John Henry Newman on Tradition and Truth

John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-90) converted from the Anglican priesthood to the Roman Catholic Church in 1844. The English political climate in Newman’s day was softening towards Catholics, particularly with the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829. However, the cultural climate in England remained anti-Catholic for many years after this, as evidenced by the riots of 1850, when the Church was at the point of restoring its hierarchy to the newly revived English Catholic Church.

Tradition or Prejudice?

It was at this time, in 1851, when Newman delivered a series of lectures “On the Present Position of Catholics in England.” In one of these lectures, “Tradition: The Sustaining Power of the Protestant View,” Newman offered insights that are relevant today in the Church and in the world.

Throughout his lecture, Newman developed the theme of tradition being the sole support of the Anglican (Protestant) Church in England. The Anglican Church, Newman said, was sustained by an anti-Catholic and unauthenticated tradition, the kind simply handed down from one generation to the next, from one political authority to another, without any effort of “free inquiry” toward confirming it. When English citizens pointed to those who fostered their beliefs, Newman asked them, “How did these energetic Protestants whom you have mentioned know it themselves? Why, they were told by others before them, and those others by others again a great time back; and there the telling and teaching is lost in fog; and this is mainly what has to be said for the anti-Catholic notions in question. Now this is to believe on tradition.”

Newman here is highlighting the irony of one of Protestantism’s primary charges against Catholicism, which is that the Catholic Church is based on the traditions of men.

In pointing out this inconsistency in the Anglican position, Newman is not denying the proper role of tradition. “[T]radition is of great and legitimate use as an initial means of gaining notions about historical and other facts,” he wrote. However, the existence of a tradition “is not sufficient in reason to make us sure” of the truth of a belief, and is “of force only under the proviso that it cannot be plausibly disputed.” Multiple traditions, Newman continues, “may make a wonderfully strong proof,” but a “single and solitary tradition,” such as that of the Church of England, does not constitute a compelling case. Newman boldly declares that a person swayed by one such lone tradition is not enjoying the conviction of belief but actually is suffering from prejudice.

Who Interprets Truth?

A particular charism of the English people, according to Newman, is their “loyalty to the Sovereign,” their king. This fact was used by those in power from Henry VIII onward as a weapon against the Catholic Church. The proponents of the Established Church used the English sensibility of loyalty to further their cause, aligning the Catholic Church and its adherents with treason against the state, to great effect. “It was decided, once for all,” Newman tells us, “what was the rule and what the exception; the courts gave judgment that the saints were to be all in the wrong, the kings were to be all in the right; whatever the Crown had claimed was to be its due, whatever the Pope claimed was to be a usurpation. What could be more simple and conclusive?”

The top-down Reformation of the English Church was achieved by the Crown and Parliament. And if that wasn’t enough for the good citizens of England, there were fines, torture, and executions awaiting those who did not conform.

The story of the English Reformation offers some parallels in present-day America. In an increasingly secularized America, it is the government that is assuming the role of arbiter of right and wrong on virtually all moral questions of the day. The most glaring example of this in late 20th-century America is the legalization of abortion by judicial order in 1973. The US Supreme Court did what Newman ascribed to the courts in 16th-century England and declared that the government is the interpreter and creator of truth. In keeping with Newman’s prophetic perspective on the creation and application of a single, unauthenticated tradition, the US Supreme Court, in its 1992 ruling Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, confirmed its prior creation of a right to abortion on the basis of tradition:

[F]or two decades of economic and social developments, people have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail.

Abortion was thus reaffirmed as a right that cannot be questioned. Seen in light of Newman’s thought, the court’s position, a “single and solitary tradition,” is based on prejudice, rather than conviction.

The Old Truth Might Return

On my own visit to St. Mary the Virgin Church in Oxford in 2003 I saw modern-day evidence of what Newman spoke. St. Mary the Virgin is the Anglican church from which the Oxford Movement of the 1830s was launched, led by Newman himself. During my visit I purchased a guide book on St. Mary’s in the gift shop. On a page entitled “St. Mary’s Today” the following can be found:

St. Mary’s is a liberal and inclusive church dedicated to prayer, worship and theological reflection. We encourage an honest encounter with scripture and tradition, always aware of the need to present Christianity to each generation in a fresh way. We do not believe that any one theological view or tradition can claim a monopoly on Christian truth.

A more accurate statement of contemporary Protestant Christianity could not be found. It seems to fit the two marks of Protestantism identified by Newman in his lecture — “its want of past history, and its want of fixed teaching.” Newman’s overriding perspective on the Anglican Church was that “its especial duty as a religious body, is not to inculcate any particular theological system, but to watch over the anti-Catholic Tradition.” While the modern Anglican Church may not be explicitly anti-Catholic, its beliefs and practices certainly stand in opposition to several core Catholic teachings, as well as the Catholic Church’s claim to possess the fullness of Christian truth.

Tradition, Newman reminds us, is a significant factor in the development of Christian belief. I will allow Newman the last word here, in a prophetic statement for the Catholic Church in this modern age, a new springtime in the Church. He is speaking of what would happen if the Church of England were left to stand on its own, without government support, and thereby what can happen if one looks honestly at the truth of Christianity and its full and authentic Tradition.

The Protestant Tradition, left to itself, would in the course of time languish and decline; laws would become obsolete, the etiquette and usages of society would alter, literature would be enlivened with new views, and the Old Truth might return with the freshness of novelty.

Copyright 2006 by Mark Dittman

Mark Dittman is a writer, husband, father, and graduate student in Catholic Studies. He can be reached at [email protected].

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