TRANSFORMATION AND DEFORMATION IN

Abraham P. Bos

In wh at follows we would like to offer a few critical comments on the first of seven themes dealt with by J. Klapwijk in his study 'Reformational philosophy on the boundary between the past and the future'.' Under the heading 'Religious antithesis: the idea of transformational philosophy', Klapwijk pleads for 'a new style of reformational philosophizing' best des­ ignated by the term 'transformational philosophy'.2 One's first impression might be that the introduction of the term 'trans­ formational philosophy' is no more than a cosmetic affair. Is it Klapwijk's intention to give the fifty-year old movement for reformational philosophy a kind of face-lift and to free it of an old-fashioned image and terminology wh ich opponents have seized upon to label reformational philosophy as 'isolationistic' and 'sectarian'? Are the notions of 'antithesis' and 'synthesis' simply being replaced by two new concepts, viz. 'normative transfor­ mation' and 'inverse transformation', these being more palatable for peo­ pIe standing on the threshold of the age of Aquarius? On the other hand Klapwijk seems to regard the past fifty years as aperiod in wh ich Vollen­ hoven and Dooyeweerd and their allies strove for a 'Christi an subculture or anti-culture' and a 'separate alternative circuit of Christi an scholarly praxis'.3 Klapwijk apparently has grave objections to this. The new style of reformational philosophy must recognize, more than it has done in the past, that Christian philosophizing too depends on appropriation of exist­ ing intellectual goods and incorporation of these into a Christian world view. 4 In the first pI ace we might note that the emphasis put by Dooyeweerd, Kuyper, and John Calvin on a religious antithesis between those who wish to orientate their lives according to God's Word and those who reject this commitment does not mean that they aimed at an isolated community of kind red spirits which turns away from the world of the dominant, hu­ manistic culture. Only in the practice of political action, in the decision

I Philosophia Reformata 52 (1987). 2 Art. eit. p. 105. 3 Art. eit. pp. 104-5. 4Ibid., p. 105.

135 to cooperate with other parties or not, have Christians sometimes sought strength in isolation. But in cultural relations the situation has rather been the other way around: there the dominant culture has often responded to the radical assault on its foundations and certainties with the pseudo­ tolerance of negation and isolation. In this way the dominant culture even­ tually transforms areal anti-culture into an isolated sub-culture. It changes this strategy only when such a counter-movement adapts itself or when its missionary zeal succeeds in eclipsing the dominant culture. More importantly, the term 'transformation' proposed by Klapwijk lacks transparency and is therefore hardly useful. The term ought to be used to indicate a process in which elements of a whole change within a constant framework. In the field of philosophy, the development of Plato's philoso­ phy via the phase of Middle into the of Plotinus could be cited as an example of such a transformation process. In Klap­ wijk's view, however, 'transformation' is a much profounder, more radical procedure, as his definition shows: 'transformation is critical assessment, election and appropriation of existing intellectual goods in such a way that their incorporation into a Christian worldview means a restructuring and redirecting of their content, a redefining of their scope or meaning'. 5 An example of this might be the incorporation of Platonic elements into the Gnostic framework of the world view in the Corpus Hermeticum. But it is highly questionable wh ether fruitful interaction and communication between two different world views is possible along these lines. My own position on this point can be clarified by me ans of a compari­ son. The development of non- and of an intrinsically Christian philosophy is comparable to the growth of two different kinds of plants on one piece of land. One might use the biblical image of the tares and the wheat. Both live in the same biological environment. They convert the same nutrients in a metabolical process. They react to the same rains and to the light of the sun which shines on both the evil and the good. But there is nothing to prompt cross-fertilization or genetic man­ ipulation. The image can also be given a temporal dimension. Climatolo­ gical changes may occur. The soil may become impoverished, the ground­ water seriously polluted. In this way both the wheat and the tares may und ergo radical changes, in reaction to their modified 'context'. Nonethe­ less, they remain recognizable as two wholly different plants. Certainly there is reason to emphasize that Christian philosophizing cannot now be practiced in the same way as in the nineteenth or third century. But equally drastic changes have taken place in non-Christian philosophy and science. That still leaves us completely free to posit a fundamental contrast between an integrally Christian philosophy and a philosophy in which God's Word does not come first and last. The sugges­ tion that we are involved in a common struggle for truth is as misleading as in the case of someone who knows how to swim and who is clutched by a drowning, desperate person. Every philosopher must expound his view of within the langu­ age, the categories of thought, and the common horizon of his own times. He must also give an answer to the questions and expectations which

5 Ibid., p. 105.

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