Sin and grace

Chapter Summary

The question of how to interpret Richard Hooker?s thought about sin, grace and salvation has only recently begun to receive the attention merited by its importance in the body of his writings and its place in the structure of the argument of the Lawes. For much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the scholarly discussion about these matters was commonly shaped by questionable assumptions about the Reformation and about Hooker?s relationship to the magisterial reformers. An examination of what Hooker says about sin, grace and salvation will make clear that he believes it is precisely these sorts of questions that are at issue between himself and his adversaries. His argument is that Augustine?s argument for the priority of grace in human salvation and the reformed doctrine of sin and grace and the principle that grace does not replace but perfects nature all follow as consequences from the doctrine of Christ.

Keywords: grace; human salvation; Lawes; reformation; Richard Hooker; sin