Robert D. Knudsen's Calvinistic Philosophy lectures (Disks 12 and Disk 13)

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).
 

Vollenhoven, part 6 (disk 12)

Interfunctional connection is a connection between two or more systasis.  Intrafunctional connection is a connection within a systasis, example is a lack of desire to work due to sorrow.  More complicated instances occur in objectification.  There is the activity that Vollenhoven called patentizing and latentizing.  The latent functions of iron are bought to light by the activity of man in making it into a machine.  There is a second think called an actualizing.  In patentizing you take something that is a subject and you bring its latent possibilities and you make them patent.  In actualizing you have an objective qualified thing, a machine is objectively qualified, a machine is actualized when it is put to work.

Both patentizing and actualizing are possible only then when the necessary presuppositions and substrate are present.  It must be on the foundation of the substrate.  It is this connection, which presupposes the successive realization of the presupposition of   actualizing and patentizing would be called objectification.

In man all functions are present in a subjective way.  Therefore, in man we can speak only of patentizing.  We may speak of man realizing his subjective possibilities.  Vollenhoven did not speak of actualizing in terms of man.  Dooyeweerd developed later that mans potentialities could be objectified.  He can never be objectified in his whole being.  Now that has a relationship to existential thought.  Your existentialist is concerned with the objectification of man.  The idea is that man as a whole you can be understood within a pattern that pertains only to nature.  In this way of thinking you want to redeem him of this and we see him in terms of freedom of himself.  Man according to his structure it is impossible to objectify him, only certain capabilities of man can be objectified but not the whole man.

Now in spite of the fact that you cannot talk of actualizing in regards to man; men may indeed work together with the power available to them in associations and so forth having objectified things.  These things have a founding and leading functions; in business the leading one is the economic, the state the juridical, the family, the ethical, etc.

Now in addition to the this-that and thus-so scheme, Vollenhoven distinguished the dimension of the religious.  For the religious the leading of the creation by the spirit of God in relation to the word of God is fundamental.  Vollenhoven will insist strongly as he has upon this faith relationship that we respond to the word of God by the power of the Spirit of God.  Religion presupposes the created being of men with all their functions in mutual connection according to the image of God so that man reflects the glory of the LORD.  In this position as one looks at the religious there is always a tendancy to look at it in a structured fashion.  Vollenhoven, said on the side of the subject man is a correlate of the triune God.  The structure of man presupposes the three-fold office of Prophet, Priest and King.  But in order to understand Religion one must understand the opposition of good and evil.  Vollenhoven said that with man there is the question of good and evil in the analytical function.  It is only here where we distinguish subjectively between good and bad.  The logical law is the first within the cosmic order that has the characteristic of norm.  Correlate with the norms on the law side is choice on the subject side.  You may choose to think properly or not think properly.  The choice is that of obedience or disobedience.  If we are going to understand this normative properly, one must be careful to think in terms of the fundamental religious commitment of man.

Vollenhoven says this duality existed before the fall of man in the realm of angels.  At first for Adam and Eve it was indicated danger.  The fall into sin Adam and Eve were bought into experience this duality as a reality.  Good stands over against evil, now man is inclined to evil by nature and he is guilty before the requirement of obedience.  Christ was obedient and atoned for sin and Christ has reconciled us to God.  Now the function that has been turned to the left (toward evil) has been turned to the right (toward good).  With sin, there is not a loss of the ontological character of anything ontological in the creation, but rather the creation is still there but nevertheless it is turned away and man worships the creature.  Christ has reconciled us to God and turns it toward God. 

The distinction between good and evil presents us with the difference between right and left and this difference refers to the direction in which a particular function turns.  This difference of functioning cannot be reduced to the thus-so and this-that.  Vollenhoven insisted that the fall did not remove any part of the creation but it brought the religious direction to the left, away from God.  In this way the antithesis came also among the earthly subjects.  The antithesis was in the unseen creation and now through the fall it is manifest in the seen creation. 

Vollenhoven’s view does not allow for an easy solution to the sin problem, for example of the loss of the image of God interpreted as the illumination of certain human functions.  It does not allow us to point to some functions as good and some as evil and to raise the good over the bad. 

Vollenhoven spoke further about knowing.  The pre-theoretical and the theoretical, theoretical is based upon pre-theoretical knowing.   This is important for our understanding of the scriptures, at first our reading of the scriptures is pre-theoretical.  All of our theologizing in the theoretical is based upon our understanding in the pre-theoretical.  As we have seen all know involves a connection between the knower and what is known. 

Now here is where the followers of Vollenhoven differ from those of Dooyeweerd.  Dooyeweerd is going to say that if an act of thought is analytically qualified, that in theoretical thinking the analytical is deepened.  Vollenhoven makes further distinctions of more refined spheres than in pre-theoretical thinking; furthermore it deals with a single law sphere and it is the analysis of a non-logical aspect.  To make this possible the aspect must have been isolated and you distinguished the aspects in this way.  You don’t do it and your principle of the exclusion of antinomies apply.  Now he talks about vertical isolation, isolation of a part of a field (example: animal psychology and human psychology).  In horizontal isolation there is concentration on retrocipations and anticipations, from the psychical you anticipate the social, in the social you retrocipate the psychical.  Furthermore in theoretical thinking there is no single method, because the method is dependent upon the particular function being investigated.  Method in theology is not the same as method in psychology.  The most important thing for Vollenhoven is that the special sciences exist because of modal fields of investigation and not because of manifold points of view.

The result of theoretical activity is a statement that is not altogether analytic and not altogether non-analytic.  It squares with the scheme of modal aspects.  The mathematical axiom is not just mathematical but has also a logical character demanding a bridging of the logical and numerical.  Theoretical synthesis is characteristic of the theoretical concept.

Now that epistemology rests upon ontology then is implied that in knowing the boundary between God and cosmos must be recognized and thus knowledge about God and the cosmos must be distinguished.

Now with respect to pre-theoretical knowledge, one must distinguish between the various sources of knowing, nature and word revelation of God.  For knowledge about God, word revelation is the primary source and correlate with this knowledge is the pistical function of man.  In the knowledge of the cosmos two activities must be distinguished, knowing the cosmos in terms of the cosmos and with word revelation of God.  All knowing from the word of God is pistical activity.  Now there is also the activity of knowing the cosmos in the terms of the cosmos.  In this connection this knowledge is modally conditioned, this knowledge possesses a direction, it establishes a certain path.

Vollenhoven, part 7 (disk 13)

Knowledge is modally conditioned implies that there can be talk of knowledge when there is the presence of the analytical function, an animal cannot know.  The logical norm is also modally conditioned and in the analytical I recognize the principle of contradiction as a normative law.  If we acknowledge that God has set everything under its corresponding laws, then nothing may transgress these creational laws. 

The direction in our knowing; there is obedience to the norm or disobedience to the norm.  Here for the first time we have for the first time the distinction on the analytical level between good and bad.  There are mistakes in remembering and in logical mistakes and it is not meaningless to recognize error, it is the disruption due to sin.

The present is dependent on the past and it is also directed toward the future.

The second source of knowledge is the word of God.  This knowledge is gained by the restored pistical function.  You don’t loose faith, it is just directed in the right or wrong direction and only when it is directed in the right direction that you have the eyes to see what God has in his cosmos.  This can only be said by Christian epistemology but it is truly possible only for a Calvinistic epistemology, which arranges under nature all the cosmos accept the word of God itself.  The Calvinist sees nature as a totality and the entire created state is a natural state restored by the grace of God. 

Now Vollenhoven saw the pistical function resting upon all the others.  It is not set antithetically over against reason.  It is not that the pistical gives us additions and corrections over against reason.  The pistical is a part of nature and it is corrupted by sin and must be restored to its natural state.  Differences in function may not be paralleled with the difference between good and evil.

No concrete knowledge of the cosmos is possible unless both activities of the pistical and everything else operate together.  Only when knowledge is religious in character does it become concrete (Kennis).  Self-knowledge is only possible as your restored pistic function is turned to the word of God and lived out of the word of God.  Man can get knowledge of God from nature as well (MY NOTE: Romans 1 does give indication that the heathen knows God through the cosmos but due to his sin suppresses that knowledge, Knudsen does not bring out if Vollenhoven acknowledges that or not).  The role of this knowledge is the search of faith for the agreement of knowledge gained through the cosmos to what the word of God says about it.

Transition thoughts about Vollenhoven:

Vollenhoven in collaboration with Dooyeweerd developed the WdW.  They have the modal doctrine in common.  The argument comes who developed what first?  There were nuances in each of their thought. 

Vollenhoven’s philosophizing doesn’t have so explicitly the transcendental cache of Dooyeweerds method.

  

Even though Vollenhoven rejects the logos idea and sees logic as an aspect among others and as he sees in theory the combination of the logical and non-logical and sees a synthesis.  Nevertheless he uses analytical distinctions too freely and indiscriminately.

It seem that this type of thing will show up in his way of thinking about the history of philosophy.

Vollenhoven’s Consistent-Problem Historical Method

Much of Vollenhoven’s career was taken up by the development of this idea.  The application of this method lead to the publication of the first volume of a projected greater work on the history of philosophy, in which the first volume dealt with Greek Philosophy.   This was a blow to Vollenhoven and his publications never again reached book form.

Knudsen noted that Vollenhoven who has attracted a large number of followers and scholars to the Calvinistic Philosophy.  This is due in large part to the influence of H. Evan Runner (Philosophy professor at Calvin College).  One of Runners students Calvin Seerveld (Professor Emeritus, Institute for Christian Studies) prefers Vollenhoven’s method for the history of philosophy to that of Dooyeweerd’s method.

The method proceeds on the notion that similar ideas occur over and over again in the history of philosophy.  As Calvin Seerveld says, as his working hypothesis was molding his judgments Vollenhoven was struck by the similarity of certain conceptions of Edington, Einstein, and Archimeadies.  He hit upon the idea that there were perhaps definite types of  philosophical conception, certain systematic interpretations of reality that keep occurring in the history of thought.  Vollenhoven went to find out if this were true, so as not to read modern conceptions back into earlier ones, Vollenhoven began at the simple beginnings of Greek Philosophy.  He asked what each person had to say about the structure, origin, the troubled state and the meaning of reality.  Out of this study rose one main categories for interpreting Greek and subsequent western philosophy and evidence that there are recurring philosophical positions since the beginning of philosophical reflection.  These were arraigned according to types; the materialistic monism of Thales is held for example by Leucippus, Democratus, Arstippus, Epicurus, Lucretius, Casendy, and Jean-Paul Sartre.

Now there were major distinctions in the history of philosophy.  He sought to bring out the major divisions under a Christian interpretation by distinguishing philosophy from before the synthesis, during the synthesis and after the synthesis.  Again the modes of being are recognized in full by the Christian faith (God, Law, Cosmos).  A full ontology must speak of all these modes.  Ancient ontology could not be complete.  In ancient ontology there was only an eye for the Law and the Cosmos and interpreted in an erroneous fashion.  Where do you find the law?  The realist answer that it was outside the cosmos and the non-realist that it was in the cosmos.  At the first the non-realist held sway in ancient Greek thought.  The objectivist seek to discover the law in the object.  The subjectivist seek to discover the law in the subject, they attempt to reduce the object to the subject. 

In subjectivist orientations Vollenhoven distinguished for one universalism, individualism, and partial universalism.  In a Christian the universal and the individual always appear together.  In non-Christian thought one is attempted to derive the one from the other.