philosoraptor42

A long time ago I listened to an mp3 of a radio programme about Radical Orthodoxy. The highly verbose and well-researched lecturer John Milbank had arrived at the university just as I was considering taking a masters there and all the seminars with visiting speakers during my MA course seemed to have this odd new theology movement hanging over them. I had always been very annoyed by the way the clearly intelligent lecturers seemed to keep making reference to this movement and making highly counter-intuitive assertions I felt I had no right to contest. So I decided, even having finished my masters, to take advantage of the opportunity of hearing a bite-sized view of Radical Orthodoxy meant for ordinary radio listeners.

All I knew so far was that:
(i) Radical Orthodoxy considers modern secular society to be overrun with nihilism and seemingly blamed this on the lack of religious belief.
(ii) It felt the need to consider Christianity from a pre-modern perspective (using post-modern philosophy as a justification for this).
(iii) John Milbank appears to hold a socialist political stance.
(iv) The movement opposes both secularism and theological liberalism.

Anyway after a very dull radio programme I eventually found this definition of 'transcendence' voiced and claimed to be the main idea of what modern society is missing. Transcendence also seemed like a pretty sketchy term at the best of times, but this is really completely incomprehensible. This is actually stated by the Radical Orthodoxy proponent Catherine Pickstock:

"Transcendence is a word to describe the reality which is beyond all categories. It's beyond all dichotomies. Beyond all understanding of 'thing' which we have. So, for example, where we see a thing as having boundaries, as having a place, as having a certain kind of temporality, transcendence is beyond all of those things. It's beyond here and there, near and far, limit and unlimitedness.

"Transcendence is simply beyond every definition. Which isn't to say it's formless, or like a big mess. It is unity itself, but unity conceived of as beyond being. I think 'beyond being' is perhaps the most useful way of thinking of it, although one could also say, as Plato said of the good, that it's unsayable. It simply can't be reached in words.

"So if you think of reality as a kind of hierarchy for a moment and you put transcendence at the top of the hierarchy; and you have on the lower rungs of the hierachy all forms of reality right down to ants and ants' legs and so forth. Although transcendence, according to this picture, is right at the top, equally it is just as present to the ants' legs as it is to the angels and priests and the bishops and so forth. It's both at the top and at the bottom. There simply isn't a place where transcendence cannot be, because it is transcendent; it is beyond all limit, and yet works in and through every limit that we have."

If you want to see if that makes any more sense in the context of the radio programme the link is here:
http://www.theologyphilosophycentre.co.uk/docs/mp3/ideas_20070604_2421.mp3

Personally, I've never heard so much rubbish in all my life.

John Milbank also claims that if priests cannot give an account of angels as real beings they shouldn't be ordained. Oh dear.....