| Linked
Glossary of Terms
(references to De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee, unless
indicated. See concordance
for correlation with pages in the New Critique. The concordance
is in pdf format.)
| I-Thou |
NC II, 143-144, 149 [not in WdW] |
| I-We |
NC III, 29 [not in WdW] |
Martin Buber is known for his book I and Thou. Prior to World
War I, Buber was associated for a time with the circle of intellectuals
around van Eeden. I and Thou
was written in 1923.
Dooyeweerd refers to Buber. He says that Buber makes a sharp distinction
between the "experience of the world," which has to do with
"impersonal objects" such as things and laws. But the I-Thou
relation is
…intrinsically personal and existential, the realm of personal
freedom and existential responsibility, the sphere of a real meeting
between I and thou which does not allow of general rules and laws, nor
of boundaries of modal spheres.(NC II, 143)
Dooyeweerd says that Christian existentialism, influenced
by Buber, has rejected any idea of an ethical
law-sphere. He says that this is ruled by the Ground-Motive
of nature/freedom, in its irrationalist
conception.
Dooyeweerd says that we cannot make a distinction between
and impersonal I-it relation and an existential I-thou relation. His reason
for this is very interesting. He says that it is un-Biblical. He then
says,
It deforms the integral structure of human experience
and eliminates its relation to the central religious sphere.
The world of experience seems to be impersonal and non-existential only
if we identify it with an absolutized theoretical abstraction ('nature'
in the sense of the classical Humanist science-ideal). But this absolutized
abstraction has nothing to do with the modal horizon of human experience
in its integral meaning form which we have started (Ibid).
In other words, Buber's impersonal world of I-It fails
to relate the temporal world to its religious root.
It eliminates the relation of nature to the central religious sphere.
Now it may be debated whether Dooyeweerd's interpretation of Buber is
correct; Buber has also been interpreted in a nondual way. What is important
here is Dooyeweerd's rejection of any dualistic separation between nature
and humanity in its religious root.
Dooyeweerd does say that there is a real meeting of I
and Thou in our religious center
which does transcend the ethical aspect. Buber's mistake is to
locate this central relation within time:
On the other hand, the real meeting of I and thou is
in the deepest sense a central, religious relation, which indeed does
not allow of modal boundaries of law-spheres. but if this central relation
is sought within the temporal order of human existence, one gives oneself
up to an idolatrous illusion (Ibid.)
This central I-Thou relation is really one of I-we. Dooyeweerd
does not deny that we can experience this in our present lives. this is
when the transcendent light of eternity radiates through the temporal
world:
“In the Biblical attitude of naïve experience
the transcendent, religious dimension of its horizon is opened. The
light of eternity radiates perspectively through all the temporal dimensions
of this horizon and even illuminates seemingly trivial things and events
in our sinful world.
In this attitude the experiencing I-ness is necessarily in the I-we
relation of the Christian community and in the we-Thou-relation with
God, Who has revealed Himself in Christ Jesus.” (NC III, 29; not
in WdW)
See supra-individual
as to this central relationship.
Dooyeweerd also speaks of a relation between our self and the Divine
'Thou':
This commandment requires us to love God and our neighbour
with our whole heart. It is the very nature of love in this central
religious sense that it implies complete self-surrender. We cannot really
love in this fulness of meaning of the word so long as we experience
its requirement as a law which urges itself upon us externally, contrary
to the inner inclination of our heart. This love must penetrate our
inner selves, it must inflame the centre of our existence and permeate
it so that it has become one with us, and reflects in our heart the
Divine Love as the answer of the human I to the call of its Origin,
the Divine Thou. (NC II, 149; not in WdW).
Revised Dec. 27/04
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