The sixteenth modality

I'm reading this book as we speak. At least I'm trying to! J Glenn Friesen's “Neo-Calvinism and Christian Theosophy” is a super-scholarly, in-house study of the Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977), who is almost unknown outside a small circle of admirers. To make matters worse, Friesen argues that most of Dooyeweerd's epigones have misunderstood The Philosophy of the Law-Idea. Friesen's own research into the matter was originally rejected by most Dooyeweerdian scholars, and seems to have become tolerated only recently. Small wonder, since it's implications are potentially staggering. “Neo-Calvinism and Christian Theosophy” is another example of a genre I've encountered before, where a well known literary or philosophical figure is revealed to have occult/esoteric/Hermetic influences, previously unheard of. Hegel, Wordsworth, W B Yeats and C S Lewis are four such people who have been “outed”, more or less convincingly, by writers interested in the Western secret tradition.

In Dooyeweerd's case, what's at stake is his status as a “Christian” philosopher working in the tradition of 19th century Dutch Neo-Calvinist theologian Abraham Kuyper, often seen as a staunch defender of orthodoxy and presuppositionalist apologetics. Indeed, I originally came across Dooyeweerd's name when reading about presuppositionalism. He is referenced by Christian Reconstructionist and creationist Rousas Rushdoony. A quick look at Dooyeweerd's own philosophy revealed him to be weird and almost incomprehensible, but also “liberal” and “unscriptural”, at least compared to his unwanted admirers in the United States crank belt. I assumed that Dooyeweerd was unique in the negative sense of that word, and thought of him no further. Friesen's book, while hard to understand, at least cleared this one up. Dooyeweerd and his Philosophy of the Law-Idea (or Cosmonomic Idea, in some translations) sounds unfamiliar since it really isn't based on Calvin, Calvinism or even Neo-Calvinism. Rather, Dooyeweerd was heavily inspired by the grey eminence of German Romanticism, Franz von Baader (1765-1841), whose worldview combined traditional Christian theology with Hermeticism, more specifically the theosophical writings of Jacob Boehme. If true, this would make Dooyeweerd a closeted heretic and put into question his status as a “Calvinistic” philosopher. Indeed, Dooyeweerd was subject to an inquisitorial investigation by the Curators of the (Neo-Calvinist) Free University in Amsterdam, where Dooyeweerd lectured. During the investigation, Dooyeweerd refused to reveal his sources of inspiration! It is Friesen's contention that the Philosophy of the Law-Idea is a revised version of Baader's theosophy. Since Baader was both an esotericist and a Catholic with ecumenical leanings, his ideas would automatically have been suspect in a Reformed context.

The following summary is based on reading about half of the book, and skimming the other half. I have chosen to “translate” Baader's and Dooyeweerd's respective philosophies into the language of other traditions I'm more familiar with.

On one point, Baader and Dooyeweerd were closer to traditional Christianity than to Western esotericism: there is a qualitative distinction between God (who is Trinitarian) and everything created. Man can never partake of God's nature or essence. The rest of their systems, however, sound like Neo-Platonic emanationism, and Friesen actually calls it panentheist (pan-en-theist). A fundamental point of Dooyeweerd's philosophy is opposition to all forms of dualism, including mind/body dualism. He solves this problem by arguing that the visible material cosmos is the periphery and expression of the “supratemporal heart”, which forms its Center. The supratemporal heart is the root of every individual human, humanity at large, and the entire material creation. It roughly corresponds to Brahman-Atman or the Neo-Platonist One. The material world emanates from it in the same way as white light is divided into colors by a prism. Thus, while the material world is “lower” than the supratemporal heart, it is also its manifestation, thereby overcoming dualism. This was also Baader's position. Baader believed that the world bore God's imprint and could be studied symbolically, a Hermetic concept (compare microcosmos-macrocosmos). To Dooyeweerd, the emanations from the Center take the form of 15 “modes” or “aspects”, each being a mode of consciousness and each having its own irreducible meaning. In keeping with Christian theology (but also some forms of esotericism), Baader and Dooyeweerd believed that our world is fallen, that humans were originally called to redeem it, but that humanity failed in its mission, making it necessary to send Christ. In some mysterious fashion, Adam's fall impacted all of creation, and in the same way, Christ's death on the cross also impacted all of creation, but in the opposite direction. Christ's atonement had some kind of ontological significance. As for humans, we naturally consist of both soul and body, as center and periphery, which explains why our souls (dwelling in the supratemporal heart after physical death) will get new bodies at the resurrection.

Another important point for Dooyeweerd was that all knowledge is religious at its root, and that rational thought isn't autonomous. This has been interpreted by presuppositionalists to mean that the Bible, a unique divine revelation, must be accepted as the unproven axiom for all further reasoning. Dooyeweerd's point, according to Friesen, was very different. To him, rationalistic theology based on propositional revelation (“a God who speaks”) is really another form of the belief in the autonomy of reason, since it elevates our rational faculty above all others. It means that rationality and logic are part of God's nature (perhaps the supreme parts), which He has decided to impart on humans. To Dooyeweerd, the idea that the root of all knowledge is religious is a mystical notion. We have pre-rational, pre-theoretical and pre-empirical knowledge of the supratemporal heart. Indeed, this is what makes knowledge possible at all. Rational thought is part of the *created* cosmos, not part of God's innermost nature, and exists alongside other forms of knowledge (such as intuition, aesthetic knowledge, etc). Therefore, Reason isn't the pinnacle of God's mind, but one of many indirect expressions of it. In the same way, theology is simply one way of sorting things out. The Bible is important but not absolutely central as in Christian fundamentalism. The “presuppositionalism” of Dooyeweerd is really the Romantic conviction of the cosmos as an organic whole. Materialism splits it apart, making it impossible to fully understand. I do get the impression, however, that the Throne and Altar conservative Baader was more consistently “organic” than Dooyeweerd, who as a good Dutch liberal believed in “sphere sovereignty”! Dooyeweerd further emphasized that the 15 “aspects” weren't logical categories arrived at by abstracting and comparing various properties. The 15 aspects seem to be intuitive, arrived at by a kind of pre-theoretical knowledge.

One thing the book doesn't prove is a firm link between Baader and Abraham Kuyper, often seen as the founder of Neo-Calvinism. Kuyper was too traditionally Christian. Yet, he certainly knew of Baader and occasionally referenced him. Dooyeweerd was interested by Kuyper's more mystical writings, which mentions the “heart”. He was also intrigued by Kuyper's peculiar statement that Jesus' miracles didn't prove him to be God, since humans will do the same things (or even greater things) after the resurrection. Of course, working at the Free University (which was founded by none other than Kuyper himself), Dooyeweerd would have needed a “Kuyperian” cover for his heterodox philosophy. I think he found it in Kuyper's devotional writings, but also in Kuyper's presuppositionalist concept of the “antithesis”. Nor does the book say whether Dooyeweerd had other occult inclinations apart from studying Baader's obtuse and cryptic aphorisms. Baader was interested in Mesmerism, lucid dreams and séances. One of his séances is said to have scared the living daylights out of fellow German philosopher Schelling! I almost get the impression that Dooyeweerd's system is a kind of “scholastic” Baaderism sans the yoga (or the séances)…

I'm not sure who might be interested in “Neo-Calvinism and Christian Theosophy”, but if the more intellectually exotic corners of theology or esotericism is your thing, it might perhaps be worth a week or two of study. The author also has a website devoted to the same subject. Previosuly, I saw the Cosmonomic Idea through a glass darkly. Now, I see face to face…