Robert D. Knudsen's Calvinistic Philosophy lectures (Disk 4)

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).
 

Kuyper: The Heart of Man, part 2, Bavinck, part 1 (disk 4)

It is the task of the Christian to track down the Christian principles for the various spheres, then by ones own personal commitment and devotion to the Christian cause to bring every sphere of life into subjection to the service of God.

Kuypers political activity was animated by the consuming desire that the people of Holland (the Netherlands) should live by the divine ordinances.

In every sphere then should be realized the idea that all things are of God, through God and to God and that then should be realized in every sphere.

Outstanding points of Kuypers position:

1.     Science is dependent upon philosophical considerations.  Kuypers view of philosophy was that it gives a synopsis of the sciences.  It does not simply give us a catalog of the results of the sciences but it gives us a total view.

2.     If one is going to attain a view of totality he must have an Archimedean point.  Sin affects the scientific endeavor here and we have then to observe that affect and seek to remedy it.

3.     A non-Christian philosophy cannot obtain a true transcendent standpoint in which it will be elevated above the cosmos and see it in its totality.

4.     Kuyper held that philosophy was not the handmaid of theology.  Philosophy is to have an independent position.  Philosophy is not to develop a doctrine of God and theology limits itself to the Word revelation of God.

5.     Kuyper developed the idea of Faith as a function.  You have in every person faith and that becomes a quality of everyone’s life that he has a firm assurance of something.  Faith as it answers to its true nature is dependent upon the revelation of God.  Faith in the false direction attempts to suppress the revelation of God.

6.     Thought is a function as well.  Thought for Kuyper is ruled by faith.  It is embedded in the cosmic order, it is part of that order and is subject to that order.  The subject of knowledge is a community of minds, it is not an abstract, transcendental “I think.”  We should not abstract from the thinking subject or God.

7.     There is no elevation of logic to be the judge.  Logic in the wider sense of Epistemology it is not neutral.  In the narrower sense of Epistemology (ordering of thinking) it is.

Herman Bavinck (1854 – 1921)

According to William Young, Bavinck sought to find a position between Rationalism and Empiricism.  Idealism (Included under Rationalism) held that being is of the nature of idea, thinking is the source of knowledge.  This is a pattern that is criticized by the WdW.  Bavinck held that Idealism confuses the instrument of knowledge with the source of knowledge.

Idealistic positions (according to Bavinck):

Plato’s forms (Knudsen talks here about Plato’s forms, I am not including it here because it can be found other places).

Kant the mind gives unity to experience.

Bavinck said that the dualistic/idealistic positions were untenable and one always tended always tended to an identity of thinking and being (dualism).

Bavinck was also critical of monistic position:

Spinoza (God or Nature)

Hegel (everything is of the nature of idea)

Empiricism on the other hand, held there is something not of the nature of idea.  Being is not identical with mind.  Empiricist would insist that we not minimize perception because it is the source of the material of our knowledge.  Man is dependent on our senses and nature.

Bavinck – Man’s mind is not the source of truth but it is an instrument.  It is man who is active in his knowing.  There is an a priori element in every science.  Science is interested in the universal and necessary.  It cannot be restricted to the domain of the exact sciences but needs something that goes beyond, in science there must be a philosophical element.  Furthermore, it is impossible to deal with the more important matters in an exact fashion.

Now Bavinck was quite sure that there was no knowledge apart from sense experience.  He followed Thomas Aquinas, Augustine as saying that there is mediate certainty of the reality of the external world and we have a mediate certainty.  There is no need of proving that there is an external world.  Yet, in this situation, mind makes its contribution in that the mind is active in this realization.

Bavinck held to a Moderate Realism.

Bavink’s Epistemology requires that the forms be in reality and our mind extracts them from reality.  According to the Logos places the forms in reality and then the mind abstracts the form.

Robert D. Knudsen's Calvinistic Philosophy lectures (Disk 3)

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).

 Kuyper: The Heart of Man, part 1 (disk 3)

This central character of heart and its meaning of the service of God also effects the conception of sin.  Sin has a radical character affecting the radix (root) of existence.  We cannot setup one aspect of the cosmos as sinful over against another.  We have to see sin as affecting the entire cosmos.  Sin affects man in his thoughts.  The noetic effect of sin reaches to all man’s endeavors.

There are two kinds of consciousness: one affected by sin and one restored by grace.  There is no common undivided consciousness of man. 

One who denies the noetic effect of sin Kuyper called a normalist.  The opposition to these are the abnormalist.

Kuyper and his followers stressed the antithesis and made a point to distinguish the difference between the Christian and non-Christian consciousness.  There is no dualism that would relegate a part of the creation to evil. 

Creation as a whole was created good.  It has been corrupted as a whole in connection in the alienation of the heart of man from God.  In the fall of man the entire cosmos is corrupted.

The conception of sin is correlate with the conception of salvation in that it is radical.  It is personal and also has a cosmological significance.  Through sin the entire creation is distorted (Genesis 3:17-19) and after the fall the work of man became a burden.  The effect is seen in the decline in human longevity (Genesis 6:3).  In salvation there is personal and cosmic significance.  Salvation affects the very center of man and through him, the entire cosmos. 

If we are going to have a Christian philosophy we have to see the meaning of Creation, Fall and Redemption for the inner concerns of philosophy.

Palengensis – a restoration, repristination of the cosmos.  It isn’t a new creation ex nihilo.  It is a restoration of the cosmos that was disrupted by sin.

There is a redeemed consciousness and Kuyper said it is only this redeemed consciousness that can see the cosmos in its true proportions.

Armed with the idea of the redeemed consciousness Kuyper pleaded for a Christian scientific endeavor and strove for an institution of higher learning where a Christian learning could be carried out (this was the Free University of Amsterdam). 

Kuyper stressed the antithesis in theoretical work (Wissenschaft or Wetenschap).  There is no common ground for which a Christian and non-Christian foundation for science.

For Kuyper the redeemed consciousness did not mean that there should be a Christian attitude toward a neutral subject matter or that there is a personal Christian influence in its teaching nor did it mean that the Christian consciousness should be productive of truth.  One the one hand what is Christian extends to the subject matter itself, the subject matter is taught/studied from a Christian point of view.  On the other hand this subject matter had to be discovered by examination of the field in question.  So we get the idea that the creation of God is understood rightly by one who is lead by Christian understanding, led by the principle of regeneration, and must go and examine that field of endeavor.

Sphere Sovereignty (soevereiniteit in eigen kring) was founded upon the absolute sovereignty of God.  Religion is a service of God with ones whole heart.  If one has the idea that only God is the absolute sovereign, then the thought is that the authorities of this world are limited.  Kuyper developed the conception that there are various spheres of life each with a derived sovereignty in its own sphere answerable only to the sovereign God.  Each sphere exists by divine mandate and it is not dependent upon other spheres for its existence.  Each sphere has a competency in its own sphere and may not transgress its boundary into another.

This position concerning sphere sovereignty, which he developed with respect to social groupings, brought him to break with social configurations of longstanding, you had to break with the ideals of individualism (we are bound in God ordained bonds).  You could not, on the other hand, embrace the idea of socialism where the spheres were parts of a greater whole.  The center was in the sovereignty of God and in man’s calling (serving God with the whole heart in all of life).

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.

 

A conversation between C.S. Lewis and Herman Dooyeweerd

This is a fictional conversation between a well known intellectual from the 20th Century and one who probably should be more well known.  This conversation is imagined by a member of the Thinknet listserv dedicated to the discussion of Reformational Philosophy.

Definitions
NCoTT - New Critique of Theoretical Thought.  This is Dooyeweerd's Magnum Opus.

A Conversation Between CSL and Herman Dooyeweerd:

CSL - Good evening Herman.  Welcome to Magdalene College.  Feel yourself comfortable.  By the way,  I just completed reading the first volume of your splendid and prolific NCoTT  and I very much liked your concept of “meaning as the mode of being of all that is created.”    It reminded me of a discussion I had with  Prof. Tillyard in which I said to him:  "Either there is significance in the whole process of things as well as in human activity, or there is no significance in human activity itself.... If the world is meaningless, then so are we; if we mean something, we do not mean alone."

HD – Oh, yes Jack, that is great and reminds of a point you made in The Abolition of Man – that  “If nothing is self-evident, nothing can be proved – that there are some premises that can't be reached as conclusions.”   - - - I made that very clear in all my writings.  But we need to go further and affirm that “the direction of philosophical thought to the totality of meaning implies critical self-evaluation.”

CSL – Indeed, Herman - - - -Would you like some tea or a stronger drink?

HD – I would love some whiskey, if I could. 

CSL – Oh, yes - that will gives us the tonic we need for continuing our conversation.  [going to get the whiskey] - - By the way, when I gave the Gifford Lectures in Scotland I got a certificate for an honorary doctor – I wish they had presented me with a box of whiskey.

To be continued 

Happy Birthday Cornelius Van Til

Happy 117th Birthday to Cornelius Van Til.

The Lord's Prayer (Old English)

Here is a link I found to the Lord's Prayer in Old English.

What is Neocalvinism?

The purpose of my blog is to workout ideas in my own thinking, I may from time to time post things to explain certain buzzwords you may see in my posts. Readers of my blog might be asking "What is Neocalvinism?" Well over at Vanguard Church there is a helpful article written on Neocalvinism. You'll find the link here. A couple of years back Time magazine published an article on the "New Calvinism." In this article, the author equated the term New Calvinism with Neo Calvinism. Once again Bob Robinson at Vanguard Church helps bring into focus the distinction between the two movements. You can find that article here.

Welcome (again, lol)

Over the past 6 years I have made various attempts at "blogging." I would be faithful at tending to my blog for a few weeks and then the business of work AND graduate school got in the way. Well, now that I am out of graduate school (finished Dec 2010) I now find I need this type of outlet and thus, starting up my blog again. It is my goal to post often enough to keep peoples interest in following while at the same time not posting just for postings sake. The postings are my own and not intended to be cited in professionally published works or works to be turned in for a grade (no matter how dazzling they may be, lol). I welcome all to post comments on my entries but be mindful of the rules posted.