A couple of days ago, whilst engaged in research
concerning some enigmatic statements contained within Newman’s An Essay on the
Development of Christian Doctrine, I found a
provocative article by Matthew Ramsay titled, “Ex Umbris: Newman’s New
Evangelization”, which is germane to my investigation into those statements.
Ramsay’s article seems to be an attempt to justify Newman’s overall, positive
acceptance of non-Christian religious thought and practice in his apologetic
methodology.
From the opening abstract, we read:
This
article investigates Newman’s arguments for Christianity in light of his
acceptance of non-Christian religions. Drawing primarily on the Grammar of
Assent and the Oxford University Sermons, as well as Newman’s poetry,
prayers, and other works, I argue that Newman’s acceptance of other religions
forms the foundation of his Christian apologetic. I first look at Newman’s view
of non-Christian religions, where he sees an ascending movement of humanity
searching for God and a descending movement of God revealing himself to
humanity. (Page 1)
On the
next page, Ramsay wrote:
Cardinal
Avery Dulles has argued that “Newman made a major contribution by bringing out
the importance of what he called ‘natural religion’ as a presupposition for the
effectiveness of any demonstratio christiana.” Against
the prevailing apologetics of Italian manuals, which attempted to convert by
sheer logic, Newman developed a holistic apologetic that sees Christianity as
the fulfillment of humanity’s natural religious inclinations. (Page 2)
He then lists four elements concerning Newman’s
argument for religious faith:
Newman
argued, first, that religion can be good and true outside of Christian
revelation; second, that even in non-religious assent, people are not convinced
by reason alone; third, that assent to Christianity models other types of
assent, which means that religious knowledge outside of Christianity provides
the foundation of conversion to Christianity; and finally that the New
Testament provides examples of evangelization that follows this model. (Ibid.)
Towards the end of his article, Ramsay advances the
following:
Newman’s
apologetic is essentially based on two convictions: religious faith is rooted
in natural religion, and we are not convinced by reason alone. True natural
religion comes from the ascending movements of reason, conscience, and an
innate desire for God, and from the descending movement of God’s wide action
throughout the world. Assent in all matters of life comes from experience,
prior beliefs, and internal convictions rather than reason alone. Religious
conversion, then, is rooted in prior religious knowledge and practice, and
Christianity is the fulfillment of religious truth already believed and lived.
Because
conversion is a movement from partial to fuller truth, a Christian must be willing
to recognize truth and goodness outside Christianity. This recognition is not a
denial of the centrality of Christ but an affirmation of God’s power and action
throughout history. Nor is it a rejection of evangelization. Truth in umbris
et imaginibus seeks fulfillment in the One who is “the way, and the truth,
and the life” (John 14:6). (Page 18)
[The
above brings to mind the Vatican II document Nostra Aetate, wherein we read: The
Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She
regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those
precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones
she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which
enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ
"the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), in whom men may find
the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to
Himself.]
Though
Ramsay’s article has been a useful aid in my ongoing study of the recently sainted John Henry Newman, I am still left pondering over the following
selections from his pen:
I do not know when I first
learnt to consider that Antiquity was the true exponent of the doctrines of
Christianity and the basis of the Church of England; but I take it for granted
that the works of Bishop Bull, which at this time I read, were my chief
introduction to this principle. The course of reading, which I pursued in the
composition of my volume, was directly adapted to develop it in my mind. What
principally attracted me in the ante-Nicene period was the great Church of
Alexandria, the historical centre of teaching in those times. Of Rome for some
centuries comparatively little is known. The battle of Arianism was first
fought in Alexandria; Athanasius, the champion of the truth, was Bishop of
Alexandria; and in his writings he refers to the great religious names of an
earlier date, to Origen, Dionysius, and others, who were the glory of its see,
or of its school. The broad philosophy of Clement and Origen carried me away;
the philosophy, not the theological doctrine; and I have drawn out some
features of it in my volume, with the zeal and freshness, but with the
partiality, of a neophyte. Some portions of their teaching, magnificent in
themselves, came like music to my inward ear, as if the response to ideas,
which, with little external to encourage them, I had cherished so long. These
were based on the mystical or sacramental principle, and spoke of the various
Economies or Dispensations of the Eternal. I understood these passages to mean
that the exterior world, physical and historical, was but the manifestation to
our senses of realities greater than itself. Nature was a parable: Scripture
was an allegory: pagan literature, philosophy, and mythology, properly
understood, were but a preparation for the Gospel. The Greek poets and sages
were in a certain sense prophets; for "thoughts beyond their thought
to those high bards were given." (Apologia Pro Vita Sua, 1865/1945,
pp. 17, 18 – bold emphasis mine.)
There are various revelations
all over the earth which do not carry with them the evidence of their divinity. Such are the inward suggestions and secret
illuminations granted to so many individuals; such are the traditionary
doctrines which are found among the heathen, that "vague and
unconnected family of religious truths, originally from God, but sojourning,
without the sanction of miracle or a definite home, as pilgrims up and down the
world, and discernible and separable from the corrupt legends with which they
are mixed, by the spiritual mind alone. (An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 1878/1989, p. 79 - bold emphasis mine.)
There is in truth a certain
virtue or grace in the Gospel which changes the quality
of
doctrines, opinions, usages, actions, and personal
characters when incorporated with it, and makes
them right and acceptable to its Divine
Author, whereas before they were either
infected with evil, or at best but shadows of the truth. This is the principle, above spoken of, which I have called the Sacramental. (Ibid. p. 368 - bold emphasis mine.)
Confiding then in the power of Christianity
to
resist
the
infection
of evil, and to transmute
the very instruments
and appendages of demon-worship
to an evangelical use, and feeling
also that these usages had originally
come
from
primitive
revelations and from the instinct of
nature, though they had been corrupted
;
and
that
they
must
invent
what
they
needed, if they did not use what they
found ; and that they were
moreover possessed of the very archetypes,
of which paganism attempted the shadows; the rulers of the Church from early times were prepared,
should the occasion arise, to adopt, or imitate, or
sanction the existing rites and customs of the populace,
as
well
as the philosophy of the educated class. (Ibid. pp. 371, 372 - bold
emphasis mine.)
In the course of the fourth century two movements
or
developments
spread
over the face of Christendom, with a rapidity characteristic
of
the
Church
;
the
one
ascetic,
the
other
ritual
or
ceremonial. We are told in
various ways by Eusebius, that Constantine,
in order to recommend
the new religion to the
heathen, transferred into it the outward
ornaments to which they had been accustomed
in their own. It is not
necessary to go into a subject which the
diligence of Protestant writers has made familiar to most of us. The use of
temples, and these dedicated to particular
saints,
and
ornamented
on occasions with branches of trees; incense, lamps, and candles;
votive offerings on recovery from illness ; holy water ; asylums ; holydays and seasons, use of
calendars, processions, blessings on the fields ; sacerdotal
vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later
date, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison, are
all of pagan origin, and sanctified
by their adoption into the Church. (Ibid. p. 373,
- bold emphasis mine.)
After relating the replacement of festivals, rites,
shrines and temples dedicated to pagan gods and heroes with Christian martyrs,
Newman then writes:
The introduction of Images was still later, and met with
more opposition in the West than in the East. It is grounded on the
same great principle which I am illustrating; and as I have given extracts from
Theodoret for the developments of the fourth and fifth centuries, so will I now
cite St. John Damascene in defence of the further developments of the eighth.
"As to the passages you adduce," he says to his
opponents, "they abominate not the worship paid to our Images, but that of
the Greeks, who made them gods. It needs not therefore, because of the absurd
use of the Greeks, to abolish our use which is so pious. Enchanters and wizards
use adjurations, so does the Church over its Catechumens; but they invoke
devils, and she invokes God against devils. Greeks dedicate images to devils,
and call them gods; but we to True God Incarnate, and to God's servants and
friends, who drive away the troops of devils." Again, "As the holy
Fathers overthrew the temples and shrines of the devils, and raised in their
places shrines in the names of Saints and we worship them, so also they
overthrew the images of the devils, and in their stead raised images of
Christ, and God's Mother, and the Saints. And under the Old Covenant,
Israel neither raised temples in the name of men, nor was memory of man made a
festival; for, as yet, man's nature was under a curse, and death was
condemnation, and therefore was lamented, and a corpse was reckoned unclean and
he who touched it; but now that the Godhead has been combined with our nature,
as some life-giving and saving medicine, our nature has been glorified and is
trans-elemented into incorruption. Wherefore the death of Saints is made a
feast, and temples are raised to them, and Images are painted ... For the Image
is a triumph, and a manifestation, and a monument in memory of the victory of
those who have done nobly and excelled, and of the shame of the devils defeated
and overthrown." (Ibid. pp. 376, 377 - bold emphasis
mine.)
Back to my studies…
Grace and peace,
David
