https://regensburgforum.com/2016/12/12/political-theology-modernity-and-late-scholasticism/
The context for this discussion is the epistemological crisis that emerged with the Magisterial Reformation. The Protestant Reformers looked to the state to legislate their religious reforms and counter the authority of the Roman Catholic Church - which in many parts of Europe had lost its standing with the state. The Magisterial Protestant rebellion had to be justified philosophically and ethically and as such there were various appeals to Scripture, lesser magistrates, conscience, and early forms of social contract theory.
But how to hold it all together? How to arrest an endless cycle of uprisings and rebellion? Some looked to the power of the state and Hobbes represents something of an extreme and his name still engenders shudders to this day and is considered synonymous with tyrannical absolutism. And yet from the standpoint of Hobbes, if this authority was granted by means of a social contract it was in fact democratic and served to protect the interests of the people as opposed to any kind of capricious tyranny. Though not readily admitted, there are parallels and overlap with his ideas and what one finds with some of the Reformers and the kind of authoritarian states they envisioned and supported. Who can doubt the chaos of the period led to the Absolutism of the 17th century? And while many contemporary Evangelicals and Confessionalists associate themselves with republicanism and limited government, they forget that many Protestants supported Absolutism and the authoritarian models it produced.
State supremacy contained its own problems and generated a crisis for the Church because it erected a rival authority base. On the one hand the Church could simply become a means for the monarchy to rule and the Church's task was simply to reinforce the regime - as seen in the various state churches.
But on the other hand the state could say the rights of citizens should be viewed as equal to or functionally outranking ecclesiastical prerogatives. It wouldn't be good for society to allow excommunications to generate social tension or economic problems for citizens as it did in the Middle Ages. But such tolerance and the removal of power from the Church - and the removal of civil consequence for excommunication was highly problematic to some church leaders.
But in a pluralist society (which emerged with Magisterial Reformation) how could it be otherwise? The only alternative would be to purge the land of all dissenters and create religiously monolithic societies. Spain maintained this model for centuries and after 1685 it was attempted by France.
Hobbes looks to the state as a means of constraint from the brutish state of nature. I found it interesting that the Calvinist Cocq rejects this framing. It reminded me of contemporary Calvinists and Dominionists so eager to frame the creation as good. While undoubtedly it was created so, it fell as a result of Adam's sin and was placed under the curse of death. The harmony once exhibited in the Garden is removed and replaced by fear and dread as nature and man are now in state of animosity - a place of sweat and thorns. Nature is dangerous and civilisation (even with its dangers) is a refuge from it - a restraint on the force of nature (fallen man and the sin-cursed world) which knows no restraint. Reading of Cocq's views and his relationship to Aristotelian thought, I am reminded once again of the scholastic shift that took place within the Reformed movement as humanist scholarship was replaced by a larger holistic set of concerns better served by the rational organisation and tools provided by an Aristotelian framework. The ways in which Calvinism has navigated some of its own doctrines - in particular Total Depravity continues to fascinate.
Cocq places his hopes in restrained government while Hobbes writing in the aftermath of the English Civil War and under the Puritan Commonwealth is obviously anxious about its prospects for success. He was proven right in so far as the failed prospects of the Commonwealth, but the age of Absolutism also proved relatively short-lived. The hope was that it would check the chaos, endless debate and politicking but it proved incapable and not up to the task. In England it was dead by 1688, less than a decade after Hobbes' death. A century later the idea flamed out with the American and French Revolutions. After some brief experiments in the realm of 'Enlightened Absolutism', the idea more or less was dispensed with and would only reappear (on a very different basis) with the dictatorships of the 20th century.
The question of governmental restraint is also worthy of consideration as the author of the article makes clear. He suggests a discussion regarding the views of someone like Cocq and the thought of his contemporary John Locke. They are of course operating from different epistemological platforms. The question reminds me of the way in which someone like Francis Schaeffer disingenuously (or at best irresponsibly) suggested a parallel or harmony between the work of Samuel Rutherford and Locke - suggesting that Locke's thought was merely a secularized version of Rutherford. This has been demonstrated to be untrue as would any comparison between Cocq and Locke.
The article helpfully suggests that this period needs to be revisited and reconsidered. Even though this author would undoubtedly come to very different conclusions, the point is still valid in that such inquiries are certain to challenge the prevailing and yet often romanticised and fantastical metanarratives of our day.