An Essay on the Development of Christian DoctrineNewman, John Henry
Religion
An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine
Newman, John Henry
Catholic Church -- Doctrines; Dogma, Development of
However, as the last instances suggest to us, this unity of type,
characteristic as it is of faithful developments, must not be pressed to
the extent of denying all variation, nay, considerable alteration of
proportion and relation, as time goes on, in the parts or aspects of an
idea. Great changes in outward appearance and internal harmony occur in
the instance of the animal creation itself. The fledged bird differs
much from its rudimental form in the egg. The butterfly is the
development, but not in any sense the image, of the grub. The whale
claims a place among mammalia, though we might fancy that, as in the
child's game of catscradle, some strange introsusception had been
permitted, to make it so like, yet so contrary, to the animals with
which it is itself classed. And, in like manner, if beasts of prey were
once in paradise, and fed upon grass, they must have presented bodily
phenomena very different from the structure of muscles, claws, teeth,
and viscera which now fit them for a carnivorous existence. Eutychius,
Patriarch of Constantinople, on his death-bed, grasped his own hand and
said, "I confess that in this flesh we shall all rise again;" yet flesh
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and a glorified body has
attributes incompatible with its present condition on earth.
5.
More subtle still and mysterious are the variations which are consistent
or not inconsistent with identity in political and religious
developments. The Catholic doctrine of the Holy Trinity has ever been
accused by heretics of interfering with that of the Divine Unity out of
which it grew, and even believers will at first sight consider that it
tends to obscure it. Yet Petavius says, "I will affirm, what perhaps
will surprise the reader, that that distinction of Persons which, in
regard to _proprietates_ is in reality most great, is so far from
disparaging the Unity and Simplicity of God that this very real
distinction especially avails for the doctrine that God is One and most
Simple."[174:1]
Again, Arius asserted that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity was
not able to comprehend the First, whereas Eunomius's characteristic
tenet was in an opposite direction, viz., that not only the Son, but
that all men could comprehend God; yet no one can doubt that Eunomianism
was a true development, not a corruption of Arianism.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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