John Milbank

We are dealing here yet again with the Lacanian logic of the non-All: God allows me to not to believe in vulgar miracles and to accept the basic rationality of the universe; without this exception, there is nothing I am not ready to believe.

My encounters with Žižek's theology [b:God in Pain: Inversions of Apocalypse|12121640|God in Pain Inversions of Apocalypse|Slavoj Žižek|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1333580938s/12121640.jpg|17090966] and [b:The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core show more of Christianity|18913|The Puppet and the Dwarf The Perverse Core of Christianity|Slavoj Žižek|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347299119s/18913.jpg|20258] have been uniformly fecund. As a public atheist/private agnostic I felt the sway of his discussions without the cold "fuck off" of Mr Dawkins. That vibrant ease may have run aground with The Monstrosity of Christ. Perhaps the fault, if not my own dulardness, lies, instead, at its thematic core. Both Žižek and John Milbank parse Hegel in their debate over the role of theology in our times. Shooting from the hip, I would've gathered that Heidegger would've been the more reasoned choice, but then again I'm the one flailing about in the shallow end of the theoretical pool. This was a tough climb and I admit to being annoyed with Slavoj's impertinence and Milbank's uncertain forays into concepts, especially the notion of the dialectic.

The leading citation at the top is a response to Chesterton's notion that if one doesn't beleive in God, then one will beleive in anything. That is a statement of potential and pitfall. show less

For Milbank, this is beautifully written, which is not at all an absolute statement of quality prose. On the upside, it's short and ably sets out Milbank's reading of Lubac: against the scholastic, and 'modernist', distinction between the supernatural and the natural. Probably could have been a short article rather than a short book.

This is a very dense, and very hard to read, even if you are schooled in the various fields Milbanks covers. His thesis, that theology has a place at the table, but on its own terms, not just as a bastard step child, is admirable. I would give it five stars, except that it is just inpenetrable in too many places.

Very helpful collection of papers. Milbank's is good, focusing on the concept of the sublime as he often does (see also his essay on Kierkegaard in Phillip Blond's _Post-Secular Philosophy_ collection), but I found the best and most appealing to be Graham Ward's essay.