The notion of societal structural principles is the foundation stone of Dooyeweerd’s social philosophy, and of the political and legal philosophy grounded in it, yet it has so far received little detailed critical analysis or constructive reformulation among reformational scholars. The aim of this paper is the modest one of illustrating the kind of analysis still to be done if the notion is to be put to more constructive use within social theory. I shall say little about the epistemological or (...) methodological implications of the notion, concentrating on its central ontological problematics. I shall do so by discussing the notion with special reference to its specific application to one particular societal structure, namely the state. Part I analyses Dooyeweerd’s general account of the notion of societal structural principles. I identify there a number of critical problems running through the paper, especially: a) the problem of how structural principles secure the internal unity of a societal structure; b) the distinction between the invariant character of societal structural principles, and the variable forms in which they are positivised; and c) the undeveloped link between societal structures and the structure of the human person. Part II illustrates these problems in relation to Dooyeweerd’s account of the structural principle of the state. Part III briefly sketches the direction of a possible reformulation of the notion of societal structural principles in the light of a more fully elaborated philosophical anthropology. (shrink)

languages, and values in a particular country. Active multicultural policies are required to achieve this and to thereby make democracy viable in divided societies.3 This article consists of four sections. I will begin by setting out the concept of multicultural democracy, as advocated by the UNDP, in general. Next, I will specifically deal with the topic of church and state, which is both at the heart of this concept and traditionally of particular interest to Christian Philosophy. Section three looks at (...) the Reformed contribution to the topic of church and state in religiously plural societies in the past. Finally, section four raises the question how the notion of pluriform democracy, as developed by Reformed thinkers and put into practice in the Netherlands during the better part of the twentieth century, relates to the concept of multicultural democracy. As the subtitle already indicates, the article is very much meant to serve as a working paper, not as the final word on this complex issue. For example, an earlier version of it was presented during the Assembly of the Reformed Ecumenical Council, held in Utrecht, Netherlands, from 12-26 July 2005.4 Although this Assembly had at its disposal a 92-page report on ‘Church, State and the Kingdom of God’, it was unable to reach any final conclusions, and decided to continue its discussion of the topic during the next Assembly in 2009. (shrink)