This is the Guest Editor's Introduction to a volume of Philosophia Reformata that considers Jaap Klapwijk's book in which he seeks to discuss evolutionary biology in relation to Christian philosophy.

What is the purpose of Friesen’s 95 theses and what is the audience he has in mind? The title refers to a major church historical event and suggests that — like in 1517 — we are dealing with a concise statement of a new and radical doctrine that is unfolded in opposition to an established canon. But who is the opponent in this case? What is the established canon that is rejected? And what is new or radical in the summary? (...) Dooyeweerd’s philosophy was definitely new and radical at the time of its conception. It still has an enormous potential for the special sciences. It offers important resources for any critique of ‘immanence’ philosophies. However, on first reading and without knowledge of the context, Friesen does not seem to aim at offering a new or radical interpretation of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy. I read the 95 theses as an attempt to wipe off the dust, to provide the overall picture, doing justice to aspects that were neglected or were wrongly understood in the reformational tradition. However, the audience he has in mind seems to be one that is already familiar with the basic concepts and the thrust of Dooyeweerdian thinking; not an audience that is opposed to reformational philosophical thinking, but one that might be helped by a succinct summary in order to encourage further study and discussion. (shrink)

Is het nog de moeite waard om het op te nemen voor de transcendentale kritiek van Dooyeweerd? Deze vraag suggereert dat de transcendentale kritiek wanneer zij aan zichzelf overgelaten zou worden, niet meer te redden is. Dat is misschien wat overdreven, maar één ding is duidelijk: de transcendentale kritiek is niet onomstreden, zelfs niet onder de meest trouwe volgelingen van Dooyeweerd. En daarin zit iets paradoxaals: het was hem er immers om te doen met zijn transcendentale kritiek ‘de denkgemeenschap in (...) het avondland’ te herstellen, maar het lukt hem niet eens om de denkgemeenschap onder gelijkgezinden op dit punt te bewaren. Intentie en werkelijkheid lopen hier dus ver uiteen. Daar zijn verschillende redenen voor. In de eerste plaats lijkt de transcendentale kritiek geplaagd te worden door een tweetal tegenstrijdige uitgangspunten. Kort gezegd komen deze uitgangspunten hierop neer: 1) de transcendentale kritiek poogt aan te tonen dat ieder theoretisch denken uitgaat van religieuze uitgangspunten; het theoretische denken is dus niet neutraal, zelfgenoegzaam of autonoom; 2) het onder punt 1 genoemde kan worden aangetoond door een stringente analyse van de aard van het theoretische denken zelf, zoals het door ieder die zich bezighoudt met wetenschap en wijsbegeerte beoefend wordt. De vraag is nu of het eerste punt niet impliceert, dat het tweede onmogelijk is. (shrink)

Herman Dooyeweerd writes that “the idea of cosmic time constitutes the basis of the philosophical theory of reality in [A New Critique of Theoretical Thought].” My aim is to present and defend the hypothesis that Dooyeweerd’s idea of time is, in part, mistaken at its foundation. His idea of a cosmic temporal coherence of diverse modal aspects arose from the absolutization of a concept of temporal universality that he adopted uncritically as the transcendental basic Idea of cosmic time. My immanent-critical (...) assessment leads to the hypothesis that temporality should be recognized as the first modal aspect, which, for Dooyeweerd, has been lost to view. Recovering both the sphere sovereignty of the temporal aspect and the equal universality of all aspects opens the way to a resolution of Dooyeweerd’s temporal/supratemporal dialectic and to a new perspective on naive experience and the meaning of humans as God’s image. (shrink)

This article builds on my previous article on Dirk H. Th. Vollenhoven (Ive 2015) and provides an overview of the development of the systematic philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd. This article seeks to provide an overview of the key developments in the thinking of Dooyeweerd, both in the convergences arising from the conversation of the two brothers-in-law and long-term colleagues and in their divergences. Dooyeweerd and Vollenhoven worked within the tradition of Abraham Kuyper, the father of Reformational philosophy. The development of (...) their respective philosophical systematics has tended to be addressed separately. However, I argue that the close cooperation between the two philosophers was critical in the formulation of the philosophy of the cosmonomic Idea. The philosophical conversation between the two persisted, despite critical divergences, largely aired privately. Their respective insights remained a source of mutual stimulus and complementarity foundational for Reformational philosophy. (shrink)