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| Zen and the Art of Calvinist Epistemology* by Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh ______________________________________ CONTENTS ______________________________________ 1. Intro ______________________________________ 2. Zen ______________________________________ 3. Detachment ______________________________________ 4. Praxis ______________________________________ 5. Nature ______________________________________ 6. Pattern ______________________________________ 7. Sovereignty of God ______________________________________ 8. Cornelius Van Til: Polarities and Paradoxes ______________________________________ 9. Herman Dooyeweerd & Sphere-Sovereignty | Peter Ralston & Cheng Hsin Martial Arts ______________________________________ 10. Back to Nature ______________________________________ 11. Early Gaelic Nature-Poetry ______________________________________ 12. Epistemological Self-Consciousness ______________________________________ 13. Brute Otherness, Nothingness, and Wilderness ______________________________________ 14. Between Two Insanities ______________________________________ 15. Icy water ______________________________________ 16. in Closing...
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*NOTE: I am not sure when this essay was begun. A decade ago? Anyway, it started off as a reply to an email from a friend, which I then posted online, with permission. It has survived various blog, computer and internet crises. I continued to add to it as my thinking developed. Thus it was never a frontloaded polemic, but a kind of 'journaled' exploration of the subject in real time. A true exploration in the sense that I did not know where the green foothill byways and blue mountain paths would lead me. For example, en route Herman Dooyeweerd changed from passing acquaintance to constant companion. As well as grappling with the latter's own challenging writings, I began reading (and re-reading) Dr J. Glenn Friesen’s many learned articles on Dooyeweerd.** These became treasured 'vade mecums' on my journey (and remain so). This led of course to a far more profound grasp of Dooyeweerd's thought by the end of my essay than is evident earlier on (for instance, Dooyeweerd in later years wanted the term 'Calvinistic' dropped in favour of simply 'Christian').
Now, perhaps ten years on, my appreciation of Dooyeweerd has been exponential. So should I keep rewriting this essay to reflect whereever I am now "at"? I think not. That would be like an artist painting every new picture on the self-same canvas. Each previous stage of the journey effaced in the process. Only the latest location glimpsed.
Apologies. I have now over-talked this over-written essay. While an important undertaking for me, it clearly remains a modest and amateur effort academically. I am not at all qualified in the philosophical field and don't "keep up with the literature". I am a retired art teacher (there are of course overlaps in subjects). Rather than wipe my earlier daubs back with a 'paint-rag', I propose to lightly revise or editorially lose anything in the essay I now deem particularly unhelpful (or embarrassing), and add bracketed notes where my present perspective bears mentioning.
At the end of his (1935) Foreword to 'A New Critique of Theoretical Thought', Dooyeweerd exclaims: "For as a matter of fact the precarious and changing opinion of our fellows is not even comparable with the inner happiness and peace that accompanies scientific labour when it is based upon Christ, Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life!" I was particularly elated to read that since the Scripture reference was seminal in my own anguished resort to Christ when I was age 16, deeply struggling with the question "What is reality?". Having now very recently left age 66 behind, I appreciate anew that Christ is not theoretical. Rather, He is the One "From Whom, through Whom, and to Whom are all things". The One "with Whom we all have to do". The One Who alone is "Journey, Reality, Existence".
(Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh, 1 Dec 2015) **UPDATE 3 Sept 2021. I most emphatically do NOT endorse J. Glenn Friesen’s new 2021 book ‘Christian Nondualism in Jewish Historical Context’, which rejects the authority of Scripture, the doctrine of the Trinity, the full divinity of Christ [“we can pray to him as we pray to other saints for help and guidance” (p 427)], the atonement, the bodily resurrection of Christ, the coming judgement by Christ, etc. Rather, I resolutely stand with Herman Dooyeweerd when he asserts:
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mardi 1 décembre 2015
Zen and the Art of Calvinist Epistemology
