The Task of Philosophy

Even though its task is limited, the philosophy that keeps the line between God and cosmos in mind need not be in want of work.  For a philosopher who believes that God created the cosmos proceeds every time again from the presupposition that the wealth in that which is created will be much greater than has been ascertained up to that time.  For that reason, such a philosopher can never say, “I am ready, look here, a closed system.”  On the contrary, her result, though acquired systematically, is always a provisional one, for she remains filled with expectation, attuned to new surprises that will no doubt complement the main conception that agrees with belief, yet will time and again supplement and usually alter earlier findings.

Vollenhoven Introduction to Philosophy

The provisional title for my introduction is Tasks and Cosmos. The above quote from Vollenhoven gives a good indication why. Central to reformational philosophy is an aversion to speculation, and a down-to-earth focus on the world we live in. This cosmos, created by God, is good and richer, more varied and surprising than any philosophy has so far been able to fathom. A Christian philosophy must be "attuned to new surprises".  The focus of philosophy is this cosmos in its interrelated diversity. But secondly the emphasis is on the notion of tasks. First of all the task of philosophy itself. This though is just one of many possible tasks that can be taken up by us creatures made in God's image. Reformational philosophy starts out from a notion that every truly human task is good and limited. Even though such tasks are limited, as Vollenhoven points out, they are given for human flourishing and provide ample work in honouring God and serving our neighbours.

Contents

Contents for introduction to reformational philosophy

Here is the plan for the first three chapters. There may be changes as it develops and takes shape. I will add links back to here to help navigation through the sections.

Preface

Introduction

(1)   Philosophy and the richness of creation *

(2)   Philosophy and worldview

(3)   The cultural mandate

(4)   An ordered cosmos

(5)   Good and evil: Fall and redemption

(6)   Created reality as ‘subject’

(7)   Created reality as ‘meaning’

Further reading

What is philosophy?

(8)   The question “what is philosophy?”

(9)   Criticism and criteria

(10) Rational thinking

(11) Theory and abstraction

(12) No Archimedean point

(13) The character of philosophy

(14) Philosophy not neutral

Further reading

Understanding the cosmos

(15) Irreducible diversity

(16) The theory of modal spheres

(17) Basic features of the modal spheres

(18) Outline of the modal aspects

(19) Diversity and coherence between the modes

(20) What is Time?

(21) Time and the modal aspects

(22) Modal aspects as universal law spheres

(23) The subject-object relation

(24) Sensory perception

(25) Difference and connection between entities and aspects

(26) Idionomy

(27) Non-human subjects

(28) Encapsis

(29) Limits of theory

(30) Example: the limits of neuroscience

(31) What’s wrong with substance?

(32) The meaning of being human

(33) The structure of the human body

(34) We are not body and soul

(35) Faith and religion

(36) Faith and theology

(37) Philosophy andGod

Further reading

Understanding our Tasks

(38) History and human culture 
(39) Normative Disclosure

An Introduction to Reformational Philosophy

I have been reading reformational philosophy now for over twenty years. It has had a profound impact on my thinking and continues to inspire me. It now seems appropriate to offer an introduction to this tradition of serious Christian thinking in the hope of encouraging others to benefit from its many insights. For those not familiar with reformational philosophy it can be identified as a little known Christian approach to philosophy pioneered by two Dutch philosophers in the first half of the 20th century.  Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977) and Dirk Th. Vollenhoven (1892-1978) were professors at the Free University in Amsterdam founded by the great Dutch theologian and statesman Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) in 1880 as a Christian university founded on “reformed principles”.  The huge potential of this philosophy to be a blessing to Christians and their neighbours has yet to be fulfilled.  In part this is due to the complexity of many of the books produced by this philosophical movement, and partly because of the different way of thinking it promotes. It is my hope that in trying to explain some of its ideas and principles in a concise and clear way, a small contribution may be made to making reformational philosophy better known and appreciated.

This introduction is a work in progress with the plan to set it out across four chapters, each containing short digestible sections. The first two chapters are short and introductory, looking first at the worldview background, and, next, at the nature and task of philosophy. The final two chapters will be much longer and form the main exposition of reformational philosophy, first focusing on “understanding the cosmos”, and second on “Understanding our Tasks”.

Previous introductions to reformational philosophy have tended either to focus on one philosopher, usually Herman Dooyeweerd, or to introduce the author’s own version of reformational philosophy. Concerning the first it must be said that Dooyeweerd's writing style has not proved attractive to non-philosophers and philosophers trained in the analytic tradition. In addition, there are many other who are worthy of treatment in their own right. My aim then has been to try and bring together the key insights and contributions from as wide a range of the tradition as I could, in the hope that this will help newcomers to get a good taste of the potential of reformational philosophy as a living tradition. On the second point, while the selection and presentation cannot help but be personal, I have aimed to stay in the mainstream of reformational philosophy and to avoid deliberate innovation or idiosyncrasy.  The further reading sections are an integral part of this introduction as they attempt to document my sources, but also act as an invitation to discover more of the reformational tradition.

Next

Contents

Morality

John Gray on 'What scares the new Atheists?'

Justin McBrayer on 'Why our children don't believe in moral facts'

Review of Ouweneel's What then is theology?

What then is theology? By Willem J. Ouweneel 2014, 242 pages

In this book Ouweneel offers us, according to the subtitle, “an introduction to Christian theology”.  However it is not an introduction in the usual sense of an overview of the main themes and content of theology.  It is rather an introduction to the activity of theology, or as Ouweneel puts it in his foreword “It is more like a chemist taking you into his laboratory, and showing you what he is doing.  That is, the purpose of this book is to analyze the phenomenon of theology itself” (xiii).  This means that the book is not really an example of theology, it is a book about theology, and as such is more philosophical in character.  This is an important point for Ouweneel who is also a philosopher as well as a theologian, and he makes numerous references to his earlier book Wisdom for Thinkers which introduces Christian philosophy.

For convenience we can divide the book into two sections.  The first five chapters deal with how theology is related to matters that should be distinguished from theology itself. The last five chapters deal more with the internal workings of theology, in the language of the foreword, the theologian’s laboratory.

So Ouweneel begins by distinguishing the practical character of Christian life and belief from theology as a science, a theoretical enterprise (chapter one). He explains the role and influence of philosophy in relation to theology (chapter two), how the Bible is both not the only object of theology and is more than what theological study is about (chapter three), how theology relates to the other sciences (chapter four), and to the church and its confessions (chapter five). Helpful about this part of the book is the way he insists that Christian life is richer and more important than theological study valuable as it is.  The difference between ordinary “Bible study” and theological study is very great, he argues, “It is a bit like the difference between the eater and the chemist in the case of bread” (5).  He develops the quite radical position that theology is neither a higher more sacred science than other sciences (scholastic view), nor a dogmatic pseudo-science (modern rationalism). It is one science among the others, properly scientific and not to be controlled by the church, but as all sciences, developed out of a faith stance. All sciences are ‘secular’ in that they investigate empirical reality, and all sciences are ‘sacred’ in that they investigate God’s creation and must recognize or willfully ignore the creator. Further Ouweneel insists that without a Christian philosophy there can be no Christian theology.

The second half, as I have divided it, starts with a discussion of abstraction and the use of concepts and ideas in theology (chapter six), next he discusses criteria for the conceptualization that is part of the task of theology (chapter seven).  The next two chapters deal with paradigms, first in science in general then in theology in particular, he ends with a discussion of (theoretical) truth against the background of the fullness of truth found in Jesus Christ.

Ouweneel has set himself a very difficult task. The issues he raises have not always received the attention they deserve and at the same time he is writing an introduction. As such some parts of the book are more successful than others. Since I am sympathetic to his project and much of what he is arguing for I will just mention briefly a few weak points. His focus is on systematic theology and it is a shame that he does not consider the important developments in biblical theology.  His distinctions between rational, irrational, non-rational and supra-rational start to become rather confusing when set alongside other distinctions he makes (eg practical-theoretical, faith, worldview, ground-motive etc.). It is not always clear how these all distinctions line up. He can be commended for keeping the book short, however I wonder if some sections could have been cut back more to make room for a case study chapter where the relevance of the issues raised in earlier chapters can be applied to a live theological topic.

Kieslowski’s The Decalogue

It's been a long time since I watched this series of films by the great Polish director.  Think Christian and Reel Spirituality are blogging through the series here.  I'm a bit late off the mark on this one, but still a good spur to re-watch them.

H.R. Rookmaaker

I've been dipping into his classic Modern Art and the Death of a Culture. It was the first "reformational" book I ever read and I've been hooked ever since. Here is a particularly good quote:

I used the phrase 'how a Christian should live and act' rather than 'a Christian attitude to culture' advisedly. For we can easily slip into the mistake of making Christianity and culture two distinct entities quite separate from each other. Then, if we find we are in difficulties in resolving the two, the mistake may well be that we are trying to bring together two different things which we have separated artificially. Culture is the result of man's creative activity within God-given structures. So it can never be something apart from our faith. All our work is ultimately directed by our answer to the question of who - or what - our God is, and where for us the ultimate source of all reality and life lies. So our resulting 'culture' can never be something separate from our 'faith' (36)

Schürmann on seeing and hearing

For the Greeks to know is to see: “To know is to have seen, and to attain evidence is, as the word indicates, ‘to have seen well’. We only see well what is given to us, and we see best what remains immobile. Hearing, on the other hand, is the sense attuned to time: the ear perceives movements of approach and retreat better than the eye. A sound is not yet, then it approaches, it is there, and already it fades and is no more. For the gaze there is only the either-or of the present and the absent. To look is to strive to see what is the case. It is an act that requires distantiation. We are unable to read signs printed on a page with the eye ‘glued’ to it. Not so for hearing. The closer a sound is the better I perceive it. Hence ‘belonging’ has the connotation of ‘hearing’. The German gehören derives from hören. In the Greek, Latin, and Germanic languages, to be capable of hearing is to be capable of obeying; horchen meaning gehorchen. The eye is the organ of distance and the constantly present. The ear is the organ of involvement and of disclosure in time” (Reiner Schürmann Heidegger on Being and Acting pp.65-66)

Miscellaneous Links

The latest Aspects is on-line.

Next year the Association for Reformational philosophy celebrates 75 years with an international symposium at the Free University on The Future of Creation Order.

The ICS is preparing for what looks to be a very interesting conference next month called Truth Matters.

Johan Mekkes Creation, Revelation and Philosophy has been available for a few months now here or here.

Some optimistic reflections on Britain's coalition government from Jonathan Chaplin From Big State to Big Society.

And Jonathan Chaplin's forthcoming book on Dooyeweerd.

Is Dooyeweerd the Prog Rock of philosophy? Discuss

... Well at least prog rockers and reformational philosophers should agree that early Genesis is great!

Philosophia Reformata

There is now a website for the journal Philosophia Reformata published by the Association for Reformational Philosophy. If you explore it a little you will find a few articles on-line and the contents for the next edition apparently due out now.

Paul has also pointed out to me that Roy Clouser and others have published a special edition of the journal Axiomathes dedicated to Herman Dooyeweerd. See here and here. Reason to celebrate.

Links of interest

An interesting article articulating a communitarian conservative response to the global economic crisis called Rise of the red Tories.

Some videos of Alvin Plantinga on God and arguments among other topics and among lots of other interesting people at Closer to Truth.

Loads of great philosophy cartoons at chaopet.

A little more than nothing

I owe Bruce Wearne thanks for coming across this quote. It expresses well the insight that we should avoid unbridled optimism because we are not the answer to the worlds problems, we cannot solve everything, at the same time the pessimism that we cannot do anything is equally misguided.

The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's word. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that should be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No conversion brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness. No programme accomplishes the church's mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything. This is what we are about. We plant seeds that one day will grow or maybe die. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something and do it very well. It may be incomplete but it is a beginning. A step along the way. An opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the results. But that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are the workers, not master builders. We are ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future that is not our own.

Archbishop Oscar Romero, El Salvador (1917-1980)

Religious reasons in public discourse

Theos a think tank for public theology has published a report by Jonathan Chaplin called Talking God.

The reformed philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff has made significant contributions to this topic and can been seen explaining his view in conversation with Miroslav Volf in the video below.

Sermon on Money

Grace Church Hackney puts their sermons on-line. I've just caught up with one we missed on Luke 12:13-34. It is well worth a listen as Giles Fouhy gives a perceptive and challenging reading of the passage.

Elaine Storkey on the Bible and Gender

Storkey’s fascinating and well written book on the gender debate Origins of Difference ends with a useful summary of how the Bible deals with issues of gender. Her main point is that the Bible does not offer a simple one-dimensional response, in the terms of the debate it is not ‘essentialist’. Instead the Bible can be seen to present four dimension to the issue, Storkey calls them paradigms however since they are not opposing options it seems more appropriate to speak of dimensions.

The first dimension is that of difference, this is seen in the different creation accounts of Adam, from the dust, and Eve, from Adams rib. It is also apparent in their different confrontation with temptation and the different curse that they receive for their disobedience. This ties in with the different gender roles that men and women find themselves involved with in different cultural contexts, though Storkey notes that these roles are not fixed.

The second is that the Bible also incorporates the idea of sameness or similarity. Both are made in the image of God, Adam recognises the women as “bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh”. They are both given the cultural mandate with its authority and responsibility for God’s creation; both receive the curse and look towards the promise of redemption. Paul even goes so far as to say that there is neither “male” nor “female” in Christ suggesting at least that the difference should not be divisive or decisive.

Thirdly the Bible points to the complementarity of women and men, they fit together designed as co-helpers. Just as women came from man so now man comes from women (1 Corinthians 11:11).

Lastly the Bible shows that men and women were made for union. No other creature was suitable for Adam and the gospel of reconciliation draws all together in the unity of the body of Christ as his church.

Storkey also points to the occasions where Jesus challenged traditional gender roles and prejudices in the way he acted towards women, such as his interaction with the Samaritan woman (John 4), the woman who suffered from bleeding (Luke 8:43-48), and the episode with Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-41). Her conclusions seem to be that (1) men and women, being different, will tend towards some differences in roles, but that these can change over time, there is no fixed ahistorical framework, (2) These differing and changing roles should be judged according to the norms set out in the Bible for loving relationships such as the fruits of the spirit (e.g. Galatians 5:16-26, Colossians 3, Romans 12:9-21). In this way Storkey finds a way out of the sterile debates about “created or constructed”, our creaturely sex/gender nature is both given with creational order and called to faithful cultural response.

Bach's Partita in D minor for solo Violin

This piece was played last Sunday at our church during communion. It is quite sublime. Hopefully the violinist will indeed play the other sections of the partita tomorrow as she suggested she might.

Dooyeweerd's Text

We can now celebrate having both De Wijsbegeerte de Wetisdee and A New Critique of Theoretical Thought I-II and III-IV available on-line, though as Baus remarks we still await affordable copies of his works. Personally I accept that a decent set of the New Critique is going to cost more than your average paperback, but that is no excuse for not making reasonably cheap editions of books like Roots and Twilight available. Unfortunately price is not the only problem, in his article on Dooyeweerd and a reformational theory of truth Zuidervaart makes these rather sobering comments:

Because New Critique is both a translation and a revision of Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee, commentators face tricky questions when they interpret Dooyeweerd’s magnum opus. This is especially so of English passages that seem prima facie to translate the Dutch version. Sometimes there are significant differences in meaning between equivalent passages in the two works. One does not always know whether this is due to the quality of the translation or due to a change in Dooyeweerd’s conception. Although I shall note a number of these differences, to give them a complete interpretation would take me too far afield. Where the English version translates an equivalent passage in the Dutch version, I occasionally use square brackets to indicate nuances in Dutch not caught in the English version. I also silently modify translated passages in other ways, usually to render them in more idiomatic English. What Dooyeweerd scholars really need is a thorough, critical edition of NC, one that sorts out the differences between WW and NC and makes informed judgments about the nature and source of those differences. In the meantime, a careful reader of Dooyeweerd should use both WW and NC, and not assume that everything in NC is a faithful rendering of his own conception.

Perhaps I should add a critical edition of the New Critique onto my list of future reformational book, however it could be that we are still decades away from such a publication I hope not.

Just War Theory

It is sometimes argued that Just war theory (JWT) is of no use because it is ineffective to stop wars and is often used by governments prosecuting war as a moral cover for its actions. A further criticism is that JWT only kicks in at the last minute when the chances of a peaceful outcome is fast receding from improbable to impossible. In other words JWT finds the limelight just as the decision to go to war has been made and the government is looking around for a way of justifying this decision.

These criticisms seem to me me a little unfair. Firstly even if the slide to war has acquired a sense of inevitability the first requirement of JWT is that all peaceful means have been exhausted so there is a chance to pull back and consider other avenues, the government can also be criticised for opportunities missed or deliberately spoiled. This requirement also highlights the properly limited character of JWT because it points to the need for a Just Peace Theory, which is to say that JWT should be understood as only one specific outworking of a broader theory of the states task of pursuing justice. Its ineffectiveness in preventing war is not a failure of JWT so much as a more general failure of governments to seek justice in all its actions, in particular in the international realm.

The use of JWT in trying to give a moral veneer to an unjust war is certainly to be regretted, but appeals to freedom and democracy for ideological purposes are equally to be deplored, and these need not be discredited on account of such abuse. The only other options for a critique of warmongering is an absolutistic pacificism, such a position certainly cannot be co-opted in the justification of war! However by its very absolute character pacificism is unable to engage with the specifics of a particular situation, JWT in contrast encourages a critical evaluation of the situation which can latch onto the concrete realities of states entering into peace endangering scenarios.

JWT, it should be remembered, has a role to play in evaluating the prosecution of war and military hostilities just as much as in the decision to go to war. This is illustrated in this article from the Economist on Israels actions in Gaza. In a more thorough fashion see James Skillen's assessment of the war in Iraq from a while back.

Early Genesis

No not the book the band. I got into 'early' Genesis (i.e. the Gabriel era) while at high school and still enjoy their music. I wouldn't say I'm a typical music lover having a rather small cd collection and being well behind on the whole iPod and download technology. Still I do love music, a smattering of classical - mainly Bach, Jazz - leaning towards later Coltrane and 1960s Miles Davis, and a random collection of more 'popular' music.

What I love about early Genesis is the rich musical textures they create, their wide ranging dynamics making the climaxes more impressive and each band member contributing something distinctive from their instruments. Anyway, here goes for my first YouTube insert. And if you enjoy this, take a look at Gabriel's surreal theatrics in their live performances here.