บุญราศี จอห์น เฮนรี นิวแมน (Blessed John Henry Newman)
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| สมเด็จพระสันตะปาปา เบเนดิกต์ ที่ 16 ในพิธีแต่งตั้งบุญราศีจอห์น นิวแมน ที่เบอร์มิงแฮม |
ในโอกาสที่สมเด็จพระสันตะปาปาเบเนดิกต์ ที่ 16 เสด็จเยือนประเทศอังกฤษ ระหว่างวันที่ 16-19 กันยายน ที่ผ่านมา ได้ก่อให้เกิดกระแสหลายอย่างในหมู่ชาวอังกฤษทั้งที่ชื่นชมและต่อต้าน ในการเสด็จเยือนครั้งนี้สมเด็จพระสันตะปาปาได้พบกับผู้นำและบุคคลต่างๆ อาทิสมเด็จพระราชินีเอลีซาเบธ สมาชิกรัฐสภา และพระอัครสังฆราชโรแวน วิลเลียมส์ ผู้นำแองกลิกัน นิกายเชิร์ช ออฟ อิงแลนด์ แต่ไฮไลท์ของการเสด็จเยือนครั้งนี้ดูเหมือนจะอยู่ที่การแต่งตั้ง “บุญราศี จอห์น เฮนรี นิวแมน” ที่เบอร์มิงแฮม เมื่อวันอาทิตย์ที่ 19 กันยายน ซึ่งเป็นวันสุดท้ายของการเสด็จเยือน
จอห์น เฮนรี นิวแมน (John Henry Newman: 1801-1890) เป็นนักคิดและนักเทววิทยาคนสำคัญในศตวรรษที่ 19 เกิดในกรุงลอนดอน เมื่อวันที่ 21 กุมภาพันธ์ 1801 เคยเป็นพระสงฆ์แองกลิกัน ต่อมาภายหลังได้กลับใจเป็นคริสตชน เมื่อวันที่ 9 ตุลาคม1845 และได้บวชเป็นพระสงฆ์ในพระศาสนจักรคาทอลิกที่กรุงโรม เมื่อวันที่ 30 พฤษภาคม 1847 ในปี ค.ศ. 1879 ได้รับสถาปนาเป็นพระคาร์ดินัลจากพระสันตะปาปา เลโอ ที่ 13 และถึงแก่อนิจกรรมเมื่อวันที่ 11 สิงหาคม 1890 ก่อนจะได้รับการประกาศเป็น “บุญราศี” อย่างเป็นทางการระหว่างการเสด็จเยือนอังกฤษของสมเด็จพระสันตะปาปาเบเนดิกต์ ที่ 16 เมื่อวันอาทิตย์ที่ 19 กันยายน 2010 ที่ผ่านมา
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| สมเด็จพระสันตะปาปา ทรบพบกับผู้นำแองกลิกัน นิกายเชิร์ช์ ออฟ อิงแลนด์ |
เฮนรี นิวแมน ได้ชื่อว่าเป็นนักคิด นักเขียน ได้เทศน์สอนและเขียนหนังสือมากมาย ผลงานหนึ่งที่สำคัญคือ “An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine” ซึ่งศึกษารากฐานความเป็นมาทางความเชื่อของคาทอลิก จากการศึกษานี้เองทำให้นิวแมนเข้าใจว่าพระศาสจักรคาทอลิกคือผู้สอนความจริงที่ถูกต้อง ซึ่งได้รับมาจากพระเยซูเจ้าผ่านทางบรรดาอัครสาวกและปิตาจารย์ของพระศาสจักร การศึกษานี้มีอิทธิพลอย่างมากต่อความคิดของนิวแมน ทำให้กลับใจเป็นคริสตชนก่อนที่หนังสือเล่นนี้จะได้รับการตีพิมพ์
ในระหว่างที่ผู้เขียนศึกษาวิชาพระสัจธรรมที่ Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum กรุงโรม ประเทศอิตาลี ก่อนจบกาศึกษา นอกจากการสอบความเข้าใจทุกวิชาที่เรียนมาแล้ว ทางมหาวิทยาลัยได้กำหนดให้ศึกษาหนังสือเทวิทยา 2 เล่ม หนึ่งในหนังสือที่เลือกคือ “An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine” ของนิวแมนนั่นเอง ซึ่งเป็นหนังสือขนาด 16 หน้ายก หนา 476 หน้า เพื่อเป็นการร่วมยินดีกับบุญราศีใหม่นาม “จอห์น เฮนรี นิวแมน” จึงขอนำสรุปเนื้อหาของหนังสือเล่มนี้มาให้ผู้อ่านที่สนใจได้อ่าน เผื่อจะเป็นประโยชน์สำหรับคนที่ไม่มีเวลาจะศึกษาเนื้อหาทั้งเล่ม (ขออภัยที่เป็นฉบับภาษาอังกฤษ)
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| ภาพวาด จอห์น เฮนรี นิวแมน ของ จอห์น เอเวอเรตท์ มิลเลียตส์ |
AN ESSAY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
John Henry Newman may be considered the most outstandingly original and creative English religious thinker of the nineteenth century. In the early 1840s he increasingly began to doubt that the Anglican Church could justly see itself as a branch of true Catholicism. Instead, his intensive study of the Church Fathers led him to believe that the development of Christian doctrine from the time of Jesus until the nineteenth century, and consequently the way in which the Catholic Church taught these doctrines, were rightful interpretation.
In his An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, which he wrote when he thought about resigning his fellowship in Oxford, he set out to prove his point of view logically. Before the book was published, Newman had joined the Catholic Church. One could say that through the writing of the Christian Doctrine Newman convinced himself of the rightful position of the Catholic Church in regard to dogmas.
Newman believed that the Church standing in real continuity with the primitive Church would have as a hallmark fidelity to the teaching of the apostles. Research and reflection had confirmed his belief that the “corruption” perceived by a Protestant mind-set was in fact the full flowering of the seed of revelation. His treatise was a refutation of the liberal attempt to equate development with evolutionary change in doctrine.
Introduction
Newman wrote his Essay in order to counter the arguments of many liberal Protestants who were seeking to eliminate what they claimed were unbiblical accretions that had obscured the purity of the early Church, such as the status of Mary, the cult of saints, infant baptism, and the papacy. Newman was defending tradition, the process of handing on the faith from generation to generation. Opposed to tradition, he said, was corruption of the faith, which culminated in heresy. Newman’s idea of development, requires a magisterium in order to distinguish it from corruption.
Newman begins the Essay with a definition of development, pointing out that the real problem is how to distinguish true developments from corruptions and decays. He then goes on to a sweeping consideration of the growth and development of doctrine in the Catholic Church, from the time of the Apostles to his own era. He demonstrates the basic “rule” under which Christianity proceeded through the centuries is to be found in the principle of development, and emphasized that throughout the entire life of the Church this law of development has been in effect and safeguards the faith from any real corruption.
The Essay is divided into two parts, the first having to do with doctrinal developments in themselves, and the second with doctrinal development relative to doctrinal corruptions. Newman’s theory of the development of doctrine is based on his belief that it is characteristic of an important and vital idea to live in the mind that has received it and to become an active principle that leads to a number of self-reflections and applications of the idea to other ideas as they develop.
PART I
DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT VIEWED IN THEMSELVES
Chapter I: The Development of Ideas
1. On the process of development in ideas
Newman’s notion of the development of doctrine is actually closer to the historical view of faith. Catholic has never been a religion of static law and unchanging doctrine, established once and for all in the past and true for ever. Newman argues that the church’s inner life is like an idea that is continually clarified and expanded by development and growth. His profound historical sense led him realized that the more the Church grows, develops and changes, the more it becomes truly. He concludes with the famous statement: “Here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often”.
Newman deemed doctrinal development the only hypothesis capable of explaining how Christianity could have remained faithful to its doctrinal patrimony. He conceded that Christianity has undergone many changes over the centuries, and confronts the problem of whether or not there has been any continuity of doctrine since the time of Jesus. He claims that for various reasons developments and variations in doctrine and worship have become necessary over the centuries. His main arguments are based:
1) on the universality of Christianity and the idea that its spread all over the world necessitated adaptations to local circumstances;
2) on the fact that questions have arisen over the centuries which Scripture does not solve. Newman maintained that Scripture was written on the principle of development. God himself secured doctrine from perversion and corruption.
2. On the kinds of development in ideas
Newman spoke about the development of ideas in various subject matters. He listed seven kinds of development: mathematical, physical, material, political, logical, ethical and metaphysical. A Christian idea is no less an idea because it is Christian. There is, accordingly, an antecedent argument in favor of the development of Christian ideas and therefore of Christian doctrine. There is need for an infallible guide to determine the direction of the development, but development there must be.
1) Mathematical developments, the system of truths drawn out from mathematical definitions or equations.
2) Physical developments, as the growth of animal or vegetable nature.
3) Material developments, which, though effected by human contrivance.
4) Political developments, in the growth of states of the changes of a constitution.
5) Logical developments, as in the Anglican doctrine of the Royal Supremacy.
6) Ethical developments, substituting what is congruous, desirable, pious, generous.
7) Metaphysical developments, a mere analysis of the idea contemplated.
Chapter II: The Antecedent Argument in behalf of Developments
In this chapter Newman expanded the hypothesis he had been slowly establishing. There we find three important categories:
1. The developments of doctrine to be expected;
Newman noted that the whole Bible is developmental in its message and moves from beginning to end in an increasing and growing revelation. For him, this was a powerful analogy, so much so that he could conclude that Christian doctrine admits of formal, legitimate and true developments, “developments contemplated by its Divine Author”.
2. An infallible developing authority to be expected;
Newman noted that the doctrine of infallibility of the Church is the power of deciding whether the theological or ethical statements are true. These come to us through the revelation, whereby God communicates himself to man, which we can see clearly in the authority of the Apostle, the infallibility of the Scripture and the infallibility of the Church of Rome.
Newman claimed that when we say that a person is infallible, we mean no more than that what he says is always true, always to be believe, and always to be done. We yield to the authority of the Church in the questions and developments of faith. For the Church is “the pillar and ground of the Truth”.
3. The existing developments of doctrine, the probable fulfillment of expectation:
The fact of Catholicism is accepted universally by those within as well as those outside the Christian fold. It is a fact with well-developed features, presenting itself as a coherently structured organism, which demands either total rejection or complete acceptance. Newman concluded that modern Catholicism is both one with the ancient Church of Alexandria and the genuine heir to the Church of St. Ambrose.
Chapter III: The Historical Argument in behalf of the existing Developments
1. Method of proof
Newman noted that certain doctrines came to us with the Apostles, and be expressed in the text of Scripture. The event which is the development is the interpretation of the prediction. He quoted Bishop Buller: “The truth of our religion, like the truth of common matters, is to be judge by all the evidence taken together.”
2. State of evidence
The true development ought to be found in the historic seats of Apostolic teaching and in the authoritative homes of immemorial tradition. According to Newman the Church, acting through Pope or Council as the oracle of heaven, has never contradicted her own enunciation.
Chapter IV: Instances in Illustration
1. Instances cursorily noticed
1) Canon of the New Testament
• Catholic and Protestant receive the New Testament as canonical and inspired, consists of 27 books.
2) Original Sin
• Newman remarked upon the historical fact that the recognition of original sin was the consequence of Adam’s fall.
3) Infant Baptism
• Newman referred to St. Chrysostom: “We baptized infants, though they are not defiled with sin, that they may receive sanctity, righteousness, adoption, heirship, brotherhood with Christ, and may become his members.”
• Infant baptism is a fundamental rule of Christian duty with us but in the fourth century, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Basil, and St. Augustine, having Christian mothers, still were not baptized till they were adults.
4) Communion in one kind
• Newman referred to the Council of Constance (15th century) that the sacrament of the Eucharist was received by the faithful under each kind, that is bread. Since it is most firmly to be believed that the whole Boby and Blood of Christ is truly contained as well under the kind of Bread as under the kind of Wine.
5) The HomoÜsion
• The teaching on the subject of Jesus’ consubstantiality and co-eternity with the Father, which confirmed in Nicene Creed.
2. Our Lord’s Incarnation, and the dignity of His Mother and of all Saints
Newman referred to the earlier Fathers spoke as if there were no medium interposed between the Creator and the creature, so they seemed to make the Eternal Son medium. In order to honor Christ, to defend the true doctrine of Incarnation, and to secure a right faith of the manhood of the Eternal Son, the council of Ephesus determined the Blessed Virgin to be the Mother of God.
Thus the title Theotokos was familiar to Christians from primitive time, and had been used among others writers, by Origen, Eusebius, St. Alexander, St. Athanasius, St. Ambrose, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Gregory Nyssan, and St. Nilus.
3. Papal Supremacy
Newman’s argument that the papacy was a true development of foundations present in the primitive Church. Newman granted that it is a theory, principally to connect the words and acts of the Ante-Nicene Church which forms their presumptive interpretation (Dev, 154). He contended that this “presumptive interpretation” grounded a strong case in favor of the Roman Catholic belief that the papacy is divinely instituted.
Newman claimed that an external authority, that is, the infallibility of the Church, is to be expected “to decide upon them, thereby separating them from the mass of mere human speculation, extravagance, corruption, and error, in and out of which they grow” (Dev., 78). It is in the authoritative seats and homes of old tradition, the Latin and Greek Churches.
PART II
Doctrinal Developments viewed Relatively to Doctrinal Corruptions
Chapter V: Developments contrasted with Corruptions
From the very outset Newman opposes the transformers’ view that Christianity is ever flux and accommodates itself to the times. For him it is axiomatic that the faith of the apostles must perdure. But in order to retain its vitality and ward off new errors, the living Church will sometimes have to articulate its faith in new ways. Granted that development must occur, it must still be asked whether the new formulations are in accord with the ancient faith. To respond to this difficult question he proposed seven tests or notes for authentic development.
Newman expected by the application of these tests to confirm that his hypothesis of development in fact showed the identity of the Roman Catholic Church of his day and the primitive Church. He hoped thereby to render acceptance of the Roman Catholic faith – precisely as the true representative of pristine Christian faith – inviting because reasonable.
1. PRESERVATION OF TYPE (Chapter VI)
Just as an adult keeps the same members and organs as the newborn child, so the Church and its teaching must always remain recognizably the same. If St. Athanasius or St. Ambrose were to come suddenly to life, what communion would they take to be their own? Newman noted that “unity of type…must not be pressed to the extent of denying all variation, may, considerable alteration of proportion and relation, as time goes on, in the parts or aspects of an idea”
A review of the history of the first ecumenical councils showed that precisely as Catholic bishops added to the creed against the objections of heretical parties, who claimed that by their refusal to sanction such development they remained more faithful to the primitive Church, the Catholic bishops in union with the pope preserved the true meaning of the scriptural formulate.
1) The Church of the First century
• Christianity and Magical Religions. Christianity should be first called a magical superstition by Suetonius, and then should be found in the intimate company, and seemingly the parent of a multitude of magical superstitions.
• Christianity as outlaw religion. The professors of low superstitions, of mysteries, of magic, of astrology, were the outlaws of society and the Romans applied this rule to religion.
2) The Church of the fourth century
• At this time the imperial government had become Christian, and heresies were put down by the arm of power, the face of Christendom presented as propagation of the religion.
• Palestine abounded in Origenists which may be called as a sect; Palestine, Egypt, and Arabia were overrun with Marcionists.
• The Church is one and everywhere; sects are many and everywhere. Thery are independent and discordant. Catholicity is the attribute of the Church, independency of sectaries.
• The Church is a kingdom; a heresy is a family and continually divides and sends out branches, founding new houses, and propagating itself in colonies, such as Simon Magus, Basilidians, Valentinians, and the whole family of Gnostics.
• Newman referred Lactantius that the Catholic Church alone which retains the true worship. It is the Body of Christ composed of many parts and members knit in one.
3) The Church of the fifth and sixth centuries
• Newman considered the mutual relation of Christianity and heresy under these circumstances.
(1) The Arians of the Gothic Race
- By the end of the fifth century the heresy had been established by the Vsigoths in France and Spain, in Portugal by Suevi, in Africa by the Vandals, and by the Ostrogoths in Italy.
- The Arian ascendency established through the extent of Italy and had a church even in Rome. The rule of Arianism lasted for eighty years in France, a hundred and eighty in Spain, a hundred in Africa and Italy.
- It is remarkable that the Catholics during these period were denoted by the additional title of “Romans.” I speak with the successor of the Fisherman and the disciple of the Cross.
(2) The Nestorians
- The Churches of Syria and Asia Minor were the most intellectual portion of early Christendom. Alexandria was one metropolis in a large region, but Syria was the place where arts and the schools of Greece had full opportunities of cultivation.
- Theodore was the principal teacher of the religion. Nestorianism lay in the ascription of a human as well as a Divine Personality to the Lord. There were two persons; it denied the “Mother of God” of Mary. They maintained that Mary was mother of the man Jesus, not of the Word.
(3) The Monophysites
- Eutyches was an abbot of a Monastery in the suburbs of Constantinople. He said that before the incarnation there were two natures, after their union one. He denied the human nature of Jesus: “I have never found in Scripture that there are two natures”
- The Monophysite heresy was established as Apostolic truth in the East from Macedonia to Egypt. The Council of Chalcedon was held to solve this controversy on 8th of October, 451 with a large number of Bishops and two Roman legates.
- In the second session of the Council of Chalcedon, the bishops cried out, “This is the faith of the Fathers; this is the faith of the Apostles: we all believe thus…Peter has thus spoken through Leo.” It is the faith of the Fathers; let it be set down that the Holy Mary is the Mother of God.
2. CONTINUITY OF PRINCIPLES (Chapter VII)
In order to preserve its type, the Church must stand by its foundational principles.
1) Principles of Christianity
• Newman lists nine such principles – the principle of development itself:1) The principle of dogma; 2) The principle of faith; 3) The principle of theology; 4) The sacramental principle; 5) The mystical sense of scripture; 6) The principle of grace; 7) The principle of asceticism; 8) The malignity of sin; 9) Matter’s capability of sanctification
• These principles, according to Newman, are the very instrument of development. This is a sense in which principles even claim priority over specific doctrines. If any of these principles were abandoned, Christianity itself would be mutilated.
2) Supremacy of Faith
• Newman referred to St. Thomas Aquinas: “it is necessary for man to receive as articles of Faith, not only the things which are above reason, but even those that for their certainty may be known by reason.” Anyway the natural reason is not sufficient to make man know things divine.
3) Theology
• The first step in theology is investigation
4) Scripture and its Mystical Interpretation
• Scripture may be said to be the medium in which the mind of the Church has energized and developed. All are found in Christ so that Christ is the proper subject of Canonical Scripture. Holy Scripture contains the beginnings of all theology.
5) Dogma
• The Fathers of Antioch wrote the Creed from Scripture, and have in the Catholic Church until this day by succession as preached by the Apostles who were eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word.
6) Additional Remark
• Newman observed that the continuity of principles down to this day in two distinct guarantees that the theological conclusions in accordance with the Divine Promise, true developments, and not corruptions of the revelation.
3. POWER OF ASSIMILATION (Chapter VIII)
As a healthy organism builds itself up by ingesting food, so the Church takes in what is assimilable in the cultures it meets, and transforms what it appropriates. The Church and its faith have matured by interaction with the great civilizations of Greece and Rome. From power of assimilation results “Catholic fullness”.
1) The assimilating power of Dogmatic Truth
• Newman noted that the principle of Dogmatism developed into Councils in the course of time. Councils and Popes are the guardians and instruments of the dogmatic principle.
2) The assimilating power of Sacramental Grace
• In the fourth century developments spread over the face of Christendom, with a rapidity characteristic of the Church; the one ascetic, the other ritual or ceremonial.
4. LOGICAL SEQUENCE (Chapter IX)
Logical sequence means a vague but general intellectual coherence. It is not the logical implication of the Scholastics, but merely harmony or congruity or naturalness. Time will tell the true import of a doctrine as implications unfold according to logic.
As instances of one doctrine leading to another Newman traced from the doctrine of baptism the development in sequence of pardons, penances, satisfactions purgatory, meritorious works and the monastic rule.
Certain truths, when believed and put into practice, are seen to imply other cognate truths. For example, the remission of sin in baptism calls for completion by a sacrament of forgiveness for post-baptismal sin. Newman’s term “logical sequence” is much broader in scope than formal inference of conclusions from premises, although Newman does not exclude deductive argument.
1) Pardons
• Three sins seemed to many, at least in the West, to be irremissible, idolatry, murder, and adultery.
• There is a controversy whether the Church had the means of pardoning sins committed after Baptism, which the Novatians denied. By the end of the third century, four degrees of penance were appointed, through which offenders had to pass in order to a reconciliation.
2) Penances
• “the crime of homicide was expiated by the penitence of twenty years…the murderer should have been excluded from the holy communion till the hour of his death.” (Gibbon)
3) Satisfactions
• It cannot be doubt that the Fathers considered penance as not a mere expression of contrition, but as an act done directly towards God and a means of averting His anger.
4) Purgatory
• Newman mentioned Clement of Alexandria about the necessary of the purifying, if it does not take place in this life, it must after death by a discriminating fire. It can be washed from all sin in martyrdom.
5) Meritorious Works
6) The Monastic Rule
• The penitential observances of individuals were necessary.
5. ANTICIPATION OF ITS OWN FUTURE (Chapter X)
Some doctrines that did not receive formal recognition until relatively late were foreshadowed by the beliefs and practice of Christians of an earlier time; for example, the veneration of relics of the martyrs as a prelude to the invocation of saints.
1) Resurrection and Relics
• Newman observed that from the doctrines concerning Christ’s work of redemption follow Catholic doctrines sometimes accused of being corruptions:
• “that of the resurrection of the bodies of His Saints, and of their future glorification with Him; next that of the sanctity of their relics; further, that of the merit of Virginity; and, lastly, that of the prerogatives of Mary, Mother of God”. All these doctrines are more or less developed in the Ante-Nicene period.
• Newman referred the writer who went under the name of St. Basil, “corpses were an abomination; when death is for Christ, the relics of Saint are precious. If any one shall touch a Martyr’s bones, by reason of the grace dwelling in the body, he receives some participation of his sanctity.”
• Origen even conjectures that “as we are redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus, so some are redeemed by the precious blood of the Martyrs.”
2) The Virgin Life
• St. Methodius speaks of the profession of Virginity as a vow. Chastity is a mighty vow beyond all vows.
• Tertullian speaks of being “married to Christ”. Origen speaks of “devoting one’s body to God” in chastity. St. Cyprian speaks of dedicating to Christ by virtuous chastity to the praise of continence. And Eusebius speaks of consecrating body and soul to a pure and all holy life.
3) Cultus of Saints and Angels
• Newman mentioned the Spanish Church supplies us with an anticipation of the later devotion to Saints and Angels. The Saints and Angels were objects of worship, their pictures would have been allowed.
4) Office of the Blessed Virgin
• Newman frequently uses the Church’s teaching about Mary. He does not argue from Scripture alone, but from Scripture read in the light of tradition. The early Fathers, beginning with Justin, depicted Mary as the “second Eve”, and this title becomes fundamental principle of Newman’s Mariology.
• In the Fathers, Newman concedes, we do not find a developed Marian doctrine, but Mary’s virginity is extolled an imitated as a means of union with God; she is seen as actively involved in the process of redemption and her medieval role as a patroness with clients is anticipated.
6. CONSERVATIVE ACTION ON ITS PAST (Chapter XI)
1) Instances cursorily noticed
• For Newman, the theory of development dovetails with the antecedent probability that there will be growth and development in divine truth communicated to this world. He contends that it is the best theory, being the “simplest, the most natural, the most persuasive.” It is clear that his aim was to solve a problem, that posed by the apparent discontinuity between the Church of the Apostles and contemporary Roman Catholicism.
• In Newman’s view a developed doctrine which reverses the course of development is no true development but a corruption. Genuine development involves addition or change which is in one sense real and perceptible, yet without loss or reversal of what has gone before, but, on the contrary, protective and confirmative of it.
• Recalling that a strict correspondence between the various members of a development, and those of the doctrine from which it is derived, is more than we have any right to expect, just as the bodily structure of a grown man is not merely that of a magnified boy, Newman held that nonetheless there is real preservation. Development is a process of protecting, not of superseding.
2) Devotion to the Blessed Virgin
• Newman takes cognizance of the Protestant objection that the cultus of Mary draws the minds and hearts of Christians away from the more fundamental truth of their relationship to Christ. He replies that the contrary is true. The title theotokos was bestowed on Mary.
• Because Mary is the Mother of God, the salvation of mankind is said to be given to her prayers.
7. CHRONIC VIGOR (Chapter XII)
A church that retains its youthful vigor in spite of its antiquity may be presumed to be authentic. Corruption by its very nature leads to stagnation and decay. Thus Newman pointed out: “The course of heresies is always short.”
When indeed they appear to contradict this rule, close observation will reveal that they do so only by vacillating between possibly contradictory ideas. Therefore Newman ventured to state that an attempt to dismiss the long standing peculiarly Catholic beliefs as corruptions would be to postulate a miracle indeed.
Newman concludes “The brightness of the Catholic and only true Church went forward and increasing.”
The Application of the Theory of Development
The International Theological Commission claimed in Interpretation of Dogmas (1990) that Newman’s notes constitute a criteriology for dogmatic development that is useful for the ongoing contemporary interpretation of dogmas. Newman was concerned primarily to confirm that the Roman Catholic Church as such could plausibly claim to embody authentic developments of doctrine.
The “notes” serve to dispel accusations that Roman Catholic doctrines are additions compromising the pristine apostolic deposit of faith. With the assistance of the “notes” one can defend the plausibility of distinctively Catholic doctrines. The “notes” have the important function of providing a check for a case constructed on other grounds. If one can employ the “notes” with a presumption of the truth of doctrinal development within the Church when one can uses them as Newman did.
Conclusion
The Essay was not written to prove the truth of Catholicism, but to answer an objection against Catholicism. Newman compared the first six centuries of the Church’s life to the contemporary Church and concluded that the Catholic Church emerged unscathed. It was for him the authentic re-composition of an original New Testament idea into fresh consistency and form. It was an attempt to explain both the fact of change in the Church and its direction as well, with the result that the Anglican Church was not the same as the Church of the first four centuries, but that the Roman Church was.
The thoughts of Newman were the subjects of the discussion and study of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council, as for example the question of ecumenism, the relationship between Christianity and the world, the emphasis on the role of the laity in the Church and the relationship of the Church to non-Christian religions. The philosophical and theological thought and the spirituality of Newman, so deeply rooted in and enriched by Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Fathers, still retain their particular originality and value.
The figure and teaching of the great Newman will continue to inspire an ever more effective fulfillment of the Church’s mission in the modern world, and that it will help to renew the spiritual life of her members and hasten the restoration of unity among all Christians. His thought speaks to us of deep intellectual honesty, fidelity to conscience and grace, piety and priestly zeal, devotion to Christ’s Church and love of her doctrine, unconditional trust in divine providence and absolute obedience to the will of God.
