Newman on Faith, Holiness, and Imagination
Imagination is a significant part of Newman’s theology in both his Anglican and Catholic years. In his recent article, Nicolas Steeves, SJ narrates how faith, holiness, and imagination work together in Newman’s theology. Particularly, Steeves notes “that Newman with his life and writings helps us to understand what credible holiness is today. Rather than a clichéd, 19th-century romantic heroic holiness, the beautiful but troubled life path of Newman shows us that holiness can and must be reimagined today in the light of Easter. Only in this way will the world be able to return to listen to the Gospel of Christ.” In what he deems an “evangelical, imaginative holiness,” Steeves explains that “holiness, according to Newman, does not concern first of all the good works completed, but an inner disposition, a series of virtues that arise from a fundamental vision (Weltanschauung) or, to put it in Thomas Kuhn’s words, from a certain imaginative paradigm.[1] The holiness that Newman outlines is a way of imagining God, oneself, others and the cosmos.” As Steeves notes, for Newman, “‘the heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination.’ His motto as a cardinal, cor ad cor loquitur, takes us from the Heart of Christ to our heart, and from one human heart to another. If our hearts allow themselves to be touched and wounded by the Heart of Christ and by the hearts of others, as happened with Newman, we will set out into the Church toward an imaginative holiness. With Newman, and in many ways, we can affirm that ‘holiness is the most attractive face of the Church.'”
DOI: La Civiltà Cattolica, En. Ed. Vol. 3, no. 12 art. 5, 2019: 10.32009/22072446.1912.5
[1] Cf. T. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1970.For the entire article entitled, “Saint John Henry Newman: Faith, Holiness, and Imagination.”
About the author
Elizabeth Huddleston is Associate Editor for the Newman Studies Journal. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Music Education from the University of Georgia and a master’s degree in Theological Studies from the University of Dayton, and a doctorate in Theology also from the University of Dayton. Her dissertation is entitled, Divine Revelation as Rectrix Stella: The Evolution of Wilfrid Ward’s Doctrine of Divine Revelation, which was completed in 2019 under the direction of Dr. William L. Portier. Dr. Huddleston’s research interests include the reception of Newman’s doctrine of revelation in nineteenth- and twentieth-century theology, the relationship between music and theology, ecumenical and inter-faith conversations, and the intersection of dogmatic theology with Christian mysticism.
