TANIA AINICGIC ! LANAKAINOSIS , . Volume One, No.1 September 1978 INTRODUCTION by Dr. Al Wolters and Kerry Hollingsworth You have before you the first issue of Anakainosis, an informal academic periodical published by the Association for the Advancement of Christian Scholarship, headquartered in Toronto, Canada. A word should be said about the name Anakainosis. When the plans for this periodical were first announced some months ago, we (the editors), had envisaged its title to be Interchange. Since then we have learned that there are at least two existing journals with this name, one in Australia and one in Canada. To avoid confusion, we thought it best to come up with another name. This turned out to be no easy task, since so many English titles are already in use. Consequently we have taken re- fuge in the Greek language, and have chosen the New Testament word for "renewal". We are thinking in the first place of its occurrence at Rom. 12:2: "be transformed: by the renewal (anakainosis) of your mind," for it is the Christian reformation of human thought to which this new publica- tion is dedicated. Anakainosis undertakes to be a kind of discussion forum and newsletter for those, especially in the English-speaking world, who are committed or sympathetic to the cause of an inner reformation of scholarship from a biblical perspective. It is this cause which the AACS seeks to serve, and in this new publication it sees a further avenue to advance Christian scholarship along the lines set out in its educational creed--a creed which stresses both the religious nature of all scholarship and the im- portance of creational ordinances in all dimensions of life and reality. It is to facilitate and promote communication and discussion among every- one seeking to work in this perspective that Anakainosis has been founded. There are a number of ways in which it plans to accomplish this purpose. First of all, through off-the-record theses and short essays it will seek to elicit reader response--either through published responses in Anakainosis itself or through private communication to the author. In this way preliminary ideas can be tested before they are published or presented in more definite form elsewhere. Secondly, certain functionsof a newsletter will be assumed: reports on research projects underway, on conferences being organized, on syllabi and other materials available, on useful bibliographic resources, on books being written, etc. Thirdly, separate space will be given to announcements and reviews of published books of particular significance for the project of a reformation of scholarship, And fourthly, attention will be given to the history of work done in this direction, with special reference to the century-old Dutch reformational tradition. Not all of these emphases will be equal- ly prominent in each issue, but we expect to keep each represented throughout. There is one other place in the New Testament where the work anakainosis appears. It is Titus 3:5, where Paul speaks of "regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit." It is the editors’ wish that our new publication may continue to reflect that joyous reality in the world of scholarship. Dr. Al Wolters, Senior Member in the history of philosophy at Toronto's Institute for Christian Studies, is the editor of Anakainosis. | Kerry Hollingsworth, graduate student in the history of political philosophy at York University in Toronto, is its managing editor. OFF THE RECORD Modal Aspects, by Robert D. Knudson A fundamental teaching of the Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea is that within the creation there is nothing that is not subject to law. Every- thing created manifests in its being that it is subject to a law-order. Indeed, each individual thing has a structure, which establishes it as a typical whole. As typical wholes, moreover, individual things exist within a framework of aspects that qualifies how they function. Things function in various ways, according to certain modes. Thus the aspects are also modal functions. No one of these aspects, nor any combination of them, is exhaustive of the thing that functions in them. Each remains an aspect. That is not to say, however, that something is and then enters into modal relations. The modal aspects are not to be understood on the order of accidental relations into which things enter. An aspect, for example, is not a logical abstraction from concrete individual things. The modal aspects are an abiding framework within which anything as it acts is already en- meshed, the constant framework establishing the manner in which it can function and enter into relation. In an interview held shortly before his death, Herman Dooyeweerd remin- isced as to how the insight came to him regarding the modal aspects and their interrelations. This inspiration provided the foundation for his further reflections on his philosophy of the idea of law and on the en- cyclopedia of jurisprudence.“It sounds strange indeed, but it is truly the case," he said, "that the direction I took working out my philosophy and my encyclopedia of juris- prudence has no antecedents. I can still clearly bring to mind how the underlying thought was given to me. I was living in The Hague, and du- ring the summer, if the weather was good, I was fond of going in the evening for a short walk through the dunes. During one of these dune walks the thought impressed itself on me that the various aspects of re- ality have a modal character and that there must be a structure of those modal aspects in which their mutual relationships are reflected. The discovery of what I called "the modal aspects of our experiential hori- zon" was the point of reference even for my conception of the encyclope- dia of jurisprudence. I began to put the thought to the test, and that appeared to lead to surprising discoveries. For the sciences are re- plete with what I call "analogical concepts," which in each science take on a distinctive sense and which are nevertheless able to be grasped on- ly in a mutual connexion of meaning. That can be carried through with the concept of number, with the concept of space, with the concept of power, etc. (J. M. van Dunne, et. al. "Herman Dooyeweerd." Acht civilisten in burger [Zwolle: W. E. J. Tjeenk Willink, 1977], p. 37) In our naive experiencing, Dooyeweerd taught, these aspects are present, and we have what he called an intuitive apprehension ("intuitieve weet") of them. But in our naive experiencing we still consider them in their relationship to concrete individual things. We have not yet abstracted out any one or any combination of them and considered our experience systematically from this particular point of view. The latter, however, is what occurs in the theoretical attitude to thought, where reality is dissected and considered from the perspective of particular modes of ex- perience, Neither Dooyeweerd nor his associate, Professor D. H. Th. Vollenhoven, set any arbitrary limit as to the number of aspects that might be dis- covered. That was to be determined exclusively by way of a careful in- quiry into the states of affairs as they pertain in the creation. Early fifteen aspects were distinguished, and then for a long while fourteen. Finally, the number became fifteen again. The list of aspects is well known: arithmetic, spatial, kinematic, physical, biotic, sensitive, logical, historical, lingual, social, economic, aesthetic, juridical, moral, and pistic (See L. Kalsbeek, Contours of a Christian Philosoph: (Toronto: Wedge Publishing Foundation, 1975], p. 100: cf. pp. 84 tr) Basic to the conception is that everything functions in all of the as- pects, in one way or another, at all times. At any moment, the entire modal order of creation is reflected, by each person, thing, or event, from a particular point of view. This expression of the entire modal order in each individual thing is guaranteed, Dooyeweerd said, by the subject-object relation. Everything functions in all the aspects, either subjectively or object- ively. A plant, for instance, functions subjectively in the biotic as- pect: it lives; in the physical aspect: it embodies transfers of energy; in the kinematic aspect: it moves; in the spatial aspect: it occupies space; and in the arithmetic aspect: it is a discrete thing. In addi- tion, however, a plant has the possibility of functioning objectively, i.e., in relation to the subjective activity of someone or something that functions subjectively in a higher aspect. A plant has objective qualities, for any observer, of sensory form, sensorily observed move- ments, spatial extention, and discreteness. A plant is able therefore to function as a psychical object, for an animal, a fish, a bird, or a 3