Ecclesiology and the Problem of Private Judgment in Newman's Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification
- Ecclesiology and the Problem of Private Judgment in Newman's Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification
POOR wand'rers, ye are sore distress'dTo find that path which Christ has bless'd, Track'd by His saintly throng;Each claims to trust his own weak will,Blind idol!—so ye languish still, All wranglers and all wrong.
—December 11, 18321
Newman's lectures on the doctrine of justification, his own attempt to mediate between extreme Protestant and Catholic views on justification, have had a mixed reception in theological scholarship. On the one hand, Ian Ker claimed the work as a "pioneering classic of 'ecumenical' theology," paving the way for future convergences on this issue, like that found in the Joint Declaration on Justification in 1999.2 On the other hand, some scholars argue that Newman's constructive proposal profoundly distorts the true character of the Protestant doctrine of justification, most notably in his analysis of Martin Luther. Alister McGrath judged Newman's historiography to be "seriously and irredeemably inaccurate" with regard to his reading of Luther. McGrath concluded that Newman's constructive proposal "seems to rest upon a fallacious interpretation of both the extremes to which he was opposed" and is therefore not a worthwhile resource for current discussions surrounding the doctrine of justification.3 [End Page 29]
This essay does not seek to resolve this dispute, but rather to suggests that such questions largely miss the point.4 Such engagements with the Lectures, while valuable, leave the work isolated from Newman's other dominant concerns of the period, particularly the way in which divergent conceptions of justification corresponded to disagreements about the role of the visible Church in the life of faith—what Newman names the problem of "private judgment." However, in the Introduction to the first edition, Newman himself suggests that the Lectures came about after realizing that "a prejudice existed in many serious minds against certain essential Christian truths, such as Baptismal Regeneration and the Apostolical Ministry, in consequence of a belief that they … were dangerous to the inward life of religion, and incompatible with the doctrine of justifying faith."5
Newman saw a profound link between understandings of justification and attitudes toward the rites and form of the visible Church, and his work specifically sought to address these concerns. Following Newman's lead, this essay engages the Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification from the angle of Newman's battle against the reign of private judgment in religious life by arguing that he provides a properly sacramental and ecclesial vision of justification that was meant to counteract the role of private judgment in the Protestantism of his day.
newman and the problem of private judgment
Before discussing the Lectures directly, it is important to outline what precisely Newman meant when he invoked "private judgement" and its relationship to religion. This concept played a foundational role in all of Newman's polemics against liberalism during his time in the Oxford Movement. Newman saw liberalism's root as private judgment unhinged from any external objects of assent. While Newman consistently criticized private judgment throughout his writings, there are two essays where he specifically targeted this concept. The first, published in the British Critic in 1841, only three years after the first edition of the Lectures, is worth engaging in detail in order to gain a sense of his particular concerns during the period.
For Newman, the "problem" of private judgment only arose with the affirmation of religious truth. Accordingly, there is no difficulty if one rejects this premise: "for where there is nothing to find, there can be no rules for seeking, [End Page 30] and contradiction in the result is but a reductio ad absurdum of the attempt."6 However, if one holds to some form of religious truth, then the difficulty of reconciling the divergent conclusions of individuals regarding religious belief becomes apparent—how can one uphold private judgment as a good, even as it leads others to conclusions diametrically opposed to one's own? Newman found those upholding private judgment as a principle of Protestantism remarkably inconsistent, "confess[ing] it in the general, yet promptly and pointedly deny[ing...
