“The Hobbit Party” & “Called to the Life of the Mind”

“The Hobbit Party” & 

“Called to the Life of the Mind”

Review by Byron Borger 

(Capital Commentary, January 19, 2015)

 The Hobbit Party: The Vision of Freedom That Tolkien Got, and the West Forgot

Jay W. Richards and Jonathan Witt (Ignatius Press; 2014) $21.95

Called to the Life of the Mind: Some Advice for Evangelical Scholars

Richard J. Mouw (Eerdmans; 2014) $10.00 

It is said that many of our most popular actors, filmmakers, and contemporary novelists have a liberal political bent; from John Steinbeck to Robert Redford, from Barbara Kingsolver to George Clooney, I suppose this is so. But J.R.R. Tolkien, one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century whose epic books have been made into some of the most popular films of our time, was a classic Roman Catholic conservative. Indeed, he often described himself as a hobbit “in all but size” and was, as this new book winsomely explains, “socially and politically conservative even by hobbit standards, and his conservatism was closely bound up in his deeply Christian, and specifically Catholic vision of man and creation.”

The Hobbit Party will be of interest to many, and perhaps will be appreciated as a refreshing study of the Middle-Earth stories. An accessible book of Christian political philosophy, it reflects how our deepest convictions about the nature of humans and our understanding of creation truly do shape our basic views of what constitutes a just social order. 

This careful study of Tolkien’s socio-political views makes it a thrilling read and a great discussion book for anyone interested in either the novels or contemporary public affairs. The authors respond to the various misunderstandings and misappropriations of Tolkien by others, and, as learned conservative Catholics themselves, they see things that others may not. 

[...] Richard Mouw has long advocated a uniquely Reformed vision of social and political thinking, and has written helpfully about how such a project can be pursued. His brand new book -- a slim collection of short essays -- is magnificent, if humble. Mouw offers advice for anyone who wants to do overtly Christian scholarship. As Kuyperian philosopher James K.A. Smith writes, “Called to the Life of the Mind is a distinct call for the faithful cultivation of the mind in the service of Christ.” As J.I. Packer notes, “Mouw’s wise genius for Christ-honoring straightforwardness has never been better displayed than it is here.”

Read full review

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Chris Cairns: "Devotory"

"And then they asked for the BBC to be devolved!"

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James Skillen: The Necessity of a Non-Reductionist Science of Politics

James Skillen: "The Necessity of a Non-Reductionist Science of Politics" (2008 July 14)

This paper tries to expose the weakness of the typically reductionist approaches to political science and outlines an approach that both rejects model reductionism and identifies the object of political science as the norm-responsive institutional community that is constituted by government and citizens (or subjects). Political science, therefore, must be an entity science that entails multi-modal, normative analysis with full self-consciousness of its philosophical and religiously deep assumptions.

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Egbert Schuurman: The Ethics of Responsibility as a Comprehensive Approach: An Application to the Ethics of Technology

Egbert Schuurman: "The Ethics of Responsibility as a Comprehensive Approach: An Application to the Ethics of Technology" (2008 July 14)

Technical thinking predominates in industrial society. It also predominates ethics. Virtually everything is viewed in terms of the technical model or--more broadly--the reductionistic machine model. Today we can see how the "technological culture" threatens life itself, to the point of destroying it. The aim of technology should become, not to break down and to reduce reality, in order to master and control, but to unfold and cause to flourish. For a healthy disclosure of the creation, we should nurture the perspective of the living and vibrant garden-city, of a culture that takes care of nature and the environment.

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Technology and religion: Islam, Christianity and materialism

Technology and religion:

Islam, Christianity and materialism

E. Schuurman (2007)

Emeritus-Professor of Reformational Philosophy 

Universities of Delft, Eindhoven, Wageningen, The Netherlands

1. Introduction
The Western world and the world of Islam share a history, but they also differ greatly. The rise of terrorism has once again made us fully aware of that. In these tense times I would like to consider a ques- tion that is rarely raised today, yet which may be very relevant and very revealing: What attitude do these two worlds take toward technology?

When you examine this question in historical perspective you cannot get around the religious background of technology – both in the Isla- mic world and the West. This theme is very popular today: there is a renewed interest in the vitality of religion around the world and in the arguments regarding its influence on culture (Habermas, 2005), and – this afternoon – especially in the historical development of technology.

Let me be clear about what I mean by the term religion. When the media pay attention to religion, they usually treat it as one of many factors or variables in human life, distinct from, say, sport, politics or science. However, if we look carefully at religious communities and various types of societies around the world we can see that religion is not just a typical function or variable among others, but is rather the root from which the different branches of life sprout and grow and by which they are continually nourished. Religion is of radical and integral importance: it concerns the deepest root of human existence and integrates human life into a coherent whole.

My exploration will consist of the following steps. Firstly, I shall briefly sketch the history of technology in the Islamic world, after which I shall try to clarify the background of the mounting tensions between Islam and the West. We shall review several Islamic ideologists in whose thinking science and technology play a large role. Islamic critique of technology comes from two sides: from the spiritual, peace-loving Muslims, and from the radical, violent branch of Islam. I shall try to clarify the challenges this poses for the West by looking at the internal tensions in Western culture itself. These turn out to be related especially to technology. 

The tensions have been present for a long time already, but they have been growing in intensity, ever since the former Christian culture was secularised under the influence of the Enlightenment (also known as the Age of Reason). This intellectual movement, would have nothing to do with religion, yet has an integrating effect of its own nonetheless, and its relation to Christianity became increasingly strained. 

The Enlightenment represents the religion of the closed material world that is blind to the non-material dimensions of reality. I say this in order to help us gain insight into the nature of the tensions between Islam, Christianity, and Enlightenment-movement in connection with technological development. This will enable us to analyse the problems accurately and give a starting point to lessening our cultural quandaries.

Both the critique of technology provided by Christian philosophy and the critique of technology found in Islam, challenge Western culture to change. A turnabout is needed in the West’s dominant cultural paradigm – in the ethical framework within which Western culture is developed. Such a turnabout is crucial, because we are dealing with worldwide problems. It may also lessen tensions with several cur- rents within the Islamic world.

Read online or get PDF 

Alternative source for PDF HERE
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DÌOMHAIR!

Dìomhair (JEE-vir)
= Confidential/Secret

 The modern campaign for Scottish independence 
and the methods used by the British State to oppose it...

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BBC ALBA (2008)

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The McCRONE REPORT

In 1974 the UK Tory Government under Edward Heath commissioned a report by Treasury department civil servant Gavin McCrone, asking him to look into the economic viability of an independent Scotland. His findings were incendiary, and after Heath left office the McCrone Report was classified as secret by the incoming Labour government under James Callaghan. The report's conclusions were so dangerous that it was designated secret and hidden for thirty years before a Freedom of Information request forced the UK Government to reveal its contents.

Newsnet Scotland (now Newsnet.scot) copied the entire report, together with an introductory letter written in 1975 by its author Gavin McCrone, and published it that Scots may read for themselves how successive Labour and Conservative Governments hid the truth for decades.

Publication of the McCrone report by Newsnet Scotland follows an admission [see also] by former Labour Chancellor Denis Healey that the Labour Government of the 1970s deliberately hid the true value of Scottish oil in order to thwart support for the SNP.  As an introduction to the McCrone report, Newsnet Scotland published a short video (above) - narrated by actor David Hayman - which summarises the report's conclusions.

"It must be concluded therefore that large revenues and balance of payments gains would indeed accrue to a Scottish Government in the event of independence...Undoubtedly this would banish any anxieties the Government might have had about its budgetary position or its balance of payments.  The country would tend to be in chronic surplus to a quite embarrassing degree and its currency would become the hardest in Europe, with the exception perhaps of the Norwegian kroner."(The McCrone Report, 1975)

Download PDF of full McCrone Report HERE 

Or read the Report online on the Newsnet.scot site:

The McCrone Report - A Thirty Year Secret

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Map based on UK Gov (Whitehall) plans in 1976 
for re-zoning the North Sea to deprive Scotland of its assets:

(Image: The Times)

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And so it goes on...

Please BUY & READ -

LONDON CALLING: 

How the BBC Stole the Referendum 

by GA Ponsonby 

[Hard Copy Book]   [Kindle Edition]

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The mythic foundation of National Socialism and the contemporary claim that the Nazis were Christians

The mythic foundation 

of National Socialism 

and the contemporary claim 

that the Nazis were Christians

I. Hexham

Department of Religious Studies University of Calgary, Canada, 2011

This article examines the ideas of Alfred Rosenberg, the “chief ideologue” of German National Socialism. Its aim is to show that, contrary to the claims of a growing number of people encouraged by the so-called “new atheism”, the Nazis held a coherent worldview that was vehemently anti-Christian. To deal with criticism of Christianity by these writers and speakers, it is necessary for Christians to become aware of the Nazi world-view and how deeply it was rooted in modern paganism.

Read online or get PDF 

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Bob Goudzwaard: Are We There Yet? Economic Justice and the Common Good

Published on Jul 21, 2014
Dr. Goudzwaard's keynote address to the conference titled "Are We There Yet? Economic Justice and the Common Good" on May 12, 2014 at the King's University College in Edmonton Alberta.

Bob Goudzwaard is an internationally recognized economist whose influence extends well beyond the circle of his disciplinary expertise. Throughout his career, he has purposefully designed his lectures and publications to reach all people who seek wisdom in finding their way in our culture. His texts stand out as widely accessible, creative approaches to the deep economic fault lines that divide and alienate us. He not only makes our problems understandable, but his alternative suggestions open paths that inspire hope for a better future.

Dr. Goudzwaard is Professor Emeritus of Economics and Social Philosophy at the VU University, Amsterdam, and a former member of the Dutch Parliament. From 1959-1965, Dr. Goudzwaard served as a Policy Researcher for the Doctor Abraham Kuyper Foundation, the intellectual arm of the Dutch Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP), for which he also served as a member of Parliament from 1967-71. In 1971, Dr. Goudzwaard was appointed Professor of Economics in the Faculty of Social and Cultural Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam (now called VU University), a position he held until his retirement in 1999. Dr. Goudzwaard also played a formative role with several Christian social institutions in Canada, including the Christian Labour Association of Canada, Citizens for Public Justice, and the Institute for Christian Studies.

A passionate advocate for "an economy of care" that looks beyond traditional market growth indicators, Dr. Goudzwaard is the author of many books and articles, including (in English) Capitalism and Progress: A Diagnosis of Western Society (1979), Beyond Poverty and Affluence (1995, with Harry de Lange), and Hope in Troubled Times: A New Vision for Confronting Global Crises (2007, with Mark Vander Vennen and David Van Heemst).

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Bob Goudzwaard: The principle of sphere-sovereignty in a time of globalisation

The principle of sphere-sovereignty in a time of globalisation

B. Goudzwaard (2011) 

Abstract

This article investigates the phenomenon of present-day [2011] globalisation from a Christian perspective to determine whether the principle of sphere-sovereignty can provide an antidote to globalisation’s harmful consequences. Firstly, it is explained how the principle of sphere-sovereignty is founded on the biblical message, and that it includes two interrelated dimensions, viz. that of life-orientation and of responsible differentiation. Secondly, the following four characteristics of contemporary globalisation are reviewed: it is (1) of a more or less autonomous nature, (2) a seemingly unavoidable project, (3) a process of a dynamic nature, and (4) a product of Western modernisation. In the third place the implications of the acceptance of the principle of sphere-sovereignty for globalisation are investigated. It seems that globalisation, in many areas of life, is detrimental to healthy forms of differentiation – the first dimension of sphere-sovereignty. From the perspective of orientation(the second dimension of sphere-sovereignty), it becomes evident that the present project of globalisation has in some respects already deteriorated into a kind of blinding, oppressive ideology. This type of globalisation “ad malam partem” is finally contrasted with a better road of globalisation “ad bonam partem”. This last type of globalisation – not driven by selfish greed, desire and power, but by love for our Lord Jesus Christ,and for one’s neighbours – may help to prevent the ominous crisis of our time.

Read online or get PDF 

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Dooyeweerd: Dualism in Luther's view of law and gospel

Martin Luther (by Lucas Cranach the Elder 1546) 

The after-effect of the nominalistic dualism in LUTHER'S spiritualistic distinction between the Law and the Gospel.

by Herman Dooyeweerd

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Hyperlinks below are to Dr J. Glenn Friesen's
Dooyeweerd Glossary

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LUTHER confessed the central significance of God's Sovereignty in the Biblical sense. He possessed the insight that divine grace in Christ must intrinsically penetrate temporal life in all spheres. Yet, in spite of this, he never fully escaped the nominalistic influence of the Occamist University of Erfurt and of his later studies in an Augustinian monastery ("Ich bin von Ockam's Schule"). This influence is evident from his dualistic conception of the relation between the Law and the Gospel. 

LUTHER considered a person in the sinful state to be bound to temporal ordinances. A Christian person in the state of grace, on the contrary, is not intrinsically subject to the Divine Law, but lives in evangelical freedom according to love. In "this earthly valley of tears" he only bows to ordinances out of obedience to the will of God with respect to the natural state of sin. And, by so doing he tries to penetrate them with the spirit of Christian love. But intrinsically this spirit contradicts the severity of the Law. This dualism between the Law and the Gospel must, with respect to the relationship between the Christian religion and philosophy, again lead to the nominalistic separation of faith and science, with the usual Occamistic depreciation of the latter. 

At this point we can observe the after-effect of the scholastic nature-grace motive in its antithetical Occamistic conception. We find, to be sure, in LUTHER a fulminating judgment against ARISTOTLE and the medieval scholastic philosophy; we find in him a passionate opposition to the Biblical Humanism which in Germany and Holland (ERASMUS) tried to effect a new synthesis between the Christian faith and the spirit of Greco-Roman antiquity. But, nowhere do we discover the conviction that the religious root of the Reformation requires a radical reformation of philosophy itself.

LUTHER never had an inner contact with the Humanistic spirit. In his attitude toward human knowledge he remained a prisoner to the medieval spirit of Occamism. The spiritualistic trend in his character was strongly nurtured by the German mysticism of ECKHART and by the Augustinian-Franciscan spirit. Moreover, his "Weltoffenheit" ["openness to the world"], which caused him to reject the monastic ideal, continued to be broken by a dualism, unexplainable in terms of the Biblical doctrine concerning the corruption of nature due to the fall. 

LUTHER never wrested himself loose from a nominalistic dualism in his view of the church. He considered the regulation of the "visible church" to be a matter of relative indifference and sought support from the governing prince for an ecclesiastical reformation. In addition, this dualism displayed itself in his subsequently abandoned distinction between official and personal morality. His attitude towards scientific thought continued to be burdened in the same manner with the dualistic prejudice concerning the relation of faith and natural reason.

One can recognize this without in any way being deficient in love and appreciation for the great reformer. The recognition of his faults does not obliterate the fact that LUTHER'S Biblical faith became the impulse to a continuous reformation of his thought and the cause of his later abandonment of many previous errors.

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Herman Dooyeweerd, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol 1 pp 511-513.
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Dooyeweerd: Philosophical compromise pre- and post-Reformation

§ 2 - THE ATTEMPTS TO SYNTHESIZE CHRISTIAN FAITH WITH IMMANENCE-PHILOSOPHY BEFORE AND AFTER THE REFORMATION

The consequences of the synthetic standpoint for Christian doctrine and for the study of philosophy in patristic and scholastic thought.

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Hyperlinks below are to Dr J. Glenn Friesen's
Dooyeweerd Glossary

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As we have seen in part I, Christian philosophy, at its very inception, sought the aid of ancient philosophy even in formulating its transcendental basic Idea. Consequently, patristic and especially medieval scholastic thought developed into a compromise-philosophy. Both held to a synthetic standpoint with respect to the relation between Christian faith and Greek philosophy. There are, however, two types of this synthetic standpoint, and they should be sharply distinguished from each other.

The first deemed it necessary to bind philosophical thought to the Word-revelation, whereas the second proclaimed the autonomy of the "naturalis ratio" ["natural reason/order"] in the sphere of natural thought. This latter standpoint prevailed under the influence of the scholastic ground-motive of nature and grace.

As soon as Christian scholasticism thought it had found its real starting-point in the naturalis ratio, the increasing decay of Christian philosophy could not be checked. The Christian religion cannot tolerate any theoretical conception of cosmic reality which is emancipated from the pure Biblical religious ground-motive, because such conceptions are actually dominated by wholly or partly  apostate  motives and seek in the last analysis a deceitful  restpoint  for thought.

The Christian religion does not tolerate any hypostatization [absolutization] which ascribes independent being to dependent meaning. It does not permit these absolutizations, even if they disguise themselves in the garb of a speculative "theologia naturalis" ["natural theology"]. The speculative Aristotelian Idea of the "unmoved mover" as "pure form" is not, as Thomistic scholasticism taught, a natural preamble to the revealed knowledge of God. The self-revelation of God in Christ is, in the full sense of the word, a consuming fire for all  apostate  speculation in which human hubris thinks it can create God after its own image!

The consequences of the synthetic scholastic standpoint have also left a deep impression in Christian theology. With the penetration of neo-Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, and other philosophical motives into the patristic thought and scholasticism of the Middle Ages, immanence-philosophy even infected the Christian doctrine of faith and paved the way for the rise of a speculative "theologia naturalis" ["natural theology"].

Scholastic philosophy had a particularly devastating influence on Christian theology in respect to the pure Biblical religious conceptions of "soul", "heart", "spirit" and "flesh". The latter were replaced by  abstract concepts  of  dualistic Greek  metaphysics, in keeping with the dualistic  religious basic motive of form and matter.

The cleft between "faith" and "thought" is only a cleft between the Christian faith and immanence- philosophy.
As soon as Christian philosophy, under the influence of this metaphysics, began to seek the concentration-point of human existence in "reason", it blocked the way to an intrinsic penetration of philosophy by the Biblical ground-motive. An unbridgeable cleft arose between speculative philosophy and genuine Christian faith. Scholastic theology presents a true "spectaculum miserabile" ["wretched spectacle"] of controversial theological questions, which are completely alien to the Biblical sphere of thought and originate in Greek metaphysics. What had a really Biblical theology to do with such problems as the conflict concerning the primacy of the will or intellect in the "essentia Dei" [essence of God"]? What did it have to do with the attempt to support individual immortality of the soul philosophically upon the basis of the realistic Aristotelian view which sought the "principium individuationis" ["principle of individuation"] in matter?

Of what concern to it was the controversy concerning the question which "parts" of the soul possess immortality (a question which even CALVIN still took seriously in his Institutio)? Of what interest to Biblical theology were the curious problems inherent in "psycho-creationism", i.e. a scholastic transformation of the Platonic doctrine seth forth in the dialogue TIMAEUS, and of the Aristotelian doctrine about the origin of the active intellect (νους ποιητικος) in the human soul? According to ARISTOTLE this intellect does not proceed from nature but from outside. According to PLATO the divine Demiurge himself has formed the immortal human nous [mind, reason, understanding] only. Such problems are pseudo-problems and make no sense in a Biblical theology.

The false conception concerning the relationship between Christian revelation and science. Accommodated immanence-philosophy as ancilla theologiae.
The counterpart of the scholastic effort to accommodate immanence-philosophy to Biblical revelation was the rise of the false idea that Holy Scripture offered certain solutions to scientific problems, at least to the problems discussed in scholastic theology on the basis of Aristotelian metaphysics, physics and psychology. These supposed Biblical theories were, with the full authority of divine revelation, brought into play against scientific investigations which deviated from tradition. One only needs to recall the position of the Church in the conflict concerning the astronomical theory of COPERNICUS, which position, although historically understandable, was not, therefore, less reprehensible !

The attempt at a synthesis between the Christian religion and immanence-philosophy was a source of confusion which led to intrinsic contradictions; it was equally oppressive to the Christian faith and to honest scientific investigation. Nothing characterized the scholastic standpoint more sharply than the attempt to employ Scripture in the sense of a scientific "deus ex machina".

Because theoretical thought was not itself reformed in a radical Christian sense, scholastic theology as the "regina scientiarum" ["queen of the sciences"], deemed itself called to control the "scientiae profanae" ["secular sciences"]. Since this theology had accepted an accommodated Aristotelian philosophy, Holy Scripture was itself interpreted in an Aristotelian manner, and could in its turn confirm the Aristotelian theses against the Copernican and, later on, against the Cartesian conceptions. This was the result of the scholastic notion of philosophy as "ancilla theologiae" ["handmaiden of theology"]. The handmaiden was soon to break her chains and became mistress!

The consequence of the Reformation for scientific thought.
The Reformation supplied the first receptacle capable of producing a conception radically different from the scholastic one with respect to the relationship between the Christian  religion  and  scientific  thought. As we have seen, the nominalism of late scholasticism demolished every bridge between the Christian faith and Greek metaphysics.

The rise of the modern Humanistic life- and world-view, which preceded the Reformation, placed sharply before the eyes of the Reformers an inescapable dilemma. They were confronted with the antithesis between the attitude of the Christian religion with respect to temporal life and the secularization of this attitude in the Humanistic ideal of personality.

A return to the medieval synthetic standpoint in order to oppose Humanism with the aid of a scholastical philosophy must necessarily contradict the very nature and spirit of the Reformation. For the latter could show no other credential than its claim to a pure Biblical conception of Christian doctrine. This must imply a return to the integral and radical ground-motive of Holy Scripture, as the only religious motive of its theological and philosophical thought and of its whole life- and world-view. By virtue of this religious ground-motive the Reformation should have led to an inner reformation of philosophical thought.

The fact that this did not directly happen, but that after an original promising start, Protestantism fell back upon the scholastic compromise-standpoint, can only be explained as an after-effect of a very old tradition in Christian thought. This tradition found fertile soil, especially in Lutheranism, and, under the influence of MELANCHTON, proceeded to infect also the Calvinistic idea of science. In the final analysis it was the dialectical scholastic motive of nature and grace that in this way kept its influence on the philosophical standpoint of orthodox Protestantism.

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Herman Dooyeweerd, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol 1 pp 508-511.
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Dooyeweerd: Humanity's Place in the Temporal World

Humanity's Place 

in the Temporal World

by Herman Dooyeweerd

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Textual hyperlinks are to Dr J. Glenn Friesen's Dooyeweerd Glossary

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So it appears that the theory of the enkaptic structural whole forms the necessary connective link between the theory of the individuality-structures and their temporal interweavings, and what is called a philosophical anthropology.

All our previous investigations have been nothing but a necessary preparation for the latter. They all implicitly tended to the ultimate and doubtless most important problem of philosophical reflection: What is man's position in the temporal cosmos in relation to his divine Origin? This question urged itself upon us at the outset of our inquiry and it returns at the end of this trilogy.

Nevertheless the present work does not yet contain a philosophical anthropology. We have reserved this theme for the third volume of our trilogy Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy. The reason is that in our opinion the really philosophical problems concerning man's position in the temporal cosmos cannot be rightly posited without a due insight into the transcendental conditions of philosophic thought. And in addition a philosophic anthropology presupposes an inquiry into the different dimensions of the temporal horizon with its modal and individuality structures.

This opinion is certainly not in line with the existentialistic fashion in contemporary European thought. The latter seeks an immediate approach to the innermost sphere of man's temporal existence to interpret the I-ness in its situation in the temporal world from those emotional dispositions (concern, care, dread) which are supposed to be the most fundamental strata of human existence, i.e. its "Existentialen" ("existentials"). If HEIDEGGER'S "existential" of dread is replaced by that of "love" in the sense meant by the Swiss psychiatrist BINSWANGEER (the "meeting" between "I" and "thou"), then this hermeneutic approach to man seems to assume a trustworthy Christian meaning. This existentialism is not interested in the structural investigations which we deem to be a necessary condition of a really warranted philosophical anthropology. As a "supra-scientific" approach to man's existence, it believes it has elevated itself above all structural conditions of temporal experience and can penetrate into its subject-matter by means of an immediate "encounter". "Encounter" and "experience" are opposed to one another as "genuine inner knowledge" to "objectifying outer knowledge".

It is disappointing but not surprising that different trends in Christian neo-scholasticism have welcomed this existentialistic anthropology as a "more Biblical" manner of thought in comparison with the proud rationalism and idealism of a former period. For what trend of immanence-philosophy has not been "accommodated" to the Biblical point of view and in this sense proclaimed to be "Biblical"? It was readily forgotten that the genuine Biblical view of "encounter" transcends any philosophical approach to temporal human life and that the dialectical opposition between "encounter" and "experience" contradicts the very core of the Biblical Revelation.

It was also forgotten that even with the Christian founder of existentialism, SÖREN KIERKEGAARD, existentialistic philosophy and the divine Revelation in Jesus Christ were considered to be separated by an unbridgeable gulf.

The ultimate and central questions about human existence cannot be answered by any philosophy in an autonomous way, since they are of a religious character. They are only answered in the divine Word-Revelation. But our transcendental critique of theoretical thought has shown that this answer has an intrinsic connection with the philosophical questions concerning humanity's position in the temporal world. For this answer indeed reveals man to himself and gives theoretical thought, as soon as the latter is ruled by its radical moving power, that true concentric direction which precludes any absolutization of temporal aspects. It also lays bare the root of all lack ot true self-knowledge and thereby it unmasks the hidden basic motives of any kind of anthropology which holds to the immanence-standpoint.

Consequently, any expectation that an existentialist philosophy might contribute to man's true self-knowledge should be abandoned. This philosophy is no more fit to do so than modern depth-psychology. Naturally I do not mean that this recent philosophic trend has nothing to say to Christian thought. Its great representatives are doubtless serious philosophers, and their ideas deserve special attention as a manifestation of the spirit of our time, though the most prominent leaders of this movement have already broken with it.

But it is a veritable spectaculum miserabile to see how Christian theologians and philosophers seek their philosophical equipment here and join the existentialistic movement to combat the former invasion of Greek ideas into Christian thought. Apparently they have learned nothing from the history of Christian scholasticism. They reject the radical transcendental critique of philosophical thought because they do not wish to break with the time-honoured spirit of the scholastic accommodation of immanence-philosophy to the Christian doctrine.

But all those who have understood the necessity of an inner reformation of the philosophic attitude of thought from the radical Biblical standpoint, will comprehend why we emphatically warn against any exaggerated expectation concerning a philosophic anthropology. They will also understand our thesis that the central question: Who is man? means both the beginning and the end of philosophical reflection.

The question concerning the human I-ness as the centre of human existence has already appeared in the Prolegomena of our transcendental critique. But that about man's temporal existential form has been seen to imply a series of primordial problems which should be first considered. At least one central point of a truly Christian anthropology must be made perfectly clear. Man, as such, has no temporal qualifying function like temporal things and differentiated societal structures, but at the root of his existence he transcends all temporal structures. Therefore the search for a "substantial essential form" of human nature, in the sense of the Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysical anthropology, is incompatible with what the Scriptures have revealed to us about created human nature.

In the radical community of the human race according to the divine order of creation, man is not qualified as a "rational-moral "being", but only by his kingly position as the personal religious creaturely centre of the whole earthly cosmos. In him the rational-moral functions also find their concentration and through him the entire temporal world is included both in apostasy and in salvation. All things, beings, and factual relations qualified by a temporal modal function are transitory, the temporal bonds of love included. But man has an eternal destination, not as an abstract "rational soul" or spiritual "mind", but in the fulness of his concrete, individual personality. This puts it beyond any doubt that the various conceptions of "body" and "soul", or of "body", "soul" and "spirit" devised from the immanence-standpoint are in principle unserviceable in a Christian anthropology which starts from the radical basic motive of the Word-Revelation. The all-sided temporal existence of man, i.e. his "body", in the full Scriptural sense of the word, can only be understood from the supra-temporal religious centre, i.e. the "soul", or the "heart", in its Scriptural meaning. Every conception of the so-called "immortal soul", whose supra-temporal centre of being must be sought in rational-moral functions, remains rooted in the starting-point of immanence-philosophy.

But all this merely relates to the only possible starting-point of a Christian anthropology. Any one who imagines that from our standpoint human existence is no more than a complex of temporal functions centering in the "heart", has an all too simple and erroneous idea of what we understand by "anthropology". What has appeared in the course of our investigations in this third volume is that in temporal human existence we can point to an extremely intricate system of enkaptic structural interlacements, and that these interlacements presuppose a comprehensive series of individuality structures, bound within an enkaptic structural whole. This insight implies new anthropological problems which cannot in any way be considered as solved. But they do not concern the central sphere of human existence, which transcends the temporal horizon.

No existentialistic self-interpretation, no "act-psychology", no phenomenology or "metaphysics of the mind" can tell us what the human ego is, but — we repeat it — only the divine Word-Revelation in Christ Jesus. The question: "Who is man?" is unanswerable from the immanence-standpoint. But at the same time it is a problem which will again and again urge itself on apostate thought with relentless insistence, as a symptom of the internal unrest of an uprooted existence which no longer understands itself.

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Herman Dooyeweerd, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol 3 pp 781-784.