God as Meaning Maker - Herman Dooyeweerd

[Pam Seeback]

Meaning is the being of all that is created, and even of our selfhood and the nature even of our selfhood. It has a religious root and a divine origin.

The above is a quote from a Neo-Calvinist Dutch philosopher I had never heard of until today - Herman Dooyeweerd. Is anyone here familiar with his Cosmonomic philosophy, the philosophy that posits the pre-theoretical attitude of thought (Divine or Religious Meaning) as a starting point from which to begin to understand what makes theoretical thought possible? I typed his name in the search box in the forum and nothing came up.

Dooyeweerd posits that Meaningfulness originates in the Creator rather than as as afterthought of human subjectivity meaning that things are meaning rather than have meaning. According to Dooyeweerd, meaningfulness and law are the ground for existence, process, ethics and rationality. Dooyeweerd breaks God's Meaningfulness into fifteen different aspects, aspects that include all forms of life, from plant to thinking man. From Wikipedia:

Aspects (ways of being, functioning, etc.)

Quantitative aspect: amount
Spatial aspect: continuous extension
Kinematic aspect: flowing movement
Physical aspect: energy, matter
Biotic/Organic aspect: life functions, self-maintenance
Sensitive/Psychic aspect: feeling and response
Analytical aspect: distinction, conceptualization
Formative aspect: formative power, achievement, technology, technique
Lingual aspect: symbolic communication
Social aspect: social interaction
Economic aspect: frugal use of resources
Aesthetic aspect: harmony, surprise, fun
Juridical aspect: due (rights, responsibility)
Ethical aspect: self-giving love
Pistic aspect: faith, vision, commitment, belief

Dooyeweerd's understanding of God as ultimate Meaning-Maker is, I believe, a wonderful anecdote for today's nihilistic times.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

This seems to be the metaphysical version of what is called in Neo-Calvinism "sphere sovereignty. It's at least very much intertwined with one aspect of Dutch society in general, in most of last century: pillarisation: the "politico-denominational segregation of a society".

After looking at just the summaries of Dooyeweerd's work, I do believe the most interesting is not what he suggests (as in theosophy many systems and organizations of mind were proposed at the time) but the motive of doing so, like with the Calvinist reason to stress sphere sovereignty. As the Christian faith and life became under pressure from government (social reform), science (evolution, psychology), globalism (world religions), the immediate answer was to device a system in which Calvinists could co-exist with a modernizing society and also with "other" Calvinists from competing, disagreeing denominations. As such one could see the necessity for the general idea of sphere sovereignty in society.

Now even as spiritual system, one can see the advantage for a conservative protestant who would benefit from divorcing the ethical, juridical and pistic aspects from advancing knowledge or developments in the formative, social and biotic domains. This idea is still very much present in some protestant churches as they solve the challenges by just referring to the issue as "not within their domain" and no interaction allowed.

What about the distinction between the material and the infinite? Between worldly matters and transcending our notions of existence? Would philosophy just become informal interplay between the fields of psychology, physics, social science and logic? And with that I say, yes, indeed, what else is philosophy than connecting our deepest experience with the essential of knowledge, logic, nature and all those named spheres?

[Pam Seeback]

Diebert: After looking at just the summaries of Dooyeweerd's work, I do believe the most interesting is not what he suggests (as in theosophy many systems and organizations of mind were proposed at the time) but the motive of doing so, like with the Calvinist reason to stress sphere sovereignty. As the Christian faith and life became under pressure from government (social reform), science (evolution, psychology), globalism (world religions), the immediate answer was to device a system in which Calvinists could co-exist with a modernizing society and also with "other" Calvinists from competing, disagreeing denominations. As such one could see the necessity for the general idea of sphere sovereignty in society.

Now even as spiritual system, one can see the advantage for a conservative protestant who would benefit from divorcing the ethical, juridical and pistic aspects from advancing knowledge or developments in the formative, social and biotic domains. This idea is still very much present in some protestant churches as they solve the challenges by just referring to the issue as "not within their domain" and no interaction allowed.

Perhaps at a deeper/higher level of Meaning beyond the drive to separate spheres so as to deny those that don't fit one's worldview would be to understand the 'ground' of divine law and principles as the drive to both distinguish Meaning via spheres named and (not yet) named and to unify Meaning via the sphere of wisdom of spheres named and (not yet) named. This apparent two-fold drive of the divine to both distinguish and unify Its Meaning would explain both Its ignorance and wisdom.

First comes ignorance of God's/our infinite nature: expansion into distinguishing only (animal consciousness) to be followed by distinguishing via the intense sense of separation of consciousness and things (ego consciousness), followed then by the coming of wisdom, the drive to realize (Self) distinction is the way of divine expansion-unification-integration.

What about the distinction between the material and the infinite? Between worldly matters and transcending our notions of existence? Would philosophy just become informal interplay between the fields of psychology, physics, social science and logic? And with that I say, yes, indeed, what else is philosophy than connecting our deepest experience with the essential of knowledge, logic, nature and all those named spheres?

The key to deep experience connection would be to keep true to the wisdom of the infinite, the wisdom of the totality of Meaning spheres. 70 years ago, the Meaning sphere of 'internet' was unknown, today it plays a dominant role in Meaning Expression. 70 years from now, an (as of yet) unknown Meaning sphere will most likely replace that of 'internet' with 'Internet' being acknowledged, as is true of all named spheres, as an essential, integral expression of expansion of God's/our Mind.

What seems obvious to me is that those who deeply feel or 'experience' the mystery of the unknown infinite in concert with the drive to make it known/finite are those who feel the Meaning Drive most deeply. Of my experience, there are few who feel/know/experience this divine drive, however, perhaps because of the expansion of the sphere of 'Internet', the gap between divine ignorance and divine wisdom is closing.