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Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology (Routledge Radical Orthodoxy)

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Radical Orthodoxy is a collection of essays on diverse topics. The common strand is that they all seek to resituate the contemporary situation within a proper theological framework. All other thinking is subordinate to theology. To show this, the authors deal with subjects such as knowledge, nihilism, erotics, aesthetics, etc., putting them in theological context. Some of the essays are better than others. All seek to counter both nihilism and Enlightenment thinking through traditional Christian categories. This book is difficult to digest. It is made even more challenging because of the variety of topics it covers. Despite this, it is extremely valuable for those interested in postmodern theology or the movement called Radical Orthodoxy.

I will write this review in topical format, rather than reviewing chapter-by-chapter. The authors in this book propose a new theological vision critiquing the modern project by drawing upon Patristic and Medieval sources.

Ontology
The authors suggest that Western Christendom experienced an intellectual fall from grace around 1300. This dealt with the nature of "being" (or ontology). Previously, for the "church fathers or early scholastics, both faith and reason are included in the more generic framework of participation in the mind of God" (Milbank, 24). This meant while faith and reason are distinct, there is no duality. Likewise, creation itself participates in God. God is transcendent and suspended from creation. The "suspension" analogy is apt. God is high above creation but he can (and will!) participate in it.

However, after Duns Scotus elevated being to the level of God, or that man and God participate in the same being in due proportion. In other words, God and man occupy the same reality. Because man and God now occupy the same ontology, ontology is flattened. The world is thus emptied of God. For the RO narrative, philosophy degenerates from this moment onward.

Revelation
Most people, conservative or liberal, Protestant or Catholic, regard the doctrine of Revelation as something like a deposit of divine truth accessible by reason and/or imparted graciously by God. This assumes, argues John Montag, a rationalistic view of knowledge that was foreign to the Patristics and Medievals. Anticipating objections to Thomas Aquinas and an alleged rational scholasticism, Montag argues that Aquinas saw revelation "teleologically" (Montag, 43). It is one's perspective on things in light of one's final end. Montag goes on to critique the distinctions between nature and supernature.

Aesthetics
The proponents of RO want a robust aesthetics--it is key to the Christian worldview. Central to an aesthetics is the sublime--the outpouring of God's love in plenitude (210). The sublime enters the vacant space created by postmodern chaos and in this space places the love and beauty of God.

Sexuality and Embodiment
Central to their aesthetic desire and healthy creationism is a focus on the blessings of being embodied. Graham Ward notes that since all creation issued forth from the Word of God, all of creation bears Christ's watermark (165). With talk of embodiment comes Christ's command to take and eat his body--talk of embodiment leads to talk of the Eucharist. Jesus's command is an ontological scandal--space and place are being redefined.



Conclusion
More could be said of their politics--the church is a counter-polis to the nation-state, the nation-state being an idol. They discuss the possibilities of epistemology and ontology after Wittgenstein. Finally is a rewarding discussion of friendship using St Anselm.

The authors urge a return to the robustness of the Medieval age. Of course, the hindsight of postmodernism will condition our applications of medievalism, perhaps avoiding some of the medievals' faults (or perhaps not).

This text is a collection of essay by some of the most notable and widely received theologians in current cultural/Postmodern discourse. The essays cover a wide spectum of thematics, from sex to the city, music to body, Christian orthodoxy to radical phenomenological takes on materiality. Most importantly is the robust manifesto that peals large over the postmodern, nihilistic terrain: it is a call, in the first place, toward a radical alternative of a people that can no longer be defined by the vulgar liberal/conservative categories. These people--the mystical body politic of Christ--can be prescribed as a movement toward and into a Trinitarian de-centered body that resists captialist strategies of control and opens out acts of anarchic charity--the life giving participation in God. Radical Orthodoxy is the global movement in which all Christian are called. They are called because through Radical Orthodoxy, the idols of both the liberal and conservative are fully revealed: the idols of ideological control shot-through a pious or "inclusive" (and always bad) reading of Holy writ.

This book does a great job of creating a foundation for Radical Orthodoxy. It is more accessible than you might think.... it does have issues with communication of philosophy because such a select few can really read and comprehend it.

However, it touches on many important concepts within Radical Orthodoxy. It does a great job of helping you understand the RO stance on the Enlightenment, liberal theology, and Scotus. Hoever, it doesn't do enough to build up Christology or to understand WHY they return to Aristotle.

An unreadable exposition of the unknowable, or at least the ineffable. When Aquinas awoke to the realization that all his work was as straw, he probably didn't imagine that Milbank and company would be trying to send us back into that scholastic sleep one day. A little apophatic humility wouldn't go amiss here.