John Henry Newman and the Imagination by Bernard Dive

Author:Bernard Dive [Dive, Bernard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2018-05-16T16:00:00+00:00

2.

Newman maintains, in his Discourse on ‘Illuminating Grace’, that ‘grace’ is not so much the ‘eye’ by which one perceives as it is the ‘light’ by which objects are made perceptible.

You ask, what it is you need, besides eyes, in order to see the truths of revelation: I will tell you at once; you need light. Not the keenest eyes can see in the dark. Now, though your mind be the eye, the grace of God is the light; and you will as easily exercise your eyes in this sensible world without the sun, as will be able to exercise your mind in the spiritual world without a parallel gift from without. Now you are born under a privation of this blessed spiritual light; and, while it remains, you will not, cannot, really see God. I do not say you will have no thought at all about God, nor be able to talk about Him. True, but you will not be able to do more than reason about Him. Your thoughts and your words will not get beyond a mere reasoning. I grant then what you claim; you claim to be able by your mental powers to reason about God: doubtless you can, but to infer a thing is not to see it in respect to the physical world, nor is it in the spiritual.25

Newman contrasts the way in which a ‘Catholic sees … Catholic truths’ with various other ways in which those truths may be apprehended.

There is a large floating body of Catholic truth in the world; it comes down by tradition from age to age; it is carried forward by preaching and profession from one generation to another, and is poured about into all quarters of the world. It is found in fulness and purity in the Church alone, but portions of it, larger or smaller, escape far and wide, and penetrate into places which have never been illuminated by divine grace. Now men may take up and profess these scattered truths, merely because they fall in with them; these fragments of revelation, such as the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, or the Atonement, are the religion which they have been taught in their childhood; and therefore they retain them, and profess them, and repeat them, without really seeing them, as the Catholic sees them, but as receiving them merely by word of mouth, from imitation of others … . Then again Catholic truths and rites are so beautiful, so great, so consolatory, that they draw one on to love and admire them with a natural love, as a prospect might draw them on, or a skilful piece of mechanism. Hence men of lively imagination profess this doctrine or that, or adopt this or that ceremony or usage, for their very beauty-sake, not asking themselves whether they are true, and having no real perception or mental hold of them … . And moreover the Catholic Creed, as coming from God, is so harmonious, so consistent with itself, holds

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.