Law, Sit Up Higher: Richard Hooker and the Natural Law, Part 15

THE PERFECT HAPPINESS THAT MAN SEEKS is ultimately supernaturally fulfilled, though, as we discussed in the last blog entry, Hooker sees in this natural yearning, the natural predispositions or clues of a supernatural answer. What is certain is that nothing man can do, in so far as his nature is concerned, either individually or in community, can seem to assuage this dissatisfaction with the goods of this world. Nothing can shut up the ennui that is so prevalent in man, indeed universally found in him.

This perfection is however within man's grasp, though not exclusively or even principally as a result of his own effort, though his individual effort is not to be neglected as a factor in bringing it about. "This last and highest estate of perfection . . . is received of men in the nature of a reward." I.11.5, 115. The fact that this perfection is in nature of a reward raises the issue of duty, as "[r]ewards do always presuppose such duties performed as are rewardable." I.11.5, 115.

What then is the relationship between man's natural powers, and the supernatural destiny in the form of reward for compliance with duty which betokens perfect happiness? This is what Hooker addresses next, and his answer is decidedly not that of the Protestant Reformers. His vision is decidedly more Catholic than the novel view put forth by the presbyterian Calvinists and the still-inchoate Puritans against whom he directed his great work, his magnum opus.

Our natural means therefore unto blessedness are our works: nor is it possible that nature should ever find any other way to salvation than only this. But examine the works which we do and since the first foundation of the world what one can say. My ways are pure? Seeing that all flesh is guilty of that for which God has threatened eternally to punish, what possibility is there this way to be saved?

I.11.15, 115-16. Man's works alone appear ineffective to admit him into eternal bliss following death, as man cannot overcome the impurity that always attends to them. So man faces a quandary. Either there is no salvation, or salvation comes from another source other than man:

There rests therefore either no way unto salvation, or if any, then surely a way which is supernatural, a way which could never have entered into the heart of man as much as once to conceive or imagine, if God himself had not revealed it extraordinarily.

I.11.15, 116. Since salvation is not a naturally-derived or reason-derived truth, but one revealed by God, it is properly denominated a "mystery or secret way of salvation." I.11.15, 116. Here, Hooker invokes the Catholic bishop of Milan, St. Ambrose, and, even more extensively, the "Christian Cicero" (Lucius Caelius Firmianus) Lactantius (ca. 240-320 A.D.):

Coeli mysterium doceat me Deus qui condidit, non homo qui seipsum ignoravit

Let God himself that made me, let not man that knows not himself, be my instructor concerning the mystical way to heaven.

So Ambrose (Epistle 18, against Symmachus).

[1] Magno et excellenti ingenio viri, cum se doctrinae penitus dedidissent, quicquid laboris poterat impendi (contemptis omnibus et privatis et publicis actionibus) ad inquirendae veritatis studium contulerunt, existimantes multo esse praeclarius humanarum divinarumque rerum investigare ac scire rationem, quam struendis opibus aut cumulandis honoribus inhaerere. . . . [5] Sed neque adepti sunt id quod volebant, et operam simul atque industriam perdiderunt: quia veritas, id est arcanum summi Dei qui fecit omnia, ingenio ac propriis sensibus non potest comprehendi. Alioqui nihil inter Deum hominemque distaret, si consilia et dispositiones illius majestatis aeternae cogitatio assequeretur humana. [6] Quod quia fieri non potuit ut homini per seipsum ratio divina notesceret, non est passus hominem Deus lumen sapientiae requirentem diutius aberrare, ac sine ullo laboris effectu vagari per tenebras inextricabiles. Aperuit oculos ejus aliquando, et notionem veritatis munus suum fecit, ut et humanam sapientiam nullam esse monstraret, et erranti ac vago viam consequenae immortalitatis ostenderet.

Men of great and distinguished talent, when they had entirely devoted themselves to learning, holding in contempt all actions both private and public, applied to the pursuit of investigating the truth whatever labour could be bestowed upon it; thinking it much more excellent to investigate and know the method of human and divine things, than to be entirely occupied with the heaping up of riches or the accumulation of honours. . . . But they did not obtain the object of their wish, and at the same time lost their labour and industry; because the truth, that is the secret of the Most High God, who created all things, cannot be attained by our own ability and perceptions. Otherwise there would be no difference between God and man, if human thought could reach to the counsels and arrangements of that eternal majesty. And because it was impossible that the divine method of procedure should become known to man by his own efforts, God did not suffer man any longer to err in search of the light of wisdom, and to wander through inextricable darkness without any result of his labour, but at length opened his eyes, and made the investigation of the truth His own gift, so that He might show the nothingness of human wisdom, and point out to man wandering in error the way of obtaining immortality.

So Lactantius in his Divine Institutes (I.1)

(Note: the translation of Lactantius is not Hooker's, but is taken from Vol. 7 of the Anti-Nicene Fathers, trans. William Fletcher.)

"Saint Ambrose," Hooker summarizes, "appeals justly from man to God." Lactantius, Hooker continues, shows "that God himself is the teach of the truth, whereby is made known the supernatural way of salvation and law for them to live in that shall be saved." I.11.5, 116, 117. Thus fitted together through the words of Ambrose and Lactantius we find two parts of the mystery, the puzzle as it were, the up and down climax, the κλῖμαξ, the scala, the Jacob's ladder of salvation. Man must seek up to God for answer, and God graciously merciful and mercifully gracious, in an emptying out of Himself, a kenosis (κένωσις), comes down in response.

Title Page of Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie

Salvation may be described as a "path" or "way," with a beginning and end, with a natural aspect and a supernatural aspect. At the beginning lies the natural law, the law of reason, with which man is imbued as a part of his creation. At the end is judgment and God's justice.

In the natural path of everlasting life the first beginning is that habitability of doing good, which God in the day of man's creation indued him with; from hence obedience unto the will of his creator, absolute righteousness and integrity in all his actions; and last of all the justice of God rewarding the worthiness of his deserts with the crown of eternal glory.

I.11.5, 117.

Before the Fall, mankind's destiny would have been the Light of Glory: "Had Adam continued in his first estate [i.e., before the Fall], this had been the way of life unto him and all his posterity." I.11.5, 117. But Hooker agrees with Duns Scotus that man's pre-lapsarian destiny was not merited through strict merit, but merited only through the superabundant graciousness of the all-giving God:

If we speak of strict justice, God would no way have been bound to requite man's labors in so large and ample a manner as human felicity does import; inasmuch as the dignity of this exceeds so far the other's value. But be it that God of his great liberality had determined in lieu of man's endeavors to bestow the same, by the rule of that justice which beseems him, namely the justice of one that requires nothing mincingly, but all with pressed and heaped and even over-enlarged measure; yet could it never hereupon necessarily be gathered, that such justice should add to the nature of that reward the property of everlasting continuance; in truth, possession of bliss, though should be but for a moment, were an abundant retribution.

Loquendo de stricta justitia, Deus nulli nostrum propter qaecunque merita est debitor perfectionis reddendae tam intensae, propter immoderatum excessum illius perfectionis ultra illa merita. Sed esto quod ex liberalitate sua determinasset meritis conferre actum tam perfectum tanquam praemium, tali quidem justitia qualis decet eum, scilicet supererogantis in praemiis: tamen non sequitur ex hoc necessario, quod per illam justitiam sit reddenda perfectio perennis tanquam praemium, imo abundans fieret retributio in beatitudine unius momenti.

I.11.5, 117-18 (citing John Duns Scotus, lib.4, Sent. dist. 49.6). Be that issue as it may, the path available to man in his "first estate," that is, before the Fall, is simply foreclosed to us, to "all flesh." I.11.6, 118. Whatever reward was proposed by God, required that its prerequisites be fulfilled, and those were not. "[W]e failing in the one, it were in nature an impossibility that the other should be looked for. The light of nature is never able to find out any way of obtaining the reward of bliss, but by performing exactly the duties and works of righteousness." I.11.5, 118.

So how does man get out of the cul-de-sac in which he finds himself following Adam's original sin?

[B]ehold how the wisdom of God has revealed a way mystical and supernatural, a way directing unto the same end of life by a course which grounds itelf upon the guiltiness of sin, and through sin desert of condemnation and death. For in this way the first thing is the tender compassion of God respecting us drowned and swallowed up in mystery; the next is redemption out of the same by the precious death and merit of a mighty Savor, which has witnessed of himself saying, 'I am the way,' the way that leads us from misery unto bliss. This supernatural way had God in himself prepared before all worlds.

I.11.6, 118. This way out is all God's doing, none of it man's. And yet, we are not for that to assume that man plays no part, that he is a passive recipient, of God's generosity. "Not that God does require nothing unto happiness at the hands of men saving only a naked belief (for hope and charity we may not exclude) . . . " I.11.6, 118. And yet, without minimizing the necessity of hope and faith, belief is a sine qua non of the economy of salvation since "without belief all other things are as nothing." I.11.6, 118. Belief, that is Faith, is the "ground of those other virtues," of Hope and Faith.

Faith's principal object is the eternal truth which we find in the treasures of hidden wisdom in Christ. Hope's highest object is the everlasting goodness by which Christ brings life to the dead. Charity's object is "that incomprehensible beauty which shines in the countenance [face] of Christ the son of the living God." I.11.6, 119.

These three theological virtues enjoy a development, perhaps better, a virtual transfiguration, between life here, and the life hereafter. Faith begins in this world "with a weak apprehension of things not seen." It ends with "the intuitive vision of God in the world to come." Hope begins on earth as a "trembling expectation of things far removed, and as yet but only heard of." Hope ends, however, "with the real and actual fruition of that which no tongue can express." Charity begins with a "weak inclination of heart towards him unto whom we are not able to approach," that is, God. Charity ends, "with endless union, the mystery whereof is higher than the reach of the thoughts of men." I.11.6, 119.

The theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity are necessary for salvation. This is disclosed to us in the revealed Word of God:

[C]oncerning that Faith, Hope, and Charity without which there can be no salvation: was there ever any mention made saving only in that law which God himself has from heaven revealed? There is not in the world a syllable muttered with certain truth concerning any of these three, more than has been supernaturally received from the mouth of eternal God.

I.11.6, 119.

The natural law, the law of reason, is therefore silent about Faith, Hope, and Love. It mutters nary a syllable of these virtues, of their quiet, seminal incipience, or of their ramified, ebullient end in the beatific vision, in the very bosom of the eternal God.

In respect to matters of salvation, these laws are divine, both in form and in substance, and not part and parcel of the natural law:

Laws therefore concerning these things are supernatural, both in respect of the manner of delivering them which is divine, and also in regard of the things delivered which are such as have not in nature any cause from which they flow, but were by the voluntary appointment of God ordained besides the course of nature to rectify nature's obliquity withal.

I.11.6, 119. Though salvation is supernatural in origin, and though there are supernatural duties relating thereto, this does not make the natural law obsolete. "When supernatural duties are necessarily exacted, natural are not rejected as needless." I.12.1, 119. Indeed, many of the natural laws which are accessible through reason, are also revealed in Scripture, suggesting no divine abrogation. The relationship between the divine law and natural law as revealed in Scripture will be further addressed by Hooker. In the next section of his work, Hooker addresses why so many natural laws are revealed in Holy Scripture. And that is the section to which we will next turn.

Portrait of Richard Hooker