Faith Dynamics according to John Henry Newman
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21146/2587-683X-2023-7-2-115-142Keywords:
Cardinal Newman, Oxford Movement, development of doctrine, faith and reason, history and theology, psychology of religion, epistemology of religion, evidentialism, implicit and explicit reason, philosophical theologyAbstract
The paper undertakes a broad thematic contextualization of John Henry Newman’s (1801–1890) theory of the development of Christian doctrine in the expanses of European philosophical and theological thought. A typology of solutions to the main problem of the era faced by the young Anglican theologian in the first half of the XIXth century is proposed, – a combination of historical relativism and dogmatic absolutism in matters of religion. Three strategies for solving the question posed boil down to the following types: 1) acceptance of history, 2) denial of history, 3) interaction of history and dogmas. According to the characteristic features, Newman’s concept should be attributed to the first type, although it has its own characteristics that distinguish its approach from similar solutions to the problem. A feature of Newman’s approach indicates the predominance of philosophical instruments and methods over historical ones. Such optics provide additional resources for interpreting both the concept itself and its key elements, in particular the categories of faith and reason, faith as consent. Additional materials that preceded the appearance of Newman’s main book on the problem of development (“An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine,” 1845) are given as an appendix (Oxford sermon “Implicit and Explicit Reason”, 1840) and represent the first translation into Russian of one of the key elements for understanding the entire concept – Newman invented the distiction of the implicit and explicit stages of faith or states of mind.