Christian Philosophy and the Meaning of History

by Herman Dooyeweerd

This introduction to Dooyeweerd's philosophy focuses on its critique of the modernist belief in the autonomy of theroretical thought. Topics the meaning of history; the criteria of progressive and reactionary tendencies in history; and Christianity in science and scholarship.

Genres: Philosophy

124 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1997

Reviews

[Joel Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read a fair bit of analytic tradition Christian philosophy but "Christian Philosophy and the Meaning of History" was my introduction to continental reformational philosophy. I was particularly impressed with his compact and organized writing style, his epistemological critiques of Kant and Husserl, and his section on "The Dangers of the Intellectual Disarmament of Christianity in Science."

My book review/critique will be as follows. I will summarize each of the four sections, followed by a review/critique after each section. After this, I bring my concluding statement together. The first of four sections will be by far the longest as it has by far the highest amount of detailed and critical fine-points that affect the rest of his thought.

Christian Philosophy: An Exploration:
Dooyeweerd is a proper neo-Calvinist in that he begins with a statement rejecting the dualism between the secular and the sacred when it comes to any cultural, philosophical, scientific, or any other human activity. Dooyeweerd believes that, if we believe in God, and that God being the Christian God of the Bible, then we should understand that it is he who is over all of this world; not hidden in certain sacred areas of life. Our ground-motive is only sure if it based on God, and this is the conclusion that Dooyeweerd wants to come to by the end of this 37-page section. The way he does so is as follows: (1) A critique of Kantian and Husserlian epistemology, (2) laying out his three transcendental problems, (3) establishing the Biblical ground-motive in comparison with past ground-motives of epistemology, and (4) ending the section with his three transcendental ideas. The second point is going to be a lot more extensive than the other three as we are dealing with a number of fine-points in Dooyeweerdian epistemology.

(1) Out of Kant's three critiques ("Critique of Pure Reason," "Critique of Practical Reason," and "Critique of Judgment."), Dooyeweerd seems to be responding in particular to Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason." In his three critiques, Kant wanted to find the epistemological limit of pure theoretical thinking, pure practical thinking, and the aesthetic/teleological judgment. Kant found the limits of these three faculties of thought by theoretical reasoning. In short, Kant found the limits of Judgment, practical thought, and theoretical thought on the founding principles of theoretical thought. Thinking's limits were based on thinking's reasoning. He based his reasoning on understanding and his understanding on reasoning. Dooyeweerd wants Kant to critique his theoretical thought with something more foundational than theoretical thought (i.e., what is theoretical thought based on? What comes before it?). Husserl saw this problem and started the school of thought called Phenomenology. He saw that theoretical thought needed to be based and limited to something prior to it and so he based it on the horizon of perceptual experience of the individual. Dooyeweerd believes, still, that this is not foundational enough of a place to base theoretical thought on. Dooyeweerd says to Husserl, "I'll do you one better," and he says that there is no foundational autonomy of the experience of the self to base theoretical thought on. Dooyeweerd thinks that our founding principle ought to be a completely autonomous one (i.e., something that needs needs no other turtles below it). Philosophy, thinks Dooyeweerd, has too long believed in the autonomy of theoretical thought (and therefore of philosophy itself).

(2) Here, he gets to the problem of the Gegenstand relation. Non-philosophical thought ("naive thought") sees that there is a subject-object relation. Non-philosophical thought knows that a "church building cannot be a subject in the aspect of faith but that it nevertheless serves an objective purpose in the worship of a faith-community, a purpose which comes to objective expression in the structure of the building itself (Dooyeweerd, 9-10)." However, in theoretical thought, object and subject are not just of a relation but of an antithesis. This is the Gegenstand relation: "Gegenstand - A German word for 'object,' used by Dooyeweerd as a technical term for a modality when abstracted from the coherence of time and opposed to the analytic function in the theoretical attitude of thought, thereby establishing the Gegenstand relation. Gegenstand is therefore the technically precise word for the object of science, while 'object' itself is reserved for the objects of naive experience (glossary, 112)." In this, the gegenstand (object) is opposed to the subject who views it or experiences it. There is an antithesis. The subject (the observer and his experience) is in time, in the fabric of experience. The gegenstand is outside of it in the theoretical thought of the individual. To put it one sentence, there is an antithesis in the logical and non-logical aspects of our experience in the way that they relate to theoretical thought. This finally brings us to his three transcendental problems.

Here is his first of three transcendental problems: (a) "Does the theoretical antithesis between the logical aspect and the non-logical modes of our experience correspond to the integral structure of the horizon of our experience and hence the structure of empirical reality (Dooyeweerd, 8)?" We have more or less answered this question in the previous question but the essential answer is that they do correspond to the integral structure of the horizon of experience in that the act of our theoretical thought is something that we as subjects do and therefore is also part of the horizon of our experience. Having laid out the antithesis in the first problem, Dooyeweerd deals with the next problem: "(b) From what standpoint can the aspects of our horizon of experience, which were set apart and in opposition to each other in the theoretical antithesis, be reunited in a theoretical synthesis? (Dooyeweerd, 14.)" Dooyeweerd believes that we can only get to a synthesis in the logical and non-logical aspects of our experience if we find something more foundational than our experience and he finds that in the self in relation to who we are as human beings. Even this critical self-reflective epistemology, however, needs an essential unifying origin. This unifying origin is found in the third transcendental problem: "(c) How is this critical self-reflection, this concentric direction of theoretical thought toward the self possible, and what is it's origin? (Dooyeweerd, 18.)" Dooyeweerd does not allow for the absolutization for any modalities of experience (Theoretical thought, scientific thought, or even the faith modality). All these must be rooted in who we really are in relation to our origin. This final foundation he finds is the relation between the self and that which cannot be dispensed with because of its magnitudinal and transcendental greatness (i.e., God). It is here that we begin to understand Dooyeweerd's cosmonomic idea. The cosmonomic idea is defined in the glossary as follows: "Cosmonomic idea - Dooyeweerd's own English rendering of the Dutch term 'wetsidee.' Occasionally equivalents are 'transcendental ground idea' or 'transcendental basic idea.' The intention of this new term is to bring to expression that there exists an unbreakable coherence between God's law (nomos) and created reality (cosmos) factually subected to God's law (112)."

(3) Dooyeweerd doesn't mind dualisms but he thinks that they are bad philosophical foundations. We should be finding the unifying ground-motive of philosophy in the origin. This origin, he sees as the Biblical God who brings everything together through Christ. Dooyeweerd therefore rejects the form-matter dualistic antithesis in Greek thought, the nature-grace dualistic antithesis in Medieval/scholastic thought, and the nature-freedom dualistic antithesis of humanistic thought in early modern to late modern thought as foundations for philosophy. A pure philosophy ought to have the ground in the unifying ground-motive of the cosmonomic idea. Dooyeweerd argues that his epistemological system is not a closed one but a system that all traditions of thought can use to critique there own thinking. He doesn't necessarily reject all the conclusions that these dualisms came to but he believes that they all had faulty foundations that can be redeemed by his epistemological method.

(4) Up to this point, most of Dooyeweerd's epistemology has been in the tradition of critique. Having come to the conclusion he's come to, he establishes what he calls "the three transcendental ideas." The first one is that "every philosophy presupposes an idea of the mutual coherence and interrelation of the modalities of our horizon of experience, which are set apart in opposition to each other in the 'Gegenstand relation (Dooyeweerd, 35).'" This seems obvious on the basis that we have one horizon of experience that interacts with many modalities within one empirical reality. His second transcendental idea is that "the deeper root unity of these separated modalities are grasped (Dooyeweerd, 36)" in the third transcendental idea "in which theoretical thought relates the theoretical diversity and the transcendental idea of its coherence to an ultimate Origin (Dooyeweerd, 36)."

So ends the summary of Dooyeweerd's critical Christian epistemology.

My Critique/Review of "Christian Philosophy: An Introduction:"
Dooyeweerd's critique of Kant and Husserl is poignant. It takes the form of an even more critical phenomenological critique than Kant and Husserl. However, it is because of this that I have some concerns about Dooyeweerd's own epistemology. The situation he is at right now is:
1. We can only view the world of phenomena.
2. We are completely a part of the phenomenological world.
3. Our theoretical abstractions take objects out of time but our thinking of it is within cosmic time.
I'm not convinced Dooyeweerd has settled the problem in favour of a Christian epistemology. In fact, I'm not convinced that we are justified in doing any supra-temporal metaphysics other than the assertion that the ground-motive of God exists. Furthermore, it is not obvious to me that Dooyeweerd has conclusively show that the God as Origin is the Biblical God. I could quite as easily, perhaps more easily, come to the conclusion that this Origin is the idealist God of Berkeley or the Deistic God of Kant. The only way I could defend Dooyeweerd here is that he believes that the power of the Holy Spirit shows to him and to those to whom it is obvious that it could only be the Christian biblical God. However, if I come to that conclusion, then Dooyeweerd's system suddenly becomes a closed, semi-gnostic, Christian idealist/monist system. Ironically, Dooyeweerd looks a lot more like a neo-Platonist if this is the case. The real means of coming to profound truths is locked away from the ordinary way if the theoretical method is the only means. I'm not saying that Dooyeweerd intends this but, if this is the only epistemological method available to all philosophy, he has unintentionally done so.

Under these conditions, I would prefer Alvin Plantinga and C. S. Lewis's epistemology. Plantinga's sensis divinitatis does not require theoretical thought. All it says he says is that there are events that happen that give occasion for a sense that the divine exists to arise in a faculty that is likely common among all of humanity. Some people have more "damaged" sensis divinitatises and some may have intentionally damaged them on the way. Some cultivate their sensis divinitatis or let it speak to them. In this way, they reason as to why they feel this sense of the divine. This is a philosophy that makes Christian experience as a justified epistemology more accessible to believing people more generally speaking than just those who can engage deeply with theoretical methods. C. S. Lewis takes his cue from the latent sense of morality within us that seems independent of social norms. One can atomize things to dust until someone treats you unfairly.

As of right now, I agree with Dooyeweerd's critique of Kant and Husserl on their own grounds. I even think his epistemology is something to consider in a Christian philosophy. However, I wonder if his system collapses if you allow for the human experience of intuition or sense to be a part of his epistemology. It was designed to be an airtight system. Perhaps, he would say "only insofar as you have the right epistemology can you add these pieces of experience as justification." I would only respond that it seems that the yearning for God in peoples hearts brings them to thinking Christianly about a thing rather than his system.

Finally, I think that much of past philosophy - Greek, Medieval, and Humanist/Modernist - have come to right and wrong conclusions on things independent of Dooyeweerd's system. I also believe they were justified to come to those good conclusions independent of his system. I don't see how Dooyeweerd doesn't have the problem of saying that the Pythagorean theorem was thought up as a correct but unjustified conclusion because he didn't have Dooyeweerd's epistemological system. Anything that I would write in the future regarding these problems must be prefaced with an answer to this question: Is Dooyeweerd's system only capable of being self-consistent and can it be fused with other Christian epistemologies and not lose its power?

The Meaning of History:
The Meaning of History is a smaller 8-page essay on the place of the discipline and its meaning in reality. Immediately, Dooyeweerd sets out by saying that history is only a modality of reality rather than reality itself. The glossary (ever helpful) defines "modality" as follows: "Modality - One of the fifteen fundamental ways of being distinguished by Dooyeweerd. As modes of being, they are sharply distinguished from the concrete things which function within them... Modalities are also known as 'modal functions,' 'modal aspects,' or as 'facets' of created reality (Glossary, 115)." Dooyeweerd's method of defining history as a discipline and as a meaning is by saying that "the meaning of history is primarily determined by the modal structure of the historical aspect of reality (Dooyeweerd, 40)." In Dooyeweerd's thought, history/culture is one of the fifteen constant modalities. Therefore, Dooyeweerd believes that history has a consistent ontological (a being) meaning. Naturally, because history/culture is a modality of reality, it must also be rooted in the biblical ground-motive. He therefore rejects the humanistic framework of the modernists in his day. Dooyeweerd then talks about the difference between "closed" and "open" cultures. A closed culture is a primitive community that singularly defines the functions of each of its members. All other cultures are viewed as "hostile" to it. By contrast, an open culture has a kind of interaction with other different cultures that is peaceful and beneficial. This can be measured particularly in economic sharing and the ability to access and move around authority structures. The problem that Dooyeweerd observes is cultural disharmony. This is a bad thing because, presumably, we are more human beings of the same essence rather than separate cultural beings. Humanity has fallen away from the religious root that bound them to God. History and faith are different modalities. History deals with things in time, faith points beyond time. Our faith should point to the religious which informs our history and our understanding of the meaning of history.

My Review/Critique of "The Meaning of History:"
There are different ways to study the same thing and history is one of these ways of studying a thing (the "thing" in this case being the general thing of "reality"). I believe that Dooyeweerd is correct to see history as a mode rather than a reality itself such as the historicists believe(d). History too, in the view of a time that matters, has an ontological meaning. I begin to have a bit of a problem with his analysis of "closed" and "open" cultures. By his definitions, I agree that "open" cultures are more sophisticated, but I thought we dispensed with the idea that open cultures don't view each other as hostiles during and after the world wars. There is more power in larger and more sophisticated communities; there is a lot more good that can be done with that power but the opposite is also true.

The Criteria of Progressive and Reactionary Tendencies in History:
Most of the first part of this essay plays the role of an elaboration on the previous essay. However, we should distinguish the meanings of "progressive" and "reactionary" as Dooyeweerd means it. In this essay, he compares the more progressive view of history of the humanist historians and the more reactionary view of the historicists. Both in their own way absolutize history. One says it's the fundamental reality and the other says that we make the meaning of this fundamental reality in constructing this history. Dooyeweerd believes we should treat history/culture as a non-logical true thing that has its meaning in the biblical ground-motive and the story of God.

My Review/Critique of the Meaning of History:
I agree with the essentials of what Dooyeweerd says in this essay and I disagree on some of the fine points that I don't have the word space to get into.

The Dangers of the Intellectual Disarmament of Christianity in Science:
This essay, at 38 pages, is the largest section along with "Christian Philosophy." Most of what Dooyeweerd says about science is what he says about history in regards to his epistemology. Dooyeweerd rejects the impulse of Christians to synthesize two worldviews together - a "scientific" one and a Christian one. There are scientific facts, but it is, once again, under a series of modes. I have no disagreement here except for certain fine-points.

My Review/Critique of "The Dangers of the Intellectual Disarmament of Christianity in Science:
Only one major critique. Dooyeweerd seems to see the struggle in western culture over science as one that could be won or perhaps, pushed in good favour toward Christianity. I do not think there are earthly grounds for such triumphalism. Otherwise, I have no other majore ciritques.

Conclusion:
Overall, this book is an excellent introduction to Dooyeweerd's thought. His epistemology guides all of his thinking. If one wants to understand Dooyeweerd, he only has to understand the cosmonomic idea, the modalities, and the biblical ground-motive. Any other thoughts that I have are specific to certain points or are found above throughout my review/critique.

[Anderson Paz · Rating 5 out of 5]

A obra é composta por quatro capítulos. No primeiro, Dooyeweerd apresenta, em linhas gerais, o projeto da filosofia cosmonômica e a crítica à autonomia do pensamento teórico, destacando os problemas transcendentais e os motivos básicos religiosos.
O capítulo dois trata do aspecto modal histórico, do núcleo de sentido da história, do caráter normativo do aspecto histórico e da abertura cultural. O capítulo três discute o problema do historicismo, o conceito de desenvolvimento histórico como analogia biótica, como também trata da abertura e integração histórico-cultural, das esferas culturais típicas, das funções guias das estruturas de individualidade, do princípio da economia e harmonia cultural e da formação de uma totalidade cultural nacional.
No último capítulo, Dooyeweerd trata do problema do cientificismo como fé cega na autonomia da razão. O autor discute o processo de secularização da ciência desde Tomás até o ideal humanista moderno. A partir disso, mostra como surgem o naturalismo e o ideal da personalidade, o formalismo positivista neokantiano, a filosofia existencial irracionalista. E sustenta que a investigação científica não é neutra. O cristão deve partir do fundamento bíblico ao fazer ciência.
Essa é uma obra da série editada pelo Dr. Strauss que organiza alguns textos de Dooyeweerd a partir de determinada temática. Não é o texto ideal para começar a ler Dooyeweerd, mas certamente é uma obra rica de conteúdo e incontornável para a devida compreensão do pensamento do autor.

[Marcos · Rating 4 out of 5]

É uma leitura difícil para novatos na área de filosofia, especialmente a primeira metade do livro. É muito bom ter esse e outros títulos lançados em português, o que é complicado e encarar a quantidade de erros do texto. Erros que uma simples revisão corrigiriam e que dificultam ainda mais a compreensão de um texto que por si só já é difícil.
O glossário no final é bem útil e teria sido mais bem apresentado se eu o tivesse descoberto antes de começar a leitura.