Energy and Participation: Neoplatonic Poesis in Richard Hooker’s Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie

This paper unveils a Neoplatonic grammar of “energy” (energeia) in Richard Hooker’s (1554–1600) account of humanity’s creative “participation” in God. His articulation of a “sacramental poetics” in his Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie has drawn attention from scholars aiming to re-enchant the post-Enlightenment world. They often read Hooker as supporting a participatory metaphysics grounded in Christian panentheism. This paper argues instead that Hooker retrieves from church fathers like Dionysius and Damascene a Neoplatonic tradition that connects the Aristotelian language of energeia with human acts of divine participation. I demonstrate this through his participative use of terms like “working” in Book One of the Lawes in relation to human acts of poesis, and then in Book Five in relation to Christ’s sacramental presence. I argue that “energy” operates as a mediating category in his thought, allowing Hooker to articulate a participatory ontology that avoids both panentheism and undue metaphysical complexity.