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It's fascinating the responses you get when you tell a tall story. As a teacher I have used this fanciful yarn on numerous occasions and many listeners have swallowed the tale hook, line and sinker. One sixteen-year-old boy asked me if I had the bruises to corroborate the incident and a female colleague was deeply impressed by my boy- scout skills. Others sniffed out the cheeky ruse within seconds.
Everyone loves a good story. Children will sit for hours as long as the story is 'right'. Mischievous teenagers will terminate their playful banter and actually listen. Cynical, world-weary secular citizens will perk up and proffer a smile. A good story is always a winner. From a Christian perspective the world, although fallen, is still a bobbydazzler. It's full of nooks and crannies. It's full of twists and turns, thrills and spills. And stories engage us with this opulence. That's why we like them so much.
Is it possible to translate this complex richness of reality into a philosophical theory? Dutch Christian philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977) has developed a sophisticated and highly original philosophy that seeks to honour this luscious and ripe fruit that we call the world. And the simplest way to understand this philosophy is to consider the humble crocodile.
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| What exactly is it? Let's briefly outline some of the answers that Dooyeweerd would rebuff. Ancient Egyptians worshipped crocodiles in the form of the fertility god - Sobek. They would adorn lucky, pampered crocs with jewels and necklaces and bow down and worship these menacing reptiles. In many ways to become a sacred croc was like winning the lottery for your ordinary, wild snapper. A life of luxury and indolence would unfold. |
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| There are still locations in modern Africa where crocodiles continue to be worshipped. In the country of Burkina Faso, in the village of Sabou, live chickens are fed to sacred crocodiles. According to the local people, the crocodiles have never been known to harm the villagers and that is why they continue with their daily sacrifices. This pagan understanding of the snapper is emphatically rejected by Dooyeweerd. |
| More sophisticated pagans have contended that these crafty carnivores are really prisons for wicked souls. We have already noted this theme in Plato and Plotinus. The basic thrust of this platonic perspective urges us to restrain our bodily cravings and by living the superior life of reason we shall avoid the miseries of reincarnation. Rebirth in an alligator or a caiman is the inevitable outworking of a bad karma. Immoral people will be clothed in crocodilian flesh. For this is their fate. It should be obvious to the discerning reader that Dooyeweerd would firmly rebuff this advanced pagan option. |
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| Various secular answers to the crocodile puzzle suggest themselves. For Descartes and Galileo the crocodile is merely a machine. It is a purely physical thing; a bit player in a Meccano set. For David Hume the snapper is a bundle of perceptions. It can be reduced to the sensory aspect. Both these Enlightenment understandings of the croc are spurned by Dooyeweerd. |
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Committed, hardened consumerists might categorise the croc as a future handbag. Again this commodification of the fierce reptile is repugnant to the Dutch master. |
| And in more mystical mode we could alert the reader to the Buddhist contention that the croc is merely an illusion. At the end of the day the snapper is part and parcel of a hidden, mystical Oneness. The Dutchman is convinced that all these pagan, secular and pantheist perspectives are fundamentally mistaken. They miss the point entirely. |
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Warning signs optional for Buddhists |
Dooyeweerd takes his cue from the book of Genesis that informs those who lack knowledge that the crocodile is - surprise, surprise - a large and menacing reptile that we do well to avoid when we are swimming in African rivers. Crucial to the biblical mindset is the simple truth that God has created a fantastic variety of creatures after their own kinds (Genesis 1).
Snappers have been designed to be snappers. They are not some hidden X lurking behind the crocodile façade. Dooyeweerd insists that we must not ignore our everyday, ordinary experience of the world. In the light of God's Word we attune ourselves to the simple fact that frogs were created to be frogs. Fish were created to be fish. And walruses were created to be walruses. |
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| In this sense Dooyeweerd’s philosophy is a million miles away from sophisticated Kantian and Buddhist scholars who dismiss our everyday experience of the world as illusory. The ordinary person is not deceived when distinguishing between turnips and parsnips when buying ingredients for the evening meal. The human ability to distinguish between different kinds of root vegetable is grounded in the simple fact that God has created a rich and complex cosmos bursting with colour, flair and fecundity. Congratulations are in order. |
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Dooyeweerd stresses that the existence of this rich and diverse creation is a response to the law of God. Creation is, therefore, totally subject to and dependent upon God's creative law. According to the Scriptures, the law or word of God orders and structures the creation. In this sense Dooyeweerd is radically at odds with the Kantian claim that the human mind shapes and moulds the empirical world.
Too often people interpret this biblical idea of law in a narrow moral sense but this fails to do justice to biblical teaching. In its broadest sense God's word is responsible for the existence of space and time, mountains, valleys, cheetahs, lions, zebras, oak trees, tulips, diamonds, rubies and everything else. God's word structures and upholds the entire creation. |
| Move on to Part 3 >> |
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