An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine

by John Henry Newman

Overview

Written in the course of his conversion to Catholicism, Newman's "Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine" ranks among the most decisive breakthroughs in systematic and historical theology of the modern era. Newman confronts the age-old problem, which he had wrestled with for his entire life, of how Christian doctrine can develop over time while retaining its roots in the original revelation of Christ.

Newman first shows that constructive development is a natural, even predictable consequence of Christ's investment of authority in the Church. He then provides clear, historically grounded criteria for distinguishing authentic developments from false novelties and fads. The result is a profound interpretation and defense of the Church's mission and of its power to proclaim the whole counsel of God.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780615913889
Publisher:	Assumption Press
Publication date:	12/11/2013
Pages:	390
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman was England's greatest Catholic convert and theologian of the nineteenth century. Newman's many written contributions to Catholic theology and culture include "An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent," "The Idea of a University," and "Apologia pro Vita Sua." He was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010.

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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