Newman and Gadamer: Toward a Hermeneutics of Religious Knowledge

Thomas K. Carr examines the religious epistemology of John Henry Newman alongside the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer. The two writers are found to cover a surprising amount of common ground: They make similar claims, and they fall into similar errors. A critical examination of four of Newman's leading ideas — first principles, antecedent probability, doctrinal development, and the illative sense — are compared with such Gadamerian themes as self-understanding, Bildung, projection, tradition, and the fusion of horizons. Carr concludes with a constructive proposal that applies a Newman-Gadamer synthesis to questions about knowledge of God.