{"id":2566,"date":"2013-06-03T08:35:54","date_gmt":"2013-06-03T15:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tgdarkly.com\/blog\/?p=2566"},"modified":"2013-06-03T08:35:54","modified_gmt":"2013-06-03T15:35:54","slug":"methodology-for-faith-and-science-radical-orthodoxy-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2013\/06\/03\/methodology-for-faith-and-science-radical-orthodoxy-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Methodology for Faith and Science: Radical Orthodoxy, Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"
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But now was turning my desire and will, Even as a wheel that equally is moved, The Love which moves the sun and the other stars. \u2014 Dante, Divine Comedy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This continues my series on “method” in theology and science.\u00a0 In this post I begin to discuss what contribution, if any, “radical orthodoxy” might make to the conversation.<\/p>\n

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Radical Orthodoxy occupies a curious, and perhaps ill-defined, space in this matrix.\u00a0 <\/span>The founding charter for Radical Orthodoxy is John Milbank\u2019s Theology and Social Theory <\/i><\/a>(\u201cTST\u201d), which is a sustained critique of the presumed neutrality of the modern social sciences.[1]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>In a chapter on \u201cScience, Power, and Reality,\u201d Milbank attempts to distinguish social science, which describes human behavior, from natural science.[2]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>Social science, Milbank argues, differs from natural science in that \u201chuman interaction in all its variety can only be narrated, and not explained \/ understood after the manner of natural science.\u201d[3]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>Here Milbank\u2019s critique of social science sounds like the longstanding argument in the broader academy about whether disciplines such as sociology, political science, economics and psychology can truly be considered \u201cscientific.\u201d[4]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>Milbank accepts a phenomenological \/ narratival perspective on persons and cultures:\u00a0 <\/span>\u201c\u2019Narrating,\u2019\u201d he says ,\u201dturns out to be a more basic category than either explanation or understanding:\u00a0 <\/span>unlike either of these it does not assume particular facts or discrete meanings.\u00a0 <\/span>Neither is it concerned with universal laws, nor universal truths of the spirit.\u201d[5]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>Narrative \u201cis the final mode of comprehension of human society,\u201d and \u201c[t]o understand or explain a social phenomenon is simply to narrate it\u2026.\u201d[6]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

But this does not only apply to the social<\/i> sciences.\u00a0 <\/span>Even for the natural sciences, Milbank argues, \u201c[a]s the phrase \u2018natural history\u2019 suggests, natural science does not rid itself of narrative, and indeed, it is just as possible to tell a story in which the characters are atoms, plants, animals, or quasars, as one where they are human beings.\u201d[7]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>The modern natural sciences have largely lost this sense of narrative because of the influence of reductive positivism.[8]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>Citing Paul Feyerabend\u2019s Against Method<\/i>, Milbank notes that the observation of \u201cdata\u201d is never a merely neutral activity because the act of constructing the context of an observation already requires a theoretical structure.[9]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>All data is interpreted and there is no method without theory.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, for Milbank, scientific investigation always involves narrative.\u00a0 <\/span>Milbank can then set aside as pretentious the claim of the modern social sciences to provide an objective, \u201cscientific\u201d account of society that atomizes social relations into discrete quantities, which always in the end implies relationships of competition and violence.[10]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>And, following Alasdair MacIntyre\u2019s account of traditioned inquiry, Milbank can offer an alternative narrative, that of Christian charity, in which human society is encompassed in an ontology of relational peace that begins with the ecstatic plenitude of the Triune God\u2019s self-giving in creation.[11]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

It is unclear precisely how Milbank\u2019s account of the natural sciences in TST contrasts with McGrath\u2019s critical realism.\u00a0 <\/span>Milbank\u2019s references to the philosophy of science literature are extremely limited \u2013 in addition to Feyerabend, he refers only to Descartes, Kant, Whewell, Mill, Popper and Lakatos (and that all in one sentence!).[12]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>Much of what Milbank says in TST about the social and pre-empirical theoretical basis for the conduct and interpretation of experiments is entirely consistent with Polanyi\u2019s critically realist personalism, which Polanyi fleshes out it much greater detail.\u00a0 <\/span>Perhaps there are two basic differences:\u00a0 <\/span>(1) Milbank\u2019s narratival approach does not accord the sciences a methodologically separate space from theology even at a pre-integrative level; and (2) Milbank\u2019s approach makes less space \u2013 although some space does seem to be given \u2013 for the alteration of the Christian theological narrative at a higher level of integration with discrete truths gleaned from the sciences.\u00a0 <\/span>At a basic level, it is a difference between an analytic (critical realism) and phenomenological (narrative) frame of reference.<\/p>\n

Milbank\u2019s approach is attractive for a number of reasons.\u00a0 <\/span>First, it deflates the presumed historic warfare between \u201cfaith\u201d and \u201cscience\u201d by offering a holistic account of \u201creason\u201d that is already embedded in the Christian tradition.\u00a0 <\/span>There is no possibility of \u201cconflict\u201d between \u201cfaith\u201d and \u201cscience\u201d here because those terms simply have no meaning in isolation.\u00a0 <\/span>There is, rather, a grand narrative of God\u2019s self-giving creative love, which allows for human beings as creatures to observe and study and delight in the creation.\u00a0 <\/span>Second, it exposes the pretentions of reductive positivistic \u201cscience\u201d as itself a kind of a-theology, with pre-empirical theoretical commitments not derived from its own supposedly objective methods.\u00a0 <\/span>Finally, it points toward a different form of apologetic in which the Christian narrative is offered in the robust sense of a true apologia<\/i> rather than as an \u201capology\u201d before the bar of a totalizing modernity.[13]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

A potential problem with Milbank\u2019s approach is evident in his reference to Feyerabend.\u00a0 <\/span>Like other constructivist philosophers of science, Feyerabend was an anti-realist and a nominalist.[14]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>Milbank\u2019s theological project and the broader \u201cRadical Orthodoxy,\u201d movement it spawned, of course, involves a sustained historical critique of the univocity of being, nominalism, and voluntarism.[15]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>While postmodern philosophers of science such as Feyerabend and Thomas Kuhn offer helpful resources concerning the social context of the natural sciences, their conclusions are finally incompatible with a realist participatory ontology grounded in the Christian doctrine of creation.\u00a0 <\/span>It remains unclear how Milbank\u2019s \u201cnarrative\u201d construal of the natural sciences in TST can cohere with his and Radical Orthodoxy\u2019s other broad commitments.<\/p>\n


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[1]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory:\u00a0 <\/span>Beyond Secular Reason<\/span> (Blackwell 2d ed. 2006).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[2]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> Id., <\/i>at pp. 259-277.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[3]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> Id.<\/i>, at p. 259.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[4]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> See<\/i> Kevin A. Clarke and David M. Primo, \u201cOvercoming Physics Envy,\u201d The New York Times, March 30, 2012, available at http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/04\/01\/opinion\/sunday\/the-social-sciences-physics-envy.html?_r=0<\/a>; Gary Gutting, \u201cHow Reliable are the Social Sciences,\u201d New York Times Opinionator Blog, May 17, 2012, available at\u00a0 <\/span>http:\/\/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com\/2012\/05\/17\/how-reliable-are-the-social-sciences\/<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span>In general, the analytic social sciences focus on the statistical analysis of quantitative \u201cvariables\u201d as a mode of \u201cscientific\u201d analysis.\u00a0 <\/span>See <\/i>Christian Smith, What is a Person<\/span> (Univ. Chicago Press 2010), Chapter Five.\u00a0 <\/span>See<\/i> also <\/i>Gary King, Robert O. Keohan, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry:\u00a0 <\/span>Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research<\/span> (Princeton Univ. Press 1994).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[5]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> TST, at p. 267.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[6]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> Id.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[7]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> Id.<\/i>, at p. 269.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[8]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> Id.<\/i>, at p. 270.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[9]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> Id.<\/i>, at pp. 270-271, and Note 13.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[10]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> Id<\/i>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[11]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> See id.<\/i>, Chapters 11, 12, 13.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[12]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> Id.<\/i>, at pp. 270-271.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[13]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> This apologetic theme is developed in Milbank\u2019s Foreward to Andrew Davidson, Imaginative Apologetics: \u00a0<\/span>Theology, Philosophy, and the Catholic Tradition<\/span> (Baker 2012).\u00a0 <\/span>Interestingly, the chapter on faith and science in that volume was written by Alister McGrath.\u00a0 <\/span>Id.<\/i>, Chapter 10.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[14]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> See <\/i>Eric Oberheim, Feyerabend\u2019s Philosophy<\/span> (Walter de Gruyter 2006), at pp. 74-76 (noting that \u201cFeyerabend\u2019s nominalism is a form of anti-realism about natural kinds\u201d).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[15]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> See, e.g., <\/i>TST, at pp. 13-18; see also <\/i>Catherine Pickstock, \u201cDuns Scotus:\u00a0 <\/span>His Historical and Contemporary Significance,\u201d in John Milbank and Simon Oliver, eds., The Radical Orthodoxy Reader<\/span> (Routledge 2009), at pp. 116-148.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This continues my series on “method” in theology and science.\u00a0 In this post I begin to discuss what contribution, if any, “radical orthodoxy” might make to the conversation. Radical Orthodoxy occupies a curious, and perhaps ill-defined, space in this matrix.\u00a0 The founding charter for Radical Orthodoxy is John Milbank\u2019s Theology and Social Theory (\u201cTST\u201d), which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[71,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cosmos","category-science-and-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-Fo","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2566\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}