Logic and Flesh: Richard Hooker’s Sacramental Social Body

This thesis argues that the scope of Richard Hooker’s critique in his Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie extends beyond its ostensive target of Elizabethan presbyterianism to what he saw as a more general dissolution of a framework of human self-understanding rooted in Christian metaphysics and sacramental polity. The foundation of Hooker’s revision of the conformist case, I argue, is not a critique of presbyterianism or Calvinism themselves but of their 14th-century nominalist roots. Whereas recent scholarship has focused on the extent of Hooker’s consistency with the magisterial reformers, I aim to situate Hooker within the broader intellectual developments, beyond merely doctrinal-confessional concerns, that would come to characterize modern thought. Such a broadened approach offers valuable insight into the competing tensions in the intellectual climate of nascent modernity and, more importantly, situates Hooker within the context of the epoch-level stakes that, as I argue, he himself envisioned for his project. I develop this line of interpretation with two case studies—the first on Hooker’s critique of newly developing reforms in logic, the second on his sacramentology. In both cases, Hooker adopts a position whose metaphysical-theological foundations are an explicit departure from the Calvinist-derived consensus framework of the Admonition Controversy.

Author dc:creator

• Simpson, Lucas

Advisor dc:contributor.supervisor

• Kuchar, Gary

• Richard Hooker
• Elizabethan
• sacraments
• politics
• liturgy

Statement dc:rights

• Available to the World Wide Web

Language dc:language.iso

en, English

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1828/14096

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/14096