Today, Pontificator posts an 1848 letter of John Henry Cardinal Newman to one Mrs. Froude, which reflects deeply on conversion and faith. It resonated with me as one in the midst of a not altogether smooth conversion to a church that audaciously claims it is the One and Only Church founded by Christ from a church that, finding no virtue in audacity, believes no such Church exists.

Newman opens the letter with an immediate concern for those whom he had led and influenced as an Anglican priest. Presumably Mrs. Froude is among them. He senses that the natural temptation would be for people to either follow him (to Rome) or, as he fears more likely, "relapse into skepticism". "There really is no medium," Newman says, "between skepticism and Catholicism." He laments:

"[W]hat an awful state is that of doubt, if permitted, if acquiesced in, if habitual; considering that faith, implicit faith, is the fundamental grace of the Gospel, and condition of its benefits! The very notion of doubt is then only endurable, when a person is firmly resolved to embrace the Truth, whatever it be, at whatever cost, when once it is brought home to him, and immediately, praying the while that he may, as soon as possible, be brought to the knowledge of it."

Faith here is rightly treated as both a virtue and a gift of God that might be refused. Faith, or the absence thereof known as doubt, is not the intellectual process we moderns generally conceive it to be. It is rather, as I’ve been known to blather from time to time, a moral process. Newman puts it so much more ably than I ever could

"Faith then is not a conclusion from premissess (sic.), but the result of an act of the will, following upon a conviction that to believe is a duty. The simple question you have to ask yourself is, ‘Have I a conviction that I ought to accept the (Roman) Catholic Faith as God’s word?’ if not, at least, ‘do I tend to such a conviction?’ or ‘am I near upon it?’ For directly you have a conviction that you ought to believe, reason has done its part, and what is wanted for faith, is, not proof, but will. We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe; if we believe lightly, or if we are hard of belief, in either case we do wrong."

…

"You see, I will not admit your language, that ‘you cannot believe,’ you can. The simple question is, whether you ought. If you do not feel you ought, (I hope such a state of mind will not last-but) that is a reason why you should not; but it is no reason, because it is not true, to say, ‘I don’t believe because I can’t.’"

At any rate, it’s good stuff. Go over and read it , and visit the Pontificator (Anglican convert to the RCC) often, if you don’t already.