He therefore
determined to take the utmost care to make his views quite clear;
his opinions upon religious probability, his distinction between
demonstrative and circumstantial evidence, his theory of the
development of doctrine and the aspects of ideas--these and many
other matters, upon which he had written so much, he would now
explain in the simplest language. He would show that there was
nothing dangerous in what he held, that there was a passage in De
Lugo which supported him-- that Perrone, by maintaining that the
Immaculate Conception could be defined, had implicitly admitted
one of his main positions, and that his language about Faith had
been confused, quite erroneously, with the fideism of M. Bautain.
Cardinal Barnabo, Cardinal Reisach, Cardinal Antonelli, looked at
him with their shrewd eyes and hard faces, while he poured into
their ears which, as he had already noticed with distress, were
large and not too clean--his careful disquisitions; but, it was
all in vain-- they had clearly never read De Lugo or Perrone, and
as for M. Bautain, they had never heard of him. Newman, in
despair,
fell back upon St. Thomas Aquinas; but, to his horror, he
observed
that St. Thomas himself did not mean very much to the Cardinals.
With a sinking heart, he realised at last the painful truth: it
was not the nature of his views, it was his having views at all,
that was objectionable.
Pages:
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111