The Future of Love: Essays in Political Theology: "With a newly written preface relating his theology to the current global situation, The Future of Love contains revised versions of eighteen of John Milbank's essays on theology, politics, religion, and culture—ranging from the onset of neoliberalism to its current crisis, and from the British to the global context. Many of the essays first appeared in obscure places and are thus not widely known. Also included are Milbank's most important responses to critiques of his seminal work, Theology and Social Theory. Taken together, the collection amounts to a "political theology" arrived at from diverse angles. This work is essential reading for all concerned with the current situation of religion in the era of globalization and with the future development of Radical Orthodoxy."
Endorsements: (click on the names below to see the endorsement)
Stanley Hauerwas (Duke University)
"The risk he takes, the range of problems he engages, the imaginative power of his mind, the sheer energy that pulses through these essays make this book essential for anyone who would understand the phenomenon—the gift—that bears the name John Milbank."
William Desmond (Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven)
"This is a marvellous collection of well-organized essays by perhaps the most thought-provoking theologian of the moment. They display an impressive range, are full of surprises, and are elegantly and engagingly written. They will confirm John Milbank's reputation as one of the most accomplished and singular of theologians currently writing."
Michael Northcott (University of Edinburgh)
"These essays, published over thirty years and gathered in this important new book, demonstrate the consistent acuity and imaginative power of John Milbank's politico-theological vision. Milbank bestrides the Anglosaxon theological world with a project that is uniquely embedded in the romantic, anglocatholic, and socialist critiques of modernity from Coleridge to Ruskin. In this book we see the gradual repristination of these critiques against atheism, humanism, and neoliberalism, and the unfolding of a political theology after the secular in the form of a biblical and realist metaphysic and the neoplatonist sublime. The Future of Love is a powerful rendering of a truer and more virtuous life world than that delivered by the last thirty years of godforsaken market capitalism."
Table of Contents: click here
Publication date: 01 January 2009
Order here: Cascade Books
The Legend of Death: Two Poetic Sequences: "The Earth's thin crust of organic matter and the still thinner crust of the spirit is the most concentrated, the most suggestive part of the cosmos. It in every way exceeds itself by pointing above its horizontal surface towards vertical transcendence. However, it can never leave itself behind and always carries itself with itself in every ascent. Poetry attends to the resultant human diagonal."
&mdashfrom the preface to the first sequence, "On the Diagonal: Metaphysical Landscapes"
Endorsements: (click on the names below to see the endorsement)
Kevin Hart (University of Virginia)
"That John Milbank is an original and powerful theologian is well known. That he is a poet of lyrical and epic sensitivities will now become well known. Here we find piercing lyrics such as 'Ode to Night,' 'Winter Interior,' and 'Cosmos.' Here we find American and British landscapes, alive with history and nature: squirrels in 'sculpted motion' and a day 'brushed with lemon.' And here too we find the ambitious long sequence, 'The Legend of Death,' which, with its concatenation of story, creed, and place, is itself a theological work, one that could only be written as a poem."
Michael Symmons Roberts (award-winning British poet)
"This is a poetry of narrative intensity and lyric delicacy. Its sheer range and depth calls to mind 'The Anathemata' of David Jones."
Peter Riley (author of numerous works of poetry, including Alstonefield: a poem [2003])
"John Milbank's new book of poetry offers us a greatly extended and ambitious structure, concerned with humanity's largest concepts across history and ideology as witnessed at their particular localites, as it were their homes in the landscape. I'm particularly glad that he has in this new venture maintained his sense of poetry as the proper vehicle of such vision, without letting it inflate. The poetry's theses are discovered constantly anew with registers of surprise and wonder which amount to an interlocked modesty. So the discoveries are transmitted to us as an authentically poetical account which never deserts the particular, personal, and questing experience, the eyes on the landscape, the words held in their places by the rhythmic tension of constant realisation and renewal. It is a work of genuine illumination."
Table of Contents: click here
Publication date: 04 September 2009
Order here: Cascade Books
The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic? is a conversation between John Milbank and Slavoj Žižek (edited by Creston Davis) that "concerns the future of religion, secularity, and political hope in light of a monsterful event—God becoming human. For the first time since Žižek's turn toward theology, we have a true debate between an atheist and a theologian about the very meaning of theology, Christ, the Church, the Holy Ghost, Universality, and the foundations of logic. The result goes far beyond the popularized atheist/theist point/counterpoint of recent books by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and others." [description is from the MIT Press site] This book is slated for April 2009.
John Milbank and Adrian Pabst are speaking at the TELOS annual conference on 17th Jan. 2009 in New York. From the conference poster: "This conference will consider both the new administration in Washington, and political shifts abroad, viewed in light of TELOS's long-standing concern with "administered society," expansive bureaucracies, and the role of the 'new class.'" For more information, click here to download the event poster. You may also download the conference agenda here.
A year-long seminar on Conor Cunningham's Genealogy of Nihilism: Philosophies of Nothing and the Difference of Theology at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa - Faculdade de Filosofia:
"Objectivo do Seminário é propocionar um contexto para a investigação filosofica sobre a natureza das asserções referentes a alguns does principais aspectos do teí smo cristão. Entre outras, colocam-se as seguintes questões: Em que medida são essas crenças racionalmente justifcadas? Quais os factores que entram na constituição discursiva de uma argumentação que tenha a pretensão de ser racional e religiosa?
"Colocando-se no contexto de uma procura de elementos que possam ser úteis para uma «Gramática do Assentimento», este Seminário tem em vista recuperar para os nossos tempos aquilo que o Cardeal John Henry Newman corajosamente tentou fazer no sé culo XIX numa obra com precisamente aquele tí tulo. Conscientes de que os interesses de Newman eram primariamente apologéticos, o Seminario propoe-se, pelo menos na sua fase inicial, fazer um percurso mais exploratorio do que definitivo. Ao longo do presente ano de 2008-2009 será examinado o livro Genealogy of Nihilism de Conor Cunningham."
Previous books discussed:
- Paulo de Tarso: Carta aos Romanos
- Agostinho de Hipona: A Cidade de Deus
- Karl Barth: A Carta aos Romanos
- Paul Ricoeur: L'Homme Fallible
- Maurice Blondel: L'Action (1893)
- Henri de Lubac: Le Surnaturel
- Alvin Plantinga: Warranted Christian Belief
- William Alston: Perceiving God
- Alasdair MacIntyre: Three Versions of Moral Inquiry
- John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock: Truth in Aquinas
- John Henry Newman: An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent
The CENTRE of THEOLOGY and PHILOSOPHY, NOTTINGHAM
and ST STEPHEN'S HOUSE, OXFORD present
Returning to the Church
Catholicity, Ecclesiology and
the Mission of the Church of England
Rogier van der Weyden, Seven Sacraments Altarpiece. Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp
Speakers include: John Milbank, Alison Milbank, Graham Ward,
Alister McGrath, Michael Northcott, Jeremy Morris, Simon Oliver
5-7 January 2009
St Stephen's House, Oxford
Contact andrew.davison@theology.ox.ac.uk
For full details see: www.ssho.ox.ac.uk/ecclesiology
Click here to download a PDF of this poster.
The Centre of Theology and Philosophy, along with Eerdmans Press is happy to announce two forthcoming volumes in the Interventions series: Naturalism, co-authored by Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro, Heidegger: A (Very) Critical Introduction, by Sean J. McGrath, and Žižek: A (Very) Critical Introduction, by Marcus Pound.
Click on the names below to read blurbs for
Naturalism
John F. Haught, Georgetown University
"This compact study makes a significant contribution
to the question of whether, in an age of science, reasonable people need
to resign themselves to a naturalistic understanding of the world. Is the
intellectually respected assumption that 'nature is all there is'
intellectually coherent? In this 'intervention' Goetz and Taliaferro
provide a readable, critical response to this important question."
John Milbank, University of Nottingham
"Demonstrates with succinctness, brilliance, and
precision that modern Anglo-Saxon naturalists are not rationalists but . . .
are, in fact, the enemies of reason, which can only have any reality if the
physical world has a spiritual, rational source."
Robert P. George, Princeton University
"More than a few people seem to regard it as a mark of
sophistication to hold that nothing exists that transcends the natural
order. But, as Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro show in their splendid
new book, 'naturalism' is anything but a sophisticated view of reality.
Under rigorous philosophical scrutiny, it isn't even a plausible one. . . .
Patiently, gently, but in the end decisively, Goetz and Taliaferro demolish
the dogmas of naturalism."
James K.A. Smith, Calvin College
"This little gem of a book is a bold intervention in
current discussions of naturalism that dominate philosophy and cognitive
science. Unlike so many others, it is not just a book written to make
theists comfortably smug in the face of naturalist critiques. It is
unabashedly directed to naturalists as well and seeks to engage them on
their turf and on their terms. It should be required reading not only for
theologians who sense an obligation to engage the broader cultural milieu,
but also naturalists willing to relinquish dogmatism and actually listen.
The book well fulfills its function as a 'guide'—and more."
J. P. Moreland, Talbot School of Theology, Biola University
"The clearest and most penetrating exposition and
critique of naturalism anywhere. In accessible, nontechnical language and
brevity of style, the authors have managed to identify important versions of
naturalism and expose the Achilles' heel of each. In a day when theologians
and Christian leaders feel bullied by scientific naturalism, this book is
a must-read."
Paul Copan, Palm Beach Atlantic University
"Taliaferro and Goetz have written a brilliant book!
These veteran philosophers represent naturalism fairly, both allowing its
spokespersons to speak for themselves and accurately interpreting their
views. Yet the authors' criticisms of naturalism and their defense of
theism are trenchant and insightful. Superbly done!"
Click on the names below to read blurbs for
Heidegger: a (very) critical introduction
Thomas Sheehan, Stanford University
"In this elegantly written text Sean McGrath provides a
clear reading of Heidegger and an incisive critique of his ontology, ethics,
politics, and theology. McGrath anchors his critique in two positions that
Heidegger claimed to have surpassed—classical metaphysics and Christian
humanism. While it may not convince mainstream Heideggerians, this work opens
a discussion that merits serious attention from postmetaphysical and
postmodern thinkers."
William Desmond, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
"This informed and informative book is an admirably
compact and clear introduction to the essentials of Heidegger's thought. It
will be very helpful for the beginner, and for the more advanced reader it
offers an honorable critical interpretation. McGrath exhibits a sharp sense
for the often-recessed religious preoccupations of Heidegger: out of sight is
not quite out of mind, which sometimes leads to convoluted results in
Heidegger's expressed thought. For the theological reader this book offers an
exemplary critical engagement, attuned to Heidegger's religious equivocality
and what remains hidden in the Heideggerian unsaid."
Oliva Blanchette, Boston College
"Heidegger's entire life was an adventure in philosophy,
from phenomenology to thought, focused on a distinction between ontological be
and ontic being that he was never able to explain, but that he was also never
able to let go of in his long explorations into what he called the
metaphysical tradition. In this remarkably lucid introduction to a philosopher
notorious not only for radicalizing and obfuscating philosophical questioning
but also for bringing it back to this most radical question of being or
not-being, McGrath uses both biographical and existential information and the
writing of Heidegger himself, especially in its earlier stages, to illuminate
where this preeminent philosopher of the twentieth century was coming from in
his questioning and where he was trying to go. The life of Heidegger sheds
light on his philosophy, just as his philosophy sheds light on his life, with
all its existential ambiguities, which were as conservative as they were
radical against the inauthentic and the technological in modern mass society.
In the end we learn how or why Heidegger was unable to resolve these
ambiguities in his own philosophy, especially in axiology and in theology,
which were never entirely absent from his thinking, and why also McGrath will
not, as Heideggerians do, settle for such nihilistic ambiguities, due to the
finitizing of being in Heidegger, that affect the broader question of being as
well as the question of life for the human being or for the ever-present
Dasein."
Click on the names below to read blurbs for
Žižek: a (very) critical introduction
Gerard Loughlin, Durham University
"With clarity and humor, and in wonderfully short
compass, Marcus Pound introduces the thought of not only Slavoj Žižek but
also his guru, Jacques Lacan. Pound finds in these masters of inversion a
profound anti-theology that only needs to become more theological—more
orthodox—in order to work, to rid us of complacency. This is a book for
those new to Žižek and for those who, knowing him already, want to know him
newly—as the theologian he might almost be. It's as enjoyable as reading
Žižek himself."
Matthew Sharpe, author of Žižek: A Little Piece of the Real
"Slavoj Žižek's work, always iconoclastic, has since
1997 embraced the seemingly scandalous project of a materialist theology.
Marcus Pound's new book is a long-called-for response, from within the field
of theology, that takes Žižek's theological turn seriously, testing it
against its sources, and situating it within wider theological debates. In
doing so, Pound achieves a very searching examination of Žižek's oeuvre,
significantly recasting the reception of Žižek's work. Pound's theological
perspective also allows him to pose searching questions about what he
provocatively calls Žižek's 'politics of abandonment' and about the wider
situation of the post-Enlightenment Left today."
SATURDAY 1 NOVEMBER 2008
Scripture and Liturgy in the Theology of Benedict XVI
A conference with
Aidan Nichols OP, Michael Waldstein, Scott Hahn, Adrian Walker
This important theological conference with Dr Scott Hahn, the popular American writer and biblical scholar, which also features Dominican theologian Aidan Nichols, leading Biblical scholar Michael Waldstein, and Adrian Walker the translator of the Pope's book on Jesus Christ, will take place at the Catholic Chaplaincy of Oxford University opposite Christ Church College on Saturday 1 November 2008. It is organized by the Centre for Faith and Culture in Oxford and cosponsored by Dr Hahn's 'St Paul Center for Biblical Theology' in Steubenville, Ohio.
The purpose of the conference is to focus attention on the principles underlying the Pope's ongoing 'reform of the reform' of Catholic liturgy. The relationship between SCRIPTURE AND LITURGY underpins the Pope's teaching. The Pope reminds us that 'The privileged place for reading and listening to the Word of God is in the liturgy.' Furthermore, that liturgy is cosmic, for the love of the Trinity moves the stars. These principles are inspiring a new liturgical movement.
Further event details and a conference programme may be found here.
A conference poster may be downloaded here [PDF].
Blurbs from Graham Ward, Nicholas Healy, and Stanley Hauerwas have arrived for Nathan Kerr's Christ, History and Apocalyptic: The Politics of Christian Mission:
"This is a timely book that traverses twentieth century theology to develop a distinctive understanding of church engagement with the world. Finely executed and acutely discerning it opens up an ecclesiology that is neither culturally accommodating nor counter-cultural. Conceiving the church as fundamentally dispossessive and missionary, Kerr announces a genuinely apocalyptic Christian politics. This is excellent theology for the up and coming generation."
Graham Ward, Head of the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures University of Manchester
"This is a really exciting book: engaging, provocative, and - above all - constructive. Kerr seeks to reaffirm the Christian claim that Jesus Christ is the Lord of history in the face of modernity's attempts to subsume Christ into our history. He sets up the issues by means of a lucid and penetrating analysis of Troeltsch's universalist historicism, which attempts to place Christ and Christianity in the service of the political and social projects of modernity, a form of 'Constantianism'. The subsequent struggle to reaffirm Christ's Lordship without abstracting from Christ's own singular historicity is recounted in chapters on Barth and Hauerwas. Both are treated masterfully, with trenchant yet fair critical analysis, and always with a constructive intent. The critique of Hauerwas will surprise some, since in spite of his intent Hauerwas ends up looking much more Troeltschian than one would expect. The book culminates in a Yoder-inspired case for 'apocalyptic historicism', an original and satisfying proposal that draws together elements of all the thinkers he discusses.
"In spite of the complexity of its material, this fascinating book is so remarkably clear throughout that I found it hard to put down. Kerr's sophisticated description of 'apocalyptic historicism' addresses a multitude of significant issues in Christology, ecclesiology and missiology. It should not be ignored, for it provides an excellent point of departure for further inquiry into the relation between Christ and church, and church and world."
Nicholas M. Healy, Professor, Theology and Religious Studies and Associate Dean, St. John's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, St. John's University, Queens, NY
"A rare gift-a critic from whom you learn. Though I do not agree with all of his criticisms of my work, Kerr--drawing imaginatively and creatively on the work of Troeltsch and Barth-- has rightly framed the questions central to my and Yoder's project. We are in his debt for having done so. In this book, Kerr not only establishes himself as one of the most able readers of my and Yoder's work, but he is clearly a theologian in his own right. We will have much to learn from him in the future."
Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics, Duke Divinity School, Durham, NC
At this year's AAR in Chicago, a panel is being held on the recently-released Belief and Metaphysics volume in the Veritas series entitled "The Return of Metaphysics: A dialogue on the occasion of the publication of Belief and Metaphysics." The panel is graciously sponsored by SCM Press' Veritas Series and The Centre of Theology and Philosophy. Please click on the poster above to see the larger version which lists all the details for the event, including the list of panelists.
More news... Subscribe: 
OPENING OF NEW CULTURAL CENTRE, 1st September 2005.
On The 1st September 2005, the Bishop of Limerick, The Right Reverend Donal Murray, a member of the Pontifical
Council for Culture, officially opened The Centre of Theology and Philosophy. Cardinal Paul Poupard, President of
the Council, who gave very generous and kind support to the initiative, encouraged this arrangement. The opening
coincided with the Centre’s first annual conference, which was on the theme of Transcendence and Phenomenology.
Over 150 delegates from more than 19 nations were present: Philosophers, Theologians, Students, Professors,
Lay-people and Priests. Also in attendance was Monsignor Javier Martinez, Archbishop of Granada, Spain, who
said Grace at the conference banquet.
Bishop Murray’s speech signalled in very strong and clear terms the concerns and aims that the new Cultural
Centre shared with the Pontifical Council. Speaking about Cardinal Poupard, Bishop Donal put it thus: ‘In his work as
President of the Pontifical Council he has sought for almost a quarter of a century to ensure that the Church is involved
in and at the forefront of intellectual debates and cultural dialogues. He sees the establishment of Cultural Centres
as a particularly fruitful way of advancing that goal’. For this reason, Bishop Murray continued, ‘The establishment
of this Centre of Theology and Philosophy is particularly welcome…….because the Gospel is meant to take root in and
illuminate every aspect of the life of individuals and of society. But the dialogue of philosophy and theology is
of crucial, irreplaceable importance’.
The Centre’s aims certainly resonate with The Pontifical Council’s concerns, for its main aim is to take as its starting-point
the truth of the Gospel; and in so doing, to fearlessly, yet with due humility, carry out rigorous research covering all aspects
of lived life. And it was under the finality of this intention, that the theme of the first conference was phenomenology, which
takes as its object the validity of the everyday. Religion is obviously a phenomenon of the everyday, and as a result of the
methods of phenomenology there has been a quite dramatic ‘turn to religion’, so-called, within this form of philosophy. Here
the names of Jean-Louis Chrétien, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion, Paul Ricœur, Michel Henry, Stanislas Breton, and
Jean-Yves Lacoste, to mention but a few, are all very important.
A major concern of the Centre is the dissolution of levels of existence- melting real difference into the homogenous
language of bare matter, for instance. A move encouraged by the adoption of the method of the empirical sciences as
the sole model for philosophy, and indeed of truth itself, which does science itself a grave disservice. The move to
reduce the complicated to the simple is of course motivated by the idea that existence is exhausted within the
particular sciences: biology, chemistry, and physics. Indeed taking biology as an example, the problem arises
when we realise that it must either bracket, or presume that something exists, and then investigate it. But
it is this presumption that is the point of contention. Indeed the father of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl,
makes just this point in his Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften, where he argues that the specialists
in the sciences do not get past the assumptions that they use. Here, the rich form of being - of existence
is being lost, and the profundity of truth deflated.
But there is, then, the question that without a ‘thicker’ (to use Gilbert Ryle’s term) understanding of existence, it is quite
difficult to see how biology will not, in the end, be understood as a folk-science. And in being so, find itself translated
into the terms of chemistry, which in turn gives way to the language of physics, and so on. Such a predicament appears to
prohibit metaphysical questions altogether, and as result, ethics, for example, is, then, merely a matter of sociology,
itself being a folk-discourse. Yet it is arguable that such a significant lacuna, leaves the popular imagination open
to the appeal of colourful, but misleading stories of ‘selfish genes’, and so on; these, then, become our ersatz
metaphysics. Against this, the research programme of the Centre is motivated by the possibility that Étienne
Gilson may well be correct when he tells us that ‘Metaphysics buries its undertakers’, a burial we think
achievable in interdisciplinary terms.
Developing certain themes from this year’s conference, and expanding the work of the Centre, in line with the above concerns,
another conference is being held in Granada, Spain-15th-18th September 2006. The theme of this meeting is—Belief and Metaphysics.
Invited speakers extend across the disciplines, but also across intellectual traditions: For example, philosophers, both Analytic
and Continental, Thomists, and so on. The criterion has been a strong interest in the effort to forge a philosophical and
theological synthesis beyond the extremes of scientistic materialism and reductionism, on the one hand, and Post-modernism,
deconstructionism, and cultural relativism, on the other. Motivated by the real hope of re-presenting the depths and wonder
of existence evident in the lives we actually live, rather than the philosophies we contrive to propagate.
Speakers at this year’s conference include:
Oliva Blanchette, Louis Dupré, Mark D Jordan, Merold Westphal, David Cooper, John Cottingham, E.J Lowe, Rudi te Velde,
David Bentley Hart, Ludger Honnefelder, David Burrell, Massimo Borghesi, Hent de Vries, Simon Conway-Morris, Charles Taliaferro, Michael Rea, and John Milbank.
The work of the Centre is being disseminated and given focus by two book series. The first of these is being published by
Blackwell, Oxford, and is called –Illuminations. This will publish major monographs in both theology and philosophy.
The second series will consist in shorter volumes on single topics. For example, we have volumes coming out on EVOLUTION,
NATURALISM, NOMINALISM, SUFFERING, RACE, TRINITY, SUICIDE, FOOD, ATHEISM, MEMORY, BEING, INFINITY, POWER, DECADENCE,
SPEAKING, PARTICPATION, and TIME, to offer an illustrative sample. This series is called: Interventions and it is
being published by Wm.B.Eerdmans. Those on the editorial advisory board include, among others:
Rowan Williams, Charles Taylor, William Desmond, Jean-Yves Lacoste, Mark D Jordan, and Rémi Brague.
As an offshoot, we are also publishing short, incisive texts on particular thinkers. For example:
Balthasar
A Very Critical Introduction.
We also have volumes on the theologian Stanley Hauerwas, and the philosopher Alain Badiou forthcoming.
Both series are inspired by what we might call ‘Catholic Humanism’. In other words, the series are endeavours to give
an account of all aspects of life, doing so from a broadly Christian point-of-view, but one mediated, or
informed by a number of disciplines, and indeed culture as a whole.
Dr Conor Cunningham,
Assistant Director,
Centre of Theology and Philosophy,
University of Nottingham, England
The Centre's Concerns:
‘Every doctrine which does not reach the one thing necessary, every separated philosophy, will remain deceived by false appearances. It will be a doctrine, it will not be Philosophy’, (Maurice Blondel, 1861-1949)
The COTP is a research-led institution organised at the interstices of theology and philosophy. It is founded on the conviction that these two disciplines cannot be adequately understood or further developed, save with reference to each other. This is true in historical terms, since we cannot comprehend our Western cultural legacy, unless we acknowledge the interaction of the Hebraic and Hellenic traditions. It is also true conceptually, since reasoning is not fully separable from faith and hope, or conceptual reflection from revelatory disclosure. The reverse also holds, in either case.
The Centre is concerned with:
- The historical interaction between theology and philosophy.
- The current relation between the two disciplines
- Attempts to overcome the analytic/ Continental divide in philosophy
- The question of the status of ‘metaphysics'. Is the term used equivocally? Is it now at an end? Or have 20th Century attempts to have a post-metaphysical philosophy themselves come to an end?
The Theology Department of the University of Nottingham, within which the COTP is situated, was awarded the top 5* A grade in the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE 2001). Nottingham was one of only two theology Departments who submitted all its staff and was rated 5* A.
For all enquiries, please email Conor Cunningham:
To return to the Nottingham Theology Department:
www.nottingham.ac.uk/theology
