Dr. J. Glenn Friesen

Herman Dooyeweerd: De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee

© J. Glenn Friesen 2003.

Notes regarding WdW I, 64-65

1. Corresponds to NC I, 99-101.

2. Dooyeweerd's says that the temporal world has no reality in itself:

Our temporal world, in its temporal diversity of meaning and coherence of meaning, is in the order of God’s creation bound to the religious root of the human race, and has without this root no meaning, and therefore no reality.

This view is strongly contested by some philosophers who claim to follow Dooyeweerd. For example, Clouser wants to interpret Dooyeweerd as saying that the temporal world cannot exist apart from humanity, but that this does not mean it has no existence apart from humanity. However, Dooyeweerd's words here are very clear. Without the religious root, the temporal world has no meaning and therefore no reality. Dooyeweerd says that it is this religious rootedness in the supratemporal self, the central unity of our existence, that is the “key of knowledge.” (In the Twilight of Western Thought, 125).

3. It is because of this rootedness of the cosmos in humanity that the cosmos fell along with humanity in the fall. Everything fitted into the temporal world was cursed.

4. In support of this, Dooyeweerd appeals to the Scriptures. This should be contrasted with his usual aversion to proof-texting.

5. The NC refers to the transcendent religious root as also having no meaning in itself.“…but it remains in the ex-sistential mode of meaning which points beyond itself and is not sufficient to itself.” Even the religious root, in which the temporal world finds its existence, has no existence in itself. Everything created, whether temporal or supratemporal, is meaning, referring to the Origin.

6. The very important last paragraph of I, 64 is not in the NC. "Zoo ging de breuk door in alle zin-zijden der kosmische werkelijkheid in de tijd." There is a 'break' in all the cosmic sides of reality in time ('breuk' as break, rupture). 'Breuk' can also mean refraction.

7. The logos functions as a meaning-side of reality. It, too is fallen, and has become the "mind of the flesh." What does this mean in practice. I believe that it means we operate as if our logical function were autonomous, as if it were our selfhood.