Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 12, No. 1 (Spring 2013): 21-31
“A Poor Wreath for a Crown of Praise”: Understanding Herbert’s Devotion to the Sovereignty of God in His Poetry Ashley Anthony As C.S. Lewis points out in his well-known text Mere Christianity, people are primarily divided into two categories: those who believe in some sort of god and those who do not. According to Lewis, “People who all believe in God can be divided according to the sort of God they believe in” (29). It is, after all, generally one’s perception of the god believed in that decides the course and classification of one’s religion. Conversely, as Stephen Hawking, a famous physicist, claimed in an interview, theology is “unnecessary” if one believes that the world was created as a result of gravity, not as a result of God. If this is the case, there is no God, and thus there is no need to discover what one believes concerning him. In Christianity, the importance of understanding what one believes about God is covered under the idea of theology, and in discovering what one believes about God, one also begins to discover the impact of theology on the practical walk of Christianity. C.S. Lewis describes theology as a map, which helps Christians decide what they are going to do with the spiritual experiences encountered. In other words, theology must be practical; it must help the Christian decide how to move forward. Otherwise, it is not an authentic theology. For the seventeenth-century metaphysical poet George Herbert, this idea of a practical theology is revealed in his poetry, which evinces his spiritual struggles while also showing that he consistently relied on his knowledge of God. As a man of deep study who gave up his position in secular society to become a priest of a small parish, Herbert wrote his poetry, which was collected and titled The Temple, seemingly as a spiritual exercise, as he never published his works during his lifetime despite the possibility of monetary compensation. Herbert’s poetry is certainly clever, but more evident is that within his poetry is a profound understanding of a personal theology, on which he relies even during his most difficult conflicts. Because of Herbert’s devotion to God and study of the Bible for his pastoral ministry, his poetry can be better understood and appreciated in light of his theological views, and particularly, his theology as it relates to John Calvin’s teaching. One of the most pervasive images in Herbert’s poetry is God’s relationship to man, and specifically, God’s sovereignty both in nature and the life of man. In his poetry, Herbert seems to acknowledge the role of God as supreme mover in contrast to the powerlessness of man, perhaps the most controversial aspect of Calvinism. In his introduction to John Calvin: Selections from His Writings, John Dillenberger discusses Calvin’s theology: “It often has been said of Calvin’s thought that it illumines the benefits of God in Christ for the believer. It would not be too much to call it a religious functionalism, for his religious