Dooyeweerd introduction

I have just posted my Introductory Essay to Herman Dooyeweerd's Thought on my blogger pages. An earlier version of this appeared in an edited volume of Dooyeweerd's political writings in 2004, as indicated at the bottom of the text. Here is an excerpt:

The difficulty with engaging one of these [modal] reductionisms in dialogue is due, not to the supposed irrationality of the reductionist, but to the fact that her enterprise accounts for all the evidence in a way that seems to be complete but is nevertheless missing something rather crucial. The convinced materialist can easily explain such complex phenomena as anger or even romantic affection by pointing to the movement of electrical impulses through the brain . . . . In this respect, the materialist is similar to G.K. Chesterton’s “madman,” who reasons in a way that combines logical completeness with spiritual contraction. If the madman argues that there is a universal conspiracy against him, and if you point out that everyone denies it, he is likely to reply that denial is exactly what one can expect from conspirators. “His explanation covers the facts as much as yours.” As Chesterton memorably concludes, the madman is not the one who has lost his reason, but the one “who has lost everything except his reason.” Dooyeweerd would put the matter less colourfully perhaps, but he would agree that the materialist, who sees the entire cosmos through the narrow lenses of only one or two modal aspects, has missed the fulness of human life, if not experientially, at least theoretically.

Dooyeweerd is best known for his account of the modal aspects of reality. Read this essay to find out what they are.

(Re)integrate podcast

I was recently interviewed by Bob Robinson and Brendan Romigh on the (re)integrate podcast. Click here to listen: Political Ideologies That Become Idolatries – with David Koyzis.

 

Who's oppressing whom?

 

The Cateclesia Institute has published my article, Who's Oppressing Whom? Sin, Oppression, and Forgiveness. An excerpt:

In the real world, as we relate to each other on a daily basis, we will quickly discover that the title oppressor cannot be easily assigned to a particular group of people, primarily because this status will not hold still. As soon as we think we have identified and labelled the oppressors, something happens to upend our conclusions. Those victimized in the past turn right around and victimize others. Once the party claiming to represent the working class has overturned its capitalist overlords, it begins to persecute dissidents and those it deems to be obstructing the new order’s arrival, irrespective of what they have actually done. In their efforts to build a better world, revolutionaries typically end up turning on their own followers, creating a society more oppressive than the one they overturned.

Read the entire article here.

Note: the map above is of the routes taken by the aboriginal Americans westwards to their new homes in what is now Oklahoma.

Conversation with University of Ottawa students

Last evening I was the guest of Chaplain Sid Ypma at his online student group at the University of Ottawa.

Veritas Forum interview

 

This afternoon I took part in a conversation with Erin Dienst of Veritas Forum on my Political Visions and Illusions. Click on this link to view it.

Video review of Political Visions and Illusions

It's always good to get a positive review of one's books. Here's one by a certain Joel Wentz on the second edition of Political Visions and Illusions: 

 

David Brooks on America's current plight

New York Times columnist David Brooks has written a remarkable article for The Atlantic: America Is Having a Moral Convulsion. Here is what the author does in this article, which I strongly recommend:

This essay is an account of the convulsion that brought us to this fateful moment. Its central focus is social trust. Social trust is a measure of the moral quality of a society—of whether the people and institutions in it are trustworthy, whether they keep their promises and work for the common good. When people in a church lose faith or trust in God, the church collapses. When people in a society lose faith or trust in their institutions and in each other, the nation collapses.

This is an account of how, over the past few decades, America became a more untrustworthy society. It is an account of how, under the stresses of 2020, American institutions and the American social order crumbled and were revealed as more untrustworthy still. We had a chance, in crisis, to pull together as a nation and build trust. We did not. That has left us a broken, alienated society caught in a distrust doom loop.

The Atlantic gives visitors three free articles per month. This should definitely be one of the three.

The American Political Parties: History, Problems, and Prospects

The Gospel Coalition recently published my article titled, The American Political Parties: History, Problems, and Prospects. Here is an excerpt:

With the demise of the Democratic South, the Democrats became home to a certain brand of progressives—to those wishing to expand the individual right to choose, full stop. Under the choice-enhancement state, the apparatus of government continually expands to enable individual choice, but at the expense of non-state communities with more traditional standards of life and behavior . . . . The Republicans have similarly taken the libertarian element to the nth degree, focusing especially on economic life and the market. Generally skeptical of government regulations, many people in the party seek to unleash what they see as the economic dynamism of the American people, liberated from the heavy hand of government bureaucracy. They’re not departing from the liberal tradition, but they’re attempting to turn back the clock in its development, embracing either the night-watchman state or a modest form of the regulatory state.

Read the entire article here.

Ashford interview with yours truly

Bruce Ashford, my occasional host at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, has posted an interview with me on the subject of the forthcoming American election: Political Scientist David Koyzis on the 2020 Election Cycle. An excerpt:

What advice would you give Christians in America as they go to the polls?

To those Americans who believe that voting for one party over the other will solve the nation’s problems, I would advise them to lower their expectations. It simply won’t happen. Whichever party wins in November will bring its own considerable flaws to the policy process. However, I suspect that many more Americans recognize that the election presents them with weak options. Their expectations are now so low that they will vote for the party they believe will do less harm to the common welfare. Still others will cast their vote for a third party, such as the American Solidarity Party, which is trying to bring something of the wisdom of the European Christian Democratic experience into the American political landscape. This third option is one I personally find very attractive.

My advice? Cast your vote. Hold your nose if you must. And pray that, whichever candidate makes it to the White House, God will magnify his strengths and diminish the effects of his failings.

Read the rest of the interview here.

The impact of ideologies on Europe

 

This week I received a package from Germany containing two copies of this book, Europa, wie hältst du's mit der Religion? (Europe, how do you feel about religion?) My own chapter in this collection is titled, "The religious roots of political ideologies and their impact on Europe." I presented this at a conference in 2018 at the Internationale Hochschule Libenzell, Bad Libenzell, Germany. My contribution is the only one in English in this volume.

Providence interview

Providence magazine carries a transcript of Mark Tooley's interview with me in July: David Koyzis' Political Visions & Illusions. An excerpt:

TOOLEY: And when you look at Christian, especially evangelical, political engagement today in North America, especially in the United States, from your perspective, what are the positives, and what are the negatives, and where are we heading?

KOYZIS: Well I think the positives are that people have a lot of enthusiasm. I think this is certainly more now than was the case when I was growing up. I think when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, a lot of evangelicals had more or less withdrawn from social and political life, and they had for about the previous 50 years. I don’t think that could be said today. I think a lot of people are more involved in political affairs than was the case in the past.

But I think the negatives are that this involvement sometimes comes with an unhealthy activism. We want to do something, and we haven’t thought adequately about the foundations that support whatever activity we wish to be involved in. And that can be dangerous, because we can get on the bandwagons, we can follow movements that sound right, but may actually be problematic when you start to dig a little bit deeper into them.

The Descent of the Post-Modernists

Most of us are too young to remember this famous illustration by E. J. Pace in the 1924 book, Seven Questions in Dispute, by William Jennings Bryan.

Although the confessional liberalism plaguing evangelical protestantism a century ago is still with us in some fashion, it declined precipitously after around 1960, as the denominations most affected by it lost members to more confessional denominations and congregations or to sleeping late on sunday mornings.

However, the current form of "progressive Christianity" is based on similar assumptions about the nature of the Christian faith and the authority of Scripture, but it has led, not to an exaggerated faith in reason and the scientific method as it did in the early 20th century, but to an affirmation of the self and its subjective aspirations. Here is an updated illustration.

Government's Call to Do Justice

Canadian periodical Faith Today has just published an adapted excerpt from my book Political Visions and Illusions, titled,"Government's Call to Do Justice: How a society can seek justice when there are so many ways to define it." A couple of paragraphs follow:

People seek justice as they understand it, but each nevertheless comes to a different conclusion on what it requires. The consistent liberal will argue that, based on the rights of individuals, no person should be required to join a labour union against her wishes. The socialist, on the other hand, will likely argue that class solidarity must take priority over individual preferences and that compulsory union membership is necessary to protect employees in the workplace. Of course, both cannot be right.

This difference of opinion is complicated by the fact that governing authorities are required to adjudicate, not only the dispute between worker and union, but the clash between liberal and socialist, which is no simple matter, particularly if the government is dominated by a party representing only one of these viewpoints. If government must be evenhanded in its treatment of worker and union, liberal and socialist, it cannot be neutral with respect to which vision of justice will underpin its decision. Yet whatever decision it finally makes, the government will inevitably be exercising its jural task.

Tribute to my father

My monthly column in the Canadian periodical Christian Courier is devoted to my late father, a "man who survived more than his share of near-death experiences and turned tragedy into poetry." 

Throughout his 92 years he experienced vivid signs of God’s work. Ten years ago, he survived a lightning strike on the car he was driving, and five years ago he and my mother miraculously walked away unscathed from a serious automobile accident. So many times did such events happen to him that we sometimes thought him immortal. He was not, of course. But when God saw fit to draw his years to a close last month, we were thankful for a life well lived, confident that we will meet him again at the resurrection of the righteous.

Visões e Ilusões Política: A série está completa

O Pastor Vitor Grando, da Igreja Presbiteriana do Bairro Imperial, Rio de Janeiro, completou o seu ciclo de conferências sobre o meu livro Visões e Ilusões Políticas. Essas palestras são postadas no canal da igreja no YouTube. A playlist começa aqui.

 Pastor Vitor Grando, of the Igreja Presbiteriana do Bairro Imperial, Rio de Janeiro, has completed his series of lectures on my book, Political Visions and Illusions. These lectures are posted on the church's YouTube channel. The playlist begins here.

Intellectuals and the totalitarian temptation

Last week I posted one of Hannah Arendt's examinations from 1955, and one question in particular intrigued me: "Explain why intellectuals can be attracted by a totalitarian ideology."

This is something that has perplexed many observers over the past century. From Martin Heidegger's positive estimation of national socialism to Jean-Paul Sartre's early flirtation with communism, many of the most influential philosophers and writers have flirted with an ideology that promises redemption and uses any means to achieve it, however costly in human terms. Sartre himself became disillusioned by Moscow's crushing of Hungary in 1956 but continued to advocate some form of socialist revolution in his later years.

O MELHOR LIVRO DE POLÍTICA PARA CRISTÃOS!

Jean Francesco reviews my first book: "This book, in my opinion, is the best book for Christians . . . on politics." Muito obrigado, irmão! 

 

The Common Good interview: WYLL Chicago

 This week I was interviewed by Ian Simkins and Brian From on "the Common Good" over Chicago radio station WYLL, AM 1160. It has now been posted here: Guest: David Koyzis, Author - Political Visions & Illusions: A Survey & Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies - September 2, 2020.

Dooyeweerd and Political life (Dooyeweerd e a vida política)

Several weeks ago I was privileged to give an address to an online gathering of Direito Reformacional in Brazil. Arthur Loureiro was my host, and Vinícius Pimentel was translator. The lecture runs from the beginning of this video to around 40 minutes.

 

Hannah Arendt's exam questions

Someone recently posted this on Facebook, purporting it to be a final examination from one of Hannah Arendt's (1906-1975) courses at the University of California at Berkeley. I cannot imagine she would have been an easy marker.