John Henry Newman, Doctrinal Development, and the Canonical Status of the Theologian in the Church

Abstract

The 19^th century British theologian John Henry Newman (1801-1890) proposed a theology of the development of doctrine as proof that the Catholic faith was free from corruption and error. In early works such as Arians of the Fourth Century (1833) and Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church (1837), Newman presented doctrinal development as the interplay of private judgment, public discourse, and ecclesial indefectibility. This interplay allowed theologians to draw out from revealed truth elements of the faith that were previously only implicitly recognized. After his reception into the Catholic Church in 1845, Newman’s An Essay of the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845) and On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine (1859) illustrated how private judgment and public discussion safeguarded doctrinal truth, with theological investigations becoming more nuanced and refined in the process. Finally, Newman’s later works such as A Letter Addressed to His Grace the Duke of Norfolk (1875) and his third edition of Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church (1877), asserted that the dogma of papal infallibility, newly defined in 1870 by the First Vatican Council, did not stifle doctrinal development or the work of the theologian in that development, but catalyzed them.

It is clear, therefore, that throughout his writings Newman held fast to a view he first proposed in 1837, in that “the Church is declared to be the great and special support of the Truth, her various functionaries are said to be means towards the settlement of diversities and of uncertainty of doctrine, and securing unity of faith” (Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church). For Newman, these “various functionaries” included not only apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors, but also teachers. He thereby granted theologians a role in securing the unity of faith.

On the centenary of Newman’s death, in 1990, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger wrote the following: “In the idea of ‘development’ Newman had written of his own experience of a never finished conversion and interpreted for us, not only the way of Christian doctrine, but that of the Christian life.” More recently, Pope Francis in his 2019 Christmas Greetings to the Roman Curia referenced the famous passage from Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine that “Here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.” Pope Francis continued his reflection on Newman’s thought by stating, “Naturally, he is not speaking about changing for change’s sake, or following every new fashion, but rather about the conviction that development and growth are a normal part of human life, even as believers we know that God remains the unchanging centre of all things. For Newman change was conversion, in other words, interior transformation.” It was in that light that Francis offered his understanding of the reformation of the Roman Curia as “a need to respect history in order to build a future that has solid roots and can thus prove fruitful. Appealing to memory is not the same as being anchored in self-preservation, but instead to evoke the life and vitality of an ongoing process. Memory is not static, but dynamic. By its very nature, it implies movement.”

Contemporary scholarship has produced numerous works on the development of doctrine in Newman (cf. Avery Dulles, John Ford, Nicholas Lash, Terrence Merrigan, and Jan Henrik Walgrave), with the works of Ian Ker deserving particular attention. There has been little scholarship, however, on how Newman’s thoughts on doctrinal development can influence current canon law or Church governance. By offering a systematic analysis of Newman’s concept of development and current canonical practice, while examining the hitherto underexplored links between the two, this dissertation proposes a new model for integrating doctrinal development and canon law in the life of the Church.