Dooyeweerd’s Second Letter to the Curators October 12, 1937 [Draft]

Translated and annotated for study purposes only

by Dr. J. Glenn Friesen

The text below is a provisional translation. Copyright is held by the Dooyeweerd Centre, Ancaster, Ontario, and publishing right is held by Mellen Press, Lewiston, New York. A definitive translation will be published in the series The Collected Works of Herman Dooyeweerd.

Notes:

This long letter, a copy of which was in the Dooyeweerd Archives in Amsterdam, bears a date of April 27, 1937, although the last page bears the date of October 12, 1937, with Dooyeweerd’s signature. April 27, 1937 is the date of Dooyeweerd’s First Letter to the Curators. It therefore seems that he had prepared this extensive reply, but chose to send his first four page letter in April instead.

A comparison with excerpts from this letter in Verburg (Verburg, 219) indicate that what I have translated here is a draft, since there are some differences from what Verburg has cited. The differences, at least in the passages I have compared, appear to be stylistic and not substantial. A full comparison needs to be made with the copy of the letter received by the Curators, presumably in the Curators Archive. In the meantime, I thought it important to make this version available, since it contains so much information of interest to Dooyeweerd scholars.

Dooyeweerd’s italics are shown as underlining in the original letter. The pdf version maintains that underlining; this online version changes the underlining to italics. All footnotes are by Dooyeweerd himself except where indicated otherwise by my initials JGF. I have translated some passages from other languages; these are shown in square brackets.

Amsterdam, April 27, 1937 [Actually sent October 12, 1937] To the Curators of the Vrije Universiteit in AMSTERDAM

Respected College!

In your written communication dated April 3 of this year, no. 69, your College has first requested me to advise whether my colleague Hepp, at page 16 in the second of his brochures Dreigende Deformatie [Threatening Deformation] has accurately set out the quotation from my work De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee (Volume III, p. 629), and whether the conclusions that he draws from it represent my opinion.1 Secondly, you have asked me to advise how I might possibly respond to the said brochure by my colleague.2

1 JGF: From Dooyeweerd’s response, and from what Verburg says (p. 208), it appears that Hepp had placed under the subheading “The denial of the independent existence of the soul in distinction from the body” the following quotation from WdW III, 629: Daarmede is ook het probleem in zake de tijdelijke verhouding van “ziel” (als complex der psychische en logische functies) en “lichaam”, in den zin van afzonderlijke “substanties”, als zelf-geschapen schijn probleeem der immanentie-philosophie onderkend, gelijk ik te zijner tijd bij de verdere ontwikkeling van de Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee uitvoerig hoop aan te toonen. En tenslotte–en dit in de voornaamste plaats–moeten wij principieel idedere opvatting van het menschelijk “ik” afwijzen, welke de menschelijke persoonlijkheid verzelfstandigt, of wel als een immanent “psychologisch” of “geestelijk” “Aktzentrum” vat.

[With this, the problem concerning the temporal relation of “soul” (as a complex of psychical and logical functions) and “body”, in the sense of separate “substances”, is seen to be a self-created pseudo-problem of immanence philosophy, as I hope to show in due course and in more detail in the further development of the Philosophy of the law-Idea. And finally–and this must be in the primary place–we must reject in principle each conception of the human “I”, according to which the human personality is made independent, or which understands it as an immanent “psychological” or “spiritual” act-centre. (my translation; not in NC)].

2 Note by Dooyeweerd, on first page of this response: On page 4 of his note, Mr. Hepp writes that he, “during a certain opportunity” (which one?), with both myself and Prof. V. [Vollenhoven], he extensively developed his objections against certain points. I can assure your College in all sincerity, that such an I willingly respond to this request.

With respect to the first part [of your request], I understand it as meaning that your College does not want to be informed about the formal correctness of the quotation, but only desires to know whether my colleague has accurately understood the meaning of the assertion cited there.

I must without any reservation respond to this question in the negative.

In order to accurately interpret a particular passage from a theoretical work, one must without doubt begin by reading it in its complete context.

Whenever it concerns a philosophical work, and especially a work where the author has, on fundamental grounds, largely departed from the usual philosophical terminology, then there must furthermore be a requirement that one must become acquainted with the whole train of thought of the writer.

If my esteemed colleague had held both of these requirements in view, he would then have seen immediately that the citation could not have rendered service that he desired. And for this reason: in its context it does not contain anything that he himself could not ardently subscribe to, based on an exposition of his own standpoint.

In the first place, the cited passage must be read in context with the preceding assertion (page 628, second paragraph from the bottom):

This puts it beyond any doubt that the various conceptions of “body” and “soul”, or of “body”, “soul” and “spirit” devised from the immanence- standpoint are in principle unserviceable in a Christian anthropology which starts from the radical basic motive of the Word-Revelation. The all-sided temporal existence of man, i.e. his “body”, in the full Scriptural sense of the word, can only be understood from the supra-temporal religious centre, i.e. the “soul”, or the “heart”, in its Scriptural meaning. Every conception of the “immortal soul”, whose supra-temporal centre of being must be sought in rational-moral functions, remains rooted in the starting point of immanence-philosophy. [As translated in NC III, 783-84). extensive exchange of ideas is not, I emphasize not, known to me. I do remember that once between lectures my colleague has said that he was completely not in agreement with the WdW, but he could not have understood this to be a serious and wide-ranging exchange of thoughts. Secondly, it must be read with the immediately preceding assertion (page 629):

From our standpoint it is certain that man’s temporal existence can not be explained as two or three abstract complexes of functions (under the names “body”, “soul” and “spirit”), since we seen that such theoretical abstractions…essentially depend upon a hypostatizing of isolated functions, i.e. an elevation to “substances,” to self-sufficient beings [zelfgenoegzame wezenheden].

[page 2]

The last extensive part of my book, from which he gave his quotation (!), had hardly appeared (October 1936), when Mr. Hepp’s first brochure appeared. And his second brochure followed very speedily following the appearance of this part. The Foreword of the first brochure is dated August 1936. However much my colleague may twist and turn the matter, his plan lay all ready before my work had been completed. He had already made the diagnosis before he could properly perceive the supposed illness.

And in all of his brochures that have appeared, one finds no more than allusions to the central position in the Philosophy of the Law-idea taken by the heart, the religious root of human existence. The objection made by my esteemed colleague in his note, that in a popular work [Hepp’s brochure], it would not be required to view the quoted passage in its context with the whole system, is an objection that does not hold good with respect to this central point.

The objection might hold good for the theory of the law-spheres and of the individuality structures, as well as for epistemology, which are developed one after the other in my book. But for the idea of the heart, which the WdW expressly calls Scriptural, (concerning which more will be said later), the objection does not hold good, for the heart is here identified with the “soul”, whose continued existence after death has, according to my colleague Hepp, been brought into question by “modern views.”

For that matter, the manner in which my respected colleague first made this point in his note is itself the best refutation of the assertion that such a matter is too complicated for a popular brochure.

In any event, I must assume from the categorical statement of my colleague that he has at least now become acquainted with the whole contents of my work. I would have preferred that he had rather denied this, for now the judgment of the way in which my esteemed colleague has read my work cannot appear except in a rather unfavorable light.

I do not just mean a wrong interpretation of what I have written, a reproach that, from the beginning of his note, Prof. Hepp seems to have expected. No, now I have been forced to show that the assertions that he places in my mouth have either as a whole never been made by me, or that they have in my book even been expressly rejected. From a theoretical standpoint this is already an error, for which a writer is not easily forgiven. The error becomes much more serious now that my colleague uses it to accentuate what [he sees to be] destructive and dangerous in my standpoint.

I will give two examples of this way of acting. On page 5 of his note, the following ideas are ascribed to me, one after the other, that “the princes govern by the grace of the glorified Christ and not at all by the grace of God,” and that I have “regarded every concept from immanence philosophy as inaccurate per se, each opinion as wrong per se.

Concerning the first idea, this is known to be not my idea, but is universally ascribed to Drs. S. de Graaf.

[page 3]

[My copy of the text unclear here. JGF]

…although this winter in Vienna, Prof. Bohatec showed me that this appears in Calvin, in relation to Christ as the second person of the Divine Being.

In any event, colleague Hepp ascribes to me an idea that I have never taught in my book.

More serious is his ascription to me of the second idea, which in various places of my work is expressly rejected. Already in the Prolegomena, page 82, from which I cite merely the following:

Philosophic thought as such stands in an inner relationship with historical development, postulated by our very philosophical basic Idea, and no thinker whatever can withdraw himself from this historical evolution. Our transcendental ground-Idea itself requires the recognition of the “philosophia perennis” in this sense and rejects the proud illusion that any thinker whatever, could begin as it were with a clean slate and disassociate himself from the development of an age-old process of philosophical reflection.. Only let not the postulate of the “philosophia perennis” be turned against the religious ground- motive of philosophy with the intention of involving it (and not only the variable forms given to it) in historical relativity [as translated NC I, 118]. etc., etc. and then on page 83:

Every serious philosophic school contributes to the development of human thought to a certain extent, and no single one can credit itself with the monopoly in this respect [as translated NC I, 119) as well as the extensive assertions that immediately precede and follow this.

And see Volume I, page 518 :3

…and so apostate science can only unfold reality theoretically and thereby reveal relative theoretical truths 1), insofar as it must ever again capitulate before the temporal divine world order, which they have supposed to have been able to close off from their field of view as a matter of faith [and not science]. [my translation. JGF] and then the whole of section 2 of Chapter IV of Volume II, from pages 269- 287.

Then the continual acknowledgement of concrete partial truths by various thinkers from immanence philosophy.

So in Kant’s teaching of antinomies:

But this need in no way be an impediment for us to recognize the elements of truth implied in Kant’s extremely penetrating doctrine of the dialectic of pure reason [antinomiënleer]. (WdW II, 41, as translated in NC II, 44; JGF: it should refer to the doctrine of antinomies).

And so in Hegel’s philosophy of society:

Hegel has given a masterly interpretation of the historical development of the modern individualized inter-individual societal relations. He has integrated hisinsight into some essential features of this

3 JGF: This reference is incorrect. development, into his universalistic Humanistic freedom idealism. (WdW III, 526, as translated in NC III, 587). etc.…

And so in the social philosophy of ARISTOTLE, PLATO and THOMAS AQUINAS the valuing of the distinguishing between inner social structure and coordinated societal relations (Volume III, page 145ff) etc., etc., etc.

This acknowledgement in the WdW of partial truths in immanence philosophy is a necessary consequence of the acceptance of the doctrine of common grace, as I have argued in several places in my book.

Colleague Hepp’s reproach, that the WdW is a breaking off from the traditional ideas (bottom of page 3 of his note) is already refuted in the Prolegomena to my book. I need only refer to the first two of the above given citations.

My colleague adds to this reproach a bitter aftertaste by adding to it that thereby the traditional Gereformeerde thought is implicitly affected. But I shall return to this point below.

***

When I now proceed to a more systematic examination of the objective contents of the note, then I must first express my gratitude that my esteemed colleague has, in very clear words, attempted to develop real objections against the WdW. For the time being, I view this as an important gain, since a favourable opportunity has already been created, that the discussion will not dry up through continual terminological misunderstandings. I will in general let rest the fact that my colleague clearly finds it difficult to maintain the quiet objective tone in these matter-of-fact discussions, or to show chivalry in theoretical thought to his supposed opponent–witness his expressions like “Mussert wint.”4

4 JGF: The reference is to propaganda. The slogan “Mussert wint” was a slogan from the recent election in the Netherlands. Anton Mussert (1894-1946) was leader of the National Socialist party in the Netherlands. An envelope with a stamp bearing this slogan, addressed to Holland from England, was refused delivery in 1937. Mussert was tried and executed after the war. I will only return to it insofar as the discussed terms and ridiculing turns of phrase fulfill a definite role in the objective argument of my esteemed opponent.

[page 4]

1. I find the first point to hang on to in Prof. Hepp’s exposition of his serious objections against the WdW on page 2, the last paragraph, where he seeks the basic error of my system and that of Prof. V. [Vollenhoven], in that it lets itself be exclusively determined by an antithesis with certain philosophical movements from the modern period. We are supposed to have judged all philosophical systems from out of the neo-Kantian formulation of the problem [probleemstelling], including the philosophical ideas that have been expressed by Gereformeerde individuals. This is indeed an important point. Unfortunately, my colleague immediately follows it up with: “I must forgo a broader exposition.” In other words, it remains an assertion, the grounds for which I am left to search around for completely in the dark.

I do not want to be ungenerous, and I will concede to my colleague that a further exposition of this point within the scope of his note would indeed run up against insurmountable difficulties. But in my opinion, he could have given some more objective references of the direction in which I should seek to understand his argument.

Now I have to deal with his allusion to my own confession that many years ago (it was just after my years as a student), I was strongly influenced by neo- Kantianism and by Husserl’s philosophy5, and with the passing remark on page 3 of the note that the word ‘supratemporal’ refers to a neo-Kantian formulation of the problem [probleemstelling]. But of course, this said allusion to my philosophical youth lacks every appearance of evidentiary force. One could on the same basis reproach Calvin for having proceeded from a humanistic formulation of the problem in his Institutes. For in his early work on the Seneca commentary he was completely under humanistic influence! And with respect to the passing remark placed in quotation marks, that my speaking of the heart as thesupratemporal root of life should point to a neo-Kantian formulation of the problem, this remark would undoubtedly fill with unconcealed amazement every scholar in that area. The neo-Kantian schools of philosophy (there are many, as my colleague well knows), do not know this formulation of the problem at all. At most, they acknowledge a realm of “eternal values,” at least

5 JGF: See NC I, v. insofar as they do not find themselves in the critical-positivistic ways of thinking. But in any event, even the seeking of a supra-temporal something, which remains, in contrast to the “changing world of the senses,” is not specifically neo-Kantian. All of metaphysical immanence philosophy takes its departure here, beginning with Parmenides, and therefore at the beginning of Greek philosophy. However, it sought its supratemporal support in that which, according to the Christian vision of the WdW, is itself enclosed by God within time.

What therefore does this point have to do with a neo-Kantian formulation of the problem? One could in this manner of reasoning fall into blasphemy, and qualify the whole Scriptural vision of the relation of temporal and supra- temporal things as a neo-Kantian relation!!

It is just the WdW that has placed in the sharpest conceivable light how the essential neo-Kantian formulations of the problem are born, namely from out of the hidden religious conflict between a modern humanistic science ideal and the ideal of the autonomous moral personality. This [the clarification of this issue by the WdW] is something that is expressly admitted by various professional philosophers. That is at the same time its victory over this formulation of the problem.

The assertion that the WdW itself is oriented to the latter [neo-Kantianism] is then evidence of such a complete misunderstanding of the whole basis of this philosophy that not only her Gereformeerde adherents but also its opponents from out of the immanence philosophy camp could give advice to my colleague, that he should not be satisfied with reading the WdW “one time” (“and some parts even two times”), but to prepare himself more seriously before he makes any critique of this system. I at least would not have the courage to give a critique about a philosophical system foreign to myself, before I had at least read it through at least one time as a whole! Most critics whom I have met from professional philosophical circles show a careful reserve in their theoretical thought, just because they know that the Philosophy of the Law-Idea cannot be understood from out of an already known formulation of the problem. I need only refer here to the review of Prof. Ovink and of the Utrecht lecturer Goedewagen, both of whom are neo-Kantian in their orientation.

[page 5]

Mr. Hepp does not miss any opportunity to try to make the WdW fall in esteem. In this way he places on page 2 of his note the less than gracious remark, “I took notice of the fact, that the WdW made its appearance in a relatively short time.”

I would be able to pass by this remark, as not serving the matter in issue, were it not for the fact that it stands in no demonstrable relation to the even further developed desideratum concerning the lines which my colleague claims should be followed by a Christian philosophy. According to him, these must be historical lines, which have also been followed by the traditional philosophical views, spread throughout the works of Gereformeerde theologians from earlier and later times. My colleague has been good enough to provide some names here. From the “flourishing period” of history, he puts forward Voetius in particular as the greatest adversary of Descartes. From the 19th and 20th centuries, the names Hodge, Kuyper, Bavinck, Geesink and even later colleague Hepp himself are named. “Hodge, Bavinck and Woltjer were, if my memory does not deceive me, themselves not worthy of being mentioned [by Dooyeweerd],” writes my colleague on page 3 of his note.

What can I answer to this? In the first place, that the memory of my colleague has indeed played a role when he supposes that I have not considered Bavinck worthy of being mentioned.

In the second volume of my work, in the discussion of the relation of faith and history, Bavinck’s Wijsbegeerte der Openbaring is cited so systematically that it really amazes me how this could have escaped the notice of my esteemed colleague!

I also mentioned colleague Hepp’s dissertation in this regard, from which he may draw the conclusion that I have in no way wanted to negate him.

Meanwhile, I must register my objection to whenever colleague Hepp asserts that there in fact already exists a continuous line of development of Calvinistic philosophic thinking. This is a pure construction of Prof. Hepp’s fantasy–may my colleague forgive me for momentarily having adopted his style–and is refuted by the facts.

Mr. Hepp will concede to me, that it is impossible for Calvinistic philosophical thought to be congruent with the philosophical thoughts that can be found to be disseminated by certain Gereformeerde theologians. It is most conceivable, and also demonstrable, that even Gereformeerde theologians, whenever they are forced to venture into a philosophical area, thereby begin to follow scholastic paths that have nothing to do with their Calvinistic point of departure. The advice that Melancthon gave to his disciples, to align themselves in philosophical matters “with an honest school,” does not stand alone. Melanchton’s eclectic Stoic-Aristotelian philosophy, accommodated to reformational theology was for a long time the school philosophy of orthodox Protestantism. In my opinion, there is little cause for rejoicing in the perspective opened by Mr. Hepp, who, as a point of connection for the continuous development of Calvinistic philosophical thought, points in “the flourishing period” not to Calvin himself but to Voetius, who in his Politica ecclesiastica took over to perfection the scholastic method of thought.

Even stronger, it is a symptom that, in combination with the present theoretical battle dependent on it, gives rise to serious thought.

Voetius in particular is constantly brought forward by my esteemed colleague as “the greatest adversary of Descartes.” During his tenure as rector of Utrecht University, Voetius, for whom I have the highest possible esteem as a theologian and expert in canon law, did in fact in an ostentatious way turn against the modern philosophy of Descartes, as this philosophy was being propagated by his colleague Regius (Leroy). But the manner in which he fought this battle, and the philosophical ideas that he thereby defended, should not in the least be emulated. For Voetius defended here no other philosophy than the old peripatetic scholasticism with its Aristotelian teaching of the substantial forms.6

[page 6]

And he particularly took shelter in the logic, metaphysics, and physics of this scholasticism. (“nominatim logicam, metaphysicam, physicam.” Disp. Sel. 1.1, pp. 871-72).

Voetius did nothing other than to follow the above-mentioned advice of Melancthon, when he, as rector-magnificus and primary professor of theology, made an end to the famous three-day debate held in December 1641 between the adherents of the peripatetic school and the followers of Regius by the authoritative proverb, “that those who were not satisfied with the old scholastic philosophy, but who awaited the modern philosophy of Descartes, were like the Jews, who still longingly looked forward to their Elias, to lead them into all truth.”

6 Dooyeweerd note: See Voetius’ Dispp. selectae vol. I, p. 870-881, and especially the exposition De rerum naturis et formis substantialibus. Voetius saw very well that the Cartesian teaching formed a threat for the basic dogmas of the church.

When Regius defended the proposition that “there arises from out of the union of soul and body not one being per se but one being per accidens,” he correctly saw therein a threat to the doctrine of the Incarnation of the Word.7

But must we then really need to call on Aristotle by means of the scholastic accommodating metaphysics, in order to protect this doctrine against the apostate humanistic philosophy?

In the fifth volume of his treatise De errore et haeresi (Dispp. vol. V. p. 741), Voetius defended the following dangerous proposition:

ac contra extraneos a fide aut haereticos male contra fidem phjilosophantos defendendi subordinetur Philosophiae, praesertim Logicae et Metaphysicae: neutiqham tamen quod ad materiam et simplices ex Scriptura assertiones, et mediorum terminorum inventionem, ac cum minori extreme conjunctionem id intelligendum est.

Here then Gereformeerde theology is openly coupled to the peripatetic8 logic and metaphysics, and furthermore the synthetic-standpoint is clearly formulated in the following words: “Est ergo Philosophia accomodanda ad Theologiam Chrstianam, non contra.” The Aristotelian logic and metaphysics must deliver the form, into which the content of Christian dogmas must be poured.

But it was forgotten that the teaching of the substantial forms, as the core of Aristotelian metaphysics, possesses a philosophical content, which coheres in an unbroken way with the false starting point of the Greek thinker. And this synthesis-standpoint also avenges itself theoretically.

The same scholasticism, which had to serve Voetius as the main support for the Divine Word revelation, was at the same time used against the fruitful progress of modern natural science. Just as in the days of Galileo it was used by the Roman Church against Copernicus’s teaching of the double movement of the earth, so in the 17th century it was used at Utrecht University against Harvey’s

7 Dooyeweerd note: See Voetius: Disp. Sel. T.Vp. 209-233 and t.I p. 878 [reference unclear] 8 Dooyeweerd note: For this is all that is intended here. discovery concerning the double circulation of the blood, because this discovery appeared to be flattering to Descartes’ basic principles of mechanics.

And it does in fact appear as if my colleague Hepp has made himself ready to again fall back into these old errors and to follow the footprints of Voetius in just this manner in the area of philosophy. At least in his “Calvinism and the philosophy of nature” he attacks Einstein’s relativity theory and tries to denounce it as a consequence of relativism (!) Whereby he forgets that this theory, together with the so-called quantum theory of Planck, forms the basis of the whole fruitful development of modern physics in the 20th century! It has as such nothing to do with a relativistic philosophy, because it researches only the time of movement [bewegingstijd] and the space of movement [bewegingsruimte], as the WdW has tried to bring to light.

From the things mentioned, one sees how the WdW clearly gives a wholly different aspect– and in any event a more fruitful aspect for the special sciences–to the question concerning the acknowledgement of elements of truth in unbelieving thought than the traditional scholastic one, which was defended by Melancthon, Voetius, Schoek and so many theologians.

[page 7]

My esteemed colleague will now say, “See? Now you are attacking the traditional ideas of reformed theologians!”9 I note in the first place that in my view, it is rather bold–to use Prof. Hepp’s own words–to “link in the same way” all reformed theologians.

In my opinion, the humanistically educated Calvin, who in his Institutes has almost completely shaken off the cloisters of peripatetic scholasticism, can only with difficulty be incorporated into the series of defenders of this non- Calvinistic but rather scholastic philosophy. And although many practitioners of Gereformeerde theology in the 17th and 18th century, especially Voetius, may have again sought comfort in scholasticism, the revival of Calvinism in the 19th century was only made possible because at that time it at least broke in principle with scholastic philosophy, even though scholasticism still continued to exercise much influence in the anthropology and psychology of reformed thinkers, and even though there still lacked a systematic Calvinistic philosophy. In epistemology, the scholastic-Aristotelian line was largely replaced by a

9 Dooyeweerd note: Moreover, in none of my publications have I done this! My colleague knows this very well. realistically interpreted Kantian epistemology. In his philosophical ideas, Kuyper can hardly be considered as one who continued in the tradition of Voetius–one need only consider Kuyper’s Encyclopedia.

Geeesink was, as he himself admitted, strongly “tinged with” [angehaucht] Kantianism. Woltjer’s critical realism (Cf. his Ideëel en Reëel) is just as little to be separated from Kant’s critique of knowledge. And to name someone more recent, my esteemed friend Prof. Bohatec considers the scholastic-philosophical tradition as corrupting for the healthy development of reformed thought, as he assured me this winter in Vienna. Until now I supposed that my colleague Hepp also had great objections to the scholasticism at the time of Voetius. Add here the teacher Severyn, who completely agrees with Prof. Vollenhoven and me in rejecting the scholastic-philosophical idea of soul and body and the row of witnesses à dechargé becomes not insignificant, whereas the line of continuity since Voetius’ scholasticism appears to be strongly broken through.

In the second place it is not clear to me what crime is hidden in subjecting the philosophical ideas of reformed theologians to a fundamental critique.

In his dissertation, colleague Hepp has done this himself in the sharpest manner. At pages 56 and 57 of his book there is a passage, which I shall repeat in its entirety in the last part of my note, and from which for the present this conclusion is illuminating: “From this short overview it appears sufficient, that from the root of Christendom a philosophy of its own has still never grown.”

Therefore by no one less than my esteemed colleague, a line has been drawn through the whole so-called “reformed-philosophical tradition” and in such a radical way, that I would not willingly be answerable myself for this assertion.

For the Philosophy of the Law-Idea has certainly sought connections with essentially reformational-philosophical basic ideas, as they have been delivered over to us through tradition. However, in his dissertation, colleague Hepp sees signs of true reformed philosophical thought only in the most recent time!

Therefore his call on the “traditional line,” just as he does now in his note to your College, is suspect in advance and it becomes even more so, whenever one pays attention to what has been represented as the traditional line in this most recent assault against the Philosophy of the Law-Idea.

[page 8] Whenever I think of the most recent example of Calvinistic philosophical thought by Dr. Steen, the champion of the so-called “traditional philosophy,” then I indeed become seriously concerned that the consequences of this philosophy will lead to a liquidation of the Vrije Universiteit. Dr. Steen’s attempt then comes out in the open with the conviction that there is no Christian philosophy, but that it is only possible to have a philosophy of Christians.

I do not in the least suspect my colleague Hepp of consciously sharing this conviction. But he will then agree with me that it is then high time to give clearer expression with respect to his own philosophical intentions than he has done up to now. If he wants to continue the old scholasticism, as was defended by Voetius, then he will indeed find all adherents of the Philosophy of the Law- Idea closed over against him. That will also be the case if he, as e.g. Dr. Steen intends, wants to bind us to the modern “critical realism” as it was proposed by Woltjer for example. For the WdW is also irreconcilable with the realistically interpreted Kantian critique of knowledge. It has shown the proton pseudos [original lie] in the Kantian formulation of the problem. But then Prof. Hepp should not disturb this battle by accusing his opponents of diverging from the reformed Confession. For he will not obtain anything with this accusation, because he would then have to give the impossible proof that the Confession coheres in an unbreakable way with the peripatetic, respectively critical- realistic philosophy. And, since the Confession is grounded in the Holy Scriptures, [he will have to show that] the whole revelation of salvation is based on certain theorems of this [philosophy], which is originally based on a heathen, respectively humanistic philosophy! Quod absurdum [which is an absurdity].

Prof. Hepp knows that in our hearts we cherish the reformed Confession and that we would rather give up our Philosophy of the Law-Idea than to undermine the Confession in an underhanded kind of way. But he does not have the right to bind us to the peripatetic scholasticism that Voetius assumed, even if he could show that those who drafted the various Gereformeerde Confessions of Faith, or the editors of the Synopsis, stood on the foundation of this scholasticism, and just as little [if he could show that they stood on] a “critical realism.” This is the case even if he brings forward such Gereformeerde thinkers as Kuyper and Woltjer as having stood on such foundations.

Let us understand each other properly! For not one moment do I overlook the fact that Voetius, with his dogged defence of scholasticism as against the “Cartesian modern enlightenment” [niewlichterij] actually did not have a philosophical but rather a theological intention. In the end he was concerned to defend the basic truths of Christendom, as they had been embodied [belichaamd] in the reformed Confessions of Faith against a philosophy, whose humanistic attitude he clearly saw through.

But the goal may not be confused with the means. Nor can the Confession be confused with the scholastic-Aristotelian theory of the substantial forms, which had been used to try to theoretically support it! As soon as such a confusion would take hold, the Confession as the possession of all of the Gereformeerde church community would become hopelessly denatured; the souls of the believers would become enslaved, and Christian theoretical thought would become bound to the philosophical assertions of the church. This would be squarely in conflict with the foundations of our university. By God’s gracious favour, our Gereformeerde people will never tolerate that!

For true Calvinistic philosophy there must be a criterion other than that of the philosophical tradition of reformed theologians. Someone who is so sharp in making distinctions as my esteemed colleague will have difficulty in denying this.

But he has so far failed to further point out this criterion as he sees it. It is clear from the foregoing that “agreement with the Gereformeerde Confessions of Faith” is not a sufficient distinguishing feature.

2. I have intentionally gone into detail with respect to the question raised by colleague Hepp with respect to historical continuity, since in my opinion this possesses a primordial meaning in the battle that has broken out around the WdW.

This already appears from the second point, which I now must bring forward from the objective part of Prof. Hepp’s note: his positive fight against our basic idea [grondgedachte], that the law is the boundary between God and creation. That this basic idea coheres unbreakably with the acceptance of God’s complete sovereignty, as accepted by Dr. Kuyper Sr. as well as the central named Confession for Calvinism, does not prevent my colleague in this regard. He calls the above-mentioned boundary idea in his peculiar terminology “pure manufacture [fabrikast] of

[page 9] the Philosophy of the Law-Idea” (page 3 of the note) and the appeal to Calvin and Kuyper as nothing other than “a flag, to cover a foreign cargo.” Indeed, the criterion for Calvinistic philosophic thought is again in question! The boundary idea referred to is evidently not pleasing to my esteemed colleague, just as little as it is to e.g. Mr. Steen. And I think I well understand the grounds for this antipathy by the latter. I will return to this directly.

Prof. Hepp now wants to show that the‘idea referred to is brand new and that therefore there is a break in the historical continuity of Calvinistic thought! But his argumentation here makes a very weak impression. Calvin does not use the words 'boundary line’ in connection with his assertion “Deus legibus solutus est”; that’s what my colleague triumphantly writes! Indeed not, no more than e.g. Kuyper uses the word “law-sphere” or that Kuyper had even philosophically developed the concept of law-sphere.10 But what does this prove as against the objective [zakelijk] connection of the boundary idea with Calvin’s point of departure? Naturally [it proves] less than nothing!

If Mr. Hepp had indeed wanted to give an objective opposition to my appeal to Calvin in this connection, then he would have had to discuss the relation between the texts, which, in elucidation of this appeal [to Calvin], I gave in WdW I, 485-86.

For the basic idea referred to cannot be expressed more clearly in words than in these texts from the Institutes and the other works cited.

I offer my colleague the following simple argument [redebeleid]: Calvin, Kuyper and the Philosophy of the Law-Idea all agree that God the Lord is not subjected[onderworpen] to his laws, but He has on the other hand set [gesteld] his creation under his ordinances.

What is this except the confession of the Divine law as boundary between God and creature?

God the sovereign stands above the law; that is His sovereignty and lack of limitation [onbegrensdheid]. The creature on the other hand stands under the law. That means the deep dependence and limitation of the latter. Calvin keenly carries through this basic idea with respect to human knowing, as in his Inst. I, 10,2 and I, 5,7 he takes the field against the “vacua en meteorica speculatie” about the substantial being of God (“quid sit apud se” in opposition to the “qualis erga nos”). The idea of a boundary breaks through here clearly and

10 Dooyeweerd note: If the theory of the law-spheres could be found already worked out by Kuyper, then I could in good conscience have left Volume II of the Philosophy of the Law-Idea in my pen! [i.e., not written it]. brightly. Does it stand outside the coherence with the assertion in respect to the “Deus legibus solutus est” in De aeterna praedestinatione” (C.R. 36, 361) and in the Comm. in Mosis libres V (C.R. 52, 49, 131)?

In that case [if it stands outside], then the speculation about God’s being apud se would not be an attempt to overstep the boundary line drawn by God’s ordinances with respect to human knowledge. Or is the boundary determined by something other than God’s ordinances?

Mr. Steen, in his tempestuous brochure Philosophia Deformata, also takes the field against the idea of the law as a boundary. But he gives his reasons: He sees the human personality as not subjected to God’s law, and sees therein a distinguishing mark of human freedom as a “rational-moral being”! Unclear thought: as if the subjection to God’s law would exclude human freedom and transgress its normative revelation, and as if the transgression would originate above the boundary of the Divine law! Can we e.g. indeed penetrate to God’s being apud se and therefore overstep the boundaries of human knowing that are set [gesteld] by God’s ordinances, whenever we in foolish pride turn against the ordinances and give ourselves over to false speculations? Or do we indeed stand above God’s moral law, in order that we may sin? Dr. Steen goes so far as to assert that we can conceive of a creation without law! One would think that such a logical feat could succeed only with difficulty. Unless he thereby also intends to be able to escape from all laws of thought, in which case it no longer makes sense even to speak of thinking.

I consider my colleague Hepp to be too keen a thinker to accept Mr. Steen’s confused argument as his own. But let him then set out briefly and concisely upon which grounds he himself intends to reject the idea of the law as boundary between God and creation.

[page 10]

Does he perhaps intend that thereby the difference in being [wezensverschil] does not receive its due, for example the difference in being between God’s infinity and the finitude of the creature? But that difference of being is in confesso and can therefore not furnish a point for debate. The question is only whether Mr. Hepp can continue to deny that being subjected [onderworpen], the being-subject to the law means the boundary line, which the creature can never overstep, because only through the law is the nature of the creature determined [bepaald] and limited [begrensd]. I have a real hope that we will be able to come to agreement on this point, for I completely exclude the possibility that my esteemed colleague would accept Brunner’s nominalistic opposition between commandment [gebod] and law [wet] and thereby regard the Christian life of grace as a breaking through of the law, a life above the law. We were enviably at one in our standpoint over against Brunner (at least insofar as I have been able to determine).

And that Mr. Hepp should subscribe to the remark made from a certain side, that the law boundary is a separation [scheiding] between God and creature, which would be in conflict with the community with God in Christ, is just as unlikely to be accepted.

May my esteemed colleague obtain from all these suppositions, which have only been made because of the lack of a firm point of support [houvast] in the argument of his note, the conviction that I have sincerely and seriously tried to learn to understand his objections, and if possible to convince him in a satisfying manner.

This also applies to the apodictic assertion on page 3, for which no further motivation is given:

It is also peculiar how little they have gained from the philosophical ideas that Kuyper developed in the second volume of his Encyclopedia. Parts are referred to here and there, but there has been much too little profit gained therefrom!

Indeed, that assertion seems peculiar to me, but on the other hand it finds a certain explanation in the lack of a proper criterion for Calvinistic thinking in my colleague’s whole argument.

Whenever one regards the critical-realistic motives, or the Hegelian or scholastic-Aristotelian rudiments in Kuyper’s works as the really traditional Calvinistic-philosophical part [of Kuyper’s works], then the following powerful reformational ideas that he grasped [gedachtegrepen] are more or less relegated to a lower level for philosophic thought: the teaching of pistis, the idea of the law, the doctrine of sovereignty in its own sphere, the powerful conception of the church as an organism, the radical antithesis in theoretical thought brought by the fall into sin, and idea of the rebirth. [If these are on a lower level], then one will attempt to accommodate them to the philosophical tradition, which without doubt continued to play a role even in Kuyper’s work, and one will not see how they stand in an essentially irreconcilable tensionwith the tradition of immanence philosophy. Based on his series of brochures, the fact that colleague Hepp regards it as not allowed to distinguish the scholastic residues from the essentially reformational Ground-motives in Calvin’s and Kuyper’s work11 is more or less symptomatic of his lack of a proper critical standard!

If it is thought through consistently, such a standpoint must lead to a copying without any critique. But my esteemed colleague wants that least of all, given his express explanation!

However this may be, the question whether I have “profited” from Kuyper’s basic ideas will be judged in different ways, depending on the standard according to which one sums up the basic ideas of Kuyper’s work. But the same holds for the theoretical work of colleague Hepp.

I have never seen my esteemed colleague Hepp ever “profit” from Kuyper’s teaching of pistis or from his teaching of sovereignty in its own sphere or from Calvin’s idea of the boundary.

On the other hand he himself sometimes puts forward “new things” in his brochures, such as what we already recalled earlier of his “theory of persons,”

[page 11] his idea of the three Persons in the Divine Being, his idea of the universal human nature of Christ and of the denial of its individuality as being a “humiliation” of this nature, “new ideas” [noviteiten] over against which the question of whether they remain in the line of reformed thought is, in my opinion, more permissible than with respect to the Calvinistic Law-Idea developed by me (Cf. also the critique of Prof. Ridderbos regarding Brochure III).

With respect to the working out in the WdW of the doctrine of sovereignty in its own sphere, it was expected in advance that my colleague would again begin to

11 Dooyeweerd note: Cf. e.g. Brochure II, page 17:

If one agrees with the writer, that here and there Calvin remained stuck in scholasticism (as if that could be denied! D.), then one has opened the way to reject various ideas of the Reformer as derived from scholasticism. deny all connection between this working out and Kuyper’s ideas. This time [the denial] was naturally not with the denial that the term appears in Kuyper, but–by what is even much easier–by an apodictic: That’s the way it is.

In the scope of this note I of course cannot expect that the relation referred to would be extensively elucidated. In the near future an adherent of my ideas will publish an article in which this relation will be irrefutably demonstrated, with extensive references from all of Kuyper’s work.

In this note it is sufficient to note that Dr. A. Kuyper in various of his works (e.g. his “Calvinism,” his discourse “Sovereignty in its own sphere,” “Our program,” etc.) expressly refers to a multiplicity and a distinction of law- spheres, respectively of areas of life with their own life-law [levenswet].12 By

12 I limit myself here to one of the places that says this most strongly, from Kuyper’s Stone Lectures, “Het Calvinisme” (pages 61-2 in context):

What now does the Calvinist mean by his faith in the ordinances of God? Nothing less than the firmly rooted conviction that all life has first been in the thoughts of God, before it came to be realized in Creation. Hence all created life necessarily bears in itself a law for its existence, instituted by God Himself. There is no life outside us in Nature, without such divine ordinances,–ordinances which are called the laws of Nature– a term which we are willing to accept, provided we understand thereby, not laws originating from Nature, but laws imposed upon Nature. So, there are ordinances of God for the firmament above, and ordinances for the earth below, by means of which this world is maintained, and, as the Psalmist says, These ordinances are the servants of God. Consequently, there are ordinances of God for our bodies, for the blood that courses through our arteries and veins, and for our lungs as the organs of respiration. And even so are there ordinances of God, in logic, to regulate our thoughts; ordinances of God for our imagination, in the domain of aesthetics; and so, also, strict ordinances of God for the whole of human life in the domain of morals.(page 70 of English translation, Eerdmans).etc. etc.

Cf. Kuyper's discourse “Sovereignty in its own sphere,” page 1 regarding the relation between these ordinances and the sovereignty in its own sphere:

Therefore there is an area of nature, in which the Sovereign through power works on matter through a fixed law. But there is also an area of this there is still not a sharp distinction between law-sphere and individuality structures of society; both are more or less mixed up with each other, whereby the criterion for sovereignty in its own sphere cannot be clearly given.

[page 12]

The WdW has tried to make the doctrine of sovereignty in its own sphere really fruitful for both theory and practice by bringing in the said distinction. It has thereby–and this can be supported by proof–found for this project a warm response in a broad circle of our people! For it saddened many faithful Kuyperians for a long time to have to see how this rich doctrine threatened to become a diluted slogan without content. On the other hand, we are saddened by meeting with–instead of a valuation of our attempts–mere insinuations and

the personal, an area of the domestic, the theoretical, the societal and ecclesiastical life, which each obey their own law of life and all stand under their own supremacy [overhoogheid]. etc. etc.

To continue: Het Calvinisme, p. 144:

The effort put forth by Hegel to draw out from thoughts, militated against the very nature of art. Our intellectual, ethical, religious (read “worship” here, since in Het Calvinisme, religion is correctly regarded as the root of all functions of life. D.) and aesthetic life each commands a sphere of its own. These spheres run parallel and do not allow the derivation of one from the other (italics mine, D.). It is the central emotion, the central impulse, and the central animation, in the mystical root of our being, which seeks to reveal itself to the outer world in this fourfold ramification. […] If, however, it be asked how there can arise a unity of conception embracing these four domains, it constantly appears that in the finite this unity is only found at that point where it springs from the fountain of the infinite.

Note by JGF: Dooyeweerd here omits the following statement by Kuyper regarding art:

Art also is no side-shoot on a principal branch, but an independent branch that grows from the trunk of our life itself, even though it is far more nearly allied to Religion than to our thinking or to our ethical being. destructive criticism of often not very nice form from colleague Hepp and certain other scribblers. What is most saddening is that the critique lacks so much objectivity. For example, up to this time there has still been no attempt from that side to properly test the theory of the law-spheres by its objective standard (it is after all only a part of the WdW!).

It does not make a strong impression, whenever one knows nothing better to say against it than that they are a “pure fabrication of the WdW.”

“No discussion is therefore allowed regarding the truth of the WdW”; that was my opponent’s conclusion! What does he mean by this remarkable conclusion? Why does he neglect to cite a different passage from the Foreword to Volume III, which radically overturns his conclusion? I wrote there,

On our part we must continue to put all our emphasis on one point. The Philosophy of the Law-Idea seeks its fixed ground not in ideas, or in a closed system of thought, but only and exclusively in the living Word of God. We have fixed ourselves on nothing other than this point of departure for our philosophy.

What can Mr. Hepp add to support his conclusion after this unambiguous citation? Nothing.

It appears here again for the umpteenth time that my esteemed colleague is guilty of a citation game, and he must gradually begin to understand that this does not increase the trust in the manner in which he operates with the “Gereformeerde tradition.” If he nevertheless goes to work in such an arbitrary way with respect to his supposed opponents, what guarantee does one have that that he will diverge from this manner of behaviour when he cites from out of the works of Calvin, Kuyper, Bavinck, etc.?13

The WdW remains open on all sides for sincere and objective criticism. It is a legend that we do not allow any discussion even regarding fundamental points.

Prof. Stoker, who from the beginning has himself taken a very prominent place in the Association for Calvinistic Philosophy, is in another place of Prof. Hepp’s note put forward as a counterexample! Read also the edition of Philosophia Reformata prior to the present edition.

13 JGF: This rhetorical reasoning by Dooyeweerd is itself suspect. Why our Association (which has nothing secret about it), includes only members who sympathize with the direction taken by the WdW, has already been explained to your College in a previous discussion.14 Our members are working members. Our Association wants to do fruitful work, and this would not be possible if it were merely an association of “Gereformeerde lovers of philosophy,” where one member would turn out to be an Aristotelian, and the other as a “critical-realist,” and still another as a Heideggerean, neo-Kantian, a follower of Husserl or Scheler. Hepp can know that all of these schools are more or less represented by Gereformeerde people who are interested in philosophy. It speaks for itself, that our Association, which rejects all synthesis or accommodation standpoints (and to this alone does she owe its existence!) cannot work with members who do not advocate an intrinsic Christian (let alone Calvinistic) philosophy, but merely a supposed scholasticism accommodated to Revelation. But for that reason the WdW does not itself shut itself off from objective criticism from that side.

The first systematic summary of the WdW in my book of the same name does not really mean a conclusion [afsluiting]. It is a first modest attempt at a systematic Calvinistic philosophy, continually subjected to revision and further development, and which obtains some power from Kuyper’s Scriptural antithesis idea in the area of theoretical thought. That is also the secret of its influence among both older and younger people, about which my colleague concerns himself so much, but which indeed

[page 13] is observed by very many–although not by everyone–with joy and thankfulness towards God.

That this philosophy should drive a wedge between different reformed people, as my colleague represents on page 4 of his note, is a reproach that could be better directed towards those who have set in motion a real smear campaign against it.15 It has drawn attention to itself in neutral newspapers as to the unworthy manner in which the attack from that side is being carried out. A

14 JGF: Hepp accused the Association for Calvinistic Philosophy of being a secret society. 15 Dooyeweerd note: I think here in particular that Dr. A. Kuypers took the liberty of delivering, after delivery of the Paedagogisch Tijdschrift, the brochure “Philosophia Deformata” by Mr. Steen and last but not least the series of brochures of my colleague Hepp. simple comparison between the quiet tone of Ds. Spier’s brochure and the wound up and affect-laden nature of Dr, Steen’s brochure may dispose my colleague to reflection. If he can only point to something in one of my publications or in one of the publications of Prof. Vollenhoven that might even distantly resemble the manner in which he treats reformed kindred minds, then I will be grateful to him for this information.

But Mr. Hepp continues: “Your association publishes “Mededelingen” [a newsletter], which is intended only for members.” Indeed, but I would gladly know from my colleague what kind of “unhealthy matters” are hidden within [this newsletter]. The best proof of the contrary, the best proof, that this is a normal course of affairs is the fact that for example the Alumni Association and the Association of Calvinistic Jurists follow this same line of conduct, without their being ever lectured to by my colleague. It merely concerns internal research by the members. Insofar as it is of general interest, the official organ Philosophia Reformata brings this information outside, where it is accessible to everyone.

Furthermore this reproach of secret goings on sounds rather peculiar in the mouth of my colleague, who in his dogmatological discussions with his students required the strictest secrecy!

3. On page 5 of his note, Mr. Hepp sets out views under No. 4, which have already been sufficiently refuted by the foregoing. Since it is of little or no consequence, I will skip his formal remark regarding my terms ‘renewing’ and ‘conserving’ grace, which I prefer above the terms ‘special’ and ‘common’ grace. I do not simply “break” with the usual reformed terminology, as my colleague here says. This is sufficiently shown by the fact that in the first, second and even third volumes of my work, I have almost continually used the required terminology, and it was only in my concluding views about the ecclesiastical association that I gave my preference for a different terminology. But this new terminology expresses exactly the same thing, only in my opinion in a more concise and accurate manner.

In this connection I will allow myself the remark that my colleague here again has made an apodictic assertion without giving a trace of information. I have never dared to sail into pure or essentially theoretical questions using my own compass. Insofar as I have, by my philosophical research regarding the meaning of faith and the structure of the institution of the church, arrived at a theological area, I have wholly connected myself to Kuyper and other reformed theologians, whom I have systematically and accurately cited, and whose insights I have been able to whole-heartedly make my own.16

[Note: there is either a page numbering error, or I do not have a copy of page 14. JGF]

[page 15]

Nevertheless my colleague writes apodictically that I again and again show my lack of expertise when I find myself in theological territory. But in the Foreword to Volume I, I have already in all modesty confessed my lack of expertise, and I have tried to compensate for this by obtaining my light from our best theologians! I would have to say in all modesty, “What more does my colleague want from me? Or does he also consider Kuyper’s view of the church in conflict with the reformed tradition?” “Explain yourself further,” I would like to ask of him. My opponent states in immediate connection with the above closely followed argument, “After this explanation, I think it can easily be seen that the defence that Dr. Dooyeweerd provided you with in his answer does not hold good.” I am bold enough to seriously place in doubt whether my colleague has made it so easy for your College to obtain this insight. On the contrary, I believe that his own argument must only now first begin. As your College has been able to establish, the preceding comprised no more than apodictic assertions or factually inaccurate imputations of certain opinions, from which conclusions were made that float in mid-air.

Dr. Hepp has apparently himself felt this lack, and he drags forth still more arguments, which are supposed to show that I, have in fact attacked “the reformed understanding of soul and body.” But he thereby lays himself open in a most dangerous way. For now he lets fall an assertion that deals a blow that leaves the statement that he defended in his series of brochures as no more than an unsalvageable wreck, namely his statement that the understanding of body and soul in the WdW is squarely in conflict with theConfession (and thus not with traditional immanence philosophy). He writes,

The reformed conception of “body” and “soul”, as can be found in our best theologians, have of course not sprung from out the Philosophy of the Law-

16 Dooyeweerd note: I leave here the question concerning the relation of special and common grace, since my colleague seems to want to be able to again show a deviation from the traditional ideas, an assertion that I moreover have already tried to refute in my book. Idea,but from out of theological ideas, which completely correspond with traditional philosophical ideas, with which this philosophy has just broken (My italics. D.)

They are therefore, in any event, philosophical ideas, for in order to completely correspond with certain philosophical ideas, the theological ideas referred to must themselves be of a philosophical character.17 This is what that from our side is continually argued, and which, in the light of history, can in no way be denied. In this way, for those who still know to distinguish confession and philosophy–and that naturally includes my esteemed colleague–it is implicitly settled that in the battle about the character of body and soul at least by my esteemed opponent, there is a question of a philosophical nature that is in issue. To be more precise, it is the question whether on this point one may give up the traditional scholastic philosophy of substantial forms. Excepting only the fact that he clouds the issue again by his lack of a distinction between the “reformed view” and the view of reformed theologians.

The teaching of substantial forms can hardly be called “reformed,” even though the teaching is met with hundreds of times in theologians from the flourishing period. This certainly appears from the fact that it was already characterized by Voetius as the old philosophy of the school, i.e. the peripatetic philosophy, which already in the Middle Ages was brought forward in a form accommodated to the Roman church’s doctrine, and was adapted into Lutheran doctrine by Melancthon in an eclectic leveling. In its origin it goes back to the Aristotelian philosophy.

If this substance doctrine is “reformed,” then so is peripatetic philosophy.

Yes but, so argues colleague Hepp, the term anima rationales also appears in certain foreign confessions and thereby the traditional scholastic philosophy has been become dogmatically fixed on this point! (page 5, note at the bottom and page 6).

At least that is how I think his intention must be rendered, for as he literally formulates his statement, it again says nothing.

17 Dooyeweerd note: My colleague should not object that the traditional scholastic Aristotelian philosophy also teaches the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, which ideas are to correspond with the reformed confession. For I precisely deny that such philosophical conceptions agree with the confession. The fact that the “expressions” rational and immortal soul appear in a foreign confession,

[page 16] does not assist my colleague in his argument when it is not clear whether the expression may have been intended to sanction a definite philosophical view in the Confession.

Now in the first place the question arises, whether my respected colleague may bind me to expressions such as anima rationales, as they appear in the Westminster Confession, and substantia, as this appears in the Confessio Helvetica Posterior.

In my view, I am only bound to our Dutch Confession of Faith, because it is only by opposition to this confession that there is the possibility of an eventual gravamen. If I am wrong about this, then I would gladly receive further information about this.

The question in this context is not really of any objective importance for me. For I want to state with emphasis, that even if these expressions would appear in the Dutch confession of faith, I would not think of them as serving the ground for a gravamen. Why not? Because I deny in principle that such an expression in our written Confession may be shoved under a technical- philosophical meaning.18 I have above already given an account of this feeling, and it seems to me to in fact be unassailable.

Suppose for a moment that the churches could bind the souls of believers to the interpretation that the expression anima rationalis must for its adjective have

18 Dooyeweerd note: It is moreover somewhat piquant to look at this question historically. For then there arise points, which my respected colleague appears to have too much confused. So for example, of the two editors of the Heidelberg Catechism, [Caspar] Olivianus was an outspoken proponent of the Ramistic philosophy, and as such was a fierce opponent of Aristotelian metaphysics and logic! On the other hand [Zacharias] Ursinus was a defender of the Aristotelian scholasticism! In spite of this they were able to work together on one Confession of Faith. But this circumstance is already sufficient to show how impossible it is to bind the interpretation of particular words of the reformed Confessions of Faith to peripatetic scholasticism! Naturally, as a nominalist, Ramus could not accept the Aristotelian teaching of the substantial forms. the Aristotelian-Thomistic meaning of substantial form of the soul, the principle that guarantees the essential unity of the soul as substance.19 What would then happen to the discipline regarding teaching [leeertucht]? First, man would not be finished with the dogmatic fixing of “traditional-philosophical” propositions. And man would have to place the whole peripatetic philosophy in its supposed accommodation to the truths of salvation under the care of the church. And man would forthwith have to lay down that the term “immortal rational-moral soul’ may not be understood in the pure Aristotelian sense, according to which only the substantial form (the nous) is immortal, but rather in the meaning already defended by Thomas Aquinas that also the sensitive side of the life of the soul shares in immortality. But in spite of these attempts at accommodation, they would still not succeed in adapting the Aristotelian teaching of the substantial forms to the Christian revelation. For the proposition that reason is the essential part of the human unbreakably coheres with a whole series of theological-philosophical propositions in the so- called theologia naturalis [natural theology]. Thomas Aquinas was seriously occupied with this coherence. Aristotle had taught that God is “absolute reason.” Thomas followed this pagan thought in his philosophical theology to the extent that in

[page 17] the Divine Being he acknowledged the primacy to reason, and then he came to his completely anti-Scriptural proposition: The good is not good because God has commanded it, but God must himself obey the good because it is good, that is to say, founded in reason!

The latter idea is of course completely rejected by reformed theology. But peripatetic scholasticism was nevertheless retained in the theory of the “immortal soul.” It was not recognized that reason, as the substantial form of the immortal soul, had an origin that from the reformed standpoint could not be tolerated along with the confession of God’s absolute Creative Sovereignty, the concise expression of which is found in Calvin’s “deus legibus solutus est.”

19 Dooyeweerd note: Even Voetius, in his battle against the Cartesians did not want this per se. He hesitated up until the end whether to bring his differences with Regius before the ecclesiastical forum, or whether to only call in the help of the municipal authority. In my opinion, the latter was however the least correct line of conduct. The Philosophy of the Law-Idea has indeed radically rejected this half-hearted [halfslachtig] attitude in philosophy. Its philosophical Ground-idea, nourished by the Scriptural idea of antithesis, really cuts off such a compromise with immanence philosophy, and chooses its point of departure in God’s Word. And because of this, this philosophy is in its foundation a reformed philosophy in the fullest sense of the word, and not in the way that peripatetic scholasticism is a philosophy that is adhered to even by reformed thinkers.

Now whenever the Philosophy of the Law-Idea gives a sharp critique of the concept of substance and of the idea of the human form of being as a “rational- moral nature,” then we are not fighting against terms in some foreign Confessions of Faith, but against the philosophical meaning that such terms have within immanence philosophy. And no reformed person will allow such a right to be taken away, as long as he is not unfaithful to Kuyper’s teaching of sovereignty in its own sphere, or rather, so long as he on this point has not become unfaithful to the Scriptures themselves.

By this I am of course not in the least saying that the WdW does not permit any fundamental critique of its basis from out of the Scriptures and confessions. The truth is the reverse.

It is just the Scriptural point of departure of our thought that forces us again and again to test our ideas with Scripture and the Confession 20 and whoever convinces us of any deviations on this point will finds themselves not our opponents, but rather our brotherly friends.

In the power of faith, we must nevertheless keep fighting against the deformation of our Confession by its mixture with philosophical ideas from the peripatetic school.

And Prof. Hepp needs to take account of the fact that we are not doing this so that a new branch of immanence philosophy may conquer and take over the place of scholasticism, but much rather in order to keep all of this false philosophy out of the Holy Ground of our Confession.

20 Dooyeweerd note: This demand is heard in a much stronger way in a radical Scriptural point of departure, which from the start rejects the immanence standpoint, than in a half—hearted synthesis standpoint that tries to accommodate peripatetic philosophy or realistically interpreted Kantian epistemology to Scripture and confession (something that in our view is impossible). It is just for this reason that the philosophical battle that was here ignited displays no similarity at all with that form the time of Voetius. At that time it concerned whether one would be for or against the peripatetic or rather the Cartesian philosophy. Now it concerns the question: for or against the purification of reformed thought from every synthesis with immanence philosophy. Our reformed people will intuitively understand this radical difference. It is understandable that Prof. Hepp rejects this dilemma! In his note he believes that there is a third way, an in-between way. But history has already given its judgment over this in-between way. It is the old path of accommodation, of synthesis of two standpoints that radically (i.e. in their root) exclude each other.21 And history

[page 18] has demonstrated how, over time, such synthesis has always led to inner deformation of Christendom.

The whole critical-historical part of my work serves to support this proposition; it is woven throughout each of the three volumes.

Now my respected colleague should not begin again here to find in the foregoing a confirmation of his assertion that I have already refuted with citations from my work, that on our standpoint each opinion in immanence philosophy is per se untrue. For the argument just given above has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with this, and my colleague, with his known keen intellect, will some day also see this!

21 Dooyeweerd note: On page 6 of his note, colleague Hepp denies most explicitly that “theologians” in the flourishing time as well as after Kuyper have made such a synthesis! In all modesty I merely ask my colleague, what does he then think about Voetius and Schook, who defended the old peripatetic scholastic philosophy? If this is not a synthesis, what is it then? Voetius himself speaks about an “accommodation” of philosophy to theology (Dispp. vol. 3 p. 741). Dr. Hepp does not want to fight immanence philosophy so “radically” (see page 6 of his note). But the word ‘radical’ must still mean “in the root.” If he really does not want to fight immanence philosophy in the root, i.e., in its apostate point of departure, then no way is left for him except the path of accommodation. If colleague Hepp knows of yet a fourth possibility, then I would solicit the favour of his further elucidation. The accommodation of one or more schools of immanence philosophy to reformed Scriptural faith does not just concern particular opinions or concepts, but the basic principles of both. For example, the Aristotelian doctrine of the rational-moral nature of man concerns the question concerning the center of human existence, and in this, Scripture stands squarely opposed to a philosophy that takes its point of departure in apostate reason.

And we should not and cannot cease pointing out again and again, with brotherly insistence,22 the vitium originis [original fault] of such ideas to reformed academics, our fellow believers, who do not see this. In this way, over time, we may win them over in the battle in which we see our life’s calling!

For their place is not opposed to but rather next to us, shoulder to shoulder!

On page 6 of his note, colleague Hepp makes a remark that leaves a bitter aftertaste, but which again allows us to see the lack already mentioned of the distinction between reformed philosophical thinking and traditional- philosophical ideas of reformed theologians.

According to him, the Philosophy of the Law-idea is characterized by something “ambiguous.” Whenever it fights against “traditional and confessional (sic!) Calvinistic ideas,” then it generally does not come out in the open, but rather “loads them on the back of immanence philosophy.” He considers this to be “psychologically understandable,” but he says that “in order to serve the truth,” it would be better if we would rather openly and sharply “go against reformed conceptions.”

My respected colleague is here again following the same method of attack that he applied in his well-known series of brochures, and which have rightly called forth an almost unanimous protest in the church press.

He tries to construe “deviations from the Confession” out of our battle against immanence philosophy, since in this battle we meet implicitly with traditional philosophical conceptions, which come from out of the peripatetic scholastic philosophy but which he now overprints with the label “Calvinistic” since they have also been taken over by reformed theologians.

22 Dooyeweerd note: And not with spitefulness or ridicule, which the opponents of the WdW allow themselves. I mention again that the WdW claims to be a Calvinistic philosophy and–in contrast to my respected colleague–requires for Calvinistic philosophy a fundamental criterion, and not a personal one. Following Kuyper, this philosophy has set itself antithetically over against immanence philosophy, which rejects divine Word revelation as a point of departure and much rather proceeds from out of the self-sufficiency of “natural reason” in its own area. It concerns a serious attempt to build up a fundamentally Calvinistic philosophy and not the umpteenth attempt to find a new school of immanence philosophy to be shoved under the reformed Confessions of Faith!

And concerning myself, I have for now more useful and necessary work than to spend my time checking to see to what degree the reformed theologians from earlier and later times have adhered to scholastic philosophy.

[page 19]

I have too much respect and love for our great theologians to have the desire to place under a spotlight the philosophical constructions that they may have taken over from scholasticism, as if that had been the real emphasis of their work.

Furthermore, I would then also have to be a theologian in order to be able to judge the dogmatic use that they make of these constructions.

In any event, I decidedly and emphatically decline to let the Confession be hitched to the wagon of philosophical constructions such as for example the scholastic doctrine of the substantial forms. That would be an easy, but at the same time deadly and dangerous path, to let the church make assertions in an area for which it is given no authority, and to set the Vrije Universiteit under ecclesiastical supremacy.

As against his haughty and unworthy characterizations of Mr. Janse, which appear in this connection in the note of my colleague, I can only register my sharp protest. In expressing himself this way, it is hard to find the “brotherly spirit” of which my colleague ventures to speak in his brochures.

Continuing his argument, my respected colleague comes back to the presupposition put forward in my previous note, that he is evidently not wholly familiar with the history of the philosophical idea of substance. This remark has clearly irritated him, as can be seen from the manner in which he has reacted in his note, and I in retrospect now readily admit that it would have been better for me to have held back this remark, just because it–although not wrongly intended–can now bring my colleague to the temptation to, as he himself expresses it, “throw the ball back.” And everyone who has read his ridiculing “critique” of Prof. Vollenhoven’s book in his well-known brochures knows what he means by that.

I am not in the least tempted to enter into a discussion on this basis with my colleague regarding the development of the idea of substance. Nor do I think that he would find any academic person ready to do so, who respected himself and theoretical thought.

Therefore only a few objective remarks in this connection: A. His remark concerning my misinterpretation of Kant’s concept of a thing was based on the statement in his brochure II page 72, third paragraph from the bottom:

Second, “thing” as a technical term for substance (italics mine) is too heavily loaded with Kant’s philosophy. In common usage, we are of course at home with this term, but Kant has pretty well ruined that for theoretical discourse.

Leaving aside the fact that (except for the concept “Ding an sich” [thing in itself]),” Kant simply meant by ‘thing’ the thing given in everyday experience, Dr. Hepp’s statement yet clearly suggests an identification of thing and substance in Kant’s philosophy. If he has intended something else, then I would gladly take note of this and ask his forgiveness for my misunderstanding. But then he must not express himself in such a careless manner!

B. The remark I made earlier, that it would have been better if colleague Hepp had not been satisfied with reading through my work one time as a whole before he began to criticize it, finds a new confirmation in his suggestion that the considerations in the three volumes of my work that are directed to the development of the problem of substance in immanence philosophy “remain superficial.” From the passages cited by him from my work in support of this judgment, it appears that he has not even seen the really systematic critique of the development of the substance idea in Aristotle and in modern philosophy. This critique is supported extensively from the sources (and not from out of a philosophical dictionary as he suggests!).

My colleague tries in a sense to cover this up by preceding his summing up of the disputed passages from the three volumes of my work with the phrase “among other places” [o.a.]. But this makes the matter only that much more worse for him. For it is then evident that his ridiculing “critical” remarks about my whole view of the substance problem again are supported by certain arbitrary citations pulled out of context. This is a manner of behaving that I have already several times have qualified as symptomatic of the way that my colleague has entered into the questions at issue.

I sincerely hope that my colleague will finally see how this is not allowed and that he will offer his apologies without reservations. For such practices, which even in the general academic world are considered as a “mortal sin,” should certainly not take place between colleagues at the Vrije Universiteit!

5. On page7 of his note, my colleague again refers to the remarks I made in my first note to your College concerning “spiritual death.” According to him there should be no place for this in the train of thought of the WdW. He writes that what I have said about this “(can) better be discussed in the remarks with respect to colleague V. [Vollenhoven], who has set out his ideas in more detail about it.” But I have searched in vain for this further discussion. In other words, he simply passes over my exposition of the matter! This way of acting is also not allowed, since I have expressly said that the acceptance of spiritual death, in sharp distinction from the “bodily” and eternal death, is central to the point of departure of the WdW.

Why does my respected colleague not simply accept what, in the light of the point of departure of our philosophy, is irrefutable? Why does he again, by drawing “conclusions” from certain citations from Prof. Vollenhoven’s work, continue to maintain his originally unfounded assertion?23 I am indeed afraid that any further discussion in this manner is doomed to be completely unfruitful.

6. The same remark must be made about the manner in which, on pages 7 and 8 of his note (under 4) my esteemed colleague tries to maintain, against all irrefutable arguments, the misunderstanding that appears in his brochure regarding the meaning that the WdW ascribes to the terms ‘soul’ and ‘body.’ If it concerned a better cause, I would be able to admire the doggedness with which my colleague tries to maintain himself in this lost cause.

Evidently recognizing the weakness of his position, he has given up searching in my own work for arguments for his interpretation, so he brings to the field again the citations from Mr. Janse which he already summed up in his brochure, as well as a brochure of Prof. V. [Vollenhoven] that is outdated on

23 JGF: Could it be because Vollenhoven did not share this idea of spiritual death? Spiritual death presupposes the supratemporal nature of the selfhood. this point and which has never been put on the market. And then he plays the same terminological game, about which in my previous note I have already said enough.

To my sincere amazement, he then at the top of page 8 proposes the possibility that I understand ‘soul’ (as distinct from ‘body’) to be the heart as the religious centre of human existence. Well yes, did my respected colleague perhaps not properly read my first note either? One does not posit something as “possible” that one can from this note establish with complete certainty!

My colleague Hepp has meanwhile reserved a critique for my supposed “heart theory.” He first brings this critique forward in a later context.

In order to closely follow his argument, it is therefore first of all necessary to look at what he puts forward to defend his accusation regarding the “functionalism” of the WdW.

7. As is known, the Philosophy of the Law-Idea has demonstrated that “functionalism,” in its opposition to the metaphysics of the substantial forms, should merely be regarded as the absolutization of certain modal aspects of reality (such as that of number, space, motion, organic life, feeling, logical thinking, etc., etc.).

At the same time, this philosophy has in fact demonstrated that n the final analysis, both functionalism and the metaphysical theory of substance have their common roots in the immanence standpoint.

But colleague Hepp, who is evidently here completely caught in the formulation of the problem of immanence philosophy, sees nothing other than the dilemma: functionalism or substantialism! And because the Philosophy of the Law-Idea goes against the peripatetic and humanistic substance theories, he assigns it to “functionalism.”24

24 Dooyeweerd note: As an aside, I note that when I speak of “functions,” into which, according to which colleague Hepp says that I dissolve “body” and “soul”, I have not shoved in the adjective ‘temporal’ to thereby inaccurately represent the idea of colleague Hepp. For neither Prof. Hepp nor I know of any other functions of soul and body than temporalfunctions. What he means with the italicized word “shoved in” on page 8 of his note is really not clear! [page 21]

This is again a point that has symptomatic meaning. One can of course proceed and with the dangerous argumentum exclusae tertiae [argument of the excluded middle], one can impute to us all manner of –isms. We have already experienced the most curious examples of this! Because the WdW opposed the “subjectivism” of certain schools of immanence philosophy it is now assigned to “objectivism” (a blood sister of subjectivism). If I am not mistaken, colleague Hepp still intends to deal with this theme in a final brochure! Because the WdW opposes “irrationalism,” the epithet “rationalism” is fashioned for it. Whenever we now at this time hear the cry of “nominalism,” because we reject the “realism” of the doctrine of substantial forms, then the most well known dilemmas of immanence philosophy will have been played out against us.

But the WdW rejects once and for all such dilemmas, because they have sprung from out of a false point of departure. Every critique that denies this, passes it by completely.

Colleague Hepp writes on page 8 of his note:

If man as a thing (sic!) is a unity of functions, then she (he means “he”) exists merely of functions. If the body is characterized as the totality of functions etc. (?), then this is still composed of functions (or does colleague D. [Dooyeweerd] with respect to this point perhaps deny colleague V. [Vollenhoven]? I call this functionalism.

The logic of this argument is not entirely pure. Prof. Hepp, steeped in Aristotelian logic, must at least know that according to it, the “whole” is more than “the sum of its parts.” But I let this point rest, for my respected colleague has a presupposition at the basis of his argument, which is radically rejected by the WdW.

If Prof. Hepp has really read my three-volume work as a whole–even if he read it only one time–then he must know this. He writes:

I now regard the matter not through the glasses of the Philosophy of the Law-Idea. Where certain functions exist without substances, then I believe that it is completely logical to speak of functionalism.

We can only speak of “being shoved in” where one has ascribed to his opponent an expression that he does not share. Indeed, but already in the Prolegomena of my book I have with emphasis warned against proceeding from the functionalistic position that reality consists only of “functions.” In order to confirm this, Mr. Hepp needed only to read and he did not need “to look through the glasses of the WdW.” The theory of the law-spheres, which views reality only according to its modal functions, is followed by the theory of individuality structures, which goes into the structures of things, of the forms of society, etc. Even at the beginning it is already shown that the totality of a thing is the foundation of its functions, and that it is something other than the sum of its functions. Nor does it “consist only of functions.”

Prof. Stoker, one of the editors of Philosophia Reformata, was also of the opinion five years ago that the Philosophy of the Law-Idea could be reduced to the doctrine of the law-spheres (which he otherwise accepted completely). Because of this, he still believed that time that he required the supplement of the substance-principle. But since becoming acquainted with the theory of the individuality structures, he has completely changed his opinion.25 In the first edition of Philosophia Reformata, he has publicly acknowledged that the individuality structure of a thing is not to be reduced to the modal functions, and he has–albeit with some reservations–given up his term ‘substance’. The whole quotation from Stoker’s known brochure from 1933, which colleague Hepp puts forward at page 8 of his note in support of his reproach concerning the functionalism of the WdW, is thus outdated and now turns against himself.

For Stoker’s misunderstanding26 was to be excused, since when he

25 JGF: Why then does the NC continue to refer to Stoker’s comments?

In this context it strikes me that Stoker thinks his conception of substance gives a better expression to “the autonomous being and value of the cosmos with respect to God.” For it is this very autonomous being and value of the created world in itself which must be denied from the radical Biblical viewpoint of creation. Here we are confronted with the core of the question if we can ascribe to created things a mode of existence which is being in the traditional metaphysical sense of the word (NC III, 71).

26 Dooyeweerd note: Colleague Hepp is also mistaken whenever he supposes that Prof. Stoker has rejected the Law-Idea. On the contrary, Stoker entirely [page 22] wrote his brochures in 1932 and 1933, he did not have available to him any further exposition of the theory of individuality structures. My exposition of this in De Crisis in de Humanistische Staatsleer (1931) was, due to the nature of the matter, very brief, and it seems to me, also not clear enough overall.

But colleague Hepp had available to him the extensive (almost 700 pages) third volume of the Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee, which is wholly devoted to a systematic exposition of this theory. Therefore in my opinion, his misunderstanding is not to be excused. And his question whether on this point I deny my colleague Vollenhoven sounds now most peculiar! He is asking what he knows already!27 Prof. V. [Vollenhoven] has, so far as I know, not yet given any systematic publication with respect to the Philosophy of the Law-Idea. But in principle he wholly shares my standpoint in the matter.

The teaching of the individuality structures does not have its point of departure in the naturalis ratio [natural reason], as is the case with the traditional theory of substantial forms, but in the Divine Word revelation concerning the Creation of all things according to their nature. This doctrine entirely fulfills the role that had been ascribed to the metaphysical doctrine of the substantial forms, as I have tried to demonstrate in detail in Book III of the WdW. But in our understanding it fulfills this role better and in intrinsic agreement with the Scriptures.

accepts this as being completely Scriptural. He only believes that it requires to be supplemented and that in this regard the Creation Idea is more comprehensive. As I have demonstrated in the Prolegomena to my book, this was a misunderstanding, since the Calvinistic Law-Idea must always imply just this Scriptural Creation Idea. 27 JGF: The Dutch is “een vragen naar den bekenden weg.” This is an evasive answer. Dooyeweerd must have known at that time of Vollenhoven’s disagreement, even if Vollenhoven had not published anything. Vollenhoven hardly published any works during his life, except for internal syllabi for the courses that he taught. Later, Vollenhoven did write of his disagreements with Dooyeweerd. But it is clear from those writings (which are also internal) that he and Dooyeweerd had decided not to make their disagreements public. See my article, “Dooyeweerd versus Vollenhoven: The religiooius dialectic within reformational philosophy,“ Philosophia Reformata 70 (2005) 102- 132 [‘Dialectic’]. In support of this proposition, I can only refer to my extensive exposition in the said Volume III of the WdW.

This may at the same time provide my respected colleague with an explanation for the circumstance that we have not yet felt any need for a new substance idea. This does not take away from the fact that I look forward with great and sincere interest to the further outworking of such a substance idea by Prof. Hepp. If he thereby truly enters into Scriptural paths, and does not give a rejuvenated version of the substance idea of traditional scholasticism, then he does not need to harbour any fear that the “hyper-critics within our circle will then fly upon it like birds of prey” (page 9, note). On the contrary, he will receive great thanks for this, even if the adherents of the WdW might not immediately agree with him. What I have written in the third volume of my work, and that I have addressed to Stoker, also holds precisely in the same way with respect to my highly respected colleague from the V.U. [Vrije Universiteit]. The atmosphere only becomes impure whenever one tries from the start to make Scriptural thought suspect and laughable, and when one already tries to seek behind the word “Scriptural” a form of so-called “Biblicism,” by which they involuntarily disqualify all of Calvinism.

Truly, Prof. Hepp’s statement, “Why now do we live in days in which eagerness for sensation hinders quiet examination” cannot possible be applied to Prof. Vollenhoven and me. I believe I have much rather demonstrated that it is just us who have been made the victim of sensation-hungry men. But the purity of our task will protect us against fear of publishing the further outworking of our thoughts.

In order to get out of the present confusion, Prof. Hepp wants to first teach us to distinguish between: a. Substances themselves; b. the substance-idea, which forms a part of everyday knowledge and which appears in Calvin and in the Gereformeerde Confessions of Faith, as well as elsewhere; c. the theoretical construction of the substance idea

He now reproaches me in making a and b dependent on c. I can only answer my highly respected colleague that before we arrive at these three distinctions, we must first understand the meaning of the word ‘substance.’ It makes no sense to argue whether or not “substances” exist if one does not first agree what is meant precisely by this word.

If by ‘substance’ one means nothing other than a relatively durable supra- functional carrier of properties, then I without reserve admit the existence of such carriers. I would then only want to remark that it is here not necessary to choose such a loaded word as ‘substance.’ In his earliest important study about the causality problem in Philosophia Reformata, Stoker then also suggests other terms.

In any event it is now established that the WdW has never opposed other substance ideas than those that were already known in immanence philosophy.

[page 23]

With respect to what colleague Hepp refers to under b as a pre-theoretical idea of substance, I must dispute that such an idea, under the name ‘substance,’ is characteristic of everyday knowledge.

In everyday knowledge we of course know about things, societal organizations etc., which remain the same, in spite of the fact that change occurs in its parts or outward properties. The theory of individuality structures indeed gives account of this indisputable given of everyday experience. But in our non- theoretical use of language, we do not call this constant carrier of identity a ‘substance.’ Whenever we speak of ‘substance’ in everyday life, it has a rather flat sense. Whenever I see an unfamiliar dish to eat, I may say, “What kind of substance is that?” But we then simply mean, “What is that made of?”

Of course I do not deny that in the education of young people, one can use the word in connection with the terms soul and body. But that does not make the substance idea an idea of everyday thought!

The substance idea does not have its origin in everyday life, but in philosophy.

I really do not understand what has motivated my respected colleague to deny this unless it is only in this way that he can make the philosophical substance idea a question of confession. He himself always acknowledged in his note that the substance idea of our best theologians corresponds completely with traditional philosophy, with which the WdW has broken. Among these theologians must be included Calvin first of all. And now we learn that in Calvin we find the substance idea of everyday thought. From this do we need to conclude that the obscure substance idea of traditional scholasticism is really an idea of everyday knowledge?

Meanwhile, as I have continually observed: I do not desire any unfruitful battle about terms, without knowing why my opponent means by them.

In his brochure II, colleague Hepp declares that he himself has hesitations against almost all substance ideas that have been developed by immanence philosophy. I thus continue to search entirely in the dark as to his own substance idea, although his construction of the historical continuity in the tradition of the reformed philosophic thought causes me serious concern that he will serve us yet again with a rejuvenated version of Voetius’ Aristotelian “forma substantialis.” For he writes at the bottom of page 10 of his note:

Each attempt at the theoretical construction of the substance idea must completely (my italics D.) connect with the reformed substance idea already at hand, if it wants to be characterized as Calvinistic. That is what I have done in my not yet published construction.

Well now, for Voetius, the substance idea was completely at hand–it was that of peripatetic scholasticism, which on this point my colleague apparently regards as “reformed,” contrary to the view defended in his thesis. Must Voetius’ substance idea thus be completely accepted or denied?

In the latter case, what remains of the complete connection with the historical continuous line?

My colleague asserts that the characteristic of “self-sufficiency” has not been taken up in every substance idea.

And he gives an argument in order to defend Descartes from the reproach that this thinker regarded “finite substances” as being self-sufficient. Completely superfluous exposition! My colleague can find this already in my first note.28 I noted there

[page 24]

28 Dooyeweerd note: It belongs more or less to one’s elementary knowledge about Descartes’ philosophy. that Descartes for this reason allowed for only one substance in the real sense, namely his idea of god (which must be distinguished from God, who has revealed himself in His Word).

But, whenever Dr. Hepp really does not want to go to work at arbitrarily construing the development of the tradition in reformed thought according to a personal criterion, then he will have to take account of the judgment of a prominent thinker like WOLTJER sr. And what does the latter say in his well- known report Het Wezen der Materie?

Of course, man believes that man cannot do without it (namely, a material substance), because otherwise man cannot explain the durability, the persistence and permanence in the phenomena. Now that may be true from the standpoint of the pagan philosophers, who see in (See pages 255-56).

However, the “self-sufficiency” which I intended with respect to the substance idea of immanence philosophy finds its origin in the self-sufficient declaration of reason. The latter also elevates its substance-constructions to “Dinge an sich” [things in themselves].

Descartes’ idea of god exists in the deepest sense by the grace of declared self- sufficient humanistic thought. This is also the case for Leibniz’s autarchical “monad” or Kant’s homo noumenon. (the “moral substance” of man).

And also Aristotle’s’ “formae substantiales” [substantial forms] are rooted in the deepest sense in the deified reason.

Theoretical abstractions from out of created reality are hypostatized to “substances.” Through closer analysis they appear to always lead to an impoverishment of the Divine riches of creation. Prof. Hepp should read about this in the first volume of Book III of the WdW, including the extensive critique of the Aristotelian substance idea.

In this way the “body-substance” becomes a theoretical abstraction for Descartes; the riches of the aspects, which God’s Creation-wisdom has enclosed in the body, are impoverished by thought, which declares itself to be self-sufficient in its own realm, until nothing remains left over except a piece of matter, which as “substance” is distinguished from the “soul,” and this matter has as its sole attribute or essential characteristic that of spatiality (or extension). This is the reason that the WdW rejects in the root each attempt at accommodation of the substance-theories of immanence philosophy to the Scriptures.

The view that such an accommodation might be possible by adding to the idea of “substance” from immanence philosophy the predicate creata [i.e. substantia creata or “created substance]29 is in essence a Roman [Catholic] view, and not Gereformeerd in its fundamental sense.

From the Roman [Catholic] standpoint, the whole synthesis or accommodation idea is rooted in the idea of nature as a lower preliminary step [voortrap] of grace.

On this standpoint, “nature” has not been radically corrupted, but remains “in its own domain” as a self-sufficient praeambula gratiae [step before grace].

This also holds for the “naturalis ratio” [natural reason], which then is also declared to be “self-sufficient” in its own natural domain.

[page 25]

By the acceptance of this relation between “nature” and “grace,” the accommodation of Aristotelian philosophy to Scriptural revelation is completely logical. From the Roman Catholic view, the scholastic substance idea is conclusive [sluitend].

But from the Gereformeerde standpoint, the following of the traditional scholastic philosophy is a Roman atavism, which stands in declared contradiction to the reformed understanding concerning the radical corruption of human nature–an understanding that the interpretation of the doctrine of common grace also needs to take into account.30

I hope very much that my respected colleague will in his following note enter into this fundamental argument, which he can read to its full extent in

29 Dooyeweerd note: Naturally, that is also done by reformed theologians, who have received this substance idea, and they have undoubtedly intended. 30 Dooyeweerd note: The Gereformeerd confession of the radical corruption of man does not lead to the Anabaptist idea that in this world the corruption has worked through in an unrestrained manner. It leads instead to the confession that even the naturalis ratio with its philosophical construction comes from out of an apostate root. my Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee, to the end that both of us may derive further instruction!

Maybe he will then also first take notice of the debate that I had concerning this question with the Roman Catholic lecturer ROBBERS, who, like his colleagues BELLON and SASSEN have publicly acknowledged, that my understanding of this is indeed the only possible one from the Calvinistic standpoint.31

In any event may it be evident from the above, that the following conclusion, with which colleague Hepp closes his argument about the substance idea (page 11 of the note), lacks a satisfactory foundation and simply rests on a confusion in the whole formulation of the problem:

As follows from the foregoing–and I say this with sincere regret–the attitude of Mr. V. [Vollenhoven] and Mr. D. [Dooyeweerd] with respect to the substance idea does not permit itself to be justified in the forum of pure Calvinism.

8. And so I now finally come to the most important point of colleague Hepp’s argument, at least insofar as it concerns me: his opposition to my supposed “theoretical heart theory.”

One might have expected that he would have begun and not ended with this point. For the whole question concerning the relation of “soul” and “body” in the Philosophy of the Law-Idea rests firmly upon it, just as I have already demonstrated from the beginning in my previous note.

Mr. H. [Hepp] begins his critique with the words

The meaning of the ‘heart’ is regarded by the Philosophy of the Law- Idea as its greatest ‘trouvaille’ [happy find].

He is grievously mistaken!

This is in no sense my view of the matter, but much rather only his, and it stands in close connection with his misunderstanding that the WdW has given a “theoretical heart theory.” Nowhere in my Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee or in any of my other publications shall he be able to point to even one utterance in this spirit. As far as I know, no one among the adherents to this philosophy has ever

31 Dooyeweerd note: Cf. my introductory article in the first volume of Philosophia Reformata together with the articles cited there by the said lecturers. asserted that the acknowledgement of the heart as the root and centre of our temporal life-revelations32 is a “trouvaille” of the Philosophy of the Law-Idea.33 On the contrary, if my highly respected colleague should ever publish it so that it would be received in a broader circle, it would be received with unconcealed amazement. If this came from a thinker who was unfamiliar with the Holy Scriptures, we could understand it, just as we are not surprised whenever in an unbelieving textbook the idea put forward that the predestination idea was the invention of Augustine or Calvin, or that the antithesis idea was a political trouvaille of Kuyper.

But now that my highly respected colleague has in fact brought it forward, one is inclined to think of the word of our Saviour to Nicodemus: “Art thou a teacher in Israel, and knowest thou not these things?” [John 3:10].

I can only give one explanation for his misunderstanding: he has

[page 26] allowed himself to be brought onto a false track by reason of the fact that in the theoretical Ground-idea of this philosophy the simple and Scriptural doctrine concerning the heart is, as its foundation, placed together with the theoretical research concerning the mutual relation of the law-spheres, just as the confession of God’s Sovereignty as Creator forms the content of the philosophical idea of the Origin in this philosophy.34

This explains the theoretical-philosophical clothing of the assertion cited by my colleague on page 11, third paragraph, from out of the Prolegomena of my book.

32 JGF: Dooyeweerd uses the word ‘revelation’ [openbaring] to refer to the temporal unfolding of our life, directed from our supratemporal central heart and root. A similar idea of revelation is found in Franz von Baader. 33 JGF: Yet this is what Dooyeweerd himself seems to say: “The great turning point in my thought was marked by the discovery of the religious root of thought itself […] I came to understand the central significance of the “heart”… (NC I, v). This seems to suggest that it was indeed a “happy find.” Is Dooyeweerd’s objection to Hepp that this was not an invention of the WdW, but rather a finding of previous knowledge?

34 Dooyeweerd note: My highly respected colleague should read about this again in the Prolegomena to my book, pages 39ff. In this way we speak in a philosophical sense of God’s Sovereign Creative Will as “the Archè,” the “Origin of the temporal diversity of meaning,” etc.

But on the basis of the philosophical manner of expression of this assertion, Prof. Hepp will still have difficulty to be able to assert that the “meaning of God’s Creative Sovereignty is a trouvaille of the Philosophy of the Law-Idea” and that I have produced a theoretical theory of the Divine Creator’s Will.

Here there are indeed questions in issue, which are of cardinal importance for the Gereformeerde view of theory, and it speaks for itself that we need to come to clarity with each other over these points.

That knowledge is indeed possible of the human heart, is in confesso. But this does not concern any kind of knowledge that can be put on one line with theory about the temporal things in the given diversity of their functions or aspects, which can be understood by theoretical analysis and abstraction. It much rather relates to true self-knowledge, and is completely dependent on the true knowledge of God, as CALVIN has brought to light, completely in accordance with Holy Scripture, in the magnificent first chapter of Book I of his Institutio.35

And God the Lord is only truly known from His Word-Revelation and not from out of the apostate “naturalis ratio [natural reason]” That is, as Calvin correctly remarks in the earlier cited place, there is no knowledge of God apud se, but only erga nos .

So we also know our heart, i.e. our selfhood, only in the light of God’s Word. The philosophical self-reflection must by the light of this Word come to the confession that theoretical thought also comes from out of the heart and therefore through the apostasy of this heart from God is fallen away. As Kuyper has clearly brought to light, it is only through the rebirth of the heart can it be truly directed again to God, its Origin.

Philosophy as theory remains directed to the temporal revelations of the heart in the distinguished life-spheres. But what the heart itself is, what we ourselves are, that can be taught to us by no scientific theory in the world. The heart cannot be grasped by psychological analysis, for all theoretical

35 JGF: This means that Scripture describes God not in regard to His inner life (non quis sit apud se) but as He reveals Himself towards us (sed qualis erga nos). Institutes I, 10, 2. analysis presupposes our heart, in the sense of our selfhood, which is active as thinking and analyzing.

Self-knowledge is religious knowledge from out of the belief in the Triune God, who has revealed Himself in His Word, a certain knowledge in the trust of faith.36

[page 27]

36 Dooyeweerd note: Proceeding from his presupposition, that the WdW has developed a “theoretical heart theory,” my colleague tries to suggest in some way to your College itself that the idea of the “heart” as “centre of life” has really already been defended in Greek philosophy, although he immediately follows this up with the statement that he finds it improbable that there are Aristotelian or Stoic influences on me regarding this point. But on page 12 of his note he writes:

According to ARISTOTLE,, the heart is the central organ of the pneuma, and according to the older Stoa, the heart is the hegemonikon itself of the soul. They also viewed the heart as the centre of life.

In reading this passage I have again been amazed. Aristotle speaks of the heart only in the sense of bodily organ, thus in the original biological sense! And he only defends the proposition with respect to animals, that this heart is the central organ of sensory awareness! The fact that the older Stoa viewed the heart as the hegemonikon itself of the “soul” is simply incorrect from a to z. Apparently my respected colleague has allowed himself to be led onto a false track through the circumstances that one single representative of the older Stoa, namely Chrysippus, sought the seat of the hegemonikon of the soul in the breast. But the hegemonikon itself was for him the same as for all the others, the nous, or reason. And moreover most of the older Stoics had objections against the teaching of the breast as the seat of reason. The whole idea of the “heart” as root or centre of human existence is unknown to pagan philosophy. Therefore this passage in the argument of my colleague seems so peculiar–it is a passage that would certainly not make a good impression in the “comparative examination” proposed by himself! It has the appearance as if he in passing is trying to suggest to your College that we really do not owe to Divine Revelation the whole Scriptural idea of the heart as the centre of life, but that pagan thinking has also known something about it, and that in any event it is a mere theoretical question!

This prefatory introduction is only intended to let your College recognize what a radical misunderstanding is hidden in the opinion of my highly esteemed colleague that the Philosophy of the Law-Idea has developed a “theoretical heart theory.” It belongs, so to say, to the a, b, c’s of this philosophy, that such a theory is not possible. Everyone knows this who has seriously studied this philosophy and who has placed himself on the foundation of Word revelation.

But my colleague Hepp does not know this, apparently by a lack of proper study.

“This heart theory,” so goes his apodictic judgment, “is wholly untenable” (page 11 of the note, bottom).

He makes the reproach, “that although it announces itself as Scriptural, it arbitrarily jumps about with the Scriptures.” He says,

From the very large number of texts in which the word ‘heart’ appears, only three have been selected, of which the two most important come from the Old Testament, and even there they come from out of the poetic (sic!) books– Proverbs 4:23 and Ecclesiastes 3:11. There has been no investigation regarding the differing meanings that ‘heart’ has in the Scriptures. It is decided ex cathedra that the heart “is the supratemporal root of life according to the Scriptures” (pages 11-12 of the note).

With unfeigned amazement I have read and re-read these sentences from my colleague’s note.

For a moment I thought that the rock of offence for him lay only in the adjective ‘supratemporal.’ Regarding this point there can indeed exist misunderstanding and even differences of opinion. I will return to this directly.

But upon further reading of his argument I had to alas come to the conclusion that my highly respected colleague has objections against the whole Scriptural view of the heart as the religious root and centre of all temporal revelations of life.

I do in fact consider this very serious, and as far as I am concerned, I shall not rest until I have come to complete clarity on this point with my colleague.

For as a Christian I cannot and may not accept that he would make such a central point, one that concerns the whole view of fall into sin and redemption, into a question of theoretical exegesis about which one might therefore have differences of opinion! That can certainly not be the case with him. I will return directly to the question of the Biblical texts.

But first I must first raise another point, which may have the closest connection with the objection against the acknowledgement of the central position of the heart, and about which I would gladly receive further information from my colleague.

In the traditional scholastic theory of soul and body, there was in fact no place for the heart as religious root of temporal human existence.

The unity of “human nature” in the duality of “soul” and “body” had been constructed with the help of the doctrine of substantial forms. The “forma substantialis” of human nature were sought in the “rational soul” (anima intellectiva) and this “rational soul” was at the same time viewed as the substantial form of the human body.37

“Reason,” the “nous” was therefore regarded as the essential form and at the same time as the principle of unity, the centre, from out of which human life was supposed to receive its direction.

[page 28]

“Reason” was not understood in the narrow sense of “logical thinking,” but as a rational-moral ability, both theoretical and practical at the same time, in which the natural moral law is implanted, and in which man participates in the divine reason. According to the Thomistic-Aristotelian view, the human will ought to follow the direction of “reason.”

They spoke of the “primacy” of the intellect, as against which Duns Scotus for example taught the ‘primacy’ of the will, without really tampering with the view of the “anima rationalis” as the substantial form of human nature.

37 Cf. Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theol. vol. I Qu. LXXVI art. 1:

necesse est dicerre, quod intellectualis operationis principium, sit humani corporis form.

The Roman [Catholic] doctrine met with no difficulties in this view of human nature. For it did not know the reformational-Scriptural view of the radical or universalcorruption of nature, corruption in the root.

For the Roman church, the fall into sin meant only the loss of the “donum superadditum,” the supernatural gift of grace.

But as soon as we seriously consider the Scriptural teaching of the radical corruption, the inner contradiction between the traditional doctrine of substantial forms and the Scriptural teaching of the fall into sin necessarily reveal itself.

Of course the fall into sin (just as redemption) affects the whole man in soul and body, as my highly esteemed colleague correctly, although rather superfluously, remarks on page 12 of his note. But that point is not in discussion. The question is: What does the radical fall into sin mean? Where are we to find the root, the source of the falling away?

The doctrine of the “anima rationalis” in its traditional-philosophical conception can give no answer to this. Here “reason” is the centre, the point of departure.

But as far as I know, it has never been taught that the fall into sin came from out of human “reason” and that from there it spread through the whole of human nature. Within the framework of the Thomistic-Aristotelian psychology, only the will can be thought of as a natural “power of desire” in the Aristotelian sense. It is seen to possess the freedom of choice, either to follow reason or not.38

But in this psychology, the will is not in the least the centre, the root of human nature!

With this philosophical psychology, which does not differ from the Aristotelian, we cannot approach the fall into sin in the radical sense given in the Scriptures.

38 Dooyeweerd note: Cf. Summa Theol. vol. II Qu. LXXI art VI:

prima causa peccati est in voluntate, quae imperat omnes actus voluntarios, in quibus solum invenitur peccatum

It is here that the place of the heart, in the meaning of the Scriptures, must be raised.

Scholasticism operates only with the “potentiae animae rationalis ” [powers of the rational soul]. It does not know the Scriptural idea of the heart as centre of life.

Whoever comes to the Scriptures armed with this traditional scholastic philosophy, when the Bible speaks of the heart in the sense of “religious centre of life,” from which proceed the issues of life, he will have to interpret this in accordance with the schema of Aristotelian psychology, which in many ways agrees with the Platonic psychology.

A standard example of such an exegesis is the interpretation that can already be found early on of Rom. 2:15, according to which ‘heart’ is simply identified with ‘intellectus.’39 We can find this even in Calvin!40

With this interpretation, the text of course corresponds completely with the pagan-philosophical theory with respect to the natural moral law, which is said to implanted in man’s natural reason!

[page 29]

But Paul speaks about the law, which by nature is written in the hearts, in a clear connection to sin (see Rom. 2:12) by which man outside of Christ becomes lost. This really concerns deeper things than a turning away of the power of desire from the direction of reason! Even earlier (verse 5), Paul speaks about the “impenitent heart,” which would be impossible to understand as “impenitent intellect.” The religious life-centre, the root of human existence

39 Dooyeweerd note: Cf. Schilling: Naturrecht und Staat nach der Lehre der alten Kirche (1914) p. 41:

Damit is die vernünftig-sittliche Natur des Menschen gemeint. [By that is meant the rational-moral nature of man.]

40 Dooyeweerd note: op. cit. 49, 38:

neo vero cordia nomen pro sede affectuum, sed tantum pro intellectu capitur. is at issue! The law is written in the depths of their being, and not in their “intellect.” He says, “their conscience also bearing witness and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another” [2:15]. What would their “sin” otherwise be?

Although the pagan philosophers did know the concept ‘rational-moral evil,” the Scriptural teaching concerning the fall into sin was hidden to them.

I ask myself whether in some reformed theologians, under influence of the traditional psychology, the Scriptural teaching concerning the heart as the centre of human existence, from which the issues of life proceed, perhaps receded into the background.

I want to intentionally express myself very carefully here, because I would gladly allow myself to be taught on this point by my highly esteemed colleague. Insofar as I myself have been able to obtain my light from other reformed theologians, especially Professors Noordzij and Severijn, my impression has in any event been confirmed, that the Greek psychology has been of a strong and fatal influence, and that the Biblical view of the soul is something else. Also Prof. Ridderbos, in his review of Prof. Hepp’s second brochure, has not unclearly referred to this, and if I am not mistaken this also occurred earlier by Bavinck.

My colleague Hepp has himself in his note to your College referred to his dissertation as proof of the traditional reformed philosophical thought. I believe that we need to look at this dissertation. Well now, the influence of Greek psychology can be grabbed there by the handful! I read on p. 203 of this dissertation,

Man is a rational being. Thinking is not something of minor importance, something accidental, but rather something essential. Take thinking away and he is no longer a human.

Here, clearly following Aristotle, thinking is elevated to the essential form of man. Not the heart in the Scriptural sense of religious centre of life, but reason is the essence of man. And also in the teaching of the conscience (page 212ff) my esteemed colleague links himself completely to the scholastic Thomistic-Aristotelian view: conscience is an actus intellectus [act of the intellect]! And colleague Hepp writes with respect to p. 216 itself, that the reformed theologians have almost all done this: …the reformed theologians, except for one single exception, (took) sides with Thomas, who saw an actus for (he means ‘of’) the intellect.

But the dissertation of my highly esteemed colleague is also instructive in yet another way for the matter at issue. For on pages 56 and 57, Mr. Hepp cites with approval the statements of Kuyper from the first volume of his Encyclopedia, in which he reproaches not only Roman [Catholic], but also Reformed theology of having “piloted into port” [binnengeloodst] the Aristotelian philosophy without much critique. “Without much critique,” so writes my colleague,” the Aristotelian philosophy was piloted into port.” And now follows the well-known statement from volume I of Kuyper’s Encyclopedia:

There was no opposition yet against Aristotle.41 A Christian theologian in the Catholic world felt himself too strong to stand in fear. Men much rather looked to the maxim, “everything is of you” [alles is het uwe]. They saw in Aristotle a welcome guide to penetrate deeper than before into theological studies…and before long Aristotle himself was honoured as praecoursor Christi in naturalibus [natural precursor of Christ].

My colleague, referring to Kuyper’s view, continues [in his dissertation]:

The Reformation knew how to clip the wings for a while of philosophy’s domination. Deeply religious as it was, it elevated theology from its abasement. For a moment it looked like it wanted to turn its back on all philosophy. But gradually, when they came to their senses and their hands were freed for theoretical work, the situation changed.

[page 30]

Man cannot do without philosophy. They again called for her formal help. But it did not remain here. It also began to again be in demand in a material way. A neo-scholasticism arose. They tried to sharply define the boundaries between theology and philosophy. These attempts did not really succeed. Furthermore there were no specific Christian- philosophical principles brought to light. (italics mine! D.) The power of ARISTOTLE was still always felt, and it drove thought ever more in the old direction. And when later the Aristotelian magic wand was broken, Christian thought did not possess enough strength to enter into its own paths. It did oppose at first the new systems of DESCARTES, WOLFF,

41 Dooyeweerd note: The time referred to is the Middle Ages. LEIBNIZ, KANT, HEGEL and others, but this [effort] ended by linking up with them. In this way, philosophy, under whose authority Christians bowed themselves and through which many of them even let their religious standpoint be determined, withdrew over time ever more from Him, who also in theoretical thought is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last. From this short overview it is sufficient to see that from out of the root of Christendom its own philosophy has still never grown (italics mine D.).

If this extensive quotation had not come from a book of my esteemed colleague, but rather from out of the Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee, I fear that my colleague would have used it as a convincing proof for the illness of originality, and the neglect of the historical continuity in “traditional reformed philosophic thought.”

And also as a proof of the “superficiality” of the defenders of this philosophy, which without “thorough study of the philosophical views of reformed theologians” but which “links in the same way” all theologians on this point.

But he himself is saying this, and he repeats with approval the opinion of KUYPER! Reading his first brochures, one can only complain: Quantum mutatus ab illo! [How much he has changed].

The last statement that I italicized, that “from out of the root of Christendom its own philosophy has still never grown,”–is, in spite of its all too sharp a formulation–the best apology for the Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee, whose “radicalism” (i.e. its penetrating attitude towards the religious root) has been so sharply attacked by Dr. Hepp both in his brochures and in his note to your College.

Well now, I presuppose that the Aristotelian yeast has also worked too much throughout the “traditional” view of the soul of reformed theologians, and I have put forward some arguments for this supposition from out of the dissertation of my highly esteemed colleague himself. Similarly I have above referred to VOETIUS (philosophically a typical representative of Protestant “neo-scholasticism”), and I have referred to volume I of Kuyper’s Encyclopedia, where he refers to BEZA, ZANCHIUS, and others.

I will only add here that for the whole scholastic teaching of “reason” as the essential form of man there is not a single Scriptural argument that can be given in support. On the contrary, the Holy Scriptures are full of places that point to the “heart” as the centre, but they nowhere know of the Aristotelian-scholastic view of the “soul” as “anima rationalis,” which my colleague evidently wants to read into the reformed Confessions of Faith.

In itself, the view of the heart as the centre and root of all temporal expressions of human existence is itself not in the least philosophical but much rather religious. What does the Philosophy of the Law-Idea mean when it with emphasis refers to this view as Scriptural?

Does it intend to say by this that the word ‘heart’ in the Bible always means “religious root of life?”

But that would simply be “foolishness,” and it is surely no academic style to suspect one’s opponents of serving up nonsense.

The said supposition [that words have only one meaning] is unreasonable, because it is beyond discussion that the religious meaning of a word can only be a metaphorical one. The original meaning of ‘heart’ is naturally that of a bodily organ. In 2 Sam. 18:14, where it says that Joab took three arrows and stuck them in Absolom’s heart, the word of course has that original meaning.

And in order to obtain an accurate idea of the metaphorical use of a word, one must always reach back to the original meaning, something that is simply neglected by my highly esteemed colleague in his desire to disqualify in every possible way the supposed “heart theory” of the WdW, and to stamp on it the stigma “Biblicistic.”

The tertium comparationis [the third part of the comparison] 42 in the metaphorical use of the word ‘heart’ is always the central position that the heart biotic organ

[page 31] occupies in human life. This tertium comparationis is indisputably found in the statement in Proverbs 4:23: “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” Unless one simply negates the religious meaning of this admonition, nothing else can be intended here other than the religious centre of man’s whole existence. The same holds true for [1] the words of the Psalmist: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within the innermost part of me” [Ps. 51:10], and [2] for the earlier mentioned statement

42 JGF: Tertium comparationis: The third part of the comparison, what the two things being compared have in common. of Paul, and [3] for the statements of our Saviour, reported in Mark 7:19, etc., etc.…

Now of course it cannot in any way be denied that it is not always that the metaphorical meaning of the word ‘heart’ is congruent with that of the religious root of life or religious centre of existence (man’s true “selfhood”).

Whenever the Book of Proverbs or the Psalms refer to the “heart of the sea” [e.g. Prov. 23:34; 30:19], then the said meaning is self-evidently excluded. But even then thetertium comparationis is “innermost” or “deepest.”

And so sometimes the word ‘heart’ (or ‘kidneys’43) is sometimes used in the sense of the deepest “feeling,” etc.

But there should be no difference of opinion among us that overall, where Scripture refers to the ‘heart’ (or the soul) of man in connection with sin or redemption, and in general in connection with the fundamental religious attitude toward God, only the religious centre of life, the root of man’s whole existence is in issue. That may above all not be made into a free, academic question of “exegesis,” no more than the question of what the Scriptures mean by sin, rebirth, incarnation of the Word, etc.

Only that view of the centre of human existence which conforms to the Word revelation concerning creation, fall and redemption may be called “Scriptural,” (that is, the opposite of “Biblicistic”).44

I believe that I have shown that this is not the case in the scholastic theory of the soul. For that matter, no single scientific theory about the human selfhood conforms to the Scriptures, for the simple reason that each supposedly

43 Dooyeweerd note: Cf. the expression, “And I was pricked in my kidneys” [Ik in mijn nieren geprikkeld ward. The reference seems to be to Ps. 73:21, “Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins.” The Latin ‘renes,’ meaning kidneys, is a literal translation of the Hebrew. See also Ps. 7:9, Ps. 16:7; Prov. 23:16; Rev. 2:23]. 44 JGF: Dooyeweerd here is using the Christian Ground-Motive of creation, fall and redemption as a hermeneutical key. But even that key must be interpreted by the “key of knowledge,” the idea of the supratemporal selfhood as religious root. See his In the Twilight of Western Thought. Studies in the Pretended Autonomy of Philosophical Thought, (Nutley, N.J.: The Craig Press, 1968, first published 1961) [‘Twilight’] .124, 125, 145. autonomous “theory” about it bears witness to a lack of real self-knowledge. It is Socratic wisdom, and not wisdom from above, to say that “Gnoothi seauton” [Know thyself] is a question of neutral theoretical reflection.45

Based on the foregoing, I hardly need to say to your College that for me it does not concern the word ‘heart,’ but rather the religious sense that it means. It is easy to demonstrate that the Scriptures here do not have any uniform use of language, but that they use the word ‘heart’ in the above intended sense in an interwoven way with ‘soul,’ ‘spirit,’ etc.…

In the “text of stone”–the statement of our Saviour in Math. 10:28–which colleague Hepp in brochure II believes he can bring forward against the rejection of the scholastic-Greek schema of “body” and “soul,” there is undoubtedly this central meaning of ‘soul’! For Christ is speaking here of eternal death! How can that be made to correspond with the Greek teaching of the “anima rationalis” as “substance”? I really do not understand how my highly esteemed colleague dares to use this awe-inspiring word of our Saviour as a pillar of support for a theory of the soul that is irrefutably of pagan origin!46

[page 32]

From a Scriptural standpoint, this theory cannot be saved, because it seeks the principle of unity of human existence in reason and not in the religious center of life, which the Scriptures metaphorically refer to as the ‘heart.’

In the exposition of my highly esteemed colleague, I have continually noticed how easily he passes over this cardinal question. He frequently tries to disguise this by speaking of “the whole man as a unity of body and soul” (Cf. his note p. 12). But the pagan philosophers did that, too. So of itself it is no guarantee that this unity is understood in a Scriptural sense. For the real question is, what is the center in the whole man, the deeper root-unity. And it is just the Scriptures, which again and again impress on us, that God does not look on the outer man, but on the heart of man, and that human nature is corrupted in the root, in the heart and it is only through the rebirth of the heart, through giving one’s self over to Christ that it can again be healed. The Scriptures lay bare for us the

45 JGF: And yet Dooyeweerd himself cites this Socratic maxim (NC I, 51). 46 Dooyeweerd note: I believe I can assume that he still continues to accept the scholastic theory of the soul in his dissertation, to which he himself refers in his note. deeper root-unity, which Greek philosophy no more than modern humanistic philosophy could understand, because they sought their God as well as themselves in an idolatrous sense within temporal reality.

I almost want to say, Does my esteemed colleague no longer know Kuyper’s “Calvinism”?

For it is just Kuyper who was the one that so keenly formulated this Scriptural view. The Philosophy of the Law-idea has not done anything other than to “copy” Kuyper’s teaching of the heart as religious root and concentration point of our existence.

On page 11 of his Stone Lectures one can read the following:

Hence the first claim demands that such a life system shall find its starting-point in a special interpretation of our relation to God. This is not accidental, but imperative. If such an action is to put its stamp upon our entire life, it must start from that point in our consciousness in which our life is still undivided and lies comprehended in its unity (! D.), – not in the spreading vines but in the root from which the vines spring (! D.). This point, of course, lies in the antithesis between all that is finite in our human life and the infinite that lies beyond it. Here alone we find the common source from which the different streams of our human life spring and separate themselves. Personally it is our repeated experience that in the depths of our hearts, at the point where we disclose ourselves to the Eternal One, all the rays of our life converge as in one focus, and there alone regain that harmony which we so often and so painfully lose in the stress of daily duty.

And then page 39 of the same work:

But just as the entire creation reaches its culminating point in man, so also religion finds its clear expression only in man who is made in the image of God, and this not because man seeks it, but because God Himself implanted in man’s nature the real essential religious expression, by means of the “seed of religion” (semen religionis), as Calvin defines it, sown in our human heart. God Himself makes man religious by means of the sensus divinitatis, i.e., the sense of the Divine, which He causes to strike the chords on the harp of his soul[The Dutch has ‘heart’ here]. I hope that my highly esteemed colleague may now finally realize what a cardinal error he has made by accusing the WdW of “Biblicism” where, for its view of the center of human existence it rejected the theory of scholastic- peripatetic philosophy and placed itself on a Scriptural standpoint. Colleague Hepp supposes that this philosophy merely hangs onto a few arbitrary terms in Scripture. In other words, he makes it a question of words. The truth is this, that it concerns the most central points in the Scriptural revelation with relation to the fundamental religious relation of man to God, as well as the question of true self-knowledge, which remains dependent on true knowledge of God.

What Scripture means by ‘sin’ and ‘redemption’ may not be made into a mere exegetical question, because the words ‘sin’ and ‘redemption’ are also used in other meanings (see for example David’s gratefulness for his ‘deliverance’ from the hand of Saul and from his other enemies[2 Sam. 12:7 and 22:1]. Or see the meaning of the word ‘sin’ in expressions like “Zonde en Jammer”! [It is a pity].

Just as little may the question of what the Scriptures mean by ‘heart’ in the religious fullness of meaning be denatured into a question of mere exegesis of words. If my highly esteemed colleague continues to deny this irrefutable truth–something I certainly do not assume–then indeed any further possibility of fruitful exchange of thoughts would come to an end.

But of course if he will recognize his misunderstanding, then all adherents of the WdW

[page 33] would be heartily grateful if he would publicly acknowledge this, because with such an acknowledgement, even if only in principle, we would truly have already completely found each other. It is still then very possible that my highly esteemed colleague will be able to point out certain errors and mistakes in the WdW. We will certainly not close ourselves off from his critique, provided that it remains on a healthy and Scriptural basis. On the contrary, we will be sincerely grateful to him. For neither I nor Prof. V. [Vollenhoven] has ever supposed that the WdW is “infallible.” The contrary is the truth, just because we have chosen our point of departure in the Scriptures and not in autonomous thought and therefore we know all too well how much the thinking of Christians remains burden with sin and error.

*** When I in turn subjected to a fundamental critique the critical views of my colleague Hepp regarding the supposed “academic heart theory” of the WdW, I intentionally began by excluding for the moment the question whether the predicate ‘supratemporal’ should be ascribed to either the heart or the soul of humans in the Scriptural sense.

I gave the reason for this. This question is neither the most important nor the primary one in the present point of dispute.

But this is not at all to say that it is therefore of little importance. But I can very well understand that colleague Hepp meets with all kinds of difficulties in the view that there is a supratemporal character to the religious center of human existence. I believe that even among the adherents of the WdW there is still no complete unanimity on this point. Just because of this I have with special interest examined the objections of my highly esteemed colleague on this point.

But I must honestly acknowledge, that this examination has disappointed me.

On page 12 of his note, my colleague says,

If the heart or the soul were really supratemporal, then it would not now be subjected to temporal processes. Where then is the “heart”?

Now this way of arguing is not really very “profound.” He appears to base this on two peculiar presuppositions:

1. that according to the WdW, even before his bodily death of the “body,” the selfhood of man already leads a separated (and not merely distinguished) existence and

2. that everything that exists in time must on this basis also occupy a place in space.47

Both presuppositions are not only wrong, but simply “nonsensical” [“ongerijmd”], and it is therefore no wonder that the conclusions drawn from them–to use my colleague’s peculiar spicy language–are “sick with contradiction.”

47 Dooyeweerd note: At least I do not see what else the word ‘where’ in his question might mean. I admit in advance the possibility my having misunderstood him. If my colleague means only “in heaven,” or “on earth” then his question is answered under the first point. Concerning the first supposition, suffice it to say that the heart (or the soul) of man in its (her) temporal expression in life (as spatiality, movement, organic life, feeling, thinking, acting, etc.) is of course subjected to time. During our life here on earth, these temporal expressions of life cannot be separated from their root or center. We ourselves are, in all of our temporal actions–that is in our whole life in this “body”–subject to time. The question is merely whether in the heart, the religious center of life, we do not at the same time transcend (in the sense of going out above the temporal) the cosmic order of time–into which all transitory things are fitted.

In my view it is indeed the case [that in our heart we also transcend and go out above time]. If that were not so, then the undeniable sense of eternity in man’s heart could not be explained, and it would indeed be difficult to maintain the continued identical existence of the “soul” after bodily death.48

[page 34]

If I have properly understood him, the question of my colleague: “Where then is that heart?” could with equal right be posed to him with respect to the soul theory, which he has defended in his dissertation.

For just as little does his immortal “anima rationalis” [rational soul] take up space. And just as little can we localize our thinking, our concepts, our feelings and desires, since they do not necessarily carry a spatial character. Furthermore, if my colleague had in fact thoroughly read my book, he would know that according to my view, any attempt to grasp the supratemporal in a concept must necessarily lead to antinomies, since this is an attempt to overstep the boundaries of our thought.

The idea that man’s soul (in the Scriptural sense of religious center of existence) would first have an essentially supratemporal existence in heaven is in my opinion one of the many apodictic assertions of my esteemed colleague that urgently ask for further argumentation. If he can he show me from out of Scriptures that the human heart in this life is subjected to time not only in its temporal expressions, but also in its own character as religious center, then I

48 Dooyeweerd note: For in the last day, the “soul,” unlike the “body,” does not need to be “resurrected” [opgewekt]. shall immediately revise my present view of the matter. For I have not in the least set myself fixed [vastgelegd]on this point.49

I really fear very much, that he will find this proof difficult. In the text that I have brought forward, Ecclesiastes 3:11, my highly esteemed colleague finds no argument for the supratemporality of the heart. And I concede without reservation that the recitation of a text may not be called a “proof text” (however that was intended to mean anyway!). It is indeed possible that there can be various views regarding its meaning, although in all modesty it appears to me that it would be difficult for the word ‘heart’ here to have a sense other than the “religious center of life.”

According to my modest opinion, and in the light of the whole Scriptural revelation concerning human nature it is just this possession of a supratemporal root of life, with the simultaneous subjectedness to time of all its earthly expressions, that together belong to the essence [wezen] of man, to the “image of God” in him–by means of which he is able to not only relatively but radically go out [uitgaat] above all temporal things. And that is how I also understand Ecclesiastes 3:11.50

If in fact man’s heart were also a “temporal thing” among other temporal things, than it would be difficult for this heart to know of the supratemporal. In order to have a religious sense [besef] of eternity, man must in the depths of his being participate in it, 51 although our thinking always remains subjected to time.

This holds absolutely, not only for believers, as my colleague apparently tries to interpret my view, but for every man as such. The sense of eternity expresses itself in the falling away from God only in an idolatrous direction.Men seek themselves, i.e. the supratemporal center of their existence, together with

49 JGF: As discussed in my Introduction to these Responses to the Curators, Dooyeweerd’s position regarding the supratemporal selfhood and religious root was more certain than he is willing to here admit. He had made definite statements as early as 1931, and affirmed them in 1940 and later in Twilight. 50 Dooyeweerd note: This of course does not exclude in the least that an acutal event takes place in the human heart, such as the fall into sin or rebirth. And even less does it exclude the fact that the heart, just like the body, is created, and thus does not exist from eternity. 51 Dooyeweerd note: I of course do not need to again expressly tell my colleague that this does not relate to “aeternitas”, which applies only to God, but rather over the creaturely aevum, the created supratemporality. their God, in the temporal. For example, Aristotle in his doctrine of the immortal and supratemporal substantial form of man (“reason”). I have discussed this point in detail inVolume II Part I of my book.

There is thus no need, as my colleague suggests at the top of page 13 of his note, that the WdW, in order to be consistent, “really would have to introduce a division between temporal and supratemporal hearts.”

[page 35]

And it is really difficult for me to remain serious when I read what my esteemed colleague writes immediately following this amazing misunderstanding:

I cannot work out all the consequences that are determined by this. Perhaps that is also better. One must not think about the consequences that must logically be derived here.

No indeed, [we must not think] about what my colleague might or might not be able to “logically” deduce from a new cardinal misunderstanding of a proposition! We have already really had enough examples of this in his series of brochures. But it still holds as a basic rule for logical deduction that one should first investigate whether one’s premisses are accurate. If Mr. H. [Hepp] had done this with more seriousness, then it is likely that his series of brochures would have remained in his pen.

That Mr. H. [Hepp] sees the Scriptural conception of the “human heart,” the religious center of all of human existence, as “a sphinx” which he says belongs in the desert, is not more than a witticism without much style, by which he certainly does not strengthen his position in the present debate.

The human heart will remain a “sphinx” as long as he intends to seek a fixed standpoint in “reason,” outside of God’s Word. By doing that, the “heart” will indeed remain in the “desert” of philosophical speculations.

My highly esteemed colleague should really be more careful with his figurative language. For he knows where the genuine source for knowledge of the human heart can be found!

He strengthens his position just as little with his remark placed just in this connection, that the terminological orientation and the grasping of the basic conception of the WdW seems to be easier for schoolteachers than for many university lecturers (page 13 of note).

Leaving aside the discourtesy which he has here made against, apart from Prof. V. [Vollenhoven] and myself, various prominent reformed professors who are members of our association, and our numerous other academic associates, this sarcastic expression does not sound like it is much in the spirit in which our Vrije Universiteit was founded. Where it concerns the deepest religious foundations of theoretical thought–and that is certainly the case with respect to the question concerning the center of human life–it is indeed true that the “simple of heart,” who bow before God’s Word, may display a much deeper insight than “many university lecturers.”52 (And such people will also not rest until they have understood our terminology on this point). The founder of our University [Kuyper] knew this perfectly well, and he sought in just that to make contact between academics and the “people,” something that his enlightened liberal opponents could not understand. The “fundamental conception” of theWijsbegeerte der Wetsidee is Scriptural and its content is indeed also for the most simple Christians to understand who have seen through the false root of immanence philosophy, while the content for the learned ones, for whom this is not the case, will always remain “obscure” [duister].

If the “basic conception” of my highly esteemed colleague is only understandable for academics [wetenschappelijk gevormden], then this would truly not be a plea in favour of his basic conception!

Therefore it would have been better if he had kept this assertion in the pen!

***

I believe that I have hereby satisfied the request of your College to the best of my ability. Against my original intention, this note of response has become very wide-ranging. This appeared to be necessary, because my colleague Hepp in his note to your College first attacked the Scriptural fundamental conception of the WdW. Your College has the right to be as fully informed as

52 Dooyeweerd note: Moreover, I would like to see information regarding the names of the “many” university lecturers (he of course means reformed) whom he says in his apodictic assertion have fundamental objections against the WdW. I know of only a few, and they are furthermore now at least one with each other! Of course only those should be mentioned who know our ideas. possible about this, and I have in the foregoing tried to do that. I am at any time gladly prepared to provide you with further information.

With the most respect I have the honour to be your willing servant,

H. Dooyeweerd

Dooyeweerd attached 15 pages of quotations from Kuyper. The citations for these quotations are:

A. Kuyper: Het Werk van den Heiligen Geest, 2nd edition, pp. 359ff, 777 A. Kuyper: De Gemeene Gratie, vol. I, 2nd edition, p. 204-205ff A. Kuyper: Van de Voleinding, 3rd edition, p. 27