lundi, août 20, 2012

Troost: Intro to Dooyeweerd's Cosmonomic Philosophy

New 2012 Publication:
WHAT IS REFORMATIONAL PHILOSOPHY?
An Introduction to the Cosmonomic Philosophy of 
HERMAN DOOYEWEERD
by Andree TROOST (1916-2008)

Translated by Anthony RUNIA, from original 2005 volume:
Antropocentrische Totaliteitswetenschap: Inleiding in de 'reformatorische wijsbegeerte' van H. Dooyeweerd
"Is a systematically coherent Christian philosophy possible, and if so, what are its essential elements? In this exceptional new work Andree Troost, a close colleague of Prof Dooyeweerd, lays out these elements in a way that attends to both the Biblical grounds from which this philosophy is evoked, as well as each of the conceptual elements that make up this new Cosmonomic philosophy. What is unique about this work is the clarity, simplicity, and unmatched Biblical insight that has been born from a lifetime of study and reflection. If the busy student can read only one volume on Christian philosophy, this is pre-eminently the book to read. Its broad range, covering most questions typically raised about a specifically Christian approach to systematic philosophy, and its authoritative presentation will make this volume the standard Introduction to Reformational Philosophy for many years to come."

     An gabh feallsanachd Chrìosdail òrdail èifeachdach a bhi ann, agus ma ghabhas, dè a prìomh eileamaidean-sa? San t-sàr-obair ùr a tha seo sa Bheurla le Andree Troost, a bha na dhlùth cho-obraiche aig an Ollamh Dooyeweerd, cuiridh e an aithne dhuinn an dà chuid freumhan Bìoballach agus eileamaidean coincheapail eugsamhla na feallsanachd ùir Chosmonòmaich seo. Is e tha àraid mun obair, cho soilleir agus cho sìmplidh 's a tha e, a bharrachd air lèirsinn Bhìoballach gun choimeas a dh'èirich bho bheatha an sàs ann an sgrùdadh is meòrachadh. Mura h-eil ùine aig oileanach trang ach aon leabhar air feallsanachd Chrìosdail a leughadh, seo e gun teagamh sam bith. Nì fhairsingeachd, a dhèiligeas ris a chuid as mò de cheistean a thèid a thogail mu sheòl sònraichte Crìosdail a thaobh feallsanachd shiostamaich, còmhla ris a dhòigh mhìneachaidh ùghdarrasail, an leabhar seo a' chiad fhear ris an tionndaidh daoine fad iomadach bliadhna ri tighinn ma tha iad airson Feallsanachd Ath-leasachail a rannsachadh. 
"Readers will find that Troost has written a pioneering work that pushes forward the frontier of biblically grounded philosophical reflection. ...His surprising, if not to say startling exegesis of Col. 1 about the cosmic significance of Christ as the second Adam and the root of all of created reality leads, among other things, to a radical anthropology that sometimes takes one's breath away. As an accredited author on ethics, he has fresh, insightful things to say about abortion and euthanasia. ...His book wages a battle against the scientific worldview of the closed universe and opens a vista to a reality that is open to God and subject in all things and all its laws to His laws and ordinances." (from Foreword by Harry Van Dyke, Director, Dooyeweerd Center for Christian Philosophy, Redeemer University College)

"The main title of the original Dutch work, Antropocentrische Totaliteitswetenschap (Anthropocentric totality science), emphasized that the philosophy introduced in the book claims to be science, viz. a science about the totality of created reality, at least insofar as it is accessible to scientific investigation. That title at the same time signaled the place of man in the cosmos as being at its very center...This English translation has removed the term "totality science" from the title but of course retains it where the main text discusses the concept." (Andree Troost, Author's Preface, xii, xiv)

__________________________________________
"Readable and Recommended Intro"

Review by Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh of 
WHAT IS REFORMATIONAL PHILOSOPHY?
An Introduction to the Cosmonomic Philosophy 
of Herman Dooyeweerd
by ANDREE TROOST (Paideia Press 2012)

     Herman Dooyeweerd's philosophy is notoriously challenging to "crack" (but then again so is life!) His terminology can be demanding because of many neologisms, but also "false friends", ie highly specific use of standard terminology (for instance, the word "heart"!). Andree Troost, a one-time colleague of Dooyeweerd and Vollenhoven, does an excellent job in presenting Dooyeweerd in a non-intimidating register. The book apparently started as Dutch university lecture material. Certainly there is a welcome sense, if not exactly of conversational-level informality, at least of being in the same room as the speaker, with, as it were, some eye-contact. The English translation is first class, and reads as "native" and, moreover, contemporary (though perhaps key words like "faith" and "religion", currently so negativized by society, could on introduction have done with a bit more of a dust-off).

     It is of the essence to appreciate that Dooyeweerd wrote as a philosopher and emphatically NOT as a theologian. Any perceived wariness on his part towards those in the latter category may be traceable partly to the late 1930's when he and Vollenhoven endured a prolonged and stressful academic investigation triggered by adverse brochures (entitled Dreigende Deformatie [Threatening Deformation]) written by the theologian Valentin Hepp, successor to Bavinck at the Free University, Amsterdam. More to the point, however, Dooyeweerd is impatient of the common conceit among theologians (professional and amateur) that their discipline is somehow above philosophy, immune from philosophy, more devout than philosophy, and indeed that theology renders philosophy practically redundant for the Christian. The good news is that this volume by Andree Troost is very theologian-friendly, frequently anticipating and addressing preoccupations which might arise from that quarter, and in a manner which many will find revolutionary (if one is allowed to use that term in regards to a Dutch intellectual descendant of Abraham Kuyper)!

     While, as the title indicates, the book serves mainly as an introduction to the thought of Dooyeweerd (with Vollenhoven occasionally putting in an appearance), there is always the sense that Troost is his own man. This is evident early on when Troost precedes Dooyeweerd's four ground-motives ("form-matter", "creation-fall-redemption", "nature-grace", "nature-freedom") with a (prequel?) ground-motive of his own (ie "secularization"). Impertinent though it is for me to say so, I am uncomfortable with this, echoing as it does a repeated refrain from Troost that antiquitous demythologization (regarding pagan gods) in favour of (disenchanted) "scientific" theorization was net loss:
     'Three of the five ground-motives or types of ethos are "dialectical", that is to say, they are internally contradictory and their internal poles call up and compete with each other. This means that they inspire and stimulate life and thought in contrary directions. Consequently, they are the deepest source of contradictions and conflicts in worldviews and life ideals as well as in scientific paradigms or attitudes of thought. By its very nature, this "dialectic" does not occur in the third, biblical ground-motive of true religion. The same applies to the first ground-motive of secularization. But the only thing that can be said about the latter is that it is antithetical, since it is a (doomed) attempt to divorce life and thought from religion by replacing the "immortal gods" and godlike powers by human (scientific) reason.' (p 209)
     There comes to mind the insistence of Cornelius Van Til that we are not called to defend an amorphous "theism", but rather to bear witness to the God and Father of Jesus Christ. Nonetheless, the point can be taken that theoretical (scientific) reason, which is in itself a major achievement of humanity, has been distorted and absolutized by humanism into "rationalism". Dooyeweerd surgically exposes the latter as a destructively reductionist misapprehension of reality. Concrete reality, though susceptible to rational investigation, yet transcends the rational, just as it is for example susceptible to aesthetic investigation while yet transcending the aesthetic.

     Further contra Troost's insertion of "secularization" as earliest ground-motive, Dooyeweerd (by my reading) clearly perceives the 'form-matter' motive behind the earlier mythological stage AND the subsequent theoretical scientific stage of Greek thought: 
"When Greek philosophy begins to claim its autonomy over against popular faith, it does so because, in its estimation, theoria is the true way to the knowledge of God. Pistis (faith), which continues to cling to the sensory mythological representations, gives only a doxa, an uncertain opinion. As early as the time of PARMENIDES' didactic poem, these two ways are set sharply in opposition to one another. PLATO said that it is exclusively destined for philosophers to approach the race of the gods. But the whole philosophical theoria of the Greeks, as I have shown in detail from the sources in the first volume of my 'Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy', continues to be dominated by the same religious ground-motive which was also at the bottom of the popular faith and which, since the time of ARISTOTLE, was called the 'form-matter' motive." (Herman Dooyeweerd, Prolegomena, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, pp 35, 36)
     For all the book's major strong points, Troost could have been more helpful on the issue of creationism:
"The scientific battle against the belief in evolutionism is therefore by definition unfruitful and doomed to fail. It will not convince those who believe in evolutionism. Fundamentalists who insist on regarding Gen. 1 as an inspired and therefore (?) accurate representation of history make the same rationalistic (scientistic) error as the scientists who cannot vouch for the evolutionist hypothesis as a scientifically established theory yet who nevertheless believe in it as an indubitable truth. Theirs is a belief, however, that is grounded in science and so needs to be "adjusted" from time to time, just as in the case for all science, including philosophy. In the same way, the orthodox theological tradition that rejects the evolutionist hypothesis because it is at odds with the Bible is in need of adjustment. The belief in evolutionism, insofar as it must be combated, must be combated by natural scientists with scientific arguments, not with ill-matched arguments that can supposedly be taken from the Bible as though they were theoretical "truths" about all kinds of historical data in the history of reality." (p129)
     Yet certain snatches of Scripture are made a big deal of by Troost. "A day is like a thousand years..." is oft repeated. As is "according to their kinds" as a posited Scriptural endorsement of philosophical "sphere-sovereignty". Troost does critique evolutionism to an extent:
"Within the radical types, which therefore cannot be reduced to one another, as evolutionism claims, there are subtypes which cannot be reduced to each other" (p111). "
     Again, despite his rebuke of "fundamentalists" for their (ab)use of Scriptural text (which he insists contains only "faith" truth), Troost permits himself to stretch the text to allow some kind of evolution (though of course creationists have no problem with "speciation" from - and still within - original "kinds", if such is indeed being referred to):
'The Biblical phrase "In the beginning" is not the same as the "Big Bang" of evolutionist theory. It stands for the divine act of creation itself, which theologically needs to be sharply distinguished from the "genesis" of the world and the individual creatures. This genesis took place and takes place in time - possibly including a certain degree of evolution, which may be implied, or at least not excluded, in all those expressions at the beginning of Genesis that talk about the role played in "bringing forth" other creatures by those creatures that had already been called forth (Gen. 1: 11,12,17,24; 2: 9,19,21).' (p130)
     Have Troost's premises concerning the nature and limits of Scriptural authority led to a certain myopia in regard to the respectable and often compelling fieldwork evidence with which "natural scientists" (to use his above term) of creationist conviction have long been substantiating many of their hypotheses? If so then it is a presupposition-rooted affliction ironically parallel to that of the high Darwinist camp.

     The foregoing no doubt does Andree Troost an injustice by giving the subject in question considerably more weight in this review than it has in the book. However, appreciating that it is a "touchstone" subject for many, I judged it important enough to try to cover. I immediately now wish therefore to reiterate my strong recommendation of this radical book even as I alert potential readers that they may well encounter areas of disagreement. Troost has profoundly important things to say. For example, he clarifies very fully and helpfully Dooyeweerd's "supra-temporal heart" line of thought:
'Dooyeweerd caused a great deal of misunderstanding and opposition by using the term "supra-temporality" and speaking of the "supra-temporal heart". Incomprehensively, some have interpreted these terms squarely in contradiction to clear statements on his part. In using this term he was not referring to something like timelessness, as if the human heart has no part in our concrete existence in time. He never intended any such dualism. Supra-temporality in the sense of Reformational philosophy does not mean timelessness, but primarily being more than temporal, transcending time. It stands for non-absorption in - for not being exhausted by - the transience of all that exists in time, but the other way round: time and all temporal existence find their fullness and concentration in the transcending center: the human heart. The objection that this theoretically duplicates the cosmos is also a complete misinterpretation. The "heart" is not foreign to time: it manifests itself in time; but it is also "more": as unity and totality it transcends time (together with all its temporality and diversity). Because this totality of the transcendent center incorporates time, supra-temporality might also be called temporal fullness, a term not often used, or else "full temporality", as Willem Ouweneel prefers, rightly in my view. This term also recalls the New Testament idea of the "fullness of time" (or of "the times")...' (p 177).
     In his discussion of supra-temporality, Troost directs us intriguingly to Melchizedek:
'However, these ideas of totality relating to entities in time converge in the central cosmic unity and totality of what is repeatedly referred to in the Bible as "all things" (ta panta).That is not "another world", not a separate heavenly kingdom, not some "supernatural order". It is the supra-temporal order or depth-dimension, the "order of Melchizedek", in which all temporal historical events in Christ's work of salvation have brought to a focus in a single point, as it were, their more-than-historical actuality - their "eternal", supra-temporal (in the sense of full temporal) operation...This supra-temporal "order" of Melchizedek can only be known by faith, and can thereafter be interpreted in worldview, philosophy and science (including theology) as the concentrated unity and totality comprehending all time or times.' (pp 142,143)
     In highly commending this book in general I would specifically draw attention to its exhilarating exaltation of Christ (the True Man) as Lord of all Creation, and its exposition of humanity's creational position and role in Christ as Head of Creation:
     'The bond between humans and non-human creation should not be interpreted as an external coupling, in the way that a locomotive is coupled to a train and can be uncoupled. Nor is it a fantasized mental object which we ascribe to man and world, a speculative and subjective notion. This bond, rather, is an internal structural centredness of the cosmos in man. The whole of creation, both via the law-side and according to the subject-side, via its own religious center in humanity, is internally directed to and connected with God. Not of course in a pantheistic or mystical sense (that would be unbiblical metaphysics or ontology), but "in Christ", and thus actual and knowable through faith alone. In our Christian philosophy we call this the religious law of concentration by which all things refer to man, and via man to God, with and through their very structure. All things are from God, but also unto God! Not only is man himself an "image of God", but all creation participates in man and in his relation to God. By virtue of being created, "all things" are oriented to God "in Christ" in a mutual relationship, in which God's glory is expressed in "the works of his hands". Man is indeed man-in-the-cosmos, but we can say, and may even say in the first place, that the cosmos is in man.' (p 184)
     The Editor has appended to the text a series of diagrams which help elucidate key areas such as Dooyeweerd's suite of fifteen aspects, his view of cosmic time, the human "act-structure", and so on. There is also a generous glossary. This volume, though challenging in places, could well be on the bookshelf of any Christian with even a modestly philosophical turn of mind. It is a significant contribution in the bid to disseminate, and to render more accessible, Dooyeweerd's potentially life-changing insights. Moreover it is remarkably cheap (£7)!