Defense Date

3-31-2026

Graduation Date

Spring 5-8-2026

Availability

Immediate Access

Submission Type

dissertation

Degree Name

PhD

Department

Theology

School

McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts

Committee Chair

Kenneth Parker

Committee Member

William Wright, IV.

Committee Member

Radu Bordeianu

Keywords

St. John Henry Newman, Mariology, Mother of God, English Marian Devotion, Theotokos, Anti-popery, Anti-Catholicism, Evangelicalism, Anglicanism, English Reformation

Abstract

St. John Henry Newman’s understanding and reception of the dogma of divine motherhood grew during his pre-Catholic years. This study employs a form of reception theory to argue that Newman exercised reserve and compromise in his discourse on Mary’s identity as the Mother of God during both his evangelical and high church Anglican periods. The first three chapters conduct a historical investigation of Marian devotion and reception of the dogma of divine motherhood in England from the period of the apparition at Walsingham (1061) up until the nineteenth century. The analyses indicate that England had an intense Marian devotion and rich understanding of Mary’s identity as the Mother of God before the English Reformation. During and after the English Reformation of the sixteenth century, the national religion of England established itself over and against Roman Catholicism and other forms of Protestantism with devotion to the Virgin Mary becoming an identity marker of popery. Despite seventeenth century efforts by those with high church sympathies to restore visible elements from the traditional religion, the Virgin Mary continued to be pushed further to the background and rejected as the eighteenth century was characterized by a growth in dissenting groups, especially evangelicalism, and by rationalism. Influenced by the evangelical perspective from 1816-1825, Newman was unable to assent to Marian dogmas and devotions which were not explicitly stated in scripture – he did not wholeheartedly assent to Marian dogmas and devotions which were imparted by church tradition and exercised in the visible church. Through Newman’s intense study of the church fathers during his involvement in the Oxford Movement from 1833-1845, he increasingly explored Mary’s divine motherhood but did not assent without reservation to Mary’s title of Theotokos. It was not until Newman constructed a theory of doctrinal development that he unapologetically received the Marian title “Mother of God.”

Language

English

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