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Read also:“Dooyeweerd at the Movies:‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’” |
Herman Dooyeweerd:
TIME, ETERNITY and SELFHOOD
“Ons Archimedisch punt, dat ons zelfbewustzijn (de crux van alle humanistische kennistheorie!) bepaalt, doet ons de tijdelijke werkelijkheid zien als een uiterst gedifferentieerde zin-breking van de religieuze zin-volheid van onzen kosmos doorhet prisma van den kosmischen tijd, welken tijd wij in den religieuzen wortel van ons zelfbewustzijn, in boventijdelijke zelf-heid transcendeeren, doch waarin wij metal onze tijdelijke bewustzijns- en andere kosmische functies tevens immanent verkeeren.” (Herman Dooyeweerd, De crisis der humanistische staatsleer in het licht eener calvinistische kosmologie en kennistheorie, Boekhandel W. ten Have, Amsterdam 1931, p93)https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/dooy002cris01_01/colofon.php
“Our Archimedean point determines our self-consciousness (the crux of all humanist epistemology) and makes us see temporal reality as an exceedingly differentiated refraction of the religious fullness of meaning of our cosmos via the prism of cosmic time, which time we transcend in the religious root of our self-consciousness, in our supratemporal selfhood, but in which we at the same time dwell immanently with all our temporal consciousness and other cosmic functions.” (Herman Dooyeweerd: The Crisis in Humanist Political Theory, As seen from a Calvinist cosmology and epidemiology, Paideia Press, 2010, p 73)
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| TEMPORAL LAW-SPHERES AS REFRACTIONS OF SUPRA-TEMPORAL MEANING |
One can say that all genesis, all becoming and passing away, do take place within time, but not that time itself is becoming. Rather, within cosmic time, an initial distinction is required between (a) a law-side, and (b) a factual side subject to the former. These two sides co-exist in an unbreakable coherence.
According to its law-side cosmic time is the structural time-order embracing the entire temporal reality. As such, time bears a constant and transcendental character, that is to say, it makes possible temporal reality in its immanent structure.
This invariant cosmic time structure serves as the foundation both for the constant structures of the temporal modalities of reality (those of number, space, motion, organic life, feeling, and so on), and for the individuality structures of things, events, societal relationships, etc. etc. The individuality structures overarch the aspects and group them in different ways into individual totalities.
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The 15 IRREDUCIBLE LAW-SPHERES of COSMIC TIME (Also called Aspects/ Modes of consciousness/ Modalities/ Meaning-sides) |
According to its factual side time can be called duration in moments, and it soon becomes apparent that this "duration" can never be "empty": it can never be separated from the factual side of temporal reality, no more than it can exist outside the universal time-structure, outside the horizon of time. On no account should this duration be identified with one of its modal aspects, such as the duration of motion, emotional duration or historical duration. On the contrary, its cosmic continuity is of a supra-modal character which pervades and overarches all law-spheres.
The whole of temporal reality, within its time-structure, has a certain cosmic duration which flows through its modal aspects in a supra-temporal continuum.
This cosmic duration within the time-structure can only be experienced by the human being, who has a supra-temporal center of its temporal existence, the heart, in which eternity was placed.
Time can only be experienced in its relation to created eternity (the aevum, as it is called in Scholasticism, in opposition to the aeternitas increata, the uncreated eternity of God).
All immanent temporal time-measurement, for example in hours, minutes and seconds, in the final analysis remains external and as such cannot provide us with an awareness of time. Our intuition of time, which itself cannot be grasped conceptually, is undeniably rooted in the identity of our selfhood, in the transcendent center of our existence. All that restlessness in our experience of time, as Augustine already realized from a truly Christian point of view, derives from the heart, from the stirring of time and eternity in the innermost depths of our existence.
(Excerpt from Herman Dooyeweerd, TIME, LAW,and HISTORY: Selected Essays, Collected Works, Series B — Volume 14, Translated by Daniël Strauss, General Editor Daniël Strauss, 2017, pp 3-5)
Purchase options and free PDF of volume HERE:
http://herman-dooyeweerd.blogspot.com
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COMMENT:
ARCHIMEDEAN POINT = MELCHIZEDEK POINT?
Currently reading Hebrews. Just powerfully realised that Dooyeweerd’s “Archimedean Point” could well have been inspired by Hebrews 6:19,20 -
“Sure and steadfast anchor of the soul (heart)” —
So could the Archimedean Point even be called the Melchizedek Point? :
“This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” (Hebrews 6:19,20)
I am remembering that Andree Troost in his book “What is Christian Philosophy: An Introduction to the Cosmonomic Philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd (Paedeia Press, 2020) helpfully relates Dooyeweerd’s “supratemporal” feature to Melchizedek.
But the “Archimedean Point” thing has hit home with me personally just now, having been reading Hebrews daily, then this evening reading the following passage from Dooyeweerd:
“Right from the beginning the Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea related the problem of time to that of the true character of reality, the being of what is. Since this insight into the ‘being of what is’ is entirely dependent on the choice of the Archimedean point or the transcendent starting-point of philosophical thought, and since the latter in turn determines the understanding of the cosmonomic idea as a foundation for philosophy, it should not be surprising as well that the philosophical treatment of the problem of time will faithfully mirror the assumed cosmonomic idea. On the immanence standpoint the problem of time becomes a wellspring of antinomies. The basic antimony of all immanence philosophy, after all, is the choice of Archimedean point within temporal reality itself. This antimony must then be camouflaged through the primary absolutisation of temporal aspects of meaning in which the thinker believes he can find its time-transcendent starting-point. But this primary absolutisation, through which the aspects or modalities concerned are apparently elevated above the universal temporal coherence prevailing between them, causes one to disregard the cosmic universality of time. No single absolutisation of a temporal aspect into a supra-temporal, self-contained resting point for philosophical thought, can indeed elevate that thought above time. This is the basic antimony of metaphysical immanence philosophy, which, for all its attempts to break through the bondage to time by means of metaphysical concepts, is itself only possible by the grace of time.”
(Herman Dooyeweerd, TIME, LAW, and HISTORY: Selected Essays, Paideia Press 2017, pp 1,2)
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IMPORTANT NOTE:DOOYEWEERD: Well, the term 'Archimedean point' is derived from a saying of the great Greek natural scientist Archimedes, the defender of Syracuse during the Roman sea attack [vlootaanval]. He said, "Give me a point where I can stand, and I will move the earth." He had brought [physical] mechanics to a rather high degree of perfection so that this [saying] was something that was possible in early Greek thought. The Archimedean point is derived from this saying. In philosophy, it is necessary to have a point where we can stand, and from which we can obtain a view of totality over the whole of human experience in time, within time, within the order of time.
VERBRUGGE: A kind of lookout post?
DOOYEWEERD: A kind of a lookout post, but one that is set up in such a way that you cannot look out from a particular point of view that is contained within our temporal world of experience [onze tijdelijke ervaringswereld]. The viewpoint is one that transcends our temporal world of experience. And from that viewpoint we can indeed obtain a view over the whole. But as long as we remain within that of which we want to obtain an overview, we can only receive a view from out of a particular viewpoint [een bepaalde gezichtshoek].
VERBRUGGE: You have to transcend it.
DOOYEWEERD: You have to transcend it [je moet er bovenuit]. Indeed.
VERBRUGGE: And what is now the Archimedean point that you have chosen, or found?
DOOYEWEERD: Yes. I currently no longer use the term, and I in fact have not done so for quite some time. It was a term that I used in particular when I was working out the ideas of the Philosophy of the Law-Idea in its first edition, the Dutch edition. I used the term at that time, and I needed it in order to distinguish my standpoint from other views at the time that sought their point of departure within the temporal world itself.* In particular, they sought their standpoint in logical thought, or in sensory perception, or in some other particular point of view or particular aspect of our experience. So that is the Archimedean point, and we seek for it.
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*Footnote by J Glenn Friesen: The important point here is that Dooyeweerd's philosophy begins from a standpoint that is not within the temporal world. Without his idea of the supratemporal selfhood, which stands outside of time, we cannot understand his philosophy or any part of it. Dooyeweerd has said that the theoretical attitude of thought, the Gegenstand-relation cannot be understood apart from this. The idea of the mutual irreducibility of the modal aspects can also not be understood apart from this supratemporal standpoint. The Christian Ground-motive of creation, fall and redemption depends upon it, for Dooyeweerd understands these ideas in their supratemporal religious root. And even our understanding of Word-revelation and of Christ's incarnation depends on it.
And let us immediately clarify and emphasise most forcefully that Friesen’s latter statement that “The Christian Ground-motive of creation, fall and redemption depends upon it [this supratemporal standpoint], for Dooyeweerd understands these ideas in their supratemporal religious root” in no way divorces “creation, fall and redemption” from everyday grounded reality but contrariwise guarantees (rescues) concrete existence in an exhaustively comprehensive manner: “A body didst Thou prepare for me” (Heb 10:5). [FMF]
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