Abstract
In this response to the contribution of Zuidervaart, the idea of creation order, which is an important element in the Kuyper-tradition and which Zuidervaart criticizes, is defended. However, the grounds for this defense that are offered here, are not often called upon in relation to the idea of creation order: our human experiences of suffering. They may give us a hermeneutical witness to something like “creation order.” For suffering to be experienced as suffering, a goodness has to be presupposed as ontologically prior. It is argued that, ethically speaking, restoring the goodness of creation (including its developmental potential) is to be preferred above an ethic that is composed in an eschatological key. Zuidervaart’s terminology of “macrostructures” is questioned for systematic reasons but the critical impetus of the terminology is acclaimed especially for its connection to “societal principles” that may give orientation to our actions in the late-modern world.
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Notes
- 1.
This can be seen as complementary to the more general “apologia” for creation order, as given in the introduction to this volume.
- 2.
See my introduction ‘On Entering Kuyper ’s cathedral of everyday life’ to vols. 2 & 3 of Kuyper’s Pro Rege. John Kok & Nelson Kloosterman (eds. 2017), Abraham Kuyper, Pro Rege. Vol.1. pp. vii – xxi; Vol. 2. Bellingham: Lexham Press/Acton Institute (one of the volumes of Jordan J. Ballor & Melvin Flikkema (eds.). Abraham Kuyper. Collected works in public theology).
- 3.
Systematically, I could have explored the experiences of joy and surprise and analyze their ontological structure as well, but then it is harder to make the “counterfactual presence,” or a presence that is somehow beyond human construction (though not beyond human interpretation), visible. We usually do not choose the experiences of suffering; it is more like they “hit” us. That is what talking about “creation order” or “given order” is about.
- 4.
See, for example, the report of Richard Layard and Ann Hagel on the global occurrence of mental disorders among youth in the World Happiness Report 2015. The recent developments in happiness research as a whole are very interesting in this respect.
- 5.
See, as an example, the wide-ranging research of Paul Ekman as reported, for example, in Ekman (2003).
- 6.
For a broader elaboration, see my inaugural lecture (not yet available in English): Publieke liefde. Agape als bron voor maatschappelijke vernieuwing in tijden van crisis. Amsterdam: VU-University 2012. http://www.fgw.vu.nl/nl/Images/publieke-liefde-oratie-Buijs_tcm261-274257.pdf
- 7.
Franz Stark (ed. 1971), Herbert Marcuse/Karl Popper. Sociale revolutie/sociale hervorming. Een confrontatie.Baarn (NL): Wereldvenster, 5.
- 8.
For the undue intrusion of one sphere into another, one could well use the very telling phrase of Habermas: colonization. However, in Habermas’ framework this almost inevitably evokes the image of an a-normative “systems world” intruding into a normative “life-world,” whereas in the Reformational-philosophical account this concerns one normative sphere intruding into another normative sphere and with that very act becoming (partly) a-normative.
- 9.
References
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Fukuyama, F. 1995. Trust. The social virtues and the creation of prosperity. New York: Free Press.
Layard, R., and A. Hagel. 2015. Healthy young minds: Transforming the mental health of children. In World happiness report 2015, 106–130. New York: UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
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Wolterstorff, N. 2008. Justice. Rights and Wrongs. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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Buijs, G.J. (2018). Response: The Hermeneutics of Suffering, Creation Order, and Modern Society. In: Buijs, G., Mosher, A. (eds) The Future of Creation Order. New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion , vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92147-1_11
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