[in elaborazione]
Questo tema (o motivo) sorge come risultato di un conflitto irrisolto fra l'antica religione naturale greca (dove la divinità era concepita come priva di forma, un continuum di flusso costante di vita o come un caos privo di forma) e la nuova forma culturale di religione di forma, misura ed armonia, laddove la divinità era elevata al di sopra del flusso della vita, al di sopra del caos ed adorata come principio di forma immortale e razionale.
The Matter-Form Ground Motive was that which drove the thinking of the ancient Greeks, as a dynamic tension between the supposed opposing poles of matter and form. Dooyeweerd traced its origin in the coming together of the (pre-)Greek nature religions which deified a formless, cyclical stream of life and blind fate, Anangke, with the culture religion of form, measure and harmony. But it was not an arbitrary alliance. "At this point," said Dooyeweerd [Roots: 18], "where both religions united in the theme of Moira, the culture religion revealed an indissoluble, dialectical coherence with the religions of nature." The ground motive itself emerged as Greek thinking became more organised and the great names of Greek philosophy appeared on the scene - Plato, Aristotle, and the like.
Because they presupposed the primacy of Being over Meaning, these Greek thinkers were interested in trying to account for the nature of things. Oversimplifying somewhat, they presupposed that all things were composed of matter and form - e.g. a pencil is made of wood and graphite, and its form is that of a six-sided cylinder of wood into which the graphite rod fits snugly. Mud is almost pure matter without form. A thought is almost pure form without matter. Initially, matter and form were seen as two principles that could explain most phenomena, a duality.
But, over a period of time, duality becomes dualism. Duality says there are two equal principles, different but equal. Dualism says that one is 'higher' than the other, one is to be sought, the other avoided, one is Good, the other Evil. This happened as matter and form became associated, for example, with ways of life and cultures. Here are some of the things associated with the two:
The Matter-Form ground motive is one of the dualistic ones. Its dualism is, argued Dooyeweerd, a direct result of it making the Immanence presupposition, which presupposed that we can find the Divine within our experience. Which you think is good depends on your point of view. Mostly, the form side was seen as good, but some reacted and saw the form side as evil, as boring, etc. much as drunkards today might despise thinkers.
Thus evil is located in one half of reality. Therefore the solution to evil is to eschew, avoid, escape from, destroy the evil half, and to welcome, seek, enter and build up the good half. To many Greeks this meant having as little to do with Matter as possible, and as much to do with Form. Sexuality was of the Matter side, so abstinence (rather than sexual faithfulness) was a high virtue.
It was Aristotle who explicitly referred to matter and form as two principles, but Plato also held to it in a different manner (note: so-called Platonic love or friendship). This motive drove thought forward in many ways from their time up to the time of Jesus Christ and the growth of the Christian Church. Its influence is with us to this day, however. Whenever we oppose body and spirit, or mind and brain, we are driven by this ground motive.
Dooyeweerd argued that any dualistic ground motive inevitably leads to major problems since it divides reality in two and tried to deny the validity of one half. In the case of the ancient Greeks, we can see this in that Greek civilization was built on slavery. In more modern times, we can see the Form-Matter divide echoed clearly in the classes of English society. Its influence in the Christian church is seen in a negative view of sexuality.
So, one major problem with a dualistic ground motive is that we effectively stifle half of reality and restrict our joy in life - for a period, after which a reaction sets in (dialectic), and the other half gets stifled. Sometimes, in a given society we find two communities holding opposing views of what is the 'good' pole of the dualism, and they cannot communicate with each other because they fundamentally value different things.
In Roots Dooyeweerd added the Roman Imperium as yet another driving force shaping European and Western worldviews. Dooyeweerd seems to have brought it under the banner of the Matter-Form ground motive, maybe veering towards the Matter side of action in the real world, rather than the more contemplative Form, though it has elements of both. He traced its emergence in the Macedonian empire of Aristotle's pupil, Alexander, which, since it reached to India, allowed Eastern ideas such as the divine ancestry of monarchs to infiltrate Greek thought. Though it may in fact be a different ground motive, and its notion of Imperium has influenced Europe ever since, we will treat it as part of the Greek motive, as Dooyeweerd did.