Liberalism and Newman the anglican: vision and response

Abstract

Newman's life can properly be described as a life devoted to fighting religious liberalism, the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another. But he did not restrict himself to expose the so-called usurpations and incongruities of liberalism. He tried simultaneously to provide Christian Theology with intellectual tools of a historical and speculative kind in order to anticipate and prevent the distorted reasonings and objections of liberalism. The following pages deal with a key aspect of this subject They should however, be read in the wider scope of the rich Newmanian thought concerning the doctrines of certitude and development of Christian dogma.