Is there a created order for cosmic evolution in the philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd?

van der Meer

pp. 171-202

in: Gerrit Glas, Jeroen De Ridder (eds), The future of creation order 1, Berlin, Springer, 2017

Abstract

The Christian doctrine of creation entails among other things that order characterizes the cosmos and that the Creator is not subject to this order. In that sense lawful order marks the boundary between Creator and creation. Herman Dooyeweerd generalizes the idea of law as boundary to develop an ontology of created kinds of order. Boundaries demarcate distinct ways in which phenomena operate, limiting causal interactions between them. For instance, physical things cannot produce living things, prohibiting evolutionary emergence. This was in line with the speculative nature of evolutionary thought in the early twentieth century, but not today. To accommodate evolutionary emergence I propose revisions in Dooyeweerd's ideas of law, causation, and time. I replace his idea of law as a given static boundary with a model for the evolution of boundaries. This allows for causal continuity and discontinuity between phenomena with different kinds of order—a conundrum in emergence theory. Theoretically, this combines the possibility of causal explanation of evolutionary emergence with a critique of ontological reductionism. Further, I relocate causal power from intangible laws existing outside of time to the dispositions of concrete things in time and interpret them as dynamic manifestations in creation of God's ordering activity. This amounts to a rejection of Dooyeweerd's theory of time. I justify this effort by what I value in his ontology. Phenomena have many ontologically irreducible dimensions, and their understanding requires many irreducible explanations. More specifically, I value his interpretation of the ontological relations of living things with their physical infrastructure.

Cited authors

Dooyeweerd Herman