Why does Newman cast such aspersions on scholasticism in Grammar of Assent?
"This same power of the dogma may be illustrated from the Ritual. Consider the services for Christmas or Epiphany; for Easter, Ascension, and (I may say) pre-eminently Corpus Christi; what are these great Festivals but comments on the words, “The Son is God”? Yet who will say that they have the subtlety, the aridity, the coldness of mere scholastic science? Are they addressed to the pure intellect, or to the imagination? do they interest our logical faculty, or excite our devotion? Why is it that personally we often find ourselves so ill-fitted to take part in them, except that we are not good enough, that in our case the dogma is far too much a theological notion, far too little an image living within us? And so again, as to the Divinity of the Holy Ghost: consider the breviary offices for Pentecost and its Octave, the grandest perhaps in the whole year; are they created out of mere abstractions and inferences, or has not the categorical proposition of St. Athanasius, “The Holy Ghost is God,” such a place in the imagination and the heart, as suffices to give birth to the noble Hymns, Veni Creator, and Veni Sancte Spiritus?"
I really would not assume that the words "Yet who will say that they have the subtlety, the aridity, the coldness of mere scholastic science?" actually represents Newman's own thought, rather than ideas floating in the ether. At the very least, this is unclear - and elsewhere he speaks much more clearly in his own voice and with great respect for scholastic theology.
"I submit, moreover, to the universally received traditions of the Church, in which lies the matter of those new dogmatic definitions which are from time to time made, and which in all times are the clothing and the illustration of the Catholic dogma as already defined.
"And I submit myself to those other decisions of the Holy See, theological or not, through the organs which it has itself appointed, which, waiving the question of their infallibility, on the lowest ground come to me with a claim to be accepted and obeyed.
"Also, I consider that, gradually and in the course of ages, Catholic inquiry has taken certain definite shapes, and has thrown itself into the form of a science, with a method and a phraseology of its own, under the intellectual handling of great minds, such as St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas; and I feel no temptation at all to break in pieces the great legacy of thought thus committed to us for these latter days."
Why does Newman cast such aspersions on scholasticism in Grammar of Assent?
"This same power of the dogma may be illustrated from the Ritual. Consider the services for Christmas or Epiphany; for Easter, Ascension, and (I may say) pre-eminently Corpus Christi; what are these great Festivals but comments on the words, “The Son is God”? Yet who will say that they have the subtlety, the aridity, the coldness of mere scholastic science? Are they addressed to the pure intellect, or to the imagination? do they interest our logical faculty, or excite our devotion? Why is it that personally we often find ourselves so ill-fitted to take part in them, except that we are not good enough, that in our case the dogma is far too much a theological notion, far too little an image living within us? And so again, as to the Divinity of the Holy Ghost: consider the breviary offices for Pentecost and its Octave, the grandest perhaps in the whole year; are they created out of mere abstractions and inferences, or has not the categorical proposition of St. Athanasius, “The Holy Ghost is God,” such a place in the imagination and the heart, as suffices to give birth to the noble Hymns, Veni Creator, and Veni Sancte Spiritus?"
I really would not assume that the words "Yet who will say that they have the subtlety, the aridity, the coldness of mere scholastic science?" actually represents Newman's own thought, rather than ideas floating in the ether. At the very least, this is unclear - and elsewhere he speaks much more clearly in his own voice and with great respect for scholastic theology.
"I submit, moreover, to the universally received traditions of the Church, in which lies the matter of those new dogmatic definitions which are from time to time made, and which in all times are the clothing and the illustration of the Catholic dogma as already defined.
"And I submit myself to those other decisions of the Holy See, theological or not, through the organs which it has itself appointed, which, waiving the question of their infallibility, on the lowest ground come to me with a claim to be accepted and obeyed.
"Also, I consider that, gradually and in the course of ages, Catholic inquiry has taken certain definite shapes, and has thrown itself into the form of a science, with a method and a phraseology of its own, under the intellectual handling of great minds, such as St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas; and I feel no temptation at all to break in pieces the great legacy of thought thus committed to us for these latter days."
https://www.wmreview.org/p/newman-rethink-papacy
Also, I could point out to you people like Fr Desposito, who think that saying "theology is cold" is a compliment.
Thank you for the response. I can see your point.