An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine

by John Henry Newman

Overview

John Henry Newman (1801-1890) was a prominent figure in the religious history of England during the 19th century becoming nationally recognized by the mid-1830s. Originally an evangelistic Oxford scholar and clergyman in the Church of England, he was a leader in the Oxford Movement. This inspiring grouping of Anglicans wished to return the Church of England to the many Catholic beliefs and forms of worship. Newman left the Anglican Church and converted to Roman Catholicism, eventually acquiring the rank of Cardinal by Pope Leo XIII. Development of doctrine is a term used by Newman to describe the way Catholic teaching has become meticulous and explicit over the centuries. "An Essay on the Development of Christinan Doctrine" presents Newman's idea of development of doctrine to defend Catholic teaching from attacks by Anglicans and Protestants who saw certain elements in Catholic teaching as corruptions or innovations. To him, this doctrine was the natural and beneficial consequence of reason to reveal a truth that was not obvious at first.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781420943580
Publisher:	Neeland Media LLC
Publication date:	10/04/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

John Henry Newman (1801-90) was a Roman Catholic cardinal and one of the founders of the Oxford Movement. His other works include 'Via Media', 'An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent', and 'Apologia Pro Vita Sua'.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER I. ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS. SECTION I. ON THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT IN IDEAS. It is the characteristic of our minds to be ever engaged in passing judgment on the things which come before us. No sooner do we apprehend than we judge: we allow nothing to stand by itself: we compare, contrast, abstract, generalize, connect, adjust, classify: and we view all our knowledge in the associations with which these processes have invested it. Of the judgments thus made, which become aspects in our minds of the things which meet us, some are mere opinions which come and go, or which remain with us only till an accident displaces them, whatever be the influence which they exercise meanwhile. Others are firmly fixed in our minds, with or without good reason, and have a hold upon us, whether they relate to matters of fact, or to principles of conduct, or are views of life and the world, or are prejudices, imaginations, or convictions. Many of them attach to one and the same object, which is thus variously viewed, not only by various minds, but by the same. They sometimes lie in such near relation, that each implies the others; some are only not inconsistent with each other, in that they have a common origin : some, as being actually incompatible with each other, are, one or other, falsely associated in our minds with their object, and in any case they may be nothing more than ideas, which we mistake for things. Thus Judaism is an idea which once was objective, and Gnosticism is an idea which was never so. Both of them have various aspects : those of Judaism were such as monotheism, a certain ethical discipline, a ministration of divine vengeance, a preparation forChristianity: those of the Gnostic idea are such as the doctrine of two principles. that of emanatio...

Table of Contents

Advertisement; Introduction; 1. On the development of ideas; 2. On the development of Christian ideas, antecedently considered; 3. On the nature of the argument in behalf of the existing developments of Christianity; 4. Illustrations of the argument in behalf of the existing developments of Christianity; 5. Illustrations continued; 6. Illustrations continued; 7. Illustrations continued; 8. Illustrations concluded.

Editorial Reviews

"It is a great boon to Newman scholars and to the general public to have available the revised, 1878 edition of Newman's essay on development. . . . As an added benefit, it contains a superb foreword by Father Ian Ker which places the essay within the context of Newman's own theological work as well as that of the theological understandings of development which preceded and followed the essay. [It] is also the profoundly personal stand of one of the finest theological minds of the nineteenth century. . . . This book belongs in every theological library, and is accessible to most educated readers. It is especially rewarding for those who find the study of history a liberating theological exercise." —The Catholic World, January/February 1990
 

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