Thomas Jackson (theologian)

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Thomas Jackson (born December 1578 in Witton-le-Wear, Durham , † September 21, 1640 in Oxford ) was an English theologian and philosopher. After studying at Oxford, he worked there as a university lecturer. In the Anglican Church he was part of the Arminian school in a broad sense . He received important suggestions from Neoplatonism . Jackson is considered the forerunner of " Cambridge Platonism ".

Life

Thomas Jackson was born in Witton-le-Wear, a town in County Durham, in December 1578 and baptized on December 21st. His father Henry Jackson had a farm as a yeoman . Henry Jackson had six children with his wife, Elizabeth; Thomas was his second son. When Henry died, probably 1587 or soon after, Thomas inherited property in Ferrye on the Hill. Initially, the profession of a merchant was intended for him, but at the intercession of an influential nobleman, Lord Ralph Eure (1558–1617), the family sent him instead to Oxford for training. There he was accepted into the University 's Queen's College on June 25, 1596 . Richard Crakanthorpe, later known as a well-known logician and anti-Catholic polemicist, was his tutor. On March 24, 1597, Thomas Jackson received a scholarship to study at Corpus Christi College , which remained his most important place of work until his death. Soon afterwards he almost drowned; his salvation convinced him that he was destined for an important task. On July 23, 1599 he became a Bachelor of Arts , on July 9, 1603 he obtained the degree of a Master of Arts . Then he turned to an ecclesiastical career; on February 24, 1605 he was ordained a deacon , and on September 22 of the same year he was ordained a priest. In the course of his student years he acquired an extraordinary education which, in addition to Latin and ancient Greek, also included knowledge of oriental languages. He also studied mathematics and the occult disciplines . In philosophy his special interest was metaphysics .

Jackson's admission to the faculty followed: on May 10, 1606, he was elected probationer fellow at Corpus Christi College . As a tutor he looked after two sons of Lord Robert Spencer von Wormleighton, Richard and Edward Spencer, who later emerged as politicians. From then on he became a close friend of the Spencer family. During this time he advanced his theological training. On June 25, 1610 he received the theological Bachelor degree (Bachelor of Divinity), the following year, on June 11, 1611, the university gave him permission to preach. He lectured theology at both Corpus Christi College and Broadgates Hall, later Pembroke College . Jackson's doctorate in theology did not take place until June 27, 1622, where he represented anti-Catholic theses in the disputation that was part of the doctoral procedure.

On November 27, 1623 Jackson received an important pastoral position, the Vicariate of St. Nicholas in Newcastle upon Tyne . But he did not have to leave Oxford immediately; rather he was allowed to teach there for some time; only in January 1625 did he give up his position as a fellow. His patron was Bishop Richard Neile of Durham, of which he was chaplain . It was probably Neile who got him the vicariate and later the office of royal chaplain . Jackson also owed the bishop another benefice , which he obtained in 1625, the parish (rectory) Winston, County Durham. The use of two benefices as a cluster of offices required a special permit, which Neile granted.

In January 1631, Jackson was elected President (Rector) of Corpus Christi College on the recommendation of King Charles I. The Archbishop of Canterbury , William Laud , had stood up for him. Jackson returned to Oxford and renounced his two benefices in the north. He held the position of president until his death. During his nine-year tenure, the faculty, which had previously been troubled by conflict, was peaceful. During this time he enjoyed the favor of the king, who ensured that he received new benefices: On July 18, 1632 Jackson was introduced to the office of Vicar of Witney in Oxfordshire , on March 16, 1635 he was also canon of the cathedral from Winchester . Because of the offensive nature of the accumulation of offices, he renounced Witney in 1637. At the instigation of Archbishop Laud, he was the office of the January 17, 1639 Dean of Peterborough Cathedral transmitted.

Jackson generally tended to be balanced, but he was very firm in advocating his beliefs on the issues that mattered to him. In particular, he made a name for himself as a decided adversary of Calvinism . This made him the target of counter-attacks, including in the House of Commons , where his former student Richard Spencer defended him in 1628. One of his opponents was the well-known Calvinist theologian William Twisse, who opposed him in 1631 with the pamphlet A Discovery of D. Jackson's Vanitie . In 1640, Archbishop Laud was forced to intervene at Oxford to prevent the publication of Jackson's sermons with controversial content. The publication would have violated a royal moratorium that prohibited the fierce theological disputes from taking place.

Jackson remained unmarried. He died on September 21, 1640 in his college, in whose chapel he was buried at his request.

Works

Jackson wrote memoirs and sermons. His main work are his comments on the Apostles' Creed (Commentaries upon the Apostles Creed) in twelve books. The first nine books and part of the twelfth were published during his lifetime, the rest from his estate. The first volume appeared in 1613. It was dedicated to Lord Eure, the benefactor who had given the author the opportunity to study. The content is a detailed presentation of Anglican theology from the author's point of view and the demarcation of this position from both Catholicism and Calvinism. Part of the commentaries is the treatise on the nature and attributes of God (A Treatise of the Divine Essence and Attributes) , the first part of which appeared in 1628. It was there that Jackson first took a written position against the Calvinist doctrine of predestination and advocated the Arminian counter-position - the commitment to free will. From then on he was perceived in public as an Arminian, although he did not confess to Arminianism. Despite the conciliatory attitude of the author, the publication of the Treatise met with a hostile response.

Teaching

One of Jackson's main concerns was the defense of human free will against the Calvinist doctrine of "double predestination". According to the Calvinist understanding, those chosen by God are certain of eternal bliss from the beginning , while the rest of the people are predestined to suffer eternal damnation in hell even before they are born . The “choice of grace”, the final decision of God about the future status of individual people in eternity , was already clear before the creation of the world. Human acts of will cannot change this; no one can escape his fate, which Divine Providence determined on him from the start. Jackson countered this view of the Calvinists with the argument that God wanted and created not only necessity but also contingency and that these two elements were harmoniously combined. Only the existing possibilities from which a person can choose are predetermined.

Jackson's worldview was strongly influenced by Neoplatonism, especially by the ideas of the Neoplatonic Renaissance humanist Marsilio Ficino . He was particularly interested in natural theology ; he dealt with the question of how a knowledge of God can come about. A fundamental principle for him was the demand that doctrines of faith be made understandable by the means of reason. Although he criticized the way of thinking of the scholastics , who wanted to derive their theological theses from necessary assumptions, he basically agreed with them that he emphasized the need for correct logical reasoning. However, he said that the human mind cannot access divine truths on its own, but only thanks to the support of divine grace.

On the issues in which Anglican theology differed from Catholic, Jackson strongly advocated the views of his church. Sharply condemned the Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility and real presence .

reception

Jackson's estate included a number of unpublished writings that the scholar Barnabas Oley took to printing. The largest part appeared in the period between 1653 and 1657. In 1653, Oley also published a biography of Jackson from the pen of Edmund Vaughan, who had worked at Corpus Christi College in the 1630s and thus reported as an eyewitness. This was followed by a three-volume, almost complete edition of the works from 1672–1673, which comprised over 3000 pages.

With his reception of the central ideas of Plato and Plotinus , Jackson was a forerunner of "Cambridge Platonism". The extent of his influence on the Cambridge Platonists, a group of theologians and philosophers of the 17th century, and possibly also on the Oxford intellectuals of the " Tew Circle" is not easy to determine. What is certain is that Benjamin Whichcote (1609–1683), a well-known representative of Cambridge Platonism, and the poet Thomas Traherne († 1674) received inspiration from Jackson's ideas.

Jackson's writings also found attention among Anglican theologians in modern times. In the circle of the Oxford movement of the 19th century, people dealt with his teaching. The poet Robert Southey (1774–1843) held him in high regard . In 1844 a twelve-volume complete edition of Jackson's works was published in Oxford.

output

The Works of Thomas Jackson, DD 12 volumes. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1844 ( Volume 1 in the Google Book Search; therein p. XXXIX – LII Edmund Vaughan: The Life and Death of the Reverend, Learned and Pious Dr. Jackson )

literature

Overview representations

examination

Remarks

  1. ^ Not, as stated in some biographical abstracts, 1579; see Andrew J. Hegarty: Jackson, Thomas. In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Volume 29, Oxford 2004, pp. 525-527, here: 525.
  2. ↑ Andrew J. Hegarty: Jackson, Thomas. In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Volume 29, Oxford 2004, pp. 525-527, here: 525 f.
  3. ↑ Andrew J. Hegarty: Jackson, Thomas. In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Volume 29, Oxford 2004, pp. 525-527, here: 526.
  4. ↑ Suellen Mutchow Towers: Control of Religious Printing in Early Stuart England , Woodbridge 2003, p. 51
  5. ↑ Andrew J. Hegarty: Jackson, Thomas. In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Volume 29, Oxford 2004, pp. 525–527, here: 526. On the ecclesiastical situation in Newcastle upon Tyne see Roger Howell: Newcastle upon Tyne and the Puritan Revolution , Oxford 1967, pp. 84– 87.
  6. ↑ Andrew J. Hegarty: Jackson, Thomas. In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Volume 29, Oxford 2004, pp. 525-527, here: 526 f.
  7. ↑ Suellen Mutchow Towers: Control of Religious Printing in Early Stuart England , Woodbridge 2003, pp. 56-61, 64; Nicholas Tyacke: Anti-Calvinists , Oxford 1987, pp. 77 f .; James Bryson: Renaissance Platonism and Interreligious Dialogue: Nicholas Cusanus, Thomas Jackson, and the Cambridge Platonists. In: Torrance Kirby et al. (Ed.): Philosophy and the Abrahamic Religions: Scriptural Hermeneutics and Epistemology , Newcastle upon Tyne 2013, pp. 311–321, here: 319 f .; Andrew J. Hegarty: Jackson, Thomas. In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Volume 29, Oxford 2004, pp. 525-527, here: 526 f.
  8. ↑ See also Suellen Mutchow Towers: Control of Religious Printing in Early Stuart England , Woodbridge 2003, pp. 53–64; Sarah Hutton: Thomas Jackson, Oxford Platonist, and William Twisse, Aristotelian. In: Journal of the History of Ideas 39, 1978, pp. 635-652, here: 638-640.
  9. ^ Sarah Hutton: Thomas Jackson, Oxford Platonist, and William Twisse, Aristotelian. In: Journal of the History of Ideas 39, 1978, pp. 635-652, here: 640.
  10. ^ Sarah Hutton: Thomas Jackson. In: Jean-Pierre Schobinger (Ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The Philosophy of the 17th Century , Volume 3: England , 1st Half Volume, Basel 1988, pp. 221–223, here: 223; James Bryson: Renaissance Platonism and Interreligious Dialogue: Nicholas Cusanus, Thomas Jackson, and the Cambridge Platonists. In: Torrance Kirby et al. (Ed.): Philosophy and the Abrahamic Religions: Scriptural Hermeneutics and Epistemology , Newcastle upon Tyne 2013, pp. 311–321, here: 316–320; Sarah Hutton: Thomas Jackson, Oxford Platonist, and William Twisse, Aristotelian. In: Journal of the History of Ideas 39, 1978, pp. 635-652, here: 641-646.
  11. ↑ Anthony Milton: Catholic and Reformed , Cambridge 1995, pp. 97, 196 f., 220, 259 f.
  12. ↑ Suellen Mutchow Towers: Control of Religious Printing in Early Stuart England , Woodbridge 2003, pp. 51 f., 64-67.
  13. ^ Sarah Hutton: Thomas Jackson. In: Jean-Pierre Schobinger (Ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The Philosophy of the 17th Century , Volume 3: England , 1st Half Volume, Basel 1988, pp. 221–223, here: 223; Robert A. Greene: Whichcote, Wilkins, "Ingenuity," and the Reasonableness of Christianity. In: Journal of the History of Ideas 42, 1981, pp. 227-252, here: 227, 235-238.
  14. ^ Sarah Hutton: Thomas Jackson. In: Jean-Pierre Schobinger (Ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The Philosophy of the 17th Century , Volume 3: England , 1st Half Volume, Basel 1988, pp. 221–223, here: 223.
personal data
SURNAME Jackson, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English theologian
DATE OF BIRTH December 1578
PLACE OF BIRTH Witton-le-Wear
DATE OF DEATH September 21, 1640
Place of death Oxford