In the following portion of an essay by the Anglican Curmudgeon we find what should be a normative approach to Richard Hooker, particularly on the subject of the Anglican theological method. The essay is titled “Via Media Movement: No Orthodoxy—We’re Episcopalian!” This section shows how the Via Media groups distort Hooker.
“By 2003, the name “Via Media” had become popular as a means of self-identification for several of these groups.
“The term ‘Via Media’ comes from the 16th-century Anglican theologian Richard Hooker, whose work established Anglicanism as a ‘middle way’ between continental Protestantism and Catholicism,” said the Rev. Edward Copland of Southwest Florida Via Media Episcopalians, the newest Via Media group. “Via Media groups in the Episcopal Church provide a balance to the American Anglican Council and Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes, whose Web sites and publications call for criticism of the Episcopal Church and its presiding bishop,” Copland explained.
“The quotation is from this March 2004 article published by ENS, which does a good job of pulling together all the various threads of the Via Media-related groups. One characteristic of these groups is their misappropriation of Richard Hooker to their cause, as you can see from the above quotation. They profess to be his followers in employing the concept of a “three-legged stool” in traditional Anglicanism—affording scripture, tradition, and reason equal weight in judging the correctness of doctrine:
‘We are loyal to the doctrine, worship and discipline of the Episcopal Church USA. We are nurtured by scripture, tradition and reason – the three-legged stool of traditional Anglicanism. We are Episcopalians striving for that via media of diversity and tolerance in the Diocese of Fort Worth.’
“In fact, the author of The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity never alluded to or described any such “three-legged stool”. To quote an acknowledged scholar [Fr. Robert Hart] of his works:
‘Hooker never gave us a “three-legged stool.” In fact, he mostly emphasized only two things. One was, of course, Scripture. The other was the Church with her authority, by which he meant both what has been handed down in Tradition (which word he did, in fact, use positively in this connection), and also good, right and just polity. Reason, as such belongs to the Church as the Church, not simply “to men and women” as individual thinkers. The closest he ever came to mentioning Reason of individuals, or to mentioning anything even remotely like a “three-legged stool,” was in a context wherein he taught that individual reason must be subject to the Church:
“Be it in matter of the one kind or of the other, what Scripture doth plainly deliver, to that the first place both of credit and obedience is due; the next whereunto is whatsoever any man can necessarily conclude by force of reason; after this the Church succeedeth that which the Church by her ecclesiastical authority shall probably think and define to be true or good, must in congruity of reason overrule all other inferior judgments whatsoever.” (Richard Hooker, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book 5.VIII.2)
“Even the Rev. Dr. Francis Wade, engaged by the Forum to give a talk which wasplayed for the April-May gatherings in various locations throughout the Diocese, knows that it is incorrect to assert that Hooker recognized the “three legs” of Scripture, reason and tradition as being on an equal footing. In a written version of his lecture being shown to Forum members, he states:
“The key word is “conversation.” Richard Hooker illumined this path for us in the 16th century. In his day there were three distinct ideas about how people could find and nurture God‟s truth. Humanists like Erasmus maintained that reason was all that was needed. Puritans were convinced of ‘solo scriptura’ or only the Bible was necessary. At the Council of Trent Rome decreed that tradition, the wisdom of our forebears, was what would guide us. Hooker saw the wisdom of each and said that God’s truth emerges in a conversation between scripture, tradition and reason. He did not coin the image of a three legged stool that is commonly used to describe Hooker’s insight, and I doubt that he would have liked it if he had heard it. The three-legged stool image implies an equality that I don’t think Hooker would have bought into. For Hooker tradition and reason are in conversation about scripture. The Bible is central. Because of Richard Hooker we understand the truth of scripture to emerge in a conversation with reason and tradition. That is a point often forgotten in our current disputes.
“Dr. Wade’s talk is thus crucial for Forum members to listen to, in order to counter the misleading representations of Hooker’s view of Scripture in relation to reason and tradition being promulgated by Via Media and its branches. However, Via Media distorts more than just the writings of Richard Hooker…”
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