Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason [Paperback]

John Milbank (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 20, 2006 | ISBN-10: 1405136847 | ISBN-13: 978-1405136846 | Edition: 2

This is a revised edition of John Milbank’s masterpiece, which sketches the outline of a specifically theological social theory.

• The Times Higher Education Supplement wrote of the first edition that it was “a tour de force of systematic theology. It would be churlish not to acknowledge its provocation and brilliance”.
  
• Brings this classic work up-to-date by reviewing the development of modern social thought.
  
• Features a substantial new introduction by Milbank, clarifying the theoretical basis for his work.
  
• Challenges the notion that sociological critiques of theology are ‘scientific’.
  
• Outlines a specifically theological social theory, and in doing so, engages with a wide range of thinkers from Plato to Deleuze.
  
• Written by one of the world’s most influential contemporary theologians and the author of numerous books.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for the First edition

"Milbank's work is a tour de force of systematic theology. It would be churlish not to acknowledge its provocation and brilliance."
Times Higher Education Supplement<!--end-->

"The thesis is relatively simple, its orchestration is stunning in scope as well as in harmonies."
Modern Theology

"John Milbank’s sprawling, ambitious and intellectually demanding book is in a class of its own."
Studies in Christian Ethics

"John Milbank has written a masterful review of the development of modern social thought that at the same time offers a criticism of its dominant paradigms and suggests inherent limits on its accomplishments."
Journal of Religion

Praise for the Second Edition

“Theology and Social Theory has proven to be a bombshell… We are, therefore, extremely fortunate to have this second edition with Milbank’s dazzling new ‘Preface’. Re-reading this book is always a pleasure, because it is filled with surprises that force thought.”
Stanley Hauerwas, Duke University

"When the first edition was published the reaction was one of shock. Now, fifteen years on, the shock has worn off; more and more people are questioning the universal competency of secular reason. But this make all the more important the publication of this second edition. Milbank develops an alternative which has been steadily developing and enriching in the intervening years."
Charles Taylor, McGill University

"[Theology and Social Theory] remains a dense, challenging and elusive masterpiece of a book, which has lost none of its power to intrigue and repel in equal measure."
Times Literary Supplement, Sept 2006

"This second edition is a vital aid to any reader who wishes to understand more fully how Theology and Social Theory relates to Milbank's continued publications and radically orthodox sensibilities."
Theological Book Review

"An influential and important book … instructive for students in that it analyses and challenges contemporary assumptions about society and religion." Teaching Theology & Religion

From the Back Cover

In modern times, the social sciences have sought to explain religion from a neutral, secular vantage-point. In response, theology has tried to legitimate itself by building upon social scientific conclusions. In this acclaimed book, John Milbank suggests that both enterprises are compromised by the theological and anti-theological assumptions built into the social sciences themselves.

This new edition of Theology and Social Theory brings John Milbank’s classic work fully into line with his most recent views and is laid out in an easier-to-read format. It features a substantial new preface in which Milbank answers his critics by defending and further elaborating his metahistorical vision.

Provocative and well-argued, this updated classic from one of the world’s leading theologians offers a comprehensive treatment of the relation between theology and social theory, all the way from Plato to Deleuze.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell; 2 edition (February 20, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1405136847
• ISBN-13: 978-1405136846
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 0.9 x 9.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #286,886 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Dominance of the Secular Order is now Over December 28, 2008

By Jacob

Format:Paperback

"Milbank could have taken a course in how to be understood by the common man.

Thesis: Milbank convincingly argues that secular modernity is built upon presuppositions that are just as religious as those of Christianity. Even worse, they rest upon a more shaky foundation of faith. Milbank argues that modern discussions of "secular" reason are historically off-center. There was a time when there was no secular. The saeculum used to refer to the time between the Advents. Now it refers to the area off-limits to Jesus. It now has spatial, rather than temporal significance.

Milbank notes that "secular" disciplines such as sociology have their own religious presuppositions which they then import upon the theological. In other words, all disciplines have their own "story to tell." All of these stories are built upon religious presuppositions. It is Milbank's contention that the Christian story is the best one. Milbank then critiques communism, capitalism, and Durkheimian sociologies. This was a hard section to read and I really didn't understand it. Milbank goes through a thorough interaction with postmodernism, noting that postmodern scholars see an "ontology of violence." Given the modern reality, such ontologies are inevitable. This is arguably the most important section of the book since it sets the stage for Milbank's later works. He ends with an Augustian discussion of an "ontology of peace."

Problems with the book: I can read 5 or 6 languages and have read hundreds of books of upper level theology and philosophy and most of the time I had no idea what Milbank was talking about. In order to get more out of the book, I recommend the following:

1) read the book through the first time. Simply write off as a temporary loss the stuff you don't understand.
2) read some of the guys with whom Milbank interacts: Marx, Ruskin, Derrida, MacIntyre, etc. This makes some of the more difficult chapters easier to understand.
3) reread the book. It *will* become clearer and offer a fresh vision for a public faith.

Good Parts of the Book: For those who can understand it (all six of them), this book is the beginning of the end of modern politics and can hopefully point us toward a pre-modern society.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Theology and Social Theory May 6, 2007

By Danielle M. Kahut

Format:Paperback

This book is a challenging read for students, and yet well worth the time spent working through it. Keep a philosophical dictionary at your side while reading the introduction.

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars An important theological polemic that ultimately partakes in the contradictions it critiques October 8, 2008

By Matthew J. Frizzell

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Milbank's Theology and Social Theory is a large and complex text that put Milbank and subsequent Radical Orthodoxy on the theological map. Its second edition (reviewed here) has a helpful and clarifying introduction to this trajectory. (Theology and Social Theory was first published in 1990; its 2nd ed. in 2006). Critical and sweeping, the argument and subsequent effect of this book in theology make it essentially a postmodern theological polemic.

As the subtitle suggests, Milbank's book attempts to move "beyond" secular reason. His indictment of secularity and its modern forms of social and philosophical thought - as well as all theological traditions that borrow or depend on them - is that they are varieties of paganism.

Milbank's critique and argument are mainly against all forms of modern theology: its underpinnings in classic liberalism and Kantian epistemology, as well as all forms of liberation theology, with their indebtedness to Hegelian/Marxist perspectives on history and existentialism (which Milbank speaks much less of).

Milbank's chief intellectual opponents, alluded to amidst his sweeping critiques, are Kant (his critique of metaphysics, unknowable ding-an-sich, and autonomous subject), Hegel/Marx (phenomenology and dialecticism), and the autonomy of naturalism and secular reason at the heart of modern social theory. Milbank methodologically rejects (while borrowing from) all forms of dialecticism, positivism, or autonomous claims of rationality or universality in accessing "truth." He argues these methodological assumptions and corresponding presuppositions as arbitrary and deconstructable, arguing they erect circular and self-referential (he quips tautological) theories.

Milbank argues that liberalism is a formalism that rests on the false project of secularity, human freedom. He rejects this because of its ontological individualism and hypostatizing of difference and arbitrary forces of power.

Milbank's claims his answer is thoroughly postmodern. In response to the failure and miscarriage of secularity (which he rightly acknowledges as a "child" of the Church), Milbank argues a (paradoxical?) particular Catholic Christian orthodoxy via Augustine, one which he does not argue as the true universal, but rather logically more desirable to the chaos of arbitrary forces, formalism, and ontology of violence at the heart of secularity and liberal theory. Staying true to his ontological grounding, he argues that the foundations and underpinnings of secular reason - in all its forms of liberalism, positivism, and dialecticism - are the result of a narrative structure. He, then, suggests that the particularity and distinct Christian mythos and corresponding ontology are a more desirable alternative. This mythos and ontology come via Augustine (mainly Civitas Dei), who offers a peaceful counter-ontology that counters the ontology of violence assumed in postmodern discovery of difference, as well as a counter-ethics (ecclesiology) that is grounded in Jesus Christ and continues through his body, the Church.

I think Milbank's interpretation of social theory and his sweep of argument are intriguing, with its implications and force of argument more important than his involved and sometimes obscure critical dialogue with his intellectual opponents. While opening some critical spaces for critical reflection and questions, I think Milbank short-sells and even mistreats liberation theology, some postmodern philosophers, and the development of social theory. Some of the critical theory of the Frankfort School, which he refers to but wants to overcome, do a better job of critiquing positivism and science, I think. He is obviously indebted to this tradition, but moves quickly to his ontological argument instead. (Milbank's critique of Marx, to which this school is indebted, noted.)

In the end, Theology and Social theory is shaped by a particular hermeneutic - that of the failure and crisis of the modern project. Milbank is self-confessedly interested in metanarrative in this book. Thus, that seems to be how he reads most everyone he critiques - from an almost obscuring meta-level. While creative and brilliant, in this mode his critiques often short-shrift a clearer and more representative treatment of the figures he's taking on. It leads one to want to dig deeper to see if the substance of Milbank's sweeping criticism is really there.

Of course, under the tutelage of Milbank's ontological argument - what falls short of Christian theology falls short because its substance is not really there.