Cardinal Newman on What Persuades People of Christianity

Last updated on: June 6, 2026 at 12:40 am by Dave Armstrong

Cardinal Newman on What Persuades People of Christianity 2026-06-06T00:40:30-04:00 Dave Armstrong

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The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will live and die upon a dogma: no man will be a martyr for a conclusion. A conclusion is but an opinion; it is not a thing which is, but which we are “certain about;” and it has often been observed, that we never say we are certain without implying that we doubt. To say that a thing must be, is to admit that it may not be. No one, I say, will die for his own calculations; he dies for realities. . . . Logic makes but a sorry rhetoric with the multitude; first shoot round corners, and you may not despair of converting by a syllogism. . . . To most men argument makes the point in hand only more doubtful, and considerably less impressive. After all, man is not a reasoning animal; he is a seeing, feeling, contemplating, acting animal. He is influenced by what is direct and precise. . . . Now I wish to state all this as matter of fact, to be judged by the candid testimony of any persons whatever. Why we are so constituted that Faith, not Knowledge or Argument, is our principle of action, is a question with which I have nothing to do; but I think it is a fact, and if it be such, we must resign ourselves to it as best we may, . . . no Religion has yet been a Religion of physics or of philosophy. It has ever been synonymous with Revelation. It never has been a deduction from what we know: it has ever been an assertion of what we are to believe. It has never lived in a conclusion; it has ever been a message, or a history, or a vision. No legislator or priest ever dreamed of educating our moral nature by science or by argument. (Letters & Diaries, v. 8: Letter to the Times by “Catholicus” in Response to Robert Peel [“Tamworth”], Feb. 1841)

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The Quotable Newman: A Definitive Guide to His Central Thoughts and Ideas (Aug. 2011 / 12 October 2012, 415p)

The Quotable Newman, Vol. II (Aug. 2013, 290p)

Cardinal Newman: Q & A in Theology, Church History, and Conversion (May 2015, 367p)

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