We live in a world of shadows and images behind which the true substances of life are hidden. It must be noted that just as the result of real assent is individual, the shadows and images in which we are immersed are also individual. Thus, the strife for cognition is individual, and if I cannot say more than I can master, egotism logically ensues. Let us also observe, to avoid possible misunderstandings, that this process is unlike Locke’s empiricism. The ban on saying “more than one can master” is not the Lockean well-defined conceptual world; if such were true, Newman would simply follow the empiricist path. But he meant primarily personal growth in which I can accept more than I understand, but in this case I must believe. If there is no comprehension or belief, and yet a declaration takes place, this is a sure case of usurpation, yet we cannot judge of others which case has taken place. Egotism simply means: I can speak only for myself. Thus reads one of the principles of Newman’s personalism.
In the area of “mental or moral science,” Newman has one idea that is habitually on his mind, a sentiment that can be applied “to Metaphysics or Ethics, […] that in these provinces of inquiry egotism is true modesty. In religious inquiry each of us can speak only for himself, and for himself he has a right to speak. His own experiences are enough for himself, but he cannot speak for others: he cannot lay down the law; he can only bring his own experiences to the common stock of psychological facts.”1 This programme of the doctrine of personalism, which Newman would so emphatically stress, also motivated Edith Stein (1891–1942, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross), a martyr of the Holocaust. St. Thomas Aquinas stressed the importance of the sense of touch, and claimed that whoever has a better touch, they have a better thought. This idea excellently coalesces with Newman’s position: the point is not to imitate other persons’ examples mechanically, but to realize the truth in one’s own person; and I take realizing to be a co-equivalent term to touching. In like manner, we are enlarging a set of concepts in Newman’s personalistic epistemology which includes: the method of personation, real assents, real words, and realization.
The fact that our individual life is central to an individual and of utmost importance does not mean that it is not susceptible to an evaluation or a
The fact that we have chosen a goal is not enough. We need to realize that we have chosen it because only then can the effects have a bearing upon our life. Under relatively peaceful circumstances we may pretend we have chosen the ultimate goal of our life. Then some other affairs interfere, for instance, an unexpected windfall, or the temptation to commit something dishonest, envy—and the ultimate goal surprisingly disappears from our view, and we fight for this temporary gain as if it were the ultimate goal. This means that we did not realize the ultimate goal. Such is the meaning of Newman’s intuition about personal realization. Our intellectual (theoretical) choice is insufficient to be the working principle of life. I apprehend the ultimate goal, but the question is: do I assent to it with the whole of my being?
All this time we are considering here the question of individual life, or else the individual life in which man himself becomes the author of himself, someone he is working on. Newman, we remember, writes about life as a personal result, and even about the attitude of egotism. Egotism, let us recall, does not mean here being closed to others, and the subjectivization or relativization of the truth, but an essential emphasis not only on the personal responsibility
We could interpret Newman’s message as encouragement, which reads: “let us start using ourselves,” “know who you are, and then you will see how much you can.” The present time encourages us rather to the opposite—to depart from ourselves and adopt the various styles on offer. Man bears his own salvation in himself—Newman’s principal message could thus be formulated—for it is in his interior that he meets God. This encounter is, for various reasons, difficult. We have too many offers directed at leaving ourselves rather than entering and using ourselves. The contemporary world abounds in numerous occasions for distraction. The history of our civilization shows examples of many countercultural revolutions, among which the most prominent in the western world was the 1968 revolution. It was nothing else but a proposal of a new lifestyle, not in the sense of some profound reading of human nature, but in the sense of being opposed to long-held traditions and customs. Thus, counterculture becomes an illusory promise of liberation. Why and when do people need liberation? Naturally, they need liberation from oppression and injustice, but what is oppressive and unjust in social order? Well, anything can be deemed oppressive if one holds as a point of reference some idealized vision of freedom, without even asking whether this type of freedom is necessary for human beings. In like manner, we eventually return to the proper concept of the human being. Such liberation is, to use Newman’s term, unreal, taking into account the fact that most of these people, who followed suit, never made any effort to analyze what human liberty consists in.
In the turbulent times of the nineteenth century, the time of national independence movements, of struggling for unity and the destruction of the hitherto social structures, the falling of aristocratic political orders and the birth of colonial empires, the right of individual decisions comes to the forefront. This claim advanced by modernity has borne much good fruit, but has also brought sour grapes. The British philosopher John Stuart Mill, scared by the prospect of the oncoming era of mass culture, began to preach the fight for the survival of individuality, which could be thwarted by this culture. As far removed as
It is indeed fascinating to see how Newman grappled, individually, with the heritage of his own milieu, how he delved into historical studies, analyzing the issues of unity and schism. And, eventually, how he decided to join the Roman Catholic Church, leaving his friends free to make their own decisions. We shall discuss this further on.
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The main purpose of the written word is “not to unfold a system for our intellectual contemplation, but to secure the formation of a certain character.”2 When we try to put a moral character into words, we meddle with the springs of life. People of exceptional valour or character find it especially difficult to talk about themselves because what is “the most familiar to us, and easy in practice, require the most study, and give the most trouble in explaining; as, for instance, the number, combination, and succession of muscular movements by which we balance ourselves in walking, or utter our separate words; and this quite independently of the existence or non-existence of language suitable for describing them.”3 How can we put into words the latent powers of our very being? It is difficult to unfold the most hidden incentives of action. Therefore, when Newman was charged with hypocrisy, he understandably reacted with astonishment. In order to render an adequate account of his own life, he would have to note every minute moment of his life, and note exactly the perfect correspondence between the word and the deed, which is impossible. It is not only beyond the capacity of an individual person, but it is also beyond the capacity of the natural discrepancy between words and deeds.
One would have to constantly survey one’s inner feelings, but even if that were possible, the findings of this surveillance would have to be translated into words, meanwhile “views and human language are incommensurable.”4 Of course, there are people who have gained an intuitive knowledge of certain things in some areas, i.e. the beautiful in art, or an insight into moral truth. Nevertheless, they still feel embarrassed when asked to talk about it. Newman
Why is that so? The first answer that comes to mind is that language is an artificial (or better: conventional) system and words are only approximate representations of reality. How can such a system adequately render the internal struggle between good and evil? Language can only be regarded an arbitrary medium. As Newman observes: “Moral character in itself, whether good or bad, as exhibited in thought and conduct, surely cannot be duly represented in words. We may, indeed, by an effort, reduce it in a certain degree to this arbitrary medium; but in its combined dimensions it is as impossible to write and read a man (so to express it), as to give literal depth to a painted tablet.”6 The other man always remains a mystery. There are many traits we take for granted, rather than know them, because we cannot read another man (this is again an echo of Newman’s response to Kingsley). We have no access to his moments of hesitation or temptation, when he is almost literally hung over a precipice, not knowing himself what to do.
The symbolical phrase “read a man” evidently referred to Newman himself, for he is “that living intelligence,” a complex and intricate reality that cannot be read like a sheet of paper. He is indeed, in a masterly manner, painting the awkward position of “our secluded Teacher” who embodies “moral Truth.” The Teacher is Christ who is endowed with external gifts, the power of miracles, countenanced by rulers, and with a reputation for learning. As such, Newman observes rightly, he should become the centre of attention for the multitude of men, a hero or a celebrity, as we would say today. Profession by the mouth is easy, performance very difficult. The point is that, in the area of virtue, one needs to submit to certain laws and obligations, but when freedom is comprehended as licence, the task becomes impossible. This licence is defined as “evil feeling” by Newman and reads “that to be bound to certain laws and principles is a superstition and a slavery, and that freedom consists in the actual exercise of the will in evil as well as in good; and they witness […] that a man who throws off the yoke of strict conscientiousness, greatly increases his producible talent for the time, and his immediate power of attaining his ends. At best they will but admire the religious man, and treat him with deference; but in his absence they are compelled (as they say) to confess that a being so amiable
It is true that if one seeks to satisfy what is expedient and wishes to achieve his goal at any cost, then any sense of duty or obedience may appear as a limitation of freedom; in this case, we are dealing with the failure to accept the first principles. Therefore, the Teacher has a troublesome task, for He is not supposed to lodge certain ideas on the mere surface of the mind, i.e. to liberate the Israelites from captivity, to lower taxes (a political goal laudable in itself), or to gain ascendancy, but He is “to be an instrument in changing the heart, and modelling all men after one exemplar; making them like himself.”8 He is endowed with the aforementioned gifts, and He has language as His means of communication. Now we enter the dynamic tension between the speaker and His listeners. The Teacher is confronted with opposition, outright rejection, or else a sense of wonder, especially on the part of the simple people amazed by His spectacular miracles. It is interesting to note, however, that all the parties were surprisingly united at the trial of the Teacher, spitting out their accusations.
In the realm of moral and religious matters, it is futile (and counterproductive) to understand them merely in an intellectual way. For, on the one hand, we have “the long-established, over-secure, and but silently-working system” of Truth, and on the other “the rebellious Reason.”9 The tension between the living Truth and the rebellious Reason means that the intellectual way is insufficient without personal virtue. Truth fails in the power of eloquence, for its essence does not reside in clear and ready speeches, which may elicit a spontaneous reaction from their listeners but do not grow roots in their innermost selves. Truth can be viewed as a system, but it is “vast and far-stretching, […] and, viewed in its separate doctrines, it depends on the combination of a number of various, delicate, and scattered evidences; hence it can scarcely be exhibited in a given number of sentences. If this be attempted, its advocate, unable to exhibit more than a fragment of the whole, must round off its rugged extremities, and unite its straggling lines, by much the same process by which an historical narrative is converted into a tale. This, indeed, is the very art of composition, which, accordingly, is only with extreme trouble preserved clear of exaggeration and artifice; and who does not see that all this is favourable to the cause of error,—to that part which has not faith enough to be patient of
And Newman mentions Thomas Paine (without actually writing his name), whom he calls “that popular infidel writer” and author of The Age of Reason (published in 1794). We have already talked about system as used in various contexts and we must be aware that the word “system” has at least two meanings: (1) system as a purely theoretical construction and (2) system as a coherent whole consistent of various components. I shall be constantly reminding the reader of this difference by saying that Newman was talking about the second meaning of the word. Let me emphasise that by ‘system’ Newman meant first and foremost the unfolding reality of truth over time. Only taken as a whole does it make sense in the life of a person. The person is, metaphorically speaking, indeed a highly complicated and intrinsically complex system, developed and still developing.11
Reason—meaning rebellious reason, i.e. in its unrepentant state—can be a dangerous tool, claims Newman, for it can seek to prove and argue, as expedience suggests. In the mouth of a sophist, reason can produce arguments on behalf of a lie just as strong as those on behalf of the truth. And if we have regard for the power of speech, a clever orator can indeed triumph over the religious man. This is also related to the means of circulation, which, let us admit, are extremely more powerful today than in Newman’s time; therefore, “words may be heard by thousands at once,—a good deed will be witnessed and estimated at most by but a few.”12 Newman, of course, had no idea about the Internet, but he prophetically anticipated its ubiquitous character and the all-at-onceness form of its messages, as Marshall McLuhan would phrase it. Words are heard by many people, but a good deed is witnessed by a few, and such personation—addressed to individuals.
The essence of conversion brought about by an example consists not of intellectual excellence, but in conveying the Inspired Word from one mind to another. Newman focuses, as we have already said, on “unconscious holiness” which is “of an urgent and irresistible nature.” It is unconscious, so it is not enforced by a conscious decision, free from pretension, not as a result of
We have reached a very important point in Newman’s clash with the enlightened heritage. Contrary to the rationalistic scheme, which proposes a universal and top-down solution to social problems, i.e. a general formula, a universal recipe, to which individual projects should adjust themselves, Newman proposes to start with the person. Any reform should begin with a personal decision to convert, not only in the religious sense, but simply to better one’s life. Of course, this betterment should be carried out with a concrete pattern in view. It cannot be implemented by some subjective ideas, but by personal commitment. The best pattern that Newman proposes is the Christianity embodied in the Church. And the Church is best represented by persons who genuinely live the Christian truth, a religion which is not written on paper, but is a living principle.
We are ready to approach and comprehend some moral problems, Newman seems to be saying, when we have inspected our own life and put it in order.15 And it does not matter much that we may have changed or even contradicted ourselves in our choices, for “[r]eligion has (as it were) its very life in what are paradoxes and contradictions in the eye of reason.”16 As finite beings, we are forever doomed to this living in-between, to what Newman called “seeming
Perhaps we are indeed enclosed in Plato’s cave like in a dream. Newman puts it beautifully when he writes in his sermon: “To men in sleep, in drowning, or in excitement, moments are as years. They suddenly become other men, nature or grace dispensing with time.”19 In line with his method of personation, Newman believed in the power of individual persons, the kind of power we manifest in charity. Rather than institutions which seek to publish their Catholic drives, Newman states that “we should all recollect that a restoration of intercommunion with other Churches is, in a certain sense, in the power of individuals. Every one who desires unity, who prays for it, who endeavours to further it, who witnesses for it, who behaves Christianly towards the members of Churches alienated from us, who is at amity with them, (saving his duty to his own communion to the truth itself)[,] who tries to edify them, while he edifies himself and his own people, may surely be considered, as far as he himself is concerned, as breaking down the middle wall of division, and renewing the ancient bonds of unity and concord by the power of charity. Charity can do all things for us; charity is at once a spirit of zeal and of peace; by charity we shall faithfully protest against what our private judgment warrants us in condemning in others; and by charity we have it in our own hands, let all men oppose us, to restore in our own circle the intercommunion of the Churches.”20
Keeping to the significance of private judgment, the pillar of modernity, Newman seems to wish to overcome the enmity between various Churches,
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Man’s life contains in itself a certain paradox. It is a sequence of successive moments extended in a historically finite series, whereas the one who is the subject of these moments experiences himself as a whole, and wishes eternity. Now, this latter experience goes against the chronological successions of various moments; the former experience defies finiteness. Thus, the temporarily limited being, owing to the spiritual faculties he possesses, expects limitlessness. The plethora of talents and possibilities call for a further continuation. Otherwise why should they have come into existence? On the basis of this essential disproportion between the limited span of time and the limitlessness of man’s faculties and possibilities, Newman draws a conclusion about the existence of immortality. In one of his sermons we read: “The greatness of their
The manner of reasoning here recalls Aquinas’s argument from degrees (also known as the degrees of perfection argument), with the difference that in Aquinas this point was the fourth way in which the right reason (recta ratio) comes to the existence of God as the climax of all perfections. If we can see so many manifestations of perfection, there must exist their ultimate cause, perfection itself. Now, in Newman, the thought of the ultimate completion of imperfections concerns the yearning for human immortality in the face of incomplete perfection. After all, our capabilities are never brought here to their complete perfection; some hardly live long enough to do so. On the basis of various forms of perfection (or, rather, imperfection), of those who were deprived of the chance to be fully brought to fruition, owing to limited time, the author notes the necessity of the ultimate completion. If something has been given in its residual form, it must find its ultimate completion in eternity, and the ultimate fulfilment of their having come into existence. Let me refer to an example from mathematics, a field not unknown to Newman, that of the well-known axiom of the curve and its asymptote. The plane curve comes nearer and nearer to the straight line, without any tangent points, or else crosses it at an infinite number of points (if this is a sinusoidal curve), so that it becomes co-identical in infinity. Mathematical infinity appears here to be a concept that harmonises contradictions and goes beyond our temporary understanding. The residual, or even fulfilled, talents in this temporal space that is given to man seem to be only a symbolical curve, tending to be completed without completion.
Human life recalls some broader or narrower scenarios. From our perspective, we can hardly evaluate to what extent a concrete biography has fulfilled given perfections. We would have to look at it from an infinite meta-level at which we would have access to all future states of this concrete human being. Man fulfils only a part of his scenario. His life is, therefore, forever, to a lesser or greater degree, incomplete and unfinished, hence—in order to avoid contradictions—it calls for completion. Otherwise, a contradiction would result if we insisted that a given talent came into existence for nought, that it was just the whim of some impersonal power or the necessary process of nature.
Our faculties are great, their potentiality is powerful, yet it is never applied here to its best usage. Whatever we begin, no matter how hard we try, it calls for some continuation. The English metaphysical poet of the seventeenth century, John Donne, put it accurately in his Meditation xvii, where we read: “when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.”26 Is it not beautiful, this picture of man’s life being translated into its better form by death? Death is not the end, but the fulfilment of something that has begun. John Donne wrote his Meditation at the moment of his approaching death. We could say that great intellects gain a special kind of inspiration in limit situations. The prospect of imminent death brought to Donne a more profound understanding of death; and Newman came to the firm resolution that his life was not at an end yet, that he had an important task to undertake.
(One example especially comes to mind at this very moment, that of the great composer Beethoven, whose symptoms of hearing loss started at the age of twenty-five, and by the end of his life he was completely deaf. Of course, for a musician hearing loss must be a tragedy. Now, following Newman’s doctrine, we can imagine Beethoven’s hearing regained to its utmost purity and capacity after death. What kind of heavenly music can he create in the fullness of his talents? No matter how much free rein we can give to our imagination, we shall never be able to fathom the beauty and depth of this creation).
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Not only did Newman treat human life as a developing system, but also Christianity and the Church. Thus, one should not judge a person on the basis of aspects taken out of the context of the whole. One should look at the whole, which is developing into a system. Similarly, following Newman’s thought, one
The word “system” is somewhat misleading in Newman’s text because on the one hand he is writing, as has already been noted, about the system of the Church, the revealed system, the silently developed system, and, on the other, the word “system” is understood as something theoretical and devoid of life, and, as such, set in opposition to the living, personal example.
It must be remembered that the word “system” is ambiguous and has at least two meanings, which I have tried to elucidate. Thus, let me remind the reader what I have already written, it can be interpreted as: (1) something synonymous with theory, with what is abstract and therefore set in opposition to practice; and (2) something typical, internally combined, individual and consistent. Newman, as we know, obviously meant system in the latter sense. Thus, we can say that system A is different to system B, for either one system is composed of different elements than the other system, or the elements of one system are held together in different relationships than the elements of the other system. In this sense, we may rightly speak of the Church system, of the Christian system, the English system, and the Roman system. Now, if anyone wishes to form some opinions about any of these systems, they should become acquainted with their composite elements and with their respective relationships; and not only as they are at present, but also as they have developed over history. Newman often criticizes the use of system as a mere theory (1), calling it acting in “an unreal way” or “unnaturally and on a theory,”28 and that situation often occurs when we attempt to speak about things we do not understand, and, moreover, from their nature we shall never be able to understand.
Only on the basis of all aspects in the case of an individual life could we make reliable judgments. Owing to our temporal limits, the whole is never given to us. Nor is it needed. One cannot expect a man to solve a problem which, because of his limited nature, he is not able to solve; we must always remember the importance of implicit (tacit) elements in Newman’s doctrine. The current life is not eternal life. The concept of Christianity as a temporarily developing system makes up an essentially antirationalist moment in Newman’s philosophy. The modern prospect tends to an ahistorical position whose centre is Locke’s punctual self.29 According to this awareness, man is
We need to refer again to the phenomenological analysis, as how, for instance, on the basis of a fragment of cloth, which is given to us in perception, we can surmise about the whole. Current life appears to us like that fragment of cloth. Each life is, to a greater or lesser degree, incomplete and left undone. It calls for further completion. It merely prefigures some whole. The sense of life is immeasurable.
it is scarcely more than an accident of our being—that is no part of ourselves, who are immortal; that we are immortal spirits, independent of time and space, and that this life is but a sort of outward stage, on which we act for a time, and which is only sufficient and only intended to answer the purpose of trying whether we will serve God or no. We should consider ourselves to be in this world in no fuller sense than players in any game are in the game; and life to be a sort of dream, as detached and as different from our real eternal existence, as a dream differs from waking; a serious dream, indeed, as affording a means of judging us, yet in itself a kind of shadow without substance, a scene set before us, in which we seem to be, and in which it is our duty to act just as if all we say had a truth and reality, because all that meets us influences us and our destiny.30
This reasoning begs for an answer to the question how can we be held responsible for what is not real? Newman would certainly answer thus: yes, we can, for this is the only life we have to serve God, and to the degree to which we serve Him. We are humans, not supernatural beings. Life is portrayed in the above passage as an infinite segment with a beginning but no end. Some parts of this line are visible, others are invisible. In fact, everything is invisible because if we consider an infinite magnitude, no matter how much we decided to deduce from it, the infinite remains infinite. That is the essence of our drama of life. The visible part, as short (or long) as it is, is played out amidst shadows and figures. This theatrical and masterly metaphor is indeed interesting here. Plays are put on stage for the public to watch. Actors enter the stage to play their
Newman’s position brings to mind the stoic doctrine, but his thought does not tend to the state of apathy, but is a profound interpretation of the Christian perspective. He makes us aware of one extremely important thing, mainly that the purpose of life can be accomplished only in unity with oneself; its length has nothing to do here. The principal goal is rendered by the terms used here: personal result and egotism. What is truly our own is not contained in what is external, but in what is most profoundly internal. It is not in the multitude of lifestyles and projects of the creative I, but in the innermost I from which the truth of the individual being is incessantly emanating. This truth is refracted in words; at times, it is completely distorted by what man receives from without and adopts. Amidst “shadows and images” the truth of the innermost I may be misunderstood. Man attempts to tame the latent area of what is implicative through the expression of what is explicative. He places on the hidden sphere a network of concepts, for he has taken it to heart the call to clarity and distinctness. Moreover, he does not wish to pass for an irrational creature, therefore he seeks to name and define all the layers of his own interior. When he subdues it to the processes of rationalization, he is either driven towards the generally accessible schemes, e.g. of what is commonly accepted, losing his individuality and authenticity, or else invents his own methods of dealing with his problems; he tends, to be objectivized, so to say, and departs from himself, or else embarks on his own contrivances and walls himself off from the truth. Rationalization is the hidden gate through which unreality sneaks in. He begins to experiment with various lifestyles. And he often loses, for it seems to him that he should compete with others, rather than place his own life on solid foundations. Instead of deeply penetrating the richness of his own interior, he exteriorizes himself and engages in skirmishes, whereas he should be sufficient for himself, for he is prepared for the trials.
but what is the truth? Why, that every being in that great concourse is his own centre, and all things about him are but shades […]. He has his own hopes and fears, desires, judgments, and aims; he is everything to himself, and no one else is really any thing. No one outside of him can really touch him, can touch his soul, his immortality; he must live with himself for ever. He has a depth within him unfathomable, an infinite abyss of existence; and the scene in which he bears part for the moment is but like a gleam of sunshine upon its surface.32
And then he adds: “We cannot understand that a multitude is a collection of immortal souls.”33 A collection of immortal souls, therefore, is a collection of independent creatures. Indeed, if we go back to the previous geometrical illustration, Newman’s description becomes clear. The “unfathomable depth” is the ray, and the “scene” is the segment, “a gleam of sunshine” on the surface. Now looking at a group of people, we are not looking at a mass, but at each creature in particular, at each unfathomable depth, whose essences are latent. How else can one interpret the word “unfathomable”?
The individuality of the person means that we are forever doomed to live with ourselves and rely on ourselves; this is not a predicament, although for some people it may be so at times, but a chance to start anew without a desperate search for other resources or a revolt against oneself. It is in and with ourselves that we can arrive at certitude. Newman does this, i.e. stressing subjectivity, not to introduce an artificial division or insurmountable divisions amongst people. He understands very well, and assumes it as the most natural thing, that we enter various relationships, create various interpersonal relationships. Nevertheless, even in the most intimate relationships we still remain separate persons, as if we did not know one another at all. This is to the degree that “there should be a bottomless gulf between us, running among us invisibly, and cutting us off into two parties.”34 Such is Newman’s radical ontological individualism which reads as follows: a group of people shall in no way be mixed into one whole. Rather, there are separate and impassable worlds in front of us.
In this day especially it is very easy for men to be benevolent, liberal, and dispassionate. It costs nothing to be dispassionate when you feel nothing, to be cheerful when you have nothing to fear, to be generous or liberal when what you give is not your own, and to be benevolent and considerate when you have no principles and no opinions. Men nowadays are moderate and equitable, not because the Lord is at hand, but because they do not feel that He is coming. Quietness is a grace, not in itself, only when it is grafted on the stem of faith, zeal, self-abasement, and diligence.36
To paraphrase Newman’s words, we could say that people today are polite, tolerant, and gentlemanly not because they are concerned with their neighbours so much, but because there are few things they care about. And in another sermon Newman stresses that right actions should stem from love. In this respect, his claim resembles Augustine’s appeal to the hierarchy of love, namely that every action should be performed out of love for God. Love is the right motive, for this means to “live a life, not of sense, but of spirit.”37 The conclusion is that it is not the natural way that matters in accordance with our natural inclinations, but the supernatural way. Let it be noted that Newman always has in mind the spiritual transformation rather than some transcendental level to
The above description shows the essence of the theistic faith, which has nothing in common with the naturalized attitude of serenity with which we are dealing in the stoic approach, nothing in common with the legal approach to social order. Newman constantly reminds us that faith is supernatural and, logically, does not derive from political regulations. Accordingly, it is not a further step, a successive premise in a series of ratiocinations. Rather, it is a thoroughly different qualitative change. And here again we find Newman’s brilliant intuition, namely, that partial and aspectual cognition is misleading. One should seek the meaning of experience in its systematic whole.
Faith, in Newman’s understanding, cannot be naturally deduced from some theoretical premises. It is supernaturally anchored, although as a religion it contains certain propositions derived from the experience of the faithful, from a tradition handed down from generation to generation. The Christian religion cannot be reduced to propositions aimed at ordering social life, it cannot become, say, a supernaturally reinforced legal order. (Secular rulers have always sought such reinforcement from Constantine’s edict until modern times).
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Prevaricating and fallen man was not made for the truth, nor was truth made for prevaricating and fallen man. Between the truth and human reason, after the prevarication of man, God established a lasting repugnance and invincible repulsion. Truth has in itself the titles of its sovereignty, and does not ask leave to impose its yoke; whilst man, since he rebelled against God, does not tolerate any sovereignty but his own, unless it first
ask his leave and assent. Hence, when the truth comes within sight, he immediately begins to deny it, and to deny it is to affirm himself in quality of independent sovereign. If he cannot deny it, he enters into combat with it, and by combating it, he combats for his own sovereignty. If he conquers, he crucifies it; if he is conquered, he flies: by flying, he thinks he flies from slavery, and by crucifying it, he believes he crucifies his tyrant. On the contrary, between human reason and the absurd there is a secret affinity and a close relationship. Sin has united them with the bond of indissoluble matrimony. The absurd triumphs over man precisely because it is devoid of all rights anterior and superior to human reason. Man accepts it precisely because it comes naked; because, being devoid of rights, it has no pretensions. His will accepts it because it is the offspring of his understanding, and his understanding takes delight in it, because it is its own offspring, its own verbum, because it is a living testimony of its creative power. In the act of creation man is like unto God, and calls himself God. And if he be God, like unto God, in man’s estimation, all else is nothing. What matters it that the other be the God of truth, if he is the God of the absurd? At least, he will be independent like God, he will be sovereign like God; by adoring his own production, he will adore himself; by magnifying it, he will be the magnifier of himself.39
Let us observe that the aforementioned “rights anterior and superior to human reason” are, for Newman, first principles adopted by faith. The Spanish thinker has thus drawn a very persuasive picture of the world out of joint in which the human beings are fascinated with their own creations; such harangues against his contemporary world were his trademark. His vehement speech describes the ontological situation of man after the Fall. Man has become pushed off the path of principal gravitation toward God, the gravitation that imparts sense to his life, the gravitation that is a complement of all the undeveloped perfections of which I have written before. How is he supposed to find the truth about himself, if he has turned away from the Source of this truth and is centred around himself?
Encapsulated in a narcissistic confidence, man fails to read the truth about himself. This is not the way Newman understood egotism. His understanding was ontological rather than psychological; on the other hand, we may say that Cortés’s was ontological as well, the psychological consequences being just
Immersed in the world of immanent speculations, man is deep in what Newman calls the world of shadows and images, in this functional disarrangement. What can interrupt this enchanted circle of rotations without an exit? The answer amounts to pointing at the Word of God. God calls man from beyond the shadows and images, showing him the reality of his true I, for He is the Truth and does not deceive man. Then the act of real assent, grasping the Word of God, immersed in the shadows and images, breaks through the intricate circle of speculations, and becomes free to go towards the light of the Truth. Instead of submitting to the linguistic games of mutually balanced reasons, he stretches out his hand to the Word of God and clings to it. Such I would also call the Newmanian moment, namely that man—in spite of his intellectual inadequacy—can still make the right decision.
We know what is right, not positively, but negatively;—we do not see the truth at once and make towards it, but we fall upon and try error, and find it is not the truth. We grope about by touch, not by sight, and so by miserable experience exhaust the possible modes of acting till nought is left, but truth, remaining. Such is the process by which we succeed; we walk to heaven backward; we drive our arrows at a mark and think him most skilful whose shortcomings are the least.40
What is left to man who sojourns in shadows and images? What is left to the inhabitant of Plato’s cave? Human persons can only move forward and “make their pilgrimage in darkness and in liberty,” as the American political philosopher Michael Novak put it.43 Darkness symbolizes the lack of complete cognition. Freedom denotes, however, the possibility to move. Man immersed in darkness may perform some movements. He may choose ways and directions. If he is immersed in darkness, he lacks the light of complete cognition. Hence, he cannot entirely trust his own reason. He must be open to the light of faith, which could enlighten his darkness. Furthermore, in darkness one could trust someone else’s light. In darkness it is easy to give in to promptings and take a bad turn. I think that this was, for Newman, also a mystic moment, since there is darkness outside, a strong theme with mystics. The development of technical civilization, the growth of the economy and wellbeing in no way enlightens this darkness; one should turn to oneself, to his profound I, where God speaks in the voice of conscience. The innermost depth becomes light.
Because notional assent is rightly regarded as the weakest assent, we can presume that the metaphorical “shadows and images” include primarily notional assents. Newman admits that he was enchanted with the Noetic group at Oxford and their fascination with logical reasoning in which anything can be proven. In a world of abstract notions we are responsible for nothing, liable only to the rigours of the analytic scheme. It is only in the real world (ours or somebody else’s) that we realize that there are real people and real lives hidden behind the notions we use. This growing awareness of the discrepancy between notions, the main item on the menu of the enlightened scholars, and realities, was part of Newman’s individual development and of cognitive theory.
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According to Newman, individuality has nothing to do with individualism, nor with the key term of modern thinking, that is, independence. Let us state it clearly that the egotism of which we have already spoken also has nothing in common with individualistic self-enclosure. Rather, it is a calling to an individual decision to enter the path of truth. In one of his sermons, Newman puts forward the strong thesis which will be the leading idea of his whole activity: “independence was not made for man—that is an unnatural state—may
The main point is that we need to acquiesce to be subordinate to the transcendent, and always view our life from the prospect of God’s eternity. In this way, we realize that we are not solitary creatures doomed to our own contrivances, without any hope for their success in this fragile existence. It is not the Nietzschean will to power that should guide the human being, but a total reliance on God; in other words, neither Kantian autonomy nor aesthetic nihilism. Newman goes counter to modern philosophy, with its focus on the immanent sphere of the self, when he declares: “We are not our own, any more than what we possess is our own. We did not make ourselves; we cannot be supreme over ourselves. We cannot be our own masters.”46 And further on, he formulates a yet more radical view that “as time goes on, […] all men, will find that independence was not made for men—that it is an unnatural state.”47 Many a modern philosopher would be confused about these words, for we have grown accustomed to being protective of individual rights, and any interferences from without are treated with suspicion as encroachments. The nineteenth century saw the birth of the so-called new men and new women who were sick unto independence (to paraphrase Kierkegaard’s well-known work).
If we posed a question “on who or what may man depend without a harm to himself?” Newman’s answer would be obvious. Only dependence on God makes all the other dependencies—which for Newman are our natural state—in proper order. The author of Apologia demonstrated indeed his prophetic intuition when, in his Anglican sermons, he wrote about the faulty attitude of independence. In a way, he anticipated the 1880s and 1890s’ movement of the “new men,” “new women,” and feminism. This movement was the “passion for independence,” as an American conservative historian noted.49 At the same time, this passion is insatiable, for its proponents have no idea what to be independent of; they shun even those limitations which are imposed on them by their own reason. As they have abandoned any moral evaluation, they have no idea what is important and what is of little or no value. Such being the case, everything appears to be liberation and everything appears to be a burden.
In another sermon Newman says: “Since that time passion and reason have abandoned their due place in man’s nature, which is one of subordination, and conspired together against the Divine light within him, which is his proper guide. Reason has been as guilty as passion here.”50 Let us note that these words correspond to Cortés’s lack of the direction of gravity proper to man.
If independence is not his natural state, man is always dependent on someone or something, so obviously we may ask on whom or what man can depend without any harm to himself. The first man was sinless and perfect, but “he tired of being upright from the heart only, and not in the way of reason. He desired to obey, not in the way of children, but of those who choose for themselves.”51 The fallen state has occasioned all the negative results in us, namely, that emotions are not subordinated to reason, and reason is not subordinated to faith, whereas, ultimately, reason should surrender to faith. The first principles are admitted, as we have already said, on faith. They do not result from deliberation. Cortés, called the Cassandra of his Age, was particularly vulnerable to the appalling consequences of the Fall. We have already quoted him with regard to man’s state of prevarication.
The Spanish writer is even more radical about this disarrangement that entered human nature. Cortés’s prevarication and Newman’s disarrangement describe the same consequences of the human condition. Contrary to the views of rationalism or empiricism, it is not enough to take for granted, somewhat metaphorically, that the person is a simple union of reason and will prepared for the cognitive task in practice, but is a dynamic entity that often fails to keep up with the challenge or goes in the opposite direction. Religion and morality call for a practical application of principles; primarily, they do not consist in a theoretical debate. In order to face it in the proper way, he must be ready for a journey of personal conversion. Let us also observe a difference Newman pointed out, namely “the way of reason” as set in opposition to “choosing for themselves.”
Newman’s thesis about independence is very interesting. Indeed, we are entering a network of many dependencies, living among people. We imitate various models of conduct. Since the very beginning of our lives, in the process of our upbringing, we are dealing with attitudes recommended to us. We imitate others in a more or less conscious manner. Because we are social beings and, in many spheres, depend on others, for we are not able to satisfy our own needs, then indeed we should accept dependence as something more natural and in accordance with the actual state of affairs than independence. Man has turned to his own products and by magnifying their importance, an attitude that had earned the name of scientism, has begun to magnify himself.
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Our human condition is to live in shadows and images, often in contradictions, and the distance between man and God is infinite. Man cannot overcome this distance by virtue of his cognition because God is the greatest mystery. The only way to approach God is to adopt an attitude of contrast: awe and reverence; fear and love. There are two classes of men who deny awe and reverence with regard to God, thinking that either Catholicism is too strict in its claims or that, owing to the sacrifice of atonement, they have already been forgiven all their transgressions. Now, if we consider God as infinite and all-perfect, nothing stands in comparison to Him and nothing is pure enough as to be His equal. First of all, we should not remove the idea of personality from our thinking about God. He is “a living and intelligent Governor.”53 And Newman delves into the primitive source of this want of reverence, which is not in words, but in reality. We read in his sermon: “all which shows that it is no question of words whether men have fear or not, but that there is a something they really have not, whatever name we give it.”54
The claim that we should realize rather than merely comprehend is all too clear, when we consider the question of awe and reverence vis-à-vis God, as Newman saw it. Therefore, he explains that “if men do not fear, it is because they do not act as they would act, if they saw Him.”55 Put another way, they do not realize His presence. To have an adequate disposition, we need to realize
Because Newman focuses on human acts, the role of imagination is always significant, one could say even it is of primary importance. How can we put ourselves in the presence of the future (as in hope) or in the presence of the past (as in memory) other than by way of imagination? I think he rightly observed that images affect us more effectively than words, just as practice affects us more than theory. We look forward to the future in hope, and we look backwards to the past in gratitude. And the only guiding principle, apart from imagination, is faith. For looking backwards, how can one gain advantage of all the past sequences and, what is more important, make sense of them? A person should stick to his own life and treat every portion of it as needed, and an opportunity to change, so that he enjoys his freedom without succumbing to deterministic fate or necessity. Only this particular person, in the temporal space between yesterday and today, can make sense of the two extremes a meaningful whole, walking the path of faith and being ready to changes. It must be added that they are not changes for changes’ sake, but changes enlightened by the recognition of truth. Admittedly, many elements of the past may seem accidental and devoid of sense; the temptation of deterministic necessity then intrudes itself. We could resort to the utilitarian manner of calculating all the pros and cons of concrete moments of life, but the ending would certainly be no more effective and conclusive than the beginning.
Let us observe that the role of imagination is indeed mysterious, for it must be noted that when we use our imagination in the creation of some future states, we do not yet know them. Therefore, there is a discrepancy between what we have at our disposal and what we wish to perform. Now, how come that we call this new state inventive in relation to the previous one, if the only context that we have is the old state? And why do people accept something new as a creative invention, if they still do not know its relationship to the old context? At which moment does it happen that otherness starts being regarded
ga, 300.
US, 97.
Ibid., 97–98.
Ibid., 98.
Ibid.
Ibid., 99.
Ibid., 99–100.
Ibid., 100.
Ibid., 102.
Ibid., 103.
This understanding of the person is found in the personalism of K. Wojtyła. For him, the human person is (the metaphysical dimension) and becomes (the phenomenological dimension). Let it be noted that the person always is in his or her integrity (identity) the same person (I do not cease to be myself throughout life) and always becomes someone in the sense of personality.
US, 104.
Ibid., 107.
Ibid., 109.
Cf. pps, 981.
See Ibid.
Ibid.
See O. Schreiner, The Story of an African Farm, Alpha Editions, 2018, 38, 39. Trying to come to terms with the incomprehensible, which human reason interprets as a contradiction, the hero says: “My father God knows, my father knows, […] we cannot understand; He knows.” (39).
pps, 984.
ess., ii, 374.
Via Media – this was the belief among nineteenth-century Anglicans that the Anglican Church had escaped the abuses of Rome on the one hand and the excesses of Protestant dissenters on the other. Newman initially shared this view, but later abandoned it.
See K. F. Curnow, Richard Hooker, John Henry Newman: A Via Media theology of the Eucharist, 217.
The English translation: Unity in the Church or the Principle of Catholicism: Presented in the Spirit of the Church Fathers of the First Three Centuries, trans. Peter C. Erb, Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1995; see G. H. Williams, The Mind of John Paul ii. Origins of His Thought and Action, New York: the Seabury Press, 1981, 122.
pps, 862.
Ibid., 863.
Meditation xvii,
pps, 864.
Ibid., 1237.
C. Taylor, Sources of the Self, 159 and ff.
pps, 865–866.
See Ibid., 1191.
Ibid., 779.
Ibid.
Ibid., 782.
Ibid., 785.
Ibid., 995–996.
See ibid., 1196.
See ibid., 1238.
J. D. Cortés, Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism and Socialism, trans. by W. McDonald, London: Forgotten Books, 2015, 61–62.
Ibid., 1019.
Ibid., 1020.
Ibid., 1349.
M. Novak, Free Persons and the Common Good, Lanham: Madison Books, 1989, 33.
pps, 1004.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
O. Schreiner, The Story of an African Farm, 224–225.
G. Himmelfarb, The De-moralization of Society, 192.
pps, 1023.
Ibid., 1020.
I. Babbitt, Democracy and Leadership, 6.
See, pps, 962.
Ibid., 964.
Ibid.