U.S. conservatism in the 19th century. It was a logical
consequence that Newman finally broke completely
with the Protestant Anglican Church and became an
official of the Roman Catholic HIERARCHY.
Educated at Trinity College, Oxford University,
Newman remained at Oxford for much of his career
(fellow of Oriel College, vicar of St. Mary’s Cathedral).
He tried to strike a “middle way” between dissenters
and papists with an Anglican via media but soon
drifted toward Catholicism. He is most famous for his
inaugural lecture as Rector of Dublin University “The
Idea of a University” (1852) which presents a CLASSI-
CALdefinition of a liberal arts education.
Niebuhr, Reinhold (1892–1971) American po-
litical and religious philosopher
Famous for his development of CHRISTIAN REALISM,
Niebuhr applied the theology of St. AUGUSTINEto the
20th-century world. From the neo-orthodoxy perspec-
tive, he criticized the vain illusions of both COMMUNISM
and ENLIGHTENMENT LIBERALISMto pretend to create JUS-
TICE and peace in this world. Like James MADISON,
Niebuhr believed that the reality of human sin pre-
vented people from ever being able to remove injus-
tice, corruption, and oppression from politics. Human
pride and self-deception is worst in utopian, IDEALISTIC,
and “progressive” schemes such as SOCIALISM. Social
reformers often are blind to their own selfishness and
sinful pride, and they consequently turn out to be
cruel rulers. The great challenge in the 20th century,
for Niebuhr, was to improve society humbly without
being seduced by the prideful illusions of grandeur
that lead to TOTALITARIAN regimes (like FASCIST NAZI
Germany, Soviet Communism, etc.).
Part of Niebuhr’s Christian realism led him to
oppose U.S. isolationism and PACIFISMin the 1930s that
kept the United States out of World War II for that
decade. He insisted that certain forms of evil were
demonic (HITLER’s Nazi government) and must be
opposed militarily.
In his books, Moral Man and Immoral Society
(1932) and Humun Nature and Destiny (1942),
Niebuhr endorses the “tolerable justice” of American
constitutional DEMOCRACY(CHECKS AND BALANCES) that
divides and limits the power of interest groups and
individuals.
Educated at Elmhurst College, Eden, and Yale
Divinity Schools, Niebuhr taught ETHICSat Union Sem-
inary in New York City. He admired Abraham LINCOLN
for that president’s application of religious knowledge
to political and historical events. Niebuhr was active in
Liberal DEMOCRATIC PARTYpolitics but warned continu-
ally of the temptations to self-righteous pride among
U.S. liberals and reformers. He is considered one of the
deepest thinkers in religion and politics in the 20th
century.Further Readings
Davis, H. R., and Good, R. C., eds. Reinhold Niebuhr on Politics.
New York: Scribners, 1960.
Niebuhr,R. Moral Man and Immoral Society.New York: Scrib-
ners, 1932.Nietzsche, Friedrich, Wilhelm (1844–1900)
German philosopher
Nietzsche is one of the most compelling and contro-
versial philosophers of the MODERNera, whose thought
has had a profound effect on many POST-MODERN
thinkers. Born in Saxony, Prussia, Nietzsche was raised
in a devout Christian home. His father, a Lutheran
minister, died when Nietzsche was five years old. Niet-
zsche attended the boarding school of Pforta where he
studied religion, literature and classical languages, and
philosophy. In 1864, Nietzsche attended the University
of Bonn, and the next year, he transferred to the Uni-
versity of Leipzig, continuing his studies in classical
philology. It was during his studies at the universities
of Bonn and Leipzig that Nietzsche abandoned Chris-
tianity. Nietzsche was appointed to his only university
post, as professor of classical philology at the Univer-
sity of Basel in Switzerland, at the age of 24, but he
retired 10 years later due to ill health. For the next 10
years, Nietzsche wrote a large number of works,
including Beyond Good and Evil(1886), On the Geneal-
ogy of Morals (1887), and Thus Spake Zarathustra
(1883–85), until becoming mentally ill. Nietzsche’s
writings explore the place of moral and aesthetic value
in human existence through a merciless critique of
Judeo-Christianity and traditional metaphysics cap-
tured in the phrase “God is dead.”
Nietzsche’s philosophy is notoriously difficult and
often misunderstood. With respect to questions of
knowledge, Nietzsche believed that truths are the arti-
ficial results of creative acts of interpretation, and not
natural essences or objective facts that exist apart from
interpretation. Consequently, knowledge can never be
impartial because it is always constructed from some220 Niebuhr, Reinhold