festival. My friend was startled to see him dressed as a Pilgrim Father. He remarked, somewhat in jest, “Why are you dressed as the enemy?” The little boy, justifiably confused having thought his father would be proud of him, burst into tears.
Hooker as well considered Puritans the opposition, if not the enemy. We cannot go into all of Hooker’s thought at this point, but it is important to understand what he said about authority. The Puritans taught that the Scriptures provided a certainty that transcended all other certainty, including reason, which reason they wished to confine to “science” (i.e., all forms of human learning). They believed that the Scriptures must be read for themselves and devoid of subsequent interpretation, namely, tradition. Hooker’s answer to this was that the Scriptures were read apart from reason and tradition and were subject to all kinds of private interpretations, which would of necessity be biased.
Hence, Hooker articulates for Anglicanism its answer to the question of what is our authority. Our authority is the association of Scripture, tradition and reason. Subsequent commentators have spoken of this as a “three-legged stool.” If one removes a leg, any leg, the stool topples.
The threefold nature of authority — Scripture, tradition and reason — is not original with Hooker; but sixteenth century Anglicanism felt no compulsion to make claims of originality, since it conceived of itself as the continuing Catholic Church in England. This same notion of authority can be found in the teachings of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), a prominent theologian. It is certainly consistent with Augustine (354-430). It is, in fact, how any theologian — including those who argue against it — thinks. The theologian consults the texts, he sees what others have said, and he concludes in the light of the present understanding of reality what is the reasonable interpretation.
The balance of this chapter is a commentary on this principle of authority.
First, I wish to begin not with Scripture, but with what is most controversial, namely reason. Lest the reader concludes that the centrality of reason contradicts the point made about thinking with the left hand in the previous chapter, it needs to be understood that reason is more than that of analysis or logic. It refers to the power of the human mind to discern truth and this can be intuitive as well as rational.
Hooker believed that the cosmos was an unfolding of the mind of God in a hierarchy of orders or structures. This means that all of creation participates to a degree in the mind of God, including humanity. The reason of God reaches into the mind of humanity or is placed there like a “seed.” To abide with God is for God’s grace to illumine our reason until it fully participates in the divine reason. This is found in Greek philosophy, and is clearly stated for the Christian in the fourth century by Gregory of Nyssa (330-395), who says our guardian angel is a brother to our intellect. Paul apparently had this in mind when he wrote, “My knowledge now is partial; then it will be whole, like God’s knowledge of me.” (I Corinthians 13:12). This is all a way of saying that the created order reflects the mind of God, which is discernable to human reason.
Hooker argued this as any person of his times would beginning with the nature of God and moving then to humanity. God is a reasonable creator, he said, and therefore this is evident in what he creates. We today turn this around and say that the mind is the only way we have of transcending our own personal limitations and of making contact with God. In fact, the first thing we attribute to God is mentality. We conclude that God thinks. In this way we begin with humanity and move to God, but like Hooker we believe that by means of our reason we participate in the mind of God.
This is the basis for what is called natural theology. Natural theology holds that humankind can know God to a degree by observing nature, i.e., creation (including ourselves). It is the basis for believing that non-Christians have a certain knowledge of God. It is the reason why Anglicanism does not reject the human sciences, such as biology, geology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, as sources of the knowledge of God. The general principle is, we believe, that there is a continuity between nature and supernature. It is not to say that by the power of our reason we can come to a saving (i.e., one that makes us whole) knowledge of God. Revelation is necessary, as we shall see. Furthermore, we are brought into relationship with God by divine initiative, not by our efforts. The natural world in our thinking is not set over against the divine world. There is no radical discontinuity between God and his creation. Another way of putting this is to say that, contrary to the Reformed tradition, we emphasize the immanence of God as well as his transcendence.
This commitment to reason is perhaps most evident in our attitude toward the “free market place of ideas.” Tests of orthodoxy, heresy trial, censorship of thought and such are generally alien to the Anglican ethos. Our belief is that a sincere pursuit of truth, done collaboratively, ultimately opens us to the mind of God. It is a spiritual exercise, to which God speaks for those willing to hear. For example, if I pursue rationally the study of psychology I believe that it will ultimately lead me to a deeper knowledge of God.
Secondly, in regard to the Scriptures, I will want only to speak to their authority in association with reason and tradition.
God’s revelation is his self-disclosure. The best analogy of God’s revelation is what occurs between two lovers. It is a personal sharing at the deepest possible level. Paul speaks of the relationship between Christ and the church as the relationship between a husband and wife (Ephesians 5:23-33). The Bible is the church’s book and is the record of the personal revelation of God to humanity. The canon of Scripture — i.e., the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament, the fourteen of the Apocrypha and the twenty-seven of the New Testament — is the canon not because of any intrinsic quality of those books, but because the church says it is the canon.
The word “canon” comes from the Latin, meaning something by which you measure (e.g., a twelve-inch ruler). So the canon of Scripture is the standard, prescribed by the church, by which the belief of the church is confronted and measured. It is the normative source for understanding God’s revelation. What is essential to comprehending God’s ways with humanity is there. All Christian teaching and reflection begins there. This is why the Anglican Church has always taught that nothing should be taught contrary to Scripture.
To say that nothing should be taught contrary to Scripture is very different, however, from saying that only what is in Scripture shall be taught. Often Protestantism implies, if not expressly affirms, the latter. This is particularly a problem when Scripture is thought to transcend reason. People get into all kinds of binds. Some handle snakes and drink poison on the authority of the later ending of Mark’s Gospel, while others will not allow the use of pipe organs in worship because the Scripture makes no mention of them. A more subtle effort is the attempt to develop a New Testament form of church government, such as Hooker’s adversaries claimed to do (i.e., Presbyterianism).
Scripture for the Anglican is a fundamental source of authority for the church; but apart from reason it is dangerous. It becomes the mirror for the misdirected person to project his or her own opinions and give them the authority of God. The sin of schism is the result.
Thirdly, the Scripture must also be read in the awareness that everyone embodies his or her past and community, that is, their tradition. We cannot escape it. Hooker was skeptical of Puritan individualism, which seemed to miss this truth. The reading of Scripture is something to be done collectively in the light of the tradition. In fact, one way of thinking of the Scriptures is as normative tradition.
“To tradition” means to pass down from generation to generation within the community the church’s lore, that is, her understanding of God’s ways with humanity. The tradition is the product of the ongoing reflection by the church of her experience of God, and consequently it is a living, changing body of thought. It was out of this reflection that over a period of maybe three hundred years the canon of the Bible emerged, and the continuing tradition remains the context in which the Scriptures are to be interpreted.
The canon
