The Laws of Richard Hooker, Part 3

Book II of Hooker’s Laws turns to a more specific polemic against the party of early Puritans, especially the Presbyterian Thomas Cartwright, who is often directly quoted by Hooker in order to offer his own replies. He summarized the two views in this way:

“For whereas God has left many different kinds of laws to men, those with whom we are disputing hold that only one Law, the Scripture, must be the rule to direct all things, even something as simple as ‘taking up a rush or straw.’”1

In short, he found his opponents to be biblicists. And even if a thoroughgoing study of some student or master of historical theology could establish that, actually, Hooker was in the wrong or that the arguments of Cartwright were better than he let on—even if such could be shown, this classic of Anglicanism would still be of immense profit for highlighting the problems inherent to a biblicist approach.

Well before there was a “regulative principle” codified in our standards, Hooker wrote of its precursor as a wider matter of interpretation:

“I have discovered that the central pillar of all their arguments for changing the church government of England is this: Scripture is a rule for human actions such that whatever we do without its clear command is sin.”2

The Point of Principles and the Way of Wisdom

Hooker seems to give a principle fitting to the whole of epistemology, but it can be no less true in theologizing, no less true in applying the rule of faith to exegesis: “In all areas of knowledge, the most general principles are the most reliable. After all, our certainty about particular matters depends on the credibility of the general principles upon which they are based.”3

The reader, especially if he finds himself very much on the Presbyterian side of things (as I do), may ask: Can we agree with Hooker’s hermeneutics and disagree with his exegetical conclusion? My own answer would be in the affirmative. On this very question that was at controversy, we will agree with the Presbyterian doctrine of church government, though perhaps come to agree with Hooker to see some amount of biblicism in their rationale. We may even come to recognize similar reasoning in those with whom we serve, and which has not done good service to our cause. One clear value of this balance is to always be improving our case for Presbyterianism.

Cartwright made an argument from Proverbs 2:9 (and an analogous one is traced out from 2 Timothy 3:16-17) that the wisdom that comes from God in Scripture applies to all things, such that whatever thing it is, one should look to Scripture in order to specify its right way. Solomon's words “every good path” (Prov. 2:9), or Paul's, “all Scripture ... for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16, 17), can have either general or specific application, either universal or particular; and Hooker seems to set forth their logic, though not in a strict syllogism. We might retrace their steps as follows:

1. All good ways are wisdom-instructed.
2. All the wisdom-instructed are Scripture-expressed.
∴ All good ways are Scripture-expressed.

How does Hooker respond to this reasoning? First, “There are as many ways to do well as there are voluntary actions ... [and so] demonstrate wisdom.” Second, “If St. Paul ... meant to say that Scripture taught all forms of well-doing without exception, limit, or distinction, Scripture would have to teach every conceivable art, since every art teaches how to do something well or badly.”4

Speaking of other paths through which wisdom works, Hooker supplies yet another natural law proof text that is not usually considered. He cites 1 Peter 2:12 about the Gentiles beholding our good works, “Since this would have been impossible if pagans could not have seen when believers lived virtuously and glorified their heavenly Father, it must be the case that some things which glorify God may be known by something other than Scripture. After all, the Gentiles were completely ignorant of Scripture and yet they could rightly judge the quality of Christian men’s actions.”5

Then Hooker gives an excellent summary of the diverse ways of wisdom.

“Wisdom teaches men every good way, but she does not teach every good way in the same way. Whatever men or angels know is a mere drop of her inexhaustible fountain, and she has scattered her treasures throughout the whole world in various ways. And as her ways are manifold, so are the different ways she teaches. Some things she reveals to us by the sacred books of Scripture and others by the glorious works of nature. She teaches some things by a spiritual influence from above, and others only through experience and practice in the world. We must not so admire one of her ways of working that we disgrace her in another, but rather let us adore all her ways as best fits their place and degree.”6

A Few Other Strained Texts and the Argument from Silence

The party of Cartwright also utilized such passages as 1 Corinthians 10:31, 1 Timothy 4:5, and Romans 14:23 to make roughly the same point.

Hooker's reply to the “whatever you do” principle of 1 Corinthians 10:31 is sound, and roughly for the same reason as what he said about the diverse ways of wisdom regarding Proverbs 2:9 and 2 Timothy 3:16-17. However, the argument that some things are done “naturally” and “without expressed intent,” while exposing the same pedantic presbyterianism as in the first objection, nonetheless goes too far. By Hooker’s own admission, “We glorify God, not only by what we do morally and spiritually, but also by those things which we do naturally.”7

But if that is true, and Hooker (and presumably his reader now) can be conscious of that, then it follows that the natural can also often be the conscious, the voluntary, the improved toward the greater end of God's glory. That said, getting back to the real point of disagreement, he rightly adds, “Still, we can do this, consciously willing to obey His law, even when there is no specific place or verse in Scripture in front of us to justify the action.”8

Whether all things have to be “sanctified by the word of God” (per 1 Timothy 4:5), Hooker replies that this is not enough to prove the point. The context is about clean and unclean foods and the ceremonial law.9 Where it is universal, it is a universal strike against Gnosticism; but that does not prescribe a universal application on the other side of the coin. 

What is Hooker’s reply to their case from Romans 14:23? It is simply that it is a non-sequitur. Cartwright's logic is reproduced first: "Since faith is always directed toward the Word of God, whatever is not done in obedience to the Word of God is sin” (A Replye, 27). Note that this also involves an equivocation, as Hooker mentions, “when defining faith or belief, we are not narrowly restricted to Scripture; rather, whatever we are persuaded of, we are said to believe.”10

But they go further: “They continue to argue that ‘wherever faith is lacking, there is sin,’ and that ‘every action without a command lacks faith’ and therefore ‘there is sin in every action not commanded’” (Cartwright, Second Replie, 58).

Hooker responds as follows: “I would first ask them how any action can be indifferent in this case, since a thing indifferent by definition is neither commanded nor forbidden, but is left free to discretion.”11 But secondly, no real criteria has really been offered; in other words, “what things God permits with His approval, and how we can recognize them.”12

A second kind of argument emerges from the biblicist camp: the Scriptural argument from Scripture’s silence. In other words, there are passages where Scripture itself brings a correction on the basis that such and such had not been revealed, whether by precept, command, or example. What are some examples of this?

Hooker references Hebrews 1, where it is argued “that God has in Scripture often praised the excellence of angels, yet nowhere does He speak as highly of them as He does of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ; therefore, they are not equal in dignity.”13 Jeremiah, more than once, argues in effect, about Israel, “He certainly did not command them to burn their sons in fire to Baal, nor did any such thing enter into His mind, and therefore they should not have done it.”14 Or again, in 1 Chronicles 17, “In all places wherein I have walked with all Israel, spake I a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to be shepherd of my people, saying, ‘Why have ye not built me a house of cedar?’” (vv. 4, 6). The last two examples he uses are Isaiah 30:1-2 where God had not commanded Israel to ally with Egypt, and Joshua 9:14 where Israel has not inquired with God about an alliance with the Gibeonites.15

What then was wrong with Cartwright’s use of scriptural arguments from silence? Hooker wrote,

“However, such examples hardly justify that arguments from silence from Scripture can be used as our opponents seek to do. For in these examples, where was anyone ever blamed for sin by intending to do anything which Scripture did not command? We are asking whether it is always sinful to act without discretion from Scripture, not whether the Israelites ever sinned by following their own minds without taking counsel of God.”16

Human and Divine Authorities Properly Situated

The final two chapters of Book II are entitled, “The Proper Weight of Human Authority” (7) and “The Right Way to Understand the Authority of Scripture” (8). Before the biblicists go off to overthrow any viewpoint accepted on the authority of mere men, Hooker draws our attention to what that means: “By ‘man’s authority,’ we mean simply whatever force one man's words have in offering another man firm grounds for his belief.” He then proceeds to show three examples from Scripture: “as the apostle grounded his belief on the report of the house of Chloe (1 Cor. 1:11) and as the Samaritans did—in a matter of far greater importance—on the report of a single woman, for it is said in St. John's Gospel that ‘many of the Samaritans believed on him because of the word of the woman, who testified, ‘He told me all things that ever I did (Jn. 4:39).

Does not the Law say that ‘at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall a matter be established’ (Dt. 19:15)? The Law of God would not say this if man’s testimony had no force to prove anything at all.”17

Even in the case of accepting what we all agree God has said, nevertheless, “The Scripture cannot teach us the things of God, unless we can trust men who teach us what the words of Scripture signify.”18 A most hardened biblicist would not be impressed by this argument; though he should, since he is a mere man and one that is in act of trying to persuade his antagonist of what Scripture signifies! Hooker later psychologizes the argument against human authority as natural and selective. In other words, we tend to allow authorities when they confirm our position, and vice-versa.

Now when the criterion of the biblicist becomes more solidified, the authority of man will be allowed in mundane matters, but not with respect to divine truth. But Hooker insists, “the very same reason which proves that [human testimonies] have some force in the former also shows that they are not altogether without use in the latter.”19

In another statement that can apply to apologetic method as much as to exegesis, Hooker says,

“I grant that proof derived from the authority of human judgment cannot assure us as much as one derived from a stronger proof … However, when we lack an infallible proof, the mind prefers to follow probable arguments rather than to embrace claims for no good reason at all.”20

Aside from this there is the matter of reason’s judgment concerning proof texts. Even if all parties agree to prefer divine authority over each and every matter, Hooker points out our common experience about the party at which we are at odds: “that some of the things which they maintain, as far as some men can conjecture as probable, do at least seem to have been not altogether unreasonably gathered from Scripture.”21

What proof text tells in explicit words whether the party’s interpretation of another proof text is valid and sound? What proof text reconciles the two seemingly conflicting proof texts? What proof text rules on which party’s proof texts are more relevant to the point at hand? Again, this is no deficiency in Scripture. Hooker was simply showing that it is, well, not that simple.

In all these things “the absolute perfection of Scripture must be understood in relation to the purpose for which it was written.”22 This evokes the sola Scriptura principle, and begs the question as to who, following the Reformation, have been its best proponents, or else, who subjects it to the grossest caricature, or who might even revise it or discard it altogether. Hooker’s closing statement is his clearest along those lines:

“There are two opinions concerning the sufficiency of Holy Scripture, each opposite to the other, but both repugnant to the truth. Rome teaches Scripture to be so insufficient that, without adding traditions, it would not contain all revealed and supernatural truth necessary for salvation. Others, rightly condemning this view, fall into the opposite ditch—just as dangerous—thinking that Scripture contains not only all things necessary for salvation, but indeed simply all things, such that to do anything according to any other law is not only unnecessary to salvation but unlawful, sinful, and downright damnable.”23

We could pick at the sense he gives to “just as dangerous,” not to mention the potential additional mischief loaded into the dichotomy between “salvation” and “all things.” But if we allow some rhetorical flexibility, it is a good enough summary of the extremes.

To paraphrase much of what was said in these chapters, whether by “law” is meant authority, testimony, principle, or literal law (as in a civil code), the Scriptures both assume and sometimes even model and even command all of this. It is nothing short of pedantic or even insane to insist that in order to hold Scripture’s authority as supreme (or God’s law above all others) that one must wait until the express words of the Bible are replicated in these others. Again, even where I will disagree with the Anglicanism that this classic seeks to uphold, its value lies in developing criteria for recognizing biblicism and overcoming it.

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1. Hooker, Laws, II.1.2

2. Laws, II.1.3

3. Laws, II.1.3

4. Laws, II.1.4

5. Laws, II.2.3

6. Laws, II.1.4

7. Laws, II.2.1

8. Laws, II.2.2

9. Laws, II.3

10. Laws, II.4.1

11. Laws, II.4.3

12. Laws, II.4.4

13. Laws, II.6.1

14. Laws, II.6.2

15. Laws, II.6.3

16. Laws, II.6.3

17. Laws, II.7.2

18. Laws, II.7.3

19. Laws, II.7.4

20. Laws, II.7.5

21. Laws, II.7.9

22. Laws, II.8.5

23. Laws, II.8.7