As noted in a post earlier his week, Barth sees Kant’s philosophical program as an opening for the biblical theologian to do his own thing on his own basis by his own methods, without paying much of any attention to reason. Milbank wonders if this doesn’t leave a “certain liberal residue, a certain humanistic deposit.” For Barth, it is possible to “recognize certain features of the created order – whether ontological or epistemological – in their pure finitude, without reference... Read more

Milbank closes a superb article on the “radical pietists” (Hamann and Jacobi) with this paragraph: “Because [the radical pietists] point theology to a radical orthodoxy they also show how theology can outwit nihilism. Not by seeking to reinstate reason, as many opponents of postmodernity would argue. This is absurd, because nihilism is not scepticism, nor relativism. No, as Hamann and Jacobi understood, the rational Enlightenment already in effect taught nihilism. For nihilism is the purest objectivity, since it is possible... Read more

Kant viewed Judaism as a narrow, particular, hostile political entity. The fact that God promised that He would bless the nations through Abraham seems not to have registered with Kant. Kant’s treatment of Judaism has central importance in his construction of modern, Enlightened religion. And in this context, recent work that rehabilitates the universal promise of Judaism (such as in the New Perspective) is not only important for its contribution to biblical scholarship but for its wider theological and cultural... Read more

Barth’s includes an extensive treatment of Kant in his history of 19th century Protestant theology. According to Barth, Kant represents the 18th-century’s coming to self-consciousness. He saw both the possibilities and the limits of the Enlightenment’s obsessions with reason. He announces that his age is the age of criticism, but in Kant this criticism turns against itself. Kant does not critique certain propositions, but turns the critical apparatus of enlightenment on knowledge per se. The civilization achieved by the 18th... Read more