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 PrintableVersion Introducing radical orthodoxyLatest theological game…?INTRODUCING RADICAL ORTHODOXY Evangelical Christians think (or should think) of theology as the activity of systematising the contours of the Christian faith as these are made known in Scripture, and in its historical development through the Christian centuries. So theology is closely connected with the Bible, with the creeds and confessions, and with Church history. And with philosophy, since false teaching and opposition to the faith has often developed using the philosophical ideas and arguments of the day. These have in turn often been adopted and modified by the Church in its efforts to state the Christian faith in the face of that opposition. It’s not easy to keep these various influences in balance. Something elseMuch contemporary academic theology is something else. For one thing, it has a life of its own largely unconnected with the day-to-day work of the Christian church or the authority of Scripture. For another, such theology is supremely concerned with positioning one ‘theology’ within the array of other ‘theologies’ currently considered to be live options within the academic community. To become acquainted with academic theology, and gauge the strengths or weaknesses of some new theological product, one has to have a considerable background knowledge, and be prepared to ‘play the game’ in its own terms. The ‘game’ is highly abstract and more often than not concerned with theological method and with pointing out the errors of rival ‘theologies’. Only rarely does the critique appeal to Scripture, or to the classical confessions, or look carefully at the development of Christian ideas and arguments. Bold thesesOne current ‘theology’ in the ascendant is ‘Radical Orthodoxy’, a theological outlook of some ambition. It offers a wholesale critique of ‘modernity’, including ‘postmodernity’, claiming that modernity in all its forms is a kind of idolatry, the worship of ‘secular’, ‘objective’, ‘neutral’, ‘autonomous’ reason. (None of these is ever defined.) It makes its claims through a set of bold theses about the history of ideas (secularism is the bastard child of the philosophy of Duns Scotus), the theory of knowledge and of metaphysics (each of which went wrong when Augustine was misunderstood or ignored), and spawns a politics (socialism) and a notion of community centred around the church and particularly the Eucharist. (Radical Orthodoxy is in fact, though perhaps not in essence, the brainchild of Anglo Catholics and Roman Catholics.) To the idolatrous secularising of knowledge, Radical Orthodoxy proposes its sacralising. Theology is once again to become the queen of the sciences. Introducing Radical Orthodoxy discusses these ideas through a survey of the burgeoning literature of the movement. However, it does more than that. The author is a professor of philosophy at Calvin College, and sympathetic to the outlook of Abraham Kuyper, particularly Kuyper’s critique of the supposed neutrality of the various sciences and his advocacy of Christian sciences; Christian physics, economics, history, and so on. Smith is attracted by the claims of each school that neutrality is a ‘myth’. So, as the work develops, not only is the reader given an initiation into the world of Radical Orthodoxy, but he also overhears a conversation between such as John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock (Ieading lights in the firmament of Radical Orthodoxy) and Abraham Kuyper and Herman Dooyeweerd. Smith moderates the conversation in a way that is friendly to both sides but not wholly uncriticalof either. Am I bothered?Is the book worth reading? That depends. If you are about to take a degree in theology or religious studies, then ‘Yes’, because it won’t be long before you hear Radical Orthodoxy talked about; blessed or cursed as the case may be, but certainly talked about. And if you are a pastor of people headed in that direction, then this book will give you some idea of the sort of thing they will meet. Yes, also, if you are interested in Kyperian Calvinism. But not otherwise. The importance of the book partly depends on guessing how long Radical Orthodoxy will be in vogue; will it be a flash flood or a steady downpour? Who knows? More importantly, the level of exposition and debate is pretty dire. Words and phrases are used as if their meaning is immediately clear, when it obviously isn’t. Historical claims are made on the flimsiest evidence. Talk is all about theology and about philosophy with precious little theology or philosophy actually being done. No debate, little argument. But that’s the trouble with people who bid farewell to ‘neutral’ or ‘autonomous’ or ‘objective’ reason. Not believing in reason, they have little time for reasoning. Paul Helm, © Evangelicals Now - July 2006 |
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