SOURCE: “The Development of Doctrine,” in Things Old and New: An Ecumenical Reflection on the Theology of John Henry Newman, St Pauls, 1993, pp. 33-52.

In the following essay, Sullivan discusses Newman's philosophical presuppositions and summarizes the major aims of his theological method as defined in his Essay on the Development of Doctrine.

Newman was neither naive nor unduly optimistic in articulating his philosophical theology of development. He was aware of the constant need for renewal in Church life. He speaks of ‘real perversions and corruptions … often not so unlike externally to the doctrine from which they come, as are changes which are consistent with it and true developments’. And he is quick to add that ‘corruption in religion is the refusal to follow the course of doctrine as it moves on, and an obstinacy in the notions of the past’.¹ It is important to note that in the...