HERMAN DOOYEWEERD: LAW, CREATIONAL ORDINANCES, DECALOGUE 

(Extract from Roots of Western Culture)

PRO CALVIN / CONTRA ANABAPTISTS

We have already referred to one of CALVIN's statements that occurs several times in his writings: "Deus legibus solutus est" (God is not bound  to the Law). This statement necessarily implies that all of the creation is subject to the Law. Christ has freed us from the ‘law of sin’ and from the Jewish ceremonial law. But the cosmic law, in its religious fulness and temporal diversity of meaning, is not a burdensome yoke imposed upon us because of sin, but it is a blessing in Christ. Without its determination and limitation, the subject would sink away into chaos. Therefore, Calvin recognized the intrinsic subjection of the Christian to the Decalogue, and did not see any intrinsic antinomy between the central commandment of love as the religious root of God’s ordinances, and the juridical or economic law-spheres, or the inner structural law of the state. Anabaptists lost sight of the religious root of the temporal laws, and consequently placed the Sermon on the Mount, with its doctrine of love, in opposition to civil ordinances. CALVIN strongly opposed this error. He proceeded from the radical religious unity of all temporal divine regulations and could therefore radically combat each absolutization of a temporal aspect of the full Law of God, as well as every spiritualistic revolution against the state and its legal order: "Christ has not received the mandate to loosen or to unbind the Law, but rather to restore the true and pure understanding of its commands which had been badly deformed by the false devices of the Scribes and the Pharisees." (Inst. II, 8, 26). (Herman Dooyeweerd, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol 1, p 518) 

PRO CREATION ORDER / CONTRA BARTH

Some may object by posing the following questions: Is such an intricate investigation really necessary to gain insight into God's ordinances for historical development? Is it not true that God revealed his whole law in the ten commandments? Is this revelation not enough for the simple Christian? I answer with counter questions: Is it not true that God placed all the spheres of temporal life under his laws and ordinances — the laws that govern numerical and spatial relationships, physical and chemical phenomena, organic life, emotional feeling, logical thinking, language, economic life, and beauty? Are not all these laws, without exception, grounded in God's creation order? Can we find explicit scriptural texts for all of them? If not, shall we not acknowledge that God put the painstaking task to humankind to discover them? And admitting this, can we still hold that it makes no difference whether in this search we start from the ground-motive of the Word of God or are guided by unscriptural ground-motives?

Those who think they can derive truly scriptural principles for political policy formation solely from explicit Bible texts have a very mistaken notion of the nature of Scripture. They see only the letter, forgetting that the Word of God is spirit and power which must penetrate our whole attitude of life and thought. God's Word-revelation puts people to work. It claims the whole of our being; where death and spiritual complacency once held sway in us, it wants to conceive new life. Spiritually lethargic people would rather have the ripe fruits of God's revelation fall into their laps, but Jesus Christ tells us that wherever the seed of God's Word falls on good soil, we ourselves must bear fruit.Today Christians face a fundamental question, namely, what historical yardstick do we possess in this new age for distinguishing between the reactionary and the substantially progressive directions in history? We cannot derive this criterion from the ten commandments, for they were not meant to save us from investigating God's creational ordinances. To answer this basic question, one needs insight into the specific ordinances that God established for historical development. It requires in-depth investigation. Our search will be protected against derailment if the creation motive of God's Word obtains complete control in our thinking.

But I already hear another objection, coming this time from the followers of Karl Barth. The objection is this: what do we know of the original ordinances of creation? How can we speak so confidently of creation ordinances, as if the fall had never happened? Did not sin change them in such a way that they are now ordinances for sinful life? My reply is as follows:

The ground-motive of the divine Word-revelation is an indivisible unity. Creation, fall, and redemption cannot be separated. But Barthians virtually make such a separation when they confess that God created all things but refuse to let this creation motive completely permeate their thinking. Did God reveal himself as the Creator so that we could brush this revelation aside? I venture to say that whoever ignores the revelation of creation understands neither the depth of the fall nor the scope of redemption. Relegating creation to the background is not scriptural. Just read the Psalms, where the devout poet rejoices in the ordinances that God decreed for creation. Read the book of Job, where God himself speaks to his intensely suffering servant of the richness and depth of the laws which he established for his creatures. Read the gospels, where Christ appeals to the creational ordinance for marriage in order to counter those who aimed at trapping him.

Finally, read Romans 1:19-20, where the creational ordinances are explicitly included in the general revelation to the human race. Whoever holds that the original creational ordinances are unrecognisable for fallen humankind because they were supposedly fundamentally altered by the advent of sin, essentially ends up denying the true significance of God’s common grace which maintains these ordinances. Sin did not change the creational decrees but the direction of the human heart, which turned away from its Creator. Undoubtedly, this radical fall impacts the way in which humankind discloses the powers that God enclosed in creation.

The fall affects natural phenomena, which humankind can no longer control. It impacts itself in theoretical thought led by an idolatrous ground-motive. It appears in the subjective way in which humankind gives form to the principles established by God in his creation as norms for human action. The fall made special institutions necessary, such as the state and the church in its institutional form. But even these special institutions of general and special grace are based upon the ordinances that God established in his creation order. Neither the structures of the various aspects of reality, nor the structures that determine the nature of concrete creatures, nor the principles which serve as norms for human action, were altered by the fall. A denial of this leads to the unscriptural conclusion that the fall is as broad as creation; i.e., that the fall destroyed the very nature of creation. This would mean that sin plays a self-determining, autonomous role over against God, the creator of all. Whoever maintains such a position denies the absolute sovereignty of God and grants Satan a power equal to that of the Origin of all things. Certainly, then, this objection from the Barthian camp may not keep us from searching for the divine order for historical development as revealed in the light of the creation motive.

(Herman Dooyeweerd, ‘Roots of Western Culture: Pagan, Secular, and Christian’

PDF DOWNLOADS OF BOOKS BY HERMAN DOOYEWEERD

GILLES KEPEL : Les bouleversements géopolitiques en Moyen-Orient/Méditerranée et leurs effets en France (25 Mar 2026)

US leadership in Putin’s Pocket: Professor Scott Lucas interviewed by Daniel Tkiie (14 March 2026)

 

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Philip Ingram analyses a seismic shift in modern warfare.

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Hungary is 'the Kremlin's biggest agent in the EU'

Communication crises continue to scupper Russian offensives while Ukrainian drone tactics have pushed severe casualty rates above recruitment, says Jimmy Rushton, geopolitical analyst and Kyiv based journalist on Frontline.

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DOOYEWEERD: NORMS AND NORMATIVITY

Pieter de Hooch: Courtyard of a House in Delft (1658)

DOOYEWEERD:

NORMS AND NORMATIVITY

No doubt there occur female feelings in men, and male feelings in women. But this cannot be established without a standard for male and female feeling.

To point out effeminacy in a man’s emotional life, implies a normative structural principle lying at the foundation of this statement.

The whole social reality as such, what we call social facts, can only be ascertained by the application of norms and lines of responsibility. For example, if I say that there is a marriage between A and B, then I undoubtedly have a social relationship in view, which also has its juridical aspect. But it is a real social relationship. It is a social fact that this is a marriage. But I cannot establish that fact without the application of norms. How else would I be able to distinguish marriage from concubinage or from a relationship of free love? And so on.”

Actually, whenever one speaks of the contrast between “historical” and “unhistorical” and calls unhistorical action “reactionary,” one accepts the existence of truly historical norms. When one characterizes a certain political trend as “reactionary” one makes a historical value judgment that presupposes the application of a norm for historical development.

The contrast between historical and unhistorical action refers back to the opposition found in the logical aspect of reality between what agrees with the norm for thought and what conflicts with this norm. If a person contradicts himself in a logical argument, we accuse him of arguing illogically. The logical/illogical contrast presupposes that our thought function is placed under logical norms that can be transgressed. 

Among the various aspects of reality the aspect of logical distinction is the first that displays a contrast between what ought to be and what ought not to be. The divine ordinances or laws for all subsequent aspects are normative in character. Norms are standards of evaluation, and as such they can be employed only by creatures who, endowed with a logical function, are capable of rational distinction.

A norm exists only for creatures who are responsible for their own behaviour and who are accountable for conduct that transgresses norms. Our ability to give account in this way is possible only on the basis of the faculty of logical judgment. Surely, no one would hold a sick plant or animal responsible for the abnormal functioning of its organism. No one would blame it for its sickness. Yet, we do hold someone accountable for arguing illogically. 

Accountability is also at stake when we blame a political movement for its reactionary attitude toward historical development, or when we say of someone that he behaves antisocially, expresses himself ungrammatically, runs his business uneconomically, writes poor poetry, acts unjustly, conducts himself immorally, or lives in unbelief.

(Herman Dooyeweerd, from ‘A New Critique of Theoretical Thought’, & ‘Roots of Western Culture’)

RÉPLIQUES par Alain Finkielkraut - la République de Weimar (France Culture - Radio France podcast - 21 juin 2025)

Répliques - par : Alain Finkielkraut - 

Au lendemain de la Première Guerre mondiale, la République de Weimar était proclamée et l'Allemagne montrait au monde son autre visage. Les défilés nazis y mirent fin : que s'est-il passé pour que Hitler arrivât au pouvoir ? - réalisation : François Caunac - invités : Johann Chapoutot Historien, professeur à l’Université Paris-Sorbonne et chroniqueur pour le journal Libération.

La République de Weimar fut le nom donné par les historiens au régime politique en place en Allemagne de 1918 à 1933. Au lendemain de la Première Guerre mondiale, c'est à Weimar que siégea l'Assemblée qui avait pour mission de dresser le cadre constitutionnel de la République allemande. Comme l'écrit Jean-Paul Bled dans La République de Weimar, ce choix a "une valeur symbolique forte puisqu'il rattache la jeune République à la tradition humaniste de Goethe et de Schiller".

L'Allemagne avait retrouvé sa place, tout semblait bien parti, mais ce tout ne dura que 14 années. La tradition humaniste de Goethe et de Schiller n'aura pas fait le poids devant Hitler. Le dénouement tragique avec l'arrivée d'Hitler au pouvoir était-il inévitable ? Qui furent les premiers irresponsables ? Pouvait-on prévoir Hitler ?Quelles leçons tirer de Weimar ? Quels liens existe-t-il entre 1932 et 2025 ? 

Alain Finkielkraut reçoit, pour répondre à ces questions, Johann Chapoutot, historien spécialiste d'histoire contemporaine, du nazisme et de l'Allemagne, auteur de Les irresponsables, Qui a porté Hitler au pouvoir ?

Professor Robert Black KC at Scottish Sovereignty Research Group Conference: ‘1707 Treaty of Union - For England Nothing Changed, For Scotland Everything Changed’ (17 May 2025)

RÉPLIQUES - par : Alain Finkielkraut : Qui sont les nouveaux maîtres du monde et qu'ont-ils à nous apprendre ? Invité : Giuliano da Empoli (17 mai 2025)

Répliques - par : Alain Finkielkraut - Qui sont ces prédateurs d'aujourd'hui qui ont pour orgueil commun de penser que leur moment est arrivé ? - réalisation : Alexandra Malka - invité : Giuliano da Empoli Essayiste, romancier et ancien conseiller politique de Matteo Renzi.

 FRANCE CULTURE : ALAIN FINKIELKRAUT : RÉPLIQUES