Retrato do autor

Obras por Jonathan Chaplin

Associated Works

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

There is no Common Knowledge data for this author yet. You can help.

Membros

Críticas

9-10/13 B&C review of Herman Dooyeweerd: Christian Philosopher of State and Civil Society, Jonathan Chaplin

Herman Dooyeweerd: Christian Philosopher of State and Civil Society, Jonathan Chaplin shows how Dooyeweerd's subtle yet powerful analysis of the architecture of society critically illumines contemporary controversies concerning the state and civil society.

With this book Chaplin also contributes to the revival of interest in the thought of Abraham Kuyper.

Dooyeweerd's social and political thought is a "sophisticated elaboration," argues Chaplin, of Kuyper's ideas—in particular of Kuyper's idea of "sphere sovereignty." Kuyper argues that God is sovereign over all things, and as a result, human authority and responsibility are always limited. One of the ways in which human authority is limited, according to Kuyper, is that the different "spheres" of human life—for example, the sphere of the family, the sphere of business, the sphere of politics—are intended to enjoy a delegated freedom from one another. Each of these spheres is "sovereign" in relation to the others. And within each sphere, human beings have authority delegated from God, to provide leadership subject to the patterns God ordained for that sphere of human life in creation. Wisdom, according to Kuyper, consists of living life in each of these spheres subject to God's creation ordinances.

Dooyeweerd's social and political thought is a "sophisticated elaboration," argues Chaplin, of Kuyper's ideas—in particular of Kuyper's idea of "sphere sovereignty." Kuyper argues that God is sovereign over all things, and as a result, human authority and responsibility are always limited. One of the ways in which human authority is limited, according to Kuyper, is that the different "spheres" of human life—for example, the sphere of the family, the sphere of business, the sphere of politics—are intended to enjoy a delegated freedom from one another. Each of these spheres is "sovereign" in relation to the others. And within each sphere, human beings have authority delegated from God, to provide leadership subject to the patterns God ordained for that sphere of human life in creation. Wisdom, according to Kuyper, consists of living life in each of these spheres subject to God's creation ordinances.

Chaplin's central concern is to show how Dooyeweerd's ideas bear on the "perplexing and ever-shifting question" of the relationship between what we today call "the state" and "civil society." He argues that Dooyeweerd (following in the footsteps of Kuyper) exemplifies what Chaplin calls "normative institutional pluralism." Normative institutional pluralists are convinced that "a vital feature of any just and well-ordered society is the presence of multiple kinds of mutually distinct social institutions [or associations] whose integrity and autonomy it is a primary role of the state to safeguard and support." Hence Kuyper and Dooyeweerd warn against both the totalitarian impulse on the part of the state and the socially corrosive power of individualism.

He acknowledges that such societies bustle with a great variety of proper and improper claims from individuals and their various associations, and that it is difficult to properly integrate and harmonize all of these claims without society degenerating into either an atomistic individualism or a suffocating totalitarianism. But this difficult harmonization—the task of establishing and maintaining public justice, or as Chaplin also writes, "the adjudication of public interdependencies"—is exactly the institutional vocation of the state.

Dooyeweerd is a representative of a view of society that Chaplin calls "covenantal voluntarism"—that is, Dooyeweerd and others like him hold that human society is formed as "free and responsible persons voluntarily associate, but pursuant to a particular human purpose or need arising from the normative design of human nature, not spun out of the arbitrary wills of the associates. Associational initiative is not an expression of radical moral autonomy but the fulfilling of a social vocation."

hus, with the help of Dooyeweerd's social ontology, Chaplin answers the question "What is civil society?" with this definition: "Civil society [is the] realm of social interactions embracing the dense network of [interdependencies] characteristic of a modern society." How does such a definition contribute to the ongoing conversation about civil society? There are currently three overlapping models of civil society: a protective model, an integrative model, and a transformative model. The protective model, exemplified by the work of neo-Tocquevillians like Don Eberly, Perter Berger, and Richard John Neuhaus, understands civil society to exist for the purpose of protecting social bonds, values, and virtues.

The merely protective model is inadequate, however, in terms of Dooyweerd's approach, in that it fails to give adequate attention to what Christopher Beem has termed "the necessity of politics."

In Kuyper's terms, while the state has a unique compulsory authority, and an encompassing responsibility for the public good, it is by the very ordinances of Creation constrained from trespassing onto the sphere sovereignty of other kinds of communities. While Dooyeweerd stands in the tradition of Calvin and Kuyper in recognizing politics to be a high and noble calling, and the authority of the state to be a great and necessary good, he is at the same time, like Kuyper, indeed a "normative institutional pluralist," refusing to allow the integrating authority of the state a totalizing scope.

"Can the concept of civil society generate robust social critique?" by arguing that, independently of the state, civil society can be a site for the development of transformative initiatives that bring about greater freedom, equality, and solidarity. They also argue that a vibrant civil society can serve as an effective barricade against the overweening efforts of the state to exercise its power.
… (mais)
This review has been flagged by multiple users as abuse of the terms of service and is no longer displayed (show).
 
Assinalado
keithhamblen | Sep 25, 2013 |

You May Also Like

Associated Authors

Estatísticas

Obras
17
Also by
4
Membros
240
Popularidade
#94,569
Avaliação
4.0
Críticas
1
ISBN
21
Línguas
1

Tabelas & Gráficos