"Gach
smuain a-chum ùmhlachd Chrìosd" (2 Corintianaich 10:5)
"Tu fais crier de
joie l'Orient et l'Occident" (Psaume
65:8/9 en francais courant)
"Daruma" by Musashi
Van Til, Dooyeweerd, and the
Orient (A
Letter)
An t-aiste seo anns a' Ghàidhlig
Wed, 17 Jan 2001 (Amended 23 Dec 2009)
Van Til insists we should think
concretely. Truth, Beauty, Love, Logic etc have no source or endurance
but such as derive from the personality of the God of Scripture. God
Himself is no 'concept' but (the) infinite, eternal, exhaustively
self-aware Actuality - "I am Who I am". Our God is the consuming fire
of Reality. Our theories must be brought nigh to reveal if they be
diamond, or candyfloss. God is the Rock, and we must think concretely
(rockly?).
Dooyeweerd teaches that the
theoretical/analytical is not a superior or truer level of engagement
with existence than the 'naive' workaday apprehension of the person in
the street (the analytical merely enriches/deepens everyday awareness).
A tree/ flower etc is more than the sum of all modal viewpoints
(organic,
economic, aesthetic etc). In its full reality the concrete tree far
transcends all aspectual
insights, which are but son-et-lumière ghosts in the neurological
machinery of men. In its fullness the meaning of the tree/flower is
infinite because that meaning flows from the infinite Christ, 'from whom and
through whom and to whom are all things' (Rom 11:36).
Neo-Darwinism, for example,
fails on all above counts. It is thus ultimately insane (claiming
for
its physico-reductionism a monopoly on rationality and
truth yet denying Him who is the only
basis of such) and obscene (systematically and self-consciously
abducting all creatures from the source of infinite love and meaning
and making of them robotic horrors. For Dawkins, Dennet et al, the bird
sings to propagate its mindless genes, end of story). In Dooyeweerd's
terms they make an absolute (ie an idol) of one aspect - the
physical. "Although they
claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the
immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and
animals and reptiles"
(Rom 1:22,23).
Now, can we go on to claim that
all 'Treeness', 'Flowerness' etc is fulfilled in Christ? Is He not the
true Tree (cf the Tree of Life), as He is the True Word/Thought, Man,
King, Judge, Bread, Water, Light, Door, Lamb, Lion, Way, Rock,
Clothing, Nakedness and so on. Are not the seasons fulfilled in Him, as
are moon and sun, night and day, sleeping and waking, eating and
drinking, marriage and celibacy? Is not every atom of existence 'from him,
through him, to him'? Is
this thinking concretely or what?
Adam is made in the image of
God and from the dust. Cursed is the ground because of his
disobedience. Christ (the last Adam)
in his resurrection is the first handful of dust to have the curse
removed. He is the first fruits of the New Creation in which there will
be no need of a Sun because the "Lamb is the lamp" (Rev 21:23 &
22:5). Christ, therefore, is the True Physicality, the meaning of the
material universe - 'A body hast
thou prepared for me'
(Heb 10:5) 'The Lamb slain
from the creation of the world' (Rev 13:8). We are not Gnostic. The
Word became flesh. Redemption includes our bodies (Rom 8:23). The
physical IS spiritual.
Recent populist literature on
the human brain talks in terms of left/right specialisation. The left
hemisphere usually majoring on linear logic, time-awareness,
nomenclature and the right hemisphere on the holistic and the intuitive
(It appears, in fact, that such specialisation is far from rigid and
that in cases of local damage other areas of the brain can potentially
take up the slack). Be that as it may, this gives us a useful metaphor,
for it seems clear that western education has emphasised the 'linear'
over the 'intuitive' (cf also Arthur Koestler's book "The Act of
Creation" in which he
suggests that progress in science as much as in the arts depends on
creative insight or hunch, the pedantic proof following later. 'Darwin,' says Koestler, 'Became an
evolutionist by faith').
If it is simplistic to divide the brain into two insular hemispheres,
it is clearly more so to divide the world into such. Nevertheless,
there certainly appears to be more emphasis on the holistic and
intuitive in the East. The Church has not disparaged Hellenistic wisdom
wholesale, despite its false gods, but critiqued it to our great
benefit (though we still struggle against its gods, eg in the
rationalist/romanticist [Apollos/Dionysus] dichotomy).
Is Oriental
wisdom
not worth equal investigation? Does "Common Grace" peter out as we
travel eastwards? What would a Reformed/Biblical China or Japan look
like? As to koans, do we ourselves not resort to a higher equilibrium
than linear logic in our resolution of apparent antinomies such as the
One and the Many, God's holiness and the existence of evil, God's
sovereignty and human freedom etc? The koan, of course, is a
mechanism for deliberately nullifying rationality, while Christians
look for resolution to an ultimate rationality which we have not yet
fathomed (or may never fathom, because the riches of Christ are
unsearchable, and in Him are hidden all the riches of wisdom and
knowledge). But is there not some degree of
validity in the Zen insight that rationalism
ultimately stumbles to its
knees before reality?
Is there a mode of 'meditation'
which simply switches the brain to 'right-hemisphere' perception - a
perception which encounters the Tree/Flower/Moon in its wholeness as
unanalyzed (or post-analyzed) actuality? As concrete? As "naive" (in
Dooyeweerd's terminology)? '
Christ tells us to 'Consider the
lilies', 'Take no thought for the morrow' . Does this not call us back to
engagement with the physically immediate, with the Here and the Now?
Are there not occasions when our families could usefully hit us a zen
slap on the face to jolt us out of abstract, speculative reverie and
into the real world of corporeal co-existence and domestic rapport ("What do you
want for lunch")?
Unless we are pacifists, we
have
no problem with fighting in principle - It is the context
which
is important. Martial arts provides one context where the philosopical
and the physical meld with wondrous immediacy. Bruce Lee relates how as
a youngster a kick was just a kick. As the Jeet Kune Do
theorist he
then analyzed the kick exhaustively. Then one day a kick was just a
kick again. I hear an echo of Van Til and Dooyeweerd there. Does
anyone
else?
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh.