No Community Without Boundaries, Need to Hold Loosely?

"It seems that this requires a twofold emphasis and corrective, First, Ward’s skeptical stance with respect to boundaries should be jettisoned for a post-critically dogmatic stance that asserts the necessity of boundaries as the condition for community. As Reinhard Hutter has argued, there can be no ‘public’ without borders: ‘An unlimited, altogether open space does not constitute a public. Openness in all directions actually destroys any public.’ [Reinhard Hutter, ‘The Church as Public: Dogma, Practice, and the Holy Spirit,’ Pro Ecclesia 3 (1994): 347.] Second, the conception of the church as counter-polis must be deeply pneumatological. As Hutter suggests, improvising on Kant, ‘Pneumatology without ecclesiology is empty; ecclesiology without pneumatology is blind.’ The assertion of an ecclesial antithesis requires a more persistent Augustinianism that resists the tendencies to make the human community coextensive with the ecclesia by recovering the centrality of the Spirit’s operation in the work of regeneration (and sanctification) and risking the scandalous affirmation of the utter particularity of that work in the community of the elect, while still constructing the community as one of welcome and hospitality. Such a pneumatological ecclesiology, particularly with an emphasis on regeneration, can be found in both Kuyper and Calvin. In other words, an ecclesiology that construes the church as polis requires a robust pneumatology and a recovery of the doctrine of election, providing the shape of an ecclesiology that is Reformed, catholic, and charismatic. In this respect, RO stands in need of reform."

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 258-59

Grace Through Nature, All 'Within' Church?

"Milbank’s theology of nature as always already graced tends toward a similar blurring of the orders of creation and redemption and therefore the group that constitutes humanity and the community that constitutes the ecclesia. Because the gift of grace seems to be immediately ‘lost and renewed’ (BR, 27) by God’s ‘immediate correction’ (BR, 42) – and because this seems to be a universal gift and renewal (BR, 169) – there seems to be a sense in which none of this “is exactly ‘outside’ the Church’ (BR, 121)."

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 258

Mixed City of God and Boundaries of the Church

"Invoking Augustine’s account of the ‘interwoven’ (permixtum) relation of the two cities, Ward concludes to ‘a necessary agnosticism’ (CG, 228-29). Therefore, not only does he resist identifying the church with the heavenly city – as Augustine rightly counseled against (CG, 229) – but he is also reticent to identify boundaries of this earthly human institution (CG, 257-58)."

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, P. 257

Subversive Formation of Worship

"Sacramental worship is the primary site for the reformation of human desire, which, in a capitalist world, can only be a subversive, countercultural gesture."

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 254

Capitalism's Presuppositions of Human Nature

"By considering capitalism as a (globalized) technology of desire, Bell unveils its theological1 (albeit idolatrous) freight. Far from being merely a ‘neutral’ mode for economic distribution, capitalism is a particular religious (and imperial) vision of ‘basic human longings’ (Fukuyama) or desires. Capitalism, then, is not merely an instrument or tool that can be put to work as a servant of other substantive construals of the Good; rather, it proposes its own account of the telos to which human desire ought to be aimed (consumption and accumulation). … Not only does capitalism deform the creational structure of desire, but it also lays waste to God’s creatures and creation."

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 251

Liberalism as Worldview and Competing Gospel

"It is in this sense that we must appreciate the way that liberalism is a worldview and therefore fundamentally religious (or theological1) – and therefore a gospel competing with the gospel of Christ. John Owen is helpfully forthright in describing liberalism in these terms: ‘Liberalism is first a worldview, a set of fundamental categories through which individuals understand themselves and the world. It thus shapes individuals’ conceptions of their identities and interests by telling them of what human nature and the good consist’ (John Owen IV, Liberal Peace, Liberal War [Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997], 19)."


James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 250

Economy as Most Prevalant Idol

"One could see Johns Howard Yoder’s and Hauerwas’s analyses largely working within a paradigm in which the state is the looming idol that the church is most tempted to worship. But Bell suggests that this is a dated and therefore somewhat impotent mode of analysis and critique, for in a globalized world it is no longer states that wield imperialist power but rather capitalism and the market." (p. 248)

"Every aspect of society – schools, athletics, even the church – must insert itself in the capitalist machine. Capitalism, then, is the new empire the gospel must oppose because it demands an allegiance that rivals allegiance to Christ." (p. 249)

"‘The conflict between capitalism and Christianity is nothing less than a clash of opposing technologies of desire,’ for each is trying to form very different people for very different ends.’ (Bell, LTAEH, 2)" (Book is Liberation Theology After the End of History, quoted in Smith)

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy

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

Any Universal Ethic Minimalist and Dangerous

"Because of the framework of antithesis assumed by both RO and Hauerwas, any notion of a ‘common’ morality or universal ethics must be jettisoned, along with any project of deriving morality from a perduring ‘natural law’ that holds for all communities (because nature has been obfuscated by sin such that there is no perduring ‘humanity’). Rather, as Hauerwas puts it, ‘Ethics always requires an adjective or qualifier.’ An ethic is tied to a particular ethos and thus must always be a qualified ethic (whether Jewish, Christian, pagan, liberal, etc.)."

"Hauerwas’s critique of natural law ethics is insightful here: ‘Emphasis on the distinctiveness of Christian ethics does not deny that there are points of contact between Christian ethics and other forms of the moral life. While such points frequently exist, they are not sufficient to provide a basis of a ‘universal’ ethic grounded in human nature per se. Attempts to secure such an ethic inevitably result in a minimalistic ethic and often one which gives support to forms of cultural imperialism,’ which can be taken to underwrite coercion (Hauerwas, Peaceable Kingdom, 60-61)."

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 240

Church's Practice Determined by Telos

"‘There can only be a distinguishable Christian social theory because there is also a distinguishable Christian mode of action, a definite practice. The theory explicates this practice… The theory, therefore, is first and foremost an ecclesiology’ (TST, 380)." (p. 232)

"To put this another way, the church is a community of peace, an authentic, positive peace of harmony, not the merely negative peace of stilled conflict. It is a community in which harmony is possible because it undoes the swirling eddy of self-love (and corresponding self-appointed teloi) by orienting the community toward a common telos that engenders charity." (p. 239)

"The Christian community, then, is a unique polis that is demarcated by (1) a distinct narrative that is recounted in distinct practices; (2) a different telos that transcends the contemporary order; and (3) the common presence of the Spirit at work among its members through Word and sacrament. As such, it stands in contrast to every other polis insofar as no other shares its narrative (the Scriptures) or is the site for the Spirit’s regenerative, sacramental, and sanctifying presence." (p. 239)

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

Fundamental Good of Images and Passions

"Given the embodied structure of the human person, images (and imagination) play an essential role in human knowing and thus contribute to knowledge rather than deceive us. If images can be icons, and the imagination is a structural aspect of creaturehood, then the passions – as structural – can also be affirmed as fundamentally good, even if their direction can be distorted."
James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, P. 229

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