Thoughts on Newman’s Phases of Faith

Samuel Cardillo

I recently read an obscure book by Francis William Newman (younger brother of Cardinal John Henry Newman), The Phases of Faith: Passages from the History of My Creed; published in 1874.

Very basically, Newman traces the various phases of his rejection of what he sees as unrealistic biblical accounts of God’s interaction with humanity.

For years, as a student of the Bible, I’ve been puzzled as to how and why God (who must be, above all else, a God of Love) is portrayed so often to the contrary in the Bible as a God who acts in ways that show him to be the very opposite a God of Love. So much of the biblical portrayal makes God out to be the initiator of mean-spirited acts toward his created beings, commanding and instigating the murder of those who haven’t committed any wrong deserving of his wrath (contrary to Calvinism’s insistence that all of humanity is hopelessly tainted by sinful motivations and therefore guilty and deserving of God’s wrath). As Newman himself put it (in describing his earlier viewpoint):

“I could not disentangle myself from great bewildering concerning their [the unsaved] state in the sight of God: for it was an essential part of my Calvinistic Creed, that the very good works of the unregenerate undoubtedly have the nature of sin as indeed the very nature with which they were born deserve God’s wrath and damnation.” (p.62)

That, in a nutshell, is the basic dilemma faced by anyone who has struggled with the convoluted theology of Calvinism. But Newman goes further. He presents the problem in even stronger language, characterizing his earlier theology as “gloomy Calvinism”:

“I saw that the Calvinistic doctrine of human degeneracy teaches that God disowns my nature (the only nature I ever had) as not his work, but the devil’s work. He thereby tells me that he is not my Creator, and he disclaims his right over me, as a father who disowns a child…” (p.83)

The Old Testament often portrays God’s treatment of His created human beings in ways that by any rational standard, are undeserving of severe punishment, let alone wholesale massacre; even to the extent of killing large numbers of people who by any measure are merely innocent bystanders in the biblical account. Newman references many biblical (especially Old Testament) narratives of God’s seeming compliance (or consent, or however it might be characterized) to indiscriminate killing of massive numbers of people.

To illustrate the problem, of the many accounts of this “punishing” God, I’ve always been mystified by one of those biblical accounts in particular — a very odd text that’s veiled in a single verse of the Old Testament, showing a picture of God’s prime servant, King David (a story that, in fact, Newman doesn’t actually mention); and coming right after a lengthy account of God’s favorable estimation of David’s life and deeds. I’m referring to the brief account in 2 Samuel 8:2 — a scene of indiscriminate, arbitrary mass-murder:

And he [David] defeated Moab and he measured them with a line, making them lie down on the ground. Two lines he measure to be put to death, and one full line to be spared…”

We are led to understand this brief account as one of many episodes in the life of David that illustrate his favorable status as God’s chosen servant for his time — Israel’s king and protector, one who slays the enemies of God’s chosen people, (and therefore God’s enemies as well). Not to minimize the many other accounts of God’s initiation and consent to such acts, but this account in particular stands out to me as one of the more disturbing acts commended by God. I’ll say up front, very simply, that like Newman, for me, this and many other similar biblical accounts (some of which I reference below) are impossible for me to accept as accurate accounts of the acts of God. But obviously (and unfortunately) it’s not that easy. As students of the Bible (especially in the Evangelical tradition) we don’t have the luxury (or, in fact, the right) to judge as right or wrong the “acts of God” as narrated in the sacred text of the Bible. It’s in the Bible, therefore it’s authenticity is not open to question. Thankfully, I find myself drawing away from that restrictive and rigid theology. But that’s another discussion…

So (in light of the constraint that the commitment to Biblical inerrancy places on us) how does one deal with the biblical account of a God who seemingly both initiates and consents to indiscriminate mass-killing? To be honest (and no doubt too blatantly candid for my Evangelical brothers and sisters), because of the biblical tone, the God of Israel, as portrayed in the Bible, has become a God to whom it is becoming increasingly impossible to relate as the God we (as Evangelicals) are conditioned to believe is good, loving, kind, and forgiving. That’s not to imply that such an assessment of God’s character is accurate (somehow, even in light of Biblical evidence to the contrary, I still can’t believe it is!). I constantly tend to fall back on the one thing must be certain — that no one can claim to have a complete understanding of the mind (and heart) of the creator. Whether that’s an evasion of the problem on my part… well maybe so, but the alternative is horrifying.

So here’s the question — does that limitation of human capacity to understand the mind and motivations of God disqualify humanity from operating out of it’s innate (God-given) sense of correct (and acceptable) moral behavior? Is God’s basic standard of right and wrong so different from ours, especially considering the Bible’s clear teaching that we are created in God’s image? Realistically, are we to be expected to hold to one standard of conduct for humanity and understand a completely different (in fact opposite) standard for the very God who has set up that standard of acceptable behavior for his creation? Or is humanity (as extreme Calvinism teaches) so damaged by the Fall that it is incapable of making right moral judgment on even the most basic level (right vs. wrong; preservation of life vs. indiscriminate disregard for life)?

Big questions, to be sure, but getting back to Newman’s book, at one point along his path toward skepticism (a period that he calls “phase five” of his journey), he details several biblical accounts (starting on p.95) that he considers to be uninspired, “made-up” accounts about God and his acts; accounts that in fact contradict other biblical accounts in their detail; contradictory accounts that are simply inconsistent with God’s character as a Good God. Newman’s biblical examples are presented in impossibly conflicting ways.

Here are some (a very few) of Newman’s examples of impossible and contradictory biblical accounts –

- Jael’s murder of Sisera, which would normally be judged a “perfidious murder; yet the prophetess Deborah pronounces Jael to be “blessed above women” and glorifies her act by an elaborate description of its atrocity.”

- Or the story of Noah’s ark (p. 103) — Considering the detail of the ark’s construction, as described in Genesis 6, its space was grossly insufficient to accommodate and sustain pairs of all earthly creatures.

- The story of Abimelech (Gen 20), who acted in an upstanding way in reaction to Abraham’s outright lie, yet he and his people are pronounced guilty and suffer the consequences of Abraham’s wrongdoing.

- Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac stands out as an especially unrealistic event, as it presents a God who goes to great lengths to preserve a particular family line, but then directly counters that design by demanding the brutal murder of that line’s innocent sole heir.

- The whole story of Jacob and Esau, where Jacob’s constant misdeeds are rewarded by God, while Esau’s innocence is punished.

- The story of Jephthah and his daughter (Judges 11) is a particularly disturbing account of a man who makes a vow to God to sacrifice “whatever comes out from my house.” Upon his return from battle, when his daughter (his only child) comes out of the house to celebrate his victory over God’s enemies, he is obligated to keep his oath, without any intervention from God.

- Regarding Isaiah’s prophecy about Immanuel — Newman points out that no unbiased interpreter (that is, any interpreter who had the benefit of the Gospel writers’ interpretation of that event) would have dreamed that it could apply to Jesus.

- About God’s command to Hosea to marry a prostitute, in what Newman calls a “Suspense of judgment,” he comments: “Should I not rather disbelieve my hearing, than disown my moral perceptions? If not, where am I to stop? It must be morally right to believe moral rather than sensible perceptions. No outward impressions on the eye or ear can be so valid an assurance to me of God’s will as my inward judgment. (p. 125)

- The account of Uzzah touching the Ark of the Covenant to stabilize it — an act that would, by any reasonable judgment, be considered a good and valiant action, instead elicits God’s wrath as Uzzah is instantly struck dead by God.

- Or Jesus’s famous saying in Mark 12:17: “Render to Caesar the things that belong to Caesar.” As Newman puts it, “everybody knew that the coin was the property of the holder not of him whose head it bore. Thus the reply of Jesus which pretended to be a moral decision, was unsound and absurd, yet it is uttered in a tone of dictatorial wisdom and ushered in by a grave rebuke…”

There are many more biblical stories that simply baffle the mind of anyone who seeks to understand the mind and heart of God — a God whose domain is characterized by what so often seem to be the most unrealistic and unreasonable demands.

Again, as those who are committed to the idea of the biblical infallibility, we are adept at coming up with creative ways of explaining away what we so confidently call only “apparent contradictions.” Clearly, those who are fully committed to the infallibility of the biblical text can quite easily (and in fact, have a sense of obligation to) come up with defenses against any charge of biblical inconsistency. The most basic Evangelical defense is to claim that a given text is simply misread or misunderstood; or that one must never question God’s acts as recorded in sacred scripture, no matter how inconsistent or incomprehensible such texts “seem.” That mindset places a shield of protection around the sacredness of the biblical text; it guarantees that any accusation of textual inconsistency or textual error is easily explainable and resolvable — in short, since there can be no inconsistencies in the sacred Scripture, any “apparent” error is resolvable, or if not resolvable, at the very least, misunderstood.

But rather than evading the contradiction, Newman digs deeply into an exploration of consequences of Calvinism:

“… my old belief narrowed my affections. It taught me to bestow peculiar love on ‘the people of God,’ and it assigned an intellectual creed as one essential mark of his people… It [my old creed of Calvinism] ordered me to think harshly of [those outside of God’s good graces] because they did not adopt the conclusion which the professedly uncritical have established. .. Its theory was one of selfishness. That is, it inculcated that my first business must be to save my soul from future punishment, and to attain future happiness… “it taught me to blame myself for unbelief… it laid down that ‘the time is short; the Lord is at hand; the things of this world pass away, and deserve not our affections; the only thing worth spending one’s energies on is the forwarding of men’s salvations…” (p.185)

The problem for Newman (and for me) is that Calvinism narrows down the story of redemption to a transaction between God and me. And to hell (literally) with those unfortunate souls who are not one of God’s Elect. Very simply, it’s a jaded and selfish outlook on God’s grace.

Newman is telling my story when he writes:

“Undoubtedly my positive belief in miracles had evaporated; but I had not arrived at a positive disbelief. I still felt the actual benefits and comparative excellences of this religion too remarkable a phenomenon to be scored for defect of proof. In morals likewise it happens that the ablest practical expounders of truth may make strange blunders as to the foundations and ground of belief.… Meanwhile it did begin to appear to myself remarkable that I continued to love and have pleasure in so much that I certainly disbelieved. I perused a chapter of Paul or of Luke, or some verses of a hymn, and although they appeared to me to abound with error, I found satisfaction and profit in them. Why was this? Was it all find prejudice — an absurd clinging to old associations?” (p.172)

Underlying Newman’s book (at least from my reading) is the idea that the picture of God that’s presented through the biblical narrative is misleading, or distorted, or incomplete, or inaccurate. To make any sense of the story of God we as Evangelicals must be able (and willing) to set aside our preconceptions of the infallibility of Scripture; we must in fact become Bible Critics; we must be willing to read much of the Bible as flowing out of the vivid but flawed imaginations of its writers.

Newman closes his book with this prophetic and visionary idea (If you’ve skipped over much of my own thoughts above, at least pay attention to this!)

“Practical devotedness and Free Thought stand apart in unnatural schism. But surely the age is ripe for something better — for a religion which shall combine the tenderness, humility, and disinterestedness; that are the glory of the purest Christianity, with that activity of intellect, untiring pursuit of truth, and strict adherence to impartial principle, which the schools of modern science embody. When a spiritual church has its senses exercised to discern good and evil, judges of right and wrong by an inward power, proves all things and holds fast that which is god, fears no truth, but rejoices in being corrected, intellectually as well as morally — it will not be liable to be ‘carried to and fro’ by shifting winds of doctrine. It will indeed have movement, namely a steady onward one, as the schools of science have had, since they left off to dogmatize , and approached God’s world as learners; But it will lay aside disputes of words, eternal vacillations, mutual ill will and dread of new light, and will be able without hypocrisy to proclaim “peace on earth and goodwill toward men,’ even towards those who reject its beliefs and sentiments concerning ‘God and his glory.’” (p.240)