This article examines "Radical Orthodoxy" as a major development in contemporary theological thought, which emerged in English- language academic discourse in the late 1990s. The study analyses the movement’s core principles and intellectual programme, explores the reasons for its appeal, and situates it within the broader post- secular turn. Drawing on primary sources — including the work of John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock, and Graham Ward — alongside recent scholarship, the article employs methods from intellectual history and comparative analysis. It identifies six key concepts in Radical Orthodoxy (participation; rejection of secular dualism; being as gift; knowledge as anticipation; the social dimension of salvation; the analogy of being), together with its socio- political commitments (critique of secularisation, Christian socialism, social responsibility, and the interrelation of theology and politics). The author presents the movement as combining a polemic against both modernism and postmodernism with an effort to set out a comprehensive theological worldview rooted in tradition. The article’s innovation lies in highlighting parallels between Radical Orthodoxy and earlier forms of Christian modernism as contrasting responses to the intellectual challenges of their respective eras. The author argues that the movement’s popularity reflects a wider cultural search for integrated worldviews that unite faith, reason, and social practice.

Radical Orthodoxy has redefined the landscape of philosophical theology, notably through the intellectual contributions of John Milbank, Graham Ward, and Catherine Pickstock. This research investigates the role of Radical Orthodoxy in contemporary theological discussions, focusing on its methodological approaches that seek practical solutions for modern societal challenges. The core inquiry of this study revolves around the potential for Radical Orthodoxy to reintegrate Christian values into political discourse effectively. Despite existing scholarship that critiques its historical and theological contexts, little has been done to systematically explore its applicability within current socio-political frameworks. This research fills a crucial gap by employing a comparative analysis of key texts alongside case studies of their application in modern political practices. The findings reveal that Radical Orthodoxy not only critiques secular ideologies but also offers constructive strategies for fostering a Christian ethic within political decision-making processes. Through this lens, this study argues for the necessity of a nuanced engagement between theology and political theory, emphasizing the importance of insights in question in shaping a post-secular society. The implications of this research advocate for a reimagining of political practices influenced by a richer understanding of Christian values, thereby fostering meaningful dialogue in an increasingly polarized public sphere.

This conversation outlines the goals and parameters of the »After Science and Religion« project with one of its organizers, Peter Harrison. Harrison considers the major aspiration of the project to bring more theological voices into the field. He insists on the capaciousness of the project both in the sense of discipline (it includes theologians, historians, and scientists) and in the sense of viewpoint (many contributors disagree about the relation between scientism and science and in their evaluation of naturalism). The future of the field of science and religion, particularly in the wake of Harrisons The Territories of Science and Religion, is discussed. »After Science and Religion« is brought into conversation with science-engaged theology and theology of science as paths forward. Finally, the relationship between radical orthodoxy and the project is clarified.

This article critically examines Paul Tysons contribution to the »After Science and Religion« project and his book A Christian Theology of Science, highlighting problems that are characteristic of the broader Radical Orthodoxy movement. I give four basic principles to guide theologians in their engagement with the sciences and use them to show the multiple ways that Tysons argument falls short of them. The article advocates for a more nuanced approach as exemplified by John Polkinghorne, who models how theology can engage meaningfully with scientific findings while respecting the integrity of multiple disciplines.

Abstract Recent scholarship suggests the postmodern era, marked by a rejection of universal objectivity and ideas of unity, and by an emphasis on difference and plurality, may be ending. World Christianity scholars are also shifting focus from ‘difference’, ‘locality’ and ‘contextuality’ and seeking to recuperate the ‘universal’ via the concepts of unity, exchange and mutual dependence. They do, though, recognise the risks of claiming universalism, as exemplified by Radical Orthodoxy. This anti-modern theology, which argues for a retrieval of medieval Platonic Christendom as ‘the common vision’, is criticised by post-colonialists as a Eurocentric totalising tendency. Going beyond total difference or total sameness, this article proposes ‘similarity within univocity’ as a theoretical solution to the dilemma facing World Christianity: either a hyper-fragmented contextual model or Radical Orthodoxy’s universalism model. It demonstrates that ‘similarity’ not only avoids totalitarian absolute sameness, but also fragmentary difference, thus providing a novel hermeneutical foundation for the future of World Christianity.

In this paper, I shall argue that the law of non-contradiction can be used to constructively reframe the univocalist debate. Duns Scotus argued famously that a term is univocal in two statements if its unity is sufficient for a contradiction. This logical definition was woven into his arguments against Henry of Ghent’s (and indirectly Thomas Aquinas’) view of analogy, arguing that all successful analogies must be built upon a univocal core. As early as the 1960s, this Scotist univocity had been singled out by French scholars and, by the turn of the century, had become the cherished whipping boy of Radical Orthodoxy, which claims that Scotus was the progenitor of modern onto-theology, nihilism, and secular immanence. While the genealogical critique in its fullness is beyond this paper’s scope, it illustrates the gravity of the question. If the doctrine of analogy is coherent—i.e., if Scotus turned to univocity without cause—then perhaps his condemnation is justified. However—in line with the principle quod est necessarium est licitum (that which is necessary is permissible)—if univocity is necessary for successful theological reference, then perhaps the doctrine of univocity can be defended regardless of its historical usage. This paper will argue that univocity is latent in all successful analogies, commencing with a fairly standard analysis of Scotus’ Ordinatio, then moving beyond Scotus to more constructively suggest that an expanded version of the argument from non-contradiction can help reframe the univocalist debate for today.

This paper contributes to the scholarly discussion on Radical Orthodoxy by analyzing its retrieval of Christianity. Such analysis will be grounded in two questions, each concerning reasons underlying the Radically Orthodox theologians’ usage of Christian theology despite their dependence on the Platonic notion of participation (μέθεξις) and the validity of the movement’s position if its proponents were to lean instead on Platonism/Neoplatonism. To answer these questions, the author formulates a two-fold explanation constructed through library research. The first part investigates the Radically Orthodox theologians’ argumentation for using Christian theology as shown in the work of John Milbank and Conor Cunningham. The second part evaluates a hypothetical case in which Ralph Cudworth, the Cambridge Platonist with whom the Radically Orthodox theologians claim resonance, were to argue for Radical Orthodoxy’s antisecular agenda.

Jean-Luc Marion develops Heidegger’s ideas and his critical approach to onto-theology, including the thought of Thomas Aquinas. At the beginning of this article, we present this topic, which does not seem to lack relevance. Since the critics of ontology refer to Heidegger as a follower or protester, and on the other hand, since we intend to show that the name Thomas Aquinas gives to God does not reproduce the onto-theological determination of metaphysics, we intend to identify the connection between these two sides of the question, as well as to investigate, to some extent, the level of actual knowledge Heidegger had of Aquinas’s thought. In the second part of the article, we do not overlook the merit of the current called Radical Orthodoxy: questioning and renewing the vision of classic themes of theology, such as those of ritual, liturgy, theological language, political theology, the role of Augustine and Thomas, and the theme of authority.

This article is a summary version of my book Christian Natural Law and Religious Freedom: A Foundation Based on Love, the True and the Good (Routledge, forthcoming 2026). It aims to begin a conversation with respect to articulating a theological foundation for religious freedom. For this purpose, I consider natural law in the Christian tradition. In Part I, I briefly survey the diversity of Christian natural law and argue that Radical Orthodoxy enables the identification of common themes across the breadth of Christian natural law. These themes include the Good (a set of basic goods and the common good), the True (divine revelation as specially revealed in Scripture and generally revealed in nature), and Love (the law of love as ultimately displayed through Christ). In Part II, I draw on these themes of Good, True, and Love to sketch a theological framework for religious freedom. Fundamentally, religious freedom is an expression of the Good because it allows people to pursue the good of religion, which contributes to a flourishing community; it is an expression of the True because it aims towards receiving the revelation of God; it is an expression of Love because it brings people to the ultimate Good and Truth — God Himself — which is only possible through the loving sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

The theory of secularization has long been at the forefront of the philosophical discourse of the 20th century. The secular perception of social processes could not help but influence their dynamics, the decisions made by people at different levels of social life. What is allowed for a person in the world where religions no longer form the basis of social behavior and the centuries-old foundations of social life are considered canceled? The author seeks to analyze previous attempts to comprehend the problem of violence in modern culture through philosophical theories, which regard radical secularization as one of the key characteristics of modernity. At the same time, the author refers, among other things, to the study of various approaches to the problem of moral relativism, including the perspectives of theistic and atheistic philosophy: on the one hand, represented by Radical Orthodoxy of John Milbank and Alasdair McIntyre; on the other hand, postmodernism (Gilles Deleuze and Jean Baudrillard), post-structuralism (Judith Butler), and Freudo-Marxism (Slavoj Zizek). All the above-mentioned philosophers associate radical secularism with the escalation of violence in society. The study identifies the meeting point of perspectives on the problem of violence in secular society: the absence of collectively shared values rooted in the discursive tradition inevitably generates and maintains moral relativism, the prevalence of which is generally proportional to the growth in the level of violence, including latent violence. The article suggests ways to mitigate the risks of secularization and moral relativism and puts forwards an argument for the importance of tradition and community in shaping moral values. The author also emphasizes the importance of considering the role of religion, particularly Christianity, in addressing this issue.

That orthodoxy can be radical might be thought a rallying cry from the 1990s. But in fact it was already being made in the 1960s by John Robinson, and before him by G. K. Chesterton, at the start of the twentieth century. This tradition of radical orthodoxy – the idea that orthodoxy is both rooted and uprooting – is here recalled, and it is further argued that its possibility and practice are founded in the Eucharist, in the performed story of a body that is both human and divine.

This special issue of Modern Theology gathers together full research essays that were first presented, in summary form, at the 2021 online conference Theological Genealogies of Modernity. For both the original event and now this collection, theological genealogies of modernity serves as a term of art referring to any complex, broad-sweep narrative account of the rise of a modern Western cultural order that highlights theology's role within that process. The conference organizers deliberately employed the term in a capacious sense out of a desire to find a rubric under which to include a range of narratives and disciplinary perspectives on them. Defined broadly, the terminology extends both to stories celebrating the Enlightenment for bringing about progress and also to narratives stressing the need constantly to recur to a pre-modern cultural synthesis from which people today should continue to receive instruction. Of course, this simplistic distinction deserves to be challenged, and several of the essays here contest this stark division of options. The overall aim of the inquiry into genealogies is to help theologians understand how these narratives work, regardless of which account is attractive to them, so that they may develop a well-informed position on how (and even whether) to employ them. Suppose that we define theologians inclusively as those who speak about God. Theologians assume different stances on genealogies. Marcus Borg invokes a common story about modern progress by claiming that during the previous two centuries historical scholars have learned that the picture of Jesus emerging from the ecumenical councils of the church does not actually match up well with the life and ministry of Jesus himself, but instead is the work of the early Christian movement in the years following his death.1 Advances in historical research supersede prior understandings, no matter how firmly ensconced ecclesial tradition has become. By contrast, John Milbank argues that Christians must take their cue from a medieval participatory ontology in order properly to conceive the identity of Jesus.2 Failing to see the relevance of this ontology entails starting with another set of fundamental commitments, ones that from the outset undermine offering a non-identical repetition of what the classical creeds say about who Jesus is. Borg and Milbank employ substantively different genealogies, but each one uses a single story that conforms, more or less, to a recognizable type—progress in the first case and declension in the second, at least in the eyes of its critics. Other theologians blend these options together. Georges Florovsky, for example, works with a complicated combination of narratives. On the one hand, he insists that all Christian theology should trace itself back to the fathers of the church, who articulated the deposit of faith. Contemporary constructive theological reflection requires strict fidelity to a synthesis of patristic thought; anything else counts as defection from this standard. On the other hand, Florovsky values modern historicism and other forms of thought that were not elements of the patristic synthesis. Only by a sleight of hand is he able to mingle together a declension narrative and his appreciation for the fruit of progress.3 It is also possible to find arguments for being wary of any whole genealogy and, instead, limiting oneself to gleaning insights from several of them. Joel Rasmussen reads Søren Kierkegaard as casting suspicion on any attempt to take the measure of ourselves, the whole of recent history, and our place within it, without ideology infecting these evaluations. The best strategy, in light of these problems, is to select insights from a plurality of approaches that perpetually vie with each other. Whether theologians employ a single genealogy, whether they use multiple stories, or whether they are suspicious of any story on such a grand scale, they can hardly avoid taking some stance on genealogies of modernity. Therefore, theologians should think through the issues these accounts raise and how to deal with them. This work is worth undertaking because theologians need to make recourse to one or more genealogies in the process of sustaining their substantive claims. Those who incline toward a progress narrative press it into service to explain how entrenched traditions block the future trajectory of research and must be resisted for this reason. Those working with a decline narrative, or something like it, need a way to explain why their theological claims are not immediately believable to many in the world today, although they had greater subscription in a previous period. Those who combine stories feel pulled in both directions at once and attempt a synthesis of genealogies. And, finally, those wary of being drawn into the orbit of any large story still end up taking a position on topics they address, such as religion's role in the modern world. In one form or another, genealogical discourse is entangled in the theological task. It therefore profits theologians to consider how best to navigate such stories. That was a working hypothesis behind the Theological Genealogies of Modernity conference and remains a premise of this special issue. There are several features of these accounts, however, that make them challenging to handle skillfully. Perhaps the most obvious difficulty is their massive scope. They are indeed grand narratives, spanning whole epochs and rendering interpretive judgments upon them. As Richard Cross fittingly comments in his blistering polemic against the way Radically Orthodox theologians read Duns Scotus, “A grand narrative of this nature is dependent upon some—probably all—of the smaller stories that compose it. That some, and probably all, of these stories are truthful is necessary for the truthfulness of the analysis as a whole—for the truthfulness of the grand narrative.”4 Is it even possible for those who employ such narratives to know enough about all that they contain for their knowledge to be genuinely secure? Cross argues that while Radical Orthodoxy takes Scotus to be proposing a metaphysic when he says that the concept of being is univocal to God and creatures, he intends merely to advance a semantic theory. It would be easy for a reader of Cross's critique to feel that if the leading lights of Radical Orthodoxy are off base about Duns Scotus, then perhaps not only have they rushed in where angels fear to tread, but it would be foolhardy for anyone to lean heavily on a genealogy. Maybe caution should be the rule instead. Being wary regarding grand narratives appears to constitute the only way to avoid exposing oneself to perpetual vulnerability. One of the constituent essays in this collection responds constructively to this challenge, as discussed below. But for now, the point is simply to note that this difficulty attends grand genealogical narratives. Large-scale narrative accounts are also challenging to handle insofar as they contain a variety of material. While many major on intellectual history and refer to a wide range of primary texts, others bring within their purview material culture and social factors as well. A final challenge to handling genealogies well is that they raise fundamental questions of epistemology. Do genealogies force the theologian to choose between either a problematizing approach to knowledge (Nietzsche) or a tradition-informed stance (Aristotle)? Or is it preferable to bring these two together somehow? In this collection, Joel Rasmussen explores these questions in dialogue with Kierkegaard's corpus. Theologians face these challenges, yet standard academic arrangements throw an obstacle in the way of addressing them effectively. Due to the breadth of genealogies, it would be ideal to discuss them in an interdisciplinary setting. Theologians would profit from conversing with historians, philosophers, and literary scholars. But because academic fields are typically isolated from one another in ways that inhibit communication and cooperation between specialized areas, the sort of discussions that theological genealogies inherently deserve seldom take place. It was for this reason that the conference included practitioners with an array of expertise. As readers of their respective essays can see, both Brad Gregory and Peter Harrison bring specialist skills as historians from which theologians can glean much. Several of our contributors have knowledge of philosophy. While Thomas Pfau did not contribute an essay to this collection, his skills as a literary scholar were on display at the conference itself when he engaged in a discussion of Kierkegaard with Joel Rasmussen.5 A welcome trend in recent work on genealogies is that the discussion is diversifying. Many standard points of reference continue to receive discussion at present, but they now stand alongside more efforts to speak about and from the perspective of previously marginalized communities. The conversation about such accounts is rightly expanding to include new voices, some of which are challenging well-ensconced genealogical practices in order to create opportunities to be heard. This is evident in the essay on “Genderealogy: Erasure and Repair” within this special issue. Its authors, Christine Helmer and Ruth Jackson Ravenscroft, argue that raising the profile of women within genealogies requires a deep reconception of human agency itself. Likewise, Ragnar M. Bergem ends his essay with an appreciative assessment of two major texts on the role of race and religion in the formation of modern Western culture. It is to the benefit of the present discussion that it is less dominated by figures from a single demographic. Five of the essays brought together here interpret and assess genealogies of modernity as they currently exist. Their authors provide some guidance for how these narratives might develop in response to their interrogation, but they mainly focus on understanding and evaluating examples from the current discussion. The value of these pieces derives from how they challenge assumptions that give certain narratives greater influence than those stories perhaps deserve, how they undermine caricatures that may misconstrue some genealogies, how they highlight the achievement and limits of genealogies, and how they wrestle in explicit ways with methodological questions that are seldom satisfyingly answered in other discussions. In the modern West, the narrative enjoying the broadest cultural currency portrays history as bringing about progress, or an ever-increasing quality of life for human beings. Yet Brad Gregory points to what he sees as a significant problem with this story. The obstacle is the Anthropocene, the proposed epoch marking out the beginning of large-scale human impact on the Earth's geology and ecosystems. Such impact includes climate change, but it indicates broader and deeply problematic alterations to the planet's energy, water, and biochemical cycles. This difficulty pertains not only to problems that have already occurred, but even more to the trajectory that the planet is currently on. Based on observations that scientists can presently make, people's impact upon the world may well challenge the habitability of some or even all of the planet. For this reason, the onset of the Anthropocene, usually dated to around the middle of the twentieth century, poses a challenge to any narrative about human progress: if human beings cannot continue to live on the planet they currently inhabit, that decisively undermines the claim that their quality of life only improves with time. The usual, allegedly benign, attempts to include more people within a consumer capitalist culture only exacerbate the issues. They do not offer a solution to the basic problem. Western nations, in which Christianity has exerted a tremendous influence, have proven largely responsible for these difficulties—this despite Jesus’ stern and unambiguous condemnation of the greed and accumulation of wealth that ultimately drive many current threats. Nominally Christian nations have outrightly repudiated core teachings of Jesus, and this choice has brought looming planetary destruction as its consequence. Gregory holds up saintly individuals and ascetic communities as examples proving that it is indeed possible to follow Jesus’ teaching, at least on a small scale, despite the sorry display writ large that we otherwise see and with the consequences of which we must now live. Gregory's picture is admittedly gloomy. Those who seek to resist his conclusion about progress narratives would need to find a way to account for the considerable range of evidence he marshals without bursting the bounds of that common modern story. Could it be that the progress story might yet sustain itself if technological solutions were invented that could reverse the degrading effects that human beings are presently having on the planet? Only time will tell if anything like this comes to pass. While Gregory proffers the evidence of the current Anthropocene as sufficient to undermine the progress narrative, he stops short of embracing a macro-account of decline, insisting that declension accounts depend on rightly identifying a point from which decline began—a question with which he does not deal in this focused essay. In his larger work, The Unintended Reformation, Gregory disavows nostalgia for a past Golden Age, refusing to embrace a single historical period as the juncture from which subsequent history defected.6 Two other essays deal more fully with genealogies that are often understood in terms of decline. In “Neither Progress nor Regress: The Theological Substructure of T. F. Torrance's Genealogy of Modern Theology,” Darren Sarisky contends that the category of decline does not genuinely apply to the genealogy of the Scottish Reformed theologian. A brisk reading of Torrance's work might lead one to conclude that he views history as a declension from certain high points, such as the Nicene period or the Reformation. But such a conclusion overlooks his appreciation for many modern advances. And, more importantly, it fails to register what is most important for the structure of his genealogy, that is, Torrance's own deepest doctrinal commitments. Aspects of Trinitarian and Christological doctrine, rather than the idealization of any time periods, lie at the heart of his genealogy, because they determine its structure. Among other effects, they reshape how Torrance understands time. Even though nearly two millennia separate today's church from the events of Jesus’ earthly ministry, that does not entail that an unbridgeable gap opens up between him and today's ecclesial community. Rather, time is warped in the sense that it is no longer exclusively linear. The one who was crucified and resurrected then is alive even now and becomes present to the church by the power of the Spirit. Because time is not simply linear, on his view, it is erroneous to understand his genealogy as portraying history as a decline from a particular point. What is more fundamental to the genealogy than chronologically bounded periods is epistemic reconciliation between the knowing subject and the God who is the object of theological inquiry. Because the practice of theology depends upon epistemic affinity, Torrance's genealogy critiques developments in history that frustrate achieving epistemic reconciliation and lauds those that facilitate it. This focus helps Torrance prioritize which historical moments need evaluation, and it explains the angle from which he assesses any given claim. Furthermore, because God can establish epistemic affinity between humans and himself in any set of historical conditions, thereby retaining his freedom, knowledge of God does not depend ultimately on the existence of certain earthly circumstances. Torrance's genealogy certainly offers some bold assessments and can at times display carelessness with details. But it manages to avoid indulging in the most sweeping historical generalizations that other genealogies include. Torrance's work thereby contributes to the current debate by being more measured in this sense. Readers concerned about the tendency toward cavalierly evaluative periodization can turn to Torrance to find something different. The notion of decline figures less centrally in John Milbank's essay, “Genealogies of Truth,” but his piece might well nevertheless be construed as offering two important comments on this notion. The first is that whatever relevance “decline” possesses, there is also a need within Christian theology for genealogy to operate in a fundamentally different mode. Genealogy ought to function positively in the first instance. Positive genealogy builds upon the past, not simplistically, by merely repeating what others have already said, but by reflectively building upon exemplars from within a tradition in which one stands. The warrant for history in genealogy comes from less than the where Jesus is understood as the life of the church by being as as possible with its Positive genealogy doctrinal by theologians to think with their because is in the of the it within a particular of thought and theology also genealogy, in order to challenge assumptions that may be well but that nevertheless to basic Christian commitments. genealogy common assumptions and them, their the role of genealogy is to by an of the of the which turn out to be other than was and rather than and This to the that Milbank is, in in his essay. While genealogy is to be substantively it less than the genealogy of Radical which is often by with terms such as decline and Milbank insists that what he is ultimately if it is a to an that had greater influence in the past, is to to have learned from while fully to it by of with theological The use of genealogy itself an of him in this and that he is working in by this point of on Milbank's essay a and discussions of and as some of the he has In his of Modernity and Its Ragnar Bergem a of points that to both progress narratives and decline is that many of the recent genealogies that have drawn from theologians have by and work, although theologians have also theology and Radical Orthodoxy have to modernity by its and up the of challenging it. these genealogies are most they have given readers a point on sense that it is not in its our perhaps even a that there could an for life that has not by the of a modern In this these theological discussions have the sense that Christians today have no choice but to into a and to that Yet insofar as these stories point back to a their anything as of his genealogies. only to the present and to up about new genealogy to a theological to which past Bergem does not on whether theologians in the of or Radical Orthodoxy would take his as a some of them have no of within the limits of he highlights the that theological genealogies have by where their do not with that have them. While these accounts have some theologians to from modern developments that would in the past have as is in some modernity still a force within them. For because many of the genealogies in question their discussion on intellectual to the of material they have only a to the that in place the they One of the most genealogies from recent years that some accounts separate out from their cultural and problems on intellectual referring to this problematic tendency as an Furthermore, Bergem theological genealogies to modernity by periodization that in modern that its and that may even out evidence that does not the narrative genealogy of race as a category is as some of these by heavily on rather than to the historical in that race a of By contrast, work on race attends to in a more obvious overall aim is not to for the of genealogical he mainly to assess current and, to offer for that might benefit current is at his most when he that genealogies that are options are and instead, one story may depend on elements of its Readers often understand theological genealogies to be an case by starting from that not all and to be in Peter and the of The of Modern argues that several genealogies actually work in a how accounts to that are in a even though such genealogical arguments do not with Genealogies can this by basic in the stance with modern and Because they within historical these accounts a different point of as the only In this these genealogies function as This is the of the function of genealogies. Harrison in a and several genealogies that problems in the of modern For argues that cannot people to the of a as it is of the of without some form of within But the offers itself as a one that is to religion as thereby depends on what it itself not to be fully This that should receive a assessment of some though does not need to himself to a evaluative perspective to make this The conclusion simply from a analysis of the of itself. Harrison explores several other examples as well. about other major historical works to that authors such as Brad Gregory are often to be their own or claims when they are in for only that the concept of human is not well it to theological Gregory need not himself to such to make that point. The once is to how genealogical work can be and substantive without being in ways that historians consider broader discussion of major recent works a range of subject is a more of from modern The essay what is often as an obvious that modern and practices genuinely are by that they depend on theological in some piece should historians and theologians to to the form of within genealogies. offers terms that can help readers understand the nature of the at work within accounts derives from in the form of rather than from any or arguments the to on essays within this special issue whether and how genealogies ought to be of these essays is to problems with the though they to the they The first essay a to certain of with a toward common with narratives that history having a The essay for a to the common of to the final essay that our human for requires about any particular grand narrative we might tell about human history and our place in it. that genealogies which develop stances toward because assumptions at some point in the to their from the history they The problems of the present to which this history has can to be if the reader of the genealogy more with the not than with the one that has Such genealogies do not an of but something like this is a that attends these What is the best way to avoid the constructive is that genealogies should be to their in the of Those genealogies should the of their own points and They ought to be about how the stories they forms of and to the of It is for any genealogy that is of modernity to this But it is for theologians to genealogies, for declension narratives the narrative within as from within human beings and as no one can for what is with the world. There methodological and theological to genealogies. In should compose historical narratives that they as Because genealogies are narrative accounts that offer readers in the face of an otherwise of historical their authors should that their accounts have the of an They are Genealogies provide and those who receive guidance from them should to a more perspective by undertaking more specialized of of at genealogical narratives in this way has two it the tendency to any that from it the of Richard Cross's that large-scale stories are to questions from specialist of a genealogy rightly own up to the need to even as they to the they have from the story that their like in historical practice as well as within Christian The theological perspective the of human who have a not a of In its point of reference is the for with God in the new should any appreciation that a has for a past period of

‘포스트모더니즘’과 ‘중세’는, 모더니즘의 ‘있음의 확실성’과 대치하는 공통성 위에서라면, 서로 ‘근친성’을 가진다. 세계기독교 연구에서 포스트모더니즘 철학으로의 기울어짐에 대한 학문적 논쟁에 기여하려는 이 논문은 포스트모더니즘 안에 ‘중세로의 회귀성’이 잠재되었다가 발현됨을 주장한다. 포스트모던 신학이면서 중세 스콜라 체계로의 회귀를 주장하는 급진정통주의(Radical Orthodoxy) 신학의 분석을 통해, 본 논문은 포스트모더니즘이 ‘차이’의 파편화를 극복하고자 ‘보편의 존재’를 ‘가능태’로 추구하였고, 결국, 존재의 ‘없음의 보편성’을 가정하여 존재의 ‘분유’를 필연화하는 중세의 유비적(analogical) 체계로 유도됨을 보인다. 이러한 회귀는 세계기독교의 유산과 발전의 반대 방향임을 지적하면서, 세계기독교는 포스트모더니즘과의 동행보다는, ‘있음의 확실성’과 ‘관계성’을 연합할 수 있도록 조건화된 모더니즘을 기반으로 세계기독교의 에베소 교회적 순간을 성취해야 한다고 제언한다.

The article focuses on the key concepts of the philosophical theology of Francisco Suárez and the post-Suárezian scholastics. These concepts were used by John Milbank, contemporary English theologian and initiator of the «radical orthodoxy» movement, to historically justify his own views. In Milbank's interpretation, four points define the transition of medieval scholasticism from the “correct” Thomistic understanding to the pernicious innovations of Duns Scotus; through Suarez and his younger contemporaries, according to Milbank, they have been adopted by theologians and philosophers of modernity. The concepts in question are: univocation of being, cognition as a mirror image, potentiality, and “coincidence” (concurrentia). Milbank believes that these concepts have replaced the original ones – analogy, cognition as a formal identity, the primacy of actuality and “influxus”. Milbank's specific work with these notions often looks like a forced subsumption of a range of complex and heterogeneous problems that receive one-sided and even historically incorrect coverage. Such is the subject of this article. Its purpose is to analyze, on the basis of Milbank's views, the textual evidence of the meaning of these concepts and to draw certain conclusions concerning the adequate methodology of modern thinkers' engagement with the scholastic tradition.

The April 2022 issue of Modern Believing comprises seven essays on God’s relation to the cosmos, each taking a contemporary theological or philosophical movement - process theism, new materialism, open and relational theology, ‘weak’ theology, the integralism behind radical orthodoxy, theology of divine companionship and progressive Christianity - and examining its connections with panentheism. This editorial provides a concise orientation to recent work on panentheism, introduces the essays that follow, and briefly analyses and assesses them.

Reviewed by: Joseph Ratzinger and the Healing of the Reformation-Era Divisions ed. by Emery de Gaál and Matthew Levering Emil Anton Joseph Ratzinger and the Healing of the Reformation-Era Divisions, edited by Emery de Gaál and Matthew Levering (Steubenville, Ohio: Emmaus Academic, 2019), xxvii+371 pp. When George Smith first deciphered the Mesopotamian account of the Flood and realized he was the first person to read it in a couple thousand years, he started running around the room in excitement and taking his clothes off. Without the undressing part, I experienced the same impulse while reading Joseph Ratzinger and the Healing of the Reformation-Era Divisions, a collection of seventeen priceless chapters by both Catholic and Protestant scholars, coming out of a conference held in 2017 to celebrate Joseph Ratzinger’s ninetieth birthday and to commemorate the five-hundred-year anniversary of the Reformation. This wonderful book takes its place as clearly the leading volume on Ratzinger and Catholic– Protestant ecumenism. Based on his media image, recently reinforced by the Netflix movie [End Page 675] The Two Popes, one would not think that Joseph Ratzinger / Benedict XVI would prove a relevant figure in overcoming the centuries-old Catholic–Protestant divide. All one remembers about Benedict XVI and ecumenism, based on news coverage, is that he said Protestant churches are not really churches. Fortunately, the scholars contributing to the present volume dig deeper, look behind the scenes, and uncover Ratzinger/Benedict’s “history-changing contributions” (22), such as saving the Catholic–Lutheran Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification and making “The Thames flow into the Tiber.” (Talk about an ingenious chapter title!) In order, the topics covered in this volume include papal primacy, principles of ecumenism, exegesis and liturgy, secularism, Mariology, public theology, Christology, Luther, love, Eucharist, creation, conscience, missiology, justification, Radical Orthodoxy (John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock, Graham Ward, et al.), and the relationship between Scripture, Tradition, and Church. Space does not permit me to review all of the articles; instead, I will highlight only some points that I found particularly illuminating. As editor, Matthew Levering opens the introductory chapter with a comparison of Karl Rahner’s and Joseph Ratzinger’s views on attaining Christian unity. Rahner presents what Thomas A. Baima calls “a Pelagian view of ecumenism” (23), a rash manmade institutional unification which might be a marvel of pragmatic skill but could not account for its structures in terms of God’s instituting Word (xix). Ratzinger’s model is more theological and patient: respecting our differences, accepting the good reasons both sides have for them, and thus learning from each other, “will in the end deepen our unity and, in God’s time, will allow for the ‘must’ of division to give way to a doctrinally articulated unity-in-diversity” (xxi). But what should this unity-in-diversity look like? In his article on the principles of ecumenism, Baima makes a helpful distinction between the Church’s structure and its institution. For example, in communist Ukraine there was no Catholic ecclesial institution, but the sacramental and apostolic structure of the Church remained. The two terms are often confused; distinguishing between them helps to clarify that the goal of Christian unity is not necessarily a common institution, but it does include a common sacramental structure. Baima also notes that Ratzinger rejected “the return model used by the Council of Florence” when he famously said that “Rome must not require more of the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than had been formulated and was lived in the first millennium” (28). Baima raises the very pertinent question as to how this might “inform dialogue with the communities of the Reformation” (29). Would it not [End Page 676] mean, for example, that Rome should not demand that Protestants accept the dogmatic definitions of 1854, 1870, and 1950 as such, but simply admit that they are not heretical doctrinal developments? (The next question would be whether Catholics could also legitimately think so.) The question is very much connected to the relationship between Scripture and the Church, treated by Douglas A. Sweeney in his important contribution. While acknowledging rapprochement between Evangelicals who are “sinking...

The subject of this research is comprehension of the concept of secularism by theologians of the Abrahamic religious tradition (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) in the late XX – early XXI centuries. The object of this research is secularism as the phenomenon of modernity. Leaning on the methodology of contextualism, comparative and content analysis, in terms of civilizational approach, the author studies the interpretation of the concept of secularism within the framework of confessional theological discourse. The author has examined the corresponding representations of theologians of the Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Christian traditions, including the inter-Christian movement of radical Orthodoxy. Analysis is also conducted on the concept of secularism in modern classical Islam and moderate Orthodox Judaism. The main conclusions are as follows: the theologians of all indicated denominations trace the origins of secularism in the West; Islamic theologians agree upon the fact that radical Orthodoxy takes roots in Christianity itself; the representatives of Catholic tradition see secularism as the ideology similar to fundamentalism, however, they deny its universality, and thereby supporting the Orthodox interpretation of secularism. A number of Orthodox theologians view secularism not just as the ideology aimed at achieving the complete elimination religions from public life to purely private life, but also as quasi-religion, which is extraneous to the principles of secularism. Islamic theology believes that secularism, which is alien to the Muslim world, is a serious but not critical challenge brought from the West. Islamic theology tends to see secularism only as ideology, which at times is irrational. Jewish moderate Orthodoxy views secularism as the challenge to traditional meanings that are fundamental to human community. In this regard, they advocate for the so-called ideological consensus between religious belief and secular modernity.

Shevchuk, Pavlo. “Political Theology of Radical Orthodoxy.” The dissertation for the degree of candidate of philosophical sciences – 09.00.14 (041 – Theology). The dissertation is devoted to a comprehensive analysis of the theopolitical concepts of a new theological movement – radical orthodoxy. For the first time, a holistic study of the political theology of radical orthodoxy was carried out, particularly the theopolitical concepts of its most influential representatives J. Milbank, A. Pabst, and V. Cavanaugh. As part of the study, the main ideas of the critical theologians of the current were generalized and systematized. A critical analysis of their projects for building a new political structure was carried out. The prerequisites for the formation and features of its theological approaches are determined. The strengths and weaknesses of the concepts ofJohn Milbank, Adrian Pabst, and William Cavanaugh are shown.

The critique of capitalism increasingly has attracted much interest from theologians in the last decades. The topic is also the official teaching of both the Churches and ecumenical organizations. Contemporary capitalism is frequently regarded as a threat to societies and environment and, simultaneously, as a serious cause of secularization and dechristianization. The article presents selected concepts of John Milbank’s reflection that refers to the criticism of capitalism and shows it in the perspective of a summary of the crucial theological points of the Radical Orthodoxy movement. The text is an analytical commentary on the selected works of Milbank that have been compiled in order to achieve the intended goals.

In 1948, Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston entertained us with a radiophonic debate, on the BBC, concerning the rational proofs of God’s existence. This debate is primarily a product of Authors’ mindset. In this sense, every argument on each side presupposes a universal reason from which human intellect can grasp a certain degree of truth. Therefore, we would expect that the debate 75 years old to be outdated. Or maybe, Russell’s agnostic position could, at first sight, seem to be more aligned with a contemporary post-modern mindset than Copleston’s theism. However, we disagree with the aforementioned thesis. We will not argue that Copleston won the debate by means of reason alone. We will rather show that both positions emerge from different ontologies. And these ones are intertwined with specific narratives and its respective ways of life. For that matter, the Russell-Copleston debate substantiates the thesis of Radical Orthodoxy. Deep down, John Milbank’s “ontology of peace,” as opposed to the Nietzschean nihilism, emerges from this debate. In this sense, while Copleston’s argumentation grounds this narrative on an ontology of peace, Russell tends to follow in a nihilism capable of destroying the communion between different persons. In this sense, the debate is still up to date.