"The Philosophical Temper, First Enjoined by the Gospel" is a sermon that John Henry Newman preached at Oxford
University. He was, at the time, an
Anglican priest. In this sermon, Newman
addressed the concept that Christianity is hostile to science. Christians who confuse the realms of faith
and science may have unwittingly fueled this position by their reaction to
scientific discoveries: “To feel jealous and appear timid, on witnessing the
enlargement of scientific knowledge, is almost to acknowledge that there may be
some contrariety between it and Revelation.”
But faith and reason both
pursue truth and follow some of the same principles. For example, “Science and Revelation agree in
supposing that nature is governed by uniform and settled laws.” Moreover, certain virtues are useful to
scientists: “some of those habits of mind which are throughout the Bible
represented as alone pleasing in the sight of God, are the very habits which
are necessary for success in scientific investigation.” In particular, Newman mentioned modesty,
patience, and caution but acknowledged that scientists who possess these
virtues only in part can still be successful and that scientists have forgotten
the roots of their discipline due to their success. Still, “Scripture was, in matter of fact, the
first to describe and inculcate that single-minded, modest, cautious, and
generous spirit, which was, after a long time, found so necessary for success
in the prosecution of philosophical researches.”
Newman chastised scientists who
go beyond what their evidence supports: “From seeing but detached parts of the
system of nature, they have been carried on, without data, to arrange, supply,
and complete. They have been impatient of knowing but in part, and of waiting
for future discoveries; they have inferred much from slender premises, and
conjectured when they could not prove.”
Elizabeth Li described how this sermon is related to his other works [1]:
Whereas, in the rest of the sermons, Newman defends the faith of the simple, he attempts to defend the faith of the learned in Sermon I. He discusses whether it is possible for educated, intellectual people, and especially scientists, to be Christians or whether the Christian faith impedes intellectual and scientific pursuits.
