“Moral truth is gained by patient study, by calm reflection, silently as the dew falls …” John Henry Newman to his mother, March 13, 1829 (LD, II: 131).

Various aspects of religious morality appear throughout the many works that John Henry Newman wrote during his long life (1801–1890). Yet this topic did not receive the type of sustained attention that many other issues elicited. At first glance, that seems odd at least from the perspective of religious discourse in the twenty-first century where debates about morality are widespread. However, his interests reflected nineteenth century Britain whose increasingly secular society in the industrial revolution presented many challenges to the legitimacy of religious belief upon which he focused. By religious morality is meant the religious significance that he attributed to the natural perception of “moral truth.” One of the lasting achievements of his works has been his justification of religious belief. That approach for the most part focuses upon the natural capacity for belief in his explanation of informal inference and the real assent of certitude. A similar approach is adopted to examine his approach to religious morality. For the most part the analysis deals with the natural capacity for morality, both in terms of moral law and practical judgment. However, the focus upon religious morality specifically connects that natural process with the religious significance that can accrue in terms of God, theology, and Church tradition. This confluence of natural morality with religious meaning becomes explicit in his discussion of conscience. However, conscience was only one of several components of religious morality in his writings. This book adopts a much broader perspective. It could be fascinating to compile his varying remarks on religious morality, some illustrative of one controversy, some tangential to another quarrel, and others critical for a variety of contentious disputes. Such a compilation likely would result in frustration insofar as his observations would lack coherence without providing a framework to interpret them meaningfully. This study seeks to provide such a systematic account of religious morality in his writings through the lens of his hermeneutics that he developed to justify religious belief.

Seeking to systematize the work of a non-systematic writer can present significant difficulties. He never developed a general account of his thought that could be traced through the variety of issues he discussed, often as a controversialist, frequently as a pastor, and many times as a scholar and educator. As a result, it is quite a challenge to explain a major topic in his works in a manner that systematically addresses the multiple strands and shifting positions in his writings. Commentators urge caution about how to read his works, as suggested by the following examples.

One caution about how to study Newman is noted in an astute remark by Ian Ker in his renowned biography. He observes in the opening paragraph of the Preface: “The biographer of Newman who wishes to do justice to his thought and art as well as his life is faced by not so much a shortage as a surfeit of materials, with the result that he or she may well feel overwhelmed by the agonizing difficulty of selecting and distilling.”Footnote 1 In 1969, Edward J. Sillem made a similar observation at the start of his edited collection of Newman’s philosophical writings: “Most people who settle down to a careful reading of the works of John Henry Newman begin to feel sooner or later as though they were in the presence of a very powerful personality who lives within his writings, almost as if there were so many animate parts of his bodily frame. They find that Newman has an incomparable power, a kind of rare natural charisma, of gradually bringing to life in the minds of other people a way of thinking, the nature and merits of which they may find considerable difficulty in assessing. This way of thinking does not repose on an abstract system of logic…. This way of thinking is more personal.”Footnote 2

Because of Newman’s non-systematic way of writing and the complexity of his works, the theologian Cardinal Avery Dulles warned about the danger of quoting isolated sentences to make points to support particular arguments: “Newman cannot be studied through excerpts, but only by a grasp of his thinking in its full range.”Footnote 3 Just before his death, Dulles more fully explained his caution: “To profit from Newman’s wisdom one should not be content to quote passages from one or another of his works, since he is more a controversialist than a systematician, and since his own thought went through a series of developments, isolated passages do not do justice (to) the full range of his thought. … For those who have the patience to take account of the full corpus of his writing, he is a teacher almost without peer.”Footnote 4

Likewise, the theologian Terrence Merrigan highlights the complexity of Newman’s thought by focusing upon his personal style of argument that tended to hold opposites in tension. In his 1991 book Merrigan astutely remarked: “The key to Newman’s complexity is his ability to hold in tensile unity apparently opposite tendencies and concerns.”Footnote 5 Over a decade later, Merrigan reiterated the importance of Newman’s efforts to balance contrasting perspectives: “Indeed, much of Newman’s greatness and his significance for today consist precisely in his ability to maintain a healthy balance between apparently contradictory impulses and tendencies. In short, Newman can serve as a model for contemporary theologians whose task is to exercise their intellects in the service of faith, while remaining aware that the object of their reflections ultimately resists intellection.”Footnote 6

In light of Newman’s highly personal style and given the enormous complexity of his thought, the question naturally arises about how to undertake a systematic study of religious morality in his writings. The theologian John T. Ford offers a valuable insight about how such a study might be engaged: “Newman, of course, cannot be expected to provide ready-made answers to today’s questions; … Newman’s writings provide a framework of meaning and a method for contemporary theological investigation.”Footnote 7

This insight helps to clarify the systematic approach that is adopted in this book. As “a framework of meaning and a method for … investigation” the analysis uses Newman’s hermeneutics of the imagination (hence the sub-title of the book) as a lens to explore religious morality in his thought. Though he never used the phrase, it is adopted to combine his general hermeneutics (that he developed to justify religious belief) with his focus on the imagination in that process. From the outset it can be helpful to note that for Newman there is a crucial interaction between what he referred to as “real ratiocination and present imagination” (GA, 36), though the imagination should always be under the control of reason. That enticing interaction is captured in the phrase “hermeneutics of the imagination” and is explored throughout the book.

To pursue the discussion in a systematic manner the analysis considers several foundations of religious morality, three theoretical foundations and three practical foundations. The first theoretical foundation is his commitment to truth and holiness that enabled him to address recurring concerns with doctrine and salvation. To do so he relied on reason (to deal with truth and its connection with doctrine) and conscience (to deal with holiness and its connection with salvation). The second theoretical foundation is his religious epistemology of reason and belief that can be construed as his hermeneutics. This interpretative process focuses upon informal inference as a subjective endeavor to justify the assent of certitude in matters of belief and morality – showing that there is no subject-free objectivity in these practical matters. The third theoretical foundation is his hermeneutics of the imagination. Here he aligned his general hermeneutics on reason and belief with the role of the imagination both to justify the imaginative assent of certitude and to inspire accompanying moral activity. When applied to theology, his hermeneutics of the imagination becomes his theological hermeneutics in which the concrete process of informal inference and certitude is attentive to historical consciousness.

These three theoretical foundations are integrated with three practical foundations of religious morality. The first practical foundation of religious morality is the moral law, implementing the abstract and concrete processes of reason in his hermeneutics of the imagination. The second practical foundation of religious morality is moral conscience that has two functions. The moral sense represents the rationality of conscience, being its autonomous characteristic that engages reason to determine when moral judgments can attain certitude. This is the primary function of conscience, reflecting his hermeneutics of the imagination. The sense of duty represents the responsibility of conscience before God, being its theonomous characteristic that engages the voice of God. Reflecting his theological hermeneutics, this function provides a religious interpretation for the moral sense (dealing with truth) and confers religious meaning to moral character (dealing with holiness). The third practical foundation of religious morality is Church tradition that creates a dynamic interaction between the faithful, theologians, and bishops. His theological hermeneutics can clarify how the faithful and theologians have a crucial role using the concrete process of informal inference and certitude to be attuned to historical consciousness. Also, the authority of the bishops must be respected, but there are the dangers of their over-reach, as exemplified in his consternation over the declaration of Papal Infallibility – this provides a fascinating case study of creating effective strategies to negotiate conflicts with bishops.

By considering his hermeneutics of the imagination in general and his theological hermeneutics in particular, religious morality becomes alive throughout his major works. The discussion highlights the interpretative process of informal inference and the imaginative assent of certitude in a manner that can elicit profound religious meaning without diminishing the rational enterprise involved. This description of method summarizes his investigation of religious belief – the contribution of the book is to apply the same method to study religious morality in his thought. Given his unsystematic way of writing, there is some overlap in the analysis insofar as related concepts are explored from different perspectives. The argument develops in a cumulative manner, akin to his use of converging probabilities.