Fearghas,
I guess you've read "Dooyeweerd and the Word of God" by John M. Frame. However, he still addresses some things about Dooyeweerd on Scripture which I find odd and difficult to fathom.
Alan
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Alan,
I have read through the material you linked to. You will realize that it is rather too extensive and disparate to attempt a point by point analysis. It might be compared with Bahnsen's more succinct critique of Dooyeweerd's view of Scripture which I have posted here.
As a general response, however, I would say that John Frame does ask some pertinent questions about Dooyeweerd's understanding of the nature and role of Scripture. Questions which preoccupy me also. The main one concerns Dooyeweerd's understanding of the authority of the overt text of Scripture, beyond simply acknowledging the central dynamis of the ("pre-theoretical") Word over us. This is of course a matter of no small import. However, I am determined to judge Dooyeweerd on what he actually believed rather than on what others deem him to have believed.
Here is a case in point. The articles by John Frame that you link to were written in the early 1970s during an ongoing theological disagreement between Westminster Theological Seminary ("Van Tilian camp"?) and the Toronto Institute for Christian Studies ("Dooyeweerdian camp"?). Frame was born in 1939, so would then be in his early thirties. If you check out the footnotes to your specified articles by Frame you will discover that in the main he is actually interacting with the writings of Paul Schrotenboer rather than directly with Dooyeweerd's writings (though Frame certainly does do the latter on a few occasions). Now, here's the thing: apart from Bernard Zylstra who was taught by Dooyeweerd, I think that just about everyone else (not sure about JM Spier) whose name comes up was actually influenced by Vollenhoven rather than Dooyeweerd. Invariably Dooyeweerd's central teaching concerning our "supratemporal heart" is rejected. And in that rejection is unwittingly lost the key to any understanding of Dooyeweerd's approach to Scripture (and indeed to everything else). By the way, in one of your linked pieces, Frame says of Spier:What is unusual in the cosmonomic construction (in comparison with traditional Reformed thinking) is the use of general revelation to discover divine commandments or norms beyond those in Scripture — divine commands by which the human conscience may be bound. J. M. Spier, for instance, tells us that a study of art will reveal aesthetic "norms." To transgress such a "norm" is sin. Examples of "sins" against aesthetic norms are the building of "churches in the Roman style" or the writing of "a book in the language of the 17th century."
Spier in fact does not (as far as I can see) employ the word "sin" in this regard at all. This is very misleading by Frame. In context, Spier is arguing that there are aesthetic norms to be discovered, and that their infringement compromises the aesthetic integrity of the art. I have the book. The actual paragraph in question is as follows:
"Aesthetic laws are norms which must be rendered positive by human work and which ought not to be violated. Their violation gives rise to disharmony and dissonance. The style of an art object (eg Gothic or Renaissance) is an historical analogy. A specific style is always joined with a specific historical period. And if we should today build churches in Roman style, or write a book in the literary style of the 17th century, we would be repeating the past and would be reactionaries. We would be guilty of opposing the positive aesthetic norms of the present time" (JM Spier, "An Introduction to Christian Philosophy" p 88)
Of course the current postmodern penchant for pastiche quotations from past styles provides an interesting development to consider in the light of Spier's 1954 book.
2. Institute of Christian Studies
To get back on track - it cannot be emphasised enough that Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd disagreed on just about every philosophical point. So part of the difficulty in responding to Frame's critique is, as I say, that he is largely interacting with Schrotenboer and others at ICS who were influenced by Vollenhoven. This from Wikipedia:The Institute for Christian Studies (ICS), Toronto was founded in 1967.
More than ten years before, a lay movement was initiated amongst Dutch immigrants in Canada to promote academic studies from a Reformational Christian perspective. As a result of that movement, the Association for Reformed Scientific Studies (ARSS) was launched in 1956 in Toronto, Ontario, by a number of pastors, including Dr Paul Schrotenboer, who emerged as key figures in close contact with Dr H. Evan Runner, a professor of philosophy at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Runner had graduated from Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, and then during studies at Harvard University had served as an assistant to Werner Jaeger, a leading classicist there. Runner then went to the Free University to study philosophy under Dr D. H. Th. Vollenhoven, as would many of the early faculty members of ICS from its inception. In 1958 the philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd visited America and suggested to the ARSS - which later became the Association for the Advancement of Christian Scholarship (AACS) - that they write an educational creed. The creed appeared several years later and was drafted by D. H. Th. Vollenhoven, during his subsequent visit and conferencing with Runner, Schrotenboer and others. The prevailing idea was to lay the groundwork for an independent Protestant Christian university modelled after the VU in Amsterdam, not under the governance of the state or any church.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Christian_Studies
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The late THEODORE PLANTINGA's short (10 page) pdf article entitled "Understanding Dooyeweerd Better Than He Understood Himself" is a useful summary of the Dooyeweerd/Vollenhoven story. It can be found at:
Theodore (not to be confused with cousin Alvin) has a highly recommended online series of articles ("Myodicy"). Start page:
A relevant paragraph is the following:
What about Runner?
When we were students, we tended to look to Evan Runner as the local expert on everything that had to do with Dooyeweerd. And it is true that Runner was brought to Calvin in part to inject some of the Amsterdam intellectual tradition into the Grand Rapids bloodstream. But in the first essay in this series we already saw that Runner was not quite the Dooyeweerd representative that many people had taken him to be. In virtue of the training he had received at the Free University, Runner was much closer to Vollenhoven. Moreover, if one studies the content of Runner's Introduction to Philosophy course, it becomes apparent that many strong Dooyeweerdian themes were not taken up at all. The course has more the flavor of Vollenhoven; it reflects Runner's strong interest in the history of philosophy and the ancient world. Runner also taught a celebrated (and controversial) course on the history of Greek philosophy, in which his textbook was his own translation of Vollenhoven's work in this area.
The role Runner played in the reception of Dooyeweerd in Grand Rapids is not an easy matter to untangle. I will have a bit more to say about it later in this essay, and I will also comment on it in a later essay or two.The Reformational Movement: Dialogue and Apologetics by Theodore Plantinga
However, if we really want to get the definitive detailed take on where Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd were coming from, then the recent (2011) article "Two Ways of Reformational Philosophy: Early Writings of Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd" by Glenn Friesen is definitely the place to go. It is 228 pages (pdf), so a degree of committed interest is required! It takes us back via Kuyper to sources which are not "reformed" in the narrow sense (perhaps not even in the broader sense). I see common grace in play, but nonetheless there is plenty of excuse (if sought) for the casual traveller to get off the Dooyeweerd "bus" at the next available stop. The html source page is at:
3. Supratemporal Heart
As I said in the second paragraph, the supratemporal heart is the key to Dooyeweerd's thought. The central issue is that for Dooyeweerd we in our innermost self (soul/heart/ego) transcend time here and now. For him, the Biblical references to our heart confirm this. That is the reality of our soul. The usual identification of the soul with our rationality is dichotomous Greek thinking. Our rationality is actually as "physical" and temporal as our legs or digestive system. By attempting to integrate reality around absolutised rationality we are being hellenistic, humanistic, and unbiblical. We are being Kantian. We are being compromised by "immanent" (apostate) philosophy, which makes an idol of that which is only temporal and relative. Rationality is not actuality. Rationality is theorizing (in the mind). It is the thinker who is actual, who is concrete, not the thought. I who walk am supratemporal now. I who write. I who think. If I get alzeimers, or am brain-damaged in a car-crash, I have not thereby lost my soul. The temporal machinery has seized up, that is all. Out of the heart (the central selfhood) are the issues of life. Eternity is in our heart. Dooyeweerd believed he was striking a death-blow against apostate humanist "autonomous" thought and taking a crucial step forward in the Christian Reformation (of philosophy). Here is a quote from Dooyeweerd on this issue (page 78 of pdf version of above-mentioned article):The great turning point in my thought was the discovery of the religious root of thought itself. This discovery shed a new light on the continuing failure of all attempts, including my own, to bring an inner connection between Christian belief and a philosophy that is rooted in the belief of the self-sufficiency of human reason.
I came to understand the central significance that Holy Scripture repeatedly places on the “heart” as the religious root of all human existence. From out of this central Christian viewpoint, it appeared to me that a revolution was necessary in philosophic thought, a revolution of so radical a character, that, compared with it, Kant’s “Copernican revolution” can only be qualified as a revolution in the periphery. For what is at stake here is no less than a relativizing of the whole temporal cosmos in what we refer to as both its “natural” sides as well as its “spiritual” ["normative"] sides, over against the religious root of creation in Christ. In comparison with this basic Scriptural idea, of what significance is a revolution in a view of reality that relativizes the “natural” sides of temporal reality with respect to a theoretical abstraction such as Kant’s “homo noumenon” or his “transcendental subject of thought?”....
Temporal reality cannot itself be regarded as neutral with respect to its religious root. In other words, the whole thought of a fixed temporal reality “an sich” [in itself and unrelated to our human subjectivity] rests on a fundamental misconception. If temporal reality is not neutral, how can we continue to seriously believe in the religious neutrality of theoretical thought?
In regard to the centrality of the supratemporal heart in Dooyeweerd's philosophy, Glenn Friesen draws our attention to the following quote from an article by W. J. Ouweneel:
I am not clear where Frame is coming from with the following:
OK. When Christ stated "I am the way, the truth, and the life", was He speaking propositionally or non-propositionally? When the Bible says that Benaiah the son of Jehoiada "went down and slew a lion in a pit on a snowy day" (1 Chron 11:22), is that propositional or non-propositional? If the Bible is devoid of propositionality, then I'm lexically floundering.
From around 1930 onward, this view of the Supratemporality of the heart or the religious root-unity of the cosmos becomes the essential, unchangeable, and indissoluble cornerstone of his thought. The pivotal place of this view in Dooyeweerd’s thought must be emphasised over against all those who have expressed objections to this view. They suppose that it is possible to drop this idea but to maintain the “rest” of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy. They fail to see that the very core of his thought–the metaphor of the prism with its law of refraction, the law of concentration, the idea of the unity, fullness and totality of the religious root, the theory of time, the transcendental critique of thought–as well as the whole theory of the modalities, according to which the modalities are seen as “temporal aspects,” stand or fall with the idea of the supratemporality of the heart. The transcendence of the heart, as Dooyeweerd sees it, cannot be conceived as if the heart “points” within time to the supratemporal, as if it stands so to speak on the “boundary” of the temporal and the supratemporal, standing as it were on the shore of eternity but limited nevertheless to the beach. It is not the heart but the temporal modality of faith which Dooyeweerd calls a “border sphere” and an “open window to eternity.” The heart to him is always entirely above temporal diversity.
(W. J. Ouweneel: “Supratemporality in the Transcendental Anthropology of Dooyeweerd”, Philosophia Reformata 58, 1993, p. 213)
http://www.members.shaw.ca/jgfriesen/Definitions/Supratemporal.html
4. Frame: Another Article
John Frame has another online article critiquing Dooyeweerd(ians) which I think is a stronger presentation of his case than the webpage you first mention. It is entitled: "The Amsterdam Philosophy: A Preliminary Critique"(pdf). Or online version here. In a 2005 preface to the 1972 article, Frame writes:"As I read the booklet today, I think my tone was far too shrill. The booklet also contains far too much smart-alecky stuff. I suppose I could have entirely rewritten it, but that would have made my 1972 efforts look better than they were. I prefer now to let readers judge me as I deserve, warts and all. I also think that the basic points of the pamphlet were never answered, though I received a lot of invective, and a lot of undocumented charges that I just didn’t know Dooyeweerd. On those issues also, I will let readers judge."Here is a flavour of it:
The writings of this movement are full of unclear statements, invalid arguments, and general intellectual shoddiness...Such lack of rigor in a Christian philosophy is not pleasing to God. It will not do for Christians to support a second-rate philosophical system simply because that system claims to be Christian or even because it is Christian in some respects. (p 7)
Or does Dooyeweerd want to go all the way with Kant (and with some modern “Christian atheists”) and affirm that the term “God” never refers to anything except temporal, created reality?! That view would make Dooyeweerd a sheer idolater (one who worships a created thing as God), and would make his philosophy explicitly and flagrantly non-Christian. Essentially, however, we think Dooyeweerd is confusing and confused. He presents us with no clear basis on which to attack the Kantian conception or even to distinguish his own position from it. (16)It appears that in Dooyeweerd's thinking there is a real aversion to any claim to “conceptual knowledge” of God. Not only “conceptual knowledge” in Dooyeweerd's narrow sense, but in any sense. This fact makes our comparison between Dooyeweerd and Kant a highly serious one. But that aversion to “God-concepts” is not clearly or consistently articulated in Dooyeweerd; thus we prefer to believe the best about him – that he simply hasn't understood the problem. (Footnote p 16)But might it not be the case that God has given us the ability to understand various facts in the universe, facts important for our life on earth, without giving us a divinely endorsed map of the cosmos? The Amsterdam philosophy does not seem to take this possibility seriously; we think they should. (p 24) Is it true that a study of logic, history, linguistics, sociology, economics, aesthetics, jurisprudence, ethics, or theology will yield norms beyond those found in Scripture? The Amsterdam philosophy appears to answer “yes.” Earlier in this section we quoted Spier to the effect that such studies can yield norms, which we are under divine obligation to obey –disobedience to such norms is “sin.” Therefore it is “sinful” to make an error in logic, or to use less than the most “proper” English. It is even sinful, Spier implies, to “build churches in Roman style, or write a book in the literary style of the 17th century…” In our view, these statements compromise the sufficiency of Scripture. God has directed His people to seek His law, not through their own study of the creation, but through His written word. (24)In the last paragraph we have a reiteration of the "sin" remark regarding Spier's view of infringed architectural "norms". In this instance I note that Frame softens his charge to one of "Spier implies". But, besides Spier's "Introduction to Christian Philosophy", Frame also references a book by Spier I have not been able to check: "What Is Calvinistic Philosophy?" 76ff.
I am not clear where Frame is coming from with the following:
Is it true that a study of logic, history, linguistics, sociology, economics, aesthetics, jurisprudence, ethics, or theology will yield norms beyond those found in Scripture? ... God has directed His people to seek His law, not through their own study of the creation, but through His written word.We obviously don't find out from Scripture the physical laws which enable us to construct an internal combustion engine, a mass spectrometer, a space probe. In aesthetics, we don't find out about the golden mean or Fibonacci numbers, or which two primary colours make green. We obviously don't get from Scripture any grammatical rules for whatever languages we speak, other than those employed by translators. Nor do we discover laws of logic as such. We live and move and have our being in creatorial "norms":
"Listen and hear my voice; pay attention and hear what I say. When a farmer plows for planting, does he plow continually? Does he keep on breaking up and harrowing the soil? When he has leveled the surface, does he not sow caraway and scatter cummin? Does he not plant wheat in its place, barley in its plot, and spelt in its field? His God instructs him and teaches him the right way. Caraway is not threshed with a sledge, nor is a cartwheel rolled over cummin; caraway is beaten out with a rod, and cummin with a stick. Grain must be ground to make bread; so one does not go on threshing it forever. Though he drives the wheels of his threshing cart over it, his horses do not grind it. All this also comes from the LORD Almighty, wonderful in counsel and magnificent in wisdom." (Isaiah 28:23-29 NKJV)We might compare the foregoing with Calvin's insistence also that patently one does not have to be a Christian to perceive and unfold the potential of creational norms:
Therefore, in reading profane authors, the admirable light of truth displayed in them should remind us, that the human mind, however much fallen and perverted from its original integrity, is still adorned and invested with admirable gifts from its Creator. If we reflect that the Spirit of God is the only fountain of truth, we will be careful, as we would avoid offering insult to him, not to reject or condemn truth wherever it appears. In despising the gifts, we insult the giver. How then can we deny that truth must have beamed on those ancient lawgivers who arranged civil order and discipline with so much equity? Shall we say that the philosophers, in their exquisite researches and skilful description of nature, were blind? Shall we deny the possession of intellect to those who drew up rules of discourse, and taught us to speak in accordance with reason? Shall we say that those who, by the cultivation of the medical art, expended their industry on our behalf were only raving? What shall we say of the mathematical sciences? Shall we deem them to be the dreams of madmen? Nay, we cannot read the writings of the ancients on these subjects without the highest admiration; an admiration which their excellence will not allow us to withhold. But shall we deem anything to be noble and praiseworthy, without tracing it to the hand of God? Far from us be such ingratitude; an ingratitude not chargeable even on heathen poets, who acknowledged that philosophy and laws, and all useful arts were the inventions of the gods. Therefore, since it is manifest that men whom the Scriptures term ‘carnal’ are so acute and clear-sighted in the investigation of inferior things, their example should teach us how many gifts the Lord has left in possession of human nature, notwithstanding its having been despoiled of the true good....
Nor is there any ground for asking what concourse the Spirit can have with the ungodly, who are altogether alienated from God. For what is said as to the Spirit dwelling in believers only, is to be understood of the Spirit of holiness, by which we are consecrated to God as temples. Notwithstanding this, he fills, moves and invigorates all things by virtue of the Spirit, and that according to the peculiar nature which each class of beings has received by the Law of Creation. But if the Lord has been pleased to assist us by the work and ministry of the ungodly in physics, dialectics, mathematics, and other similar sciences, let us avail ourselves of it, lest, by neglecting the gifts of God spontaneously offered to us, we be justly punished for our sloth. (Institutes 2:2:15-16).I think that Frame's general points against Dooyeweerdians are worth making and worth refuting, daunting as these issues are to grapple with. I am not going to attempt that difficult task here. Suffice to say that much depends (in my opinion) on position-taking vis-à-vis the "ontical/ existential" as distinct from the "theoretical/ cerebral/ conceptual". We must not mistake (abstract) theology or philosophy for (concrete) reality. Theology and philosophy, however useful, are, after all is said and done, but armchair "map-making" exercises. To explore the actual terrain is our real call. To skin our knees and elbows seeking to climb that high precarious mountain range. To hack through that bewildering jungle. To find at last that oasis in the relentless desert. To sail those stormy seas, sick with uncertainty, seeking that lifesaving literal (littoral) haven which hitherto we have known only as a tidy penmark on a paper chart. As Van Til insists, God is not a conjecture. Not a putative probability. Not a deduction. Not an assertion. God is. "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh... For our God is a consuming fire." (Hebrews 12:25, 29).
5. The Matter of Scripture
The specific focus of your question was on the matter of Scripture. Let's stay with that. Frame precedes his discussion of Scripture in his "Amsterdam Critique" with the acknowlegement that: For much of what follows, we are indebted to N[orman] Shepherd, “The Doctrine of Scripture in the Dooyeweerdian Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea” Christian Reformed Outlook XXI, 2 (Feb., Mar., 1971), 18-2 1; 20-23.Here is a taste of Frame's accusations against the Dooyeweerd side:
Here is one of the surprising paradoxes of the Amsterdam philosophy. Many of us were first attracted to the movement by its promise to “open” the Scriptures, to show their relevance, not only to our Sunday “church” activities, but to all areas of our daily life. The more one studies the movement, however, the more one discovers the extent to which this philosophy “closes” the Scriptures, and the extent to which it really makes them a “Sunday” thing.
The Amsterdam philosophers, perhaps, feel the force of this paradox. They are indeed fond of saying that Scripture addresses the heart, that it bears on all aspects of life, etc. It appears, however, that when they use this sort of language, they are thinking of Scripture, not as a book with words and sentences, but as a vehicle of that dunamis, that “power” which Dooyeweerd describes as the Word of God. As we read Scripture, the power “grips” us, changes our “direction,” and thereby affects all areas of life. As a book with words and sentences, however, the Bible is said to address only the faith aspect of human life. This distinction between the word as “power” and the Bible as written text resolves the paradox we have noted. Granting this distinction, we may use the Scriptures (as power) to address all areas of life. But the actual words and sentences of Scripture – the words which we can analyse, exegete, paraphrase, translate, etc. – these words tell us only about the faith aspect of human existence. We find this distinction, however, to be totally unscriptural. In Scripture, the “power” of the Word is the power of a verbal message accompanied by the Holy Spirit. The “power” is operative in human life when the word is believed, obeyed, trusted. The very words and sentences which Jesus spoke to his disciples and which we have recorded in our Bibles today, these words are “spirit” and “life” (John 6:63, cf. 68). Neither Jesus, nor the apostles, nor any other biblical writers give any hint that there is any distinction between “power” and “text” such as these philosophers envisage. We experience the “power” of the Word when we come to believe what the words say. And of course, we repeat, there is nothing in Scripture to suggest that these “words” address only one aspect of human life; quite the contrary!The attempt to distinguish sharply between “power Word” and “text Word” is characteristic of neo-orthodox theology, the “new hermeneutic,” and other forms of modern thought. In these movements, the “text word” is always deprecated as a merely human word, while the “power Word,” which conveys no intelligible content, is exalted as the true Word of God. This scheme enables these modern theologians to accept the fallibility of the Bible and to deny that God has ever spoken to men in words and sentences. The Amsterdam construction comes perilously close to these modern views, and some members of the school have in fact rejected the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture.But even without explicitly denying biblical authority, it is possible for an Amsterdam philosopher to evade biblical authority by adopting principles of interpretation which distort the plain meaning of the Bible. Dooyeweerd, for example, argues that the “six days” of Genesis 1 must have nothing to do with astronomical or geological concepts of time, since Scripture is concerned directly only with the faith aspect. The six days, therefore, are faith days, rather than geological periods of calendar days. (Dooyeweerd is not very clear on what these “faith days” are, except that they have something to do with the Sabbath commandment).2 Note here that Dooyeweerd's interpretation does not arise through study of the Hebrew text; rather it is dictated by his philosophical (and anti-scriptural) presupposition that Scripture as text speaks only to the realm of faith. But this sort of “interpretation” evades the authority of the Bible just as surely as does an explicit denial of that authority! (pp 27-28)What, then, is philosophy on the Amsterdam view? Philosophy is that science which shows the relations between all the other sciences. Philosophy gives a total worldview, showing the limits of human knowledge, showing the limits of each science, showing the general structure of the universe. The philosopher, therefore, has a right to tell the theologian what he may and may not do. The philosopher determines that Scripture is a positivization of faith norms for a particular culture, and therefore he forbids the theologian to interpret, say, the days of creation as geologic periods. The philosopher decides, in other words, what Scripture can and cannot say to the interpreter. And he decides these matters, not by exegesis, not by intensive study of the biblical text, but on the basis of his own study of the law structure, “directed” in some mysterious way by the “power” of the Word. On this point, Dooyeweerd is quite explicit. He severely castigates Van Til because Van Til calls philosophers to “subordinate all our thinking to the truths of Scripture.” Dooyeweerd considers Van Til's position “rationalist” because Van Til wishes to “derive” philosophical concepts from the “thought-content” of Scripture. On the contrary, says Dooyeweerd, the Bible contains no “concepts” which the philosopher must accept on its authority. The bearing of Scripture upon philosophical work is to be expressed exclusively by the notion of “power”: Scripture may exert power upon the philosopher, but may never teach him any concepts. (pp 31-32)I confess I do, to a large extent, feel the weight of Frame's argument here. I detect, however, a possible irony in Frame's above accusation, though I may well be amiss:
Dooyeweerd, for example, argues that the “six days” of Genesis 1 must have nothing to do with astronomical or geological concepts of time, since Scripture is concerned directly only with the faith aspect. The six days, therefore, are faith days, rather than geological periods of calendar days. (Dooyeweerd is not very clear on what these “faith days” are, except that they have something to do with the Sabbath commandment).2 Note here that Dooyeweerd's interpretation does not arise through study of the Hebrew text; rather it is dictated by his philosophical (and anti-scriptural) presupposition that Scripture as text speaks only to the realm of faith. But this sort of “interpretation” evades the authority of the Bible just as surely as does an explicit denial of that authority!...The philosopher determines that Scripture is a positivization of faith norms for a particular culture, and therefore he forbids the theologian to interpret, say, the days of creation as geologic periods. The philosopher decides, in other words, what Scripture can and cannot say to the interpreter.There is a degree of ambiguity (perhaps unintended) in the words: "geological periods of calendar days" and "the days of creation as geologic periods". It would be ironic here if Frame signals a personal interpretation of the creation days as sequences of deep geological time rather than, as it were, 6 "regular" days. He would then arguably be as culpable as Dooyeweerd of importing presuppositions rather than relying on "intensive study of the biblical/Hebrew text".
6. Propositional & Non-Propositional
Glenn Friesen, a major proponent of Dooyeweerd, has a very useful summary of the latter's view of Scripture HERE. To most reformed and evangelical readers, a damning indictment of Dooyeweerd's attitude to Scripture will be readily evident in the following key paragraph (see aforementioned link):He [an American "visitor"] asked me what I thought about the distinction between the Bible and the Word of God. Now, I speak freely, and I said, “That is just self-evident. You can’t really say that everything in the Bible is inspired. When the Apostle Paul writes to his assistant Timothy that he has forgotten his traveling cloak somewhere and asks whether he will bring it with him when he comes, are we to regard that text as ‘inspired’ just because it stands in the Bible? That would be foolish, wouldn’t it?” But my interrogator was of a completely different opinion. According to him the Bible was “inspired by God word for word” and he therefore found my distinction between the Bible and God’s Word to be an insult to God’s Word. With that of course there was no point in any further dialogue. (Last interview, published posthumously [in Acht Civilisten in Burger]Despite predictable "holy horror" triggered by the foregoing, it does seem to me a highly significant feature of this quote that it clearly shows Dooyeweerd interacting in a straightforward fashion with the explicit text of Scripture. This surely demonstrates that we are caricaturing Dooyeweerd if we imagine him eschewing all plain textual reading and only engaging with some kind of fuzzy subtextual (or supratextual) "dynamis". So is Dooyeweerd relating to Scripture in a "propositional" manner here? I would have thought so. But Friesen is adamant that Dooyeweerd does not do that. I am left in a quandary. Am I simply misunderstanding the word "propositional"? Or am I asking the wrong question? At any rate, you might care to ponder with me the following attempt at clarifying the difference between "propositional" and "non-propositional" meaning (found online under the banner "Language & Power: Linguistics 50 - Winter 2003 - Cumming") -
Style and non-propositional meaningThere are two senses of meaning which it would be useful to differentiate:
Propositional meaning makes an assertion about the world. A proposition has a "truth value" (i.e. it can be true or false). Only some uses of language convey propositions:
- complete sentences with a verb (not plain noun phrases, adjectives etc.)
- declarative sentences (not questions or commands)
Non-propositional meaning conveys something without asserting it. Attitudes, feelings, opinions fall into this category. Anything that isn't a proposition doesn't have a "truth value" and can't be assessed as true or false.Metaphors (and other kinds of figurative language) can also be used to convey non-propositional meanings, since they aren't supposed to be taken literally. "Our photocopier is turbo-charged!"Incomplete ideas: "Bigger! Better!" (than what?); "New!" (newer than what?); "Natural!" (in most cases, not well-defined)Images, colors, fonts, music and other non-linguistic elements also don't function propositionally.Styles in general convey non-propositional meanings, since "truth in advertising" laws make it highly desirable for advertisers to avoid making explict statements that could be true or false. http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/faculty/cumming/ling50/adstyle.htm
OK. When Christ stated "I am the way, the truth, and the life", was He speaking propositionally or non-propositionally? When the Bible says that Benaiah the son of Jehoiada "went down and slew a lion in a pit on a snowy day" (1 Chron 11:22), is that propositional or non-propositional? If the Bible is devoid of propositionality, then I'm lexically floundering.
7. Scripture & Theology
For those stalwarts who have not yet left the auditorium in alarm, let's listen again to Dooyeweerd talking about the relationship of Scripture to theology:Friesen also touches on the issue of Dooyeweerd's challenging relationship to the text of Scripture in his long article (mentioned earlier) entitled: "Two Ways of Reformational Philosophy: Early Writings of Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd", where Friesen says in Appendix A: Theology: 20. Use of Scripture for philosophy: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 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 this 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!"This key of knowledge in its radical and integral sense cannot be made into a theological problem. The theologian can only direct his theological thought to it as to its necessary supra-theoretical presupposition, if he is really in the grip of it, and bear witness of its radical meaning which transcends all theological concepts. But when he does so, he is in no other position than the Christian philosopher, who accounts for his biblical starting-point, or the simple 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 significance. This knowledge is a question of spiritual life or death. Even an orthodox theological dogmatics, however splendidly elaborated, cannot guarantee this central spiritual knowledge. (Twilight of Western Thought pp134-146)
Dooyeweerd did not use Scripture as a source for his philosophy, although he did sometimes show that his philosophy accorded with Scripture. Dooyeweerd’s philosophy begins with experience, and he is critical of a propositional use of Scripture (Friesen 2009, Thesis 1 and references). Dooyeweerd denied that issues concerning the nature of the soul, or of creation, fall and redemption, regeneration, revelation or even incarnation could be settled by exegesis of Scripture (Dooyeweerd 2007 and Discussion). Vollenhoven does not have that view of revelation, and can only say that Scriptures are a result of Logos-revelation (Tol, 257 fn58). Dooyeweerd’s use of Scripture is in many ways similar to that of de la Saussaye, on whom he obviously relied (See Appendix D).
Vollenhoven does use Scripture as a source for knowing. “Scripture is a ‘means that informs,’ i.e., conveys truths about realities, truths the human being would not have surmised without speculation or adequate control (Tol, 40-41). Vollenhoven used Scripture not only for what it says of the angelic realm of the “heavens” (Tol, 29 fn23, 259; Isagôgè 23), but also for what it says of the covenant with God (Isagôgè 177-201, 293-295). Heaven is the abode of angels and spirits, and they influence conduct on earth. But Tol is right that Vollenhoven does not say how this occurs, and so “he failed to indicate how this illuminates the human condition” (Tol, 259). http://www.members.shaw.ca/hermandooyeweerd/History13.html
8. Frame: Comments from 1987
We might also take a look at some slightly more recent (1987) comments by John Frame regarding Dooyeweerd, Van Til, and Scripture. The following is an extract (“Appendix B: ENCYCLOPEDIA”) from Frame’s book “A Theology of Lordship: The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God”, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, Phillipsburg, New Jersey, 1987, pp 91, 92) -
ENCYCLOPEDIA - p 97 of “The Doctrine of God” by John M. Frame
There are those, such as the great Dutch thinkers Kuyper and Dooyeweerd, who believe that "encyclopedia of the sciences" is terribly important. In "encyclopedia of the sciences," an attempt is made to state the proper subject matter of each science and its relation to all the others. One almost gets the impression that for some Dutch thinkers this is the supreme problem of philosophy - perhaps the only problem – so that once one determines the relationships of the sciences, no more problems remain. Among these thinkers there is also the tendency to think that there is only one right way to classify the sciences and that the definitions of the sciences ought to be as precise as possible.
I question all of those assumptions. It seems to me that there may be many legitimate ways to organize the subject matter of the universe for study, just as there are many ways of cutting a cake for purposes of eating and just as there are many ways of dividing up the color spectrum for purposes of description. (In some languages there may be five colors, in others eight, and so forth; and the color terms of one language often overlap the color terms of another.) I also question the importance of this and the need for enormous precision. Interestingly, Van Til, Dutchman though he is, seems to be closer to my view than to those of Kuyper and Dooyeweerd. In the Introduction to Systematic Theology, Van Til recognizes mutual dependence of different disciplines, as opposed to the Dutch tendency to want to establish unequivocal priorities between one discipline and and another. He argues that the distinction between "dogmatic theology" and "systematic theology" is unimportant (ibid.), and he recognizes that a discipline may deal with one thing "primarily" and something else "secondarily".
My fear, in relation to the intense concern with encyclopedia among some thinkers, is that that concern represents in part a search for a kind of unequivocal "bedrock," an ultimate priority, an absolute "starting point" other than Scripture. Dooyeweerd finally locates his "Archimedean point" in the human heart, which is thought in some odd sense to transcend time. Kuyper never resolved the question of "priority" in that sort of decisive way. But in Van Til we have found a thinker who does not need to find some form of human thought that is "prior to" all others, since he is far more self-conscious about the implications of the primacy of Scripture itself. If we find our "starting point" in Scripture, then it really doesn't matter so much which science is based on which. The important thing is that all are based on the teachings of Scripture, and beyond that they can work out their interrelations as seems wise. Nor is it so terribly important that each discipline have absolutely precise boundaries that
dare not be transgressed by another. If Scripture is our authority, we need not fear flexibility in this area. Scripture gives its believers a comprehensive vision that transcends interfield "boundaries."
The key sentences for our discussion here might be: "Dooyeweerd finally locates his "Archimedean point" in the human heart, which is thought in some odd sense to transcend time… But in Van Til we have found a thinker who does not need to find some form of human thought that is "prior to" all others, since he is far more self-conscious about the implications of the primacy of Scripture itself. If we find our "starting point" in Scripture, then it really doesn't matter so much which science is based on which."
I have reservations about Frame’s analysis in this instance. Let’s leave to one side his rather patronizing stereotyping of Dutch thinkers. With a wave of the hand (“in some odd sense”) he dismisses Dooyeweerd’s key insight regarding our supratemporal self. In the same casual manner, as if reading from well-worn lecture notes, he ascribes to Dooyeweerd an extra-Biblical starting-point, and to Van Til a Biblical starting-point. No doubt this reflects the prevalent view in the Reformed community. Yet one must immediately point out on Dooyeweerd’s behalf that he himself considered his starting-point to be thoroughly Biblical. It is surely significant that three years after Dooyeweerd’s fractious altercation with Van Til on this issue in the pages of “Jerusalem and Athens” (1971) Dooyeweerd is still determined to set the record straight. He was clearly stung by the attack. Van Til’s charge of compromise, he passionately asserts in an interview with Magnus Verbrugge (1974), was “a terrible misunderstanding”. Dooyeweerd insists that his own “point of departure” is “purely Biblical.”:
DOOYEWEERD: Now Van Til thinks that in this first question, the Philosophy of the Law-Idea is really entering a neutral territory—[an area] where the Christian religion does not yet arise.
VERBRUGGE: (interrupting) A kind of naturalism.
DOOYEWEERD: Yes, and that is such a terrible misunderstanding. For he [Van Til] should have understood that that interpretation is impossible, for I would then contradict myself. I assert that there is no autonomous theoretical thought. And he thinks I should have begun with that and should have acknowledged it in this first question, “What is the nature of theoretical thought?” But if he had looked more closely at this question, then he would have immediately discovered the influence of my religious Biblical Ground-motive. For why else do I say that the other, non-logical aspects cannot be reduced to, deduced from the logical aspect? Because I start from the idea of sovereignty in its own sphere. And what is the basis for the sovereignty in each sphere of the aspects? In creation*.
VERBRUGGE: In creation. Naturally.
DOOYEWEERD: And that is my Christian, religious point of departure. And it is purely Biblical*. Thus, this is a terrible misunderstanding [by Van Til].
*Note the key association inferred between "aspects" and Genesis "kinds" in the following earlier remark by Dooyeweerd (in the full interview):
DOOYEWEERD: I have still just shown that this was Kuyper’s basic idea [grondgedachte], which was of fundamental importance for the whole direction of philosophic thought in the Philosophy of the Law-Idea. But Kuyper said more. He developed an idea that had fundamental importance for this philosophy. That was the idea of what was called “sovereignty in its own sphere.” It referred to [sloeg op] the temporal existence of man, with a great diversity of spheres of life, not only within the social sphere of society, in society, but also the great diversity of what the Philosophy of the Law-Idea calls ‘aspects,’ which are ways, fundamental ways in which man experiences reality [13]....But the idea of sovereignty in its own sphere has had such a great influence on the Philosophy of the Law-Idea because Kuyper immediately based it on the revelation concerning creation—that God created all things according to their kind [aard], that is something that is expressly said there. Which makes it clear that kind is not dependent on human thinking, and not set up [ingelegd] by man by means of logical distinctions, but that the various kinds of created things [schepsels]—everything that bears a created character—has been expressed [opgedrukt] by God, or one could say, has been impressed [ingedrukt] by God. Eh— [15]
Extracted from "Interview of Herman Dooyeweerd by Magnus Verbrugge 1974". Translated by Dr. J. Glenn Friesen.) (See also the written exchanges between Dooyeweerd and Van Til in the 1971 publication Jerusalem and Athens: Critical Discussions on the Philosophy and Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til, Edited by E. R. Geehan, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company. Dooyeweerd's case to Van Til can be read here, and Van Til's response here.
9. Existential v. Theoretical: "Meisha Test"
If I am not misled, I do grasp something of Dooyeweerd's approach to Scripture, bringing to my mind as it does the "existential trumps theoretical" energy of Hebrews 2:12 - "For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Yet that verse must surely have just about universal assent among Christians. Certainly Van Til would revel in it. I can distinguish between the imperative impact of living Scripture on one hand and arid theorizing over inert text on the other - but again that is surely a commonplace perception in Christian circles. So where do I lose Dooyeweerd's thread? Obviously it has something to do with the radical direction he takes with this. A direction which I confess I find counter-intuitive and untrackably sophisticated. I find myself struggling with Dooyeweerd's apparent dismissal of any attempt to garner conceptual or propositional content from Scripture as being (in his view) a misguided rationalistic enterprise. I say "apparent dismissal" because Dooyeweerd himself quotes Scripture often enough in his writings. Thus I the plain man feel intimidated to a standstill about drawing any "thought" conclusions from Scriptural text, while beyond a wall I cannot scale I glimpse Professor Dooyeweerd indulging, so it seems, in a bit of textual cherry-picking himself. What am I to make of that? There is something almost Zen about all this to me. To assert "Words don't convey Truth" is self-contradictory. Dooyeweerd is not, of course saying that Scriptural words don't convey Truth. He is just saying that they don't convey propositional Truth. Or maybe I have misconstrued the Zen-master's meaning. In the "Jerusalem and Athens" exchange, Dooyeweerd says to Van Til:That the Word-revelation was from the beginning mediated to man through human language is naturally unquestionable. But that verbal language would necessarily signify conceptual thought-contents is a rationalist prejudice that runs counter to the real states of affairs. By means of language we can signify symbolically not only conceptual thought contents, but all sorts of contents of our consciousness, such as subjective moods and emotional feelings, volitional decisions in a concrete situation, our faith in Jesus Christ, pre-theoretical aesthetical and moral experiences, often expressed in short exclamations such as "How wonderful!" or "Shame on you!" etc., which certainly do not give expression to conceptual knowledge of the experiential modes concerned.
The transcendental critique of theoretical thought has shown why true self-knowledge in its biblical sense, i.e., in its dependence upon true knowledge of God, cannot be itself of a conceptual character. The reason is that all conceptual knowledge in its analytical and inter-modal synthetical character presupposes the human ego as its central reference-point, which consequently must be of a supra-modal nature and is not capable of logical analysis.
10. Starting from Scripture?
Returning to John Frame's critique, I suggest that in fact his profiles of both Dooyeweerd and Van Til are Procrustean to a degree. To give the impression that Dooyeweerd’s starting-point discounts the Bible is misleading. To give the impression that Van Til’s starting-point is restricted to the Bible is also (I would contend) misleading. In the latter regard, one or two self-evident observations might be made. The first is to recall the Reformed conviction that “grace precedes faith”. The Book is closed until the Holy Spirit opens our eyes. Strictly speaking the starting-point is not the Bible per se, but God. As we know only too well, all sorts of delusional belief and behaviour can start from the Bible, and no merit in that. The second observation to note is that we must have prior knowledge of the world before we can understand the Bible. For example, we must have some familiarity with, “shepherds” to comprehend the import of “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” We must know what a lamb is to understand “Behold the Lamb of God!” Indeed, before we can understand the Scriptures we must know something of houses and rocks and sand and bread and water and wine and fish and light and salt and wind and sea and boats and camels and needles and fire and cloud and kings and ants and sluggards and so it goes on. Not to mention conversance with language, Hebrew, Greek, or at least vernacular. In other words, we cannot get started with Scripture unless we have already made a start somewhere else. [We might even draw attention to the absolute and ubiquitous precondition of our own physicality - we must reach out to pick the Book (printed and sold by others) off the shelf, or switch on the computer or iPad (designed, manufactured and sold by others), put on our glasses (prescribed and made by others), decipher the orthographical symbols our society has bequeathed to us...]. And let us note Dooyweerd's salutary reminder that no-one approaches Scripture with a mind which is a tabula rasa (blank slate). We invariably bring philosophical baggage with us which we then proceed to read into Scripture - in particular he pointed out the Hellenistic and Scholastic dualisms lurking in much (un)Reformed and evangelical theology.
Am I being too pedantic? Too obtuse? I think not. I rather tend to think that I am making not only a valid but a crucial point. No-one CAN start from Scripture in any absolute sense. Prior experience is required. Experience of God’s grace. Experience of God’s creation. I imagine Frame would clarify that what he in fact intends is to the effect that, in his view, Van Til’s theorizing starts from Scripture while Dooyeweerd’s does not. If so, I would yet stand my ground and suggest his critique is insufficiently nuanced. That he impoverishes these two thinkers, more so Dooyeweerd than Van Til, of course, and that by impoverishing them he impoverishes us. I suggest that, despite their contrasting lexicons and latterly discordant relationship, Dooyeweerd and Van Til actually do harmonize rather more often than is generally recognized. Despite a highly challenging approach to the matter, Dooyeweerd was in earnest about Scriptural revelation. Van Til for his part was in earnest about extra-Scriptural revelation. We must distinguish in this regard between Van Til’s rejection on the one hand of that kind of subjective experience which takes on the guise of authoritative “tradition” or charismatic "leading", and on the other hand his wholehearted embrace (following Paul in Romans 1:19-21) of everyman’s existential experience of God grounded in the objective “ontical” pre-conditions of ambient creation. Jacob Gabriel Hale in (pdf) "Derrida, Van Til and the Metaphysics of Postmodernism: An Essay" (2004) has the following to say regarding Van Til:
The significance of Van Til’s ontology will become more evident as we look at how it grounds epistemology... which distances him from what is termed natural theology. According to Van Til, the knowledge of God is not inferred, induced, deduced, or derived from any sort of evidence, fact or observation. Rather, the knowledge of God is immediately apprehended at the moment of consciousness. In Husserlean terms, the knowledge of God is immediately “present”, and “given.” Unlike others, who call themselves classical apologists, Van Til maintains that our knowledge of God does not come from an argument from facts and evidences. Based on Romans 1 this cannot be the case because, as Bahnsen points out, there are some who do not have the cognitive abilities to reason in this manner. Yet, according to Paul, they still know God. Because the knowledge of God is immediately present to us through that which is made (both nature and self), Paul can say with confidence that in knowing God’s acts (both nature and self) we truly “know him.”... [Footnotes: This is expressed in Van Til’s own words, “The cosmos-consciousness, the self-consciousness, and the God-consciousness would naturally be simultaneous.”... According to VanTil, the knowledge of God must be known before any functions of the mind can be consciously distinguished....Therefore, it is impossible to reason from abstract principles to God. Rather, the ability to even recognize relations in things and therefore identify principles is proof itself that the knowledge of God is known.]
We might usefully ask: did CALVIN “start” from Scripture? Did he not rather start from ontical experience? Dooyeweerd alludes with approval (and Van Til would surely concur) to Calvin’s opening words of Book One of his “Institutes” :
Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other. For, in the first place, no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts towards the God in whom he lives and moves; because it is perfectly obvious, that the endowments which we possess cannot possibly be from ourselves; nay, that our very being is nothing else than subsistence in God alone.
We might well consider also the remarkable emphasis on “ontical” revelation in the following passage from Calvin:
We see, indeed, the world with our eyes, we tread the earth with our feet, we touch innumerable kinds of God's works with our hands, we inhale a sweet and pleasant fragrance from herbs and flowers, we enjoy boundless benefits; but in those very things of which we attain some knowledge, there dwells such an immensity of divine power, goodness, and wisdom, as absorbs all our senses. Therefore, let men be satisfied if they obtain only a moderate taste of them, suited to their capacity. And it becomes us so to press towards this mark during our whole life, that (even in extreme old age) we shall not repent of the progress we have made, if only we have advanced ever so little in our course...
I now return to the design of Moses, or rather of the Holy Spirit, who has spoken by his mouth. We know God, who is himself invisible, only through his works. Therefore, the Apostle elegantly styles the worlds, "ta me ek fainomenoon blepomena", as if one should say, "the manifestation of things not apparent," (Heb. 11: 3.) This is the reason why the Lord, that he may invite us to the knowledge of himself, places the fabric of heaven and earth before our eyes, rendering himself, in a certain manner, manifest in them. For his eternal power and Godhead (as Paul says) are there exhibited, (Rom. 1: 20.) And that declaration of David is most true, that the heavens, though without a tongue, are yet eloquent heralds of the glory of God, and that this most beautiful order of nature silently proclaims his admirable wisdom, (Ps. 19: 1.) This is the more diligently to be observed, because so few pursue the right method of knowing God, while the greater part adhere to the creatures without any consideration of the Creator himself. For men are commonly subject to these two extremes; namely, that some, forgetful of God, apply the whole force of their mind to the consideration of nature; and others, overlooking the works of God, aspire with a foolish and insane curiosity to inquire into his Essence. Both labour in vain. To be so occupied in the investigation of the secrets of nature, as never to turn the eyes to its Author, is a most perverted study; and to enjoy everything in nature without acknowledging the Author of the benefit, is the basest ingratitude. Therefore, they who assume to be philosophers without Religion, and who, by speculating, so act as to remove God and all sense of piety far from them, will one day feel the force of the expression of Paul, related by Luke, that God has never left himself without witness, (Acts 14: 17.) For they shall not be permitted to escape with impunity because they have been deaf and insensible to testimonies so illustrious. And, in truth, it is the part of culpable ignorance, never to see God, who everywhere gives signs of his presence. But if mockers now escape by their cavils, hereafter their terrible destruction will bear witness that they were ignorant of God, only because they were willingly and maliciously blinded. As for those who proudly soar above the world to seek God in his unveiled essence, it is impossible but that at length they should entangle themselves in a multitude of absurd figments. For God - by other means invisible - (as we have already said) clothes himself, so to speak, with the image of the world in which he would present himself to our contemplation. They who will not deign to behold him thus magnificently arrayed in the incomparable vesture of the heavens and the earth, afterwards suffer the just punishment of their proud contempt in their own ravings. Therefore, as soon as the name of God sounds in our ears, or the thought of him occurs to our minds, let us also clothe him with this most beautiful ornament; finally, let the world become our school if we desire rightly to know God.
(Jean Calvin, Commentary on Genesis, Argument)
http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/ipb-e/epl-01/cvgn1-02.txt
11. Van Til's View Favoured
As a rule of thumb in this matter I respond to Van Til's assertion that Christ and Scripture are both "self-attesting". I follow on from there to monitor how Christ uses Scripture. How Scripture uses Scripture. "It is written" (Matt 4:4,7,10). "Have you not read?" (Matt 12:3,5; 19:4) "According to the Scriptures" (1 Cor 15:3). "They received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so" (Acts 17:11). "And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Timothy 3:15-17). And so on. The following quote from Cornelius Van Til could fairly be taken as a summary of his view of Scripture:"The Bible is thought of as authoritative on everything of which it speaks. Moreover, it speaks of everything. We do not mean that it speaks of football games, of atoms, etc., directly, but we do mean that it speaks of everything either directly or by implication. It tells us not only of the Christ and his work, but it also tells us who God is and where the universe about us has come from. It tells us about theism as well as about Christianity. It gives us a philosophy of history as well as history. Moreover, the information on these subjects is woven into an inextricable whole. It is only if you reject the Bible as the word of God that you can separate the so-called religious and moral instruction of the Bible from what it says, e.g., about the physical universe.
This view of Scripture, therefore, involves the idea that there is nothing in this universe on which human beings can have full and true information unless they take the Bible into account. We do not mean, of course, that one must go to the Bible rather than to the laboratory if one wishes to study the anatomy of the snake. But if one goes only to the laboratory and not also to the Bible one will not have a full or even true interpretation of the snake...
A truly Protestant view of the assertions of philosophy and science can be self-consciously true only if they are made in the light of Scripture. Scripture gives definite information of a most fundamental character about all the facts and principles with which philosophy and science deal. For philosophy or science to reject or even ignore this information is to falsify the picture it gives of the field with which it deals.
This does not imply that philosophy and science must be exclusively dependent upon theology for their basic principles. It implies only that philosophy and science must, as well as theology, turn to Scripture for whatever light it has to offer on general principles and particular facts."
(Cornelius Van Til, Christian Apologetics, Second Edition, Ed. by Wm Edgar, P & R Publishing, 2003, pp 19, 20, 61)
Though I do favour Van Til's view of Scripture (as I understand it), over Dooyeweerd's (as I understand it), I nevertheless look forward to benefiting further from a more satisfactory grasp of both thinkers' insights into creational and Scriptural revelation, and the relation between these.
With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.
Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes. (Psalm 119:10-12)
"Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God." (Matthew 22:29)
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12. POST SCRIPTUM
Perhaps the closest I have gotten to grasping Dooyeweerd's view of Scripture is
as a result of the following passage in a lecture he gave in 1964. I have just
been re-reading it, and again I have found it helpful. On its own, however, it
is unlikely to switch our lights on. We need to have already walked a few
miles with Dooyeweerd to give it context. It is crucial to appreciate, for example, that
Dooyeweerd's famous panoply of "law-spheres" cannot be reduced to
"logic". How could it be a logicistic construct when
"logic" is one of the law-spheres in its own right? The law-spheres
are not something "thought up" by Dooyeweerd, anymore than the moons
of Jupiter were "thought up" by Galileo. The law-spheres are discoveries rather than inventions, though clarification is always ongoing. They are modes of
experiencing reality. Not mental concepts. Not rationalistic
projections. Not abstract speculations but experiential perspectives.
The law-spheres are different ways of
exploring reality. But reality cannot be reduced to any one of them. Not even
to "Logic". The attempt to reduce reality to Logic is rationalism.
When trying to understand Dooyeweerd, we must continually remind ourselves
of the vital distinction he makes between what is conceptual and what is
actual. Dooyeweerd is, to my mind, a heroic champion of the actual. And the
actual is where we find the Living Christ.
To repeat, for this is the nub of the matter, reality cannot be reduced to any
single law-sphere, not even to the Logical. Neither is reality exhausted by all the law-spheres in tandem. Why not? Because the
law-spheres are refractions of time, as colours are refractions of daylight.
Law-spheres are to do with experience of temporality. But reality
transcends time. How? In that nothing temporal has meaning "in
itself". All meaning flows from the Lord Who is the "Meaning-Giver". Christ transcends time - "From Him and through Him and to him are all things" (Romans 11:36). Man, being made in the image of God, also
transcends time, though in a created sense of course.
And Scripture transcends time. A Bible on
a shelf is both temporal and supratemporal. As temporal, it can be approached
and analysed in terms of each law-sphere - e.g. from the point of view of
mathematics, spatiality, movement, history, culture, sociology, linguistics,
aesthetics, logic, faith, and so on. But the Scripture cannot be reduced to any single one of these. Not even, I
emphasise yet again, to Logic. That would be rationalism. Logicism.
"Propositionalism".
And so this is the insight I am glimpsing.
It is not that the Scripture is without an aesthetic "footprint"
(to borrow a word from current media-speak). The fact that we could go out and buy a volume entitled something like
"The Bible to be Read as Literature" shows what a reductive aestheticism can turn
the Bible into. But are there any among us who would deny that such an approach
misses the central point of Scripture?
Likewise, the Scripture has a
rational (or propositional) "footprint". Now this gives rise to an interesting question. How many of
us would think that a rationalist reading of Scripture misses its central
point just as an aestheticist reading does? We hesitate. We hesitate because our evangelicalism is highly saturated
with rationalism through Thomistic and therefore Aristotelian currents of thought.
Certain Pharisees and Saducees thought they had everything pretty-much figured out
rationally (ie as a mental "map-making" exercise). But these
obsessive "cartographers" of Scripture crucified the Author of Life.
Why? Because in their own central time-transcending and law-sphere-transcending
actuality (ie in their own "heart") they had failed to engage with,
or surrender to, the central time-transcending and law-sphere-transcending
actuality (ie the "dunamis") of the Scriptural revelation. Despite life-long daily study of Scripture, they found themselves reviling the One Who fulfills Scripture.
We must not mistake theology (or philosophy) for reality. Even the best of theology is but a map. A paper exercise. Academic. This is certainly not to deprecate theology or rationality or propositionality. It is simply to distinguish between what is conceptual and what is actual. The map, however formally accurate, is not the actual journey. It is tested against the journey. Christ, Who said "I am the Way", is our journey.
Now the irony is that by saying what I am saying here I too am of course "map-making", even if my "map" is but a cursory sketch on a café napkin. Like Matthew, I must hasten to rise from my "receipt of custom" and follow, however stumblingly, that One who has called my ignoble name.
Is this to walk off into the mists of mysticism? No, it is to rather seek to walk in communion with the Living God. It was a Person, not a Proposition, Who created me, Who died for me, Who calls me into Life. Into Life which has an integral analytical aspect, but which cannot be reduced to the analytical. Scripture clearly endorses and models propositional thinking. Take the obvious example of Paul the Apostle. Paul's encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus was undoubtedly personal and existential (is any other kind of conversion possible?) But Paul was an exemplary "reasoner" - a superlative presenter of persuasive propositional argument. Moreover, as has been pointed out often enough from the pulpit, Paul had two very different apologetical approaches, depending on whether he was talking to Jews or to Gentiles. An example of the way he related to the Jewish community is given clearly in Acts 17: 2,3 - "As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead." A bit further down the chapter we find Paul following the same procedure at a Jewish synagogue in Berea. We are told that the Bereans "received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true" (Acts17:11). A few verses on and we find Paul in Athens. We glimpse Paul's two approaches in v 17 where we are told that "he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the market-place day by day with those who happened to be there ".
Two distinct audiences. The first "in the synagogue". The second "in the market-place". Let us notice that he "reasoned" in both contexts. In the synagogue he bases his arguments on a close-reading of Scripture. What about in the market-place? Well, let's take a closer look. In the market-place he finds himself in an exchange with "secular" philosophers (Epicureans and Stoics) who apparently have not the foggiest idea about the Jewish Scriptures. Their immediate reaction to him is one of condescension and dismissal: "What's this babbler on about?" (v 18). However, something about him must have impressed them, since they then take him to give it his best shot on the Areopagus. Now, the point we are arriving at, as we well know, is that Paul does not hit this audience with verses of Scripture. Rather he quotes from their own literary sources. From authors with whom they would be familiar and comfortable. He chooses quotations which allow him to address the basics - "Who are we? Where have we come from? Who is God." Paul reasons that if we are "divine offspring - as your own poets have said", then we cannot have a mineral or metallurgical origin (ie from a god made of gold or silver or stone). And so, he maintains, it must be a mistake to conceive of God in these materialist terms. Paul finds a context within the pagan audience which allows him to speak of Creator and Creation and the Nature of Man, and all without declaiming verses of Scripture as the beginning and end of the discussion.
In the same manner, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and expounded the truths of the Kingdom in parables involving everyday experience for everyday people. Christ the carpenter built bridges. Though He did quote Scripture, it seems in the main to have been to those who were already acquainted with Scripture, namely the teachers of the Law.
Note the respect Paul gives to the non-Christian ("humanist") thinking. He identifies Truth within it, then picks up on and reinforces that Truth. John Calvin also very forcibly argued that Truth was certainly forthcoming from non-Christian thought and that indeed Christians were culpable if they failed take it on board, not least because, Calvin insisted, all Truth comes from God, whatever the conduit [see purple Calvin quote in Part 4 above]. The assumption that no "Truth" is to be found in "worldly" ("secular") thinkers or philosophers is another pitfall of a prevalent form of evangelicalism, the irony being that this kind of evangelicalism is clearly itself under the worldly influence of Aristotle (via Aquinas) as reviewed above.
Such are my humble musings at this juncture. Here then is the relevant excerpt from the Dooyeweerd lecture:
Now the irony is that by saying what I am saying here I too am of course "map-making", even if my "map" is but a cursory sketch on a café napkin. Like Matthew, I must hasten to rise from my "receipt of custom" and follow, however stumblingly, that One who has called my ignoble name.
Is this to walk off into the mists of mysticism? No, it is to rather seek to walk in communion with the Living God. It was a Person, not a Proposition, Who created me, Who died for me, Who calls me into Life. Into Life which has an integral analytical aspect, but which cannot be reduced to the analytical. Scripture clearly endorses and models propositional thinking. Take the obvious example of Paul the Apostle. Paul's encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus was undoubtedly personal and existential (is any other kind of conversion possible?) But Paul was an exemplary "reasoner" - a superlative presenter of persuasive propositional argument. Moreover, as has been pointed out often enough from the pulpit, Paul had two very different apologetical approaches, depending on whether he was talking to Jews or to Gentiles. An example of the way he related to the Jewish community is given clearly in Acts 17: 2,3 - "As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead." A bit further down the chapter we find Paul following the same procedure at a Jewish synagogue in Berea. We are told that the Bereans "received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true" (Acts17:11). A few verses on and we find Paul in Athens. We glimpse Paul's two approaches in v 17 where we are told that "he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the market-place day by day with those who happened to be there ".
Two distinct audiences. The first "in the synagogue". The second "in the market-place". Let us notice that he "reasoned" in both contexts. In the synagogue he bases his arguments on a close-reading of Scripture. What about in the market-place? Well, let's take a closer look. In the market-place he finds himself in an exchange with "secular" philosophers (Epicureans and Stoics) who apparently have not the foggiest idea about the Jewish Scriptures. Their immediate reaction to him is one of condescension and dismissal: "What's this babbler on about?" (v 18). However, something about him must have impressed them, since they then take him to give it his best shot on the Areopagus. Now, the point we are arriving at, as we well know, is that Paul does not hit this audience with verses of Scripture. Rather he quotes from their own literary sources. From authors with whom they would be familiar and comfortable. He chooses quotations which allow him to address the basics - "Who are we? Where have we come from? Who is God." Paul reasons that if we are "divine offspring - as your own poets have said", then we cannot have a mineral or metallurgical origin (ie from a god made of gold or silver or stone). And so, he maintains, it must be a mistake to conceive of God in these materialist terms. Paul finds a context within the pagan audience which allows him to speak of Creator and Creation and the Nature of Man, and all without declaiming verses of Scripture as the beginning and end of the discussion.
In the same manner, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and expounded the truths of the Kingdom in parables involving everyday experience for everyday people. Christ the carpenter built bridges. Though He did quote Scripture, it seems in the main to have been to those who were already acquainted with Scripture, namely the teachers of the Law.
Note the respect Paul gives to the non-Christian ("humanist") thinking. He identifies Truth within it, then picks up on and reinforces that Truth. John Calvin also very forcibly argued that Truth was certainly forthcoming from non-Christian thought and that indeed Christians were culpable if they failed take it on board, not least because, Calvin insisted, all Truth comes from God, whatever the conduit [see purple Calvin quote in Part 4 above]. The assumption that no "Truth" is to be found in "worldly" ("secular") thinkers or philosophers is another pitfall of a prevalent form of evangelicalism, the irony being that this kind of evangelicalism is clearly itself under the worldly influence of Aristotle (via Aquinas) as reviewed above.
Such are my humble musings at this juncture. Here then is the relevant excerpt from the Dooyeweerd lecture:
______________________________________And now the word ‘religious Ground-motive’ must also apply with respect to the reformational direction of thought. What was its religious Ground-motive?To speak about religious Ground-motives was naturally unpleasant for a theology that still was based wholly on a scholastic standpoint, for it saw itself unmasked. It saw that in the dualistic view of what was called “nature and grace.” The natural domain, where the natural light of reason was sufficient in order to arrive at knowledge of natural truths–that this domain is not neutral as they declared, and that reason is not autonomous there. But in that way, they viewed nature in the light of a deeper religious Ground-motive that was not Biblical. The motive of nature and grace included the tendency towards accommodation, an accommodation of the Greek religious motive to the official teaching of the church. Yes, that was the purpose of the work Reformation and Scholasticism.And now, in the development that I have so briefly outlined, the development of the Philosophy of the Law-Idea in a rapidly changing time, the question always came up as to what was really the core [kern], the center, and what was the periphery [omtrek] in this philosophy. You are all my witnesses that from the very beginning I have said that, as philosophy, the Philosophy of the Law-Idea is human work, fallible. I have said that it requires no privileged position with respect to other philosophical systems. That is something that could easily happen, to hide oneself behind the name ‘Christian,’ or ‘reformational,’ and to say, “Yes, but this is a philosophy that is a better guarantee against error than the others.” No. Every time I have warned against that and with great emphasis. That is not the way it is. Philosophy itself remains human work. But it is human work that is directed from out of a spiritual driving force that does not come from man, but which comes forth from out of the Word of God, and which works in the community, de communio, Spiritus sanctus [sic], in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.Yes, whenever these Ground-motives–I am convinced that there still is much misunderstanding about them, also in our circle, also in the circle of our own Association. Some have become afraid when they have heard this and they have thought, “Here a selection is being made.” For the Ground-motive is described as that of creation, fall into sin and redemption through Jesus Christ in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. And then it is said, “And after this the Bible can remain closed. If that alone is the Ground-motive that leads this philosophy, then the Bible can remain closed.” Now, it was so difficult to remove this misunderstanding. For I have said that the Ground-motive is the key of knowledge of Holy Scripture, and a key serves in order to open something up. And what must be opened up, that is Holy Scripture. Thus the key belongs to Holy Scripture, and it is itself only to be understood from out of Holy Scripture. It is not something that is imposed upon it, but it is certainly something, this motive in its completely central, in its radical character, that completely fits with the revelation given by God in the beginning, in the first chapter of Genesis, of the creation of man according to the image of God. If you read that further in relation to everything that the Bible also teaches us about the religious center of human existence, then it must become clear that the divine revelation, the revelation of the Word, which became flesh, must be adapted to human existence as it was created by God. Otherwise there would be no revelation. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Christ became man. Jesus Christ, and lived among us. And God’s Word has spoken in our human language and in our human world and has thereby also entered our human horizon of experience. And just as man, who was created by God, with a great diversity of functions and structures with respect to his bodily existence, but with one central unity. The heart of his existence, that religious center, out of which are the issues of life, and which according to the order of creation was destined to concentrically direct all the powers that God had placed in the temporal world. These were to be directed in the service of love to God and to our neighbour as the bearer of the image of God. For our neighbour, too, is created according to the image of God.When you see that, then it is no longer strange that Holy Scripture also has a center, a religious center and a periphery, which belong to each other in an unbreakable way. That center is the spiritual dunamis, the spiritual driving force that proceeds from God’s Word in this central, all-inclusive motive of creation, revelation of the fall into sin, redemption through Jesus Christ in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. And naturally, we can also speak about creation as an article of faith, a doctrine, and that is also clear. Naturally. And one can theologize about that. Of course that can occur. It is also necessary. But when it concerns true knowledge of God and true knowledge of self, then we must say, “There is no theology in the world and no philosophy in the world that can achieve that for man. It is the immediate fruit of the working, the central working of God’s Word itself in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, in the heart, the radix, the root unity of human existence.”(“Center and Periphery: The Philosophy of the Law-Idea in a changing world” by Herman Dooyeweerd, Thursday, January 2, 1964. Lecture at the annual meeting of the Association for Calvinistic Philosophy, Translated by Dr. J. Glenn Friesen, pp 21-23)The full lecture is available on J. Glenn Friesens" site HERE.
Addendum
Book recommendation:
Refuting Compromise by Dr Jonathan Sarfati
A biblical and scientific refutation of ‘progressive creationism’ (billions of years) as popularized by astronomer Hugh Ross.
