The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of DublinNewman, John Henry
Religion
The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin
Newman, John Henry
Education, Higher; Universities and colleges
And here again, when I speak of Revealed Truth, it is scarcely necessary
to say that I am not referring to the main articles and prominent points
of faith, as contained in the Creed. Had I undertaken to delineate a
philosophy, which directly interfered with the Creed, I could not have
spoken of it as compatible with the profession of Catholicism. The
philosophy I speak of, whether it be viewed within or outside the Church,
does not necessarily take cognizance of the Creed. Where the country is
Catholic, the educated mind takes its articles for granted, by a sort of
implicit faith; where it is not, it simply ignores them and the whole
subject-matter to which they relate, as not affecting social and political
interests. Truths about God’s Nature, about His dealings towards the human
race, about the Economy of Redemption,—in the one case it humbly accepts
them, and passes on; in the other it passes them over, as matters of
simple opinion, which never can be decided, and which can have no power
over us to make us morally better or worse. I am not speaking then of
belief in the great objects of faith, when I speak of Catholicism, but I
am contemplating Catholicism chiefly as a system of pastoral instruction
and moral duty; and I have to do with its doctrines mainly as they are
subservient to its direction of the conscience and the conduct. I speak of
it, for instance, as teaching the ruined state of man; his utter inability
to gain Heaven by any thing he can do himself; the moral certainty of his
losing his soul if left to himself; the simple absence of all rights and
claims on the part of the creature in the presence of the Creator; the
illimitable claims of the Creator on the service of the creature; the
imperative and obligatory force of the voice of conscience; and the
inconceivable evil of sensuality. I speak of it as teaching, that no one
gains Heaven except by the free grace of God, or without a regeneration of
nature; that no one can please Him without faith; that the heart is the
seat both of sin and of obedience; that charity is the fulfilling of the
Law; and that incorporation into the Catholic Church is the ordinary
instrument of salvation. These are the lessons which distinguish
Catholicism as a popular religion, and these are the subjects to which the
cultivated intellect will practically be turned;—I have to compare and
contrast, not the doctrinal, but the moral and social teaching of
Philosophy on the one hand, and Catholicism on the other.
3.
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