Dooyeweed among the reformed Thomists Part 2

In part 1 we looked at Fesko’s chapter on Dooyeweerd in his Reforming Apologetics: Retrieving the Classic Reformed Approach to Defending the Faith and showed that it doesn’t give an accurate account of Dooyeweerd’s thought. My hope is that reformed Thomists won’t dismiss Dooyeweerd on the basis of Fesko’s presentation. There are no doubt important areas of disagreement between Dooyeweerd and that of reformed Thomists, yet neither can benefit from misreading and dismissing each other and I believe that it is possible to learn from each other. In this post I will focus on two main claims that John Bolt makes concerning Dooyeweerd in his chapter “Doubting Reformational Anti-Thomism” in Aquinas Among the Protestants. While Bolt’s reflections on his four “doubts” get closer to issues relevant for a discussion of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy his evaluation is coloured by a serious misreading from the beginning. This means that his doubts are not as incisive as they might have been had he started with a more accurate and nuanced understanding. Concerning the misinterpretations of Aquinas held by reformational thinkers Bolts writes “This is a matter of academic integrity; followers of Jesus Christ are under an obligation to be scrupulously fair to their opponents.” (p.131). I fully agree with this principle. Reformational thinkers and reformed Thomists need to do their best to understand each other and hopefully this might even lead them to think of each other less as opponents.

The first claim that Bolt makes is that Dooyeweerd completely rejects the thought of both Aquinas and Aristotle so that nothing of value can be found in them. Bolt believes that Dooyeweerd even went as far as to hold that Aquinas’ thought was apostate. This is tied to a second view that Bolt attributes to Dooyeweerd which is that the scientific distinction between truth and falsehood is a direct result of the religious distinction between regenerate and unregenerate so that the two distinctions are collapsed. Based on this reading Bolt continually comes up against obvious fact that Dooyeweerd gives positive evaluation to many non-Christian thinkers and even incorporates some of their views into his own philosophy. On this reading Dooyeweerd is both unfairly critical of thinkers like Aquinas for incorporating ideas from non-Christian philosophers while doing exactly the same just with different non-Christian philosophers.

The first claim can easily be dealt with. Here is what Bolt writes: “According to Dooyeweerd the great medieval synthesis of Thomas and others was an illicit joining of pagan religion with biblical faith. His judgement is severe: “they were apostate in their direction” (Dooyeweerd 1979, 111)” (p.131). When we follow up the reference that Bolt gives we find that Dooyeweerd is there discussing Greek religion and not medieval thought in general or Thomas in particular. It is Greek religion that Dooyeweerd describes as “apostate in their direction”. In contrast he writes that “For its part, the Romanistic basic theme preserved at least to a degree its connection with the divine Word-revelation” (RS I, 25). Dooyeweerd certainly has his criticisms of Thomism, however he engaged in serious and friendly discussion with a number of Thomist philosophers and never dismissed Aquinas out of hand. He wrote “There is no doubt in my mind that Thomas sincerely intended to make Aristotle’s metaphysics square with the church’s doctrine of creation. The only question is whether this was possible within the framework of an accommodated Aristotelian philosophy” (RS II, 366). Nowhere does Dooyeweerd describe Aquinas’ position as a “joining of pagan religion with biblical faith”, this is simply an inaccurate presentation of Dooyeweerd.

Dooyeweed thought long and hard about the relationship between the Christian religion and the philosophical enterprise. His account of this relationship is complex, was developed over time and remains controversial even among his sympathetic readers. Even if one ends up critical of what he has to say on this topic Dooyeweerd’s positive philosophical framework is still worthy of consideration. To take one example, David Koyzis and Jonathan Chaplin (a contributor to Aquinas Among the Protestants) have argued that there are parallels and opportunity for cooperation between Thomist and reformational philosophers in the area of political philosophy.

A full answer to Bolt’s second claim about Dooyeweerd would involve a discussion of the complex issues just hinted at, however we can make considerable headway in just considering Dooyeweerd’s approach to the philosophical tradition in general. Bolt develops this second point in an indirect way through a criticism of Kuyper that Bavink makes. It involves Kuyper’s claim that there are two kinds of science, one that is based on a Christian starting point and a second, diametrically opposed, that starts from a non-Christian starting point. Bavinck’s argument is that this conflates “the scientific distinction between truth and falsehood with the personal one between regenerate and unregenerate people” and so commits “a logical fallacy”. Further “to identify the scientific work of the regenerate with truth and that of the unregenerate with lies is categorically false” (p.135). “It seems to me that Bavinck’s critique is also applicable to Dooyeweerd” (p.135). Fully in line with this interpretation Bolts writes that Dooyeweerd believed that “any observation about reality made by Aristotle would thereby, for that very reason, be rendered suspect. I cannot see how this is a fair or reasonable inference” (p.139). Bolt is absolutely right that such an inference is neither fair nor reasonable, it is also a position that Dooyeweerd would completely reject.

It is surprising that Bolt insists on such an interpretation given that he makes reference to Dooyeweerd’s article “Kuyper’s Philosophy of Science” where Dooyeweerd not only makes a number of statements to the contrary but, like any philosopher, engages in criticism and not mere dismissal, of positions he rejects. Near the start he writes “Though bordering on redundancy, because it has been said so often before: The Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea claims no infallibility, neither for its positive philosophical conceptions nor with regard to its critique of traditional philosophy” (p.132 of a draft translation). Dooyeweerd is clear that he offers both his positive philosophical views and his philosophical criticisms as ordinary examples of what fallible human philosophers do and so open to the same evaluation as any other philosophy. Dooyeweerd repeatedly argued against dogmatism in philosophy insisting that no philosophy should be dismissed just because of its religious background. He wanted his Christian philosophy to be taken seriously by non-Christian philosophers and equally argued that “the Christian ground-motive refuses to allow any particular philosophical movement to be excluded from the philosophical community because of its point of departure.” (RS I, 29).

A typical statement of Dooyeweerd’s found in the article cited by Bolt is “The Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea has never defended the view that a philosophy springing from a non-Christian root cannot contain important elements of truth” (p.134 of draft version). So it is not clear why Bolt thinks that Dooyeweerd rejects everything Aristotle says because it is a pagan author that says it. His actual method and approach to the philosophical tradition is quite different. He insists repeatedly that “it is an utter illusion to suppose that a philosophy can develop itself in isolation” (quoted in Verburg’s Herman Dooyeweerd: The life and work of a Christian philosopher p.346 compare similar statements TWT 38, NC I. 115, 117, RS II, 26-27). This leads to an approach that seeks to identify the moments of truth and insight in every philosophy. It is only in the context of identifying insights in a philosophy that criticism of that philosophy can become valid and worthwhile. Philosophical criticism involves showing how a genuine insight goes awry, the task then is to incorporate the insight within a philosophical framework that can give it more justice. This is consistent with Dooyeweerd’s understanding of Christianity in relation to the ground-motive of creation, fall and redemption. Every philosophical conception should be considered within this framework. As Robert Sweetman has put it recently: creation-fall-redemption is a spiritual impulse “in which one approaches something open to encountering it with indications of its original blessing, its marring and consequent ambiguity, and its reception of a new and redemptive meaning by which its original blessing shines forth again and becomes redolent of new possibilities.” (Tracing the lines 142-143) Dooyeweerd is happy to speak of “data” or “structural states of affairs” that any philosophy is able to recognise and must take account of within its framework. To show how this is understood by Dooyeweerd I offer the following two quotes:

“In the philosophical effort to account for [structural states of affairs] in the context of a theoretical view of totality, there may be a noble competition between all philosophical trends without discrimination. We do not claim a privileged position for the Christian philosophy of the cosmonomic Idea in this respect. For even the Christian ground-motive and the content of our transcendental ground-Idea determined by it, do not give security against fundamental mistakes in the accomplishment of our philosophical task” (NC I. 117)

“Every philosophical current may contribute to the testing of its own and other philosophical views with respect to data which, up to now, have been neglected. For the discovery of this neglected state of affairs in our experiential horizon is not the monopoly of a particular philosophical school. Thanks to common grace, relative truths are to be found in every philosophy, although the interpretation of such truths may appear to be unacceptable from the biblical standpoint insofar as the philosophical interpretation turns out to be ruled by a dialectical and apostate basic-motive. However, no philosophy can prosper in isolation.” TWT 38

Once we have taken this into account we will not be surprised to read Dooyeweerd talk about an “important element of truth” in Aristotle’s substance concept (RS II, 264). Nor that he recognises that “the distinction between potentiality and actuality in reality has undoubtedly been a brilliant and fruitful discovery. It has indeed enriched Western philosophical thinking … It is certainly not the intention of the Philosophy of the Law-Idea to reject or minimize an Aristotelian distinction that has proven fruitful.” (RS II, 290).

Dooyeweed among the reformed Thomists

In 1985 Arvin Vos published a book called Aquinas, Calvin and contemporary protestant thought: A critique of protestant views on the thought of Thomas Aquinas. In this book he engaged the then common critical views of protestants against Thomas Aquinas as a scholastic who stood for everything the reformation had rejected. Vos argued that Calvin and Aquinas are actually much closer in their views on many of the key issues than generally thought and that the criticism of Aquinas in protestant circles was a result of misreading.

Recently two books have been published which share similar concerns to Vos: Aquinas Among the Protestants, Edited by Manfred Svensson and David VanDrunen and J.V. Fesko Reforming Apologetics: Retrieving the Classic Reformed Approach to Defending the Faith. Each contain a chapter that ostensibly engage the thought of the Dutch Christian philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd. In this and a second post I aim to show that the harsh criticism and serious misreading that has sometimes been characteristic of protestant understandings of Aquinas are here mirrored and amplified against Dooyeweerd.

This first post focuses on Chapter 7 of Fesko’s book entitled “Dualism” and has the very modest aim of showing that Fesko’s repeated charges that Dooyeweerd is guilty of failing to read the primary sources is ironically based on a quite spectacular failing to read Dooyeweerd. What this means is that in the following I make no attempt to give an account of Dooyeweerd’s thought since Fesko at no point demonstrates that he has any idea of what Dooyeweerd’s philosophy is about. Instead I just go through each claim Fesko makes and follow up his reference to show that Dooyeweerd never says anything like what Fesko claims he says. The second post will look at John Bolt’s chapter in Aquinas Among the Protestants and show that his most fundamental claims about Dooyeweerd involve a serious misreading that can be contradicted by many of Dooyeweerd’s statements as well as the whole tenor and purpose of his thought.

The context of Fesko’s chapter is broader than Dooyeweerd and begins with an overview of criticisms of dualism found in Cornelius Van Til and Howard Van Til. The focus in what follows however is the discussion of Dooyeweerd.  The main criticism, and one repeated frequently, is that Dooyeweerd fails to substantiate his criticism of dualisms with documentation from the primary sources. As such “this chapter argues that the dualism critique rests on an inaccurate evaluation of the historical evidence” (p.164). Given the centrality of such a critique it is incumbent on Fesko to ensure that his own criticism of Dooyeweerd is properly documented and shows a careful analysis of the appropriate evidence. In what follows I aim to show that sadly this is not the case and that Dooyeweerd deserves a second hearing.

There are six places where Fesko explicitly claims that in their criticisms of dualism Dooyeweerd and his heirs fail to engage properly with the primary sources (pp. 164 (twice), 177, 184, 191 & 197). To give just two examples: “This caricature has largely arisen from a failure to read primary sources” (164) and “he [Dooyeweerd] rarely, if ever, supports his claims with primary-source documentation” (177). There are a further five places where much the same point is made though in different language (pp. 175, 179, 180-181, 187 & 190) as an example “Dooyeweerd has constructed a mythological strawman” (p. 175).

The insistent and repetitive nature of these claims about Dooyeweerd are very serious and it is difficult to imagine someone coming across Dooyeweerd for the first time in Fesko’s chapter thinking that he might be worthy of consideration.

To aid the readers own evaluation I list below the primary sources Fesko cites for Dooyeweerd. Most are accessible in PDF here.

A New Critique of Theoretical Thought (NC) 3:784 (p.168) 3:89 (p.169 &170) 2:564, 2:593 (p.169), 1:8-11 (p182), 2:564 (p.182)

In the Twilight of Western Thought (1999 edition) (TWT) 86(-87) (p.170, p.172 twice), 32-33 (p.170), 96-97 (p.171), 31-35, 47-48, 81-82, 96-97 (p.177), 116 (p.177), 38, 64, 108 (p.179)

Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy (RS) 1:36-37 (171) 1:38 (twice p.171, 176, 179), 1:15 (p.177), 1:326-327 (179), 2:90 (179)

“Kuyper’s Wetenschapsleer” pp.193-232 (p.171)

“Cornelius Van Til and the Transcendental Critique of Theoretical Thought” 74-88, 75, 86 (p.172)

“Centrum en Omtrek: De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee in een veranderende wereld” “as quoted in Friesen Neo-Calvinism, 388” (p.173)

While this might give the impression of a serious engagement with Dooyeweerd’s works we will soon discover that every reference fails to substantiate Fesko’s claims and some cover topics so removed from the concerns of Fesko’s chapter that it is a mystery why they have been included.

Fesko opens his discussion of Dooyeweerd with a brief account of the fundamentals of Dooyeweerd’s thought. The main source he relies on is J. Glenn Friesen’s Neo-Calvinism and Christian Theosophy: Franz von Baader, Abraham Kuyper, Herman Dooyeweerd. While it may be likely that this book plays a role in some of the misinterpretations of Dooyeweerd in this section I will pass over them. This is because my focus is on the primary sources. We turn then to consider Fesko’s reading of Dooyeweerd and the sources he cites in support. I have focused on five claims Fesko makes and the references he supplies to support them and finish with two occasions where the references provided are something of a mystery while also indicting a missed opportunity.

(1) “Once fallen human beings realize their need for Christ, they transcend the temporal earthly cosmos and participate in the transcendental root of the cosmos” (p.169 reference to NC 2:593)

The most likely sentence that relates to this is the following: “Man, in his full selfhood, transcends the temporal ‘earthly’ cosmos in all its aspects, and partakes in the transcendental root of this cosmos.”

Fesko’s analysis suggests that it is only “once” we realize our need for Christ, and so only “they” who have this realisation that come to participate in this root. Dooyeweerd’s text however does not refer to Christ or a sense of need, nor does he limit his point to a particular group, it is part of the nature and structure of man to transcend the temporal cosmos. My purpose is not to go into what this could mean, or whether Dooyeweerd is correct, but just to illustrate the difference between Fesko’s interpretation and what the source actually says.

(2) In the next quote I will number the claims that Fesko believes that Dooyeweerd makes: “In Dooyeweerd’s analysis, [1] the Greek philosophical failure to recognize the supratemporal origin of the human heart [2] leads to the absolutizing the temporal and [3] thus creates an antithetical relationship between soul and body. [4] Scholastic theologians inherited the same problem because [5] they adopted the Greek philosophical anthropology.” (reference TWT, 32-33). None of these claims can be found in the text referenced. It nowhere speaks of a “failure to recognize the supratemporal origin of the human heart” [1], on these pages there is no discussion of the body and soul and so no claim about creating an antithetical relationship between the two [3], there is therefore no “same problem” for theologians to inherit [4] and no discussion of Greek anthropology [5]. That leaves the point about “absolutizing the temporal” [2]. What we do find in the next section discussing the humanistic nature-freedom motive is the claim that humanism, in the Italian Renaissance, looked for a new personality and rebirth of man where “this personality was thought of as absolute in itself” (TWT, 33), it is difficult to see how this fits the description given by Fesko.

(3) “The nature-grace dualism established a beachhead within Calvinistic thought and subsequently expressed itself in the polarities that were “characteristic of Lutheranism.” “The Lutheran dualism of law and gospel,” writes Dooyeweerd, “is foreign to the Reformed confession.” Reformed scholasticism tries to build its doctrinal cathedral on the sand of Aquinas’s nature-grace dualism and hence has the same foundational weaknesses.” (p. 171 Reference to RS 1:38)

This is the closest we get to Fesko giving a close reading of Dooyeweerd’s text. It is worth quoting Dooyeweerd a bit more extensively to see how accurately Fesko has interpreted the text:

 “To the extent that the ground-motive of nature and grace is able to establish a beachhead in Calvinistic thought, it will never express itself in a theological way in terms of the polarity characteristic of Lutheranism. The Lutheran dualism of law and gospel is foreign to the Reformed confession.” RS 1:38 A little further on: Reformed Scholasticism rejects “both the Lutheran dualism between nature and grace and the Thomistic substructure-superstructure theme.” RS 1:38

While Fesko seems to present the nature-grace dualism as something Dooyeweerd finds in Aquinas, that then becomes established in Calvinism and subsequently expressed in Lutheranism, what Dooyeweerd actual writes shows a more complex understanding of the nature-grace ground motive. We see in this short passage that Dooyeweerd contrasts Reformed Scholasticism with Thomism at several points. At one point he writes that Reformed Scholasticism “has never been able to elaborate an independent philosophy like that of Thomism”. He goes on to say that “In Reformed Scholasticism, nature can never be conceived of as the antipode of grace or as its relatively autonomous substructure. For, in conformity to Augustine, Reformed Scholasticism always binds the natural light of reason to the light of Scripture.” This is quite different from the picture Fesko paints. However it must be said that in this short section of Dooyeweerd’s text it is true that there is a lack of reference to primary texts. Does this validate Fesko’s criticism that Dooyeweerd does not properly engage the primary texts? We could perhaps try to excuse Dooyeweerd by saying that here we are only dealing with a brief survey of issues before getting into the main text which gives almost 300 pages (pp.41-323) of very detailed analysis of Greek philosophy leading up to and including Plato including many citations from the Greek texts.

Nevertheless this doesn’t solve the problem that his discussion of Luther lacks any documentation. Later though, on page 179, Fesko references RS 1:326-327, here Dooyeweerd does provide documentation from Luther’s work and responds to just the kind of criticism Fesko offers, it is a shame then that he does not engage Dooyeweerd’s discussion either at page 171 or later when he includes this reference.

(4) On page 176 Fesko writes that Dooyeweerd “fails to recognize that the Reformed theologians who came later rejected the nature-grace construct”. He again references RS 1:38 where we have already seen Dooyeweerd acknowledge significant differences between reformed scholasticism and Aquinas. It would seem that Fesko thinks Dooyeweerd identifies the nature-grace ground motive with Aquinas’s thought in such a way that anyone who shows evidence of a nature-grace ground motive must be saying the same things as Aquinas. A careful reading of even the few references that Fesko provides shows that this is not how Dooyeweerd understands the nature-grace ground motive.

(5) Fesko points out that Calvin himself expressed views that Dooyeweerd is said to criticise as scholastic and then writes “nevertheless, Dooyeweerd still calls Calvin’s theology “pure”” (p.178). Fesko provides no evidence for this claim and in none of the citations he provides throughout this chapter do we find Dooyeweerd making such a claim. I think that it is highly unlikely that Dooyeweerd did write such a thing. He certainly shows an appreciation of important elements in Calvin and believed his philosophy to be an outworking of the reformational spirit found especially in Calvin’s works, but this does not exclude the possibility that he would be critical of other elements in Calvin’s thought. In his brief discussion of Dooyeweerd and Calvin (pp.178-179) there are no citations of Dooyeweerd and it would be possible to show that Dooyeweerd is not presented in a very accurate way.

(6) In the section on “Criticisms against So-Called Dualisms” Fesko quotes Dooyeweerd on the Westminster Confessions to the effect that it was influenced by the Thomistic-Aristotelian metaphysics (p.179). In the footnote (n.88) Fesko references 3 separate pages from TWT, the two short sections from RS 1 we have already discussed, and a page from RS 2. From TWT he references pages 38, 64 and 108. The quote itself is found on TWT 108, TWT 64 contains a discussion of Dooyeweerd’s understanding of cultural formation with a brief criticism of historicism and doesn’t appear to have any connection with the points at issue. The first reference however has much value in the broader context of Fesko’s book if not with the role, or lack, of Thomistic-Aristotelian metaphysics in the Westminster Confessions. I quote the follow passage:

“Structural data, founded in the temporal order of human experience, however, are facts of a transcendental significance, which should be acknowledged, irrespective of their philosophical interpretation. If these data seem not to agree with certain dogmatical presuppositions of a philosophical school, the adherents of the latter should not try to eliminate the data, but to find a satisfactory philosophical explanation upon the basis of their own starting-point. Every philosophical current may contribute to the testing of its own and other philosophical views with respect to data which, up to now, have been neglected. For the discovery of this neglected state of affairs in our experiential horizon is not the monopoly of a particular philosophical school. Thanks to common grace, relative truths are to be found in every philosophy, although the interpretation of such truths may appear to be unacceptable from the biblical standpoint insofar as the philosophical interpretation turns out to be ruled by a dialectical and apostate basic-motive. However, no philosophy can prosper in isolation.” TWT 38

Fesko will say in the next few sentences after this reference that Dooyeweerd rejects common grace as imposing a dualism on creation, yet here we have Dooyeweerd giving a positive articulation of common grace, it also deals with the very issues that Fesko is discussing throughout his book. There is material there in Dooyeweerd, seemingly right under his nose, that Fesko could have fruitfully engaged with.  We can only hope that he gets a second hearing.

(7) Finally there is an intriguing reference in the same footnote (p.179n88) to volume 2 of Dooyeweerd’s Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy, this is the volume that gives well over 200 pages of discussion to the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas (pp.140-180, 246-434). We also find a more extensive discussion of reformed scholasticism here than found in volume 1 which Fesko has discussed. What then do we find when reading RS 2:90? This single reference to volume 2 is a bit of a mystery as that page is part of a discussion of Kuyper’s concept of sphere-sovereignty and does not touch on any of the issues raised in Fesko’s chapter! Once again, the relevant material is there to be discussed, there are plenty of references to the Summa Theologiae and Summa contra gentiles, alongside other works of Aquinas, there is a good deal of Latin. Instead of spending much of the chapter complaining that Dooyeweerd fails to engage the primary sources Fesko should have got stuck in, engaged Dooyeweerd's text and shown us how a competent reformed Thomist might evaluate Dooyeweerd's thought. An opportunity missed.

Part Two