PHL 228: Reformational Philosophy

Even though America was founded upon a belief that its mission was providentially ordained, its foreign policy decisions have failed to recognize the growing significance of religious faith as a global concern. With an eye on the turbulent century ahead, God and Global Order implores policy makers to recognize the power of faith to inform and enhance U.S. foreign policy. The contributors warn that ignoring the far-reaching role of faiths (those both religious and secular) and their influence upon international agendas could carry disastrous consequences--both for the U.S. and for the larger global order.

The twentieth-century Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977) left behind an impressive canon of philosophical works and has continued to influence a scholarly community in Europe and North America, which has extended, critiqued, and applied his thought in many academic fields. Jonathan Chaplin introduces Dooyeweerd for the first time to many English readers by critically expounding Dooyeweerd's social and political thought and by exhibiting its pertinence to contemporary civil society debates.

Political Theory and Christian Vision explores the field of Christian political theoryoa discipline to which Bernard Zylstra devoted his life's work. His particular interests lay in the philosophical and methodological questions that underlie the study of empirical political systems. In his view, the neglect of rigorous critical reflection on the presuppositions of the discipline left many of its current practitioners lacking direction and their output lacking coherence. It was his aim to demonstrate the necessity for and the potential fruitfulness of an integrated, philosophically self-conscious and inter-disciplinary practice of political theory.