This book explores key aspects of Richard Hooker's philosophical and theological discourse in the context of currents of thought prevalent in the 'Magisterial Reformation' of the sixteenth century. Hooker's treatment of natural law, his dependence upon the philosophical discourse and traditional cosmology of Christian Neoplatonism, and his appeal to the authority of patristic sources, are all closely examined. Challenging the received 'exceptionalist' model of much of the twentieth-century interpretation of Hooker, in particular the concept of his supposed defence of the English Reformation as striking a 'via media' between Rome and mainstream Protestant reform, W.J. Torrance Kirby argues that Hooker adheres to principles of 'magisterial' reform while building upon the assumptions of a distinctively Protestant version of Platonism.
For more than forty years now there has been a steady stream of interest in Richard Hooker. This renaissance in Hooker Studies began with the publication of the Folger Library Edition of the Works of Richard Hooker. With this renaissance has come a growing recognition that it is anachronistic to classify Hooker simply as an Anglican thinker, but as yet, no generally agreed-upon alternative label, or context for his thought, has replaced this older conception; in particular, the question of Hooker's Reformed identity remains hotly contested. Given the relatively limited engagement of Hooker scholarship with other branches of Reformation and early modern scholarship to date, there is a growing recognition that Hooker must be evaluated not only against the context of English puritanism and conformism but also in light of his broad international Reformed context. At the same time, it has become clear that, if this is so, scholars of continental Reformed orthodoxy must take stock of Hooker's work as one of the landmark theological achievements of the era. This volume aims to facilitate this long-needed conversation, bringing together a wide range of scholars to consider Richard Hooker's theology within the full context of late 16th- and early 17th-century Reformed orthodoxy, both in England and on the Continent. The essays seek to bring Hooker into conversation not merely with contemporaries familiar to Hooker scholarship, such as William Perkins, but also with such contemporaries as Jerome Zanchi and Franciscus Junius, predecessors such as Heinrich Bullinger, and successors such as John Davenant, John Owen, and Hugo Grotius. In considering how these successors of Hooker identified themselves in relation to his theology, these essays will also shed light on how Hooker was perceived within 17th-century Reformed circles. The theological topics touched on in the course of these essays include such central issues as the doctrine of Scripture, predestination, Christology, soteriology, the sacraments, and law. It is hoped that these essays will continue to stimulate further research on these important questions among a wide community of scholars.
Richard Hooker's Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity has long been acknowledged as an influential philosophical, theological and literary text. While scholars have commonly noted the presence of participatory language in selected passages of Hooker's Laws, Paul Anthony Dominiak is the first to trace how participation lends a sense of system and coherency across the whole work. Dominiak analyses how Hooker uses an architectural framework of 'participation in God' to build a cohesive vision of the Elizabethan Church as the most fitting way to reconcile and lead English believers to the shared participation of God. First exploring Hooker's metaphysical architecture of participation in his accounts of law and the sacraments, Dominiak then traces how this architecture structures cognitive participation in God, as well as Hooker's political vision of the Church and Commonwealth. The volume culminates with a summary of how Hooker provides a salutary resource for modern ecumenical dialogue and contemporary political retrievals of participation.
Richard Hooker explained and defended the Elizabethan religious and political settlement, and shaped the self-understanding of the Church of England for generations. This Companion offers a comprehensive and systematic introduction to Hookera (TM)s life, works, thought, reputation, and influence.
Charles Miller's rigorous and sensitive examination of Richard Hooker's theology makes a valuable addition to the field of study of the cleric, one of the founding theologians of modern Anglicanism. Miller examines Hooker's works in detail, leading the reader through different facets of his vision of God: creation, Scripture, the sacraments, and practices of Christian devotion. Hooker's theology challenges an increasingly time-bound, relativistic approach to doctrine and truth; his sources were as wide, as ancient, and as modern as Hooker could make them. Miller's thoughtful analysis is informed throughout by an understanding of the context of Hooker's theological development against the backdrop of continental Calvinism and the remnants of Roman Catholicism in England. The growth of interest in Hooker among specialists has been accompanied by an abandonment of the serious study of Hooker's thought among theological students, clergy and theologians. Miller's work addresses thislack; Hooker's insights must not be forgotten in the daily distribution of theological food to Christian people. A study which attunes readers to Hooker's particular theological 'voice' and teaches its value both in his own context and as a present-day interlocutor, this volume will be of great interest to Christians and theological students alike.
Although by common consent the greatest theologian of the Anglican tradition, Richard Hooker is little known in Protestant circles more generally, and increasingly neglected within the Anglican Communion. Although scholarship on Hooker has witnessed a dramatic renaissance within the last generation, thus far this has tended to make Hooker less, not more accessible to general audiences, and interpreters have been sharply divided on the meaning of his theology. This book aims to draw upon recent research in order to offer a fresh portrait of Hooker in his original historical context, one in which it had not yet occurred to any Englishman to assume the label "Anglican," and to bring him to life for all branches of the contemporary church. Part One examines his life, writings, and reputation, puncturing several old myths along the way. Part Two seeks to establish Hooker's theological and pastoral vision, exploring why he wrote, how he wrote, whom he was seeking to persuade, and whom he was seeking to refute. Part Three analyzes key themes of Hooker's theology--Scripture, Law, Church, and Sacraments--and how they related to his late Reformation context. Finally, the concluding chapter proposes Hooker's method as a model for our confused contemporary age, combining fidelity to Scripture, historical awareness, and a pastorally sensitive pragmatism.
In spite of the differing, and often conflicting interpretations, there have been several constants – beliefs about Hooker and his work – that have remained virtually unchallenged throughout the centuries. Richard Hooker, Beyond Certainty examines and calls into question three of these constants. The first to be challenged is the fundamental belief that Hooker is attached securely to the English Church and that their identities are so interwoven that to speak of one is to speak of the other. The second is that Hooker's prose – his unique writing style and powerful rhetoric – can be ignored in the process of assessing his theology. The third is the widely-held belief that, as the 'champion of reason', Hooker's faith is essentially rational and that God is perceived and experienced primarily through the intellect. Challenging the truth of each of these statements leads to an uncertainty about Hooker which, rather than negating scholarship, allows research to be liberated from the dominance of categorisation. Such a change, it is suggested, would acknowledge that Hooker's theology transcends Anglican studies and allows his radical thinking to reach a wider audience.
The contributors to the volume explore the relationship of the virtues to Richard Hooker's ontology, to questions of justification by faith, how righteousness is appropriated by the Christian, how the virtues relate to his polemical context, what he takes from both Scripture and his theological forbearers, and how he demonstrates the virtues in his own literary persona. Contributors include: Benjamin Crosby, Paul Dominiak, Daniel Eppley, André A. Gazal, Daniel F. Graves, Dan Kemp, Scott N. Kindred-Barnes, W.J. Torrance Kirby, W. Bradford Littlejohn, Arthur Stephen McGrade, W. David Neelands, and John K. Stafford.
How do Christians determine when to obey God even if that means disobeying other people? In this book W. Bradford Littlejohn addresses that question as he unpacks the magisterial political-theological work of Richard Hooker, a leading figure in the sixteenth-century English Reformation. Littlejohn shows how Martin Luther and other Reformers considered Christian liberty to be compatible with considerable civil authority over the church, but he also analyzes the ambiguities and tensions of that relationship and how it helped provoke the Puritan movement. The heart of the book examines how, according to Richard Hooker, certain forms of Puritan legalism posed a much greater threat to Christian liberty than did meddling monarchs. In expounding Hooker's remarkable attempt to offer a balanced synthesis of liberty and authority in church, state, and conscience, Littlejohn draws out pertinent implications for Christian liberty and politics today.
