Philosophical Help and Humility

Third Quarter 2003

Editor's Watch

by James W. Skillen

This issue of the Public Justice Report puts the spotlight on philosophy and books, ideas and worldviews. The reader should not, however, jump to the conclusion that ideas and philosophies are the primary path to truth. Nor should the reader assume that the Center for Public justice turns to philosophy to obtain its norms and standards for justice and political obligation. No, philosophies, worldviews, and ideas represent human responses (whether obedient or disobedient) to God's call to action, to the God who commissions the human generations with responsibility. The standards for measuring the quality of human action and thought are God given, not humanly constructed. Philosophy is not the source of truth but only one of the ways humans are called to respond to God with their gifts and talents.

Ideas do indeed have legs and the view of life we hold will have a huge influence on the shape of our political system and its laws. David Naugle's important book on worldviews helps to explain why this is true, and David Koyzis's illumination of modern political ideologies shows how different are the approaches that people have taken toward politics based on their deepest convictions about life. Both books are introduced in this issue of the Report. The most important thing in all of this is that God, in the final analysis, is the judge of our ideas and the influence they have on the way we shape our political systems. We are not free to do anything we want or to pursue any idea that seems good to us without facing the consequences that will eventually unfold, either for good or for evil.

In this respect, I am thankful to be able to say that the Christian philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd has had a deep and abiding influence on me. And the reason is that from the start Dooyeweerd contended for the limits of philosophical and scientific thinking, limits set not by philosophers but by the very creation order established by God. The most—and the best—that philosophy can do is to help illumine the structures and patterns of our life before God. The structures and patterns are not created by philosophy but by the responses people make to the God who upholds the norms of love and justice and stewardship, the God who calls us to pursue creaturely responsibilities within those creational boundaries and purposes.

Ideas and critical thinking are very important and they are important not only for scholars and theorists but for people in every area of life. Much of American political life goes forward with too little thought, with too little critical reflection on the dogmas and ideologies that drive us forward without our awareness. But all of the thinking in the world cannot produce a good political order or enduring laws, because just government and just laws require humble, wise political and legal responses to God. Only if we are already oriented by such a longing to do justice in service to God can wisdom come to guide our thinking.