Anne Carpenter was kind enough to give NINS some insight into her new book Nothing Gained is Eternal (Fortress, 2022), where she provides a refreshing metaphysical perspective on the topic of Christian Tradition.
Pope Francis speaks about our “increasing difficult[y]” in “discern[ing] what is proper to humans and what is proper to technology.” In this moment, the Holy Father stresses our need for “serious reflection on the very value of the human person” especially, “the concept of personal consciousness as relational experience,” and he exhorts us to draw upon our “shared human experiences” by studying them “from various perspectives, employing trans-disciplinary dialogue and cooperation.” Inspired by the Holy Father, I take a step in that direction by reflecting upon St. John Henry Newman’s view of the manifold aspects of the mystery of the human person.
Newman’s description of self-denial in light of the invisible world can help us to examine and renew three fundamental relationships: with God, our neighbor, and the natural world.
When I first read the late Fr. John O’Malley’s survey text What Happened at Vatican II (2008), I was struck by a passage in the conclusion. O’Malley gave a tantalizing rundown of the “ghosts” present on the council floor—the popes, theologians, philosophers, and politicians whose lives and legacies had indelibly marked the Catholic world. These voices from the past had shaped, positively or negatively (sometimes both), the work of the council fathers:
Introduced here are three examples of lay women who were deeply influenced by Newman in particular as well as by the greater Oxford Movement. These three women had varying degrees of interaction with Newman personally.
In the scholarly literature, John Locke (1632–1704) features as a formative influence on Newman’s philosophical thought. What usually gets highlighted, for example in the Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, are Newman’s criticism of Locke’s notion of degreed assent and his call for a broader and more nuanced account of the rationality of religious belief. However, some have argued that the Grammar largely focuses on the psychological conditions of religious belief.
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