THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF J. H. NEWMAN’S IDEA OF THE CONSCIENCE, VIEWED IN THE CONTEXT OF HIS DEFENCE OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF.

Abstract

Since the Enlightenment, with its dependence on “Reason” alone, faith has been rejected by growing numbers as a basis of religious knowledge. It was now less and less an age of Faith and much more of “Reason”. If you wanted to be sure of something, you had to prove it with strict evidence open to the scrutiny of rational examination. By this test religion was deemed to have failed. John Henry Newman was born into this intellectual situation, one that was eroding the sense of ultimate religious certainty, most obviously among intellectuals. He was a man recognized for his prowess in logic, but was highly sceptical of the power of mere reasoning to take a person to the truth – and most especially to the truth of revealed religion. Many more things were required, he thought, although it was of course necessary to reason logically. There was the question of the inquirer’s basic starting points. What were they? There was the question of whether the idea of God was a fruit of mere formal reasoning, or whether it was also an implicit or tacit perception prior to formal ratiocination and creed. What was it to “reason” in this real-life context, anyway? Reasoning to certitude involved, he thought, the perception of probability. There was also the question of a necessary mental preparedness, a right ethos of mind, if a person was to reason to the being of God and to the truth of his revelation.
 Newman decided that the foundation and support of a real belief in God and in his Revelation was something accessible to all. It was the sense of moral obligation. Conscience, commonly regarded as the voice of God to the soul, was the foundation. But what did this mean and why did Newman think this? This thesis takes up Newman’s view that the conscience is the essential principle and sanction of belief in God and his revelation. The conscience of man prompts the thought of God at its beginning and enables a natural apprehension of him. With this inchoate yet developing knowledge of God as Lawgiver, Judge and Friend, and supported by numerous other helps, one may proceed to “divine faith” in revealed religion, and in the Church its authenticated witness and exponent. This process is, though, sustained by grace.
 This investigation does not purport to evaluate Newman’s position philosophically. There have been many such attempts. Its purpose is, rather, to track the course of his basic idea as it developed over his lifetime, as evidenced in his letters, diaries and publications.