Summary of An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine

By Saint John Henry Newman

1. INTRODUCTION

John Henry Newman (21 February 1801 – 11 August 1890), was an

English theologian and scholar, who led the Oxford movement in the
church of England as an Anglican priest and later became a priest and
cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. His principal works are
Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1864 “A Defense of His Life”), An Essay on the
Development of Christian Doctrine (1845) and An Essay in Aid of a
Grammar of Assent (1870).

At Newman’s time there were many philosophical movements like

Marxism, relativism, and liberalism in matters of religion. When he
was an Anglican priest, he started to read the church fathers and
developed a deep appreciation for them. He joined the Oxford
movement and tried to move the Anglican church in a more
catholicized. The Anglicans view themselves as the “via media”
maintaining some structure in the church, and at the same time avoid the “practical abuses and excesses
of Rome” (in Newman’s words - at the time he was still an Anglican). Protestantism has some conservative
and liberal elements; their conservative ideas include suspicion of any doctrinal development in history
with the desire of an absolute returning to the apostles, the Sola scriptura, and total depravity. At the
same time the liberal notions of the lack of authority and the idea of the individual interpretation of
scripture with a practical elimination of absolute truths to be believed (dogmas).

This tendency of the “via media” is even present in modern day, where people tend to think that always
the middle ground is the best approach, which is not always the case, as Newman discovered sometimes
the radical position is the right way. Reading the church fathers, he was especially attracted to the
Christological discussions in the fourth century about the nature of Christ. Arianism claimed that Christ
was not “Homoiousian” (same nature) with the father. Semi Arianism claimed that the Son was
“homoiousios” (similar nature but not the same as the father). The Monophysites claimed Christ had only
a divine nature. Nestorianism claimed the separation of the divine and human nature of Christ. Among all
those versions Newman noticed that the most radical position was the one held by the Catholic Church,
that Christ was “consubstantial” with the Father forming hypostatic union in Christ. According with the
principle of the “via media” Newman saw himself in a heretic position.

In his search for the truth, Newman understood the necessity of a “Living voice of authority” to discern
the truth. The consensus of the church fathers seemed to be a good answer, but Newman eventually
realized that the church fathers are not here and now speaking (in the fullness of sense). Newman
recognize that an unintelligible revelation is not a revelation at all, so if God saw fit to reveal to His people,
He also needed to provide the means to interpret the revelation. The climactic moment in Newman’s
conversion was reading Saint Augustine who said: “Securus judicat orbis terrarium” (the verdict of the
whole world is conclusive!”1), “in which the whole Church at length rests and acquiesces”, in words of
Newman himself:

For a mere sentence, the words of St. Augustine, struck me with a power which I never had felt
from any words before. To take a familiar instance, they were like the "Turn again Whittington"
of the chime; or, to take a more serious one, they were like the "Tolle, lege, Tolle, lege," of the
child, which converted St. Augustine himself. "Securus judicat orbis terrarum!" By those great
words of the ancient Father, the theory of the Via Media was absolutely pulverized.

(Apologia Pro Vita Sua)

With this background of ideas revolving in his mind, Newman wrote An Essay on the Development of
Christian Doctrine, as his search to reconcile the changes in doctrinal evolution in the ideas of Christianity
and the role of authority to discern the truth.

2. CONTENT OF THE ESSAY

The book divides its content into two major sections: the doctrinal developments view in themselves and
the doctrinal developments in Christian doctrine. In the first part of the book Newman systematizes the
“Lebensphilosophie” (a philosophy of life) applied to real ideas2, because they are not written in stone but
in living minds and hearts across space and time. Newman proposed that the coming up of ideas are
natural in human minds (in this word or “here below”), but not every change is good per se, some changes
undermine an original idea or degenerate it, while others strengthen it, densifying it, making more fully
itself. These two types of changes are the corruptions and developments of ideas. Newman proposed 7
criteria to distinguish corruption and developments. The second part of his book was dedicated to
applicate this theory of the ideas to the development of Christian Doctrine, from the first centuries, fourth
centuries, fifth and Sixth centuries.

3. DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT’S VIEW IN THEMSELVES

Christianity is not one idea or body of beliefs among many, it has shaped human history so deeply that we
cannot separate human history from it, neither is a private matter. Ideas like “We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal” (while at the same time, no two human beings are equal, and
diverge in multiple criteria’s), cannot be fully understood without the Catholic3 doctrine. In words of
Newman:

Christianity has been long enough in the world to justify us in dealing with it as a fact in the world's
history. Its genius and character, its doctrines, precepts, and objects cannot be treated as matters
of private opinion or deduction

(An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine)

1
Saint Augustine in his works made the distinction of the City of God and the City of Man, his reference of the
whole World referred to the catholicity of the Church as a fulfilment of the promises of the Old Testament to
which the Holy Spirit was bestowed.
2
Hegel and Darwin evolutionary theories were in the air in Newman’s time.
3
Catholic is not just a mere title, as we will see later, is an attribute of the truth church
Christianity was not meant to be a matter of a few people, but a legacy for all humankind across space
and time. Because of this among other reasons, no other doctrine, no ideology has been subjected to the
scrutiny, meditation, and love of so many people whose efforts resulted in the developed body of doctrine
that we sustain to this day with the unique help of the Holy Spirit. Newman having this in mind describes
the uniqueness of Christianity and poses the necessity of a “infallible exposition” of the revealed truth:

If Christianity is both social and dogmatic, and is intended for all ages, humanly speaking it must
have an infallible exposition. Otherwise, it will ensure the unity of the form with the loss of the
unity of the doctrine, or the unity of the doctrine with the loss of the unity of the form.

Therefore, infallibility is necessary in matters of moral and doctrine of the Catholic Church, as a "living
voice of authority". If a revelation is unintelligible this is not a revelation at all! if God saw fit to speak to
his people, He also must provide the means to “unpack” and maintain the essence of what He intended
to be understood.

On of the key ideas to understand the “philosophy of live” applied to Christianity, is that God spoke to
living human beings. The Scripture emerged, according to the Catholic Catechism:

In order to reveal himself to men, in the condescension of his goodness God speaks to them in
human words (Catechism of the Catholic Church)

Scripture is not only the Word of God, but the Word of God in the words of men; Saint Augustine referring
to the divine writers said: “they beheld Wisdom itself to the extent that the human mind is allowed to
perceive with its sight”. Newman motto comes to mind: “Heart speaks unto heart”, the Heart of God
speaks to Humans Hearth, and in in this lovely play of lively minds is that ideas evolve, always with the
help of God:

If a great idea is duly to be understood, and much more if it is to be fully exhibited. It is elicited and
expanded by trial, and battles into perfection and supremacy. Nor does it escape the collision of
opinion even in its earlier years, nor does it remain truer to itself, and with a better claim to be
considered one and the same, though externally protected from vicissitude and change. It is indeed
sometimes said that the stream is clearest near the spring. Whatever use may fairly be made of
this image, it does not apply to the history of a philosophy or belief, which on the contrary is more
equable, and purer, and stronger, when its bed has become deep, and broad, and full.

Considering these, Newman’s understanding of the fullness sense of an idea emerges:

The idea that an object represents or is proportional to the sum total of its possible aspects,
however, they can vary in the separate consciousness of individuals; and in proportion to the
variety of aspects under which it is presented to various minds is its strength and depth, and the
argument of its reality. And, as the views of a material object can be taken from points so remote
or so opposite, that at first glance they seem incompatible, however, all these anomalies will
disappear and all this the contradictions will be adjusted, when determining the point of view or
the surface. of projection in each case, thus also all the aspects of an idea are capable of being
united and of being resolved in the object to which it belongs; and the prima facie4 dissimilarity of

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Based on the first impression.
 its aspects becomes, when explained, an argument for its substantivity and integrity, and its
multiplicity for its originality and power.

To understand the structural form of the Christianity is to acknowledge its revealed nature, in contrast of
natural religions. The structure of the revelation from its origin implies also a structural organization in its
development:

As the essence of all religion is authority and obedience, so the distinction between natural religion
and revealed lies in this, that the one has a subjective authority, and the other an objective.
Revelation consists in the manifestation of the Invisible Divine Power, or in the substitution of the
voice of a Lawgiver for the voice of conscience. The supremacy of conscience is the essence of
natural religion; the supremacy of Apostle, or Pope, or Church, or Bishop, is the essence of
revealed; and when such external authority is taken away, the mind falls back again of necessity
upon that inward guide which it possessed even before Revelation was vouchsafed. Thus, what
conscience is in the system of nature, such is the voice of Scripture, or of the Church, or of the Holy
See, as we may determine it, in the system of Revelation. It may be objected, indeed, that
conscience is not infallible; it is true, but still it is ever to be obeyed.

The comprehension of the idea of revelation turns the faith from a subjective truth (a particular and
personal experience) to an objective and universal truth; from an obedience of reason to a doctrine, not
as a coercion or restriction to reason but as a barrier against error, from a set of personal beliefs subjective
to an universal body of truths above the particulars, from an fallible search for truth to the possibility of
understanding absolute and permanent truths, from a private or sectarian religion to finally a single
Catholic Church.

The natural curse of ideas, because they live and are passed in human minds: “it cannot but vary in its
relations and dealings towards the world around it”, so in this world inevitably according to Newman:
“Here below, to live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often” and “growth is the only
evidence of life”.

4. GENUINE DEVELOPMENTS CONTRASTED WITH CORRUPTIONS

Newman, even in his time as an Anglican that the body of doctrine known by this day by the name of
Catholic, is professed substantially in both eastern and western Christendom.

That faith is undeniably the historical continuation of the religious system, which bore the name
of Catholic in the eighteenth century, in the seventeenth, in the sixteenth, and so back in every
preceding century, till we arrive at the first; -undeniably the successor, the representative, the heir
of the religion of Cyprian, Basil, Ambrose and Augustine. The only question that can be raised is
whether the said Catholic faith, as now held, is logically, as well as historically, the representative
of the ancient faith. This then is the subject, to which I have as yet addressed myself, and I have
maintained that modern Catholicism is nothing else but simply the legitimate growth and
complement, that is, the natural and necessary development, of the doctrine of the early church,
and that its divine authority is included in the divinity of Christianity.

When contrasted the development of doctrines and corruptions the developments densify the original
ideas, bring them more fully to themselves, reach the potentiality of their own nature. Corruption on the
other hand according to Newman is:
 A corruption is a word attaching to organized matters only; a stone may be crushed to powder,
but it cannot be corrupted. Corruption, on the contrary, is the breaking up of life, preparatory to
its termination.

Because ideas exist and develop in living minds, in time they are subject to developments or corruptions.
Understanding that a corruption would end up undermining the life of an idea, establishes the idea that
for all religious doctrine and mainly for Catholicism, orthodoxy, is the primary element that allows it to
preserve its integrity, unity and continuity along the history. Newman following the organistic principle
that the church (following St. Paul definition of the church as “The Body or Christ”), stated: “The Church
is not an organization; it is an organism”. Because the Church is not an organization, but rather an
organism and we accept that it is not dead, it must necessarily possess the characteristics of integrity,
continuity in time from its origin and unity.

Taking the organistic analogies, Newman proposed seven criteria to distinguish doctrinal developments
from corruptions:

1. Preservation of type 5. Anticipation of its future

2. Continuity of principles 6. Conservative action upon its past
3. Assimilative power 7. Chronic vigor
4. Logical sequence

Preservation of Type. This principle emerges by analogy of physical growth, that the parts and proportions
of the developed form, however altered, correspond to those which belong to its rudiments. For example,
a child is the same type as an adult, but has a different aspect, being the adult the fulness or developed
version of the child. Newman proposed this example:

We cannot determine whether a professed development is truly such or not, without some further
knowledge than an experience of the mere fact of this variation. Nor will our instinctive feelings
serve as a criterion. It must have been an extreme shock to St. Peter to be told he must slay and
eat beasts, unclean as well as clean, though such a command was implied already in that faith
which he held and taught; a shock, which a single effort, or a short period, or the force of reason
would not suffice to overcome. Nay, it may happen that a representation which varies from its
original may be felt as more true and faithful than one which has more pretensions to be exact.

Continuity of principles. Newman distinguished between principles and doctrines; principles are the
immutable or fixed ideas and doctrines developed over them, densifying them, connecting them and given
them a deeper understanding or “unfolding” of the principles. If the principles are not continued, we are
in front of a corruption, the death of the original body of beliefs.

Principles are abstract and general, doctrines relate to facts; doctrines develop, and principles at
first sight do not; doctrines grow and are enlarged, principles are permanent; doctrines are
intellectual, and principles are more immediately ethical and practical. Systems live in principles
and represent doctrines.

For example, a constant principle in Christianity is that the Eucharist if truly the body of Christ, the doctrine
of transubstantiation is a development of the scriptural principle. Denying this principle will result in
doctrinal corruptions. Or the principle that God is three divine persons, so baptize “in the name of the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” and “God is love”; while the developed doctrine are the processions
and relationships in God and humans (as Gods’ image), in Saint Augustin De Trinitate.

Another example is the debate of the Peter and the rock in the gospels about what the bible meant.
Newman reading the church father, specifically Saint Jerome saw the interpretation and intention of the
author that receive the tradition and translate the bible, to whom the role of the papacy was in line with
scripture:

The divisions of Antioch had placed the Catholic Church in a remarkable position; there were two
bishops at the See, one related to the East, the other to Egypt and the West, with what then was
the" Catholic communion? Saint Jerome has no doubt on the subject: Writing to Saint Damascus,
he says: "Since the East tears the Lord's robe to pieces, therefore, for me it is Peter's chair to be
consulted, and that faith that is praised by the mouth of the Apostle. Although your greatness
terrifies me, your goodness invites me. I ask the Priest for the salvation of the victim, the Shepherd
for the protection of the sheep. Fisherman and the disciple of the Cross. I, who follow no one as
my boss but Christ, am associated in communion with your beatitude, that is, with the See of Peter.
On that rock the Church is built, I know. Whoever eats the Lamb outside that House is profane.

Whereas Protestantism advocates, with their own authority, that scripture is the sole authoritative source
of revelation; Saint Jerome, one of the main material contributors of the Bible, recognizes another source
of authority, guarantor of orthodoxy, catholicity and unity, in the succession of Saint Peter. The
understanding that writing is only a fraction of a revelation, that was transmitted to living minds and
hearts, that unfolds, densifies and develops to form a cohesive body with order and authority, not self-
conferred but transmitted, allows understanding, in the light of history, that the authority of the true
Church is not a human initiative, but an order established by its Maker. Protestant doctrines, in the light
of history, are not ideas preserving the type, but doctrinal corruptions.

Assimilative power. Newman taking the analogy of living beings proposed this principle based on living
organisms, they assimilate elements from the environment rather than being assimilated by it:

In the physical world, whatever has life is characterized by growth, so that in no respect to grow
is to cease to live. It grows by taking into its own substance external materials; and this absorption
or assimilation is completed when the materials appropriated come to belong to it or enter into
its unity. Two things cannot become one, except there be a power of assimilation in one or the
other. Thus, a power of development is a proof of life, not only in its essay, but especially in its
success; for a mere formula either does not expand or is shattered in expanding. A living idea
becomes many yet remains one.

The "Power of Assimilation" is a characteristic of living organisms, the true Church by its very nature is a
living being. This ability to assimilate what feeds it and reject what damages it, has allowed the massive
expansion and densification of Catholic theology throughout history, preserving its unity and integrity of
principles, unlike all pseudo-Christian denominations. Understanding the concept of this inherent
characteristic of the true Church allows us to assimilate in a more cohesive way the doctrine of infallibility
in the Catholic Church.
Sometimes Catholicism is accused of paganism, but Newman after the careful reading of the fathers notice
the notion of this assimilative power bestowed on the church agrees with the scripture5:

In truth, there is a certain virtue or grace in the Gospel (The assimilating power of sacramental
grace) that changes the quality of doctrines, opinions, usages, actions and personal characters
when they are incorporated into it, and makes them correct and acceptable for their Divine Author,
while before they were infected with evil or, at best, were shadows of the truth. This is the
principle, mentioned above, that I have called sacramental. Saint Augustine, to Faust the
Manichean responds: "We have some things in common with the Gentiles, but our purpose is
different" Trusting then in the power of Christianity to resist the infection of evil and transmute
the same instruments. It is not necessary to go into a subject with which the diligence of Protestant
writers is familiar to most of us. The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and
sometimes adorned with tree branches; incense, lamps and candles; votive offerings on recovery
from illness; Holy Water; nursing homes; festivals and seasons, use of calendars, processions,
blessings in the fields; the priestly vestments, the tonsure, the wedding ring, the turn to the East,
the later images, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant and the Kyrie Eleison, are all of pagan origin and
sanctified by their adoption into the Church.

Logical sequence. The logic of the line of thought is a safeguard based on the truthfulness of the principles,
posterior development must follow the path of their principles, according to logic.

Logic is the organization of thought, and, as being such, is a security for the faithfulness of
intellectual developments; and the necessity of using it is undeniable as far as this, that its rules
must not be transgressed. Reason, thus considered, is subordinate to faith, as handling,
examination, explanation, recording, cataloging, defense, of the truths that faith, not reason, has
won for us, as an intellectual expression of supernatural facts, raising the implicit, compare,
measure, connect each with each one and train everyone in a theological system.

We can compare Luther view of faith: “Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never
comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word,
treating with contempt all that emanates from God” and "crede ut intellegas" (I believe to understand) of
Saint Augustine, the use of reason in Saint Thomas Aquinas systematic theology or Origen of Alexandria
view of the Logos: “His glory lies in the very fact that he owns all things; and this is the purest and brightest
glory of the almighty, that the universe is held in subjection by reason and wisdom, and not by force and
necessity”.

Anticipation of principles/Anticipation of its future. Because of the natural evolution and understanding
of ideas sometimes notions are present on early stages that “sets the tone” of future doctrinal
developments.

When an idea is living, that is, influential and effective, it is sure to develop according to its own
nature, and the tendencies, which are carried out on the long run, may under favorable
circumstances show themselves early as well as late, and logic is the same in all ages, instances of
a development which is to come, though vague and isolated, may occur from the very first, though

5
Newman also refer to the image of the serpent of Moses that devours the other serpents of the false gods or the
promise of Christ to the apostles that no venom of serpents will harm them
 a lapse of time be necessary to bring them to perfection. whether the doctrine from which they
come has, at some early stage in its history, given indications of those opinions and practices in
which it has ended. Assuming then that the so-called Catholic doctrines and practices are true and
legitimate developments, and not corruptions, we can rely on the force of logic to find examples
of them in the early centuries. In this way or that, in various places and people, as the occasion
provoked them, attesting to the presence of a vast body of thought within, which would one day
take shape and position.

The special prerogatives of Saint Mary are intimately involved in the doctrine of the Incarnation
itself, with which these observations began, and have already been discussed previously. As is well
known, they were not fully recognized in Catholic ritual until a late date, but they were not a new
thing in the Church, nor were they strangers to the early teachers of it. Saint Justin, Saint Irenaeus
and others had clearly established that she not only had a position, but that she had a part, and
she was a voluntary agent, in the actual process of redemption, since Eve had been instrumental
and responsible. in the fall of Adam. This becomes the doctrine received in the post-Nicene Church.

For example: Mary’s doctrines of assumption and immaculate conception can be found in the traditions
of the “Dormition of the Mother of God”6 or the explicit teachings of Saint Ephraim and Saint Augustine
about Mary stainless state giving pass to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary.

Conservative action upon its past. The church as the “Living Voice” of authority has never reversed a
“dogmatic” teaching with cannot be applied to any other human endeavor.

As developments which are preceded by definite indications have a fair presumption in their favor,
so those which do but contradict and reverse the course of doctrine which has been developed
before them, and out of which they spring, are certainly corrupt; for a corruption is a development
in that very stage in which it ceases to illustrate, and begins to disturb, the acquisitions gained in
its previous history.

The general pretext of the heretics is that they are serving and protecting Christianity with their
innovations; and it is his accusation against what at this moment we can surely call the Catholic
Church, that his successive definitions of doctrine have overlapped and obscured it.

The body structure of a grown man is not simply that of a magnified child; it differs from what it
was in its shape and proportions; However, manhood is the perfection of childhood, adding
something of his own, but keeping what he finds. This character of addition, that is, of a change
that is in a real and perceptible sense, but without loss or reversal of what it was before, but, on
the contrary, protective, and confirmatory of it - in many respects and in a special way belongs to
Christianity.

According to this principle and the logical sequence, Newman also stated: “You must accept the whole
Catholic Doctrine, or reject the whole; reduction does but enfeeble, and amputation mutilate”.

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It was customary on the first Christians, until today, the carefully handling of relics of saints but surprisingly no
relics of the body of Mary are preserved or mention in the tradition, indicating her bodily assumption
Chronic Vigor. No human institution by their own power has remain integral (one) in time, the division,
and the incapability of remain faithful to its principles and at the same time grow provides and insight to
differentiate a corruption.

Since the corruption of an idea, as far as the appearance goes, is a sort of accident or affection of
its development, being the end of a course, and a transition-state leading to a crisis, it is, as has
been observed above, a brief and rapid process. While ideas live in men's minds, they are ever
enlarging into fuller development: they will not be stationary in their corruption any more than
before it; and dissolution is that further state to which corruption tends. Corruption cannot,
therefore, be of long standing; and thus duration is another test of a faithful development.

We can compare unified body of beliefs across the world and time of the catholic Church, compared with
the constant division of Protestantism and its inability of maintain a unified doctrinal body.

A characteristic of doctrinal evolution regarding corruptions is its chronic vigor. Therefore, the Church and
true Faith must preserve its integrity and continuity from the beginning of its existence. Catholicity is the
reflection of the true prerogative of the Church. Newman reflects on this, in light of history, the title of
Catholic not as a mere name but as the fulfilled promise from scripture as an attribute in the of the truth
church:

On a single point the heresies seem to have universally agreed, in hatred of the Church. Yet,
strangely enough, there was a title of the Church of a very different nature from those that have
been enumerated, a title of honor, which all men agreed to give it. It was one that the sects could
not claim for themselves, nor prevent its rightful owner from enjoying it, though, as was the
characteristic designation of the Church in the Creed, it seemed to cede all controversy between
the two parties involved in it. The sects, say the fathers, are named after their founders, or their
locality or their doctrine. So it was from the beginning: "I am from Paul, and I from Apollos, and I
from Cephas "; but the Church was promised that she would have no master on earth and that"
she would gather in one the children of God who were scattered. St. Cyril would give his multitude
of catechumens a rule: "If you are ever on pilgrimage in any city," he says, "do not simply ask
where the Lord's house is (because sects of the profane also try to call their own dens (houses of
the Lord), not only where the Church is, but where the Catholic Church is, because this is the
peculiar name of this Holy Body, the Mother of us all, who is the Spouse of our Lord Jesus Christ.

5. CONCLUSION

Ideas are like living beings that change over time in those who assimilate them; but these changes are
necessarily divided into corruptions and developments. Corruptions undermine the original idea and end
up killing or mutating it. The developments densify the same idea, change to become more fully itself. It
is necessary to distinguish between a doctrinal corruption and a development, Newman stated seven
criteria based on the theory of the development of doctrines. When analyzing the doctrinal history of
Christianity with these criteria, Catholicism shows to be the legitimate development of the original
Christian doctrines. Protestantism by submitting to the historical scrutiny of ideas, is not able to meet
these criteria. In the light of the theory of the development of doctrines, Newman can conclude: “To be
deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.”