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

This Brummer just referred to, is another young South African Preacher-Philosopher who leftSouth Africa and settled in Holland. There he received an appointment at the University of Utrecht.He has written a rather impressive critique of Dooyeweerd -- in English, I am happy to say --entitled, Transcendental Criticism and Christian Philosophy.In this work, which was his doctoral dissertation, Brummer claims to detect the latent influence ofKantianism in Dooyeweerd's thought. In this work, he especially questions: the Dooyeweerdianview of time; also the Dooyeweerdian view of the relationship between theology and philosophy;and further the relationship between common sense and scientific knowledge. (So too, by the way,does Van Til -- in depth!)To Brummer, the Divine Logos or Word is the ultimate ground of everything. The Logos, theWord, is: the creative ground of all existence; the revelatory ground of all knowledge; theincarnative ground of all redemption; and the teleological ground of all consummation.Last, as we round off some of the major South African Calvinist thinkers in this period prior to theestablishment of the Republic of South Africa in 1961, we mention Professor Anna LouiseConradie. She trained under Professor Dr. Andrew H. Murray, the grandson of the great PreacherAndrew Murray, in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Cape Town (as I myself didtoo). She subsequently became Professor of Philosophy at the University of Natal.Dr. Anna Louise Conradie has tried to give an historical outline of the development of The Neo-Calvinistic Concept of Philosophy -- with special reference to the problem of communication. Bythe way, this work of hers has fortunately been published in the English language. It is a ratherexpensive book, but well worth study.In this work of hers, she discusses the problem of communication -- in Calvin, Kuyper, Bavinck,Woltjer, Hepp and especially Dooyeweerd. She analyses Dooyeweerd's thought -- and she contrastsit with the various immanentistic and Romish systems of modern philosophy. She concludes that ifa Christian philosophy is impossible -- then all philosophy is impossible!We saw a little earlier that Anna Louise Conradie is in agreement with Potgieter, in his criticism ofDooyeweerd. She even criticised Van Til at that time. Van Til, she said, has not seen (or did not in1940 see) the real danger pointed out by Dooyeweerd's critics such as Potgieter did at that time. Iftheology is controlled by the Dooyeweerdian philosophy formulated from Dooyeweerd's religiousa priori, theology is made subject not (as it should be) to the objective norm of Scripture, but to thesubjective religious experience of Dooyeweerd over which we have no control!At this point, we will pause. For next, we must launch out into the last phase of the development ofSouth African thought during the last two decades (1960-80). We shall then begin with an analysisof some of the greatest Afrikaner thinkers of this modern period in South Africa.