125 Christian Anthropology and the (W)Holistic Approach 3 to all Men (Comenius, 1657/2019), was born out of, and directly connected to, ‘teaching and learning through resignation’ (Hábl, 2017, p. 15). This resignation stand in a direct relation to the telos of human presence on Earth: a joint understanding of what is human life for and what is necessarily and intrinsically good to do and aspire to: to serve the Creator by dedicating His broken creation again to Him. 3.1.2 Herman Dooyeweerd and André Troost The Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd (1894–1977), together with Dirk Vollenhoven, founded what is termed Reformational philosophy. Dooyeweerd (1969) himself called it Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee from the start, which is also the title of his central work. In English, he chose the ‘philosophy of the cosmonomic idea’. It provides an analysis of reality based on Kuyper’s (1880/2021) idea of sphere sovereignty. It focuses profoundly on the coherence of things—in unity and diversity. Dooyeweerd’s life and work can be placed in the neo-Calvinistic or Kuyperian tradition, although Dooyeweerd himself did not uncritically relate to it. In particular, Kuyper’s antithesis meant too much of a contradiction between people (the personal) when, in fact, there is an antithesis about fundamental ideas (the idiosyncratic), which even within one person can be fought (Hengstmengel, 2015, p. 177). This precision proved to be essential for the development of Reformed epistemology in the United States. Dooyeweerd’s cosmonomic idea is interesting for the sake of this study because it entails a broad discussion about man and anthropology from inside the church and the Reformed tradition that comes together with a fundamental critique of the interwovenness and dependence of Christian thinking about man and creation in relation to Greek philosophy. At the latter, Dooyeweerd (1935/1969) aimed his well-known ‘transcendental critique’ (3). Transcendental thinking departs from the idea of creation as a cosmonomic unity with its religious root in a personal Creator. Anyone who denies transcendental reality and limits their thinking to just the immanent (focusing on the here and now, the tangible, the verifiable) misses the ‘Archimedean point’. To not overlook this point is a ‘religious act’ that defines everything that happens next (Dooyeweerd, 1969, p. 20). There starts, for Dooyeweerd (1969), the antithesis: This basic motive does not lead to antinomies in philosophical thought, but rather to an absolute antithesis with all philosophy which is dominated by apostate ground-motives. It also leads to a thankful recognition of all the gifts and talents that God has left to fallen humanity. (p. 507) 3 For this study I used the English translation published in 1969.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw