"Richard Hooker’s Sapiential Theology: Reformed Platonism?" with Torrance Kirby

uh uh welcome christy institute my name is robert porwal and i moderated this series uh professor kirby can i ask you to mute your mic real fast there we go okay hopefully that clears up our sound issue uh before we turn to today's event i wanted to bring to your attention to upcoming events this thursday at five o'clock central we are hosting a conversation on the global economic effects of covid that will draw together the disciplines of economics and catholic social thought next tuesday our series closes with a lecture by professor peter cassarella on the passage to modernity and uh where we'll be looking upon how to look upon these renaissance thinkers in their relationship with modernity i'm also excited to announce that we'll be hosting a mini-series taking place on thursdays in september on eastern catholic theology in action this series will be a collaboration with the god bearer institute and you can find more details about this new series on our website soon i'm grateful to the american kusana society who's helped organize this series please keep your ears open for future now for information about future collaborations i'm also grateful to the various catholic centers and organizations who are co-sponsoring this series and helping it help to make it successful by spreading word about these events and these include the beatrice institute calvert house the collegium institute the genealogies of modernity project the catholic uh harvard catholic center the nova forum for catholic thought and saint paul's catholic center if you've enjoyed this series or seen our other online online events please consider uh supporting us uh you can do that in two ways one with the new series on eastern catholic theology coming up we'd like we'd love your support in reaching out and spreading the word about this and secondly you can support our work financially by donating to our project at lumenchristy.org donate turning now to today's event the ninth presentation in our series reason and beauty and renaissance christian thought and culture you can find previous presentations on youtube last week we heard about the 17th century cambridge played nests and this week we take a step a step generation back in time to hear about richard hooker at any time in this presentation you may ask a question using the q a function at the bottom of your screen i now want to welcome professor torrence kirby professor kirby teaches at mcgill university where he is professor of ecclesiastical history and has directed the center for research on religion professor kirby has published widely in early modern philosophy history theology including editing the companion to richard hooker and richard hooker reformer and platonist he is a recipient of many grants and fellowships including a very recent recipient of the end of an insight grant for research on the reception of german mysticism in early modern england for all this we are very pleased to have professor kirby with us to speak with us today professor kirby good to see you oh would you uh unmute yourself here perfect digitally challenged i'm afraid i'm i'm glad the technology is working out despite the storms that many of us have been experiencing yes good well i'll hand it over to you um oh dear is that working that's working looks great oh it's good okay sorry about the glitch there um no worries let me thank the american kuzana society um of which i am a um an occasional participant or i'm a sort of a peripheral member but i go occasionally to their meetings and the lumen christie institute at the university of chicago for this kind invitation um in particular i'd like to thank david albertson for his invitation to contribute a paper to this series on reason and beauty and the renaissance christian thought and culture and i would like to also thank uh denny robichall a member of the kuzana society who kindly proposed my participation um thanks also to robert porwal and peter tierney and i would also like to take this opportunity if i may to thank my colleagues in the school of religious studies at mcgill university for their uh collegial support and finally um as you can see at the bottom of the screen i would like to acknowledge the generous funding i've received from the social sciences and humanities research council of canada over the past 20 years i just got another four-year grant from them to work on uh the reception of german mysticism in early modern england one of my main tasks is to point out to scholars in cambridge that cambridge platonism actually starts out as oxford plagiarism and i'm going to talk a little bit about an oxford playthis tonight okay richard hooker um hooker was born uh in april of 1554 at a village called heavy tree near exeter and devonshire he died at bishop's born kent on all souls day the 2nd of november 1600 it's a rather short lifespan i think hooker may have worked himself to death he was educated at exeter grammar school and corpus christi college oxford and he matriculated there in 1569 his tutor was john reynolds the late later president of corpus christi and one of the translators of the authorized version of the bible hooker gained a ba and was admitted a disciple of corpus christi in 1573. in 1577 he preceded master of arts and was elected a full fellow of his college in 1579 and shortly thereafter was appointed deputy lecturer to thomas kingsmill the regis professor of hebrew booker like martin luther was a hebrew scholar booker delivered the hebrew lecture for the remainder of his time at oxford and so he began his career as a biblical scholar and this was to be definitive for his work in march 1585 by letters patent received from the crown and under the patronage of john white gift the archbishop of canterbury booker was appointed master of the temple church at the inns of court where he shared the pulpit with the disciplinary and puritan divine walter travers before a congregation of english judges and barristers in the temple church and there you can see some images of it those of you who have watched the film the da vinci code may recognize this place that's where all of those catapults of the crusaders are located so before a congregation of english judges and barristers in the temple church hooker and travers engaged in a theological controversy which was to occupy hooker for the remainder of his short life he died before he reached the age of 50. the polemics of this pulpit exchanged served as a stimulus to hooker's composition of his great treatise the ecclesiastical polity richard hooker's contribution to the theology of the english reformation emerges in the context of the polemics surrounding the implementation of the constitutional provisions of the elizabethan settlement of 1559 which consisted of two major uh statutes of parliament the act of supremacy and the act of uniformity uh the act of uniformity uh mandated the use of the book of common prayer throughout the realm uh the act of supremacy of course made elizabeth head of the church of england his apologetic strategy in this treatise of the laws of ecclesiastical polity is largely governed by what i would am going to call a sapiental approach hooker's wisdom theology provides the matrix within which he develops his figural reading of holy scripture what is particularly noteworthy in this approach to his combining of uh is it in this approach is his combining of christian neoplatonic metaphysics with reformed biblical hermeneutics booker's integration of a reformed theological perspective with this inheritance of an ancient philosophical tradition is the hallmark of his unique contribution to the later development of anglican exegesis liturgies and devotion this lecture will focus principally on hooker's subtle and intricate configuration of god as law in the first book of his treatise um in the sundry works both of art and also of nature where that which hath greatest force in the things we see is not withstanding itself sometimes not seen the stateliness of houses the goodliness of trees when we behold them delighteth the eye but that foundation which beareth up the one that root which ministereth unto the other nourishment of life is in the bosom of the earth concealed and if there be at any time occasion to search into it such labor is then more necessary than pleasant both to them which undertake it and for the lookers on in like manner the use and benefit of good laws all that live under them may enjoy with delight and comfort albeit the grounds and first original causes from what they have sprung beyond known as to the greatest part of men they are booker commences his discussion of the origin of law that law which giveth life unto all the rest with an appeal to two vivid metaphors one artificial and another natural a constructed foundation and a nourishing root as his argument unfolds it becomes clear that that his aim in the treatise of the laws of ecclesiastical polity is to show that the elizabethan religious and constitutional settlement settlement of 1559 the stately house as it were of the established church and the goodly tree of the flourishing commonwealth is based upon good laws whose ultimate source is altogether hidden from view in the bosom of the earth concealed according to his metaphor in this is this subterranean root or foundation in any way knowable the metaphor serves to introduce an extended analysis of the origin of law booker goes on to identify this veiled first original cause of good laws is that law whereby the eternal himself does work hooker defines law in general as that which dot the sign unto each thing the kind that uh that which does moderate the force in power that which does appoint the form and measure of working he goes on to affirm that the highest measure of working in the divine activity on the ground that the only works and operations of god have him both for their worker and the law whereby they are wrought the being of god he maintains is a kind of law to his working for that perfection which god is he giveth perfection to what he does god therefore is a law both to himself and to all other things besides this identity of worker work done and the activity of working a kind of trinitarian formulation uh anchor the assertion of his metaphorical speech in a non-metaphorical affirmative proposition namely that god in himself is essentially law so this is this is a central thesis of hooker's writing and as aquinas puts it uh in the summa theologica uh for those of you interested it's in the the um prima kundai and the first part of the second part question 91 article 1 uh that end of the divine government is god himself and his law is not distinct from himself so this identity of law and god has a a a long-standing tradition in uh theology in the paration to his exposition of the nature of law and its generic division into various derivative kinds found at the end of the first book of his treatise uh hooker summarizes this argument in a striking passage evocative of the hymns to holy wisdom in the scriptures of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of god her voice the harmony of the world all things in heaven and earth do her homage the very least as feeling her care and the greatest as not exempted from her power both angels and men and creatures of what conditions so ever though each in different sort and manner yet all with uniform consent admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy as rowan williams has observed hooker's use of the feminine pronoun in explicit reference to law would alert any scripturally literate reader to the parallel with the divine sophia and indeed what hooker claims on behalf of law and the sappy uh what hooker claims on behalf of law the sapiential books of proverbs job and the wisdom of solomon affirm of the very wisdom of god the lord possessed me in the beginning of his way before his works of gold i was set up from everlasting from beginning wherever the earth was wisdom reacheth from one end to another mightily and sweetly suavitar in the ball gate sweetly does she order all things for hooker the suppliential theologian then it is because god is his own wisdom that he may also affirm that god in himself is law a law both to himself and to all other things besides all those things which are done by him have some end for which they are done and the end for which they are done is a reason of his will to do them they are therefore who think that of the will of god to do this or that there is no reason besides his will and there i think he may be taking this way but scotus this claim bears comparison with thomas aquinas for whom the end of the divine government is god himself and his law is not distinct from his himself now are such claims that god is his wisdom and consequently that god is law mere metaphors are these figures of speech such that we might compare them for example to the stately house or the flourishing tree in that earlier passage i read or alternatively can definitive literal propositions about the divine nature be justifiably formed there is perhaps something just a tiny bit transgressive perhaps about comparing god to a basement or a root although it is clear enough that such images apply an intuitive perception of similarity in dissimilars and as aristotle reminds us it is a great thing to be a master of metaphor the similarity of god to a basement the foundation of a dwelling is of course concealment from view to propose that god is himself in some sense actually law for wisdom is not on the same metaphorical footing in question 93 uh of the of the first part of the summa theologica on the names of god aquinas asks in article 3 whether all names applied to god must needs be metaphorical or whether uh some can be applied in a literal sense aquinas argues that true affirmative propositions can be formed about god this assertion depends upon drawing a distinction between signification in reality what it is in itself in say and what it is for us pronobis that is to say in idea god as considered in himself is altogether one and simple yet our intellect knows him by different conceptions because it cannot see him as he is in himself insane hence diverse names are ascribed to god god is one god is good infinite just and so on while it is possible to affirm divers essential qualities or predicates our intellect knows that in reality one and the same simple being corresponds to these conceptions the perfect unity of god this is the lower quotation on on the screen a perfect unity of god requires that what are manifold and divided in others should exist in him simply and unitedly thus it comes about that he is one in reality and yet multiple in idea because our intellect apprehends him in a manifold manner as things represent him consequently the plurality of predicate and subject in uh the example that we're uh exploring with hooker law uh and god god is law represents the plurality of idea nonetheless for the intellect for us pro-nobes this plurality represents unity by composition that is by predication god is law for hooker the primordial wisdom is that law which god hath eternally purposed himself in all his works to observe this law is the highest wellspring and fountain uh a plutinian metaphor uh that is to say fountain of all species of law hooker agrees with aquinas when he speaks of the radical simplicity of god in himself when he states that god is one or rather very oneness and mere unity having nothing but itself in itself and not consisting as all things do besides god of many things of the divine simplicity hooker says our soundest knowledge is to know that we know him not as indeed he is neither can we know him and our safest eloquence concerning him is our silence when we confess without confession that his glory is inexplicable his greatness above our capacity to reach he is above and we upon earth and therefore it behooveth our words to be wary and few as first original cause the first eternal law has her seat in the bosom of god simultaneously this original eternal law in its unity contains within itself a plurality of multiple derivative species is law as offspring of god all things which god hath made are in him as effects in their highest cause he likewise actually is in them the assistance and influence of his deity is their life and so it is with original law and his diverse derivative laws booker then proceeds to distinguish between a first and a second eternal law the latter the second eternal law is the ordering voice of the divine wisdom law as god's utterance proceeding from the ineffable unity of the first eternal law and comprising within it all derivative species of law which participate the eternal law as discrete emanations ordered is positively in hierarchical procession while the first eternal law is the original self-constituting divine source as it remains inevitably simple at unity within itself as god's very oneness by law eternal the learned for the most part to understand the order not what god has eternally purposed himself in all his works to observe but rather that which himself he himself has set down as expedient to be kept by all creatures um according to the several conditions wherewith he has endued them all things therefore which are as they ought to be are conformed to this second eternal law and even those things which to this eternal law are not conformable are not withstanding in some sort ordered by the first eternal law it is the second eternal law whose voice is the harmony of the world as distinct from that prior law whose place is in the divine bosom the second eternal law does not work in infinitely but correspondently to that end for which it works even all things christos hooker says in most decent and calmly sort and in that his invocation of the language of of uh comeliness in greek christos or suavitar and latin he's referring to that passage that i read to you earlier from the eighth chapter of the book of wisdom hooker's account of the eternal law as simultaneously unity in radical simplicity and participation of that unity by a multiplicity of derivative forms of law recapitulates an ontology of causality set out by propolis in his elements of theology whereby every effect remains in its cause proceeds from it and reverts upon it for proclass the totality of reality beneath the one for the good itself is structured by remaining that is to say abiding in the principle by going out in procession and by return through conversion all reality is in the one proceeds from the one and returns to the one that is to say it is converted back towards its source when it achieves its proper good in hooker's formulation this double motion of procession and return is remarkably similar as hooker puts it every effect doth after a sort contain at least wise resemble the cause from which it proceedeth all things in the world are said in some sort to seek the highest and to covet more or less the participation of god himself hooker anchors this elaborate exposition and defense of the elizabethan religious settlement in a metaphysical theory of law which itself assumes a neoplatonic ontology of participation in the proclaimed tradition all things are therefore partakers of god they are his offspring his influence is in them and the personal wisdom of god is for that very cause said to excel in nimbleness or agility to a pierce into all intellectual pure and subtle spirits to go through all and to reach unto everything that which is all things which god in their times and seasons have brought forth were eternally and before all times in god as a work unbegun is in the artificer which afterward bringeth it unto effect therefore whatsoever we do behold now in this present world it was enrapt within the bowels of the divine mercy there's another metaphor for you written in the book of eternal wisdom and held in the hands of omnipotent power the first foundations of the world being as yet unlaid hooker's apophatic emphasis on law as it is written in the book of the eternal wisdom having her seat in the bosom of god raises doubt about whether god can be named literally as either wisdom or law the extraordinary metaphor of the bowels of divine mercy intimates that creation may be viewed as tantamount to a divine excretion it is possibly it is possible to speak significantly uh is it possible to speak significantly then about the first eternal law or must we remain silent or is hooker confined to figurative language after all of god's very oneness as hooker we confess without confession that his glory is inexplicable his greatness above our capacity to reach and as pseudodynasius the areopagite asserts in his treatise on the divine names of him there is neither name nor can one be found of him ambrose of milan on the other hand maintains ambivalently that some names there are which express evidently the property of the divinity and some which express the clear truth of the divine majesty but others there are which are applied to god metaphorically by way of similitude aquinas asks whether all names are applied to god solely in a metaphorical sense or whether any can be applied literally the names of creatures are applied to god metaphorically as when we say god is a stone or a lion or the like after some discussion aquinas eventually concludes that some names of god can be applied in an affirmative literal sense there are some names which signify these perfections flowing from god to creatures in such a way that the imperfect way in which creatures receive the divine perfection is part of the very signification of the name itself as stone signifies a material being and names of this kind can be applied to god only in a metaphorical sense other names however express these perfections absolutely without any such mode of participation being part of their signification as for example the words being good living and the like and such names can be literally applied to god law and wisdom are such names as express an essential property of the divinity the perfect unity of god requires that what are manifold and divided in others should exist in him simply and unitedly this is also thomas aquinas thus it comes about that he is one in reality and yet multiple an idea because our intellect apprehends him in a manifold manner as things represent him and so it is with the wisdom of god read out as it were in the manifold species of law according to hooker now for hooker the second eternal law whose voice is the harmony of the world the second eternal law comprises the manifold divine order as kept by all god's creatures according to the several conditions wherewith he hath endued them this law has a variety of names depending on the different orders of creatures subject to the one divine government the two principal derivative species are the second eternal law of this of the second eternal law are first the natural law and second the revealed law of scripture the latter sometimes termed by hooker the divine law as thomas does in the summa not to be confused with the eternal law itself the entire system of the laws comprised within the second eternal law thus expresses the proclaim two-fold motion of created procession from and return to the epistophae uh the return to the original unity of the eternal law as expressed by this primary distinction between the natural and the revealed orders of law each of these two primary kinds natural law and divinely revealed law is further participated by multiple derivative and dependent forms the natural law by way of a further procession comprises in turn subordinate species of law which govern irrational natural agents as well as the rational the law governing the rational creatures is distinguished further into the law celestial which orders the angels and the law of reason sometimes identified simply as the natural law per se which orders rational humankind all of these subspecies represent the outward unfolding or procession and extra of the second eternal law reaching from one end to the other mightily now that law which is which as it is laid up in the bosom of god they call eternal receiveth according unto the different kinds of things which are subject unto it different and sundry kinds of names that part of it which order with natural agents we call usually nature's law that which angels do clearly behold and without any swerving observe is a law celestial in heavenly the law of reason that which bindeth creatures reasonable in this world and with which by reason they may most plainly perceive themselves bound that which bindeth them and is not known by any but by any special revelation from god divine law human law um human law that which out of the law either a reason or of god men probably gathering to be expedient they make it a law on the converse side of the second eternal law the law of god's special revelation the revealed law of the scriptures presupposes the disorder introduced into the cosmos by the fall and is provided in order to secure final restoration or return of the creation to its original condition of unity under and within the primordial first eternal law poker's distinction between these two uh suma genera of natural law and divine law corresponds to the cosmic procession and return but also reflects the epistemological distinction of a two-fold knowledge of god a duplex cognitio day namely by the light of supernatural revelation on the one side and by the natural light of reason on the other in addition to the book of the eternal wisdom there are also a book of nature and a book of scripture three books corresponding to three genre of law there are moreover composite species of law such as human positive law and the law of nations for example the usgentium which derive from a conscious pragmatic reflection upon the general principles contained in the natural law these additional derivative species of law are viewed by hooker here following augustine as a consequence of human sin presupposing the fall and like the divine law they also constitute a corrective to the disorder introduced by adam's disobedience augustine speaks of such law as a remedy of sin the remedium piccati throughout this complex legal discourse hooker presents the human creature as the image of god the imago dei at the focal point of the cosmic drama of procession and return to the original fountain of order established in the divine simplicity of the first eternal law in the second book of the ecclesiastical polity poker addresses the definition of the limits of the authority of scripture the ways of wisdom are of sundry kinds so her manner of teaching is not merely one in the same some things she openeth by the sacred books of scripture some things by the glorious works of nature with some things she inspireth them from above by spiritual influence in some things she leadeth and traineth them only by worldly experience and practice we may not so in any one special kind admire her that we disgrace her in any other but let all her ways be according unto their place and degree adored uh as an aside i fear i may never see this icon again this is the uh image of our lady the seat of wisdom which is in the main apps at the east end of the basilica hagia sofia in constantinople as i like to call it it has been converted back into a mosque and i suppose if it's to serve as a mosque that these images may well be hidden away we remains to be seen what will happen as intellectual natures mortals share the desire of the angels for an infinite good in which alone such a nature can be finally satisfied then are we happy therefore when fully we enjoy god as an object wherein the powers of our souls are satisfied with everlasting delight so that although we be men yet by being unto god united we live as it were the life of god this is hooker's formulation of the doctrine of theosis or liberalization to live the life of god yet of such perfection capable we are not in this life for while we are in the world subject we are under sundry imperfections griefs of body defects of mind yay the best things we do are painful the predicament of the human nature is to be of a mixed uh composition partaking of both an intellectual nature shared with the angels and the physical shared with the irrational necessary agents for hooker therefore for hooker there can be no natural overcoming of the hiatus between a natural desire for divine perfection and a complete natural incapacity to achieve that and desire this emphasis upon human depravity brings out the reformed side of hooker's thinking uh this is a lovely image uh the um the gipkin diptych which is you can go and view it in the guild hall uh belongs to the society of antiquaries in london it depicts the outdoor pulpit uh in at the northeast corner of saint paul's cathedral which was demolished in the 1640s but was a huge popular entertainment one might say more people attended a sermon at paul's cross than perhaps even attended the theater according to some accounts uh and there you can see members of the guilds of london seated right in front of the pulpit behind them the corporation of the city the bear and the aldermen uh in their red robes the high court judges next to them and above them we see king james the first queen anne and prince henry uh also uh various bishops and nobles uh seated in the um the good seats uh up there above the unwashed um view o king how these wall creepers have made me work for chimney sweepers is that little white inscription you see uh going up uh is my arrow there um pulse of course was was destroyed in the great fire um and um sir christopher wren built the replacement but the place where this pulpit stood is still marked in london and so if you ever go to london go into pulse churchill and you can see where this this site was it's uh an important place in the narrative of the emerging public sphere in the history of england okay um the light of nature is never able uh to find out any way of obtaining the reward of bliss but by performing exactly the duties and works of righteousness from salvation therefore and life all flesh being excluded this way behold how the wisdom of god hath revealed away mystical and supernatural a way directing under the same end of life by a course which groundeth itself upon the guiltiness of sin and through sin desert of condemnation and death the exetus ready to structure the structure of emanation and return uh in this hooker's generic division of law in book one shows that hooker had read his aquinas uh on law very closely as numerous scholars have noted hooker's distinction between the first and second eternal laws constitutes nonetheless a significant departure from the thomas scholastic model the effect of the distinction between these two aspects of the eternal law is simultaneously to widen and to decrease the distance between the creator law giver and the created cosmos in addition the distance between the two principal aspects of the second detrimental law that is to say between the natural law and the divinely revealed law is most pronounced in hooker's account of soteriology the final return to god of all creation can only be by a way mystical and supernatural um in his notes toward a fragment on the doctrine of predestination a manuscript in the library of trinity college dublin hooker distinguishes between two species of divine governance so there is a duplex gubernatio day to correspond to a duplex cognizio dei government is that work of god whereby he sustains created things and disposes all things to the end which he naturally chooses that is the greatest good which given the law of creation can be elicited forgiven the law of creation is the rule of all it was not fitting that creation be violated through those things which follow from creation so god does nothing by his government which offends against that which he has framed and ratified by the very act of creation the government of god is general overall special over rational creatures there are two forms of government duplex kubernetes that which would have been had free creation not lost its way and that which is now when it has lost its way this passage reveals uh the sateriological principle underlying the generic division of laws on the one side are laws governing the order of an unfallen creation and among these laws hooker includes the law of nature insofar as it governs irrational and non-voluntary natural agents this again is a significant departure from the usual more restricted sense of natural law as an intellectual habit of the soul that is to say the sumerazio as it is present and known to rational creatures to conclude for hooker the form of law to be kept by all creatures according to their several conditions is comprised within three highest forms the eternal law the natural law and the divine law where the latter two species are understood as comprehended within the eternal law and specifically within the second eternal law and yet nonetheless are distinct both in their operation and in our knowledge of them together these highest forms constitute a comprehensive division of the many diverse kinds of law to understand their derivation from the original unity of the first eternal law is to gain critical insight into the underlying ontological assumptions of hooker's argument and moreover provides a vital instrument for interpreting the manner of hooker's reconciliation of neoplatonic ontology of participation with a reformed sateriology viewed from the standpoint of their divine principle of origin that is to say the first eternal law where the being of god is the law of his working these three highest forms of law may be considered as simply one one in their source the predication of law to god is not metaphorical for hooker law is a perfection of the divine being and could consequently be affirmed literally so long as we understand that what god is in reality is not to be confused with what he is an idea our intellect apprehends in the manifold manner of the expression of the voice of his wisdom viewed from below as it were from our human standpoint uh the original unity takes on the aspect of articulated multiplicity of kinds which nonetheless all participate and all proceed from the undivided unity that is their common source this account of the simultaneous unity and diversity of law in its multiple speech species lies at the heart of hooker's vision of law as an expression of the divine governance who the guide of nature but only the god of nature in him we live move and are those things which nature is said to do are by divine art performed using nature as an instrument nor is there any such art or knowledge divine in nature herself working but in the guide of nature's work hooker begins with metaphors of the nature of law in general law as the root of a flourishing tree as the foundation of a stately house law as a wellspring or fountain all hidden in the bosom of the earth and he proceeds to identify these underlying hidden sources with the primordial wisdom of god this wisdom is in turn presented metaphorically as hidden in the bosom of god in the bowels of the divine mercy and manifest in the voice of cosmic harmony in effect we mix these metaphors what is hidden in the bosom of the earth is an actually it is in actuality hidden in the bosom of god the conclusion for hooker is that god in some literal sense is law his law is not distinct from himself and therefore it becomes possible to move beyond metaphor to a more literal affirmation this predication must be interpreted cautiously it is composite in form but refers the theological understanding to an essential simplicity the ineffable unity and simplicity of all law in the divine self-reliant regulating activity the being of law the being of god is a kind of law to his working and on this manifold and on this working a manifold diversity of laws depend so that is the end of my formal lecture before proceeding to the conversation i have been asked to draw to your attention a bit of further reading which i have done here on a couple of slides the first slide contains three uh useful sources for people who want to study hooker further the the accepted critical edition of the complete works of richard hooker is the beautiful folger library edition it's horrendously expensive some of it i think even now is out of print but if you can obtain one of these it's the authoritative version of the ecclesiasticality and it's the one that particularly if you're a graduate student or a professor it's the one that is commonly used for citation um it's the critical edition there is a new critical edition edited by steve mcgrade published by oxford university press which has modern spelling i have very mixed feelings about the modern spelling i i i can see its utility hooker's spelling is extremely idiosyncratic and can be irritating at times but it has a certain beauty and it takes one back to this alien world of thought of the late elizabethan time um and then um i'm tooting my own horn here but a companion to richard hooker contains 20 essays uh by some fairly distinguished scholars including rowan williams who will who wrote the forward uh dermot mccullough uh david nelens of trinity college toronto um i i i hesitate to to name names because i might leave somebody out but there's some quite distinguished pieces of work in here so if you're interested in looking at some criticism on hooker that's a good place to do it um and finally here are a few books about hooker that might interest you uh richard hooker's doctrine of support world supremacy is my doctoral thesis at the university of oxford um richard hooker the former and platonist is a book length elaboration of the argument i made this evening there's a book by richard about richard hunter by brad littlejohn that came out very recently that contains an account of his life and thought from different angles which might interest you hooker's relationship to the reformation is a vexed topic of critical study at the present and that's the main focus of the top right hand volume um at the bottom left i've got a couple of books that are um um about paul's cross that image that i showed you um which i published recently they've been the focus of my more recent research um hooker preached at paul's cross sadly we don't have the sermon that he preached there but um there is an article uh in the 2014 volume by david nelens of toronto that explains what what the sermon that hooker delivered was about and gives an account of it and then there are two more books there at the bottom right about the interpretation of hooker and his reception later on um michael brydon was a doctoral student at oxford supervised by derma mccullough and he gives a very interesting account of the reception of hooker mainly in the 17th century hooker was admired by charles the first and by even king james ii um and by john locke i mean there's something really quite remarkable about the breadth of people in the 17th century who found something in hooker to grab their attention and then this book by nigel atkinson talks about um what's the so-called three-legged stool of scripture tradition and reason um and it's a good read so that's it for for the more for the further reading and uh i suppose i should hand it over now to robert corwell all right thank you so much for this really engaging very interesting look at a sort of counter-intuitive perhaps view of of the seminal anglican thinker who's uh who's got these two mystic roots uh we've had several questions about these about this uh the relationship between uh hooker and and uh and thomas aquinas elizabeth asks what we know about uh about uh hooker studying uh about thomas did he do it in incorporated college do we have record of of him and many others reading carefully the works of thomas it's quite clear for anybody who studies the laws of ecclesiastical polity that hooker was an assiduous student of thomas aquinas he only explicitly quotes aquinas about half a dozen times um mainly in the context of this discussion in book one about the nature of law he is critical of thomas on the doctrine of grace in a sermon that he preached so that's the only negative take on thomas that we find in hooker but i think that the number of times that hooker quotes thomas is not really an adequate measure because i think uh i think as david nelens has pointed out in his scholarship hooker imitates thomas so that the whole structure of the argument in book one shows a profound debt to the angelic doctor and it's more in the imitation of the structure the hierarchical logic the lex divinitatis as thomas would express it in incorporated into hooker's argument about a law that that question 96 of the uh prima secundais is the part of the the summa that that hooker is looking at most closely of all i think um so it's true that that the evidence of thomas's influence is has to be gleaned in some sense by examining the structure of the argument and in fact hooker's um references to the platonic ontology the neoplatonic ontology uh are also indicators of that influence hooker also quotes pseudodionysius quite a number of times both in book one and in book eight where he's interested in understanding hierarchy in relationship to the crown and his use of of pseudodionysius also shows that he was familiar with thomas's argument pseudodynasius i think for hooker is probably mediated by aquinas but the uh the connection that i make with proclass is not explicit but it seems to me that the way in which hooker formulates his account of um emanation and return uh and his formulation of the way in which causes dwell in their effects and affects their causes is so obviously influenced by that ancient tradition of neoplatonism that by pointing out similarities with proclass is a way of communicating that heritage uh in his thought thank you and and before we talk about some of his other neopotonic sources because we have a question on that pressing a little bit further on on the thomistic engagement we have a question from joshua who asks uh professor kirby you said that hooker's departure from aquinas leads him both to widen and to decrease the gap between human nature and divine law could you collaborate a little further on how that yeah this this is this is a very good and a very difficult question but i thank uh joshua for that is it joshua holman by any chance uh no no no okay just wondered i i i in any case it's uh the apophatic emphasis in hooker is very marked when he says god is very oneness and he identifies the first eternal law with that ineffable oneness he removes the eternal law from any linkage to the the lex divinity's as it works in the world i think that the crucial point here is that he that he draws a distinction between first and second eternal law is crucial to understanding the way in which he increases the gap between creator and creation uh to distinguish a first eternal law from a second eternal law which is not a distinction that thomas makes uh in his treatise on law is to guard the uh um the ineffable simplicity of god uh would and one could argue that that even though thomas doesn't do this in his treatise on law question three of the summa in some sense is that argument that the radical simplicity of god places god all together above and beyond creatures and above predication um but at the same time because the whole of the creation in all of its manifold forms and all of the laws you might say that govern uh the created order are comprised within the second eternal law means that because of the intimate connection of the second eternal law to the first eternal law you can see that that the whole of the creation as it were is understood to be um taken up in some sense right into the interior divine life and so that's what i mean by saying that there's there they are closer uh they're further apart um god and creation are further apart in the sense that this comes out in the sateriology where hooker says that um heaven cannot be won by merit heaven can only be won passively through a justifying faith and therefore this is this is the protestant hooker speaking this is this is the hooker who sees uh salvation as something working entirely from the divine side at the level of justification and that um grace hooker maintains and this is in the passage where he's somewhat critical of aquinas cannot become a habit of the soul in its primary form but you might say in a secondary form uh in in you might see the acquisition of the theological virtues grace can become a habit but that he wants to distinguish between a primary grace which is non-habitual and passive and alien attaches his account of grace very much to luther's account if you read hooker's sermon on justification and the foundation of faith his position comes out very strongly almost as a replication of luther's position on the radical passivity of justification so that that at the same time he says though that what good works of course are necessary but there's the uh the the habitual righteousness must be something secondary and derivative um rather the way in which uh the natural law in this many species is secondary and derivative with respect to the eternal law so there's a kind of an analogy there between the satoriol soteriological argument and the ontological argument about law i that's probably not a satisfying answer oh that's really helpful yeah thank you uh we we want to make a turn here in a minute to some of the more reformed contexts but real fast to talk about the some of these platonic uh sources we have a question from denise uh thank you for this highly informative talk i question pertains to hooker's sources you enlighten us on the relationship between hooker's theology to aquinas proclass and uh and the corpus diesel to what extent was the corpus akum a source for some of hooker's use of proclaimed principles of each for eternal law rasmus and luther had different critiques of dionysius and were well known by them and arasmus reminds us that william grossen made his suspicion suspicion of dionysius known at saint paul's cross was there a reformed hermeneutics of suspicion at work behind hooker's reading of pseudodionysius well there there was a reformed suspicion of pseudodonation whoever he was says this is both calvin and luther they're echoing the the 15th century um uh smoking out of the identity of pseudo-dionysus by lorenzo vala and others who recognized for the first time that nobody quoted pseudo-dionysius before the 6th century and because they are thinking historically by that time they work out that that pseudo-dionysius could not have been the interlocutor of paul on the areopagus now um in the petrologia graca we still find as the first text uh included in that series and that seems to be evidence that there are p there are die hards who just want to continue to view dionysius as um that contemporary of paul but by the end of the 15th century scholars had recognized that this was an untenable view and i don't think hooker queried that i think that he probably accepted that although he doesn't pronounce on it uh anywhere that i have noticed and his reading of suit of dionysius is not peculiar because there are other reformed scholastics like peter martin vermeely for example who uh is a very careful student of of uh pseudo-dionysius uh particularly of the ecclesiastical hierarchy in his writings now vermeely is a kind of a special case because he was thoroughly trained in the canon law before he went to naples and discovered the writings of luther through his association with juan de valdez and the uh the spirituality there but um in one has to remember that the curriculum at oxford was extremely conservative and the aristotle for example was the core aristotle's organon was the core of the curriculum for undergraduates in hooker's day hooker's tutor john reynolds um this is by way of an aside i'm moving away from the question but i'll come back to it uh john reynolds was the originator of the great revision of the oxford curriculum in the direction towards aristotle's rhetoric but it's interesting at oxford uh you know the story is you know um how many oxonians does it take to change a light bulb change oh yes the only answer uh to change at oxford meant um substituting aristotle's rhetoric for aristotle's logic it's not very radical um so aristotle is still king in in the curriculum and that's that's that's the atmosphere in which hooker was an undergraduate um and hooker's greek hooker has good greek he's got hebrew and latin he was at the uh the mit of the 16th century corpus christi college oxford it was a really intellectually extremely serious place it still is for classics uh but at corpus he would have been trained rigorously in the trilingual hebrew greek and latin and he mastered all three um his approach to the tradition of the priscilla logia is itself very conservative in us in a scholastic vein in that he's deeply immersed in the writings of the fathers uh the cappadocians as well as augustine uh he's uh he um his approach to um a locus of uh inquiry is often to begin with scripture look at what the fathers said you know what did ambrose have to say about this uh what did the awful act of awkward have to say i mean he goes into a fairly detailed analysis of patristic authorities then what did other philosophers in the middle ages say about it and finally he will make his pronouncement there's a very strong methodological bias in favor of the tradition that shows his training to be scholastic and so his knowledge of um the neoplatonic sources is not surprising i think given that that training um he only quotes proclass twice but practice is clearly on his radar screen i think that uh the question asked by was it denny who asked the question um that that it was the case that his his reading of proclass was most likely filtered through his reading of pseudo-dionysius the christian proclass as he's sometimes called indeed and so here's a question that was germinating in my mind and we also have a question from an attendee that some of the big impulse of the reformation was to be suspicious of this sort of natural field uh philosophical theological speculation and to see it as luther saw it as a kind of workshop of idols uh richard asked the question caricature which i have no time for oh okay well maybe it's too broad question reductionist it seems to me that that view of the reformation um it can't be sustained if you read calvin's institutes this the first book is a sustained exploration of patristic orthodoxy in christology and trinity um kelvin has enormous respect for the the traditional patristic theology and with that goes of course the you know the the great tradition of natural theology that's inherited from the fathers i think this i this is a bartian travesty uh of of reading of the reformation i guess i was thinking of the contrast between this and luther's lectures on galatians but the question here from richard is about about si hooker and sin uh richard asks what is hooker's conception of sin uh what doesn't seem to come from all depravity what's that total depravity hooker thinks that we are little better than wild beasts uh in our um inclinations and that we depend utterly on what he calls the way mystical and supernatural to overcome uh that and it's only by a you might say a divine intervention by a gracious intervention that there can be any hope of coming out of that condition of fallenness he i think hooker's position on fallen humanity is very close to luther's and kelvins both and that i think is quite compatible with a high doctrine of natural law because in some sense he in with his with the way in which he schematizes the system of laws the order of redemption and the order of nature are quite distinct so that the hierarchical logic that governs um our place in the natural order of things in the world is um affirmed but at the same time you might say the relationship to in that sense you could say there's continuity of the creation with its source but at the same time you might say as far as the economy of redemption is concerned there is a break um a direction between the human condition and the divine condition that can only be overcome by um well in some sense god's predestinating activity from before the foundation of the world booker has a strong view in his account of predestination of god's foreknowledge uh of so the the salvific act from all eternity uh it's it's it's a position on predestination which again i would say is close to kelvins but at the same time i think when you look at the question of predestination calvin and aquinas are actually quite close together uh that they on that doctrine at least okay so but they that's interesting in that sense that calvin comes up with a very different it would seem uh ecclesiology and then hooker we have a swifting on point on this on this point the question runs uh while your presentation references uh hooker's reform soteriology or doctrine of salvation it wasn't clear to me the relationship between hooker's metaphysics and his defense of the anglican ecclesiastical settlement so he's how does then he he turned this into a a new kind of ecclesiological project well that's a great question i think that ecclesiologically he has a and this i think actually he shares with calvin a very clear notion of the distinction between the visible and the invisible church and the visible church is for him uh to use his precise language a human politics society it is it in fact it's a reference to aristotle he quotes aristotle's politics in the first book when he introduces this idea coinonia politique and the church is a koinonia politicae it's a human institution in its earthly visible aspect but the church is also a mystical body and hooker is very keen to um distinguish very clearly between the church's mystical character and it's it's visible human character and in that sense you could say if one were to map that on to the uh the system of laws there's a sense in which the church exists in the realm of the divine law and there's a sense in which the church subsists in the realm of the natural law and the church that subsists in the realm of the natural law as a human institution has parliament and the crown as its governing power and so hooker launches a very spirited defense of elizabeth's headship of the church on the ground that um and here he invokes aristotle that aristotle claims that the end of political society is to promote the virtue of the citizen and the way in which the commonwealth of england promotes the virtue of her citizens is through the agency of the church so the church becomes the means whereby aristotle's um virtuous community can come into existence and therefore the church is is uh subject to the governance of parliament and so parliament legislates the book of common prayer the bishops sit in the house of lords um the corporations of the cathedrals and the colleges are all subject to um uh government and royal control the the the um the ecclesiology is one which emphasizes um the human the human character of the church is a political society and actually i think it's a mistake to think that hooker is distant from calvin in holding that view because if you look at kelvin's institutes in book four calvin regards the commonwealth as one of the three external means of grace that the commonwealth together with the church in the sacraments are the way in which god governs the political world and kelvin uh like hooker maintains that there are two essential marks of the church uh the right preaching of the word and the true administration of the sacraments calvin does not insist that ecclesiastical discipline based on the new testament should be a mark of the church so in that respect hooker's puritan opponents in england who want a scriptural discipline based on the new testament are actually further from calvin in their ecclesiology than hooker is and this is i you know there's a certain cognitive dissonance to that from what we've come to expect about [Music] the position of hooker with respect to the protestants but hooker and calvin are actually on the same page in terms of ecclesiological first principles in terms of their distinction between a visible and an invisible church the puritan argument the argument that was made for instance by walter travers who was hooker's opposite number at the temple church uh was to insist upon a scripturally based discipline of presbyters and so the whole presbyterian movement within the church was inspired by uh the view that there are three marks of the church word sacrament and ecclesiastical discipline grounded in the new testament um that's not calvin's position at all and um it seems to me arguable that hooker is uh very respectful of calvin as a theologian and of his his principles hooker's um this is straying off a little bit but just to illustrate the point uh further hooker's um account of um sacramental presence is virtually identical with what calvin argues in um uh in the institutes of the christian religion um an instrumental realism um and well i don't know that's that's that's that's a wild goose chase to to go down that that that line of argument but in any case there are all sorts of reasons for thinking that hooker is respectful of calvin uh and and and his theological position and so maybe we have time for just one more question uh moving into the the some of uh hooker's enormous impact uh in in legacy it's it's pretty clear he's had such an impact on the english church uh we have a question about uh whether or not there's some reflection of of hooker's impact upon the continent uh the source of german uh uh uh thinkers christine asks uh thank you professor kirby for your lecture i am interested in the global circulation of theology in the early modern period you say something about hooker's context in relationship to the german and swiss reference reformations um what influences you had upon the continent and also are there any women scholars who are working on richard hooker that you could refer us to well yes indeed i can i to start with the last first debra sugar who's a professor at the university of uh california in los angeles uh is a very distinguished hooker scholar and she's published extensively on the renaissance and 17th century literature um deborah contributed an essay to the companion to richard hooker on hooker's account of certainty assurance and hookers preached a very long sermon in in at paul's cross in in the 16th century if you didn't preach for two hours people were disappointed those were the days for preachers but her hooker preached this very long sermon on certainty and um the finest treatment of of that sermon that i know of is deborah sugar's essay and it's it's full of interest so i would recommend that now just remind me the first part of the question was the continent right um hooker's doctor gross fatter if i can put it that way was peter martyr vermeely um vermeely came to england at the invitation of thomas cranmer in 1548 and became regis professor of divinity uh and a canon of christchurch oxford uh vermeely is uh a great italian theologian he was born in florence he was um at the time that he left italy uh he was the prior of luca and he had been abbott of spaletto he was climbing the greasy pole of ecclesiastic proferment some people say that peter martin vermilion if he if he'd stayed with rome might have even become pope i mean he was that he was papa bile but he it met wonderful this when he was visiting naples and and he was influenced by the books of luther that were given to him by valdez and he eventually became a protestant and while he was in lucca as prior he set up a reform seminary and when in 1542 the um uh the inquisition was set up he was one of their first targets vermeely along with emmanuel tremelius and sebastian castellio were chased out of italy and he never went back he went first to strasbourg where he met martin butzer and then eventually to england his main disciple when he was at oxford was a a young scholar by the name of john jewell who followed vermeerly to zurich when vermeerly left england in 1553 and [Music] when jewel came back from zurich at the accession of queen elizabeth the first he was appointed bishop of salisbury and jewell paid for hooker to attend corpus christi college oxford jewell was hooker's patron so i the reason i i mentioned that there's a kind of a genealogy uh that connects hooker to the zurich reformation through his patron john jewell um the most important theological textbook in oxford uh in the second half of the 16th century and the first half of the 17th century was not in fact calvin but it was vermeely's commonplaces which were translated from latin into english for melee didn't speak english he married a nun on his way north she spoke flemish he spoke italian the only language they had in common was latin um when they first arrived at oxford the students were so shocked he was the very first married dawn in the university uh he being a canon of christchurch cathedral had a house within the precincts of the college and the students would go around and and bang on pots outside their bedroom window at night uh to express their disapproval of his having arrived at oxford with a wife but in any case vermeely's textbook the commonplaces became uh the main source of theological instruction in oxford for um generations and that would have been the theology that hooker studied and vermeely was invited by the queen elizabeth to come back to england but he he was unhealthy and he's actually died shortly after her accession um 1562 i think and um he exerted an influence over the english reformation that was really quite remarkable and hooker in some sense i think is one of his epigons uh and and the um the other influence i think on hooker that should be noted is martin butzer who was invited by cranmer to go to cambridge uh at the same time that vermeely went to oxford uh and the radical side of hooker's theology this uh attempt to build bridges across theological divides is um an aspect of his thought that he derives from the influence of martin butzer so those are two continental influences on his thought and calvin of course kelvin was a big noise in oxford in at the end of the 16th century and hooker shows every indication of having you know studied calvin's thought quite carefully um so i don't know whether that's a sufficient response to the question thank you very much no that's very very helpful and enlightening uh professor kirby thank you so much for for presenting for us tonight on on this uh this this great topic richard hooker definitely deserves uh our our continued attention uh and as we as we close out uh let me remind everyone that we have our our presentation on thursday at 5 pm central for global on the global economic effects of kovid and stay tuned for next tuesday's wrap-up session where peter professor peter cassarella will speak to us on the passage to modernity and thinking about the relationship of all these thinkers to the modern period and as well the the newly announced uh uh series on eastern catholic theology in action uh thank you very once again uh professor kirby you've given us a lot to draw on a lot to dwell on here in in in this presentation well if there are any unanswered questions i'm i'm quite happy to be emailed and i will respond thank you i can send you the the uh the questions uh here as well good all right thank you again farewell cheers you

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Published: Tue Aug 11 2020