In the intimate world of evangelical and Reformed blogs, two kingdoms theology is a trending topic (#Kuyper2012, #mychurchismoreinvisiblethanyours, #cantherebeaXnhangman?, etc.). Two conversations are ongoing. First, Matt Tuininga has been engaged with some of the more – let’s say – magisterially-inclined proponents of two kingdoms (2K) theology. On this front, the trio of Steven Wedgeworth, Peter Escalante, and Brad Littlejohn argue that the classical version of 2K theology did not map neatly onto our modern division between the institutions of church and state. 
Instead, the early reformers and later scholastics maintained a notion of a unified corpus christianorum, albeit a corpus that underwent reconstructive surgery on its doctrine of religious liberty and freedom of conscience. In response, Matt holds out that at least one prominent strand of the tradition (running from Calvin to Cartwright) emphasized the uniquely spiritual government of the institutional church. This strand, rather than its magisterial or “Erastian” rival, helped to pave the pathway to our modern liberal conceptions of religious freedom and separation of church and state. Yesterday, Peter and Steven dropped a (gigantic) response in two parts.
The second conversation begins with James K.A. Smith’s recent essay in the Calvin Theological Journal, “Reforming Public Theology: Two Kingdoms, or Two Cities?” The piece is directed primarily at David VanDrunen’s attempt to resuscitate the Reformed interest in natural law and (according to Jamie) a Lutheran notion of 2K theology. Smith draws on Augustine to bolster the ecclesiology and eschatology of the Dutch neo-Calvinist tradition. On Monday, Darryl Hart leveled a critique of this piece, arguing that Smith had unwittingly exposed neo-Calvinism’s weakness by trying to fit the square peg of Augustinian ecclesiology into the round hole that is Kuyperian transformationalism. According to Hart, Smith remains guilty of conflating redemption with creation, the church with the world, the spiritual with the temporal.
I have some relationship – including some long-running friendships – with all the persons involved (save Matt, with whom I’ve only just come into contact). My own interests also intersect with the debate on several important points. So, while I won’t put all my historical and programmatic cards on the table, I thought I’d offer some questions to each of the parties in the ongoing discussion. (I’ll count Steven and Peter together since they co-author most of their papers.) Hopefully, this dialogue can keep going outside the often toxic atmosphere of the blogosphere as well.
Darryl Hart: In your response to Jamie you suggest that he writes a big ecclesiological check that his transformationalist-Kuyperian tradition cannot cash. The neo-Calvinists have failed to realize that “creation and providence take place in culture,” but “redemption takes place in the church.” My first question is about providence. Do you believe ecclesial actions and rule exist outside the providential order? If so, does the church have no part in the natural law that is reason’s participation in God’s eternal law? My second question is: How Rawlsian would you consider yourself? The way that Rawls relegates comprehensive doctrines to the private sphere would seem to grant your ecclesiology the privacy and provincial authority you desire. Here, religious commitments are valid enough in their own sphere (provided they don’t harm anyone), but would fail to pass the test of reasonability that would permit them to enter the public square. Is this a fair connection to make, or do you want to distance yourself from aspects of Rawlsian liberalism?
Jamie Smith: I loved the way you infused some Augustinian blood in the veins of Dutch Calvinism. You closed your essay with the moving image of a repentant Theodosius, infused, not with the natural virtue of courage, but with the Christian virtues of compassion, mercy, and humility. My question is about how you want to relate these Christian virtues to the natural virtues. In particular, who possesses which virtues? And what use are the natural virtues? In other words, could a non-Christian, unschooled by Ambrose, nevertheless display the virtue of mercy? And does the institutional church have some privileged pedagogy for the natural as well as Christian virtues?
Matt Tuininga: I appreciate the way that you want to differentiate between various strands of the Reformed political tradition. You and I differ on some interpretations of Calvin, but I think you’re right to distinguish certain aspects of his thought from his successors. But there’s another element of Calvin’s thought that hasn’t been talked about yet by anyone in these discussions – Stoicism. Now, Calvin clearly rejects the ultimate conclusions of Stoic thought, much like Augustine does regarding the neo-Platonists. Still, there’s sufficient scholarly evidence that the influence remains. (It’s no small detail that Calvin’s first published work was a commentary on Seneca.) In fact, Calvin’s own rendering of 2K theology seems quite colored by Stoicism. Here, the spiritual kingdom is where “conscience is trained to piety and divine worship.” This is the “middle place between God and man” where the individual conscience is free from the chaos created by sinful humanity’s imposition of unjust laws and obligations. There’s more to be said here (especially if we look to Calvin’s discussion of casuistry or his view of the conscience in his commentaries on the Psalms), but I merely want to ask: What do you want to do with this Stoic element? It doesn’t seem to fit as neatly with the institutional distinction between church and state. After all, Calvin believes it is the casuistical church that very often violates the dictates of conscience.
Steven Wedgeworth and Peter Escalante: The two-part essay that came out yesterday was an incredible display of erudition. It’s almost unseemly to have it written up on a blog (take that as a deep compliment!). There are too many points to engage with here, and my response would be quite boring since I agree with so many of them. But one question I can raise now pertains to your choice to include such a wide swath of Reformed political thinkers. I’m partial to many of the names you bring in: Calvin, Hooker, Althusius. You also kindly referenced my recent blog post on Martin Loughlin’s history of the origins of public law. I have two historical questions, however. First, I’d love to see you both engage with the influence of absolutism in the Reformed/Protestant political tradition – especially in Grotius, Pufendorf, and Thomasius. Clearly, these other thinkers are close to what we might call Reformed Orthodoxy as well as Hobbes. Still, what was the impact when these later Reformed thinkers incorporated elements of Hobbes and Bodin’s theories of absolute sovereignty? Second, scholars like Loughlin and Ian Hunter have pointed out that the voluntarism of later theorists (especially Pufendorf and Thomasius) allowed modern public law to stand independent of natural law. In other words, voluntarism undermined the old Platonic and Aristotelian forms of right-order theory. I suspect that John Witte (and perhaps Matt?) might be fine with this development. The neo-Calvinist Nicholas Wolterstorff also targets right-order theories of justice and rights (although he doesn’t buy the philosophical voluntarism). But where do you stand on this point? What difference does voluntarism make?
Brad Littlejohn: Since I’ve known Brad the longest, I’ll make his questions the shortest: Is Richard Hooker a liberal? And do you want him to be?
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[...] on normative grounds: the always thoughtful and stimulating D.G. Hart posted a comment in response to my question about his relationship to Rawlsian theory. He noted very fairly that [...]
[...] friend Davey Henreckson, formerly of Notre Dame and now of Princeton, has posed some very helpful questions for us at his site, in response to our essay, occasioned by the polemics of Mr. Matthew Tuininga, on the [...]
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Thanks for the interaction, Davey. Your short questions are more unnerving than your long—I always feel that lurking behind them are a host of unvoiced sub-questions which I am supposed to be answering as well, or else a dagger-like follow-up question to be on guard against. But I’ll just be concise, and you can make those sub-questions or follow-up questions explicit if you want.
First, well obviously no, in the most straightforward sense. That would be frightfully anachronistic. If there is one thing I am against in Reformation political theology, it is over-hasty attempts to claim a Reformation figure for a later political tradition. The links are there, but they are never quite straightforward. But of course, you know that. So what you are really asking is, “Does Hooker prefigure liberalism in important ways?” or “Does Hooker make key liberal moves?” I think definitely so, but not primarily in the way that older Whig histories used to claim—that is, his argument that authority derives from consent. His doctrine of consent is essentially a medieval doctrine; it may be more congenial to liberalism than absolutisms that were contemporary to him, but still a far cry from Locke, et. al. Rather, I would say that a key “liberal” contribution is his understanding that matters of ultimate concern cannot be handled by civil law, which can and should only touch “adiaphora.” By regulating religious uniformity simply as adiaphora, and not as a matter of fundamental religious obligation, he (and many other early Protestants) laid the groundwork for subsequently relaxing all such regulations, once changes in circumstances showed them to be unnecessary for the public peace (as Hooker theoretically allowed could be the case). Coupled with this is of course a very sincere and serious respect for freedom of conscience, the cornerstone of individual liberties that would subsequently be recognized. Hooker goes a good ways toward desacralizing the political office, disentangling the realm of human law from that of divine.
However, Hooker is clearly NOT a liberal in other key senses. He does not think that merely temporal, human ends can be well-served if uncoupled from man’s chief end, and so a successful commonwealth will be one that honors God. Moreover, he believes human laws must be such as to reflect a determinate ideal of virtue, one that is ideally informed by Christian revelation, though it can be approximated without it. He is not laissez-faire, that much is clear. And I don’t detect much hint of a doctrine of “rights” in him, though perhaps others may wish to disagree.
As for the second question, here I really will be concise. I am generally in sympathy with him on both points, both his liberal and illiberal aspects. But I’ll be waiting to the last chapter of my thesis to try to untangle all that properly.
Davey, I am not pitting creation and providence against redemption but I am trying to maintain the distinction. Neo-Calvinism blurs this with talk of common grace (and neglects creation and providence). So, of course, natural law and providence apply to the church. But the church plays by different rules from the state. The church forgives (grace), the state does not (creation, as in covenant of works).
I can’t answer about Rawls. I can appeal to a long line of two-swords thinking in the West and even distinctions between canon and civil law that folks like Remi Brague and Francis Oakley develop such that the distinction between church and state, and the difference between the public and private spheres, is not just a modern liberal invention. I don’t see how you have civil society without differentiating between spheres of the state and other human activities.
BTW, you really think Wedgeworth and Escalante’s articles were incredible displays of erudition? To make Hooker the better inheritor of Calvin when Hooker rejected Presbyterianism, and didn’t follow Calvin on the sufficiency of Scripture, not to mention how they miss Calvin’s insistence on reserving to the church the power of excommunication or ignore the execution of Servertus, is a stretch of muscle-pulling proportions.
Just a quick note to say that I’m planning to follow up on both these very helpful comments from Brad and Darryl. I have family obligations here in Chicago the next few days, but I’ll clear some time this weekend.