John Milbank

Salvation is neither "individual" nor "social" but concerns insertion into an ecclesial narrative. This conclusion invites a series of metanarrative considerations by which, in turn, the "narrative ecclesiology" of Henri de Lubac is shown to be too apolitical in comparison with that of Augustine, Augustine's too resigned to the permanence of two cities compared with that of Hegel, and He- gel's too suppressive of the salvific viability of a non-coercive order compared with that of PierreSimon Ballanche. In a corrected form, Augustine's philoso- phy of history outlines the basic narrative conditions for salvation, and this, rather than the metanarratives of enlightenment, gives the true possibility of social critique.

Invoking Zygmunt Bauman’s acute exposition of a left-critical hesitation between intellectuals as saviours and intellectuals as oppressors, this essay argues that while Bauman reveals this hesitation as crucial and symptomatic, nevertheless he leaves it unresolved. The essay shows how the human nature/ culture distinction is, in fact, constitutive of human culture as such; moreover, the essay argues that this constitutive distinction reproduces itself within culture in terms of reciprocal hierarchies of social division — intellectual/non-intellectual, shamanistic/folk, aristocratic/popular. This pattern of vertical reciprocity is precisely what the purely horizontal axis of capitalist-bureaucratic liberalism excludes, collapsing the hierarchical axis of political culture into the horizontal false-binary of ‘left’ versus ‘right’. In this way the essay argues that the crux of an authentic resistance to capitalist-bureaucratic liberalism will involve not a triumph of the ‘left’ over the ‘right’, but the retrieval of the dynamic paradox of the vertical axis of the hierarchical communion of guiding excellence fused with popular spontaneity. The hierarchical yet dynamically educative interplay between innovators and those being constantly innovated is the organic root of human culture and the means of the authentic practice of human justice.

_The Radical Orthodoxy Reader _presents a selection of key readings in the field of Radical Orthodoxy, the most influential theological movement in contemporary academic theology. Radical Orthodoxy draws on pre-Enlightenment theology and philosophy to engage critically with the assumption and priorities of secularism, modernity, postmodernity, and associated theologies. In doing so it explores a wide and exciting range of issues: music, language, society, the body, the city, power, motion, space, time, personhood, sex and gender. As such it is both controversial and extremely stimulating; provoking much fruitful debate amongst contemporary theologians. To assist those encountering Radical Orthodoxy for the first time, each section has an introductory commentary, related reading and helpful questions to encourage in-depth understanding and further study

As others have argued, modern liberalism can be seen as dominated by the biopolitical. In both the economic and the political realms, this involves a contradictory notion of how the natural gives rise to the cultural and the cultural both suppresses and advances the natural. On either side of this divide, uncontrollable excesses arise, which ensure that this immanentist model is never immune from the return of the theopolitical in a bastardized form. Antique notions of natural justice to some degree escaped these aporias, and yet antiquity had its own version of the biopolitical with its own contradictions: particularly as to whether justice consists in an exchanged balance of legal obligations or a unilateral imposition of equity in the face of living exigencies. Both models of the biopolitical ultimately seek to shore up a doomed finite life in the face of death and hence place limits on the hope for human justice. Only St Paul presented an alternative vision, which makes life itself infinitely indestructible and co-terminous both with meaning and with human existence. His counterfactual of `resurrection' allowed him to imagine an unreserved possibility of human justice beyond legality, which blends equity with hierarchical guidance and makes justice coincide with the entire fulfilment of every human being in relation to all others. Any secular alternative to this is bound to be less radical.

IntroductionThis essay is divided into two distinct parts.In the first I shall explore the complex way in which Carl Schmitt’s thought was split three ways: between a Catholic universalism that extends the “law of humanity” to the whole of the globe; a modern defense of the normativity of the absolutely sovereign nation-state; and finally a stress upon the primacy of a more limited civilizational landmass, smaller than that of the whole planet but larger than that of the state. In this third case, it is actually “empire“ that is covertly to the fore and supremely the Western land-based empire that had once been Christendom.

Inherited discussions of ‘science and religion’ too much assume an interaction between two historically constant phenomena in terms of stories of ‘progress’ and ‘conflict’. Instead, it is better to recognise long-term and varying modes of tension between three different approaches to nature, pivoted about attitudes to ‘enchantment’ and to transcendence versus immanence. Within such a perspective, it appears that the dominant model of science as ‘disenchanted transcendence’ is a Newtonian one that historically quickly proved inadequate. Alternative and earlier traditions of ‘natural magic’ later returned under new guises and are closer to the essence of the ‘ergetic’ or experimental attitude that lies at the real core of ‘science’. The Newtonian model also implausibly suppressed the realities of motion, time, change, substantial form and secondary qualities. But contemporary physics points towards their restoration and to nature as a vital habit and form-shaping process, as well as to the ‘magical’ character of powers and causes. Magic, rightly understood, is a necessary mediator between religion as theory and science as practice and is a crucial aspect of an ergetic understanding of ‘enchanted transcendence’ which is the most promising perspective for today.

Theology finds itself in search of the locus of authority: should theology seek to defend its theses in function to the critical norms established by Western academic culture? Or should it guide its reasonings according to the teachings of the Church? The article shows that the way forward involves an historical and conceptual examination of the epistemic change occurring around 1300. Univocity and representation became progressively dominant concepts in the West; the result is that reason began to be conceived over against faith. The author draws upon the thinking of Henri de Lubac and Nicholas of Cusa and recuperates the notions of participation, giving new vigor to the ideas of the supernatural, the corpus mysticum, and allegory. He argues that the Church constitutes an event of concordantia, whereby the Bishop appeals ultimatly to the original concordantia of the whole cosmos, grounded in the consensus of the Trinity. Finally, the author purposes that theology is answerable to reason to the extent that it is answerable to the Church, herself answerable in turn to the Triune God. /// A teologia encontra-se em busca do locus da autoridade: deverá a teologia procurar defender as suas teses emfunção das normas críticas estabelecidas pela cultura aca démica ocidental? Ou deverá desenvolver os seus argumentos em conformidade com os ensinamentos da Igreja? O presente artigo mostra até que ponto a resposta a estas questões implica um exame histórico e conceptual da mudança epistémica que ocorreu no Ocidente por volta de 1300. Univocidade e representação tornaram-se progressivamente conceitos dominantes, de que resultou um conceito de razão em contraposição à fé. O autor recorre ao pensamento de Henri de Lubac e de Nicolau de Cusa em ordem a recuperar a noção de participação dando novo vigor a ideias como as de sobrenatural, corpus mysticum, e de alegoria, argumentando que a Igreja constitui um acontecimento de concordantia, em relação à qual o Bispo apela em última análise à concordantia original do cosmos, a qual está por sua vez fundada no consenso da Trindade. Finalmente, o autor propõe que a teologia deve responder à razão na medida em que deve responder perante a Igreja, ela própria necessitada de responder perante o Deus uno e trino.

What is the meaning of the word tradition ? Are there live traditions today? Does tradition clash with innovation? Is it possible to love the proper tradition and look to innovation at the same time? This study brings together a number of insightful contributions that focus on the complexity of the relationship between tradition and innovation and on the forces that could emerge from it, if tradition is seen to represent the cornerstone for future. The volume is subdivided into four sections: I. Tradition: an historical background; II. Tradition and innovation: which future?; III. Law and tradition; and IV. Tradition: a theological point of view.

Critical responses to the pandemic have divided between the need to control and defeat it and fears of a new medicalisation of human existence. In the short-term the first response is right, but in the long-term the second. The ideological division on this issue on the left roughly correlates with a relative stress on the power of the market on the one hand or the power of the state on the other. But these are two halves of the same picture: the mechanisation of human life and the artificial rendering of the natural scarce and threatening. The tendencies that give rise to pandemics and those which exult in increasing total control are the same. Resistance can only come from a resistance to liberal mechanising as such. This requires the double sense that we are as spirits located within nature and yet as spirits transcend nature, which the theological doctrine of creation upholds. The challenge is to create a new global consensus and shared metaphysical politics around this legacy.

The article discusses the history of monotheism from the earliest times to the present. It begins with arguments against the notion of monotheists as an evolutionarily early stage in religion and then proceeds to characterize monotheism in the Old testament. The view that there was every a pre‐monotheistic phase of one ‘national God’ is called into question, along with the priority of the ‘God of history’ over the creator God. Association of the divine with social justice is shown to be common to the ancient Near East as a whole; however, Israelite monotheism, it is argued, was associated with a kind of conservatism which preserved more features of an oral and gift‐exchange culture, while calling into question the more fetishistic aspects of such culture. Monotheism, it is claimed, is what refutes both myth and rationalism, while the superiority of one God to many gods is defended in connection with the theme of peace. The final section deals with the three monotheistic faiths, and argues that Christianity, with its doctrines of incarnation and the Trinity, is not qualifying monotheism and its distinctive features as just adumbrated, but on the contrary developing it in the purest and most consistent form.

Sequence on modern ontology -- From theology to philosophy -- The four pillars of modern philosophy -- Modern philosophy : a theological critique -- Analogy versus univocity -- Identity versus representation -- Intentionality and embodiment -- Intentionality and selfhood -- Reason and the incarnation of the logos -- The passivity of modern reason -- The baroque simulation of cosmic order -- Deconstructed representation and beyond -- Passivity and concursus -- Representation in philosophy -- Actualism versus possibilism -- Influence versus concurrence -- Transition -- Sequence on political ontology -- Cosmos, law and morality -- Metaphysics and modern politics -- The fate of the rational animal -- The irony of representation -- On legal concurrence -- The fate of the social animal -- Representation and mixed government -- Bureaucracy and the formal distinction -- Form, matter and contract -- The antiquity of historicism -- The sovereignty of the artist -- Eucharistic creativity and political power -- The conundrum of kingship -- The truth of political fiction -- The two rival constructions -- Creativity and mixed constitution -- Christological constitutionalism -- The fate of the fabricating animal -- The fate of the beast-angel -- The death of charity -- Augustine's three cities -- Church as cosmopolis -- Aquinas and kingship -- The theology of ruling -- The ecumenico-political problem -- Supernatural charity and global order -- Socialism beyond the left -- Critique of all materialisms.