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© J. Glenn Friesen 2003-2008 |
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.)
| theology |
I, 57
NC II, 562 |
| theological |
II, 495 |
Dooyeweerd says that our knowledge of God is not primarily gained in
a theological way. (II, 495). Theology is theoretical
knowledge. True knowledge of God and of ourselves is concerned with the
horizon of human experience. It has a religious
enstatic character:
It means a turning of the personality, a giving of
life in the full sense of the word, a restoring
of the subjective perspective of our experience, enabling us to grasp
reality again perspectively in the light of Truth. This does not mean
a kind of mystical supernatural cognitive
function, but it refers to the horizon that God made for human experience
in the cosmic horizon that God made for human experience in the cosmic
order created by Him. (NC II, 562, 563).
Dooyeweerd confirms this in his article “Van Peursen’s
Critische Vragen bij “A New Critique of Theoretical Thought,”
Philosophia Reformata 25 (1960, 97-150, at 100-101. At p. 104
of that article, Dooyeweerd says that we get involved in a vicious circle
if we try to come to self-knowledge by means of a theological exegeiss
of certain Scriptural texts. For a theological exegesis of the Scriptural
texts that have a bearing on the religious root of human existence can
never disclose the central meaning of these texts as long as
our heart has not been opened by the working of God's Spirit. This "key
of knowledge" is given only by the Holy Spirit:
Men beweegt zich in elk geval in een vicieuze cirkel,
wanneer men meent langs de weg ener theologische exegese van bepaalde
Schriftteksten tot waarachtige zelf-kennis in bijbelse zin te kunnen
komen. Want de theologische exegese van die Schrifttekesten die op de
reliigieuze wortel van de menselijke existentie betrekking hebben, kan
ons nimmer de centrale werking dezer teksten ontsluiten, zolang
ons hart niet door de werking van Gods Geest daarvoor is geopened. Zolang
de theologische exegese door een dualistisch grondmotief wordt beheerst,
zal zij de desbetreffende vragen niet in hun radicaal-bijbelse zin kunnen
vatten. Want in de centrale vragen der zelfkennis en Godskennis is de
"sleutel der kennis" in het geding, die God zij dank niet
aan de theologie, noch aan de wijsbegeerte in handen is gegeven, maaar
die slechts door de H. Geest zelf wordt gehanteeerd. (p. 104).
In the same article, he says at 114-115:
Dat hier geen "scheiding tussen wereld en God"
gemeend kan zijn in de zin, waaarin Van Peursen dit blijkbaar verstaat,
waar hij daartegenover in de wet eerder de "presentie" or
"immanentie" Gods wil zien, zal toch wel geen nader betoog
behoeven. Hoe zou zulk een deïstische wetsconceptie immers te rijmen
zijn met het door de W.d.W. wanuit het bijbels scheppingsmotief zo scherp
benadrukte zin-karakter van het geschapene naar wets- en subjectszijde?
Hoe zou zij te rijmen zijn met de zelfopenbaring Gods in zijn schepping
en met de incarnatie van het Goddelijk Woord in Christus Jezus? […]
Maar van een scheiding wordt hier in 't geheel niet gespoken,
en kan hier ook niet zijn gesproken, daar immers uitgegaan
werd van het grote mysterie der God-menselijke eenwording, dat ik niet
in theoretische, maar in zijn centraal religieuze zin benaderde, nl.
als centrale bijbelse drijfkracht van mijn denken. Deze eenwording zou
echter juist haar bijbelse zin verliezen als daarbij de wezensgrens
tussen God en schepsel zou worden miskend. En deze wezensgrens wordt
weer aangegeven door het onder de wet gesteld zijn van Jezus Christus
naar zijn menselijkheid. Ik had daarbij niet, zoals Van Peursen blijkbaar
meent, op het oog de Joodse wet, maar de wet in haar kosmisch-religieuze
zin, d.w.z. in haar tijdelijke zin-verscheidenhied en in haar religieuze
wortel-eenheid.Alleen Christus kon zeze wet in haar volle zin-ontslotenheid
vervullen, maar alleen, omdat Hij zich aan haar, als aan de wil des
Vaders, met zijn ganse hart onderwierp en in blijvende gemeenschap met
de Vader was, zowel naar zijn Godheid als naar zijn menselijkheid.
Wanneer men theologisch over het bijbels leerstuk
der incarnatie gaat nadenken, dan worden wij voor theoretische problemen
gesteld, die toch geen adaequate theoretische oplossing kunnen vinden,
omdat het om grens-problemen gaat, die onmiddelilijk tot antinomieën
voeren, zodra het theoretisch denken beproeft zijn grenzen in metafysische
speculatie te overschrijden. Het ingaan op deze theologische problematiek
naar haar dogmatische zijde ligt niet op de weg van de W.d.W. Maar wel
heeft deze laatste de kritische taak te waarschuwen tegen iedere theoretsiche
verzwakking van het onderscheid tussen wet en subject en tussen God
en schepsel in de onderstelling dat men op deze wijze meer theologisch
licht zou krijgen in de bedoelde problematiek.
[No further argument is needed to show that I cannot
intend any “separation between world and God” in the sense
that Van Peursen apparently understands it, and to which he opposes
the idea of the “presence” or “immanence” of
God in the law. How could such a deistic conception of the law ever
fit with the sharp emphasis in the Philosophy of the Law-Idea, from
out of the biblical motive of creation, of the meaning-character of
what has been created both as to its law-side and its subject-side?
How could it fit with God’s self-revelation in his creation, and
with the incarnation of the Divine Word in Christ Jesus? […]
But there is nothing that is said [in the Philosophy of the Law-Idea]
about a separation. And nothing can be said about
such any separation, for this philosophy always proceeds from the great
mystery of the becoming one of the Divine and the human. I do not approach
this idea in a theoretical way, but in its central religious meaning—i.e.
as the central biblical motive force of my thought. This becoming one
would really lose precisely its biblical sense if thereby the essential
boundary between God and creation is misunderstood. And this essential
boundary is again set out by the way that Jesus Christ was set under
the law according to his humanity. By that I did not intend, as Van
Peursen apparently supposes, the Jewish law, but the law in its cosmic-religious
sense—that is to say, in its temporal meaning-diversity and in
its religious root-unity. Only Christ can fulfill this law in its full
unfolded meaning, and only because He subjected Himself to the law,
as to the will of the Father, with His whole heart, and because he was
in continuing fellowship with the Father, both according to His divinity
as well as according to His humanity.
Whenever we reflect theologically on the biblical doctrine
of the incarnation, then we are presented with theoretical problems
that have no theoretical solution, because they concern boundary
problems, which lead immediately to antinomies as soon as theoretical
thought tries to overstep its bounds in metaphysical speculation. It
is not the path of the Philosophy of the Law-Idea to enter into this
theological problematic according to its dogmatic side. But the Philosophy
of the Law-Idea does have the critical task to warn against every theoretical
weakening of the distinction between law and subject, and between God
and creation, which people make in the hope that they can in this way
obtain more theological enlightenment into the [theological] problematic
that I have referred to.]
Dooyeweerd also says that philosophy is not to be directed
by theology. Philosophy is not the servant of theology. (I, 57). He criticizes
the view that philosophy is the servant of Christian theology, as being
based on the influence of Greek theoria (Transcendental Problems
of Philosophic Thought, Eerdmans, 1948,p. 69).
He says that theology is “a theoretical
knowledge obtained in a synthesis of the
logical function of thought and the temporal
function of faith.” (NC II, 562). Dooyeweerd’s
emphasis on theology as theory has been expanded upon by writers like
James Olthuis. As Olthuis says, Dooyeweerd sees faith as only one of many
ways of being religious ("Dooyeweerd on Religion and Faith,"
The Legacy of Herman Dooyeweerd, 30). For Dooyeweerd, faith is
one aspect of our lives. The aspect of faith
is not to be identified with our religious centre
(NC I, 58 ft. 1). Dooyeweerd's view should be contrasted with Kuyper’s
view that faith is theological, and that theology governs the other sciences.
In Vernieuwing en Bezinning (p. 11), Dooyeweerd
says that theology as a science is itself dependent
on religious Ground-Motives. He repeats
this elsewhere:
"En het zijn juist deze vooronderstellingen, die
de theologie op een onbijbels spoor brengen, wanneer ze op oncritische
wijze ontleend blijken te zijn aan wijsgerige totaal visies op de mens
en zijn wereld, die door een onbijbels grondmotief beheerst worden."
("Na vijf en dertig jaren," Philosophia Reformata
36 (1971), p. 1-10), p. 10, cited by Verburg 396).
[And it is just these presuppositions that bring theology
onto an unbiblical track, whenever it has borrowed in an uncritical
manner the total views of man and world that are ruled by an unbiblical
Ground-Motive].
Like any theoretical science, theology depends on our
non-theoretical knowledge:
“Self-knowledge in the last analysis appears to be dependent
upon knowledge of God, which, however, is quite different from a theoretical
theology.” (NC I, 55).
In reference to Marlet’s view, Dooyeweerd says
that differences in philosophy cannot be reduced to differences in theology
(NC III, 73).
In his last
interview, published after his death [in Acht Civilisten in Burger],
Dooyeweerd has some interesting things to say about Scripture and theology:
I do not enter into polemics with young theologians,
who do not appear to have understood anything of the essential problematics
of a contemporary reformational philosophy, for I have learned something
from Erasmus’s In Praise of Folly [De lof der Zotheid].
Of course you know it too, it is a fantastic little book! It says that
you should really not carry on any polemics with theologians, and
for this he uses a very suggestive image. There was in Greek mythology
a lake somewhere, which gave off a terrible smell when you began to
stir around in it. Now, he refers to nothing other than the name of
that lake, and he says, “It is not desirable to stir up this lake.”
I had someone who visited me from America who asserted
that he had a mandate from an ecclesiastical classis. He was to request
an interview with me in order to come to know what my views really were,
and what the views were of the disciples who appealed to me–‘probably
in error,” he then said.
He asked me what I thought about the distinction between
the Bible and the Word of God. Now, I speak freely, and I said, “That
is just self-evident. You can’t really say that everything in
the Bible is inspired. When the Apostle Paul writes to his assistant
Timothy that he has forgotten his traveling cloak somewhere and asks
whether he will bring it with him when he comes, are we to regard that
text as ‘inspired’ just because it stands in the Bible?
That would be foolish, wouldn’t it?” But my interrogator
was of a completely different opinion. According to him the Bible was
“inspired by God word for word” and he therefore found my
distinction between the Bible and God’s Word to be an insult to
God’s Word. With that of course there was no point in any further
dialogue.
No, I have not reacted to this. There is a whole literature
of opposition that has arisen, mostly by young theologians from out
of the seminary in Philadelphia [Westminster], who accused me of one
heresy after another. I have no interest in that. [Daar trek ik
me niets van aan]. I didn't even know what these heresies involved;
I had to look them up in a Christian encyclopedia. What was that again…oh,
yes. Sabellianism! That was the title of one article that was written
against me: Sabellianism in the Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea. And
what was that? I have always said that we may not ascribe the modal
aspects to God, in the sense that they define God's essence [wezen].
But we can do so in the sense that their origin lies in God's act of
creation, but that is completely different than applying them to God.
As an example, I then gave the numerical aspect, the aspect of quantity.
When theologians discuss the three-in-one, they can then not say, "one
plus one plus one equals three," without adding to this, "equals
one." If they understand this as an additive sum in numerical language,
they then are simply speaking nonsense–this can of course not
be. It is also not a number in the original quantitative meaning, but
it is a numerical analogy. It is an analogical moment in the structure
of faith.
A young theologian from Philadelphia said that he always
had difficulty with that proposition of mine. He could not see this
as anything other than Sabellianism. And this Sabellius appears to have
been a theologian who denied that there are three different persons
in the Divine essence, and who wanted to speak of only three modalities
in the self-revelation of God. Now, the Bible nowhere says that there
are three persons; that is something that was made from it [erbij
gemaakt]. We have difficulty in representing this differently;
none of us know precisely what the tri-unity is. I am inclined not to
let this weigh so terribly heavy, but for the scholastic theologians
this was of course a great heresy!
If anything, Dooyeweerd views philosophy as more comprehensive
than theology, since philosophy seeks a view of totality.
Philosophy gives the theoretical fundamentals for all special sciences
(“Kuyper’s Wetenschapsleer” Philosophia Reformata,
1939 193-232).
Even the interpretation of Scripture
is not just a linguistic question, nor is it a pure theological matter.
There is a confusion of church dogma [geloofsstuk] from theological
dogmatics (scientific theory about dogma) (Vernieuwing en Bezinning,
90, 92). The Biblical attitude is not theology (NC III, 30).
In his article "What is Man?" International
Reformed Bulletin 3 (1960), 4-16, Dooyeweerd says,
For, as a dogmatic science of the articles of the Christian
faith, theology is no more able to lead us to real knowledge of ourselves
and of God than philosophy and the special sciences which are concerned
with the study of man. This central knowledge can only be the result
of the Word-revelation of God operating in the heart, in the religious
centre of our existence, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Dooyeweerd says that the Christian Ground-Motive of
creation, fall and redemption is not based on theological knowledge or
even on theoretical exegesis of the Bible.Nor can ideas of sin, rebirth
and the incarnation be made into questions of exegesis. In his Responses
to the Curators, Dooyeweerd says
For as a Christian I cannot and may not accept that
he would make such a central point, one that concerns the whole view
of fall into sin and redemption, into a question of theoretical exegesis
about which one might therefore have differences of opinion! (Response
2, 27).
But there should be no difference of opinion among
us that overall, where Scripture refers to the ‘heart’ (or
the soul) of man in connection with sin or redemption, and in general
in connection with the fundamental religious attitude toward God, only
the religious centre of life, the root of man’s whole existence
is in issue. That may above all not be made into a free, academic question
of “exegesis,” no more than the question of what the Scriptures
mean by sin, rebirth, incarnation of the Word, etc. (Response
2, 31)
Just as little may the question of what the Scriptures
mean by ‘heart’ in the religious fullness of meaning be
denatured into a question of mere exegesis of words. If my highly esteemed
colleague continues to deny this irrefutable truth–something I
certainly do not assume–then indeed any further possibility of
fruitful exchange of thoughts would come to an end. (Response
2, 32)
So in his 1964
lecture, Dooyeweerd reaffirms the importance of the idea of supratemporal
heart as the center of man’s existence, and “out of which
are the issues of life” [Prov. 4:23]. And he says that this idea
is necessary in order to understand the doctrine of Christ’s incarnation,
as well as of the working of the Word of God upon this supratemporal religious
center of our existence. For there is a relation of center and periphery
in Scripture as well:
When you see that, then it is no longer strange that
Holy Scripture also has a center, a religious center and a periphery,
which belong to each other in an unbreakable way. That center is the
spiritual dunamis, the spiritual driving force that proceeds from God’s
Word in this central, all-inclusive motive of creation, revelation of
the fall into sin, redemption through Jesus Christ in the fellowship
of the Holy Spirit. And naturally, we can also speak about creation
as an article of faith, a doctrine, and that is also clear. Naturally.
And one can theologize about that. Of course that can occur. It is also
necessary. But when it concerns true knowledge of God and true knowledge
of self, then we must say, “There is no theology in the world
and no philosophy in the world that can achieve that for man. It is
the immediate fruit of the working, the central working of God’s
Word itself in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, in the heart, the
radix, the root unity of human existence.” (1964 lecture, p. 14).
Dooyeweerd says that what gives life is the Christian
Ground Motive in our hearts–the Motive of creation, fall and redemption.
But he emphasizes that this is not theological knowledge. The true meaning
is given by the "key of knowledge." Whoever
thinks that we begin with theological knowledge is on the wrong track.
“If our salvation be dependent on theological dogmatics and exegesis,
we are lost.” (Twilight of Western Thought, 135). In fact,
the divine revelation of creation, fall and redemption is withdrawn from
the scientific field of research in dogmatic theology (Twilight,
134). The revelation becomes an object of theological thought only within
the temporal diversity of experiential aspects (Twilight, 136).
Theology does not concern “the central basic motive of the Holy
Scriptures as it is operative in the religious center of our consciousness
and existence.” (Twilight, 146). We ought not to confuse
theoretical Christian theology with the true knowledge of God and true
self-knowledge, which surpasses all theoretical knowledge. (Twilight,
115, 120). Many Christians have only a theological knowledge of creation,
fall and redemption, and this central theme of Word-Revelation has not
yet become the central motive-power of their lives. (Twilight,
188).
In my article “Imagination,
Image of God and Wisdom of God: Theosophical Themes in Dooyeweerd’s
Philosophy,” (2006), I discuss how theology has sometimes got
in the way of intepreting what Dooyeweerd's philosophy really means. In
Appendix
A to that article, I discuss to what extent his philosophy is really
Calvinistic.
Baader also places theology under the higher category
of philosophy (Werke 5, 224, cited by Sauer, 13 ft. 4). Baader
says that theology is one of the branches of knowledge, and it cannot
claim completeness.
Von den drei Hauptzweigen unseres Wissens (der Theologie
oder Gotteslehre, der Anthropologie oder Menschenlehre und der Physiologie
oder Naturlehre) kann keiner zur Vollständigkeit gelangen (Werke
5,254; Sauer 128)
[Of the three principal branches of our knowledge (theology
or teaching about God, anthropology or teaching about humans, and physiology
or teaching about nature), none can claim completeness.]
Revised Jan 29/08
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