Bridging the Gap?

Bridging the Gap?

With us Catholics, as with the first race of Protestants, as with Mahometans, and all Theists, the word [God] contains, as I have already said, a theology in itself.
--II.7

Newman describes the idea of theology concurrently being practiced in universities as one that considers religion a sentiment, or as something almost coincident with and revealed by natural science. He not-so-subtly suggests these Protestant universities' philosophical affiliation with atheism when he asks "how do you differ from Hume or Epicurus?" (II.8) Not only is the idea of God incompatible with this kind of university, but it seems Catholicism in particular is a requisite factor; for example, he reaches to the reliability of the Holy See to extricate himself from the trouble of impracticality (I.5). The linguistic chasm he describes above between "Theists" and Protestants seems intractable. He seems to be heading toward a description of universality which is only accessible for certain people.

Do you find his arguments satisfying? He relies on syllogism, and seems to have the Cartesian method of "of starting from fixed points, of making his ground good as he goes, of distinguishing what he knows from what he does not know" (Preface) in mind. At a few points he is keen to say that he is not engaging in sophism. It would not be surprising to discover that he begs the question in these arguments, that is, that he presumes a Catholic audience (which he specifically says that he does). This just goes back to that chasm in belief between him and the "Protestants." But what does that do to his method of argumentation? Why demonstrate to Catholics that theology is an essential part of knowledge if the very crux of the difference between Catholics and this other party that Catholics believe that theology is a matter of knowledge? Can this work mean anything to a non-Catholic, and if not, what does that mean for his method of argumentation?