Resistance theory in the early modern period

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For broader historical focus, see right of revolution.

Resistance theory is an aspect of

natural and legal rights of citizens, and to co-exist with considerations of natural law
.

Any "

right of self-defence
is usually taken to be a part of legal theory, and was no novelty in the early modern period. Arguments about the two concepts do overlap, and the distinction is not so clear in debates.

The language of magistracy

Resistance theory has been formulated as "resistance to the magistrate", where magistrate stands for authority in the legal form. In effect "magistrate" here may stand for

optimates of the late Roman Republic.[1]

Christian resistance theories of the early modern period

The various strands did not develop separately, and drew on pre-Reformation thinkers as well as contemporaries.

Lutheran resistance theory

Main article: Lesser magistrate

It is argued that the beginnings of Protestant resistance theory lay in the legal positions worked out after the 1530 Diet of Augsburg, by jurists working for the Electorate of Saxony and the Landgraviate of Hesse.[2] A summary on Lutheran ideas about resistance was included with the 1550 Magdeburg Confession.[3][4] It argues that the "subordinate powers" in a state, faced with the situation where the "supreme power" is working to destroy true religion, under very specific circumstances (such as when the Beerwolf clause is fulfilled) may go further than non-cooperation with the supreme power and assist the faithful to resist.[5]

Calvinist resistance theory

Further information: Monarchomachs

The mainstream ideas from the Magdeburg Confession recur in Calvinist writings, from 1558 onwards.

The Monstruous Regiment of Women).[7] The annotations of the Geneva Bible pointed to exemplars of resistance theory (and were not unique in that).[8]

The literature includes but is not limited to the

Dutch Revolt. In the Politica (1603) of Johannes Althusius, one of the occasions justifying resistance to a supreme magistrate by inferior magistrates (roughly, members of the "ruling class"), in the case of tyranny, is for a prince or group of rulers of provinces, extended to the provincial "authorities", this matching the situation of the Revolt. Althusius was closer to Zwingli than Calvin in his approach, in fact, and clarified his views on church and state in successive editions.[9]

private warfare from political society (an issue of pacification).[10]

Catholic resistance theory

In the French context, Catholic resistance theory grew on the

Jesuits opposed to the "liberties" claimed by the Gallican Church, and defenders of ultramontanism.[12] The tradition of the papal deposing power was defended, in indirect form, by Robert Bellarmine in 1586, which amounted to validating some resistance by subjects; in reply Louis Servin in 1591 wrote a vindication in extreme form of Gallican liberties.[13]

Resistance theory and the Church of England

The

Huldrich Zwingli as politically based.[16]

In

conciliarist of an older tradition, in harmony with the views of Richard Hooker.[17] Hooker's actual views on resistance theory were careful; he criticised aspects of the Vindiciae contra tyrannos, but avoided commenting in particular on legitimate resistance.[18] Churchmen who would later be seen as poles apart on theology, Thomas Morton and David Owen, wrote in the period 1605–10 on resistance theory in a way equating it with a Catholic tradition; Owen commented that the analogy general council is to papacy as peers to monarchy is false.[19]

By the time of the reign of Charles I, other considerations had come to matter more. Arminianism in the Church of England had become a source of great tension. But in theological terms Arminianism was compatible with divine right, as it was with resistance theory. The argument on resistance was going on elsewhere.[20]

Resistance theory and the English Civil war

A context for resistance theory in England was in the theoretical discussions of

ancient constitution". Political conflicts that were stoked up by the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War took place in the 1620s with a shared consensus assumption against the legitimacy of resistance.[20] It has been argued that the theorising from the late sixteenth century on the English ancient constitution was an "antidote" to resistance theory.[21]

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography comments that, while Pym almost certainly was familiar with resistance theory in its Protestant form, around the time in early 1642 when the First English Civil War was breaking out, he was too good a politician to show that he knew it.[22] Russell has also argued that the Parliamentarians were almost completely successful in avoiding formulating a resistance theory.[23]

Whig resistance theory

The

passive resistance, indeed preferring nonresistance.[24] John Locke's Two Treatises of Government, written at the time of the Exclusion Crisis but published after the Glorious Revolution, went back to the Calvinist resistance theory as in George Buchanan. Algernon Sidney like Locke replied to the Patriarcha of Robert Filmer, and provided a thorough animadversion.[25]

The trial in 1710 of

Benjamin Hoadley who was an extreme Whig in his The Original and Institution of Civil Government Discuss'd (1710), made opposite and incompatible claims about the treatment of resistance in Richard Hooker, who by now was an iconic figure in Anglican theology.[26]

See also

References

  1. ^ Arthur P. Monahan, The Circle of Rights Expands: Modern political thought after the Reformation, 1521 (Luther) to 1762 (Rousseau) (2007), pp. 55–6; Google Books.
  2. ^ J. H. Burns (editor), The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450-1700, p. 200; Google Books.
  3. ^ (in German) Bekenntnis Unterricht und Vermanung.
  4. ^ John R. Stumme and Robert W. Tuttle, Church & State: Lutheran perspectives (2003), pp. 41–2; Google Books.
  5. ^ R. B. Wernham (editor), The New Cambridge Modern History: The Counter-Reformation and price revolution, 1559-1610 (1968), p. 98; Google Books.
  6. ^ John William Allen, A History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century (1977), p. 106.
  7. ^ Burns, p. 194; Google Books.
  8. ^ Patrick Collinson, Elizabethans (2003), p. 45; Google Books.
  9. ^ Wiep van Bunge et al. (editors), The Dictionary of Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Dutch Philosophers (2003), Thoemmes Press (two volumes), article Althusius, Johannes, p. 11–18.
  10. ^ Deborah Baumgold, Contract Theory in Historical Context: essays on Grotius, Hobbes, and Locke (2010), p. 29–30; Google Books.
  11. ^ Burns, p. 233; Google Books.
  12. ^ Burns, p. 231; Google Books.
  13. ^ Burns, p. 232; Google Books.
  14. ^ Edward Vallance, Revolutionary England and the National Covenant: state oaths, Protestantism, and the political nation, 1553-1682 (2005), p. 12; Google Books.
  15. ^ Robert Oresko, G. C. Gibbs, Hamish M. Scott, Royal and Republican Sovereignty in Early Modern Europe: essays in memory of Ragnhild Hatton (1997), p. 141; Google Books.
  16. ^ Anthony Milton, Catholic and Reformed: The Roman and Protestant Churches in English Protestant Thought, 1600-1640 (2002), p. 517; Google Books.
  17. ^ W. B. Patterson, King James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom (2000), pp. 23–4 and pp. 67–8.
  18. ^ Lisa Ferraro Parmelee, Good Newes from Fraunce: French anti-league propaganda in late Elizabethan England (1996), pp. 88–9; Google Books.
  19. ^ Francis Oakley, Politics and Eternity: studies in the history of medieval and early-modern political thought (1999), p. 166; Google Books.
  20. ^ a b Glenn Burgess, The Politics of the Ancient Constitution (1992), p. 181, p. 95, and p. 171.
  21. ^ p. 89; Google Books.
  22. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/22926. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  23. ^ Conrad Russell, The Causes of the English Civil War (1990), p. 23.
  24. ^ Nicholas T. Phillipson, Quentin Skinner, Political Discourse in Early Modern Britain (1993), p. 250; Google Books.
  25. ^ R. O. Bucholz, Newton Key, Early Modern England 1485-1714: a narrative history (2009), p. 298; Google Books.
  26. ^ Michael Brydon, The Evolving Reputation of Richard Hooker: An Examination of Responses, 1600–1714 (2006), pp. 188–90.
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