Quest of the Spirit: From Suffering to Acceptance

35. God Loves and Needs You! Origen, Clement, Newman, Buber!

                                            Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua: Quest for Faith

         "Were it not for this voice, speaking so clearly in my conscience and my heart, I should be an atheist, or a pantheist, or a polytheist when I looked into the world."—Cardinal Newman---   "Starting then with the being of a God which, as I have said, is as certain to me as the certainty of my own existence, though when I try to put the ground of that certainty into logical shape, I find a difficulty in doing so . . . I look out of myself into the world of men, and there I see a sight which fills me with unspeakable distress. The world seems simply to give the lie to that great truth . . . as confusing as if it denied that I am in existence myself. If I looked into a mirror and did not see my face, I should have the sort of feeling which actually comes upon me, when I look into this living, busy world, and see no reflection of its Creator. This is, to me, one of those great difficulties of this absolute primary truth, to which I referred just now. Were it not for this voice, speaking so clearly in my conscience and my heart, I should be an atheist, or a pantheist, or a polytheist when I looked into the world" (Newman 275). This passage from Cardinal John Henry Newman echoes the loss and disappointment he observes in nineteenth-century society, a loss which serves to disillusion and alienate his fellow Christians. Like Martin Buber in I AND THOU, though his faith remains strong, Newman finds little evidence of faith, or things unseen in his time. According to Origen (184-253), regarded  by many as "the greatest genius that the early church produced," said, "The power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of all" (McGuckin 25).  In essence,the quest to find the truth, as Newman avers, lies in the human heart, not in power, wealth, or reputation. As Gore Vidal says in On Our Own Now (1972), "Suetonius, in holding up a mirror to those Caesars of diverting legend, reflects not only them but ourselves: half-tamed creatures, whose great moral taskis to hold in balance the angel and the monster within--for we are both, and to ignore this duality is to invite disaster" (Vidal 72). Man must continually sgtruggle to keep the faith. As Clement said, "If you do not hope, you will not find what is beyond your hopes."

           Disappointed with the Anglican Church, Newman also turned to the thoughts and works of the early Church for his own personal fulfillment. Writing in his autobiography Apologia Pro Vita Sua, Newman said, "There is one remaining source of my opinions to be mentioned, and that far from the least important. In proportion as I moved out of the shadow of that Liberalism which had hung over my course, my early devotion towards the Fathers returned; and in the Long Vacation of 1828 I set about to read them chronologically, beginning with St. Ignatius and St. Justin" (Newman 105). Newman said that he "did not know" when he "first learned to consider that Antiquity was the true exponent of the doctrines of Christianity and the basis of the Church of England." His reading about the ante-Nicene period most "attracted" him because it included "the great Church of Alexander, the historical center of teaching in those times," plus the battle of Arianism; and Athanasius, the champion of truth, who was Bishop of Alexandria, and whose writings referred "to the great religious names of an earlier date, to Origen, Dionysius, and others who were the glory of its see, or of its school." Newman also affirmed that "the broad philosophy of Clement and Origen" literally "carried him away" (106). Like Schweitzer, Newman could not theologically accept the customs and beliefs associated with the Eucharist, particularly the idea of Transubstantiation: "Again I have nowhere said that I can accept the decrees of Trent throughout, not implied it. The doctrine of Transubstantiation is a greater difficulty with me, as being, as I think, not primitive. Nor have I said that our Articles in all respects admit of a Roman interpretation; the very word Transubstantiation is disowned in them" (236). At this stage of his life, Newman tried desperately to reconcile the tenets in the Anglican and Roman Catholic Church. Here again, the certainty of Newman's faith and salvation posed a serious personal dilemma, which he spent most of his life attempting to rectify. Without any degree of theological uniformity, he too experienced a tragic sense of loss and persecution from both the Church of England and the Roman Church. Just as existential man suffers from alienation and an element of betrayal, so did Newman and Schweitzer, only to a different extent.