Jacob Klapwijk (24 October 1933 – 19 March 2021) was a Dutch philosopher, and Emeritus Professor of Modern and Systematic Philosophy at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, known for his work on Ernst Troeltsch and historicism, Reformational thinking, the transformational task of Christian philosophy, and the theory of emergent evolution.
Biography Born in Dronrijp, Klapwijk started to study Philosophy and Theology in 1952 at the Vrije Universiteit (VU University), where he received his MA in 1961. For many years he was research assistant to one of the founding fathers of reformational philosophy, D. H. Th. Vollenhoven. In 1970 he received his PhD in Philosophy with a thesis entitled "Between Historicism and Relativism", under supervision of Vollenhoven's colleague S. U. Zuidema.
After his graduation in the early 1960s Klapwijk became lector in Logic at the Vrije Universiteit. In 1974 he was appointed Professor of History of Modern Philosophy, and later was Professor of Systematic Philosophy. Among his students were John Kok and René Woudenberg. He retired in 1994.See Jacob Klapwijk Curriculum Vitae at jacobklapwijk.nl.
Work Klapwijk's research interest concerns the "relationship between reason and religion, and the delicate concept of Christian philosophy". He focused on "the great variety of models of Christian thinking and in particular on the fundamental contrast between the medieval-scholastic and Augustinian-reformed tradition."Jacob Klapwijk Professional interests at jacobklapwijk.nl.
Ernst Troeltsch, historicism and the intimations of radical historicity Initially Klapwijk’s writings chiefly dealt with various theories of history and society. His doctoral dissertation was written on Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923), the German theologian and later philosopher of history in Hegel’s Chair in Berlin, who was widely celebrated for his defense of radical historicism and who gave us the sociological distinction between Church, Sect and Mysticism. The Dutch title for Klapwijk’s thesis was Tussen historisme en relativisme: Een studie over de dynamiek van het historisme en de wijsgerige ontwikkelingsgang van Ernst Troeltsch (1970, English 2013). The dissertation analyzes Troeltsch’s philosophy of "radical historicity" by distinguishing six phases in its development, a development that started with a broad Hegelian perspective of universal history and ended in an extreme "monadological individualism" rooted in mysticism. In later years Klapwijk confronts this radicalized historicism with its relativistic and self-contradictory consequences even in the fields of ethics and theology. He then pretends that we have to accept the radical historicity of human beings including pluralism of norms and values without ignoring the undeniable intimations of ultimate, universal core principles that rule our daily life. This universality can only be based on the fundamental difference between anamnetic and academic history.The English translation, Between Historicism and Relativism, is available online: . In 1994 Klapwijk presented a systematic critique of historicism in Pluralism of Norms and Values , reclaiming arguments in favor of universal norms in terms of core principles for practical life anywhere. In 2009 he formulated his views of history more fully in Commemoration by initiating the basic distinction between the First and the Second History, the first one in terms of personal involvement and practical life commemoration, the second one in terms of theoretical objectification and scientific reconstruction.
In 1974 Klapwijk received a Chair at VU University in the History of Modern Philosophy, while in the eighties a Chair in Systematic Philosophy was added. His inaugural lecture was published as Dialektiek der verlichting: Een verkenning in het neomarxisme van de Frankfurter Schule (1976, English 2010). In this book Klapwijk gives credit to the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory by discussing the critical views that Marcuse, Horkheimer, Adorno and the early Habermas developed with respect to contemporary history and the modern welfare of society. He concludes that, indeed, we need a critical reconstructing of the legacy of the Enlightenment in terms of freedom, rationality and human dignity, but that the Critical Theory is not critical enough. At bottom it can be interpreted as an insufficiently clarified expression of faith.Dialektiek der verlichting (1976). See in particular the Foreword by Lambert Zuidervaart from the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto, included in the English translation, Dialectic of Enlightenment (2010), pp. vii-x
Reformational philosophy clarifies its own inner history, and its relation to modern society A key task that Klapwijk took upon himself right from the start was that of analyzing the distinctive position of so-called Reformational philosophy. He focussed on Vollenhoven's early vision of an integral Scriptural philosophy that is not accommodated to ancient Greek paganism or modern secular humanism, undiluted by what Vollenhoven and his colleague at the VU, Herman Dooyeweerd, had called "synthesis philosophy", i.e. a mix of biblical motifs with sophisticated conceptions of a non-Christian origin. For Vollenhoven, this synthesis quality compromised the Middle Ages and even the entirety of Patristic philosophical theology, contrary to Alfred North Whitehead's appraisal of the same era. But Klapwijk emphasized how in later years Vollenhoven acknowledged that an antithetical attitude, so characteristic for Reformational thinkers, does not exclude affinities and structural similarities between secular theories and Christian philosophy. Here already, Klapwijk raised the crucial question whether religious antithesis should not go hand in hand with philosophical openness, "an openness to bring all human thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ."See Calvin and Neo-Calvinism on Non-Christian Philosophy (1973), p. 61.
Klapwijk also analyzed and evaluated differences between the university's two leading lights, Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck, both now long deceased but both with partisan followers who could live less with the leaders' differences than could those leaders themselves. One of Klapwijk's first attempts to articulate this critical stance for his philosophical community occurred in a widely-read volume edited by Hendrik Hart, Johan van der Hoeven, and Nicholas Wolterstorff, reviewed in Theology Today by Eugene Osterhaven: "An excellent chapter on 'Rationality in the Dutch Neo-Calvinist Tradition' by Jacob Klapwijk ... treats Abraham Kuyper's doctrines of common grace, and the antithesis, and his failure to harmonize the two, especially when he dealt with human reason. Kuyper's attempts to give the antithesis organizational form is shown to "lead to a dangerous identification of the Christian (or, if you will, Reformed) cause with God's cause." Although Kuyper intended Christian organizations to be a means for Christianizing society, 'the danger was that they were considered not as deficient instruments but as ends in the struggle for the Kingdom of God'."See Rationality in the Dutch Neo-Calvinist Tradition (1983), pp. 97-98, and for Osterhaven here
As mentioned by Osterhaven, one major difference in ideas between Bavinck and Kuyper is formulated in terms inherent to the Reformed tradition. It's the contrast between the doctrine of "religious antithesis" (not only the human soul but all of life in culture and society is to be redeemed) and its counterpart, the doctrine of "common grace" (cultural goods are tokens of God’s grace equally for Christians and non-Christians). How to integrate both perspectives? Bavinck emphasized common grace, while Kuyper, in many of his works, emphasized (sometimes severely) the antithetical attitude, also in terms of separate Christian organizations in public life. A comparison of the two positions, which came to designate two interwoven and contentious traditions in the Christian Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and the Christian movements that flowed from its membership, is presented in one of the three chapters that Jacob Klapwijk contributed to a very important self-critical work of Reformational philosophy, entitled Bringing into Captivity Every Thought (1991).See Antithesis and Common Grace (1991) and Epilogue: The Idea of Transformational Philosophy (1991). In Abraham Kuyper on Science, Theology and University (2013) Klapwijk highlights the innovative insights in Kuyper’s theories of science and society. He was one of the three editors of the volume and among nearly a dozen contributors.
Clarifying his philosophical movement's task as transformational in the wider world The dispute about synthesis and antithesis has incisive consequences for the Christian’s position in culture and society but touches in particular the Christian calling in philosophy. Klapwijk wanted to think of Reformational philosophy not only, not even primarily as "Calvinist" in Vollenhoven's term, not only as "reformational-ecumenical" (in Herman Dooyeweerd's terms), but as a transformational philosophy. He took as an example the Church fathers’ notion of spoliatio Aegyptiorum, the robbery of the Egyptians (see Ex. 12:36). God ordered the Israelites in the great exodus to rob their antagonists of their silver and golden treasures. Yet, it was not for the sake of synthesis and syncretism (‘the golden calf’): the metals were purified and re-used for the service of God in the sanctuary of the desert. This is for Klapwijk a paradigm of the transforming power of a religious belief, also in philosophical discussions. Christian philosophy should overcome the synthesis/antithesis dilemma. It is athletic enough to keep pace with the broader philosophical world, putting the theories of the day to a critical test and using what is valuable in such a way that it can become subservient to a Christian perspective on reality in the realms of theoretical thought.See Antithesis, Synthesis, and the Idea of Transformational Philosophy (1986), p. 145. A broader survey of the previous issues as discussed by Vollenhoven, Dooyeweerd and their reformational followers is to be found in Klapwijk’s Reformational Philosophy on the Boundary between the Past and the Future (1987). Here and in The Struggle for a Christian Philosophy (1980) Klapwijk pays special attention to Dooyeweerd’s position.
Transformational philosophy and living nature