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So at the time of their religious crisis, both writers reject a blind, irrational faith in religious
authority. Newman would write in a work intimately involved in his later ―great change‖ to
Catholicism: ―An argument is needed, unless Christianity is to abandon the province of
argument‖ (Development 31). From Mayers‘ letter above, we note the pupil did not comply
without reservation to the principles instilled in him with such great insistence and concern.
The ―absolute obedience‖ rejected later in the ―Letter to the Duke of Norfolk‖ is
unacceptable from Newman‘s first conversion, however emotional and salutary (Difficulties
243).
However, Newman, though not ―absolute,‖ renders obedience, unto Mayers, as Unamuno
critically appraised Catholicism, though their ideas were constantly attuned. Newman read
the recommended devotional books: Beveridge, Doddridge, Law, and Romaine, ―all of the
school of Calvin.‖ He listened to the sermons that led him towards predestination and
efficacious grace. He even scribbled some writings, one of them drawn clearly from the
Calvinistic inspiration: ―These will be punished with eternal punishment.‖ (Letters and
Correspondence 1:21). More and more, the problem of predestination took possession of his
spirit and an obsession with eternal salvation accompanied it. Newman questioned whether
his teenage conversion really was the ―second birth‖ described by the books and an all too
impressive master. Later when his inner life grew strong, the realities of pastoral ministry
showed him the inconsistency of this ―detestable doctrine‖ of predestination (Apologia 17).
Throughout his life Unamuno had a problem with a simplistic faith, a ―coal-worker‘s faith‖ as
he often described it. Indeed, he wished to live and die in his Christian faith, but in the
historical Christ and his message, as each one understands it, not in Church dogmas and
authorities. Likewise, rejecting both the intellectualism of the irrational and the simplistic
faith of the coal-worker, Unamuno insists on trust, not belief, as the essence of faith.
Unamuno further explains the simplistic faith as a ―vicious‖ illogical circle, in which Church
doctrine and popular faith explain away each another:
¡Terrible fe la del carbonero! Porque ¿a qué viene a reducirse la fe del
carbonero?
--¿Qué crees?
--Lo que cree y enseña nuestra Santa Madre la Iglesia.
--¿Y qué cree y enseña nuestra Santa Madre la Iglesia?
--Lo que yo creo.
Y el círculo vicioso continúa. (La fe 1:266)
The terrible faith of the charcoal-maker! Why, what is the reduction of the
faith of the charcoal-maker?
--What do you believe?
--Whatever Holy Mother Church believes and teaches.
--And what does Holy Mother Church believe and teach?
--What I believe.
And the vicious circle goes on! (Faith 155)
Unamuno also obviously had difficulties with family authorities due to his new religious
convictions. In Paz en la guerra—Peace in War—Pachico, a character in the novel clearly
modeled on Unamuno himself, gives up his religious practice in Madrid. For a time, he
attended Church services regularly, then only on feast-days, and finally gave up altogether,
seeing he no longer found any meaning in the act:

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, Nos. 2 &3, 2004, Page 45
El primer curso iba a misa todos los días y comulgaba mensualmente, [...]
Así es al salir de misa en la mañana de un domingo– [...]--se preguntó qué
significase ya en él tal acto y lo abandonó desde entonces, sin
desgarramiento alguno sensible por el pronto, como la cosa más natural del
mundo‖ (1:53).
During the first year of school he went to Mass every day and to Communion
once a month. [...]Thus it is that leaving Mass one Sunday morning [...]–
he asked himself what such a ritual could mean for him, and he stopped going
from that day on. He suffered no soul-wrenching for the moment, for it
seemed the most natural thing in the world. (Peace in War 69)
However, on one trip home, his uncle noticed the change. Drawing on the youth‘s memory
of his mother, he leaves Pachico emotionally drained and in tears. In fact, on his mother‘s
death anniversary, his uncle manipulated Pachico to confess and return to the religion of his
childhood. Pachico fought through a crisis of retrogression with an old faith and struggled
for rebirth. The irony of the priest‘s advice against reading the Soliloquies of Augustine, as
being too strong, still had a further negative impact on Pachico and, as we may surmise, on
Unamuno. Pachico, upon leaving the confessionary, disillusioned with the effort, said to
himself: ―The poor man probably thinks I haven‘t read the Soliloquies, or I‘m still suckling at
the breast....‖ And Unamuno continues: ―Pachico, once the crisis passed, returned to pursue
the course of his own ideas, avoiding all conversation with his uncle‖ (70).
Unamuno moved from wanting to be a saint (‖soñaba ser santo‖—"dreaming of being a
saint" [Recuerdos 111]) to the identification of faith with sincerity, tolerance, and mercy (La
fe 273). Leaving high-school in love with knowledge, his philosophical readings led him to
believe more in human intelligence and see the shame that we do not understand each
other, ―y es lástima grande que no logremos entendernos‖—‗it‘s a great pity that we can‘t
understand each other‘ (Recuerdos 105).
So we see that the first and most tangible outcome of religious change in Newman and
Unamuno was a retirement into themselves and their personal conscience. The search for
truth, well in keeping with their temperaments, was constantly stimulated. There is no
doubt that Evangelical spirituality had a lasting influence on Newman as did Catholic
spirituality on Unamuno, not only due to the questioning of former doctrinal convictions, but
also due to the rigors of the their moral demands to seek truth. Intellectual curiosity,
personal study, and an ethical preoccupation within an environment of academic freedom
and non-coercive authority were critical for both Newman and Unamuno's judgments in
conscience on their teenage conversions, masters, and ideas.
Thus, what concerns us in our understanding of conscience and coercion in teenagers is to
notice how, first, their teachers were worried about Newman and Unamuno following their
own opinions rather than received authority. Second, in their adolescent decisions, we see
Newman and Unamuno making a break with those authorities and their books. The impact
of their changes of conviction was not only an emotional assurance of truth, but also an
adherence to a different doctrine due to their free search for truth, and a way of life in
accord with their convictions.
Their changes were such in so far as their consciences decided what truth and ethics wanted
of them, there and then (La fe 266). But when that previous God of truth, who gave them
those ideas, now was calling them personally to both moral and intellectual dissent, not
mentioned by their religious authorities, Newman and Unamuno are ready to walk alone
that extra mile. Their lives were for God speaking in their conscience first, and then in
books, teachers, and doctrines second.