Three propositions, three conversions

In the Apologia, Newman lists the three key points of his Tractarian beliefs:

I have spoken of my firm confidence in my position; and now let me state more definitely what the position was which I took up, and the propositions about which I was so confident. These were three:—

1. First was the principle of dogma: my battle was with liberalism; by liberalism I mean the anti-dogmatic principle and its developments. This was the first point on which I was certain. [...] The main principle of the movement is as dear to me now, as it ever was. I have changed in many things: in this I have not. From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the fundamental principle of my religion: I know no other religion; I cannot enter into the idea of any other sort of religion; religion, as a mere sentiment, is to me a dream and a mockery. As well can there be filial love without the fact of a father, as devotion without the fact of a Supreme Being. What I held in 1816, I held in 1833, and I hold in 1864.

2. Secondly, I was confident in the truth of a certain definite religious teaching, based upon this foundation of dogma; viz. that there was a visible Church, with sacraments and rites which are the channels of invisible grace. I thought that this was the doctrine of Scripture, of the early Church, and of the Anglican Church. Here again, I have not changed in opinion; I am as certain now on this point as I was in 1833, and have never ceased to be certain.

3. But now, as to the third point on which I stood in 1833, and which I have utterly renounced and trampled upon since,—my then view of the Church of Rome;—I will speak about it as exactly as I can. When I was young, as I have said already, and after I was grown up, I thought the Pope to be Antichrist.

How do these compare with the three conversions?

• Obviously conversion 3 is the final undoing of proposition 3.
• Proposition 2 (sacramental system) is a fruit of conversion 2 "overcoming the subjective evangelical position in favour of an understanding of Christendom based on the objectivity of dogma."
• At first sight I'd also have identified both proposition 1 (dogma) with conversion 2, but looking a bit deeper, we see that Newman claims to have held proposition 1 since 1816, when he was fifteen, i.e. the date of the first conversion.

So there we have it, the three main points of Newman's Tractarian-period belief line up rather neatly with the three conversions!

[Roger]