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| Still Life by David Davidsz. de Heem (Dutch 1606-1683/4) |
In Christ, the root of the reborn creation, the transcendent fulness of individuality has been saved.
by Herman Dooyeweerd
(Extract from ‘A New Critique of Theoretical Thought’ Vol 2 pp 417-419)
§ 2 - THE ELIMINATION OF THE MODAL MEANING-INDIVIDUALITY
IN THE FORM-MATTER-SCHEME OF IMMANENCE-PHILOSOPHY.
The problem could not be solved, if the modal structures and the typical structures of individuality had no common root. The old problem of scholastic rationalistic metaphysics in its ‘realistic’ attitude, viz. the question: What is the principium individuationis? is insoluble and internally contradictory. This metaphysics started from the dialectical Greek form-matter motive which prevents the insight into the radical individual concentration of temporal reality in the human I-ness.
So the dialectical problem was born as to whether individuality originates from the essential form or from the matter of natural substances. If the latter solution was accepted the form in its pure essence was conceived of as a universale which can be only individualized by matter. But this individualization contradicted its ideal character. If the first solution was chosen the form seemed also to be deprived of its ideal nature.
In Greek metaphysics individuality was depreciated in principle. If religious primacy was ascribed to the form-motive individuality was conceived of as an apeiron, which in its ultimate indeterminateness is of no consequence for philosophy. If primacy was ascribed to the matter-motive, individuality was conceived as a guilt which must be reconciled by the dissolution of individual beings.
Matters are entirely different in the light of our Christian cosmonomic Idea. According to the latter there cannot be in creation any dialectical tension between the universal and the ultimate individuality of things and events. The universal is inherent in the law-side, the ultimate individual is essential to the subject-side of our earthly cosmos, in a strict correlation of these two sides of creation. This correlation is maintained in the religious root of our empirical world. Consequently there can be no question of a depreciation either of the individuality of factual things and events or of the universal trait inherent in the Divine order of laws.
In Christ, the root of the reborn creation, the transcendent fulness of individuality has been saved. The ‘corpus Christianum’ in its radical religious sense is not a colourless conceptual abstraction without any individuality. Rather it is, according to the striking metaphor used by St. Paul, a religious organism in which the individuality of its members is ultimately revealed in all its fulness and splendour. Individuality, in other words, is rooted in the religious centre of our temporal world: all temporal individuality can only be an expression of the fulness of individuality inherent in this centre. However obfuscated by sin, it springs from the religious root.
If the modalities of meaning are temporal refractions of the religious fulness of meaning, then the fulness of individuality must also be refracted prismatically within the modal aspects, and temporal individuality must be diversified in all the meaning-modalities. The modal meaning-structure can only function in the temporal coherence of the law-spheres. Therefore the modal individuality of meaning can only be understood from the temporal coherence of all the modalities of individuality.
The insight into the transcendent-religious root and the immanent cosmic meaning-coherence of the modalities of individuality necessarily implies that there is not a single law-sphere that may be considered as the exclusive origin of individuality. The cosmonomic Idea also here proves to be of universal and fundamental importance to the sense in which philosophical problems are understood.
On the immanence-standpoint it is impossible to recognize the modal all-sidedness of individuality. It is immaterial whether in a rationalistic way individuality is degraded to a phenomenon, or, conversely, whether it is absolutized in one of its aspects (e.g., the psychical, historical, aesthetic, ethical modus) in an irrationalistic conception. In both cases the insight into the radical sense of individuality and into its true relation to the universal character of law is lost sight of.
Nominalism in its older as well as in its more modern varieties may assert that all things are individual in themselves and on their own account, and that the universal is only a subjective abstraction in the human mind. But Nominalism must do the same thing as Realism did, though in the opposite direction, viz. it must eliminate the cosmic coherence of meaning and enclose the true reality of things in certain meaning-aspects. On this standpoint the insight into the modal all-sidedness of individuality is equally impossible.
The ultimate cause which prevents immanence-philosophy from doing justice to individuality is always to be found in the dialectical character of its religious basic motives. Not only the Greek form-matter motive but also the modern Humanistic motive of nature and freedom are involved in a dialectical tension between the individual and the universal in the point of departure of the philosophic view of reality.
Thus in all immanence-philosophy the richness of meaning of individuality revealed in the modalities of the law-spheres has to suffer from a process of schematic impoverishment. This impoverishment is most clearly manifested in the metaphysical and in the modern critical form-matter scheme.
(Extracted from Herman Dooyeweerd’s
‘A New Critique of Theoretical Thought’ Vol 2 pp 417-419)
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Cf with Thesis 62 (page 443) of J. Glenn Friesen’s ‘Neo-Calvinism and Christian Theosophy: Franz von Baader, Abraham Kuyper, Herman Dooyeweerd’ (Kindle)
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