Robert D. Knudsen's Calvinistic Philosophy lectures (Disk 1 and 2)

I will be posting my notes from listening to lectures on Calvinistic Philosophy given by Dr. Robert D. Knudsen at Westminster Theological Seminary.  The date of these class lectures is unknown to me.  I purchased the lectures from the WTS bookstore.  The notes are "as is" from the audio as I have not validated any of the information contained (use at your own risk).
 

Introduction (Disk 1)

When Herman Bavinck retired two professors were appointed in his place at the Free University of Amsterdam.  Bavinck had taught philosophy and theology.  In theology he was replaced by Valentine Hepp; Philosophy was given to D.H.Th. Vollenhoven.  Also, in 1926 in the faculty of law, Herman Dooyeweerd was appointed.

Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd (who were brothers-in-law, Vollenhoven was married to Dooyeweerd’s sister) developed a Christian philosophy known as the philosophy of the law idea or cosmonomic idea (Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee or WdW).

Soon this philosophy began to draw the interest of others who were in the Calvinistic tradition (outside of the Netherlands). H.G. Stoker who was a student of Max Scheler (German Philosopher) and he attempted to give individual expression to WdW in South Africa.  In the USA Van Til expressed interest in WdW for reformed apologetics.  Josef Bohatec an Austria Calvin scholar.

This philosophy is of interest to use because of the following considerations

1.     It claims to be the first attempt to erect a consistent Christian philosophy base on the principles of the Reformation.

2.     It had been able to attract a number of able followers and form a school that has attracted notice has been influential in Calvinistic circles and beyond.  This influence will grow.

3.     The philosophy is undergoing development, new statements being made and old positions elaborated in vital areas.  The examples give are the relation of theology and philosophy and philosophical anthropology (Dooyeweerd called this the crown of his philosophy).  There are questions relating to law, technology, etc.

4.     The movement is subject to discussion and criticism in Christian circles.  This discussion is swelling rather than diminishing.  Places such as the Institute for Christian Studies, Dordt College, Calvin College, Westminster Theological Seminary, The Christian Study Center (Memphis, TN), the Association for Public Justice (The Center for Public Justice).  This philosophy is worthy of critical examination.  Knudsen attempts to present each item accurately as he can and then a critical stance.

WdW is seeking to erect for the first time a philosophical framework (Ontology, Epistemology, Ethics, etc.) based upon the principles of the reformation.  If philosophy is an attempt to gain by theoretical means a universal view of the world and all of its aspects and their mutual interdependence and coherence does it not assume a universal adequate agent of philosophic inquiry?  If philosophy is what we say it is, does it not assume a universal adequate agent?

Criticisms of WdW

-       Etienne Gilson

o      It is impossible to erect a philosophy on a Reformational basis.

o      The view that man is totally depraved, and that truth can only be arrived at based upon revelation from God makes it impossible to erect a Christian philosophy.  Totally depravity disqualifies the philosophical agent.

o      Philosophy on the basis of Divine revelation you are not philosophizing but theologizing.  It would destroy philosophy in any true sense.

o      RCC there is universal reason that is injured by the fall into sin it is essentially sound and it can be aided by Grace.  It is possible for reason to act as a preamble of grace.

-       Karl Barth

o      Rejected the idea of a Christian philosopher.

o      Barth was dependent upon Soren Kierkegaard.  Kierkegaard held that the truth can be framed in such a way that everyone can grasp by everyone directly.  He came to the conclusion that Christianity could not be grasped directly but only indirectly through the consciousness of sin and acknowledgement of guilt.  He thought Philosophy and Christianity were diametrically apposed to one another.

o      Barth claimed that a Christian philosophy is a bastard concept.  There cannot be a wholesome wedding of Christianity and philosophy.  He admitted Theology employs philosophical concepts but, theology if fundamentally aloof from them.  Freer still is God and His revelation.  To suppose otherwise is to leave evangelical truth.

The situation is further complicated by the dialectical theology of Barth and the view of the antithesis between theology and philosophy claim to be following in the line of the pure motives of the reformation and its opposition to the analogy of being idea of RCC.  It denied that there can be a general philosophical framework that can embrace both God and man. Barth was against this.  Furthermore contact with God could only have had by an encounter apart from general philosophical considerations.  It can only be had in a once for all revelation in Jesus Christ.

It has been pointed out by William Young (Towards a Reformed Philosophy: The Development of a Protestant Philosophy in Dutch Calvinist Thought Since the Time of Abraham Kuyper.) the dialectical theology of Karl Barth stands on the side of Martin Luther than of John Calvin.  Although Martin Luther confessed the central signficance of the sovereignty of God and the claim of the grace of Christ to penetrate all of life, he never overcame the influence of the nominalistic training at Erfurt.  The nominalism of the late middle ages had replaced the attempt of synthesis that characterized the high middle-ages.  If nature had been regarded to be a relatively independent permeable to grace and grace as a completion of and not a contradiction of the truths of reason; nominalism grace and revelation stood against nature and reason.  This dualism ran throughout Luther’s thought.

Luther according to Dooyeweerd did not admit there was an organic connection between nature and grace.  He emphasized the freedom of the Christian man inwardly is free from the world with its orders and its laws.  In the estate of sin man is bound to the temporal ordnances and laws; to them he subjects himself to the will of God.  We must suffuse the world with our Christian love.  Nevertheless he is not subject to the world in his deeper self.  Dooyeweerd maintains that Luther maintained this dualism in the church.  The organization of the visible church was something indifferent to be left to the state.  An antithesis was drawn between the spiritual and natural with a depreciation of the latter.  Dualism permeates Luther’s thought.

 

Calvin’s View as Interpreted by the Calvinistic Philosophy (disk 2)

In Luther you have an inherent dualism between law and the Christian in his inner self and is not subject to it.

WdW proceeds from the very idea that ourselves in our innermost being we are subject to the law.

Dooyeweerd goes on to say that Luther’s nominalism did not allow him to have a reformation of all scientific endeavor.  Luther moved in the Ockamistic sphere of the separation of faith and science with a depreciation of the latter.

Luther said science was the whore of reason.  He condemned all of ancient philosophy and the scholastic attempt at synthesis of faith and reason.

Calvin avoided the statements of Luther and influence of late medieval thought. 

Calvin’s view as interpreted by the proponents of WdW:

1. Calvin confessed the sovereignty of God over all aspects of life.
2. In line with the Christian doctrine of creation he denied that man is independent and God is not set over against man in an either-or.
3. Calvin had an understanding of the radical sense of the fall and redemption.  That means that if we have these dislocations in the world, it is due to the radical effect of the fall and the redemption of God needs to penetrate these things.  Redemption is just as radical as the fall.
4. Calvin’s position is without the dualism of Luther and had a clearer notion of the wholeness of created reality.  God created the world as a unity and if dualisms arise they are because of sin and in need of redemption.
5. Calvin did not have any opposition of law and gospel.  He did not have a spiritualistic position, as if there were a realm of the spirit that is separate. 
6. Between God and man is the boundary of the law.  This is a major point of WdW.  Man in all his endeavors may not transgress this boundary.  We may not speculate about God past what he has revealed.  Everything in the creation is subject to God’s law.  God himself is free from the law.  This is within the spirit of Calvin.
7. Calvin held a fundamental unity of the divine ordinances.  There is no basis for a natural theology.  Everything is dependent upon God and his revelation and subject to the law.

The reformational emphasis of Calvin was lost again in an attempt to erect a synthesis between Christianity and autonomous human though.  Melancton tried to synthesize Christianity with revived scholasticism of Aristotle and then humanism and this spirit of synthesis came to dominate the spirit of learning and that eliminated considering all of life from a radically Christian standpoint.  The law boundary was forgotten and elevation of human reason.  Does reason have an independence from revelation?  A synthesis thinking attempts to interpret Christianity in a way conformable that arises outside the foundation of restoration by Jesus.  A radical Christian reformational position will see all of thought in the light of the radical restoration of Jesus Christ.

Abraham Kuyper (1837 – 1920)

 (NOTE: Here Knudsen gave a lot of biographical on Kuyper.  I have not included it here given that the same information can be found in many places on the net, books, etc.)

According to WdW he was the person before all others who discovered the radical Christian standpoint from which a radical Christian philosophy could be constructed.

Kuyper thought to present a Calvinism appropriate for his time; it has therefore been called Neocalvinism.  According to Dooyeweerd, Kuyper's major contribution is the Lecutures on Calvinism.  These were the Stone Lectures given at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1898. 

Kuyper’s central principle is found in the absolute sovereignty of God over his creation.  This for Kuyper was not just in terms of election and predestination, but rather it was the general cosmological principle of God’s lordship over his creation.

1.     Kuyper’s central principle is found in the absolute sovereignty of God over his creation.  It is the general cosmological principle of God’s lordship over his creation.

2.     A second principle is that the heart of man is the focal point of all his activities.  Where does our being come to a focus?  In the heart of man is the focal point of all his activities.  God is not sovereign of just part but all of man’s being.

3.     Every legitimate area of life potentially is a calling from God.

The heart of man is to be turned to God and will implicate all his activities in services of God.  The meaning of religion is the service to God with all one’s heart in every area of life, all of life is religion.  There is no sacred/secular distinction.  There is no dualism between the sacred and secular.  All of life must be put into service of its make and it must also be seen as it points back to its maker.  This service must be in accordance with our calling.  One must not think of his daily task as along side service to God and religion.  The Christian layman has as much responsibility to honor Christ as one who is ordained as a minister.  One must not think of his daily task as parallel with their service to God.

Two meanings of the word ‘Religion.’

1.     The service of God with his/her whole heart in every area of life (all of life is religion).

2.     The worship of God at a particular place in time accompanied by the elements of worship (Cultic side of religion).

If we reserve the word religion to the latter rather than the former and we restrict it and withdraw part of life from it; the idea of the heart of as the focus of all his activities is the correlate of the idea that God is as sovereign over all of life and that requires allegiance in all of life belongs to God and that is the meaning of religion.