← The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture
The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture
WOF 517: The Idea of a University (7 of 12)
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Welcome back to the Word on fire show. I'm Dr. Matthew Petrusyk, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show. Thank you as always, for joining us. Friends, in honor of St. John Henry Newman's recently being named a Doctor of the Church, we're bringing you Bishop Barron's entire Word on Fire Institute lecture series on on John Henry Newman. Throughout these next several weeks, we'll dive deep into one of Bishop Barron's spiritual and intellectual heroes. As always, Enjoy.
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Well, we're now ready to begin the second set of six lectures on the thought of John Henry Cardinal Newman. You know, I want to give a little fervorino to our Word on Fire Institute members as I begin this second set of lectures. I really meant to do it at the very outset, but I'll do it now. Namely this. You know, we have a lot of courses in this series that are very practical. They're pragmatic, they're about how to do evangelization, they're about, you know, the practicalities. I think it's very important, though, that we members of the Institute take the time to look deeply into theological matters. So not every little detail of these lectures on Newman, like my lectures on von Balthasar last year, like the ones I'll probably do coming up on maybe Augustine and Aquinas, not everything has an immediate application to practical evangelism, but it's very important for us to think deeply and clearly about theological matter. So that's my little fervorino, my little encouragement as we go more deeply into the thought of this great Catholic theologian. So the first six lectures, we looked at the two great Newman works, namely the Apologia Pro Vita Sua, his Spiritual Autobiography, and the Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. For these next lectures, I'll look at the remaining two really great works of Newman, namely the Idea of a University and the Grammar of Assent. You know, Newman wrote voluminously on all kinds of topics, and I think if his sermons alone would be enough for a whole course. But I think if you look at these four books that we're looking at, you get a very clear sense of what Newman is about. So you recall now from the opening lectures on the life and times of Newman that he was asked to give these lectures on university education when he became the rector of the Catholic University of Ireland in the early 1850s. As I mentioned, he wasn't a champion practical administrator, but he was a champion articulator of the nature of university education. And that's what we have here. You know, I'd say this as we get going, Newman wants to talk about how best to organize the curriculum of a Catholic university. And both those elements are emphasized. How to make a university truly a university and at the same time truly Catholic. Now, I hope you see how contemporary this makes this book. Since Vatican ii, it's been a major concern of academics in the Catholic world to resolve just this question. How do you honor these two great values, truly a university and truly Catholic? I mean, I would say, to speak bluntly, the Land o Lakes Agreement, 1967, which determined a lot of the ways we think about Catholic higher education in this country. I was a relatively poor way to resolve this matter. Newman's lectures from 100 years earlier is a much more deft articulation of the right relationship between being a university and being Catholic. So that's what's really at stake in these series of lectures. Let me just say a quick word about his first discourse. We're going to walk through the various discourses that make up this book. Number one is a kind of throat clearing exercise. You know, when a. A lecture is getting going, he'll make some basic clarifications. Another way to look at it is it's a captatio benevolentie. That's a term from classical rhetoric that Newman knew very well. By the way, the captatio benevalencia is the capturing of the benevolence of your audience. So this is good advice, by the way, for any public speaker because there's almost an unconscious resentment on the part of an audience. Or whenever someone gets up to speak, people think, well, you know, who are you to be telling me what to think? And so a very good opening move is to capture the benevolence of your audience. Newman does it rather deftly. Now keep in mind he's speaking in mid 19th century Dublin. We think of Dublin, you know, capital of Ireland, of the Republic of Ireland. But in those days Dublin was very much of a split city, you might say, because it in some ways the English establishment was present in Dublin and the Catholic establishment. Newman is speaking to both audiences and they correspond in a way to his double concern, university and Catholic. What he says now in the opening discourse is in terms of the university side of it. I'm taking Oxford as my model. Now we remember Oxford was everything for John Henry Newman. Oxford shaped him as a young man. The Oxford ideal of the cultivated, educated gentleman is an ideal that Newman cultivated his whole life long. What he says to his audience is, look I'm going to hold this up even though I'm a Catholic now, even though Oxford is sort of the premier, you know, Anglican establishment university, I'm holding it up as an ideal that any reasonable person could hold. So he says, just as Thomas Aquinas used Aristotle, just as Augustine used Plato, so I'm going to use the disciplines and style and structure of this great University of Oxford. You might say here he's appealing to the more, you know, English based establishment. So how about the Catholics? Well, at the same time, in this opening discourse, Newman says, how come we're setting up a Catholic university here in Ireland despite all the difficulties? Because the Pope said so. And the Pope is the successor of Peter and the Vicar of Christ. And no one who stands with the apostle goes wrong. He's pretty blunt, pretty simple, pretty direct. So he's an Oxford man, okay? And he's a papal man. He's for reason, he's for faith. He's trying to bring these two dimensions together in the course of these lectures. So Discourse one kind of sets the tone for what he's going to do. Here's a quote, by the way, I love. All who take the part of the apostle are on the winning side. So there's Newman, the great Catholic. Now, mind you, he was a brand new Catholic at this point in his life. So his Catholic audience, they're squinting rather skeptically at him as he speaks. So he's playing a subtle game here. Okay, with that, let's turn to discourse number two, which in some ways is the pivotal discourse of the whole book. Because here he lays out his view that theology is rightly considered a branch of knowledge. If it's a branch of real knowledge, it of course belongs within the confines of a university. Right? He says this. Look, by its very name, a university professes to teach universal knowledge. If theology is a branch of knowledge, then of course theology belongs in the circle of university disciplines. See, what's bugging Newman is at this time, and really you could say for the first time since the Middle Ages, they were putting universities together that did not have chairs and positions in theology. And he's saying this is simply repugnant to the idea of a university. As long as you acknowledge that theology is a branch of knowledge. I like this. The very name university is inconsistent with restrictions of any kind. Right? It's the universitas, it's the university, the universe of subjects. So why would you exclude theology unless you don't think it's a form of knowledge? So on what grounds are Certain people trying to exclude theology from the circle of disciplines. Well, what if we say only sense based sciences are legitimate, Therefore you know theology is not a sense based science, so it's out the window. Well, Newman says if that's your criterion, ethics would go out the window too. How about if we say real knowledge is limited to intuition? Then you'd exclude history. How about if you say abstract reasoning, that's the test of real knowledge? Well, then you'd exclude physics. So on what grounds are you excluding theology and turn it around? Isn't the being of God in fact testified to in science, sense experience? Isn't it testified to in the intuition of conscience? Isn't it testified to by the historical witnesses of great figures? In other words, whatever criterion you want to use, it seems as though theology is just as much a form of knowledge as the other sciences. Furthermore, Newman now is just getting warmed up rhetorically. Furthermore, if God exists, and he thinks reason can show that, then there's a reality which is the beginning and the end and the ground of all things, a being which cannot but impinge upon all finite expressions of reality and hence upon all branches of knowledge. It's interesting, isn't it? If God exists, and he's convinced reason can show that, of course God impinges upon history, of course God impinges upon physics, of course God impinges upon chemistry and psychology and literature and anything else he might want to study. Therefore, dismissing theology from the circle of academic disciplines seems altogether unjustified now. Newman's writing, 1850s what's flourishing, especially on the continent at this time in theological circles. I mentioned him, I think, in a few lectures ago, this figure of Friedrich Schleiermacher, who was the founder of modern liberal Protestantism. Schleiermacher famously argues that religion is finally a matter of feeling. It's the feeling of absolute dependency. It's a deep inner experience we have of the infinite. Everything else in religion, dogma, doctrine, liturgy and so on, is an expression of this basic sentiment or feeling. So Newman says. Some people are arguing that today, but this is a departure from the classical theological tradition that sees religion as grounded in ideas about the objective state of affairs. Only if we reduce religion to feeling can we dismiss it from the university, the circle of university disciplines. Here's a summary statement of those who are kind of in that Schleiermacher camp. He says some say having a chair of religion at the university would be as unreasonable as having a chair of quote, fine feeling, a sense of honor, patriotism, gratitude, Maternal affection or good companionship? Well, yeah, if that's all religion is, just kind of an exalted feeling, then it would be silly to have it in the circle of university disciplines. But that's what it's not. He cites a British politician of the time to this. Religious belief is, quote, akin to peculiarities, idiosyncrasies, accidents of the individual. Now, notice how contemporary that sounds, everybody. You know religion, sure, it's like your little hobby. It's something that you cultivate in the privacy of your consciousness and your feelings. But if that's all it is, then there shouldn't be a chair of theology. It's like having a chair of idiosyncrasies and the accidents of the individual. This is what Newman is fighting against, this emotional and subjectivistic reduction of religion to feeling. No, it has to do with knowledge. He then observes that some people do indeed talk about God in language that sounds like the great tradition, but all they mean is the force of nature or fate or some kind of vague and watered down sense of providence. I like this. Newman says that's to turn real divine sovereignty into a kind of constitutional monarchy. So God is monarch, but with no real power, no real influence or authority. Well, if that's all we're doing, then I admit there shouldn't be a chair of theology because then I'm just talking about the world in kind of an exalted, emotional way. If I just mean fate, I just mean, you know, the universe taken as a totality. Well, sure, then there shouldn't be a chair of theology. I like this. That's just seeing the universe, quote, with a divine glow upon it. Okay, Newman says, if that's what you mean by religion, I agree with you, but that's not what authentic religion is. That's not what authentic theology articulates, but rather this objective state of affairs dealing with the God who impinges upon the whole of reality. Therefore, of course, it must be around the table in the university conversation. Okay, now discourse number three. This is maybe the most penetrating insight that Newman has in this whole book, and it's one that I come back to all the time. Because you see what he intuited long ago, you see played out all the time. Here's what I'm talking about. When theology or religion is kicked out of the circle of university disciplines, some other discipline is going to move into the place properly occupied by theology. Let me say that again. When you kick theology out, nature abhors a vacuum. Some other discipline is going to move into that place and. And now start illegitimately playing the role that religion ought to play. Now, does any of that sound familiar? It should, because you see it all the time. Something moves into this central organizing place that religion ought to have. Here's a couple of Newman quotes. A mere chemist, for example, would scoff at the idea of free will and the mind's influence on the body. Now, what does he mean? He means. Well, if you say chemistry and the physical sciences, that's the queen of the sciences. That's the central science. Well, then you're going to see everything from that perspective. And of course you're going to scoff at things like free will, et cetera. What's taking the place as the central discipline within the circle of university disciplines. Now, let me just do a quick little aside here. See, Newman would have had this in his blood and his bones. We have to learn it, I think, afresh. Who is God? God is not one being among many. Now, those who follow my work know that I say that all the time, but it's a very important point. God is not one item in the universe among many. Oh, he's the supreme Being? No, I don't know. Some galaxy or some angel is the supreme Being, the highest thing among things. Rather, God, as Thomas Aquinas famously said, is ipsum esse subsistens. God is the sheer act of to be itself in and through which all creatures come to be. If God is simply a being among many, I can isolate him. I can set him aside for the sake of analysis. I can consider the world an abstraction from God. However, if God is ipsum esse, then of course God impinges upon all things inescapably. And therefore what? Therefore the science of God is the one that properly orders and provides the center for all the other sciences. Does that make sense? I think maybe it's the most important insight that Newman has. When you therefore kick theology out of that central place, something else is going to move in which will result not only in the distortion of that particular science, but all the other sciences. And we'll get more about this now in the next discourse. Let me. Here's kind of a summary statement where Newman is trying to express what I just said about the unique nature of God. Listen. Now, theology speaks of a God who is distinct from the world, self sufficient, all perfect, eternal, necessary, providential, blessed and personal, who is the creator and sustainer of the physical universe, the one from whom all things come to whom all things return, who inspires geniuses and poets, who's the ground of all human action and aspiration, who is spoken of directly or indirectly by all the poets and philosophers of every culture? Who is the author of all that is good and true and beautiful? You see the point? If that description is right, then of course the science of God theology ought to be the ordering and centering discipline of all the university disciplines. In short, and here's a final quote from Neumann, religious truth is not only a portion, but a condition of general knowledge. To blot it out, therefore, is nothing short of unraveling the web of university teaching. Man. Powerful stuff, isn't it? See, I say that because it's happened. See, what he was worried about in the mid 19th century has now happened in spades in our time. Again, religious truth is not only a portion, one science among many, but the condition of general knowledge. To blot it out is nothing short, therefore, of unraveling the web of university teaching. A university without theology is no university at all. That's the point he's making. We'll pick it up next time.
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Matthew Patruczyk here again. Thanks so much for joining us on the Word on Fire show. As as always, if you'd like to learn more about how Word on Fire can help you grow closer to Christ and become a better evangelist with and for others, visit institute.wordpressfire.org that's institute.WordPress.org we'll see you next time. And God bless and protect you.