By Clement Harrold

August 28, 2025

Pope Leo XIV recently announced that St. John Henry Newman will soon be made a Doctor of the Church. Our English word “doctor” comes from the Latin verb docere, meaning “to teach.” Hence, a Doctor of the Church is a canonized saint whose teachings have made a significant contribution in the life of the Church.

Newman will be only the thirty-eighth saint to receive this honor, with other Doctors including St. Augustine of Hippo, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Francis de Sales, and St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Interestingly, Newman is set to be just the second-ever English Doctor of the Church, the first being St. Bede the Venerable.

One of the less discussed aspects of Newman’s work is his biblical theology. Both before and especially after his conversion to Roman Catholicism, Newman reflected long and hard on the power and beauty of Sacred Scripture. As a young man, Newman memorized large portions of the Bible. Later in life, he allowed his deep knowledge of—and love for—the Sacred Page to shine forth in everything he wrote.

Clarity and Complexity

A key characteristic of Newman’s biblical theology is his view that Christian doctrine should always conform itself to those texts of Scripture whose meaning is plain. In a sermon written before his conversion, for example, Newman reflected on Matthew 19:17—“If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments”—and criticized those Christians who continue to insist on the doctrine of sola fide (salvation by faith alone) in spite of the verse’s clear meaning.

Newman argued that when read in the context of the Gospels as a whole, the force of Our Lord’s words was obvious:

I wish from my heart that the persons in question could be persuaded to read Scripture with their own eyes, and take it in a plain and natural way, instead of perplexing themselves with their human systems, and measuring and arranging its inspired declarations by an artificial rule. Are they quite sure that in the next world they will be able to remember these strained interpretations in their greatest need? (Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 3, sermon 6, “Faith and Obedience”)

While Newman rejected “strained interpretations” of those verses which contain an obvious meaning, it doesn’t follow that he therefore regarded all of Scripture as easy to understand.

On the contrary, Newman readily acknowledged that significant portions of Scripture are mysterious, complex, and even obscure. This led him to propose, particularly in his post-conversion writings, that no individual believer is capable of understanding or mastering everything that the Bible teaches:

It is in point to notice also the structure and style of Scripture, a structure so unsystematic and various, and a style so figurative and indirect, that no one would presume at first sight to say what is in it and what is not. It cannot, as it were, be mapped, or its contents catalogued; but after all our diligence, to the end of our lives and to the end of the Church, it must be an unexplored and unsubdued land, with heights and valleys, forests and streams, on the right and left of our path and close about us, full of concealed wonders and choice treasures. Of no doctrine whatever, which does not actually contradict what has been delivered, can it be peremptorily asserted that it is not in Scripture; of no reader, whatever be his study of it, can it be said that he has mastered every doctrine which it contains. (Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, pt. 1, chap. 2, section 1, no. 14)

For Newman, Scripture is an adventurous and beautiful terrain containing untold “concealed wonders and choice treasures.” At the same time, the Englishman perceived that this literary and theological complexity points to the necessity of the Church as an infallible interpretative authority.

An Essential Guide

The Church is necessary because the individual believer who reads the Bible in a vacuum is incapable of reliably arriving at the full truth of Christian doctrine. Thus, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition belong together; the Church needs both in order to live out her mission. In fact, without Sacred Tradition even the canon of the Bible would be uncertain to us:

Nevertheless, at least as regards matters of faith, [Sacred Scripture] does (as we in common with all Protestants hold) contain all that is necessary for salvation; it has been overruled to do so by Him who inspired it. By parallel acts of power, He both secretly inspired the books, and secretly formed them into a perfect rule or canon. I shall not prove what we all admit, but I state it, to prevent misapprehension. If asked how we know this to be the case, I answer, that the early Church thought so, and the early Church must have known. And, if this answer does not please the inquirer, he may look out for a better as he can. I know of no other. I require no other. For our own Church it is enough, as the Homilies show. It is enough that Scripture has been overruled to contain the whole Christian faith, and that the early Church so taught, though the form of Scripture at first sight might lead to an opposite conclusion. (Discussions and Arguments, chap. 3, lecture 3, “On the Structure of the Bible, Antecedently Considered”)

Without the Church as a guide, we wouldn’t even know what is and isn’t Scripture. Over the course of his life, Newman accepted that it is specifically the Catholic Church that Jesus established as this infallible guide. Yet, prior to his conversion, Newman struggled with the Catholic Church’s approach to Scripture. In particular, he wrestled with the fact that some Catholic doctrines seemed to be only indirectly or minimally supported in Scripture.

Newman eventually overcame this objection when he realized that, in fact, no major Christian denomination can confine itself to a merely surface-level reading of Scripture. Oftentimes the deeper truths of Scripture lie beneath the surface, which is why we need the Church to guide us in uncovering those truths. Interpretation of Scripture was never intended to be a free-for-all exercise carried out by individual believers. Rather, it is the Catholic Church, the bride of Christ, that has received the charism of infallibility which renders her judgments authoritative.

As a result, the Church is able to offer pronouncements even on those doctrines that do not appear as clearly or systematically in Scripture, such as the divinity of the Holy Spirit or the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Church can do so because these doctrines in no way contradict the data of divine revelation and because, even if they are not explicitly contained therein, they can be inferred from divine revelation.

It was this line of thinking that led Newman to offer the following challenge to Protestant critics of Roman Catholicism:

Let no one then take refuge and comfort in the idea that he will be what is commonly called an orthodox Protestant,—I mean, that he will be just this and no more; that he will admit the doctrine of the Trinity, but not that of the Apostolic Succession,—of the Atonement, but not of the Eucharist,—of the influences of grace, but not of Baptism. This is an impossible position: it is shutting one eye, and looking with the other. Shut both or open both. Deny that there is any necessary doctrine in Scripture, or consent to infer indirectly from Scripture what you at present disbelieve. (Discussions and Arguments, “On the Structure of the Bible”)

Newman presents the Protestant with a dilemma: Either you must abandon the idea that Scripture explicitly articulates all of the necessary doctrines of Christianity, or you must embrace the Catholic position, which says that there are some necessary doctrines that are inferred indirectly from Scripture.

Or, putting it another way, if Protestants are prepared to accept the scriptural basis for the divinity of the Holy Spirit or the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, then they should also accept the scriptural basis for those distinctively Catholic doctrines such as apostolic succession or the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist.