 |
| Johannes Vermeer: ‘A Maid Asleep’ (c 1656-1657) |
Herman Dooyeweerd:
Why philosophy cannot be degraded to a handmaiden of theology
(Translated by Magnus Verbrugge)
Why have systematic theologians offered so many misconceptions regarding the idea of a Christian philosophy? In the final analysis, these can all be traced back to their lack of insight into the internal point of contact between philosophy and the Christian religion.
Theologians failed to understand that the religious ground-motive, in which philosophical thought is rooted, controls one’s entire philosophic view of the intrinsic structure of temporal reality. Instead, they started by accepting philosophical conceptions of reality rooted in unscriptural, dualistic ground-motives; and they then sought, in a merely external theological fashion, to accommodate these conceptions to Christian doctrine. They therefore also did not see that the Scriptural ground-motive of the Christian religion [Origin-commitment] has a central significance for the internal progress of philosophical inquiry, since it overturns the whole unscriptural view of the structure of temporal reality at its very root. They did not look for inner reformation but only for external accommodation; and in so doing they never found the way to a genuinely Christian philosophy.
The method of adapting non-Christian philosophy to the basic truths of the Christian religion caused great harm. Patristic writers and subsequently Augustinian and Protestant scholastics thought they could strip Greek philosophy of its pagan features by depriving it of all independence and turning it into a “handmaiden.” Thus it was put to so-called formal use in systematic theology and theological ethics. This effort, however, proved to be fatal both for Christian theology and for philosophy.
Philosophy will not allow itself to be degraded to the role of a handmaiden of theological science. Its concepts and ideas are not purely formal in character. They have their own philosophical content and belong in a comprehensive theoretical view of temporal reality, a view that is always determined by a religious ground-motive.
[…] In light of all this, how could it be possible to adapt to Christian doctrine a philosophic conception of reality that is entirely controlled by the dualistic form-matter motive (for example, the conception of reality offered in Aristotle’s Metaphysics, or the philosophical epistemology developed in his Logic)? Such an attempt at accommodation will in reality have consequences that are utterly different from those intended. Although the philosophical conceptions mentioned above may purportedly be incorporated into theology for merely “formal use,” they will inevitably have a material influence on the theological understanding of Christian doctrine. Indeed, they will even end up playing a dangerous role in the theological exegesis of Scripture. I will present various examples of this in my critical examination of the scholastic concept of substance.
The road of accommodation thus leads to a dead end. The concern of truly Christian philosophy is not to accommodate “philosophy” to Christian doctrine, which in actual practice rather proves to be an accommodation of Scripture to unscriptural philosophy. On the contrary, its concern is the inner reformation of philosophic thought while preserving its unique, intrinsic nature.
The point of contact between philosophy and the Christian religion cannot be external in nature, as it was conceived in theological scholastic philosophy. Such a view conflicts with the intrinsic nature both of philosophy and of the Christian religion. Philosophy has a different task, a field of inquiry that differs from that of systematic theology. The Christian religion guarantees that we have an internal point of contact with philosophy, for it reaches to the religious [Origin-founded] root of the whole of temporal reality. Philosophy investigates this structure of reality. Christian philosophy therefore can mean one thing only: a radical transformation of philosophy’s root and starting point. Such a radical conversion, such an inner reformation, will fully preserve philosophy’s sphere-sovereignty in relation to both theological science and church doctrinal authority. In addition, philosophical thought will truly be reformed within because its philosophic view of the whole structure of created reality will be transformed.
*****
One necessary implication of the foregoing is that Bible texts can no longer be appealed to in intrinsically philosophic inquiry in order to sanction particular scientific views. On the other hand, however, in laying the Christian foundations of philosophy the Scriptures, and subordinated to it the confessions, will now indeed become the only sources. All philosophical problems must be probed down to their religious [Origin-founded] root, and at that point only the divine Word-revelation can shed light, a light which illumines the whole philosophic view of the structure of reality but which, in the nature of the case, can never itself provide the solution to an intrinsically scientific problem.
This is, therefore, indeed a radical reversal of the standpoint of accommodation taken by Augustinian and Protestant scholasticism. There, after all, the use of Scripture to address intrinsically philosophical questions was an indispensable requirement for the “Christianization” of philosophy. This was necessary because, in adopting Greek or scholastic philosophy, the Augustinians and Protestants also implicitly adopted the religious [ultimate-origin] ground-motives on which they were based. And the more alien the foundations of their philosophy were to the Christian religion, the more copious, on this standpoint of accommodation, became their appeals to Bible texts in order to sanction their philosophic views and concepts. “Profane wisdom,” after all, had to be brought into agreement with Scripture; it had to be adapted for “theological use.”
If the divine Word-revelation really is used to “solve” scientific problems, however, then it cannot be the foundation of science. The foundation must lie at a lower level than the building that will rest on it, and it must be of a different nature.
(From REFORMATION AND SCHOLASTICISM IN PHILOSOPHY Volume 2, pp 46,47, by Herman Dooyeweerd. Originally published 1943-50. Translated by Magnus Verbrugge. Paideia Press, [Vol 5/2], 2013)
——————————————-
[NOTE: “Religious” = “the innate impulse of the human selfhood to direct itself toward the true or toward a pretended absolute Origin of all temporal diversity of meaning” (Dooyeweerd, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought].
——————————————-
For this and many other free Dooyeweerd book downloads:
