The Intellectual Legacy of Herman Dooyeweerd (1894–1977)

Maarten Verkerk, Gerrit Glas, and Suzan Sierksma-Agteres, The Intellectual Legacy of Herman Dooyeweerd (1894–1977): A Hopeful Philosophy for Our Time, trans. David Hanson (London: Amsterdam University Press, 2025).

The above book is open access, available as a pdf and epub from here.

The abstract:

‘Herman Dooyeweerd (1894–1977), a renowned philosopher and legal scholar, has been regarded as one of the most original philosophers the Netherlands has ever produced. In 1935, he published his seminal work, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, which offers an in-depth analysis of the foundations of culture and science. Dooyeweerd develops a sophisticated and impressive conceptual framework to analyse reality. He demonstrates that every philosophy, all science, and every political ideology is driven by underlying religious or worldview perspectives.

‘The work of Herman Dooyeweerd is currently attracting global interest. From the United States to Korea, from New Zealand to Brazil, and from the United Kingdom to South Africa, professionals across various disciplines – philosophers, engineers, politicians, economists, and others – are expanding upon his ideas within their respective fields. At the same time, his work is becoming increasingly relevant as contemporary society displays characteristics reminiscent of those observed in European culture a century ago. The Intellectual Legacy of Herman Dooyeweerd (1894–1977): A Hopeful Philosophy for Our Time introduces his most significant concepts and numerous examples of their contemporary applications.’

Credo 12, 1 (2022) on Plato

The current issue of Credo is available, this one devoted to the question: ‘What does Plato have to do with Jesus?’

Here’s the blurb:

‘We live in a day when goodness, truth, and beauty exist in the eye of the beholder alone, mere social constructs we name (Nominalism). As a result, skepticism reigns as society questions whether reality even exists beyond the material realm, doubting the existence of the soul and a Creator as the first principle of the cosmos. Naturally, purpose in this world (final causality) is thrown into doubt as we are ever so content to entertain ourselves with shadows of our own invention in the darkness of the cave. Yet glimmers of hope shine bright on the horizon as Christians from all traditions resurrect Plato and invite him to enter the darkness of our cave to tell us about the radiance of the sun outside, a reality that is… real. More exciting still, Christians are discovering that a long tradition before them – from Augustine to C.S. Lewis – considered themselves Christian Platonists. Of course, they were prudent, rejecting those components of Platonism incompatible with Christianity. Yet they were also strategic, utilizing those components that establish a philosophy capable of defending Christianity’s belief in an eternal, unchanging first cause whose goodness, truth, and beauty explain reality and give this life true meaning and purpose. The authors of this issue ask how God in his providence used Plato to prepare the way for the full revelation of his Savior.’

Individual articles, along with interviews and book reviews, are available to read from here.

Faith & Philosophy

For those who might be interested, Faith and Philosophy, the journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers, ‘is provided open-access by the SCP so that the best of contemporary Christian philosophy and philosophy of religion is available to all’.

James K.A. Smith on Philosophy as/of Worship

The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship has made available from James K.A. Smith an ‘annotated research guide from the field of philosophy, focusing on the “liturgical turn” in Christian philosophy of religion. It’s designed ‘for students, teachers and scholars with interests in studying congregational worship practices, including fields of study that have not traditionally studied worship practices extensively’.

There’s more information here, and the document is available as a pdf here.

Vern Sheridan Poythress on Philosophy

Vern S. Poythress, Redeeming Philosophy: A God-Centered Approach to the Big Questions (Wheaton: Crossway, 2014), 303pp., ISBN 978-1-4335-3946-6.

Through someone’s generosity, the latest book from Vern Sheridan Poythress is freely available in its entirety as a 7 MB pdf here.

Here’s some of the blurb:

‘Life is full of big questions. The study of philosophy seeks to answer such questions. In his latest book, prolific author Vern Poythress investigates the foundations and limitations of Western philosophy, sketching a distinctly Christian approach to answering basic questions about the nature of humanity, the existence of God, the search for meaning, and the basis for morality.’

See here for other freely available titles.

Vern Sheridan Poythress on Logic

Vern Sheridan Poythress, Logic: A God-Centered Approach to the Foundation of Western Thought (Wheaton: Crossway, 2013), 733pp., ISBN 978-1-4335-3229-0.

The latest tome – over 700 pages of it – from Vern Sheridan Poythress is freely available in its entirety as a 9 MB pdf here.

Here’s some of the blurb:

‘For Christians looking to improve critical thinking skills, here is an accessible introduction to the study of logic as well as an in-depth treatment of the discipline from a professor with six academic degrees and over 30 years experience teaching. Questions for further reflection are included at the end of each chapter as well as helpful diagrams and charts for use in college and graduate-level classrooms.’

Anthony C. Thiselton on Hermeneutics

Courtesy of St John’s Nottingham is a delightful 25-minute YouTube video of Anthony Thiselton (part of a bigger project, apparently) talking about some of his major works on hermeneutics.

Centre for Public Christianity (May 2012)

The latest email newsletter from the Centre for Public Christianity contains links to an email interview with Alain de Botton on his recent book, Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion, and to video interviews, including one with Amy Black (Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations, Wheaton College, Illinois) on the role of faith in American politics, and one with Rikk Watts (Professor of New Testament, Regent College, Vancouver) on the way early Christians began to challenge the accepted wisdom of their day.

Rachel Thorpe on Life Without Certainty

Rachel Thorpe, ‘Life Without Certainty: Margaret Atwood’s Ambiguous Worlds’, Cambridge Papers 21, 1 (March 2012).

The latest Cambridge Paper from the Jubilee Centre is available online, this one looking at the dystopian worlds created in Margaret Atwood’s novels.

Here is the summary:

‘Margaret Atwood is one of the most important and influential writers alive today. Her fiction explores and reflects the current cultural move away from metanarrative and towards fragmented notions of truth. She celebrates this new intellectual trend, whilst also revealing the damage done by its more confused, frustrated and narcissistic elements. This paper will argue that Atwood’s “speculative fiction” in particular uncovers our deep human need for stable knowledge, language and sense of self. Furthermore, her novels point to society’s insatiable longing for the God that it has turned away from, showing all substitutes to be inadequate and dangerous.’

A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (3)

Not long before he left LICC to take up a post at A Rocha, Nigel Hopper (Lecturer in Contemporary Culture and Communications Manager at LICC) asked me some questions about the Bible’s impact on culture and the implications for Christians and churches today. A trimmed version of our ‘electronic’ interview will appear in September 2011’s edition of EG, LICC’s quarterly magazine, but I will also post the transcript of the whole conversation over a series of entries here.

Earlier entries:

• A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (1)

• A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (2)

Nigel: Although not a sensational volume, A.C. Grayling has recently published his The Good Book – an unashamedly secular Bible, if you like, that attempts to be a compendium of wisdom for living without reference to God. What do you see as the main flaws in such an attempt to cherry-pick ‘workable wisdom’ from the Bible (and other ancient texts) whilst keeping God out of the story?

Antony: Yes. This has been an interesting development too...

It’s a little bit tongue-in-cheek, perhaps, but the book consciously mimics the design of Bibles with short chapters divided into verses. And it’s organised in fourteen sections, beginning with Genesis and taking in Wisdom, Parables, Lamentations, Songs, Histories, Proverbs, and Epistles along the way. But Grayling takes ‘secular’ texts from western and eastern traditions and weaves together their ideas and insights about how ‘the good life’ should be lived – without reference to any divine being.

What we get, then, is lots of material on the virtue of friendship, wisdom for life, the value of liberty, and so on. And, of course, all of that Christians can affirm – especially as we believe in the ‘common grace’ of a God who sends rain and makes the sun shine on all. All truth is God’s truth.

But, I’d want to say that so far as Christians are concerned, best sense is made of those things – like virtue and wisdom and liberty and hope – in the light of the bigger story the Bible tells. Indeed, it’s telling, I think, that while the longest sections in Grayling’s Good Book are Histories and Acts (drawing mostly on stories from ancient Greece and Rome), his Bible lacks a connecting narrative from beginning to end – which is what you might expect if there is no God.

And that dimension, I think, is a crucial distinctive of the Bible. For Christians, the Bible tells not a story about a god, but tells the story of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who will make good on his promise to Abraham to bless all nations, and brings that promise to fulfilment in Jesus – back to the concerns of the previous question.

Eleutheria 1, 2 (2011)

The second issue of Eleutheria (an open access, peer-reviewed journal led, edited, and reviewed by graduate students of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary) is online, containing the following mix of main articles:

Marcus Little

The Paradoxical Beauty of the Cross: Theological Aesthetics and the Doctrine of the Atonement in Athanasius’ Contra Gentes-De Incarnatio

In his two-part treatise Contra Gentes-De Incarnatio, Athanasius offers an interesting apologetic for the Christian doctrine of the atonement by employing various aesthetic themes and forms of expression drawn from the classical notion of beauty found particularly in the Platonic and neo-Platonic traditions. Although Athanasius never mentions the term ‘beauty’ in Contra Gentes-De Incarnatio, the concept certainly looms in the background. Writing against the Platonic, Epicurean, and Stoic systems of his day, Athanasius centers his apologetic on the philosophical tension evident in the doctrine of divine transcendence/immanence. This paper argues that Athanasius implicitly characterizes the tension of divine transcendence/ immanence as paradoxical in nature and, as such, is not solved but resolved in Christian doctrine of the incarnation and the culminating event of the crucifixion. For Athanasius, the aesthetic force of the crucifixion is its manifold paradox in which Christ, the God-man, conquers by being conquered, restores man’s spiritual form by becoming formless, and establishes universal peace by surrendering to violence. Thus, in the Christian tradition, the divine transcendence/immanence paradox is localized and expanded in the incarnation and crucifixion event invoking an overflow of aesthetic inspiration in the heart of the believer. Therefore, the purpose of this essay is twofold. First, it will identify certain themes in the classical definition of beauty and will examine how these themes are interwoven throughout Athanasius’ apologetic . Second, it will attempt to prove that the aesthetic superiority of the cross, as implicitly argued in Contra Gentes-De Incarnatio, is rooted in the paradoxical nature of the crucifixion event. Thus, for Athanasius, beauty shines forth through paradox.

Gordon D. Harris

Cyprian and his Role as the Faithful Bishop in Response to the Lapsed, the Martyrs, and the Confessors Following the Decian Persecution

In 249 A.D., in an attempt to bring about a renewal in the devotion to Roman authority and the Roman gods, Roman Emperor Decian issued an edict. The edict called for Roman citizens to take part in a simple sacrifice to the Roman deities. Cyprian, the recently named bishop of Carthage, opted to flee the city and avoid the persecution. Upon his return to Carthage in 251 A.D., Cyprian was forced to deal with the results of the persecution among those who had given in to the edict and those who had resisted. He did so with his now famous On the Lapsed. In dealing with both groups, Cyprian was faithful first to Christ and the biblical mandates that he felt the church was obligated to uphold. He was faithful also to the authority of the Church hierarchy, which he felt was being undermined even by the martyrs, whom he did believe had a special place within the Church. Finally, Cyprian was faithful to his position of bishop, which meant he was not only to lead but also to unite his community during difficult times such as persecutions, regardless of what situation or conditions existed that may have led to it. To complete this task, this study will look at a number of challenges that Cyprian faced while he attempted to remain faithful to these three areas. In doing so, the paper will focus mainly on Cyprian’s response to these challenges in his writings from On the Lapsed. The story of Cyprian and the issues surrounding the lapsed do not end with what he wrote in On the Lapsed, and the conclusion of this study will take a few moments to address some of those issues.

Russell Meek

Hans-Georg Gadamer: His Philosophical Hermeneutics and Its Importance for Evangelical Biblical Hermeneutics

Hans-Georg Gadamer’s influence on hermeneutics can hardly be understated. This article offers an evangelical perspective on the importance of his work and how it can be used to interpret the biblical text more faithfully. It discusses his influences and some of the major aspects of his work and offers suggestions for applying his work to biblical hermeneutics. The article concludes that his work is vitally important and should be utilized by the biblical interpreter, though not without caution.

Anthony C. Thornhill

Scholarship and Ministry in the Life and Thought of Augustine

Augustine is frequently recognized as one of the greatest Christian theologians in all of church history. His influence extends to both Protestant and Catholic circles, and his numerous theological works are still referenced by today’s students of theology. The context of his theological writings are often overlooked. While he did, on occasion, seek to write weighty and intricate theological works, his primary focus was upon better equipping himself to minister to the believers he served as the bishop of Hippo. This is clearly evidenced in his sermons and his letters, which provide an important window into his historical context.

Kevin Schut on Jane McGonigal on Video Games

Kevin Schut, ‘Playing with Reality’, Cardus (27 May 2011).

Earlier in the week, a friend directed me to a newish book by Jane McGonigal, Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World (London: Penguin, 2011).

I’ve just spotted a review of it in the latest Cardus update.

The Godless Book

[I contributed this week’s ‘Connecting with Culture’ from London Institute for Contemporary Christianity...]

Ever wondered what a Bible without God would look like...?

This week saw the publication of The Good Book: A Secular Bible (Bloomsbury), by A.C. Grayling, professor of philosophy at Birkbeck College, London. In an interview with The Guardian, Grayling refers to it as ‘a distillation of the best that has been thought and said by people who’ve experienced life, and thought about it’, but with ‘not one occurrence of the word God, or afterlife, or anything like that’. Philosophers from ancient Greece rub shoulders with Confucian sages and medieval poets, as Grayling takes ‘secular’ texts from western and eastern traditions and weaves together their insights about how ‘the good life’ should be lived.

This secular alternative to the Bible consciously mimics the design of Bibles with short chapters divided into verses. Organised in fourteen sections, it begins with Genesis and ends with The Good, taking in Wisdom, Parables, Lamentations, Songs, Histories, Proverbs, and Epistles along the way. Grayling’s decalogue, the ‘ten injunctions’, can be found in the final chapter: ‘Love well, seek the good in all things, harm no others, think for yourself, take responsibility, respect nature, do your utmost, be informed, be kind, be courageous: at least, sincerely try’ (The Good 8:11).

It’s unlikely that Christians will be thrown by this compilation. Indeed, believing in the ‘common grace’ of a God who sends rain and sun on all, there will be much to affirm about the virtue of friendship, wisdom for life, value of liberty, and more besides.

But perhaps most tellingly of all, Grayling’s Bible lacks a connecting narrative from beginning to end – which is what you might expect if there is no God. So, a ‘secular’ Bible has laws, but no redemption; it has sagely wisdom, but no God who calls us to live wisely in his world; it has lamentation, but no hope of restoration from the one whose mercies are new every morning.

For Christians, the Bible tells not a story about a god, but the story of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who will make good on his promise to Abraham to bless all nations. As such, Scripture is not merely a collection of writings, so much as a covenant document. And it doesn’t simply tell the story of God’s covenant with his people, but is itself the covenant document, the ratification of his promise and of our relationship with him – a good book indeed.

Dialogue 34 (April 2010)

Here’s something I’ve enjoyed subscribing too for a fair number of years. Dialogue: A Journal of Religion and Philosophy was first published in 1993 to support the teaching of A-level Religious Studies in Britain – and it works very well in that role, covering key topics on the AS/A2 syllabus. I suspect there are others outside that immediate audience who pick it up for the same sorts of reasons I do: to benefit from its concise, introductory and overview-type articles (mostly in the field of philosophy of religion and ethics, but with some biblical studies too) by specialists in their areas.

Contents in the April 2010 issue are as follows:

Andrew Wright
Concepts of God: Biblical and Philosophical Perspectives

Richard Norman
Kantian Respect

Julian Baggini
Is Good Ethics Good Business?

Keith Ward
God’s Action in the World

Michael Lacewing
Arguments for Design

Julia Annas
Recent Approaches to Virtue Ethics

Joe Jenkins
Just War

It’s published twice a year, in November and April, at £18.50 for two issues.

Issues 1 to 20 are available in an archive.

L’Abri Ideas Library

The L’Abri Ideas Library contains loads of excellent-looking downloadable material (mostly audio files of lectures), some of it going back years, in the following areas:

• What is L’Abri?
• Communicating ideas
• What in the world is real?
• Is anyone there?
• Has anyone spoken?
• What about other religions?
• What does it mean to be human?
• What is spiritual reality?
• Knowing others
• Understanding myself
• How then shall we live?
• Art needs no justification
• Whose planet is it anyway?

David K. Naugle

David K. Naugle is Professor of Philosophy at Dallas Baptist University…

He is more besides, as his web page tells.

He has published two significant books:

• Worldview: The History of a Concept (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002).

• Reordered Love, Reordered Lives: Learning the Deep Meaning of Happiness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008).

He has also written several dozen academic papers, many of which are available online here, most of which revolve around the idea of ‘worldview’ and related notions of the transformation of Christians, the reformation of the church, and the renewal of aspects of the cultural life in which God has placed us.

Oh, and he has a dog named ‘Kuyper’.

Kevin J. Vanhoozer on the Relationship between Theology and Philosophy

Kevin J. Vanhoozer, ‘Christ and Concept: Doing Theology and the “Ministry” of Philosophy’, in John D. Woodbridge and Thomas Edward McComiskey (eds.), Doing Theology in Today’s World: Essays in Honor of Kenneth S. Kantzer (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991), 99-145.

Vanhoozer adopts H. Richard Neibuhr’s five-fold typology of Christ in relation to culture to tackle the relationship between theology and philosophy. He notes that the particular nature of the philosophy under discussion is crucial. He defines philosophy as ‘the critical and systematic reflection on enduring problems that arise in language and life’, and says that ‘if conceptual inquiry is the philosopher’s task, the words of ordinary language and the technical terms used to clarify the relations between them are the tools’ (105, 107).

His preference is for the ‘Christ the Lord of concept’ model, akin to Karl Barth, where ‘biblical revelation provides the material to be understood, and philosophy contributes the impetus toward conceptual clarity’. This means that ‘the theologian does not need a prior conceptual scheme within which biblical language can make sense; rather, one simply begins (unapologetically!) with biblical language’ (122-23).