[These notes were originally written in May/Nov 2019]
I got a copy of John V. Fesko’s recent book Reforming Apologetics. I jumped to chapter 7 on “Dualisms” because he was supposed to interact with Herman Dooyeweerd’s views. Fesko's criticisms are sloppy, unsound and erroneous. Here are a few off-the-cuff comments.
p.164
Fesko cites Arvin Vos, but A.V. (in Aquinas, Calvin and contemporary Protestant Thought) largely exonerates Dooyeweerd's analysis. Vos called him “one of the most careful among Protestant critics”(p.131). He says “There is no denying the relevance of this account; Dooyeweerd is pointing to factors that are clearly present in Aquinas’s position” (p.132).
p.168
Fesko erroneously thinks Dooyeweerd rejects the distinction between body and soul! The fact is Dooyeweerd defines body and soul in a non-scholastic, non-substance, non-form&matter way. Fesko seems totally unacquainted with Dooyeweerd's views.
p.172
Fesko misinterprets Dooyeweerd where he says "it can never become a theoretical object", by "it" meaning the non- or supra-theoretical knowledge of God in Christ (by regeneration), Fesko erroneously takes Dooyeweerd by "it" to mean "the Bible".
p.172
Fesko erroneously thinks Dooyeweerd must have rejected the Heidelberg where it speaks of body and soul, but Dooyeweerd explicitly affirms it.
p.173
Fesko erroneously takes Dooyeweerd's mention of "the key of knowledge" (again, meaning the non-theoretical knowledge of God in Christ, by regeneration, per Luke 11:52) to mean, rather, the "supratemporal origin [sic] of the heart". But that is not Dooyeweerd's view. Fesko may have picked this up from relying on, or himself misinterpreting (the sometimes dubious) interpretations of Glenn Friesen.
Fesko also seems to have adopted the erroneous position of John Frame that Dooyeweerd, somehow, does not believe in exegesis. This is a terribly infelicitous move on Fesko's part. (One of the burdens of those who are familiar with Dooyeweerd's writings must be to show this is incorrect; something I will touch on in my master's thesis, DV.) So far, however, Fesko's fundamental misreading of Dooyeweerd's work (or, more probably of his misreading of secondary source material) is less sweeping than Frame's mischaracterizing rants.
Fesko goes on next, to try to defend Aquinas' view of body & soul as non-dualistic, by saying his view was Aristotelian, not Platonic. This entirely fails to engage Dooyeweerd's criticism of the form-matter and nature-grace motives, substance ontology, and of a scholastic view of the relation between faith and reason. Ironically, it also contradicts Fesko's suggestion that scholasticism is simply method and not theoretical content.
This essay is helpful in getting at a main point of Dooyeweerd's distinction (and relation) between "supratheoretical" religious assumptions and (theoretical) philosophical & various 'scientific' assumptions and positions. If Fesko had understood this about Dooyeweerd, Fesko's engagement with Dooyeweerd's views might have had a chance of being on point.
This Dooyeweerdian reply to a Thomist critique may also be helpful.
p.177
Fesko seems to be saying since Prot scholastics reject donum superadditum, that is sufficient for rejecting the nature-grace motive (ergo, Dooyeweerd's critique is a strawman, claims Fesko). But this is simply to miss entirely what Dooyeweerd means by the nature-grace motive.
Fesko, in fact, goes on to define and deal with his own view of a nature-grace "construct"... so he abandons dealing with Dooyeweerd's view altogether, but speaks as though he's still criticizing Dooyeweerd's view!
p.177
Fesko then says "Dooyeweerd's analysis falters on two counts: (1) he rarely, if ever, supports his claims with primary-source documentation; and (2) he erroneously defines scholasticism." [viz, as involving content, rather than 'just a method']
Fesko only cites 7 pages of Dooyeweerd's 3 volume treatment in Reformation and Scholasticism. Here’s volume 2. You can scroll on from page 147
and see for yourself if Dooyeweerd is interacting with primary sources
or not. One gets the impression that Fesko is less acquainted with
Dooyeweerd than the average Protestant-in-the-pew is with Aquinas.
After several pages of trying to defend scholastic content, are we really supposed to take Fesko's 2nd objection seriously? This is laughable.
p.177
Fesko says Dooyeweerd pitted Calvin against the Calvinists, but doesn't show that the sense in which Dooyeweerd held to a specific discontinuity between Calvin and those after him is the same sense argued against by Muller.
p.178
Fesko says Dooyeweerd calls Calvin's (partially scholastic) theology "pure". Maybe. I haven't seen that. But Dooyeweerd is famous for rejecting application of the term 'pure' to almost everything, and Fesko doesn't offer a citation.
p.179
Fesko says Dooyeweerd “vilifies” moving from self-knowledge to knowledge of God. But Fesko only reveals his ignorance of Dooyeweerd's transcendental criticism (in which Dooyeweerd moves from self-knowledge to knowledge of God).
p.179
Fesko implies that Dooyeweerd rejects the distinction between law & gospel, and between common & special grace. This just isn't so. Dooyeweerd criticizes certain specific views of those distinctions, but does not reject the distinctions themselves.
p.182
Fesko claims that Dooyeweerd's philosophy is "Kantian" because he supposedly deduces a system of thought from a central dogma. Whether such a thing is actually characteristic of Kantianism, Fesko never considers. And Fesko offers no argument from Dooyeweerd's writing that this was Dooyeweerd's approach, but simply makes the bogus charge. One only need read Dooyeweerd's writing to find out otherwise.
p.187
(without a single reference to Dooyeweerd's own writing) Fesko says that Dooyeweerd repeats Harnack's "Hellenization" thesis. In brief, Harnack rejects parts of the New Testament (eg, The Gospel of John) because he believed it employed pagan Greek metaphysical concepts. Further, Harnack's "gospel" is simply modern humanism in a thin veneer of religious language.
In diametric opposition to Harnack, Dooyeweerd subscribed to the Three Forms of Unity, and accordingly held to the full authority and infallibility of Scripture, and to an orthodox Calvinist understanding of the gospel --all about which Dooyeweerd is explicit.
Dooyeweerd rejects the idea that the New Testament writers imported pagan metaphysical ideas. As for theology, Dooyeweerd holds that the issue is not whether terms used in Greek philosophy (eg, logos, ousia) are also used in Christian theology (or in a creedal/confessional statement), but how those terms are defined or redefined. Where Dooyeweerd argues that specific antiChristian pagan ideas are to some extent accepted in any given theology, he makes explicit arguments, and these are nowhere cited or addressed by Fesko.
See further, Rudi Hayward's article that documents Fesko's (spectacularly) hypocritical failure to actually read Dooyeweerd's own writing: https://reformationalintermezzo.blogspot.com/2019/11/dooyeweed-among-reformed-thomists.html
Also see these helpful comments (tho neither has read or understands Dooyeweerd's views):
1. https://www.proginosko.com/2021/07/reforming-apologetics-wrap-up/
2. https://yinkahdinay.wordpress.com/2019/07/09/book-review-reformed-apologetics-4/
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