Across the Confessional Divide: Johannes Hoornbeeck, José de Acosta, and the Role of Force and Free Will in the Development of a Reformed Missiology.

Abstract

This article seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between Catholic and Protestant theories of mission by examining the influence of the Jesuit José de Acosta on the De conversione Indorum et gentilium (1669), one of the first comprehensive handbooks of Protestant missiology, written by Johannes Hoornbeeck. It is demonstrated that Acosta's Thomist emphasis on the willing acceptance of a new faith made his ideas particularly attractive to Hoornbeeck and are the reason why the latter preferred Jesuit sources to Franciscan thinkers and writings, since these were more Scotist in their outlook.