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?