CRARIAYV AINIMEIC | © _ ANAKAINOSIS , A Newsletter For Reformational Thought Volume Three, No. 2 December 1980 Editorial: World-view and Philosophy (II) In the September issue of Anakainoste, some attention was paid to the distinction between "world-view" (Weltaneenauung, “world and life view") and philosophy. A key feature of the tradition of reformational thought has been its conception of the relation between these two kinds of totality views. A world view does not, because it is pre-scientific,] decline in value or importance vis-a-vis philosophy (conceived as a scientific discipline). If anything, the opposite is truc: Philoso- phy, for all its claims to scientific and neutral status, is always imbedded in a clearly religious world-view. If this is true, then it is an important philosophical task to be clear about the Weltanechauung underlying a philosophy--both one's own and that of others. Occasionally we find this task undertaken explicitly. A good oxample is Lewis White Beck's treatment of Kant in his Barly German Phitoeophy (Cambridge [Mass.], 1969), pp. 426-30. Beck (who is something of an authority on Kant) lists cloven points that are constitutive of the Weltanechauung (this is the word Beck uses) that was widely held by Kant in common with many of the intel- lectual leaders of the Enlightenment. Some of the points he lists are the followin 1. Philosophy can be "scientific." 2: Philosophy nevertheless deals with the great questions: "What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope? What is man?" 3. ‘he interests of humanity are the ideals of the Enlightenment (rights of the individual, improvement through education, academic freedom, etc.). 4. God exists and the soul is immortal. 5. Ethics should not be tied to the Scriptures. 6. Man's will is free. 7. The physical world is teleological. These constitute points of departure for Kant's philosophizing. They are pre-theoretical commitments of a kind that clearly betray their religious nature. Unfortunately, Beck does not elaborate on the im- plications of this weltanechauliche component in philosophy--either in that of Kant or in that of other thinkers. We do find the question explicitly addressed in a work by G.A. van der Wal, published in The Hague in 1969. This book, which is unfortunately written in Dutch (though it has a German summary) is entitledwereldbeachouweligk Denken ale Filosofisch Probleem, which might be translated as "Weltanachaulioh Thought as a Philosophical Problem.” Like Beck, van der Wal (who appears to have no affinities with refor- mational thought), deals with the world-view component of the thought of Kant, but extends his investigations to Spinoza and Leibniz, and also in¢ludes an introductory chapter where the question Weltanechauung Philosophy is dealt with in general terms. He concludes that philosophy always revolves around two foci: that of world-view ("man's attempt to orient himself in the world") and that of science (with its norms of universal validity and objectivity), and that these two foci stand in tension with one another. We may have reservations about this last point, with its overtones of existentialism, but make grateful use of van der Wal's historical material. In the light of all of this, it is interesting to reflect on the world view underpinnings of reformational philosophy. This is especi- ally the case since Arthur Holmes, in the article "Christian Philoso- phy" in the current edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (volume 4 of the Maeropaedia, 1976), explicitly mentions Dooyeweerd as a najor representative of those philosophers who do their philosophizing on the basis of "the world view implicit in biblical revelation." In this formulation another important element of the problem comes to the fore: the relation of philosophy to word revelation. Holmes is right, I think, in stating that world-view in Dooyeweerd (and the whole school of reformational philosophy) mediates between Scripture and scientific philosophy. (Holmes is right even though the later Dooyeweerd would disagree with him: world-view in fact plays the mediating role in Dooyeweerd which Dooyeweerd himself, in his later thought, assigns to the so-called "transcendental ground-ideas” This accounts for the fact that the reformational "school" of philos~ ophy, like other philosophical schools or traditions, retains an evident unity despite quite dramatic differences in strictly philo- sophical matters. In my own judgment, at least the following points are constitutive for the scripturally-directed world-view underlying reformational philosophy: 1. Asharp distinction between Creator and creation, ruling out any ontological continuity between the former as sovereign and the latter as subject to his sovereignty. ‘A conception of creation as everywhere a correlation between law ("creation ordinances," "divine world order,” “law-word") and subject (the factual), in which the former is constant and holds for the latter in the sense of impinging upon it. 3, A distinction within creation between a heavenly and an earthly realm, with the competence of philosophy (and ali science} restricted to the latter. A conception of culture as the mandated unfolding or opening up of creation, so that history is the story of man’s execution of the “creation mandate": torepresent the Creator in developing the earth from the garden of Eden to the new Jerusalem. 5. An understanding of the biblical message of Adam's sin and Christ's redemption as affecting (the subject side of) earthly creation everywhere, specifically including human rationality, 50 that an across-the- board distinction is made between structure (the impinging claims of the constant law-order) and direction (the conflict between the perversion of that structure in Adam and its restoration in Christ). Central to this point is the conception of salvation as restoration, not supplementation, of creation. In short, this Weltanschauung is dominated by the Creator-creation dis- tinction, understood in terms of Lav, It is law which not only defines the relationship implied in the distinction, but also specifies the nature of Fall and Salvation. Other important distinctions in reformational philosophy (e.g. between modai and plastic horizon, and a fortiori those between specific modal aspects) are not weltansehaulich in nature, but a matter of empirical investigation--understanding ‘empirical’ in the broad sense in which it refers to all our experience. The one kind of distinction should not be confused with the other, on pain of falling into either scholas- ticism or scientism. (A.W.) Recent Publications Recent montha have acen a spate of publications by eubseribere to Anakainoisis. Eepectally prominent are doctoral theses, some of whieh have vecently been published in book form, or just translated into Englieh. There are other publications ae well, ranging from the popular to the highly abstruse. We congratulate the authors, and offer these brief notices to stimulate discussion and interchange among our readers. Technology Egbert Schuurman, fecknotogy and the Future. A Philosophical Challenge. Translated by Donald Morton (Wedge: Toronto, 1980), xiii plus 434 pp. $19.95 (Canadian). Thie ts the unglieh version of Sohuurman'e doctoral dissertation in patlosophy, originally published in Dutek av Techniek en Toekomst 11972). Sekuxrman ic already known to Engliah veadere for kis booklet Reflections on a Technological Society (wedge, 1977), where he gives a aketch of his overall perspective on the nature and place of teoh=- nology in modern eoetety. The present book reveale tha foundations on 3