Love of God as Created Good, Not Based on Lack

"The primary intentional relation of the self to its world is not theoretical reflection (Husserl) or pragmatic concern (Heidegger) but rather love (Augustine)." (p. 244)

"As such, human desire is not the result of a lack of privation but rather plentitude and excess – a positive movement toward God. Desire, then, is not the negative craving for a lack but the positive passion characteristic of love." (p. 244)

"‘When Bernard [of Clairvaux] asserts that humanity lost its likeness, he is saying that human desire is no longer in harmony with the desire from whence it came’ (Bell, Liberation Theology after the End of History p. 90-91). The fall was not the occasion for the advent of desire but rather the distortion and misdirection of the creational structure of desire." (p. 245)

"First, desire is located in God, and God cannot be characterized by lack of privation but only by plenitude. ‘God does not love us because God needs us to complete God’s own desire’ – and yet God does love us (CG, 77) A Christian theological1 account of desire ‘begins with God’s desire for me (a prerequisite for any doctrine of election and hence redemption)’ (TST, 187). Therefore, God’s desire does no operate according to a logic of privation, then two problematic scenarios would follow: Either the desire could never be satisfied, in which case we could never achieve peace and rest, or the desire would be satisfied, in which case eternity would shut down (contra Gregory of Nyssa’s picture in his commentary on Song of Songs). ‘There is a profound difference between participating in God and a need for God. In the Christian tradition.’ Ward notes, ‘God is not there to fulfill human demands. For that is to treat God as we might treat any other commodity in the marketplace’ (CG, 77). Here we see a marked difference between a properly Christian account of desire and the erotic paradigm adopted by contemporary evangelical worship, which operates according to a logic of privation and construes God as yet another commodity to satisfy a lack." (p. 246)

"The erotic structure of the creature can take different directions, and these different intentions are the products of the formation of desire by particular stories narrated by particular communities and enacted by particular disciplines. RO is concerned to analyze the specific forms of desire produced by different communities and to articulate the antithesis between these and the church as the site for authentic eros." (p. 247)

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy

Against Dualism of Theory and Practice

"It [RO] also calls into question the dualism of theory and practice, aspects that are too often formulated as mutually exclusive – as when some suggest that we need to stop being so concerned with theology and just get down to the work of doing justice or proclaiming the gospel or that theoretical reflection is an inherently bourgeois abstraction that distracts us from practice. For RO, there is a symbiotic, reciprocal, and necessary relationship between the two. Here again, this sentiment echoes Herman Dooyeweerd’s understanding of the relationship between theory and practice, or what we could describe as the ‘theoretical attitude’ and the ‘everyday or natural attitude’ (ITWT, 13-17). Theory, in this respect, is diaconal and is itself a practice. This is why ideas matter, or; to put it differently, ontologies make a difference."

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, P. 232

Re-Enchanting the Material in Leibniz

"What Deleuze finds in Leibniz is a certain reenchantment of the material whereby nature is invested with a dynamism and a plentitude. The sensible or material world is no longer a veil of shadows but rather the site of ‘what’s happening,’ no longer a space of detention or exile to be escaped but the ‘theater of matter’ where the real is actualized." (p. 209)

"For Leibniz, doing justice to the worthiness of the Creator demands that one affirm the integrity of creation, in particular; the materiality of creation." (p.212)

"Malebranche’s solution would come to be known as occasionalism, attributing all activity of both body and soul to a direct, supernatural intervention by God. As Leibniz summarizes, according to occasionalism, ‘we are aware of the property of bodies because God produces thoughts in the soul on the occasion of the motions of matter; and when in its turn our soul wishes to move the body, they said that it is God who moves the body for it” (New System, ss12)." (p. 213)

"In contrast to this demand for constant divine intervention for creation to operate, Leibniz offers a theory of preestablished harmony that emphasizes the relative self-sufficiency of nature as ordered by the Creator." (p. 213)

"The occasionalist account of nature or creation provides a deficient creation – an inferior clock, as it were. For Leibniz, such an understanding of the structures of creation as deficient reflects back upon the deficiency of the Creator; just as a poorly made clock reflects the incompetence of its maker: While we may think that the occasionalist emphasis on the dependence of creation on the Creator would prevent an idolization of creation, Leibniz’s analysis points out that occasionalism posits this dependence in such a way that it denigrates the Creator by making creation’s dependence the result of an original deficiency." (p. 214)

"To provide an account of creational, material structures that is worthy of the Creator, Leibniz radically affirms the self-sufficiency of creation as created – what he describes as the “God-given nature of things” (letter ss7). The result, however, is an account of creational structures that, at first sight, seems to construct a plane of immanence without reference to the Creator – an almost deistic account of nature operating autonomously. If we look closely, however, we see that this is not the case." (p. 214)

"Theories of nature that require a perpetual governance by God are, according to Leibniz, denigrations of the Creator; for what would we think of a clock maker who needed to constantly turn the hands of the clock manually?" (p. 216)

"Such an ontology must begin from the integrity of creation as the theater of the Creator’s glory without the Platonic desire to peek behind the curtain, for this Platonic desire assumes that what appears on stage is a farce, a deceptive melodrama distracting us from the real story behind the scenes. But neither should we fall prey to the nihilistic conclusion that the stage is merely a simulacrum – an image without an original or a zone of immanence without reference to transcendence. In contrast to both of these, a creational ontology affirms that “all the world is a stage.” There is no pristine, immediate access behind the scenes; rather, the invisible is seen in the visible, such that seeing the visible is to see more than the visible. This zone of immanence is where transcendence plays itself out, unfolding itself in a way that is staged by the Creator." (p. 222-3)

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy

Sounding Out Idols ... And Icons

"Thus, more than just ‘sounding out idols,’ Deleuze’s project is the ‘overturning of icons’ insofar as icons are intended to be window that take us ‘beyond’ immanence. According to Deleuze, this iconic desire itself harbors a devaluation of immanence. In contrast, Deleuze’s virtual ontology urges us to stay with what appears, to celebrate immanence."

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, P. 209

Does Participatory Ontology Deny Creation's Integrity?

"RO’s participatory ontology can slide toward an occasionalism that requires the incessant activity of the Creator to uphold what would seem to be a deficient creation – a tendency to emphasize the creature’s participation in the divine to the extent that it seems the divine does everything. While seeking to undo the regnant secular concept of an autonomous nature, does RO’s participatory framework risk sliding toward an alternative model that does not grant any independence to the creation?" (p. 205)

The integrity of creation is seen as a third way between autonomy and occasionalism. (P. 207)

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy

Emphasis Depends on Your 'Enemy'

"Below I note that this different horizon – and hence different ‘enemy’ – explains the difference of emphasis between RO and aspects of the Reformed tradition. If one is battling Gnostic escapism, then Plato still seems infected with the worst of diseases. If however, one is battling naturalistic materialism, then Plato can seem a powerful antidote and ally."

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 197 note 35

Trinity As Archetype of Primordial Peace

"One finds in Christianity the ‘precise opposite of nihilism – a creed which rigorously excludes all violence from its picture of the original, intended, and final state of the cosmos’ (TST, 288). This stems frist from the doctrine of the Trinity, the arche in which we confess ‘a multiple which is not set dialectically over against the one, but itself manifests unity’ (TST, 376)."

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, P. 196

Resonance of Primordial (Unfounded) Theological Claims

"The ontological claims regarding both univocity and original violence are theological1 claims that can be rejected in favor of a different theology1 that – though ‘equally unfounded’ (in the sense of a universal, rational demonstration)- may be better able to do justice to the arena of our experience and avoid the ‘antinomies’ of secular reason (TST, 362ff.)."

"The point is that, though, Milbank’s account is nonfoundationalist, it is not without warrant." (note 31)

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 196

Analogical Ontology and Original Violence

"Without recourse to a notion of analogical relation, immanentist ontologies conceive of difference in terms of opposition and thus assume a kind of primordial violence in the order of being. Reality is seen as inherently ‘conflictual’ (TST, 296), and thus all relationships are but war by another means (TST, 282). By subscribing to an original or transcendental violence, these ontologies of immanence end up ontologizing the fall as a structural feature of finite existence (TST, 302)."

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, P. 195

Incarnational Ontology

"The shape of this theological1 or participatory ontology is nonreductive and incarnational: On the one hand, it affirms that matter as created exceeds itself and ‘is’ only insofar as it participates in or is suspended from the transcendent Creator; on the other hand, it affirms that there is a significant sense in which the transcendent inheres in immanence."

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, P. 191

Saving the Appearances by Exceeding Them

"‘The theological perspective of participation actually saves the appearances by exceeding them. It recognizes that materialism and spiritualism are false alternatives, since if there is only finite matter there is not even that, and that for phenomena really to be there they must be more than there… This is to say that all there is only is because it is more than it is.’ (RONT, 4)"

From Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology, by: John Milbank
quoted in: James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 189

Participation As Antidote to Nihilism & Fundamentalism

"‘Only transcendence, which ‘suspends’ things in the sense of interrupting them, ‘suspends’ them also in the other sense upholding their relative worth over-against the void’ (RONT, 3)."

"A participatory ontology, then, is the antidote to both nihilism and fundamentalist dualism."

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, P. 189

Existence in Grace as Matter of Degree

"For Milbank and Pickstock, the distinction between nature and grace is not one of kind but of degree, in particular, the degree of intensity of participation in the divine. Therefore, it is not the case that nature is an autonomous in-itself to which a relationship to the divine is super-added; rather, nature is always already graced in the sense that it participates in the Creator (BR, 115). It is only insofar as it depends; its being is essentially a gift. Correlatively, insofar as reason is to faith as nature is to grace, the relation (and distinction) must be understood in the same sense: Reason is not an autonomous operation of a pure nature that supernatural faith supplements. Rather, reason is a reception of light, an operation of divine illumination (TA, 11)."

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 160

Aquinas: Nothing Exists, IN Itself

"For Aquinas, one cannot recognize the truth of things merely by observing features of the natural (albeit created order 'without necessarily recognizing it as created' (TA, 23, emphasis added). 'Were one to attempt to comprehend a finite reality not as created, that is to say, not in relation to God, then no truth for Aquinas could ensue, since finite realities are of themselves nothing and only what is can be true' (TA, 23; cf. 33-34). So once again the ontology of participation undergirds this account: Things are not anything 'in themselves'; therefore, they cannot be understood 'in themselves but only by reference to that from which they are suspended - their Creator (TA, 22). As a result, no secular account of things could possibly be true."

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 160

Relative Truth of Nihilism

‘Nihilism is nearer the truth than humanism, because it recognizes the unknown and indeterminate in every reality and because it is true that without God there is nothing. One can add that humanism is nihilism unable to recognize itself and therefore also naïve or cynical or both’ (Radical Orthodoxy: Twenty-four Theses,” thesis 7)


Quoted in: James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 43 note.44