The Three-Legged Stool: A Useful Myth?
The Mythology of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason
Hooker’s Three-Legged Stool
It is frequently espoused that the Anglican theological method can be likened to a three-legged stool, with understanding coming from the three vector’s of holy scripture, sacred tradition, and our God-given gift of reason. Occasionally (and more properly) it’s made clear that the "legs” of the “stool” aren’t necessarily of equal length. Tradition and reason are clarified as being the methods by which Anglican Christians interpret scripture. Either way, the formulation of scripture, tradition, and reason is generally attributed to 16th century Anglican priest, Rev. Richard Hooker.
The formulation of the stool is valued by many Anglican Christians around the world and espoused by parishes, church bodies, and even on the website and in learning material of the Anglican Communion itself. There is a problem, however. Richard Hooker never wrote this! And while some do and have argued that it can be extracted from his Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, it isn’t at all clear to me that he would have approved of the formulation attributed to him. Relatedly, the conception of Hooker’s writings as positioning the Church of England between Rome and Geneva such that it’s theology and ritual constituted a Via Media is an anachronism, which dates to the 19th century Oxford Movement. Modern scholars have tended to reject the idea that Hooker was ever in favor of any kind of half-Roman, half-Reformed tradition, or really that he was every anything but a Reformed (a modern term), Magisterial Protestant who never did abandon ideals of the Reformation even as he polemicized against the Puritans and their more extreme stances (which rejected the Prayer Book, the Episcopacy and other peculiarities of the Church of England they saw as insufficiently Reformed. These peculiarities of the CofE would indeed necessitate different theological views from the Congregationalists and the Presbyterians, but this wasn’t imagined by Hooker as any manner of break from the wider Reformation and Protestantism, much less an approach toward Rome).
The earliest (and most influential) source for the idea of the three-legged stool (even if not analogized that way) attributed to Hooker that I’ve been able to find thus far is the Francis Paget’s (not the Francis Edward Paget of the Oxford Movement) influential 1899 introduction to the fifth book of Hooker’s Lawes12. Paget, declares:
Hooker's appeal in things spiritual is to a threefold fount of guidance and authority - to reason, Scripture, and tradition - all alike of God, alike emanating from Him, the one original Source of all light and power. . . .3
This is in 1899, more than three hundred years after the start of the English Reformation, if one is to use that definition as a starting point for Anglicanism — this can certainly be debated! Either way the point is that one way or another, the distinct and independent Church of England and even Hooker’s Lawes from which the doctrine is said to derive had existed for over three hundred years before the popularization of the term. I grant that earlier airing of the doctrine may have existed (my scrounging around sources with the aid of Google and without access to many scholarly sources or records is a limitation — I’m not exactly a scholar!), but, after I think a reasonable degree of searching, I can say that I would be very, very surprised if there articulations of the notion and it’s connection to Anglicanism from before the 19th century. Either way, it was not a popular notion until Paget’s Introduction. Even if argued that Anglican theology has stood on these things before then (which I am not here to say is an invalid position), one I think should be clear that the term is being applied retroactively.
The problem I think should be clear — a piece of doctrine, said to be defining of a Christian tradition, and said also to date to the English Reformation, is almost certainly a much later development. An anachronism. Anglican mythology. And a mythology focused into a simplistic formula that can be, as I’ll argue later, used in a positive (scripture-focused) or negative way.
Anglican Identity
That the stool has been so enthusiastically adopted and received among Anglicans in the years after it’s popularization, no matter how spurious or ill-defined its origins are, tells us several things, I think. For one it does tell us that the idea is popular, and I think the idea is popular not only because it aids some in their understanding of revelation, but also, and possibly more so, because it is an idea constructive to Anglican identities that aren’t welded to the very Reformed theology of the English Reformation and its formularies (I say this as someone who is wedded to those things, and who believes they provably can be uniting and normative for Anglicans even of very different orientations, though that’s a topic for another day).
The notion of the Via Media, already popularized by the Oxford Movement, is relatedly valuable for those who wished to articulate a historical justification for more “catholic” theologies and practices, and so also the stool’s emphasis on tradition as a source of revelation was and is desirable to those of Anglo-Catholic persuasions. Similarly, amid the challenges posed in the 20th century by advances in scientific and historical understanding to previously solid church doctrines, an emphasis on reason was desirable to those either challenging or defending doctrine.
The history of the English Church and the form of Christianity that came with it is a fraught one, to say the least, and one result of centuries of conflict and compromise is the development of a number of theological traditions within a tradition, and with them, different claims as to just what Anglicanism is. So too is the stool used here, to describe the Reformed (scripture), Catholic (tradition), and Progressive/Liberal (reason) tendencies, accomplishing a sort of inter-Anglican ecumenism and unity.
There are reasons still beyond these that Anglicans (Methodists also have used it, no less anachronistically — claiming it’s development by John Wesley and adding on “experience” to form the so-called “Wesleyan Quadrilateral”, despite Wesley having, like Hooker, never clearly and unambiguously articulated such an idea 4) have seen fit to use the formulation. The most obvious through has to be that people agree with it, and find it useful in shaping the way they interact with revelation.
First Thing… Don’t Panic!
I want to say, in a spirit of that inter-Anglican ecumenicism I mentioned, that I don’t believe our seeking to be clear and historical about these questions jeopardizes the validity, historical or otherwise, of any set of belief’s and practices. Anglo-Catholicism, for instance, I don’t believe rests on the idea that Hooker was attempting to develop a Via Media. Likewise I don’t believe conceptions of Anglicanism as only a Reformed tradition (with non-Reformed conceptions invalid) are in any way proved by the fact pointed to by inspection: that the 16th century Church of England was indeed, deeply and profoundly Reformed.
In other words, we shouldn’t panic.
Now What?
I do want to say that I think it behooves us, as Christians, and as Anglicans, to not mythologize or misrepresent the origins of ideas within our tradition, even accidentally. Theology is a means to understanding God, and existence of falsities and mythologies in our own conceptions, even just of a tradition, will serve to impede our ability to reason about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel and the Christian faith are too important to not strive for truth.
At the same time, I want to say that I don’t think the spurious historicity of the “three-legged-stool as classical Anglican method” idea means that we need to dispense with it, or even necessarily to discount its “Anglican-ness”. But if we are to embrace it, if we are to keep it around, then we need to do so properly.
Should We Embrace “Scripture, Tradition, and Reason”?
I want to be clear that, on the one hand, I do believe that the approach of interpreting holy scripture (which is truly the Word of God, and which contains all things necessary for salvation) with the tools of our catholic tradition and our God-given reason, is both perfectly valid and valuable. I like it. I think that it’s a genuinely useful framing for our interaction with revelation. This is all with a caveat, though.
The caveat being the extreme importance of the centrality of scripture, particularly on issues of salvation. The doctrines of our justification and salvation, that are found in the Bible, particularly cannot be reckoned “equal to” other sources of revelation, such that we conceive of theologies which supersede the Gospel. The moment that a tradition or someone’s “reason” tells us that we must do this or that not mentioned in scripture to be saved, we have a deep and profound problem. It’s this issue which was at the heart of the Reformation.
IF that is sufficiently clear, then I think, “scripture, tradition, and reason”, can become immensely powerful sources for the nurturing of the Christian faith. It essentially becomes a doctrine of at once centering scripture, and also refusing no tools in relating to and understanding and interpreting that scripture. It’s a very “having it all” ethos, one which I think Anglicanism lends itself to. A comprehensiveness that doesn’t just allow for individuals be catholic, or evangelical, or inclusive, or orthodox, but where it can be deeply both catholic AND evangelical, inclusive, AND orthodox.
I am very much less positive toward views which regard each ‘leg’ (scripture, tradition, reason), as equal sources of authority, such that we are in danger of the overriding of the saving Gospel of Jesus. Indeed, this (that each leg is of “equal” authority) is a common view, and it's also one that Paget had intended in his Introduction. The issue is that this is not a theologically correct position. It is one which will, I believe, lead towards error. And also it is neither historic, nor reflective of what even contemporary Anglican churches believe, as defined in statements of faith contained in the 39 Articles, or the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, or in, for instance, the Ordination Rites in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.
This view, or any which doesn't place scripture in a prime position, whereby other sources of revelation can be checked is, I believe, bound to depart from the truth that God has revealed to us, and that is always a negative thing. I should be clear that I am not advocating a view that scripture is totally flawless, without contradictions, or uninfluenced by the human vector of its creation, even as inspired by the Holy Spirit as it is. But I do argue that there is no cause for the church to have people believe, most especially when it concerns their salvation, that which is not in or which cannot be proved with holy scripture. As the sixth Article of the 39 Articles of Religion, says:
“Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.”5 This is the essence of so-called sola scriptura, another, incidentally, oft-misunderstood term.
Views espoused by some that “Anglicanism doesn’t affirm sola scriptura because we believe in scripture, tradition, and reason” are dangerously in error, and it is not this view that I advocate when I say that I’m not opposed to a continued embrace of “scripture, tradition and reason”.
Beyond leading us astray, the view of three roughly equal sources of authority also just is not allowed by Anglican views of the deposit of faith as illustrated by the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, among other statements (in some churches, the 39 Articles for instance, particularly the aforementioned Article VI). This view of the centrality of scripture, as containing all necessary to salvation, is a shared characteristic of the Anglican faith common across the Anglican Communion6 and across orientations whether one be Evangelical or Anglo-Catholic or some other thing. In other words, this reading of the stool is incompatible anyway with the position of all Anglican churches that scripture be the standard of faith.
In that light I'm reasonably confident (as an unlearned laywoman can be!) in saying that the stool model is, with these clarifications in mind, compatible with broad Anglican belief, and can be articulated in an orthodox and helpful way. But if Anglicans are to continue to propagate this view, they have to be committed to not making the grave error of calling tradition and reason authorities coequal with scripture. If we can’t be clear about this, then perhaps the idea will do more damage than good. A problem though, is that it’s too late.
It’s Traditional Now
Even if the three-legged stool is reckoned to be from the 19th century, that is still a long time ago, and generations have been exposed to it. I have to say that even if we wanted to dispense with it, that the cat’s rather out of the bag. Innumerable people have and have had, as part of a conception of their tradition, the notion of the three-legged stool. Now even so, if it were proven to me that the idea leads always to error and away from God, then I’d be inclined still to oppose it (an old idea isn’t automatically a good one), but as I don’t believe that necessarily MUST be the case, and have explained why I think here is value in the notion when correctly articulated, I am perfectly happy to accept that Anglicanism, as it exists today, does have its theology sitting atop scripture, tradition, and reason. And perhaps, given the wide popularity of the notion, it would be more useful than to somehow try to stop using it, to instead use it (or allow its use), but always with the caveats and clarifications that I’ve explained.
Generally I think it’s a mistake to look at anything, a faith tradition or anything else, in an isolated, static way which privileges a particular moment in time and which doesn’t consider a thing as a changing and developing phenomenon. “Hooker’s” “stool” has come to be an accepted part, and distinctive feature of Anglican theology, whether or not it was present in the 16th century. It is like the Via Media, a spurious notion borne from theological strife in the Church of England, that has by virtue of being believed, in a sense, become true (provided adequate caveats and careful understanding). But it can’t be something which causes us to veer into error.
If we are clear on history, and also scripturally centered in our theology, I see the formulation of scripture, tradition, and reason, as being potentially even very fruitful for us, despite its origin in mostly myth. If we fail to do either or both of those things, particularly if we are inclined to abandon the centrality of scripture, then error I think is inevitable.
Richard Hooker as Interpreter of the Reformed Doctrine of "Sola Scriptura" - Anglican and Episcopal History, Ranall Ingalls
Is the 'Wesleyan Quadrilateral' an accurate portrayal of Wesley's theological method? - Daniel Pratt Morris-Chapman
An Introduction to the Fifth Book of Hooker's Treatise Of the Laws of Ecclesiastic Policy - Francis Paget
39 Articles of Religion, Article VI