Reflections on Bob Goudzwaard, Part II
Dean Dettloff

Goudzwaard was not, however, receiving an honorary doctorate because of his ability to drum up a useful nostalgia. His address turned to the cultural climate, donning the rhetoric of a seasoned cultural and critical theorist. We are entering a world of extremes, he noted. Such a world is all the more dangerous given the rapid development of new technologies. While technologies bring with them incredible opportunities for advancement and human flourishing (Goudzwaard is no Luddite), they also hold the potential for the yet unimaginable catastrophe. Society has no unified vision to decide how to utilize and develop these technologies. Who will decide on their use? Money? Arrogance? Benevolence?
With the rise of polarized culture, ICS has a unique place—it must offer, in Goudzwaard’s words, an academic defense of holiness. We have lost the idea of healthy restraints, given up in favor of collective illusions. “Holiness” seems passé, cliché, at best a vestigial term from a bygone era of so-called righteous Christendom. Modern autonomy and postmodern resignation have won the day; we now face, in the words of Baudrillard, the will not of persons or powers but of the objects themselves. We have left the dialectics of meaning. We inherit a nebulous space devoid of purpose. The decision called for in Deuteronomy, so necessary in a technological and ambivalent age, is paralyzed by an endless string of qualifiers.

As he concluded, Goudzwaard offered one criticism of Paul’s military uniform. Paul, he said, sadly did not include humor among the armor and weapons he listed in Ephesians. Perhaps it was because he persecuted others and his heavy past invoked a stark seriousness. But humor is very strong; it disarms enemies, catches people off-guard. Communists and fascists, he said, have no humor. The Jewish people, however, have humor—and ICS has always had humor. As it proceeds, ICS must be a humorous place, allowing laughter to ring subversively through its halls. Ending with a joke, Goudzwaard left it to us, current Senior and Junior Members, faculty, staff, and supporters, to choose: life or death.
The opportunity to hear from this Reformational giant was among the many ICS experiences I will not forget. When the weekend was over, it was clear why Goudzwaard received this honor at ICS, and we left invigorated with the possibility that ICS might be the helmet of hope, with a good dose of humor, in a society in desperate need of truth, justice, and peace.
Dean Dettloff is a Junior Member at the Institute for Christian Studies, pursuing an MA Philosophy, and is the author of the blog Re(-)petitions.
First image used from http://www.refdag.nl/kerkplein/kerknieuws/eredoctoraat_voor_dr_b_goudzwaard_1_608006; second image used from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_helmet#mediaviewer/File:Helmet_centurion_end_of_second_century.jpg.
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