Great Dissent

This is a striking and lively reading of John Henry Newman in light, not of his role as autobiographer and prose stylist, but of his beliefs. As Pattison writes, Newman was `an uncontaminated antagonist of everything modern', and his philosophy developed as an attempt to salvage Truth from the liberal scepticisms that had become so prevalent in his day. His greatness, argues Pattison, rests in his theory of belief and his dissent from liberalism, and in his challenge to liberal scholarship to reassess the role of belief in human affairs.