The Dynamics of Formation and Change in Families, Marriages and Friendships: the Theological and Philosophical Context

Jeremy Ive 19 July 2011 jeremy@tudeley.org

Table of Contents Introduction.................................................................................................4 Family...................................................................................................... 10 Family as individual/s over time (parity + continuity)...........................11 Family as relations over time (directness + continuity).........................12 Family as individual/s in relation at a given time (parity + directness). 14 Family as individual/s in relation over time (360 degree view)..............16 Marriage...................................................................................................16 a. Marriage as individual/s over time (parity + continuity)....................17 Marriage as relations over time (directness + continuity)....................19 Marriage as individual/s in relation at a given time (parity + directness) 21 Marriage as individual/s in relation over time (360 degree view)..........22 4. Friendship.............................................................................................23 Friendship as individual/s over time (parity + continuity).....................23 Friendship as relations over time (directness + continuity)...................25 Friendship as individual/s in relation at a given time (parity + directness).............................................................................................25 Friendships as individuals in relation over time (360 degree view).......27 5. Conclusion.............................................................................................27 Appendix 1: Relationships in the Western tradition..................................30 Realism..................................................................................................30 Nominalism............................................................................................32 Appendix 2: The Trinitarian basis for relationships...................................33 The Father ............................................................................................34 The Son..................................................................................................37 The Holy Spirit.......................................................................................38 Perichoresis The joint work of the three Persons ................................41 Appendix 3: A philosophical framework for relationships..........................43 Individuality...........................................................................................48 Relationality...........................................................................................51 Time.......................................................................................................53 Direction the religious orientation of the whole person.......................55 Appendix 4: The three descriptive views.................................................57 Individuals over time (principles of parity + continuity)........................57 Relations over time (principles of directness + continuity)....................60

Individuals in relation at a given time (principles of parity + directness) 60 Towards a 360 degree view of relationships..........................................61 Bibliography.................................................................................................61

Introduction
This paper is exploratory rather than definitive in character it is seeking to make connections between previously largely unrelated areas of discourse. It opens up areas to be applied and developed far beyond what can merely be sketched out here, and its ambitious scope may leave many loose ends untied and trails unexplored. However, it is offered as part of a continuing task and process of prayerful thought and action with which we have been entrusted in this in-between time until we meet our Lord face to face in the spirit of the great Christian statesman, Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) who stated: There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: Mine!.1 In this paper, I shall present an understanding of family, marriage and friendship, built upon the basis of our Christian faith, but, at the same time one which allows us to make these insights available to Christians and non-Christians alike in the public square. Central to a Christian worldview is the doctrine of the Trinity, the reality of God in the person of Jesus Christ developed in the light of the Bible. In terms of this Christian worldview, the work of the three Persons, and their relationships of loving interdependence and mutual enabling is reflected in the very constitution of humanity as relational beings, and underlies the structure of the world.2 On this basis I shall link my application of this latter to the Relational principles (in red below), both produced by the Relationships Foundation and, more recently Relationships Global.3 I shall do this from three descriptive views three different ways of combining the basic features so as to arrive at a rounded picture of these human relationships. The Christian tradition has affirmed the importance of the individual. Indeed the recognition of the importance of individuality in general and the value of the human
1

I am grateful for comments by Michael Schluter and John Ashcroft on previous drafts of this paper.. The way the Relational principles which they have elaborated are systematically developed in this paper (on Trinitarian basis, using a Reformational philosophical framework), is my own. 2 Throughout, I shall make use of philosophical insights from two Twentieth Century Christian, or more specifically Reformational (in the tradition of Abraham Kuyper) philosophers, D.H.Th. Vollenhoven (1892 -1978) and Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977), who sought to develop a thoroughly Christian, philosophy. 3 As set out in Schluter and Lee, The R Factor: and Ashcroft, The Relational Lens.

person has arguably been a distinctively Christian contribution to the Western tradition and indeed world political culture. However, there is a profound solipsism (that is a denial of the reality of others and the relationships they have with us) at the heart of Western thought and culture. This solipsism derives from two different but deeply corrosive philosophical traditions which have dominated Western philosophy and shaped Western culture. The first of these approaches is that of realism. This approach attempts to find universally valid ways of understanding the world, including the whole area of human relationships. Realism is associated above all with Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) and his substance/accidents schema, involving, on the one hand, eternal form with the continuity of substance through change over time; and, on the other hand, changing matter with different properties (accidents) attached to the underlying substance. In more contemporary terms, we can see this reflected in modernism: the notion that we can work out how the world works, and make the necessary adjustments, including social adjustments, to make sure that the social order runs most efficiently. The other approach, seemingly the opposite of realism, is nominalism. This approach rejects the realist claim that the world can be made sense of in terms which are universally valid for everyone. All that that there are for nominalists are individuals and the concepts that individuals have in his or her minds. In contemporary Western terms, we can see this in post-modernism the notion that all values are self-created and we make our own stories.4 The realist and nominalist approaches leave us respectively with a picture of human beings either as bricks in a wall of a collective order, or floating in the sea of selfcentred individualism. Western thought swings unsteadily between the two poles which these approaches represent without finding any resolution. What both strands leave us with is an ideal. The human being conceived of, either way, is just a projected ideal of personality with all the flaws carefully removed not a real human being, and certainly not a human being immersed in the messiness of actual human relationships. A
4

Adams, The Reflexive Self and Culture: a Critique. In this article, Adams examines the account of the reflexive self put forward by Anthony Giddens and others.[I am grateful to John Ashcroft for pointing this out to me and my noting that this cannot account for the relational context in which alone the identity described by Giddens and others can be expressed].

Christian perspective affirms individuality (ours and others) without falling into individualism. Individuality is different from what either the contemporary rationalist realists (the modernists) or what the contemporary irrationalist nominalists (the postmodernists) tell us it is. We are neither substances nor self-created constructs, but persons, each uniquely created by God and dependent on God for our being and for everything that we are. We need to find a very different starting point for our understanding of the world, and, more specifically, our understanding of human beings and human society. We need to make relations a key and irreducible element in our understanding of the world. It is not as if there is no understanding of relations, even in Aristotle,5 but it has been made peripheral and side-lined. Ironically, even though it is Kant who intensifies the solipsistic problematic through his notion of the homo noumenon,6 it is the same philosopher who makes a critical relational turn (i.e. shift of paradigm) in his Critique of Pure Reason, when he reverses the Aristotelian view and makes substance a category of relation rather than vice versa.7 Realists are right in affirming universal realities, but these universal realities are not things or substances but relations between and among things as God has created them to be. Nominalists are right in that we as human beings have a creative task in forming our world, but this is a task we need to do in a relational context that is, we are bound normatively to one another in loving service under God and subject to his Law. We are placed in a world of real and universal relations we cannot simply invent ourselves moment by moment, picking and choosing those to whom, and how, we are related. In Twentieth Century philosophy, we can find examples of this relational turn in both Continental and Anglo-American philosophy. In the former, Emmanuel Levinas (19061995) with his systematic emphasis on the irreducible (in Levinass terms nontotalisable) significance of the Other and indeed sees this as the only starting point for any satisfactory ethics 8 In Anglo-American philosophy, Donald Davidson, puts forward the notion of triangulation that there is a common world which links the two

5 6

See above. See above. 7 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A80/B106, p. 212; Shults, Reforming Theological Anthropology, 19-22. 8 Levinas, Time and the Other; Davis, Levinas: An Introduction.

or more individuals in a relationship.9 Both Levinas and Davidson point us to ways of breaking free from a solipsistic quagmire in which others are just projections of ourselves, but also from an individualism which in Western culture has isolated us from one another and contributed to a thorough-going corrosion of relationships in our society. Against this deeply embedded tendency in Western culture, we need to assert that relationships (even of the most private nature between consenting adults, as it were), cannot be reduced purely to conventions but are realities which affect third parties, and third parties of third parties, until we see relations to have a standing of their own (that is with their own ontic status separable from the individuals of whom they were originally predicated). This relational turn in Western philosophy resonates with the Christian vision about the significance and importance of relationships. At the heart of the Christian faith is belief in God the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jointly the three Persons have created the world (at the command of the Father, though the Son and effected by the Holy Spirit). Through the work of God as Trinity we have also been provided with the basis for redemption by the self-sacrifice of the Son to the Father, through the work of the Holy Spirit. Relationships are thus made possible by their covenanting with one another for the creation of the world and above all humanity (let us make humanity in our own image10), and then for the redemption of the world (having been chosen in Christ and sealed with the Spirit before all time).11 From a Trinitarian perspective, as human beings, we are fully temporal and embodied persons-in-relation, the hearers at a specific time and place of the call of the Father, as we relate to one another according to the norms that we find embodied in Jesus, the Son, through the power of the Holy Spirit. As subjects, we also have a story and are part of a story. This is the story in response to the will of the Father and the ultimate bringing of all things into conformity with the character of the Son, in their coherent diversity, opened up by the Holy Spirit. The Persons are in relationship with one

See Davidson, The Structure and Content of Truth; Davidson, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation; Taschek, Making Sense of Others: Donald Davidson on Interpretation. 10 Genesis 1.26. 11 For the Reformed understanding of the covenant see Ive, Relationships in the Christian tradition:5865.

another. They are distinct yet mutually interdependent, which, in Christian theology, is called perichoresis. From a Christian perspective, then, we are neither just bricks in a collective wall, nor are we free-floating self-creations. We live a law- and norm-governed world, created by God, in societies which we, as human beings created in Gods image, have the task to build up and make to flourish. This works out in our knowledge of and engagement with the world, which consists of a harmonious but irreducible ordering of many aspects. This is what is called multiplexity in Relational terms.12 It runs through the constitution of the world, including the structure of human society. The constitution of the world has three essential features: First in the way that individuals, be they human beings or social entities, have their unique identity and value in their relation to the Father as Origin this is the ground of their individuality and means that all human beings need to treat one another with parity of respect. Second, we see this in the way that all kinds of relation hold together in the fact of the Son as the Word (the Logos) through whom all things have been created. Accordingly, human relationships have an intersubjective directness with one another.13 Third, all this is opened up over time according to the overarching Purpose worked out in the world the through the Holy Spirit. This great story is the basis for the continuity in the way individuals and relations come into being and are unfolded. All this, needs to take place as human being deal with one another in the light of their commonality, i.e. both their shared ultimate and more limited aims.

12

See above. For this and the other Relational principles below see Schluter and Lee, The R Factor: and Ashcroft, The Relational Lens. 13 In what follows, I shall reserve the term relationships for the subject-subject (intersubjective) complex of relations between two or more human beings. Otherwise I shall use the term objective nexus for the complex of relations between or among one or more human beings and any entity other that a human individual, or indeed between or among two or more of the latter.

By combing the three essential features of the world (individuality, relationality and time and the corresponding principles of parity, directness and continuity respectively) taking into account the multiplexity of the different aspects, and the need for a shared vision of the world, or commonality, we arrive at three descriptive views, all of which need to be seen in multiplex terms within a shared context, i.e. of commonality: First, that of individuals over time as they come into being, are reconstituted, and go out of being. This involves the genesis, joining, separation, and extinction of new individuals as they enter and leave social wholes; as well as the genesis and dissolution of social wholes over time (considering together the Relational principles of parity + continuity). Second, that of the unfolding diversity of the different kinds of relations over time. This involves the opening up and distinguishing of new kinds of relations between individuals or groups over time over time as well the process whereby social wholes are dissolved with respect to one another and their purposes to other social wholes are distinguished (considering together the Relational principles of directness + continuity). Third, that of the network of different relations linking individuals to one another and to their wider context at a given time. This involves an examination of the context of all the relational networks (triangulation!) linked to existing relationships between individuals and social wholes at a given moment of time (This involves taking together the Relational principles of parity + directness). We have thus a way of understanding relationships rooted in Gods threefold engagement with the world. While it is misleading to model human relationship directly on the divine relationships (as has often been pointed out), nevertheless the plurality of Gods engagement with the world, making for its unity in diversity, or diversity in unity (giving both unity and diversity equal weight), provides us with a firm foundation from

a Christian perspective. I now turn to apply this in turn to friendship, marriage and family. I shall look at the family, marriage and family from three using three different descriptive views: individuals over time, relationships over time, and then individuals in relation at a given time. In looking at the three descriptive views of the family, marriage and friendship, this needs to be done within the framework of multiplexity the many different aspect which define the ways that individuals function, the kinds of relations and the different sorts of time. It also needs to be done within the overarching context of commonality the sharing of a sense of being in the world together either through the sharing of ultimate aims or intermediate objectives, or both.

Family
Before looking at the descriptive views of the family, I shall first consider the need for the multiplexity of the different individuality functions, kinds of relations and aspects of time to be opened up. A family is a natural community in that it is founded biotically (whether we see this in terms of the biotic functioning of the individuals in their cellular constitution, their organic interlinkage, or the time aspect of growth including the procreation, birth and nurture of children). It needs to be guided by the aspect of ethical concern (whether that ethical concern is seen in terms of the functioning of individuals concerned as ethical subjects; or as they are bound in their relations with one another through mutual moral obligation; or in the unfolding of time, with respect to the fulfillment of these moral obligations). But these two salient founding and leading functions do not exhaust the multiplexity of family life. Families need to function directly (i.e. intersubjectively) in every aspect of the constitution of the world including the social order. All this multiplexity of the different aspects of a family needs to be bound together by a common world view and common intermediate objectives. Without such an overarching commonality, the very multiplexity of family life can be a source of tension and even disintegration rather than enrichment. However, if the family builds up shared values,

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which as we shall see is not the same thing as imposed uniformity or the suppression of individuality, the very diversity of its different aspects can be a sources of richness. The multiplexity and shared commonality of family relationships need to be considered in terms of combinations of the essential features of the world, which as we see below, involves building up a fully rounded picture according to the three descriptive views.

Family as individual/s over time (parity + continuity)

In the first descriptive view, we look at the individuality of the family itself and of each of the family members over time. In these respects, we are looking at character, (which is what individuality over time is). In a healthy family situation, the individuality of the family members is nurtured and enhanced by their membership of their family. The family should not be seen as a zerosum game where the individuality of the family members need necessarily detract from the individuality of the family or vice versa. Nor are family members parts to be absorbed in the family. Parity of respect does not mean that all the family members relate on an egalitarian basis. A family has an in-built authority structure of relationships. There is a norm of love which governs the family: Honour your father and your mother.14 This is underlined in the New Testament by the picture of the relation between Jesus and his Heavenly Father and the command of Jesus to his disciples to call his Father their Father (enshrined especially in the Lords Prayer).15 The individuality of both the family and the family members can be undermined in two ways. On the one hand, in a traditional family the full individuality of the children can be suppressed for example where the children are seen primarily as economic units, either for the current support of their parents, as units in marriage settlements between families, or as a security for their old age). In more extreme cases, children can be sold
14 15

Ex. 20.12; Deut. 5.16. Mt. 5.16, 6.9, 26, 11.27, 18.10, 23.9; Lk. 23.34; Jn. 3.35, 4.21, 5.17-20, 6.44-46, 8.19, 28, 42, 10.17, 30, 38, 14.6, 9, 28, 15.9, 23, 20.17; Acts 13.33; Rom. 4.11, 16, 8.15; 1 Cor. 4.15; 2 Cor. 6.18; Phil. 2.11; Heb. 1.5; 1 Jn. 1.3, 2.15, 2.22; Dooyeweerd, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought: 3.303-304.

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into prostitution, or made the objects for sexual gratification by older family members (we shall look at the need to distinguish marital and family relations in the following sections). Family members are reduced to being treated as parts in a larger whole, without the distinctive individuality of each being respected. The opposite can also be the case of the family influenced by the individualism of contemporary Western consumerist society. There is a tendency to regard the family in zero-sum terms, where the structure of the family can be resisted by individual members who resent the exercise of their parents authority and who are unwilling to assume family responsibility. Children can see their membership of families as a burden and rebel as teenagers (a relatively recent phenomenon of Western society), and neglect their parents, especially in their old age. This can be seen in the tendency in the West for the tax and benefit system to treat members of the family solely as individuals without any recognition of the family as an institution. It is also the case that there is neglect to recognise the importance of family membership, for example, by employers, or indeed in contexts such as prisons or hospitals. In employment, consideration of family members as a factor can be regarded as a breach of personal privacy. In the case of prisoners, the effect of their incarceration on their family tends not to be taken sufficiently into account, if at all. A Relational approach does not see membership of a family in part-whole terms (as in the traditional picture) or in zero-sum terms (as in the modern consumerist model). Rather, it sees the individuality of the members of the family and the individuality of the family as an institution as mutually enhancing. The members of the family need to be treated on the basis of parity, i.e. their individual distinctiveness needs to be recognised, but this needs to be nurtured over time and the individual journey of each family member, and the family as whole, should not be set against one another but rather seen as being mutually enriching and reinforcing.

Family as relations over time (directness + continuity)

We have seen the development from the individuality of the family and of each of the family members. As well as this, the unfolding over time of the diverse relations which there are among the members of the family, and also the relations of the family as a whole, needs to be considered. These relations need to be nurtured and worked out in 12

intersubjective terms, i.e. their directness needs to be recognised. Directness involves the range of the different kinds of relation which bind one individual to one another, when need to be unfolded in a multiplex way, as we shall see below. The family is founded on the biotic aspect (or rather the biotic aspect seen in the context of the biotic functioning of the family as an institution) and led by the ethical aspect. That families are typically founded biotically (i.e. through sexual procreation) does not exclude the possibility of adoption, but the process of adoption seeks to copy, and is so dependent upon, the patterns of nurture which arise from biotic procreation.16 This relation in turn is the basis of the relations of sensitivity between parents and children, and among siblings, and then to the opening up of intellectual life, the formation of family cultural appreciation of each others tastes, the development of distinctive forms of communication, of family etiquette, the building up and conservation of family resources, the mutual care of the members of the nuclear and extended family for one another (the leading function of a family), and the opening up of relationships of faith although it must also be clear that the family is distinct from the church institution which has the expression of a common faith as its raison dtre. Respect for parents, an analogy17 of the relations of family law (whether or not this is recognised by the state is a separate matter) is not in conflict with the ethical nurturing of children by parents; rather the two relations are mutually enhancing.18 These in turn point back to the normgoverned relations of harmony (aesthetic), social propriety or appropriate communication,19 and further back still, to the pre-logical relations of sensory nurture and those of the organic foundation of the family itself.20 All these relations come together in events such as family meals, which are not an optional extra to family life but at the heart of it (something too easily squeezed out by the fast-foods and television suppers of the contemporary Western iWorld).21 I shall return to a snapshot of these different relations in the following section.

16 17

Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 2.265-267. For Dooyeweerd it is a backward-pointing analogy or retrocipation 18 Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 3.274-283. 19 Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 3.283-289. 20 Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 3.289-300. 21 See Kuehne, Sex and the i-World: Rethinking Relationships beyond and Age of Individualism: 61-93. Kuehne does not mention family meals as such, but he provides the wider context.

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One important consideration for a healthy family life is that the relations appropriate to a family need to be kept distinct from those appropriate to the relations between a husband and wife. Bluntly-stated, family love between parents and children, or among siblings, is properly different from that between marital partners. From a family point of view (as we have seen above22), failure to recognise this results in the most extreme circumstance in sexual abuse of children by parents, or incest between siblings.23 But even apart from these most extreme circumstances, it can also result in unhealthy competition between parents for the affection of their children, or manipulation of parents by their children who are treating their parents as suitors for their affection, rather than as those, who through their office as parents are entitled to their childrens respect. Family relations are, thus, not, in the first instance, a matter of personal choice they are founded on natural relations and have a status and history, irrespective of whether the family members recognise them. However, individual family members bear responsibility to nurture and develop these relations in multiplex ways, i.e. according to all the different kinds of relation that there are: spatial, movement, nurture, emotional closeness ranging right up to the relations of moral responsibility and faith. In doing so, they build up a commonality, i.e. shared worldview and objectives, and so family life is strengthened. This virtuous cycle is not only at the heart of family life, but also essential for the well-being of each of the members.

Family as individual/s in relation at a given time (parity + directness)

Having looked at the unfolding of individuals over time and the distinguishing of the relations among them, we turn to the networks which a specific family is linked up to. This brings together the Relational principles of parity and directness the former in that the distinctive individuality of each family, and of each member of that family, needs to be taken into account in the context of the different relations between or among the individuals concerned and each of their networks; the latter, in that each relation involves a deepening and widening of the nexus which holds the members together.
22 23

2a. There are also damaging and potentially disastrous implications from a marriage point of view, which I shall deal with the following section.

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A family brings together the two family networks of the respective partners. The blood bond which holds together the nuclear family, also extends to the wider network of family relationships.24 The biblical model of the family was not merely the nuclear family but the extended family and the smallest recognised form was the three or four generational family (the bayt). This in turn was put in the context of the territorial clan (the mipah), and the tribe (the bet), all held together by language, economic co-operation, shared traditions of law and custom, ancestral stories and a common religion.25 This extended family was the key to a complex network of relations which involved social security (through mutual assistance) and the preservation of cultural identity.26 This last could be seen in the provision for inheritance, normally along the male line, but in the case of Zelophehads daughters preserved for them in order to ensure that the family land would not be lost to the family.27 The modern Western focus is on what is called the nuclear family, i.e. on the parents and children as a unit. Certainly, the nuclear family has a rich diversity of different relations which do or can link its members to the notion that nuclear families can function on their own; but social mobility leads to the danger that the nuclear family can lose its touch with their wider family relationships. This is a breakdown of directness can lead to a loss of identity and social insecurity, with what the sociologist, Emil Durkheim called anomie: a breakdown of social norms and rootlessness.28 Thus, the family provides the focus for a vast network of relationships. The two Relational principles of parity (the respect for the individuality of the members); and directness (the working out of intersubjective interrelation in the different aspects), need to be held together. Holding the two principles together in this way is an important source of well-being and welfare, and provides a basis for belonging and identity.

24 25

Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 3.300. Schluter, Family: 155, who quotes from Perdue, Families in Ancient Israel: 177. 26 Schluter, Family: 159-160. 27 Numbers 26 and 27; Schluter, Family: 163-164. 28 Alan Bullock and Oliver Stallybrass, The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought [London: Fontana/Collins, 1979]: 25.

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Family as individual/s in relation over time (360 degree view)

Families as natural communities, then, are typically founded biotically (in this case, through sexual procreation, as we have seen), but should be governed and guided by a benevolent concern by the parents for the children in the first instance and then by the family members with one another. The main way in which families build links with other families, and indeed the way new families come into being, is through marriage, to which I now turn.

Marriage
As in the case of the family, marriage involves a multiplexity of different ways of functioning, of the different kinds of relation and the different aspects of time. The multiplexity of marriage matches that of the family indeed marriage like the family is a natural community founded like marriage on the biotic aspect and opened up by ethical considerations. However, despite the fact that family and marriage are founded and opened up by the same aspects (biotic and ethical); the two institutions need to be carefully distinguished, even when they are intimately intertwined.29 As we shall see, while the partners in a marriage are members of families, and indeed the founder members of the family which comes into being through their mutual procreativity, yet, the marriage always remain distinct. This distinctiveness yet intertwining is critical in keeping open the true multiplexity of both institutions. Here the other overarching Relational principle that of commonality, plays a key role. The holding together and yet

29

This non-reductive intertwining is called enkapsis. Dooyeweerd describes the process of enkapsis, whereby individuals retain their structural individuality within the greater whole, or alternatively by assimilation, where they do not), and their going out of being. Dooyeweerd, Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy, 3: Natural Philosophy and Philosophical Anthropology: ms. p. 6; Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 3.696. Dooyeweerd took up the terminology developed by the anatomist Martin Heidenhain (1864-1949) and taken up by Theodor L. Hring in his book, ber Individualitt in Natur und Geistewelt (1926). Heidenhain used the term to describe the relation between the separate organs and he whole organism, whereas Hring gave it more general use to explain the whole and its parts. Dooyeweerd used the term while rejecting both these instance as applications of it as he re-conceives the term [Dooyeweerd, De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee: 3.558-561; Dooyeweerd, N.C.:3.634-636, 696 (not in Dooyeweerd, W.d.W.); Dooyeweerd, R. & S. 3: 3-4]. Unlike Hring, for Dooyeweerd, enkapsis is not a relation between a whole and its parts, but between two or more individuals, each bound with the other or others but retaining its own distinctive individuality [Dooyeweerd, W.d.W.: 3.561-564; Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 3. 637-639.

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distinctness of family and marriage is only possible under the umbrella of a shared worldview and shared values. As with the family, we shall see how the distinctiveness and role of marriage is worked out by looking at it in the round according to three descriptive views.

a. Marriage as individual/s over time (parity + continuity)

I shall first look at marriage as an individuality, consisting itself of two individual members. In marriage, each of the two partners needs to be treated with parity of respect. This needs to be seen in the unfolding of the character of the marriage and the distinctive characters of its two members over time. A marriage comes into being as a new structured whole out of the intersubjective relationship between two individuals. This marriage is individualized (internally) and differentiated (externally) over time. There are the families from which the two marriage partners, as well the two marriage partners themselves as individuals. There is the expectation that the two marriage partners leave their respective parents to become one flesh. This monogamous ideal resides in the creational structure of marriage, to which both Jesus and the Apostle Paul appeal. Marriage, in its context in the Garden of Eden, is a calling to an exclusive relationship in mutual dependency. As well as harking back to creation, this calling also looks forward to the fulfilment of the Kingdom of God where the faithfulness between the partners is seen in the light of the faithfulness exhibited between Christ and his church.30 Through human history there has been polygamy, i.e. many marriage partners in one marital arrangement. Most typically this takes the form polygyny (one man with many wives), but there are also instances of polyandry (one woman and many husbands) and even common marriage (involving many partners of both sexes). However, even though polygamy is described in the Bible, this is anti-normative and against the monogamous ideal.31 Equally anti-normative arrangements dealt with in a biblical context are the
30

Mt. 19.8; 1 Cor. 11.3; Eph. 4.22-33; Burnside, God. Justice and Society: 414-415, 421-424; Strauss, Philosophy: Discipline of the Disciplines: 295. 31 See Mt. 19.8 above. Burnside, God. Justice and Society : 320, 342, 366. 410.

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subversion of the order of time by either consensual or non-consensual premature intercourse, and/or the non-payment of a bride price.32 There is also the question of divorce and re-marriage.33 All these situations fall short of the Christian view of marriage as exclusively between one man and one woman for life. There is strictly no such thing as a polygamous marriage, but an overlapping number of marriages with a shared partner. The vexed question of homosexuality has come increasingly to the fore in Western society, and there is strong secular pressure (mirrored to a certain extent within some Christian circles) for homosexual relationships to be treated and accepted on the same basis as heterosexual ones, and, specifically, that homosexual marriage be accepted and recognized by the civil authority, and indeed churches, on the same basis as heterosexual marriage.34 Apart from there being no biblical warrant for the recognition of homosexual marriage, there is the wider question of the condemnation in both the Old and New Testament of homosexual sexual intercourse. 35 This will be returned to in the following section. A marriage has its own life line and different stages have been identified.36 Each stage of marriage has distinctive challenges, and the partners need to see marriage as a journey towards true mutuality and intimacy not a fixed condition in which they have somehow arrived once for all. But growth and mutuality should not be seen as antithetical to one another (as the individualism of contemporary Western culture tends
32 33

Burnside, God. Justice and Society : 333-336. Burnside, God. Justice and Society: 317, 335-338, 345, 416-420. 34 I shall retain the term homosexual in preference to the terms gay or lesbian, as the latter have connotations beyond the tendency to being attracted sexually by members of the same sex, namely of the active pursuit and promotion of a homosexual orientation for themselves and others. 35 Green, Homosexuality and the Christian an overview ... : 21-28; The Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) seem to be unique in their common objection to homosexuality. Schmidt, deals the thesis advanced by Boswell [Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality] and extended by William Countryman [Countryman, Dirt, Greed and Sex] that the Apostle Paul regards homosexuality as impure but not sinful and argues rather that he finds in homosexuality an example of sexual sin that falsifies human sexual identity, just as idolatry falsifies human created identity [Schmidt, Romans 1:26-27 The Main Text in Context.]. 36 James Olthuis identifies five stages in marriage: (1) romance (with the calling to be grounded in reality, and the danger of ungrounding), (2) power struggle (with the calling to adjust to differences and the danger of competing or projecting), (3) shifting gears (with the call to renegotiate and the danger of retrenching), (4) mutuality (with the call to connect and the danger of retreating or idling), and (5) cocreativity (with the call to interconnect and the danger of scattering). Olthuis makes it clear that this is only a general map, and indeed each stage can overlap with previous ones or there can be a regression to a previous one each marriage will have its own individual journey [Olthuis, Keeping Our Troth: Staying in Love Through the Five Stages of Marriage: 14-18].

18

to preach), but rather part and parcel of the same process. The journey of a particular marriage and of the partners individually need thus to be seen in terms of the unfolding of relations over time, to which I now turn.

Marriage as relations over time (directness + continuity)

As well as the development of individuals over time, in marriage, we also see the importance of the directness of the relations between the partners as they develop over time in the multiplexity of the different aspects. The commonality between the marriage partners provides a context for these different aspects to unfold. Marriage (like the family) is a natural community,37 i.e. marriage is founded biotically (in this case by sexual procreation) but is led by the ethical love relation of life-long fidelity (i.e. an ethical relation led by trust). At the heart of marriage is the life-long and exclusive commitment of one partner for the other, enshrined in the prohibition against adultery.38 Unless a marriage if founded on appropriate sexual relations and is lead by the lifetime commitment of each partner the wellbeing of the other, it may be argued that there is no marriage. From a Christian view, this needs to be preceded by an appropriate growth of trust and intimacy, but with sexual intercourse reserved for the context of marriage. In the stages prior to marriage, biotic and ethical relations may not be the salient relations. Initially the relations which predominate in the courtship phase may be those of sociability (social) or sexual attraction (sensory founded in the biotic). As a couple goes through the process of courtship, the deepening of appropriate physical intimacy needs to be accompanied over time by a broadening and deepening of all the other relations: cultural, social, aesthetic, communicative, social, economic and then moving towards legal recognition and the settled commitment of one partner for the well-being of the other, and their common openness to issues of faith.39 In the Old Testament, there is clear normative progression in the sequence of time from the agreement between the
37

Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 2.265. As we have seen [3a], a natural community is one founded biotically, i.e. in this case, through sexual intercourse. 38 Ex. 20.14; Deut. 5.18. 39 Walter Trobish describes in diagrammatic terms the need for the deepening of physical intimacy to go hand in hand with ethical commitment [Trobish, I Married You: 85-99].

19

parties, to the payment of the bride price to the brides father, to the betrothal, to the consummation of the marriage followed by the provision of the dowry by the brides father and the appropriate honouring of the relevant conjugal rights by both parties to one another.40 As with the family, there are two forms of marriage which fall short of the Christian ideal. On the one hand, in more traditional societies, economic relations may have much earlier and greater salience, and the marriage may be contracted either by the parties or their families for economic reasons. However, commitment over time can deepen their mutual love both ethically, in building common purpose, and in the multiplex way in which the diversity of relations, including sexual relations, founds the marital bond. On the other hand, in an individualistic society, such as in the Western consumerist model, the biotic relations may be brought forward in time in an anormative way, and the purely biotic and affective relations may never be added to by other kinds of relation except perhaps in a limited way.41 Against both these views, marriage cannot be reduced to a mere contract, be it arranged marriages between non-consenting adults or even children or, as in the context of Western individualism, as limited or temporary arrangements between consenting adults. Over time, marriages can open up or close down. They may become more multiplex as the partners grow in love and commitment and their shared life involves common economic concerns, social relations, forms of communication, an appreciation of each others tastes. Alternatively, they can close down, and the relations between the partners can be confined to fewer modalities (e.g. social or economic, or juridical, rather than ethical on the one hand, or biotic or affective on the other). Declining or changing physical powers may also mean that the sexual expression which existed at the
40

Burnside, God. Justice and Society : 320-322. Dale Kuehne who points out that what he calls the i-World, modern Western consumer society with its focus on individual choice has tended to reduce intimacy to sexual (biotic and sensory) expression [Kuehne, Sex and the i-World: Rethinking Relationships beyond and Age of Individualism: 74-81].
41

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beginning of a marriage may decline or cease without one saying that the marriage no longer exists. However, if there is an end to mutual consent for appropriate sexual expression, especially if this is by one partner vis a vis the other (involving either nonconsensual sex on one hand, and the denial by one partner to the other of appropriate marital sexual expression without reasons of physical disability or other unavoidable circumstances), may raise issues of marital breakdown. The biotic founding relation of marriage implies that it be open to the procreation of children; and while every sexual act within marriage may not be open to this (regardless of the position taken on contraception), to separate marriage from family relationships (such as in the case of homosexual marriages) seems to question the very basis of marriage (even if homosexually founded families can be constructed by adoption, or in the case of homosexual women, by artificial insemination). This severing of a sexual relationship structurally from the nurturing of children raises a question about the basis of a homosexual partnership as a genuine alternative to a heterosexual one. On the other hand, relations between marital partners must be seen as distinct from their office as parents of children.42 An appropriate distinction between family and marital relations is not maintained if marital couples treat each other solely as the other parent, e.g. by exclusively referring to the other as mother or father, or by not allowing time for their mutual intimacy (including but not exclusively confined to sexual relations) from which all other family members are excluded. Thus we see how the multiplexity of different kinds of directness as opened up over time as the marriage partners engage with one another, not only biotically in the sexual relations which found marriage or the ethical commitment of one partner for the other which leads it, but in every other aspect as well. This multiplexity needs to be unfolded in a context of commonality, i.e. a shared worldview and aims, which is critical for the well-being of the marriage as well as for each of the partners.

Marriage as individual/s in relation at a given time (parity + directness)

42

The deleterious effects of confusing family relations with marital relations has been dealt with in 3b.

21

Marriage also can be described in context of the different relations which form the context of that marriage and which link that marriage to the network of family, friends and other relationships with which it is connected. The parity and directness which have been explored with respect to both partners over time need also to be triangulated in the light of all the other relations. The two partners are not alone individually and together they belong to a bigger picture. Marriage is a set of relations between two individuals but it is set within the wider context of the families to which those two individuals belong. In the highly individualistic context of Western society, the focus tends to be placed exclusively on the two marriage partners; however, each partner brings to the marriage their family and friendship networks, as well as all the other networks into which each partner is linked. A marriage may or may not be enkaptically interlaced with (i.e. bound together with but not reduced to)43 a family should children be born or adopted. In other words, the marriage and the family share common life in many (but not all) respects, and the destiny of the one is almost inextricably linked with the other. But even should no children be born or adopted, the possibility for the marriage partners together to be linked to others through family, friendship and other networks is endless. In this, the directness and parity can be seen in the multiplexity of the different aspects within the context of commonality.

Marriage as individual/s in relation over time (360 degree view)

Marriages, like families, are founded biotically and like families need to be guided by considerations of benevolent concern but there what is in view it is not the benevolent concern of one partner for another as family members but as husband and wife in mutual lifelong commitment. We now turn to the final kind of social whole which is being considered, that of friendship.

43

See footnote above at the beginning of 3.

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4. Friendship
A friendship is an inter-individual community, i.e. a community which is neither organized (such as the state or church) nor natural (as in the case of marriage and family).44 As in the case of the family and marriage, friendship needs to be looked at in the context of the multiplexity of different aspects (i.e. different functions of individuality, different kinds of relation or different sorts of time); and the commonality between or among the friends. As before, I shall look at these successively in terms of the three descriptive views.

Friendship as individual/s over time (parity + continuity)

First, I shall look at the way in which friendship involves individuals over time. This combines the recognition of the distinctive character (i.e. the unfolding of individuality over time) of each of the friends as well as the friendship as a whole. Friendships are entered into freely on the basis of mutual respect, which can only be built up over time. In the Bible, friendship is used to describe the relationship which important biblical figures have with God, notably Abraham45 and Moses.46 The Wisdom tradition, in the book of Proverbs especially, extols the importance of friendship.47 The greatest human friendship described in the Old Testament was that between the future King David and Jonathan, son of the current king of Israel. Despite eventually finding themselves caught in the growing political divide, they persisted in their good relations with one another, to the extent that after Saul and Jonathans death at the hands of the Philistines, David gave order for the well-being of Jonathans son, regardless of the political danger which potentially might result from showing goodwill in this way.48 Jesus call his disciples his friends and the friendship of Jesus and his disciples, both men and women, is at

44

Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 3.178-180. One key feature of an organised community is that it is independent of any particular individuals for its continuity. The significance to an organized community of any particular individual is his or her office. Natural communities lack that supra-individual character [Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 3.180]. 45 2 Chron. 20.7; Isa. 41.8; Jas. 2.23. 46 Ex. 33.11. 47 Pr. 17.17, 18.24, 27.6, 27.10, 48 2 Sam. 18.1-4, 19-20, 23.16-18.

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heart of his ministry and the coming into being of the church.49 Friendship is used as a metaphor of loyalty.50 Jesus has close friendships, most closely with John, the beloved disciple, and Mary Magdalene, and it is to the former that Jesus entrusts his mother.51 Most strikingly, Jesus puts his own reputation at risk for the sake of his ministry by being called the friend of tax collectors and sinners;52 and uses the picture of friendship to describe his own ultimate self-sacrifice.53 Friendship through the ages has been important in all cultures, including the Christian tradition. One good modern example of a friendship is the Inklings, the group of Christian writers who met in each others rooms at Oxford or in the Eagle and Child pub, sharing their own writings and taking delight in each others writing.54 Each of the friends is an individual, but the friendship itself has a lifeline over time. Friendship, unlike marriage (properly considered), but like a family, can have more than one member in it, and each friend brings and helps create a distinctive character. In a good friendship, friends each retain their own individuality -- their friendship has a distinct character which the friends bring out in each other, so that in that respect, the friendship has a reality over and above its component members, and is yet (unlike an organized community) dependent on the distinctive contribution which each particular friend brings as a continuing member of that friendship.55 Thus we see the way in which the character (i.e. the unfolding of identity over time) of a friendship is expressed in a way which enhances the character of each of the friends and the friendship as a whole. Having looked at the character of friendship, and the friends who members of that friendship, I shall now look at the unfolding over time of all the relations involved.

49 50

Lk. 11.8. Jas. 4.4. 51 Jn. 19.25-27. John was also probably Jesus first-cousin, the son of Marys sister Salome [Wenham, Easter Enigma: 34-42]. One early tradition sees John (and possibly Mary as well) later looking after Jesus mother at Ephesus and the Fourth Gospel reflects the closeness of both these friendships [Jn. Brownrigg, The Twelve Apostles: 101-122]. 52 Mt. 11.19. 53 Jn. 15.13. 54 Carpenter, The Inklings: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and their Friends. 55 Lewis, The Four Loves: 558-59.

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Friendship as relations over time (directness + continuity)

The relations which constitute a friendship can open out in a multiplex (i.e. multiaspectual) way as different kinds of relation are established through different meetings and points of contact (directness) over time. Its founding relation is mutual sympathy between the friends and its leading relation is a social one.56 What may have drawn friends together, e.g. a specific shared interest (e.g. shared tastes in music an aesthetic relation) may broaden out in other ways through social contacts and the discovery of other common concerns and areas of common enjoyment. Friendships can develop through many other relationships: they are an extra factor in taking the existing networks and opening them up to new connections and possibilities. Friendship helps to hold society together provided that friendship (pace Aristotle) is not seen merely as a brick in larger wall, or even the mortar holding the bricks together, but rather something valuable in itself in the first instance, with the effect on the wider society as a by-product.57 Thus we see how the multiplex diversity of the different kinds of relation unfolds over time. I shall now look at friendship as individuals in relation at a given time.

Friendship as individual/s in relation at a given time (parity + directness)

Having looked at friendship as individuals over time and relations over time, I shall now freeze the frame and look at friendship as part of a network of relations among and indeed beyond the individual friends at a given point in time. This descriptive view brings together the principles of parity the respect which each individual friend enjoys in their distinctive way in the network, and directness the connections among them and all those who are linked in through them into the friendship, and also those relations which the friendship as a whole shares more widely. In this, we see once again, the
56

Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 3.179-180; Lewis calls it companionship or clubbableness[ Lewis, The Four Loves: 61]. 57 Lewis, The Four Loves: 64-65. Aristotle saw the highest form of friendship that which contributed to the good of the polis or political community [Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea: 1155a-1163b, Book VIII, pp. 1058-1076 ; Aristotle, Politica: 1280b, p. 1189; Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 3.204 ].

25

multiplex way in which the different relations can be distinguished from one another and according to which they can be harmonised with one another, as well as the importance of a shared worldview or commonality which the friends enjoy in their friendship. The extended network for any given group of friends is potentially enormous, since each friend is actually or potentially a member of many other friendship networks at the same time. As C.S. Lewis points out, the fact that friendship is not natural (i.e. biotically founded) lays it open to suspicion that it is really, covertly, something else, be it really sexual, or, alternatively, politically subversive; or, the reverse may be the case, that it is exalted above all other relationships as in ancient or medieval times.58 Unlike both natural communities and organized communities,59 friendships do not have any in-built authority structure, even though one or other member of the friendship may be dominant or have a tendency to take the lead.60 This is does not mean that friendships cannot be enkaptically bound to another, i.e. the friends may relate to one another not just as friends but as office-holders of an institutions (i.e. within the context of an organised community), or as family members (i.e. as members of a natural community).61 In the information age, there is a question about shallow versus deep relationships in friendships. A friendship focussed on one kind of relation, not least those created by the recent development of social networking, can grow rapidly to include many other friends (and it is significant that Facebook, the largest of all the social networking sites based on the internet, uses that terminology). However, a good friendship needs to have depth, i.e. needs to be multiplex and direct. This includes meeting in a common physical location (i.e. spatially and physically), not merely in cyberspace where interaction is limited to words on a screen, possibly a photograph, and, possibly also, but less likely, visual onscreen interaction. Non-verbal cues (body language) and tone of voice is vital to good communication, but generally is not available on the internet.

58 59

Lewis, The Four Loves: 55-60. See Sections 2 and 3 above. 60 Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 3.181. 61 Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 3.183.

26

Friendship is enriched by other friendships. Friendships with third parties (mutual friends) bring depth to friendships, as third parties help to build the background trust between those who have dealings with one another.62 More than this, mutual friends can help to promote relations of trust at all levels of society and indeed in situations of community, national and international conflict.

Friendships as individuals in relation over time (360 degree view)

Thus friendships, unlike families and marriages, are not natural communities (i.e. founded biotically), but have as their founding character, the mutual sympathy of the members of a friendship, and the friendship retains that voluntary character as it led by the aspect of sociability. However, friendships are deepened and widened in accordance with all the Relational principles. While they, in a much less easily definable way, are indispensible to a sound social order, this (as with family and friendship) cannot (pace Aristotle) be their raison dtre rather it is the unintended but vital consequence of their intrinsic value.

5. Conclusion
This paper has addressed the structure and dynamic of family, marriage and friendship showing how the Relational principles apply on a Trinitarian basis.63 Thus we have seen how the different descriptive views and their respective combinations of Relational principles, are refracted by the multiplexity of different aspects which govern family life, marriage and friendship respectively, and are worked out normatively in each of those aspects according to the principle of commonality, i.e. in the light of a shared worldview and shared intermediate objectives. These together provide a rounded view of the dynamics of formation and change for families, marriages and friendships.

62

This is the theme of Charles Dickens novel Our Mutual Friend, where he explores the issues of trust and benevolence involved in friendship. 63 In doing so, I have used a framework drawn from the insights of the two Christians philosophers, D.H.Th. Vollenhoven and Herman Dooyeweerd. See my forthcoming thesis Ive, A critically comparative analysis and perichoretic reconstruction of the reformational philosophies of Dirk H. Th. Vollenhoven and Herman Dooyeweerd (Ph.D. thesis, Kings College London, forthcoming).

27

In looking at the family, we explored its status as a natural community, i.e. it comes into being typically (although not exclusively) through the procreation of children, with a structure of relations which diversify and open up through shared interests, experiences and issues of common concern linking its members into a wider network of relations. In the case of marriage, we saw that it is joined intimately to the institution of the family, although it retains and develops its distinctive character, through the stages of marriage within which the relations between the two partners diversify and mature, with the result that, as in the family, the partners of a marriage are bound into a wider network of relations. In the case of friendship, it is not a natural community (as with the family and marriage), nor an organised institutions, as with a church, a state or a voluntary association (none of which dealt with in this paper). Rather it has a loose interindividual structure, founded on the sociality of the members but growing and opening up as the different points of directness (i.e. intersubjective relationship) are made and developed between and among the friends; so that here, as there is the wider network of connections and mutual friends with an exponentially wide reach. In each case, I have looked at family, marriage and friendship using three descriptive views, each a combination of the three necessary conditions for any experience: individuality, relationality and time. Each focuses the applications of one of the Relational principles: parity the basic respect due to any individuals as utterly dependent upon God; directness the intersubjective relations linking one individual with another; continuity the unfolding both of individuals and of their relations over time. multiplexity the different aspects of the world in general and human functioning in particular, and, commonality the shared worldview and context.

This all it needs to be set within the context of the other two Relational principles:

We see, then, how there is an alternative to the solipsism which has so distorted the 28

Western tradition, be it the realist notion of an underlying substance, or the nominalist rejection of any notion of universal validity and the insistence on self defined identities. Taking up the turn to relationality, building on the foundation of a Trinitarian vision within the philosophical framework of a Christian philosophy, we have the Relational principles as the intuitive applications of the constituent elements of this vision. Far from being a return to the past, this Relational alternative offers real hope to the future and the basis for a healthy and well-founded social process.

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Appendices
Appendix 1: Relationships in the Western tradition
Western thought has been distorted through two deeply influential traditions, which go back to pre-Christian Greek thought but which have been synthesized with Christian thought in different ways. These distortions are: a. Realism, and its opposite ... b. Nominalism While these might seem be contradictory, and they are, at the same time they both derive from the same, defective, philosophical paradigm which has dominated Western thought from the time of the Greeks.

Realism
In classical realism, i.e. that identified especially with the Greek philosopher, Aristotle (384 322 B.C.), we have the notion of substance. This was applied by Boethius in his famous definition of the human person as rational substance. Aristotles notion of substance is an attempt to combine form and matter in such a way as to recognize the underlying continuity of form (substance) through the changes of matter (accidents) to which an entity is subject. We can still find relational elements in his account,64 but these are downgraded to being the least of all things as an accident of quantity.65

64

Aristotle, Categoriae: 1b.25 Aristotle, Metaphysica, 1088a.21-25; Aristotle, Analytica Posteriora: 15-24; see Shults, Reforming the Doctrine of God: 5-6; Shults, Reforming Theological Anthropology: After the Philosophical Turn to Relationality: 12-15. This is also not to deny the value of the notion of virtue and character which Aristotle develops [Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea: Books I to VII, 1094a-1154b, pp.935-1058; Aristotle, De Poetica: 1454a-1454b, pp. 1469-1470]. Nor indeed is to deny the insights of virtue ethics associated especially the name of Alisdair McIntyre [MacIntyre, After virtue : a study in moral theory], and Stanley Hauerwas [Hauerwas, A Community of Character: Towards a Constructive Christian Social Ethic].
65

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The notion of substance has been deeply corrosive of genuine relationality for two reasons: (i) Substances are self-contained and self-sufficient effectively mini-gods; (ii) Substances are finally interchangeable like atoms it is possible simply to exchange one substance for another as (to use a modern parable) one might exchange one oxygen atom for another. The problem with the notion of substance and accidents, or the subject/predicate schema, is that it reduces the problem to an impossible dilemma: either what we have are just individuals with their properties, or alternatively, we start with properties (or universals) and then see individuals as constructed out of their properties including the property of being an individual (the so called principium individuationis66). Neither approach can account properly for others (especially for other human beings) or our relationships with them. The trajectory set by Aristotle, and continued through the medieval period, continued in modern W. enlightenment thought. The trajectory is not a straightforward one. For one thing the form-matter schema which dominated Aristotles view was replaced by that of the ideal of personality within the context of a universe described in mechanistic terms. However, Aristotles downplaying of relations was replaced by a schema which isolated the human self from the mechanistic particularity of the world, and attempted to find certainty of knowledge on that basis Ren Descartes (1596-1650) famously in his Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) argues for a radical dualism between two types of substance: extended thing (res extensa) and thinking things (res cogitans). It was only by marking off the latter that he
66

The principium individuationis was developed by Aristotle and then taken up by Thomas Aquinas within the form/matter schema. Aristotle himself derived it from Hippocrates, according to whom form individualises matter. However, in his later thinking he reversed them, and for the later Aristotle, as for Thomas Aquinas who takes him up in this regard in the medieval period, it is matter which individualises form. In particular for Thomas, the rational soul (anima rationalis)), the form of humanity, is individualized by the human body, the matter of human existence. However, the principium individuationis cannot genuinely account for individuality, since both form and matter are universal in character, and merely combining them cannot generate the this-ness (or to use the term of Duns Scotus, the haecceitas), of individual persons and things.

31

could, in his mind, protect the human self from the determinism of the increasingly scientific description of the world. This latter reached it summit, of course, with the publication of Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)s Philosophi Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687). A modern development of realism is the science ideal of the European Enlightenment according to which the answer to all questions is sought in logical-mathematical terms. The high priest of the modern science ideal was Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1714) who denied the reality of relations and saw the world made up of an infinite number of windowless monads all held together according to a pre-established harmony. Accordingly the constitution of the state is then seen as a mechanism to quantify and balance out the different interests in society; or, alternatively, the means by which an enlightened despot can achieve a perfect ordering of society. Either way, individuals are finally only constituents of an overarching rational order and all relations are finally to be subordinated to the demands of the polity conceived most truly in the light of reason.

Nominalism
The other deeply entrenched philosophical tradition in modern Western thought is nominalism, most notably enunciated by William of Ockham (c. 1288-c. 1348), but it goes back a long way to the Sophists opposed by Socrates, among whom was Protagoras (c. 490-420 B.C.) who famously said man is the measure of all things. Nominalism denies universals and by implication universal relations: all that that there are for nominalists are individuals (or perhaps one should say, whoever that individual thinks he or she is at that moment) and the concepts that individuals have in their minds. This is the fore-runner of relativism and its contemporary expression, post-modernism. All values are self-created and we make our own stories, or construct them out of any bits and pieces which happen to take our fancy for that moment. While we might seem all to share a common space, this is an illusion. All that we have together, finally, is shared make-believe. This includes all that we do in common, including the making of constitutions. For irrationalist nominalists, the state is only the individual writ large.

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We can see the influence of nominalism in (arguably) the greatest philosopher of the Western Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). In his trilogy: The Critique of Pure Reason (1781), The Critique of Practical Reason (1788) and The Critique of Judgement (1790), he set out, among other things, a way of rescuing human personality from what he took to be the deterministic implications of Newtonian science. His solution to this problem was to distinguish a personality free of being determined in any way by the phenomena which science could measure and calculate. This homo noumenon was determined purely by abstract ethical considerations, however at the cost of divorcing his conception from any actual human beings (or perhaps one might say that his homo noumenon is just an abstraction from the Eighteenth Century Western European educated male). The most extreme statement of nominalism can be found in the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) with his notorious, albeit ironic, identification with the claim that God is dead.67 Nietzsche expressed his rejection of all attempts to discern order in terms of any cosmic scheme, and sought to overcome change and affirm the sheer triumph of human individuality, first in his assertion of the bermensch, free of any external ordering or subjection to universal categories; and, second, in the myth of the eternal return, staking a claim for the persistence (or at least the conceived persistence) of personality in the face of change. Nietzsches position has been taken up in Western thought from the latter part of the Twentieth Century, in what is called postmodernism.

Appendix 2: The Trinitarian basis for relationships

While the persons of the Trinity work together, they each make a distinct contribution to their common work, and each depends on the each of the other two Persons in carrying out their distinctive roles, as we shall see below:

67

Nietzsche, The Gay Science: 3.25, pp. 181-182; Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra: 1.Prologue, p. 5, These words mark the boundary, before and after, according to Vollenhoven, of Nietzsches irrationalist turn [Vollenhoven, Wijsgerig Woordenboek: 291]. In both these cases puts the claim into the mouths of others (the madman and Zarathustra respectively) and can be read ironically.

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The Father
In the work of the Father, we have the Origin which constitutes individuality of each person or thing. More specifically, it is the Father who is the Origin of creation, redemption and transformation through his decree. As all things are ordained by the Father, and are redeemed through his love for the world in general and for humanity in particular, so all as his creatures are called to render him praise Individuals, be they things or persons or social whole, have their ground sheerly in their relationship to the Origin. Individuality flows from the sheer dependence upon the Origin as being thoroughly structured, whether or not that person recognizes or is conscious of that dependence. While it is only human beings who can be conscious of that dependence (and indeed, it is in the possibility of that consciousness that ones humanity consists), all individuals as creatures have a dependence upon the Origin that constitutes the uniqueness of each. Who or what they are is grounded finally and at root in their ontic dependence upon the Origin, which integrates what it means to be a human being. The transcendent orientation to the Origin thus opens us both to the nave experience of individuals, and it also makes possible the theoretical apprehension of individuals in a non-reductive way. Let us explore this somewhat further. The Idea of the dependence of individuals upon the Origin first of all, regulates the grasp of individuals in nave experience. In nave experience, individuals are known as continuous wholes. The perception of a hand, for example, is more than the specification of a given bundle of sense data. To pick out this or that sense-datum as relevant to ones perception of a hand requires that we know first what a hand is and how it is constituted, not necessarily theoretically, but certainly implicitly in an everyday, i.e. nave, way.68 A normally functioning human being knows the world not as a disordered mass, but as the engagement with discrete and concrete entities. Even ones encounter with enormous individuals, such as the Sun, or galaxies, or microscopic individuals, such as atoms or quarks, need to be put into middle-sized terms in ones mind for the purpose of apprehending them, for example models of galaxies on the one hand, or of atomic and sub-atomic particles on the other. These individuals or putative
68

As O.K. Bouwsma points out, pace G.E. Moore (and, one might add, Russell), [Bouwsma, Moore's Theory of Sense-Data].

34

individuals need somehow to be represented to us in middle-sized terms in order for us to have an idea of them.69 But, if one is to avoid distortions, ones account of individuals also needs to be regulated by the sense that each individual is directly dependent upon the Origin, which cannot finally be known, even by that individual. The self-knowledge of any individual persons can only be deepened to the extent, therefore, of their conscious dependence upon the Origin. Individuality is a limiting-idea: it forbids one to hold that ones idea of an individual can ever fully comprehend the who-ness or the this-ness of the individual concerned, since each individual finally derives its unique identity and calling solely from their dependence upon transcendent Origin. He, she or it cannot create that unity and integrity itself, nor is that unity and integrity finally derivable from experience. Who or what individuals are is finally ineffable and indescribable.70 For any experience to be possible, there needs to be persons or things to experience, otherwise experience is entirely devoid of content. Individuality is the sheer, finally indescribable and unconceptualisable who-ness or this-ness of persons or
69

W. V. O. Quine speaks of middle sized objects as the typical percepts. Quine, Word and Object. Note: these are ideas (lower-case), the noetic grasp of individuals, as opposed to Ideas [See 3.2.2 footnote and 5.2 introduction footnote]. This is a systematic extrapolation of the thinking of D.F.M. Strauss in his revision of Dooyeweerd [Strauss, P.D.D.: 176-188, 195, 369, 430, 469]. In his doctoral dissertation Strauss, traces the notion of concept (arising from the forms of knowledge specific one or other modality) and idea (the bringing together of many concepts with reference to a concept-transcending whole, i.e. with reference to a specific individual). Concepts are abstracted from the universal relations which bind individuals, but they cannot themselves fully characterise the individuals to which they refer. For example, to have a concept of a chair would be reduce it purely to one function, namely, an abstract notion of something upon which one can sit [Strauss, P.D.D.: 12, 151]. A concept cannot encompass all the other modal aspects of this or that chair (that is it heuristically isolates the chair as a culturalformative object from all its other characteristics). Strauss concludes: The temporal identity of individual entities expresses itself in the modal diversity of aspects and can only be approximate in a regulative sense in a transcendental idea referring to the meaning-coherence in which every individual entity is embedded [Strauss, Begrip en Idee: 202-203; Strauss, P.D.D.: 176]. If one sees concepts as intra-modal (i.e. stated in terms of one modality) this could also mean that concepts can refer to individuals (but only in terms of functions specific to one modally-specific function), and to events (but only to one time aspect and at only one moment of time). Similarly, if we see as ideas as trans-conceptual (i.e. as involving a number of modalities at a specific moment) and trans-narrational (i.e. not confined to any specific narrative), so in this sense one can have an idea of a complex of relations between two concrete individuals (at a specific moment), and also an idea of an event (at a specific moment). Finally, if one sees narratives as (diachronically) encompassing several moments, they could also encompass the representation of a specific relation or individual (in both cases over time) as well as the unfolding of a series of events (not merely as a concatenation of moments but as a genuine unfolding). However, this does not been that ideas are above or after concepts (or narratives above or after ideas). While ideas are concept-transcending, and narratives are idea-transcending, concepts (as universals) are also idea- and narrative-transcending, and ideas are narrative-transcending (as referring to concrete wholes through time) as well as concept-transcending. 70 In Totality and Infinity, Emmanuel Levinas speaks of the irreducible alterity (otherness) of the other, which he ultimately grounds in the infinity of the divine Other (such as Descartes argues for in his Third Meditation) [Davis, Levinas: An Introduction: 39-45; Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy: 2537]. As Paul Janz points out, Levinas mistake is then to conflate alterity (which, I have argued, is grounded in the relation to the transcendent Origin) with the generative new (which I shall argue is grounded in the work of the Sprit as transcendent Purposiveness) [Janz, The Coming Righteousness: 98].

35

things as we encounter them in middle-sized experience. As we are ourselves individuals, true self-knowledge needs to accord that same status to other human individuals, and indeed, albeit less directly, to non-human individuals as well.71 Second, the Idea of the dependence of individuals upon the Origin explicitly provides us with a transcendent basis for the theoretical reflection upon individuals. Theoretical ideas draw together concepts from a diversity of modalities to provide a composite description of the individual concerned. At most, this can only approximate ones grasp of the ontic irreducibility of each individual in itself, i.e. as constituted by its dependence upon the Origin. But no individual can be fully known in conceptual terms alone.72 Thus, while individuals can be described, or approximated to in conceptual terms, this needs continually to be revised in the light of the encounter with concrete (and not fully conceptualisable) individuals over time. Individuals as such are finally unknowable be it in nave experience or theoretical reflection. Individuality as a transcendental is a limiting idea: while we can have an idea (lower-case) of an individual, we need to be aware always that such an idea is provisional and incomplete in the light of the Idea of the Origin, and it is in dependence upon the Origin alone that each individual has its unique identity. The Idea of the Origin thus limits and regulates any idea of the individual. Apart from being at best only provisionally grasped through ideas, individuals should not be seen in isolation. They are necessarily connected with other individuals through a network of relationships. Relationality is limited and regulated by a sense of an overarching Coherence, the second of the Ideas, to which I now turn.

71

See Martin Heideggers insight that art is both a reaching out to, and a recognition of the irreducibility of the thing depicted to any metaphysical or theoretical formulation [Heidegger, The Origin of the Work of Art]. A similar insight can be seen in the notion of instress, the poetic response to the this-ness of which informs the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889, instead deeply influenced by the philosophy of Duns Scotus (for the latter see 1.2): I kiss my hand to the stars, lovely asunder starlight, wafting him out of it ... since tho he is under the worlds splendour and wonder, his mystery must be instressed ... [The Wreck of the Deutschland: 1.4]. P.F. Strawson (1919-2006) shows that the identification of individuals finally depends on the presupposition that there are persons and things so to be identified [Strawson, Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics: 87-116, 190-213]. 72 See 5.2.1.

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The Son
If any attempt is made at all to understand the world (and that includes us) there is a need to account, at least implicitly, for how it is that all things hold together in an ordered and harmonious way. Without the presupposition of such a basic coherence, experience and reflection lapse into chaotic irrationalism. From a Trinitarian perspective, that perspective is rooted in the Son, the one through whom all things have been made and in whom all things hold together. This Person is, as Calvin states is autotheos (i.e. God in his own right) and aseitas (i.e. not dependent upon the created order),73 the Son, by whose work in creation all things hold together.74 At the same time, the Person in whom Christians place their ultimate trust, is not a generic abstraction or metaphysical essence but the historically identifiable human being, Jesus Christ, born of Mary in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth, died in Jerusalem under Pontius Pilate, buried in Joseph of Arimatheas tomb, rose again, ascended on the Mount of Olives, and whose return in power and glory is expected as he promised.75 Thus, the Son cannot be identified with any aspect of the created order, but only responded to obediently, as through his work as the Logos, the ontic systasis (the irreducible harmony-in-diversity of the created order) is uncovered. The abolutisation of any sort of created relation as the basis of Coherence is excluded on this basis.76 This means that the work of the Son in redemption needs to be seen against the much wider backdrop of the work of creation providing a renewed divine yes to all created existence, and the bringing of the creation to the state of its final transformation. The Son in his incarnation shows us what it is to be in relation to our fellow human beings, and indeed how to be in proper relation with the world (seen archetypically in Jesus calming the storm on Lake Galilee, a rerun of the original act of creation see especially Psalm 74.12-17 where chaos is replaced by coherence and order). The Lordship of the Son over human affairs, and indeed over the cosmos as a whole, is brought about by the work of the Holy Spirit, which I now consider.
73

Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion: 1.13.25; Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: 4.80-81, 87-88, 324-326. 74 John 1:3 and Colossians 1:17. 75 Gunton, "And in one Lord Jesus Christ ... Begotten not Made": 69-71. 76 Clouser, The Myth of Religious Neutrality: An Essay on the Hidden Role of Religious Beliefs in Theories: 198.

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The Holy Spirit

Thirdly, then, in the work of the Spirit, we have the narrative of Gods dealings with the world which relativise all our particular narratives. This is the narrative beyond all narratives, which both provides perspective and which surpasses all our memories, experiences or plans. The Spirit gives narrative to our lives, and indeed to the world, as its story is unfolded with true purposiveness (Zweckmssigkeit as Kant calls it in his Critique of Judgment).77 It is only when one treats events as if they have a purpose, which makes it possible to speak of them in the first place. Even for those who deny any actual purposiveness to events, there is still the need, just for intelligible communication to be possible, to speak as if this or that event has purpose. For example, speaking of an earthquake or volcano, the horror of destruction needs to be placed in a context where attempts are made to save lives and property, and deaths are mourned as if the lives of those lost have significance horror and mourning makes no sense at all in the face of the insignificant. Even to grasp the event of the treading on an ant, or indeed the microcosmic collision of two sub-atomic particles, one need to invest the death of an ant, or the collision of the sub-atomic particles, with sufficient significance for it to be registered, in the mind of the observer, as an event. The work of the Holy Spirit provides the expectation of the eschaton, but it should not be confined to the future, but also seen in terms of the working out of Gods Providence over history as a whole.78 Spirit effects creation jointly with the Father and the, and, in redemption, makes possible the incarnation, work, death, and resurrection of Christ and brings about palingenesis (i.e. inner religious change and redirection of heart) and the effectual call of all believers. Finally the Holy Spirit brings all things to their final destiny under the Lordship of the ascended Christ in the authority of the Father. While

77 78

Kant, Critique of Judgment: Part II, 63, pp. 153-154. Ive, Individuals, relations and events : 1.4.

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the work of the Holy Spirit flows from that of the Father and the Son, it has equal weight with both that of the Father and the Son and is not reducible to either.79 Through the work of the Holy Spirit there is a basis for holding that there is a transcendent Providence: that the present states-of-affairs and ones reflection on what is past can be engaged with truly and with genuine hope, even if only provisionally. Through the Spirit new possibilities are opened up, not in a random way (although it may seem so at the time), but in a way that creates new possibilities for the future. In the narrative of the unfolding of the Triune work in the world, there is true eventfulness: the same states-of-affairs are not simply repeated age after age, but there is genuine movement forward. In concrete situations we see the leading role of the Holy Spirit, but this role is orientated to the transcendence of the Father and is directed towards the greater realisation of the Kingdom of the Son.80 The Holy Spirit also gives us a longing for that which is to come: the greater weight of glory81 that makes everything we do in the light of the Kingdom, indeed everything which happens, worthwhile, no matter how tragic or seemingly futile, since it is proleptic of that reality which is to come. Thus the Idea of a transcendent Providence, seen in the light of the work of the Holy Spirit, provides us with a link to the third transcendental, that of time and helps one to see time as genuine eventfulness and no mere extrapolation from one moment to another within a universe conceived as a timeless block.82 This involves the diverse ways in which states-of-affairs (i.e. combinations of individuals in connection with one another) lead to one another, or, to put it another way, the different ways in which states-of-affairs are linked together successively. The passing of time (i.e. diachronicity) needs accordingly to be given weight as a transcendental (i.e. as a necessary condition
79

Gunton, The Holy Spirit who with the Father and the Son together is Worshipped and Glorified: 8890. 80 This has been brought out most powerfully by Robert Jenson [Jenson, The Holy Spirit: 105-124, 143178; Jenson, Systematic Theology; Volume I, the Triune God:160]. Elsewhere, I have pointed to some problems in characterising the role of the Holy Spirit too exclusively as pertaining to futurity. See Ive, The God of Faith: R.W. Jenson's critique of standard religion and his temporal account of the Trinity (M.Phil. thesis, King's College London, London, 1995): 85-86; 89, 93,123, 131-135; Ive, Robert Jenson's Theology of History:152-155]. However in seeking to nuance my reading of Jenson in his way, I do not wish to lose the crucial insight that it is through the Holy Spirit the future Gods future for us is opened up and made possible [See also Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/2: 639; Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 3: 622-626]. 81 2 Corinthians 4.17. See Lewis, The Weight of Glory: 25-33. 82 Immanuel Kant in his Second Analogy of Experience calls causality the principle of the succession of time according to the law of causality [Kant, Critique of Pure Reason: A189-211/B232-256, pp. 304316].

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for experience) in its own right, alongside individuality and relationality in considering experience and human reflection upon that experience. The Idea of a transcendent Providence provides the grounding for the notion of time as a transcendental, which in turn regulates both the ones grasp of nave experience of and also makes possible theoretical reflection upon its many aspects. The Idea of a transcendent Providence, provided by being open to the work of the Holy Spirit, regulates ones grasp of events by preventing ones judgement of those events being reduced to any one modality.83 It also prevents the reduction of time either to relationality (the actuality of specific events cannot fully be captured by the description of all the relations involved) or individuality (events cannot be seen purely within the world-lens of any individual there is an actuality of events which happens among all the individuals which is not merely the sum total of the experience of all the individuals concerned). The Idea of Providence holds open the possibility of genuine eventfulness, and so provides the grounding for time as a distinct transcendental. More specifically, the purposiveness of events is the work of the Holy Spirit, from the event of creation through the work of the regeneration of human hearts, to the transformation of the universe. Thus the work of the Holy Spirit completes this account of the work of the three Persons. However, the work of the each Person cannot be considered separately the work of each Person needs to be considered jointly with that of the other two Persons.

83

Judgement can only be exercised provisionally there is a narrative about which the judgement can be made, and which can be approximated with ever-greater detail and precision. While we might approximate these, we can never finally know the true story, only come to a more adequate judgment about that narrative, on the basis that there is a narrative that has final Providence and comprehensiveness, even if we ourselves cannot finally know it. We know events through the exercise of judgement illuminated by a sense of transcendent Providence. However, this sense of transcendent Providence should be distinguished from a facile optimism. Mature judgement needs to be moderated by a sense of tragedy in the midst of life. The world is not there for ones convenience, nor can the unfolding of events simply be ordered by the smooth execution of ones individual or corporate projects, or be related straightforwardly to the enlargement of ones individual or corporate well-being. However, without the sense that ultimately there a Providence to all things, all judgement is reduced to casual gratuitousness, and, ultimately, to futile inconsequence. All judgements need to be made (whether consciously or not) in the light of the Last Judgement, at which the final verdict on all acts and events will be delivered. This is not to claim an inside track to understanding of the work of God, let alone to penetrate to an understanding of Gods being. Rather it is to see such a ground-Idea (alongside those of the Origin and Coherence) in regulative terms we are forbidden to search for such an inside story only to submit obediently to the Providence of God in the trust, in the words of Dame Julian of Norwich that all shall be well [Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love: 14.63, p. 95].

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Perichoresis The joint work of the three Persons

The Persons are in relationship with one another distinct yet mutually interdependent. The term perichoresis describes the process whereby the Persons of the Trinity indwell one another and are involved with one another, each retaining his own distinctiveness, in their joint economy (their work in the world).84 In terms of the work of each of the Persons is given equal and conjoint weight, so correcting the distortions which emphasis on one or other of the Persons to the exclusion of the others results in. The operation of the persons is not sequential but joint and simultaneous. The joint operation of the persons is exercised as perichoresis, the interchange and the giving way of one another, and their mutual authorization, realization and empowerment of one another. For human beings, this means that first we are individuals called into being by the will of the Father; second that we are bound together in a rich tapestry of different relations, as the Son is in relation to the Father, witnessed to by the Spirit . The key Trinitarian insight is that only the inner-triune relations, not anything external to God, bind the Persons. Accordingly, from a Trinitarian perspective, God is not subject to the order of the world, although he reveals himself to us sovereignty and definitively in the language of the created order. At the same time, the notion of a discontinuity between the sovereignty of God and the order of the world is also rejected: the order of the world is determined sovereignly by the Persons acting together, not by abstract fiat of an essentially unitary deity.85 The constitution of the world is not
Perichoresis ( ) derives from chora ( ) , Greek for space, or chorein ( ) means to contain, make room for or to go forward. It was originally a Christological notion in which the two natures of Christ are seen in relation to one another. The use of the term perichoresis with respect to the Trinity seems to have originated with Pseudo-Cyril and was later used in the dogmatics of Maximus Confessor and John of Damascus. In terms of the perichoretic vision, the divine status and distinctiveness of three Persons of the Trinity are each recognised with respect to the immanent Trinity, and, with respect to the economic Trinity, their common action but distinctive roles [Ive, Relationships in the Christian tradition: 52-53; Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being, Three Persons: 102, 170-202; Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom of God: The Doctrine of God: 148-150; 174-176; Gunton, The One, the Three and the Many: God, Creation and the Culture of Modernity. The Bampton Lectures 1992: 152-153, 163-179, 212; Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: 4.93-94]. Karl Barth sees a perichoresis of Father, Son and Holy Spirit being worked out in the Christian attitude of faith, obedience and prayer [Barth, Church Dogmatics, III/3: 245-6; Oh, Barths trinitarian theology : a study in Karl Barths analogical use of the pattern of "perichoresis" and the relationship between divine action and human action in the ecclesiastical context (Ph.D. thesis, King's College London, 2003): 172-208]. 85 Calvins own theology is often seen in these terms. It has voluntarist elements and was indeed presented as such by the voluntarist scholasticism of many of his followers. But this is to ignore the importance for Calvin of union with Christ and the role of the Holy Spirit in the work of election [See Shults, Reforming the Doctrine of God; and Gaffin, Union with Christ: Some Biblical and Theological
84

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arbitrary or ad hoc; it is consistent with the covenant settled eternally between the three Persons. The love between the three Persons of the Trinity and their joint love for the world is revealed as the basis for ones belief in the original goodness of the world, and holds out to us the hope of redemption.86 In this way, and only so, can the scholastic dilemma be resolved. In this, Trinitarian basic religious belief is fully consistent with the concern of reformational philosophy to find a genuine alternative to scholasticism.87 More specifically, the doctrine of the Trinity sets out for us why God is, as John Calvin puts it, both legibus solutus (not subject to laws) and equally non exlex (not arbitrary). 88 Calvins dictum decisively breaks with the antithesis between metaphysical realism and nominalism (the epistemological counterpart of the distinction that has already been made between intellectualism and voluntarism). God is legibus solutus because laws result from the mutual compact of the three Persons acting out of freedom and love, not out of submission to any external or impersonal law or principle. God is non exlex, since the mutual love of the Father, Son and Spirit gives the universe both stability and settled character. A Christian perspective needs to affirm first of all that we as human beings, as those made in Gods image, are called by God to respond to his love for us and to love one another. This basic religious call needs to be expressed in the full range of the different kinds of relation in which we find ourselves This provides us with a different basis for our ontology (that is, for our understanding of what there is); and our epistemology
Reflections]. 86 In terms of Dooyeweerdian/Vollenhovian modal analysis, love is ethically qualified. But the characterisation of the relations of the Trinity as loving involves all the modalities: the Persons proclaim divine status (pistical or faith modality), they give glory (aesthetic), they deal justly (juridical), effectively (economical), appropriately (social), truly (analytical), etc. with respect to one another. This is not to say that the Triune Persons are bound by laws. It affirms rather than, in their self-revelation, they provide a basis for seeing the world as law-governed and not merely arbitrary. 87 This is not to say that there is not a reaching out to what is characterised as a genuinely trinitarian approach during the medieval period. See Aquinas, Summa Theologica,1.32.1.3 where he argues that the knowledge of the divine Persons is necessary for right thinking about God as creator of the world, since to say that God produced all things by the Word by the procession of love excludes the possibility that he produced things by necessity. However, the dichotomy in Thomas thought between grace and nature (or between revelation and reason) does not allow him to work this out fully in terms of ones overall understanding or the world, since from his perspective, God can only be known by reason in the world at large as single subject. Nevertheless, Denys Turner argues that distinction between intellectus and ratio (inherited from Augustine) points towards an understanding of God as at once transcendent of the world and yet engaged with it, and that, moreover, both intellectus and ratio are graced, i.e neither is is autonomous [Turner, Faith, Reason, and the Existence of God: 80-88; Davies, The Creativity of God: World, Eucharist, Reason: 31-36]. 88 Calvin, Institutes: 3.23.22; Calvin, Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God: 10.13, 179.

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(how we know what here is) of the world. The world is not the extension of Gods being, but it reflects and bears the impress of Gods Triune action, in its creation, redemption and transformation and indeed, Gods presence in and through his incarnate Son. Thus humanity, as the Triune image-bearers, are dramatis personae in this great task as they are called to present the whole of who they are, and to have their minds transformed in their world-and-life-view and philosophy, not as an optional extra, but as their appropriate service to their Lord

Appendix 3: A philosophical framework for relationships

At this point, I would like to relate the preceding reflections to an important and extremely rich tradition in contemporary Christian reflection represented by two thinkers, Dirk Vollenhoven (1892-1978) and Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977), both of whom followed on from Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920). Between them they developed a thoroughly pluralistic understanding of the world. 89 Combining the thought of Dooyeweerd with that of the later Vollenhoven, we find that there are three ways in to our understanding of relationships: firstly, that which has to do with individuals and their functions; secondly, that to do with the relations among those individuals; and, thirdly, that which is about what happens to those individuals and their relations over time. As we shall see, with respect to individuals, relations and time there are different levels of description or explanation called modalities. Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd start with experience in its rich and irreducible diversity Vollenhoven speaks of nonscientific while Dooyeweerd speaks of nave experience.90 Non-scientific or nave experience involves encounters with concrete individuals, engagement in specific relationships, and participation in actual events. By contrast, scientific and theoretical refer to rigorously distilled aspects of experience.91 Vollenhoven and
89 90

Dooyeweerd, N.C.; Vollenhoven, Introduction to Philosophy. Vollenhoven, Introduction: 148, 193, pp.109,134; Dooyeweerd, W.d.W.: 1.91-92; N.C.: 1.127-128. 91 To remove a possible source of confusion to those already familiar with Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerds philosophies. I shall not be treat the modalities as a transcendental dimension (to use Dooyeweerds term). Rather, in the way I shall be setting this out, each of the transcendental dimensions, or transcendentals is refracted into diversity of the modalities (as individuality-functions, relationframes, and time-aspects). These modal distinctions are grasped in the course of scientific or theoretical reflection (noting the special use of the terms theoretical and scientific by Vollenhoven

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Dooyeweerd use various terms for these aspects, but for the purpose of consistency, I use the term modalities. The diversity of the created order is thus grounded on the irreducibility of the modalities to one another, but also in the antecipations92 and retrocipations which each indicate the continuity of experience without being reduced one to another. Together, Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd identified fifteen modalities ranging from the numerical (quantitative) to that of faith. 93 Each modality takes its character from its appropriate modality; an individual functions arithmetically as a single entity bound by arithmetical laws, in location by spatial laws, etc.; and that individual can function actively or passively in each modality (and similarly there are the appropriate modal laws and norms for the different kinds of relation and kinds of time).94 Those modalities on which other modalities depend are called substrates for those which they antecipate, while those which stand on them are called superstrates. Thus the modality of number (or quantity) is the substrate of that of spatiality; and by the same token, the spatial modality is the superstrate of that of number.95 The fifteen modalities on which Dooyeweerd and Vollenhoven eventually agreed were (from higher to lower or from later to earlier)96 are: pistical (faith) ethical juridical/legal beauty97 economic
and Dooyeweerd respectively. These terms refer specifically to modal abstraction, not the theoretical or scientific generally, but as modal abstraction is also more wide ranging than can be confined merely to either theoretical or scientific thought with the specific connotations of the latter terms). 92 Here I shall follow Vollenhovens (largely) preferred spelling [Vollenhoven, Plato's realisme (63a):/128, p.137; Vollenhoven, Problemen rondom de tijd (63b):173; 181; 193; Vollenhoven, Problemen van de tijd in onze kring (68b): 203], taken up by Strauss [Strauss, P.D.D.], including, for the sake of consistency, in the context of discussing Dooyeweerd, Antecipation (like retrocipation) arises from the ontic ordering of the modalities (what Dooyeweerd calls the ontic systasis [Dooyeweerd, W.d.W.: 2.359-361; N.C.: 2.429-435]) it is not to be confused with a noetic reaching forward or yearning. 93 The two philosophers largely agreed on the identity and ordering of the modalities (even though they jointly revised these over the years, and their followers have attempted may revision). The identification and ordering of them is open-ended and subject continual correction and elaboration [For the criteria for identifying each modality see Strauss, The best known but least understood part of Dooyeweerds philosophy in Journal for Christian Scholarship; Strauss, P.D.D.: 77-79]. The principle behind it is that no one sort of relation is capable of providing us with a fully adequate description of the world. 94 Vollenhoven, Introduction: 30-35, 42-69, pp. 25-27, 29-51. 95 Vollenhoven, Introduction 55-63, pp. 36-45. 96 Vollenhoven tends to speak of the numerical (quantity) as the lowest modality with the pistical (faith) as the highest modality, while Dooyeweerd tends to speak of these as earlier and later. This order starts with the leading modality, that of faith.

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social symbolic/lingual historical/cultural-formative logical /analytical psychic/sensory biotic physical kinetic spatial numerical/quantitative For both philosophers, each modality is governed by its own laws or norms and has distinctive subject matter governed by these laws or norms. For both Dooyeweerd and Vollenhoven, laws (which govern what must be or what is necessarily so) pertain up to the logical or analytical modality. From there, they require human mediation to apply, no longer as laws (which apply independently of their being grasped by human subjectivity) but now as norms (which require human mediation for their positivisation). In the analytical modality there is the need for norms to be grasped by the analytical subjct for them to apply, while from the cultural-formative (or what Dooyeweerd calls the historical) modality onwards they need to be positivised (realised concretely) by human formative activity.98 For each modality, therefore, there is a specific type of law- or norm-conformity. For example, the first modality (numerical or, properly, quantitative99) is governed by arithmetical laws, the second by spatial laws, and so on. Each modality has a characteristic nucleus of meaning which makes it irreducible to other modalities for example, the laws of number and space and their distinctive subject matter are mutually irreducible. Likewise, those of a kinetic kind are distinct from the numerical and spatial, and their meaning kernels are

97

Seerveld argues that allusivity rather than beauty should he held to characterise the aesthetic modality [Seerveld, Modal Aesthetics: Preliminary Questions with an Opening Hypothesis: 132]. But Strauss argues the centrality of beauty in the aesthetic aspect should be upheld [Strauss, P.D.D.: 250-253]. However, since allusivity is an antecipation of the sign aspect, it raises the question as to whether the aesthetic modality should not be placed immediately before the lingual modality. 98 Dooyeweerd, W.d.W.:2.175-177; N.C: 237-239; Dooyeweerd, Norm en Feit:182 ; Strauss, P.D.D.: 258-259, 288-289, 297-298, 315-318, 382-383, 389-390, 526-532, 613. 99 D.F.M. Strauss argues that it should be called quantitative because that is one of the ways the world is and which is then apprehended by the human mind in numerical or arithmetic terms [ Strauss, P.D.D.: 8287].

45

quantity, space, movement etc. Thus we can rigorously isolate the key factors which can be subsumed under a modal law. 100 Reductionism is any project that takes as its point of departure one or a selection of the modalities as the total way to understand the world. One might mention attempts to describe the world purely in physico-chemical terms, or, in social analysis, attempts to understand human relationships purely in biological terms or in terms of the structure of power, or the operation of a particular economic model.101 Any attempt to reduce the description of the world to one form of explanation cannot do justice to the many-sided diversity of ones everyday experience; and any attempt to construct society on the basis of any one form of explanation risks undermining that society. As with the story of Midas, if all things are turned to gold, they become lifeless.102 Reductionism results both in an impoverishment in ones vision of the world, since we have to flatten out those modalities that do not fit into such a reduction. In addition, within the terms of such a reduction, contradictions emerge because the principles applicable in one modality do not have explanatory force across the whole range of modalities.103 For example, to reduce everything in the world to physical laws cannot do justice to social, aesthetic, ethical, legal or faith norms (to mention a few of the modalities) and the realities which they govern; and to explain the latter is to fall prey to the naturalistic fallacy (i.e. the
100

Dooyeweerd, W.d.W.: 1.5, 36-37; Dooyeweerd, N.C. : 1:3-4; Dooyeweerd, De vier religieuze grondthema's in den ontwikkelingsgang van het wijsgerig denken van het Avondland: Een bijdrage tot bepaling van de verhouding tusschen theoretische en religieuze dialectiek: 7. These modalities are identified according to what D.F.M. Strauss calls a transcendental-empirical approach, which takes full account of the multi-faceted character of human experience [Strauss, The best known but least understood part of Dooyeweerd's philosophy; Strauss, Reintegrating Social Theory: Reflecting upon Human Society and the Discipline of Sociology: 111-119; Strauss, P.D.D.: 231, 234, 291, 319, 435]. The term seems to have originated from Dooyeweerds successor, the philosopher of law, H.J. Hommes and the philosopher of science, M.D. Stafleu [Hommes, Encyclopedie der rechtswetenschap: Hoofdlijnen der rechtssociologie en de materile indeling van publiek- en privaatrecht: 41-42; See Strauss, B & I: 86. I am grateful to Rob Nijhoff for this point]. The identification of these modalities is a theoretical and empirical task. And yet, while the identification of the modalities is an empirical and theoretical task, that there are such pluralities is a pre-cognitive insight. 101 Dooyeweerd mentions the dominance of isms each of which absolutise one or other aspect of concrete experience [Dooyeweerd, De beteekenis der wetsidee voor rechtswetenschap en rechtsphilosophie.: 67; Dooyeweerd, N.C.:1.46-49 (not in W.d.W.); Dooyeweerd, Vernieuwing en Bezinning om het Reformatorisch Grondmotief: 37, 39-41; Dooyeweerd, Roots of Western Culture: Pagan, Secular and Christian Options: 37-38, 40-43]. Roy Clouser gives a number of examples of theories which attempt different form of reduction, which gain explanatory power at the cost of narrowing the number of aspects of concrete experience which are taken into account [Clouser, Myth 2nd edn.:131-183; See also Strauss, P.D.D.: 5-8]. 102 Dooyeweerd, W.d.W.: 1.28-9 (not in N.C.). 103 Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 1.46-49. For a more recent critique of the reductionist approach from a Dooyeweerdian perspective in terms of a number of case studies in mathematics, physics and psychology see Clouser, Myth 2nd edn.: 127-183.

46

attempt to derive ought from is). Only by taking into account all the modalities, without reducing one to another, can the full richness of the many aspects which make up a relationship be preserved.104 In addition to (and transversely with) being understood in terms of the multiplexity of the different modalities, relationships need to be seen in terms of three necessary conditions for human experience: individuality, relationality, and time. The necessary conditions for any experience are: the perdurance of individuals through time, the relations between individuals at any one point in time, and the process of time itself. To expand this slightly, it is not possible to conceive of any experience unless, firstly, there are things and persons to encounter in the course of that experience; secondly, that there are (synchronic) connections linking those individuals both to one another and with the one who experiences them; and thirdly that there is the (diachronic) unfolding of time within which that experience takes place. Attempts have been made systematically to deny the basic necessity of one or other of these conditions but only at the cost of serious distortions of life and thought.105 I shall use the term transcendentals to refer to these necessary conditions of any possible experience.106

104

This multi-modal understanding of the world is called multiplexity in Relational terms [Schluter and Lee, The R Factor: 80-82; Ashcroft, The Relational Lens: Chapter 7]. 105 Individuality has been relativised by monists, from the Bhagavad-Gita (Fifth to Second Century B.C.), Baruch Spinoza (16321677), and Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 1860). The reality of external relations has been systematically denied by of Gottfried Leibniz (1646 1716) [see Dooyeweerd, W.d.W.: 1.223261; Dooyeweerd, N.C. : 1.223-261]. The actuality of time has been questioned by the Eleatic philosophers including Parmenides (c. 510 450 B.C.), and, in modern times, by J.M.E. McTaggart (1866-1923), who argued to the effect that the determination of time in any sense of past-present and future (which he called the A-series) was not possible in any absolute sense, since all A-series statements can be re-formulated in terms of earlier and later (which he called the B-series) [McTaggart, The Unreality of Time]. McTaggarts error in this influential article is to treat events as substances (or compound substances) [McTaggart, The Unreality of Time: 26], and to treat past, present and future as properties of those substances [McTaggart, The Unreality of Time: 31-33 ]. This is pointed out by Arthur N. Prior [Prior, Changes in Events and Changes in Things: 36, 43. See also A.B. Levisohn, Events and Times Flow, Mind, 96, 1987, pp.348-350.] and obliquely recognised by D.H. Mellor when he points out that events and things need to be distinguished [Mellor, Real Time: 127-132. See also Mellor, Real Time II quoted in Oaklander, The Ontology of Time: 178-181]. However, whatever their philosophical views, none of these thinkers, or any other human being, could systematically deny individuality, relationality or time in everyday life without extreme pathological consequences. 106 Transcendental is a term with a long history. I shall be using it in the Kantian (not the medieval scholastic sense mentioned Aertsen, Medieval Philosophy and the Transcendentals: 71-112) but rather in the sense of a condition of any possible experience or reflection [See Pereboom, Kant on Justification in Transcendental Philosophy]. Further, it is important to distinguish transcendental, the conditions of our experience (indeed the necessary condition for any possible experience), and transcendent, the presuppositions which shape and ground our interpretation of that experience.

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Individuality
The first necessary condition for experience is individuality. For both Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd the individual is a subject (as Vollenhoven terms it, a subjct), i.e. it is an entity in subjection to God. Vollenhoven tends to stress the work of the Father in thoroughly structuring each individual creature107 while Dooyeweerd tends to stress the relation of the human heart to the Origin.108 However, both Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd see the uniqueness and distinctiveness of the individual as a subjct.109 Thus, drawing on both philosophers, we see that an individual is given his, her or its unique identity by the creative fiat of God which, properly acknowledged, prevents that person or thing from being seen as interchangeable with any other. Ones knowledge of an individual cannot finally be known in terms of the sum of the different modalities important as that multiplex grasp of the individual is. An individual needs to be met or encountered and accorded the appropriate respect What finally makes one individual different from another is not properly a list of characteristics but who or what they are in the sight of God.110 Each individual is constituted by an idea, known only to God.111 In everyday experience as one encounters individuals as wholes and one needs to accord them the respect due to them as beings like us, directly dependent upon God.112

107 108

See Ive, Individuals, relations and events : 4.1.1. See Ive, Individuals, relations and events : 4.2.1, 4.2.2 and 5.2.1. 109 A subjct (as we have seen) is an entity which does not take its identity and constitution from itself, but only from the transcendent Other, on whom it is utterly dependent and by whose call it receive its being and distinctive constitution [compare the insights of De Lubac, Mystery of the Supernatural, and the nouvelle theology, according to whom the very act of bringing things into being is an act of sheer gift [See Dooyeweerd, Calvinistische Wijsbegeerte: 15; Dooyeweerd, Centrum en Omtrek: De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee in een veranderende wereld: //9-10, pp. 1-2, 12]. 110 Vollenhoven, Introduction. The early Vollenhoven had a notion of Gods bringing an individual thing into being at a particular time and place [Kok, Vollenhoven: his early development: 67-8]. However it was still rooted in the notion of substance [Kok, Vollenhoven: 225], a notion that Vollenhoven was to reject in his later thinking. 111 Vollenhoven, Levens-eenheid (55ms): 122-124; Vollenhoven, Getuigen in de wetenschap (59d): /3, p. 138. The faculty according to which individuals are known is that of perception, which is for him not merely a psychic (i.e. sensory) act, but also an analytic grasping of an individual (and indeed an act involving all the other modalities). Perception (waarneming) is always synchronous with that which is perceived. It is exercised in tandem with recollection and expectation [Vollenhoven, Introduction: 164169, pp.116-120]. 112 This is called parity in Relational terms [Schluter and Lee, The R Factor: 82-86; Ashcroft, The Relational Lens: Chapter 8].

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However, while it need to be recognized that all individuals need to be treated with the respect due to them as individuals who can only be known fully for who they are by God alone, one can approximate the idea of an individual scientifically, i.e., through systematic analysis.113 All things have an internal unity; they are not collection of random matter.114 They are structured through and through (doorgestructureerd) by God the Fathers creative decree.115 Individuals can be identified as falling under different typical descriptions, or, what Dooyeweerd calls, individuality structures governed by what has been called type laws. Individuals can be people or things, and individuality can also be seen in institutions, organic communities or voluntary associations.116 Each individual is governed by a complex of laws and norms, and that individuals functions are arranged in a coherent order, with later functions building on lower ones.117 The theoretical idea of an individual is what Dooyeweerd calls an individuality-structure (and which Vollenhoven describes in terms of what he calls the thus-so connection), i.e. the ordering of the functions of the individual. Each function takes its character from its appropriate modality; an individual functions arithmetically as a single entity bound by arithmetical laws, in location by spatial laws, etc.; and that individual can function actively or passively in each modality.118

Individuality Functions (sbject/object) pistical (faith): ethical: juridical/legal: aesthetic:

113

believer/belief ethical agent/good deed legal subject/ legal object119 admirer/aesthetic object

Vollenhoven, Introduction: 9, 148, pp. 11, 109-110. Vollenhoven, Hoofdlijnen der logica (48f): 41-42, pp. 90-91 (Hoofdlijnen: 50-52 ). 114 Levens-eenheid; Tol, pp. 123-4; Time and Change, p. 102. 115 For Vollenhoven, the created structure of an individual is not modal; it is pre-modal or prefunctional. This is especially true of the human being, for whom individuality is centred on the heart or soul, which is pre-functional [Vollenhoven, Problemen van de tijd (68b); See 4.1.2]. 116 This is something which Dooyeweerd seems to have revised in the New Critique of Theoretical Thought, but voluntary associations nevertheless are examples of individuality structures shaped and governed by what have been called type-laws. 117 Vollenhoven tends to see the functions arranged vertically so that he speaks of them being lower or higher, while, as we shall see, Dooyeweerd tends to speak of the functions are earlier and . 118 Vollenhoven, Introduction: 30-35, 42-69, pp. 25-27, 29-51. 119 Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 2.371-382.

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economic: social: symbolic/lingual: cultural-formative: logical /analytical: psychic/sensory: biotic: physical: kinetic: spatial: numerical:

trader/commodity social actor/custom communicator/ symbol120 shaper/ project121 analyser/ proposition sensor/ sensation122 organism /food particle/energy-packet body in motion/ trajectory extended figure/location123 cardinal numeral/sequence124

This theoretical ordering of functions involves the identification of the founding and leading function of that individual the former the earliest or lowest modality germane to the functioning of that individual, and the latter the last or highest germane modality in that respect). For example, the theoretical idea of a plant will take into account how that plant is guided by the biotic function, or what it means to be subject to the laws governing biology. For the purpose of analysis, the individual being contemplated is isolated from that individuals context and seen in terms of the laws and norms that govern it, i.e. in terms of its individuality-structure. This individualitystructure needs to be seen as a generalised approximation to ones perception of the individual at a given time. However, it cannot finally capture fully who or what an individual is, only provide a modally-ordered description. Individuals cannot exist on their own they are not self-contained substances or monads ( la Leibniz) but are bound to other individuals by a complex tapestry of different kinds of relation to which I now turn

120 121

Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 2.371-382. Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 2.371-382. 122 Ouweneel argues that the psychic modality should be divided into the perceptive and the sensitive modalities [Ouweneel, De Leer van de mens: Proeve van een christelijk-wijsgerige anthropologie: 206217; Ouweneel, Heart and Soul: A Christian View of Psychology: 76-81]. However a better way of seeing this latter distinction is to see what he calls the perceptive as a psychic expression of individuality and sensitive as a psychic expression of relationality. 123 Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 2.385-386. 124 Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 2.79-83.

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Relationality
The second necessary condition for experience is relationality. Relations need to be recognised as being more than merely the combination of the functions of the individuals concerned. They are universal realities which hold between different individuals having an ontic status independent of the specific individuals they bind together as sbjects and objects the active or passive functions for each

modality which are linked together by the law or norm appropriate to that modality.125 The subjection of individuals to the Origin can only be exercised in the
context of the diversity of the relations which connect them to other individuals.126 The diversity of relations needs to be seen in turn in the context of other relations held together by a great skein of analogies (antecipations and retrocipations) by which the different sorts of kinds of relation are linked together harmoniously. Dooyeweerd and Vollenhoven systematically traced out a number of irreducible relations that there are:

125

Vollenhoven, Introduction 81-84, 103, 105, 163, 164, 168, 201, 210, 212, pp. 55- 56. 66-67, 116117, 119, 137, 140-141. There are differences in this regard between Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd which I shall not pursue here but which I have dealt with in my thesis [Ive, Individuals, relations and events : 3.1.2 and 3.2.2]. This link between sbjects and objects (or sbjects and sbjects) is at variance with the tendency in Western though to see the subject as the thinking or analyzing observer and the object (or another human subject) as the matter of consideration or analysis. This is what Dooyeweerd calls the Gegenstand, which is essentially abstract, impersonal and indirect (since like a butterfly pinned to a board, it remains dead and lifeless). Dooyeweerd was deeply critical of the secular Western Enlightenment view of the thinking subject to which the material of cognition (which Dooyeweerd calls the Gegenstand) is presented. He rejects the model that has come to dominate Western philosophy with the mind being seen as a tabula rasa to which the givens of experience are presented. As Polanyi has shown subsequently, we cannot engage with the world without prior expectations, indeed passionate expectations within what he calls a fiduciary framework [Polanyi, Personal knowledge: towards a postcritical philosophy: 267]. Marking out of the different areas of analysis is unavoidable in theoretical thought. However even there, the divide between the thinking subject and the subject matter of analytical investigation is misleading and distorting. For him (and indeed for Vollenhoven) the human subject is not to be seen as divorced from his or her situation and the diversity of relationships of which he or she is part. Like Vollenhoven, he understands subject in two senses. The first (Vollenhovens subjct) is about the subjection of the individual to God the opposite of the Western Enlightenment view of the human thinking subject to which all the matter of analysis is subjected. The second sense of subject (Vollenhovens sbject) is understood in terms of its objective nexus with the object, but not as thinking subject to the Gegenstand but of the active polarity in a law or norm governed relationship or objective nexus. In other words, in both senses of subject, it is not a question of knowledge by a detached observer, but all knowledge involves the practical engagement of the knower within the context of a relationship within which that knower is engaged through the process of knowing [Dooyeweerd, W.d.W.:2.399-407; 3.46; Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 2.466-472, 3.65; Hart, Dooyeweerd's Gegenstand Theory of Theory: 143-149]. 126 The linking of sbjects and objects (or in the case of human being sbjects and sbjects) is called directness in Relational terms [Schluter and Lee, The R Factor: 72-75; Ashcroft, The Relational Lens: Chapter 5].

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Relation Frames127 pistical (faith): ethical: juridical/legal: aesthetic: economic: social: symbolic/lingual: cultural-formative: logical /analytical: psychic/sensory: biotic: physical: kinetic: spatial: numerical: trust128 benevolence129 fairness,130 retribution131 aesthetic appreciation optimal exchange, stewardship courtesy,132 social intercourse, meaning, significance formative control133 non-contradiction feeling,134 sensitivity135 cellular composition dynamic system approaching or receding, speed or acceleration contiguity, comparisons of size or shape136 more or less than, equal to etc.

What is important is not the precise description of each of these different relations. The identification and ordering of them is open-ended and subject to continual correction and elaboration. The principle behind it is that no one sort of relation is capable of providing us with a fully adequate description of the world. As we have seen, any attempt to do so results in the process called reductionism.137 For example, our understanding of the world cannot fully be based on physical relation, that is, relations concerning the exchange and conversion of physical energy. Physical relations alone (or biological, psychological, cultural-formative etc.) cannot adequately exemplify for us
127

This is the term suggested by M.D. Stafleu [Stafleu, Relations and characters in Protestant philosophy]. 128 Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 2.298-330. 129 Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 2.140-162. 130 Chaplin, Dooyeweerd's theory of public justice: a critical exposition argues for tribution. 131 Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 2:406. 132 Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 2.371-382. 133 Beheersende vorming [ Dooyeweerd, W.d.W.:2.143 ; Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 2.203]. 134 Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 2.371-382. 135 See the preceding footnote but one. 136 Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 2.383. 137 See the introduction to this section.

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relations of justice, beauty, love or faith to mention just a few. Any attempt to exclude these latter from the picture gives us an impoverished and distorted world and life view. However, even any of the latter taken on their own cannot provide us with a full and balanced picture either. Only by taking into account the full range of relations that there are, and giving them their proper consideration, can we truly live and think in a way that expresses the richness of the way that God created the world, and, in particular, that he provides for the true flourishing of human relations.

Time
Time is the third necessary condition for any experience or transcendental. This is about the narrative of everything that happens: how individuals and relations come into being, flourish and develop and go out of being.138 Vollenhoven calls this the genetic determination (where genetic has nothing to do with biology, but with the Greek for of the word, that is to do with coming into being):139 it is the process of moving from the past to the present to the future.140 In the related thinking of Dooyeweerd, time involves the related process of unfolding and enfolding. As in the case of individuality and relationality, time is also governed by the laws or norms appropriate to each modality:

138

This is the element of continuity in Relational terms [Schluter and Lee, The R Factor: 75-80; Ashcroft, The Relational Lens: Chapter 6]. 139 Genetic for Vollenhoven has no biological connotations, but rather refers to the Greek terms which is about becoming or coming into being. 140 Here I am indebted to the seminal paper, Tol, Time and change in Vollenhoven. See also Tols introductory remarks in Vollenhoven, Plato's realisme (63a, slotgedeelte): 153-154.

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Time Aspects faith (pistical): ethical: juridical/legal: aesthetic: economic: social: symbolic/lingual : logical /analytical: psychic/sensory: biotic: physical: kinetic: spatial: numerical:
141 142

liturgical time,141 time of belief,142 revelation143 right time,144 priority of moral obligation145 length of validity146retribution aesthetic moment,147 dramatic order,148 rhythm interest,149 rent, profit, wage, economic cycle conventional time,150 social priority,151 word order,152 tense,153 symbolic moment154 prius/ posterius,157 tension,158 dure159 organic development,160 growth time causal irreversibility, physical time161 constancy simultaneity162 succession,163 ordinality164

cultural-formative: cultural development,155 periodicity156

Vollenhoven, Introduction: 33. Popma, Inleiding in de Wijsbegeerte: 75-76. 143 Dooyeweerd, Encyclopedia of the science of law, Vol.1 Introduction: 32. 144 Vollenhoven, Introduction: 33; Popma, Inleiding: 75. 145 Dooyeweerd, Encyclopedia Introduction: 32. 146 Vollenhoven, Introduction: 33; Dooyeweerd, Encyclopedia Introduction: 31. Geldigheidsduur [Popma, Inleiding: 74-75]. 147 Vollenhoven, Introduction: 33; Popma, Inleiding: 72-74. 148 Dooyeweerd, Encyclopedia Introduction: 31. 149 Vollenhoven, Introduction: 33; Dooyeweerd, Encyclopedia Introduction: 31. 150 Popma, Inleiding: 70-71. 151 Dooyeweerd, N.C.:1.33; Dooyeweerd, Encyclopedia Introduction: 30; Vollenhoven, Introduction: 33. 152 Popma, Inleiding: 68-70. 153 Vollenhoven, Introduction: 33; N.C.: 2.126-127. 154 Dooyeweerd, Encyclopedia Introduction: 30. 155 Dooyeweerd, Encyclopedia Introduction: 30. 156 Vollenhoven, Introduction: 33; Popma, Inleiding: 67-68; N.C.: 2.193. 157 Dooyeweerd, Dooyeweerd, W.d.W.:1.38; N.C.: 1.30; Dooyeweerd, Encyclopedia Introduction: 30; Vollenhoven, Introduction: 33; Popma, Inleiding: 67. 158 Vollenhoven, Introduction: 33. Gevoeligheidsspanning [Popma, Inleiding: 64-67]. 159 Dooyeweerd, N.C:.1.38; Dooyeweerd, Encyclopedia Introduction: 30. Duurgevoel [Popma, Inleiding: 64-67]. 160 Vollenhoven, Introduction: 33; Dooyeweerd, Encyclopedia Introduction: 30. Groeitijd [Popma, Inleiding: 71-72]; N.C.: 1.28. 161 Physische tijd [Popma, Inleiding: 63-64]. 162 Vollenhoven, Introduction: 33; 2.384; Dooyeweerd, Encyclopedia Introduction: 29; Popma, Inleiding: 61-62; Popma, Successie en gelijktijdigheid. 163 Vollenhoven, Introduction: 33; N.C.:1.28; Popma, Inleiding: 60-61. See Popma, Successie en gelijktijdigheid. 164 Dooyeweerd, Encyclopedia Introduction: 29.

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In the case of individuals over time, there is the notion of the internal opening process. An individual endures through time and its individuality-structure (the structured diversity of diverse functions which that individual exercises) is opened up over the course of that duration.

Direction the religious orientation of the whole person

Direction, the orientation of the heart is the response of the human person from the heart the centre of human experience and reflection. It issues in two possible responses: either obedience to God, or apostasy. These responses respectively shape ones basic worldview, the ones basic expressed stance towards God and the world. Ones worldview is worked out both in everyday experience as well as in ones theoretical grasp of the world.165 Both everyday experience and theoretical reflection require the appropriate exercise of intuition. Nave or pre-theoretical experience is made possible by the intuitions, exercised implicitly, first, that there are things and persons which are not simply the product of my own mind, and indeed that I myself cannot be the product of my own mind since I do not relate to the world as a disembodied epiphenomenon but as one who is a full participant in the world (and even were one dreaming it, it would be I who is the participant). Indeed, navely, that is, in sheer experience, the question of my possible non-existence does not even arise. Second, there is the presuppositum that others are related to each other as I am to them, or at least in some way that when I call a rose red I can generally (within the bounds of certain implicitly acknowledged circumstances) expect my neighbour similarly to do so when called upon. In other words, that there are universal connections that implicitly can be taken for granted. Thirdly, there is the presuppositum that one event will follow another in a reasonably anticipatable succession. Again, one does not usually (short of a cosmic catastrophe) have to doubt that the sun will rise in the morning, it having set the evening before. Each of these presuppositions is not simply interesting features about the constitution of the world. Without the continuity of persons or things over time, or the possible of
165

Developing this shared worldview is called commonality in Relational terms [Schluter and Lee, The R Factor: 86-87; Ashcroft, The Relational Lens: Chapter 10].

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universal relations between persons or things, or indeed the flow of time itself, no experience, let along any reflection upon that experience, would be possible it would literally be unexperienceable and unthinkable. Intuition also makes possible theoretical reflection. Theoretical reflection constitutes a second sort of differentiation, as the different sorts of things, relations and events are distinguished from one another, and rigorous analysis made of the specific norms and laws by which those persons or things, relations or events are governed, and how the relevant generalisations, functional characterisations and causalities can be defined and specified. As we seek to reflect on and rigorously analyse the different functions pertaining to individuals (persons or thing), the different kind of relations that there are and the different ways there are in which time passes and things happen. Careful reflection uncovers incommensurability in certain respects. For example, the discrimination of a persons moral goodness is not rightly contradicted or confirmed by the claim that they have dark hair or are poor. The understanding of economic marginal utility is not rightly contradicted or confirmed by the understanding of what it means to be a faithful husband. The judgement that it will rain tomorrow is not rightly contradicted or confirmed by the judgement that I deserve a pay rise for all the hard work I have done. And yet, while there is an intuition that there is incommensurability in all these cases, there is also a countervailing intuition that those disparate aspects cohere. Intuition is a working out of the covenant.166 The covenant is about the embodied obedience of humanity to the revelation of Gods transcendence in the midst of life. As human beings work out their covenantal obedience to God in this way, so in the Direction of their heart, they respond a right to the experience of everyday life and so reflect and distil its diversity theoretically. The reflection and the action are two sides of the same coin the working out of what it means to be obedient in every area of the life of the world as Gods domain. The unity of the experience, thought and action as the different elements of experience are drawn together overcomes all the dichotomies that have fractured and distorted Western thought. Not least of these dichotomies is that between the thinking subject and the matter of analysis, so that the thinking subject has been seen as divorced from his or her context and freed from the imperatives which the
166

See above.

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engagement in the life of the world requires

Appendix 4: The three descriptive views

By combing each of these pairs of transcendentals in turn, we arrive at three descriptive approaches: individuals over time, relations over time, and, and individuals in relation. They are complementary with one another, and each is necessary for the full description of a specific state-of-affairs. Together they provide a rounded picture of relationships seen from different viewpoints.

Individuals over time (principles of parity + continuity)

Individuals develop over time. This involves the coming into being, reconstitution and going out of being of new individuals (including social wholes) over time; and the joining and separation of individuals as they enter and leave social wholes. This brings together the Relational principle of parity, according to which the each individual is respected as having their distinctive individuality, and the Relational principle of continuity, seeing them grow and develop over time. Bringing these two principles together involves character each individual is respected as having their distinctive story sometimes won in the face of difficulties and challenges. Enkaptic relations bind individuals together in a larger whole, in such a way that the individuality of the respective relata is not lost, but each has continuity to the other in the whole that they are placed. Individuals-in-relation form an overall whole (no matter how ephemerally, for example even simply by coming into spatial contiguity with another individual), but not in the sense of the whole and parts but rather in such a way that the individuality of each participating entity is preserved. In external enkapsis, a higher component structure avails itself of the modal functions (i.e. the specific sorts of relation) of the lower structure.167 In internal enkapsis in which the internal sphere

167

Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 3.696 (not in W.d.W.); Dooyeweerd, R. & S. 3: ms p. 6; Dooyeweerd, Het substantiebegrip in de moderne natuurphilosophie en de theorie van het enkaptisch structuurgeheel: 68.

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sovereignty of an enkaptic whole is revealed through preserving the integrity of its distinctive character.168 An individual can be contemplated over time by tracing ways in which the concreteness of that individual presents itself to one in a way in which all the features of that individual form a continuous whole. It is through the process of enkaptic interlacement (that it the coming into being of new individuals in and through existing individuals without obliterating the integrity of those existing individuals) that we can see the development of individuals over time. This results is a new enkaptic whole, i.e. an entity with its own individuality and identity distinct from that of the constituent entities without the constituent entities losing their own integrity and individuality.169 Similarly, Vollenhoven speaks of life lines (levenslijnen) which express the change and development of each individual over time.170 A good example of this is the case of human character. Human character for Dooyeweerd is the expression of human individuality over time through concrete acts (i.e. acts integrally involving the whole gamut of the modalities, from quantity through the physical, biotic and sensory modalities to that of faith, and all the modalities in between).171 Dooyeweerd speaks of the genetic process of human life (where genetic, as with Vollenhoven, means the sheer process of becoming), which involves the process of the actualization of potentialities already present in the structural principle of human
168

Dooyeweerd, N.C.: 3.696 (not in Dooyeweerd, W.d.W.); R. & S.3: ms p. 6; Dooyeweerd, Substantiebegrip ... enkaptisch structuurgeheel: 68. 169 Dooyeweerd, Substantiebegrip ... enkaptisch structuurgeheel: 78-86; Dooyeweerd, N.C.:3.13-21,704713; R & S 3: 13-21. Here Dooyeweerd refers to experiments by Walther Kossel (1888-1956) which demonstrated that the structure of a crystal lattice is influenced by the internal structures of the constituent atoms, and yet can be recognized as a distinct identity. Dooyeweerd argues that this insight is in conflict with classical mechanistic physics, which denies entiary status to the lattice and only recognizes the entiary status of the constituent atoms. It is also in conflict with the neo-Thomist account, such as set out by Hoenen [Philosophie der organische Natuur (1940): 408 ff.] which attempts to accord the lattice the status of composite form and regards the atoms as having merely virtual form since the coming into being of the lattice renders their properties dormant. 170 Vollenhoven, Getuigen (59d):/2, 138; Vollenhoven, Problemen rondom de tijd (63b): 185. A younger thing evolves out of one or more previously existing things, so that whereas the constituents were previously interrelated in an interindividual manner, now they take on an intraindividual interrelation. [Vollenhoven, Introduction: 100, pp. 64-65]. This can involve two individuals joining to become a new individual, for example two football clubs can merge to become one; or when an individual takes on a constituent of another, for example a plank of wood can be taken from a tree to become part of a fence; or when two or more individuals emit constituents of what then becomes a new individual, as in the case of biological reproduction [Vollenhoven, Introduction: 102-103, pp. 65-66, my examples]. 171 Dooyeweerd, De leer van de mensch in de W.d.W.: Proposition XXVI. Dooyeweerd rejects any notion of incorporeal acts. He states that outside of the body, no acts are possible [Proposition XX].

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bodily existence.172 First there is the structure comprising the chemicals which make up the human body, then there is the biotic structure of the body proper, then, further, there is the way in which the physical structure is interlaced with these and finally, what Dooyeweerd calls the act structure, i.e. the exercise of supra-biotic faculties, is bound together with these as well.173 Each structure is successively bound (morphologically) by the higher one,174 so that human bodiliness, although it has no one modally qualified feature, can be bound by the act structure.175 The human character is opened up in the diversity of different relationships on the one hand, and the elaboration of that persons internal structure on the other. Human beings are individuals. Each human being is what Vollenhoven calls a subjectunity, in covenantal relationship (Vollenhoven) or dependence (Dooyeweerd) upon God. In the working out of the unity of who the human being is, there are the intertwined (or as Dooyeweerd calls them) different enkaptic structures : the physical, biological, sensory and normative (what Dooyeweerd calls the act) structures which, woven together as it were with a silver chord (see Ecclesiastes 12:6) , make up the whole human life. Human beings themselves do not have any founding or guiding function,176 and in this sense they transcend all the modalities, but in the working out of the unity of who the human being is, there are the intertwined (or as Dooyeweerd calls them) enkaptic structures of human life: the physical, biological, sensory and normative (what Dooyeweerd calls the act) structures.177 We are not bounded by any purpose in time
172 173

Dooyeweerd, N.C.:3.78 (not in Dooyeweerd, W.d.W.). Dooyeweerd, De leer van de mensch in de W.d.W., Propositions X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XVII, XXII; NC 3:88 (not in W.d.W.); Fernhout, p. 79.]. The act structure manifests itself in three ways or directions: knowing, imagining and willing [Theory of Man, Proposition XIV; Encyclopedia of the Science of Law, 1:222-6. Fernhout, p. 78]. The three faculties which Dooyeweerd describes mirror the three capacities of judgement, perception and will in Kuyper, although Dooyeweerd himself feels compelled to distinguish these ways or directions from the traditional faculties. The human body cannot be identified with any one of these individuality-structures but it spans all the modalities [Proposition XVIII]. 174 Theory of Man, Propositions, X and XXIV in Fernhout, p. 78. 175 NC 3:88 [not in W.d.W.] in Fernhout, p. 78. 176 The unity of a human being is not grounded in a modally-specified function (not even the exercise of the faith function) but in his or her total dependence upon God i.e. it is a religious unity, whether they recognize it or not. But the human being is also an enkaptic unity, through the interlacement over time of the physical, biotic, psychical and (normative) act structures. 177 Human beings are governed by a number of individuality structures (as described above). But is not appropriate to treat, for example, our bodies as a distinct individuality structure while we are alive, or to treat one another just as a collection of chemicals there is a religious unity which binds the different structures together.

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our most basic calling is for our hearts to be directed to the eternal Father. We can only find their rest in Him, through Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit.

Relations over time (principles of directness + continuity)

There is a diversification and distinguishing of relations over time Relations can be considered over time. This involves both the widening and deepening of existing relations, but also the discernment of new ones, as well as correspondingly, the expression of new forms of relations as new combinations of relations, and new structural formations express themselves and are recognized in relation to others. Dooyeweerd describes how the different modalities are successively revealed and distinguished from one another, as society becomes more complex. He calls this the opening processes. Relations come into being and time over time and time needs to be seen in the light of time in permutations and character of relationships. In the case of relations over time, there is a process of differentiation across the modalities, i.e. with the different sorts of relations being distinguished from one another over time.178

Individuals in relation at a given time (principles of parity + directness)

The ramifications of relationships can be looked at as seen at a given time. This includes not only the individuals between two or more individuals themselves, but also the wider ramifications of those relationships with respect to others not immediately focused on. This involves also taking into account all other individuals involved as third parties, and all the other relationships so involved. In theory this can extend out indefinitely to encompass the whole of humanity.179 However, for practical purposes, this probably needs to be confined to second or perhaps third degree relationships. Any

178 179

Dooyeweerd, The criteria of progressive and reactionary tendencies in history: 224-227. This is the the human web originally described by the Hungarian author Friges Karinthy in 1929 in his stories Everything is Different and popularized in the play Six Degrees of Separation (1990) written by John Guare [Wikipedia].

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relationship needs to be seen as part of an infinite network of other relationships, affecting them and being affected by them.180 This view will be a snapshot at a given time (chosen, perhaps, because at that point in time the range and diversity of relations can be seen most clearly), but it could be extended to any point in time, either along the path mapped out by the lifeline of a specific individual (as in a. above), or else in terms of the diverse permutations of the different relations (as in b. above).

Towards a 360 degree view of relationships

These descriptive approaches (providing combined views respectively of relations over time, and individuals over time, and individuals in relation) are complementary, and each is necessary for the full description of a specific state-of-affairs. Together they provide a rounded picture of relationships seen from different viewpoints.

Bibliography

180

Here Davidson notion of triangulation [Davidson, The Emergence of Thought: 128-134] might helpfully be extended. For Davidson, the triangulation which secures a common world of discourse between two individuals consists in the relationship between those two individuals and their common context in which those two individuals find themselves. One might see triangulation as the continual expansion of relationships continually drawing in others so that shared world of experience and interaction is built up making solipsism and pure subjectivism impossible.

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