John M. Frame
CONTENTS
1. Background
a. The Modal Spheres
b. The Self
c. God
7. Law
8. Scripture and the Word of God
10. Science
11. Education
13. Evangelism
14. Apologetics
15. Conclusions
This
booklet was published by Pilgrim Press in 1972, in the midst of some
theological warfare. Representatives of the Amsterdam Philosophy were then
taking a militant stance against traditional Reformed theology, and the
controversy created partisan battles on the campus of Westminster Seminary,
where I was a very young professor. It also threatened to split churches,
Christian schools, and other Christian organizations. As a member of a
committee of the Ohio Presbytery of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, I was
asked to write a brief study of the movement, and the booklet resulted.
Originally it was published together with another essay by Leonard Coppes, the
Chairman of the Committee.
As
I read the booklet today, I think my tone was far too shrill. The booklet also
contains far too much smart-alecky stuff. I suppose I could have entirely
rewritten it, but that would have made my 1972 efforts look better than they
were. I prefer now to let readers judge me as I deserve, warts and all. I also
think that the basic points of the pamphlet were never answered, though I
received a lot of invective, and a lot of undocumented charges that I just
didn’t know Dooyeweerd. On those issues also, I will let readers judge.
The
Since the movement is so widespread and is growing rather than diminishing in influence, a warning is in order: not all of the comments made about the movement in the following pages will apply to all of its adherents. Nevertheless, these adherents claim to belong to a “school,” a group dedicated to the advancement of certain basic principles and the application of those principles to all areas of life. Such a claim not only legitimizes but necessitates critical evaluation, which is directed toward the principles and goals affirmed in the movement as a whole, and not just toward the viewpoints of individuals.
Another caveat: it will be
impossible in this report to more than summarize the issues at stake in this
movement. The
For the above three reasons,
it is both legitimate and necessary for non-philosophers to make a critical
appraisal of the
What is it that makes the
On
the other hand, says the
All of these principles
are, in our view, scriptural, Reformational, and worthy of our support. And it might also be said that the
The trouble is, however, that these scriptural,
Reformational, brilliantly well-expressed principles are not “all there is” in
the
We hope that the following
discussion will not be so technical as to lose the reader's attention at this
early point. If it is, the reader is
advised to jump ahead, for later sections of this report will be more “practical”
in some senses than this one. This one
is important, however. The distinction
between common sense and science, between “naive experience” and “theoretical
thought,” between “pre-theoretical” and “theoretical”
[6]
is central to
the
Dooyeweerd and the other
Now what, precisely, is involved in this distinction? The usual illustrations are fairly straightforward. A child walks through a field on a summer day, looking at the daisies. A botanist walks through the same field, picks a daisy, and takes it home for an experiment connected with his doctoral dissertation. The child “looks,” the botanist “experiments.” Surely there is a difference between these two people in their attitudes toward the daisy! Surely, then there is a difference between ordinary life, where we appreciate daisies as we walk through a field, and theoretical thought, where we study them.
Well, there seems to be a
difference! But the matter becomes a bit
more complicated when we consider other cases.
We will agree that the child looking at the daisies is “naive” or
“pre-theoretical,” in some obvious sense.
But what about a child who has been told by his teacher to find as many
different colored flowers as he can? He
wanders through the field, looks at a daisy, writes down “yellow and white.” He
looks at a dandelion, writes “yellow”; looks at a rose and writes “red.” Is
that theoretical or naive? Well, it
certainly isn't the beginning of a doctoral dissertation! It is a matter of simple observation, we
might say. Yet it presupposes some
learning a knowledge of color – words, an ability to write. Surely this learning is the beginning of what
we might call “theoretical equipment.” What of a ninth grader who writes an
essay concerning his political philosophy?
The essay might consist mostly of “naive” observations – yet these would
be on a more sophisticated level than we would expect from a sixth grader! From these illustrations, then, it would
seem that “naive” and “theoretical” are not air-tight compartments as the
But
of course we must go beyond illustrations and ask precisely how the
Scientific thought is discriminative, analytical, and
antithetical. In our naive
experience we are closely in touch with life-in-its-totality
or fulness.
[8]
This is not to say, however
that naive experience makes no analyses, no distinctions of any kind:
In our naive experience we
have a naive view of concrete reality.
We know how to distinguish a man from an animal and from a plant. We are conscious that family life is something
different from Church life. We know that
the state possesses other capacities than the Church.
[9]
More
significantly, naive experience makes distinctions among the various aspects of
human experience which Dooyeweerd calls “modal aspects” (on this concept see
later discussion):
In naive experience we
conceive [a bird's nest] as an individual whole, qualified by this
subject-object relation to the bird's life; and this finds expression in the
name whereby the thing is symbolically signified.... A plastic work of fine art
is experienced as an individual whole, functioning in all the modal aspects of
our temporal horizon, but typically qualified by its aesthetic subject-object
relation.
[10]
Note here that it is in
naive experience that we determine what modal aspect “qualifies” a particular
object. At first glance, at least, this
sort of idea makes naive experience sound rather theoretical!
So then what is the difference between naive
experience and theoretical thought? That
difference Dooyeweerd and others portray in various ways. The most common, and most promising
formulation usually resembles the following:
[In naive experience] we ...
experience concrete things and events in the typical structures, of individual
totalities which in principle function in all the modal aspects of our temporal
horizon in their continuous mutual coherence.
Our logical mode of distinction is entirely embedded in this integral
experience. Our pre-theoretical logical
concepts are only related to things and events as individual wholes, and not to
the abstract modal aspects of their empirical reality.
[11]
The idea here seems to be
that naive experience focuses on things
(tables, chairs, trees, rocks, persons) and events
(the battle of Waterloo, the invention of printing, Mary Jane's trip to the
grocer), while theoretical thought focuses on aspects of things (number, space, movement, economic value,
aesthetic beauty, etc.). We say “focuses” because Dooyeweerd has said that
naive experience does make certain distinctions among these aspects, and has
some interest in them (next to last quote).
The trouble here, though, is that “focusing” is a relative concept. One can be
more or less “focused” on
something. All we have said so far is
that naive experience is relatively
more interested in things and events while theoretical thought is relatively more interested in aspects
(aspects, of course, of things). And this sort of idea doesn't give us the
sharp distinction that Dooyeweerd
wants to assert.
Another related type of
distinction is found in the assertion that in naive experience, in distinction
from theoretical thought,
These aspects are only
experienced implicitly in the things and events themselves, and not explicitly
in their analytical dissociation and opposition to the logical function of thought.
[12]
Here let us consider the distinction between “implicit” and “explicit” (leaving other aspects of this statement aside for the present). The trouble is, again, that this distinction is not sharp enough. Implicitness as opposed to explicitness is a relative matter, characterizable by “more” and “less.” We say, for example that the doctrine of justification by faith is “more explicit” in the New Testament than in the Old. Within the New Testament, we might say that it is more explicit in Luke 18 than in James 2. There is a sense, to be sure, in which we say that it is “perfectly explicit” in a passage like Romans 3:28 that is the extreme end of the continuum. Short of that there are many degrees of explicitness. Thus it appears that if the implicit/explicit distinction is to be our criterion for the naive/theoretical distinction, we will again have only a relative distinction, a difference in degree rather than kind, a continuum rather than a sharp disjunction. Dooyeweerd himself suggests this, again, when he says that naive experience is interested in the modal aspects of the things it perceives. (See above discussion.) If naive experience perceives these modal distinctions, then surely these distinctions are only relatively “implicit” in naive experience. They are to some extent also explicit.
Spier
suggests that the two forms of knowledge have different purposes, or goals:
The naive knowing-process ... can have a multiplicity of ends. It can seek to attain an economical end, as in the case of industrial knowledge, or it can have a pistical end, as in the case of pistical knowledge. Scientific knowledge, in contrast, always has an analytical end; it is concerned with a scientific understanding of reality. [13]
As it stands, of course,
this quote won't do for a definition, since in the description of “scientific
knowledge” the word “scientific” is used, thereby rendering the definition
circular. But laying that aside, is it
true that scientific knowledge has only one purpose? Is it true that scientific knowledge is
purely for the sake of knowledge and never for the sake of gaining wealth or
deepening faith? We think not, unless
Spier is employing some highly unusual concept of “science” here. And is it the case that naive knowing is not
concerned with an understanding of reality?
[14]
For that
matter, if scientific knowing is rooted in naive knowing as Dooyeweerd says it
is, then it would appear that some naive knowing, at least, is necessary for
(and therefore instrumental to) even a scientific
understanding of reality. This
suggestion of Spier, then, is no more helpful than the others we have
considered in defining clearly the naive/theoretical distinction.
Some of the
characterizations of this distinction in the
There are non-scientific and
scientific concepts. The former, the
naive concept, is strongly bound to the Psychical substratum of sensory
representations. The latter frees itself
from a Psychical substratum, and under the leadership of the norm of cognitive
symbols, it rises above the level of abstraction attained by a naive
concept. Because of its high degree of
abstraction, a scientific concept gains in clarity but it loses direct contact
with life.
[15]
Here the expressions “strongly bound” and “high degree” suggest the kind of continuum we have been arguing for. Of course, if Spier had specified the precise degree of abstraction which scientific concepts obtain, then the distinction could have been as sharp as he wishes; but he has in fact not done so. Note also the following:
... theoretical knowledge is
a deepened knowledge. Finally, naive knowledge is unsystematic
while science continually seeks to systematize and complete its knowledge.
[16]
Deepening, of course, is something
that can be done by degrees, and we generally assume that it is unless the
precise level of deepening is made clear.
As for being “systematic,” that too is a matter of degree. Spier himself speaks of naive experience as
attempting to attain “precision.”
[17]
Certainly the
knowledge we obtain in everyday life is not chaotic, utterly disorganized. On the other hand, scientific knowledge is
never so perfectly systematized that it needs no reconstruction. Naive knowledge appears to be relatively unsystematic, while
scientific knowledge is relatively systematic.
We have purposely avoided
discussing the more technical formulations of this distinction, simply because
these technical formulations presuppose other parts of the
(Theoretical thought)
displays an antithetic structure wherein the logical aspect of our thought is
opposed to the non-logical aspects of our temporal experience.
[19]
This formulation, of course, presupposes that one can distinguish clearly between “logical” and “non-logical” “aspects,” something that we do not believe Dooyeweerd has done. Another typical formulation, the idea that scientific thought is characterized by “theoretical abstraction” [20] (as opposed, presumably, to some other kind of abstraction) is no help unless we have a definition of “theoretical”; but that is precisely what we have searched in vain to find!
The real power of the naive/theoretical distinction, however, seems to lie
in the connotations of certain images and metaphors constantly employed in the
literature. Naive experience is close to
its objects, while “in science we
maintain a certain distance between ourselves and the object of our
investigation.”
[21]
Science tries to “grasp” its objects which in turn “offer resistance” to it.
[22]
Theoretical
thought “sets things apart,”
[23]
while naive
experience sees them in the “continuous bond of their coherence.”
[24]
In naive
experience, “our logical function remains completely immerged in the continuity
of the temporal coherence between the different aspects.”
[25]
Not only “immerged,” but even “embedded”!
[26]
Naive
experience has an “integral” character.
[27]
Naive
experience distinguishes subject and
object, but theoretical thought opposes them,
breaking asunder that experience which the naive mind preserves in “unbreakable
coherence.”
[28]
The force of these metaphors is
undeniable. We have all had the feeling,
as we sit down to write an academic paper, that we are in some sense “backing
away” from reality. It seems as though
we are tearing apart things that in ordinary life are kept together. We feel that we are, as it were, digging into
the universe with our fingers and pulling it apart to see how it works. Occasionally, in personal appearances, an
Amsterdam-oriented thinker will expound the naive/theoretical distinction by
closing his eyes, becoming very intense, pronouncing his words very slowly and
distinctly, and saying “Naive experience does not make thee-oh-rett-i-cal distinctions” or something to that effect. His manner imitates the feeling that we have
all had, that theoretical work is something very difficult, abstract, precise,
removed from ordinary life, etc. The
difficulty, however, is that –paradoxically! – these metaphors do not have
sufficient precision to distinguish “theoretically” between one thing called
naive experience and another very different thing called theoretical
thought. The concept “distance,” when
applied to the relation of knower to thing known, is a metaphor, and a metaphor
which can be taken in various ways.
There are surely senses in which, even in ordinary life, we feel
“distant” from the things we perceive.
Thus without further explanation, the “distance” metaphor does not
clearly distinguish theoretical from naive experience. The same for “grasping,” “setting apart,”
“immerged,” “integral,” etc. Even the
concept of “coherence” is unclear here, for it is obviously not a literal
“coherence” as, e.g., between the parts of a desk. There are kinds of figurative “coherence” in
both naive and theoretical types of thinking, and if one does not specify the
kind of coherence in view, then the concept cannot help us with the distinction
in question. These observations, of
course, do not negate the force of the feeling
generated by these figures. We do feel that theorizing is more
“distant” from the world than ordinary experience – in various senses of
“distant.” But that feeling is perfectly consistent with the view that naive
experience and theoretical thought are opposite ends of a continuum, that there
are degrees of “distance” (and hence
of theoreticality), and therefore that the
If we are right, and no
sharp distinction can be drawn at this point, does that imply that “the masses
who live by naive experience live in a world of illusion…”?
[29]
No. There is no reason to assume that the
theoretical side of our continuum is any more “true” than the naive side. Scientists do and should continually draw
upon the observations of “common sense.” But common sense also needs technical
refinement if it is to be adequate for certain purposes. Different purposes require different degrees (and kinds) of technical
refinement.
We conclude this section
with a few observations on the
…joins forces with naive
experience and focuses its attention upon the concrete reality which we
experience in our everyday life. The
diverse aspects and coherences directly observed in naive experience are
subjected to scientific analysis in philosophy....
The scientific view of the
created cosmos is not superior to the naive view of everyday experience. In fact philosophy can not do without naive
experience, as it is based upon it.
[30]
Philosophy, and by
implication all theoretical thought, presupposes the data of naive experience;
these data are precisely what the theorist studies. And the theorist should assume, on the
Dooyeweerd places a definite
limitation upon the capacity of scientific or theoretical thought: “theoretical
thought is bound to the temporal horizon of human experience and moves within
this horizon.”
[33]
At first glance, this statement seems to
imply that theoretical thought may not speak of anything eternal or
supra-temporal. Thus it could not speak
of God, or even of the human self (since Dooyeweerd, though not others in the
movement, regards the human self, the heart of man, to be supra-temporal). Dooyeweerd, however, has much to say about
God and the self in his philosophical (and therefore theoretical)
writings. Therefore, more must be
said. How can a theorist talk about God
when his thought is “bound to the temporal horizon of human experience”? One could observe, of course, that “bound” is
another of Dooyeweerd's metaphors which is never literally explained. To say that theoretical thought is “bound” in
such a way is surely not to say that it has no relations with, no dealings with
supra-temporal realities. Dooyeweerd in
fact clearly teaches the opposite. But
then what does it mean?
Perhaps it would be better
to start from the other side of the “boundary.” That is, instead of asking the
nature of the “bond” between theoretical thought and the temporal horizon, we
should ask how supra-temporal realities such as God and the self can function
in the context of theoretical thought.
Now, perhaps we can get somewhere; for Dooyeweerd here does make some
points which can be discussed.
Essentially, he maintains that, while God and the self can be spoken of
in a theoretical context, they have such special statuses in that context that
it is not quite proper to call them elements of the theory. That special status is that of presupposition.
... all conceptual knowledge
in its analytical and inter-modal synthetical character presupposes the human ego as its central reference-point, which
consequently must be of a super-modal nature and is not capable of logical
analysis.
[34]
God and the self, Dooyeweerd
is saying, are presuppositions of any
true theory, and therefore not part of the theory itself. Of course, in a theoretical discussion it is
perfectly proper to discuss the presuppositions of the theory in question. But in Dooyeweerd's view, the theory as such
does not include its presuppositions.
We find this a rather
arbitrary principle. Why is it that the
presuppositions of a theory may not be regarded as part of the theory? There is no obvious reason why this should be
the case. Traditionally, historians,
physicists, philosophers and theologians have frequently discussed the
presuppositions of their disciplines, and Dooyeweerd offers no obvious argument, so far as we can see, either
to show that this practice is wrong or to show that it cannot be extended to
theoretical thought in general.
Dooyeweerd's reply,
undoubtedly, would be “Supra-temporal presuppositions are not like other
presuppositions.” Supra-temporal presuppositions are transcendental, showing the conditions necessary for the very possibility of thought. They have the character of “central reference
point” (last quotation), “Archimedian point,”
[35]
etc. Somehow, therefore, these presupposed
realities must be “beyond” that thought which they render possible. Ah, but that “beyond” brings us back to
spatial metaphors again! And indeed,
again at this point, the force of Dooyeweerd's conception lies in the emotive
connotations of certain figures:
In the process of directing
my philosophical thought in the idea towards the totality of meaning, I must be
able to ascend a lookout-tower above all the modal speciality of meaning that
functions within the coherence of the modal aspects.
[36]
The presupposition is a kind
of lookout-tower – and the lookout-tower can't be on the ground, else it won't
be a lookout tower! So the “central
reference point” can't be part of the theory, or it won't be the central
reference point for the theory to refer to!
Yes, the picture is a compelling one.
But of course theories are not landscapes, and therefore the question
arises as to how Dooyeweerd's analogy (not only the “explicit” analogy of the
above-quoted illustration, but also that “implicit” in his metaphorical
definitions) is to be applied. After
all, not all presuppositional relationships fit the lookout-tower image with
equal ease. The book on my table would
not exist if the paper in it were missing: it presupposes the paper. But I
would not say that on that account the paper is not part of the book! Nor would I say that the paper must be
“above” the book or “beyond” the book as a lookout-tower must be “above” its
landscape. A dictionary is a kind of
“central reference point” for proper spelling of words; but this fact does not
imply that it must be “above” or “beyond” the realm of words. It contains
words – words which are spelled according to its own principles. The dictionary legislates for all usage in
its language, including its own. Or perhaps one could say: the dictionary
is “above” the realm of words indeed, but not in any sense that prohibits its
being considered as one group of words among many, not in any sense that
prohibits its being discussed as a piece of language. So: why may not the presuppositions of theory
be themselves part of a theory?
Dooyeweerd does not answer that question with any clarity. Why is it that one cannot form a theory about
the basis of theories? Why shouldn't
Dooyeweerd's own philosophy be regarded as such a meta-theory? Such a theory, of course, would reflect on
its own basis as well as on the basis of other theories. But what is wrong with that?