A major new critical analysis of the real philosophical and religious foundations that underly the dogma regarding the autonomy of theoretical thought.
THE THIRD VOLUME OF THE DUTCH CALVINIST PHILOSOPHER’S MAGNUM OPUS
Herman Dooyeweerd was a Dutch philosopher and juridical scholar; the other volumes in this series are The Necessary Presuppositions of Philosophy, and The General Theory of the Modal Spheres. [NOTE: page numbers below refer to the 1969 Presbyterian and Reformed 784-page and 257-page hardcover edition, translated by David Freeman, William Young, and H. De Jongste.]
He says, “I must emphatically protest against any attempt to interpret the basic Biblical attitude of experience in the sense of some theological THEORY, which, as such, is irrelevant to naïve experience. In so doing one would only replace an indisputable datum of Christian naïve experience by a theoretical reflection of the Christian which, as such, may be ignored in a purely ‘objective’ description of what is really experienced in the pre-theoretical attitude. Apart from our selfhood naïve experience is no more possible than theoretical thought. Both proceed from the heart, the religious root of our temporal existence. A purely ‘objective’ experience is a [contradiction in terms]. And so we may not eliminate a fundamental difference resulting from the central sphere of human consciousness, if we want to do justice to the real data in discussion here.” (Pt. I, Ch. I, §2, pg. 30)
He suggests, “By denying created things a metaphysical substantial being we have not detracted anything from their proper reality and activity, which is fundamentally distinct from the Divine Being of the Creator. We have only stressed that this reality is of the character of meaning, which cannot be independent and self-contained. The real value of every creature is implied in its meaning-character, not in a supposed ‘being-in-itself.’ The very intention of metaphysics to find a substantial kernel of created things outside of the horizon of meaning leads to ‘nothingness,’ to meaningless absolutization.” (Pt. I, Ch. II, §2, pg. 74)
He asserts, “Evolutionism is not a specific scientific theory: it is a philosophical view. The discoveries of paleontology which furnish the chief direct test of this view, refer to a genesis and evolution within the cadre of irreducible basic structures of individuality. They do not show that evolutionistic image of the development of the vegetable and animal kingdoms and of mankind which nowadays is to be found… Even the facts established by embryology… have nothing to do with the philosophical basic tenet of evolutionism.” (Pt. I, Ch. II, §3, pg. 95)
He says, “Any idea that this contrast between communal bonds and inter-individual or inter-communal relations is to be bridged by a universalist scheme of toe whole and its parts, is foreign to naïve experience. But this does not at all mean that this contrast lacks a deeper solution. It is the Biblical Christian starting point alone which offers this solution by relating all temporal societal relationships in a concentric sense to the radical spiritual solidarity of mankind in creation, fall into sin, and redemption by Jesus Christ in the religious communion of the Holy Spirit. We have already observed that it is this very starting-point which precludes any absolutization either of the communal or of the inter-communal and inter-individual relationships, as they present themselves within the temporal order.” (Pt. II, Ch. I, §4, Pg. 195)
He notes, “the Christian religion struck a decisive blow at the very foundation of the entire ancient view of human society. Behind all temporal societal relationships it revealed the religious root of the human race. It disclosed the transcendent religious bond of unity of the latter in the creation, the fall into sin, and the redemption by Jesus Christ… This was not a metaphysical theory of a temporal human community, but was the death blow to the Aristotelian view of a perfect community… The Christian view did not place a new community (the Church in its transcendent sense) on a parallel with, or… above all temporal relationships, as a merely higher level in the development to human perfection… Instead, it laid bare the religious meaning-totality of all social relationships, each of which ought to express this meaning-totality according to its own inner structure. Without this insight into the radical spiritual foundation of human societal life, the differentiation of structural principles of temporal society cannot be understood in its true meaning. The critical point in any Christian view of this temporal society is the question what position is to be ascribed to the Church, as an organized institution.” (Pt. II, Ch. I, §5, pg. 215)
He comments on the Medieval conception of the Church: “The Christian conception of the (so-called invisible) Church… was fundamentally transformed in this canonist theory. It was made to conform to the notion of a hierarchical institute of authority, in which the laity were not considered active members… the hierarchical Church institute was supposed to receive its unity from above, through the will of Christ and His representative on earth, the Pope, under whom the entire clerical hierarchy is arranged… The canonist theory of organized communities… sharply separated the collective unity of persons, as universitas, from the societas, as a social contract. Nevertheless… it fell into the absolutistic conception of Roman law, which could not allow any internal structural diversity in the universitates.” (Pt. II, Ch. I, §6, pg. 234)
He observes, “So the inner structural principle of the family discloses itself in the unbreakable temporal coherence of its leading and foundational function. It has to determine all expressions, within the different modal spheres, of the family’s internal unity. As a typical normative principle, it has not been affected by sin. Sin solely affects the human formation and positivization in accordance with the historical situation of a society and the entire subjective side of family life. There could even be no question of a sinful factual family life, if the structural principle of this natural community were itself affected by sin; a sinful family life pre-supposes a violation of the structural law of the family…. the internal unity of a family… is a NORMATIVE unity, and that to a large degree it is defectively realized because of sin.” (Pt. II, Ch. II, §2, pg. 271)
He states, “The insight into the structural principles of natural and organized communities and inter-communal or inter-individual relationships necessarily leads to the recognition of their inner sphere-sovereignty also within the modal juridical aspect. This does not mean a relapse into a rationalistic metaphysical theory of natural law. It is simply the necessary conclusion from the biblical Christian view of the sovereignty of God, Whose order of creation also embraces the structural principles of the different societal relationships, guaranteeing the inner proper nature of each of them. The Christian view of law has found its most pregnant expression in the recognition of this juridical sphere-sovereignty.” (Pt. II, Ch. II, §2, pg. 283)
He argues, “Christ’s pronouncement in the question of divorce was in particular directed against the confusion of the inner institutional structure of marriage… with its external institutional aspect. The whole problem of divorce had been obscured by rabbinical legal formalism. And it is nothing but a relapse into this legalistic view of the matrimonial bond if one tries to derive from the New Testament legal principles for a civil law regulation of the grounds of divorce. These grounds can only refer to the external legal frame of marriage. They can never replace the personal responsibility of the partners in their internal relation to one another under the structural norm of the institution and the central commandment of love. From the internal moral point of view it is not possible to indicate general grounds of divorce… The fact that Christians have come to look upon the marriage bond as essentially a juridical institution must be denounced as a fundamental deformation of the Biblical view of this natural community.” (Pt. II, Ch. II, §4, pg. 311-312)
He explains, “The historical power of the Christian Church has an entirely different individuality structure from that of a modern or an ancient State, and the power of each of them is structurally entirely different from that of a modern large-scale industrial undertaking, or that of a scientific or of an aesthetic school,’ etc. In an undifferentiated organized community different individuality-structures of historical power may be interlaced in one and the same organizational form, but the STATE, as such, has a differentiated structure. Therefore its internal power-formation can no longer display an undifferentiated structure.” (Pt. II, Ch. III, §2, pg. 413) Later, he adds, “No Christian conception of the State can deify this institution to a self-contained ‘absolute end in itself,’ if it wants to grasp the typical meaning-structure of the body politic.” (§3, pg. 433)
He suggests, “It is not necessary to go further into the relation between State and nation to get an insight into the structure of individuality of the moral figure of ‘love of country.’ In the present context it will suffice to say that in any case ‘love of country’ is entirely dependent on the political structure into which country and nation have been organized. Love of country is not identical with love of an ethnical group of people, nor with the biotically founded love of the land of one’s birth alone… The light-hearted, but in reality demonic joy in ‘the strong State’ with its powerful army is entirely in conflict with a Christian love of country.” (Pt. II, Ch. III, §4, pg. 471)
He contends, “The Christian view of the State must never capitulate to a naturalistic theory … elevating the ‘sacred egotism’ of the States to a kind of natural law in international relations. Such a theory is intrinsically false and contrary to the individuality-structure of the States as well as to the basic structure of the international order… A State can never justify an absolutely selfish international policy of the strong hand with an appeal to its vital interests. God has not given the States such a structure that… they are compelled to carry on a … policy for the sake of self-preservation. Only a blind man does not see that the vital interests of the nations are in a great many ways mutually interwoven. It is… the sins of the nations that have caused the individualistic selfish power of the States to dominate international politics.” (Pt. II, Ch. III, §4, pg. 476)
While Dooyeweerd condemns the “mystic pan-Germanism and … vehement anti-semitism” of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, he also asserts that “there are considerable differences between the human races which have been established in a scientific way,” and makes some related statements that we would nowadays consider quite offensive (not to mention inaccurate). (Pt. II, Ch. III, §5, pg. 496-497)
He states, “we can no longer deny that according to its faith-aspect the State is subject to Christ’s kingship, which ought to find its own typical expression in the internal life of the State. Holy Scripture is too explicit on this subject for a Christian to be permitted to think that the structure of the State as such falls outside the Kingdom of Christ… The Scriptural data exclude the view that according to its essential character the State, as an institution of common grace, has to live by the light of ‘natural’ revelation only.” (Pt. II, Ch. III, §5, pg. 504-505)
He advises, “Fundamental differences in confession such as those between Roman Catholics, Lutherans, the Reformed Churches, etc., which occasioned different church organizations opposing one another more or less sharply, are to be deplored as a disruption of the institutional ecclesia visibilis… This regrettable state of things should urge all true Christians to confess their guilt and to repent, because every guilt of the Church is our own guilt… But every human endeavor to arrive at ecclesiastical unity by obscuring the real basic differences in confession, is in conflict with the inner nature of the institutional Church… In the fact of increasing dechristianization and spiritual uprooting of modern mankind this necessity [of ecumenical dialogue, cooperation, etc.] is so evident that any further argument is superfluous. The only reserve to be made is that the ecumenical cooperation should be aware of the inner boundaries of the ecclesiastical task and that its starting point should be the pure basic motive of Holy Scripture.” (Pt. II, Ch. IV, §3, pg. 542-543)
He warns, “After a period of extreme individualism modern society is now threatened by a communistic universalism which seeks to realize a totalitarian community of mankind by means of the State’s power… Western democracy is in fear of this tremendous adversary and seeks to defend itself by an international integration of its military forces. Nevertheless, by military means alone the freedom of man is not to be protected. It should not be forgotten that communism in its Marxian and Bolshevist sense is primarily a spiritual power, a secularized eschatological faith in the final liberation of mankind in a future classless society… it has originated in the dialectical process in which Western thought has been involved since the religious Humanist basic motive of nature and freedom began to reveal its driving power in Western history.” (Pt. II, Ch. V, §3, pg. 601-602)
In Part III [“Introduction to the Theory of the Enkaptic Inter-Structural Interlacements”], he explains, “From the very beginning we have introduced the term ‘enkapsis’ to denote the intertwinement of individuality-structures of a different radical-typical or geno-typical character. This terminology requires an explanation since it is used by us in a sense quite different from that attributed to it by those who first introduced it into science and philosophy.” (Pt. III, Ch. I, §1, pg. 634)
This work is Dooyeweerd’s most significant work---but also by far his most complex and difficult. Those seriously studying Calvinistic Philosophy, or others wanting to explore the background of “presuppositional” apologetic approaches (e.g., as presented by figures such as Cornelius Van Til, and Greg Bahnsen), may very well find its dense prose entirely worth the effort.
No volume três de sua "Nova Crítica do Pensamento Teórico", Dooyeweerd aplica sua teoria modal às estruturas de individualidade da realidade temporal. O livro tem três partes. Na primeira, Dooyeweerd trata das estruturas de individualidade das coisas temporais. Ele investiga como obter uma visão teórica da estrutura de individualidade das coisas concretas, como também a relação sujeito-objeto nas estruturas das totalidades individuais. A partir disso, identifica as funções fundante e qualificante dos objetos analisados. Na parte dois, Dooyeweerd apresenta sua filosofia social, notadamente, sua concepção de estruturas de individualidade da sociedade humana. O autor busca identificar os princípios estruturais e as funções das esferas, relações e estruturas sociais. Dooyeweerd rejeita filosofias sociológicas imanentistas individualistas e universalistas e discute sobre a estrutura da família, Igreja, Estado e associações voluntárias, como também sobre as relações interindividuais e intercomunitárias. Ele demonstra vários exemplos de analogias retrocipatórias e antecipatórias presentes nas estruturas das esferas sociais. Na última parte, Dooyeweerd faz uma introdução à teoria dos entrelaçamentos encápticos, apresentando as formas de entrelaçamento das coisas e estruturas sociais.