A PERSONAL GOD IN NEWMAN'S THOUGHT Dominikus Doni Ola  Abstraksi Gagasan manusia tentang Allah mengalami perkembangan dalam sejarah, karena gagasan itu selalu mempunyai arti yang sedikit berbeda bagi setiap kelompok manusia yang menggunakannya di berbagai zaman yang berbeda. Pada zaman tertentu Allah yang maha agung itu diperkenalkan sebagai Allah yang menakutkan dan penghukum. Pada zaman lain Allah dihayati sebagai kasih. Setiap generasi memang dapat menciptakan citra Allah yang sesuai bagi generasinya, walau Allah melampaui segala ekspresi anak zaman. Newman yakin bahwa Allah yang diwahyukan Yesus adalah Allah yang dekat, yang berbicara dari hati ke hati dengan insan ciptaan-Nya. Ia adalah Pribadi dan hanya dalam Dialah manusia dapat memenuhi segala kerinduan batinnya yang terdalam. Key words: Conscience, believe, love, fulfilment, human heart, personal God. Introduction Newman was an intellectual and practical. His mind has never frail and his thought is still relevant. Almost along of his life, Newman devoted his intellect and his vigour to the service of the revealed religion. Here, we will investigate and note his thought, his conviction and his conscience of what God is, what it is to believe in God, what does contemplate mean and when should we make an act of faith. Conscience of the Personal Nature of the Religious Belief In Letters and Diaries, Newman one day said to his younger brother, when as young men they were arguing about religion: The rejection of Christianity rises from a fault of the heart and not of the intellect, since a dislike of the contents of Scripture is at the bottom of unbelief. Hence it is that the most powerful argument for Christianity do not convince, only silence, for there is at the bottom that secret antipathy for the doctrines of Christianity, which is quite out of the reach of argument". 1  Dominikus D. Ola, lulusan S-2 dalam bidang Teologi Institut Teresianum-Roma, dosen Teologi pada Fak. Filsafat Unika St. Thomas Sumatera Utara. 1 LD i, 219, 226; cf. I. KER, ed., Newman and Conversion, Edinburgh 1997, 105.