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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
John Henry Cardinal Newman died on 11 August, 1890. In the summer of the centenary of his death the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued an Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian. It is a topic by which Newman was much exercised. In this article I would like to look at the Instruction in the light of two ideas adumbrated by Newman, each of which involves a distinction between positive and negative models of the role of the Magisterium.
The Vatican Council of 1870 was a major landslip in the history of Catholic theology, and for much of the following decade Newman was riding the after-shocks generated by its definition of papal infallibility. His central concern was to assimilate what he understood to be the true teaching of the decree Pastor Aeternus into a structure which would still allow scope for theological responsibility. In November 1874 an intemperate pamphlet by William Gladstone gave Newman an opening for a formal and public statement of his reaction to the definition. A Letter Addressed to His Grace the Duke of Norfolk on Occasion of Mr. Gladstone’s Recent Expostulation was dated 27 December 1874 and was published in January 1875. In the Letter Newman was of course particularly concerned with infallibility, ecclesial and papal, rather than with magisterial teaching in general, but his reflections are of wider application.
Newman observes that authoritative statements may be either positive or negative:
The infallibility, whether of the Church or of the Pope, acts principally or solely in two channels, in direct statements of truth, and in the condemnation of error.
1 For the Letter and its context, see Ward, Wilfrid, The Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman (London, 1912), II. 401–409Google Scholar, and Ker, Ian, John Henry Newman, A Biography (Oxford, 1988), pp. 679–92Google Scholar.
2 The Instruction clearly regards that which can be said of infallibility in particular as a special case of that which can be said of magisterial authority in general. Note, for example, the following:
Jesus Christ promised the assistance of the Holy Spirit to the Church's Pastors so that they could fulfill their assigned task of teaching the Gospel and authentically interpreting Revelation. In particular, He bestowed on them the charism of infallibility in matters of faith and morals (15).
3 Newman, John Henry, A Letter Addressed to His Grace the Duke of Norfolk on Occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Recent Expostulation (London, 1875), p. 120Google Scholar. From 1876 the Letter was reprinted in Volume II of Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching in the uniform edition of Newman's works. I will cite from the first edition, with the corresponding reference to Volume II of Difficulties Felt by Anglicans (New edition, London, 1892)Google Scholar added in brackets; here the latter reference is to p. 333.
4 Ibid., p. 121 (333–4).
5 I tried to develop this point in my article ‘On the Function of Heresy’, New Blackfriars 70 (1989), p. 103Google Scholar.
6 Athanasius, Contra Arianos 1.9 (= P.G. 26, 29A). For a traditional statement of the view that Athanasius ‘consciously (it must have been consciously) kept himself clear of homoousios’ till the early 350's, see Kelly, J.N.D., Early Christian Creeds (3rd ed., London, 1972), pp. 257–58Google Scholar. The dating of the Athanasian corpus has in recent years become a controverted question, but his reticence in works like Contra Arianos remains a fact.
7 The classic statement of this development is Moeller, Charles, ‘Le chalcedonisme et le néo‐chalcédonisme en Orient de 451 à la fin du Vie siècle’, in Das Konzil von Chalkedon, Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Grillmeier, Aloys S.J. and Bacht, Henrich S.J., Vol. 1 (Würzburg, 1951), pp. 637–720Google Scholar. See Aloys Grillmeier S.J., Christ in Christian Tradition, Vol. II, From the Council of Chalcedon (451) to Gregory the Great (590–604), Part 1, tr. Pauline Allen and John Cawte.
8 Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, pp. 116–17 (327–28).
9 See, for example, paragraphs 22 and 40.
10 According to Pastor Aeternus, the Pope enjoys his infallibility ‘through the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter’ (Denzinger‐Schönmetzer 3074); for Lumen Gentium, papal definitions are irreformable ‘as put forth under the assistance of the Holy Spirit promised to him in blessed Peter’ (25).
11 Instruction 17. Vatican II asserts that the Magisterium hears, guards, and expounds the Word of God ‘from the Divine command and with the Holy Spirit assisting’ (Dei Verbum 10). The phrase ‘Spiritu Sancto assistente’ used here of the general functioning of the Magisterium is not quite the same thing as ‘sub assistentia Spiritus Sancti’, found in Lumen Gentium 25 (cited in n. 10 above) with reference to infallibility in particular. We might recall the distinction Newman draws between inspiration as the infallibility characteristic of the apostles and a more general sense of the word ‘inspiration’ in which it is common to all members of the Church, and therefore especially to its Bishops, and still more directly to its rulers, when solemnly called together in Council … (Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, pp. 116–117 (327)).
12 Indeed, the fourth and longest chapter of the document, on ‘The Magisterium and Theology’, has two subsections: the first is entitled ‘Collaborative Relations’ and the second ‘The Problem of Dissent’.
13 It will be recalled that the Instruction also asserts that ‘Magisterial teaching, by virtue of divine assistance, has a validity beyond its argumentation, which may derive at times from a particular theology’ (34).
14 When the Instruction claims that ‘essential bonds link the distinct levels of unity of faith, unity‐plurality of expressions of the faith, and plurality of theologies’ (34), it fails to make clear how an expression of faith can avoid being also the expression of a particular theology. That ‘expression of faith’ may use theological language which is more comprehensive or less, but it cannot eschew the use of such language.
15 Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, p. 125 (339).
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