Herman Dooyeweerd: Critique of Logos Theory 5) Accommodation of Trinity and Creation doctrines post Nicea (325 AD) and Constantinople (381 AD). Augustine, Eriugena.

5) Accommodation of Trinity and Creation doctrines post Nicea (325 AD) and Constantinople (381 AD). Augustine, Eriugena.

 (Extract from Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy, Vol II)

At the Ecumenical Councils of Nicea and Constantinople, the Christian church formulated the doctrine of the divine Trinity as a complete oneness of nature (or being) between the three Persons of the Godhead. Following this, thinkers trod further down the road of accommodation between the logos theory and this trinitarian dogma, which earlier had been worked out in a Scriptural sense by Irenaeus and Athanasius.

Among the Greek church fathers schooled in Origen’s theology, Gregory of Nyssa (335-ca.395 AD) in particular elaborated on the logos theory at length in this new accommodated form. He combined the Jewish conception of the unity of the divine nature with the Neoplatonic conception of the deity’s three hypostases, and he interpreted the ideas in the divine Logos, which he too understood as the second Person of the divine nature, as “thoughts of God.” Eusebius of Caesarea, meanwhile, the famous church historian who was strongly influenced by Platonism, had taken a stand against the Neoplatonic theory of the emanation of the logos from the divine One, a notion that had been erroneously ascribed to Plato.

The theory of the logos first received its definitive, “orthodox” form in the thought of Aurelius Augustinus (354-430 AD), the grand master of the Latin church fathers. Under the influence of Marius Victorinus, who did not convert to Christianity until 355 AD in his old age, and who himself formulated an elaborate logos theory, Augustine made the philosophical-theological speculation of Plotinus, in particular, into an object of accommodation.

He began, however, by upholding the oneness of nature or being of the three Persons of the Godhead against Plotinus’ notion of three divine hypostases whose perfection of being is successively diminished, and by defending the Scriptural doctrine of the incarnation of the Word against the Gnostic theory that Christ’s earthly body was a mere semblance. This latter theory was inseparably tied to the religious dualism between mind or spirit and matter, which both the Gnostics and Origen carried to an extreme. Matter, in the sense of the Greek matter motive, thus was completely deprived of divinity.

Further, Augustine, whose understanding of the ground-motive of the Christian religion was basically pure, forcefully defended creation as an act of God’s sovereign will against the Plotinian theory of radiation. Despite this defense, however, someone like John Scotus Erigena [recte Eriugena = “Irish-born”] (ca. 801-877 AD) clearly reverted to this theory in the ninth century under the influence of Origen. It carried him to dangerous pantheistic consequences, just as did his logos speculation, in which the Logos functioned as the principle by which multiplicity was traced back to the divine unity.

On the other hand, Augustine did adopt the Plotinian theory of degrees of reality, although he restricted it to the created cosmos. He also adopted the Stoic theory of germinal forms (the logos spermatikos) in the material world, albeit in a semi-Plotinian accommodation to the Scriptural motive of creation. Most seriously, he adopted both the theory of the logos as the seat of the divine creative ideas and the whole theory of the objective actualization of these ideas in the material world. All these speculative philosophical doctrines were inseparably tied to the ground-motive of form and matter, whose religious nature was intrinsically pagan. Nevertheless, this was realized neither by Augustine and the scholastics who followed him, nor by Kuyper, Bavinck, and Woltjer, who followed Augustine in their logos theory.

We can grant that the accommodation of these pagan conceptions to the Scriptural doctrines of the Trinity and of creation changed their original meaning to a certain extent. It is equally true, however, that because of this process of accommodation the Christian ground-motive could no longer make itself felt in philosophical and theological thought in an unadulterated way.

78-80

 (Extracted from Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy, Vol II, Paideia Press, 2013, pp 78-80)

The above book is available HERE

——————————————————————————

Logos critique extracts:

1) The theory of the Logos in the critical realism of Kuyper, Bavinck, and Woltjer.

2) The origin: Plato, Philo

3) The Logos theory of Plotinus

4) Logos speculation in Christian thought before Council of Nicea (325).

5) Accommodation of Trinity and Creation doctrines post Nicea (325 AD) and Constantinople (381 AD). Augustine, Eriugena

6. Hellenistic antipathy towards the Christian philosophy of accommodation

7. Kuyper, Woltjer, and Bavinck logicized God’s order for the creation

——————————————————————————

Herman Dooyeweerd: Critique of Logos Theory 4. Logos speculation in Christian thought before Council of Nicea (325).

4. Logos speculation in Christian thought before Council of Nicea (325).

 (Extract from Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy, Vol II)

Christian thought was devastated during its first few centuries by these logos speculations. At first, Philo’s idea of the logos was followed almost literally. Circa A.D. 150 it was the central idea of religious philosophical thought, and the Apologists simply identified it in its Jewish-Hellenistic form with the “Word” (Logos] of the Gospel of John. Thus they regarded the Logos as a being that was actually neither God nor cosmos, but was rather the bridge or mediator between spirit and matter. Tertullian (160-222), a lawyer in Carthage, elaborated on this theology at length in a materialistic, Stoic manner.

According to Berkhof, the main features of the Apologists’ theology can be summarized as follows:

“For the purpose of creation God called into existence a personal being, the Logos, through whom He has made all things. The human person, though a participant in the Logos, was misled by demons and thus ensnared in ignorance, polytheism, and immorality. In order to set humankind right again the Logos himself appeared in human form. Thus Christ unmasked the deception of the demons, proclaimed the true doctrine of God and the world and of the coming judgment, and showed the way to a God-pleasing manner of life. This manner of life is practiced in the church; and there are also ‘seeds of the Logos’ outside of it (especially in Plato), but there people remained trapped in error. The human being has a free will and can, with the help of Christ’s teaching and example, free himself from the grip of the demons. In Christ, therefore, there has appeared a mere demigod, who is not a Redeemer in the Scriptural sense but only an example and teacher.” (Hendrikus Berkhof, De Geschiedenis der Kerk, Nijkerk, 1967, pp. 52 ff)

Thus, the acceptance of the Jewish-Hellenistic logos theory initially led to a radical undermining of the ground-motive of the divine Word-revelation, that of creation, fall into sin, and redemption through Jesus Christ. Under the influence of the dualistic ground-motive of form and matter, the Christian religion was converted into a moral system with a Christian veneer.

Things did not improve in the theological-philosophical systems of Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-215) and of the great Greek church father Origen (185-254), who only added philosophical depth to the logos theory of the Apologists. According to Clement the world is animated by the Logos as the vehicle of all rational-moral forces, who illuminated the souls from the beginning. The Logos instructed the Jews through Moses and the prophets, and among the Greeks he raised up wise men and offered philosophy as a teacher of righteousness. Only in Jesus Christ, however, was this Logos fully revealed.

Clement’s Logos is the archetype of the created world, the sum total of the ideas, the mediator between God and world (in the sense of Philo) and the rational law of the cosmos. Within the divine triad, the Holy Spirit occupies the third position after the Father and the Logos.

Clement then connected this Logos doctrine with a ranking, borrowed from pseudo-Christian Gnosticism, between pistis (faith) and gnōsis (knowledge). The faith of the simple was contrasted with the Christian knowledge of the Gnostic, which ranks much higher and is able to penetrate to the hidden meaning of the Word-revelation through allegorical interpretation of Scripture. Philosophy is indispensable for arriving at this gnōsis. Pistis too is a necessary condition for Christian gnōsis, but it is only through gnōsis that one can freely and fully surrender himself to God.

Only the works of the Christian Gnostic are perfectly good, because they correspond to the Logos, the divine reason. This ideal of the wise Christian person came dangerously close to that of the Stoic sage, for it was carried all the way to the demand of apatheia, of freeing oneself of all feelings and emotions. Clement in fact wrote a book called The Pedagogue, in which his exposition of the rules for Christian living often literally followed the discourses of the cynically inclined Stoic Musonius Rufus. An obvious connection became manifest here between the logos theory and the Greek religious idea of theoria, which I will discuss later. The Gnostic, who shares in the Logos, already on earth becomes a “God walking in the flesh.” (Stromateis VII, 16; Stählin edition 3, 71). He raises himself above the temporal world and, in the eternal theoria he beholds and grasps God – not just in isolated ecstatic moments, as Philo and later the Neoplatonists taught, but in lasting communion.

Origen was the first to incorporate the Jewish-Hellenistic logos theory, in combination with Neoplatonic elements, in a systematic exposition of Christian doctrine, which in his hands was turned into a theological-philosophical system of grand dimensions. Like Clement, he regarded Christian doctrine merely as the perfection and completion of what the Logos had already disclosed in Greek philosophy. Origen thus saw pagan wisdom as a preparation for Christianity, even though his judgment of it still remained rather reserved.

In complete conformity with the philosophical theology of both Philo and the later Neoplatonists, Origen taught that God, in the truest sense of the word, is the absolute unity, exalted above both nous (the thinking mind) and being (Contra Celsum VII, 38). This God in the highest sense of the word is the Father, the origin and goal of all created things. The Son or Logos has been generated from eternity from God the Father as an emanation of the divine light. The Son does have a commonness of being with the Father, but this homoousion is merely relative in nature and implies nothing more than Plotinus’ commonness of being between the divine unity and the nous.

Origen’s Logos is an archetype that proceeds from the Father, but it is of lesser divinity. It is a second God (deúteros theós) of lower rank, who has the same relationship to the Father that the Christian has to him. In relation to the cosmos this Logos is the original type, the image of the invisible God (Contra Celsum VI, 64. Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4, p. 603). By him all things are created, and they are made in his image alone, not in the image of the Father. As the first-born of the Father the Logos is the principle of all rationality. Seen from the point of view of the creation he is God, but seen from God’s point of view he is a creature (Contra Celsum III, 34. Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4, p. 478; “Intermediate between the nature of the uncreated and all created things.”). 

As the divine unity unfolds into a multiplicity, the Logos is the first member and the Holy Spirit is the second. This Spirit is even less divine than the logos, and it stands the closest to the created cosmos.

The Holy Spirit thus begins the series of lower spiritual beings, which along with their divine nature also have a free will of their own. Already at this point human souls, as spiritual beings, have the freedom to choose between good and evil. Those who have not chosen the good, God has cast away in punishment for their guilt and encased them in material bodies.

At the end of all things, however, all creatures will be brought back into unity with God (cf. Origen’s main systematic theological work De principiis III, 6, 1 ff). Then will come the destruction of sin, which for Origen, as for the later Neoplatonists, was merely a privation of being; but then also the material bodies will revert to non-being. [Origen believed in a future resurrection of a spiritual body, which resembles “the splendour of the celestial bodies” but, nevertheless, is a body, not mere spirit (De principiis II, 2, 2)].

Origen’s logos theory, too, led to a radical undermining of the ground-motive of the Christian religion. The creation was understood in Neoplatonic fashion as an emanation of the divine light. The radical meaning of the fall into sin was denied. The Logos, in its manifestation in Christ Jesus, is not the Redeemer in the true sense but only a moral example. Finally, the Scriptural doctrine of the divine Trinity was undermined by the Hellenistic speculation about the Father as the absolute One.

 (Extracted from Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy, Vol II, Paideia Press, 2013, pp 74-78)

The above book is available HERE

——————————————————————————

Logos critique extracts:

1) The theory of the Logos in the critical realism of Kuyper, Bavinck, and Woltjer.

2) The origin: Plato, Philo

3) The Logos theory of Plotinus

4) Logos speculation in Christian thought before Council of Nicea (325).

5) Accommodation of Trinity and Creation doctrines post Nicea (325 AD) and Constantinople (381 AD). Augustine, Eriugena

6. Hellenistic antipathy towards the Christian philosophy of accommodation

7. Kuyper, Woltjer, and Bavinck logicized God’s order for the creation

——————————————————————————

Herman Dooyeweerd: Critique of Logos Theory 3) Plotinus.

3. The logos theory of Plotinus.

 (Extract from Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy, Vol II)

Philo’s logos theory exerted tremendous influence on the Apologists and on the church fathers Clement of Alexandria and Origen. Besides this, the logos theory of Plotinus, the founder of Neoplatonic philosophy, became extremely important for Christian philosophical thought based on the accommodation standpoint. The reason was that Augustine derived his philosophical conception of the creation order from it.

Plotinus of Alexandria (ca. A.D. 205-270) was a student of Ammonius Saccas, a son of Christian parents who later reverted to pagan Greek religion and tried to achieve a philosophical synthesis between Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. He developed a logos theory which arose from the same kind of speculative philosophical reflections as that of Philo, but which nevertheless differed from the latter fundamentally. [Plotinus pursues the line of the step-wise descent from the One, in connection with the view that every emanation represents a weaker image of the preceding level of being.]

Plotinus agreed with Philo in his notion that the deity is absolutely transcendent to the principle of matter. For him as well, the deity is totally exalted above the active nous or reason, since the latter always contains a duality between thought and the object of thought. God is not irrational but supra-rational, just as He has no formed being, but a supra- (supreme) being that is the origin of every form of being.

Aristotle’s idea of God held that He is the absolute, actualized, perfect Reason, whose thinking has only itself as its object (the noēsis noēseōs, “thought thinking itself”). In Plotinus’ view, however, this idea still did not do justice to God’s transcendence. Like Philo, he assumed that human thought concepts can only be applied to the deity in a negative sense; they can only indicate what God is not. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas and their followers were to follow him in this, although in working out his theory of the analogy of being, which I will discuss later, Thomas still also granted a positive significance to the metaphysical determination of God’s attributes.

For Plotinus, the only positive determinations of God’s nature are His unity and His goodness. God is exalted above all being, thinking, and doing. All forms of being (ideas) spring from the fullness of His being, but God Himself is not confined within a particular form of being. Plotinus then attempted, unsuccessfully however, to derive even the principle of matter from the absolute divine unity as Origin. Thus he tried to surmount the polar dualism in the Greek religious ground-motive, an effort that Philo had not made. To accomplish this, Plotinus devised his theory of emanation or procession.

Plotinus asked himself, how did multiplicity spring from the divine unity? This could not have happened through an act of creation or a decree willed by God, for God, according to Plotinus, is exalted above all doing and all activity. He is absolutely unmoved and remains in eternal, silent rest. It also could not have happened through emanation, as pantheism maintains, since by emanation the divine being would be diminished. Only through “radiation”(uitstraling) could all things issue from God’s fullness of being, while He Himself remains eternally the same, just as the sun produces the brilliance that surrounds it without itself losing any of its light. And this radiation takes place not through an act of God’s will, but through a necessity of His being.

The fullness of God’s being must radiate outward, merely because of His goodness. According to Plotinus this radiation occurs in three stages, each earlier stage calling into being the next one.That which originates from God diminishes in perfection of being in each of the three stages. Thus there are degrees of reality, determined by their greater or lesser distance from God and from the world of ideas. Plotinus maintains the dualism of the form-matter motive in his system by drawing, in Platonic fashion, a sharp distinction between the supra-sensible realm, which is entirely ruled by the form principle, and sensible reality, in which the form and matter principles are bound together.

The supra-sensible realm is altogether divine in character. Radiating from the divine One, which is the first and absolute hypostasis, are two lower divine hypostases. The first of these is the divine mind or Logos, which is “the greatest in perfection of being subsequent to the Supreme Perfection.” This Logos is the first reflection or mirror image of the divine unity. Its nature is to contemplate the divine unity. In the intellect or logos there is thus already a fundamental duality of subject and object, of the activity of thinking and that which is thought.

In the Logos are contained the divine ideas, the ideal ontic forms (forms of being) of everything that is actualized in the sensory world. Plotinus conceived of these ideas as substances and as active mental forces, which secure the operation of the logos or nous upon the levels of reality below it. They are inseparably tied to the logos, since their being is identical with their being thought; yet, they are not purely subjective divine thoughts as the middle Platonic school taught, but have a real existence. Furthermore, the ideas are not mere universal forms (universalia) – for instance, forms of the animal, the human being, the plant – but contain in themselves a fullness of individuality. Thus there is an idea of the individual man Socrates, of the man Plato, etc. They also have in them a synthesis between form and matter, since how else could sensible things be images of them? (Enn. II, 4, 4). This “matter,” however, is ideal in nature.

The third hypostasis, finally, is the soul, which is the reflection of the divine intellect or logos. It is the direct fruit of the intellect, and it receives its form from the world of ideas emanating from the logos or nous. It hovers about the divine intellect as its inseparable reflection, its light, its image inseparably attached to it; on the upper level united with it, filled from it, enjoying it, participant in its nature, intellective with it, but on the lower level in contact with the realm beneath itself, or, rather, generating in turn an offspring which must lie beneath (Eneads V,1.7).

The soul, therefore, is the lowest level in the divine, supra-sensible realm; and simultaneously it is the bridge to the sensible realm, which it in turn creates. Plotinus thus gives it an intermediary role, and he accordingly splits it into a higher, simple and rational part called the nous, and a lower part called the phusis, which is turned toward the sensible matter of the body. This lower part of the soul is divisible insofar as the material body cannot incorporate the psychical forces undivided. Nevertheless, the soul as a whole remains an indivisible substance.

There is a real multiplicity of substantial souls. The highest among them is the divine world-soul, which gives form to the entire sensible cosmos and pervades and animates it. The individual souls, however, are not parts of this world soul, but independent radiations from the mental ideas in the logos. All functions of the soul, including memory, sense perception, and even the vegetative function that forms the material body, are supra-sensible and rational in nature. They belong to the substance of the soul, are in fact identical with this substance, and are independent of and separable from the body.

The divine realm extends from the One through the soul. The world-soul contains the logoi, which correspond to the ideas of the logos and are the agents by which the intrinsically indeterminate matter is formed into the things of the sense world. Plotinus borrowed this latter notion from Stoic philosophy and its theory of the logoi spermatikoi, “germinal forms,” which supposedly exert a formative influence upon indeterminate matter from within the world soul. As we shall see later, however, he transformed this Stoic idea in a fundamental way.

Finally, matter itself is the product of the soul through radiation.The soul is a light that at the furthest limit of its radiation turns into its opposite, darkness (Enn. IV, 3.9), and this darkness is unformed matter. In this sense Plotinus calls matter the “depth” (bathos) or“abyss” of every sensible thing.

Whereas the logos is light, matter is darkness. It is non-being (mē on) and an absolute privation of ontic form. As the absence of form it is the principle of evil, but as receptivity for form it is simultaneously an intermediate state between good and evil.

One can plainly see that the polar dualism of the Greek theme of form and matter has reasserted itself in Plotinus’ whole view of reality. He merely camouflaged it by means of his theory of radiation or procession, but it easily broke through this disguise in the polar opposition between light and darkness.

 (Extracted from Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy, Vol II, Paideia Press, 2013, pp 70-74)

The above book is available HERE

——————————————————————————

Logos critique extracts:

1) The theory of the Logos in the critical realism of Kuyper, Bavinck, and Woltjer.

2) The origin: Plato, Philo

3) The Logos theory of Plotinus

4) Logos speculation in Christian thought before Council of Nicea (325).

5) Accommodation of Trinity and Creation doctrines post Nicea (325 AD) and Constantinople (381 AD). Augustine, Eriugena

6. Hellenistic antipathy towards the Christian philosophy of accommodation

7. Kuyper, Woltjer, and Bavinck logicized God’s order for the creation

——————————————————————————

Herman Dooyeweerd: Critique of Logos Theory 2) The origin: Plato, Philo.

2. The origin of the Logos theory: Plato, Philo. 

 (Extract from Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy, Vol II)

Let the theory be examined! Quite early, a tendency became manifest to emphasize to the utmost the transcendence of the deity above the principle of matter. Plutarch and Albinus had already done this in the so-called middle Platonic school, and so, under strong Platonic influence, did the Jewish Alexandrian philosopher Philo. Numenius of Apamea, who was in turn influenced by Philo and also by neo-Pythagorean philosophy, did the same. To maintain this transcendence, any direct action of the highest deity upon the cosmos, bound to the matter principle, had to be denied; and intermediate beings were needed in order to ensure divine influence on the material world. This had already happened to some extent in Plato’s Timaeus, where the demiurge, after “creating” the imperishable celestial deities and the immortal part of the human soul, leaves the formation of mortal beings, subject to the power of the matter principle, to these celestial deities (particularly the sun).

The Jewish thinker Philo (born ca. 25 BC), in attempting to strike a synthesis between Old Testament Jewish doctrine and Platonic and Stoic philosophy, devised a logos theory that became more or less the prototype for the later development of this theory in Christian theological and philosophical thought. Philo lived in Alexandria, where Hellenic culture and Greek philosophy blossomed a second time and underwent a synthesis with Eastern religions. He tried to gain a speculative, philosophical understanding of God’s absolute transcendence, as this is taught in the Old Testament (where it is inseparably connected, however, to His immanence in the creation), from within the framework of the Greek religious form-matter motive.

Thus Philo had to deny any direct contact between the deity and “impure matter.” Even the Platonic forms or ideas were still related to the matter principle, since the being of material things, the human person included, was based, according to Plato, on their participation (methexis) in the ideas. What is more, the world of ideas and its thinking correlate, the nous or the logos, still contain a plurality, whereas the deity has to be conceived as an absolute unity, elevated above all plurality. In Philo’s view, therefore, God is elevated even above reason and the ideas. He is the absolute unity, utterly simple in nature and sufficient unto Himself, who is omnipresent in His divine power but not in His being.

For the creation of the world God [in Philo’s view] employed incorporeal forces or ideas, since He Himself could not touch “impure matter.” Philo thus imagined the Platonic ideas as animate, active beings, a notion that Plato himself had already embraced in his dialogue The Sophist (359 BC), written during the period of crisis in his theory of ideas. These ideal forces supposedly surround God as ministering spirits, like the courtiers of a monarch. Among them two basic forces are predominant: the creative force and the ruling force. Philo called the first of these the divine goodness, again following Plato, since Plato had designated the idea of the Good as the final purpose and cause in the entire formation of the world. To these two main forces Philo added many others as the “law-givers.” He regarded them all not merely as divine attributes but as relatively independent spirits, which can appear to men and even have personal relationships with certain people, such as Abraham.

This entire active world of ideas is seated in the divine Logos,which, just like the human logos, operates in two inseparable ways: as thinking reason and as word. The Logos is the mediator between God and the creation, and God uses it to create the world. Philo’s acceptance of the Greek motive of form and matter forced him to abandon the Scriptural doctrine of creation. His Logos finds itself confronted with an eternal matter, and from this it forms creatures “in the image of the eternal ideas,” as Plato had taught. Philo believed that this theory of ideas was present already in Moses, who taught in the book of Genesis (1:27) that God created humankind in His own image. According to Philo, what there is said of humankind has to be applied to the whole visible world.

In his exposition of the Logos and of the ideas in general, Philo vacillates between a purely attributive view, which regards them merely as attributes of the deity, and a substantial view in which they also function as independent beings. One can safely say, however, that the second view, in which the Logos is hypostatized as a Person, predominates in his thought. For the most part, at least, Philo places the Logos next to God the Father as a second divine Person, and it therefore cannot be reduced to a mere attribute or function of the first Person. When he speaks explicitly of the second Person he makes him clearly subordinate to the first, just as happened later in the Monarchian movement in Christian dogmatics. An incarnation of the Logos was out of the question for him, however, merely because of his notion that matter is impure. For this same reason he could not identify his Logos with the hoped-for Messiah.

 (Extracted from Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy, Vol II, Paideia Press, 2013, pp 68-70)

The above book is available HERE

——————————————————————————

Logos critique extracts:

1) The theory of the Logos in the critical realism of Kuyper, Bavinck, and Woltjer.

2) The origin: Plato, Philo

3) The Logos theory of Plotinus

4) Logos speculation in Christian thought before Council of Nicea (325).

5) Accommodation of Trinity and Creation doctrines post Nicea (325 AD) and Constantinople (381 AD). Augustine, Eriugena

6. Hellenistic antipathy towards the Christian philosophy of accommodation

7. Kuyper, Woltjer, and Bavinck logicized God’s order for the creation

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Herman Dooyeweerd: Critique of Logos Theory 1) Kuyper, Bavinck, Woltjer

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.

—————-

*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

——————————————————————————

Logos critique extracts:

1) The theory of the Logos in the critical realism of Kuyper, Bavinck, and Woltjer.

2) The origin: Plato, Philo

3) The Logos theory of Plotinus

4) Logos speculation in Christian thought before Council of Nicea (325).

5) Accommodation of Trinity and Creation doctrines post Nicea (325 AD) and Constantinople (381 AD). Augustine, Eriugena

6. Hellenistic antipathy towards the Christian philosophy of accommodation

7. Kuyper, Woltjer, and Bavinck logicized God’s order for the creation

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Dooyeweerd: Key of Knowledge - Question of Life and Death

(Image developed from original key photo by Evan-Amos)

Key of knowledge - 

Question of life and death

by Herman Dooyeweerd

      Thus the central theme of the Holy Scriptures, namely, that of creation, fall into sin, and redemption by Jesus Christ in the communion of the Holy Spirit, has a radical unity of meaning, which is related to the central unity of our human existence. It effects the true knowledge of God and ourselves, if our heart is fully opened by the Holy Spirit so that it finds itself in the grip of God's Word and has become the captive of Jesus Christ. So long as this central meaning of the Word-revelation is at issue, we are beyond the scientific problems both of theology and philosophy. Its acceptance or rejection is a matter of life or death to us, and not a question of theoretical reflection. In this sense, the central motive of Holy Scripture is the common supra-scientific starting-point of a truly biblical theology and of a truly Christian philosophy. It is the key of knowledge of which Jesus spoke in his discussion with the Scribes and lawyers. It is the religious presupposition of any theoretical thought, which may rightly claim a biblical foundation. But, as such, it can never become the theoretical object of theology - no more than God and the human I can become such an object.

...I am sorry if my explanation concerning the scientific field of research of dogmatic theology seem not clear at first sight. The difficulties and questions to which it gives rise do not concern the divine Word-revelation, but exclusively the scientific character and bounds of a theological dogmatics and exegesis. And it is necessary 'ad humanam salutem' ['for human salvation'] to go into these difficulties in a serious way. For dogmatic theology is a very dangerous science. Its elevation to a necessary mediator between God's Word and the believer amounts to idolatry and testifies to a fundamental misconception concerning its real character and position. If our salvation be dependent on theological dogmatics and exegesis, we are lost. For both of them are a human work, liable to all kinds of error, disagreement in opinion, and heresy. We can even say that all heresies are of a theological origin. Therefore, the traditional confusion between God's Word as the central principle of knowledge and the scientific object of theological dogmatics and exegesis must be wrong in its fundamentals. For it is this very confusion which has given rise to the false identification of dogmatic theology with the doctrine of Holy Scripture, and to the false conception of theology as the necessary mediator between God's Word and the believers.

...Let us first consider how the Word of God presents itself to us in its full and actual reality. The divine Word-revelation has entered our temporal horizon. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. This was the 'skandalon' which was equally raised by the incarnation of the Word-revelation in the Holy Scriptures, a collection of books written by different men in the course of ages, be it through divine inspiration, yet related to all the modal aspects of our temporal horizon of experience. It is, however, only under the modal aspect of faith that we can experience that this Word-revelation in the Scriptures has been inspired by the Holy Spirit. And the actual belief through which we know with an ultimate certainty that it is so, cannot be realized in the heart, that religious center of our consciousness, except by the operation of the Word itself, as a spiritual power. What makes the diversity of books of the Old and New Testament into a radical spiritual unity? Their principle of unity can only be the central theme of creation, fall into sin, and redemption by Jesus Christ in the communion of the Holy Spirit, since it is the key to true knowledge of God and self-knowledge. We have established that, in its central spiritual sense, as divine motive power addressing itself to our heart, this theme cannot become the theoretical object of theological thought, since it is the very starting point of the latter, insofar as theology is really biblical.

From the foregoing it may appear that there must be a difference in principle between creation, fall and redemption in their central sense as the key to knowledge, and in their sense as articles of faith which may be made into the object of theological thought. Insofar as Reformed theology, too, was influenced by the scholastic basic motive of nature and grace, it also developed dogmatic views which must be considered unbiblical. The Jewish Scribes and lawyers had a perfect theological knowledge of the books of the Old Testament. They wished, doubtless, to hold to the creation, the fall, and the promise of the coming Messiah as articles of the orthodox Jewish faith which are also articles of the Christian faith. Nevertheless, Jesus said to them: "Woe unto you, for ye have taken away the key of knowledge!" (Luke 11:52).

This key of knowledge in its radical and integral sense cannot be made into a theoretical problem. The theologian can only direct his theological thought to it with respect to its necessary supra-theoretical presupposition, if he is really in the grip of it and can bear witness to its radical meaning which transcends all theological concepts. But when he does so, he is not in any different position than the Christian philosopher who accounts for his biblical starting-point, or the ordinary believer who testifies to the radical sense of God's Word as the central motive power of his life in Jesus Christ. In other words, the true knowledge of God in Jesus Christ and true self-knowledge are neither of a dogmatic-theological, nor of a philosophical nature, but have an absolutely central religious [ie directed to ultimate Origin of selfhood] significance. This knowledge is a question of spiritual life or death. Even orthodox theological dogmatics, however splendidly elaborated, cannot guarantee this central spiritual knowledge.” 

(Herman Dooyeweerd, In the Twilight of Western Thought, from pp 86,87, 100)

The above book is available HERE

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Dooyeweerd: How is philosophical thought possible as theoretical thought?

Dooyeweerd:

How is philosophical thought 

possible as theoretical thought? 

(Extract from 

REFORMATION AND SCHOLASTICISM IN PHILOSOPHY VOL II, pp 94-96)

How is philosophical thought possible as theoretical thought? The Philosophy of the Law-Idea opens its transcendental critique with this question, which is directed toward every possible philosophy. The question therefore is not restricted to a Reformed philosophy. Rather, it first of all confronts traditional and modern philosophy with a fundamental problem, since this philosophy starts from the assumption that theoretical thought is autonomous in relation to faith. This problem is transcendental in nature, for it has to do with the boundaries of philosophy. It is concerned with the pre-existing structure of theoretical, philosophical thought, which makes this thought possible to begin with.

This pre-existing structure cannot itself be philosophical in character. Rather, it is a law-governed framework that lies at the foundation of all the activity of philosophical thought; for if philosophical thought departs from this framework, it will lose its philosophic character. And, as I have already observed, the a priori or pre-existing nature of this structure lends it universal validity; that is, it is binding for philosophical thought regardless of the subjective starting point of the thinker.

Nevertheless, this universally valid structural law of theoretical, philosophical thought can only be examined in the theoretical, philosophical attitude of thought. One might begin by believing that such a structure exists, but that would not yet disclose its actual character to our scientific insight. And that is precisely what is needed. For if there is to be any discussion on the question of whether philosophical thought can indeed function independently of a faith commitment, one must first render a scientific account of the nature of this thought.

Hence, if philosophy wishes to proceed in a truly critical manner, it must begin by directing its inquiry toward its own presuppositions. The dogma that theoretical reason is autonomous may in no way be taken as a self-evident consequence of the structure of philosophic thought. That would amount to a dogmatic elimination of the basic critical problem that I formulated at the beginning of this section. Nor may we demand, however, that the proponents of this dogma begin by abandoning it; that, too, would be tantamount to a circumvention of the transcendental basic problem of philosophy by means of a dogmatic statement. One then would simply be countering the dogma that theoretical reason is autonomous with the dogma that it is determined from a supra-theoretical standpoint by presuppositions of faith. And in that case, our critical insight into the nature and structure of philosophical thought would not be enriched in the least. We would merely end up with a confrontation of dogmatic points of view.

At the start of our critical inquiry we may not demand of any thinker that he abandon any dogmatic conviction. There is only one strict condition that must be laid down for a truly critical attitude of thought: the thinker must be prepared to put aside the dogmatic prejudice that regards the postulate of philosophy’s autonomy as purely theoretical and scientific in character. For this prejudice alone bars the way to a critical investigation of the basic problem I have formulated. It simply passes off as a scientific, theoretical judgment what is nothing but a dogma, an unreasoned conviction of faith.

The Philosophy of the Law-Idea makes no claim whatsoever that its transcendental critique of philosophical thought could be undertaken independently of a dogmatic conviction of faith. If it did, after all, it would itself have to begin by accepting the autonomy of theoretical reason as a purely theoretical presupposition, which would be held up as a criterion for deciding whether further inquiry is scientific or not. On the contrary, this philosophy openly avows that it launches its transcendental theoretical critique from the Christian religious standpoint. It remains critical in doing this, however, since from the outset it distinguishes sharply between its faith conviction and all judgments that are intrinsically scientific.

In other words, the Philosophy of the Law-Idea does not mask its starting point. It begins rather by making a sharp, critical distinction between theoretical judgment and supra-theoretical prejudgment. Because of this, no one can become the victim of an artfully disguised trap as he follows our inquiry into the transcendental basic problems of philosophy. One can be confident that no judgment of faith will here be held up as an intrinsically scientific thesis. Indeed, the precise purpose of our transcendental critique is to compel thinkers to render their own account of the true nature of the prejudgments from which they set out.

(Extracted from Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy, Vol II, Paideia Press, 2013, pp 94-96)

The above book is available HERE

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