Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology (Paperback)

~ John Milbank (Editor), Catherine Pickstock (Editor), Graham Ward (Editor) "Modern theology on the whole accepts that philosophy has its own legitimacy, its own autonomy,apart from faith..." (more)
Key Phrases: false legacy, radical orthodoxy, radical pietists, New York, Jesus Christ, Philosophical Investigations (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This collection of essays by 12 authors sets out to do no less than reinvent theology according to its traditional revelations and insights in light of?and occasionally despite?current movements in humanism and postmodernism. While the reliance on a firm knowledge of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Hegel, and others may make the essays quite daunting to nonacademic readers, they are valuable, surprising, and stimulating. Highly recommended for collections in religious studies.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"... valuable, surprising, and stimulating." -- Library Journal

...anyone interested in reading an innovative school of theology, one that makes radical claims about the relation between orthodox thought and modern secularism, will find the compilation invigorating.
–Word & World

Radical Orthodoxy is a forceful and often brilliant collection of essays that takes full advantage of the situation and resources of post-modernity to develop a theological position that is an alternative to both liberalism and post-liberal neo-orthodoxy... it displays a level of brilliance, broad erudition, and even worship rarely seen in these fields today.
–Pro Ecclesia

Radical Orthodoxy is an immensely stimulating collection. Almost every paper makes you want to stop and work through the fresh and suggestive insights it contains.
–Charles Taylor

Despite all the media claims about the imminent demise of mainstream Christianity. . . a collection such as this displays an intellectual power, a learning and conceptual imagination, that few if any other groups could achieve.
–Fergus Kerr, University of Edinburgh

If theology offers a continuing reflection on the implications which the practice of faith holds for probing the reaches of the human condition, then it will constantly be utilizing philosophical strategies in its quest for such understanding. That makes philosophy a 'handmaid of faith,' yet rather than reduce its stature, offers ways of extending its tentative explorations. The contributors to this volume provide just such explorations to tease us well beyond 'philosophy of religon' to fresh theological horizons.
–David B. Burrell, C.S.C., Hesburgh Professor of Philosophy and Theology, University of Notre Dame

If theology offers a continuing reflection on the implications which the practice of faith holds for probing the reaches of the human condition, then it will constantly be utilizing philosophical strategies in its quest for such understanding. That makes philosophy a handmaid of faith, yet rather than reduce its stature, offers ways of extending its tentative explorations. The contributors to this volume provide just such explorations to tease us well beyond philosophy of religon to fresh theological horizons.
–David B. Burrell, C.S.C., Hesburgh Professor of Philosophy and Theology, University of Notre Dame

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1st edition (November 24, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 041519699X
• ISBN-13: 978-0415196994
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #223,645 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Against Secularism, June 6, 2005

By	Tedd Steele (Naperville, IL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A bold return to the patristics and the medievals and a critique of secularism, January 5, 2009

By	Jacob of Sterlington (Louisiana) - See all my reviews

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).

5.0 out of 5 stars Radical Orthodoxy: Anarchic Grace, December 12, 2000

By A Customer

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.