Jon Amos has linked to many blogs talking about the idea of "post-theonomy." It's an amorphous term, as it seems to mean many things. Scroll down to the Saturday, April 12th entry and check it out.
While reading all of the links, I came across something on Gideon Strauss's blog that I thought interesting. Gideon chairs the Institute for the Design of Economic Life. Gideon is a Dooyewerdian/neo-calvinist. I believe that one can gain a basic understanding of this approach by reading Al Wolters' Creation Regained. I was told by a friend that Wolters represents more of the Vollenhoven tradition than the Dooyewerdian tradition, but I get the sense that the two are very related. They were each other's brothers-in-law.
The Dooyewerdian tradition is interesting precisely because it is very similar in many ways to the Van Tillian tradition. Both are direct descendents of Abraham Kuyper's writings, but Gideon notes that each seem to have run with different aspects of the Kuyperian thought. Van Til seems to have built upon the idea of Kuyper's idea of "antithesis" (which Frame notes as being the weakest part of Van Til's thought), while Dooyewerd more on Kuyper's idea of sphere sovereignity and common grace. I will say this - Wolters' book is what I recommed to anyone wanting to be introduced to the idea of the "biblical world and life view." The theme that I see worked out in neo-calvinist is the creation-fall-redemption framework for thinking about cultural engagement. All of life is good; all of life has fallen; all of life is to be redeemed. This is a simple, yet profound, framework for thinking about life. Personally, while I think Van Til is excellent for thinking about apologetics, I prefer this Vollenhoven-Dooyewerdian approach when it comes to thinking more generally about cultural transformation.
But, the one beef I have with neo-calvinists is that they tend to be somewhat suspicious of market forces and the logic of the free market. One pastor friend of mine believes that they have uncritically imbibed too much of their Dutch tradition. He, then, also noted that perhaps we have imbibed too much of our American republican, free-market tradition.
Posted by Admin at April 14, 2003 07:32 AM