The Twilight of Western Thought

by Herman Dooyeweerd

This work the pretended autonomy of theoretical thought; the sense of history and the historicistic world- and life-view; the relationship between philosophy and theology; and what makes a human person.

Genres: Philosophy, Theology, Nonfiction, Cultural

178 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

Reviews

[Felipe Sabino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leitura obrigatória. Destaque nesta nova versão para a revisão primorosa do português feita por William Cruz.

[Jacob Aitken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dooyeweerd’s thesis is that all attempts of doing philosophy apart from religious presuppositions are futile. Dooyeweerd exposes the would-be autonomy of modern man and traces the problem back to the Greeks. He examines aspects of the history of philosophy through the grid of Creation-Fall-ReCreation in Jesus Christ. In this I will attempt to highlight the most helpful aspects of Dooyeweerd’s thoughts and end with a few criticisms and points of clarification.

Review
Man’s roots are essentially religious. There is not an area of life divorced from religious presuppositions. All worldviews[i] have a starting point. The consistent Christian starting point will be the living God who reveals himself; the alternative to this is man as the starting point and this position is autonomy. Dooyeweerd shows that man’s attempts at knowledge and doing philosophy from an autonomous base self-destruct. For man, having established his starting point with himself, can never rise above himself to offer a critique of his system. In short, he is absolutized the relative. He is guilty of “immanentist” philosophy. Dooyeweerd writes, “For this view [autonomy] implies that the ultimate starting point of philosophy should be found in this thought [theoretical?] itself. But due to the lack of a univocal sense, the pretended autonomy cannot guarantee a common basis to the different philosophical trends” (3). In other words, if man posits his own rationality as the starting point for knowledge, then he is left with the unbearable strain that he himself can account for all knowledge. In short, given his premises, to know anything he must know everything. And here is the straw that breaks the camel’s back—he doesn’t know everything and if he still maintains his original position, he cannot know anything![ii]
Dooyeweerd takes sharp issue with the Thomistic “grace-nature” view of creation. But to understand this, one must first understand his Creation-Fall-Redemption
Motif. This is the biblical story, according to Dooyeweerd. “As Creator God reveals himself as the absolute origin of all that is outside himself” (188); “The entire fall into sin can be summed up as a false illusion, which arose in the human heart, namely, that the human I has the same absolute existence as God himself” (190); “The redemption by Jesus Christ means the radical rebirth of our heart and must reveal itself in the whole of our temporal life” (191). The conclusion that Dooyeweerd draws from this motif, which takes us back to the issue of “grace restoring nature” is that our whole worldview must be Reformed along Christo-centric lines, abolishing all sinful and artificial dualisms.

Concluding Thoughts
I am not entirely convinced of Dooyeweerd’s modal scheme. Perhaps this is a fault on my part (or the translator!) or Dooyeweerd’s own writing style. Whatever the case may be, I am not ready to commend it to others. I also question whether is separation of theology from philosophy is valid. Dooyeweerd is arguing that philosophy establish the foundation of science (so far, so good) and theology as well (chs. 5-7). Philosophy should, he argues, establish a coherent structure for the temporal sciences, including theology. Not wanting his view of philosophy to fall prey to the damaging critiques he has given to autonomous thinking so far, he argues that philosophy should be controlled by the Word but not derived from the Bible. But as Greg Bahnsen points out:

Quote:
“The verbal teaching of God's revealed word is subordinated to some controlling authority outside of itself—and that actually runs contrary to the Bible's own verbal teaching (Col. 1:18; 2 Cor. 10:5). The philosopher is placed in the privileged position of laying down for the exegete how the Bible may and may not be used, how its teachings must be broadly conceived, and what the Bible can and cannot say. Reason becomes a vestibule for faith (believing truths of theology). Philosophy is thereby rendered rationally autonomous, even if the philosopher's "heart is gripped" by the power of God's word.[iii]”
Even acknowledging this criticism, however, one can still appreciate Dooyeweerd’s valuable contributions. Dooyeweerd’s attack on autonomy is crucial and at points insightful. His “grace restoring nature” foundation is a much-needed corrective to a recent and quite odd Protestant fear of the created order. Lately, many Protestants have become functional Catholics in their view of matter. Indeed, there is a danger that an incipient Gnosticism has gripped many in the Reformed world. It is the prayer of many modern-day Calvinists to God to “make the world go away.” No longer does one hear the triumphant sound of defiance in the face of God’s enemies. Where are the men who urge, like Joshua and Caleb of old, to “take the land” for the enemies are in fear?
True, there are many legitimate faults in neo-Calvinism, especially their over-emphasis on the transformation of culture. This fault, however, is not a real danger to Reformed people today. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Of course, Rushdoony’s introduction to the book is alone worth the price of the book. [brief aside: Rushdoony in passing exposes a fatal tension to natural law theories: they are making a fallen world the source of norms.]



[i] While not entirely synonymous with Dooyeweerd and others, I am using “worldview” in the same category as “system.”
[ii] This is where Dr Van Til is so helpful. We must “reduce the unbeliever’s position to absurdity” and show that he is operating on “Christian capital.”
[iii] Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings

[Jason Garwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible. Dooyeweerd at his best.

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Twilightcover_02



I wished I have earlier gotten around to reading some of the Christian philosophers from the Dutch Reformed tradition. The name Herman Dooyeweerd is probably the better known name for those new to it such as myself. In the introduction of the book that Presuppositionalist thinker R. J. Rushdoony wrote, he stated that the book "In the Twilight of Western Thought" was a good guide to Herman Dooyeweerd other larger work, A New Critique of Theorethical Thought. The orientation which drives my review of this book is basically VanTillian. I have found that the work was helpful in providing further food for thought when it comes to critiquing Secular thought.



The first two chapters was devoted to the pretended autonomy of Philosophical Thought. Seeing how these two chapters unfolded his "Transcedental Method", I wished he could have defined more clearly what he meant by autonomy as well. His insight with the modes of experience is fascinating, and a useful way of thinking about aspects of theorethical thought (6-7). It was wonderful to see Dooyeweerd stress the interdependency of these modes (spatial, movement, organic, energy, etc), which would be the key to why he sees autonomous reasoning apart from the Transcendent God of the Bible is logically futile to begin with: Whenever man idolize something else as absolute in place of GOD, idolators in essence make an aspect of reality (mode) absolute. But each of these modes require the necessity blocks of the other modes and hence no mode can not be the final foundation which everything stems from. It is idolatry of various modes (history, economic, biological etc) in place of God that result in the various "isms" of philosophy (historicism, logical positivism, Darwinism, etc). Whatever is the foundation of theorethical thought in its entirety, it must transcend the level of philosophy found in each modes. Another wonderful insight was how he saw the history of Western Civilization as driven by four motives, which is at core "religious". Three of these are dialectical: 1.) The Greek's "Form vs. Matter"; 2.) the Scholastic's Nature vs. Grace, 3.) and Nature vs. Freedom. Contrary to these pretended autonomous starting point is Scripture's Creation, Fall, Redemption Motive.



There are however, somethings that brought some red flags with this book. Dooyeweerd sees religion as the ultimate foundation of man, including theorethical thought. This I agree with, but he makes a distinction between religion and theology, a distinction that is rather difficult for me to accept. According to Dooyeweerd, religion as "the spiritual basic motive", "is elevated above all theological controversies and is not in need of theological exegesis, since its radical meaning is exclusively explained by the Holy Spirit operating in our opened hearts, in the communion of this Spirit" (Pg. 146). Yet, this 'religion' of the heart is to be distinguished from the content of theology or exegesis. The Christian religion that he stated is the Creation, Fall and Redemption motif, but there is more content that needs to believed than that to be a Christian: There is the doctrines of the Trinity, Jesus Incarnation, etc, all which human arrived at through exegesis. Yet exegesis is in Dooyeweerd's view, part of the theological mode which has nothing to do with religion. His terms are not helpful here.



Dooyeweerd himself stated that "it might seem a dangerous enterprise for a nontheologian to speak concerning the relation between philosophy and theology" (Pg. 113). Because of his concept of the faith mode, which is where theology belongs in Dooyeweerd's perspective, he dismisses six day creationism since this is the result of faith mode interfereing improperly into other modes such as astronomy and astronomy (Pg. 149-150). He even think that six day creationism is the result of "Greek philosophy" rather than an exegesis of Genesis One! I believe in six day creationism on the basis of the grammatical rule concerning the use of numbers in the Hebrew language, and it strikes me that the autonomy apart from God which he has tried to argue for, is sneaked back in with the independence of certain spheres and modes from the rule of what God's Word might have to sayin those spheres. It boils down to the question of whether Dooyeweerd would allow the Scripture to speak on other spheres.

[J. Rutherford · Rating 2 out of 5]

By all evidence, Herman Dooyeweerd, the Dutch professor of law and philosopher, was a man if great intellect and learning. This is evident even in his little book, In the Twilight of Western Thought, intended as an introduction to his philosophy. However, for all his learning, Dooyeweerd does not succeed in clearly articulating his thought—which, in my opinion, should be a key concern for the philosopher and the Christian—in radically critiquing non-Christian thought, or in presenting an alternative Biblical philosophy. In this review, I will provide a brief outline of Dooyeweerd’s book and thought followed by an evaluation of his argument and position.

The Argument of In the Twilight
In the Twilight is divided into 8 chapters. In its essence, he intends to present a transcendental critique of non-biblical thought. That this critique is transcendental indicates that he is aiming at the heart of what it means to reason: he wants to uncover the necessary basis for critical thought. That is, he wants to show that there is no neutral starting point, that all philosophies emerge from a religious starting point. He argues that every religious starting point is incapable of true critical thought except the biblical one, for non-biblical thought cannot find a unifying point for critical thought and is trapped in a dialectic because of its starting point.

Chapters I-II
In chapters I-II, Dooyeweerd makes his argument for this transcendental criticism. He contends that all thought can be divided into theoretical or pre-theoretical thought. Pre-theoretical thought considers human experience in its unified whole. Theoretical thought is different in that it abstracts one part, or mode, of experience—especially the logical—and sets it in opposition to the rest of the modes of experience. By “modes,” Dooyeweerd conceives of distinguishable aspects of human experience (height, colour, spatiality, faith, mathematics) that are interrelated yet hierarchically ordered and complex in their nature.

Because of this antithesis, the setting one mode against the whole of experience, Dooyeweerd argues that theoretical thought requires a higher unity which is itself not part of this modally conceived temporal human experience. That is, there must be something above that antithesis of mode of theoretic thought (e.g., logic) and the rest of experience that unites the antithesis. He contends that this must be the ego, or the self. This self is not neutral but is religiously related to God, either believing or apostate, and is governed by a motive that directs its unifying of the theoretical antithesis.

He then traces the influence of these ground motives, which dominate theoretical thought, through western history. The motives are form and matter, characteristic of Greek though; creation, fall, and redemption, characteristic of biblical Christianity; nature and grace, characteristic of scholastic theology; and nature and freedom, characteristic of modern thought.

Chapters III-VIII
In chapter III-IV he traces the influence of nature-freedom in modern thought, but he gets at the crux of his philosophy in the last 4 chapters.

In chapters V-VII he discusses the relation of philosophy to theology. Theology, he contends, is a theoretical discipline that considers the articles of the Christian faith from the mode of faith. The Word of God is only the object of theology in its modal sense of faith. The Word of God in its full actuality is conceived as the central ground motive of creation, fall, redemption. Because this motive is the starting point of theoretical thought, it is not actually an object of such thought. Thus, this motive cannot be confused with theological articles concerning creation, fall, and redemption.

In the last chapter, Dooyeweerd attempts to answer the important question “What is Man?” by juxtaposing his conception of the self with opposing theological and philosophical views. Because the self is what enables theoretical thought, it cannot be known by such thinking, indeed, it is a “veritable mystery” (181). It is itself nothing unless it is conceived of in three central relations. It is related first to temporal existence as the central reference point of experience. Second, it relates to the egos of other human beings, which are themselves mystery unless viewed through the final relation of the ego. Finally, the self is related centrally to God who created man in his image. We cannot know ourselves through experience or others, Dooyeweerd concludes; ultimately the self-knowledge requisite for critical thought requires “the Word-revelation of God operating in the heart, in the religious center of our existence by the power of the Holy Spirit” (185).

Evaulating In the Twilight
We now turn to evaluation; what do we make of this? Ultimately, I think Dooyeweerd’s thought is unclear at best and deeply destructive at worst. Let me explain. Immanuel Kant is famous for introducing new terms into philosophical discussion and rebranding old ones without properly explaining the sense in which he uses them. Philosophy has generally followed this trend, producing confusion ad nauseum. Dooyeweerd not only follows Kant in his epistemology (focusing on human experience apart from the objects of that experience) and method of criticism but also in his use of terminology. Many words are introduced and old words given new meaning, yet nowhere is there an effort to define what precisely is intended by the vocabulary Dooyeweerd uses.

At his most crucial point, Dooyeweerd never actually explains what he means by “Creation, fall, and Redemption” as the biblical ground motive. Later he uses his philosophy to justify this by saying it is unexplainable: it is something impressed on our heart by the Spirit (e.g. 146).

In addition to being unclear, I found the argument thoroughly unpersuasive. It is not evident to me that thought can be dichotomized as theoretical and pre-theoretical, that experience can be modally divided as Dooyeweerd does, that modes can be treated as essentially equivalent in nature (is logic truly analogous to the aesthetic or spatiality?), that theoretical thought involves opposition of one mode to unified experience, or that the self and God are above experience and theoretical thought. Furthermore, though his ground motives are quite helpful, I think they fail to provide an all-encompassing grid for understanding western philosophical thought: Dooyeweerd essentially abandons the true plurality of human history for abstract unity. For these reasons I found In the Twilight unhelpful. Yet more seriously, I found it dangerous.



To be unclear is itself dangerous. Christian teachers must head the warning of James 3:21 and really strive to be good teachers. But the danger of Dooyeweerd’s work is more than unclarity. At its heart, Dooyeweerd abandons the propositional character of Scripture and its normative authority, placing his amorphous and spiritually communicated ground motive as the ultimate criterion for theology and exegesis (146-147). He goes so far as saying that Christian thought has been wrong in propositionally interpreting Scripture as if it spoke to anything more than faith, such as seeing creation as happening in astronomical or geological days as opposed to, I surmise, faith days—whatever those might be (149-151).

To be clear, Dooyeweerd redefines biblical to mean not what accords with the Bible but what accords with the biblical ground motive revealed by the Spirit and discerned by his philosophy. By definition, he has set his thought up as thoroughly unbiblical. For these reasons, I cannot commend the work.

[Anderson Paz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essa obra é uma introdução de autoria do próprio Dooyeweerd a sua Filosofia da Ideia Cosmonômica. A tradução da Monergismo, oito anos após a edição da Hagnos, está toda revisada. É um texto fundamental para, como diz o autor, constituir um pensamento filosófico radicalmente cristão.
Na primeira parte, Dooyeweerd apresenta seu projeto filosófico e o problema que está enfrentando. O autor faz uma crítica fundamental à pretensa autonomia do pensamento filosófico (suas crenças religiosas que impossibilitam uma razão autônoma de pressupostos fundamentais, seu reducionismo da realidade) e apresenta sua ontologia modal (que é apreendida intuitivamente da realidade) em uma coerência inquebrantável. Ademais, o autor aponta o caráter concêntrico do eu no coração (sede da razão, emoções, vontade e vida religiosa humana) e os motivos básicos religiosos que estruturam a filosofia e as crenças fundamentais de sociedades durante a história, demonstrando a necessidade de que o arquétipo criação, queda e redenção sirva de base para a estruturação de uma filosofia cristã não reducionista.
Na segunda parte, o autor faz uma espécie de estudo de caso em que examina o reducionismo historicista, demonstrando que esse se fundamenta no motivo básico religioso natureza-liberdade. Em seguida, Dooyeweerd mostra como uma visão cristã da história não é reducionista ao progredir em um desvelamento histórico, que diferencia as estruturas sociais como estruturas de individualidade, e é fundado no aspecto modal histórico.
Na terceira parte, o filósofo holandês distingue a filosofia da teologia, no sentido de que enquanto a filosofia dá uma visão dos aspectos modais e sua coerência inquebrantável, a teologia é uma ciência que investiga teoricamente a Palavra-Revelação e se funda no aspecto modal da fé. Nesse sentido, a teologia deve ser filosoficamente fundada no motivo básico bíblico de criação, queda e redenção em sua investigação científica da Palavra e do aspecto da fé.
Por fim, o autor faz uma crítica ao existencialismo, demonstrando que a visão bíblica do homem é que ele é religioso (tem crenças fundamentais) que estão alicerçadas em seu coração, de forma que é o coração a sede em que a experiência supratemporal ocorre.

[Gesiel Borges da Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like many (continental) philosophy books, the arguments and concepts are often times puzzling and obscure (though many analytic are, or may be, puzzling and confusing as well to many people). Nevertheless, the book is very insightful, and worth reading.

My reasons for that are basically three:

1) Dooyeweerd's criticism of Kant's metaphysics and epistemology, which are striking and decisive, and his insights on the diversity of "modal aspects" that justify a non-reductionist perspective in the relationship between the sciences, are worth considering.

2) The applications of these ideas to some "study cases", e.g., to historicism and to theology, are very enlightening (when you can understand the argument) and may cast some light to those topics (even if you don't agree with the premises).

3) The most important, Dooyeweerd's attempt to pursue a project of Christian Philosophy is genuine and successful to some extent. Though I disagree on some of his perspectives (to mention one, his quick dismissal of virtue ethics by the end of last chapter as something "too Greek to be Christian" without an argument) and on the methodology he uses to approach the problems (basically his peculiar, continental way of articulating things), it's an intellectually honest exploration that seeks to understand the place of religious conviction in Philosophy and in human life. And after reclaiming ground to do Philosophy as a Christian (by assuming that ultimate religious commitments serve as starting points in philosophical endeavor), he tries to explore what the world looks like, when we fully and radically consider the biblical point of view of Creation, Fall, and Redemption as the central commitment of our reflection about science, reality, and human nature.

Definitely recommended for those who are interested in such topics.

[Brandon Whitaker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dooyeweerd's style can be difficult to penetrate, and I will say that the first few lectures in the book took some work to process. He has that characteristic European obscurity of language, and he pulls from heavyweights like Kant and Heidegger who are themselves known for the difficulty of their work. But the task is easier if you've met Dooyeweerd before; I had already read Roots of Western Culture, and in general I recommend doing so before reading this one.

I continue to be fascinated by Dooyeweerd's thought. He gives expression to something that I have always found deeply compelling, and he gives some language and system to the way a Christian ground-motive encounters the world, and why it is that alternative (or apostate) ground-motives must fail, that I appreciate. I have not yet done the work of sitting down and critically evaluating his fifteen modal aspects, but In the Twilight really helped to clarify Dooyeweerd's basis for maintaining both the content and order of that set. Roots doesn't really go into it, but these lectures go into more detail about the ordering relationships between the modal aspects (for example, how only aspects after the logical are normative in character, hence the failure of the biotic analogy of historical development).

I think he's really worth reading, particularly for the Reformed reader, and this book represents yet another step on my journey towards inevitably studying through the New Critique. Also, curiously enough, it has me reconsidering my choice to ignore Being and Time -- not that I now expect to be finding agreement with Heidegger, but Dooyeweerd's use of him paints a much clearer picture of what the work investigates than even Heidegger's own introduction.

[Charles · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dooyeweerd starts from a position with which I agree—that philosophy begins with something pre-philosophical. Theoretical thought is not autonomous, does not determine itself; instead, it relies upon something deeper which sustains it. This much I agree with. However, from here, he makes the unreasonable leap, in my opinion, to Christian philosophy. Rather blindly, he asserts that every person is religious whether they know it or not: there are those who believe in Jesus and there are those who are apostates or idolaters. His deus ex machina is not convincing at all, and he spends far too much time discussing theology.

[João Uliana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fundamental para a filosofia cristã.

[Jônathas Souza · Rating 5 out of 5]

não tem como, dooyeweerd é brabo demais

[John Wise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dooyeweerd challenged the core doctrine of modernism: the sufficiency of unaided human reason (autonomous human reason).

Dooyeweerd argues that unaided human reason is idolatry since it ignores God and elevates creation.

Jesus says, "I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding." ~Matthew 11:25

"For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles." ~Romans 1

"Do you see a person wise in their own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for them." ~Proberbs 26:12

3 stars because it is good content, but not presented clearly.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good intro to Dooyeweerd’s life work. At some points there is considerable overlap with his Roots of Western Culture.

[Henrique De Pádua · Rating 5 out of 5]

Melhor livro que li na vida.