DR. F. DE GRAAFF
The website metahistorie.com is set up from the vision of Dr. F. De Graaff on this subject.
Who is Dr. F. de Graaff?
Frank de Graaff (Rotterdam, June 30, 1918 - Hattem, August 18, 1993) is a Dutch Reformed minister, theologian, cultural philosopher and religion philosopher. He is known as a great thinker with original and sometimes controversial views in the fields of philosophy, theology and history. His vision has been strongly influenced by Nietzsche, Plato, Pascal, Spinoza and Heidegger. Of course he also took great inspiration from the Bible and the Jewish writings.
Biography
De Graaff has studied theology, majoring in philosophy at the University of Utrecht. He obtained his doctorate in 1951 with a dissertation on Martin Heidegger. In this book De Graaff states that Heidegger means by "Being", God. George Steiner comes to the same conclusion almost forty years later. De Graaff has been a pastor in the Dutch Reformed Church in Well and Ammerzoden, Apeldoorn, Rotterdam and Hattum. He retired in 1984.
Preach
In his sermons the emphasis is on exegesis. In doing so, he was inspired by the Jewish viewpoint of the Bible. His sermons are regularly posted on this site.
View
De Graaff focuses on the course of European culture in relation to Christianity. He foresaw a downturn in Western European Christianity, resulting in secularization. Others did not see this at the time and found him too pessimistic. His book If gods die (1969) makes a big impression. Eight years later, Anno Domini 1000 - Anno Domini 2000 follows. Both books show his vision of meta history.
This view is that cultures are ruled by intermediate beings, which may be called gods or angels. They are subject to the God of the Bible: the God of Israel. These midwayers are mortal if they allow injustice in their culture. If the intermediate being dies, this culture will eventually die. After all, a culture exists by the grace of a connection of God. De Graaff's view stems from Psalm 82. He follows the exegesis of Martin Buber and shows that he is under the influence of Dostoevsky and Kafka.
Western culture was also led by an intermediary, who is an intermediary between the highest God and Christian (Western) Europe. This intermediate being has died. De Graaff first believes that the divine connection began to be missing in the time of the Renaissance. Later he places the beginning of that eclipse of God around the year 1000. The western intermediate being is not the same as Jesus, whom Christians call the Son of God. From the Bible De Graaff concludes that Western Christianity sees this intermediary as being for Jesus himself. De Graaff writes two books entitled Jesus the Hidden, in which two gospels were dissected to get a clear picture of Jesus.
Jesus and the god of European Christianity are not the same.
In order to further investigate this vision, he delves into the Gospels, Jewish thought and the history of European culture (philosophy, literature, visual arts and music).
Books
The Debt Problem in the Existence Philosophy of Martin Heidegger, 1951
European Nihilism, on the Background of the Western Cultural Crisis, 1956
Die as good people, the crisis of Western culture, 1969, second edition 1970
Anno Domini 1000 - Anno Domini 2000, the thousand years by the grace of the dead god, 1977
Spinoza and the Crisis of Western Culture, 1977
Nietzsche, 1979
The Secret of World History, Seven Reflections on Words from the Scriptures, 1982
Jesus the Hidden, Preparation for Initiation into the Mysteries of the Gospel, 1987
Jesus the Hidden, Part 2, Translation and Explanation of the Matthew Gospel, 1989
Mozart's opera Die Zauberflöte, the libretto explained from the Spirit of Music, 1990
Israel - Hellas - Rome, the mystery of ancient civilization, 1993