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De leer van het rentmeesterschap is een van de meest wijdverspreide doctrines in de kerk van vandaag. Op basis daarvan begrijpen we dat het onze christelijke plicht is om rentmeesterschap uit te oefenen over de planeet, Gods schepping. Toch behoort deze doctrine ook tot de minst onderzochte. Er worden belangrijke aannames gedaan zonder dat er een serieuze poging wordt ondernomen om te ontdekken of ze door de Schrift worden ondersteund en of ze de enorme bovenbouw die erop is gebouwd wel kunnen dragen. Want op basis van deze aannames worden zeer ernstige claims gemaakt, waarbij de kerk wordt opgeroepen om een massaal opdringerig programma te onderschrijven dat de natuur ziet als het lijdende slachtoffer van een roofzuchtig mensdom. Roept de Bijbel christenen, ja zelfs de mensheid, op om de rol van planetair rentmeesterschap op zich te nemen om de natuur te behoeden voor de kwetsende interventie van de mensheid? Dat is de vraag die in dit boek onderzocht wordt.

Philosophical Foundations is an introduction to the philosophy of law, but it also furnishes the foundations for a Christian philosophy. In this ethically discombobulated time, it provides us with the metaphysical and ethical tools to slash our way through the wilderness of ideologies and power-craving opinions which threaten to overwhelm civilization. Indeed, a solid metaphysical and ethical framework is the crying need of our age and the indispensable presupposition for the various arts and sciences that make up the encyclopedia ("circle of learning"). The most basic datum such a framework can provide is very simply the either/or of a personal God from Whom all things originated or an ultimate reality that is impersonal. That is the starting point for inquiry. And it cannot be the case that the decision for an impersonal ultimate reality is a requirement for science. Functional atheism can be no requirement for participation either in academia or in public life and policymaking. Is science truly science that ignores the most basic fact of existence - the existence of God? It cannot be so. "If there were a God and He created the world, should that not be accepted because it is unscientific? If reason really did not carry the world in itself and could not find the world out by itself, would it nevertheless have to remove the world from itself, because that alone would be scientific? One might just as well require on the basis of science that man should not be born but rather should exist from eternity; or that man should feed himself from himself without food; or that the eye should see of itself, without objects and their impressions from outside. Scientificness demands that you be gods, but the fact is that you are only human - do you have to comply with scientificness?.... Is it the trick to explain the world without God, in and for itself, regardless of whether the explanation is sufficient - is this the essence and the glory of the scientific character? It is no subjection of science to authority if one expects of it that its knowledge should correspond to the object. No natural scientist will want to avoid the fact that his teaching must pass the test of the phenomena of nature - and yet the philosopher should have the privilege of his teaching merely being seen as logically consistent in order to be considered true, even if contradicted by all the facts, even if it leaves the great object it is supposed to solve untouched!"The proof of the pudding is in the eating, for the Christian worldview is the only key that unlocks the riddle of life, the only explanation of the otherwise unfathomable reality in which we live.

It is no secret that Western civilization is under siege. Outside the gates, the world demands a share of the wealth as well as the power that the West enjoys. Inside the gates, the Western way of life is challenged by those who demand fundamental change in the direction of social justice.Upon closer inspection, Western civilization evinces a divergence within itself. It proves to comprise two blocs, with opposing agendas and opposing ideologies. The one bloc is located within the Anglo-American orbit, the other within the orbit of Continental Europe.This explains the drive toward European Union. The EU gives formal shape to this ideological coherence among the Continental European nations.By the same token, it explains the drive toward "Brexit" in the United Kingdom, the UK being part of the Anglo-American orbit.This perspective opens the door to understanding the dynamic of global politics. Far from being a case of the "West versus the Rest," the global political dynamic is driven by this divergence within Western civilization itself. The drive toward global governance, universal jurisdiction, the normalization of the sexual revolution, the climate change agenda, are all expressions, not of the rest of the world, but of the West, and within the West, of the Continental European bloc.This also explains why the USA inevitably stands in the way of the Continental European agenda. Its tradition, its ideology, is fundamentally other, and the two cannot be reconciled.And it explains unrelenting anti-Americanism even in the USA itself, propagated by media, academia, even political parties. The ideological split runs right through American society, weakening it from within. For the one tradition is home-grown, the other is imported.How are we to explain the divergence? Where did these two opposing orientations come from? What more can be said about their conflict, and what will be the result of it?These are the questions raised in A Common Law. Published on the 20th anniversary of the first edition, this second edition includes the first edition in its entirety, and supplements it with running commentary as well as additional material bringing the issues forward to the situation post-2016.

Individualism as a broad social phenomenon began to make itself felt in the 18th century, with the advent of social contract and natural rights theories. What is less well-known is that individualism also began to permeate the church at this time, providing a transmission belt enabling those esoteric theories to gain broad traction. The vehicle for this was revivalism. In this sprightly work, Frederic de Rougemont (1801-1876) provides a critique of the revivalist phenomenon and the intellectual underpinnings provided to it by the famed publicist Alexandre Vinet. The argumentation is both doctrinally sound and polemically persuasive. The spirit of the continental Reformed church wafts through it, a spirit of magisterial authority and institutional solidity such as is lacking in so much of today's church. Colin Wright has masterfully rendered the original French. Its 152 pages are well worth a close reading.

Originally available only in typewritten manuscript, Pierre Marcel's two-volume analysis of the philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd has now been made available to the reading public in a magnificent English translation by Colin Wright. The first volume provides a detailed analysis of Dooyeweerd's critique of theoretical thought. Dooyeweerd analyzed the very basis of thought itself, its presuppositions; and then also the consequences of those presuppositions. The entire range of historical philosophy is taken into account, as are all the schools that manifested themselves up until the time of his writing.The second volume provides an analysis of Dooyeweerd's positive philosophy based on explicit presuppositions, those of Christianity. Dooyeweerd analyzes reality in the light of the framework of laws of thought embedded in the mind and in extant reality. The result is an audacious synthesis that provides a foundation for justified reason.Marcel constructively criticizes both these areas of Dooyeweerd's achievement in the two volumes now presented. They will occupy the top shelf of the works dedicated to the analysis and continuation of the great Dutchman's philosophical magnum opus.

Originally available only in typewritten manuscript, Pierre Marcel's two-volume analysis of the philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd has now been made available to the reading public in a magnificent English translation by Colin Wright. The first volume provides a detailed analysis of Dooyeweerd's critique of theoretical thought. Dooyeweerd analyzed the very basis of thought itself, its presuppositions; and then also the consequences of those presuppositions. The entire range of historical philosophy is taken into account, as are all the schools that manifested themselves up until the time of his writing.The second volume provides an analysis of Dooyeweerd's positive philosophy based on explicit presuppositions, those of Christianity. Dooyeweerd analyzes reality in the light of the framework of laws of thought embedded in the mind and in extant reality. The result is an audacious synthesis that presents a foundation for justified reason.Marcel constructively criticizes both these areas of Dooyeweerd's achievement in the two volumes now presented. They will undoubtedly occupy the top shelf of the works dedicated to the analysis and continuation of the great Dutchman's philosophical magnum opus.