John Henry Newman,Infallibility, and the Development of Christian Doctrine

This essay charts the parallel growth of Newman's theory of doctrinal development, and infallibility within that doctrinal development, with its author's movement from a via media in Anglicanism to recognition of the truth in the Roman Church. This essay analyzes the theological need for a theory of doctrinal development, the failure of Newman's via media project, and his role as a creative theologian. Then this essay examines in detailed Newman's 1845 Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, looking specifically at the second section of the second chapter, ‘On the Probability of a Developing Authority in Christianity.’ The main body of the paper treats the expansion of the scope and feasibility of infallibility in Newman's 1845 Essay.     

Alfred Loisy's Developmental Approach to Scripture: Reading the ‘Firmin’ Articles in the Context of Nineteenth‐ and Twentieth‐Century Historical Biblical Criticism

Alfred Loisy's ‘Firmin’ articles applied John Henry Newman's concept of development of doctrine within church history to the Bible. In doing this, Loisy was attempting to convince his Catholic audience to appropriate the historical critical method within Catholic biblical interpretation. Loisy attempted to explain the notion of development within the Bible, which had become commonplace among the Protestant historical critical scholarship of the time, in light of Newman's concept of the development of doctrine within history.     

John Henry Newman: Bernard Lonergan's ‘Fundamental Mentor and Guide’

Abstract: Reason has reasons of which ‘reason’ knows nothing. It was this essential insight, along with the methodological prioritisation of a phenomenology of cognition and the recognition of the epistemological distinctiveness of judgment, that a young Bernard Lonergan gleaned from his study of John Henry Newman's Grammar of Assent. Given that the ‘later’, post-Insight (1953) Lonergan enacted a more explicit transposition of his thought into a hermeneutical and existential framework, one might be tempted to assume that this coincided with a drift away from his tutelage under the nineteenth-century Englishman. Indeed, an examination of the secondary literature detailing their relationship would suggest as much. Yet, in the hope of contributing to the regrettably sparse Newman-Lonergan scholarship and proposing a modest recalibration therein, I argue that the more existential, hermeneutical, and committed to the philosophical turn to concrete socio-historical subjectivity Lonergan grew, the more fruit his early Newmanian formation bore. By analysing Newman's proto-Lonerganian anticipations in the areas of self-appropriation, conversion, the relationship of subjectivity to objectivity, and the hermeneutical nature of consciousness, I will contend that Newman—a presciently continental mind writing as one untimely born into an analytical milieu—was the wellspring from which Lonergan never ceased to draw.     

Does John Henry Newman Have a Theo‐Drama?

The essay surveys Newman's work in literary drama, from an early essay on Aristotle's Poetics to his adaptation of Roman comedies for production at the Oratory School, in order to approach his affinities with Hans Urs von Balthasar's theological dramatic theory. Newman does not find a Balthasarian theo‐drama via literary drama – perhaps because he was not properly exposed to medieval religious drama – but scattered dramatic analogies in his history writing suggest that he undertakes a theo‐drama in that genre. Von Balthasar and Newman employ dramatic analogies to reject chiliastic apocalyptic and foster ‘keromatic’ apocalyptic.     

R. B. Cattell: An Integration of Psychology and Ethics

Cattell has sought continually to bring psychology into dialogue with ethics. In the space available for this essay it is impossible to adequately review all of this work. The aim is to provide a brief overview by, first, discussing how Cattell has included morals and values in his theory of personality, and second, describing some features of his ideas for improving ethical reasoning and ethical systems. I will close w"ith some evaluative comments of Cattell's integration of psychology and ethics.     

Relation-Centred Ethics in Confucius and Aquinas

In recent years, it has become a popular trend for the scholars in comparative philosophy to interpret Confucian moral theory by means of Aristotelian virtue ethics. However, this interpretation overlooks the relation-centred characteristics of Confucian ethics that is lacking in Aristotelian ethics. In this article, I will argue that there is relation-based ethics in the Western tradition—the ethics of Thomas Aquinas. By examining Aquinas's theory of love, I will show the relational characteristics of his ethics. I will use Aquinas's theory of love to interpret three important points of Confucian ethics: filial reverence and material support are both integral parts of xiao孝 (filial piety); the importance of remonstration for xiao; and the symmetrical features of Confucius's virtues.     

Newman's Forensic Classic of Development: Its Uniqueness and Its Agon with Gibbon and Surrogates

In this article I argue for the uniqueness of The Development of Doctrine vis‐à‐vis other classic texts on doctrinal development supplied by the German theologians J.S. Drey and J.A. Möhler. Whereas the accounts of the German theologians are ‘theological’ in the strict sense, Newman's is theological only indirectly and forensic in its primary construction and execution. By ‘forensic’ I mean that the bulk of his reasoning is argumentative and intends to clear a space for thinking plausibly of the development of doctrine given other assumptions in the secular imaginary. While I make plain that in his classic text Newman is taking issue with the barriers against the idea of development from a number of religious constituencies, I suggest that in the end the enemy of enemies are religious rationalists, especially those with a historical sense largely derived from reading Edward Gibbon. Although The Development of Doctrine is an extraordinary text in so many ways, it comes to life when one understands it as Newman doing battle with Gibbon over the proper historiography of Christianity over the ages.     

Wittgenstein and Objectivity in Ethics: A Reply to Brandhorst

In “Correspondence to Reality in Ethics”, Mario Brandhorst examines the view of ethics that Wittgenstein took in his later years. According to Brandhorst, Wittgenstein leaves room for truth and falsity, facts, correspondence and reality in ethics. Wittgenstein's target, argues Brandhorst, is objectivity. I argue (i) that Brandhorst's arguments in favour of truth, facts, reality and correspondence in ethics invite similar arguments in favour of objectivity, (ii) that Brandhorst does not recognise this because his conception of objectivity is distorted by a Platonist picture and (iii) that he misinterprets the passage which he takes to support a Wittgensteinian case against objectivity.     

Formative and Transformative

This review essay discusses the significance of Charles Curran's contribution to the field of Catholic theological ethics. I suggest that Curran's theological voice is a distinct and important one, that his preoccupations mirror major concerns in moral theology, and that his approach has been shaped through his long‐standing ecumenical and interdisciplinary commitments. I consider four recent monographs and analyze Curran's impact under the headings of (1) the nature of moral theology; (2) the ecclesial shape of moral theology; (3) the (historical) contexts of moral theology; and (4) the (social) character of moral theology. I note that Curran's primary concern has been to honor the richness of the Catholic moral tradition, and that the range and depth of his work is unrivalled in contemporary Catholic moral theology. I conclude by suggesting that Curran's contribution to the discipline of moral theology has been both formative and transformative.     

‘THEY KNOW HIM BY HIS VOICE’: NEWMAN ON THE IMAGINATION,CHRISTOLOGY, AND THE THEOLOGY OF RELIGIONS

Newman's gift to Catholic theology is the gift of ‘wisdom’: an ability to discern the shape of the whole, not by way of ‘generalized laws or metaphysical conjectures’ but through the ‘concrete’ and ‘living’ soil of the religious imagination. Newman's elemental trust in the religious sensibilities of non‐Christians and the revelatory roots of ‘natural religion’ proceeds from his view of the religious imagination as the experiential, pre‐verbal, and pre‐conceptual realm of contact between God and human persons always and everywhere. Above all Newman recognizes the salvific character of a life of personal holiness. In this respect the life of Christ exemplifies continuity and not radical interruption with countless human beings outside our usual ken who quietly lead lives of sacramental holiness. Bringing Newman into dialogue with contemporary theologians such as Jacques Dupuis, Roger Haight, Terrence Merrigan, and Thomas Merton, the author proposes four lessons for a theology of religions cast ‘under the light of Wisdom’.     

READING HAUERWAS IN THE CORNBELT: The Demise of the American Dream and the Return of Liturgical Politics

In this paper I examine criticism of Hauerwas's critique of American democracy and liberalism, and of American violence and war, as sectarian and politically irrelevant. This twin account has the merit of engaging his critics from left and right. I show that his critique of American Christians, and their support of America's ways of promoting justice and freedom at home and in the world, has analogies with Foucault's genealogical project in France, and represents a more powerful critique of American imperialism and militarism, and of a compliant church, than efforts to sustain the purchase of rights talk or liberal justice in contemporary theological ethics.     

Foucault and ethical universality

Foucault's resistance to a universalist ethics, especially in his later writings, is well-known. Foucault thinks that ethical universalism presupposes a shared human essence, and that this presupposition makes it a straitjacket, an attempt to force people to conform to an externally imposed 'pattern'. Foucault's hostility may be warranted for one - perhaps the usual - conception of ethical universality. But there are other conceptions of ethical universality that are not vulnerable to Foucault's criticism, and that are ethically and culturally important. I set out one such conception, and show why it matters. Paul Patton has argued that Foucault is best read as grounding his analyses of power in a 'conception of human being' traceable to Nietzsche. I explain why this does not amount to the ethical universalism that I sketch below.     

Hutchesonian Inspired Agent‐Based Virtue Ethics

Francis Hutcheson's moral sense theory is the inspiration for both act utilitarianism and a contemporary virtue ethics approach that Michael Slote calls agent‐based virtue ethics. In this essay, I look at other possibilities for ethical theory that spring from Hutcheson's writings and conclude that the landscape of sentimentalist inspired ethics is richer than many realize. I begin this article with a short explanation of Hutcheson's moral sense theory. I explain that Hutcheson proposes and embraces three distinct criteria of moral evaluation, one of which is concerned with the evaluation of motives and two of which are concerned with the evaluation of acts. Act utilitarianism adopts one of the criteria of act evaluation, and Slote's agent‐based virtue ethics adopts the remaining criterion of act evaluation and the criterion of motive evaluation. Then, after pointing out what I believe are shortcomings of Slote's agent‐based virtue ethics, I propose two Hutchesonian inspired theories, each of which is a compromise between act utilitarianism and agent‐based virtue ethics. The first, which I call hypothetical agent‐based virtue ethics, adopts two of Hutcheson's three criteria and is similar structurally to a virtue ethics theory articulated by Rosalind Hursthouse and Linda Zabzebski. The second, which, for lack of a better name, I call Hutchesonian hybridism, adopts all three of Hutcheson's criteria and is a hybrid combination of Slote's actualist agent‐based virtue ethics and hypothetical agent‐based virtue ethics. I argue that both hypothetical agent‐based virtue ethics and Hutchesonian hybridism overcome the shortcomings (pointed out earlier in this essay) of Slote's actualist agent‐based virtue ethics, and that both of these theories are, therefore, worthy of further consideration.     

Hailing Zenobia: Anti‐Judaism,trinitarianism, and John Henry Newman

John Henry Newman's early nineteenth‐century monograph The Arians of the Fourth Century iterates and intensifies the anti‐Jewish rhetoric already conveyed by the Nicene trinitarian theology inaugurated by Athanasius of Alexandria in the fourth century. Invoking philosopher Judith Butler's analysis of the performative power of ‘hate speech’ not only to injure, but also to interpellate subjects who may be heard to ‘talk back’, the present article seeks to surface the subversive potentialities contained not only within Newman's text (read in its immediate historical context), but also within trinitarian discourse more generally. Zenobia, third‐century ruler of Palmyra, reviled by Newman as both a ‘Judaizer’ and an ancestor of ‘Arianism’ (i.e. anti‐trinitarian theology), serves in this article (as in Newman's text) as the privileged figure for an interpellated subject, at once ‘Jewish’ and ‘feminine’ (thus seductively ‘oriental'), that may be heard to give voice to the ‘insurrectionary’ counter‐speech harbored within the very discourse of Christian orthodoxy that seeks to suppress it.     

I. Kant after Virtue 1

Maclntyre's refurbishing of Aristotelian ethics aims to restore both intelligibility and rationality to moral discourse. In After Virtue he concentrates on showing how intelligible action requires that lives be led within institutional and cultural traditions. But he does not offer a developed account of practical reason which could provide grounds for seeking some rather than other intelligible continuations of lives and traditions. Despite Maclntyre's criticisms of Kant's ethics, a Kantian account of practical reasoning may complement his account of intelligibility. An appropriate interpretation of Kantian ethics is outlined, which escapes Maclntyre's criticisms, allows both for the universal character of basic moral principles and for the historical variability of intelligible action, and which makes moral worth or virtue the centre of the moral life. The refurbishing of Aristotelian ethics may be achieved by a Kantian completion.     

What's Aristotelian about neo‐Aristotelian Virtue Ethics?

It is commonly assumed that Aristotle's ethical theory shares deep structural similarities with neo‐Aristotelian virtue ethics. I argue that this assumption is a mistake, and that Aristotle's ethical theory is both importantly distinct from the theories his work has inspired, and independently compelling. I take neo‐Aristotelian virtue ethics to be characterized by two central commitments: (i) virtues of character are defined as traits that reliably promote an agent's own flourishing, and (ii) virtuous actions are defined as the sorts of actions a virtuous agent reliably performs under the relevant circumstances. I argue that neither of these commitments are features of Aristotle's own view, and I sketch an alternative explanation for the relationship between virtue and happiness in the Nicomachean Ethics. Although, on the interpretation I defend, we do not find in Aristotle a distinctive normative theory alongside deontology and consequentialism, what we do find is a way of thinking about how prudential and moral reasons can come to be aligned through a certain conception of practical agency.     

Newman and Quasi-Fideism: A Reply to Duncan Pritchard

Abstract: In recent years, Duncan Pritchard has developed a position in religious epistemology called quasi-fideism that he claims traces back to John Henry Newman's treatment of the rationality of religious belief. In this paper, we give three reasons to think that Pritchard's reading of Newman as a quasi-fideist is mistaken. First, Newman's parity argument does not claim that religious and non-religious beliefs are on a par because both are groundless; instead, for Newman, they are on a par because both often stem from implicit rather than explicit reasoning. Second, pace Pritchard, Newman's distinction between simple and complex assent does not map onto the Wittgensteinian distinction between groundless hinge commitments and beliefs that flow from these hinges. For Newman, simple and complex assent differ in terms of the believer's level of awareness of their grounds. Third, and finally, Newman does not reject Locke's evidentialism in toto. Instead, he argues that certitude is not restricted to beliefs stemming from intuition and demonstration but often rightly includes probabilistically supported (or fallibly evidenced) beliefs.