Theologian deems St. John Henry Newman a Doctor for our time

“Do I need God? Can’t I just be a good person?”

In autumn 2002, Matthew Muller was an irreligious college freshman quietly wrestling with this question. He had landed at Benedictine College to play basketball, and during the first semester of his freshman year, the opening line of an assigned reading – C.S. Lewis’ essay “Man or Rabbit?” – posed essentially the same question:

“Can’t you lead a good life without believing in Christianity?”

Muller, now a theology professor at Benedictine, opened the visiting lecture he presented on Tuesday, Jan. 13 at Newman University’s Spring Institute, by noting that the question was, in a sense, beside the point. It also was the key to understanding both Muller’s eventual decision to become Catholic a few years later, as well as why the subject of his talk – St. John Henry Newman – did the same more than a century and a half prior to that.

Commitment to truth

Young Muller realized Lewis had been correct to brush aside the initial question and instead raise the essential one: Is Christianity true? “If it’s true, then yes, you need it to live a good life,” Muller said. “If it’s not true, then no, you shouldn’t follow it.” 

And although he would not read any of Newman’s work for several more years, Muller said, he came to recognize that the same essential question animated the future saint and Doctor of the Church, who NU is honoring during its Heritage Month that began on Feb. 1

“Newman had a similar commitment to truth in his life that led him on the journey that eventually led him into the Catholic Church, becoming a saint, and now Doctor of the Church,” Muller said. 

He indicated that the same introduction to theology class in 2002 crystallized another unavoidable question. “It became it very clear to me . . . that if God was going to send his Son into the world to redeem us, he would also provide some sort of way that people who live 2,000 years after that event could know that it happened and what Christ taught and what he was about,” Muller said “It made sense to me that there would be a Church . . . that continued throughout history that would be the kind of communicator and guarantor of that revelation.”

As a young man, John Henry Newman also believed that, Muller explained. The proposition immediately carries practical implications for all who do, he noted: “Will I actually commit my life to live as Christ is calling us to live?” Muller posed. “So much of the way Newman taught the faith . . . was not just telling the truth, but showing and living it. That took a little longer for me. What helped me . . . decide to enter the Church was the friendship and witness of faithful Catholics. I found more joy when I was with them; I found a greater sense of purpose.”

Faith to function

Muller’s presentation considered St. Newman from numerous angles, including his life, intellectual emphases, spirituality, and legacy. A pleasant life as a highly esteemed Anglican clergyman and scholar were not nearly as important to Newman as adhering to the truth, Muller observed, and becoming Catholic destroyed Newman’s reputation in what was considered England’s respectable high society.

“This decision was very much a sign of his holiness, and why he was named a saint,” Muller said. “He was one of the most famous men in England. His books would fly off the shelves. He had income; he had social reputation; he had friends. And choosing to become Catholic in England was (seen as) a betrayal of your country. To take that step was a step into the unknown, and definitely a step away from comfort.”

Nevertheless, St. Newman also carried with him a conviction that, although God could accomplish his purposes regardless of human cooperation, providence had assigned each human being a particular, important, mission, Muller considered. Oddly, he added, the future Doctor of the Church seemed not to consider theology a significant portion of his particular assignment.

Instead, much of St. Newman’s writing sprang from a very practical impulse to answer recurring questions or controversies. “He was always trying to help others better understand the faith or to clarify things that were troubling people,” Muller said.

The sacramental principle – that a spiritual reality underpins tangible ones – was a particularly important thread of St. Newman’s thought, Muller detailed, as was the dogmatic principle: that it is possible to know revealed religious truth that can be taken seriously as genuine knowledge. 

A third principle that Muller identified was what he called the integrative principle. “Whether he was preaching to his Oxford undergraduates or he was talking about education, he understood that all truth is ultimately one and harmonious,” Muller said. “All of reality ultimately comes from God and has its ultimate purpose in God.”

Muller also expounded on Newman’s position that the growing religious skepticism of the age in which he lived ignored the reality that human beings cannot function in the world without beliefs unprovable by scientific or mathematical means. “It would actually be irrational and cruel to telephone your mother and say ‘Hey Nancy, I am not going to call you Mom until I can prove you’re my mother,’” Muller said. “In a more polished way, Newman says faith is going to be rooted in judgments, and it’s necessary for our action in life. Human beings are made to believe and to have faith.”

He went on to cite an extended quote from the newest Doctor of the Church to that effect: “‘The heart is commonly reached, not through reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will live and die upon a dogma; no man will be a martyr for a conclusion.’”