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
other, but by cross relations they are connected, and grow together
while they grow from one. The Mass and Real Presence are parts of one;
the veneration of Saints and their relics are parts of one; their
intercessory power and the Purgatorial State, and again the Mass and
that State are correlative; Celibacy is the characteristic mark of
Monachism and of the Priesthood. You must accept the whole or reject the
whole; attenuation does but enfeeble, and amputation mutilate. It is
trifling to receive all but something which is as integral as any other
portion; and, on the other hand, it is a solemn thing to accept any
part, for, before you know where you are, you may be carried on by a
stern logical necessity to accept the whole.
3.
Next, we have to consider that from first to last other developments
there are none, except those which have possession of Christendom; none,
that is, of prominence and permanence sufficient to deserve the name. In
early times the heretical doctrines were confessedly barren and
short-lived, and could not stand their ground against Catholicism. As to
the medieval period I am not aware that the Greeks present more than a
negative opposition to the Latins. And now in like manner the Tridentine
Creed is met by no rival developments; there is no antagonist system.
Criticisms, objections, protests, there are in plenty, but little of
positive teaching anywhere; seldom an attempt on the part of any
opposing school to master its own doctrines, to investigate their sense
and bearing, to determine their relation to the decrees of Trent and
their distance from them. And when at any time this attempt is by chance
in any measure made, then an incurable contrariety does but come to view
between portions of the theology thus developed, and a war of
principles; an impossibility moreover of reconciling that theology with
the general drift of the formularies in which its elements occur, and a
consequent appearance of unfairness and sophistry in adventurous persons
who aim at forcing them into consistency;[95:1] and, further, a
prevalent understanding of the truth of this representation, authorities
keeping silence, eschewing a hopeless enterprise and discouraging it in
others, and the people plainly intimating that they think both doctrine
and usage, antiquity and development, of very little matter at all; and,
lastly, the evident despair of even the better sort of men, who, in
consequence, when they set great schemes on foot, as for the conversion
of the heathen world, are afraid to agitate the question of the
doctrines to which it is to be converted, lest through the opened door
they should lose what they have, instead of gaining what they have not.
To the weight of recommendation which this contrast throws upon the
developments commonly called Catholic, must be added the argument which
arises from the coincidence of their consistency and permanence, with
their claim of an infallible sanction,--a claim, the existence of which,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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