140 Chapter 3 be characterised as non-reductionistic and—as became especially true in the analysis of their contemporary advocates above—holistic. A further, summarising, synthesis of their insights creates space to endorse WCD from a Christian perspective, albeit not without a critical remark. To provide for such a synthesis, the following points can be put forward with regard to Augustine, Comenius and Dooyeweerd: • All three showed deep awareness of the inner complexity of man. Augustine did so in his interiority theory, Dooyeweerd through both his theory of modal aspects and functions in the human person. Comenius was less explicit about inner complexity, although he clearly paid attention to it when beginning his wide vision of the transformation of the world in the inner silence of the human heart, from which flowed his plea for broad, integrative education. In all cases, it led followers of their ideas to plead for attention to be paid to the whole person and for a clear rejection of reductionistic approaches to man. • All three combined detailed insight into the complex personal inner life with a broad cosmologic vision. Both Comenius’ pansophy and Dooyeweerd’s cosmonomic philosophy placed man at the centre of a universal whole created by God and governed by eternal law. Augustine was less explicit regarding this aspect, but he underlined the presence of the city of God in the world and the possibility of serving God in it through respecting the law written in the heart. Their contemporary advocates described this attention as holistic, as did James K.A. Smith (2009, 2013, 2016, 2017) and Dupont and Walraet (2015) for Augustine, as well as Hábl (2011, 2017) and David I. Smith (2017) for Comenius. Troost (2005) was, as Dooyeweerd’s contemporary advocate, more hesitant about the term, although he explicitly recognised the central moment of truth in holism. • Comenius was described as profoundly humanistic by his contemporary advocates (Hábl, 2011; Stevens, 2020). Maertens (1965) was ready to call Augustine’s anthropology humanistic, albeit in a non-modern sense of the term. Troost (2005) was again more hesitant with the term, but he nevertheless placed the human being at the centre of Dooyeweerd’s anthropocentric theory of totality. • All three famous Christian scholars coincided in their attention to the transcendental aspect of reality. For Augustine and Comenius, this seemed to be a natural part of their reality. Dooyeweerd, reacting to modernity, formulated a fundamentally transcendental critique of theoretical thought. Their contemporary advocates (Smith, Hábl and Troost) agreed that
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