Jacob Klapwijk
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Jacob Klapwijk ( - ) studied under D. H. Th. Vollenhoven in philosophy at the Free University in Amsterdam. He succeeded his mentor in the Chair of Systematic Philosophy, while other chairs in history of philosophy and other philosophical specialties were slowly added. Klapwijk's dissertation was written on Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923), the German "theologian of radical historicality" who gave us the religion-philosophical-sociological distinction between Church and Sect. Klapwijk's title for this work, Between Historism and Relativism: A study in the dynamic between history and the philosophical development of Ernst Troeltsch (with a German summary) [1]. Although this important contribution has now been translated by Donald Morton, it has long been waiting for publication, due the author's desire to complete a lengthy new Introduction.
A key task that Klapwijk took upon himself was that of analyzing and criticizing most cautiously and carefully Vollenhoven's early idea of the possibility of a pure Christian philosophy totally unaccommodated to or contaminated by Greek thought, undiluted by what Vollenhoven had called "synthetist philosophy" of various kinds whereby a Christian thinker mixes Gospel motifs with sophisticated pagan Greek conceptions. For Vollenhoven, this synthetist quality compromises the entirety of the Patristic philosophical theology, contrary to Alfred North Whitehead's appraisal of the same era. (See also the Wiki page for Classical Christian Philosophy, a misnomer.)
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[edit] Reformational philosophy clarifies its own inner history, relation to Dutch society
Another task that Klapwijk took upon himself was to analyze and evaluate differences between the university's two leading lights, both now long deceased but both with partisan followers who could live less with the leaders' differences than could those leaders themselves. One of Klapwijk's first attempts to articulate this critical stance for his philosophical community occurred in a widely-read volume edited by Hendrik Hart, Johan van der Hoeven, and Nicholas Wolterstorff, reviewed in Theology Today, by Eugene Oosterhoven: "An excellent chapter on 'Rationality in the Dutch Neo-Calvinist Tradition.' by Jacob Klapwijk, Professor of Philosophy at the Free University treats Abraham Kuyper's doctrines of common grace, and the antithesis, and his failure to harmonize the two, especially when he dealt with human reason. Kuyper's attempts to give the antithesis organizational form is shown to "lead to a dangerous identification of the Christian (or, if you will, Reformed) cause with God's cause" (p. 97). Although Kuyper intended Christian organizations to be a means for Christianizing society, 'the danger was that they were considered not as deficient instruments but as ends in the struggle for the kingdom of God'." [2]
As mentioned by Oosterhaven, one major difference in ideas between Bavinck and Kuyper is formulated largely in theological terms that contrast a doctrine called "Common Grace" with a doctrine called "the Antithesis." Bavinck emphasized Common Grace, while Kuyper emphasized (sometimes severely) the Antithesis. A comparison of the two positions, which came to designate two interwoven and contentious traditions in the GKiN and the Christian social movements that flowed from its membership, is presented in one of the three chapters that Jacob Klapwijk contributed to a very important self-critical work of Reformational philosophy, entitled Bringing into Captivity Every Thought (1991). He was one of the three editors of the volume and among nearly a dozen contributors.
[edit] Clarifying his philosophical movement's task as transformational in the wider world
Klapwijk wanted to think of Reformational philosophy not only, not even primarily as "Calvinist" in V's term, not only as "reformational-ecumenical" (in D's terms), but as a transformational philosophy athletic enough to keep pace with the broader non-philosophical world in which it may hope to survive by doing good work for the neighbour and the Lord in the realms of theoretical thought.
[edit] References
Hart, Hendrik; Johan Van Der Hoeven; and Nicholas Wolterstorff (editors, 1983). Rationality in the Calvinian Tradition (Lanham, Maryland, USA: University Press of America, 407 pages).
Klapwijk, Jacob; Hendrik Hart; and K. A. Bril (editors, 1973) The Idea of a Christian philosophy: Essays in Honour of D H Th Vollenhoven (Toronto: Wedge, 1973)
Klapwijk, Jacob (1973). "Calvin and Neo-Calvinism on Non-Christian Philosophy," Philosophia Reformata (1973) #38, pp 43-61.
Klapwijk, Jacob. (1983). "Rationality in the Dutch Calvinist Tradition," chapter in Rationality in the Calvinian Tradition (eds Hart, Van Der Hoeven, Wolterstoff, Lanham, Maryland, USA: University Press of America)
Klapwijk, Jacob (1986). "Antithesis, Synthesis, and the Idea of Transformational Philosophy," Philosophia Reformata (1986) #51, pp 138-152.
Klapwijk, Jacob (1987). Kijken naar kopstukken (Looking at Headlines (?) - not translated - Amsterdam: Buijten en Schipperheijn 1987).
Klapwijk, Jacob (1987). "Reformational Philosophy on the Boundary between Past and Future" Philosophia Reformata (1987) #52, pp 101-134.
Klapwijk, Jacob; Sander Griffioen; and Gerben Groenewoud (editors, 1991) Bringing into Captivity Every Thought: Capita Selecta in the History of Christian Evaluations of non-Christian Philosophy (Lanham, Maryland, USA: University Press of America).
Klapwijk, Jacob (1991) "Epilogue: the idea of transformational philosophy". pp.247ff. in Klapwijk, Griffioen, Groenewoud (eds.) Bringing into Captivity Every Thought: Capita Selecta in the History of Christian Philosophy (Lanham, Maryland, USA: University Press of America.
Klapwik, Jakob (1994). "Pluralism of Norms and Values: On the Claim and Reception of the Universal," Philosophia Reformata (1994) #59 (2), pp 158-192.
Osterhaven, Eugene (1984). Book review: "Rationality in the Calvinisan Tradition," Theology Today, October 1984.
[edit] External links
Beyond Historism and Relativism [on Ernst Troeltsch, in Dutch] [3]
