John Milbank


Alasdair John Milbank is a British theologian and philosopher. He is Professor Emeritus of Religion, Politics and Ethics at the University of Nottingham, where he is also president of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy and the Centre for Social Renewal. Milbank has previously taught at Lancaster University, University of Cambridge, and University of Virginia, where he held the Frances Myers Ball Chair of Philosophical Theology. While at Cambridge as a Reader, he was also fellow of Peterhouse.
Milbank founded the radical orthodoxy movement. 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. He further developed the radical orthodoxy agenda in several works, including The Word made Strange, Being Reconciled, Truth in Aquinas, The Suspended Middle and ''Beyond Secular Order.''
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Life

Education

Following his secondary education at Hymers College, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in modern history from The Queen's College, Oxford. He was awarded a postgraduate certificate in theology from Westcott House, Cambridge. During his time in Cambridge he studied under Rowan Williams. He then received his Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Birmingham. His dissertation on the work of Giambattista Vico, entitled "The Priority of the Made: The Religious Dimension in Vico's Thought", was written under the supervision of Leon Pompa. The University of Cambridge awarded him a senior Doctor of Divinity degree in recognition of published work in 1998.

Personal life

Milbank was born in Kings Langley, England, on 23 October 1952. He married Alison Milbank, also professor emerita at the University of Nottingham, in 1978. They have a daughter, Reverend Dr Arabella Milbank Robinson, and a son, Dr Sebastian Milbank, beside two grandsons, Aubrey and Ivor Robinson.

Thought

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. At the same time Milbank seeks to show, genealogically, that much secular thought is actually composed of distorted and partial theologies, rendering its claims thereby not beyond the reach of orthodox theological assessment.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. Milbank argues that metaphysics is inescapable and therefore ought to be critically dealt with.
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. He is much influenced by Origen, Eriugena, Nicholas of Cusa, John Ruskin, Sergei Bulgakov and more recently, F. W. J. Schelling.
Milbank, together with Graham Ward and Catherine Pickstock, has helped forge a new trajectory in constructive theology known as radical orthodoxy – an ecumenically Catholic approach which is highly critical of existing modernity, but which seeks to disinter and develop a different, Renaissance and Romantic-based, Christian Platonic modernity. In his Cambridge Stanton lecture series, "Philosophy: A Theological Critique", he sought to extend his genealogical and critical approach to the social sciences to Philosophy as such. Characteristically, radical orthodoxy does not seek to restore foundational humanism questioned by postmodernism, but to argue that the postmodernist reading of ontological flux as uncertainty and nihilism is arbitrary. Instead radical orthodoxy reads flux in a revised Platonic way, as evidence of a stuttering, symbolic or linguistic participation of the finite in the Absolute. More recently, Milbank has accentuated his kinship with a post-postmodern speculative turn, while sympathising with spiritualists rather than materialists.
This was already exemplified in his debates with philosopher Slavoj Žižek, and in collaborations in three books, entitled Theology and the Political: The New Debate, The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic, and Paul's New Moment: Continental Philosophy and the Future of Christian Theology. Milbank delivered the Stanton Lectures at Cambridge in 2011. Milbank's friendship and substantial intellectual common ground with David Bentley Hart has been noted several times by both thinkers. Milbank has also been a major influence on the formation of Postliberal thought in contemporary politics, and especially upon the Blue Labour political faction. This aspect of his work is much linked to his philosophical reflections upon gift-exchange.

Reception

Theology and Social Theory is generally viewed as having brought about a paradigm shift in Anglo-Saxon theology towards a much more confidently Christian approach. While it was initially seen as extreme, this perception has faded over the years and Milbank's global influence has continued to increase.

Books

Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason, 1990 – The Religious Dimension in the Thought of Giambattista Vico, 1668–1744, 2 vols., 1991–92 – The Mercurial Wood: Sites, Tales, Qualities, 1997 – The Word Made Strange, 1997 – Truth in Aquinas, with Catherine Pickstock, 2000 – Being Reconciled: Ontology and Pardon, 2003 – Introducing Radical Orthodoxy: Mapping a Post-Secular Theology, Jan. 2004, Baker Publishing Group - The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac and the Debate Concerning the Supernatural, 2005 – The Legend of Death: Two Poetic Sequences, 2008 – The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic?, With Slavoj Žižek and Creston Davis, 2009 – Veritas: Proposing Theology. S C M Press, Limited, 2009. The Future of Love: Essays in Political Theology, 2009 – Paul's New Moment: Continental Philosophy and the Future of Christian Theology, With Slavoj Žižek and Creston Davis, 2010 – Beyond Secular Order: The Representation of Being and the Representation of the People, 2013 – The Dances of Albion: A Poetic Topography, Shearsman Books, 2015. The Politics of Virtue: Post-Liberalism and the Human Future, With Adrian Pabst, 2016 – Philosophy: A Theological Critique, Feb. 2023 Wiley–Blackwell. The Gift Exchanged: The Gift in Religion. Wiley–Blackwell Jun. 2017 Some Speaking Swirls: July 2023'', Shearsman Books,''

Essays in edited volumes

  • "Postmodern Critical Augustinianism: A Short Summa in Forty-two Responses to Unasked Questions", found in The Postmodern God: A Theological Reader, edited by Graham Ward, 1997 –
  • "The Last of the Last: Theology in the Church", found in Conflicting Allegiances: The Church-Based University in a Liberal Democratic Society, 2004 –
  • "Alternative Protestantism: Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition", found in Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition: Creation, Covenant, And Participation, 2005 –
  • "Plato versus Levinas: Gift, Relation and Participation", found in Adam Lipszyc, ed., Emmanuel Levinas: Philosophy, Theology, Politics, 130–144.
  • "Sophiology and Theurgy: The New Theological Horizon", found in Adrian Pabst, ed., Radical Orthodoxy and Eastern Orthodoxy, 45–85 –
  • "Shari'a and the True Basis of Group Rights: Islam, the West, and Liberalism", found in Shari'a in the West, edited by Rex Ahdar and Nicholas Aroney, 2010 –
  • "Platonism and Christianity: East and West", found in Daniel Haynes, ed., ''New Perspectives on Maximus''

Journal articles

  • "The Body by Love Possessed: Christianity and Late Capitalism in Britain", Modern Theology 3, no. 1 : 35–65.
  • "Enclaves, or Where is the Church?", New Blackfriars, Vol. 73, no. 861, pp. 341–352.
  • "Can a Gift Be Given? Prolegomena to a Future Trinitarian Metaphysic", Modern Theology 11, no. 1 : 119–161.
  • "The Soul of Reciprocity Part One: Reciprocity Refused", Modern Theology 17, no. 3 : 335–391.
  • "The Soul of Reciprocity Part Two: Reciprocity Granted", Modern Theology 17, no. 4 : 485–507.
  • "Scholasticism, Modernism and Modernity", Modern Theology 22, no. 4 : 651–671.
  • "From Sovereignty to Gift: Augustine's Critique of Interiority", Polygraph 19 no. 20 : 177–199.
  • "The New Divide: Romantic versus Classical Orthodoxy Modern Theology", Modern Theology 26, no. 1 : 26–38.
  • "Culture and Justice", Theory, Culture and Society 27, no. 6 : 107–124.
  • "", Modern Theology 27, no. 1 : 147–185.
  • "Hume Versus Kant: Faith, Reason and Feeling", Modern Theology 27, no. 2 : 276–297.
  • "Against Human Rights: Liberty in the Western Tradition", Oxford Journal of Law and Religion 1, no. 1 : 203–234.
  • "Dignity Rather than Right", Revista de filosofía Open Insight, v. IV, no. 7 : 77-124.
  • "Politics of the Soul", Revista de filosofía Open Insight, v. VI, no. 9 : 91-108.
  • "Reformation 500: Any Cause for Celebration?", "Open Theology" v. 4 : 607–729. Open Access. DOI:
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