Kuyper, Dooyeweerd and the Quest
for an Ecumenical Orthodoxy
by
Dr.
J. Glenn Friesen
Lecture
at
Summary
I.
Dooyeweerd and Ecumenism in General
He
regretted the use of the term ‘Calvinistic’ for his philosophy (New Critique I, 524).
He
said that the term ‘Calvinism’ is “dangerous in itself” and can lead to
a label for a definite group or sect. See
Marcel Verburg: Herman Dooyeweerd.
Leven en werk van een Nederlands christen-wijsgeer (Baarn: Ten Have,
1989), 344 and 381.
Vollenhoven
disagreed with Dooyeweerd regarding ecumenism, just as he disagreed on every key
issue, whether in ontology, epistemology, theology or the use of Scripture.
See my forthcoming article “Dooyeweerd versus Vollenhoven: The
religious dialectic within reformational philosophy,” Philosophia
Reformata, 70 (2005), 102-132 [‘Dialectic’].
II.
Ecumenism and Franz von Baader
A
Roman Catholic, Baader was more attracted to Orthodoxy, and he tried to unite
Catholics, Protestants and the Orthodox Church.
He also influenced Kuyper and Dooyeweerd.
See my article, “Dooyeweerd and Baader: A Response to D.F.M,
Strauss,” [http://www.members.shaw.ca/hermandooyeweerd/Strauss.html].
Baader
has been important in the rejection of a two-storey nature/grace dualism by
several Roman Catholic theologians such as Przywara, de Lubac, and von Balthasar.
See
Erich
Przywara: “Die Problematiek der Neuscholastiek,” Kantstudien
(1928), 73-98.
And
see the following books by (Cardinal) Hans Urs von Balthasar:
•The
von Balthasar Reader, ed. Medard Kehl and Werner Löser, tr. Robert J. Daly
and
Fred Lawrence (New York: Crossroad,
1982), intro by Menard Kehl at 5, 7
•Does Jesus Know Us?
Do We Know Him? (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1983), 54-56.
•Cosmic Liturgy: The Universe According
to Maximus the Confessor (
Ignatius, 2003).
III.
The Religious Antithesis
Antithesis
is not a line of personal classifciation, but rather runs through the heart of
every Christian (NC I, 524). (contra
Kuyper and Vollenhoven).
IV.
The Use of Scripture
Unlike
Vollenhoven, Dooyeweerd does not derive philosophy from Scripture. (See Dialectic).
Dooyeweerd
rejects Groen van Prinsterer’s use of Scripture to find “eternal
principles,” and disagrees with Julius Stahl’s use of the Ten Commandments (Vernieuwing
en Bezinning, 242).
Dooyeweerd
interprets Scripture in accordance with “the key of knowledge”–this key is
that our supratemporal heart is the religious root of temporal reality (Twilight
of Western Thought, 124, 125, 145).
V.
Confessions of Faith
Dooyeweerd
says he is bound only by Dutch Confessions (not the Westminster Confession), and
that he would not be bound by philosophical expressions even in the Dutch
Confessions. See his Responses to
Curators of the Vrije Universiteit. Translated
at [http://www.members.shaw.ca/hermandooyeweerd/Curators.html]
[‘Curators’]
VI.
Worldviews and Ecumenism
Dooyeweerd
does not regard worldviews as theoretical. A
worldview is not a system; nor can it be “elaborated” philosophically (NC
I, 157-58).
Dooyeweerd
is not a presuppositionalist. His
religious a priori is to be understood
not in the sense of Biblical proof-texts or theological/philosophical
propositions, but as ontic conditions
that make possible our experience, both pre-theoretical and theoretical.
Our theoretical transcendental Ideas “give an account” [rekenschap
geven] of reality as it is given to us.
An Idea, as hypothesis, points
towards “its own a priori conditions
in and above cosmic time” (WdW I, 5
and 51; NC I, 86).
And this a
priori structure can be known only from experience, although not experience
as conceived of by immanence philosophy (NC
II, 7, fn 2).
VII.
Dooyeweerd and Calvin
Dooyeweerd
criticizes scholastic elements in Calvin, and distinguishes neo-Calvinism from
Calvinism. (See Curators and Verburg
230).
And
see my notes [http://www.members.shaw.ca/jgfriesen/Definitions/Calvinistic.html].
The
Calvin scholar Josef Bohatec said that Dooyeweerd’s idea of the supratemporal
heart is not found in Calvin (Verburg 191).
Dooyeweerd
understands predestination and the sovereignty of God not as causation, but in
the sense of the coherence of meaning, and the unfolding of anticipatory
spheres. (WdW I, 70, and “Het
juridisch causaliteitsprobleem in ‘t licht der wetsidee, ”Anti-revolutionaire Staatkunde 2 (1928) 21-124, at 61).
And he says that conversion occurs in the supratemporal heart, which is
then revealed in our temporal expressions of life.
See his article “The Problem of Time in the Philosophy of the
Law-Idea,” translated at [http://www.members.shaw.ca/hermandooyeweerd/Tijdsprobleem.html],
174.
See
also Michael Morbey’s distinction between the original “catholic” and
“orthodox” Calvin and later Covenant theology. [http://www.members.shaw.ca/aevum/Morbey.html]
[‘Morbey’].
VIII.
Dooyeweerd and Kuyper
Dooyeweerd
criticizes some scholastic dualisms in Kuyper.
See his article, “Kuyper’s Wetenschapsleer,” Philosophia Reformata 4 (1939), 193-232 [‘Kuyper’s Wetenschapsleer’].
But
Dooyeweerd appreciated these works by Kuyper: (1) Kuyper’s Stone Lectures, (2) Kuyper’s address on sphere sovereignty, and
(3) Kuyper’s works of a meditative nature.
See Dooyeweerd: “Na vijf en dertig jaren,” Philosophia
Reformata 36 (1971), 6.
Dooyeweerd
appreciated Kuyper’s emphasis on the supratemporal heart.
He refers to Kuyper's 1898 Stone
Lectures, where Kuyper refers to “that point in our consciousness in which
our life is still undivided and lies comprehended in its unity, not in the
spreading vines but in the root from which the vines spring.” (Kuyper’s
Wetenschapsleer, 211).
Unlike
Vollenhoven, Dooyeweerd appreciated Kuyper’s emphasis on our immediate
experience with God, and on the divine seed implanted within us.
Vollenhoven explicitly rejected Dooyeweerd’s view of the supratemporal
regeneration of the heart, and Kuyper’s idea of regeneration as a “seed” [kiem]
that is coupled with a witness of the Spirit. (See Dialectic).
IX.
Experience as the basis of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy
My
notes at [http://www.members.shaw.ca/jgfriesen/Definitions/Experience.html]
This
emphasis on experience need not involve the dualistic idea of “natural
theology.” But see Terence
Penelhum: “Reflections on Reformed Epistemology,” [http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~nurelweb/papers/other/penel.html].
Although his reference to natural theology is questionable, I believe
that Penelhum correctly points out that religious belief is based on religious
experience (or what William Alston calls Christian Mystical Practice).
And that also seems to be Dooyeweerd’s view.
Vollenhoven’s
emphasis on Scripture over testimony of the Spirit seems to oppose any
experiential or mystical view of regeneration in favour of a more mediated view
of knowledge. (See Dialectic).
X.
Sacramental Experience of Temporal Reality
For
Dooyeweerd, temporal reality exists only as meaning (NC
I, 4, 10), pointing beyond itself for its supratemporal fulfillment (NC
I, 106); meaning is the convergence of all temporal aspects into the
supratemporal religious root, the fullness of meaning (NC
II, 30). See my notes at [http://www.members.shaw.ca/jgfriesen/Definitions/Meaning.html]
Vollenhoven
rejected the idea of temporal reality pointing beyond itself.
(See Dialectic)
Dooyeweerd
says that sometimes eternity radiates through temporal reality.
But without the sense of transcendence, we cannot see reality as it
really is. We cannot have true
knowledge of God, self or cosmos. (NC III, 29-30).
There
are sparks of God’s original Glory and goodness in the world, powers enclosed
in creation, which man must unfold. (Vernieuwing
36, 38 and 58). See [http://www.members.shaw.ca/jgfriesen/Definitions/Spark.html].
The
temporal existence of the other realms becomes fulfilled in man. (Vernieuwing, 30).
David
Naugle’s example of food in Worldview:
The History of a Concept (Eerdmans, 2002,
6-48. Baader already made
many of the same points in his 1815 article “Sur l’Eucharistie” (Werke 7, 3-14). Dooyeweerd:
We must make temporal reality “our own.”
(NC II, 478)
And [http://www.members.shaw.ca/jgfriesen/Definitions/Own.html]
XI.
The Experience of Enstasis
Naïve
experience is enstatic, resting, but
not a static rest. It is the
relation of our supratemporal selfhood to our temporal mantle of functions.
See notes [http://www.members.shaw.ca/jgfriesen/Definitions/Enstasy.html].
New
Critique II,
479 (WdW II, 414): refers to
the “immediate enstatic experience of temporal reality as my own” and of entering enstatically by intuition “into the
cosmic temporal coherence of experience.”
Some
orthodox writers compare enstasy to the idea of hesychia
or inner stillness. See also
“Enstasy-Ecstasy” in Olivier L. Clément: “The Glory of God Hidden in His
Creatures,” from The Roots of Christian
Mysticism; first published in English 1993 by
XII.
Aspects
Cosmic
time splits up both the central law and subject.
Aspects are a side of temporal reality, the “law-side.”
There is a difference between the aspects, which are structures of cosmic
time, and the functioning of individuality structures in the aspects.
Contrary to Vollenhoven’s view (and most reformational philosophy),
aspects are not abstracted properties of things. (See Gegenstandsrelatie
and Dialectic).
The
irreducibility of the aspects cannot be understood apart from the supratemporal
selfhood and religious root (Dooyeweerd’s last article
‘Gegenstandsrelatie’ at [http://www.members.shaw.ca/jgfriesen/Mainheadings/Kentheoretische.html].
The unity of the laws is in God’s world plan, which
cannot be conceptually understood. “Leugen en Waarheid over het Calvinisme”
[Lies and Truth about Calvinism], 6
The “full reality” as cosmic unity of subjectivity constructs itself in the organic coherence of the subject functions, just as all law-spheres are individually only refractions of God's world plan. (Anti-revolutionaire Staatkunde 2 (1928) 21-124 at 113, my translation).
Unfolding is an active inspiration [doorgeestelijking] of the spheres:
The “unfolding of the anticipatory spheres,” as an active “in-spiration" [lit. “spiritualizing-through”] of the law-spheres, is a religious theme in the Calvinistic life and worldview, a theme that reaches its highest tension through the immeasurable power of the all-ruling idea of predestination, taken in its universal meaning. Religious meaning must penetrate everywhere, in all law-spheres, and it must “complete” the meaning of the law-idea, although in this sinful dispensation this ideal is never fulfilled, except through Christ! (Ibid. at 61, my translation).
Michael
Morbey has compared the modal aspects to the Orthodox idea of the Energies of
God. [See Morbey].
Morbey points out that for Calvin, the creation order also served as a
ladder of contemplation in his meditatio
coelestis (or futurae) vitae, described in Ronald S. Wallace: Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life (Eerdmans, 1961).
XIII.
Mysticism
Dooyeweerd’s
mysticism is not one of world-flight, nor of identity with God, but of
nondualism or panentheism. We are
“from, through and to” God as Origin (NC
I, 9). God is the Arché
of the cosmos, “through whom and to whom it has been created” (NC
I, 102)Cf.
Calvin: our very being is nothing else than subsistence in God alone, in
whom one “lives and moves.” (Calvin: Institutes
Chapter I.1.1).
For
Dooyeweerd, when we speak of law as “boundary” between God and creation,
this refers to the dependency of
creation on God (see Tijdsprobleem).
Kallistos
Ware: “God Immanent yet Transcendent: the Divine Energies according to Saint
Gregory Palamas” in In Whom We Live and
Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in a
Scientific World, eds. Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacocke, (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2004), 157-168.
Vollenhoven’s
dichotomy of monism and dualism cannot comprehend this type of mysticism, and
Vollenhoven rejects immediate religious experience (See Dialectic).
Dooyeweerd
says that we participate [wordt
deel te hebben] in Christ (NC
I, 8, 99; II, 560; WdW I, 11, 64;
II, 491).
He also emphasizes the importance of religious self-reflection (NC
I, 15, 165).
(And see Dialectic).
And
Dooyeweerd refers to our Sonship. The
dynamis of the Holy Spirit brings us into the relationship of sonship to the
Father. (NC I, 61).
We may compare this with the Orthodox doctrine of theosis,
or divinization. See “Hesychasm: A
Christian Path of Transcendence,” [http://www.omhros.gr/Kat/History/Txt/Rl/Hesychasm.htm].
Morbey
emphasizes that the Orthodox view is that we are united with the energies, but
not the essence of God [See Morbey].
Kuyper
relates the ideas of Christ’s Sonship and our creation in the image of God:
Moreover, you must understand that all this rests upon sober
reality. It is not semblance, but actual fact, because God created you after His
Image, so that with all the wide difference between God and man, divine reality
is expressed in human form. And
that, when the Word became Flesh, this Incarnation of the Son of God was
immediately connected with your creation after God's Image. (To
be Near Unto God )
XIV.
Image of God
God
expresses Himself in man as His image, and man in turn expresses (or reveals, openbaart]
himself in the temporal world (NC I, 4; also Curators)
Man’s original purpose was to help redeem
creation. Creation fell with man.
Need for Christ as the New Root.
Vollenhoven denied that man was created in the
image of God (See Dialectic).
XV
Apokatastasis
Means,
“the restoration of all things.” Used
by Origen, Maximum and Gregory of Nyssa: [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01599a.htm]
Kuyper
says,
God alone is here the
goal, the point of departure and the point of arrival, the fountain, from which
the waters flow, and at the same time, the ocean into which they finally return.
(“Calvinism and Religion,” Stone
Lectures 53).
[http://www.neocalvinisme.nl/ak/calv/akstone2.html].
Dooyeweerd
says “…mankind embraced in Christ still shares in fallen human nature until
the fulfillment of all things." At
that time, God’s righteousness will radiate even in Satan and the
reprobate, as a confirmation of the absolute sovereignty of the Creator.
(Vernieuwing 38;
Roots of Western Culture,
38).
Dooyeweerd says that nothing of God’s creation can be lost (NC III, 524-525). There is a sense in which redemption has already occurred in the religious root and is only being worked out in time (NC II, 33). “Sin is not dialectically reconciled, but is really propitiated in Christ as the new root of the human race; the whole temporal cosmos, which was religiously concentrated in man, is in principle again directed toward God and thereby wrested free from the power of Satan.” (NC I, 175). Nothing in our apostate world can get lost in Christ (NC II, 34; I, 101).
See
Morbey’s
review of the term at [http://geneva.rutgers.edu/src/faq/restoration.txt].
XVI
Epektasis
Epektasis
is a term used by Gregory of Nyssa to refer to the drawing of the soul ever
onwards (Phil. 3:13). Dooyeweerd
does not use this word, but he does refer to the supratemporal as dynamic, and
to the idea of supratemporal fulfillment. See
notes at [http://www.members.shaw.ca/jgfriesen/Definitions/Epektasis.html].
XVII
Other
Kallistos Ware:
•The Orthodox Way (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimirs
Press, 1985)
•The Orthodox Church, new
edition (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1993).
See
also “The UnReformed Way: A Response to the Credenda Agenda,” which has some
interesting discussion explaining Orthodoxy for Reformed readers:
[http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/credenda_response.aspx]
Father
Symeon (