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

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philosophy, Van Til sees a beautiful outworking of the Van Tillian principle of the OntologicalTrinity -- as reflected in creation. Furthermore, says Stoker, each ontic reality (or substance as hecalls it) also possesses freedom in its own ability. That is to say, everything in the universe has itsown peculiar nature -- by which it develops and expresses itself.Everything in the universe further has universality in its own ability. That is to say, each substanceaffects and is affected by every other substance in the universe. In fact, this is the counterpart of theold physics, that said: "Be careful when you breathe; because when you breathe, you shake the starson the other side of the universe." Of course, this is perfectly true. That is why it is so importantthat we keep God's Law and do the right thing. Because we disturb the equilibrium throughout thecosmos when we sin!For these reasons, says Stoker, the cosmos consists not merely of fifteen Dooyeweerdian lawspheres-- the numerical sphere through the so-called pistic (as fifteen little globes strung togetherin cosmic time like beads on a necklace). No! The cosmos rather consists of various cones --wedged together like slices of a Christmas cake cut apart from one another but not removed fromone another. Or, Stoker says elsewhere -- like a bicycle wheel with God as the axle at the centre,and all of the spokes radiating out from God and connected with God and then also to the tyre(representing the outer rim of the universe).Each cone of Stoker's "Christmas cake theory of the universe" supports all of the other cones orwedge-shaped slices of cake. One of these cones or wedges contains all of the law-spheres ofDooyeweerd. The other cones of the round cake contain different substances -- such as values,causation, and qualities. You need all of these cones or wedge-shaped pieces of the Christmas cake,says Stoker, in order to explain the entire universe. What is more, he adds, the individual createdbeings in the universe (which he calls "existences") also cut right across the entirety of these conicalor wedge-shaped schemes. It is only in the divine createdness of the cosmos as a whole, and of eachcreature in the cosmos, that the ontic unity can be established.Now Stoker has insisted that what Dooyeweerd regards as the modal sphere of history is in fact adistinct cone or wedge of the Christmas cake -- quite different from all of the Dooyeweerdian lawspheres.Stoker has also advocated a new motive -- for the understanding of existentialism today.Dooyeweerd only takes you up to Late Liberalism. He finds a tension, in Late Liberalism, betweenthe "freedom motive" and the "science motive." But Stoker believes we need to go beyond that, inorder to understand modern existential man -- modern man whom Rushdoony so beautifully investswith a "present-oriented low-class existentialistic mentality."Stoker feels existential man is locked into a dichotomistic tension between contingency andmeaning. Nothing has any meaning. Life has no meaning. But then -- purely contingently -- manfeels hungry etc. "I'd better go eat some food -- and it has meaning! I eat food now -- but then, afterthat, why am I alive?" We all recognise this motive very much, in the times in which we live.There is also another very strong difference between Stoker and Dooyeweerd. To Stoker, theologyis not just the special science of the so-called pistic sphere, as Dooyeweerd believes. Still less istheology dependent upon the principles of the one and only general science of philosophy, asDooyeweerd believes. To Stoker, theology is the general science which studies the Creator's Selfrevelationin Scripture -- alongside the other general science of philosophy (which studies thecreation revelation as a whole in nature) as well as alongside all of the special sciences (each ofwhich studies a part of creation revelation). And all of these sciences -- philosophy, theology andthe special sciences -- borrow from and lend to one another. More importantly, they must all do soin subjection to the teaching of the Word of God!
Finally, Stoker argues that the so-called pistic sphere of Dooyeweerd is not a peripheral window oneternity succeeding the moral sphere and the juridical spheres. The pistic sphere belongs to the veryroot of man, and influences all of his other actions. And further, says Stoker, the social sphere ofDooyeweerd is not limited to human beings. Because, points out Stoker, animals can behavesocially too. One can therefore speak even of the social behaviour of spiders. Stoker would say so.Dooyeweerd would deny it. But the American Dr. Brach has proved it, in his Ph.D. dissertation onthe social life of Black Widows!Stoker has given the following scheme of the inter-relationship of the various sciences. First of all,theology. In theology, says Stoker -- following Jan Waterink -- there is a definite and necessarilyirreversible chronological order in the Unfolding of the pursuit of the theological sciences.First of all, the bibliological disciplines. These deal directly with the study of the Bible (such ascanonics, exegesis and rules for Hermeneutical exposition and assemblement).Second, there are the ecclesiological disciplines. As you study the Bible bibliologically, the Churchforms impressions as to the meaning of the Bible. This leads to the rise of theological subjects suchas church law and church history (whether general church history or national church history).Third, on further theological reflection, the Church formulates its doctrines. Thus we reach thedogmatological disciplines (such as systematic theology, the history of doctrine, theological ethics,etc.).Then finally, says Stoker, there are the practical alias the diaconalogical disciplines. These includepoimenics (how to take care of the flock); diaconics (how to look after church property and poorpeople); and so forth.To this, more recently, have been added the missiological disciplines. They deal with the way inwhich the Church is to expand into the "regions beyond" -- missionary agrics; missionary organics;missionary theory; missionary history; missionary technology; and so forth. So much then, forStoker's encyclopaedic view of the theological sciences.He then moves on to give his view of the sciences of the cosmos or the universe. These he says, arestudied first by philosophy (the general science dealing with the whole picture telescopically) -- andsecond by each of the various special sciences (which particularly study items in the universepiecemeal and microscopically).Under philosophy, the following disciplines are included, says Stoker. First of all, his Grundriss (orFoundation). Amongst other things, this embraces the doctrines of the Archimedes' point, thecosmic dimensions, ontology and general principia or points of departure.He then goes on to deal with the doctrines of the law-spheres of the individuality structures of allcreated things, and their interrelationships with one another as well as their changing structureswhich they undergo as existences, embedded into time. For they move from the past through thepresent into the future. He also deals with axiology (or a system of evaluating the relativeimportance of all subjects in the universe).He then moves on to his epistemology. How can man know that the thing he thinks he sees, reallyis there? Here Stoker sets forth his doctrine of science -- also his view on the limitations of science,and the value of pre-scientific immediate awareness (and his methodology).
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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
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financed by White money. It is buil
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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
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Page 39 and 40: Four: The Eschatology of Victory in
Page 41 and 42: ide -- to use the instrumentality o
Page 43 and 44: Christian National Calvinist Public
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
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Page 65 and 66: One of the most important Calvinist
Page 67 and 68: Pellissier, who wrote on music and
Page 69 and 70: perspective -- even while he minist
Page 71 and 72: ever encountered by the Whites in S
Page 73 and 74: Now the United States does not need
Page 75 and 76: majority of the White citizens are
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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
Page 93 and 94: World War II when he was hiding fro
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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THE CHRISTIAN AFRIKANERS - The Works of F. N. Lee

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