1. The theory of the Logos in the critical realism of Kuyper, Bavinck, and Woltjer.
(Extract from Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy, Vol II)
In order to escape Kantian subjectivism, Kuyper, Woltjer, and Bavinck* took recourse to the metaphysical theory of the Logos rather than placing the epistemological problem on a different foundation by taking the fundamental bearings for their philosophic inquiry from the religious ground-motive of the Reformation.
The Apologists Justin Martyr and Tatian and the Alexandrian church fathers Clement and Origen had already borrowed this logos theory from Jewish-Hellenistic philosophy, and they adapted it to some extent to the majestic opening words of the Gospel of John. It was, however, only after the Council of Nicea (325 AD), which formulated the dogma of the homoousion or oneness of nature of the Father and Son in the Godhead, and the Council of Constantinople (381 AD), which extended this to the Holy Spirit, that the logos theory was shaped in a form externally compatible with trinitarian doctrine. It also was strongly influenced by Stoic and Neoplatonic theories of the logos.
The theory of the logos thus was indeed one of the oldest heir-looms from the standpoint of accommodation in Christian philosophical thought. Its roots went so deep that even the great pioneers of the acceptance of Aristotelianism in the Middle Ages, Albertus Magnus and his pupil Thomas Aquinas, saw no way to eliminate it from their systems, even though it did not fit with the views of the mature Aristotle.
The authority of Augustine and of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (end of the 5th century), in particular, had given it this great influence, and Christian theology seemed unable to do without it. It therefore is no surprise that it continued to play such a large role, even in the philosophical thought of Kuyper, Bavinck, and Woltjer.
If we are to take Kuyper’s idea of an intrinsically reformational philosophy seriously, however, then it will not do simply to use the tradition of centuries as a yardstick for the Reformed character of his philosophical and theological conception. Just as this intrinsically Christian character cannot be guaranteed by the centuries-long tradition of the metaphysical theory of the anima rationales (“rational soul”) and the material body, so also it cannot be guaranteed by the centuries-old philosophical and theological theory of the logos.
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*See, for example, H. Bavinck, Christelijke Wereldbeschouwing (Kok, Kampen:1913), pp. 55ff.: “Thus guided, Christian philosophy could also in an altered sense adopt the Platonic-Aristotelian theory of the ideas or forms . . . These forms, however, must not be understood in the Kantian sense of categories that we inject into the matter of perception through our mental activity ... They must rather be regarded as objective ideas that give order and coherence to a multiplicity of parts . . . Just as a sculptor puts his idea into marble, so God realizes His Word in the world....”
(Extracted from Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy, Vol II, Paideia Press, 2013, pp 67,68)
The above book is available HERE
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Logos critique extracts:
1) The theory of the Logos in the critical realism of Kuyper, Bavinck, and Woltjer.
3) The Logos theory of Plotinus
4) Logos speculation in Christian thought before Council of Nicea (325).
