Unpublished 281. Review of Dooyeweerd and the Amsterdam Philosophy

[Sangre de Cristo Seminary Library. Unpublished]

DOOYEWEERD and the AMSTERDAM PHILOSOPHY

by Ronald H. Nash. Zondervan Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Mich. 109 pp., $2.50.

The philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd offers itself as a Christian and specifically a Calvinistic philosophy. Here Dr. Nash evaluates some of its most important aspects.

Dooyeweerd claims to divide the universe into fifteen irreducible spheres and to connect them systematically. The author notes the failure to make good this claim, as well as the implausibility of basing aesthetics on economics, and jurisprudence on aesthetics. The authors also points out instances of equivocation and a pervasive lack of clarity.

Dr. Nash only hints at Dooyeweerd’s relativism and skepticism (pp. 87, 103). He completely omits the fact that Dooyeweerd repudiates the Scriptures as the infallible Word of God.

Though Dr. Nash, in spite of his incisive criticisms, expresses enthusiasm for Dooyeweerd, the words he quotes from Cecil De Boer cannot be denied: “Many of the so-called analogies and anticipations seem a bit thin and far fetched, a defect which the conspicuous farrago of technical terminology does not quite succeed in disguising” (p. 53).

Gordon H. Clark