Preview: Newman and the Greek Fathers: Indwelling of the Spirit, part I

On Monday, September 23, we'll continue our Son Rise Morning Show series on Newman and the Fathers of the Church. In this episode, we'll take a look at another of the lessons Newman learned by reading the Greek Fathers of the Church at my usual time, about 6:50 a.m. Central DST/7:50 a.m. Eastern DST. Please listen live here or on the podcast later.

The late Father Ian Ker edited Selected Sermons by Newman for the Paulist Press "Classics of Western Spirituality" series. In the section of his Introduction titled "The Influence of the Greek Fathers", Father Ker highlights the impact they had on Newman's thought as demonstrated by excerpts from the Parochial and Plain Sermons and other works. 

The first two areas we looked at were 1. The Incarnation and 2. The Resurrection and Pentecost.

The third area he identifies is Newman's emphasis on the Indwelling of the Spirit. 

We'll treat this topic in two episodes: the first focused on what Newman learned from the Greek Fathers about the Indwelling of the Spirit and the second (on September 30) on what this meant for his understanding of the doctrine of Justification.

Father Ker states:

Newman had discovered for himself in the New Testament and the Fathers the great forgotten doctrine of the indwelling in the soul of the Holy Spirit, and through the Spirit of the Father and the Son as well . . . (p. 34)

and cites PPS "The Communion of Saints":

{168}IT was the great promise of the Gospel, that the Lord of all, who had hitherto manifested himself externally to His servants, should take up His abode in their hearts. This, as you must recollect, is frequently the language of the Prophets; and it was the language of our Saviour when He came on earth: "I will love him," He says, speaking of those who love and obey Him, "and will manifest Myself to him ... We will come unto him, and make our abode with him." [John xiv. 21, 23.] Though He had come in our flesh, so as to be seen and handled, even this was not enough. Still He was external and separate; but after His ascension He descended again by and in His Spirit, and then at length the promise was fulfilled.

There must indeed be a union between all creatures and their Almighty Creator even for their very existence; for it is said, "In Him we live, and move, and {169} have our being;" and in one of the Psalms, "When Thou lettest Thy breath go forth, they shall be made." [Psalm civ. 30.] But far higher, more intimate, and more sacred is the indwelling of God in the hearts of His elect people;—so intimate, that compared with it, He may well be said not to inhabit other men at all; His presence being specified as the characteristic privilege of His own redeemed servants.

In one of Newman's Sermons on Subjects of the Day (another Anglican collection) on "Christian Nobleness" he describes again the effects of the Ascension and Pentecost on the Church as Jesus has returned

to His redeemed in the power of the Spirit, with a Presence more pervading because more intimate, and more real because more hidden. And as the manner of His coming was new, so was His gift. It was peace, but a new peace, "not as the world giveth;" not the exultation of the young, light-hearted, and simple, easily created, easily lost: but a serious, sober, lasting comfort, full of reverence, deep in contemplation.

Ker comments that Newman considers the true sign of a Christian is her awareness of this Presence, as it "should be at the heart of [her] moral and spiritual life". Without this Presence, "human life in its fullness is impossible . . ." (p 35), for without Christ in the shrine of our hearts we have "a self where God is not":

a home within [us] which is not a temple, a chamber which is not a confessional, a tribunal without a judge, a throne without a king;—that self may be king and judge; and that the Creator may rather be dealt with and approached as though a second party, instead of His being that true and better self of which self itself should be but an instrument and minister. ("Sincerity and Hypocrisy" p. 226)

Before mentioning tribunal and judge, Newman already spoke of the indwelling of the Spirit in the Christian's "innermost heart, or in his conscience"--which tempts me to discussing the connections between this theme and Newman's excellent statements about the formation, authority, and centrality of Conscience--but I have resisted that temptation (almost)! 

Nevertheless, mention of the heart recalls Newman's motto as Cardinal, "Cor ad Cor Loquitor" (Heart Speaks to Heart), and Ker concludes this part of his discussion of the "Indwelling of the Spirit" in the Christian heart with an excerpt from what he calls a "remarkable sermon", "The Thought of God, the Stay of the Soul" as Newman "makes the heart the focal point of human life and argues that only a personal God can fulfil its longings" and warns that "Human affection and love can only center the heart on what is 'perishable'" because:

Life passes, riches fly away, popularity is fickle, the senses decay, the world changes, friends die. One alone is constant; One alone is true to us; One alone can be true; One alone can be all things to us; One alone can supply our needs; One alone can train us up to our full perfection; One alone can give a meaning to our complex and intricate nature; One alone can give us tune and harmony; One alone can form and possess us.*

Quoting yet another PPS, "The Law of the Spirit", Ker states that Newman insists we were completely redeemed "only when the 'dreadful reality' of original sin was overtaken by a 'new righteousness,' a 'real righteousness' which 'comes from the Holy and Divine Spirit,' so that our 'works, done in the Spirit of Christ'", done out of obedience are hallowed and made holy. (p. 36)

Then Father Ker turns to how this doctrine of the Indwelling of the Spirit helped Newman as an Anglican see the contrast between an Evangelical theory of Justification and the Catholic Christian view of Deification or Divinisation as taught by the Greek or Eastern Fathers of the Church. That's argument we'll trace on the last Monday in September.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

*See Gaudium et Spes, paragraph 22:

22. The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of Him Who was to come,(20) namely Christ the Lord. Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear.