Electronic versions of Roots at neocalvinism.org

 https://sources.neocalvinism.org/dooyeweerd/?ka_num=2003a

Rudi Hayward’s videos on Roots of Western Culture

A series of videos discussing Dooyeweerd’s Roots of Western Culture

Ch 3 §3 Tradition pp70-72

Historical formation requires power; formation requires struggle. Formation will inevitably clash with tradition.

Tradition:
• is the power of conservation
• shapes us
• is a communal power binding the past to the present
• has deep dimensions
• without it culture cannot exist and historical development impossible
• its power is grounded in the creation order
• is not a norm

The struggle between progress and the power of conservation must obey the norm of historical continuity.

If the past were to be completely destroyed then there would be no culture.
The norm of historical continuity needs to be further clarified.

review questions
1. “Culture cannot exist without tradition.” What does Dooyeewerd mean by this?
2. What is the difference between the conservative and progressive directions in history?

Ch3 §2 Cultural power pp 66-70

The nucleus of the historical aspect is the cultural way of being. The formation of power is crucial. Without it a discovery or invention cannot be historically formative. For example, Leonardo da Vinci’s aircraft design lacked historical power formation; it remained private and had no impact on history.

Dooyeweerd, then turns to look at the nature of power. Power has been misconstrued as brute force and thus some Christians consider it unchristian to strive for power. Barthians, in particular (eg Emil Brunner), see the state as being demonic because of it organisation of power.

This view is symptomatic of a playing down of the creation motive. God reveals himself as creator in power: he is almighty; and at creation he gave humanity the command to subdue and rule.
The fall has meant that the position of power man has in developing culture has been misdirected.
The power of the gospel is different from the sword of power exerted by the state (Romans 13: ); nevertheless power is not brute force. Power is rooted in creation. It is sin that has placed power in the service of the demonic and this is the same for every good gift that God has given us.

Power has been entrusted to man, it is a great motor for cultural development. The issue what is its direction?

The formation and exercise of power are not subject to natural laws, but subject to norms. These norms are not like laws, in that they can be broken; natural laws such as the law of gravity cannot be broken.
The difference between historical and unhistorical refers back to the opposition found in the logical aspect. The logical aspect is the first to display a contrast of what ought to be and what ought not to be. The laws for all the subsequent aspects (ie historical, symbolic, social, economic, aesthetic, jural, ethical and faith) are normative in character. Norms can only apply to creatures who are endowed with a logical function.
Norms cannot begin in the organic (biotic) aspect because we need to be held accountable for norms and no one can hold a plant or animal responsible for sickness.

Norms are principles for human behaviour. These principles require formation by human authorities.
The biblical ground motive keeps us from the historicistic error.

‘Might is right’ was the slogan of the totalitarian state – it contains an element of truth. Legal power indicates an inseparable coherence between the jural and historical aspects of reality.

review questions
1. Why do the barthians view the state as evil?
2. What is the difference between a law and a norm?
3. Why do norms not appear in the organic aspect?
4. How does speaking of ‘historical’ and ‘unhistorical’ presuppose the existence of norms for historical development?

Ch 3 §1 The Historical aspect pp 61-66

The next chapter ‘History, historicism, and norms’ focuses on just that.

For Dooyeweerd historicism is ‘ the fatal illness of our “dynamic” times. Dynamic is in “scare quotes” because it is a catch phrase of the historicist.
Historicism claims that all things are relative and historically determined; change is everything, certainty is nothing. It is a form of chronological snobbery.
Historicism permeates all of modern reflection on society – it is one of the ‘spiritual hosts of wickedness’ (Eph 6:12).
This first section looks at the historical aspect. It is important to draw a distinction between the historical aspect of temporal reality and history in the sense of concrete events, in what has happened. This confusion of the two concepts leads to historicism.
Concrete events, such as wars, famines, inventions and so on belong to reality that functions in every one of the modal aspects. They display many aspects that are not historical in character. We identify history with what has happened in our naïve pre-theoretical thought, in our ordinary experience. We focus on the structure of things, events, as totalities.
In the historical aspect, in the science of history, we focus on the abstract aspects of reality; it has a limited field of vision.
For example, if a man smoked a cigar yesterday, that event is in the past, but it is not a historical event. And yet it does have a historical aspect: in the Middle Ages people did not smoke, the introduction of tobacco was an historical event.
Other events are typically historical: the French revolution, the capitulation of Japan and Germany in the second world war. These events are formative in world history. Events become historically significant only in connection with their effects on human culture.
The distinction is made between not what occurs but how it occurs. The historian’s main concern is to grasp the core of the historical mode . Elsewhere Dooyeweerd has called this the modal meaning-nucleus To discover this he needs a criterion – one which historicism cannot provide.
The historical core is cultural formative activity. This is grounded in God’s creation order: the cultural mandate. Creation is subject to cultural development.
Greek culture deified the cultural. The gods were personifications of the cultural powers.
Modern historicism is dominated by the ground motive of humanism (nature and freedom). Culture is an unending historical development. It rejects any creational structures that make this development possible. Consequently, it cannot distinguish between reactionary and progressive tendencies historical development.

review questions
1.Why cannot historicism provide a criterion for the historical mode?
2. Why isn’t the science of history, the science of becoming?
3. Why did the Greeks deify the cultural?

study questions
1. Does the cultural mandate provide a carte blanche for the exploitation of the earth?
2. How can we distinguish between progressive and reactionary tendencies in historical development?

Ch 2 §3 Autonomy and sphere sovereignty pp 55- 60

Kuyper had grasped that sphere sovereignty is a creational principle. And yet he still confused it with historically founded autonomy of parts in the body politic when he placed municipalities and provinces in his list of life spheres.

Differentiated life spheres such as the family, the school and economic enterprise can never be parts of the state.
The historicistic view has had an immense influence – it is important to avoid this absolutisation of the historical aspect of reality. One antidote is to expose the hidden ground motives that lie behind it.
From the historicist perspective the idea that there are principles rooted in the creation order is viewed as being undynamic and as not grasping the spirit of the age. The historicist view is more influential today than the scriptural view of history. But to find God’s ordinaces fo historical development our starting point must be the creation, fall and redemption ground motive.
There are (at least) two objections to this approach: the biblicist and the Barthian.

biblicism
The biblicist objection is that scriptural principles can come straight out the of the Bible – we have, for example, the ten commandments. Dooyeweerd answers this objection with a question: are all the laws for God’s creation order, such as laws that govern numerical and spatial relationships, physical and chemical phenomena also to be found in scripture? No, God has given us the task of discovering them.

barthianism
The Barthian responds: how can we know the original ordinances of creation? Sin has changed them so that now they are ordinances for sinful life.
Dooyeweerd asks: ‘Did God reveal himself as the creator so that we could brush this revelation aside?’ Creation should not be pushed to the background: Psalms, Job and Romans are all clear on the importance of creation.
Jesus himself uses creational ordinances for marriage in his discussion of divorce.
The fall has affected all of life but it has not as broad as creation; it does not alter the structures of reality of creation.

review questions
1. What is the difference between differentiated and undifferentiated states of society?
2. How does Dooyeweerd respond to the biblicist and Barthian objection?

study questions
1. How can we combat historicism today?
2. Does biblicism stifle cultural transformation?

Ch 2 §2 History and sphere sovereignty pp 49-55

Sphere sovereignty is common property in the Netherlands and it has become divorced from a Christian ground motive. In this section, Dooyeweerd looks at how this misunderstanding has arisen.
The nineteenth century historical school in Germany influenced the antirevolutionary political thought. The founders’ thought, despite being Lutheran, was dominated by historicism.

In Historicism:
• reality is reduced to the historical aspect
• reality is a product of ceaseless historical development of culture
• everything is subject to continual change
• is the denial that the individual is always remains subject to the law.
The Historical School denied the validity of general laws, but replaced them with a substitute ‘divine providence’.

Fredrich Julius Stahl (1802-1861)
Stahl was a Lutheran Jew and the founder of the antirevolutionary political party in Germany. He attempted to incorporate this Romantic view of history into a scriptural approach without realising that it was a Trojan horse for a pagan ground motive. His idea was that the ten commandments provided a universally valid norm, but a secondary norm was provided by this norm for historical development.
The Historical School accepted the fruit of the French Revolution. The result was an attempt to harmonise the autonomy of the life spheres with the idea of the state. The spheres had to accommodate themselves to the requirement of the state.

Guillame Groen van Prinsterer
Groen van Prinsterer was doing a similar thing to Stahl in the Netherlands. He looked for an idea of the state along historical-development lines. He was the first to use the term ‘souveriniteit in eigen sfeer (sovereignty within its own sphere), but he did not view it as a creational principle.
Both Stahl and Groen van Prinsterer thought that the state should not interfere with the internal life of the other spheres.
Abraham Kuyper
Kuyper was the first to see sphere sovereignty as a creational principle. His first conception, however, confused sphere sovereignty with municipal and provincial autonomy. The latter are not sovereign spheres but rather autonomous parts of the state.
Many were unsure of Kuyper’s contention that sphere sovereignty was a creational principle and an attitude of caution ensued as they maintained that the Bible contained no texts about sphere sovereignty.

review questions
1. How has historicism distorted the view of sphere sovereignty?
2. What was the misconception of sphere sovereignty Dooyeweerd was addressing?
3. What was the result of Kuyper confusing municipals and provincial autonomy with sphere sovereignty?
study questions
1. Outline how the concept of sphere sovereignty developed from Stahl to Kuyper.
2. Can the Bible be used to develop principles such as sphere sovereignty?