Biography

Dutch philosopher and lawyer Herman Dooyeweerd was born in Amsterdam in 1894. Raised in the Reformed Church and heavily influenced by the works of Abraham Kuyper, Dooyeweerd studied and applied philosophy to all aspects of life. He developed a list of 15 aspects of life by which one can view reality. His thought was to view all of life through a Christian lens, whether it is chemistry, biology, politics, mathematics, sports, occupations, or the law. Having written over two hundred books and articles, his work is widely read. His neo-Calvinism thought influenced the content of his book, The Struggle for Christian Politics (1925). His three-volume work, The New Critique of Theoretical Thought, is the crowning jewel of his legacy. But there are many important works of Dooyeweerd to be read, including Roots of Western Culture and his five-volume set, Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy, and the Encyclopedia of the Science Law. There is not enough space here to go into all the ideas he presented to the world. Dooyeweerd died on February 12, 1977, but his influence lives on in the fields of philosophy and religion, just to name two.

Wailand Groenendyk
CCEL Staff Writer