Newman Studies Journal

Volume 7, Issue 2, Fall 2010

Robert Saley
Pages 18-28

Two Models of Figural Historiography
Newman and de Lubac

This essay investigates the problem of reconciling contingent historical facts and immutable dogma in light of two different models of figural historiography, presented respectively in John Henry Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine and Henri de Lubac’s Catholicism: A Study of Dogma in Relation to the Corporate Destiny of Mankind. Although Newman and de Lubac’s approaches to history were quite different, they are fundamentally complementary.