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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
In a recent paper,1 Professor Jay Newman alleged that Cardinal Newman was entangled in a conundrum about faith and reason — a conundrum from which the cardinal tried, but failed utterly, to escape by means of a doctrine about love. He alleges that Newman is finally unable to arbitrate amongst rival faiths and is left holding an implausible account of love and of its relation to Christian virtue.
page 437 note 1 ‘Newman on Love as the Safeguard of Faith’, Scottish Journal of Theology, Vol. 32, pp. 139–150CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
page 438 note 2 The expression ‘an act or process of Faith is an exercise of Reason’ appears in Sermon XI (p. 207) of Fifteen Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford (third edition, London, Rivingtons, 1880) and it is repeated in the preface (p. xvi.) but with a warning that these early sermons are exploratory, that the sense of ‘reason’ is to be watched carefully (it seems to mean, here, balanced reasonableness) and that one should consult A Grammar of Assent. The position is fairly constant and, bearing in mind the warnings, Professor Newman is right to cite it.
page 438 note 3 An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, 1870, Ch. I (fourth edition with additional notes by the author, London, Burns, Oates, 1874.) Page references are to this edition, which Newman seems to have regarded as definitive.
page 439 note 4 Harper, G. H., Cardinal Newman and William Froude, A Correspondence, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1933, p. 23Google Scholar.
page 439 note 5 Draft letter to Froude, William. April 29, 1879, in Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, Dessain, C. S. and Gornall, Thomas, eds, Vol. XXIX, Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1979, p. 115Google Scholar. The background is discussed by Harper, op. cit., pp. 195ff.
page 440 note 6 A Grammar of Assent, pp. 389, and 419.
page 440 note 7 My thanks to Professor Edgar Scully for helping to make this distinction clear and for other suggestions.
page 441 note 8 This is essentially the criterion of consistency ascribed to E. L. Post according to which a consistent system must exclude some proposition. For some of Newman's own views on logic see his notes for lectures on logic and on Mill's logic in The Theological Papers or John Henry Newman on Faith and Certainty, Ed. de Achaval, H.M. and Holmes, J. D., Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1976, Ch. II and IIIGoogle Scholar. For his concern with consistency see An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, London, Pickering, 1881.
page 441 note 9 Letters and Diaries, Vol. XXIX, p. 114.
page 441 note 10 A Grammar of Assent, p. 419.
page 441 note 11 A Grammar of Assent, p. 384–5.
page 442 note 12 In Newman's own line of thought, this evidently follows from the link — imperfect but nonetheless real — between ‘Real Assent’ and action (Grammar, Ch. IV, Section 3).
page 443 note 13 This sounds surprisingly Kantian, but Norris, Thomas J. (Newman and His Theological Method, Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1977Google Scholar) associates Newman with Karl Rahner and says ‘the anthropological starting point … as well as his rather Kantian-flavoured transcendental method are already present in Newman’ (p. xiii). The difference between Kant and Newman, as we shall see, is over the relation of reason and experience.
page 444 note 14 The bluntest statement is in Letters and Diaries, Vol. XXIX, p. 115.
page 444 note 15 The distinction between certainty in propositions and certainty in states of mind is not so easy to keep clear and Newman does not always adhere to it. Even in the letter cited in note 14 above, he sometimes speaks as if the theological details, expressed as propositions, were certain and, of course, his earlier certainties about such matters as the Arian controversy and the status of the Bishop of Jerusalem would seem questionable.
page 445 note 16 In the draft letter to William Froude (Letters and Diaries, Vol. XXIX, p. 115), Newman speaks of an ‘inductive sense’ which ‘answers to Aristotle's phronesis’ except that it is concerned to ‘pass from inference to assent’. For an extended discussion of the various meanings which have been assigned to the expression ‘illative sense’ see Armour, Leslie, ‘Bosanquet and Newman: The Dialectics of Rationality’, in Rationality Today, ed. Geraets, Th., Ottawa, The University Press, 1979Google Scholar.
page 445 note 17 In fact Newman, says, ‘Thus love is the parent of faith.’ (Discussions and Arguments on Various Subjects London, Pickering, third edition, 1878, p. 251Google Scholar.) But he adds in a note, ‘by “love” is meant…that desire for the knowledge and drawing toward the service of our maker which precedes religious conversion.’ Surely, this is exactly the Augustinian model and relates love, reason, knowledge and faith?
page 446 note 18 It is the cultural unity of common human experience whose major themes are revealed over time which reveals what the illative sense has put its stamp upon.
page 446 note 19 The importance of a community of historical experience in Newman's theory is well illustrated by Frye's, Northrop essay ‘The Problem of Spiritual Authority in the Nineteenth Century’, in John Henry Newman, ed. by Houppert, Joseph W., St. Louis, B. Herder 1968Google Scholar; originally in Literary Views: Critical and Historical Essays, ed. by Carroll Camden, Chicago, University of Chicago for Rice University, 1964.