Discussions and Arguments on Various Subjects

Discussions and Arguments on Various Subjects, volume VII in the Birmingham Oratory Millenium Edition, is a collection of six articles, which were written between 1835, after the publication of The Arians of the Fourth Century, and 1866, when, as a Roman Catholic, Newman contributed a review to the Jesuit periodical The Month. Two of these articles appeared as Tracts for the Times; two are a series of letters to a newspaper. The letters discuss the nature of scientific knowledge as a quasi-substitute for faith, and the nature of the balance between executive power and democratic constraints. The opening essay, in the imaginary setting of the Roman forum, is a discussion between three friends of the nature of the via media, its shortcomings, and how it can be made to work. This book has been unavailable for many years and contains some of Newman's best and most amusing writing, scattered throughout with historical and literary references, which have been extensively researched for the modern reader in this edition.

British theologian John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) was a leading figure in both the Church of England and, after his conversion, the Roman Catholic Church and was known as "The Father of the Second Vatican Council." His Parochial and Plain Sermons (1834-42) is considered the best collection of sermons in the English language. He is also the author of A Grammar of Assent (1870).

Dr. James Tolhurst was Theology Tutor at the Pontifical English College, Valladolid, Spain from 1975 to 1980 and Dean of Studies for the Permanent Diaconate of the Southern English Dioceses from 1981 to 1989. He is the author of The Church . . . A Communion in the Preaching and Thought of John Henry Newman and The Newman Compendium for Sundays and Feastdays..

Gerard Tracey (1954-2003) was archivist of the Birmingham Oratory, and writer, editor and Newman scholar.