Education in the Fullness of Truth: Newman’s Idea of a University Discourse IX

In a previous post, I noted the importance of Newman’s views on the religious foundations of all education, and many recent posts have celebrated his new status as co-patron of education and Doctor of the Church. In light of this, it is timely to resume a previous sequence of posts on the Discourses in Part I of The Idea of a University. See here for a past post on “Discourse VIII,” which is a hinge toward Newman’s final “Discourse IX: The Duties of the Church toward Knowledge.” Newman declares that all previous Discourses have been “preparatory” to this one, and its strong emphasis on the role of faith, revelation, and Church authority in education makes it important to consider carefully.

First, in this post, let’s re-cap important themes leading up to the relationship between the Church and the University.

The great achievement of The Idea of a University is Newman’s careful balancing of the claims of intellect and the claims of religion. Recall that Discourse V asserts his great principle that knowledge is its own end, its own self-justifying good. Recall as well that this great principle is integrated with Newman’s earlier assertion, in Discourses II and III, that theology is a necessary discipline within the whole inter-connected web of knowledge. Newman’s tight logic can be put somewhat briefly: all knowledge is connected; a university must teach all legitimate knowledge; theology is the science of knowing the Supreme Being, and there are no reasonable intellectual grounds for excluding it as a science; therefore, a university that claims to teach universal knowledge must teach theology, both for the good of its students’ flourishing and for the inherent good of its natural integrity as an intellectual institution. Developing these careful distinctions and relationships cost Newman great mental (and no doubt physical) pains, and his brilliant efforts have left us with essential material for securing and improving education today. He placed intellectual freedom and religious knowledge on a mutual, inter-penetrating playing field, showing how both need the other to subsist. Most importantly, he demonstrated that excluding theology from study as if it were not a legitimate discipline is anti-intellectual. Such exclusion would be a restriction, not an encouragement, of intellectual freedom.

Just prior to Discourse IX, Discourse VIII had exposed the insufficiency of education if lacking the “religious principle.” Devotion to the intellect tends toward pride, and requires an ethical framework that it cannot provide for itself. Discourse IX proposes the Church as just such a ethical framework. But this does not mean that the Church limits or proscribes intellectual disciplines within their rightful domains. In fact, Newman’s other writings clarify that he thought the moral influence of the Church should be exerted not merely administratively or bureaucratically, but through the personal influence of tutors in the colleges, whose embodied witness and mentorship would provide the integration of faith and intellect, knowledge and morals (see, for example, the essays in Rise and Progress of Universities: “Discipline and Influence,” “Colleges the Correctives of Universities: Oxford,” and “Professors and Tutors”). In fact, Newman very strongly stressed the intellectual freedom of the University. While the realm of dogmatic, revealed faith does not admit of innovations, in the realm of “thought,” Newman said, “Great minds need elbow-room” (see “Christianity and Scientific Investigation” in Part II of The Idea). 

So, the majority of Discourses cast a vision for university education from the vantage of intellect, nature and philosophy. Discourse IX crowns the inquiry by considering university education (albeit briefly and in outline) from the vantage of the Church, religion and revelation. Newman notes three points of contact between the Church and the University: 1) the Church provides an ethical framework for intellectual pursuits, 2) the Church supplies the truths of Christian Revelation that reason (specifically natural theology, or theology approached from within the pale of human philosophy) cannot supply for itself, and 3) the Church provides the ecclesiastical and episcopal oversight that constitutes the Catholic ethos, identity, or character of an institution that seeks to maintain a Catholic identity.

In future posts I will examine these three important aspects of the Church’s relationship toward the University in Newman’s thought. This will include some historical context to illuminate his meaning, and suggestions for its on-going relevance in academic culture today. “Discourse IX” proves to contain an essential aspect of Newman’s thought about faith and reason, looking by analogy to the Church as the “oracle” of faith,  and the University as the institutional “organ” of reason. Newman envisioned a harmonious but distinct cooperation between the Church and universities for the full flourishing of human thought and religion, and his insights are important for promoting such harmony today.