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The Architecture of Participation in the Thought of Richard Hooker

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The Architecture of Participation in the Thought of Richard Hooker Durham E-Theses The Architecture of Participation in the Thought of Richard Hooker DOMINIAK, PAUL,ANTHONY How to cite: DOMINIAK, PAUL,ANTHONY (2017) The Architecture of Participation in the Thought of Richard Hooker, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12155/ Use policy This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 2.0 UK: England & Wales (CC BY-NC-ND) Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk THE ARCHITECTURE OF PARTICIPATION IN THE THOUGHT OF RICHARD HOOKER BY PAUL ANTHONY DOMINIAK SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM DEPARTMENT OF THEOLOGY AND RELIGION 2017 Abstract This thesis explores how the metaphysical concept of participation shapes and informs Richard Hooker’s apology for the Elizabethan Settlement in Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Polity. While scholars have long noted the presence of participatory language in selected passages of Hooker’s Lawes, the implicit ways in which participation structures the metaphysical, epistemological, and political arguments across the work have never been uncovered or explored. Accordingly, this work shows how Hooker uses the architectural framework of ‘participation in God’ in order systematically to build his cohesive vision of the Elizabethan Church. This study shows how Hooker’s account of participation thereby deflates the range of modern accusations that the Lawe is an incoherent work. It also illuminates, critiques, and opens up ecumenical and theological possibilities as part of a modern theological ressourcement of participatory metaphysics. This thesis therefore explores the gestures between Hooker’s metaphysics, epistemology, and political vision in turn. The thesis first outlines as a heuristic device the ‘architecture of participation’ (the constituent ideas and themes which make up the polyvalent possibilities of the term) through which Hooker’s thought can be best understood. In the second chapter, this thesis explores two ‘mini-treatises’ in the Lawes that together reflect Hooker’s basic architecture of participation: the suspension of creation from God through the system of laws sharing in eternal law; and the redemption of creation through sacramental participation in Christ. The third chapter unveils how Hooker’s architecture of participation establishes a certain homology between his ontology and subsequent epistemology. As Hooker responds to his opponents in the Lawes, reason and desire emerge from the architecture of participation to become the constellating categories for a mixed cognitive ecology which circumscribes both natural and supernatural forms of cognitive participation in God. The fourth chapter investigates how the last three so-called ‘books of power’ in the Lawes represent a closing movement from the ‘general meditations’ of earlier books to the disputed ‘particular decisions’ of the Tudor polity, namely episcopacy and lay ecclesiastical supremacy. The chapter explains how the architecture of participation yields the substructure upon which Hooker constructs his political ecclesiology. The closing chapter addresses directly the opening provocations, arguing that Hooker’s architecture of participation provides a series of related gestures showing the logical and coherent connections in his thought that make him a systematic theologian of a particular type. i Statement of Copyright The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation of it should be published in any format, including electronic, without the author’s prior written consent. All information derived from this thesis must be acknowledged appropriately. ii Declaration This work has been submitted to the University of Durham in accordance with the regulations for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. It is my own work, and no part of it has been previously submitted to the University of Durham or in any other university for a degree. iii Contents Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………...i Statement of Copyright………………………………………………………………………..ii Declaration……………………………………………………………………………………iii Contents……………………………………………………………………………………….iv Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………....…vii A Note on References to the Works of Richard Hooker……..……………………………...viii A Note on Theological Labels.…..........……………………………………………………....ix Chapters 1. ‘The participation of God himselfe’: Hooker and the Recovery of Participation ......... 1 1.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 The Ecumenical Retrieval of ‘Participation in God’ ........................................................... 2 1.2.1 Defining ‘Participation’ and ‘Deification’ ........................................................................ 3 1.2.2 The Architecture of Participation.................................................................................... 10 1.2.3 The Recovery of ‘Participation in God’.......................................................................... 17 1.3 Participation in Hooker’s Thought: Problems and Prospects ............................................ 25 1.3.1 Studies of participation in Hooker’s Thought ................................................................. 28 1.3.2 Coherency and Systematicity in Hooker’s Thought ....................................................... 33 1.3.3 Hermenutical Principles .................................................................................................. 37 1.3.4 Structure .......................................................................................................................... 46 2. ‘Most abundant vertue’: Hooker’s metaphysical architecture of participation .......... 48 2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 48 2.2 ‘The father of lights’: law and extensive participation in God .......................................... 51 2.2.1 ‘After a sort’: the analogy of law .................................................................................... 53 2.2.2 ‘Her voice the harmony of the world’: participating eternal law.................................... 57 2.2.3 ‘From the footstoole to the throne’: natural law and the logic of desire ......................... 67 2.2.4 ‘A way mysticall and supernaturall’: divine law and the logic of desire ........................ 81 2.3 ‘Partakers of him in Christ’: intensive participation in God and deification ..................... 85 2.3.1 ‘God hath deified our nature’: God in Christ .................................................................. 88 iv 2.3.2 ‘The participation of divine nature’: Christ in us............................................................ 93 2.3.3 ‘Participation of Christ’: sacramental participation ........................................................ 98 2.4 ‘Bugs wordes’: the twin Platonisms and and participation in Christ ............................... 104 2.4.1 ‘This the waie of nature, this the waie of grace’: Hooker on nature and grace ............ 107 2.4.2 ‘The woord or Wisdom of God’: Christ the key ........................................................... 113 3. ‘A drop of that unemptiable fountain of wisdom’: cognitive participation in God ... 123 3.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 123 3.2 ‘The light of reason’: natural cognitive participation in God .......................................... 127 3.2.1 ‘After a sort’: analogy and cognitive participation in God ........................................... 129 3.2.2 ‘Principall cause’: natural and divine vertices of cognitive participation ..................... 134 3.2.3 ‘Meere natural men’: the character of natural cognitive participation in God ............. 141 3.3 ‘Supernaturall endowmentes’: supernatural cognitive participation in God ................... 146 3.3.1 ‘The light of some higher knowledge’: subalternation and theological science ........... 147 3.3.2 ‘The power of the holy goste’: autopistos and reason .................................................. 159 3.4 ‘Union with that it desireth’: desire and cognitive participation in God ......................... 176 3.4.1 ‘To covet more or lesse the participation of God himselfe’: the logic of desire .......... 177 3.4.2 ‘It is good for me to cleave to God’: desire and faith ................................................... 188 3.4.3 ‘His heavenly inspirations and our holie desires’: the theurgic manuduction of desire 195 3.5 ‘That unemptiable fountaine of wisdom’: Christ as the key to participated wisdom ...... 202 4. ‘Politique societie’: the politics of participation ............................................................ 208 4.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 208 4.2 ‘A societie and a societie supernaturall’: the participatory grammar of the Church ....... 213 4.2.1 ‘Visible’ and ‘mysticall’: the dual aspect of the Church .............................................. 213 4.2.2 ‘Of all good things’: the bishop as godly hierarch ........................................................ 226 4.3 ‘Lovingly dwell together in one subject’: royal supremacy
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