Dave Armstrong’s accessible introduction to doctrinal development — the Catholic answer to the Protestant challenge that doctrines unknown to the early Church can’t be apostolic. Eight chapters anchored in John Henry Newman’s classic theory, with the “progressive revelation” in Scripture itself as the starting case.
[Chapter Four is hyper-linked and can be read online. Some differences exist in the final edit of the book]
Chapter One: An Overview of Development of Doctrine: Is it a Corruption of Biblical Teaching?
Chapter Two: Vatican II and the Catechism of the Catholic Church on Development of Doctrine
Chapter Three: Fundamental Misunderstandings of Some Fundamentalists Concerning Development
Chapter Four: How Cardinal Newman Convinced me of the Apostolicity of the Catholic Church
Chapter Five: Various Aspects of Newman’s Theory of Development and His Rhetorical and Literary Style
Chapter Six: The Development of Catholic Mariology
Chapter Seven: The Development of the Papacy and the Canon of Scripture
Chapter Eight: Historical Development in the Understanding of Doctrinal Development of the Apostolic Deposit
Appendix One: John Henry Newman: The Theory of Developments in Religious Doctrine (from Oxford University Sermons – 1843)
Appendix Two: Review of Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine in the Dublin Review (19 December 1845)
Appendix Three: Excerpts from Catholic Orestes Brownson’s Critical Article, “Newman’s Development of Christian Doctrine” (July 1846), With Responses
Appendix Four: Newman Biographer Wilfrid Ward’s Remarks Concerning the Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1912)
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