DOOYEWEERD: Form-Matter ground-motive | Superheroes and Zombies

HERMAN DOOYEWEERD:

Form-Matter Ground-motive:

Superheroes and Zombies 

Dooyeweerd’s analysis related to current movie culture.

The following consists of extracts from the book ‘In The Twilight of Western Thought’ by Herman Dooyeweerd, Paideia Press, 2012

HELLENISTIC FORM-MATTER GROUND-MOTIVE

The central motive of Greek philosophy, which we have designated as the form-matter motive in line with the Aristotelian terminology, originated from the meeting of the pre-Homeric religion of life and death, with the younger, cultural religion of the Olympian gods. The Aristotelian view of nature was no more independent of religious presuppositions than any other philosophical view. It was completely ruled by the dualistic religious basic motive of Greek thought, namely, that of form and matter [...] It originated from the meeting between two antagonistic Greek religions, namely, the older nature religion of life and death, and the younger cultural religion of the Olympian gods. Nietzsche and his friend Rhode were the first to discover the conflict between these religions in the Greek tragedies. Nietzsche spoke of the contest between the Dionysian and the Apollonian spirit in these tragedies. But in fact here was at issue a conflict in the religious basic motive of the whole Greek life and thought. (Herman Dooyeweerd, ‘In The Twilight of Western Thought’, Paideia Press, 2012, pp. 29).

MATTER MOTIVE -

ZOMBIES: the life of the one is the death of the other.

The pre-Olympian religion of life and death deified the ever-flowing stream of organic life which originates from mother earth and cannot be fixed or restricted by any corporeal form. In consequence, the deities of this religion are amorphous. It is from this formless stream of life that, in the order of time, the generations of beings separate themselves and appear in an individual bodily shape. This corporeal form can only be maintained at the cost of other living beings, so that the life of the one is the death of the other. So there is an injustice in any fixed form of life which for this reason must be repaid to the horrible fate of death, designated by the Greek terms anangke (ἀνάγκη, "inevitability, compulsion, necessity") and heimarmene (Εἱμαρμένη - "fate") tuche (τύχη - "luck", "fortuna"). This is the meaning of the mysterious words of the Ionian philosopher of nature, Anaximander: “The divine origin of all things is the apeiron (ἄπειρον, ie. that which lacks a restricting form). The things return to that from which they originate in conformity to the law of justice. For they pay to each other penalty and retribution for their injustice in the order of time.” 

Here the central motive of the archaic religion of life and death has found a clear expression in Anaximander’s philosophical view of physis (φύσις  - "nature"). It is the motive of the formless stream of life, ever-flowing throughout the process of becoming and passing away, and pertaining to all perishable things which are born in a corporeal form, and subjected to anangke. This is the original sense of the Greek matter-motive. It originated from a deification of the biotic aspect of our temporal horizon of experience and found its most spectacular expression in the cult of Dionysius, imported from Thrace.

FORM MOTIVE -

SUPERHEROES: deified cultural powers of American society.

The form-motive, on the other hand, was the central motive of the younger Olympian religion, the religion of form, measure and harmony. It was rooted in the deification of the cultural aspect of classical Greek society. This motive found its most profound expression in the cult of the Delphian god, Apollo, the legislator. The Olympian gods have left mother earth with its ever-flowing stream of organic life and its inescapable anangke. They have acquired the Olympus as their residence and have a personal and immortal form, imperceptible to the eye of sense, an ideal form of a perfect and splendid beauty, the genuine prototype of the Platonic idea as the imperishable metaphysical form of true being. But these immortal gods have no power over the anangke, the inexorable fate of death. Remember the utterance of Homer in his Odyssey: “The immortals too cannot help lamentable man when the cruel anangke strikes him down.” 

This is why the younger Olympian religion was only accepted as the public religion of the Greek polis (πόλις, the city-state). But in their private life the Greeks continued to hold to the old earthly gods of life and death. 

[...] The ancient Greeks, whose conception of human nature had such a predominant influence upon the traditional theological view of man, worshipped their Olympian gods who were merely deified cultural powers of Greek society. These gods were represented as invisible and immortal beings endowed with a splendid beauty and a supra-human power. But these splendid gods had no [ultimate?] power over the fate of death to which mortals are subjected. 

[...] The Olympian gods are personified cultural powers, the genuine prototype of the Platonic notion of the metaphysical eidos (είδος, or "idea").

(Herman Dooyeweerd, ‘In The Twilight of Western Thought’, Paideia Press, 2012, pp. 29, 111, 129).

Direct download of above BOOK (177 page PDF)

HOMEPAGE  for free downloads of Dooyeweerd books

_______________________________________

SEE ALSO:

DOOYEWEERD: The Four Formative Undercurrents of Western Thought: 1) The Greek ‘form-matter’ motive

DOOYEWEERD: The central and radical unity of our existence

DOOYEWEERD: Points of Departure: The Biblical ground-motive as sole guarantor of the Western and Global intellectual community

DOOYEWEERD: Dialectical Theology - Barth & Brunner

FMF: Brief intro to Dooyeweerd: Aspects & Ground-motives
_______________________________________