{"id":1030,"date":"2024-01-12T11:35:05","date_gmt":"2024-01-12T11:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2024\/01\/12\/more-on-private-judgment\/"},"modified":"2024-01-12T11:35:05","modified_gmt":"2024-01-12T11:35:05","slug":"more-on-private-judgment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2024\/01\/12\/more-on-private-judgment\/","title":{"rendered":"John Henry Newman and the Problem of Private Judgment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Onsi A. Kamel<\/a> (First Things<\/em>, October 2019):<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The issue of ecclesiastical authority was trickier for me. I recognized the absurdity of a twenty-year-old presuming to adjudicate claims about the Scriptures and two thousand years of history. Newman\u2019s arguments against private judgment therefore had a prima facie<\/em> plausibility for me. In his Apologia<\/em>, Newman argues that man\u2019s rebellion against God introduced an \u201canarchical condition of things,\u201d leading human thought toward \u201csuicidal excesses.\u201d Hence, the fittingness of a divinely established living voice infallibly proclaiming supernatural truths. In his discourse on \u201cFaith and Private Judgment,\u201d Newman castigates Protestants for refusing to \u201csurrender\u201d reason in matters religious. The implication is that reason is unreliable in matters of revelation. Faith is assent to the incontestable, self-evident truth of God\u2019s revelation, and reasoning becomes an excuse to refuse to bend the knee.<\/span><\/p>\n

The more I internalized \u00adNewman\u2019s claims about private judgment, however, the more I descended into skepticism. I could not reliably interpret the Scriptures, history, or God\u2019s Word preached and given in the sacraments. But if I could not do these things, if my reason was unfit in matters religious, how was I to assess Newman\u2019s arguments for Roman Catholicism? Newman himself had once recognized this dilemma, writing in a pre-conversion letter, \u201cWe have too great a horror of the principle of private judgment to trust it in so immense a matter as that of changing from one communion to another.\u201d Did he expect me to forfeit the faculty by which I adjudicate truth claims, because that faculty is fallible? My \u00adconversion would have to be rooted in my private \u00adjudgment\u2014but, because of Rome\u2019s claim of infallibility, conversion would forbid me from exercising that faculty ever again on doctrinal questions.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

MavPhil comment<\/em>: Here is one problem. I must exercise my private judgment in order to decide whether to accept Rome's authority and thereby surrender my private judgment. But if my private judgment is trustworthy up to that point, then it will be trustworthy beyond that point in the evaluation of the pronouncements of say, Pope Francis.  It is also important to note that my private judgment is not merely<\/em> private inasmuch as it is informed and tempered and corrected by a lifetime of  wide and diligent study and by the opinions of many others who have exercised their private judgments carefully and responsibly.<\/span><\/p>\n

A second problem is that it is the private<\/em> judgments  of powerful and influential intellects driven by resolute commitment  that have shaped Rome's teaching. St. Augustine is a prime example. Imagine being at a theological conference or council and squaring off with the formidable Augustinus. Whom do you think would carry the day? The magisterial teaching does not come directly from the Holy Spirit but is mediated by these intellectually powerful and willful drivers of doctrine. They were not mere conduits even if they were divinely inspired.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Finally, the infighting among traditionalist, conservative, and liberal Catholics made plain that Catholics did not gain by their magisterium a clear, living voice of divine authority. They received from the past a set of magisterial documents that had to be weighed and interpreted, often over against living prelates. The \u00admagisterium of prior ages only multiplied the texts one had to interpret for oneself, for living bishops, it turns out, are as bad at reading as the rest of us.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Onsi A. Kamel (First Things, October 2019): The issue of ecclesiastical authority was trickier for me. I recognized the absurdity of a twenty-year-old presuming to adjudicate claims about the Scriptures and two thousand years of history. Newman\u2019s arguments against private judgment therefore had a prima facie plausibility for me. In his Apologia, Newman argues that … Continue reading “John Henry Newman and the Problem of Private Judgment”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,139,426,63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholic-corner","category-religion","category-revelation","category-theology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}