Richard Hooker on Natural Theology & Scripture
Studies in Protestant Irenics Vol. 3
By David Haines
$17.95 $12.50
Published October 2, 2025
About this book
Short, scholarly studies in Rich Protestant Wisdom
Evangelical Protestants enthusiastically affirm the “sufficiency of Scripture” for the Christian faith. But how does this doctrine square with the church’s long tradition of “natural theology” which teaches that a surprising amount can be known about God from nature and reason alone?
In this short but incisive book, David Haines demonstrates how the great English Reformer, Richard Hooker (1554-1600), answered this pivotal question. Usually, Hooker is associated with the questions of natural law and ethics rather than natural theology and the doctrine of God. However, Haines shows that a firm grasp of natural theology underpins Hooker’s teaching on natural law, and that the latter cannot be had without the former. In doing so, he provides not merely a survey of Hooker’s thought, but, via Hooker, a concise and lucid introduction to the whole topic of natural theology and a compelling defense against its biblicist critics.
Paperback | 100 pages | 5×8 | Published October 2, 2025 | ISBN-10 1-949716-74-0 | ISBN-13 978-1-949716-74-0
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FROM THE BOOK
“Today, in some Protestant circles, we are told that the proper Reformed approach to natural theology is that though man should be able to know something of God through nature, the natural man cannot. God may reveal himself in nature, but the natural man is unable to receive that revelation rightly. Interestingly enough, the growing tendency in theology between the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries was to reject natural knowledge of God altogether. William of Ockham (1280-1349), for example, argued for the failure of natural theology, and that it was better to believe that God is, than to try to prove it. By the end of the fifteenth century, a form of Ockham’s thought had become dominant in the schools, both the via moderna, and the modern Augustinian school.
Other scholastic schools which affirmed a natural knowledge of God, such as the Albertists, Thomists, and Scotists, had become minor schools. It should come as no surprise, then, that Luther was skeptical towards the use of philosophy in theological reflection, and to the whole idea of a natural theology. This view, however, was not unique to Luther, nor was it the Reformed approach. Rather, it was one of the main competitors in the marketplace of ideas in the two hundred years leading up to the Reformation.
It is a powerful testimony to the Reformed understanding of this doctrine, that in the face of a theological culture which tended to reject natural theology, the Reformers not only readily affirmed it, but made it a necessary part of Reformed Orthodoxy.
Richard Hooker serves as a witness to the Reformed acceptance of natural theology. The irony of the contemporary resurgence of Biblicism and the rejection of classical philosophy (including natural theology and law), is that it represents a return, not to the classic Reformed position, but to a position which the Reformers explicitly rejected and fought against (which was held by some Roman Catholic scholars and some radicalized Anabaptists of their time). In a strange and ironic twist of fate, contemporary Protestant biblicists, chanting “Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda,” have so “reformed” the Christian faith that they have come full circle, and are now loudly pronouncing, as “biblical” and “Reformed”, views which the Reformers almost unanimously rejected. They find themselves more in agreement, on the doctrines of natural theology and natural law, with some late medieval theologians than with the Reformers.”
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
II
Hooker’s Natural Theology
III
Objections to Natural Theology Old and New
IV
Responding to the Errors of the Biblicists
V
Conclusions
Select Bibliography
Praise for this work
“Natural Theology has long been a vital part of the church’s theology, from the fathers of the earliest centuries to the magisterial reformation and classical Protestant confessions. However, in recent centuries there has been confusion about, and outright antagonism towards, natural theology, coming not only from secular philosophers but also from a range of 20th century Protestant theologians. Several recent critiques of the compatibility of Protestantism with natural theology bear an uncanny resemblance to the biblicistic arguments that roiled the Church of England in the late 16th century. David Haines’s work of retrieval capably demonstrates how natural theology rightly relates to a Protestant doctrine of sola Scriptura in one of the foremost theological minds in Anglophone history. Particularly for Anglicans such as myself, recovering Richard Hooker’s approach to relating Holy Scripture with natural theology can be a wellspring for ongoing renewal and revitalization of our churches today, particularly as we seek to commend the gospel in an increasingly post-Christian Western world where there is more confusion than ever about God, creation, and what it means to be a human being. This is a natural theology that is distinctively Reformed but also deeply catholic, which Haines provocatively argues is a corrective to the undermining of natural theology in late Medieval nominalism, standing in profound continuity with Aquinas and the fathers of the church.”
– Joshua Heavin (PhD, University of Aberdeen)
Curate and Deacon at an Anglican church in the Dallas area; Adjunct Professor in the School of Christian Thought at Houston Christian University
About the Author
David Haines (PhD, Université Laval) is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boyce College, and a Lecturer at Davenant Hall. He has previously authored On Being, vol.1: Plato, Natural Theology: A Biblical and Historical Introduction and Defense, co-authored Natural Law: A Brief Introduction and Biblical Defense, and edited Without Excuse: Scripture, Reason, and Presuppositional Apologetics, all with The Davenant Press.
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The Davenant Institute endeavors to restore wisdom for the contemporary church. We seek to sponsor historical scholarship at the intersection of the church and academy, build friendships and facilitate collaboration within the Reformed and evangelical world, and equip the saints with time-tested resources for faithful public witness. Below are some of the works we’ve published towards that end.
