Category — 20th Century

Dooyeweerd has some wonderful things to say about the necessity of antithesis for any kind of serious discussion and debate. He was writing during the year following WWII, and was watching as national discussions in Holland were degenerating into a sort of unnamable mass of synthetic ideas, the humanists asserting that there really is no difference between any one view or another. Here are his wonderfully irenic yet pointed words:

“Since the antithesis touches the deepest level of our existence as human beings, it is a problem that concerns everyone. Whoever delegates it to theory shirks his personal responsibility. One cannot escape from oneself behind an impersonal science, for the only answers science gives to the central questions of life are religiously based.

The Antithesis is to be “discussed.” Let it be a serious discussion. This is not possible if we are not willing to penetrate to the deepest drives that determine the various points of view. Neither is it possible if anything that seems foreign and strange in the religious motivations of our fellowmen is brushed aside as being “not to the point” or “of perhaps merely theoretical interest.” In a serious dialogue we must faithfully support one another. Perhaps some are not aware of their deepest motives in life; if so, then we must help bring these motives out into the open. We, in turn, must be willing to learn from our opponents, since we are responsible both for ourselves and for them” (italics mine). 

This is my take on Dooyeweerd: The antithesis is the distinction between the most basic, pre-theoretical religious motives we all possess. The starting point of authority, meaning and identity for each of us. Before we can begin to engage with one another, we have to admit to these. Otherwise, discussion is itself unproductive, perhaps even pointless. We have to penetrate to the foundations, and point out the foundations of those with who we disagree. In fact, only the man who is subject to the One True God, and is philosophically aware of his absolute authority, his starting point of knowledge and his own identity will really be able to lead another, or a church, or a society, in understanding the religious ground motives.

However, this is just the beginning. Pressing the antithesis does not win an argument, it is simply clarification of the opposing basic ground motives. Necessary, but not the end of the story.