Ars Disputandi

Volume 8 (2008)
issN: 15665399
Maarten Wisse
x.+noiiixi iNivinsi+ii+
iiiviN, niioiix
Deconstructing Radical Orthodoxy
Edited by Wayne J. Hankey and Douglas Hedley
Subtitle: Postmodern Theology, Rhetoric and Truth; Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2005; 210 pp.; hb. 50.00; isnN: 0754653986.
The collection of essays under reviewis very much written against Radical
Orthodoxy. Given the interest of Radical Orthodoxy in polemics, it is not surpris-
ing to see that responses to its claims tend to be polemical too. The perspective the
authors have chosen to attack in Radical Orthodoxy is in the way that it treats its
historical sources. Taking its starting point in Pickstocks reading of Plato, ending
with Radical Orthodoxys critical dependence on Derrida, the collection covers
almost the whole range of historical points of reference typical of the Radical Or-
thodoxy movement: Plato, Neoplatonism, Augustine, Aquinas, Scotus, Suarez,
Descartes, Hegel, and Derrida (I missed Karl Barth, but I seem to be the only one
who sees Barth as guring prominently behind Radical Orthodoxy). Although
I agree with Hankey and Hedley that a historical perspective on Radical Ortho-
doxy is important, the way in which this historical perspective is practised in this
collection makes for tiresome reading at times. It is at times like a long sequence
of Milbank/Pickstocks reading of/appeal to x is false statements rather than an
attempt to use historical gures for developing a systematic alternative to Radical
Orthodoxy, which had done more justice to its concerns.
As a theology that aims to provide a radical alternative to the contempo-
rary theological climate, writing about Radical Orthodoxy is all about confession,
confession of whether one is for or against it. The collection under review is
clearly against it. Given that I will be rather critical of this collection, one might
automatically infer that I am an adherent or at least sympathizer. Therefore, it
might be helpful to know in advance that I am a critic, not even a sympathizer
(see my response to Hanbys Augustine and Modernity in Ars Disputandi last year
1
).
In the rst essay, Eli Dammond takes on Pickstocks appropriation of Plato.
Dammond argues for a balanced evaluation of Pickstocks Plato: Her account is
helpful in discerning the non-dualistic intention of Platonic thought, and she is
1. Maarten Wisse, Was Augustine a Barthian? Radical Orthodoxys Reading of De
Trinitate, Ars Disputandi 7 (2007), URL: http://www.arsdisputandi.org/publish/articles/
000274/index.html; Johannes Brachtendorf, Orthodoxy without Augustine: A Response
to Michael Hanbys Augustine and Modernity, Ars Disputandi 7 (2007), URL: http://www.
arsdisputandi.org/publish/articles/000273/index.html, and the introduction and reply by
Hanby: Michael Hanby, Reconsiderations: The Central Arguments of Augustine and Modernity,
Ars Disputandi 7 (2007), URL: http://www.arsdisputandi.org/publish/articles/000272/
index.html, and idem, A Response to Brachtendorf and Wisse, Ars Disputandi 7 (2007), URL:
http://www.arsdisputandi.org/publish/articles/000275/index.html.
c February 22, 2008, Ars Disputandi. If you would like to cite this article, please do so as follows:
Maarten Wisse, Reviewof Deconstructing Radical Orthodoxy, Ars Disputandi [http://www.ArsDisputandi.org] 8 (2008),
1017.
Maarten Wisse: Review of Deconstructing Radical Orthodoxy
right to argue that Plato wants sensible reality to have existence and truth as a
manifestation, however imperfect, of the Good itself. (1) Still, Dammond holds
that Derrida, whose reading of Plato Pickstock criticizes, was right in focusing on
the aporias of Platonismwhich, notwithstanding Platos intentions, were the result
of it. In addition, Dammond criticizes Pickstocks construction of a liturgical
or doxological mediation of the Good: I will attempt to show how Plato is
not satised with anything but a logical resolution of how God and the world
are inherently related. (2) Pickstocks liturgical mediation of the divine in the
world, Dammond argues, is rooted in Iamblichean-Proclean Neoplatonismrather
than in Plato itself, as Pickstock admits in a later article. For Plato, the ascent
to the One is a rational process, an active movement of the soul. This is an
essay by one of the younger contributors to the collection. Those contributions
are generally characterized by less sweeping statements, infelicitous remarks
and negative overtones than those written by the older and more established
contributors. I found this one of the best essays of the collection. It is full of
arguments rather than rhetoric.
Wayne Hankeys essay is a sort of sequel to Dammond, addressing Radical
Orthodoxys appropriation of Neoplatonism. From a systematic point of view,
Hankeys contribution contains many of the points that Dammond makes with
regard to Radical Orthodoxy and Plato. From a historical point of view, the value
of Hankeys article lies in tracing the roots of Radical Orthodoxys Platonism
back to Heidegger, Gilson, and the French Turn to religion. Hankeys emphasis
on the philosophical rather than religious nature of Neoplatonism, criticizing
the immediate relation to the Absolute characteristic of the postmodern reading
of Neoplatonism, includes a defence of an independent role for philosophy in
Christian theology, notably Augustine and Aquinas. As is well known from
other publications, Hankey defends a very Neoplatonic Augustine, one that I
nd wholly unconvincing. What to think of this statement on book VII of the
Confessions for example, representative of the thrust of Hankeys argument: In
Book Seven, the centre of the Confessions, Augustine tells us that knowing his own
nature, the nature of God, the origin and nature of evil, and his responsibility for
his own sinful deeds, all depend on what he learned from the Platonists. (22) It
is certainly useless to deny the impact of Platonism on Augustines thought, but
it seems to me useless to exaggerate it in this way either.
Todd Breyfogle explicitly addresses the question of Radical Orthodoxys use
of Augustine. His essay deals with three aspects of Radical Orthodoxys appro-
priation of Augustine: rst, epistemology and self; second, history and ontology;
third, politics and desire. In the rst section, Breyfogle argues against what he
sees as Radical Orthodoxys postmodernizing of Augustines epistemology and
view of the self. Radical Orthodoxy would follow the postmodern critique of the
autonomous self of modernity. Augustine, however, Breyfogle argues, allows for
a more autonomous self than he thinks Radical Orthodoxy suggests. Augustine
does not relativize truth to a mere construction of the self. His view of the world
suggests an intelligible rational order in the world. It seems Breyfogle is creat-
ing a straw man, however, as it seems to me no proponent of Radical Orthodoxy
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Maarten Wisse: Review of Deconstructing Radical Orthodoxy
defends a relativist position. Therefore, Breyfogles own misreading of Radical
Orthodoxy is to be blamed (Breyfogle almost exclusively relies on Milbank) when
he states at the beginning of the second section: Augustine would nd in Radical
Orthodoxy a double confusion: in the realm of epistemology, Radical Orthodoxy
emphasizes the priority of history over ontology; in the realm of politics and ec-
clesiology, Radical Orthodoxy emphasizes the priority of ontology over history.
(35) The emphasis on ontology over history, it seems to me, is true of Radical
Orthodoxy epistemology as well. Breyfogles main objection in the realm of his-
tory and ontology is that Milbank transforms Augustines political theology into
a programme that is to be fullled on our rather than on Gods part: Politics
understood as a project for progressive earthly transformation is, for Augustine, a
deciency of patience with divine providence [referring to Markus, MW]. Radical
Orthodoxy collapses ontology and precisely because it fails to recognize history
as always implicated in between ontology and eschatology. (36) It must be said
that Breyfogle is much less critical of Radical Orthodoxy in this section. In fact
the second half of the section hardly contains any criticism. The third section
contains an interesting discussion of Milbanks criticism of law and the positive
role it receives in the thought of Augustine. Rather than being arbitrary, private
and associated with violence, Augustine has a positive concept of law as it is
connected with the good. Thus, it is not only the heavenly city that provides
some good, but the earthly city turns out to have its own rules, rendering the
relationship between the two cities dierent from Radical Orthodoxys construal
of them. The upshot of Breyfogles argument, and I agree with it, is that Radical
Orthodoxy is much less Augustinian than it suggests, as in many respects, it takes
its clues from modernity rather than Augustine.
In his contribution, Marenbon addresses one of the key authorities behind
Radical Orthodoxy: Aquinas. He proceeds as follows: in a rst section, he tries
to show that Pickstocks reading of the opening of De veritate is utterly mistaken,
although unfortunately, there is more rhetoric in this section than argument. The
same goes for the second section, in which Marenbon attacks Milbank. What
I should think of sentences like The reader may hope for something better in
the chapter that follows [. . . ] the only one in the book entirely by Milbank
himself. (beginning of section two) combined with phrases like The best way
to see the qualities of her work is. . . in the previous section, I am not sure.
The best I can make of it is a personal conict that probably does not deserve
a place in an academic publication. In the fourth section the third merely
indicates Milbank/Pickstocks designation of Scotus as the evil genius of Western
philosophy Marenbon traces back Milbanks viewof Aquinas to Heidegger and
later on to tienne Gilson and Jean-Luc Marion. This then leads Marenbon to the
question whether not the distinctive place of Aquinas within the Middle Ages
as Milbank saw it was a genuine contribution to the historical understanding of
Aquinas. Not surprisingly, the answer is negative, because in Marenbons view,
historians should never base their interpretations on the ideas of philosophers
or systematic theologians, since many philosophers make general, and often
very sweeping, statements about the history of philosophy, and these statements
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Maarten Wisse: Review of Deconstructing Radical Orthodoxy
may well serve a useful function within their philosophical argumentation. But
their readers will sometimes be seriously misled if they take these statements as
accurate accounts of howphilosophers in the past really thought. (57) Apart from
the questionof whois better at makingsweepingstatements, I thinkthis account of
the relation between history and systematics ignores the fact that systematicians
have often made great contributions to historical scholarship, and that many
developments in historical scholarship are inuenced by, if not prompted by,
developments in systematics. The interest in Platonismin the Beierwaltes school
for example, is by no means directed by mere historical interest. Ironically, in
the last section the penultimate section deals with Milbanks reconstruction
of philosophy and theology in Aquinas Marenbon himself steps out of his
historical method by asking Is the Radical Orthodox narrative true? (60) making
some very sweeping statements about the systematic credibility of the Radical
Orthodox project as a whole.
In his essay on Scotus view of the univocity of concepts, Richard Cross
attacks Radical Orthodoxys interpretation of Scotus and to a lesser extent, Surez.
Cross argues that in line with Heideggers critique of ontotheology, Milbank cum
suis take Scotus view of the univocity of concepts as a theory about ontology,
whereas in Scotus, it is a merely semantic notion. To say that the concept of
being applies to God in the same way as it applies to objects in the world does
not by any means imply that God is of the same sort as objects in the world.
It just means that in order to use the concept being meaningfully, it must have
the same sense in both cases. Although this seems a valid correction of Radical
Orthodoxys critique of Scotus, its limited scope and analytic focus on semantics
leaves many questions open. For example, Cross does not address the ontological
implications of Scotus semantics, but one could well ask: if the sense of a concept
is univocally the same when used of dierent things, what is the relation between
the concepts used and the things talked about? Radical Orthodoxy might then
reply: it is exactly this connection between being and language that remains
intact in Aquinas and is lost in Scotus. In addition, it is unfortunate that Cross
only addresses the question of the univocity of language, as in Radical Orthodoxy
this is always seeninconnectionwithScotus notionof freedom, indeedseemingly
breaking the connection between the way things are in the world, rooting them
in Gods absolute freedom rather than in the being of God.
Neil Robertson addresses Radical Orthodoxys criticism of modernity, more
specically Descartes. Robertson argues that rather than fostering scepticismand
nihilism, Descartes philosophy was an attempt to respond to the scepticismof the
late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Descartes overcomes this scepticism through
posing a direct relationship between the knowing subject and the immediate pres-
ence of God. In the nal section, Robertson argues against Milbanks reading of
Hobbes as an individualist. The upshot of the article is beautifully summarized in
the conclusion: Rather than modernity being, as Milbank contends, an ontology
that legitimates violence and power, it is the very inward self-overcoming of such
a standpoint. As such moderns are able to know the inner unity of themselves as
both natural and rational politically this is a knowledge of the inner connection
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Maarten Wisse: Review of Deconstructing Radical Orthodoxy
between private ends and the political good and the divine substance as the
unity of these moments. (9596) In the course of the section on Descartes, Robert-
son makes an interesting remark about Milbanks view of evil as a privation of
being: But is Milbanks ontology, in fact Christian? Does it conceive of evil in
a way adequate to orthodox Christianity? It certainly falls short of an Augus-
tinian account in which God creates foreknowing the evil of the devil in order
that he can turnthis evil to good. (civ. 11.17) For Augustine, while evil is not
a Manichean reality, the doctrine of original sin and Gods predestinal creation
requires that evil be seen for us fallen creatures as more than contingent. That is to
say the demand of orthodox Christianity is not simply a Gnostic escape from evil
by a re-imagining ontology, but rather the appropriation and conversion of evil
as belonging to the Divine Providence. (91) I think Augustine would denitely
not hold that evil is necessary to creation either, but this is still a good point, al-
though I think it does not prove Robertsons overall thesis that modernity reects
Augustinian and Chalcedonian orthodoxy. (84 and 96) The idea of God as the
unity of the natural and the rational seems at any rate to do too little justice to the
distinction between God and the world. Still, this is a balanced and interesting
contribution.
Given Radical Orthodoxys dependency on Neoplatonism, the connection
between the movement and Britains intellectual legacy in the Cambridge Platon-
ists is readily made. Even Milbank himself did this, in a rash moment, as Douglas
Hedleys contribution makes clear. Hedley shows that the Cambridge Platonists
were opposed to all the central tenets of Radical Orthodoxy. The Cambridge
Platonists were liberals and they were positive to the Enlightenment. According
to Hedley, if Milbank sought for a companion among the contemporaries of the
Cambridge Platonists, he might have had better looked at the Platonic Catholic
counter-revolutionary thought of Joseph de Maistre (17531821) whose visceral
hatred of Protestantism and Enlightenment and whose denunciations of the sa-
tanic nature of the secular is startingly close to Radical Orthodox theology. (99)
Regrettably, Hedleys essay is little more than an elaborate refutation of an occa-
sional appeal to the Cambridge Platonists in Milbank. What if we had seen an
essay in which it was shown in a systematic way that the liberalism of the Cam-
bridge Platonists provides a much better solution to the aporias of contemporary
theology and society than Milbanks Romantic Christian Cabbala?!
DavidPeddle scrutinizes Milbanks reading of Hegel. After briey outlining
Milbanks critique of modernity (too) many contributors do this while a separate
contribution is devoted to it and the story is also rather well known he continues
with Milbanks specic critique of Hegel. According to Milbank, the retention of
the Cartesiansubject, the role of the negative, andthe misconstrual of innity (120)
hang together as the constituting elements of Hegels thought. In a subsequent
section, Peddle criticizes Milbanks reading, showing that in Hegel there is no
separation between the indeterminate and the determinate, no bad innite, no
separationbetweenthe ethics of civil societyandthe state, but rather a harmonious
dierentiation within civil society that makes the state possible. Where Milbank
construes a very strong notion of the negation as really in a violent opposition
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to the absolute, Hegel himself subsumes the negative under the absolute/God.
Negation and dierentiation nd their place in God, rather than opposite to
it, which makes Milbank much closer to Hegel than he himself acknowledges.
Peddle notices this in suggesting that Hegel is much more in the Augustinian
tradition than Milbank wants to accept. Whether Hegel is an Augustinian is
another question, but that Milbanks view shows some Hegelian traits seems to
me quite clear.
Steven Shakespeares contribution deals with Radical Orthodoxys claim on
Kierkegaard as preguring its anti-modern message. Shakespeare summarizes
his argument nicely when he says: I suggested that three key characteristics
of Radical Orthodoxy are that it is anti-foundationalist, ecclesial and exclusivist.
With respect to the rst of these, it does appear to nd an ally in Kierkegaards
critique of metaphysics. It begins to look doubtful, however, whether that al-
liance can be streched to cover the latter two aspects as well. And if this is the
case, perhaps we need to look again at what Kierkegaards anti-foundationalism
actually involves. (139) Reformulated in more general terms, Shakespeare sees
a great tension between Radical Orthodoxys privileging of Church and ritual
as a stable place where God and the encounter with God can be domesticated.
Kierkegaard is exactly concerned about any of such domestications that try to sys-
tematize the relationship between God and humanity. Shakespeare again refers
to the Hegelian strand in Radical Orthodoxy (145).
Pattisons contribution is a bit of an exception to the rule, although its tone is
pretty similar to that of the other established scholars contributing to this collec-
tion. Dierent from the others, it does not deal with a historical gure, but rather
addresses Radical Orthodoxys reintroductionof transubstantiationlanguage into
contemporary theology. Pattisons opinion is clear from the very rst sentence
of the article: One of the weirdest phenomena of recent theology has been the
resurgence of transubstantiation as a topic not merely of confessional disputa-
tion but (it is claimed) of fundamental philosophical importance. (149) Where
most twentieth-century Catholic theologians were at pains to recontextualize it,
Radical Orthodoxy returns to its worst form, Pattison suggests. His main argu-
ment is this: Yet what doctrine ever did more to bring about the spatialization
of sacramental life than transubstantiation? (149) A brief history which aims to
illustrate this spatialization is then followed by a biting critique of Hemmings
Heideggerian reconstruction of the transubstantiation dogma, although paradox-
ically, Hemmings account of it just aims to do away with the spatializing aspects
of it.
I nd this one of the worst essays of the collection, as to my mind, it misses
the point about the Radical Orthodox reintroductionof transubstantiationentirely.
Pattisons spatialized view of transubstantiation as a kind of physical miracle
indeed that was what twentieth-century Catholics reacted to is exactly the kind
of post-Enlightenment deformation of the transubstantiation dogma that Radical
Orthodoxy is responding to. Rightly in my view, as it can easily be seen that
Aquinas view of transubstantiation, for example, construes transubstantiation
at the metaphysical rather than the physical level. Whereas the substance of the
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bread and wine is transformed into the body and blood of Christ, the physical
appearance the accidents remain the same (as Marenbon notes in his essay,
54). But if this is true, then perhaps Hemmings Heideggerian rephrasing of the
doctrine as a metaphysical change in the subject makes sense as well, because if the
physical appearance remains the same, the way one comes to be transformed by
partaking in the Eucharist does not occur on the physical, but on the metaphysical
level. Thus, the Eucharist might be seen as a change of ones being in the world
rather than as a Zaubertrick. This is not to suggest that I am in favour of the
doctrine of transubstantiation quite the contrary but one should at least do
justice to Radical Orthodoxys intentions before criticizing them.
In the nal essay, Hugh Rayment-Pickard addresses Radical Orthodoxys
critique of Derrida. Against Milbank, Rayment-Pickard argues that Derridas
notion of dirance is not merely negative. Deconstruction is not a mere form of
scepticism, but as a form of phenomenology, it shows the complexity of truth. A
similar critique is directed to Pickstocks reading of Derrida. However, the real
problem of this essay is that it falsely suggests that the movement as a whole
is just against Derrida, highlighting the whole collections one-sided focus on
Milbank and Pickstock. As early as 1995, years before the publication of the
programmatic Radical Orthodoxy, Graham Ward published Barth, Derrida and the
Language of Theology, in which he builds on Derrida in a positive way (cf. his essay
on Deconstructive Theology in the Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology,
ed. by Kevin Vanhoozer, 2003, where he oers some retractationes with regard to
his earlier work on Derrida, but still maintains that Derridas work can be put to
the service of developing a postmodern Christian theology.). In addition, James
K.A. Smith, clearly one of the younger members of the movement, explicitly
criticized Pickstocks reading of Derrida in an article in Modern Theology, 2002.
Neither Ward, who is referred to not even a single time in the whole collection,
nor Smiths article is mentioned in Rayment-Pickards essay. So, if Rayment-
Pickard opens his article with the following statement: There are few shades of
grey in the writings of Radical Orthodoxy. Philosophers past and present are
either given the imprimatur or are treated as heretics. Derrida falls into the latter
category. (161), he is just ignoring the shades of grey in Radical Orthodoxys
approach to Derrida.
As I indicated already, the deciency in Rayment-Pickards essay is also the
main problem of the collection as a whole: Graham Wards role in the movement
is fully ignored, the collection thus getting the character of Milbank/Pickstock-
bashing. This is unfortunate. In addition, although I did not nd any reference to
the collections origins in a conference, it seems that many of the essays are already
a bit outdated. In the essay on Augustine for example, Hanbys Augustine and
Modernity, now clearly the movements most elaborate discussion of Augustine,
is not yet taken into account. Most of the references to Milbank are to Theology
and Social Theory or The Word Made Strage, whereas Being Reconciled has been in
published three years before this collection.
All in all, the collection contains a number of good points especially in the
contributions from junior scholars. Some points of these will also have an appeal
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Maarten Wisse: Review of Deconstructing Radical Orthodoxy
to adherents or sympathizers of Radical Orthodoxy. As I have argued, however,
due to its outdated and one-sided (e.g. minus Ward) character, it is not suitable
as a general introduction to Radical Orthodoxy.
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