and was sweeping the original party
of the Movement aside, and was taking its place.
So
Newman talks about the new Oxford Movement rising with a new generation, but
even there he juxtaposes two thoughts.(1) That his friends were “troubled” he was drifting from their
influence and (2) coming under the influence of a new group that was “rising.”
The most prominent person
in it, was a man of elegant genius, of classical mind, of rare talent in
literary composition:—Mr. Oakeley. He was not far from my own age; I had long
known him, though of late years he had not been in residence at Oxford; and
quite lately, he has been taking several signal occasions of renewing that
kindness, which he ever showed towards me when we were both in the Anglican
Church. His tone of mind was not unlike that which gave a character to the
early Movement; he was almost a typical Oxford man, and, as far as I recollect,
both in political and ecclesiastical views, would have been of one spirit with
the Oriel party of 1826-1833. But he had entered late into the Movement; he did
not know its first years; and, beginning with a new start, he was naturally
thrown together with that body of eager, acute, resolute minds who had begun
their Catholic life about the same time as he, who knew nothing about the Via Media, but had heard much about
Rome.
From
those two half points of that first subdivision, he turns in what feels like a
digression into a characterization of “the most prominent person” of that new
movement, Mr. Oakeley.It’s a lovely
piece of writing, but it feels connected to the first sentences.But then he returns to the thesis of the new
movement.
This new party rapidly
formed and increased, in and out of Oxford, and, as it so happened, contemporaneously
with that very summer, when I received so serious a blow to my ecclesiastical
views from the study of the Monophysite controversy. These men cut into the
original Movement at an angle, fell across its line of thought, and then set
about turning that line in its own direction. They were most of them keenly
religious men, with a true concern for their souls as the first matter of all,
with a great zeal for me, but giving little certainty at the time as to which
way they would ultimately turn. Some in the event have remained firm to
Anglicanism, some have become Catholics, and some have found a refuge in
Liberalism.
So
after concentrating on Mr. Oakeley, he gives a generalization of the other men
in the new movement.He continues on the
men of the new movement but notice his thesis has expanded.
Nothing was clearer
concerning them, than that they needed to be kept in order; and on me who had
had so much to do with the making of them, that duty was as clearly incumbent;
and it is equally clear, from what I have already said, that I was just the
person, above all others, who could not undertake it.
These
men of the new movement were in need of a leader, and he would have been the
logical person to lead them but because of his sympathies to Rome (unmentioned
but implied from the general context) he was not the logical person.When I say this paragraph is this section of
the chapter in a microcosm, I am referring to this tension of one foot with the
Anglicans and one foot with the Catholics.Next Newman returns to the “old friends” of the first sentence.
There are no friends like
old friends; but of those old friends, few could help me, few could understand
me, many were annoyed with me, some were angry, because I was breaking up a
compact party, and some, as a matter of conscience, could not listen to me.
When I looked round for those whom I might consult in my difficulties, I found
the very hypothesis of those difficulties acting as a bar to their giving me
their advice. Then I said, bitterly, "You are throwing me on others,
whether I will or no." Yet still I had good and true friends around me of
the old sort, in and out of Oxford too, who were a great help to me. But on the
other hand, though I neither was so fond (with a few exceptions) of the
persons, nor of the methods of thought, which belonged to this new school, as
of the old set, though I could not trust in their firmness of purpose, for,
like a swarm of flies, they might come and go, and at length be divided and
dissipated, yet I had an intense sympathy in their object and in the direction
in which their path lay, in spite of my old friends, in spite of my old
life-long prejudices.
Now
that is an extended riff on his alienation from his compatriots of the original
Oxford movement.I use the word “riff”
because if this paragraph were music, this subdivision would be in a different
musical key from before.On the one hand
it appears to be a completely different topic.And yet, that topic was there in the opening sentence of this great
paragraph.It is integrated as a
thought.And now he shifts to another
subject.
In spite of my ingrained
fears of Rome, and the decision of my reason and conscience against her usages,
in spite of my affection for Oxford and Oriel, yet I had a secret longing love
of Rome the Mother of English Christianity, and I had a true devotion to the
Blessed Virgin, in whose College I lived, whose Altar I served, and whose
Immaculate Purity I had in one of my earliest printed Sermons made much of. And
it was the consciousness of this bias in myself, if it is so to be called,
which made me preach so earnestly against the danger of being swayed in
religious inquiry by our sympathy rather than by our reason.
In
this subdivision, he captures the tension within himself, the fear of Rome and
the love of Rome, justifying why he has been forced into this alienation of his
own volition.Perhaps this whole book,
this testimony, can be reduced to those two sentences.Finally he concludes by bringing together all
the motifs of the subdivisions into a coherent whole.
And moreover, the members
of this new school looked up to me, as I have said, and did me true kindnesses,
and really loved me, and stood by me in trouble, when others went away, and for
all this I was grateful; nay, many of them were in trouble themselves, and in
the same boat with me, and that was a further cause of sympathy between us; and
hence it was, when the new school came on in force, and into collision with the
old, I had not the heart, any more than the power, to repel them; I was in
great perplexity, and hardly knew where I stood; I took their part; and, when I
wanted to be in peace and silence, I had to speak out, and I incurred the
charge of weakness from some men, and of mysteriousness, shuffling, and
underhand dealing from the majority.
The
old movement in conflict with the new movement, and he caught in between which
results in his alienation.Remember this
is all one paragraph.I chose to break
it into seven subdivisions, and you might have a slightly different way to
break it up, but you can see how it appears to meander.But does it really meander?Or is it a cohesive thought?
Depending
on how you answer that, you might consider it a masterpiece of a paragraph—and
I’ve come to the conclusion it is—or you might find it a rambling thought that
somehow got pulled together at the end.I doubt any contemporary editor would keep that paragraph as is
today.I have to say, I enjoyed it!
###
Chapter
4: History of my Religious Opinions from 1841 to 1845, Part 2
Summary
In
Part 2 of this chapter, Newman still finds himself in “no man’s land” but here
focuses on the events and mindset that pushed him to convert to
Catholicism.There were two key events
that shaped this section of chapter four: (1) his formal retraction of the
negative things he had said about the Catholic Church over the years and (2)
his resignation of his position and living at St. Mary’s Church, which stood as
a symbol of his connection to Anglicanism.He returns repeatedly to these two events as he works through the logic
and feelings of his decision.One thig
is evident throughout his process of thought, he has grown to respect the
Catholic Church, has grown even to have affection for her, and has come to an
understanding of the deficiencies of not just Anglicanism, but of Protestantism
in general.By the close of the chapter,
Newman has left Oxford, left Anglicanism, and has entered the Catholic Church.
###
So
what intellectually pushed Newman over into Catholicism were two books: Veron's
Rule of Faith and some Treatises of the Wallenburghs and a volume of St. Alfonso
Liguori's Sermons.Newman was surprised
by the Liguori sermons in that he had expected Italian Catholicism to be overly
focused on Mary.
Such devotional
manifestations in honour of our Lady had been my great crux as regards
Catholicism; I say frankly, I do not fully enter into them now; I trust I do
not love her the less, because I cannot enter into them. They may be fully
explained and defended; but sentiment and taste do not run with logic: they are
suitable for Italy, but they are not suitable for England.
His
biggest hang up it seems was that he could not accept an intermediary between
man and God.His term for this is
"solus cum solo,” which Newman translate as “face to face.”Newman feels that one is only face to face
with God at judgment.It seems that for
Newman’s Protestantism the “cloud of witnesses” on Hebrews 12:1 have no bearing
with God.But through Liguori’s sermons,
he had the intuition that certain Catholic doctrines that appeared to him to be
outside of Christinaity were indeed found in kernel form in early Christianity,
and so the idea of the development of doctrine came to him and would justify
these Catholic practices.This
intellectual process Newman summarizes in six points, but I’ll quote the fourth
through sixth.
4. And thus I was led on
to a further consideration. I saw that the principle of development not only
accounted for certain facts, but was in itself a remarkable philosophical
phenomenon, giving a character to the whole course of Christian thought. It was
discernible from the first years of the Catholic teaching up to the present
day, and gave to that teaching a unity and individuality. It served as a sort
of test, which the Anglican could not exhibit, that modern Rome was in truth
ancient Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople, just as a mathematical curve
has its own law and expression.
5. And thus again I was
led on to examine more attentively what I doubt not was in my thoughts long
before, viz. the concatenation of argument by which the mind ascends from its
first to its final religious idea; and I came to the conclusion that there was
no medium, in true philosophy, between Atheism and Catholicity, and that a
perfectly consistent mind, under those circumstances in which it finds itself
here below, must embrace either the one or the other. And I hold this still: I
am a Catholic by virtue of my believing in a God; and if I am asked why I
believe in a God, I answer that it is because I believe in myself, for I feel
it impossible to believe in my own existence (and of that fact I am quite sure)
without believing also in the existence of Him, who lives as a Personal,
All-seeing, All-judging Being in my conscience. Now, I dare say, I have not
expressed myself with philosophical correctness, because I have not given
myself to the study of what metaphysicians have said on the subject; {199} but
I think I have a strong true meaning in what I say which will stand
examination.
6. Moreover, I found a
corroboration of the fact of the logical connexion of Theism with Catholicism
in a consideration parallel to that which I had adopted on the subject of
development of doctrine. The fact of the operation from first to last of that
principle of development in the truths of Revelation, is an argument in favour
of the identity of Roman and Primitive Christianity; but as there is a law
which acts upon the subject-matter of dogmatic theology, so is there a law in
the matter of religious faith.
And
this thought process was conclusive.
I have nothing more to
say on the subject of the change in my religious opinions. On the one hand I
came gradually to see that the Anglican Church was formally in the wrong, on
the other that the Church of Rome was formally in the right; then, that no
valid reasons could be assigned for continuing in the Anglican, and again that
no valid objections could be taken to joining the Roman. Then, I had nothing
more to learn; what still remained for my conversion, was, not further change
of opinion, but to change opinion itself into the clearness and firmness of
intellectual conviction.
So
he was there intellectually, but he still he found it difficult at the time to
convert.
###
There
were two actions that Newman took which in today’s parlance might be considered
psychological breaks with the Church of England:
In 1843, I took two very
significant steps:—1. In February, I made a formal Retractation of all the hard
things which I had said against the Church of Rome. 2. In September, I resigned
the Living of St. Mary's, Littlemore included…
The
word actually is “Retractation.”I
thought it was a typo, retractation but Oxford Diction provides a definition:
1. A reconsideration or
re-examination of something previously discussed. Usually in plural.
Chiefly in the title of
or with reference to a book by St Augustine containing further treatment and
corrections of matters dealt with in his earlier writings.
2. The action or an act
of withdrawing a statement, accusation, etc., which is now admitted to be
erroneous or unjustified; = "retraction". Chiefly formal in later
use.
It
is synonymous with “retraction” but it’s a retraction based on a re-examination
rather than a mistake.It is also more
formal in nature.
Newman’s
excuse for his prior attacks on Catholic theology were based on purely what he
had been taught, and that when he examined the original documents (Church
Fathers) of what he had been taught he found the error on the side of what the
Church of England taught, not on Catholicism.From his Retractation which he quotes in this chapter:
"If you ask me how
an individual could venture, not simply to hold, but to publish such views of a
communion so ancient, so wide-spreading, so fruitful in Saints, I answer that I
said to myself, 'I am not speaking my own words, I am but following almost a
consensus of the divines of my own Church. They have ever used the strongest
language against Rome, even the most able and learned of them. I wish to throw
myself into their system. While I say what they say, I am safe. Such views,
too, are necessary for our position.' Yet I have reason to fear still, that
such language is to be ascribed, in no small measure, to an impetuous temper, a
hope of approving myself to persons I respect, and a wish to repel the charge
of Romanism."
He
goes on to show why the language of the Anglican Church was so polemic against
Catholicism:
Therefore, though I
believed what I said against the Roman Church, nevertheless I could not
religiously speak it out, unless I was really justified, not only in believing
ill, but in speaking ill. I did believe what I said on what I thought to be
good reasons; but had I also a just cause for saying out what I believed? I
thought I had, and it was this, viz. that to say what I believed was simply
necessary in the controversy for self-defence. It was impossible to let it
alone: the Anglican position could not be satisfactorily maintained, without
assailing the Roman.
This
I believe is a truth for all Protestantism.Protestantism doesn’t exist except in contrast and repudiation by all
means of Catholic doctrine.
As
to his second action, resigning from the Oxford parish of St. Mary’s
Littlemore, his reasoning is that he could no longer preach the Anglican
theology.He quotes from one of his
letters of resignation:
"May 4, 1843 … At
present I fear, as far as I can analyze my own convictions, I consider the
Roman Catholic Communion to be the Church of the Apostles, and that what grace
is among us (which, through God's mercy, is not little) is extraordinary, and
from the over-flowings of His dispensation. I am very far more sure that
England is in schism, than that the Roman additions to the Primitive Creed may
not be developments, arising out of a keen and vivid realizing of the Divine
Depositum of Faith…”
And
then quotes from a May 18, 1843 letter:
"I do not see how I
can either preach or publish again, while I hold St. Mary's;—but consider again
the following difficulty in such a resolution, which I must state at some
length.”
And
with these two events he broke from the Church of England and Protestantism for
good.However, he did not immediately
join the Catholic Church.
###
Until
he actually converted, Newman’s expressions of doubt reveal a tension that is
quite genuine.I particularly thought
this passage remarkable, especially with the opening simile of walking on ice.
Supposing I were crossing
ice, which came right in my way, which I had good reasons for considering
sound, and which I saw numbers before me crossing in safety, and supposing a
stranger from the bank, in a voice of authority, and in an earnest tone, warned
me that it was dangerous, and then was silent, I think I should be startled,
and should look about me anxiously, but I think too that I should go on, till I
had better grounds for doubt; and such was my state, I believe, till the end of
1842. Then again, when my dissatisfaction became greater, it was hard at first
to determine the point of time, when it was too strong to suppress with
propriety. Certitude of course is a point, but doubt is a progress; I was not
near certitude yet. Certitude is a reflex action; it is to know that one knows.
Of that I believe I was not possessed, till close upon my reception into the
Catholic Church. Again, a practical, effective doubt is a point too, but who
can easily ascertain it for himself? Who can determine when it is, that the
scales in the balance of opinion begin to turn, and what was a greater
probability in behalf of a belief becomes a positive doubt against it?
So
he creates this tension from two conflicting sets of data.If the soundness of the ice represents the
soundness of Catholicism, he sees a group of people safely crossing it.But he also hears a voice warning of its
dangers.He is caught in a sort of
existential middle.In summing this he
provides a great and memorable quote: “Certitude of course is a point, but
doubt is a progress; I was not near certitude yet.”
So
what pushes him over the edge to certitude?He comes to this question in January of 1845: “The simple question is,
Can I (it is personal, not whether another, but can I) be saved in the English
Church? am I in safety, were I to die tonight? Is it a mortal sin in me, not
joining another communion?”So what
makes him feel that cannot be saved in the English Church.At the same time as this letter, he began
what is his most famous work.
I had begun my Essay on
the Development of Doctrine in the beginning of 1845, and I was hard at it all
through the year till October. As I advanced, my difficulties so cleared away
that I ceased to speak of "the Roman Catholics," and boldly called
them Catholics. Before I got to the end, I resolved to be received, and the
book remains in the state in which it was then, unfinished.
So
it was actually concluding the Catholic development of doctrine came from the
original Church, and that Catholics were not heretical.Now it seems to me he had concluded this
earlier but it took time and writing for it to make it true in his heart.Later that year he officially converted.
On October the 8th I
wrote to a number of friends the following letter:—
"Littlemore, October
8th, 1845. I am this night expecting Father Dominic, the Passionist, who, from
his youth, has been led to have distinct and direct thoughts, first of the
countries of the North, then of England. After thirty years' (almost) waiting,
he was without his own act sent here. But he has had little to do with
conversions. I saw him here for a few minutes on St. John Baptist's day last
year.
"He is a simple,
holy man; and withal gifted with remarkable powers. He does not know of my
intention; but I mean to ask of him admission into the One Fold of Christ …
"I have so many
letters to write, that this must do for all who choose to ask about me. With my
best love to dear Charles Marriott, who is over your head, &c., &c.
"P.S. This will not
go till all is over. Of course it requires no answer."
He
writes of his conversion so obliquely for so a momentous event.It seems to have been a tendency of English
Victorian writers.They build up a
tension and then slip the event indirectly.This reminds me of a Henry James novel.But Newman is now in the Catholic Church.
