Daily Inspiration Quote by Richard Hooker

Hooker’s line is doing quiet but radical political work under the cover of theology. “Whatsoever is good; the same is also approved of God” sounds like a pious platitude until you notice the direction of travel: goodness is not being defined by God’s arbitrary decree; God’s approval is being tethered to “the good.” In late-16th-century England, where religious authority and state power were welded together, that’s a stabilizing move and a limiting one. It reassures believers that divine will is not capricious, while also implying that rulers and churchmen can’t baptize any policy they like and call it holy.

The phrasing matters. “Whatsoever” universalizes, refusing to reserve goodness for the inward-facing tribe. “Approved” is legalistic rather than ecstatic: Hooker’s God is a judge ratifying what already passes a standard. That procedural tone aligns with Hooker’s larger project in Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity: defending the Elizabethan Church against Puritan demands for a Bible-only regime by arguing for a layered moral order - scripture, reason, natural law, and tradition - that can legitimately guide a commonwealth.

Subtext: moral reasoning is not rebellion; it’s obedience. If the good is recognizable (at least in part) through reason and shared human judgment, then public life can be governed without collapsing into sectarian proof-texting. Hooker isn’t secularizing the world so much as de-escalating religious absolutism, giving Protestant England a way to be devout without making every political disagreement a referendum on salvation.