Radical Orthodoxy: Binaries and Nostalgia

Big Daddy Bo takes Radical Orthodoxy — a theological movement of which I am not fond — down to size:

It does not take long, when listening to John Milbank, to discover the fatal flaw.

Milbank says “The only choice in our time is between religion and nihilism”.

Into a plural, multiple, diverse 21st century, RO comes marching in with a old-school binary!  From sentence one, as a listener, you start thinking “yeah, that thing you said might be true … IF there is only an either-or option. But if there are layers, any nuance, multiple factors, complexity or any number of other variations … then your argument breaks down pretty quickly. Your proposal only stands up IF your initial simplistic framing of the issue is adopted. ” [like when Milbank calls all of post-modernism a footnote to Nietzsche]

When Milbank says that a purely secular society is untenable… it’s a no-brainer! Of course that would be true. Duh. Only … that’s not exactly the reality we are dealing with.

Of course, the sentence takes on wholly new meaning inside RO’s binary.

Read the rest: Radical Orthodoxy’s Fatal Flaw.