Dr. J. Glenn Friesen

Studies relating to Herman Dooyeweerd Linked Glossary of Terms

© J. Glenn Friesen 2003-2007

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.)

See my discussion of the distinction between inner and outer in my article “Imagination, Image of God and Wisdom of God: Theosophical Themes in Dooyeweerd’s Philosophy,” (2006). There are two senses of inner.

(1) First the 'inner' in the sense of the supratemporal center, as distinct from the outer temporal periphery. God’s law or Wisdom gives the connection between this internal figure of our imagination and the modal aspects in which our body and other temporal structures of individuality function.

(2) But there is another sense of 'inner' in distinguishing our temporal body (itself a part of the temporal periphery), from other indivividuality structures external to our body. This is a secondary sense of 'inner.'

In the Gegenstand-relation, our supratemporal selfhood, the 'inner' in the first sense, enters into the temporal functions of its body ('inner' in the second sense). In doing this, we discover the the figure, the anticipation of what an individuality structure in the temporal world may become, but which is presently only a potential reality. God’s law or Wisdom gives the connection between this internal figure of our imagination and the modal aspects in which our body and other temporal structures of individuality function.

Dooyeweerd speaks of "inner human acts of experience" that are "necessarily related to the ego as the transcendent centre of human existence." Animals lack this center. (NC II, 114). Inner and outer are therefore related to the distinction between central and peripheral.

There is an inward thought and an outward thought. We think inwardly by our intuition of time. The actualization of our theoretical intuition is in-sight (II, 414-415). In pre-theoretical intuition the transcendent root of our personality thinks inwardly [in-denken] en-statically. Our naive thought is an in-denken, an inward thought, in enstasis. He contrasts the sensory aspect of the imagination with the sensory perception of the objectively perceptible 'outer world.' (NC II, 372).

Our acts occur in our supratemporal center, and are expressed in the temporal functions. In the intentional character of the “acts” lies their “innerness” [innerlijkheid]. It is the performance (activity) which actualize (realize) the intention of the act (“32 Propositions on Anthropology”)

Our acts come out of our supratemporal soul or spirit, but they function within the enkaptic structural whole of the body, by which man, under the guidance of normative viewpoints, intentionally [bedoelend] directs himself to states of affairs in reality or in our imagination, and then makes these states of affairs innerly his own [innerlijk eigen maakt] by relating them to his selfhood [ikheid]. The human act life reveals itself in the three basic directions of knowing, imagining and willing. (Reformatie en Scholastiek in de Wijsbegeerete, Vol. I, 137; cited by Verburg 266).

In "Het tijdsprobleem en zijn antinomieën op het immanentie-standpunt," Philosophia Reformata IV (1939), Dooyeweerd refers to the human soul or heart as "the inner man" [de 'inwendige mensch'].

Baader also makes a distinction between our inner and outer being. The inner (or higher) is the central heart; the outer is our temporal, creaturely, bodily, or “earthly” reality. He also refers to the outer being as the “peripheral” reality.

Our mind or heart [Gemüt] is the inner center of our reason [Verstand]. All difference is seen as outerness from an inner center at its ground (Sauer 49). Inner and outer can also be seen as movement of descent and ascent (Werke 8,134f; Sauer 62). Everything real is only by a conjunction of an outer and an inner (Werke 8,135 ft.; Sauer 63).

Baader says that our mind or heart [Gemüt] is at the same time the center of our thinking and acting. If our thinking and acting is to be living, it must proceed from this center:

Wenn es nun schon ein Wissen und Tun gibt, welches nicht durch dieses sein eigenes inneres Band oder Zentrum (Gemüt), sondern durch ein äußeres, somit auch nur äußerlich, in Verbindung gebracht ist, so muß man doch ein solches Wissen und Tun als ein unlebendiges von jenem lebendigen wohl unterscheiden, welches aus seinem eigenen Zentrum hervor – und in dasselbe wieder eingeht” (Werke 1,104; Sauer 48).

[If there is a knowing and acting that is not brought into relation with this its own inner Relation or Center [Heart], but rather through something outer is related only to what is outer, then we must distinguish such a knowing and acting as lifeless in comparison to the living acting and knowing which comes out of its own Center and returns to this same Center].

We have an inner and an outer sense, and both are required. In the normal case, there is no opposition between inner and outer. The Bible speaks of the heart as the inner man, and of good and bad thoughts of the heart. But the inner man is not distinguished from a bad outer man, rather from what is bad within. Normally there is no opposition between inner and outer (Begründung 79 ft 9).

Baader distinguishes the mere outer and peripheral seeing of the temporal with the inner and central seeing (Zeit 58). The same object is perceived by the inner and the outer senses, but in a different way (Werke IV, 3,26, 95, 143).

Der Charakter des inneren Sinnes in der Totalität aller Elemente und Factoren der Anschauung besteht, wogegen die u eren Sinne immer nur ein Komposition derselben uns geben, wie sie denn selbst nur zusammengesetzt sind (Werke 4,100; Sauer 34).

[The character of the inner sense consists in the totality of all elements and factors of perception, as opposed to the outer sense which gives only a composition of them, since they are only put together].

The distinction between inner and outer is also related to the distinction between Idea and concept. Ideas are dynamic, organic, inner, opposed to mechanical concept . Only in the organic Idea does the knower live within the known. Concepts are just a 'Durchwohnen' [living-through] and not an 'Einwohnen' [living within]. What we only know from the outside we try to dominate by fear and not by love. Inner knowledge is a reciprocal desire of the knower and that which is known. It is God's desire to live within his image.(Philosophische Schriften I, 109-111)

Baader says,

Wenn ich sage, daß ich als erkennend den Gegenstand in mich eingehen lasse, so ist es nicht sein Äußeres, sondern sein Inneres oder seine Tiefe, welche nun auch in mir Tiefe wird, und weshalbe ich sage: daß ich den Gegenstand (als geschaut) auch inne geworden bin. Es findet hier auch eine Identität von Subjekt und Objekt, freilich in einem anderen Sinne als dem gewöhnlichen statt, das heißt: dasselbe Objekt vermittelt nur seine Subjektivität und Innerlichkeit mit meiner, als derselbigen, oder: ich gewahre dasselbe in mir und dieses andere zugleich in demselben (Werke 8, 342f, cited Sauer 29).

[When I say that in knowing I allow the Gegenstand to enter within me, that is not its outer being, but its inner being or depth, which also becomes depth in me, and therefore I say: that I have also become inner to the Gegenstand (as intuited). There is here an identity of subject and object, although admittedly in a different sense than usually exists. That is, the same object mediates only its subjectivity and innerness with mine, as the same; or, I become aware of the same in myself and in this other at the same time in itself] [my translation]

Baader says that what in outer perception is just addition and subtraction (mechanical), is dynamic in the inner through multiplication, exponential, and division, and extraction of roots. He refers to the mechanical explanations of physics with their dead arithmetic, their mechanical next to and to and from each other. The dynamic is in and out of each other. The mechanical is just the shadow of the dynamic You cannot remain with the construction of the outer. What is worse is to drag it over to the inner sense. The unity of our powers comes only through organization, the systematic division of individual functions (division of labour). There is a unity of individual forces in the formation of the individual body. This organization (Gliederung) is only possible out of One Principle. It cannot be done in the outer sense of juxtaposition, but only in inner sense, in the unity of time by Intus susceptionem [from the inside out].(Philosophische Schriften I, 41).

There is also be a relation between innerness and retrocipation and anticipation. Sauer refers to the idea of retrocipating and anticipating concepts as a ‘double heuristic principle.’ The retrocipating concept is a kind of anamnesis–a looking back, a remembering of what has already come. This remembering is by turning within. Sauer uses the phrase ‘rückfragende sich er-innern’ (a questioning back by going within); this is a play on the word ‘erinnern’, which means ‘to remember’ and ‘er-innern’–to go within (Werke IV, 105; Sauer 65). It is our selfhood that allows us to remember; remembering is a making present [Vergegenwärtigung] (Werke IV, 105).

The relation between inner and outer is also shown in the Ideas of religious root and image of God. The idea of religious root is related to the fact that we are the image of God (Weltalter 184). St. Paul says that Heaven and earth ‘live and move and have their being’ in God [Acts 17:28]. Our imagination involves finding the 'figure' in the temporal reality. Temporal reality is temporary, and needs to be raised up to a higher level. It has a 'figure' that can be raised to true Being (Sauer 39). The work of imagination is related to our inner sense. Whereas our outer senses only look to the passing being of things, our inner sense looks to the enduring figure in theings (Werke 7, 131).

Because our central, supratemporal selfhood is the image of God, humans are truly the center of the material world (Werke V, 31; XI, 78; Begründung 48). The image of God in man in its totality is supposed to radiate outwards in the outer nature, to make the outer nature capable of unfolding and the effect of a higher Organism. Each form and shape occurs reciprocally. :In the outer temporal forms the inner, eternal, forming powers also build and form themselves; that is the fruit of the outer image. The outer nature is temporal and impermanent [nicht bleibende]. The inner eternal nature sees conflict and duality in outer nature and it moves out of the still, undifferentiated situation, and reacting in the outer as an active unfolding (Begründung 51).

It should be emphasized that this distinction between inner and outer, between heart and temporal functions, is not to be understood as a dualism. The entire focus of Baader’s work is to counter any ideas of dualism. Inner and outer are joined in an organic unity.

Kuyper also makes a distinction between within and without. They correspond to indwelling/outgoing and to eternity/time and to invisible/visible:

Although these two operations can scarcely be separated—for there never was one manifest without which was not first completed within—yet the difference is strongly marked and easily recognized. The indwelling works of God are from eternity, the outgoing belong to time. The former precede, the latter follow: The foundation of that which becomes visible lies in that which remains invisible. The light itself is hidden, it is the radiation only that appears. (The work of the Holy Spirit, 14)

In behalf of the other, deeper, much richer and far more extensive world, which is not visible, this bodily eye is of no avail. For this, man received another eye, the eye of the soul, to which the eye of the body, as a subordinate instrument, only renders auxiliary aid. (To Be Near Unto God).

Development of Dooyeweerd's Idea of inner-ness

Verburg refers to a 1915 student article by Dooyeweerd where he speaks of our innerness:

"Van uw doelstelling hangt alles af, uw gansche levensbeschouwing, uw gansche philosophie van het zijnde. Want alles wordt belicht van binnen uit, de gansche wereld door het vuur, dat in ons brandt." ("Wat ik op de laatste N.C.S.V. conferentie vond," Aug. 20, 1915, quoted by Verburg, 24)

[Everything depends on your goals, your whole view of life, your whole philosophy of being. For everything external is illuminated from within, the whole world by the fire that burns within us].

See also the discussion of imagination as our inner sense.

Revised Sept. 26/07