ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses a critical question about power and the presence of God that came to startling expression in the Tudor reformation. Two examples are treated in some detail and set in the light of the English Christendom: Stephen Gardiner’s defensive essay De Vera Obedientia and Richard Hooker’s more innovative Ecclesiastical Lawes. At the beginning of this period Gardiner argued for the Royal Supremacy on essential traditional and biblical grounds for a hierarchy of authority in society. At the end of the period Hooker began from an altogether different point and argued on different bases. Going beyond the Admonition controversy he re-defined law in terms of the character of God’s action and made Christology the paradigm of God’s presence. The Royal Supremacy was defended in limited form on this basis and provides an entry into the different world of modernity. The supposed Anglican Moment argued by Peter Lake is considered and re-framed.
