Liberalism and Newman:
The Anglican Vision and Response
A Doctoral Dissertation by Father John McCloskey
Conclusion
To trace the development of Newman's thought regarding religious Liberalism during his Anglican life has been an excruciating but rewarding task. Although the development is pain staking it never lacks lucidity nor continuity. We watched as Newman first struggled with Liberalism as an alien force attacking the Anglican Church from outside and then gradually awakening to the reality that the religious Liberalism inside the Anglican Church was an endogenous but arrested development of the Reformation of which the Anglicans were an offspring. What led Newman to finally take refuge in the Catholic Church was the realization as an active warrior in the battle against Liberalism that he had been unwittingly acting as a kind of double agent as long as he remained with the Anglicans, a Protestant Church.
My intent in the first part of the thesis was to organize the thought of Newman on religious Liberalism. That he was among the first both to recognize the ideology and analyze it there is little doubt. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of his discovery is that it is done by a former Evangelical who spent the early part of his life in the highly stratified atmosphere of a religious Oxford. At the same time in Europe writers such as Bonald and Maistre were also beginning their own examinations of the problem but from a different perspective that included a resurgent Catholic Church after the Napoleonic era and recurring revolutions.
The Liberalism that Newman was facing was much more insidious and perhaps more deadly; the type of Liberalism that was to spread in the Anglo-Saxon world was by no means so openly atheistic or revolutionary. As in the mid-sixteenth century, the English people changed rapidly almost without realizing it. In the sixteenth century the change was from Catholicism to Protestantism, the nineteenth, from Protestantism to a liberal secularism. The latter change took place precisely because the Anglican Church, excepting some members of the Oxford Movement, were unable to react due to the heretical principles buried though hidden in their very foundation. The fact that the Anglican Church rejected its greatest thinker and religious genius was the ultimate proof of its base origins.
Perhaps what makes this thesis of particular value is that it shows that Newman's original perception of Liberalism, its roots and its future, are not outdated. Repeatedly during my reading I was struck by the similarities that exist between his era and our own. Many of the passages quoted in the text could be used to describe some of the excesses that the Church has suffered during the unfortunate post-conciliar age. Naturally, his foresight regarding the development of Biblical criticism, modern philosophy, and the breakdown of morals are very noticeable. A thesis well worth the writing would be on an exact correlation of Newman's analysis of the future as applied to the Catholic Church and Protestant sects.
The secondary purpose of the first part was to show the intimate connection between Newman's conversion to the Roman Church and his headlong flight from Liberalism. He sought a Church where heresy could not have a permanent home and he found that in Rome. I have already quoted in the text Newman's comment that it is a fear of heresy at home that drives people to Rome and not a particular love. This insight may also give us a key for understanding the later battles as a Catholic against the extreme ultramontane tendencies inside the Vatican I Church. Newman was always very faithful to the Church with a great love and respect for the Pope but at the same time he had a great admiration for the national traits of the Church and the importance of being in, if not of, the modern world.
His readings of the Fathers influenced him greatly as he relived the battles of Athanasius and Augustine against the heretics of their times. At the same time he had reverence for the important Anglican divines, above all for Bishop Laud and the Non-Jurors who also figured in his personal hagiography. But more than simple words, actions were involved in these struggles. We have seen that it is essential to look at the actions of Newman both in words and events to fully understand his vision. The vision remains but his response has given us an idea of his worth. And as his vision is so applicable both to his own period and the century following his death it may well be that apologetical and theological writings along with his actions may aid us in combating the errors of the present day, which appear similar, although developed, to those of his day.
I want to emphasize that we cannot simply view Newman as a cold philosophical analyst. He was a man of great sentiment and emotion and his complaint against Liberalism and the breakdown of the Anglican Church were felt in his heart as much as his head. Newman believed strongly in the union of body and soul in the whole man. His whole Anglican period was spent to use Carlyle's eloquent phrase in a search for "true guidance in return for loving obedience." He saw this as man's true need and it can only be truly satisfied in the Catholic Church.
Although I have placed stress on the development of Newman's vision, I should also point out the underlying sameness from the beginning. All of Newman's critique stemmed from his deep belief and love of doctrine of the Church and this love was impressed supernaturally. Newman, like many of his close friends, could easily have fallen if it were not for God's grace from his earliest years. "What I held in 1816, I held in 1833, and I hold in 1864. Please God, I shall hold it to then end." 1 In his later days Newman was to witness and to some extent participate in the conflict which he has seen emerging. "It is very certain that neither Puritanism nor Liberalism has any permanent inheritance within her... It does but occupy the space between contending powers, Catholic Truth and Rationalism... Then indeed will be the stern encounter, when the real and living principles, simple, entire, and consistent, one in the Church, the other out of it, at length rush upon one another, contending not for names and words or half-views, but for elementary and distinctive moral characters." 2 The conflict still has not been resolved and the history of the twentieth century bears witness to the ferocity of the conflict and its disastrous consequences for mankind.
The measure of the impact of Newman can in part be measured by his ever-growing influence in our own day. There are few men who rise above their own time and place and promise to be remembered as long as the world exists. For when the great struggle ends and the truth triumphs as it must, the men of that generation will look back and declare that Newman was the first to recognize the ideology of Liberalism, define it, and foresee its consequences.
Therefore the second part of the thesis has dealt with Newman's response to Liberalism. The reader of this work by now is familiarized with almost all the events of Newman's Anglican life seen from various viewpoints of vision, conversion, and response. Although he was clearly ahead of his time in England in his recognition of the destructive progress of Liberalism, there were other Catholic intellectuals on the European mainland in the first part of the nineteenth century who also recognized its inroads. That makes him unique, from my viewpoint, are the many forms of response that he used to combat Liberalism i.e. the totality of his response. He was a man completely engaged, above all committed to personal holiness in his occupation, that of an Anglican Clergyman and university figure.
Along with his commitment, he was a man entirely consistent in his belief and his behaviour. He devoted himself entirely to his cause, heart and mind, body and soul. He did not only preach "personal influence," but clearly practiced it through his friendships, preaching, classes, etc. One, after having examined his early life, gets the sense of a "superiority complex" i.e. he possessed the Truth and although many battles would be lost, and almost all of them were, he felt that in the long run the truth of the Faith would inevitably prevail.
In his writings he began on the life-long task of constructing an exposition of the faith that would explain the basis for belief in an increasingly skeptical nineteenth century. That this method has had some measure of success we may judge by the large following of his own day and by the fact that today more people than ever are reading and being affected by his work.
The forming of a popular religious movement based on Catholic dogmatic belief was a singular event in the nineteenth century and reflects Newman's prodigious powers. Certainly England has not experienced anything similar since the founding of the Movement in 1833 and its long-lasting impact on the British and Anglo-Saxon world.
Thus we see that Newman's response to Liberalism was based upon a never-changing, uncompromising principle. This principle was the ancient Catholic faith of England. Gradually Newman came to discover that this faith had ceased to exist in the Anglican Church. Therefore from one viewpoint, it could be argued that all of Newman's controversies, books, editorships, etc. were for naught, at least from the viewpoint of restoring the Catholic truth to the Anglican Church. However all this work was to bear fruit in later life in the thousands of converts that Newman brought to the Church, directly by his tutelage, or indirectly through his writings and example, and the constant influence that Newman enjoys in the present day among people of all religious persuasions.
We can view, then, Newman's response to his vision of Liberalism as a preparation for the continuation of the struggle during the second half of his life as a Catholic. This vision and its response, with the indispensable aid of divine grace, led him by his conversion to a port of call where he was safe from the winds of doubt. In contrast, his Anglican years had more than their share of inner turmoil and conflict regarding his own religious opinions apart from his active public life.
I would hope that further research could be done on the continuation of the war with Liberalism and the construction of a Catholic apologetic during his life after 1845. There is more than sufficient material to make the venture of interest. Another theme might also deal with the impact of his theological and apologetical thought on the documents of the Second Vatican Council. In the words of Pope Paul VI who presided over and closed the Council,
He (Newman) who was convinced of being faithful throughout his life, with all his heart devoted to the light of truth, today becomes an ever-greater beacon for all who are seeking an informed orientation and sure guidance amidst the uncertainties of the modern world – a world which he prophetically foresaw. 3
Newman's vision of Liberalism was thus commented upon by Rome. Perhaps those virtues, which best explain the foundation for his recognition and struggle against liberalism are explained by the Holy Father John Paul II.
The inspiring thought of Newman's genius, which speaks to us of deep intellectual honesty, fidelity to conscience and grace, piety and priestly zeal, devotion to Christ's Church and love of her doctrine, inconditional trust in divine providence and absolute obedience to the will of God. 4
Newman's response to Liberalism encourages us of the twentieth century to rely on the same means that he used as an Anglican: personal sanctity and the use of all legitimate instruments in religious, political, and religious life to spread the Faith and confound those who would destroy it. Only time will tell if we can encounter men such as Newman in our own age.
