Misusing Dooyeweerd

• To push your own ideas. you have oddball ideas, and latch onto some of Dooyeweerd's ideas to get support for your ideas. G.Baus remarked "The misuse of Dooyeweerd I find most objectionable is that of claiming support for theological heterodoxy."

• "'sloganeering' that is, using general notions without substantiating the concepts or their application to particular instances in thorough debate." (from G.baus).

• Treating Dooyeweerd's philosophy as though it were divine revelation.

• To support your cause. one of Dooyeweerd's aspects is important to you. people in some group you interact with seem to ignore it. you emphasise the aspect.

• Especially, using Dooyeweerd as ammunition in theological debate; in theological debate, we should use Dooyeweerd to further self-critique rather than as ammunition.

• To support the status quo. radical thinkers threaten you, and downplay something you think is important. you see that one of Dooyeweerd's aspects includes the thing you think is important. so you claim "this is important cos Dooyeweerd said so". example: progress.

• Apostasy hunts. Dooyeweerd's emphasis on presuppositions and religious ground motives, and his proposal that flawed or apostate religious motives lie at the heart of all problems in thinking, makes us feel superior. we start to analyse all thought to hunt for its apostate roots. Useful activity in its way, but not when it prevents more positive things happening. doing this often prevents us seeing how other thinkers are often right, and especially how their ideas could be enriched by Dooyeweerd.

• Assuming that later aspects have priority over earlier, e.g. economic over the social, or religious (pistic) to all. No aspect has priority.

But let us not become timid and cautious in our thinking for fear of misusing. Let us not set up any thought-police (even in our own minds) and pseudo-legal systems of rules about what is and is not misusing. Let us rather be more careful, humble, generous, creative and loving.

Created 4 January 2002
Last updated: 17 September 2002 with stuff from G.Baus. 7 April 2004 aspects have same priority; .nav. 26 August 2005 theological debate.