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Was Newman’s Theory of Development Darwinian? And Other Thoughts About ItJohn Henry Newman’s theory of development of Christian doctrine has often been compared to Darwin’s theory of evolution. That is because he seemed to be saying that Church doctrine had developed over the ages as historical conditions had changed. This can look, at least superficially, as if the Christian tradition had evolved by adapting to the environment, rather as Darwin’s theory proposes that evolution occurs as the result of environmental pressures causing natural selection. I have made the parallel myself, in passing, in lectures. However as Newman scholars, such as Ian Ker, Sheridan Gilley and Avery Dulles, have been at pains to point out, the parallel is ultimately misleading. Newman did emphasise the changes that had, inevitably, occurred in mainline Christian thought over great time, but he did not see this as a sort of knee jerk Darwinian reaction to changing historical circumstances and challenges. He was in fact writing to defend Christianity against the sceptics who asked: “how can you believe in a church that has changed its mind so often, shifted its doctrinal grounds so often, seen so many heresies, wars between sects, the corruption and decay of the early faith of the fathers?” Newman, it seems to me (no theologian), is saying that the essential truths proclaimed by Christ and the early church have in fact been preserved; but also “developed” to bring out truths that were latent in early commentaries. As John Cornwell says: “Such developments as occur, Newman argues, must be shown to be in accord with the Christianity of the Apostles, and antique Christianity...He asks that developments should be such that the Church would remain recognisably the same to an Early Father who returned to earth... Far from the Church being changed by the cultures it encounters, it is the Church that assimilates and transforms cultures”.John Henry Newman (1801-1890) was a massive figure in nineteenth century English religious thought, and he continued to be influential (some of his ideas were implemented in Vatican II). He was a founding father of, and major inspirational force behind, the so-called Oxford or Tractarian Movement, which aimed to revitalise Anglicanism. In an age of indolence and ignorance of its historical traditions, the Church of England seemed to these reformers to have lost its way. Newman, Keble, Pusey and others sought to restore its sense of spirituality and sense of connection with its Christian past, disrupted by the Reformation. This caused a storm of opposition, and the movement was accused of trying to restore a hated Catholicism (see my piece on Alec Vidler on this website for more details). Newman tried in the Tracts and other writings to defend the “middle way” of Anglicanism, but after much agonising he finally decided that the Anglican Church was in schism, and he converted to Catholicism in 1845. An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine was published in the same year. He wrote it before he actually converted in order to clear his mind of any doubts or difficulties that might still cause him to hesitate about such a massive, and for his family and many friends such a painful, move. He still had, as he said in Development,” vague misgivings” about “accretions and additions” (such as Transubstantiation) that had been added to the early Christian faith. Were these illicit, as anti-Catholics accused, or justifiable and reasonable developments of Christianity? He worked out seven tests to show whether or not changes in dogma had been in accord with Christianity at the time of the apostles. We needn’t go into these often abstruse and difficult tests just now. Suffice to say that by the time Newman had got far advanced on his book, he resolved to be received into the Catholic Church, and to allow the work to be published unfinished. He “half re-wrote” and greatly rearranged the book for a second edition in 1878, which is now regarded as the standard text. Quotes below are from this text. Newman had a great feeling for history (not surprising given he spent so much of his life studying the early history of the church and the fathers, and the early heresies). He preferred to view Christian faith through the lens of history, rather than using the rigidly theoretical dogmatic systems of the scholastic school and others. So he resented the assumptions of the sceptics that history proved Christianity to be a fraud. Was it logical to work from this assumption? He thought not. It was not self-evident and needed proof. So far that had not been forthcoming. The critics assumed that there was no real continuity in Christian doctrine and beliefs, again a problematic assumption. More “natural” was “to consider that the society of Christians, which the Apostles left on earth, were of that religion to which the Apostles had converted them; that the external continuity of name, profession, and communion, argues a real continuity of doctrine”. It was not a “violent assumption”, Newman argues, but rather good sense, “to take it for granted, before proof to the contrary, that the Christianity of the second, fourth, seventh, twelfth, sixteenth, and intermediate centuries is in its substance the very religion which Christ and His Apostles taught in the first, whatever may be the modifications for good or for evil which lapse of years, or the vicissitudes of human affairs, have impressed upon it” (p.5).Interestingly, Newman starts to use a relativistic concept of human perceptions about phenomena in general, and sets of ideas and ideologies in particular. Nothing is set in concrete. Definitions themselves are difficult when it comes to encompassing the whole reality or range of characteristics and qualities of (say) organisms in biology or (say) theories or doctrines in philosophy, politics, economics or religion. Things change over time. Definitions change as more and more people mull over (say) ideas. Ideas, whether real or not, have life, or at least live in the minds of those who are impacted by them. In his eloquent (if sometimes ponderously Victorian) style, Newman puts it thus:...when some great enunciation, whether true or false, about human nature, or present good, or government, or duty, or religion, is carried forward into the public throng of men and draws attention, then it is not merely received passively in this or that form into many minds, but it becomes an active principle within them, leading them to an ever-new contemplation of itself, to an application of it in various directions, and a propagation of itself on every side” (p.36).He lists such doctrines as the divine right of kings, the rights of man, ”the anti-social bearings of a priesthood” , utilitarianism, free trade or the philosophy of Epicurus. Such ideas had their history of initial confusion and inadequate expression, misconceptions and conflicts between adherents, new insights, accumulation of judgments and teachings, modifications and expansions and combinations with other ideas until some sort of more organised understanding of the doctrine emerged, all related to the changing circumstances of the times in which the ideas flourished. A doctrine “will be interrogated and criticized by enemies, and defended by well-wishers... It will, in proportion to its native vigour and subtlety, introduce itself into the framework and details of social life, changing public opinion, and strengthening the foundations of established order”. It can grow into an ethical code, a system of government, a theology or ritual. But it is after all the representation of an original idea “being in substance what that idea meant from the first, its complete image as seen in a combination of diversified aspects, with the suggestions and corrections of many minds and the illustrations of many experiences” (pp.36-38).In a striking metaphor he compared the development of an idea with a river. It was not, as some said, clearer near the spring, but in fact “more equable, and purer, and stronger, when its bed has become deep, and broad, and full”. Its beginnings were no measure of its capabilities. Its goes through trials and difficulties. It meanders, sometimes fails, then it strikes out in one distinct direction: “In time it enters upon strange territory; points of controversy alter their bearing; parties rise and fall around it; dangers and hopes appear in new relations; and old principles reappear under new forms. It changes with them in order to remain the same. In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change...” (p.40). Newman’s “Tests”The first part of Development sought to establish, by detailed analysis, an historical argument in favour of the essential continuity, the “oneness”, between the teaching of the Apostles – the early church – and “the body of doctrine known at this day by the name of Catholic, and professed substantially both by Eastern and Western Christendom”. He then turned to the “only question” that still could be raised, “whether the said Catholic faith, as now held, is logically, as well as historically, the representative of the ancient faith”. We move from the historical to the logical.It was in this context that he ventured to propose seven “tests” (called Notes in the second edition) by which legitimate developments of the ancient faith could be discriminated from illegitimate changes, “healthy” and faithful developments distinguished from corruptions or perversions of the truth. These tests were not proposed as definitive but rather as Newman’s best effort, based on his extensive studies of church history, to show whether later doctrines were in accord with early Christianity, authentic or not.Here, in Newman’s succinct summary, are the tests of an idea: “There is no corruption if it retains one and the same type, the same principles, the same organization; if its beginnings anticipate its subsequent phases, and its later phenomena protect and subserve its earlier; if it has a power of assimilation and revival, and a vigorous action from first to last” (pp.169-171). This is just a short commentary on Newman’s theory. So I will just give some of his reasoning on one of the “tests”, namely that of “Chronic Vigour” (number seven). He is essentially arguing that a truly evolving, authentic Christian doctrine will exhibit great historical resilience and power to survive, even in the face of terrible difficulties and challenges. On the other hand, corrupt doctrines lack this survival power. They may have their day and flourish for a time, but their essential weaknesses will ensure that they ultimately decay and die. Corruption tends to become dissolution. Thus “duration” is an important test of a faithful development.Newman goes as far as to allege: “The course of heresies is always short; it is an intermediate state between life and death, or what is like death; or, if it does not result in death, it is resolved into some new, perhaps opposite, course of error, which lays no claim to be connected with it” (p.204). Only in this way can heresies persist. Newman seems to wriggle at times on this issue, given the obvious difficulty that many heresies did seem historically to have a fair life span. Such heresies persisted, he argues, out of social habit and fashion, links with political institutions, and so on. But they tend to collapse under challenge, under “the first rough influence from without”. This was what happened to classical paganism, to heretics such as the Nestorians and Monophysites; and such too “is that Protestantism, or (as it sometimes calls itself) attachment to the Establishment, which is not unfrequently the boast of the respectable and wealthy among ourselves” (p.205). This was, of course, a rather unkind swipe at his former Church of England. It was also an historically problematic verdict on nineteenth century Protestantism generally, given the strength of the Nonconformist churches in both Britain and the United States. Newman finalises his case for the ultimate sustainability of the Catholic faith in his concluding chapter. Here perhaps is some echo of “the survival of the fittest”:When we consider the succession of ages during which the Catholic system has endured, the severity of the trials it has undergone, the sudden and wonderful changes without and within which have befallen it, the incessant mental activity and the intellectual gifts of its maintainers, the enthusiasm which it has kindled, the fury of the controversies which have been carried on among its professors, the impetuosity of the assaults made upon it, the ever-increasing responsibilities to which it has been committed by the continuous development of its dogmas, it is quite inconceivable that it should not have been broken up and lost, were it a corruption of Christianity. Yet it is still living, if there be a living religion or philosophy in the world; vigorous, energetic, persuasive, progressive... it grows and is not overgrown; it spreads out, yet is not enfeebled; it is ever germinating, yet ever consistent with itself (pp.437-438).There have been widely ranging theological reactions to Newman’s theory of development. You might like to follow them up, if interested, in the reading below. But certainly the theory has been of major significance. Much of it was tentative and has been “developed” since. Newman would have approved. The “tests”, for example, are seen now, as Avery Dulles says, as “rules of thumb” rather than “a set of laws”. Moreover the problems that Newman sought to resolve in theology are still with us. As Gerard McCarren observes, Newman’s articulation of doctrinal development retains its influence “not merely for its enduring place in Christian intellectual history, but because Newman’s ‘difficulty’, despite recent theological advances, and indeed all the more because of such progress, remains a theological challenge today. Newman’s statement of the problem continues to demand attention because the problem still calls for solution, and because his answer to it, whatever its shortcomings, promises assistance to theologians who strive to explore the issues and venture viable solutions”.Further ReadingThis is in addition to the works cited above.Ian Ker, John Henry Newman: A Biography (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1988)Ian Ker and Alan G. Hill, eds, Newman After a Hundred Years (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1990) Nicholas Lash, Newman on Development (Shepherdstown, WV, Patmos Press, 1975) ................
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