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This book explores key aspects of Richard Hooker's philosophical and theological discourse in the context of currents of thought prevalent in the 'Magisterial Reformation' of the sixteenth century. Hooker's treatment of natural law, his dependence upon the philosophical discourse and traditional cosmology of Christian Neoplatonism, and his appeal to the authority of patristic sources, are all closely examined. Challenging the received 'exceptionalist' model of much of the twentieth-century interpretation of Hooker, in particular the concept of his supposed defence of the English Reformation as striking a 'via media' between Rome and mainstream Protestant reform, W.J. Torrance Kirby argues that Hooker adheres to principles of 'magisterial' reform while building upon the assumptions of a distinctively Protestant version of Platonism.
List of contents
Chapter 1 An Introduction to the Life and Thought of Richard Hooker; Chapter 2 Polemics and Apologetics: the Case for Magisterial Reform 1 This chapter first appeared in a book of essays published to mark the quatercentenary of the first edition of the Lawes. See Richard Hooker and the Construction of Christian Community, ed. A.S. McGrade, pp. 219-33.; Chapter 3 Grace and Hierarchy: Hooker's Two Christian Platonisms; Chapter 4 Creation and Government: Mediation of the 'Aeternall Law'; Chapter 5 Reason and Natural Law: the ' Duplex Cognitio Dei ' 1 This paper was read at the annual meeting of the Society of Christian Ethics held in Cincinnati in January 1997.; Chapter 6 : 22-39.; Chapter 7 Common Prayer and Commonwealth: 'Publique Religion';
About the author
W.J. Torrance Kirby is Associate Professor of Church History at McGill University, Canada.
