Discerning the Good

In chapter 8 of Book One, Hooker returns to the question of how humans naturally discern the laws that govern proper behavior. He reminds the reader that humans are created to desire the good, so that human “felicitie therefore being the object and accomplishment of our desire, we cannot choose but wish and covet it” (I.8.1, 3-5). Reason enables humans to discern the good, but human reason itself is imperfect so that “If reason erre, we fall into evill, and are so farre foorth deprived of the generall perfection we seeke” (I.8.1, 7-9).

Hooker explains that there are two general ways to discern goodness. One is by the “knowledge of the causes whereby it is made such” (I.8.2, 28-29). This is the method of scholastic thought and Aristotelianism but Hooker observes that this approach is so mentally taxing that people rarely engage in it, making it less than useful for the public debate with Puritanism that Hooker has engaged. The other approach is the “observation of those signes and tokesn, which being annexed alwaies unto goodness, argue that where they are found, there also goodness is, although we know not the cause by force whereof it is there” (I.8.2, 29-1). This approach to discerning goodness rationally is more appealing to Hooker, especially when objects or concepts are deemed good by a broad consensus of humanity. Hooker summarizes this inductive approach to rationally discerning by expanding on the medieval English concept that the voice of the people is the voice of God: “The generall and perpetuall voyce of men is as the sentence of God him selfe. For that which all men have at all times learned, nature her selfe must needed have taught; and God being the author of nature, her voyce is but his instrument” (I.8.4, 1-4).

Hooker continues to build his argument about the law of nature by observing that this is something that all humans can observe and so be drawn to natural goodness for which all humans were created (I.8.6). Reason helps people to determine the goodness of their actions. This “sentence of reason,” as Hooker calls it, is “either mandatory, shewing what must be done; or els permissive, declaring onely what may bee done; or thirdly admonitory, opening what is the most convenient for us to be done” (I.8.8, 2-5). Here Hooker shows that there is a diversity of things that might be called good, but all good things share the quality of having been discerned by humans via rational insight to be in them good. In turn, although all people, whether Christian or not, can rationally discern the good, nonetheless this is not possible “without the perpetuall aid and concurrence of that supreme cause of all things” (I.8.11, 27-28).

Hooker’s reasoning here is itself a distillation of Artistole’s thought and common theme in humanist scholarship in the century preceding Hooker. For Hooker, there is a common ground of reasoning to draw upon here with which he will uses as a foundation to rebuff the biblicism of his Puritan opponents.

The Imitation of God

After reflecting upon the laws of nature and of angels, Hooker next moves to the law that directs humans to imitate God. Speaking of the imitation of God as a law might seem odd, but Hooker is attempting to speak of all that is good as ordained by God in terms of law. For Hooker there must be a law which orders humanity to the imitation of God because “all things in the worlde are saide in some sort to seeke the highest, and to covet more or lesse the participation of God himselfe” (I.5.2, 8-10). The desire to participate in God is reflected most fully in humanity. This occurs in a general form in that humans, like all other created things, is a general perfection in which humans can realize the fullness for which they were created. Humans also follow other created things in imitating specific attributes of God in so far as they are capable. Humans, being created in the image and likeness of God can do this better than other created things, so that by pursuing “the knowledge of truth and by growing in the exercise of virtue, man amongst the creatures of this inferiour world, aspireth to the greatest conformity with God” (I.5.3, 1-3).

The imitation of God in the form of knowledge distinguishes humans from angels because angels already possess a full knowledge of God but humans must work to attain it bit by bit. Nonetheless, humans can acquire the same degree of divine knowledge as angels. Speaking of boundless human potentiality as creatures of God, Hooker observes that the “soule of man being therefore at the first as a booke, wherein nothing is, and yet all thinges may be imprinted; we are to search by what steppes and degrees it ryseth unto perfection of knowledge” (I.6.1, 26-28). Human potential rests precisely in this ability to constantly improve upon knowledge and understanding to reach deeper and higher insights. Humanity develops incrementally as both individuals and societies: “No art is at the first finding out so perfect as industrie may after make it” (I.6.3, 5-6). This optimism about human potential reflects Hooker’s similar esteem for nature as containing laws worth discerning and knowing that was discussed in the previous post. Such optimism in turn informed the embrace of the natural and social sciences by later Anglican thinkers.

This is not to say that pursuing the highest good is easy. Hooker describes both appetite and will as guiding human behavior. The appetite seeks material or sensible good while the will is oriented to goods that reason guides humans towards. To live simply according to the appetite means that humans will not develop far in terms of knowledge, whereas living according to the will as guided by reason will set humans on the path of realizing their full potential. “For the lawes of well doing are the dictates of right reason” (I.7.4, 11-12). Hooker argues that while humans may either choose either good or evil, strictly speaking evil in itself is only attractive because of an apparent goodness that it actually lacks. “For evill as evill cannot be desired: if that be desired which is evill, the cause is the goodness which is, or seemeth to be joyned with it” (I.7.6, 1-3). Sin then is to chooser a lesser good over a greater good, even though the greater good can be discovered by reason that all humans innately possess. It is the ignorant soul, according to Hooker, that commits sin rather than engages in the work of rationally discerning that which is good. Significantly for Hooker, humans do not appear as fully enslaved to sin and evil, but rather because they are guided by divinely ordained law have it within themselves to choose the good that reason shows them.

The Law of Nature and the Common Good

Book One of the Lawes builds progressively from considering God’s own internal (and eternal) law to God’s eternal law for all created things in what Hooker describes as “natures law.” Hooker observes that to attempt to dissect the full complexity of the orderly operations of nature is a sure way to learn humility. Indeed, to read the account of creation in Genesis 1 leads one to surmise that the purpose of this account is not only to understand the power of God’s creative activity. This passage also instructs that God designed this creation in fashion to “institute a law naturall to be observed by creatures” (I.3.2, 5). Citing the early Christian theologian Arnobius of Sicca, humans need only to look around at all the created things they rely upon to understand that people depend upon the divinely ordered laws of creation and nature. To be fully cognizant of God as creator requires awareness of the dependency of humanity on nature. And in turn, humanity’s frequent struggles against nature are a sign of the disordering reality of human sin (I.3.3, 12-22).

Despite the fraught relationship between humanity and nature, on its own, nature operates so well because it is guided by God: “That lawe the performance whereof we behold in things naturall, is as it were an authenticall, or an originall draught written in the bosome of God himselfe . . . Nature therefore is nothing else but Gods instrument” (I.3.4, 13-15, 18-20). Because God intends good for all creation, and especially for humanity, Hooker calls his readers to understand nature itself as something which tends towards the common good. There is “a lawe which bindeth [created things] each to serve unto others good, and all to preferred the good of the whole before whatsoever their owne particular, as we plainely see they doe” (I.3.5, 12-14).

In Hooker’s reflection on the interdependence between humanity and creation and his respect for the complexity of the laws of nature, we see the classic Anglican esteem for science and all forms of human knowledge. Hooker was certainly not the first to posit this notion. Both Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologica and John Calvin in the Institutes of Christian Religion also ground their theological reflections in God’s establishment of laws of nature. Hooker, ever the synthesizer, brings together both these scholastic and Reformed impulses to clarify humanity’s dependence on nature, and reasoned reflections upon it, in order to more deeply understand both divine and human nature.

“Our safest eloquence concerning him is our silence”

Richard Hooker moves from the preface of the Lawes, in which he set out the rational for his work, to explicating his argument in Book One. In beginning his argument concerning the right ordering of the Church of England, Hooker turns to an examination of the concept of law. The course of Book One runs from divine law, celestial law, natural law, human law, and laws divinely revealed in Scripture. Hooker warns his readers from the outset, that this investigation into the nature of laws is not clear.

“Which because wee are not oftentimes accustomed to doe, when we doe it the paines wee take are more needefull a great deale, then acceptable, and the matters which we handle seeme by reason of newnesse (till the minde grow better acquainted with them) darke, intricate and unfamiliar” (I.1.2, 20-25).

Hooker defines law as that which regulates operations or defines what a thing is. Because God is the source of all things, God is the source of all law. Not only is God the source of law, but the “being of God is a kinde of lawe to his working: for that perfection which God is, geveth perfection to that he doth” (I.2.2, 5-6). Hooker thought makes clear that his goal is not to define the inner workings of God’s own being in terms of Trinitarian relations but rather only to describe how God operates according to God’s own laws in external matters. To speculate on the Trinity is not Hooker’s goal both because he views church teaching on the matter sufficient and that “our safest eloquence concerning him is our silence” (I.2.2, 16-17).

Indeed to even be able to fully discern the purpose of God’s actions are not always possible, though Hooker does not deny the rationality of God’s acts, despite their inscrutability (I.2.5, 18-27). God’s divine law orders all things, but humans can not fully apprehend it. “The booke of this law we are neither able nor worthie to open and looke into. That little thereof which we darkly apprehend, we admire, the rest with religious ignorance we humbly and meekly adore” (I.2.5, 10-14). All law, the law of the cosmos, the law of human society, the law of scripture, the law of the church, has its origin in God. Yet the divine ordering of God’s own self is only partially known to human beings.

Polemic and Reconciliation

Hooker’s continued discussion of the problems of the English Puritan position through the rest of the Preface of the Lawes can be reduced to the question of how Scripture operates as a norm for the established church. In considering the educated Puritan leadership in England, Hooker charges that their interpretation of Scripture, especially as it pertains to church orders, is idiosyncratic.

“A verie strange thing sure it were that such a discipline as ye speake of should be taught by Christ and his Apostles in the word of God, and no Church ever have found it out, nor recyved it till this present time . . .” (Preface 4.1, lines 23-25)

In developing his critique of Puritanism, he emphasizes the threat it could pose to English society by raising the specter of Anabaptism. The Anabaptists were the specters that haunted other Christians on both the Protestant and Catholic side in the sixteenth century. Anabaptism as expressed by thinkers like Menno Simons or Jakob Hutter, was ignored in favor of the extreme example of radical reform and ensuing social chaos that happened in the city of Muenster. Hooker charges that Anabaptism, by assuming that all answers can only be found in Scripture, undermines existing social structures (Preface 8.8).

In Hooker’s view, the potential chaos of a Puritan view of church and society would be “more easie for us to prevent then they would be for them to remedy” (Preface 8.14, lines 21-22). This means a reading of Scripture that is informed by both attention to tradition and reason that discerns what practices are appropriate for a given local context. “The orders therefore which were observed in the Apostles times, are not to be urged as a rule universallie either sufficient or necessarie” (Preface 4.5, lines 15-16). As one of his examples, Hooker observes that the kiss of peace attested to in New Testament communities in his time should not be reinstituted in his time because it would cause scandal. In other words, not all New Testament practices ought to be followed; reason needs to be a guide.

Despite the polemic of his Preface, Hooker holds out hope and a desire for reconciliation with the Puritan side in England. Hooker conjures a biblical model of fraternal reconciliation as he ends his Preface:

“But our trust in the almightie is, that with contentions are now at their highest floate, and that the day will come (for what cause of despaire is there) when the passions of former emnitie being allaied, we shal with ten times redoubled tokens of our unfainedlie reconciled love, shewe our selves each towards other the same which Joseph and the brethren of Joseph were at the time of their enterview in Aegypt” (Preface, 9.4, lines 5-11).

Hooker’s vision of Puritan and supporters of the established church eventually being reconciled much like Joseph and his brothers is a hopeful one. It is a vision that speaks to Christians throughout the ages, but especially one that Anglicans today certainly should yearn for. Just as England was rent asunder four hundred years ago over how Scripture ought to be interpreted within local contexts, Anglicans today across the communion are rent asunder over these same questions. What is it all can learn from Hooker’s arguments?

The Clarity of Doctrine and the Ambiguity of Practice

After examining last week Hooker’s critique of the polity implemented in Geneva, this week the reading group turned to the third chapter of the Preface, on how unlearned people in England were persuaded to embrace Puritanism. In this section Hooker goes to great lengths to explain how unlearned people are persuaded to follow Puritan arguments not by virtue of reason but by appeals to the emotions (including an extended explanation of why women, due to impaired rational faculties, comprised a majority of Puritan followers).

Lying behind this polemic against simple followers of English presbyterian leaders is an argument about the clarity of scripture in matters of doctrine and its latitude regarding church practices. Hooker is adamant that all things necessary for salvation are clearly set forth in scripture (cf. Article 6 of the Thirty-Nine Articles; 2 Tim 3:16-17):

“Some things are so familier and plaine, that truth from falsehood, and good from evill is most easily discerned in them, even by men of no deepe capacitie. And of that nature, for the most part are things absolutely unto all mens salvation necessarie, either to be held or denied, eyther to be done or avoided . . . they are not only set downe, but also plainely set downe in Scripture” (Preface 3.2, lines 5-11).

While Scripture plainly states that all things needed for salvation are within it and all can access it, nonetheless Scripture is not as clear when it comes to questions of practice and church structures. Hooker emphasizes that questions about practice and polity are best left to experts that “God hath appointed some to spende their whole time principally in the studie of things divine” (Preface 3.2, lines 15-16). Indeed, while Scripture is plain in matters of doctrine, “in some things, as in these matters of discipline, [it is] more darke and doubtfull” (Preface 3.10, lines 1-2).

It is useful here to remember that Hooker’s quarrel with English Puritans was not in their reformed theology. We saw in the previous week that Hooker admired Calvin; the Elizabethan Church of England’s theology was permeated with reformed thought. Rather, Hooker disagreed with Puritan critique of the polity of the Church of England, claiming that it indeed was corrupt. In its places, Puritans claimed that only the polity of Geneva was ordained in Scripture (Preface 3.6-9).

For the people who gathered to read this chapter, parallels with the current debates within the Anglican Communion emerged. For example, it was noted that the current debate over human sexuality might reflect a debate over practice or polity and not doctrine. Hence, following Hooker’s critique of an exclusivist reading of Scripture regarding practice ought to be heeded. Indeed, Hooker claims that Puritans who claim such exclusivist readings distort Scripture itself. Following this argument in our context, some conservative factions in the Anglican Communion who claim that acceptance of sexual diversity is a betrayal of Anglican identity might find the shoe on the other foot.

Calvin, yes. Geneva, no.

In the second meeting of our group, we managed to finish chapter two of the Preface to the Lawes. This chapter is Hooker’s explication of the development of reform in Geneva under the leadership of John Calvin. Hooker was part of a “reformed consensus” in the Church of England that accepted as an important theological voice. One only need to read the Thirty-Nine Articles to see the importance of reformed theology on the English church. Hooker himself notes that Calvin is worthy of respect for “his exceeding paynes in composing the Institutions of Christian religion” and “his no lesse industrious travailes for exposition of holy Scripture” (Preface 2.8).

Nonetheless, Hooker disagrees with the argument of English Puritans influenced by exiles who fled England and lived in Geneva due to the policies of Queen Mary I who, upon their return to England, argued that the form of church governance Calvin established in Geneva was necessary because it alone is ordained by scripture. In particular, Hooker resists the notion that lay elders could possess the power of excommunication, a power he holds only bishops are imbued with in the Church of England. In Hooker’s mind, Calvin’s efforts at reform in Geneva were well-suited to that place, but they do not translate well to an English context. “That which Calvin did for establishment of his discipline, seemeth more commendable than that which he taught for the countenancing of it established” (Preface 2.7).

Our group saw in Hooker’s argument here the continuing development of his notion of church polity as something contextual and necessarily organic. Hooker could not imagine the level of lay leadership made available in Geneva being exercised in England. It makes one wonder what he would make of vestry meetings and all other forms of lay leadership in the contemporary Episcopal Church.