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"... yet there is method in it”

 

Over the years, De Graaff's work has met with a lot of opposition. This applies in any case to a) his view of Western science, b) his view of the so-called intermediate beings and c) his view of Israel.

 

a) With regard to Western science and technology, he stated that they are based on the so-called representational, calculative thinking that is guided by the urge to control and thus implies a reduction of reality. This position naturally met with criticism, for how can something that has promoted life and prosperity be reprehensible, or at least dubious?

 

b) He saw the intermediate beings, that is to say angels or gods, as transcendent beings who control peoples and cultures. This vision met with contradiction from those who hold the opinion that there is only one God.

 

c) He rejected the so-called replacement theology, which thinks that the Christian Church has replaced Israel, and with it the Jewish mission. This view of Israel was contradicted because at that time Israel (and still) would have rejected Jesus.

 

They are propositions that at first sight have nothing to do with each other, but which have a logical connection with De Graaff. This indicates that those controversial propositions were not defended by De Graaff to be per se original, but because one proposition follows from the other.

 

His propositions stemmed from his starting point, namely the declining position of Christianity in Western Europe and thus the crisis in Western culture that was simply based on Christianity. He argued that already in a book from 1956 when many were still convinced of its temporality.

 

Because of the simultaneity, the decline of Christianity from the 18th century can be associated with the successes of the natural sciences that became apparent in the 17th and 18th centuries: the "God" hypothesis is, as a consequence, Laplace, no longer needed.

 

But how can God allow ''His Church'' and therefore also ''His culture'' to decay? The answer to this is that God does not directly exercise control over cultures, but has left them to intermediate beings who are somewhat autonomous. So that Christian Church is not led by the God of the Bible or Jesus.

 

If it must now be assumed that it is not Jesus but an intermediary who has led the Christian culture, and if it turns out that this intermediary is leading that culture to ruin, it is obvious that salvation is no longer with any intermediary, but with the highest God. And so to learn from the people that were traditionally called the chosen people of that highest God: Israel.(This requires that Jesus be seen as a Jew and not the first Christian.)

 

It thus appears that De Graaff's position in philosophy of science (point a) automatically leads to his theological-exegetical insight (point b), which insight then leads to his theological-dogmatic point of view (point c). The sequence is not reversible: c) does not follow b) and b) does not follow a). Neither does coherence have the character of necessity: the starting point does not necessarily lead to a) diagnosis, nor does a) necessarily lead to b) or b) to c). The coherence is only plausible in the sense of non-illogical. Nor is it proven here that De Graaff (or that his critics) was right. It merely shows that the thinking of De Graaff, which extended over various fields, showed a remarkable coherence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coherence of the controversial in the work of F. de Graaff