Understanding Dooyeweerd Better Than He Understood Himself

Theodore Plantinga (1947-2008)

UNDERSTANDING DOOYEWEERD BETTER THAN HE  UNDERSTOOD HIMSELF 

by Theodore Plantinga

Philosophia Reformata 74 (2009) 105–114 

Ernst  Cassirer  (1946,  140)  once  observed:  “In  the  history  of  ideas  it  is  by  no means  unusual  that  a  thinker  develops  a  theory,  the  full  purport  and significance  of  which  is  still  hidden  to  himself.”  Cassirer  was  echoing  no  less  a personage  than  Kant  himself.  Kant  had  written  long  before:  “…  it  is  by  no means unusual, upon comparing the thoughts which an author has expressed in regard to his subject, whether in ordinary conversation or in writing, to find that we understand him better than he has understood himself. As he has not sufficiently determined his concept, he has sometimes spoken, or even thought, in  opposition  to  his  own  intention.”2  May  we  take  our  lead  from  Kant  here? May  we  understand  Dooyeweerd  better  than  he  understood  himself,  even  to the  point  of  attributing  to  him  a  view  or  views  that  would  appear  to  be  “in opposition to his own intention”? 

It may sound a little strange, but something of this sort seems to have been underway  among  Dooyeweerd  interpreters  for  quite  some  time.  Many  have started  from  the  assumption  that  Dooyeweerd  and  Vollenhoven  held  to essentially the same position. Now, since there were some widely acknowledged differences,  something  would  have  to  yield,  and  what  often  yielded  was Dooyeweerd.  It  was  thought  that  in  essence  Dooyeweerd  was  saying  what Vollenhoven  had  also  been  saying.  One  could  therefore  allow  for  an  error  in Dooyeweerd  here  or  there  —  perhaps  even  a  “contradiction”  —  while  con-tinuing to hold him in high esteem. 

DOWNLOAD PDF OF FULL ARTICLE HERE

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C.S. Lewis: creationist and anti-evolutionist

C.S. Lewis: 

creationist and anti-evolutionist

by Jerry Bergman

Oxford University professor C.S. Lewis was one of the most important Christian apologists of the last century. Toward the end of his career, he concluded that the modern theory of evolutionary naturalism is “pure hallucination”. Lewis detailed the reasons for this conclusion in several of his later writings.

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Clive Staples Lewis (29 Nov 1898 – 22 Nov 1963) was one of the most celebrated Christian apologists of the last century. Called “one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century”, Lewis was a professor of medieval and early modern English literature at Oxford University from 1925 until his death in 1963. He earned a triple first class degree in philosophy from Oxford and wrote about 50 books, mostly dealing with literary criticism and Christian apologetics. No narrow specialist, Lewis wrote on a remarkable variety and range of subjects. Although reared a nominal Christian, at age 15 he became an atheist, due in part to the arguments against design that he learned in college such as the claim that life was poorly designed—a view called dysteleology.

Lewis returned to Christianity at age 33 after much self soul-searching and intensive reading of works by scholars such as George MacDonald, who used stories to convey Christian apologetics just as Lewis would become famous for doing later. Lewis soon became the “leading popular Christian apologist of the twentieth century”. He is also the “most widely read religious spokesman of our time and yet his main occupation was scholarship and university teaching.”

[...] Lewis, in his essay titled “The Funeral of a Great Myth”, explained why he regarded evolution as “the great Myth of nineteenth and early twentieth century”, one that he wanted to bury. He even calls the evolutionary myth a tragedy. In 1951 Lewis wrote that evolution was “the central and radical lie in the whole web of falsehood that now governs our lives” and modern civilization.

READ FULL ARTICLE ONLINE HERE

DOWNLOAD PDF HERE

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G.A. Ponsonby: How The BBC Stole The Referendum (Chapter 2)

How The BBC Stole The Referendum

by G.A. Ponsonby

Chapter 2 - 

The Impossible Referendum and a Trumped Up Smear

[Click here to read Chapter 1]

The BBC's behaviour in the final two weeks of the referendum campaign was appalling, but it wasn't a shock to seasoned independence campaigners. The BBC had come in for considerable criticism throughout the referendum for what many insisted was a pro-Union bias. A steady pattern of promoting pro-Union claims and headlining anti-independence news stories had led to a complete breakdown of trust between the BBC and many Scottish voters. The final two weeks was merely a culmination of years of journalistic deterioration.

Read entire Chapter 2 here

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Bruce Munro: Star of Bethlehem Font - Salisbury Cathedral 2014

Abiogenesis: Cooking with Gas?

Abiogenesis: Cooking with Gas?

Fantastic claims highlight the scientific absurdity of this recycled philosophy of ‘spontaneous generation’

by Renton Maclachlan (20 Dec 2014)

Preamble: The New Zealand Geographic magazine, to which I have long subscribed, is a really excellent production technically. But not surprisingly for this type of magazine (much like the better-known National Geographic), they also publish articles that drop in the standard evolutionary lines.

Over the past 25 years they have graciously published occasional letters from me pointing out the lack of evidence for their evolutionary claims. In the past few years, the evolutionary storytelling has intensified. In the March/April 2014 edition they published an article by regular contributor and evolutionary fanatic Dave Hansford, entitled ‘Cooking with gas’, under a heading ‘LIFE: Abiogenesis’. This article, which featured prominently the 1953 Miller/Urey experiment, was particularly thin in content and substantiation, lacked any real critical thought, and made the outrageous claim, in both the text and highlighted in a ‘pullout quote’:

“Life is coming into Earth from space all the time. Immediately you walk outside the house,” study leader Dr Milton Wainwright told BBC Radio, “you’re going to be covered in microrganisms [sic] or biological entities coming from space. We believe they’ve been coming in since year dot.”

Read full article here

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Dooyeweerd: Human Heart ⼼ as Supratemporal Root 本 of Creation 宇宙

Dooyeweerd: Human Heart ⼼ 

as Supratemporal Root 本 

of Creation 宇宙

God created man in His image. In the heart of man, the religious root, the center of his being, God concentrated all of creation toward His service; here He laid the supratemporal root of all temporal creatures. This human heart, from which according to Scripture come the wellsprings of life ["Above everything else guard your heart, because from it flow the springs of life." Prov 4:23 NSV], transcends all things temporal in the service of God. The whole religious sense (meaning) of God’s creation lies in our heart, our entire ego, our complete self. This heart, in which according to the Word eternity has been laid ["He has also set eternity in the human heart" Eccles 3:11 NIV], is the true supratemporal center of man’s existence, and at the same time it is the creaturely center of all of God’s creation. The apostasy of this heart, of this root of creation, necessarily swept with it all temporal creation. In Adam not only all mankind fell, but also that entire temporal cosmos of which man was the crowned head. And in Christ, the Word become flesh, the second Covenant Head, God gave the new root of His redeemed creation, in Whom true humanity has been implanted through self-surrender, through surrender of the center of existence, the heart. (Herman Dooyeweerd: The Christian Idea of the State, Craig Press 1968, p5)

See also:

ABC Dooyeweerd 3: Inquietum
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Adam Ramsay: Raising the Blue Labour saltire on a sinking ship

Raising the Blue Labour saltire 
on a sinking ship

ADAM RAMSAY 16 December 2014

Labour's crisis in Scotland requires more than a charismatic leader and some dusty ideas from north London.

There are, in fact, contexts in which Jim Murphy might have been exactly what Scottish Labour needed: a decade ago, back in the boom times, you can imagine him articulating a saltired Blairism from Bute House in a way Jack McConnell never quite could. But if the members of Scottish Labour believe that the laws of physics still bend to the rules of the Labour leadership ballot, they are sorely mistaken: Scotland isn't going back in time to 2004. When they needed someone not just to turn their ship around, but to completely re-build it, they have voted for a captain to rally the sailers and raise the flag as it sinks beneath the waves.

There are three problems with Jim Murphy. This first is that he is tied so inextricably to Labour's past decade. At a time when it's clear to everyone that Scottish Labour needs to dramatically break from Blairism, he is a well known supporter of the Iraq War, Trident and austerity. Whatever pretty words he uses to pitch himself to the left, he's got a voting record at Westminster going back 17 years showing otherwise. Labour's problem isn't so much that they say the wrong things, but that people have come to the conclusion that they don't really believe anything. It's not that they need better policies (though they do) it's that they have to actually believe in them.

Read full article here

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Interview with Al Wolters

Publiée le 2012-11-01

Al Wolters is a neo-calvinist philosopher and biblical studies academic, influenced by Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck and Herman Dooyeweerd. He is the author of the influential short book "Creation Regained".

With acknowledgements to Steve Bishop, An Accidental Blog

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WRITING OFF SCOTLAND - Press Bias in the Independence Referendum

Publiée le 2014-10-06
"WRITING OFF SCOTLAND explores the research of Dr David Patrick into press bias during the independence campaign. Carried out over Scotland's most politically important year in centuries, the study's findings are a shocking indictment of the role of the UK press in the independence debate. We all know newspapers take political positions but, uniquely for a western democracy, the entire press industry united against independence in an intense systematic propaganda campaign to save the union. In the film, Dr Patrick discusses the framing of the referendum and how front pages, editorial and commentary are used to get key messages across, the lack of media coverage for the research, strange BBC experience and how the Independence debate has damaged public trust in our press."

Twitter Contact: @DrDavidPatrick

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See also

Macdonell’s Failed Smear Story

by Andy Wightman on BELLACALEDONIA Dec 11, 2014

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Craig Murray: "Jack Straw - The Guilty Man Lies"

Craig Murray Blog
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Listen also to Derek Bateman's interview with Craig Murray:
A shocking tale of torture and indifference
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Read also Derek Bateman's thoughts on the interview:
Not in my My Name
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See also:
‘CIA will continue torture with help of mediators’ –
UK's former envoy to Uzbekistan
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Gay marriage and the death of freedom

Gay marriage 
and the death of freedom 
Rather than striking a blow for individual liberties, 
the dogma of gay marriage is stifling them

Brendan O'Neill (6 December 2014)

‘Freedom to marry…’ 

I hate to rain on this fabulous parade, but there’s a massive problem with this happy-clappy rallying cry. And it’s this: everywhere gay marriage has been introduced it has battered freedom, not boosted it. Debate has been chilled, dissenters harried, critics tear-gassed. Love and marriage might go together like horse and carriage, but freedom and gay marriage certainly do not. The double-thinking ‘freedom to marry’ has done more to power the elbow of the state than it has to expand the liberty of men and women.
There are awkward questions the ‘freedom to marry’ folks just can’t answer. Like: if gay marriage is a liberal cause, how come it’s been attended by authoritarianism wherever it’s been introduced?

Read full article here

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Also, for a related philosophical critique based on the ground-motives of Herman Dooyeweerd, see:
Drawing a line in shifting sands

BBC Referendum Bias: Conversation with Prof John Robertson

Publiée le 2014-12-06
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Recent example of demonisation of Alex Salmond on BBC -

Tim Stanley of the Telegraph and Petrie Hosken review the newspapers (6 Dec 2014)

Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp: "Smith Commission missed the vow by a mile"

Join Business for Scotland today – click here

The ‘Darwin’ of German legal theory—Carl von Savigny and the German School of Historical Law

Friederich Carl von Savigny (1779–1861) was founder of the German Historical School, and regarded law as the mere expression of social conditions.

The ‘Darwin’ of German legal theory—Carl von Savigny and the German School of Historical Law

by Augusto Zimmermann

The German School of Historical Law became known throughout Europe at the end of the Napoleonic wars, when many German jurists opposed the introduction of a uniform legal code to the Germanic Confederation. The leading legal historicist of the time, Friedrich Carl von Savigny (1779–1861), still holds a status in German ‘legal science’ which is akin to Charles Darwin for the ‘science’ of biological evolution. Savigny, whose jurisprudence is extremely influential even to the present day, emphasized the historical limitations of the law and approached legality as a mere expression of evolving convictions and aspirations of any particular people over a period of time. The only standards which remained in such a legal philosophy were contextual and relative, since these standards would have no other support apart from the temporary conditions of society. Unfortunately, German legal historicism contributed not only to historicist legal analysis but also to the development of two of the most deadly totalitarian ideologies this world has ever seen: Marxism and National Socialism.

 Read full article online HERE

Download PDF of article HERE

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Dooyeweerd: Birth of Protestant Scholasticism

Philipp Melanchthon 1537 (by Lucas Cranach the Elder)

Birth of Protestant Scholasticism

by Herman Dooyeweerd

previous installment                    next installment

     Luther's view of temporal life was not informed by the spiritual dynamic of the Scriptural ground-motive. He too remained within the scholastic tradition by considering reason [Vernunft] the sole guide in the realm of nature. Unlike Roman Catholicism, however, he did not acknowledge a connection between natural reason and the revelation of God's Word. "The whore reason" [Die Hure Vernunft] had to capitulate whenever one desired to understand the voice of the gospel. With respect to the truths of faith reason was hopelessly blind. But in matters of secular government, justice, and social order man possessed only the light of reason. It was Ockham's rigorous dualism that sustained Luther's separation of natural reason and the Christian religion.

Clearly, in principle Luther had not severed himself from the dualistic ground-motive. For example, the great reformer expressed no more interest in "profane science" than his scholastic tutor Ockham. Although he fumed against Aristotle and pagan philosophy in general, he did not point the way toward an inner reformation of thought. From his dualistic starting point he did not see that human thinking arises from the religious root of life and that it is therefore always controlled by a religious ground-motive. Similarly, even his new insight into our calling in the world was infected by the dualistic ground motive. To be sure, his idea that every profession rests upon a divine calling was thoroughly in line with the Biblical thrust of the Reformation. And Luther certainly broke with the Roman Catholic view that monastic life had a higher value than worldly life. However, for Luther worldly life belonged exclusively to the realm of "law" and stood in an inner tension with the gospel of love.

But nowhere was the nature-grace dualism expressed more clearly than in Luther's view of the church. Luther was relatively indifferent to the temporal organization of the church, believing that wherever the Word and the sacrament were found the church was present. He did not grant the church its own exclusive, internal legal sphere of competence. He did not, for instance, see an inner connection between the typical qualification of the institutional church as a community of faith and its inherently ecclesiastical legal order. Guided by "natural reason," justice and order were "worldly matters." Justice belonged to the sphere of the law, to "sinful nature." Only proclamation of the Word and the administration of the sacraments belonged to the realm of grace. Thus it was relatively easy for Luther to leave the juridical organization of the church to the worldly magistrates even if this delegation of authority were only "of necessity." Ever since Luther's day the "state church" has been a typical characteristic of Lutheran countries.

The peculiar dialectic of the nature-grace ground motive led Luther's learned friend and co-worker Melanchthon [1497-1560] to attempt a new synthesis between the Christian religion and the spirit of Greek culture. Melanchthon became the father of Protestant scholasticism which even today opposes the truly Biblical approach in scientific thought with the unbending resistance of an age-old tradition.

Unlike Luther, Melanchthon was trained in the literary humanism of his time. He had a great love for classical, Greco-Roman antiquity. Because of his efforts to "adapt" Greco-Roman thought to the Lutheran articles of faith, the form-matter motive of Greek philosophy soon dominated the Protestant view of nature. Since Luther was basically indifferent to philosophy the Greek ground-motive had temporarily lost its prominence; with Melanchthon, however, it regained its claim on the view of temporal life and on the view of the relation between soul and body. 

Thus the inherent dialectic of the unscriptural nature-grace ground-motive also infiltrated the Protestant mind. However, there was no pope who could maintain the new synthesis by means of official verdicts and decrees. And soon the unscriptural nature motive was filled with the new religious content of modern humanism, secularizing and absorbing the motive of grace.

(Extract from "Roots of Western Culture: Pagan, Secular, and Christian Options" pp 141-142, by Herman Dooyeweerd).

Free PDF of entire book (older edition) downloadable
HERE.

Info regarding new paperback edition of book 2012 (revised translation)

HERE.

Jonathan Chaplin: ‘Public Justice’ as a Critical Political Norm

Jonathan Chaplin

‘Public Justice’ as a 

Critical Political Norm

by Jonathan Chaplin

Philosophia Reformata 72 (2007) 130–150

     ‘Public justice’ is one of the most widely-invoked of the many distinctive terms coined by Herman Dooyeweerd but, strangely, one of the least well analysed. Dooyeewerd holds that that the identity of the state is defined by a single, integrating and directing norm, the establishment of ‘public justice’. Elaborating the implications of this claim has occupied much neo-Calvinist political reflection and guided much political action inspired by that movement. Yet surprisingly little sustained theoretical reflection has been devoted in recent times to examining its inner meaning and coherence. This article offers some preliminary groundwork necessary to that theoretical project. The first part presents a close reading of Dooyeweerd’s account of public justice, identifies ambiguities and inconsistencies in that account, and suggests a reconstruction displaying its wide-ranging dynamic thrust more prominently. The second part identifies two substantial challenges confronting this account: its relative neglect of processes of democratic deliberation and advocacy, and its underdeveloped critical potentials.

Download PDF (21 pages)

 HERE

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