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Being Reconciled: Ontology and Pardon
Being Reconciled is a radical and entirely fresh theological treatment of the classic theory of the Gift in the context of divine reconciliation. It reconsiders notions of freedom and exchange in relation to a Christian doctrine which understands Creation, grace and incarnation as heavenly gifts, but the Fall, evil and violence as refusal of those gifts. In a sustained and rigorous response to the works of Derrida, Levinas, Marion, Zizek, Hauerwas and the 'Radical Evil' school, John Milbank posits the daring view that only transmission of the forgiveness offered by the Divine Humanity makes reconciliation possible on earth. Any philosophical understanding of forgiveness and redemption therefore requires theological completion.
Both a critique of post-Kantian modernity, and a new theology that engages with issues of language, culture, time, politics and historicity, Being Reconciled insists on the dependency of all human production and understanding on a God who is infinite in both utterance and capacity. Intended as the first in a trilogy of books centred on the gift, this book is an original and vivid new application of a classic theory by a leading international theologian.
Both a critique of post-Kantian modernity, and a new theology that engages with issues of language, culture, time, politics and historicity, Being Reconciled insists on the dependency of all human production and understanding on a God who is infinite in both utterance and capacity. Intended as the first in a trilogy of books centred on the gift, this book is an original and vivid new application of a classic theory by a leading international theologian.
242 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
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About the author
John Milbank
57 books82 followersProfessor John Milbank is Professor in Religion, Politics and Ethics and the Director of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham. He has previously taught at the Universities of Lancaster, Cambridge and Virginia. He is the author of several books of which the most well-known is Theology and Social Theory and the most recent Being Reconciled: Ontology and Pardon. He is one of the editors of the Radical Orthodoxy collection of essays which occasioned much debate. In general he has endeavoured in his work to resist the idea that secular norms of understanding should set the agenda for theology and has tried to promote the sense that Christianity offers a rich and viable account of the whole of reality.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 22, 2013
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23 May-1 June 2012
Review:
This is my second reading of Milbank's Being Reconciled and I must say I'm glad I read it again. While even after the first reading I determined that this was Milbank's most comprehensible book, at least that I've tackled thus far, I still found more that I understood better this time around. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to gain some insight into the theology of John Milbank but does not yet have the fortitude to brave Theology and Social Theory.
I will give fair warning that there are, for me, a few areas where I simply disagree with John. The main one, and only one I will deal with in this review, comes in chapter 4 'Incarnation: the sovereign victim'. Here John is juxtaposing the views of Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus on the purpose of the incarnation. For Aquinas, it is about forgiveness, but a forgiveness that does more than forgive, but exceeds that and gives also the chance for deification, though Milbank argues that is the possibility of deification that makes the incarnation possible. Scotus, on the other hand, sees the incarnation as the ontological completion of creation. This is based in Scotus's understanding of univocity of being where Christ is not the fulness, necessarily, but is beyond what humanity is. My own view, and I believe that of the Fathers, is somewhere in between. The Incarnation cannot be a reaction to our sin or related only to the divine foreknowledge of the Fall. Nor, however, is it purely Christ completing creation as a human who is, by nature of also being divine, is simply better than all other humans. For me, if deification has always been the telos for creation, then the means by which this is accomplished must include the Incarnation. God must become man in order for man to become God.
This aside, however, John's understanding of the crucifixion, the telos of Creation and the necessity for a liturgical understanding of the time, the state, education, etc., makes this book one most definitely worth reading.
23 May-1 June 2012
Review:
This is my second reading of Milbank's Being Reconciled and I must say I'm glad I read it again. While even after the first reading I determined that this was Milbank's most comprehensible book, at least that I've tackled thus far, I still found more that I understood better this time around. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to gain some insight into the theology of John Milbank but does not yet have the fortitude to brave Theology and Social Theory.
I will give fair warning that there are, for me, a few areas where I simply disagree with John. The main one, and only one I will deal with in this review, comes in chapter 4 'Incarnation: the sovereign victim'. Here John is juxtaposing the views of Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus on the purpose of the incarnation. For Aquinas, it is about forgiveness, but a forgiveness that does more than forgive, but exceeds that and gives also the chance for deification, though Milbank argues that is the possibility of deification that makes the incarnation possible. Scotus, on the other hand, sees the incarnation as the ontological completion of creation. This is based in Scotus's understanding of univocity of being where Christ is not the fulness, necessarily, but is beyond what humanity is. My own view, and I believe that of the Fathers, is somewhere in between. The Incarnation cannot be a reaction to our sin or related only to the divine foreknowledge of the Fall. Nor, however, is it purely Christ completing creation as a human who is, by nature of also being divine, is simply better than all other humans. For me, if deification has always been the telos for creation, then the means by which this is accomplished must include the Incarnation. God must become man in order for man to become God.
This aside, however, John's understanding of the crucifixion, the telos of Creation and the necessity for a liturgical understanding of the time, the state, education, etc., makes this book one most definitely worth reading.
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January 2, 2015Referenced in Leithart's Gratitude (pp. 1, 290n5).
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews