An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent

Newman is a magnificent guide for all those who perceive that the key, the focal point and the goal of all human history is to be found in Christ. -St. John Paul II
 Carefully composed over twenty years, Newman’s Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent is an acknowledged masterpiece both for its apologetic response to atheistic naturalism and its positive contribution to the Catholic theology of faith. Newman confronts the dilemma of modern skepticism through a sustained investigation of what it means for the mind to give assent. He shows how the believer, who encounters the light of Christ, can give a certain assent to the propositions of the faith even in the absence of demonstrative proof.
 Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman was England’s greatest Catholic convert and theologian of the nineteenth century. Newman’s many written contributions to Catholic theology and culture include An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, The Idea of a University, and Apologia pro Vita Sua. He was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010.

History

Newman, Bl. John Henry

World

Assumption Press

Written in the course of his conversion to Catholicism, Newman’s “Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine” ranks among the most decisive breakthroughs in systematic and historical theology of the modern era. Newman confronts the age-old problem, which he had wrestled with for his entire life, of how Christian doctrine can develop over time while retaining its roots in the original revelation of Christ. Newman first shows that constructive development is a natural, even predictable consequence of Christ’s investment of authority in the Church. He then provides clear, historically grounded criteria for distinguishing authentic developments from false novelties and fads. The result is a profound interpretation and defense of the Church’s mission and of its power to proclaim the whole counsel of God.

An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine

Literature & Fiction

Literary

Blessed Newman’s Dream of Gerontius is a beautiful and subtle poem about the soul of a man who has died in a state of grace as he is led by his guardian angel past the bounds of material existence toward the merciful judgment seat of God. In the vein of Dante and Calderón, Newman’s poem gives exquisite expression to the content of Catholic theology by placing it the dramatic context of the most central human aim: the life of the soul striving upward towards its greatest good, eternal union with God.

The Dream of Gerontius

Religion & Spirituality

Christian Books & Bibles

At Cardinal Newman’s Mass of Beatification in 2013, Pope Benedict XVI praised “The warmth and humanity underlying his appreciation of the pastoral ministry.” Those qualities are on full display in this remarkable collection of Catholic sermons unpublished in Newman’s lifetime. These include the first two sermons Newman ever delivered as a Catholic, meditations on Mary in the gospels and divine adoption, and a strikingly accurate set of predictions of future challenges to Church posed by the advance of secularism in society. This edition has also added to the original collection Newman’s final sermon in the Church of England, with its apt and kindly title, "The Parting of Friends."

Faith and Prejudice: Catholic Sermons of Bl. John Henry Newman

One of Newman’s best and most accessible books, The Idea of a University stands among the central texts of the Oxford Movement and remains a crucial reference point for the modern revival of Catholic education.\nNewman assembles a series of his key discourses and lectures exploring the purpose and mission of Catholic liberal education, the primacy of theology and its relation to other disciplines, classical studies, modern science, and intellectual rigor. The result is a profound and energetic exploration of the centrality of wisdom in academic culture and Christian life.

The Idea of a University

Newman's first, and most deeply researched book, The Arians of the Fourth Century is a major achievement in both social and theological history. As social history, it gives a detailed account of the moral and ideological temperament of the Arians in the Nicene era and the historical circumstances that caused their heresy to become unusually oppressive and politically powerful. As a major contribution to theological history, it was in the course of composing The Arians that Newman first conceived his theory of the development of Christian Doctrine, which stimulated his conversion to Catholicism. This emerges from the book's in-depth study of Trinitarian doctrine in the Early Church and in the councils of the fourth century. Most important, however, is Newman's deeply influential, concluding essay On Consulting the Faithful, which takes up the apparent problem that the Church proper seems to have fallen into heresy during the Arian ascendancy. In answer, Newman provides historical evidence that the faithful of Christ maintained orthodox doctrine even in the Church's darkest hour. He argues for the indefectibility of the Church and a nuanced theology of the sensus fidelium that impacted the Second Vatican Council's ecclesiology.

The Arians of the Fourth Century

In this gripping novel of faith and persecution, Bl. Newman tells the story of Callista, a young pagan woman, loved by a Christian man, who is posed with a choice between denying Christ or professing faith and the highest cost.   Writing as both a convert and a scholar of the early Church, Newman presents his reader with a rich and challenging story, deeply personal and also highly informative in its representation of early Christian life amid pagan society, in its divine raptures and earthly pains.  This edition features the original text of Newman’s novel along with additional notes by Søren Filipski (MA, Franciscan University of Steubenville) providing explanations of various terms in Latin and other ancient languages that appear throughout the text.

Callista: A Tale of the Third Century

Filipski M.A., Soren

Genre Fiction

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