Richard Hooker, the Rule of Faith and the Rise of Religious Evidentialism

Richard Hooker’s epistemology of belief

Nigel Voak examines the genesis and evolution of religious evidentialism from 1585 to 1700, a deeply influential epistemology which claims that religious beliefs are only credible when we have evidence to substantiate them, and that we have an obligation to proportion our assent to the strength of our evidence. Given the propositions of faith lack the evidentness of objects of knowledge, absolutely certain assent to such beliefs is therefore epistemically unjustifiable. This epistemology, which breaks with the previous Christian tradition, is classically formulated in John Locke''s An Essay concerning Human Understanding. This major new study sets out to show that, quite remarkably, this epistemology of belief can be traced back to the English theologian Richard Hooker (1554-1600). His thought was then developed over the course of the seventeenth-century Rule of Faith Controversy, which acted as the crucible for these new ideas on faith, evidence and certainty. It shows that the key thinkers in this process were aware that this epistemology came from Hooker, and used him in formulating their own influential positions.