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Perspectives in Continental Philosophy
Speculative Grace: Bruno Latour and Object-Oriented Theology
This book offers a novel account of grace, framed in terms of Bruno Latour's "principle of irreduction." It thus models an object-oriented approach to grace, experimentally moving a traditional Christian understanding of grace out of a top-down, theistic ontology and into an agent-based, object-oriented ontology. In the process, it also provides a systematic and original account of Latour's overall project. The account of grace offered here redistributes the tasks assigned to science and religion. Where now the work of science is to bring into focus objects that are too distant, too resistant, and too transcendent to be visible, the business of religion is to bring into focus objects that are too near, too available, and too immanent to be visible. Where science reveals transcendent objects by correcting for our nearsightedness, religion reveals immanent objects by correcting for our farsightedness. Speculative Grace remaps the meaning of grace and examines the kinds of religious instruments and practices that, as a result, take center stage.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
May 5, 2013
This is easily the most interesting and important book of theology I've read in a very long time. Not only is it inventive, novel, and beautifully written, it is full of insights. It is the kind of theology that needs expression in our scientific age. The medieval theological legacy preoccupied with the three omni's (omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence) has left us with a God that does not speak to our world--one enmeshed in theodicies, thick and intractable.
Miller takes an object oriented philosophy (OOP) approach. Drawing on this important new movement within Continental Philosophy to frame his ideas (The movement is starting to draw the gaze of more mainstream philosophy of science), this book makes a significant contribution to a philosophically based theology. In this book, Miller considers the world as given, full of its messiness, and considers the eminence of grace it offers--a grace expressed not as the gift of a transient deity, but as the work and suffering found in the interactions of a universe composed of objects.
The book draws heavily on the work of science anthropologist Bruno Latour and uses his thought to provide a springboard for Miller's own ideas--which in my opinion actually transcend and expand on Latour. This is no mere repackaging of Latour but an original reimagining of the implications of Latour's work for a reworking of theology.
If the book has a weakness, I think it lies in an undersupply of examples. Because the book is beautifully written, poetic, and metaphor laden, sometimes the obscurity of the style masked the ideas being proposed. I loved the style, because it made me engage with the text at an even deeper level, forcing me to greater openness to the possibilities presented, but sometimes just one or two examples of what he was talking about would have helped ground me in ways I think would be helpful.
Overall, I have a feeling that his may be one of the most important theological texts published in a long time and will generate a great deal of excitement and discussion in such circles. What I liked best was that Miller takes both science and religion seriously. His ideas blast both the rising scientistim and the cheap shallowness of the anti-science religionists and offers a rich and vibrant theology that will both challenge and inspire greater theological engagement with modern thought. Don't miss this book. Seriously. It's one of the most important I've seen.
Miller takes an object oriented philosophy (OOP) approach. Drawing on this important new movement within Continental Philosophy to frame his ideas (The movement is starting to draw the gaze of more mainstream philosophy of science), this book makes a significant contribution to a philosophically based theology. In this book, Miller considers the world as given, full of its messiness, and considers the eminence of grace it offers--a grace expressed not as the gift of a transient deity, but as the work and suffering found in the interactions of a universe composed of objects.
The book draws heavily on the work of science anthropologist Bruno Latour and uses his thought to provide a springboard for Miller's own ideas--which in my opinion actually transcend and expand on Latour. This is no mere repackaging of Latour but an original reimagining of the implications of Latour's work for a reworking of theology.
If the book has a weakness, I think it lies in an undersupply of examples. Because the book is beautifully written, poetic, and metaphor laden, sometimes the obscurity of the style masked the ideas being proposed. I loved the style, because it made me engage with the text at an even deeper level, forcing me to greater openness to the possibilities presented, but sometimes just one or two examples of what he was talking about would have helped ground me in ways I think would be helpful.
Overall, I have a feeling that his may be one of the most important theological texts published in a long time and will generate a great deal of excitement and discussion in such circles. What I liked best was that Miller takes both science and religion seriously. His ideas blast both the rising scientistim and the cheap shallowness of the anti-science religionists and offers a rich and vibrant theology that will both challenge and inspire greater theological engagement with modern thought. Don't miss this book. Seriously. It's one of the most important I've seen.
August 18, 2013
This is a very interesting book, and a pleasure to read. It is very well-written, presents very interesting ideas, and contains a very useful introduction Bruno Latour’s work. So I can wholeheartedly recommend it. It gives an excellent account of Latour's pluralist ontology, one that is far superior, because more faithful, to that given in Graham Harman's book "PRINCE OF NETWORKS: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics". Unfortunately Miller relies too much on Harman's "object-oriented" terminology, which gives a static, passive, and reductionist cast to an ontology that is the very opposite. I am very sympathetic to the book's project of explicating grace in terms of a non-theistic pluralist ontology, and also to the heuristic intermingling of theology (in the widest sense), philosophy, science, the arts etc that this involves.
Miller presents his book as an experiment in porting a concept from a theistic plane of monism and transcendence to a speculative and object-oriented plane of pluralism and immanence. This is a very worthwhile project, but I think that Miller is only partially successful. We are all aware of the risks of porting, dramatised in David Cronenberg’s film THE FLY. A scientist develops a working prototype of a porting machine, and tries it out on a human subject, himself. He does not notice that a fly enters with him and though the teleportation is successful he has been reassembled with the fly’s DNA combined with his own. At first all seems well, but then begins his slow transformation into a giant fly-thing. I think something like this happens in the course of Miller’s book.
The first two thirds of SPECULATIVE GRACE are truly excellent, and consist in a radical pluralist reading of Bruno Latour’s oeuvre. But beginning with Chapter 31 (the book contains 41 short chapters, mostly 3 or 4 pages long) the tone changes and a very unsatisfying comparison of science and religion is expounded, following Latour’s more recent pronouncements on the different “modes of existence” of science and religion. In a striking rhetorical inversion, science is declared to be concerned with the distant and transcendent, while religion is supposedly an affair of the close and the immanent. This is where I feel that a transcendent framework has been subtly reintroduced. Bruno Latour himself has argued convincingly that questions of “scale” (big and small, macro and micro, and so far and close) are framework dependent (see REASSEMBLING THE SOCIAL, pages 183-186). Miller’s initial re-framing of “grace” in a pluralist non-theistic ontology is here considerably weakened by his resorting to a religion-oriented framing of science and religion where science reveals cold, distant, “transcendent objects” and religion relates us to engaging, close, “immanent objects”. The DNA of ontotheology was surreptitiously ported along with the concept of grace and reaffirms its hegemonic power as the book progresses through its last 40 pages.
In fact, the book's whole tendency is Latourian, and not at all "object-oriented", despite Miller's choice of an ontological vocabulary that treats everything as objects. Latour's preferred theoretical terms are "actors" and "networks". He calls his account "actor-network theory", to keep his ontology as open as possible. Miller quotes Latour's slogan "we do not know in advance what the world is made of", but then proceeds to use Graham Harman's all-purpose term of "objects", which does pre-decide on the basic components of the universe. "Actor" is a verbal term, as Latour approaches elements in terms of what they do, and he situates them in "networks" as he considers them also in terms of their relations. Harman's preferred term "objects" is far more static, and he considers objects as "withdrawn" from relations. It is to be regretted that Miller chose to express his Latourian (dynamic, pluralist, relational) theology in the language of Harmanian (static, dualist, withdrawn) ontology.
The context into which Miller "ports" the notion of grace , insofar as it is immanent, pluralist, dynamic, and atheological, transforms the meaning and gives it heightened relevance. The interest of this sort of experiment in translation points both ways. It shows that if one is willing to be supple on the doctrine, theological concerns can be translated into more up to date language. Conversely, it shows that seemingly "non-religious" language has spiritual and theological overtones that may go unnoticed without that sort of juxtaposition. On this point Miller's book is an unqualified success.
Miller presents his book as an experiment in porting a concept from a theistic plane of monism and transcendence to a speculative and object-oriented plane of pluralism and immanence. This is a very worthwhile project, but I think that Miller is only partially successful. We are all aware of the risks of porting, dramatised in David Cronenberg’s film THE FLY. A scientist develops a working prototype of a porting machine, and tries it out on a human subject, himself. He does not notice that a fly enters with him and though the teleportation is successful he has been reassembled with the fly’s DNA combined with his own. At first all seems well, but then begins his slow transformation into a giant fly-thing. I think something like this happens in the course of Miller’s book.
The first two thirds of SPECULATIVE GRACE are truly excellent, and consist in a radical pluralist reading of Bruno Latour’s oeuvre. But beginning with Chapter 31 (the book contains 41 short chapters, mostly 3 or 4 pages long) the tone changes and a very unsatisfying comparison of science and religion is expounded, following Latour’s more recent pronouncements on the different “modes of existence” of science and religion. In a striking rhetorical inversion, science is declared to be concerned with the distant and transcendent, while religion is supposedly an affair of the close and the immanent. This is where I feel that a transcendent framework has been subtly reintroduced. Bruno Latour himself has argued convincingly that questions of “scale” (big and small, macro and micro, and so far and close) are framework dependent (see REASSEMBLING THE SOCIAL, pages 183-186). Miller’s initial re-framing of “grace” in a pluralist non-theistic ontology is here considerably weakened by his resorting to a religion-oriented framing of science and religion where science reveals cold, distant, “transcendent objects” and religion relates us to engaging, close, “immanent objects”. The DNA of ontotheology was surreptitiously ported along with the concept of grace and reaffirms its hegemonic power as the book progresses through its last 40 pages.
In fact, the book's whole tendency is Latourian, and not at all "object-oriented", despite Miller's choice of an ontological vocabulary that treats everything as objects. Latour's preferred theoretical terms are "actors" and "networks". He calls his account "actor-network theory", to keep his ontology as open as possible. Miller quotes Latour's slogan "we do not know in advance what the world is made of", but then proceeds to use Graham Harman's all-purpose term of "objects", which does pre-decide on the basic components of the universe. "Actor" is a verbal term, as Latour approaches elements in terms of what they do, and he situates them in "networks" as he considers them also in terms of their relations. Harman's preferred term "objects" is far more static, and he considers objects as "withdrawn" from relations. It is to be regretted that Miller chose to express his Latourian (dynamic, pluralist, relational) theology in the language of Harmanian (static, dualist, withdrawn) ontology.
The context into which Miller "ports" the notion of grace , insofar as it is immanent, pluralist, dynamic, and atheological, transforms the meaning and gives it heightened relevance. The interest of this sort of experiment in translation points both ways. It shows that if one is willing to be supple on the doctrine, theological concerns can be translated into more up to date language. Conversely, it shows that seemingly "non-religious" language has spiritual and theological overtones that may go unnoticed without that sort of juxtaposition. On this point Miller's book is an unqualified success.
May 23, 2014
Still mulling this one over months later. I marked it as one to which I have to return. Miller is at once stunningly clear and strangely puzzling. His is a mind-bending attempt to make reality not merely more real, but more holy--but not in that ancient-dusty-church-lit-candles-smell-of-dead-flowers sort of holiness. More like the blood-in-your-mouth-after-biting-your-tongue-warm-summer-day-dark-windy-night type of holiness.
May 12, 2015
Well worth reading, and re-reading. I've been in and out of this book so many times since it came out that I've lost track; each time, I'm glad I've gone back. Miller's inherent poeticism serves both Latour and grace equally well, but the real value for me is the way that Miller's own work—the effort to think grace in this specific, grounded way—continues to provide me with cause for reflection, yes, but also a quite literal food for thought.
March 17, 2018
just my first pass—of at least three—with this dense, rich text. so much to metabolize, here. complete reframings of theology, ontology, grace, transcendence, and more. deeply relevant to practices i've been engaged in for a very long time. already clarifying thought to an extent that i know my personal process/practice will be radically improved.
May 8, 2021
I agree with all the rave reviews--one of the most innovative, clearly written rethinkings of the nature of grace. It will open your mind to hitherto unexpected theological frontiers. It also explains Adam's recent book on David Foster Wallace.
January 5, 2020
I love Miller’s clarity. I have read Latour for years and Miller’s perspective led me to think differently about Grace and how a flat ontology can be used to analyze complicated religious ideas.
August 4, 2020
I love Adam S. Miller's books, but this one was way over my head. I believe there's a few really valuable insights in this book, but I struggled to find them in the midst of all the academic stuff.
February 16, 2025
Intriguing especially in the application of latour's work to different aspects of religion. But needed more concrete examples, especially at the beginning where I felt lost in the weeds.
February 27, 2026
Adam Miller’s Speculative Grace is a strange, beautiful, and frustrating book, a kind of philosophical psalm that rewrites grace in the language of Bruno Latour and Object-Oriented Ontology. Here, God isn’t the transcendent Giver but the giving itself: the world’s givenness and capacity for self-gift. Everything that exists participates in grace by existing at all.
It’s an audacious experiment, translating Mormon materialism and Latour’s flat ontology into a theology of radical immanence. The prose is tight and meditative, more koan than argument, and often as opaque as it is luminous. Miller reimagines grace as the immanent pulse of relation through which everything—rocks, hammers, people, gods—offers itself to everything else. Under such a conception, while God is a being, one object among an infinite number of objects, he is divine because he embodies perfect relationality and kenosis.
It’s also a bold attempt to baptize Mormonism in the waters of radical materialism, to see whether Joseph Smith’s rejection of creatio ex nihilo and his theology of embodiment can speak in the idiom of a “thoroughly secularized spirit.” Miller once wrote that such a project depends on “how weak and weeping and non-‘omni’ we’re actually willing to let a Mormon conception of God be.” The God that emerges here is more akin to John Caputo’s “weak God”—one who happens rather than exists, whose power is an event of call rather than command, rather than the God of Being, Consciousness, and Bliss.
Sam Brown and others have fairly noted, however, that Miller’s flat ontology risks collapsing into groundlessness: networks explain how things relate, not why they matter. For Brown, the love and grace Miller celebrates must ultimately be grounded in something like the God of classical theism (an ultimate agape beyond the network) whereas Miller insists that love itself is the network. Grace, in this view, is the world’s process and patterns its redemption. The result is a cosmos of exquisite relation but little direction: beautiful, but precariously unmoored.
Few books make theology feel this alive or this willing to be experimental. Miller is less interested in safety than in provocation, trading traditional metaphysics for a more poetic, "groundless" faith. He makes the case that the world is radiant enough to matter even if God is "weak", but for those who value a personal, active Divine, that trade-off may be too high a price to pay.
I appreciate Miller’s view, even if I can’t accept it. His insistence that everything exists in relation, that meaning arises in the mutual giving of things, is both moving and feels true. It captures something profoundly humane about existence: that to be is to belong. I also admire his emphasis on interdependency, his sense that grace is fundamental to the structure of reality. Still, I think relation itself requires a center and a ground. The God I hope for is not just a perfect participant in this web of grace but its source and fulfillment—axiologically, soteriologically, and metaphysically ultimate in the Schellenberg sense. A God who is not less relational than Miller’s, but more so: the one in whom all relations hold, and from whom all love flows.
It’s an audacious experiment, translating Mormon materialism and Latour’s flat ontology into a theology of radical immanence. The prose is tight and meditative, more koan than argument, and often as opaque as it is luminous. Miller reimagines grace as the immanent pulse of relation through which everything—rocks, hammers, people, gods—offers itself to everything else. Under such a conception, while God is a being, one object among an infinite number of objects, he is divine because he embodies perfect relationality and kenosis.
It’s also a bold attempt to baptize Mormonism in the waters of radical materialism, to see whether Joseph Smith’s rejection of creatio ex nihilo and his theology of embodiment can speak in the idiom of a “thoroughly secularized spirit.” Miller once wrote that such a project depends on “how weak and weeping and non-‘omni’ we’re actually willing to let a Mormon conception of God be.” The God that emerges here is more akin to John Caputo’s “weak God”—one who happens rather than exists, whose power is an event of call rather than command, rather than the God of Being, Consciousness, and Bliss.
Sam Brown and others have fairly noted, however, that Miller’s flat ontology risks collapsing into groundlessness: networks explain how things relate, not why they matter. For Brown, the love and grace Miller celebrates must ultimately be grounded in something like the God of classical theism (an ultimate agape beyond the network) whereas Miller insists that love itself is the network. Grace, in this view, is the world’s process and patterns its redemption. The result is a cosmos of exquisite relation but little direction: beautiful, but precariously unmoored.
Few books make theology feel this alive or this willing to be experimental. Miller is less interested in safety than in provocation, trading traditional metaphysics for a more poetic, "groundless" faith. He makes the case that the world is radiant enough to matter even if God is "weak", but for those who value a personal, active Divine, that trade-off may be too high a price to pay.
I appreciate Miller’s view, even if I can’t accept it. His insistence that everything exists in relation, that meaning arises in the mutual giving of things, is both moving and feels true. It captures something profoundly humane about existence: that to be is to belong. I also admire his emphasis on interdependency, his sense that grace is fundamental to the structure of reality. Still, I think relation itself requires a center and a ground. The God I hope for is not just a perfect participant in this web of grace but its source and fulfillment—axiologically, soteriologically, and metaphysically ultimate in the Schellenberg sense. A God who is not less relational than Miller’s, but more so: the one in whom all relations hold, and from whom all love flows.
August 31, 2014
This is a rich work. This was one of the rare books that reconfigured my model of reality at a deep level. It was my introduction to the delightful philosophy of object-oriented ontology, which is an effective platform for thinking about everything, as Miller demonstrates in his multitude of sections.
I have thought a lot since reading this book about the dual resistance and availability of all objects, and how no object can be reduced in totality. Just accepting these simple precepts has helped me to be more humble and appreciative toward / of everything.
Some gems:
"Suffering so tightly in to the real that of necessity it goes all the way down"
"We must never begin by assuming that more fundamental and original forces are at work in the world than those presently available to us."
"If the gods exist, they live and move and have their being in the same motley pluriverse as every other object."
"Objects are like houses built from playing cards that, in their weakness, manage to stand only by leaning on each other."
"God . . . would be one being, one particularly complex multiple, that composes, is composed of, and is in interdependent relation with many other objects. Like every other object, God would be available, passible, resistant, and graced by the unavoidability of hard work."
"The principle of irreduction guarantees reference."
"Religion should not and never was defined by belief in things distant and absent, invisible and beyond. . . rather . . . it requires that I be faithful to the grace of what has already been made available. Only this fidelity can redeem the present of presence."
"Saying a prayer isn't like flying off to an exotic locale, it's like squishing your toes down through layers of mud."
"Morality is the obstinate, ceaseless, overwhelming, exhausting resumption of the task of representation."
"Religion is what breaks our will to go away."
"Sin, working to abandon the world of double-bound objects, ends up impoverished. Its drive to reduce ends up screening from view all but the emptiest shells. In order to simulate self-sufficiency, it manufactures isolation. Sin tries to ban both the resistance of others and its own availability--and then marvels at its poverty."
I have thought a lot since reading this book about the dual resistance and availability of all objects, and how no object can be reduced in totality. Just accepting these simple precepts has helped me to be more humble and appreciative toward / of everything.
Some gems:
"Suffering so tightly in to the real that of necessity it goes all the way down"
"We must never begin by assuming that more fundamental and original forces are at work in the world than those presently available to us."
"If the gods exist, they live and move and have their being in the same motley pluriverse as every other object."
"Objects are like houses built from playing cards that, in their weakness, manage to stand only by leaning on each other."
"God . . . would be one being, one particularly complex multiple, that composes, is composed of, and is in interdependent relation with many other objects. Like every other object, God would be available, passible, resistant, and graced by the unavoidability of hard work."
"The principle of irreduction guarantees reference."
"Religion should not and never was defined by belief in things distant and absent, invisible and beyond. . . rather . . . it requires that I be faithful to the grace of what has already been made available. Only this fidelity can redeem the present of presence."
"Saying a prayer isn't like flying off to an exotic locale, it's like squishing your toes down through layers of mud."
"Morality is the obstinate, ceaseless, overwhelming, exhausting resumption of the task of representation."
"Religion is what breaks our will to go away."
"Sin, working to abandon the world of double-bound objects, ends up impoverished. Its drive to reduce ends up screening from view all but the emptiest shells. In order to simulate self-sufficiency, it manufactures isolation. Sin tries to ban both the resistance of others and its own availability--and then marvels at its poverty."
March 22, 2015
This book was amazing, but I've come to expect that as the usual fare with Mr. Miller. Through his exposition of Latour's philosophy, he enabled me to better respect all the subtle nuances of my indebtedness to the world's givenness. I am not an empty black box--I have my roots in a boundless number of other objects, each of them in turn rooted in multiplicity. If I ignore my dependent origination, I sin, for this is the meaning of sin itself. But if I acknowledge my rootedness in other objects, I can become aware of the grace that shines through them.
The idea I found most compelling in this book was the idea that Spirit names "what is in me and more than me. I access this spirit if I direct my attention not to the outer reaches of space (i.e. transcendence, the domain of science) but to that which, though near, is too close for me to discern. In that sense, I guess you could say that the spiritual, the divine, and the eternal names what lies dormant within us--unmanifest potential waiting to be revealed by an act of faith.
The idea I found most compelling in this book was the idea that Spirit names "what is in me and more than me. I access this spirit if I direct my attention not to the outer reaches of space (i.e. transcendence, the domain of science) but to that which, though near, is too close for me to discern. In that sense, I guess you could say that the spiritual, the divine, and the eternal names what lies dormant within us--unmanifest potential waiting to be revealed by an act of faith.
February 8, 2014
I have been wanting an introduction to Bruno Latour for a few years-
My field of educational technology makes use of his actor-network theory - or at least we should.
So I read this book for two reasons: personal (my Mormon faith is compatible in many ways with Labour's ce-centered form of theism); and (2) my professional interest in Latour's thinking.
I was rewarded on both fronts. Miller has a fresh, modest, playful voice - among the clearest philosophical writing I've encountered. Reminds me of Rorty in his clarity and skill with words. Latour is quoted heavily and he too seems playful and direct.
My next steps: Follow Latour directly and get a better fix on actor-network theory as it relates to my work. I've heard Lucy Suchman uses him - I may look up her recent work as well.
My field of educational technology makes use of his actor-network theory - or at least we should.
So I read this book for two reasons: personal (my Mormon faith is compatible in many ways with Labour's ce-centered form of theism); and (2) my professional interest in Latour's thinking.
I was rewarded on both fronts. Miller has a fresh, modest, playful voice - among the clearest philosophical writing I've encountered. Reminds me of Rorty in his clarity and skill with words. Latour is quoted heavily and he too seems playful and direct.
My next steps: Follow Latour directly and get a better fix on actor-network theory as it relates to my work. I've heard Lucy Suchman uses him - I may look up her recent work as well.
June 11, 2013
I found this book both stimulating and frustrating. The stimulation came from some of the provocative views of Latour that author Adam Miller explicates. But the frustration stems from the fact that most of the presentation is in the abstract, with no examples presented to illustrate the terms and concepts discussed. For instance, we readers could definitely benefit from some real-world examples of what Latour and Miller mean by "grace." Just what sorts of experiences are Latour and Miller trying to get at when they write of grace? I believe there is much more that could be said, and I would hope that Miller will have an opportunity to say it in a future work. Otherwise, his project of explication will be largely frustrated.
September 16, 2013
Simply excellent. This book took my haphazardly-constructed religious framework, broke it down to its component parts, lovingly polished or replaced them when necessary, and built them back up again, resulting in a much more cohesive, beautiful result. A wonderful resource for the devotional with a bend toward object-oriented ontology.
June 17, 2013
This is a wonderful book. Each chapter is a gem.
April 25, 2014
I'll be reviewing this for http://www.itineration.org in the near future (May 2014) so check there soon.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews