John Milbank | |
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Born | Alasdair John Milbank 23 October 1952 Kings Langley, England |
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Thesis | The Priority of the Made (1986) |
Doctoral advisor | Leon Pompa |
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Alasdair John Milbank (born 23 October 1952) is an English Anglo-Catholic theologian and is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Nottingham, [28] where he is President of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy. [29] Milbank previously taught at the University of Virginia and before that at the University of Cambridge and the University of Lancaster. He is also chairman of the trustees of the think tank ResPublica.
Milbank founded the radical orthodoxy movement. [30] His work crosses disciplinary boundaries,integrating subjects such as systematic theology,social theory,ethics,aesthetics,philosophy,political theory,and political theology. He first gained recognition after publishing Theology and Social Theory in 1990,which laid the theoretical foundations for the movement which later became known as radical orthodoxy. In recent years he has collaborated on three books with philosopher Slavoj Žižek and Creston Davis,entitled Theology and the Political:The New Debate (2005),The Monstrosity of Christ:Paradox or Dialectic (2009),and Paul's New Moment:Continental Philosophy and the Future of Christian Theology (2010). Milbank delivered the Stanton Lectures at Cambridge in 2011. [31] Milbank's friendship and substantial intellectual common ground with David Bentley Hart has been noted several times by both thinkers. [32]
Following his secondary education at Hymers College,he received a Bachelor of Arts degree with third-class honours in modern history from The Queen's College,Oxford. [15] [33] He was awarded a postgraduate certificate in theology from Westcott House,Cambridge. [33] During his time in Cambridge he studied under Rowan Williams. [12] He then received his Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Birmingham. [33] His dissertation on the work of Giambattista Vico,entitled "The Priority of the Made:Giambattista Vico and the Analogy of Creation",was written under the supervision of Leon Pompa. [34] The University of Cambridge awarded him a senior Doctor of Divinity degree in recognition of published work in 1998. [35]
Milbank was born in Kings Langley,England, [36] on 23 October 1952. [37] He married Alison Milbank,also a lecturer at the University of Nottingham, [38] in 1978. [39] [40]
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A key part of the controversy surrounding Milbank concerns his view of the relationship between theology and the social sciences. He argues that the social sciences are a product of the modern ethos of secularism, which stems from an ontology of violence. Theology, therefore, should not seek to make constructive use of secular social theory, for theology itself offers a peaceable, comprehensive vision of all reality, extending to the social and political without the need for a social theory based on some level of violence. (As Contemporary Authors summarises his thought, "the Christian mythos alone 'is able to rescue virtue from deconstruction into violent, agonistic difference.'") [36] Milbank argues that metaphysics is inescapable and therefore ought to be critically dealt with. [41]
Milbank is sometimes described as a metaphysical theologian in that he is concerned with establishing a Christian trinitarian ontology. He relies heavily on aspects of the thought of Plato and Augustine, in particular the former's modification by the neoplatonist philosophers.
Milbank, together with Graham Ward and Catherine Pickstock, has helped forge a new trajectory in constructive theology known as radical orthodoxy – a predominantly Anglo-Catholic approach which is highly critical of modernity.
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Milbank explicitly supports 'socialis[t]' social organization. [21] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46]
He has been described as 'communitarian'. [47] [48] [49]
Milbank has described the "legislative change" to legalize same-sex marriage [50] as a strategy for the "extension of a form of biopolitical tyranny", arguing that "[w]here the reality of sexual difference is denied, then it gets reinvented in perverse ways - just as the over-sexualisation of women and the confinement of men to a marginalised machismo. Secondly, it would end the public legal recognition of a social reality defined in terms of the natural link between sex and procreation." He drew on James Alison to argue that "it is possible to recognise the legitimacy of faithful homosexual union without conceding that this is tantamount to marriage". [51]
Milbank also describes the medical practice of assisted suicide as "the polite, liberal Holocaust". [52]
He allegedly characterised "liberation, local, 'practice based' black, feminist, queer, trans, disability" theologies as "tiresome careerist and naturally elitist bollocks. But no one serious takes it seriously." [53]
Paul Hedges of S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University stated in one 2014 Open Theology article that "John Milbank's Radical Orthodoxy employs styles of rhetoric and representation of the religious Other that have clear affinities" with "ideologies" of "religious extremism and fundamentalism". Hedges wrote that Milbank's "rhetoric and judgements" suggest that "his theology is at best unhelpful, and at worst potentially dangerous." Hedges simultaneously concedes that "a different approach can be detected in his most recent writings". [54] [55] [56] [57]
Nicholas Lash expressed reservations towards Milbank's views on the relation between "the sense of 'power' (Macht)" and "violence", and between "the Kingdom" and the Church. [58] [59]
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher, cultural theorist and public intellectual. He is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, visiting professor at New York University and a senior researcher at the University of Ljubljana's Department of Philosophy. He primarily works on continental philosophy and political theory, as well as film criticism and theology.
Alain Badiou is a French philosopher, formerly chair of Philosophy at the École normale supérieure (ENS) and founder of the faculty of Philosophy of the Université de Paris VIII with Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault and Jean-François Lyotard. Badiou's work is heavily informed by philosophical applications of mathematics, in particular set theory and category theory. Badiou's "Being and Event" project considers the concepts of being, truth, event and the subject defined by a rejection of linguistic relativism seen as typical of postwar French thought. Unlike his peers, Badiou openly believes in the idea of universalism and truth. His work is notable for his widespread applications of various conceptions of indifference. Badiou has been involved in a number of political organisations, and regularly comments on political events. Badiou argues for a return of communism as a political force.
Postmodern theology, also known as the continental philosophy of religion, is a philosophical and theological movement that interprets theology in light of post-Heideggerian continental philosophy, including phenomenology, post-structuralism, and deconstruction.
Liberal Christianity, also known as liberal theology and historically as Christian Modernism, is a movement that interprets Christian teaching by taking into consideration modern knowledge, science and ethics. It emphasizes the importance of reason and experience over doctrinal authority. Liberal Christians view their theology as an alternative to both atheistic rationalism and theologies based on traditional interpretations of external authority, such as the Bible or sacred tradition.
Postliberal theology is a Christian theological movement that focuses on a narrative presentation of the Christian faith as regulative for the development of a coherent systematic theology. Thus, Christianity is an overarching story, with its own embedded culture, grammar, and practices, which can be understood only with reference to Christianity's own internal logic.
Gillian Rosemary Rose was a British philosopher and writer. Rose held the chair of social and political thought at the University of Warwick until 1995. Rose began her teaching career at the University of Sussex. She worked in the fields of philosophy and sociology. Her writings include The Melancholy Science, Hegel Contra Sociology, Dialectic of Nihilism, Mourning Becomes the Law, and Paradiso, amongst others.
Radical orthodoxy is a Christian theological and philosophical school of thought which makes use of postmodern philosophy to reject the paradigm of modernity. The movement was founded by John Milbank and others and takes its name from the title of a collection of essays published by Routledge in 1999: Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology, edited by Milbank, Catherine Pickstock, and Graham Ward. Although the principal founders of the movement are Anglicans, radical orthodoxy includes theologians from a number of ecclesial traditions.
Christos Yannaras is a Greek philosopher, Eastern Orthodox theologian and author of more than 50 books which have been translated into many languages. He is a professor emeritus of philosophy at the Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens.
Death of God theology refers to a range of ideas by various theologians and philosophers that try to account for the rise of secularity and abandonment of traditional beliefs in God. They posit that God has either ceased to exist or in some way accounted for such a belief.
James K. A. Smith is a Canadian-American philosopher who is currently Professor of Philosophy at Calvin University, holding the Gary & Henrietta Byker Chair in Applied Reformed Theology & Worldview. He is the current editor-in-chief of the literary journal Image.
Political theology is a term which has been used in discussion of the ways in which theological concepts or ways of thinking relate to politics. The term is often used to denote religious thought about political principled questions. Scholars such as Carl Schmitt, a prominent Nazi jurist and political theorist, who wrote extensively on how to effectively wield political power, used it to denote religious concepts that were secularized and thus became key political concepts. It has often been affiliated with Christianity, but since the 21st century, it has more recently been discussed with relation to other religions.
Graham John Ward is an English theologian and Anglican priest who has been Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford since 2012.
Phillip Blond is an English political philosopher, Anglican theologian, and director of the ResPublica think tank.
Catherine Jane Crozier Pickstock is an English philosophical theologian. Best known for her contributions to the radical orthodoxy movement, she has been Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge since 2018 and a fellow and tutor of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. She was previously Professor of Metaphysics and Poetics.
Alison Grant Milbank is a British Anglican priest and literary scholar specialising in religion and culture. She is Canon Theologian at Southwell Minster and a professor at the University of Nottingham in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies.
Adam Kotsko is an American theologian, religious scholar, culture critic, and translator, working in the field of political theology. He served as an Assistant Professor of Humanities at Shimer College in Chicago, which was absorbed into North Central College in 2017. He is chiefly known for his interpretative work on philosophers Slavoj Žižek and Giorgio Agamben, as well as his writing on American pop culture. Some of his better-known books include Why We Love Sociopaths (2012), Awkwardness (2010), and Žižek and Theology (2008).
Post-Marxism is a perspective in critical social theory which radically reinterprets Marxism, countering its association with economism, historical determinism, anti-humanism, and class reductionism, whilst remaining committed to the construction of socialism. Most notably, post-Marxists are anti-essentialist, rejecting the primacy of class struggle, and instead focus on building radical democracy. Post-Marxism can be considered a synthesis of post-structuralist frameworks and neo-Marxist analysis, in response to the decline of the New Left after the protests of 1968.
Adrian Johnston is an American philosopher. He is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque and a faculty member at the Emory Psychoanalytic Institute in Atlanta.
Simon Andrew Oliver is a British Anglican priest, theologian, and academic. He was formerly Associate Professor of Philosophical Theology at the University of Nottingham, he is now the Van Mildert Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham. Oliver is also on staff with the Centre of Theology and Philosophy.
Lorenzo Chiesa is a philosopher, critical theorist, translator, and professor whose academic research and works focus on the intersection between ontology, psychoanalysis, and political theory.
But it is striking that this week saw the publication of a book by John Milbank and Adrian Pabst, which takes post-liberalism as an established reality and as the starting point for the examination of a new kind of politics based on a vision of social and personal virtue and what the authors dub conservative socialism.
[...] a communitarian international order, based upon a shared cultural sense of natural justice, requires some sort of institutional embodiment. Not "super-states," but federated commonwealths that to a degree pool their sovereignty.
The polite, liberal Holocaust