RT Article
T1 William Perkins’s (1558–1602) Case Divinity as a School of Christian Prudence
JF Journal of Early Modern Christianity
VO 11
IS 2
SP 257
OP 279
A1 Revell, Roger L.
LA English
YR 2024
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1912798352
AB This article engages with the moral theology of William Perkins of Cambridge (1558-1602), with particular attention to his celebrated and influential case divinity. Perkins’s case divinity set the stage for a Protestant return to casuistical ethics, following the eschewal and neglect of such applied moral reflection in the initial phases of the Reformation. While his cases originally received a positive reception, more modern evaluations have been less approving. Perkins has been accused of attempting to curtail Christian liberty by forging codes of piety and morality that crowd out space for personal deliberation and judgment. This essay argues that such evaluations misapprehend Perkins’s casuistical enterprise, overlooking or obscuring its chief and ultimate aim, which is didactic rather than prescriptive.
K1 Protestant casuistry
K1 Reformed moral theology
K1 William Perkins
K1 case divinity
K1 Virtue
DO 10.1515/jemc-2024-2012