THE CHRISTIAN AFRIKANERS - The Works of F. N. Lee

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Seven: Mid-Twentieth Century Afrikaner ThoughtThe first major thinker I would like to deal with here, is Professor Frederik Potgieter. I wasprivileged to study under him for my first Doctor's Degree.Professor Potgieter was born in the Eastern Cape. He studied successively at the University of CapeTown and the University of Stellenbosch, receiving his Doctorate of Philosophy for a dissertationon Pavlovian Psychology (i.e. how to make a dog drool).Potgieter next did his Doctorate in Theology under Professor Valentine Hepp -- the successor toKuyper at the Free University of Amsterdam. There, Potgieter submitted a very importantdissertation on The Relationship Between Philosophy and Theology in the Thought of John Calvin.He ploughed through all sixty-some volumes of Calvin in the original Latin to do this.Consequently, this particular work of his is an absolute goldmine of valuable quotations.Incidentally, my own little book of some fifty pages, Calvin on the Sciences, is a further distillationof this. For I derived the Calvin quotes on the subject of Philosophy, Theology and the SpecialSciences there -- largely from Potgieter's book.Potgieter has also authored many other writings. There is his excellent book on predestination andthe ordo salutis; a fine study on pantheism, which he well refutes; and several books on occultphenomena (including the ability to see into the future) in which he attempts to explain them from aChristian viewpoint.His general explanation is that Adam, before the fall, had extraordinary powers of perception --which he lost at the time of the fall. Yet in certain of the children of Adam today, by virtue ofGod's common grace, there are sometimes strong sporadic "after-glows" (as Potgieter calls them) ofthis original ability that God gave to Adam.According to predestination, some people have these abilities more than others. These God givenabilities are then either consciously or unconsciously taken hold of by Satan or his demons, andthen misused to further the kingdom of darkness. On the other hand, says Potgieter, otherindividuals with similar special gifts consecrate them to the Lord Jesus Christ. In that way, they areenabled to perform unusual services in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.Potgieter has also written a very interesting book in English on Christ and Israel -- a book oneschatology. But I think his most important writing is a work called The Theocentric University.There he distinguishes the concrete jungles of humanist institutions from the God-centreduniversity. The latter glorifies God, and recognises God alone as the true Ground and Centre of anyuniversity, for the teaching of every subject in every faculty. Thus the Theocentric (or rather theTrinicentric) University is distinguished from the Romish or the atheistic and the humanistic andthe Islamic university (as the case may be).Potgieter was extremely upset when the South African Government, after a lot of study andconsideration, decided some fifteen or so years ago to go ahead and to establish Chairs of Hinduand Islamic Theology at some South African universities for the benefit of the considerablenumbers of Hindus and Moslems living in South Africa.Potgieter felt this was contrary to the South African Constitution, which claims to be specificallyChristian. On the other hand, one needs to recognise the problems of a Government trying tooperate in a country where only a minority of its total subjects are Christians (even though a vast
majority of the White citizens are professedly Christian).Potgieter is also an expert on Calvin. Just before I came here to give these lectures, I learned he isproducing another book to be entitled Calvin for Today. It is a system of daily readings for eachday of the year.The blurb is very interesting. It says: "Order your Biblical Daily Reading Book now for the NewYear! Make Calvin part of your life by acquiring this book of daily readings, a work in which thegreat Reformed Church Father speaks to us in living Afrikaans, translated from the original Latinand compiled by one of the foremost authorities on Calvin, Professor F.J.M. Potgieter, ProfessorEmeritus of Stellenbosch. These 365 daily readings are a choiceselection of Calvin's writteninheritances which, for the most part, are taken from his various writings. They cover a largevariety of subjects, e.g. predestination, infant baptism, prayer, our Christian clothing, the right ofresistance, and God's providence."One of the interesting things about Potgieter, is a discussion concerning his Doctoral Dissertationon the relationship between theology and philosophy in the thought of John Calvin -- which wasundertaken by Cornelius Van Til in 1940. Van Til said: "Potgieter argues that according toDooyeweerd not revelation but the regenerated heart is posited as the foundation of Philosophy."However, Potgieter replied that the fixed foundation of special revelation in the Word of God maynever be exchanged for the instability and fallibility of the still-sinful regenerated heart orregenerated ego.To this criticism of Dooyeweerd by Potgieter, Van Til replied in 1940: "Potgieter contends that acomplete and constant submission of the regenerated ego is nowhere found because no one isperfect. But surely such a submission does take place in principle, or there would be no moreChristian theology any more than a Christian philosophy. Potgieter apparently desires that theChristian philosopher, instead of going directly to the Bible itself, should first come to a competenttheological professor for a statement of what the Bible has to say to him."Continues Van Til: "Are we then to understand that this is because this theology professor,Potgieter, is perfect in degree as well as in principle? If the author had observed the simpledistinction between perfection in principle and perfection in degree, he could not have made theexceedingly serious charge of subjectivism against Dooyeweerd."Now it is true Professor Potgieter does believe that the Christian Philosopher, in using the Bible atthe theoretical scientific level, needs to consult with the Christian Theologian's expert scientificexegesis and systematisation of Scripture. That is true. I myself think Potgieter is right in thatstatement, and Van Til perhaps wrong. But Potgieter has never claimed that all Christians, even tounderstand the Bible at a common sense level, need to come to the Christian Theologian in order toget his clearance first. For Potgieter emphatically believes in the clarity and perspicuity ofScripture.It is interesting that others have agreed with Potgieter against what Van Til said in agreement withDooyeweerd back in 1940. Dooyeweerd, according to Van Til, then constantly subjected theregenerated ego to the Scriptures. To be sure, Dooyeweerd finds in the regenerated ego theimmediate starting point and concentration point of philosophy. But, says Van Til, it is the greatvirtue of the cosmonomic "Philosophy of Law" that Dooyeweerd and Vollenhoven insist in all theirwriting that man should regard himself as a creature and a sinner -- and should therefore go to theScriptures in order, in the light of them, to search out the meaning of the created world.One of the later "Potgieter" philosophers in South Africa, a lady called Anna Louise Conradie(Professor of Philosophy at the University of Natal) agrees with Potgieter. She says Van Til has justnot seen the real danger pointed out by Dooyeweerd's critics. If theology is controlled byDooyeweerd's "cosmonomic idea" -- a philosophical creature formulated by Dooyeweerd's
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THE CHRISTIAN AFRIKANERSA Brief His
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God richly bless the following lect
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There have always been, and always
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But the only one they both appeal t
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Now Zuidema was a very great Dutch
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Dutch churches at the Synod of Dord
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station -- to help the Dutch ships
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It is a country dedicated to freedo
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1760 -- there was more and more dis
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with the Dutch. Many moved farther
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said: "The British have placed our
Page 23 and 24: financed by White money. It is buil
Page 25 and 26: Famous Boer Generals, left to right
Page 27 and 28: Three: Unannihilated: the Resurrect
Page 29 and 30: (who had arrived in the country onl
Page 31 and 32: of success.I may add that White Sou
Page 33 and 34: General Beyers felt that those text
Page 35 and 36: Balfour Declaration. The gist of it
Page 37 and 38: Africa; treks on into the land both
Page 39 and 40: Four: The Eschatology of Victory in
Page 41 and 42: ide -- to use the instrumentality o
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Page 45 and 46: through constitutional process it h
Page 47 and 48: I guess the best way to describe Sm
Page 49 and 50: He was followed after his assassina
Page 51 and 52: So the Scots came. I am going to sp
Page 53 and 54: the Reformed Church in South Africa
Page 55 and 56: ook on Hebrews. But his greatest wr
Page 57 and 58: At that point, Du Plessis enquired
Page 59 and 60: Yet quite apart from this high view
Page 61 and 62: One last point. There is a tremendo
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Page 65 and 66: One of the most important Calvinist
Page 67 and 68: Pellissier, who wrote on music and
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Page 71 and 72: ever encountered by the Whites in S
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Page 77 and 78: Now you will not find in any of Sto
Page 79 and 80: Finally, Stoker argues that the so-
Page 81 and 82: This then brings Stoker to another
Page 83 and 84: This Brummer just referred to, is a
Page 85 and 86: Man was to rejoice in this nature (
Page 87 and 88: enhanced. For, in the present, man
Page 89 and 90: he declared, riddled with the ungod
Page 91 and 92: Van der Waal is a very brilliant So
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Page 95 and 96: The Professor of Philosophy -- or I
Page 97 and 98: glory.There are also Christian psyc
Page 99 and 100: Then there are Christian criminolog
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Page 105 and 106: people in South Africa. The South A
Page 107 and 108: nature and of human culture (Prover
Page 109 and 110: The parousia of Jesus Christ will i
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