Robert D. Knudsen's Calvinistic Philosophy lectures (Disks 14)

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 8 (disk 14)

The subjectivist has to take position in regards to myth.  Universal subjectivist for example would be mythological or non-mythological.  The mythical thinker thought in terms of becoming of the gods and the world.  They were cosmogonic-cosmological and purely cosmological thinkers.  So there is a method of development.

By way of criticism of Vollenhoven’s method

1.     Knudsen holds that this is a good method.  It has been employed to some degree in the history of ideas.  Very important is how the distinctions are made with which the investigation is carried on.  When you try to compress a thinker, sometimes they don’t fit.

2.     Thinkers are typed according to what appeared to be rigid and minute classifications and we must state this, determining that a thinker stands in a particular line doesn’t explain him.  How does one account for influence of one thinker on another? 

3.     Vollenhoven didn’t want to fall into the trap of categorizing ancient philosophers in terms for modern times, but does he make distinctions of modern philosophers into ancient molds?

It remains that Vollenhoven tried to erect a history of philosophy on a consistently Christian basis.

Heman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977)

Born in Amsterdam, his father was a follower of Abraham Kuyper (Doleantie).  His mother was influenced by the German leader Kohlbrugge,  Dooyeweerd’s father read from De Heraut.  Dooyeweerd entered the Free University of Amsterdam in 1912 unsure of what to study.  A friend recommended the study of Law.  On July 2, 1917 he defended his doctoral dissertation (De Ministerraad in het Nederlandsche Staaatsrecht or Cabinet Ministers under Dutch Constitutional Law). 

He first worked in matters of Jurisprudence.  In 1922 he was invited to be the adjunct director of the Abraham Kuyper foundation in De Haag.  This foundation was developed to study principles of the Anti-Revolutionary party (today absorbed into the Christian Democratic Appeal or Christian-Democratisch Appel).

In 1926 he became professor in the department of Jurisprudence at the Free University of Amsterdam.

Dooyeweerd’s philosophy must be understood as a Christian Transcendental Philosophy and when we speak of its character we do not only have the transcendental critique.  The first real suggestion of this form occurs in 1939, the transcendental critique of theoretical thought.  The earliest appearance in English is in the evangelical quarterly volume 19 pages 32-41 called introduction to a transcendental criticism of philosophical thought.

We affirm that Dooyeweerd’s thinking had a transcendental thrust.  This transcendental thrust was virtually assured by the first steps in developing his philosophy and transcendental critique from the very beginning.

During 1922-1926 Dooyeweerd wrote a series of articles and he wanted to show the relevance of the Calvinistic world and life view to statecraft.  Dooyeweerd believed that this worldview was fundamentally rooted in the Scriptures but did not believe that a theory of statecraft could be read directly out of the Scriptures.

Like Vollenhoven, Dooyeweerd believed that the Scriptures speak to the entire man.  Furthermore as Kuyper presented Calvinism was a world and life view.  As such it requires the undivided allegiance of the entire man.  Now then one then cannot read out a Christian statecraft from the scriptures, one cannot derive from them the fundamental principles on the order of theoretical axioms to which statecraft must conform.  This is where Dooyeweerd stands apart from a major emphasis of the Kuyperian tradition.

While statecraft could not be read out of the scriptures but the principles must conform to it.  Dooyeweerd had to fix on something that would present a meaningful criterion for his scientific studies.  The idea of Law, the law in this sense is not deduceable from the scripture but if you live according to scripture it will manifest itself with respect to the law idea somehow.  So Dooyeweerd came to the conclusion that all of your theoretical concepts are going to involve one or another idea of Law and the idea of Law becomes the instrument that gives you this connection.

There is then a divinely given order of law (Lex Divina) to which every fact is subject in the keeping or in the breech.

Dooyeweerd developed a theory of law spheres.  These are modes, how things appear to the what.  These were related to one another by anticipations (protentional) and retrocipations (retentional).  Dooyeweerd called these together analogies.  In our naïve experiencing these are held together in a systatic unity.  In theory they are distinguished and set it apart one from another.