from Part IV - Laudianism and Predestination
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2023
This chapter explicates the language of mystery, which was one of the Laudians’ preferred modes for treating the topic of predestination. The workings of the divine will were held to be so far above the puny categories of human reason that the process of subjecting the former to the demands of the latter was taken to be in itself a form of the presumption, perhaps even the sacrilege, of which the Laudians so frequently accused the puritans. The fine print of predestination was thus far better left wreathed in the language of mystery, a language that wise divines also used to deal with topics like the Trinity or Christology. There were, the Laudians maintained, central features of the Christian faith which were best simply believed rather than reduced to a list of numbered doctrinal propositions, to be then defended through entirely human procedures of syllogistic reasoning. In some circumstances, and certain moods, the Laudians held predestination to be one of those areas of difficulty, presented by God for human belief, rather than for theological enquiry.
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