Monday, September 20, 2010

The Blessed Newman

On Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI officially beatified one of the greatest writers of English prose. John Henry Newman has now taken three of the four steps toward canonization by the Church of Rome. Till now only Thomas More among great English writers has been recognized as a saint, although he wrote his greatest books in Latin.

In his homily, the Pope dwelled on what he called Newman’s

vision for education, which has done so much to shape the ethos that is the driving force behind Catholic schools and colleges today. Firmly opposed to any reductive or utilitarian approach, he sought to achieve an educational environment in which intellectual training, moral discipline, and religious commitment would come together. The project to found a Catholic University in Ireland provided him with an opportunity to develop his ideas on the subject, and the col­lec­tion of discourses that he published as The Idea of a University holds up an ideal from which all those engaged in academic forma­tion can continue to learn.On the same day, in another part of the English-speaking world, Miriam Burstein (better known to those of us who cherish her blog as The Little Professor) made a strikingly similar point.

Replying to this article in September’s American Spectator by the English philosopher Roger Scruton, who seeks to recover Newman’s vision of a liberal arts education “liberated from the phony subjects and dubious social mores that have occupied the American campus,” Burstein observes thatNewman’s ideal university really is a Catholic university. Not a Baptist university, not an Anglican university, not a secular liberal arts college, but a Catholic one. Newman would certainly not endorse Scruton's decapitated version of the argument, inasmuch as he would claim that, far from lending itself to the kind of conservative stability that Scruton seems to imagine, it actually generates social instability, immorality, and discontent. . . .Burstein’s is not merely a historical argument, correcting a present-minded misinterpretation of a nineteenth-century text. She is also pointing out that Scruton belongs to the educational camp that he criticizes, because (in Newman’s words) he envisions an education in which “the human intellect, self-educated and self-supported, is more true and perfect in its ideas and judgments than that of Prophets and Apostles. . . .” His vision is liberal, not only in seeking to “liberate” the mind from “phony subjects and dubious social mores,” but also from Revealed Religion, which (on Newman’s showing) is more likely to achieve such liberation than unaided reason.

What Burstein does not say is whether Newman’s conception of education must be abandoned as a relic of the past (and the peculiar treasure of Catholics), or whether it can be adapted at all to a secular setting like her own state university. The Pope claims that “all those engaged in academic forma­tion can continue to learn” from Newman—all, not just nineteenth-century Catholics. I’d be interested to hear what Burstein thinks.

14 comments:

michael reidy said...

Joyce who was a student at the Catholic University had a high opinion of Newman's prose.

the greatest of English prose writers... not in the Apologia, which he thought rather badly written, but in his sermons. "I have read him a great deal... [in 'Oxen'] where all the other authors are parodied, Newman alone is rendered pure, in the grave beauty of his style. Besides, I needed that fulcrum to hold up the rest... The Church will surely decide to make a saint of him, if only for the numerous conversions that have followed in the wake of his own. At least a Blessed, if they don't succeed in finding a miracle." (WP217) (Willard Potts (ed): Portraits of the Artist in Exile: Recollections of James Joyce by Europeans)

Kevin said...

"What Burstein does not say is whether Newman’s conception of education must be abandoned as a relic of the past (and the peculiar treasure of Catholics), or whether it can be adapted at all to a secular setting like her own state university."

I'm interested to hear more on this, too, but rather suspect that N's conception has already been adapted - or rather metabolized - by such secular settings as colleges and universities, where a respect for rational inquiry requires that "revealed truths," no matter the religion from which they issue, be firmly subordinated to healthy skepticism, to consistency, justification, and an appreciation for facts, etc. Which is why we study "revealed truths" in comparative religion and humanities courses, and not in physics or biology courses.

Best,
Kevin

D. G. Myers said...

Kevin,

Nowhere in the contemporary secular university are “revealed truths” studied as revealed truths, especially not in comparative religion (where, by definition, all religious truth is relative), even less so in the humanities.

In actuality, engineering and the sciences are far more likely to be founded upon “revealed truths” that are accepted as the basis for further inquiry and not submitted to reinvestigation.

Kevin said...

Hello, the point is that a Scripture or a church or a religious dogma cannot be the ultimate source of normativity in a secular learning environment, i.e., it cannot be the thing that provides "integrity," per Burstein's quote, for the institution as a whole. Secular liberal education has to treat religious utterance, especially ones that parade as statements of fact, as so much confabulation, exactly as it should. Still, there is a role for religion in education, but it should never set the telos for rational inquiry. Never. Best, Kevin

D. G. Myers said...

“Secular liberal education has to treat religious utterance . .  as so much confabulation, exactly as it should.

Defend this statement, especially the has to and the last four words.

D. G. Myers said...

The larger point, Kevin, is that Newman founds his idea of the university upon Revealed Religion. The question is this. If “secular liberal education” has to treat Revealed Religion as “confabulation,” then in what sense can it rest upon foundations poured by Newman?

Kevin said...

[Original] “Secular liberal education has to treat religious utterance . . as so much confabulation, exactly as it should.”

[You] Defend this statement, especially the has to and the last four words.

[Me]

Okay.

Secular liberal education is based on the thesis of naïve metaphysical realism, which goes something like this:

1. There’s a way the world is.
2. Words, concepts, and propositions in language refer to states of affairs.
3. We can state objective truths about reality.
4. We can have knowledge of reality.
5. We can share knowledge of reality publicly.

As Kant persuasively argues, theology / religion has no impartial (or public) method for solving disputes about purported claims of fact, such as:

Does god exist?

Is god part of the world or beyond it?

Is he one or two or three, or more?

Is she material or immaterial, moral or immoral, smart or dumb, etc.?

Because theology / religion falters at (3), (4), and (5) above, secular liberal education has to regard it as a species of nonsense. That is, as a type of utterance that lacks truth conditions.

So.

When you say that all religious truth is by definition relative in comparative religion and humanities courses, I agree with you. Fully.

It’s just that I go one step further and call it confabulation.

Lastly, you ask, “If ‘secular liberal education’ has to treat Revealed Religion as ‘confabulation,’ then in what sense can it rest upon foundations poured by Newman?

It cannot.

But I defer to Burstein and eagerly await her response.

Best,
Kevin

D. G. Myers said...

Lastly, you ask, “If ‘secular liberal education’ has to treat Revealed Religion as ‘confabulation,’ then in what sense can it rest upon foundations poured by Newman?” It cannot.

But that was the question I asked—a question about Newman, not “secular liberal education,” a phrase I never used.

I too have been thinking about liberal education in a secular setting (phrases I did use). Why is it that the words must be rearranged in the order you prefer, Kevin?

That is, why must liberal education in a secular setting become “secular liberal education”?

The political presumption in this country is that religious diversity requires secularism. But is that the case?

Why could it not require toleration instead?

Kevin said...

“I too have been thinking about liberal education in a secular setting (phrases I did use). Why is it that the words must be rearranged in the order you prefer, Kevin?”

They don’t. I’m okay with your order: liberal education in a secular setting. I should have reproduced your expression, but under the spell of sloppiness (or exhaustion), an elision crept in. My bad.

“Why could it not require toleration instead?”

I’m pro-tolerance; I hope to never argue against it. By the by, I think your blog one of the finest out there.

Second-generation New Criticism, and all!

Cheers,
Kevin

Miriam said...

There are different ways of being tolerant, Prof. Myers--which one do you mean here? Erik Sidenvall, for example, distinguishes between "positive" toleration (which we might describe as the happy variety, verging on multiculturalism) and "negative" toleration (the sort in which you just admit the other's right to exist, possibly while being rather antagonistic in the process). One might add the third version, in which everyone keeps their mouth shut while feeling rather grumpy.

(I'm thinking about your challenge, but it will be a few days--a deadline looms.)

D. G. Myers said...

Miriam,

I was thinking about the utopian toleration in which Jews are permitted, for example, openly and freely to dissent from Christian dogma while inviting counterarguments. A religious situation that has never existed. The first part of it exists in America today, but not the second.

A. J. said...

But the only reason why you dismiss God is because he is not a vending machine, Kevin. You want prayer X to obtain Y, always and without exception. But even science does not work that way. Medication X does not always and without exception treat successfully condition Y. Does this mean that medicine is a scam and science a fraud? Is a theory of disease a confabulation because it leads to a treatment that is not absolutely successful in all cases?

A. J. said...

I was thinking about the utopian toleration in which Jews are permitted, for example, openly and freely to dissent from Christian dogma while inviting counterarguments.


How would this work?

A. J. said...

What I mean is, why can't you carry on that theological debate on your blog?