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Newman, Arnold & the Problem of Particular Providence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Leslie Armour
Leslie Armour
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Ottawa, Canada
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Extract

It has often been suggested – recently again by Michael Goulder in a debate with John Hick – that what traditionally was called the problem of ‘particular providence’, the problem of God's selective interference in the ongoing affairs of the world, is so acute as to render any form of rational theism impossible. In the same debate Hick argues for a ‘minimalist’ position which allows divine intervention only in the form of a general, radiated, goodness and benevolence on which human beings may draw. In this paper I want to show that reason permits and some evidence suggests another (and richer) possibility – the possibility that God intervenes through the inner life and perhaps by establishing the cast of characters. I shall construct this alternative usingideas developed from Cardinal Newman and Matthew Arnold.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , June 1988 , pp. 173 - 187
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

page 173 note 1 Goulder, Michael and Hick, John, Why Believe in God?, London: SCM Press, 1983.Google Scholar

page 176 note 1 Newman's argument (as contained in his philosophical notebook) has been published by Boekraad, Adrian J. and Tristram, Henry, in The Argument from Conscience to the Existence of God Louvain: Editions Nauwelaerts, 1961.Google Scholar The entire notebook has been published under the title Newman, John H., The Philosophical Notebook (Sillem, Edward J., ed.; revised by A. J. Boekraad), 2 vols. (Louvain: Editions Nauwelaerts, 1970).Google Scholar Theactual text is in Volume II.

page 177 note 1 Boekraad, and Tristram, , op. cit. p. 114.Google Scholar

page 177 note 2 Boekraad, and Tristram, , op. cit. p. 103.Google Scholar

page 179 note 1 Arnold, Matthew, ‘Religion Given’ (Literature and Dogma, London: 1871–1873, chapter I)Google Scholar quoted from The Complete Works of Matthew Arnold, vol. VI, ed. Soper, R. H. (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1968), p. 185.Google Scholar

page 181 note 1 The imagery used in Dover Beach may well have come fromone of Newman's Fifteen Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford (London: Longmans Green, 1892) (see p. 201).Google Scholar Newman's ‘night battle’ matches Arnold's and there are other possible connections with Newman, in Dover Beach.Google Scholar Other possible sources, however, are Thucydides, Clough, and Carlyle. For a discussion see DeLaura, David J., Hebrew and Hellene in Victorian England: Newman, Arnold, and Pater (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1969), p. 22.Google Scholar

page 181 note 2 For a long discussion of this question see DeLaura, , op. cit.Google Scholar

page 184 note 1 Arnold, Matthew, Culture and Anarchy (London: Smith, Elder, 1869), p. viii.Google Scholar It appears on p. 6 of the common modern edition, ed. Wilson, J. Dover (Cambridge University Press, 1932).Google Scholar

page 187 note 1 Aquinas speaks, in fact, in the way that I suggest in his discussion of predestination (Summa Theologica, Part I, Question 23). Hespeaks, specifically, of God's replacing some members of the cast by others (I, 23, Article 6, reply to Objection I).