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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 John Henry Newman. In these final weeks, we'll wrap up our series on one of Bishop Barron's spiritual and intellectual heroes. As always, Enjoy.
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With this 10th lecture, I'm going to turn now to what in many ways is John Henry Newman's masterpiece, a book called the Grammar of Ascent. I think Newman himself saw it as the crowning glory, the culmination of his intellectual life. Let me tell you first, though, about the speech that Newman gave when he was named cardinal. So I mentioned to you earlier that Pope Leo XIII, referring to Newman as El mio cardinale, he's my cardinal, raised him to the cardinal. And at the time there was a custom to give what was called the Biglieto Speech, the speech upon the reception of the Word of becoming a cardinal. And in that speech, Newman said simply and famously, my whole life has been dedicated to battling liberalism in matters of religion. Now, mind you, we just finished a consideration of Newman's singing the praise of a liberal education. So he's not against liberalism, certainly in that sense. And he doesn't quite mean what we mean today when we say liberalism. He tells us exactly what he does mean. When he says he battled liberalism his whole life long. He means the view that there is no truth in matters of religion. Now, you remember going all the way back to the Oxford movement, the young Newman says the dogmatic, the doctrinal principle was key. Religion is not simply a matter of feeling. We see it very clearly in the idea of a university. Religion belongs around the table of university disciplines because it's a type of knowledge. So his whole life has been standing athwart the view that there's no knowledge possible in the area of religion. That's what he means by liberalism, and he's been fighting it his whole life long. Here's a second basic tenet of liberalism that Newman is opposed to the view that demonstration or formal logic is the only basis for certitude. Let me say it again, that demonstration or formal logic is the only basis for certitude. Now bring these two ideas together. Liberalism and religion is the view that because we can't prove the claims of religion logically and through formal inference, There is no real truth in matters of religion. It's a matter of sentiment or feeling or personal experience. That's what Newman is against and all his life he's been fighting it. In some ways, the Grammar of Assent is the culminating expression of this battle against liberalism. Here's a nice quote now from a letter Newman wrote in 1870. He says this. I've done five constructive works in my life and this is the hardest, referring to the Grammar of Assent. But then he names the works My prophetical office, which has come to pieces. That was, remember the Via Media he wrote when he was still in Anglican and once he became a Catholic he realized it doesn't work anymore. My Essay on Justification, that was a wonderful series of lectures on the idea of Justification by Grace through Faith, Luther's idea and Newman says, which still stands pretty well. He wrote that when he was an Anglican, but he still liked it. And then he says three Catholic Development of Doctrine, which we looked at University Education. We just finished looking at that. And this last one, which I've called An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent. So here's Newman himself at the end of his life kind of summing up his work and he names this one as the hardest book he's written. An Essay in the Aid of a Grammar of Assent. He also says in a journal entry From October of 1869 there were 19 separate beginnings of this work between 1846 and 1866. Isn't that something? He tried 19 separate times to get this book underway and he got stuck each time. The breakthrough occurred, he tells us, in the summer of 1866 while he was vacationing near Lake Geneva. Now this is for my midwestern friends. He does not mean Wisconsin, he means Lake Geneva, the real one in Switzerland. While he was there, here's what struck him. The right way to commence this analysis is not with certitude, but with assent. Let me say that again. It's central to his argument. We won't get anywhere by starting with certitude. Now, certitude from the time of Descartes on has been the preoccupation of modern philosophy. The how do we find certitude? How can we be clear and sure and certain? Newman concluded that was a non starter when it comes to religion. Rather, we should begin with the act of assent. In other words, what prompts us to say in regard to a religious claim, that's right, I assent to that. The difference between a kind of Cartesian certitude grounded in formal inferential Logic and ascent will be the hinge upon which this whole book turns. So just to set that in place, the unfolding of that, I think is at the heart of the grammar. Okay, now he does lots of things in this book and I couldn't begin in these three short lectures to address all of them. But let me just now hit what I think is the first major idea, one that's had a huge impact on my own thinking and pastoral practice. Newman's distinction between what he calls notional assent and real assent. Notional and real assent. What's notional assent? It's the assent we give to abstract propositions, to notions and ideas, concepts. What's real assent? The assent we give to particulars, to this face, to this person, to that voice. Our mind tends to move in these two different arenas, the notional and the. The real. Real apprehension is an experience of the concrete. Newman says the sound of Edeste Fidelis, for example. Think of that song now you've heard a thousand times. Hear it? That's apprehending it really. Assenting to it, really. The smell of a flower, the contours of a particular statue. That's real assent. Notional assent is given to abstractions, ideas, propositions. Both worthwhile, Yes. I mean, who would doubt that John Henry Newman is interested in notional assent? He's a man that trades in ideas his whole life long. Abstract propositions, of course, Newman thinks they're of great value. But here's the major difference. Real assent will move people to action. Real assent stirs the heart in a way that notional assent never does. Here's a nice summary. To apprehend notionally is to have breadth of mind, but to be shallow. To apprehend really is to be deep, but to be narrow minded. The latter is the conservative principle of knowledge, the former, the principle of its advancement. Without the apprehension of notions, we should forever pace around one small circle of knowledge. Without a firm hold on things, we shall waste ourselves in vague speculations. Really good, isn't it, how he's seeing the value of each one and the limitation of each one. Some people just love to fly up into the world of abstractions. Okay, that'll achieve something, but it will never ground you and move you and engage you. Some people stay purely at that level of the particular, but they won't be able to see the grand interconnecting patterns, the philosophical habit we spoke of. That's more of a notional assent. Both are important, both are powerful, but the real assent will tend to lead to action now here's something that Newman, a great master of English, I think, would appreciate. It's one of the marks of English that it contains an Anglo Saxon stream coming up from more of a Germanic source. It also contains a Norman or French stream that brings the Latin to bear. The Norman invasion 1054 brings this in now into the English setting. The language reflects these two influences. Now, Anglo Saxon people tended to be more working class, closer to the ground, simpler people. Those who spoke Norman French, 10 tended to be more elevated. Right. Now here's a little exercise. Many have pointed this out, but it's instructive. Think of that grubby little four footed animal with the snub nose and the curly tail out in the mud. The more Anglo Saxon expression for that animal is pig. Right, That's a pig. The French expression for that animal is empore. Well, if we're describing the animal out in the mud, we tend to say there's a pig out there. But that pig's flesh on a plate served in a fancy dining room, we refer to as pork. We use the French word pour for it. Same thing with that somewhat larger four footed animal grazing out in the field. The Anglo Saxon expression is cow or cattle. The French expression is cet un boeuf. Well, we call that animal out there in the field, that's a cow. But if you kill that animal and you get meat from it and you serve it on a fancy plate, you call it roast beef. Right. Well, that was the Norman world. It was the world of the refined dining room. The Anglo Saxon world was out in the field. You know, when I use that example, I think of John F. Kennedy's wife, Jacqueline Bouvier. Right. And just the way I said that, we especially Americans, anything French, we kind of, oh, Jacqueline Bouvier. But what's a bouvier in French is like a cow herder, someone that deals with the boeuf. So a Bouvier is like a cow driver. That's what her name means. But you just put it in French form, it sounds very elevated. Now my point is English reflects both the notional more French and Latinated and the real, the more German and Anglo Saxon. And it's part of the genius of English. Watch how Shakespeare exploits it, by the way that it has these both strains that reflect the two moves of the mind. Now, to Newman's point, about which of the two is more powerful. Think now of another master of English language born at the very end of Newman's life, namely Winston Churchill. This Did Churchill trade in abstractions and notions. Sure, sure. But when Churchill wanted to move the country to action toward the end of his political career, when he finally becomes Prime Minister, England faces its greatest struggle in its history. Churchill wants to rouse the country to action. What does he do? He doesn't trade in Latinate, Frenchified, abstract language. Instead, he says to the people, all I have to offer you is blood, toil, tears and sweat. That's all strong, blunt, Anglo Saxon speech. That same speech. We will fight on the beaches, we will fight in the streets. We will fight and we will never surrender. I mean, he's using the Anglo Saxon forceful language. Another example from Churchill I've always loved is during that time, during the time of the Blitz, he went to Canada seeking support from the Canadian Parliament, you know, for England. And here he rises to speak the great orator Winston Churchill. And here is the entirety of his speech. They said they would wring our neck like a chicken. Some chicken, some neck. And they gave him everything he wanted. He persuaded the Parliament with that speech. It's all Anglo Saxon neck and ringing and chicken, some chicken, some neck, boom. That will lead you to action. I often urge preachers along these lines. I mean, I love Latinate and Frenchified abstract kind of language. I love the language of notional. I use it all the time. I love it. But you want to move people to action in a sermon, don't use that language. Use the forceful Anglo Saxon language. Newman saw this very powerfully. Now, when it comes to religion specifically, is there room for notional assent? Absolutely. Think now of Thomas Aquinas. Read through the Summa Theologiae of Aquinas. It's full of notional exploration of ideas about God, beginning with arguments for God's existence, articulations of the properties of God. Thomas deduces, and he reasons, and he ratiocinates, and he uses all sorts of literally Latinate abstractions in his case. Good, says Newman. Good. I like all that. It's part of our great tradition. But you really want to move people and engage people religiously. You've got to find something like real assent. Well, you wonder, where would you find that? You know, talk about the most abstract thing imaginable. God. Wouldn't notional language be all we can muster when it comes to God? Newman's famous answer is we can find real assent if we approach God through the conscience. Now, here's this master idea in John Henry Newman, the conscience. It's his favorite route of access to God. It seems to me one thing you won't find in Newman are arguments for God's existence. You don't find cosmological demonstrations. Part of that's because he comes after Immanuel Kant and all that. The approach he tends to use is conscience. What is conscience? Here's Newman's definition. Conscience is a certain keen sensibility, pleasant or painful, attendant on certain of our actions, which in consequence we call right or wrong. Notice, please, a certain keen sensibility, pleasant or painful, is real assent language. Conscience. Kind of grabs me viscerally, doesn't it? It's not just abstract ideas. It's an experience, pleasant or painful. Those aren't just. That's not idea language. That's body kind of language attendant upon certain of our actions, which in consequence we call right or wrong. Conscience, Newman said, is twofold. It's a moral sense and a sense of duty. That's to say, it tells us first of all what's right and what's wrong. But then it rewards us or punishes us for either complying with it or departing from it. Does that make sense? There's a more informational side of conscience. Oh, yeah, that's right or wrong. And then there's this more visceral. I'm rewarded or punished by my conscience. This is so important. I think Newman says, unlike, for example, the aesthetic sense. Think of someone who goes into a museum and they say, that's beautiful. No, I don't like that one. That's ugly. That's very fine. That's not so good. There's a sense inside, call it aesthetic, that enables me to make those judgments. What don't I call that? I don't call it a voice. I call it a sensibility, an intuition or something. But conscience we call a voice. It's the voice of someone telling me right from wrong, rewarding me or punishing me accordingly. Listen to Newman now. If on doing wrong we feel the same tearful, brokenhearted sorrow which overwhelms us on hurting a mother. If on doing right, we enjoy the same sunny serenity of mind, the same soothing, satisfactory delight which follows on our receiving praise from a father. We certainly have within us the image of some person to whom our love and veneration. Look. Might I say that's a gorgeous sentence. And listen how the use of alliteration there. We enjoy the same sunny serenity of mind, the same soothing, satisfactory delight. Lovely, isn't it, how those sibilant sounds kind of conjure up the feeling of comfort. See the point, though? It's hard to argue with him here. It seems to me, unlike the aesthetic sensibility, the conscience is a real contact with a person. Notice how the the language of feeling and experience here not so much of notional. This, he thinks is the way into God. Listen to this. Conscience is a connecting principle between the creature and his creator. And the firmest hold of theological truth is gained by habits personal religion. That's the way real assent plays a role in matters of religion. How come you believe this stuff is true? Newman's answer, I think fundamentally is because conscience confirms the truth of his experience of God.
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Matthew Patruczyk here again. Thanks so much for joining us on the Word on Fire show. 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.