Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition: Creation, Covenant, and Participation

Trinity Journal, Fall 2007 by Merrick, James R A

James K. A. Smith and James H. Olthuis, eds. Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition: Creation, Covenant, and Participation. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005.301 pp. $29.99.

Radical Orthodoxy has steadily solidified into a discrete "theological sensibility" (see James Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, ch. 2). The present book prods discussion in two ways: first, it positions Radical Orthodoxy vis-à-vis Reformed theology and, second, it allows Reformed theologians to address Radical Orthodoxy's criticisms. The essays were presented September 11-13, 2003 at Calvin College for a faculty forum on Radical Orthodoxy. After an introductory essay by Smith which explains Radical Orthodoxy, the book divides into four parts. In the interest of both word limits and depth, I will discuss only one especially relevant essay from each part.

Part 1, "Radical Orthodoxy on the Reformed Tradition," commences with a piece from John Milbank. By reflecting on the theme of God's glory in Calvin, Milbank argues for an "alternative Protestantism" which he characterizes as "a more perfect critique [of the late Middle Ages]" (p. 27). According to Milbank, Calvin stressed both the transcendence of God's grace and that God's grace is mediated to believers through Christ's humanity (apparently picking up on the theme of "union with Christ" in Calvin). Such "demands a participatory metaphysic" (pp. 28-29) and means there is "no mileage whatsoever in pitting covenant against participation" (p. 30). The remainder of the essay registers six complaints, each of which highlights Calvin's inability to integrate fully a participatory ontology: (1) Calvin's covenantal theology errs when it allows OT Israel to impede a participationist soteriology. (2) Calvin's justification as imputation is unacceptable because it "offends the idea of divine glory" (i.e., it does not operate on a participationist scheme). (3) Calvin's Christology fails to grasp the ontological consequences of the hypostatic union (which, in Milbank's view, leads to a participationist ontology). (4) "Calvin's sacramental theology is not really coherent" (p. 35). (5) Calvin's theology lacks a definite metaphysic. (6) As a consequence of (5), Calvin's theology tends towards pragmatism.

Calvin scholars will worry (rightly) that Milbank's handling of Calvin is distorted by his agenda, and the fact that the divergences Milbank lists far outweigh the one surface similarity leads me to think the descriptor "Protestantism" in "alternative Protestantism" is misleading. One thing is certain: Milbank's Radical Orthodoxy is radical; he ends with the exhortation: "Let us ... try to recover the full plentitude of the Western mythopoetic, metaphysical, and theological vision. For this alone will save us now" (p. 41, emphasis added). Unfortunately for many, this secret salvific gnosis will remain a mystery to those who lack the gift of interpreting Milbank's opaque writings.

"Participation, Analogy, and Covenant: Contested Histories," Part 2, considers the relationship between Reformed theology's covenantal understanding of the created order and Radical Orthodoxy's participationist theological ontology. Notable here is Michael Horton's sharp "Participation and Covenant." Horton argues that the covenant is the dominant biblical portrayal of the relationship between Creator and creature. As such, human-divine relationship is primarily ethical rather than ontological. This leads him to set forth a covenantal conceptual framework that supplants Radical Orthodoxy's participatory metaphysic, thereby going against Milbank's aforementioned assertion concerning covenant and participation. In the final analysis, Horton concludes, Reformed theology and Radical Orthodoxy "operate in different universes of discourse," that is, "Reformed theology inhabits an ethical-historical-eschatological rather than a metaphysicalontological-speculative atmosphere" (p. 132).

Part 3, "Polis and Ecclesia: Cultural Engagement," wrestles with the social/political aspect of Radical Orthodoxy, a key motivation behind its judgments. Hans Boersma's assessment and rebuttal of Milbank's atonement theology is characteristically insightful. First, Boersma expounds Milbank's thought, noting that he effectively collapses Christology into ecclesiology to the point where divine forgiveness becomes God's gift of the human capacity of forgiveness. Atonement, then, is not God's forgiveness, but God's moral enablement of the church to be the context of human reconciliation. Furthermore, "Milbank cannot accept the notion of God forgiving us the guilt or the debt of punishment because his ontology of peace does not allow for divine punishment" (p. 192). Boersma briefly attempts to reform Milbank by advocating a notion that is familiar to anyone who has read his defenses of penal substitutionary atonement. In short, he proffers "redemptive violence"-God's use of violent punishment for humanity's redemption. Boersma would probably do better to dispute the equation of punishment with violence for there is an obvious category mistake at work here (Boersma has noted this elsewhere). There are a few places where I think he may have caricatured Milbank's notion of nonviolence (particularly when he compares it to Derrida's structural messianicity, p. 195). But his point about the impossibility of Milbank's view in a violent, sin-stained world and how its impracticality stems from a general ahistoricism ought to be thoroughly considered by Milbank. Finally, I still want to know how "redemptive violence" avoids "the end justifies the means" logic.