All law, to Dooyeweerd, is the means to rich, effective, meaningful, healthy, joyful functioning. In normative aspects, the means that law provides are guidelines on what that healthy, joy-giving functioning is. We can choose to go against the laws of these aspects, but our functioning will then be less rich, less healthy, and will lessen joy. Even from the traditional standpoint, we can easily see that our choice of whether to obey or disobey these laws can be seen as individual response. In determinative aspects, we find it harder to think of 'response', from our traditional standpoint.
Law again provides the means for rich, effective, meaningful, healthy, 'joyful' functioning.
But, because all later aspects depend on good functioning in these early aspects, the dangers in going against their laws is much greater, so these aspects have determinative laws which we cannot transgress. However, this does not lessen the idea that we, as individual entities, make a true response to these laws. Dooyeweerd believed a loving God is the designer and source of all law. But, if the reader does not wish to agree with him, then for now they might just assume that if the laws had been otherwise then the evolution of the cosmos would have taken a very different route, remaining in chaos and we would not be here today. The notion of experience in a Dooyeweerdian framework is tied in with a notion of knowledge, and both notions are extended to all aspects.