David Neelands summarizes Richard Hooker’s views of predestination:
“God wills that all be saved, and offers undeserved grace to all; according to the will of God, Christ died for all. God gives grace sufficient for salvation to all, even to the obdurate, and all may resist that grace. God deals graciously, and providentially, with all and forces none. Yet not all are elect, and those who are elect are absolutely dependent on God’s grace for their salvation. The elect, though they may temporarily and totally lapse, will finally be saved. Temporary justification and obedience may be found in those who are not elect. Those not elect deserve the punishment for the vices and personal impediments they put up to God’s grace offered; God is not the cause of their ultimate damnation. Finally, the elect must not presume on election, but live in hope. They are required to attend to the universal external vocation of God and the Christian gospel, and to use the means God offers, including the sacraments in which inward grace is offered. This universal external vocation includes exhortation to virtue, which, through the grace of God, the elect achieve, and for which they are rewarded, though they are not capable of such virtue on their own.”
W. David Neelands, “Hooker and Predestination” in A Companion to Richard Hooker (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 219. (HT: Barlow)
From this above quote it’s clear that Richard Hooker believed in temporary justification. I wonder what R. Scott Clark would say about this. Is Hooker now deserving of ecclesiastical discipline, outside a confessional Reformed interpretation of the Bible and a pastoral danger? Really Scott? Are Hooker and the 39 Articles not Reformed?
I wasn’t aware that Hooker wrote the 39 Articles. It’s not obvious that they teach temporary justification is it?
The Articles are a public, ecclesiastically sanctioned document. Hooker’s works are not. Aren’t you confusing categories?
If Hooker taught what is suggested above, a claim that needs to be investigated further, then he wasn’t orthodox on that point. I don’t see why that’s earth-shattering.
I think your comment entirely misses the point. The leaders of the Reformation clearly believed and taught ideas that now considered dangerous at best and heretical at worst by those who would claim their mantle.
The English delegation which was sent by the King (Head of the Church of England) to the Synod of Dort explicitly argued that folks who teach temporary justification should not be considered unorthodox.
And they were successful in preventing Dort from condemning that position!
So the rest of the delegates agreed with them in other words?
Dan,
The non-English delegates didn’t agree with the English ones about the doctrine, but concluded that the English position was not unorthodox. In those days, one did not have to condemn everyone one disagreed with
Correct. The conclusion was that the position in question should be tolerated: http://wedgewords.wordpress.com/2007/12/14/the-view-of-the-english-delegates-at-dort-regarding-apostasy-and-the-loss-of-justification/
Hooker is Reformed, and the definitive work on that question has been done by W J Torrance Kirby. Calvin College has him listed in their “Digital Reformed Library.” Cornelius Burgess lists him among the great teachers of the English Church, alongside Cranmwer, Jewel, Perkins, Ames, and others. The whole point of the *Laws of Ecclesial Polity* is that externals in the church are not a part of the spiritual kingdom and thus no hindrance to justification. “Things indifferent” was a practical reality caused by *sola fide*.
Hooker is also just one of those pillars of the English Church. Anglicanism has never really been defined by the 39 Articles. For better or worse (and in our day it is looking like worse!), they have always been unified around the political order of England and then the culture of prayer book and liturgy. It would be like concluding that John Wayne didn’t meet the standards of what it means to be “in a Western.” Even if an “on paper” case could be made (it couldn’t in either case, of course), the existential reality would be more decisive.
That’s sort of the sense in which I meant what I was saying.
My assumption though was that Hooker, as one of the founders of Anglican thought, had views consistent with the pattern of doctrine established in the prayer book and 39 articles. Would you agree with that Steve?
Dr. Clark, I’d love to see you interact with what Wedgeworth is saying.
thebrooks,
Yes.
Hooker’s extension of justification to the non-elect is bound up in views about temporary faith (something taught by Robert Rollock to name just one “Reformed” thinker), as well as the genuine offer of the gospel, and justification by faith alone. If faith is present, even for a time, then it is sufficient to unite one to Christ.
It is not coming from a less-than Reformed tendency when it comes to grace, human ability, etc. , but rather from an extension of other bona fide Reformed commitments.
Though Hooker’s is a minority position in the wider scope of “Reformed theology,” it is by no means inconsistent or incompatible with it, and once one starts investigating figures like Richard Hooker, “Reformed theology” gets even broader, and the wider scope itself changes focus.
Actually, the Synod of Dordt did condemn the teaching of temporary justification. (It is Rejection of Error 3., under the Fifth Head: Of the Perseverance of the Saints).
Do Peter White and Anthony Milton cite a version of the Canons other than the final one?
Hi John,
White and Milton are using the final version of the Canons, as well as earlier drafts and the “commentary” found in the English documents. They are accurate in their observations of what was proposed, what was changed, and what made the final cut.
The confusion you’re finding around the 3rd error of the 5th head stems from the qualifying terms and “details,” if you will. Notice that in the error you cite the focus is on “true believers.” This is not what Hooker is addressing when he speaks of temporary justification, nor is it what the English delegation argued. Their position, or the one they defended at least, had to do with the reprobates enjoying a temporary justification for the period of time that they possessed temporary faith, and they were successful in getting that “error” deleted from the final drafts. We could say that Dort wouldn’t call such a faith “true” faith, but it nevertheless was able to enjoy certain important benefits while it existed.
This shows us that it is not the case that there are not only the two basic categories of true believers who get justification and reprobates who don’t. Rather, room was left open for the reprobates to enjoy temporary benefits while they had faith, one of these being a temporary justification. Much debate did arise over the similitude between temporary benefits and “saving” benefits. I don’t think that there is only one orthodox position in that debate. What we do have are wider parameters with the historical record of differing positions within those parameters.
I don’t understand why, especially in the last decade, there seems to be this most eager desire on the part of Protestant Evangelicals to “prove” that Richard Hooker was really a “Reformation Theologian”. Some seem satisfied to prove that Hooker’s ideas are compatible with the first principles of the Continental Reformation.
Hooker was an Anglican and most Reformation Evangelicals don’t understand what that means because they are so bound and determined to produce a Confessional Statement that answers all questions one way -the RIGHT WAY (according to their thoughts). Nothing could be more foreign to the Anglican ethos than a “Confessional Statement”.
Anglicanism is not a “method” nor style of theology, it is an ethos – a culture, whose window on the world, both ecclesiastical and secular, is rooted in the Scriptures, in an absolute sense for things required for salvation, but understood and interpreted according to the heritage of the Church thinkers and the rationality of those who know that learning is a life-long process. Neither tradition nor this rationality can conflict with Scripture, when all three are understood aright, because Scripture is itself an expression of tradition, in that the cannon, i.e., the content of the Bible, was selected by the Church, according to the rationality of faithful believers attesting to what has been believed at all times in all places by all people, confirmed by the leading of the Holy Spirit.
The Reformation did not invent these truths of the “faith once delivere”, attested to by Scripture – it re-emphasized them. So why in the world would you not expect there to be agreements between Reformation thinkers who were re-emphasizing Biblical truths of the “Faith once delivered” and Richard Hooker who claims to have always held to that faith, defending it, as he plainly does from certain ideas raised by Luther and Calvin? That the three might have agreed on some things should not surprise anyone but that that Hooker adamantly disagreed with them on other issues is plainly there to be read by anyone with the patience to brave philosophy in Elizabethan English and Hooker’s most verbose and indirect style.
As one who was raised in an Evangelical denomination and found my way to Anglicanism, it looks to me like Evangelicalism is searching for justification for its continuation apart from the more traditionally orthodox bodies, while the Holy Spirit is beginning to lead the Body of Christ seriously to examine the nature of the possibility of reconciliation as one Body. The tolerance and latitude of Anglicanism for things not necessary for salvation is quite amenable to such a future reconciliation. The discomfort and lack of tolerance for such latitude should be eschewed by Evangelicals, who want everything neatly spelled out in writing in Confessional Statements, remembering the words of Scripture from Romans 14:1 – 15:7.
In Anglicanism, and therefore, in Hooker, the teachings of the elements of faith reflected in the Nicene Creed are the irreducible minimum of the faith “one delivered”, as required for salvation – a decision made by the Church, a mere 400+ years into its 2000+ years history, before any major division of denominations had occurred. I believe that the Continental Reformation and most “orthodox” Evangelicals adhere to the elements of this creed (or most elements, at least) and did not condemn them, definitively. But that similarity doesn’t make Hooker a Reformation thinker, nor does it make him an Evangelical.
By the way, the commentator was correct that the 39 Articles have never truly “defined” Anglicanism (there is that Evangelical insistence on Confessional Statements, again). They were an Elizabethan attempt to give as much voice as possible to as wide as possible a latitude within Anglicanism, without abandoning the historical orthodoxy (catholicity) of the English Church, while attempting to satisfy the Puritans and keep them from trying to pull Elizabeth down from the throne, or weaken her power by their rejection of her. It was Elizabeth’s strong suit. The 39 Articles are worded in such a way as Evangelicals and English (not Roman) Catholics can read them and find enough of what they believe to tolerate them, for the sake of remaining “One Body” even if it required the gritting on one’s teeth and the outermost limit of charity.
That demand for charity is why we keep the 39 articles around, not because they “define” Anglicanism – there is an ironic humor here that is truly English in its ethos. Hooker needs to be read with an awareness of this ironic humor in his style. (see, for example his humorous hint at disapproval of Bible “proof texting” of positions already prejudicially held – see his PREFACE TO ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY, Ch II, #7, beginning at the second paragraph: “But wise men are men…”.
Ultimately, Anglicanism is defined by a dogmatic requirement of belief only in the elements of the Nicene and Athanasius creed (a long affirmation of the fact and nature of the Trinity, along with denials of all possible “misinterpretations” of the doctrine), the centrality of the Eucharist (Holy Communion, Lord’s Supper )as the worship when the Church is most The Church in her action, prayers and praise, and the Prayer Book style worship (with wide variety for forms). An old saying in Anglicanism “lex orandi, lex credendi” – “the law belief is the law of prayer” or “what we believe is what we pray”, not what is written in the 39 Articles, or any other “Confessional Statement”.
Rather than a sentence in some Confessional Statement that “We believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God”, the focus and place and respect given the Scriptures in Anglican worship, such as standing and signing ourselves with the sign of the cross at the Gospel reading and formally pronouncing “This is the Word of the Lord” at other readings shows the preeminent place given to scripture in Anglicanism.
As Hooker put it: “What Scripture doth plainly deliver, to that the first place both of credit and obedience is due; the next whereunto is whatsoever any man can necessarily conclude from force of reason, after these the voice of the Church succeedeth.” (Book V, Ch 8, paragraph 2 – 7 lines from the end) This is one of the sources of unfortunate name “Three Legged Stool” often given to his method which his writings virtually breath forth. Hooker never used the name and would no doubt have rejected it, owing to the equality of the strength of the three elements suggested by the metaphor. His writings make it very clear he indented no such equality and that, while not “Sola Scriptura” of the Reformation, for Hooker and Anglicanism, it is “Prima Scriptura”.
Mr. Biddle,
Thank you for your extensive thoughts! While I don’t have time at the moment to engage in the particulars, I would suggest, regarding the broader claim of whether Richard Hooker and the Anglicanism he expresses is “Reformed” or “Reformational”, that you consider the work of my friends at the following places:
The Calvinist International
The Sword and the Ploughshare
The Two Kingdoms: A Guide for the Perplexed—Pt. 4: Richard Hooker
That last link especially might provide some food for thought.