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Article Excerpt
ONE OF THE MOST TELLTALE signs of John Henry Newman's complexity is the fact that he can be appealed to by men and women of nearly every shade of theological opinion. So-called conservative no less than so-called progressive Catholics can find in Newman's writings remarks that appear to serve their particular theological agendas. (1) This is not a new phenomenon. Already during Newman's lifetime, there was confusion about precisely where he belonged on the theological spectrum. And this confusion was perhaps, unintentionally, aggravated by Newman himself, particularly in view of his insistence, in 1879, that his whole life had been dedicated to resisting "the spirit of liberalism in religion." (2)
In our day, the word "liberal" is more or less synonymous with "progressive" and its opposite is undoubtedly "conservative" (or perhaps even "reactionary"). Of course, we cannot simply equate our use of the term liberal with Newman's. Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that there would have been such a shift in the meaning of the term that its usage in the 19th century would be wholly unrelated to its usage in the 20th or the 21st century. If then, Newman was, by his own admission, anti-liberal, how did it come about that he was regarded as "the symbol of the hope of English Liberal Catholics" around the time of Vatican Council I, (3) and as the "the veritable father of the more liberalizing developments of the 20th-century Catholic Church," (4) particularly as these came to expression in Vatican Council II? Assuming that the word liberal did not indeed undergo a total metamorphosis of meaning, the most likely conclusion is that Newman did in fact display sympathy for at least some aspect(s) of what passes for liberalism. If this is the case, then it might be fair to say, as one commentator has done, that while Newman was "an anti-liberal in his terms [he was] a liberal in ours." (5)
In what follows, I attempt to clarify Newman's position with respect to liberalism and to reflect on the lessons he has to teach us about our response to it, especially as regards the practice of theology.
LIBERALISM: THE PROBLEM OF DEFINITION
In a much-neglected article, Adrian Hastings provides a careful analysis of the evolution of Newman's attitude toward liberalism, an analysis supported by some interesting reflections on the appearance of the term throughout Newman's career. (6) In his Apologia pro Vita Sua (1864), Newman acknowledged that the content and program of liberalism varied, depending on the time and circumstances. (7)
It is important to bear this in mind when one reflects on Newman's attitude toward liberalism and on his understanding of the implications of liberalism for the discipline of theology. For Newman, liberalism was not, in the first place, a party or a movement within the Church, if by movement we mean a well-organized group with a well-defined program. (Perhaps the closest Catholic parallel is Modernism, which also was not a movement in the proper sense of that term.) (8) Liberalism, it seems fair to say, is perhaps best understood as a state of mind, a fundamental attitude that may exist without an individual even being aware of it. It would, therefore, be dangerous to begin to define it in terms of the adherence to specific doctrines, though it is the case that this attitude--if consistently unfolded--will issue in the denial of many doctrines. (9) However, as Newman pointed out, men and women are not consistent in their reasoning and are often not aware of the inherent contradictions in their own thinking. (10) Liberalism, for Newman, is essentially a form of solipsism, a conviction that truth, especially in matters of religion, is ultimately a private affair. (11) This means concretely that so-called conservatives may in fact be as liberal at heart as avowed liberals. More importantly, however, it means that if one is to address the challenge posed by liberalism to contemporary Christianity, one should not begin by insisting on submission to particular articles of faith.
Newman's insight into the character of liberalism is reflected in his recognition that it was not, in the first place, an ecclesiastical or theological problem but was instead a social and cultural phenomenon. (12) He came to conclude that it was a phenomenon that the Church would have to learn to live with. It is helpful to look more closely at Newman's approach to both aspects of liberalism. I devote most attention to liberalism as a theological problem, and deal only briefly with its social dimensions. I begin with the latter.
LIBERALISM AS A SOCIAL AND CULTURAL PHENOMENON
Writing in 1864, Newman observed that: "the Liberalism which gives a color to society now is very different from that character of thought which bore the name thirty or forty years ago. Now it is scarcely a party; it is the educated lay world." The liberal mindset, he continues, is characterized by "deep, plausible skepticism," the skepticism that is the inevitable consequence of "the development of human reason, as practically exercised by the natural man." (13) In other words, liberalism is essentially a way of thinking that operates without reference to the principles and doctrines of traditional religion (the natural man) and that is oriented to--and takes its lead from--the empirical order (i.e., reason as practically exercised by the natural man). Liberalism is nothing if not pragmatic. Hence, long before it has an impact on religion, it makes its presence felt in the social and political realms (a fact that explains the emergence of that paradoxical movement known as Liberal Catholicism). (14) The young Newman resisted what he called liberalism at the moment that it encroached on the rights and the authority of the Established (Anglican) Church. That resistance found expression in his participation in the so-called Oxford Movement which sought to restore Anglicanism's Catholic character. As he explained in his Apologia pro Vita Sua, Newman's involvement in the movement was founded on a theological principle, namely, his conviction that the Church had been entrusted with a revelation and invested with the authority, as it were, to preserve, protect, and defend it. (15) The proximate cause of the Oxford Movement was a perceived threat to the Church's distinctive identity by an increasingly secular state. By the time he left the Anglican Church in 1845, Newman was convinced that it did not have within itself the power to resist the onslaught of liberalism. However, it is important to bear in mind that, even as an Anglican, Newman's struggle was not so much against liberalism as on behalf of the Church. In other words, in his battle with liberalism Newman was, in the first place, championing a cause, not simply resisting change. And that cause was the idea of revealed religion. It is worth recalling that, in his celebrated biglietto speech upon his reception of the cardinal's hat, Newman described himself as having "resisted ... the spirit of liberalism in religion," not liberalism as such.
Indeed, as Hastings points out, "by the 1860s, [Newman] could see that the liberal society had come to stay," and "his political anti-liberal phobia had almost completely disappeared: it...
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