Robert D. Knudsen's Calvinistic Philosophy lectures (Disks 5 and 6)

This is a continuation of the class lectures on Calvinistic Philosophy given by Robert D. Knudsen at Westminster Theological Seminary.  As before, the information in the audio recordings have not been validated for accuracy (use at your own risk).

Bavinck, part 2, J. Welcher (disk 5)

Bavinck’s position required that certain forms be in reality and that would be according to the Logos.  The mind abstracts the logical form that resides in the thing by nature.  Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd reject this idea.  They say that reality is not logical in nature and they reject the idea that forms are embedded in nature.

Now (Cornelius) Van Til has certain criticism of Bavinck.  Van Til follows Bavinck’s idea that God in his self-consciousness is the first principle of knowledge.  Van Til does criticize Bavinck of going on from that point and forgetting that he made God the first source of knowledge (Knudsen, at this point refers students to the writings of Van Til and to William Young’s treatment in Towards a Reformed Philosophy).

J. Welcher

(J. Welcher taught philosophy at the Free University at the same time as Kuyper was teaching theology)

Dooyeweerd said that the line he discovers in Kuyper namely that Kuyper not only had the idea that all of thought is subject to Jesus Christ and that one then must reform all of thought according to Christian principles but that he also in contra distinction to that did allow for a common ground and did allow for certain notions that were not completely dominated by a Christian point of view. 

Dooyeweerd said that this synthetic line is continued in a more consistent form by Welcher, because the latter builds his philosophy on the idea of the Logos.  Dooyeweerd maintain that this was a secondary point with Kuyper but a major point with Kuyper.  According to William Young discussion, Welcher referred to the treasure of science that is the spirit of man espiers after the knowledge of uniting love.  This has a platonic ring about it.  Welcher tried to discuss the ideal and the real and that there was no opposition between.  The ideal is also real but in a higher degree.  What is knowable in material things are just the ideas.  He differed from Kant in regarding these ideas as having objective reality.  Young says Welcher holds that the universals exists in the divine mind and in the thing.

For Welcher, time is the measure of reality.  Unity was more real than multiplicity.  Freedom is more real than being bound.  The genus is more real than the individual.

Now the question Young discusses and the type of question Dooyeweerd asks of this is rather significant because is it possible in the terms of the Christian idea of creation that God created all things, is it really correct that we begin to distinguish by some criteria that some things are more real than others in the cosmos?  Does this introduce dualism, Dooyeweerd says yes.

Valentine Hepp  (Bavinck’s successor at the Free University)

Hepp also followed in the line of Abraham Kuyper.  Hepp held that science is not self-sufficient but based upon principles and these are not gained by way of experience but by way of revelation in scripture.  There’s need for scripture because of the blindness of man caused by sin.  Now, Hepp stated that the created order is not known apart from special revelation, the principles of the philosophy of nature too resided in the witness of the Holy Spirit.  The data of nature are not contained in scripture, the scriptures are not a manual of science.  No scientific theory might violate a principle.

Now a non-Christian may attempt to conceal their presuppositions, but nevertheless bound by his imagination.  The non-Christian becomes mythical in his thought.  A Christian on the contrary lives by revelation.  It is the divine Logos who has made all things and reveals himself in them.

Hepp’s view of the testimony of the Holy Spirit, he thinks in terms of a distinction of subject and object (Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd will criticize this).  I as the viewing subject views the object of viewing.  Hepp maintain with regard to all knowledge there must be a point beyond subject and object.  Within that terrain we have the testimony of the Holy Spirit.  There is a testimony of the spirit within the Godhead and ad extra.  Hepp thought in terms of God objectifying himself in his son and returning to himself in the Holy Spirit.  Hepp maintained that all of our knowledge rests in the spirit.  All of our knowledge depends upon the spirit of God, the testimony of the Holy Spirit so all of our thinking beyond subject/object relation and guide it. 

It is the general testimony of the Spirit that imparts certainty to man.  Certainty is a subjective correlate of objective truth.  Now for Hepp, immediate certainty is of the highest grade.  It is not found in the subject nor the object.  Certainty is found beyond the creation (God).

Brief review of thinkers between Kuyper and WdW

1.     In these thinkers the idea of the antithesis was continued.  There’s the attempt to erect thought upon a Christian foundation.  This takes the form that science requires principles.

2.     They carry on the idea that this antithesis relates to the sovereignty of God, the heart of man and the radical influence of sin and redemption.

3.     There is some continuation of the idea that refused to exalt the intellect.

4.     They examined presupposition and their need for science.

5.     They continue on the notion that religion is the service of God with one’s whole heart in all terrains of life.

6.     They continue on the idea of Sphere-Sovereignty with reference to the structures of society.

Criticism from the standpoint of WdW.  This philosophy comes with the claimed to have proceeded further along the line of the reformation of philosophy.  How the WdW has attempted to go beyond

1.     They did not break with the Subject/Object scheme.

2.     They did not break with the Logos idea.  The issue is whether the cosmos is logical in nature.  Idea’s exists in the divine mind and in the thing itself.

3.     They did not break with the opposition of realism and idealism.

4.     They did not break with the dichotomy of body and soul.  They did not place logic within reality as one human function among others.

5.     They did not go beyond Kuyper in Sphere-Sovereignty (did not go beyond societal spheres) and place it on a firmer ontological foundation.

The Problem of a Starting Point, Stoker, part 1 (disk 6)

The common thread (effort) to bring to expression the radical significance of the Christian world and life view for the reformation of thought.  In each of them is an attempt to criticize and suppress anything that does not meet this standard.  Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd strove for a philosophy that is always in the process of reforming.  A philosophy that is reformed and always reforming.  H.G. Stoker attempted to make the principles of the reformation bear on the philosophy, science and problems of higher education.

With all due recognition of the unity of the movement, it is becoming increasing important to get back to the origins and to pay attention to the differences in their starting points.  Van Til has highlighted the difference between the earlier and later Dooyeweerd thinking.  This goes along the line of all the thinkers.

In recent studies (as of the lectures) there has been critical reflection upon the foundations and an attempt to go beyond the founders.

In 1933, H.G. Stoker at the University of Potchefstroom, heralded the advent of the Calvinistic Philosophy.  In his writing he discussed the problem of the starting point and presented several alternatives.  He discussed what he called the Archimedean point of Revelation (Bavinck), Law (Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd), and Creation (Stoker). 

Stoker maintained that God may not be regarded as the Archimedean point of Christian philosophy.  To make him such would be to destroy his sovereignty.  The Archimedean point must be a point where the cosmos can be viewed in its extrinsic unity in relationship to God.  It must therefore have a boundary character.

Revelation qualifies as a Archimedean point for a Christian philosophy.  It presupposes God as the revealer.  Revelation is a boundary between God and the cosmos and it gives to the cosmos a complete revelation of the thoughts of God.  If it is an Archimedean point, it can grasp the unity without doing violence to the diversity of the phenomena within the cosmos by destroying their individuality.  Bavinck attempted to show this in his Philosophy of Revelation, where he presented the idea of revelation as a means of avoiding on-sidedness of idealism/realism.  Stoker adds that revelation is a starting point of a reformed epistemology.  It involves a revealer, content and apprehension without destroying the individuality of any.  However, Stoker did not accept revelation as the Archimedean point, it does fulfill the idea of boundary idea between God and the cosmos.

Law also answer to the requirement of being a boundary between God and the cosmos.  It includes a lawgiver and that which is subject to the law.  It can give account of the formal unity of the cosmos to God and its distinctness from God.  In being subservient to the law everything is subservient to God.  The law idea preserves the original diversity within the cosmos.  Here God’s sovereignty comes to clearer expression than in the idea of revelation.  This boundary idea is not appropriate to epistemology, but it is appropriate to the cosmos in its entire extent.  The philosopher is bound by the law; he cannot know God as he is in himself.  It is idle to speculate concerning God.  To know God as he is in himself, one would have to rise above the Law and become like God but this would mean the destruction of his being.  Stoker had criticisms of law as Archimedean point.  The law idea as boundary becomes a formal idea.  Stoker believed that any Archimedean point must include both God and the cosmos.  This would disqualify the law given that God is not bound to the law.  If Stoker would allow for law as Archimedean point, a point of diversion would be eliminated between Stoker and Vollenhoven/Dooyeweerd.

In the estimation of Stoker, the creation idea rests in the revelation of Genesis 1:1 and it accounts for the formal unity of the cosmos.  The cosmos is the creation of God and God is the sovereign creator of the cosmos.  The cosmos is more than revelation and more than being subject to law.  The cosmos is creation, the Archimedean point.  The creation idea answers to the requirement of being an Archimedean point.  It connects the creation to God but the creation is not God himself.  It maintains at the same time the sovereignty of God over the cosmos.  Stoker thought that in developing the creation idea, he thought he was including both revelation and law.  The deepest sense of the cosmos is religious and the deepest essence of being is the service of God.  Stoker goes on, the service of God is not exhausted in the idea of meaningful subjection to law.  It is more than being subject to law.  It is free activity according to ones own sphere of competency.