Section 5

John Henry Newman continues to attract the attention of students and scholars from a range of disciplines, including theology, philosophy, and literature. The extent and range of the interest in Newman and his work is in itself an argument for a book that brings together essays that provide a comprehensive introduction to his theology. The fact that much of the work devoted to Newman is of a specialized nature reinforces the need for a systematic presentation of the major themes of his work and the context in which his thought developed.

The ongoing interest in Newman is easily explained.

In the first place, Newman was a major historical figure in his own right. His life (1801–90) spans a fascinating century and Newman was a witness to and a commentator on much nineteenth-century history. Moreover, Newman was directly involved in a number of significant developments throughout the century. He was the major protagonist in the so-called Oxford Movement, the author of the seminal text, The Idea of a University, an important commentator on Vatican Council I, and an innovative thinker in the field of theological epistemology.

His significance to his own age perhaps pales in comparison to the stature he has enjoyed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Newman’s work is regarded as marking a watershed in the development of modern (especially Catholic) theology. He is regarded as a leading representative (and in Catholic theology, one of the forerunners) of the turn to the subject in modern thought. His own theology highlights and anticipates themes that are characteristic of modern theology, including the importance of historical-critical research, the hermeneutics of doctrinal development, the place of experience in the life of faith and in theology, the relationship between theology and literature, and the reinterpretation of the nature of faith. In regard to the latter theme, Newman’s work is characterized by two elements that have come especially to the fore in contemporary (postmodern) theology, namely, the importance of the religious imagination and the fiduciary character of all knowledge.

Newman’s novelty and his relevance to modern theology are evidenced in the fact that he was appealed to by leading figures in the movement known as Catholic Modernism, and that he is regarded as the precursor of the movement for the retrieval of the scriptural and patristic sources of theology (ressourcement or ‘nouvelle théologie’) and of the Second Vatican Council (of which he is often called the ‘Father’ or the ‘invisible peritus’).

Newman is a thinker whose influence and concerns extend well beyond the nineteenth century into the (modern) twentieth and (postmodern) twentieth-first centuries. Recent studies have highlighted the postmodern themes in Newman’s writings and contemporary authors continue to find inspiration in his work.

In conclusion, then, first, Newman is an excellent point of entry to the history and development of theology since the nineteenth century. Second, Newman’s work is significant in its own right. He was a seminal thinker who anticipated modern and postmodern concerns and themes and who explored these in an original fashion. The ongoing interest in Newman is ample testimony to his contemporary relevance. And third, in the face of more and more specialized studies of Newman, there is a great need for an accessible, comprehensive and systematic presentation of the major themes in his own work.