Published in Milltown Studies, No 49, Summer 2002, 84-101.
ÒNewmanÕs Grammar of Assent cannot be understood apart from this tradition of the place of imagination in thoughtÓ.
Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, III (Lay styles), p. 354.
Newman on
Imagination and Faith
In
a fine book published in 2001, the Australian theologian Frank Rees devotes a
substantial chapter to NewmanÕs explorations of faith and doubt. In spite of many excellent lights, on
one point his interpretation seems quite questionable. He criticises Newman for
being excessively concerned Òwith propositional forms of assentÓ, adding that
ÒIn a relationship, one does not so much assent as participateÓ. And Rees
continues: ÒThe relational elements of trust and struggleÉ do not seem to have
a sufficient place in NewmanÕs picture of faith as assentÉ his concept is one
dimensional . . . too staticÓ.[1]
Surely, I would want to respond, Newman is one of the great Christian exemplars
of the movement of the mind, both in theory and practice. He once described the
adventure of truth as similar to Òa clamberer on a steep cliffÓ, who knows by
Òinward instinctÓ what steps to take but who remains Òunable to teach anotherÓ.[2] Besides, it is striking that one
dimension of NewmanÕs thought is never referred to by Rees. In a chapter of
nearly 60 pages the importance of imagination is never mentioned. By focussing
on this dimension here I hope to show not only how crucial it became for
NewmanÕs account of faith but how an understanding of the role he gives to
imagination exonerates him from that accusation of being merely propositional,
un-existential and static.
To make faith credible for his culture was undoubtedly the
central passion of NewmanÕs long career. He was increasingly aware that on
various fronts, ranging from intellectual to social assumptions, a new age of
widespread atheism was becoming possible for the first time in human history.
Instead of condemning everything around him or adopting the tones of
Ònon-historical orthodoxyÓ (an expression of Michael NovakÕs), he became a
frontier explorer, listening to the questions and sensibility of his time,
often capturing even stylistically the contours of that searching spirit.
Rooted in orthodoxy, he was never imprisoned in concepts. Allergic all his life
to a woolly and reductive liberalism in religion, he was also a great exponent
of liberal inquiry in education and in order to make faith ÒrealÓ in the new
moment of history. In all this passionate adventure of his thought, the idea and
reality of imagination came to have a strangely important role. It may not rank
as one of his great and constant themes, such as conscience or revelation. But
it has a vital secondary part to play in his mature thought on the credibility
of faith. His interest in ÒimaginationÓ as a human capacity is also in tune
with his introspective personality and creative talents. There are few
theologians of his time who wrote so much poetry. It is also significant that
within his first ten years as a Catholic he published two novels about
conversion, entitled Loss and Gain and Callista. In this light I will try to mention some key
characteristics of NewmanÕs apologetics concerning faith and then to show the
significance of his increasing attention to imagination in this field.
The new
cultural dangers
By way of introduction some attention should be given to
NewmanÕs reading of the dangers to faith embodied in his surrounding culture.
The first words of his first university sermon, at the age of 25, were
carefully chosen to announce a concern that was already deep in him: ÒFew
charges have been more frequently urged by unbelievers against Revealed
Religion, than that it is hostile to the advance of philosophy and scienceÓ.[3]
In this way he voices his preoccupation that the credibility of religion has
suffered a serious decline in the eyes of the leading intellectuals of his day.
He saw that this perceived opposition between the dominant rationality and the
truth of faith constituted a historically new challenge for the Christian
tradition. But even in this youthful sermon Newman goes further and in what was
to become his typical approach, he changes the agenda of debate from merely
externalist reason to personalist attitudes. He insists that the disposition
with which a person seeks religious truth is an indispensable condition for
finding it. If a spirit of neutral inquiry prevails, imitating what seems the
method of empirical science, then we will not have the proper tools for
arriving at the deeper realities of faith. Thus he discerns a crucial danger in
the dominant culture of his day. Its obsession with verification through
external evidence is not only an inadequate method for more personal and
religious fields: more psychologically and spiritually this can become a closed
and proud mentality that blocks a person from a more receptive and humble
spirit of searching. Where scientific method claims a monopoly of approaches to
truth, this results in a tragic narrowing of reason and a usurpation of
intellectual life to one of its many dimensions. Any deeper truth has to be
approached with the whole person and in a spirit of reverence. In the case of
religious truth in particular we come to receive not just to analyse, and hence
disposition is an essential component. As Newman expressed it in an early
letter to his unbelieving brother Charles, rejection of faith arises Òfrom a
fault of the heart, not of the intellectÓ. [4]
Newman feared that an
unbalanced version of rationality was becoming widespread among his
contemporaries both at the level of specialists, including theologians who
sought external ÒevidencesÓ for faith, and at the more popular level of the
assumptions of the culture. In order to counter this challenge, he sought in
various ways to enlarge the meaning of reason as a deeply personal capacity and
to defend the common sense process of reasoning used by ordinary people in
arriving at practical judgements. Throughout his career he distanced himself
from methods of non-existential thinking. He had a natural distaste for systems
or for what he called Òpaper logicÓ.[5]
Both in chapter 4 of his Apologia and
more significantly as the epigraph to the Grammar of Assent he quotes St Ambrose in somewhat sarcastic tone
against false forms of dialectic: ÒNon in dialectica complacuit Deo salvum
facere populum suumÓ. Instead of a narrow apologetics using a Òlogic of
languageÓ, NewmanÕs hope was to develop a Òmore subtle and elastic logic of
thoughtÓ.[6]
In short his answer to excessive rationalism lay in a new wavelength of personalist
communication. Both in the theory of his thought and in the practice of his
style he wanted to promote a more exploratory and more existential human logic.
Indeed his achievements in this direction have been recognised by some
celebrated unbelievers. His contemporary and novelist Thomas Hardy praised his
genuinely human logic as offering a richer wavelength than mere syllogisms. The
more recent novelist Aldous Huxley recognised that NewmanÕs psychological
analysis of thinking was the most elegant ever written in English.
The
more subtle enemy: liberalism
Rationalism
was not, however, the most dangerous enemy that Newman diagnosed in the
currents of his culture. As he said late in his life, in his ÒbigliettoÓ speech
in Rome accepting his nomination as cardinal, he had spent fifty years
resisting Òthe spirit of liberalism in religionÓ. In that speech of 1879 he
summarised liberalism as Òthe doctrine that there is no positive truth in
religion, but that one creed is as good as anotherÓ.[7]
In an appendix to his earlier work Apologia pro vita sua, he had offered a similar list of
the errors of liberalism, identifying its origin in an exaggerated trust in
reason. If Òno one can believe what he does not understandÓ, then faith is
dishonest if it cannot produce proofs.[8]
What Newman termed ÒliberalismÓ was related to rationalism but it also showed
itself in more psychological ways. It was linked with the exaltation of the
subjective and the individual which was part of European modernity but which
developed a particularly British tone because of empiricism, bourgeois culture
and the protestant ethos. Rationalism was dominant in the intellectual world
largely outside the Church but liberalism was within the gates. The fruit of
liberalism in matters of faith was to reduce non scientific truths to matters
of opinion and hence to fall into relativism. More particularly, it constituted
a temptation for apologists of Christian faith: many of them surrendered any
claim to dogmatic or objective truth and as a result presented faith as merely
a question of intuition or feeling, thus diminishing its uniqueness as grounded
in revelation and in history. Even as a young man Newman had recognised the
seriousness of this tendency. One of his Sicilian poems, written in 1833, is entitled
ÒLiberalismÓ and expresses the danger in these words:
Ye
cannot halve the Gospel of GodÕs grace;
Men
of presumptuous heart!
This short
text composed at Palermo in June 1833 attacks a reductive selectivity in faith:
the liberals, according to Newman, choose humanistic themes such as peace or
good-will and avoid the Òdread depths of graceÓ.[9]
From
a more pastoral perspective, liberalism fostered what Newman called in an early
sermon ÒThe Religion of the DayÓ. By this he meant the process whereby an
elegant civilisation could reduce Christianity to its more acceptable and
consoling aspects. This Òreligion is pleasant and easy; benevolence is the
chief virtueÓ. When the Òdarker side of the GospelÓ is ignored, austerity and
mystery are forgotten, and genuine faith is no longer possible.[10]
Years later in his Grammar of Assent, Newman again returned to this danger, seeing it as a
perversion of natural religion. Authentic religion, even prior to the encounter
with revelation, is rooted in conscience and reverence, but Òthe religion of
so-called civilizationÓ develops from a Òone-sided progress of mindÓ rather
than from the whole person.[11]
As we will see, it was a feature of NewmanÕs defence of faith to be
existentially holistic and along this road he gradually recognised the crucial
role of imagination.
Centrality
of conscience
Before coming to the topic of imagination, two of NewmanÕs
pillars of thought about faith deserve mention – the role of conscience
and the argument from probability.
Undoubtedly the constant foundation of NewmanÕs approach to
faith lies in his emphasis on conscience and this is rooted in his typical
trust in self-experience rather than in outer avenues of verification. Eloquent
evocations of conscience occur throughout NewmanÕs writings. To enter into this
theme let us quote, at some length, one of his lesser known texts, his novel Callista, published in 1855. This tells the
story of a culturally sophisticated Greek girl living in North Africa in the
third century and of her gradual discovery of Christian faith. At one stage
when Callista has become aware of her Òinner GuideÓ but has not yet encountered
the Word of the Gospel, she expresses her discovery of conscience in a
conversation with a distinguished pagan philosopher who believes in an Òeternal
self-existing somethingÓ:
ÒI feel that God
within my heart. I feel myself in His presence. He says to me, ÔDo this; donÕt
do thatÕ. You may tell me that this dictate is a mere law of my nature, as to
joy or to grieve. I cannot understand this. No, it is the echo of a person
speaking to me. Nothing shall persuade me that it does not ultimately proceed
from a person external to me. It carries with it its proof of its divine
origin. My nature feels towards it as towards a person. . . I believe in what
is more than a mere Ôsomething.Õ I believe in what is more real to me than sun,
moon, stars, and the fair earth, and the voice of friends. You will say, Who is
He? Has He ever told you anything about Himself? Alas! no! – the moreÕs
the pity. But I will not give up what I have, because I have not more. An echo
implies a voice; a voice a speaker. That speaker I love and I fear.Ó[12]
This
magnificent passage sums up NewmanÕs sense of a threshold between natural and
revealed religion. It also indicates his deep respect for conscience as the
core and climax of natural religion and hence as having a crucial role in his
apologetics of faith. It is worth recalling at this point that Newman had his
basic intellectual formation outside Catholicism and was therefore unacquainted
with the rather narrow logic of scholastic proofs for the existence of God that
were dominant at that period. By temperament and by his inherited religious
culture he prefers another road towards faith and one where conscience plays a
central role. Indeed in the Apologia he openly states that he found traditional proofs of God
from the order of the universe unconvincing because what he saw around him was
tragedy, conflict and the triumph of evil:
The world seems simply to give the lie to that great truth,
of which my whole being is so full. . . Were it not for this voice, speaking so
clearly in my conscience and my heart, I should be an atheist, or a pantheist,
or a polytheist when I looked into the world. I am speaking for myself only;
and I am far from denying the real force of the arguments in proof of a God,
drawn from the general facts of human society and the course of history, but
these do not warm me or enlighten me; they do not take away the winter of my
desolation . . . [13]
NewmanÕs tendency is to stress the informal logic of
personal searching and to see conscience as the principal connection point
between humanity and God. When he speaks of Òfirst principlesÓ, as he does
frequently in his exposition of the journey towards faith, what he has in mind
are not Aristotelian principles of logic but the whole zone of interiority and
of disposition of which the experience of conscience was for him a principal
manifestation. His Ófirst principlesÓ are close to what contemporary theologians
call fundamental option. In this way Newman creates his own particular version
of a moral argument for faith, with its focus on the subjective moral quality
of the person and on the objectivity of oneÕs experience of conscience.
The
argument from probability
If
Newman gives a unique priority to the role of conscience, the other great
pillar of his defence of faith lies in the notion of probability. From his
reading of Bishop Joseph ButlerÕs classic book of 1736, The Analogy of
Religion, he
learned Òthat Probability is the guide of lifeÓ.[14]
However he gives his own more psychological and spiritual interpretation to
this theme. Thus he often speaks of Òantecedent probabilitiesÓ and these refer
not to the evidence for God in the data of the world but usually to the quality
of moral disposition in the person searching for meaning. In other words
Òantecedent probabilitiesÓ are within the subject and are born from those
attitudinal Òfirst principlesÓ that have just been mentioned. Whether or not a
person arrives at the surrender of faith depends greatly, in NewmanÕs view, on
non-rational components such as disposition and attention to the inner presence
of conscience. It is these spiritual antecedents that make faith ÒprobableÓ.
In
another and more external sense, Newman also argues that faith is grounded in a
logic of probabilities. He is quite blunt in admitting that there is no one and
utterly conclusive argument that leads to faith. Instead there are several
converging roads which lead the person to a judgement which in turn has a
quality of certitude. What is notable here again is the subtle balance between
subjective and objective components in NewmanÕs thought. He has sometimes been
misinterpreted as suggesting that the truth of faith is only probable and not
certain. This stems from confusing the accumulation of probabilities on the
level of evidence for faith and the quite different level of certitude that is
born from Òreal assentÓ or the act of judgement of this converging evidence.
The personal journey of the mind towards certitude is similar, he once
remarked, to the fact that the strands of a rope, when bound together, are much
stronger than any one strand taken on its own: a cable Òis made up of a number
of separate threads, each feeble, yet together as sufficient as an iron rodÓ.[15]
Newman was what could be called a convergence thinker, someone who wanted to do
justice to the non-linear process of the personal quest for truth.
Positive
recognition of imagination
In
his earlier writings most of NewmanÕs references to imagination were either
negative or at least cautious: in line with many of the Fathers he viewed
imagination as a source of potential deception. Thus in one of his university
sermons of 1832 he identified the evil world as showing its power Ònot merely
by appealing to our reason, or exciting our passions, but by imposing on our
imaginationÓ.[16]
Imagination, in this sense, is the whole perceptive capacity of humanity, which
can easily be attacked and damaged by superficiality or by distorted images.
More than once he commented that the zone of imagination was a source of
fragility for faith, and that it was a more crucial battleground than that of
reason. In his more autobiographical writings he recognised that his
imagination had been ÒstainedÓ in his youth by the idea that the Pope was the
Antichrist.[17] He added
that image remained with him up to two years before his conversion, in other
words well after intellectually he had begun to consider the Catholic Church as
true. However the very next paragraph of the Apologia offers a more positive
illustration of the lasting effects of imagination: at the age of 15 Òanother
deep imagination . . . took
possession of meÓ – that it was GodÕs will that he remain celibate. In
yet another revealing moment in his Apologia, he comments that when his
confidence in the authenticity of the Anglican Church was shaken, ÒI determined
to be guided, not by my imagination, but by my reasonÓ. And he adds an
intriguing comment: ÒHad it not been for this severe resolve, I should have
been a Catholic soon than I wasÓ.[18]
Concerning this last sentence one interpreter has suggested that Newman later
came to regret his slowness to trust the more affective dimension represented
by imagination.[19]
Of
the many passages dealing with imagination in a positive way in the Grammar, one of the most notable had been
written nearly thirty years earlier. In 1841 Newman published a series of
brilliantly satiric letters against the suggestion of Sir Robert Peel that the
fruits of religion could now be acquired through education in literature and
science. This idea offended NewmanÕs basic anthropology and above all his sense
of the uniqueness of religious truth. In 1870 he quotes several pages of his
Tamworth Reading Room text to conclude chapter 4 of the Grammar. In particular he vehemently
defends his own view of man as more than a Òreasoning animalÓ in a merely
logical or scientific sense. Human beings are made for action and moved by
feeling, and in this context he says: Òthe heart is commonly reached, not
through the reason, but through the imaginationÓ.[20]
Over the years, then, we can observe Newman coming to
recognise a much more exploratory and positive role for imagination. He did not
abandon his view of imagination as a source of trouble for faith. In a letter
of his old age, written to Miss Bowles in 1882, he envisaged an epidemic of
unbelief Ònot spread by reason, but by the imaginationÓ. Imagination, he added,
Òpresents a possible plausible view of things which haunts and at length
overcomes the mindÓ.[21]
However if imagination was a potential source of vulnerability, it could also
become a source of nourishment for faith. In his preparatory notebooks of the
late fifties and sixties, and then in the text of the Grammar, this more nuanced interpretation
emerges strongly. In 1857 he jotted down a fascinating distinction in his
notebook:
A good instance of the difference between imagination and
reason is this – that I feel no fear of reading a book like M. ComteÕs
though said to be atheistical, though I have an anxiety about looking into
StraussÕs Life of Christ.[22]
ComteÕs
intellectual assault on the history of religion, Newman implies, remained on a
merely external level, but the more disturbing features of StraussÕs work could
undermine his deep-felt image of Jesus. Some time later in the same journal he
remarked that Òimagination, not reason, is the great enemy to faithÓ.[23]
However as the years went on he realised that properly understood imagination
could be one of the most essential and powerful allies for faith. In 1865 he
wrote that Òcertitude does not come under the reasoning faculty, but under the
imaginationÓ.[24] This
insight was deepened and developed in the five years that led to the Grammar
of Assent, as he
gradually came to realise that imagination was not just fruitful for religious
motivation, stirring the affections towards decision and action. It could play
would have a crucial role also in his epistemology of certainty.
Key role of
imagination in the Grammar
Now
that all the major texts of Newman are available on the ÒwebÓ, it is easier
than before to check the frequency of various terms.[25]
Thus the words ÒimaginationÓ and ÒimageÓ are found over a hundred times in the
last two chapters of the first part of the Grammar of Assent. This is where Newman introduces
his central idea of Òreal assentÓ, an expression which, as will be seen, was
intgerchangeable with Òimaginative assentÓ in NewmanÕs usage. In the early
chapters of the Grammar, Newman stresses the link between images and
experiences: they open the door to dimensions that are concrete, ÒpersonalÓ and ÒrealÓ in a way that
abstractions never can (55).[26]
For assent to be real, as distinct from notional, requires that truth must be
Òdiscerned, rested in, and appropriated as a reality, by the religious
imaginationÓ (98). In the following chapter Newman speaks of Òthe theology of a
religious imaginationÓ as capable of having a Òliving hold on truthsÓ because
people find that truths about God Òlive in their imaginationÓ (117).
Increasingly he uses the term imagination as a keystone of his religious
epistemology. When the imagination is not ÒkindledÓ, belief remains notional
(126). Just as Òimages and their experiences strike and occupy the mindÓ (37)
at the outset of the process of knowledge, later on imagination is seen to
serve two other functions in the development of faith: it nourishes Òour
emotional and moral natureÓ and in turn it becomes Òa principle of actionÓ
(214).
Thus
what starts as a link of the mind with concrete experience becomes a crucial
element in reaching and motivating the heartÕs decision, and finally a source
of commitment or action. Imagination, in other words, is both synthetic and
evocative, capable of interpreting the data of experience and of stimulating
decision.[27] NewmanÕs
new epistemology of imagination sees it as a vital means of experiencing the
real and hence of ÒrealisingÓ religious reality in the ordinary adventure of
faith. The final page of the Grammar mentions intellect and imagination together
in a way that beautifully symbolises the new prominence of imagination in
NewmanÕs thought and its equal importance with intellect in his apologetics of
faith. Christianity addresses people Òboth through the intellect and through
the imaginationÓ and in this way it arrives at its own special certitude
through arguments Òtoo personal and deep for wordsÓ (492).
Commentators
on Newman concerning imagination
Although
the role of imagination in NewmanÕs theology of faith is one that is sometimes
avoided by those who do not recognise the more exploratory sides of his
thought, in recent decades several specialist studies in English have been
devoted to this theme. Twenty years ago the British scholar John Coulson
published his influential book, Religion and Imagination: Ôin aid of a
grammar of assentÕ,[28]
which devotes a substantial chapter to Newman. His fundamental thesis is that
verification of religious belief depends upon Òits first being made credible to
imaginationÓ, because Òwhat is credible is what becomes real to imaginationÓ.[29]
Coulson goes on to show that Newman had originally chosen the expression
Òimaginative assentÓ and, seemingly because of the danger of being
misunderstood, changed this to Òreal assentÓ in the course of preparing his
manuscript. Even in todayÕs world there are still many who confuse
ÒimaginativeÓ and ÒimaginaryÓ. In the text of the Grammar as we have it, there are occasions
when the older phrase survives: ÒI have wished to trace the process by which
the mind arrives, not only at a notional, but at an imaginative or real
assentÓ. [30] Even before
going into detail on NewmanÕs view of imagination, it is obvious that it is
practically a synonym for ÒrealÓ, which was his strong term of praise for
whatever was deep, concrete, personal and lived – in other words a
necessary characteristic of genuine religious faith.
In 1986 Robert Holyer underlined that real apprehension for
Newman was marked by Òimaginative self-involvementÓ and that an imaginative
grasp of religious realities is capable of producing a deeper level of
conviction and a more powerful sense of divine presence.[31]
But is this simply a matter of motivation? Has imagination only a pastoral
usefulness? Or can it be seen as central to a theology of faith? In 1988 David
Hammond began publishing a series of articles on these issues. In his view
imagination for Newman constituted the Òlink between the affective dimension of
the knower and objects of knowledgeÓ.[32]
More concretely, the imagination organizes experience into a meaningful whole
and as such is a dynamic element in the capacity to grasp certainty that Newman
called Òthe illative senseÓ. Moreover, NewmanÕs Òsensitivity to the imaginative
character of religious experienceÓ links up with his desire to heal the divorce
between spirituality and theology.[33]
His own long search for religious truth had been marked by a double loyalty, to
his sharp mind and to his deep imagination: he remained a man of intellectual
and Òaffective honestyÓ.[34]
A whole chapter in Terrence MerriganÕs important book on
Newman was entitled ÒThe ImaginationÓ. He sees this human power as having a
double function – as both ÒrealizingÓ and ÒprehendingÓ. The latter has to
do with the capacity of conscience to perceive God but it is the former sense
that emerges strongly in the first half of the Grammar of Assent. Merrigan considers that these
explorations about imaginationÕs capacity to evoke and make faith real,
although Òsomewhat inchoateÓ reveal Newman as Òfeeling his way towards an
ever-deeper appreciation of the imaginationÕs role in cognitionÓ.[35]
It can awaken a personÕs dispositions and focus the mind on a concrete personal
call.
Another
Newman expert, Gerard Magill, has published two articles on his theory of
imagination. Like Coulson and Merrigan he insists that the words ÒrealÓ and
ÒimaginationÓ became interchangeable terms in the Grammar. In MagillÕs view, Òcognitive
perception is the main function of imaginationÓ, because of the holistic
capacity of imagination to unite an Òexperiential synthesisÓ of the data and to
link this with human feelings.[36]
One of the intuitions found in NewmanÕs notebooks for 1865 provides strong
support for this interpretation. ÒCertitude then does not come under the
reasoning faculty; but under the imaginationÓ.[37]
In a further article Magill proposes that Newman saw the imagination as an
Òinstrument for reason discernmentÓ, as Òcreative and mediating rolesÓ,
anticipating and then interpreting the convergence of data that point towards
certainty.[38]
More
recent articles have argued that Newman is a prophetic figure in his connecting
of theology and imagination. Even if he did not explicitly describe faith as a
form of imagination (as some more contemporary writers do, such as William
Lynch), he anticipates much of later thinking in this field. For M. Jamie
Ferreira the role Newman gives to Òimagination in achieving religious certitude
is expressed in terms of a reorienting visionÓ, and she adds that his Ògrammar
of the heart is a grammar of imaginationÓ. The imagination, in other words, is
crucial in forming the Òactive recognitionÓ (NewmanÕs own expression) that
leads to faith and conversion.[39]
Stephen Fields adds that NewmanÕs celebrated distinction between notional and
real assent depends Òon the quality of the imagination involvedÓ: it is through
the strengthening power of the imagination that the mind moves from the
notional to the existential and real.[40]
Similarly Paul Knitter holds that in NewmanÕs view Òyou cannot understand the
commitment of faith without understanding the role of the religious
imagination in the
genesis of faithÓ, and he has applied this to the field of inter-religious
dialogue.[41]
Conclusion
Many
books and articles have been published on NewmanÕs life-long commitment to a
new apologetics of faith. His writings remain a rich minefield to be explored
further. This essay has stressed the need to include his suggestions on
imagination as an integral element in his approach to faith and to its
communication within the culture. If this dimension is neglected, there is a
danger of making Newman too conceptual and clear, less original and tentative
than he was in reality. He discerned intuitively that the religious crisis of
his time lay more in the realm of imagination than of ideas alone. Although
initially he tended to see imagination as a zone of danger, gradually he came
to recognise it as a vital and positive component in the birth of faith. This
emergence of imagination in his thought points in two directions. It highlights
the existential reality that is faith in practice. Imagination in this sense is
a vehicle of definiteness, worthy both of the Incarnation and of the drama of
human decision. But imagination is also an indicator of the deeply personal and
of realms of human exploration that do not easily lend themselves to analysis.
In the way imagination is a zone of trans-rational and intuitive logic. Putting
the two dimensions together we can say that imagination does justice both to
the objective and historical definiteness of Incarnation and also to the more
subjective and interior roads of our searching that lead us to the yes of
faith.
One
final suggestion. It is well known that Cardinal NewmanÕs memorial stone in the
Birmingham Oratory carries words composed by himself: Ex umbris et
imaginibus in veritatem. The obvious interpretation of this would be – out of unreality
into reality, or, from mere shadows and mere images into the fullness of truth.
In the light of the more positive role of imagination outlined in these pages,
the implication of ÒmereÓ should be questioned. Possibly those Latin words can
be freely but fruitfully paraphrased in a second sense: in the dark drama of
this life we cannot arrive at the truth of faith without the necessary help of
images and of imagination.
[1] Frank D. Rees, Wrestling with Doubt: Theological Reflections on the Journey of Faith, Liturgical Press, Collegeville, 2001, p. 39.
[2] Fifteen Sermons Preached before the University of Oxford, Rivingtons, London, 1880, ÒExplicit and Implicit ReasonÓ, paragraph 7.
[3] Ibid., p. 1.
[4] The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, ed. Charles S. Dessain et al., Vol. I, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1978, p. 219. We have explored these themes in an article earlier this year: ÒNewman: sulla disposizione per la fedeÓ, La Civiltˆ Cattolica, 2001 I 452-463.
[5] Apologia Pro Vita Sua, ed. A. Dwight Culler, Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1956, p. 169.
[6] An Essay in aid of A Grammar of Assent, Longmans, Green, London, 1909, p. 359. Later abbreviated to GA.
[7] Quoted in Ian Ker, John Henry Newman: a biography, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988, pp. 720-721.
[8] Apologia. p. 275.
[9] John Henry Newman, Prayers, Verse and Devotions, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1989, p. 563.
[10] J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1997, pp. 198-207. Quotations from pp. 199-200.
[11] GA, p. 396.
[12] Callista: a Sketch of the Third Century, Universe Books edition, Burns and Oates, London, 1962, p. 174.
[13] Apologia, p. 229-230.
[14] Ibid., p. 31.
[15] A letter of 1864 quoted in Wilfred Ward, The Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman, Longmans Green, London, 1912, Vol. 2, p. 43.
[16] Fifteen Sermons, p. 122.
[17] Apologia, p. 27.
[18] Ibid., p. 126.
[19] David M. Hammond, ÒAffectivity, Imagination, and Intellect in NewmanÕs ApologiaÓ, Thought 67 (1992), 271-286. See p. 277.
[20] GA, p. 92
[21] Letters and Diaries, Vol. 30, 1976, p. 102.
[22] The Theological Papers of John Henry Newman on Faith and Certainty, ed. J. Derek Holmes, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1976, p. 46.
[23] Ibid., p. 47.
[24] Ibid., p. 126.
[25] See www.newmanreader.org
[26] In these two paragraphs page references to the Grammar of Assent are given in parenthesis in the text.
[27] This sentence is indebted to Terrence MerriganÕs lecture on ÒNewman on faith in the TrinityÓ, delivered at the Oxford International Newman Conference in August 2001.
[28] John Coulson, Religion and Imagination: Ôin aid of a grammar of assentÕ, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1981.
[29] Ibid., pp. 46, 58.
[30] GA, p. 119.
[31] Robert Holyer, ÒReligious Certainty and the Imagination: an interpretation of J. H. NewmanÓ, The Thomist 50 (1986), 395-416. Quotation from p. 405.
[32] David M. Hammond, ÒImagination in NewmanÕs Phenomenology of CognitionÓ, Heythrop Journal 29 (1988), 21-33. Quotation from p. 23.
[33] David Hammond, ÒImagination and Hermeneutical Theology: NewmanÕs Contribution to Theological MethodÓ, The Downside Review 106 (1988), 17-33. Quotation from p. 17.
[34] Hammond, art. cit., Thought (1992), 285.
[35] Terrence Merrigan, Clear Heads and Holy Hearts: The Religious and Theological Ideal of John Henry Newman, Peeters Press, Louvain, 1991, p. 50.
[36] Gerard Magill, ÒImaginative Moral Discernment: Newman on the Tension between Reason and ReligionÓ, Heythrop Journal 33 (1991) 493-510. Quotations from p. 497.
[37] Quoted by Magill, p. 498.
[38] Gerard Magill, ÒMoral Imagination in Theological Method and Church Tradition: John Henry NewmanÓ, Theological Studies 53 (1992), 451-475. Quotations from pp. 451, 461.
[39] M. Jamie Ferreira, ÒThe Grammar of the Heart: Newman on Faith and ImaginationÓ in Discourse and Context: an interdisciplinary study of John Henry Newman, ed. Gerard Magill, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 1993, 129-143. Quotations from 129, 131, 141.
[40] Stephen Fields, ÒImage and Truth in NewmanÕs Moral Argument for GodÓ, Louvain Studies 24 (1999), 191-210. Quotation from p. 197.
[41] Paul F. Knitter, ÒCommitment to One – Openness to Others: A Challenge for ChristiansÓ, Horizons 28 (2001), 256.