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Richard Hooker and Anglican Moral Theology. By A. J. Joyce. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. xi, 264. $125.00.)
In this closely argued book, A. J. Joyce explores the questions of whether Richard Hooker is to be considered "the founding father of Anglican moral theology," and, if so, "what was the precise nature of his contribution" (vii)? The author's point of view is that of a scholar trained in classics and theology. These questions are clearly relevant to current discussions, particularly in Anglican and Episcopal circles, of ethics and morals. The book is based on an analysis of Hooker's Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie, written in the late Elizabethan period, but not published in full until 1662.
The Lawes, the author asserts, is not, strictly speaking, a work of moral theology, despite the claim made by H. R. McAdoo, in his The Structure of Caroline Moral Theology (1949), that it laid the foundation for the vigorous pursuit of moral questions by English divines in the seventeenth century. According to Joyce, the aim of the Lawes was both broader and narrower than McAdoo suggests. It attempts to deal with the nature of law itself in all its manifestations, including the moral law, seeing law as part of God's Creation. The Lawes also deals...