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Newman on doing theology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
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Newman’s writings on the nature of theology, the role of the theologian in the Church, and the nature of personal faith and assent, all receive a great deal of scholarly attention. However, one text where he characterises the nature of the work of a theologian as a continuing activity has been passed over in studies of his writings on theology and seems only to be known in studies of his marian doctrine.
The text is from the Sermon 15 of his University Sermons which was preached on the feast of the Purification, 2 February, 1843 upon the text: ‘But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart’ (Lk 2:19). The sermon begins by introducing the notion of Mary as a pattern of faith (paragraph 1) and then develops the theme by reflection on the significance of Mary “pondering” what was said to her (paragraph 2).
Then he continues:
Thus St. Mary is our pattern of Faith, both in the reception and the study of Divine Truth. She does not think it enough to accept, she dwells upon it; not enough to possess, she uses it; not enough to assent, she develops it; not enough to submit the Reason, she reasons upon it; not indeed reasoning first, and believing afterwards, with Zacharias, yet first believing without reasoning, next from love and reverence, reasoning after believing. And thus she symbolizes to us, not only the faith of the unlearned, but of the doctors of the Church also, who have to investigate, and weigh. and define. as well as to profess the Gospel; to draw the line between truth and heresy; to anticipate or remedy the various aberrations of wrong reason; to combat pride and recklessness with their own arms; and thus to triumph over the sophist and the innovator.
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- Copyright © 1995 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
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1 I am using the 1873 edition (Pickering, London) and have retained in all quotations its orthography and style; the text in question is found on pp. 313–314.
2 Newman uses the rhetorical figure of climax which is particularly suited to the notion of a growth in Mary's understanding and action over time.
3 A convenient list of the classical paradigms of this trope can be found in Lewis and Short, p. 1215.
4 Throughout his life Newman showed incredible skill in vising these forms of argument, and indeed used them with such ease that (unlike in the case of most of the text–book theologians of the period) they are hardly visible within his prose. If proof of his familiarity with these precise procedures be needed we need only look at R. Whatley's Elements of Logic (London 1831 [I have a preference for the fourth revised ed.]) where Conditionals and Modal Conditionals are treated together in Bk 2, chs 1–3 (pp. 95–101); see p. ix of this work for the famous tribute to Newman's contribution to its production; it should be noted that in these pages, for the first time, we see that language on the illative force of conditionals that is so characteristic of Newman's thought for the rest of his life
5 I take this as a hendiadys for the patristic notion of theosebeia; cf. Torrance, T.F, The Trinitarian Faith (Edinburgh 1988) pp 17–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar for a convenient description of the notion.
6 Cf, Cayré, A.A., La contemplation augustinienne (Pans 1954), ch. 8Google Scholar.
7 This is the Velus latina reading.
8 The repetition of the basic identification of the task; of the theologian with the activity of Mary is found in the phrase: “And thus she symbolizes to us, not only the faith of the unlearned, but of the doctors of the Church also.”
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