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?

Ch 2 §1 creation and sphere sovereignty pp 40-49

summary
Dooyeweerd again uses the image of a refracting prism.
Each of the aspects are investigated by modern special sciences – each science considers reality in only one aspect.
To investigate these sciences without the light of the knowledge of God means that one of these aspects becomes absolutised – everything is reduced to this one aspect. Tis idolisation of only one science results from a non-biblical ground motive taking hold of thinking. It leads to a false view of reality.

historicism
Historicism is the idolisation of the historical aspect of creation. Historicism knows no eternal values; all is part of a stream of historical development.
Historicism is a half-truth – all temporal things do have a historical element - that has been made a whole truth – all other aspects are reduced to it.
The scriptural ground motive frees our view of reality and we are able to see God’s creation in its great pluriformity and colourfulness; it prevents us from absolutising any one aspect and reducing the others.
Each aspect possesses a sovereign sphere or as Abraham Kuyper called it, sphere sovereignty.
Sphere sovereignty is a creational principle. The aspects of reality have:
• a mutual irreducibility
• an inner connection and
• an inseparable coherence
Take logic. It cannot be explained by the other aspects, it is sovereign in its own sphere and subject to its own laws. Nevertheless, it does not exist by itself, it is inseparable from the other aspects; eg we cannot think logically if we have a body that functions organically.

two types of structure
There are two types of structure within temporal reality: the structure of the different modal aspects and the concrete structure of reality as it reveals itself to us time.
We experience the structure of the modal aspects in their totality through everyday experience. We only focus on the distinct aspects in scientific thought. The concrete structure of reality shows itself in the structure of different individual totalities: things, events, acts and societal relationships, such as the family, the state, the church … .

sphere universality
The psychical aspect of reality has a core nucleus that is irreducible to any other aspect. However, there is an expression of internal coherence with the other aspects. See the table below:

Someone, as a result, of an apostate ground motive, might make ‘feeling’ the basic certainty of his or her life. Seeing that the aspects are reflected in the physical life he or she may declare that feeling is the origin of all other aspects; faith, for example, could be identified with the feeling of trust and certainty. Feeling becomes all – it has become an idol.
An antithesis is at work between the Christian religion and the service of an idol.
A key issue is how does a Christian ground motive affect pastoral and social action? It radically changes our view of the inner nature of the state and its relation to other spheres.

society and sphere sovereignty
Sphere sovereignty is a creational order and thus pertains to the second structure – the concrete – structure of reality. It applies to the societal forms – family, state, church, school, economic enterprise and so on.
A Christian ground motive also gives insight into the intrinsic nature, mutual relation and coherence of these spheres.

A form/ matter motive sees the state as a totalitarian community.

Sphere sovereignty guarantees each sphere an intrinsic nature and law of life; each sphere has its authority derived directly from God and not from another sphere or aspect.

review questions
1. What are the two types of structure?
2. Dooyeweerd in this section poses a number of key questions:
• What does the Christian ground motive have to do with the concrete needs of political and social action?
• What then is the significance of sphere sovereignty for human society?
How does Dooyeweerd answer these questions?
3. How has historicism distorted the view of sphere sovereignty?

study questions
1. Choose another of the modal aspects and examine how it is anticipated and retrocipated in the other modal aspects.
2. How do the different ground motives affect the view of the state?

Ch 1 §4 Creation, fall and redemption pp 28-39

summary
Dooyeweerd now turns to the second religious ground motive (RGM), the biblical, creation, fall and redemption.

the creation motive 
In its integrality (all things are created) and radicality (it penetrates to the root of created reality) the biblical ground motive stands in antithesis to the Greek RGM. Creation, fall and redemption is a Word-revelation of God.

God is the creator of all things – no power stands over against him.

The Greeks know nothing of a creation from nothing. For the Greeks a god was the deification of either the cultural or movement aspect of creation.

A synthesis of Christian and the form/ matter motive is impossible.

God created humanity in his image and revealed himself in the ‘religious root unity of his creaturely existence’. The heart is the religious centre of humanity. Human life is to be directed towards God in every area and aspect.

The heart is the religious centre and temporal existence of humanity. Humanity is also created in a religious community.

God created humanity as lord of creation. Humanity is to develop and disclose the potential in creation. So when Adam sinned the whole temporal order fell away from God.

Only humans have a spiritual or religious root.

Materialist’s view ‘Nature’ apart from humanity – but this is cannot be the case: mathematical formulae by which they ‘describe’ ‘Nature’ presupposes human thought and language. ‘Nature’ apart from humanity does not exist.

Temporal reality only becomes full reality in humanity.

The scriptural RGM is not dualistic.

scriptural view of soul and body
How we understand the ‘soul’ has been fiercely debated – it can only be understood with reference to the antithesis between the scriptural and Greek RGMs.

There is an on going battle between competing GMs: Christian versus apostate spirits.
Is the question of the soul only one that psychology can answer? What if psychology answers according to a Greek GM? Scholastic theology does try to push the church into accepting a Greek view of the soul.
But any conception of the soul that is determined by a Greek GM can’t stand before the revelation of creation, fall and redemption.

What are we to understand by the soul is a religious question not scientific one. It is the religious focus of human existence in which all temporal reality is concentrated.

Self-knowledge is totally dependent on true knowledge of God. This has been lost in the fall.
Apostate GMs see humanity in the image of an idol. For the Greeks the soul was a formless, impersonal life principle caught in the stream of life.
The Orphics saw the soul as rational, invisible form and substance, which originated in heaven. It was characterised by theoretical and logical thought.
For the Greeks the temporal existence of humanity is dualistic: a perishable, material body and an immortal rational soul.
For the Christian the soul or spirit is the absolute central unity or heart of his existence – it is the focal point of existence.

common grace 
The revelation of the fall touches the root and religious centre of human nature. It means apostasy from God and affected the whole of the temporal world.
Sin, or Satan, though does not have an existence of its own over against God the creator.
The Word became flesh in Jesus, he entered into the heart of human nature and bought about a radical redemption.
God upholds the fallen world through ‘common grace’ – grace given without distinction between the regenerate and apostate.
Common grace:

• curbs the effect of sin
• restrains fallen humanity
• upholds the ordinances of creation – even the most ungodly must bow before God’s decrees to see the positive effects of his own labours
• reveals itself in gifts and talents of individuals
• does not weaken the opposition (antithesis) between Christian and other GMs
• can’t be conceived of apart from Jesus
• goes on until the judgement
• guards against Christian pride, which leads to a rejection and fleeing from the world

review questions
1. Does nature exist apart from humanity?
2. In what ways can the effects of common grace be felt?

study questions
1. What does Dooyeweerd mean by ‘the whole of temporal order’?
2. What does Dooyeweerd mean by ‘heart’?
3. How does humanity make the ‘temporal existence’ of plants and animals ‘complete’?
4. Compare the Greek views of the soul with the Christian view.

Ch 1 §3 The Roman Imperium pp 22-28

summary
With Alexander the Great Greek culture became world culture. Alexander became worshipped as a god – and this became the foundation of the religiousimperium idea. This imperium idea was well established when Alexander died and his empire eventually became Roman.

As the Roman empire expanded the Greek religious ground motive (RGM) influenced Roman culture.

the motive of power
Roman ancestor worship soon led Caligula to emperor worship. The Roman gods of state had their own sphere of competence and co-existed with the gods of home and hearth.
The motive of power and law pervaded Roman life.
The head of the Roman familia, the pater familias (the oldest male) had the power of life and death over the rest of the family, he could buy and sell the children and slaves under his jurisdiction.

public law and private law
When Rome became an empire there was the need for a more universal law (ius gentium). It mean that every free person had the status of a free subject.

Where could the basic principle of universal law come form? It couldn’t be based on family law or on the communal law. They looked to the Greek idea of natural law developed by the stoics. They discovered a principle that lies at the heart of civil law: freedom and equality of persons. This became a lasting influence on western law. This blessing was however, threatened by the Greek RGM. There was a sharp demarcation between the sphere of state and the sphere of individual freedom.

The Byzantine emperors (end of the third century BC) saw the end of the civil freedom of the individual and it was replaced by a state absolutization – everyone became a civil servant, the church became a state church.

review questions
1. In what sense is the ius gentium a gift of God’s common grace?

study questions
1. How was the ‘caesaropapacy’ a fruit of the Graeco-Roman RGM?

Ch 1 §2 Form and Matter pp.15-22

Summary
Dooyeweerd distinguishes four religious ground motives (RGMs):
• form/ matter
• creation, fall and redemption
• nature/ grace
• nature/ freedom

In this section he expounds the origins of the first of these the form/ matter motive.

the matter motive
The Greek form/ matter RGM is considered first as it operates both in the nature/ grace and the nature/ freedom RGMs.

The form/ matter Greek ground motive controlled Greek thought from the beginning. It arose in the conflict between the older nature religions and the newer Olympian culture religions.

The matter pole arose form the nature religions. There were many local variations but most involved the deification of a formless cyclical stream of life from which emerge plants, beasts and humans. Each matured, perished and came to life again. Time was cyclical and the forces were ruled by fate (Ananake).

The nature gods were fluid and invisible – there were a multiplicity of divine powers: eg, Gaia, Uranos, Demeter, Dionysis.

the form motive
The newer culture religions emphasized form, measure and harmony, it was the religion of the city states. They left the cycles of nature behind, their gods were immortal and Mount Olympus was their home.
The cultural religions were to the fore in the works of Homer and Hesiod.
Apollo was the supreme culture god.

dialectical tension
Dooyeweed lists three reasons why the attempts to reconcile these two poles failed. This failure to reconcile them led to a public private divide. In private they engaged in nature religion, but in public they worshipped the official Olympian gods.

The form/matter ground motive had a life even after the myths had been undermined. Blind fate governing the eternal flux and cycles stood over against the supernatural, rational and immortal form.
This diagram of Richard Russell’s illustrates Dooyeweerd’s discussion of the orphic view of human nature:

The rational, immortal soul originates in the heavens. The soul fell and became incarcerated in a material body. The soul was thus subject to the cycles of birth, death and rebirth, until it had been cleansed from the contamination of matter, then it could return to its true home.

The dialectical tension in Greek thought pushed it into two conflicting directions. They viewed nature sometimes as an invisible form and sometimes as a stream of life and sometimes as a combination of both.
This tension can also be seen in their view of the state. In the classical age the state was limited to a small area of the city-state (polis). The city-state was the bearer of the culture religion. Greeks were only seen as truly human as a free person in the city-state. All non-Greeks were barbarians. These notion were challenged by the idea of the natural equality of all peoples. The sophists declared ‘war’ on the idea of the city-state.

In Ionian culture, the idea of democracy that emerged was very different to modern ideas. Democracy was for the ‘free citizens’ only. The Greeks view of the state was totalitarian, it demanded the allegiance of the whole person.

review questions
1. How do the gods of the natural religions differ from the gods of the cultural religions?
2. Why couldn’t the form and matter forces be reconciled?

study questions
1. How do the natural religion and the cultural religions differ?
2. Is there still a difference between what people worship in private and what they do in public?
3. The orphic inscription has: "I am child of the earth and of the starry heaven / But heaven is my home". Is heaven the Christian’s home?
4. Is this form/ matter ground motive still operating today? In what ways?

Ch 1 §1 The religious antithesis pp 7-15

summary

In this section Dooyeweerd distinguishes between the theoretical and the religious antithesis and between the theoretical and the religious dialectic. He sets the stage for a fuller discussion of the four religious ground motives (RGM).

the theoretical antithesis
Antithesis means ‘opposition’; it was later given a particular meaning in philosophy – particularly Hegelian philosophy.

the religious antithesis
However, in Christian thought the antithesis ‘pertains to the relation between the creature and his Creator’. It does not allow a higher synthesis – Christian and non-Christian starting points cannot be synthesised.
Philosophy needs a starting point which it derives from religion. Theoretical thought does not contain its own absolute starting point. The absolute is found only in religion. To find the true meaning of antithesis and to find the source of differences of opinion the religious ground motives of western civilization need to be considered. Every religion has a ground motive – a spiritual force that acts as the absolute central mainspring of society.
A groundmotive:

• is a spiritual force
• acts as the absolute cultural mainspring of society
• governs all of life’s expressions from the religious centre of life and directs them to a true or supposed origins of existence
• places an indelible stamp on the whole of culture and society
• has a spirit that is either the Spirit of God or that of an idol
• is a communal motive
• can never be the object for a special science
• can never be penetrated to their spiritual root by scientific analysis
• provides the point of departure for science – hence science can never be neutral with respect to religion.

the rgm of western culture
RGMs acquire their influence via cultural powers, such as the city-state (polis) of Greece, the Roman commonwealth (res publica) and later the emperor (sacrum imperium) of Rome, Christianity and modern humanism. In the Middle Ages the Roman Catholic (RC) church secured the role of leadership – all spheres in life were placed under the dominion of the church.
In the fifteenth century the Renaissance bought the church’s downfall. This led to the emergence of humanism. At the same time the Reformation challenged the RC’s powers. The RC church and the Reformation were driven back by humanism. In the Enlightenment humanism broke away from faith and pushed the church into a defensive mode for around three centuries. At the end of the nineteenth centurydecay entered into the humanistic world view – Marxism, Darwinism and Nietzsche’s superman pushed humanism into the defensive. World War I (WWI) accelerated the demise of optimistic humanism. The rise of fascism and Nazism was broken by WWII. Today spiritual confusion is everywhere.

the religious dialectic
Four RGMs have clashed. Three are dualistic with polar opposites that cannot be synthesied; they bear the seed of a religious dialectic.
Theoretcial antithesis is relative, it attempts to think through a logical opposition to its synthesis. Whereas a religious antithesis is absolute and cannot be synthesied. A religious dialectic is established by revelation founded in God’s word. The biblical GM is creation, fall and redemption. It is not a doctrine that can be uncovered by theology – one of the special sciences.
Idolatry deifies what is created, it absolutises an aspect of creation. Idolatry draws the human heart away from God.
A religious dialectic occurs when a RGM deifies a part of creation – a polar tension between the two extremes is set up. This breaks apart the GM, each of its motives claims absoluteness. It is impossible to synthesise them.
Another religious dialectic occurs when attempts are made to synthesis a Christian and another GM.
A closing warning: this is not merely a theoretical exercise.

review questions
1. What are the four religious ground motives?
2. What are the leading powers in the different ground motives?
3. What does Dooyewerd mean by an absolutisation?
4. What is a pseudosynthesis?
5. What is the difference between a theoretical and a religious antithesis?
6. What is the difference between a theoretical and a religious dialectic?

Study questions
1. Compare and contrast culture, world view, religious ground motives and religion.