Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

• Romans 7:21-25

Then they will say, “We have no king
    because we did not revere the Lord.
But even if we had a king,
    what could he do for us?”
They make many promises,
    take false oaths
    and make agreements;
therefore lawsuits spring up
    like poisonous weeds in a plowed field.

• Hosea 10:3-4

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

• Genesis 3:1

“ ‘Human laws are measures in respect of men, whose actions they must direct. Howbeit such measures they are, as have also their higher rules to be measured by — which rules are two: the law of God and the law of nature. So that laws human must be made according to the general laws of nature, and without contradiction unto any positive law in Scripture.’ (Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity 3.9.2).”

• Tony Lane, A Concise History of Christian Thought

Richard Hooker (1554-1600) was a bishop in the Church of England.  While theologians before him had worked hard to rid theology of Aristotle, Richard Hooker brought him back through a theology that looked a great deal like that of Thomas Aquinas.  You see the edge of that in the quote above.  With logic we can draw line between what is a law of nature or a law of God, and thus, we can base our laws of running the church to align with the laws of nature as long as it does not overtly violate the laws of God.

Bishop Hooker felt that God was “indifferent” toward both church government and organization as God was “indifferent” toward secular government.  Thus, there is a major flaw in his thinking, yet he wrote an eight-volume set of books governing the polity of the Church of England, Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity.  Only five volumes were published in his lifetime.

For a little backstory, when Richard Hooker was a child, Queen Elizabeth I came into power and in 1559 the Elizabethan Settlement was signed.  This was supposed to be a compromise between Catholic and Reformed theology, but it satisfied no one.  Queen Elizabeth wanted to retain some “Catholic” elements and she felt the Settlement was as far as she was willing to go toward reformation.  Yet, the reformers felt is was the minimum and an uncomfortable minimum at that.  John Jewel felt it was “this golden, or rather leaden, mediocrity.”  While Jewel sided with the Puritans, and felt the Elizabethan settlement kept the Catholic “wolves” outside the door, Hooker felt the Settlement prevented the broad stroke reforms that reformers like Jewel wanted to achieve.

As a result, reformation within the Church of England was limited and slow.  But at the same time, introducing a theology of everything being up for debate, the door was open to heresy entering the church.  After all, once it comes down to a review of Scripture, we get the oldest question ever asked by Satan of man, “Did God really say …”  And then, the Law of God that never changes, is interpreted to suit sinful man’s desires.

If you like these Tuesday morning essays about philosophy and other “heavy topics,” but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Tuesday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.