Abstract

The mystery of the past is ever with us, evading all of our conceptual efforts to cast light upon its darkness and bring it under our control. Few theologians have been able to wrestle with the question of how the present is related to the past without relying on an ahistorical a priori concept to explain the relation. This dissertation focuses on the work of two theologians who have thought and written most carefully on the questions of continuity and change, and on identity with the past despite its difference with the present: John Henry Newman and Nicholas Lash. The study promotes a type of "retrospective influence" whereby Lash's texts are seen to shed light and influence Newman's texts. ;The dissertation is divided into three large chapters. The first chapter looks at Newman's characterization of heresy, particularly that of Arius, as the undue narrowing of hermeneutical horizons. Here we analyze how Lash comments on and uses Marx for understanding how we can interpret the past while in the midst of history. Lash, like Newman, sees the tendency to absolutize particulars as the heretical impulse, but warns that orthodox Christians can also fall into this trap. The second chapter is the heart of the dissertation. This chapter examines Newman's thoughts on development and Lash's treatment of understanding the strangeness of the past. Both point to the notion that only by being attentive to the ways in which we dress the past with the conceptual clothing of our cultural present can we truly address the past. The third chapter examines how Newman and Lash examine the issue of ecclesial authority. Both thinkers propose a broader view of authority in contrast to a narrow Cartesianism which bifurcates the external and internal. ;The conclusion builds on the chapters on Newman and Lash and proposes constructive avenues for how we might theologize about the past. The dissertation suggests that the metaphor of friendship provides a "thick description" for a theology of the past and particularly for describing how Christians can claim as kin those who have preceded them in the tradition