Chapter 4: Spiritual Direction and Faith

4

Spiritual Direction and Faith

“These earthen vessels of ours hold the treasure of grace and truth.”323

Faith is at the heart of spiritual direction. The way a spiritual director understands faith implicitly underlies the way that director directs another. This was certainly true for Newman. Many people wrote to him about various aspects of faith or about some particular belief of the Catholic Church. There was an intimate connection between his understanding of the nature of faith as such, and his belief in the Catholic Church; consequently, it is often difficult to separate one from the other. Accordingly, this chapter on faith and the subsequent chapter on the Church should be viewed as a unit. In presenting this aspect of his spiritual direction, this chapter on faith deals with what Newman believed about faith and the ways in which he directed others either to prepare themselves to receive this gift of faith or to deepen their belief. The following chapter investigates his spiritual direction on particular aspects of faith in the Catholic Church.

Coming to Faith

From a theoretical perspective, Newman can be seen as investigating faith on two levels. On one level he addressed his own countrymen who, he felt, generally lacked real faith. They might hold the opinion that Christianity is probably true, but for Newman religious faith must be an absolute assent to what God has revealed. “Is it possible . . . that faith in Revelation is nothing beyond the thought, ‘Perhaps after all God may have spoken?’ . . . Who would call this an act of faith? Was such Abraham’s faith?”324 On this level Newman was concerned with explaining and defending the certitude of faith.325 On a second level Newman faced a growing skepticism and relativism which denied the possibility of objectively certain knowledge. Consequently he explained and defended the certitude of human knowledge. The certitude of our human way of knowing is found in that reasoning which leads people to make a judgment that they ought to believe; this judgment, when made with a right will and an honest hope and prompted by divine grace, grounds an act of faith, that is certain and salvific.326

Newman was deeply aware of the difficulties that trouble those in doubt. He was equally aware of mysterious facts which he could not ignore; he had an unshakable faith in God’s word. Yet Newman was not the kind of individual who could be satisfied with quick solutions that left questions unresolved. Nor could he be satisfied with a quick retreat to “religious feeling” that in effect abandoned the issue to the skeptic. Either to deny the facts or to affirm them too abruptly was unsatisfactory because it was superficial. Instead he sought to balance fidelity to the facts with humility before the mysteries. He sought to present the truths of faith, yet to respect friends who were honestly in doubt.

From Newman’s correspondence, two dimensions emerge in his spiritual direction concerning faith. First, many letters are concerned with helping individuals understand the gift of faith that God was offering them and attempting to resolve their difficulties and doubts so that they might be able to respond to this gift. Second, other letters attempt to help a person understand and appreciate faith in their own lives, and suggest how these people might deepen their faith.

Faith as a Gift

Since Newman understood faith as a gift from God, he sought to understand the human process by which persons disposed themselves to receive this gift. In fact, much of his correspondence centered on helping individuals understand some facet of this process. In three letters written to his good friend Mrs. William Froude, Newman spoke of the importance of faith as a gift:

I wish you would consider whether you have a right notion of how to gain faith. It is, we know, the Gift of God, but I am speaking of it as a human process and attained by human means. Faith then is not a conclusion from premises, but the result of an act of the will, following upon a conviction that to believe is a duty. The simple question you have to ask yourself is “Have I a conviction that I ought to accept the Catholic Faith as God’s Word?” if not, at least, “do I tend to such a conviction?” or “am I near upon it?” For directly you have a conviction that you ought to believe, reason has done its part, and what is wanted for faith is, not proof but will. We can believe what we choose.327

In this same letter, he emphasized the determination of the will rather than the object of belief.

Is it not plain that many of Dr. Pusey’s followers are at this very time exerting an act of will, commanding their minds, to believe, on this ground, be it sufficient or be it not, because Dr. Pusey believes? And is not he believing, because he is determined he will believe so and so? So you think they could not in like manner, if they pleased, believe what the Catholic Church teaches? The simple question with them is, which of the two creeds their reason tells them they ought to believe; and their reason tells them they ought to believe, not what the ancient widely spreading (Roman) Catholic Church believes, but what Dr. Pusey believes—but the belief itself is the result of an act of their will.

Now can you, my dear Mrs. Froude, say this, that, directly you feel sure you ought to believe the Catholic Faith, you will begin making efforts to control your mind into belief? You see, I will not admit your language, that “you cannot believe,” you can. The simple question is, whether you ought. If you do not feel you ought, (I hope such a state of mind will not last—but) that is a reason, because it is not true, to say, “I don’t believe because I can’t.”328

Eight months later, however, Newman again wrote Mrs. Froude about the importance of cooperating with God and of accepting the gift He was offering her.

My fears may certainly be groundless—but O what an awful thing it is, should you be in the way of losing your faith. If God has for many years past been forming a habit of faith in you, and at length has put before you the true object of that faith, and you have refused to accept it, and so have lost a state of mind which cannot live except in its Object! Alas, how many instances do we see around us of a wrecked and ruined faith! Of those who either deliberately, or at least virtually, have preferred scepticism to Rome! Surely faith is the gift of God, as it was in St. Paul’s day, and the divine election is as wonderful now as then.

. . . No, the election is with God; we can but co-operate with him—and we must submit to His decision.329

Writing Mrs. Froude several years later, he underscored the importance of faith as a gift in relation to prayer:

I am quite sure you wish to please God, and would do any thing He told you. On the other hand, I know well He does not tell us everything at once—but first one thing, and then, when we act upon that, another. No one ought to enter the Church without faith—no one can have faith for it by wishing or willing it, at the moment. Faith is a Gift of God; we can gain it by prayer, we cannot gain it at once; but we can gain it at last. I will quarrel with no one simply for not entering into the holiest and happiest of states on the spur of the instant—faith must be preceded by reason—but I will quarrel with him much, if he does not earnestly and continually ask of God the illumination which leads reason to faith.330

In 1870, he wrote to Mrs. Wilson, a convert who had been prematurely received into the Church, reiterating the link between faith as a gift and prayer.

I can easily believe you were received too soon—for many persons are. They do not know their religion, and difficulties come upon them afterwards, which they ought to have considered before they become Catholics. Faith is a gift of God, and a mere wish or a decision to join the Church is not necessarily faith.

However, I would not say that you have not faith—but your faith is weak—and I speak of its being a gift of God to believe, to remind you, what it must be right to say, even tho’ you do not need reminding, that you must pray for it.331

Four years later, Newman wrote a much sterner letter, since he apparently felt that she was not doing enough herself to dispose herself to receive this gift.

As far as I see, I do not think you have with a resolute heart, and with earnestness fought the battle of your soul. I know others who, with greater disadvantages than I suppose yours are, have been brave, and determined, and, though they have been knocked down, have got up again, and fought on. They will have their reward, and it will be great. St. Philip says “Paradise is not meant for cowards,” and, when I see such instances of courage, I feel how little I have myself done in that line—and I think you have done very little too.

It seems to me that, instead of going straight-forward to your work, you indulge yourself in finding faults with priests, whom you should not come near, and are not unwilling to provoke them—that you do not make the best of things, but take pleasure in complaints. I may be wrong in points of detail in my view of you, and beg you to pardon me, if I am—but I don’t think I am wrong on the whole. We cannot do without faith, and faith is the gift of God. You do not seem to me to keep before your mind and to realize, these two awful truths.332

Similarly, in Newman’s Loss and Gain, a novel about an Oxford student’s conversion, the central figure, Charles Reding asked, “If a man finds himself unable, though wishing, to believe, for he has not evidence enough to subdue his reason, what is to make him believe?” The priest answered, “What is to make him believe! the will, his will.”333 Catherine Ward read this and asked Newman, “How am I to know when I ought to believe?” He replied that reason proves what ought to be believed. It does not prove what is true “as it proves that mathematical conclusions are true.” There are many questions left unanswered. Yet the “grounds are sufficient for conviction. This is not the same thing as conviction . . . while there is enough evidence for conviction, whether we will be convinced or not rests with ourselves.”334 A few weeks later, he wrote to the same correspondent about doubt before faith: “You cannot be rid of those doubts without grace; as you distinctly say, they are not intellectual doubts; your intellect is convinced, but in spite of that conviction, you are haunted with doubts.”335

In October 1853, Newman had tried to avoid speaking “of divine grace, where it comes in, or what it does.”336 But in December he wrote a paper, “On the Certainty of Faith,” where he recognized that a treatment of the certainty of faith demanded a discussion of “the process of supernatural faith, and the portion of it which is supernatural.”337 In this paper, Newman hesitated to speak of a “fides humana . . . aided by grace” preceding the act of “fides divina.” However, the next month, on January 17, 1854, he wrote a further paper on the object of divine faith. “I may believe things from reason etc. and then the form of belief is demonstration. But faith is belief in God telling me—i.e. in God, as God revealing.”338 Newman then summarized his meaning: “The Formal Object of Faith is God . . . God, as God Revealing . . . or, as it is commonly said, Divine Revelation . . . that is, the Divine Authority in revealing . . . or (if we would consider the matter more accurately), the truth of God in speaking . . . or even the truth of God, all-knowing and all-wise, in speaking . . . or the wisdom and veracity of God.”339

It was this notion of “a speaker” which distinguished the grace-created act of divine faith from every grace supported act of human faith. As he developed this essential feature of divine faith, he clarified these two distinct operations of grace. Newman believed that in divine faith grace enables one to believe, not arguments and evidence, but “the Divine Speaker.” Moreover, it was because divine faith follows the logic of testimony that the operation of grace, reason and will before faith must be distinguished from their operation in faith.

In 1855, in a letter to Mrs. William Froude, Newman explained the role of grace before faith: “Perhaps what divines call grace, the supernatural assistance of the Father of Lights, may be the necessary preparation for our understanding the force of the arguments in the subject matter of religion; and perhaps prayer may be the human means . . . of gaining that supernatural assistance.”340 In other words, grace may be necessary to aid the will in putting down “a wild unhealthy state of mind” comparable to the state of mind which unreasonably suggests, “perhaps there is poison in my breakfast.”341 In this way grace indirectly brings about “that moral condition of which the recognition of certain intellectual truths” is the “natural result.”342

Wanting to encourage his Anglican friend Henry Wilberforce, Newman emphasized the need of cooperating with grace in coming to faith:

I think I quite understand your state of mind, and earnestly trust and believe that God is leading you forward to the sure test of His True Fold. It would not annoy me that you delay, could I be sure that you are keeping pace with the guidance given you—but of course to any one who does not see the heart, it is a source of continual anxiety lest you should be letting a precious time slip past you. You know what an awful overcoming view Catholics take of the grace of God—as that which we cannot merit, which may be withheld without any injustice to us, which is not given to all in the same measure. The immediate consequence of such a belief is to make one fear intensely, as for myself, so for one’s friends—certainly if they are outside the Church, and may be receiving an infinite condescension on God’s part, which may never be repeated. Charissime, be sure you do not trifle with God’s grace.343

After speaking of one of the effects of grace in bringing one to faith, he continued:

Keep before your mind that, when you are once convinced, you must act. Conviction is a state of mind—it is not the mere perception of a conclusion, for then it would vary about with the strength of the premises—but it is a state, which follows on a conclusion, sometimes more, sometimes less strictly logical. It is no proof then that you are not convinced in your heart, because there are objections in reason which you cannot answer. It often happens in this life that, when we are convinced, we refuse further proofs, though cogent—we say “Take them away, my mind is made up, is clear.” Charissime, you will have a great deal to go through. I do not undervalue it—but in proportion to your suffering, will be your reward.344

For Newman, the entire process of coming to faith is touched by grace. For example, in response to J. Walker of Scarborough he wrote:

I maintain that probabilities lead to a speculative certainty legitimately; so that it is quite rational to come to that conviction, that human faith, which is rewarded by divine faith. In thus speaking, of course I do not mean to say, that, in matter of fact, that human conclusion is reached, or the reward of divine certainty given, without the influence of actual grace, both being present and being obeyed. And so, in like manner, human charitableness, honesty, fortitude, patience, in the case of a heathen, may be assisted by actual grace, and bring the soul forward towards conversion, and have a congruous merit—but still they do not cease to be acts of human nature.345

Whenever Newman wrote to an unbeliever, he discussed the operation of reason, will, and grace before faith. Yet in speaking of an ability to know (be certain) that revelation is credible, he was not speaking of the certainty of faith itself which is the direct result of grace. Accordingly, at the end of his last letter to Froude, he compared the situation of a believer with that of someone who is certain of his friend’s loyalty despite irrational doubts: “And if it be said that his friend is visibly present, and the object of faith invisible, there the action of supernatural grace comes in, which I cannot enter upon here.”346

But when writing to believers, Newman did not hesitate to discuss the unique role of grace in faith itself. In 1862 he wrote to William Ward: “Human faith lies in the intellect as well as Divine faith; but the former is created there by previous acts of mere human reason, the latter is the creation of supernatural grace.”347 Newman believed that reason’s role is “critical” not “creative.”348 Reason might provide arguments which “will be a stay, a refuge, and encouragement, a rallying point for faith.”349 It might lead us to faith. Nevertheless, “the two things are quite distinct from each other, seeing you ought to believe, and believing; reason, if left to itself, will bring you to the conclusion that you have sufficient grounds for believing, but belief is the gift of grace.”350 Emphasizing the importance of grace in the human process, Newman wrote to J. Walker of Scarborough in 1864, saying that the human conclusion cannot be reached, “or the reward of divine certainty given, without the influence of actual grace, both being present and being obeyed.”351

Newman was interested, not in theoretical questions about nature and grace, but in the process that an individual followed in coming to faith. In stressing the concrete situation he did not mean to imply that faith is merely the result of an informal argument aided by grace. Nor did he mean to imply that grace merely lends supernatural value to a natural act. Divine faith is completely reasonable, but it is also completely the free gift of grace which enables a person not only to appreciate the force of arguments but to grasp in faith God testifying to Himself. Thus, he called divine faith “spiritual sight,”352 or “an original means of knowledge.”353 Accordingly, he compared the unbeliever to a blind man who has access only to notions and inferences but lacks a real familiarity with the object of his discourse.354

Persons coming to faith will recognize the truth “dimly, though certainly, as the sun through mists and clouds” but “it is the office of grace to clear up gloom and haziness, to steady that fitful vision, to perfect reason by faith, and to convert a logical conclusion into an object of intellectual sight.”355 Divine faith is not the acceptance of the conclusion of an argument, nor the acceptance of a particular way of looking at the world; it is an acceptance of God revealing a definite message.

Faith and Certitude

Newman believed that certitude in religious matters was essential for living a spiritual life; he stated in his Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent: “Without certitude in religious faith there may be much decency of profession and of observance, but there can be no habit of prayer, no directness of devotion, no intercourse with the unseen, no generosity of self-sacrifice. Certitude then is essential to the Christian; and if he is to persevere to the end, his certitude must include in it a principle of persistence.”356

Much of Newman’s spiritual direction for persons in the process of coming to faith dealt with various difficulties in the area of certitude. A convert himself, he understood what they were experiencing. Through his correspondence, he patiently helped individuals to clarify their own thinking on certain issues while at the same time attempting to answer their questions, doubts or difficulties. Sometimes his correspondent evoked a single letter; with others, their correspondence spanned many years.357

Since Newman believed that faith is a gift personally granted by God as a result of a quest, he often advised people to continue their search, to pray for the grace of believing. To Louisa Simeon, who was searching for religious certitude, he wrote in 1869:

You must begin all thought about religion by mastering what is the fact, that any how the question has an inherent, irradicable difficulty in it. As in tuning a piano, you may throw the fault here or there, but no theory can any one take up without that difficulty remaining. It will come up in one shape or other. If we say, “Well, I will not believe anything,” there is a difficulty in believing nothing, an intellectual difficulty. There is a difficulty in doubting; a difficulty in determining there is no truth; in saying that there is a truth, but that no one can find it out; in saying that all religious opinions are true; or one is good as another; a difficulty in saying there is no God; that there is a God but that He has not revealed Himself except in the way of nature; and there is doubtless a difficulty in Christianity. The question is, whether on the whole our reason does not tell us that it is a duty to accept the arguments commonly urged for its truth as sufficient, and a duty in consequence to believe heartily in Scripture and the Church.358

In 1871, Newman described an act of certitude to William Brownlow: “I may wish both to act and to believe—though I can do neither—and, as I ask God for grace to enable me to act, so I ask Him for grace to enable me to believe.

“‘It is the gift of God—why does He not give it to me?’ Because you do not perseveringly come to Him for the gift, and do your part by putting aside all those untrue and unreal and superfluous arguings.”359

Newman realized that finding certitude in religious matters was not an easy task. Mrs. William Froude, who had been influenced by her skeptical husband, had been writing to Newman about faith and certitude. After acknowledging her objections, he emphasized the importance of prayer in her quest:

Men who have lived in the dark, see things with a clearness unintelligible to those who enter it from the broad day. That religious truth is an obscure subject is granted; but that does not prove that we cannot find out its roads and their termination.

. . . Perhaps prayer may be the human means, in the way of cause and effect, of gaining that supernatural assistance . . .

I should like an inquirer to say continually, “O my God, I confess that Thou canst enlighten my darkness—I confess that Thou only canst. I wish my darkness to be enlightened. I do not know whether Thou wilt; but that Thou canst, and that I wish, are sufficient reasons for me to ask, what Thou at least has [sic] not forbidden my asking. I hereby promise thee that, by Thy grace which I am seeking, I will embrace whatever I at length feel certain is the truth, if ever I come to be certain. And by Thy grace I will guard against all self deceit which may lead me to take what nature would have, rather than what reason approves.”

If a man tells me he has thus heroically cast himself upon God, and persisted in such a prayer, and yet is in the dark, of course my argument with him is at an end. I retire from the discussion, and leave the matter to God.360

In 1881, Newman repeated this same theme. Mrs. Christie had become a Catholic in 1879, and she had been corresponding with a relative as to whether he should follow her example. After explaining the difficulties involved, she asked Newman’s advice. Newman responded:

As to Mr. C. and his not having a “call,” in Catholic language he means he has not faith. It is not infrequent for men to be intellectually convinced, and to add that “they wish they could believe, but they can’t.” Your friend throws into language which pleases him better the same confession, and says “I have not a call.” . . .

Mr. C. seems to feel that membership with the Catholic Church, is the normal state of a Christian, and therefore it is his duty to pray earnestly, to pray continually, for that living faith, for that true call, which comes to him indeed from God but which withal comes thro’ himself. God gives to all liberally, and it will be a grevious thing to find some day that it is through his own fault that the call has not come to him.361

Besides advising prayer, Newman also wrote many letters to people concerning some particular aspect of the search for certitude. When William Goodwin, who had been brought up a Methodist, wrote that he felt the need for certitude in religious matters, Newman told him that a person’s first principles were crucial in order to find certitude.

It seems to me that the great differences in religion between man and man arise from their difference from each other in first principles, so that according to their first principles such is the religion which they severally adopt.

For instance—one man thinks sin to be so great an evil, as not to be named in the same breath with any other evil, but to stand simply by itself. Another thinks it nothing but a coming short of ethical perfection, more or less, not involving any sense of guilt.

And first principles hold together so that these imply those. I fear I may seem running very far back for a beginning, but I now come to my answer to what you seem to ask of me. What you, as all men, need, is true first principles, and who can give them to you, but He who made you?

I say then to every one who feels the pain and unnaturalness of scepticism, it may be a hard matter for a man to detect and recognize his own first principles, and you may never know them, nor is it necessary that you should know them, but it is necessary that they should be true—and, I repeat, who can give you them but God?

It is usual to say that the choice of a religion is an intellectual work and matter of reasoning—it may be an object of the intellect but as a work of reasoning, it is subordinate to first principles, which is that very intellectual gift, which God alone can give us, and from which reasonings follow.362

Newman spoke of certitude as a state of mind in several letters and the method he employed in order to help people understand was an appeal to common sense. William Brownlow had been advising a woman and wrote to Newman for clarification concerning evidence, assent and certitude. Newman replied:

As you will see, she confuses the conclusion from evidence, with the act of assent which depends on the will. No one on earth can have evidence strictly sufficient for an absolute conclusion, but I may have evidence so strong that I may see it is my duty to give my absolute assent to it. I have not absolute demonstration that my father was not a murderer, or my intimate friend a sharper, but it would not only be heartless, but irrational not to disbelieve these hypotheses or possibilities utterly—and, anyhow, in matter of fact men generally do disbelieve them absolutely—and therefore the Church, as the Minister of God, asks us for nothing more in things supernatural than common sense, as nature asks of us in matters of this world. I believe absolutely that there is a North America—and that the United States is a Republic with a President—why then do I not absolutely believe, though I see it not, that there is a Heaven and that God is there? If you say that there is more evidence for the United States than for Heaven; that is intelligible—but it is not a question of more or less; since the utmost evidence only leads to probability and yet you believe absolutely in the United States, it is no reason against believing in heaven absolutely, though you have no “experience” of it . . .

She says there are persons who are certain of the Christian religion because they have strictly proved it—no one is certain for this reason. Every one believes by an act of will, more or less ruling his intellect (as a matter of duty) to believe absolutely beyond the evidence.

She says “acts of certitude are always made about things of which our senses or our reason do, or can take cognizance”—our senses do not tell us that there is a “United States” and our reason does not demonstrate it, only makes it possible. We not only do not, but we could not make a demonstration; yet we assent absolutely.

“How can any human testimony make me quite certain that I am hearing a message from God?” None can, but human testimony may be such as to make me see it is my duty to be certain. Action is distinct from a conclusion—yet a conclusion may be such as to make me see that action is a duty—and so belief is not a conclusion—yet it may be such as to make me see that belief is a duty—And, as I cannot act merely because I ought to act, so I cannot believe merely because I ought to believe.

I may wish both to act and to believe—though I can do neither—and, as I ask God for grace to enable me to act, so I ask Him for grace to enable me to believe.363

Similarly, he told Henry Wilberforce that conviction being a state of mind, was different than having a feeling in one’s heart:

Keep before your mind that, when you are once convinced, you must act. Conviction is a state of mind—it is not the mere perception of a conclusion, for then it would vary about with the strength of the premises—but it is a state, which follows on a conclusion, sometimes more, sometimes less strictly logical. It is no proof then that you are not convinced in your heart, because there are objections in reason which you cannot answer. It often happens in this life that, when we are convinced, we refuse further proofs, thought cogent—we say “Take them away, my mind is made up, is clear.”364

In a letter to Frank Haydon, Newman expressed his understanding of faith in relation to certitude:

In my judgement then the evidence [of mathematical proofs] is not simply demonstrative—but certainty is a state of mind, and in spite of this judgement, I suppose we are certain without any sort of fear of mistake, that the proposition in question is true. At the same time I think that state of mental certainty depends ultimately on the will—and that the will could so act upon the mind as to lead it morbidly to make that microscopic objection an occasion of doubt in the truth of that proposition. In like manner when I say that the proof of a certain person or body being the oracle of the God who can neither deceive nor be deceived is sufficient to lead to certainty, I mean no more than that it is such that certainty is the state of mind to which it legitimately leads, and will lead unless an act of the will interferes to hinder it.365

Ten years later, Newman again wrote to Henry Wilberforce indicating that the certitude of faith is not based on the same kind of demonstration that is possible in the sciences:

Yet on the other hand it is a paradox to say there is not such a state of mind as certitude. It is as well ascertained a state of mind, as doubt—to say that such a phenomenon in the human mind is a mere extravagance or weakness is a monstrous assertion which I cannot swallow. Of course there may be abuses and mistakes in particular cases of certitude, but that is another matter. It is a law of our nature then, that we are certain on premisses which do not touch <reach> demonstration. This seems to me undeniable.366

Faith and Reason

Newman’s question on the certitude of faith shaped his remarks on the role of reason in faith and it was a topic on which he frequently corresponded during his life as a Roman Catholic. He encouraged people to search, to inquire about their faith in order to make it personal. At the same time, he was deeply concerned about an individual’s approach to the problem and felt that God needed to help a person use their reason in a correct way in their search for faith. Encouraging George Boag to continue his investigation, Newman wrote in 1881:

I am with you entirely in holding that every inquiring mind must inquire for itself and cannot content itself with the conclusions of others and nothing more. Where I should perhaps not go with you would be in the special view you took of your relations towards the Supreme Being. It may be that I construe what you say wrongly, but, as I read your letter it seemed to me that you did not dwell sufficiently on the need of God’s teaching you, his promise to do so, and the duty of every one of us, if we would find what is the Truth, to ask that great blessing from Him.

I am conscious that I may have made a great mistake—but, when you say that a man must shelter himself from doubt with such aid as shall be given him from on high, you may be saying all that any sober Catholic could ask of you, (for one does not necessarily deny what one does not affirm), but the question arose in my mind, whether you threw yourself on God’s grace and said to Him “Teach me” with such exercise of reason as was your duty to; whether God came first or reason.367

Catherine Ward wrote to him in 1848 concerning her inner confusion about converting to Catholicism. At times she had strong convictions about joining the Church and yet she was also fearful. Her questions gave Newman the opportunity to explain his understanding of the role of reason in faith:

The Catholic doctrine concerning faith and reason is this, that reason proves that Catholicism ought to be believed, and that in that form it comes before the will, which accepts it or rejects it, as moved by grace or not. Reason does not prove that Catholicism is true, as it proves that mathematical conclusions are true, e.g., that the 3 angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles; but it proves that there is a case for it so strong that we see we ought to accept it. There may be many difficulties which we cannot answer, but still we see on the whole that grounds are sufficient for conviction. This is not the same thing as conviction. If conviction were unavoidable, we might be said to be forced to believe, as we are forced to mathematical conclusions—but while there is enough evidence for conviction, whether we will be convinced or not, rests with ourselves—this is what the priest means, when he is first asked “If a man has not evidence enough to subdue his reason, what is to make him believe?” and then answers “His will.” and this is just our trial—and one man rejects what another accepts—On the contrary, were we forced to believe, as we are forced to admit that two sides of a triangle are greater than the third, there would be no trial of our affections, nothing morally right in believing, or wrong in not believing.

The simple question then with you is, Have you sufficient grounds for being convinced that the Catholic Church is from God?—if you have, it is nothing to the purpose that you find it difficult to believe—of course it is, for belief is a supernatural act—you must pray to God for the will to believe—for the will has the power to command the mind. You can believe what you will; the only question is whether your reason tells you that you ought to believe; and I think it does.368

In addition to these letters expressing Newman’s basic belief on the role of reason in faith, two other letters indicate a broader horizon. The first concerned the area of “faith and mystery.” An unknown correspondent had written to him: “That which is a conclusion in reason cannot also be an object of faith; since then the being of a God is an object of faith, it is not a conclusion of the reason.”369 Newman responded:

Now here a great deal might be said, did my paper admit of it, on the difference between a conclusion and an object; but I will only say this, that the same truth may at once be proved by reason and held by faith. For instance, the truth of the Newtonian system is a conclusion in reason; yet by the mass of the community it is held, not as a conclusion which they have proved, but as a truth received on faith in scientific men. Or, (what is more simple,) the fact that, contrary to the evidence of sight, the earth turns on its axis, some conclude on grounds of reason, most men only believe “because every one says so, because men of science say so.” Nay, the very same person may hold the same fact at once upon faith and upon reason. 1) I may have satisfactorily proved to myself by pure reason that the nebular theory is true; and then, on turning to Scripture, may find that light was created before the sun. Here faith confirms reason, or I hold a fact first by reason, and then in addition by faith. 2) I may receive on faith that the whole human race descends from Adam, and at some future time may be able to prove it from philology, ethnology, geology, and archeology. Here reason confirms faith, or I hold a fact, first by faith, and then in addition by reason. 1) I do not cease to conclude because I believe. 2) I do not cease to believe because I conclude.370

A letter to Newman from Louisa Simeon gave Newman the opportunity of helping her come to faith by emphasizing the importance of the role of reason in finding the correct starting points for religious truth. He felt this search was intimately bound up with living a moral life and one’s conscience:

You must not suppose that I am denying the intellect its real place in the discovery of truth; but it must ever be borne in mind that its exercise mainly consists in reasoning,—that is, in comparing things, classifying them, and inferring. It ever needs points to start from, first principles, and these it does not provide—but it can no more move one step without these starting points, than a stick, which supports a man, can move without the man’s action. In physical matters, it is the senses which gives us the first start—and what the senses give is physical fact—and physical facts do not lie on the surface of things, but are gained with pains and by genius, through experiment. . . . In like manner we have to ascertain the starting points for arriving at religious truth. The intellect will be useful in gaining them and after gaining them—but to attempt to see them by means of the intellect is like attempting by the intellect to see the physical facts which are the basis of physical exercises of the intellect. . . . To gain religious starting points, we must in a parallel way, interrogate our hearts, and (since it is a personal, individual matter,) our own hearts,—interrogate our own consciences, interrogate, I will say, the God who dwells there.

I think you must ask the God of Conscience to enable you to do your duty in this matter. I think you should, with prayer to Him for help, meditate upon the Gospels, and on St. Paul’s second Epistle to the Corinthians . . .; and this with an earnest desire to know the truth and a sincere intention of following it.371

Probability and Faith

Much of Newman’s direction in helping people to arrive at faith centered on the concept of probability.372 He felt that an assemblage of probabilities represented a moral demonstration of religious truth which gave a person certitude, and which was quite different from acting as if one were certain. Using the example of a cable, he explained his position to J. Walker of Scarborough:

The best illustration of what I hold is that of a cable which is made up of a number of separate threads, each feeble, yet together as sufficient as an iron rod.

An iron rod represents mathematical or strict demonstration; a cable represents moral demonstration, which is an assemblage of probabilities, separately insufficient for certainty, but, when put together, irrefragable. A man who said “I cannot trust a cable, I must have an iron bar,” would, in certain given cases, be irrational and unreasonable:—so too is a man who says I must have a rigid demonstration, not moral demonstration, of religious truth.373

Newman commented on the opinion of Catholic theologians:

Thus I thought as a Protestant; and I observe there are Catholic theologians of authority who go further in their estimate of the legitimate pace of probability in creating certitude than I went,—maintaining that the greater probability is a sufficient, or rather the intended and ordinary, ground of certainty with men in general; or that that Religion, which is evidently more credible than the rest, is that very religion which is revealed by God, and therefore most certainly true, or demonstrated, for there is a way, by which the highest certainty of religion may be arrived at by fundamental articles which are only more probable.

For myself, I never, that I recollect, took this ground of “the more probable,” but of a certitude which lay in an assemblage and accumulation of probabilities, which rationally demanded to be considered sufficient for certitude.374

Writing again to the same inquirer several months later, Newman elaborated:

As to the question of “certainty,” I conceive that the certainty, (human) arising from the cumulus of probabilities, is rewarded by the certainty of faith, which is firmer and more satisfying. The aggregate of probabilities does not create the faith, or its certainty, which is a gift direct from God—but they create the same sort of certainty, which an infidel may have that our Lord suffered under Pontius Pilate. If then Manning meant (as I do not suppose) that the probabilities did not create legitimately a human certainty, he differed from me—but if he meant that the human certainty was swallowed up by the faith from God’s grace, which is its reward, (and I think he meant this) I agree with him. However, in my book I have nothing to do with supernatural faith—but with the human process. Children may have divine faith without any logical process whatever—but Butler is speaking of the logical value of probabilities, and so was I. Butler tends to reduce the certainty to a practical certainty, viz that it is safer to act, as if the conclusion were true; I maintain that probabilities lead to a speculative certainty legitimately; so that it is quite rational to come to that conviction, that human faith, which is rewarded by divine faith. In thus speaking, of course I do not mean to say, that, in matter of fact, that human conclusion is reached, or the reward of divine certainty given, without the influence of actual grace, both being present and being obeyed. And so, in the manner, human charitableness, honesty, fortitude, patience, in the case of heathen, may be assisted by actual grace, and bring the soul forward towards conversion, and have a congruous merit—but still they do not cease to be acts of human nature.375

Twenty years later as a Cardinal, he wrote to Mr. Lilly:

As to the question of probability I think you have said somewhere that you follow Butler in considering probability to be the guide of life. This has a good sense and a bad. I think Anglicans, even Keble(?) mean by probability a mere practical probability i.e. what is safe to act upon, whether true or not; whereas Catholics hold that it is a real speculative assent (or certitude) to a truth, to which I add “speculative, true, but arising, not from demonstration, but from the result of a combination and joint force, equivalent to demonstration, of many separate probabilities.”376

Both of these letters, the one to J. Walker in 1864 and the one to Mr. Lilly in 1884, represent Newman’s mature position on probability and faith. Yet it was his correspondence, spanning many years, with three individuals—J. M. Capes, Edward Thompson, and William Froude—that prodded Newman to refine and clarify his own thought. From his letters it can be seen that it was their questions and challenges that brought his ideas to maturity.

On January 27, 1850, Newman wrote to J. M. Capes who had published three articles in the Rambler under the title “Four Years’ Experience of the Catholic Religion” defending his conversion as an act of “embracing the more probable of two momentous alternatives.”377 Newman advised Capes that his position would be sound only if it were certain “that the more probable alternative is the true one.” But this would have to be proved since it is not always or necessarily the case. In fact, Capes seemed to take the “unsound position” that “it is not certain that Catholicism is true, but only more probable than that it is not.”378 Credibility is not probability but neither is it the evident certainty of syllogistic reasoning. “The simple question,” as he wrote later, “is whether enough has been done to reduce the difficulties so far as to hinder them absolutely blocking up the way, or excluding these direct and large arguments on which the reasonableness of faith is built.”379

Discussing the same issue the following year with Francis Wegg-Prosser, Newman maintained that insofar as there are objections to the contrary, one’s judgment of credibility must be only a judgment about the degree or probability. Newman replied that “Unanswerable objections need not interfere with a moral proof.” By a moral proof he did not mean “a mere balance of probabilities” where the side with “greater weight” is considered true. “On the contrary,” he wrote, “a proof is something such that it can only be on one side.” There may be many unanswered questions, but they “do not form a proof of some . . . incompatible conclusion.”380 In other words, a person may grasp by an informal use of reason what is true, but may be unable to answer difficulties, yet will be sure they cannot prove the contrary.

In October, Newman admitted to Edward Thompson, that “left to myself, I should be very much tempted” to adopt Butler’s view and understand credibility as probability upon which it is safe to act.”381 But Newman again was not left to himself. He read works on faith and reason written by traditional authors; he read letters written by friends struggling toward an act of faith. Together they led him to admit that a safe probability is not enough. He wrote to Thompson, stating that it is not enough to say “to believe is the safe side, or rather, to act as if you believed is the safer side.”382 It was not enough to understand “moral certainty” as “the highest step of mounting probabilities, not differing from probability in kind, but only in degree.”383 Newman then stated that it was part of our everyday experience “that we are positively and absolutely and speculatively (not practically only) certain of a thing by a combination of arguments, each of which is only probable.”384

What occurs in ordinary matters also occurs in religious matters. Someone might have begun with a “practical certainty, or certainty that it is a duty to do this or that” but “if this were all, there was not faith.” If one is to have divine faith then “true motiva credibilitatis, (motives of credibility) leading prudentia (prudence) under the guidance of pia affectio (good will) to induce the will to command the intellect to assent, would gradually be evolved.”385 Thompson, not satisfied with this explanation, objected that the will often commands us “to act on probabilities, to act, in fact, as if we believed, but I do not see that it ever commands belief itself, where the grounds are such as produce opinion, a probable opinion, but still opinion.”386 He allowed that “faith corresponds to certainty,” but he would not allow us to take “probabilities as certainties” by an act of will. The will could be called upon to put down fear and doubt, but only after the intellect has determined that the doubt is, in fact, unreasonable.387

Although it might appear that someone embraced faith without “certain intellectual evidence” Thompson suspected there existed “moral evidence . . . impossible to put into words” yet “amply sufficient.” Thompson was not denying that persons may be “bound to act on probabilities previous to certainty.” “But,” he added, “I believe if they did so, God would provide them with proof sufficient to produce certainty.”388 Newman responded: “I shall be surprised if I have called, or implied, the conclusion to which human faith comes, as probable.” Reason judges that a revelation is credible and this implies that the will, under the guidance of prudence, ought to direct the intellect to accept it as true without reservation. Moreover, “‘Probable’ means that which has certain grounds, greater or less, to be opined; whereas ‘credible’ means that which has sufficient grounds to be thoroughly believed.”389

Newman then explained the process of faith in four points:

On September 29, 1858, J. M. Capes again brought forward the objection which Thompson had raised five years earlier. “To act upon an uncertainty . . . involves nothing absurd or morally false” but to force certainty is “logically absurd and morally wrong.” If it can be demonstrated that Christian revelation is more probably true than false, then “it is wise to act on the hypothesis of its certain truth; but to profess that one is certain that it is true, is to utter a direct falsehood and nothing less.”391 Newman’s reply reaffirmed his 1853 position, but instead of outhning his solution as he had done for Thompson, he shifted his approach and appealed to parallel cases in everyday life where “no complete proof is possible”:392

It is a property of the human mind, to be certain, speculativè, not merely practicè, in certain cases in which no complete proof is possible, but only proof that the point in question “demands our belief,” or is credible.

I have no demonstration that I shall die—but I am as speculativècertus of it, as if I had demonstration. For the evidence is such and so much, as to make it clear to me that I should be a fool not absolutely and implicitly to believe it.

It has a claim on my speculative belief that England is an island, even though I have no demonstration of it. Reason goes just so far, not as to prove it, but to tell me it is but common sense in one to order my mind to believe, or to direct my mind to believe it. I do not merely say to myself, “It is safe to act as if I believed it.”

I am speculativè certain that intemperate habits lead to loss of health; and that, in consequence, not of my having direct proof of it, but in consequence of my having just enough evidence to show me that I ought to believe it. Say, a temptation to drink comes and obscures this clear conviction, and in consequence I do not believe it. Here, it is not, as you seem to say, that, when I believe it, my will “forces” my mind to believe, reason disapproving, but that, when I do not believe, my will, reason disapproving, keeps my mind from belief.

I cannot see that induction is ever a demonstration—but it makes the conclusion “credible”—viz “claiming belief.”

I cannot understand the state of mind which can love our Lord really with the feeling upon it, “After all, perhaps there is no such person.” It is loving a mere vision or picture, and is so unreal as to be degrading. I cannot fancy (you will say perhaps from an idiosyncrasy) this existence of devotion without certainty. I could not throw myself upon any one here below, of whom I had the suspicion, “perhaps he is not trustworthy.” On the other hand, I daily control and direct my mind into a firm belief, or speculative certainty, of truths which I cannot prove, on the ground that I should be a fool not to believe them, or, that reason bids my will to bid my mind to believe.393

The third correspondent whose questions helped Newman refine his thought was William Froude, the younger brother of Richard Hurrell Froude, Newman’s closest friend in the Tractarian Movement, who died prematurely in 1836. William, who entered Oriel College in 1828 and began a lifelong friendship with Newman, eventually gained professional recognition in hydrodynamic research with the Royal Navy. His wife and four of their children became Catholics, largely through Newman’s influence, but William remained agnostic. From 1844 until Froude’s death in 1879, they corresponded regularly. Froude gave Newman firsthand information about trends in nineteenth-century science, while at the same time confronting him with the relativist outlook accepted by many scientists of the day.

Froude maintained that anyone who sought intellectual integrity must withhold certain assent in religious matters since they must be qualified as tentative and revisable in the same way that scientific statements must be qualified as open to change. Froude came to visit Newman on December 11, 1860, and after their conversation, Newman wrote a memorandum outhning points on which they differed.

He [Froude] maintained that every additional piece of evidence made a man more certain, i.e. (absolute certainty being impossible) more disposed towards certainty: e.g., a man was more certain, if there were 12 witnesses to the point than if there were 11—more certain if there were no objections on the other side than if there were such.

On the contrary, I maintained, that, the laws of the human mind being assumed as facts and authorities, according to which we must conduct our thinking, if we would think at all, that in fact a man was not more certain, if he had 12 witnesses than if he had 11—he might, under circumstances, rejoice in the 12th as a confirmation, as it is called—as if he proved a mathematical problem by a second process, or gained the world’s praise for an action, which already was to himself a duty from the approbation of his conscience, but he was not more certain; that it was the nature of the human mind to fall into, or to take up, that state and habit called certainty, after certain preliminary evidence—so that probabilities in an object conspired to certainty in the subject or mind contemplating them.394

Several months earlier, in response to a question concerning the possibility of sophistry in the proofs of truth in general versus religious truth, Newman had replied:

Nay I go further—I think there is a sophism in considering the certainty of secular science so far superior to the certainty or persuasion, as you would call it, of the personal evidence for Christianity. I suspect, that, when all scientific proof, even for the existence of India, is examined microscopically, there will be found hiatuses in the logical sequence, so considerable, as to lead to the question, “Are there no broad first principles of knowledge which will protect us from scepticism as to all reasoning on things external to us, both scientific and popular?”395

Newman felt that his discussion of antecedent dispositions was his most promising contribution to a realistic theory of faith. For example, he felt that the most “original” feature of his University Sermons was their insistence “that antecedent probability is the great instrument of conviction in religious (nay in all) matters.”396 Accordingly, Newman believed “a good and bad man will think very different things probable.”397 Realizing that temperament and inclination affect our judgments in many matters, he felt that people are often ready to believe what they wish were true. They are slow to admit the failure of their own projects, or accept disappointing news, while they “readily believe reports unfavourable to persons they dislike, or confirmations of theories of their own.”398 Some antecedent dispositions are inevitable, but they are not always reasonable. They are “inducements to belief which prevail with all of us, by a law of our nature . . . whether they are in the particular case reasonable or not.”399 They cannot be eliminated but sometimes they must be corrected.

Faith and Doubt

From Newman’s letters, it can be seen that when anyone approached him with doubts, he was extremely sensitive and empathetic. It was in such a pastoral milieu that his spiritual direction developed. He did not favor sheltering faith from the world or avoiding confrontation with people or positions that challenged one’s faith. As he wrote to Mrs. Ward in 1859: “Faith ought to be tried and tested, if it be faith. I don’t like that faith, which, (as I have seen written to a new convert) is a ‘precious tender plant,’ to be sedulously guarded under a glass cover, or in a hot-house—an exotic—if so, our religion is a mere ‘alien religion,’ and ‘Oriental faith and worship’—but it is a tough principle within us, bearing heavy weights and hard work, or it is worth very little.”400

Newman directed people from every walk of life who had doubts of faith. In 1883, at the end of October, Arthur Hutton, an Oratorian, announced to his fellow community members that he had lost belief in the existence of a personal God. After speaking to Newman personally, Hutton wrote a letter to Ignatius Ryder who shared it with Newman: “Even if you were willing to receive me back, I could not honestly return to my work as a priest. I can only say that I believe I am acting rightly in coming to this decision; and I will add that if at any future time I can see my way to make a sincere act of faith in Catholicism, wherever I am I will seek to be reconciled to the Church, and will accept any penance that may be laid upon me.401

After reading this letter, Newman responded to Hutton with great sensitivity.

Francis has shown me the last page of your letter to him. I will not allow that you are, as you say, “irrevocably cut off” from your friends (all that is dear to you),—and since your letter to me came, I have wished to say so. I treasure the words in that letter in which you almost anticipate (may I not use the term?) that the time will come, when you will “make a sincere act of faith in Catholicism.” That will be a joyful day, and I assure you of our united prayers that God will hasten its coming. You believe more than you think you do, and God loves you better than, in your dishonouring thought of Him, you allow yourself to fancy. He will overcome you in spite of yourself.402

Lady Chatterton also had doubts and difficulties with faith which she did not overcome for almost a decade. In advising her, Newman manifested his understanding of her struggle:

It grieves me deeply that you should be suffering so much, knowing as I do how much you desire to do God’s will, and knowing too how much it must distress you to differ from Mr. Dering and your niece, and how it must distress them to differ from you.

These are trials, which God puts upon us; and we cannot at our will put them aside. You have been so kind as to state fully your difficulties, and to say that you do not wish for an answer. Nor could I, without writing a volume, go through them all. Nor do I think, any more than you do, that it would fulfill any good purpose to attempt an elaborate answer to them. To make you happy, as a Catholic, is the work of God alone; if you put yourself into His hands, and ask for His grace perseveringly, He will gradually remove all your doubts and perplexities; of this I am most confident.403

Later, when she thought that she was causing her doubts or that they were sinful, Newman reassured her:

I am glad to think that, as you so kindly say, that I have been of service to you, when your spirits have been oppressed. It is a received religious truth that nothing can really harm us, if we make it our duty to try to please God. The doubts you are troubled with are not your fault, nor are you answerable for them, if you do not consent to them, but repel them. You should do what you can, and nothing will harm you. If you are careful to go to Mass, when your health or the weather allow you, if you go duly to Confession and Communion . . . then doubt is only temptation. I say this, because persons who are in low spirits sometimes from a sort of despondency or despair, neglect their religious duties.404

When Fräulein M. experienced doubts of faith, Newman directed her first to seek out a spiritual director; and second, to cherish a deep conviction that God loves her by trying to put herself into His hands and grow in trust.405 Likewise, when William Froude began to write about his difficulties with faith, Newman not only corresponded with him at length but wrote his wife about her husband’s difficulties, so that she would understand the problem and hopefully help in her own way.406

The fact that Newman was a convert made other converts feel more comfortable in writing to him about their doubts; for example, after Isy Froude was received into the Church, she began to experience reservations. Newman responded in a calm and reassuring way: “Don’t you wonder, though your feelings go up and down, and though the long suspense which has excited your mind, should be followed by a re-action. Your heart and soul are fixed on the Rock of Truth—which remains fixed, though the waters around it rise and fall.”407 Continuing his encouragement, he wrote again four days later:

I am not at all surprised that you should be tried in the way you describe. If you were older, your trials would be of a different kind. The wise man says, “If thou wouldest serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for temptation.” What you must do, is to beg our Lord to give you what you need. Recollect the man who cried out to Him “I do believe, Lord—help my unbelief.” He will help you. I know—and He is teaching you and giving you experience about yourself.

It is very difficult for anyone like myself at a distance from you to say anything which will quite meet your wishes. I will do my best for you in prayer; it is by prayer, my dear Child, and in no other way that you have been brought forward hitherto, and you and all of us must still pray for you.408

Newman also wrote another letter to Mrs. F. R. Ward, Isy Froude’s sister, who was concerned about her. By helping her understand the difficulty, he hoped that she would be able to help her sister. He said: “Young people look forward for some great sensible effect to follow upon their reception, and are disappointed that they seem to themselves what they were before. And any excitement is sure to be followed with a re-action. Here the re-action is contemporaneous with the disappointment. Older people can by an act of reason, set themselves right—it is more difficult to a child and a girl. However, your and her mother’s influence must do for her what she cannot do for herself.”409

To another recent convert who was experiencing difficulties with the “newness” of Catholic ways, he advised:

I can quite understand your state of mind—and really I do feel much sympathy in your trial. It is what many have had before you, but I cannot conceal from myself that you are at a point in your religious history when you may gain great peace and comfort or implicate yourself in much mental embarrassment . . .

The greatest trial a Convert has to sustain, and to women it is often greater than to men, is the strangeness at first sight of everything in the Catholic Church. Mass, devotions, conversation, all may be a perplexity to you, so I am not at all surprised at what you say about the Mass. You must be brave and determined, and resolutely beg of God’s grace to carry you through your difficulties. Every nation, every body of people, has its own ways—Catholics have their own ways—we may not at first like them—and the question is where is religious Truth, where is salvation?—not is this habit, this fashion pleasant to me or not?410

Similarly, when Miss Emily Buchanan wrote to Newman telling him of her recent conversion, he counseled her to be realistic about future difficulties. In this case, his advice was given in advance in order to help a convert anticipate doubts and avoid difficulties. However, if they should come, he suggests ways to handle them constructively.

I am very glad to receive from you the tidings of your conversion, and am thankful to God both for it and for the circumstances under which it occurred.

God has been very gracious to you—and you may feel confident that He who has done so much for you will do still more. You must guard against your spiritual enemy, who will try to use you against yourself. After a time of excitement, perhaps of spiritual exultation, such as often is the attendant on conversion, there is often in turn a season of re-action, from the mere weariness of the mind, as we are apt to feel in the parallel case of bodily exertion. Then a despondency comes on, and then is our enemy’s time to suggest difficulties or murmurings. And the shorter has been the process of conversion, the more severe is likely to be the reverse. If such happens to you, you must be brave, and call on God to help you, and go straight forward in spite of all difficulties, and cherish a sure trust that your Lord and Saviour will in His own time bring your trial to an end.411

Newman manifested great sympathy to people who seemed to have been received into the Church prematurely. To Helen Forbes, who wrote for advice about the second thoughts she was experiencing, he replied;

I have read your very painful letter with great interest. No apology was necessary for your writing to me—at the same time I cannot argue on the subject, nor do you wish it, as I understand you . . .

From what you tell me, I dare say it is as you consider—you were received prematurely. You ought to have been more fully prepared for the step before you took it. I have known some men, and more women, who have been in your case. We cannot escape much mental uneasiness and trial in the course of so great a change—and, if we do not patiently go through with it before reception, it comes upon us afterwards. This is my experience; if you had waited till your convictions were fully formed, I believe you would have been spared this great suffering since your change of religion.412

However, to Edward Walford, a convert who seemed to have simply grown weary of his faith and who wanted to abandon it without sufficiently serious reflection or adequate reasons, Newman was much sterner:

I plainly gather from the tone of your letter that you have virtually made up your mind on the subject of it already.

Besides this, you say that “Every year the peculiar doctrines of the Catholic Creed have sat lighter and lighter upon you.” That is, I should not have to answer your questions, but to change habitual courses of thought and frames of mind.

And further still, I must ask your permission to say that your letter is not written with that seriousness which so momentous a question demands. When a man in your position has advanced so far as not to feel that a change of religion is a solemn act, in the highest degree pleasing or displeasing to his Maker and Judge, he has practically decided one way.413

Faith and Doctrine

For Newman faith and doctrine were intimately connected. To believe meant to have faith in something—a creed, and in someone—an authority, who will not mislead you. But what is unique about this aspect of his faith life, was the way in which he employed it. Newman emphasized the importance of having a creed and an authority as a method to help others to come to faith. To Mrs. Froude in 1848 he wrote: “Though you can believe what you choose, you must believe what you ought. Now, assuming duty proved, still you cannot believe without 1. a creed. 2. an authority which will not mislead you. At least put these first before you, even if (as you imply) you do not think in your position you need prove them. E.g., the Catholic makes his act of faith 1. in the Creed, and the so called Creed of Pope Pius, and the other dogmatic teaching of the Roman Church—2. in the authority of the Roman Church. This at least is intelligible.”414

Especially when writing to Anglicans, Newman would appeal to the importance of authority and doctrine for the person who believed, pointing out the great difference in the way Catholics and Anglicans understood these things. In a lengthy letter to E. J. Phipps, Newman pointed out major differences in belief between Catholics and Anglicans:

Consider the vast difference between believing in a living authority, unerring because divine, in matters of doctrine, and believing none;—between believing what an external authority defines, and believing what we ourselves happen to define as contained in Scripture and the Fathers, where no two individuals define quite the same set of doctrines; between believing a creed, which, as far as such definitions go, is ever increasing, and believing the letter of Creeds which we may expand and explain for ourselves. In the one case, the living authority, deciding the controversies of faith, is the Church, in the other (whatever men pretend,) it is we ourselves who are the ultimate authority.415

As a former member of the Church of England, Newman was in a special position to advise Anglican correspondents who were considering becoming Roman Catholics; he understood their beliefs. By emphasizing the weakness of not having a definite creed or an established authority, by pointing out the dangers of private judgment in matters of faith, he hoped to show that these lacunae led to confusion and uncertainty; then, he tried to emphasize the benefits of believing in a definite creed and authority. For example, he pointed out the benefits of Catholicism to Catherine Ward: “All the details of a Church, how to get pardon, how to get grace, what to worship, what to believe,—confession, absolution, the Real Presence, the Creed, the list of duties, the distinction of sins, all are set down with an exactness such as is implied by a gift from heaven, not a vague generality, not an idea, but by a working religion. Its visible unity answers to the scriptural prophecy of a kingdom.”416

Newman wrote again one month later. Intellectually convinced that she ought to convert, but still fearful, she had asked: “How am I to know that my present convictions are truth?”417 In response, Newman appealed to his similar experience, and that of many other converts. “Having experienced for many months, nay I would say for a year or two before I became a Catholic, while my convictions were growing, that very distressing feeling which you describe, ‘How do I know, confident as I may be, that it may not be a false confidence, that I am not in a dream, and the act of conversion will break it? I am sure, but how can I be sure that I ought to be sure?’—I can both sympathise with you, and perhaps have some right to advise you.”418

Because she had been brought to her conviction through the “notes” of the Church, Newman continued:

Take then this test, as you surely may, that the notes of the Church are not like other professed tokens of Revelation, deceptive, but the very properties and indications of Divine truth, viz that that Creed, to which they lead, keeps fast hold of those who trust them. It is not that you only were carried to and then from Calvinism or Dissent; but how few there are who find in the long run any Communion, but the Catholic, what they fancied it would be, when they joined it! Converts to Evangelicalism or to Millenarianism, tire of it as easily as they take up with it. They go further or they fall back—and how they change. I am not denying exceptions, but such is the rule. Your own experience is but the experience of a multitude.

Look on the other hand to Catholics. It is notorious generally, however you account for it, that the Catholic Church takes hold of the mind with a grasp which no sect can rival or imitate. And as to converts, may we not fairly offer you our testimony, that you will find with us that rest which you can find no where else? There are now, as at all times, a thousand disorders within and without the Church—her head is in exile419—her subject countries in political strife—her members full of imperfection—but there is that in her which is what she peculiarly promises, which no other body promises, and in which she does not deceive; she can present a creed, she alone can do what a Messenger from heaven ought to do; and her children feel this and are satisfied. If you join the Catholic Church for fine services, for splendid temples, for outward show or appearance of any kind, if it were in you an indulgence of sentiment or imagination, you might in this event be disappointed;—you cannot be disappointed in seeking in it these great attributes, which our reason tells us belong to the oracle of heaven and the Vicar of Christ. We give you this our testimony; not the testimony of one or two persons, but of many; of persons of education, of active and inquiring minds, who would, if any, have temptations to become sceptical or discontented, but who have had in fact not any temptation to doubt ever since they were Catholics. Such is the power, intellectual and spiritual, such is the grace lodged in the Catholic Church. I suppose (I speak it humbly) we should be ready to die for our certainty that it is true and the oracle of faith. Who would die for the truth of any other body?420

So, when George Forbes wrote to Newman expressing his sympathy at being “locked in” to a doctrinal system, it gave Newman an opportunity to explain: “Also it is one of the special comforts for which I thank God that since I have been a Catholic I have a peace and satisfaction as regards the authoritative doctrinal system under which I now live; and you call it my cross!”421

Finally, in response to a question from Isy Froude, Newman maintained that the act of faith is of the nature of an act of obedience.

Speaking under necessary corrections which must be ever made, when we lay down an abstract proposition in a concrete and practical matter, I would make the following statement:

“No one will be punished hereafter merely for holding or not holding a given proposition.” A man must do, or have done, something more than this to incur punishment.

This being said, I have two important explanations or provisos to add to it.

1. I have said “holding” not “believing.” There may be no merit in holding or not holding, and yet merit in believing or not believing, and demerit too.

“Our Lord died on the Cross for sinners”—this we are to believe—we cannot prove it—there would be no merit in holding it on the ground that we could prove it. But we are to believe it, because it is told us on trustworthy authority; and according as we believe it or not, we have merit or demerit. This responsibility arises out of the duty of believing the Authority which reveals it to us. Thus the act of faith is of the nature of an act of obedience, and faith, though considered as the acceptance of a proposition, it is an act of the intellect, yet indirectly it is a moral act, and is rewarded or punished as such.

If you go on to ask why we are commanded to believe on authority, instead of holding on proof, it is enough to answer that such a duty is a trial of our trust and obedience to Him, who has a right to demand our trust and obedience. But I add, ex abundanti, [out of an abundance (of caution)] that such a belief, bringing in a new set of motives, has an important effect upon our moral state, or tends, to use the common phrase, to change the heart etc. etc.

Both reasons are exemplified in the Gospels. Our Lord asked the faith of those whom he healed, first, as appears in the narrative, as an act of submission and devotion to Himself, and secondly because we may suppose that in some cases that faith may have been the medium of the cure.422

Growing in Faith

Although many of Newman’s letters dealt specifically with helping others come to faith, there are nevertheless a significant number that suggest ways of growing in one’s faith. By encouraging and guiding individuals to become more sensitive to God’s grace, by instilling a deeper realization that faith is both personal and communal, Newman sought to help people mature in faith.

Newman was deeply aware of difficulties present in Christian belief, yet he spoke of divine faith as “a clear certainty greater than any other certainty” but added that “this is wrought in the mind by the grace of God and by it alone.”423 For Newman, it was important that a person not only do those things which might keep him from receiving the gift of faith, but it was also necessary to be sensitive to the ways that God’s grace moved a person. To Mrs. William Froude he asked: “Are you quite sure that you respond, as you should, to God’s grace leading you on?”424

Because faith is a free gift of God, it necessarily solicits a free response. So, for Newman, the basic stance of the Christian ought to be one of receptivity and patient waiting for God. To grow in faith it is necessary to become more and more open to a deeper realization of who has spoken in the depths of a person’s heart. At the same time the ability to wait patiently is also important. Yet, it is not a passive kind of waiting, but active—one in which a person is doing those things that will prepare one’s mind and heart to receive this gift when God chooses to grant it. In 1853 he wrote to Mrs. William Froude: “I am quite sure you wish to please God, and would do any thing He told you. On the other hand, I know well He does not tell us everything at once—but first one thing, and then, when we act upon that another. . . . Faith is a gift of God; we can gain it by prayer, we cannot gain it at once, but we can gain it at last.”425

Over twenty years later, a recent convert, Miss Emily Buchanan, asked Newman’s advice about growing in one’s faith. After directing her to be prepared to experience a reaction common to many converts, he encouraged her to pray, to patiently trust in the Lord, and “to go straight forward in spite of all difficulties.”426

For Newman, faith is essentially personal; it is to believe someone. So in order to grow in faith, a person needs to know, love, and surrender more completely to God who is revealing Himself. For Newman, there were three means to accomplish this: prayer, reading Scripture, and associating with other believing people.

Newman felt that after reasoning there must come invocation—a calling out to a real Being who acts in history and in individual human lives. For this reason, prayer assumes a role of great significance both in coming to faith and in growing in faith. Henry Goodwin had felt the need of certainty in religious belief and asked Newman for “the secret . . . of combining real religious spirituality with perfect freedom to accept all knowledge.”427 Newman responded: “You ask me for a ‘secret’. The secret is prayer.”428 Mrs. Wilson, a convert, was experiencing difficulties in faith and asked Newman’s direction. His supportive response emphasized the Apostles’ increase in faith.

However, I would not say that you have not faith—but your faith is weak—and I speak of its being a gift of God to believe, to remind you, what it must be right to say, even tho’ you do not need reminding, that you must pray for it. The Apostles said to our Lord “Increase our faith.” They were not discouraged—they did not go back and fall away because their faith in Him was tried—they did (not) allow themselves to say, “Perhaps after all He is not the Christ—why should we attempt to believe Him”—but they said “Increase our faith.” So be sure, my dear Madam, that He will increase yours. He loves you. He has done great things for you, and He will do more still.429

When Fräulein M. wrote to him about the doubts of faith she was having, Newman suggested that she seek spiritual direction and pray. “But he [Newman] feels, as far as his eyes will allow him to read her letter, that what she needs is a good Priest to direct her.

“She ought to do what he tells her to do . . .

“She ought to cherish a deep conviction that God loves her and desires her salvation. She must not despond, but put herself into God’s Hands and say: ‘0 Lord guide me’. The more we trust Him the more He will do for us.”430

A second means that Newman advocated for growing in awareness of God was by reading the Scriptures. After writing to Louisa Simeon about the importance of starting points for arriving at religious truth, he concluded: “I think you must ask the God of Conscience to enable you to do your duty in this matter. I think you should, with prayer to Him for help, meditate upon the Gospels, and on St. Paul’s second Epistle to the Corinthians.”431

Newman understood that Christian faith is lived in a social context. A believing community is surrounded by an unbelieving one and therefore one of the means of growing in faith is to associate with a community of believers in order to find strength and support.432 Within and by this believing community a message is announced and declared to have a divine origin and authority; there are signs and evidence given to defend that this is accepted not as the word of man, but of God. Newman felt that an individual was called to believe the “word” socially present in this believing community in an intensely personal way. To mature in the community one must believe those who teach the word; yet, if one believed just the apostle or teacher or society, he would not have divine faith. Only one who believed in God, bearing witness to Himself in this community has come to full Christian faith. Only then can one enter into the spirit of a particular community which is created by the personal faith of its members.

This was one of Newman’s major concerns in the controversy over whether Catholics ought to be able to attend the Protestant-oriented universities. In principle he was opposed to the idea; he thought that it could be very detrimental to their faith. Because of the agnostic climate that prevailed at these universities, Newman believed it would be very difficult to find a community of believers to support and strengthen a person’s faith and consequently attendance at these universities would be a serious danger to faith. His proposed solution was not a prohibition against attending these universities, but the establishment of an Oratory at Oxford, which might serve as a source of strength, support and protection for Catholic students. However, because the bishops of England wanted to begin their own Catholic college, they did not accept Newman’s proposal.

Summary

It was not the purpose of Newman’s correspondence to present a complete treatise on the nature of faith. Rather, he attempted to respond to particular questions of people in concrete situations in order to guide them to a correct understanding of faith and to help them in authentically living their faith. By putting together these pieces of advice, one can grasp Newman’s essential views on faith. What emerges from his letters is first, the content—how Newman understood faith, and second, the method—how he went about directing others to come to believe.

Newman portrayed faith as an absolute assent to what God has revealed because God has spoken. Through faith, a person’s assent to what is revealed rests directly on the authoritative testimony of God. When faith is absent, the judgment that one ought to believe rests on natural evidence. Yet because God enables the believer to accept revealed truths on His word, the act of faith is absolutely certain beyond all other judgments. While denying that divine faith is the conclusion of an argument, Newman believed that a human process of reasoning that honestly considers evidence is a necessary condition if the act of faith is to be made in a way which conforms to the rational nature of the human person.

Newman also believed that the entire process leading to faith is guided by the grace of God. Through grace, God draws a person to share personally in His own knowing. The “illumination” of grace does not merely give a new dignity, but a new inner structure to the faith-knowledge of the believer. God is the formal object of this Divine faith-knowledge because the believer now knows revealed truths through a unique share in God’s knowledge. Prior to faith, grace enables a person to appreciate the force of arguments that God exists and that revelation is credible. In faith, grace enables one to grasp God’s revelation.

Newman acknowledged that his own thought on faith had developed over the years. His correspondence shows his thought gradually taking shape through a dialogue with both old friends and new critics. Sometimes there was a clarification of questions which previously had been confused; sometimes an awareness of new questions which had been overlooked. The view of faith that Newman worked out in his correspondence ultimately was given systematic form in his Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, published in 1870.

In his correspondence, Newman did not define faith according to some a priori theory. Rather, he took faith as he found it—both in personal experience and as described in Scripture, expressed in creeds, and practiced in the Church from Apostolic times. In 1849, he told a Birmingham audience that faith has always consisted in submitting to God’s word, not in judging for one’s self.433 Newman considered faith a “venture” that includes a variety of paradoxical properties. There are antecedent dispositions before evidence, a readiness to obey, to love, and to venture everything on God’s word.434

For Newman, faith is not a conclusion that comes from argument, rather, faith comes by hearing; faith simply “accepts testimony. As testimony is distinct from experience, so is Faith from Reason.”435 In human faith however, we take someone’s word “for what it is worth”; we more or less accept and act on it, yet we retain the right of questioning its validity at any time. In divine faith, however, the situation is quite different: “He who believes that God is true, and that this is His word, which He has committed to man, has no doubt at all . . . he is certain, because God is true, because God has spoken, not because he sees its truth or can prove its truth.436

Newman attacked a variety of inadequate solutions to the problem of faith and reason under the general term “liberalism.”437 For example, in 1845 Newman described an “anti-dogmatic principle” which seemed to emerge whenever men lost confidence in reason’s ability to prove the mysteries of revelation. “That truth and falsehood in religion are but matter of opinion; that one doctrine is as good as another; . . . that there is no truth; that we are not acceptable to God by believing this than by believing that; . . . that we may take up and lay down opinions at pleasure; that belief belongs to the mere intellect, not to the heart also; that we may safely trust to ourselves in matters of Faith, and need no other guide,—this is the principle of philosophies and heresies, which is very weakness.”438 This attitude had become so pervasive among Newman’s countrymen that he complained: “It is not at all easy (humanly speaking) to wind up an Englishman to a dogmatic level.”439

Newman’s correspondence reveals the unique parallel that exists between his personal direction of others and his own understanding of faith. From his Fifteen Sermons Preached before the University of Oxford (1826–1843), through his “Papers of 1853 on the Certainty of Faith,”440 to his systematic position enunciated in An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent in 1870, the topic of faith continued to mature in his mind. Accordingly, his spiritual direction during these years reflected both his own questions and the progression of his thought. His understanding of faith gradually assumed a deeper doctrinal orientation which can similarly be detected in his spiritual direction. Not only did his spiritual direction reflect his own thought on faith, but often his direction of others seems to have provided the occasion for deepening his own faith.

Emerging from his correspondence are certain important qualities of Newman as a spiritual director. First, Newman had the gift of accepting people as they were and of working with them patiently over a period of many years; he realized that helping a person come to faith was a slow process often involving many complex human factors. Second, his letters show that he did not impose his views on others, but tried to understand their positions and their backgrounds before responding to their questions. In this respect, he was particularly adept at writing Anglicans, whose background and beliefs he understood. Third, his willingness to dialogue with others on issues of faith seems endless. Often his letters were long, involved and detailed yet written in such a way that they not only invited a response but even allowed a correspondent to feel comfortable in disagreeing with him. His persistence and perseverance in writing had the effect of making people feel that both they and their questions were important. In sum, Newman believed that faith “is a particular mode of thinking and acting,”441 yet it is not merely speculative. It is entirely free and entirely reasonable. It is absolute, yet a believer may seek to uncover the grounds of his belief. It is reasonable, but not the conclusion of an argued proof. What he gradually worked out in his writing was an account of how these ingredients combine in faith.

323. JHN to Sister Mary Gabriel du Boulay, 18 August 1861, in LD 20:19.

324. Newman, Lectures on the Present, x–xi.

325. In some of his correspondence, Newman spoke of the “certainty” of faith; in his Essay in Aid (1870), chapter 7, he used “certainty” in reference to “formal inference” (e.g., mathematical or logical conclusions) and “certitude” in relation to matters of “informed reference” (e.g., matters of trust, faith, etc.).

326. Fey, Faith, xii.

327. JHN to Mrs. William Froude, 27 June 1848, in LD 12:228.

328. Ibid. In another letter a week later, July 3, 1848, to Mrs. Froude, Newman repeated: “Though you can believe what you choose, you must believe that you ought.” LD 12:233.

329. JHN to Mrs. William Froude, 14 July 1849, in LD 13:218–19.

330. JHN to Mrs. William Froude, 23 February 1853, in LD 15:307–8. Newman continued to stress this idea as late as December 11, 1886 in a letter to Alfred Spurrier: “Faith is a divine gift. It is gained by prayer. Prayer must be patient and persevering.” LD 31:177.

331. JHN to Mrs. Wilson, 8 January 1870, in LD 25:6.

332. JHN to Mrs. Wilson, 3 August 1874, in LD 27:102–3.

333. Newman, Loss and Gain, 383–84.

334. JHN to Catherine Ward, 12 October 1848, in LD 12:289n1.

335. JHN to Catherine Ward, 30 November 1848, in LD 12:356.

336. JHN to Edward Thompson, 11 October 1853, in LD 15:467.

337. Newman, “Papers of 1853 on the Certainty of Faith,” in Theological Papers of John Henry Newman, 36.

338. Fey, Faith, 175.

339. Ibid.

340. JHN to Mrs. William Froude, 1855, in LD 16:108.

341. Newman, Philosophical Notebook, 195.

342. Ibid., 195–97.

343. JHN to Henry Wilberforce, 1 October 1849, in LD 13:266–67.

344. Ibid.

345. JHN to J. Walker of Scarborough, 24 October 1864, in LD 21:270–71. See also JHN to Mrs. William Froude, 23 February 1853, in LD 15:307–8.

346. JHN to Mrs. William Froude, 29 April 1879, in LD 29:120.

347. JHN to W. G. Ward, 15 March 1862, in LD 20:171.

348. Newman, “Faith and Reason Contrasted,” in Fifteen Sermons, 183.

349. Ibid., 199.

350. Newman, “Faith and Private Judgement,” in Discourses, 211.

351. JHN to J. Walker of Scarborough, 24 October 1864, in LD 21:270.

352. Newman, Sermon 14, in Parochial and Plain Sermons, 2:151–52; January or February 1836.

353. Newman, Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification, 267.

354. Newman, Fifteen Sermons, 61–62.

355. Newman, Discourses, 187.

356. Newman, Essay in Aid, 220.

357. See, e.g., his extensive correspondence with William Froude from 1860 to 1879:

William Froude to JHN, 15 January 1860, in LD 19:283–84;

JHN to William Froude, 18 January 1860, in LD 19:284–85;

William Froude to JHN, 25 January 1860, in LD 19:296–98;

JHN to William Froude, 26 January 1860, in LD 19:298–99;

JHN, Memorandum of Conversation with William Froude, 14 December 1860, in LD 19:440–42;

JHN to William Froude, 9 April 1863, in LD 20:430;

JHN to William Froude, 30 September 1864, in LD 21:245;

William Froude to JHN, 29 April 1879, in LD 29:119–20.

358. JHN to Louisa Simeon, 25 June 1869, in LD 24:275.

359. JHN to William Brownlow, 29 April 1871, in LD 25:324.

360. JHN to Mrs. William Froude, 1854 or 1855, in LD 16:108–9.

361. JHN to Mrs. Christie, 20 December 1881, in LD 30:33.

362. JHN to William Goodwin, 13 August 1884, in LD 30:389–90.

363. JHN to William Brownlow, 29 April 1871, in LD 25:323–24.

364. JHN to Henry Wilberforce, 1 October 1849, in LD 13:267.

365. JHN to Frank Haydon, 24 April 1858, in LD 18:333–36.

366. JHN to Henry Wilberforce, 27 July 1868, in LD 24:104.

367. JHN to George Boag, 25 February 1881, in LD 29:343.

368. JHN to Catherine Ward, 12 October 1848, in LD 12:289–90.

369. JHN to Unknown Correspondent, 23 September 1864, in LD 21:236.

370. Ibid.

371. JHN to Louisa Simeon, 25 June 1869, in LD 24:275–76.

372. Newman, Apologia, 21 and Essay in Aid, 58–59, 159–64, 237–40.

373. JHN to J. Walker of Scarborough, 6 July 1864, in LD 21:146.

374. Ibid.

375. JHN to J. Walker of Scarborough, 24 October 1864, in LD 21:270–71.

376. JHN to Mr. Lilly, 15 October 1884, in LD 30:415.

377. Capes, “Four Years,” 4; July 1849, 164.

378. JHN to J. M. Capes, 27 January 1850, in LD 13:398.

379. JHN to J. M. Capes, 20 November 1850, in LD 14:134.

380. JHN to Francis Wegg-Prosser, 7 September 1851, in LD 14:348.

381. JHN to Edward Thompson, 7 October 1853, in LD 15:456.

382. Ibid.

383. Ibid.

384. Ibid., 457.

385. JHN to Edward Thompson, 7 October 1853, in LD 15:460.

386. Edward Thompson to JHN, 8 October 1853, in LD 15:464.

387. Ibid.

388. Ibid., 465.

389. JHN to Edward Thompson, 11 October 1853, in LD 15:465. Above “sufficient grounds” Newman wrote “motiva.”

390. Ibid., 466–67. Newman spent the next two months expanding this summary into a long paper entitled “On the Certainty of Faith” which is now published in Theological Papers, 3–38.

391. JHN to J. M. Capes, 1 October 1858, in LD 18:471n1.

392. Ibid. Newman’s intention in the second part of his Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent was to show that one can believe what one cannot absolutely prove.

393. Ibid., 471–72.

394. JHN, Memorandum of Conversation with William Froude, 14 December 1860, in LD 19:440.

395. JHN to William Froude, 18 January 1860, in LD 19:284–85. See the extensive correspondence in chronological order between Newman and Froude:

JHN to William Froude, 28 December 1850, in LD 14:178;

JHN to William Froude, 10 April 1854, in LD 16:104;

JHN to William Froude, 1854, in LD 16:108;

JHN to William Froude, 29 December 1859, in LD 19:270;

JHN to William Froude, 2 January 1860, in LD 19:172;

William Froude to JHN, 15 January 1860, in LD 19:283–84;

JHN to William Froude, 18 January 1860, in LD 19:284–85;

William Froude to JHN, 25 January 1860, in LD 19:296–98;

JHN to William Froude, 26 January 1860, in LD 19:298–99;

JHN, Memorandum of Conversation with William Froude, 14 December 1860, in LD 19:440–42;

JHN to William Froude, 9 April 1863, in LD 20:430;

JHN to William Froude, 30 September 1864, in LD 21:245;

William Froude to JHN, 29 April 1879, in LD 29:109–12;

JHN to William Froude, 29 April 1879, in LD 29:112–20;

Also for a thorough and detailed explanation of Froude’s position and Newman’s response, see Fey, Faith, 127–35. For other correspondence with persons having questions concerning science in relation to faith, see:

JHN to John Mozley, 19 April 1874, in LD 27:54–56;

JHN to John Mozley, 3 December 1875, in LD 27:385–89;

JHN to John Mozley, 10 November 1877, in LD 28:265–68;

JHN to Henry Bellairs, 21 March 1882, in LD 30:69–70;

JHN to W. S. Lilly, 7 December 1882, in LD 30:159–60;

396. JHN to W. G. Penny, 13 December 1846, in LD 11:293. See also JHN to J. D. Dalgairns, 8 February 1847, in LD 12:32, describing the University Sermons as “the best things I have written”; and JHN to Edward Thompson, 12 June 1853, in LD 15:381. Newman put the University Sermons on a par with his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, his Idea of a University, and his Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent as his best achievements.

397. Newman, Fifteen Sermons, 190–91 (January 6, 1839).

398. Ibid., 189.

399. Ibid.

400. JHN to Mrs. F. R. Ward, 8 May 1859, in LD 19:128.

401. Arthur Hutton to Ignatius Ryder, 15 November 1883, in LD 30:274n2. See also JHN to Henry Ryder, 4 November 1883, in LD 30:271–72.

402. Ibid., 274–75.

403. JHN to Lady Chatterton, Holy Thursday 1866, in LD 22:193–94.

404. JHN to Lady Chatterton, 29 January 1873, in LD 26:241–42. See also JHN to Lady Chatterton, 13 June 1873, in LD 26:325.

405. JHN to Fräulein M., 27 November 1883, in LD 30:276.

406. See Newman’s very lengthy letter to Mrs. William Froude, 1854 or 1855, in LD 16:105–9.

407. JHN to Isy Froude, 4 May 1859, in LD 19:120.

408. JHN to Isy Froude, 8 May 1859, in LD 19:122.

409. JHN to Mrs. F. R. Ward, 8 May 1859, in LD 19:126.

410. JHN to Miss Ellen Fox, 25 February 1868, in LD 24:41.

411. JHN to Miss Emily Buchanan, 16 April 1875, in LD 27:278.

412. JHN to Helen Forbes, 4 October 1864, in LD 21:248–49.

413. JHN to Edward Walford, 10 May 1860, in LD 19:336. See also another letter to Walford three days later, May 13, 1860, in LD 19:336–37.

414. JHN to Mrs. William Froude, 3 July 1848, in LD 12:233.

415. JHN to E. J. Phipps, 3 July 1848, in LD 12:234–35. See also JHN to T. W. Allies, 6 September 1848, in LD 12:260; JHN to Robert Jenkins, 5 January 1881, in LD 29:330.

416. JHN to Catherine Ward, 18 November 1848, in LD 12:336.

417. Catherine Ward to JHN, 19 December 1848, in LD 12:377n1.

418. JHN to Catherine Ward, 19 December 1848, in LD 12:377.

419. During the revolution of 1848 and the establishment of the Roman Republic, Pope Pius IX (1789–1878; Pope: 1846–1878) went into exile from November 24, 1848 to April 12, 1850, in Gaeta in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

420. JHN to Catherine Ward, 19 December 1848, in LD 12:377–78.

421. JHN to George Forbes, 11 August 1871, in LD 25:378.

422. JHN to Isy Froude, 9 April 1873, in LD 26:287. In a letter on November 20, 1879, encouraging Mrs. Christie to submit to this trustworthy authority, Newman emphasized the fact she should not do it blindly, but rather to make an act of the will. “I don’t ask you to ‘shut your eyes’, but to do it with your eyes open. Here the ‘Will’ comes in.” LD 29:200.

423. Newman, Discourses, 224. Teresa of Avila, in her Interior Castle, 252, wrote: “How, you will ask, can we become so convinced of what we have not seen? That I do not know; it is the work of God.” John of the Cross, in his Dark Night of the Soul, 159, spoke of a “secret wisdom . . . communicated and infused into the soul through love . . . hidden from the work of the understanding.”

424. JHN to Mrs. William Froude, 27 June 1848, in LD 12:227.

425. JHN to Mrs. William Froude, 23 February 1853, in LD 15:307–8. See also JHN to James Budin, 10 May 1886, in LD 31:137–38.

426. JHN to Miss Emily Buchanan, 16 April 1875, in LD 27:278.

427. JHN to William Goodwin, 13 August 1884, in LD 30:389n5.

428. Ibid., 390.

429. JHN to Mrs. Wilson, 8 January 1870, in LD 25:6.

430. JHN to Fräulein M., 27 November 1883, in LD 30:176. For other letters treating prayer and faith see:

JHN to Mrs. William Froude, 27 June 1848, in LD 12:227–28;

JHN to Catherine Ward, 12 October 1848, in LD 12:289–90;

JHN to William Monsell, 9 December 1850, in LD 14:164;

JHN to Mrs. William Froude, 1854 or 1855, in LD 16:105–9;

JHN to William Brownlow, 29 April 1871, in LD 25:323–25;

JHN to George Boag, 25 February 1881, in LD 29:342–43;

JHN to Mrs. Christie, 20 December 1881, in LD 30:33–34.

431. JHN to Louisa Simeon, 25 June 1869, in LD 24:276. In two other letters, Newman wrote about the power of the Gospel and the power contained in them in reference to a defense against skepticism:

JHN to J. R. Bloxam, 20 February 1883, in LD 30:186;

JHN to Emily Bowles, 10 March 1883, in LD 30:194.

432. JHN to Emily Bowles, 5 January 1882, in LD 30:48. In this letter Newman advised against associating with groups of people who would be a detriment to faith.

433. Newman, “Faith and Private Judgement,” in Discourses, 200–201, 195–96.

434. On February 10, 1848, Newman wrote to A. J. Hammer about the “venture” of faith: “You speak against making ventures in matters of faith—but did not Abraham, my dear Sir, make a venture, when he went out, not knowing whither he went?—he had not even the opportunity, which you have, of asking persons who had gone before him—And now, though circumstances may be different, yet so far is the same—that without faith nothing good will be done.” LD 12:168.

435. Newman, “Faith and Reason Contrasted,” in Fifteen Sermons, 180 (January 6, 1839).

436. Newman, “Faith and Private Judgement,” in Discourses, 195.

437. Newman, Apologia, 218. “Liberalism,” he wrote, “is the mistake of subjecting to human judgement those revealed doctrines which are in their nature beyond and independent of it; and claiming to determine on intrinsic grounds the truth and value of propositions which rest for their reception on the external authority of the Divine Word.” See also 50–51, 200–201. In 1887, Newman was still writing about liberalism as the development of rationalism. See JHN to Richard Armstrong, 23 March 1887, in LD 31:198.

438. Newman, Essay on the Development, 357–58. See also Essay in Aid, 316.

439. Newman, Apologia, 185.

440. In Theological Papers of John Henry Newman.

441. Newman, “Faith and Private Judgement,” in Discourses, 193.

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