Posted on 05/15/2015 2:05:08 PM PDT by RnMomof7
The nineteenth century witnessed the conversions of two prominent Anglican clergymen to Roman Catholicism. Both men would ultimately become cardinals in the Roman Church, and both men would profoundly influence Roman Catholic theology. The first was John Henry Newman (1801–1890). The second was Henry Edward Manning (1808–1892). Newman is probably most well known for his involvement in the high church Oxford Movement and for his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845). Manning is best known for his advocacy of social justice and for his strong support of the doctrine of papal infallibility following his conversion to Rome. He played a key role in the First Vatican Council (1869–1870).
What I find most interesting about these two men is their approach to history and what it tells us about the Roman Catholic Church. Cardinal Newman famously said, “To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.” He believed that if one compared the teaching and practice of both Protestantism and Rome to the teaching and practice of the early church, one would be forced to conclude that Rome was the true heir of the early church. Of course, he had to posit a rather complex theory of doctrinal development in order to make such an idea plausible to himself and others not already inclined to agree. But be that as it may, Newman believed that the study of history supported the claims of Rome.
Cardinal Manning, on the other hand, claimed that for a Roman Catholic, “the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy” and that “the only divine evidence to us of what was primitive is the witness and voice of the Church at this hour” (The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost). In other words, to examine church history in order to find support for the claims of Rome is to demonstrate a lack of faith in the Church of Rome. It is to place human reason over and above faith. If you want to know what the early church taught, all you have to do is look at what the Roman Catholic Church teaches today.
The Roman Catholic theologian Walter Burghardt expresses the same view in connection with the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary, which was defined as dogma in 1950:
“A valid argument for a dogmatic tradition, for the Church’s teaching in the past can be constructed from her teaching in the present. And that is actually the approach theology took to the definability of the assumption before 1st November 1950. It began with a fact: the current consensus, in the Church teaching and in the Church taught, that the Corporeal Assumption was revealed by God. If that is true, if that is the teaching of the magisterium of the moment, if that is the Church’s tradition, then it was always part and parcel of the Church’s teaching, part and parcel of tradition.”
Manning and Burghardt are simply being consistent with belief in the infallibility of Rome and of the pope. If the church is infallible, appeals to history, tradition, and Scripture are superfluous. What the church teaches now must be what the church has always taught, regardless of what the actual evidence from Scripture and/or tradition might say.
Rome truly has no other choice if she wishes to maintain her current beliefs and practices. If she were to appeal to something like the Vincentian Canon (namely, that the true faith, the true interpretation of Scripture, is that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all), the pope would have to give up all claims to supremacy over the entire church, and the bulk of Roman peculiarities and practice would have to be jettisoned.
Cardinal Newman recognized the obvious difference between the current Roman Church and the early church. He was too deep in history not to see it. He had to develop his famous idea of doctrinal development to explain it. He argued that all the later Roman doctrines and practices were “hidden” in the church from the beginning. They were made explicit over time under the guidance of the Spirit. But the problem that many Roman Catholics fail to see is that there is a difference between development and contradiction. It is one thing to use different language to teach something the church has always taught (e.g., the “Trinity”). It is another thing altogether to begin teaching something that the church always denied (e.g., papal supremacy or infallibility). Those doctrines in particular were built on multitudes of forgeries.
Cardinal Manning solved the problem by treating any appeal to history as treason. He called for blind faith in the papacy and magisterium. Such might have been possible had the fruits of the papacy over 1,500 years not consistently been the precise opposite of the fruit of the Spirit (Matt. 7:16).
Cardinal Newman said that to be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant. The truth is that to be deep in real history, as opposed to Rome’s whitewashed, revisionist, and often forged history, is to cease to be a Roman Catholic.
ping
Well, pally, you beat me to it.
Wrong. I have loved history ever since elementary school back in the 1950’s. There use to be a series of books with orange covers written for that age kids. I read them all. When I started college, I wanted to major in history but changed my mind. I have never stopped learning. History is fascinating. If we do not know our past, we do not know about the future. Right now I am very interested in the Old West. I would love to go to old west ghost towns.
That’s great about your love of history, but you must have fallen asleep when they covered the atrocities that Oliver Cromwell forced upon the Catholic Church.
Newman was speaking directly to you when he said that.
Ad Majoram Dei Gloriam
A suggestion: Little Big Man. The book, not the (yuk) movie.
http://www.biblicalcatholic.com/apologetics/num14.htm
The reference here is to Cardinal Manning's book, The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost, 6th edition, 1909, page 238f, cf. page 29, 214-16 :
Here is a link to the entire book on line: http://www.archive.org/stream/MN41352ucmf_4#page/n13/mode/2up
Here is the entire quote in context: And from this (Truth is the same forever) a fourth truth follows; that the doctrines of the Church in all ages are primitive. It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine. How can we know what antiquity is except through the Church? No individual, no number of individuals can go back through eighteen hundred years to reach the doctrines of antiquity.
I guess the former protestant was saying the exact opposite or what the OP claimed, and the rest of these quotes back that up:
"As soon as I perceived....that the Holy Spirit....has united himself indissolubly to the....Church of Jesus Christ, I saw at once that the interpretations or doctrines of the living Church are true because Divine....I then saw that all appeals to....Scripture and antiquity, whether by individuals or by local churches, are no more than appeals from the Divine voice of the living Church, and therefore essentially rationalistic" (page 29);
"No Catholic would first take what our objectors call history, fact, anquity, and the like, and from them deduce his faith....These things are not the basis of his faith, nor is the examination of them his method of thoelogical proof" (page 214);
"Let no one suppose that Catholic theologians....for a moment either abandon the facts of history as insoluble, or conceive that they are opposed to the doctrines of faith" (page 216).
Boy someone must feel pretty embarrassed right about now.
The truth is even more fascinating than prot revisionism.
While it's a fun quote, it's interesting to look into what John Henry Newman actually believed.
Newman wrote in On the Development of Christian Doctrine: "In a higher world it is otherwise; but here below, to live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often."
So his quote, while snappy, does not actually represent his opinion. Newman acknowledges that the Roman Catholic Church doesn't resemble the early church. A better statement would be "To be deep in history, opinionated bias, and a healthy dose a rationalization, is to be Roman Catholic."
I like the westerns by William W. Johnstone—”The Last Mountain Man” about Smoke Jensen and “The First Mountain Man” about Preacher. When real people are mentioned, I look them up. I have been researching old western ghost towns. I find them very interesting. I grew up reading Zane Gray books. I just love books. An old western figure, Jim Bridger, is in my family tree. All my info is locked up in my computer. I upgraded and it did not allow me to get in! Had over 24,000 names in my FTM. My computer expert is very ill so I will have to find another.
Galatians 1... 6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse! ...
Ephesians 2: /// 19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
When, precisely, did *the church* -- not one cherry-picked individual, but *the church*, speaking as a body, "always deny" papal supremacy? Give me a names and dates. There should be a long list, for something that *the church* "always denied".
Newman said a lot of things including the fact that Catholicism includes paganism.
I am a Tarheel. My family has lived in and around Beaufort, North Carolina for a long time. My great uncle (Alexander C. D. Noe, who was the oldest Episcopal Priest in NC, serving at the oldest Epis. church in Bath, NC, before he passed at 101 Y. O.) compiled a family history for us. In there, we found out that one of our relatives was a certain William Teach!
You may have heard of him by a different moniker... Blackbeard!
... A shrewd and calculating leader, Teach spurned the use of force, relying instead on his fearsome image to elicit the response he desired from those he robbed. Contrary to the modern-day picture of the traditional tyrannical pirate, he commanded his vessels with the permission of their crews and there is no known account of his ever having harmed or murdered those he held captive. He was romanticised after his death and became the inspiration for a number of pirate-themed works of fiction across a range of genres. - Wiki
An Example in a Recent Edition of This Rock Magazine
Early Church Evidence Refutes Real Presence
The Lord's Supper: solemn symbolism or corporeal flesh and blood?
The Conversion of a Catholic Priest
A Refresher on “Apostolic Succession"
Explaining the Heresy of Catholicism Grace vs> works
The Nature of Justifying Faith
Why These 66 Books?
Is There A Purgatory?
Should Christians Confess Sins to An Earthly Priest?
Salvation by Faith or Works?
How good do I have to be to go to heaven?
The religion of works-righteousness
Against Rome's Apostolic Succession Argument by Bullinger (Part 1)
The Late Development of the Bishop of Rome
How the fictional early papacy became real
Papacy built on pious fiction and forgery 2
Papacy built on pious fiction and forgery, part 1
The Doctrine of Sola Scriptura:Is It Really Biblical?
Rome's New and Novel Concept of Tradition
Is The Roman Catholic View of the Eucharist Supported by the Historical Evidence?
Is the Mass the Real Sacrifice of Christ?
Pagan Saints
Upon This Rock
How Christians Will Know They Can Join Hands With Rome
Yes, it is indeed a large task to expose all of the corruptions and misuse of God's Holy Word by the Roman Catholic cult.
Good job, Mom. Keep up the work where the Holy Spirit leads you. You are over the target! I hear squeals...
“The truth is that to be deep in real history, as opposed to Rome’s whitewashed, revisionist, and often forged history, is to cease to be a Roman Catholic”.
“All evils in the world are due to lukewarm Catholics”.
~ Pope Pius V
Squeals?
More likely laughter.
You keep bragging about what a great job she is doing. It is amazing isn’t it?
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