Abstract Till We Have Faces is a retelling of the Cupid/Psyche myth with a few twists, namely, a nonstandard narrator and the inability of Psyche’s sister, Orual, to see the palace. Both innovations lead the reader to understand better the dynamics at play in Orual’s effort to disrupt Psyche’s life with her husband/god. The inability to see, on Orual’s part, at first suggests that the nature of the story is primarily epistemological. What is it that can be reasonably known or inferred? Digging deeper, however, reveals that the epistemic elements are actually penultimate, and that instead the book bolsters an ethically robust epistemology. Who we are deeply affects what we can see. Before Orual could apprehend the nature of the gods, she had to be brutally honest about who she herself was. A victim of abuse who was constantly shamed for reasons beyond her control, she is a sympathetic character in several ways, but she gradually moves from being victim to victimizer, treating others as means to ends, and, in the case of Psyche, ‘loving’ her in a way that was more hate than love. Self-knowledge was needed for Orual to apprehend the truth. She comes to realize her treatment of Bardia, Batta, Redival, and especially Psyche was not as pure and altruistic as she had thought. She had to come to terms with the ugliness within herself, and her penchant for consuming others, before she could hope to see the beauty and love of the gods for what they were.
{"title":"Self-Knowledge, Who God Is, and a Cure for our Deepest Shame: A Few Reflections on Till We Have Faces","authors":"David J. Baggett, M. Baggett","doi":"10.2478/perc-2022-0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/perc-2022-0014","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Till We Have Faces is a retelling of the Cupid/Psyche myth with a few twists, namely, a nonstandard narrator and the inability of Psyche’s sister, Orual, to see the palace. Both innovations lead the reader to understand better the dynamics at play in Orual’s effort to disrupt Psyche’s life with her husband/god. The inability to see, on Orual’s part, at first suggests that the nature of the story is primarily epistemological. What is it that can be reasonably known or inferred? Digging deeper, however, reveals that the epistemic elements are actually penultimate, and that instead the book bolsters an ethically robust epistemology. Who we are deeply affects what we can see. Before Orual could apprehend the nature of the gods, she had to be brutally honest about who she herself was. A victim of abuse who was constantly shamed for reasons beyond her control, she is a sympathetic character in several ways, but she gradually moves from being victim to victimizer, treating others as means to ends, and, in the case of Psyche, ‘loving’ her in a way that was more hate than love. Self-knowledge was needed for Orual to apprehend the truth. She comes to realize her treatment of Bardia, Batta, Redival, and especially Psyche was not as pure and altruistic as she had thought. She had to come to terms with the ugliness within herself, and her penchant for consuming others, before she could hope to see the beauty and love of the gods for what they were.","PeriodicalId":40786,"journal":{"name":"Perichoresis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76597685","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Till We Have Faces is profitably read at three levels: for its surface story, as a crime drama, and as an exploration of the theological mystery of grace. By transposing the myth of Psyche into the mystery genre, Lewis prepares the reader for Orual’s unreliability as a narrator and lures the reader into the novel’s theological depths. Part Two of the novel contains a series of visionary labors which Lewis borrows from Lucius Apuleius but recasts as feats achieved jointly by Orual and Psyche. The theological reading in this article finds textual support for rereading Part One of the novel as depicting Orual, by grace, unknowingly performing Psyche’s labors. Read thusly, the novel is a working out of Lewis’s belief that God can change the past—that grace can reach back into our histories and retell our story. By ascribing to the mutability of the past, Lewis sidesteps the dispute among various branches of Christianity over whether prevenient grace (the grace that pursues us prior to conversion) is both irresistible and salvific. An examination of four sources of grace in Orual’s life (love of beauty, love of wisdom, religious practice, and bereavement) reveals that what would have been common grace in her life becomes salvific as it leads to her redemption. This exposition also shows the novel’s indebtedness to the many classical Greek sources to which Lewis alludes within it, as well as its affinity with some of the ideas of Simone Weil.
{"title":"The Mystery of Grace: A Theological Reading of C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces","authors":"Caroline J. Simon","doi":"10.2478/perc-2022-0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/perc-2022-0019","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Till We Have Faces is profitably read at three levels: for its surface story, as a crime drama, and as an exploration of the theological mystery of grace. By transposing the myth of Psyche into the mystery genre, Lewis prepares the reader for Orual’s unreliability as a narrator and lures the reader into the novel’s theological depths. Part Two of the novel contains a series of visionary labors which Lewis borrows from Lucius Apuleius but recasts as feats achieved jointly by Orual and Psyche. The theological reading in this article finds textual support for rereading Part One of the novel as depicting Orual, by grace, unknowingly performing Psyche’s labors. Read thusly, the novel is a working out of Lewis’s belief that God can change the past—that grace can reach back into our histories and retell our story. By ascribing to the mutability of the past, Lewis sidesteps the dispute among various branches of Christianity over whether prevenient grace (the grace that pursues us prior to conversion) is both irresistible and salvific. An examination of four sources of grace in Orual’s life (love of beauty, love of wisdom, religious practice, and bereavement) reveals that what would have been common grace in her life becomes salvific as it leads to her redemption. This exposition also shows the novel’s indebtedness to the many classical Greek sources to which Lewis alludes within it, as well as its affinity with some of the ideas of Simone Weil.","PeriodicalId":40786,"journal":{"name":"Perichoresis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80662675","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This essay examines how C. S. Lewis, in Till We Have Faces, illustrates the Christian’s journey of sanctification through the pre-Christian story of his main character, Orual. She must gain two ‘faces’ in this process that correspond to the two books she writes. First, she must gain the face of self-knowledge through humility. The key components to this face are her memory and the act of writing of her first book, which together create a mirror to reflect her sin back to her. Second, Orual must gain the face of transformation through divine agape love. The humility she learned from her first face now allows her to enter what Lewis describes as the dance of self-giving, which is a crucial element to the second face of transformation in its mortification of Orual’s sin and selfishness. In the second face, Orual gains access to an ‘actual language’ that transcends merely verbal words and involves worshipping the god with her whole being, as do we in being transformed to reflect Christ more clearly. Orual’s writing is a form of this ‘actual language’, and her second book that shares her personal encounter with the god of the mountain reflects to others the beauty of the divine. Similarly, Christians should reflect Jesus with their lives and their art, which are inextricably intertwined because a life lived for Him is the highest form of artwork they can create.
{"title":"Reflecting Christ in Life and Art: The Divine Dance of Self-Giving in C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces","authors":"Megan Joy Rials, J. Walls","doi":"10.2478/perc-2022-0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/perc-2022-0018","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This essay examines how C. S. Lewis, in Till We Have Faces, illustrates the Christian’s journey of sanctification through the pre-Christian story of his main character, Orual. She must gain two ‘faces’ in this process that correspond to the two books she writes. First, she must gain the face of self-knowledge through humility. The key components to this face are her memory and the act of writing of her first book, which together create a mirror to reflect her sin back to her. Second, Orual must gain the face of transformation through divine agape love. The humility she learned from her first face now allows her to enter what Lewis describes as the dance of self-giving, which is a crucial element to the second face of transformation in its mortification of Orual’s sin and selfishness. In the second face, Orual gains access to an ‘actual language’ that transcends merely verbal words and involves worshipping the god with her whole being, as do we in being transformed to reflect Christ more clearly. Orual’s writing is a form of this ‘actual language’, and her second book that shares her personal encounter with the god of the mountain reflects to others the beauty of the divine. Similarly, Christians should reflect Jesus with their lives and their art, which are inextricably intertwined because a life lived for Him is the highest form of artwork they can create.","PeriodicalId":40786,"journal":{"name":"Perichoresis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77946413","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract For half a century, readers of C. S. Lewis had only two problematic and at times obscure spiritual autobiographies (The Pilgrim’s Regress and Surprised by Joy) to use in attempts to understand Lewis’s journey to faith through what he called Joy, Sehnsucht, or longing. Both books, though important and full of key insights, in some ways hid more than they revealed. Recent discoveries, however, have widened the arc of autobiography. Lewis’s landmark pre-Christian account of his conversion to theism, ‘Early Prose Joy’, published in 2013, monumentally widened and deepened our understanding of Lewis’s spiritual journey to faith. And the fragmentary poem ‘I Will Write Down the Portion that I Understand’ also adds significant insight, at least into Lewis’s composition process of grappling with conversion. Insightful recent scholarship by Alister McGrath suggests widening the scope of what we consider spiritual autobiography in Lewis to include A Grief Observed; this idea opens the door to a broader view of how autobiography functions both in Lewis’s compositional life and in the categorization of his writings. This essay accepts that invitation, finding clear autobiographical efforts to capture the role of Joy in Lewis’s early poetry, including Dymer, and in his late novel Till We Have Faces. That last book, written with soon-to-be-wife Joy Davidman, serves crucially to change the focus of Lewis’s spiritual autobiographies from Joy to love. By thus expanding and exploring Lewis’s autobiographical arc, this essay brings to light an almost teleological understanding of love and the central theme of Lewis’s life and work.
半个世纪以来，c·s·刘易斯的读者只有两本有问题的、有时晦涩难懂的精神自传(《朝圣者的回归》和《惊喜》)，试图通过他所谓的“喜悦”、“Sehnsucht”或“渴望”来理解刘易斯的信仰之旅。这两本书虽然都很重要，充满了关键的见解，但在某些方面，它们隐藏的东西比它们揭示的要多。然而，最近的发现扩大了自传的范围。2013年出版的《早期散文喜悦》(Early Prose Joy)是刘易斯在皈依有神论之前的标志性作品，它极大地拓宽并加深了我们对刘易斯信仰之旅的理解。而那首支离破碎的诗"我将写下我所理解的部分"也增加了重要的洞察力，至少在刘易斯的写作过程中挣扎于转变。阿利斯特·麦格拉思(Alister McGrath)最近颇有见地的学术研究建议拓宽刘易斯的精神自传的范围，包括《观察到的悲伤》(A Grief Observed);这一观点打开了一扇大门，让我们可以更广泛地了解自传在刘易斯的创作生涯和他的作品分类中是如何发挥作用的。这篇文章接受了这一邀请，在刘易斯的早期诗歌(包括Dymer)和晚期小说《直到我们有脸》(Till We Have Faces)中，找到了明确的自传体努力，以捕捉乔伊的角色。最后一本书是与即将成为妻子的乔伊·戴维曼(Joy Davidman)合著的，它至关重要地改变了刘易斯精神自传的焦点，从喜悦转向爱。通过扩展和探索刘易斯的自传体轨迹，本文揭示了对爱的一种近乎目的论的理解，以及刘易斯生活和工作的中心主题。
{"title":"Sehnsucht as Signpost: The Autobiographical Impulse of C. S. Lewis","authors":"Andrew Lazo","doi":"10.2478/perc-2022-0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/perc-2022-0016","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract For half a century, readers of C. S. Lewis had only two problematic and at times obscure spiritual autobiographies (The Pilgrim’s Regress and Surprised by Joy) to use in attempts to understand Lewis’s journey to faith through what he called Joy, Sehnsucht, or longing. Both books, though important and full of key insights, in some ways hid more than they revealed. Recent discoveries, however, have widened the arc of autobiography. Lewis’s landmark pre-Christian account of his conversion to theism, ‘Early Prose Joy’, published in 2013, monumentally widened and deepened our understanding of Lewis’s spiritual journey to faith. And the fragmentary poem ‘I Will Write Down the Portion that I Understand’ also adds significant insight, at least into Lewis’s composition process of grappling with conversion. Insightful recent scholarship by Alister McGrath suggests widening the scope of what we consider spiritual autobiography in Lewis to include A Grief Observed; this idea opens the door to a broader view of how autobiography functions both in Lewis’s compositional life and in the categorization of his writings. This essay accepts that invitation, finding clear autobiographical efforts to capture the role of Joy in Lewis’s early poetry, including Dymer, and in his late novel Till We Have Faces. That last book, written with soon-to-be-wife Joy Davidman, serves crucially to change the focus of Lewis’s spiritual autobiographies from Joy to love. By thus expanding and exploring Lewis’s autobiographical arc, this essay brings to light an almost teleological understanding of love and the central theme of Lewis’s life and work.","PeriodicalId":40786,"journal":{"name":"Perichoresis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79505219","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The Protestant reception both of Aristotle and of the concept of natural law have been the object of renewed attention. The present article aims at a cross-fertilization of these two recoveries: did a specifically Aristotelian approach to natural law (among other important sources) play a significant role in classical Protestant thought? The article answers this question by means of a review of the Protestant commentaries on Aristotle’s natural law-passage in Nicomachean Ethics V, 7. Reformation and post-Reformation scholars sometimes offered original readings of this text, but above all they cultivated the various approaches to the passage that had been developed during the medieval period.
{"title":"The Aristotelian Conception of Natural Law and Its Reception in Early Protestant Commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics","authors":"Manfred Svensson","doi":"10.2478/perc-2022-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/perc-2022-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Protestant reception both of Aristotle and of the concept of natural law have been the object of renewed attention. The present article aims at a cross-fertilization of these two recoveries: did a specifically Aristotelian approach to natural law (among other important sources) play a significant role in classical Protestant thought? The article answers this question by means of a review of the Protestant commentaries on Aristotle’s natural law-passage in Nicomachean Ethics V, 7. Reformation and post-Reformation scholars sometimes offered original readings of this text, but above all they cultivated the various approaches to the passage that had been developed during the medieval period.","PeriodicalId":40786,"journal":{"name":"Perichoresis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80192061","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This article assesses Jerome Zanchi’s (1560-90) theory of natural law in relation to that of Richard Hooker’s (1554-1600) by arguing three theses. First, Zanchi’s view of natural law is generally Thomistic, but he expands upon it in a manner similar to his contemporaries, thereby providing further evidence against the increasingly discredited narrative of a Protestant voluntarism dominating early Reformed scholastic thought. Second, Zanchi’s commitment to the Reformed doctrine of total depravity does not represent as drastic a departure from Thomas as might first appear. Third, Hooker’s disagreement with Zanchi on this last point does not, as often argued, result from his own diluted commitment to total depravity, but denotes a more coherent and elegant way of reaching the same Reformed Thomistic synthesis. The historical record suggests that Hooker’s approach proved more influential than Zanchi’s.
{"title":"‘Vestiges of the Divine Light’: Girolamo Zanchi, Richard Hooker, and a Reformed Thomistic Natural Law Theory","authors":"Bradford Littlejohn","doi":"10.2478/perc-2022-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/perc-2022-0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article assesses Jerome Zanchi’s (1560-90) theory of natural law in relation to that of Richard Hooker’s (1554-1600) by arguing three theses. First, Zanchi’s view of natural law is generally Thomistic, but he expands upon it in a manner similar to his contemporaries, thereby providing further evidence against the increasingly discredited narrative of a Protestant voluntarism dominating early Reformed scholastic thought. Second, Zanchi’s commitment to the Reformed doctrine of total depravity does not represent as drastic a departure from Thomas as might first appear. Third, Hooker’s disagreement with Zanchi on this last point does not, as often argued, result from his own diluted commitment to total depravity, but denotes a more coherent and elegant way of reaching the same Reformed Thomistic synthesis. The historical record suggests that Hooker’s approach proved more influential than Zanchi’s.","PeriodicalId":40786,"journal":{"name":"Perichoresis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75862120","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract At the conclusion of his De lege naturae apodictica methodus, a treatise on the law of nature, how it is grasped by the human mind, and how it coheres with the Decalogue, Niels Hemmingsen claims to have eschewed the use of theological sources in his argument, claiming instead to have demonstrated ‘how far reason is able to progress without the prophetic and apostolic word’. Yet the reader of the treatise will notice several citations of theologians alongside those of pagan poets and philosophers. This essay demonstrates that there is less here than meets the eye, that is, that Hemmingsen quotes theologians only to buttress what one can know from natural reason or the classical tradition, even when he is discussing God, and thus he does not violate his own stated principle.
尼尔斯·海明森(Niels Hemmingsen)在他的《自然法则》(De lege naturae apodictica methodus)的结语中声称，他在论证中避免了使用神学来源，而是证明了“在没有预言和使徒话语的情况下，理性能够进步到什么程度”。这是一本关于自然法则的论文，探讨人类如何理解自然法则，以及自然法则如何与十诫相一致。然而，这篇论文的读者会注意到，在异教诗人和哲学家的著作之外，还引用了几处神学家的著作。这篇文章表明，这里的内容比我们看到的要少，也就是说，海明森引用神学家的话只是为了支持人们可以从自然理性或古典传统中了解到的东西，即使他在讨论上帝时也是如此，因此他并没有违反他自己所说的原则。
{"title":"Pagans and Theologians: An Examination of the Use of Christian Sources in Niels Hemmingsen’s De Lege Naturae","authors":"E. Hutchinson","doi":"10.2478/perc-2022-0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/perc-2022-0010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract At the conclusion of his De lege naturae apodictica methodus, a treatise on the law of nature, how it is grasped by the human mind, and how it coheres with the Decalogue, Niels Hemmingsen claims to have eschewed the use of theological sources in his argument, claiming instead to have demonstrated ‘how far reason is able to progress without the prophetic and apostolic word’. Yet the reader of the treatise will notice several citations of theologians alongside those of pagan poets and philosophers. This essay demonstrates that there is less here than meets the eye, that is, that Hemmingsen quotes theologians only to buttress what one can know from natural reason or the classical tradition, even when he is discussing God, and thus he does not violate his own stated principle.","PeriodicalId":40786,"journal":{"name":"Perichoresis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87252022","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Adiaphora (‘indifferent matters’) and permissive natural law both conceptually pointed towards an arena of liberty in which the individual remained free to take up (or not) particular courses of action. In the Reformation debates over the external regulation of Christian freedom for the maintenance of peace and order, these two concepts became freighted with political significance; but they also in turn shaped attitudes over when and where obedience was due in relation to the civic regulation of liberty. Tudor apologetics deployed both ideas in order to defend the English Reformation, especially the claim of the royal supremacy to have due authority to regulate ecclesiastical affairs in indifferent matters, limiting Christian freedom and requiring obedience. By situating these debates within the context of the conceptual development of adiaphora and permissive natural law from their original philosophical roots through to the Reformation, this article establishes the genealogy of claims that defined such apologetics. After surveying the seemingly intractable dilemmas in the thought of Thomas Starkey and John Whitgift over why obedience to lay ecclesiastical supremacy was due, this article considers the radical return to the permissive natural law traditions of the medieval period in the Elizabethan conformist thought of Richard Hooker. In this return, Hooker supplanted divine permissions and scriptural principles as the guide for the proper regulation of indifferent matters with an appeal to the light of reason as the divine instrument through which binding human laws are made to govern society and limit freedom for the public good, even in the life of the national church.
{"title":"‘All Things Are Lawful’: Adiaphora, Permissive Natural Law, Christian Freedom, and Defending the English Reformation","authors":"P. Dominiak","doi":"10.2478/perc-2022-0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/perc-2022-0011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Adiaphora (‘indifferent matters’) and permissive natural law both conceptually pointed towards an arena of liberty in which the individual remained free to take up (or not) particular courses of action. In the Reformation debates over the external regulation of Christian freedom for the maintenance of peace and order, these two concepts became freighted with political significance; but they also in turn shaped attitudes over when and where obedience was due in relation to the civic regulation of liberty. Tudor apologetics deployed both ideas in order to defend the English Reformation, especially the claim of the royal supremacy to have due authority to regulate ecclesiastical affairs in indifferent matters, limiting Christian freedom and requiring obedience. By situating these debates within the context of the conceptual development of adiaphora and permissive natural law from their original philosophical roots through to the Reformation, this article establishes the genealogy of claims that defined such apologetics. After surveying the seemingly intractable dilemmas in the thought of Thomas Starkey and John Whitgift over why obedience to lay ecclesiastical supremacy was due, this article considers the radical return to the permissive natural law traditions of the medieval period in the Elizabethan conformist thought of Richard Hooker. In this return, Hooker supplanted divine permissions and scriptural principles as the guide for the proper regulation of indifferent matters with an appeal to the light of reason as the divine instrument through which binding human laws are made to govern society and limit freedom for the public good, even in the life of the national church.","PeriodicalId":40786,"journal":{"name":"Perichoresis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81361480","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This article discusses the role of nature in the theological system of New England minister Samuel Willard (1640-1707). I focus specifically on his account of theological anthropology, the relationship of nature and grace, and the moral (or natural) law, and show how each relates to his views on civil government and civil law. Willard affirmed the natural law, natural religion, and natural worship, and he acknowledged and respected pagan civic virtue and grounded civil order and social relations in nature. Willard’s theological articulations are substantively the same as those found among the ‘Reformed orthodox’ theologians of 17th century Europe, which provides evidence for the thesis that Reformed orthodoxy was a transatlantic movement. His reliance on nature also corrects scholarship on the New England Puritans, which often assumes that they rejected the Christian natural law tradition.
{"title":"The Role of Nature in New England Puritan Theology: The Case of Samuel Willard","authors":"S. Wolfe","doi":"10.2478/perc-2022-0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/perc-2022-0013","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article discusses the role of nature in the theological system of New England minister Samuel Willard (1640-1707). I focus specifically on his account of theological anthropology, the relationship of nature and grace, and the moral (or natural) law, and show how each relates to his views on civil government and civil law. Willard affirmed the natural law, natural religion, and natural worship, and he acknowledged and respected pagan civic virtue and grounded civil order and social relations in nature. Willard’s theological articulations are substantively the same as those found among the ‘Reformed orthodox’ theologians of 17th century Europe, which provides evidence for the thesis that Reformed orthodoxy was a transatlantic movement. His reliance on nature also corrects scholarship on the New England Puritans, which often assumes that they rejected the Christian natural law tradition.","PeriodicalId":40786,"journal":{"name":"Perichoresis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78191478","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Although there are many studies on John Calvin’s teaching on natural law, the relation between natural law and Roman law has received relatively less attention. This essay examines the relation between natural law and Roman law in Calvin’s exegetical writing on the Mosaic law. I argue that Calvin regarded Roman law as an exemplary, albeit imperfect, witness to the natural law, and he used Roman law to aid in his interpretation of the Mosaic law. Since he assumed that Roman law embodies principles of natural law, Calvin drew on Roman law as an aid in order to distinguish natural from positive law within the Mosaic law. He also broadened the scope of commandments in the second table of the Decalogue by comparison with natural and Roman law. Yet although Calvin drew many continuities between Mosaic and Roman laws, he remained critical of the Roman system due to various failings in comparison with Scripture and principles of natural law.
{"title":"John Calvin on the Intersection of Natural, Roman, and Mosaic Law","authors":"David S. Sytsma","doi":"10.2478/perc-2022-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/perc-2022-0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Although there are many studies on John Calvin’s teaching on natural law, the relation between natural law and Roman law has received relatively less attention. This essay examines the relation between natural law and Roman law in Calvin’s exegetical writing on the Mosaic law. I argue that Calvin regarded Roman law as an exemplary, albeit imperfect, witness to the natural law, and he used Roman law to aid in his interpretation of the Mosaic law. Since he assumed that Roman law embodies principles of natural law, Calvin drew on Roman law as an aid in order to distinguish natural from positive law within the Mosaic law. He also broadened the scope of commandments in the second table of the Decalogue by comparison with natural and Roman law. Yet although Calvin drew many continuities between Mosaic and Roman laws, he remained critical of the Roman system due to various failings in comparison with Scripture and principles of natural law.","PeriodicalId":40786,"journal":{"name":"Perichoresis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83181242","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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