The Full Comprehension and Perfection of Great Ideas

 In his own words, this is Cardinal Newman's Theory of Development of Doctrine  (from Newman Reader )

1. that the increase and expansion of the Christian Creed and Ritual, and the variations which have attended the process in the case of individual writers and Churches, are the necessary attendants on any philosophy or polity which takes possession of the intellect and heart, and has had any wide or extended dominion;  
2. that from the nature of the human mind, time is necessary for the full comprehension and perfection of great ideas; 
3. and that the highest and most wonderful truths, though communicated to the world once for all by inspired teachers, could not be comprehended all at once by the recipients, but, as being received and transmitted by minds not inspired and through media which were human, have required only the longer time and deeper thought for their full elucidation. 

(emphasis and numbering are mine)

Newman is making the claim here that any great idea is going to have a process of "comprehension and perfection" in the minds and lives of people, that this process will take time, and that the higher and more wonderful the truths are, the longer the time and deeper the thought this process will take.

In the case of the Church's claim the truths are of a height and depth different in kind, not just degree, from any other philosophy or religion.    In fact, revelation discloses matters that are ultimately edged in mystery, even though they are to some degree knowable and applicable.

There will never be a time when we know everything there is to know, or have become everything we could become as a Church.    That is not contradictory at all, as Newman says, to the truth that we were given a full and complete revelation in the day of the Logos, the Messiah, through the apostolic witness.   

This is probably what is basically meant when Vatican II talks about the Pilgrim Church, though sometimes the term has been distorted -- something that can happen to any living real idea.   This is also noted by Newman in great detail later on in his essay.  But the idea is that the Church is like a boat, and must sail through different waters and weathers, and respond accordingly, while not for a moment changing its destination or point of origin.

In the body of his Essay, Newman will unpack these concepts he has presented in the introduction.    It surprised me a bit how much of the work concerns historical examples of the points he is making.    His work has a logical structure but the illustrations of the points do their share of the work.   This goes back to the point of the article I wrote about earlier, by Martin Bruske.     When talking about a theory that essentially concerns how things work their way out in human history, he can't use a strictly deductive demonstration.    There isn't really one to be had.    Here I will put an extract from an abstract on a chapter of Ian Ker's book on Newman -- that's indirect, isn't it? but I think preferable to a paraphrase of my own:

(Newman) argued in 1846 that “the measure of probability for certainty” must vary “with the individual mind”. But he was also aware of the Church's inclination on “rational faith based on reason”. Newman wrote that “proof of Religion” is best illustrated by the image of a cable which is comprised of numerous separate threads, fragile on its own, but together as strong as an iron rod. The idea of “cumulating probabilities” leading to “subjective certainty” had been suggested in a paper entitled “On the Certainty of Faith”. ...Newman's justifications of religious faith were best described in his most philosophical essay,Grammar of Assent.

Now Ker is talking here about Newman's idea of faith on an individual level, while Newman's essay on the development of doctrine is about the historical outworkings of reception of the Faith.    

Still my point is the two things are roughly analogous, at the very least.   Newman alludes to this in his Candlemas sermon delivered before he became a Catholic, by pointing to Mary as the model in the individual AND Church reception and study of the faith:

Thus St. Mary is our pattern of Faith, both in the reception and in the study of Divine Truth. She does not think it enough to accept, she dwells upon it; not enough to possess, she uses it; not enough to assent, she developes it; not enough to submit the Reason, she reasons upon it; not indeed reasoning first, and believing afterwards, with Zacharias, yet first believing without reasoning, next from love and reverence, reasoning after believing. And thus she symbolizes to us, not only the faith of the unlearned, but of the doctors of the Church also, who have to investigate, and weigh, and define, as well as to profess the Gospel; to draw the line between truth and heresy; to anticipate or remedy the various aberrations of wrong reason; to combat pride and recklessness with their own arms; and thus to triumph over the sophist and the innovator.

You can see the paradigm in the spare details of Mary's life given in the gospels-- she carried the Word for 9 months, nurtured him to adulthood, but continued to learn from Him through life, "pondering on these things in her heart."    This is how relationships work, but it is also how Truth works, which is perhaps why Newman calls the fruitful and real ideas "living". 

AMDG