Herman Dooyeweerd and Dirk H. Th. Vollenhoven played complementary roles in the development of Reformational philosophy. This paper examines the role that Dooyeweerd had to play and examines the development of his philosophy.

Pascal’s Wager is probably the most analysed apologetic argument in the history of apologetics. What has often been the case, however, is that this piece of Pascal’s Pensées has often been misinterpreted and taken out of the Pascal’s total apologetic work. For that reason, the Wager has been misappropriated and has undergone a battery of misplaced criticism. Taken in its proper context, the Wager is a beautiful vindication of the Christian faith, cleverly constructed to make the sceptic re-think his position and contemplate the importance of the Christian faith. Much confusion exists about the placement of this particular Pensées, and where it is situated in his overall apology (Pensées 418) lends itself to the challenge of what has become “the Many Gods Objection.” For that reason, I would suggest that Pascal’s Wager belongs at the very beginning of his Pensées, where the rest of the Pensées are an explanation for the reason Christianity is the most attractive belief. Postmodern philosophers have re-appropriated the Wager and made it fit their own philosophical and theological presuppositions playing in the hands of the “Many-Gods-Objection.” This paper describes the beauty of Pascal’s Wager in its proper context and expresses the erroneous postmodern appropriation of the Wager.

Jürgen Habermas’s rationalistic reimagining of a more compassionate society can be imaginatively defended by feminism, and one such legitimate line of criticism would be a feminist reading of this Frankfurt School-inspired project. In this contribution, therefore, I also aim to show ‘how’ and ‘why’ these efforts of Habermas’s could be complemented. The former is an exploration of novel post-structuralist ideas on inclusive ‘both/and’ theory appropriation. I briefly outline the nuanced intellectual history of the Frankfurt School between the first and second generations, which is Habermas’s seminal contribution to this tradition. Carol Gilligan’s ‘ethic of care,’ around which a more caring, responsive society might be (re)constructed, is then applied. Against this backdrop, Lakoff’s and Gerhardt’s proposals for the caring society, based on investigations into the link between authoritarian parenting and capitalism, are taken into consideration. These ideas are supported with an outline of recent progress within neuroscience that demonstrates the benefits of both early emotional nurturing and an appropriate attachment paradigm. It is thus argued that feminism, as part of a richer interdisciplinary methodology, could meaningfully correct and thereafter complement Habermas’s shortcomings, with post-structuralism as the methodological glue that adheres Habermas’s universalistic project with feminists’ emphases on specificity. “One of the things about looking at the world through a feminist lens is [the awareness] that we are already in a dystopia.” — Leni Zumas, author of Red Clocks (2018 ), part of a growing canon of woman-written dystopian fiction.