Williams on Hooker

From Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, during a rectent lecture.
The Richard Hooker Lecture: Richard Hooker (c1554-1600): The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity Revisited
The Temple Church, London, Wednesday 26 October 2005

“The ‘sufficiency’ or perfection of Scripture, argues Hooker, is a matter of its perfect capacity to do what it is meant to do. If we try to make it do more than it is meant to, we destroy its credibility; if we suggest, for example, that nothing except what is commanded in the Bible can be other than sinful, we paralyse a great deal of ordinary human life… But the underlying point is wholly serious. The Bible is neither a complete nor an incomplete law book. We have to break through the sterile opposition between Catholic and puritan error, Catholics arguing that all sorts of things are obligatory under divine law that are not contained in the Bible, puritans countering with the claim that everything not commanded in Scripture is in effect prohibited. Both extremes, by couching their question in terms of what will please God and further their salvation, miss the main thing, which is that Scripture uncovers the ‘abundant’ purpose of God in creation and redemption, the glory that human creatures in communion with Christ are made to manifest.”