The Idea of a University

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1873

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-4

Part 1, Chapters 5-7

Part 1, Chapters 8-9

Part 2, Chapters 1-4

Part 2, Chapters 5-6

Part 2, Chapters 7-10

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Part 2, Chapters 5-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “University Subjects”

Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary: “A Form of Infidelity of the Day”

In Newman’s fifth piece in “University Subjects,” he addresses the challenge presented to Catholic education by contemporary sensibilities regarding faith and education. Newman compares the 19th century with the rise of Catholic universities in the high middle ages, and he professes that he prefers certain dynamics of his own day to those of centuries past, even if the entirety of western Europe was nominally Catholic at that time. Whereas in those days, heretical teachings fostered their spread within the Catholic Church itself, in the 19th century heresies simply made use of greater societal options to leave and become something other than Catholic. This, Newman believed, was preferable to having false teachings growing inside the Church.

Newman understands the main opposition in his day to be a general sensibility that assumes that nothing definite can be known about religious truth. Religious belief, in such a view, is seen to be a matter of personal opinion, and thus any attempt to present it as knowledge rather than opinion fosters an unending series of debates. Newman, however, rejects this sensibility, arguing that no one has made a good case that religious truth cannot be ascertained, and further, that many scholars have made a good case that it can: “Both Catholics and Protestants have written solid defences of Revelation, of Christianity, and of dogma, and these are not simply to be put aside without saying why” (293). Newman observes that many universities have taken the strategy of ignoring theology rather than engaging its arguments. Instead of logically discrediting theology, they omit it from their curricula and allow its exclusion to shape the minds of their students.

Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary: “University Preaching”

In this piece, Newman presents his views on the practice of preaching, and specifically, of preaching to a university audience. He begins by noting the importance of keeping in mind a definite objective, “the spiritual good of [one’s] hearers” (304). This aim will only be reached if the preacher is earnest in their speaking, truly desiring the spiritual good of their hearers and speaking in such a way as to convey that desire. Other embellishments of rhetoric may have their place, but nothing can supersede a preacher’s devoted and earnest focus on the spiritual good of their hearers. Newman also urges preachers not just to seek a generalized spiritual good, but a definite spiritual good to convey to their hearers: “Definiteness of object is in various ways the one virtue of the preacher” (309). The object should be to convey a single, spiritually edifying idea to the hearer, so earnestly and straightforwardly that the hearer can articulate that same idea after the sermon.

University preaching differs from preaching in general only in the constitution of its audience. This does not mean that a university preacher should only choose obscure matters to speak upon, because any subject that is beneficial to all would also be beneficial to a university audience. Newman recommends shaping sermons around the challenges that commonly face one’s audience. As regards the actual practice of delivering the sermon, the best strategy is to write out the text in full beforehand but then to learn it so well that one can preach it from memory.

Part 2, Chapters 5-6 Analysis

In Chapters 5 and 6, Newman takes up some religious concerns, directly addressing the sensibilities of his Catholic audience. The literary device of polemic is at play once again, and perhaps more strongly than anywhere else in The Idea of a University. Newman takes aim at the dominant form of “infidelity” in his day, which in modern terminology would likely be identified as agnosticism: the belief that nothing can be known for certain about God or religious subjects. This, then, appears to be the root of a concern that motivated some of his arguments in Part 1 as well, where he insisted that theology should remain part of a university course of study. From this section of Part 2, it is clear that there was a broad societal movement underway to relegate theology to the sidelines as an optional discipline, one that did not need to be addressed in a standard curriculum. Newman sees this as an intellectually dishonest strategy being deployed against religious studies, in which they are ignored rather than having their arguments addressed. This concern fits into Newman’s larger view of the relationship between science and religion (especially as explained in Chapters 7-10 of Part 2), in which he believes that the influence of a different intellectual methodology in the physical sciences leads to an unwarranted criticism of theology’s methodology.

Newman also offers insight into a feature of life at a Catholic university that often goes unaddressed in educational texts: the work of preachers who sermonize to the students and thus constitute part of their religious experience. This section (Chapter 6) is the sole instance of an exploration of homiletics (the study and methods of preaching) in The Idea of a University. Homiletics, as a discipline, is not a standard part of university life, but it appears in seminaries or other higher learning institutions where students are preparing for careers in religious ministry. In Newman’s case, he offers his insight not to students but to guest preachers who may be brought in to address the student body.

Homiletical theory was in its infancy in Newman’s day. Though preaching had been a core practice in Christian circles since the religion’s foundation, texts specifically devoted to the study and methodology of preaching were uncommon. Newman’s recommendations for homiletical practices are remarkable in their anticipation of many of the core advisements of homiletical theory in subsequent generations, even far beyond his Catholic circles. For example, Newman’s stress on developing a single, definite idea by which to convey a particular spiritual good to one’s audience is essentially the same recommendation that formed the foundation of homiletical practice in evangelical Protestant circles in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.