Herman Dooyeweerd: Time, Eternity and Selfhood

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Herman Dooyeweerd: 

TIME, ETERNITY and SELFHOOD

“Ons Archimedisch punt, dat ons zelfbewustzijn (de crux van alle humanistische kennistheorie!) bepaalt, doet ons de tijdelijke werkelijkheid zien als een uiterst gedifferentieerde zin-breking van de religieuze zin-volheid van onzen kosmos doorhet prisma van den kosmischen tijd, welken tijd wij in den religieuzen wortel van ons zelfbewustzijn, in boventijdelijke zelf-heid transcendeeren, doch waarin wij metal onze tijdelijke bewustzijns- en andere kosmische functies tevens immanent verkeeren.” (Herman Dooyeweerd, De crisis der humanistische staatsleer in het licht eener calvinistische kosmologie en kennistheorie, Boekhandel W. ten Have, Amsterdam 1931, p93)
https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/dooy002cris01_01/colofon.php

“Our Archimedean point determines our self-consciousness (the crux of all humanist epistemology) and makes us see temporal reality as an exceedingly differentiated refraction of the religious fullness of meaning of our cosmos via the prism of cosmic time, which time we transcend in the religious root of our self-consciousness, in our supratemporal selfhood, but in which we at the same time dwell immanently with all our temporal consciousness and other cosmic functions.” (Herman Dooyeweerd: The Crisis in Humanist Political Theory, As seen from a Calvinist cosmology and epistemology, Paideia Press, 2010, p 73)

TEMPORAL LAW-SPHERES AS REFRACTIONS OF SUPRA-TEMPORAL MEANING

Time structure (the horizon of time) and temporal duration.

In order to gain proper insight into the problem of time, it is of primary importance to remember that universal time, which embraces our entire temporal cosmic reality in all its modal aspects [law-spheres] of meaning, may not be identified with becoming, with continuously being subjected to change.

One can say that all genesis, all becoming and passing away, do take place within time, but not that time itself is becoming. Rather, within cosmic time, an initial distinction is required between (a) a law-side, and (b) a factual side subject to the former. These two sides co-exist in an unbreakable coherence.

According to its law-side cosmic time is the structural time-order embracing the entire temporal reality. As such, time bears a constant and transcendental character, that is to say, it makes possible temporal reality in its immanent structure.

This invariant cosmic time structure serves as the foundation both for the constant structures of the temporal modalities of reality (those of number, space, motion, organic life, feeling, and so on), and for the individuality structures of things, events, societal relationships, etc. etc. The individuality structures overarch the aspects and group them in different ways into individual totalities.

The 15 IRREDUCIBLE LAW-SPHERES of COSMIC TIME 

(Also called Aspects/ Modes of consciousness/ Modalities/ Meaning-sides) 

The Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea designates this time structure as such as the temporal horizon of all of empirical reality. As to its factual side time in its universal cosmic character is indeed a flowing continuum (fluidum), the continual mutual fusion of moments, which are temporal moments of subjective states, acts, events and so on.

According to its factual side time can be called duration in moments, and it soon becomes apparent that this "duration" can never be "empty": it can never be separated from the factual side of temporal reality, no more than it can exist outside the universal time-structure, outside the horizon of time. On no account should this duration be identified with one of its modal aspects, such as the duration of motion, emotional duration or historical duration. On the contrary, its cosmic continuity is of a supra-modal character which pervades and overarches all law-spheres.

The whole of temporal reality, within its time-structure, has a certain cosmic duration which flows through its modal aspects in a supra-temporal continuum.

This cosmic duration within the time-structure can only be experienced by the human being, who has a supra-temporal center of its temporal existence, the heart, in which eternity was placed.

Time can only be experienced in its relation to created eternity (the aevum, as it is called in Scholasticism, in opposition to the aeternitas increata, the uncreated eternity of God).

All immanent temporal time-measurement, for example in hours, minutes and seconds, in the final analysis remains external and as such cannot provide us with an awareness of time. Our intuition of time, which itself cannot be grasped conceptually, is undeniably rooted in the identity of our selfhood, in the transcendent center of our existence. All that restlessness in our experience of time, as Augustine already realized from a truly Christian point of view, derives from the heart, from the stirring of time and eternity in the innermost depths of our existence.

(Excerpt from Herman Dooyeweerd, TIME, LAW,and HISTORY: Selected Essays, Collected Works, Series B — Volume 14, Translated by Daniël Strauss, General Editor Daniël Strauss, 2017, pp 3-5)

Purchase options and free PDF of volume HERE:

http://herman-dooyeweerd.blogspot.com

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COMMENT: 

ARCHIMEDEAN POINT = MELCHIZEDEK POINT?

“Thubhairt an Tighearna rim Thighearna, Suidh aig mo dheaslàimh, gus an cuir mi do naimhdean nan stòl fod chasan…Mhionnaich an Tighearna, agus cha ghabh e aithreachas, Is sagart thu gu bràth, a rèir òrdagh Mhelchisedeic.”

 (Salm 110:1&4, Am Bìoball Gàidhlig 1992)

‘The Lord said to my Lord,

“Sit at My right hand,

Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.”

…The Lord has sworn

And will not relent,

“You are a priest forever

According to the order of Melchizedek.”’

 (Psalm 110:1&4, NKJV)

Currently reading Hebrews. Just powerfully realised that Dooyeweerd’s “Archimedean Point” could well have been inspired by Hebrews 6:19,20 -

“Sure and steadfast anchor of the soul (heart)” —

So could the Archimedean Point even be called the Melchizedek Point? :

“Gum biodh sinne a theich thuige airson dìdein air ar misneachadh gu làidir gus grèim a ghabhail air an dòchas a tha romhainn, agus tha sin againne mar acair stèidhichte is cinnteach dhar n‑anam, 's a tha a' dol a‑steach air taobh a‑staigh a' chùirtear far an deach Ìosa, an ro‑ruitheadair, a‑steach air ar son‑ne, a chaidh a dhèanamh na àrd‑shagart gu sìorraidh a rèir òrduigh Mhelchisedeic.” (Eabhraich 6:18-20, An Tiomnadh Nuadh anns an Eadar-Theangachadh Ùr Gàidhlig 2017)

“This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” (Hebrews 6:19,20)

I am remembering that Andree Troost in his book “What is Christian Philosophy: An Introduction to the Cosmonomic Philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd (Paedeia Press, 2020) helpfully relates Dooyeweerd’s “supratemporal” feature to Melchizedek.

But the “Archimedean Point” thing has hit home with me personally just now, having been reading Hebrews daily, then this evening reading the following passage from Dooyeweerd:

“Right from the beginning the Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea related the problem of time to that of the true character of reality, the being of what is. Since this insight into the ‘being of what is’ is entirely dependent on the choice of the Archimedean point or the transcendent starting-point of philosophical thought, and since the latter in turn determines the understanding of the cosmonomic idea as a foundation for philosophy, it should not be surprising as well that the philosophical treatment of the problem of time will faithfully mirror the assumed cosmonomic idea. On the immanence standpoint the problem of time becomes a wellspring of antinomies. The basic antimony of all immanence philosophy, after all, is the choice of Archimedean point within temporal reality itself. This antimony must then be camouflaged through the primary absolutisation of temporal aspects of meaning in which the thinker believes he can find its time-transcendent starting-point. But this primary absolutisation, through which the aspects or modalities concerned are apparently elevated above the universal temporal coherence prevailing between them, causes one to disregard the cosmic universality of time. No single absolutisation of a temporal aspect into a supra-temporal, self-contained resting point for philosophical thought, can indeed elevate that thought above time. This is the basic antimony of metaphysical immanence philosophy, which, for all its attempts to break through the bondage to time by means of metaphysical concepts, is itself only possible by the grace of time.”

(Herman Dooyeweerd, TIME, LAW, and HISTORY: Selected Essays, Paideia Press 2017, pp 1,2)

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IMPORTANT NOTE:

Dooyeweerd used the term “Archimedean Point” only in his earlier work, as he explains in this extract from a 1974 interview with Magnus Verbrugge (translated by Dr. J. Glenn Friesen 2007):

DOOYEWEERD: Well, the term 'Archimedean point' is derived from a saying of the great Greek natural scientist Archimedes, the defender of Syracuse during the Roman sea attack [vlootaanval]. He said, "Give me a point where I can stand, and I will move the earth." He had brought [physical] mechanics to a rather high degree of perfection so that this [saying] was something that was possible in early Greek thought. The Archimedean point is derived from this saying. In philosophy, it is necessary to have a point where we can stand, and from which we can obtain a view of totality over the whole of human experience in time, within time, within the order of time.

VERBRUGGE: A kind of lookout post?

DOOYEWEERD: A kind of a lookout post, but one that is set up in such a way that you cannot look out from a particular point of view that is contained within our temporal world of experience [onze tijdelijke ervaringswereld]. The viewpoint is one that transcends our temporal world of experience. And from that viewpoint we can indeed obtain a view over the whole. But as long as we remain within that of which we want to obtain an overview, we can only receive a view from out of a particular viewpoint [een bepaalde gezichtshoek].

VERBRUGGE: You have to transcend it.

DOOYEWEERD: You have to transcend it [je moet er bovenuit]. Indeed.

VERBRUGGE: And what is now the Archimedean point that you have chosen, or found?

DOOYEWEERD: Yes. I currently no longer use the term, and I in fact have not done so for quite some time. It was a term that I used in particular when I was working out the ideas of the Philosophy of the Law-Idea in its first edition, the Dutch edition. I used the term at that time, and I needed it in order to distinguish my standpoint from other views at the time that sought their point of departure within the temporal world itself.* In particular, they sought their standpoint in logical thought, or in sensory perception, or in some other particular point of view or particular aspect of our experience. So that is the Archimedean point, and we seek for it.
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*Footnote by J Glenn Friesen: The important point here is that Dooyeweerd's philosophy begins from a standpoint that is not within the temporal world. Without his idea of the supratemporal selfhood, which stands outside of time, we cannot understand his philosophy or any part of it. Dooyeweerd has said that the theoretical attitude of thought, the Gegenstand-relation cannot be understood apart from this. The idea of the mutual irreducibility of the modal aspects can also not be understood apart from this supratemporal standpoint. The Christian Ground-motive of creation, fall and redemption depends upon it, for Dooyeweerd understands these ideas in their supratemporal religious root. And even our understanding of Word-revelation and of Christ's incarnation depends on it.

FULL VERBRUGGE INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION:

https://jgfriesen.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/1974interview.pdf

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And let us immediately clarify and emphasise most forcefully that Friesen’s latter statement that “The Christian Ground-motive of creation, fall and redemption depends upon it [this supratemporal standpoint], for Dooyeweerd understands these ideas in their supratemporal religious root” in no way divorces “creation, fall and redemption” from everyday grounded reality but contrariwise guarantees (rescues) concrete existence in an exhaustively comprehensive manner: “A body didst Thou prepare for me” (Heb 10:5). [FMF]

Remembering Professor Donald MacLeod (Grace in Common: Neo-Calvinism podcast with James Eglinton)

 

GRACE IN COMMON

HERMAN DOOYEWEERD: SPARKLING CRYSTAL OF THE TEMPORAL WORLD

Law-Spheres (ie Aspects) are temporal refractions
of the fullness of Time and of the fullness of Meaning.

HERMAN DOOYEWEERD:

SPARKLING CRYSTAL OF THE TEMPORAL WORLD

It is the very nature of theoretical thought itself, in distinction from the prescientific mode of thinking, that forces the transcendental basic problem upon the critical attitude of thought. The basic problem of philosophy in its above formulation is not an arbitrary construction of mine. On the contrary, it is imposed on us by the nature of the theoretical attitude of thought itself. For wherein lies the distinction between this attitude, which is inherent in all scientific activity as such, and the pretheoretical or non-scientific attitude? Without question, this distinction lies in its character of placing itself in opposition to, or taking distance from, its field of investigation. But what does this mean?

Theoretical thought, insofar as it is placed opposite its fields of inquiry as its logical correlates, is undoubtedly logical in character. In this theoretical function it moves within the logical aspect of reality, an aspect which we can provisionally define as that of analytical distinction (or distinctness). There are, however, numerous other aspects of reality. These include the aspects of quantity (number), space, motion, organic life, and feeling; also the historical aspect, the lingual aspect, the aspect of social interaction, and the economic, aesthetic, jural, ethical, and faith aspects. None of these remaining aspects is intrinsically logical (analytical) in character.

Now, the theoretical attitude of thought demands above all that these aspects be logically separated or held apart in logical analysis or dissection. When temporal reality is theoretically pried asunder in this way into the diversity of its aspects, the non-logical aspects are necessarily placed in opposition to the logical aspect. As the German language succinctly expresses this, they enter into a Gegenstand relation to the logical aspect of thought. In the theoretical attitude, therefore, the logical function of thought is set in opposition to the non-logical aspects, which form its fields of investigation. […] 

In the pre-theoretical, non-scientific attitude of thought, the attitude of so-called naive experience, the situation is entirely different. In naive experience, too, we are clearly aware of the distinct aspects of reality. We perceive a quantity or number of branches and leaves on a tree. We notice its spatial shapes and its movements. We observe that it lives. We see its sensible qualities, such as its colors and its sensible shape. We know of the logical features that distinguish it from other things. We also are conscious of its cultural properties, its name, its value in social life, its economic and aesthetic qualities, and so on. 

Yet the logical function of our thought here does not adopt a theoretical distance in opposition to the non-logical aspects. It does not pry reality asunder, but rather takes its stand completely within reality. The non-logical aspects are not experienced explicitly here, that is, as discrete functions that stand opposed to the logical aspect of thought. On the contrary, our experience of them is implicit, for they are encountered together, in an indissoluble coherence with the logical thought aspect, as inherent factors of individual totalities (concrete things, concrete events, concrete people, concrete acts, concrete societal relationships in state, church, business, school, family, etc.).

There can be no doubt that naive experience alone perceives reality in the structure in which it presents itself. Its attitude of thought remains completely immersed in that reality. The theoretical dissection that reality undergoes in the Gegenstand relation does not really pry it asunder. Reality itself remains intact and integral. The logical aspect remains embedded in the unbreakable coherence of the aspects, as one of the many facets displayed by the sparkling crystal of the temporal world. It is only within our theoretical consciousness that we perform the artful trick which may be compared to the slicing apart of a whole fruit into distinct pieces.

Thus, the theoretical Gegenstand relation does not show us reality as it is; it rather presents it as it has been artificially dissected or pried asunder. For this reason, it can only have existence within the non-dissected structure of temporal reality. This means that the theoretical Gegenstand relation is not primary, but only secondary. It is the product of a theoretical analysis, in which something essential is abstracted from the structure of reality as this is given in naive experience. In other words, it is produced by theoretical abstraction.

(Extract from REFORMATION AND SCHOLASTICISM IN PHILOSOPHY – VOLUME II pp 97-98) [Free PDF download of this book available HERE]

Moreover…

DOOYEWEERD: THE FALL AND COMMON GRACE

Whoever holds that the original creational ordinances are unrecognisable for fallen humankind because they were supposedly fundamentally altered by the advent of sin, essentially ends up denying the true significance of God’s common grace which maintains these ordinances. Sin did not change the creational decrees but the direction of the human heart, which turned away from its Creator. Undoubtedly, this radical fall impacts the way in which humankind discloses the powers that God enclosed in creation. The fall affects natural phenomena, which humankind can no longer control. It impacts itself in theoretical thought led by an idolatrous ground-motive. It appears in the subjective way in which humankind gives form to the principles established by God in his creation as norms for human action. The fall made special institutions necessary, such as the state and the church in its institutional form. But even these special institutions of general and special grace are based upon the ordinances that God established in his creation order. Neither the structures of the various aspects of reality, nor the structures that determine the nature of concrete creatures, nor the principles which serve as norms for human action, were altered by the fall. A denial of this leads to the unscriptural conclusion that the fall is as broad as creation; i.e., that the fall destroyed the very nature of creation. This would mean that sin plays a self-determining, autonomous role over against God, the creator of all. Whoever maintains such a position denies the absolute sovereignty of God and grants Satan a power equal to that of the Origin of all things. (Herman Dooyeweerd, Roots of Western Culture, pp 59, 60)

Herman Dooyeweerd: Critique of Logos Theory 7. Kuyper, Woltjer, and Bavinck logicized God’s order for the creation

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

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

The Reformed thinkers Kuyper, Woltjer, and Bavinck, contrary to their starting point, indeed logicized God’s order for the creation. What brought them to this was the “ideal-realistic” twist that they gave to the Kantian critique of knowledge. Taking a stand against Kant’s notion that all law-governed relations are subjective and transcendental-logical in origin and nature, they enlisted the services of the traditional scholastic theory of the logos in order to escape Kant’s subjectivism. 

In so doing, however, they failed to attack Kant’s critique at its root. They made no change in Kant’s view that all law-governed relations without exception are logical. Instead, they located the origin of these relations not in the human, but in the divine Logos, the divine Reason with its unity of “logical thought” and “word” that had already been spoken of by Philo. 

Thus they viewed the relationships in knowing things not as subjectively logical, but as objectively logical; and they thought that this logical nature was what allowed them to be grasped by our logical thought. For these thinkers maintained that in the process of gaining theoretical knowledge, as Aristotle had taught, a union takes place between the subjective logical function of thought and the objective logical ontic forms of knowable things.

To some extent one can appreciate this attempt to evade Kantian subjectivistic epistemology by appealing to a rational divine plan of creation. Nevertheless, one cannot fail to notice that this entire logicistic view of the divine creation ordinances conflicts flagrantly with Kuyper’s religious understanding of God’s law, in which he put his finger on the very heart of the Reformed position. This religious understanding, which is worked out particularly in Kuyper’s Stone Lectures on Calvinism, accepted Augustine’s and Calvin’s starting point in the absolute sovereignty of God’s will as Creator. God stands above the laws He has imposed on His creation. Nevertheless, these laws are not a product of arbitrary despotism; for they are in complete harmony with God’s holy nature.

It was precisely Kuyper, in fact, who took the first step toward making this religious understanding of the law fruitful for Christian philosophical thought. In the second Stone Lecture, which deals with “Calvinism and Religion,” Kuyper’s confession of God’s sovereignty as Creator is immediately worked out in his theory of the distinct spheres of laws or ordinances:

“Everything that has been created” [Kuyper writes] “was, in its creation, furnished by God with an unchangeable law of its existence. And because God has fully ordained such laws and ordinances for all life, therefore the Calvinist demands that all life be consecrated to His service, in strict obedience. A religion confined to the closet, the cell, or the church, therefore, Calvin abhors.” (second Stone Lecture: “Calvinism and Religion”).

These words of Kuyper completely rule out the metaphysical theory of the logos. They express an understanding of God’s law for His creation that is purely religious and Scriptural. Note how Kuyper developed this thought further:

“What now does the Calvinist mean by his faith in the ordinances of God? Nothing less than the conviction firmly rooted in man’s heart [Dooyeweerd inserts: nota bene, not in his “reason.”] that all life has first been in the thoughts of God, before it came to be realized in Creation. Hence all created life necessarily bears in itself a law for its existence, instituted by God Himself. There is no life outside us in Nature, without such divine ordinances, – ordinances which are called the laws of Nature – a term which we are willing to accept, provided we understand thereby, not laws originating from Nature, but laws imposed upon Nature. So, there are ordinances of God for the firmament above, and ordinances for the earth below, by means of which this world is maintained, and, as the Psalmist says, These ordinances are the servants of God. Consequently there are ordinances of God for our bodies, for the blood that courses through our arteries and veins, and for our lungs as the organs of respiration. Similarly there are ordinances of God for logic, to regulate our thoughts; ordinances of God for our imagination, in the domain of aesthetics; and thus also, strict ordinances of God for the whole of human life in the domain of morals.” Kuyper, Stone Lectures).

No doubt, this is not yet a truly philosophical and scientific conception of the law-spheres that govern temporal reality. Nevertheless, in its popular form, it is a religiously rooted guideline for philosophical inquiry that contains a great, profound thought: the unity of the divine law lies above logic, in the central religious relation to God’s sovereignty as Creator. Within temporal reality this central religious unity of the law is refracted into a great multiformity of law-spheres, each of which retains its own nature and within which the logical sphere is merely one among many. There is no warrant, therefore, for reducing the other spheres of ordinances to the logical sphere. Kuyper himself elaborated on this latter thought with great acuity in his Stone Lecture on “Calvinism and Art,” where we find the following remarkable passage:

“Intellectual art is no art, and the effort put forth by Hegel to draw art out from thoughts, militated against the very nature of art. Our intellectual, ethical, religious [ie pistic] and aesthetic life each commands a sphere of its own. These spheres run parallel and do not allow the derivation of one from the other. It is the central emotion, the central impulse, and the central animation, in the mystical root of our being, which seeks to reveal itself in the outer world in these four branches. . . . If, however, it be asked how there can arise a unity of conception embracing these four domains, it constantly appears that in the finite this unity is found only at that point where it springs from the fountain of the Infinite. There is no unity in your thinking save by a well-ordered philosophical system, and there is no system of philosophy which does not ascend to the issues of the Infinite. In the same way there is no unity in your moral existence save by the union of your inner existence with the moral world-order, and there is no moral world-order conceivable but for the impression of an Infinite power that has ordained order in this moral world. Thus also no unity in the revelation of art is conceivable, except by the art-inspiration of an Eternal Beautiful, which flows to us from the fountain of the Infinite and elevates us to the Infinite.” (Kuyper, Stone Lecture on “Calvinism and Art,”)

What is most striking in this quotation from Kuyper is his profound emphasis on the religious unity of God’s law, both in its Origin and in its central fullness of meaning. Kuyper’s understanding of the law here corresponds perfectly to his Scriptural conception of the heart as the religious concentration point of all the temporal functions of human existence. And from this follows, as a matter of course, the idea of sphere-sovereignty, that is, the notion that the law-spheres that Kuyper expressly mentions are mutually irreducible by their very nature.

The metaphysical logos theory, which ultimately reduces all laws to logical relations that originate in the divine Logos, thus has been cut off at its religious root. There also is no room in Kuyper’s view for the theory that there are greater or lesser degrees of reality, depending on proximity to or distance from the ideas. Woltjer, in particular, had elaborated on this Neoplatonic twist in the logos theory at length in his Ideëel en Reëel. Kuyper’s understanding of the law, however, which he unfolded in his Stone Lectures as a direct fruit of the basic Scriptural, religious position of Calvinism, was diametrically opposed to any such theory.

What Kuyper implicitly discovered here is the true point of contact between religion and philosophy, and in this he performed a lasting service for Reformed philosophy. For there can be no doubt that the view of the law that I have set forth briefly above by itself entails a radical transformation of philosophy’s whole outlook upon the structure of reality. 

It is true that Kuyper did not carry this view through consistently in his scientific works. Alongside this purely Scriptural line of thought, he also adhered to traditional scholastic thought patterns. This, however, in no way proves that both viewpoints have an equal right to exist in an intrinsically Reformed philosophy. It only shows that Kuyper lacked the opportunity to carry through his basic Reformed conception in the internal course of scientific inquiry. Kuyper himself, in fact, described this on many occasions as a great shortcoming that held forth a huge task for the next generation.

 (Extracted from Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy, Vol II, Paideia Press, 2013, pp 83-86)

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.

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 6. Hellenistic antipathy towards the Christian philosophy of accommodation.

6. Hellenistic antipathy towards the Christian philosophy of accommodation.

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

One must never forget that the logos theory of Greek philosophical theology was basically rooted in the rational principle of form, and that its highest standard for cosmic order was a rational standard. It is well known that Hellenistic philosophy, in taking its stand against the Christian religion, was repelled by this religion precisely because it dethroned the rational form principle. It could not tolerate Christianity’s teaching that the cosmos has to be viewed from the perspective of an infinitely more profound principle, a principle that assigns even to thought a proper, limited place within the created order.

Greek philosophy intuitively perceived the depth of this radical antithesis between itself and the Christian religion. It did not grasp this new Christian principle, but rather regarded it, in contrast to its own rational principle of form, as a barbaric reversion to the darkness of the matter principle. The apostle Paul gave a trenchant description of its attitude when he wrote that the gospel is a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Greeks (1 Corinthians 1:23).

It was not without reason that Christian thinkers attempted to accommodate the Greek theories of the logos and the ideas and the Greek view of human nature to the divine Word-revelation. Their primary goal was to win the Greeks over to the Truth of the Christian religion and to counter the accusation that this religion was irrational. Their effort was flawed, however. When Greek philosophy was pressed into the service of Christian doctrine, the way to a deep understanding of the central significance of the Christian religion for philosophical thought was cut off. Plotinus rightly pointed out to the “Christian” Gnostics that they had taken all their real philosophical goods from Greek philosophy, but that they had put this philosophy in barbaric disarray by combining it in a bizarre way with their presumed higher knowledge. They imagined that in doing this they stood far above Plato and the other giants of Greek thought, when in reality they stood far below them in philosophical depth.

This accusation, to be sure, could not be maintained against Christian thinkers such as Clement of Alexandria and Origen. Nevertheless, authentic Hellenistic philosophy realized intuitively that these great church fathers, for all their erudition and knowledge of Greek thought, were trying to use this thought for a goal to which it could not lend itself. The Hellenists perceived that the church fathers had no right to speak of a “philosophia christiana” so long as they did nothing more than adapt alien philosophical notions to Christian dogma. The judgment of Porphyry, a pupil of Plotinus, concerning Origen is revealing in this regard. Porphyry wrote the following about Origen: 

(Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiae VI,19): “But Origen, having been educated as a Greek in Greek literature, went over to the barbarian recklessness. And carrying over the learning, which he had obtained, he hawked it about, in his life conducting himself as a Christian and contrary to the laws, but in his opinions of material things and of the Deity being like a Greek, and mingling Grecian teachings with foreign fables. For he was continually studying Plato . . . .”) (History of the Church V.19.7-8. Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 1, pp. 265-266).

It was because of a false dilemma that the church fathers accepted the philosophical content of the Greek theory of the logos. As Augustine reasoned, following Gregory of Nyssa, if God, through the Logos, did not create the world in accordance with rational ideas, we then would have to conclude that He performed His work of creation in an “irrational” manner (Retractationes I, 3, 2. Written close to his death this work contains Augustine's mature view; cf. vol. 60 in Fathers of the Church, CUA Press, 1999). Augustine already knew from Plotinus’ theology, however, that the contrast between rational and irrational cannot be applied to the Origin of all things, since God’s nature is above reason.

Plotinus did not carry this thought through in his logos theory, simply because for him the logos was not the divine unity itself, but only a product of the first divine radiation. Augustine, by contrast, professed the Scriptural doctrine that the three Persons of the Godhead share the same nature. How, then, could he have accepted a theory of logos and ideas that even Plotinus did not venture to apply to his divine One?

In Augustine’s thought, the theory of the logos patently came into conflict with the Christian Scriptural ground-motive of creation, fall, and redemption. He maintained the absolute sovereignty of God’s creative will, and the logos theory simply was not designed with this Scriptural doctrine of creation in view. To the contrary, it fit hand in glove with the rational form principle of the Platonic realistic theory of ideas. […] In contrast to this Greek view, the Scriptural doctrine of creation underscores the truth that thought is not the origin of the divine creation order, but is rather subject and subordinate to that order. Nowhere in Scripture do we find the predicate “divine” attached to logical, as opposed to pre-logical, matters. God’s order for the creation is only disclosed to human thinking when man begins to bow in faith before God’s majesty, submitting his thought to God’s law instead of trying to logicize that law in accordance with Greek logos theory.

 (Extracted from Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy, Vol II, Paideia Press, 2013, pp 80-83)

                      

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.

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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