Anne Carpenter was kind enough to give NINS some insight into her new book Nothing Gained is Eternal (Fortress, 2022), where she provides a refreshing metaphysical perspective on the topic of Christian Tradition.
In what follows, I trace Newman's distinctive approach across four essential aspects of his contribution, specifically, conscience, faith, doctrine, and education. Furthermore, I gesture toward the pathways that Newman's method and insights offer to address some of today's urgent questions within and without the church.
Despite their differences, and although Newman and Browning never met, they shared similar life experiences, and literary techniques, and both were concerned with the justification of Christianity, as well as the struggle between faith and doubt.
Pusey’s appraisal of Mariology—a polemic containing a mixture of historical, theological and anecdotal evidence—was, on the whole, untrue and mostly a caricature; yet as Newman would be forced to admit in his formal published reply to Pusey in 1866, the <em>Letter to Pusey</em>, there was partial veracity to his claim that at times Mariology, in some of its devotional outpourings, has obscured devotion to God, especially God’s loving mediation brought to humanity through the Incarnation.
Newman was not a mere tourist or pilgrim during his Mediterranean voyage, rather he was a curious Anglican looking for an "enlargement of mind" and benefit of health. In fact, by tracing the footsteps of the apostles, fathers, and the great saints of Christianity, he sought a personal ecclesial enlargement.
Newman was interested in the events happening back home and added that the church in England might console herself with the knowledge of having partners in misfortune in Sicily and Italy. Years later, in his Apologia, he recalled what he truly felt: "England was in my thoughts solely, and the news from England came rarely and imperfectly.
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