Social Theory and the Sacred: a Response to John Milbank

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Social Theory and the Sacred: A Response to John Milbank

Hans Joas — University of Berlin / University of Chicago

In the middle of the 1960s, Talcott Parsons — theology to be the master discourse of the future. undoubtedly the world's most important sociologist He repudiates the claims of sociology to present an in the first decades after the Second World War and adequate view of reality and thus to define a place at that time at the peak of his influence and even for the sacred, and tries to get beyond what he reputation — took part in a debate about the calls the `false humility' of theologians today. The relationship between theology and sociology. His social sciences, according to Milbank, are bound to contribution, later published in a volume called a project of secular reason — without being able to America and the Future of Theology,1 was a fervent self-reflectively understand what the historical plea for the significance of sociology in front of a conditions for the constitution of this seemingly theological audience. But not everybody in this self-evident notion and sphere of the `secular' were. audience seems to have accepted his arguments. “Once, there was no `secular'”3 is the forceful The theological commentator at the debate, Oliver opening sentence of his book. Not only sociology, Read Whitley, made it abundantly clear in his but also liberal political philosophy, political response that the wedding of the two disciplines economy, Hegelian and Marxist philosophy of which Parsons had suggested should not take place history, and postmodern philosophy and cultural immediately. Its announcement should at least be studies — they all become the object of Milbank's postponed until certain matters of vital importance mostly devastating critiques; they all seem to suffer for the marriage would have been cleared up. He from the same birth defect and to be doomed to emphasized that if we assume that one of the perish in view of the revitalized theology or the crucial conditions of a happy marriage lies in the revitalized Catholic thinking which Milbank so equal chances of the partners to talk to each other, powerfully propagates and which he intends to then the marriage Parsons had proposed would develop into the `ultimate' social science (p. 6). probably not be successful. The dialogue between This is certainly a highly provocative thesis, and the partners could, under Parsons's conditions, only a discussion of it is a challenge — not only because be “a conversation in which the social sciences of the enormous breadth of Milbank's scholarship speak and theology listens, afterwards hastening to and the sweeping claims he constantly makes, but adapt its views to what the social sciences have also because his argument touches the self- stated”.2 Theology thus would be a mostly `passive' understanding of theologians and of all those or `dependent' partner and not a `fully participating sociologists who are not willing to completely equal colleague'. compartmentalize their religious and their scientific John Milbank's writings, particularly his bril- identities. Judging from the number of sociological liant book Theology and Social Theory, does not reviews, however, there don't seem to be many who offer us the perspective of a happy marriage either. have taken Milbank's challenge seriously, and Frustrated and even outraged by a world in which if Milbank's very polemical tone in his all-out attack not sociology, then certainly the sciences or at least on sociology as such has certainly not motivated `secular reason' have the say, he does not put much sociologists to deal with his work. In theology, on effort into an attempt to carefully delineate the the other hand, the book has been called “perhaps possibilities and the limits of communication and the most brilliant, ambitious — and yet questionable cooperation between theology and the social — work to have emerged in English theology since 4 sciences. Instead, he turns the tables and declares the Second World War” — by the same reviewer,

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incidentally, who warns the readers of Milbank's other intellectuals of their time. “In one form or “sophisticated fundamentalism”5. Another reviewer another, with the possible exception of Alexis de speaks of an “imposing book of Blumenbergian Tocqueville, Vilfredo Pareto, and William James, proportions”6, and I have no doubt that one can the thesis of secularization was shared by all indeed place the book in one league with works by founding fathers from Karl Marx to John Stuart Hans Blumenberg, Charles Taylor, and Alasdair Mill, from Auguste Comte to Herbert Spencer, MacIntyre — authors Milbank often mentions — from E. B. Tylor to James Frazer, from Ferdinand but also with books by Karl Löwith and Max Tönnies to Georg Simmel, from Émile Durkheim to Scheler, authors who are conspicuously absent Max Weber, from Wilhelm Wundt to Sigmund from Milbank's work. I mention Löwith because Freud, from Lester Ward to William G. Sumner, one could claim that Milbank's insistence on the from Robert Park to George H. Mead. Indeed, the fact that many concepts and intellectual approaches consensus was such that not only did the theory of modernity can be traced back to a process of remain uncontested, but apparently it was not even secularization is much closer to Löwith's attack on necessary to test it, since everybody took it for than to Blumenberg's defence of the “legitimacy of granted.”7 In most cases, this premise was the basis the modern age”; and I mention Scheler because he for the ideas these authors had about the possible had a missionary zeal similar to Milbank's to finally functions of religion, and it definitely makes sense formulate in appropriate philosophical ways what to examine how basic theoretical assumptions of the Christian idea of love is all about. But to take sociology and its whole conceptual apparatus up Milbank's challenge does not mean to surrender depend on this untenable assumption. And to his conclusions. I will have to be selective in my untenable this assumption is. For a long time, cases critique because of the almost encyclopedic range of enduring religious vitality have been interpreted of Milbank's text, but I will try to demonstrate in as exceptional, as deviating from the normal course six steps why I think his argument is deeply and of modernization — so that Poland and Ireland seriously flawed. Milbank, I will show, distorts the might have escaped the forces propelling sociological views of religion and ignores large secularization because of the fusion of religion with parts of the sociological heritage that would be the struggles for national and cultural independence relevant for his questions. He thus misses the there. The most spectacular case has, of course, opportunity to build on an important type of been the United States — but here again the knowledge and opens the door for a sociologically religious life has been seen as part of American uninformed radical rhetoric, making it more exceptionalism in general. Yet there is a growing difficult to enter into a fruitful dialogue between consensus in the sociology of religion that the theologians and social scientists — whether they are American case has to be taken more seriously. If believers or not. Such a dialogue, however, which the currently prevailing explanation of continuing does not have to lead to a marriage of the American religious vitality is correct — the disciplines, could be an important prototype for hypothesis namely that it is mostly religious reasonable communication about differing ultimate pluralism and the strict separation of Church and value commitments in the modern world. State which keep politically disgruntled believers in 8 Let me start with a point about which Milbank the religious `sector' of a society — then and I probably are in agreement. It is undoubtedly secularization should no longer be considered one true that the founding fathers of sociology mostly of the components of modernization, but only a assumed that a process of secularization is a contingent process due to some extent to European corollary of the process of modernization and they traditions of territorial church monopoly and the shared this often unstated assumption with many fusion of political and ecclesiastical interests. representatives of other academic disciplines and

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The more recent `modernization' of parts of the evaluation to which I will return shortly), but above world whose cultures are not based on the Judeo- all when he seems to assume that an analysis of the Christian tradition has given additional strength to institutionalization of the `secular' somehow the assumption that perhaps continental Europe, not shatters its claims to validity. Though Milbank calls America, is the exception. In view of the current his own endeavour `archeological', I would say that resurgence of religion in large parts of the world the appropriate term for it would be `genealogical' Peter Berger now even speaks of the “de- — in the sense in which Nietzsche and Foucault secularization of the world.”9 used this notion to characterize their own critical Secularization in the sense of necessary reli- efforts. But in my eyes it is completely mistaken to gious decline thus clearly is no longer the ruling assume that a demonstration of the contingent — paradigm in the sociology of religion. But the i.e., non-natural and non-necessary — character of a concept of secularization is not unambiguous. phenomenon can in any way diminish the claims it There are also authors who do not use it as a label incorporates. Against Milbank's `genealogical' for religious decline or for a complete privatization analysis, I would defend Charles Taylor's “anti- 11 of religion — which would also be empirically genealogy of morals” , i.e., the idea that our 10 untenable — but for a process of functional deepest value commitments always have to be differentiation between societal subspheres which articulated in narrative form and that we live amidst makes it necessary for religion to adapt, to redefine such narratives, so that the narrative of the rise of a its place in a social order in which no societal secular sphere can as well be read as the narrative subsphere can reign supreme. And it is here, in the leading to our commitment to defend such a sphere, second step, that the disagreement between even as believers, against the imposition of Milbank and myself becomes visible; this also religious convictions on non-believers and other made it important for me to begin with the societal spheres. Milbank goes so far as to call (p. distinction of the different meanings the notion of 15) “the space in which there can be a `secular'” `secularization' has. “fictional”, “just as fictional as all other human It is absolutely crucial for Milbank's argument topographies”. But I doubt that one can use the to show that secularization in the sense of func- word `fictional' here without becoming self- tional differentiation, i.e., as the rise of new spheres contradictory, because the word `fiction' of desacralized politics and depoliticized religion, is presupposes a contrast with `nature' or `reality' itself a process of institutionalization and not the which loses its sense when we consider all insti- mere liberation of a formerly latent force of the tutions the result of creative processes of institu- secular which came into its own as soon as “the tionalization.12 And I find it even worse when pressure of the sacred was relaxed”. I fully agree Milbank calls the famous formula of Hugo Grotius with him when he writes: “The secular as a domain etsi Deus non daretur — which played such an had to be instituted or imagined, both in theory and important role in the modern transformation of in practice. This institution is not correctly grasped natural law — a `ruse' (p. 10), without being able to in merely negative terms as a desacralization”. (p. see it as an offer for the carving out of a sphere for 9) And I share his resistance to the term reasonable argument between different sorts of `secularization' for this process if it is meant as “a believers. metaphor of the removal of the superfluous and additional to leave a residue of the human, the natural and the self-sufficient” (ibid.) But I sharply disagree with him not only when he adds immediately that “received sociology altogether misses the positive institution of the secular” (an

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I would like to be very clear at this point. Quakerism since the 18th century and even by the Milbank is right when he opposes “the facile theme Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council. of `secularization'” (p. 28) if this means a mere A similar positive attitude can apply to other results transfer of concepts like “voluntarist sovereignty” of functional differentiation like the separation of “from God and the sacred to the human and markets from many forms of political intervention. secular”, and when he suggests instead “that only Here also Milbank seems to assume that his the theological model permits one to construct the demonstration of the contingent character of mythos of the sovereign power, or sovereign capitalism (p. 36) will cast doubt on the person, so that it is not a case of `essentially' secular justification of partially autonomous market and pragmatic realities being temporarily described mechanisms. But in most countries the British- in antique theological guise”. He even sees that it American idea of markets as a sort of released was “in the midst of the crisis posed by religious nature played no role anyway — without this conflict (that) Bodin and Hobbes contrived hampering the idea that it could be good for solutions at once sacred and pragmatic, founded economic efficiency to allow markets to play their upon a new metaphysics of political power”. And role. By wrongly assuming that his genealogical one can further agree with him that “it is when analyses of political theology, political economy, theology finally drops out of modern theories of and sociology lead to a sort of Christian ideology sovereignty that the real moment of mystification critique which ushers in a new era free from the occurs, because here the `mythical' character of assumptions of modernity, Milbank comes to the sovereignty is forgotten”. But doesn't that mean that rather appalling statement with which his first Hobbes's own mythological construction could still chapter ends: “It follows that if Christianity seeks be defended if we take the experiences of religious to find a place for secular reason, it may be conflict seriously from which it arose? That exactly perversely compromising with what, on its own is my point. Though I find it justified and fruitful to terms, is either deviancy or falsehood”. (p. 23) use a strong notion of `secularization' as John My alternative approach would consider the Milbank does here — thus, incidentally, being processes of differentiation as the result of institu- closer to Carl Schmitt than to Hans Blumenberg — tionalization processes that cannot be understood I cannot accept the way in which for him this exclusively as the emanation of semantic changes includes the assumption that mankind went astray or as the consequences of social-structural forces. when it followed that path. Empirically it is not We have to trace them back instead to individual correct to assume that the depoliticization of and collective experiences and to the articulation religion after the religious wars and civil wars of and interpretation of these experiences. And here I the early modern age could only lead to complete have to point to another major difference between privatization of religion and a public sphere void of Milbank and myself which I would like to present all religious symbols and religiously grounded at first in theological terms before I demonstrate the manifestations. On the contrary, the precise char- far-reaching consequences it has for our different acter of the delimitation between the political and appreciation of the sociological heritage. In his the religious, or, I should say, between obligatory book Milbank makes some very strong statements public regulation and the voluntary manifestation against the notion of `religious experience', for of belief, will always remain contested and never example with respect to so-called Biblical become definitively fixed. And normatively reli- sociology, i.e., the use of sociological means to gious freedom can be seen as the corollary of illuminate the scriptures and Biblical history, when secularization in this sense of functional differen- he flatly denies a “pre-textual genesis” and writes tiation. Such religious freedom has been considered “social genesis itself is an `enacted' process of a value in itself by some types of Protestantism like reading and writing” (p. 114). These statements

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could be and have been understood (or experience' is a modern notion does not disqualify misunderstood) as the expression of an extreme it from being an appropriate point of departure for version of text-based theology, as an attempt to the understanding of modern religious experience silence all personalized encounters with the sacred and, for that matter, even for the uncovering of texts and as a reduction of theology's function so as important dimensions of pre-modern religion. To “to `persuade' us to absolute submission to the insist on the experiential dimension of religion does universal dominium of a particular ecclesiastical not mean that one naively ascribes a foundational rule”.13 In his response to critics Milbank had not role to a completely inarticulate experience,18 nor only some beautiful things to say about the does it imply that such experience is necessarily experience of faith as trust in the unknown, “as an purely individual, detached from others, from active, joyful, erotic risk (...) in the mode of hopeful collectivities and religious institutions. delight in the unknown”14, but also made clear that And this brings me to our different appreciation his conception of theology does not “exclude the of the sociological heritage. I deeply believe that it experiential and ineffable although it does, indeed, is the notion of experience that gives access to the deny that experience is first of all inarticulate and most fruitful tradition in the sociological study of personal”.15 I find it a deep insight when he em- religion. It was, of course, William James's Gifford phasizes how èxperience' and àrticulation' are lectures, published in 1902 as The Varieties of intertwined; that means that we identify an expe- Religious Experience, which constituted the rience as an experience paradoxically because we revolutionary breakthrough in this direction — face the difficulty of articulation. In Milbank's though its exclusive emphasis on individual words: “Experience arrives at the event of an experience as an experience in one's solitude articulation”.16 The difference between him and me seldom remained unnoticed. A whole generation of thus is not simply the difference between an intellectuals — including Martin Heidegger and èxperiential-expressive' and a `cultural-linguistic' Ludwig Wittgenstein, Georg Simmel and Max view of religious experience, because both of us Scheler — felt deeply moved by this book. In accept the complex interplay between experience, German theology it was Ernst Troeltsch who articulation, and available cultural patterns. But the reviewed the book immediately and later came 19 difference becomes visible, when — in a move back to it repeatedly. It was probably Troeltsch reminiscent of his “genealogy of the secular” — also who drew Max Weber's attention to James's Milbank interprets the fact that the concept of work. The influence of James was even constitutive `religious experience' is indeed a product of the 19th for Émile Durkheim's study of Australian totemism century as an indication that this notion “confines in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (in religious experience to the private sublime margins 1912)20 which one should interpret not merely as an and so `polices' it.”17 Again Milbank seems to be attempt to demonstrate the socially integrative unable to see in the conceptual change which took function of religion, but much more as a theory of place between Schleiermacher and William James a religion based on the analysis of collective probably irreversible expression of the experience. individualization of religion. The problem I have is twofold. First, to say that there is no `prior' experience of God and Jesus in the Christian world, independent of religious narrative and doctrine, is correct, but it does not imply that people could not defend their articulations of such an experience against others and above all against official doctrines. And second, to say that `religious

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Durkheim's work thus inspired not only later The historiography of sociology since Parsons22 functionalist analyses of religion in the works of distinguishes between the forerunners of the Edward Shils and Talcott Parsons, but also the discipline and the classics like Max Weber, Georg maverick endeavour of the French Collège de Simmel, Émile Durkheim, and George Herbert Sociologie in the 1930s around Georges Bataille Mead. While the forerunners were positivists, the and Roger Caillois. I will not go on developing my classics were sharply critical of them. Though both own narrative here of the relationship between Durkheim and Simmel clearly had a positivist social theory and religion in the 20th century. I background, they developed away from it. Max partly did that in my book The Genesis of Values21 Weber never was a positivist; though Milbank which speaks about `values' in order to include the discusses the influence of Neo-Kantianism on great secular quasi-religions of the 20th century like Weber, he ignores the wider field of influences Marxism, Fascism, nationalism and, yes, to some from Nietzsche on the one hand and Dilthey on the extent liberalism if it is considered a doctrine of other. Mead never was a positivist either, but is one salvation. And I have in the meantime elaborated of the crucial figures of pragmatism. Parsons never this theory further in order to explain the genesis of was a positivist. He was deeply influenced by a crucial value complex of our time: the belief in Whitehead's philosophy,23 and his understanding of human rights and human dignity. A sociological the logic of theory construction has been claimed as study of such a question is different from a mere an early case of post-positivist epistemology.24 So rational, argumentative justification and a mere to criticize positivism in order to criticize sociology narration disconnected from questions of clearly will not do. justification; it is the `anti-genealogy of morality' I This constitutive simplification in his approach claimed before, and it is such in a continuity with to sociology distorts Milbank's interpretations of all the sociological tradition which has always led to the main authors. In his subchapter on Max Weber such attempts at `anti-genealogy'. he makes some very perceptive points about the But John Milbank has a different view. For him influence of a Protestant meta-narrative on Weber's the main alternative in secular social theory seems reconstruction of religious history, for example his to lie between positivism and Marxism (p. 260). views on the Reformation, on Jewish history, and This sounds like the battle- cries of the late 1960s. his notion of `disenchantment'. The For him all sociology is deeply permeated by the inappropriateness of Weber's views on Catholicism spirit of positivism; for him sociology in its classic had earlier been pointed out,25 and in recent years forms thus is itself a form of heretic theology, even thorough studies of Weber's theological sources26 a church in disguise. But while what he says is have produced a wealth of insights confirming certainly true for the amateurish predecessors like some of Milbank's hunches. But while it is correct Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer and for the to criticize the implicit secularism of the self-understanding of many empirical social `disenchantment' thesis, one should not researchers, it is a complete exaggeration and misunderstand — as Milbank does — the main trait serious distortion if one generalizes this view so of Weber's work, namely to offer a story in which that it includes the classics of the field and modern secular rationalism is traced back to its professional social theorists. I do not want to bother religious roots. This is rather similar to Milbank's non-sociologists with too many detailed refutations own efforts. It is true that Weber's statements are of Milbank's claims and to appear as a nit-picking couched in terms of tragedy: religious forces, enthusiast upset by an attack on his beloved area of according to him, brought about a regime which specialization. So just listen to this brief list of does not allow these religious forces to remain examples. forceful.

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But Weber's historical predictions have not proven And I have already mentioned that for me to be correct. To say it in a shorthand formula27: we Durkheim's true achievement in the study of can liberate Georg Jellinek's thesis of the Protestant religion, namely the study of collective experience, origins of our belief in human rights from the is completely missing in Milbank's account. Weberian framework; we can see it not as a Even more spectacular than these omissions are charismatization of reason — as Weber did — but as the two that have to be mentioned next. In the a charismatization of the person. Ernst Troeltsch, in whole chapter on Parsons, Milbank never even particular, had a more complex view than Max mentions the rich series of contributions Parsons Weber about the possible role of Christianity and delivered in the last decade of his life to the religion in modernity. He knew that it is possible to sociological study of Christianity and the idea of develop productive re-interpretations of the Judeo- the “gift of life” as, in Parsons's words, the mythical Christian tradition, find new experiential bases for core of the Judeo-Christian tradition.31 And though individualistic beliefs and new organizational Milbank calls himself a pragmatist, his reference is structures, synthesizing traits from churches, sects, Maurice Blondel and none of the authors and individual spirituality or mysticism. This everybody else considers the leading thinkers of allowed Troeltsch to reinterpret Christianity as a pragmatism. Aside from a very superficial passage stronghold of the sacralization of the individual, on G. H. Mead, Milbank has nothing to say about every individual human being, against the the most important philosophical undercurrent of depersonalizing forces of modernity. This would pre-Parsonian American sociology. The name of neither be the easy compromise between religion William James is not mentioned once, and the and modernity nor its antithetical opposition. I do relationship between Blondel's “supernatural not understand how Milbank comes to the assertion pragmatism” and American pragmatism remains (p. 98) that both Troeltsch and Weber made the completely unclear.32 claim that a social factor is “universally the prime This may be sufficient to substantiate my harsh determinant of the religious ethos itself”. Weber criticism of Milbank's picture of sociology. I will had a dualistic, not a monocausal attitude here, and not continue discussing the question whether Troeltsch was very explicit in his direct opposition Milbank's picture of Hegelianism, Marxism, and to what Milbank assumes to be his position.28 postmodernism is similarly distorted. More Regarding Durkheim, Milbank first of all brings important for my argument is that Milbank, by up again the old myth of the origins of sociology in offering such a distorted picture, cuts himself off French counter-Enlightenment thinking and not merely from the rich tradition of sociological counter-revolutionary politics — a myth finally put theory, but also from the empirical research based to rest by Johan Heilbron's studies on French social on it. The hubris of his claims for theology as the thought prior to the Revolution.29 He then “ultimate social science” becomes evident when exaggerates the positivist character of Durkheim's one observes how empirically uncontrolled his work and the degree to which his work contributes remarks on social reality are. to a sacralization of the (French) nation-state. Again, I am ready to admit that a closer study of Durkheim's work in the context of Jewish and Catholic religious debates has to be undertaken.30 But one should not fail to notice that for Durkheim, as an ardent defender of `human rights', the sacralization of the individual person gets priority over any sacralization of the state so that his nationalism is always couched in universalist terms.

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The political message of Milbank's theological severe deficiencies. But if you allow me to refer to orthodoxy is Christian socialism! Milbank knows my German background here, I would rather claim that some of his readers will be surprised, and he a post-totalitarian liberalism — a liberalism which confesses to being aware of the danger that his has gone through the experience of the two main theological positions might be perceived to put him versions of totalitarianism — than a facile `post- on the side of the “Vatican reactionaries”. Milbank liberal' attitude. And whoever calls the Western has been criticized33 for the general elusiveness of democracies a more subtle form of totalitarianism, his institutional proposals, whether they refer to the does not know what totalitarianism is. internal structures of the Church, to Church-State Now Milbank has undoubtedly the right to his relationships, or to the political structures of a political convictions. My point here is not simply society organized along the principles of his that they seem to be different from my own con- Christian socialism. His critics should not allow victions, but that he does not even enter into the him to get away with the old excuse that the attempt to demonstrate how his `ultimate social movement or the community itself will develop the science' leads to the conclusions he draws. Com- alternatives, because against this the old con- pared with the social sciences and the professional servative principle seems to hold that those who ethos there to offer empirical support for one's make a proposal for change have to bear the burden theoretical claims or to examine them empirically, of proof. his views are a clear over-extension of a theological The other side of this elusiveness regarding his discourse. Theology and the social sciences will not institutional proposals is the radical tone of come into a happy marriage on Milbank's Milbank's rhetoric concerning the present order. He conditions. This is not surprising, since Milbank uses the anti-globalization slogan of the present has always seen the relationship in agonistic terms `neo-liberal' order34 and calls “the new global sway and even proclaimed “the end of dialogue”38 of neo-capitalism (...) which is the source of the between the partners. For him the goal of hunger of the poor, the poisoning of nature, conversion should not be taken out of the obliteration of sexual difference and equality, the conversation. lapse of beauty, the loss of historical memory and In my perspective, the crass opposition between so on and so forth.”35 He does not even try to use attempts to convert, on the one hand, and mere social-scientific knowledge about the rather rational discourse, on the other, also stems from the ambivalent consequences of globalization and relative neglect of the experiential dimension in about the social causes of poverty or environmental Milbank's thought. If we remain on the level of problems. His attacks on capitalism and bu- doctrine, we can only imagine mutual exclusion or reaucracy at once sound like old style Critical pseudo-rational attempts to prove the superiority of Theory, and Milbank may be one of the last authors one's own belief. But if we recognize the to speak of `late capitalism'36 after the collapse of importance of religious experience, we tend to communism. He is proud to be “one of the few assume that there is indeed something we can learn people continuing to uphold the bare possibility of from our partner in a conversation. Where else a `radicalism'”.37 Notions like `the oppressed' and should the curiosity to learn from others come `violence' appear frequently, but their usage is as from? It leads to modesty concerning the range of vague as it is in much current academic radicalism. one's own experiences. And it leads to an openness He even calls the present order a “more subtle toward what Charles Taylor calls in his lecture `A totalitarianism” and envisages a post-liberal age. I Catholic Modernity?' the “humbling realization that do know that everybody who criticizes such radical modern culture, in breaking with the structures and rhetoric is easily perceived as complacent, satisfied beliefs of Christendom, also carried certain facets with the present world-order and ignorant of its of Christian life further than they were ever taken

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or could have been taken within Christendom”.39 freedom. Because as valid as this justification may Now I don't want to push Milbank completely be for believers, we still need to accept that others in the direction of Catholic triumphalism. I find it find other justifications convincing, given their important when he replies to a Jewish critic that religious or secular premises. But this would mean religious toleration can indeed not only be founded a religious acceptance also of secular justifications on secular rationalism, but also on Christianity, and of the secular sphere — something Milbank abhors. he mentions “some Christian humanists, some 17th- It would be along the lines of the famous preamble th century puritans, some 18 -century Anglicans of a of the Polish constitution — that believers come to perfectly orthodox cast (who) argued that Christian it one way and non-believers the other way, but belief of its nature requires absolutely free assent, both agree in their commitment to its principal and that the light of the gospel was only able to values and procedures. That seems to me to be the manifest itself in the relatively free and open period true prospect for fruitful communication. In that of late antiquity”.40 And he even claims: “Pluralism sense the dialogue between theology and social is far better upheld by Christians than by Enlighten- theory is similar to the dialogues going on between ment”. I doubt that the historical record supports the proponents of different value commitments this statement empirically, but I see the normative within social theory. There can be and has to be a impulse behind this statement and I sympathize sphere for the peaceful and mutually enriching with it. Nevertheless, and ignoring possible in- communication between values, the related consistencies between these declarations and the narratives and practices. John Milbank's intense thrust of Milbank's big book, it misses the crucial effort to make theology and Catholic thinking play controversial point when Milbank argues here for a an important role in such a dialogue again is possible theological justification of religious enormously welcome. But his tendencies to overextend his claims, and the anti-liberal and anti- empirical undertones of his work are in danger of increasing the intellectual isolation from which Milbank set out to release theology.

Notes 1.Talcott PARSONS, `Social Science and Theology' in William A. BEARDSLEE (ed.), America and the Future of Theology. Philadelphia, 1967, pp. 136-157. 2.Oliver READ WHITLEY, `Questions to Talcott Parsons', ibid., pp. 165-173, here p. 170. 3.John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason. Oxford 1990, p. 9. (Future references to Milbank's book will be in parentheses in the text.) 4.Richard H. ROBERTS, `Transcendental Sociology? A Critique of John Milbank' in Scottish Journal of Theology 46(1993), pp. 527-535, here p. 527. 5.Ibid., p. 534. 6.Bruce KRAJEWSKI, Introduction to the Symposium on `Theology and Social Theory' in Arachne 2(1995), pp. 105-108, here p. 108. 7.José CASANOVA, Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago, 1994, p. 17. 8.Stephen WARNER, `Work in Progress Toward a New Paradigm for the Sociological Study of Religion in the United States' in American Journal of Sociology 98(1993), pp. 1044-1093. 9.Peter BERGER (ed.), The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics. Washington, D.C.

1999; cf. the introduction by BERGER (pp. 1-18) and Grace DAVIE, `Europe: The Exception That Proves the Rule?' (pp. 65-

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84). 10.This is the main point of Casanova's book (see fn. 7) on whose distinction of different meanings of `secularization' I rely. 11.I take this expression from a review of Charles Taylor's Sources of the Self by Martin SEEL, `Die Wiederkehr der Ethik des guten Lebens' in Merkur 45(1991), pp. 42-49, here p. 49. 12.See Hans JOAS, Ìnstitutionalization as a Creative Process: The Sociological Importance of Cornelius Castoriadis' Political Philosophy' in American Journal of Sociology 94(1988/89), pp. 1184-99, reprinted in Hans JOAS, Pragmatism and Social Theory. Chicago, 1993, pp. 154-171. 13.E.g., Eve Tavor BANNET, `Beyond Secular Theory' in Arachne 2(1995), pp. 109-115. 14.John MILBANK, Òn Theological Transgression' in: Arachne 2(1995), pp. 145-176, here p. 154. 15.Ibid., p. 164. 16.Ibid. 17.Ibid. 18.This point has been forcefully argued by Richard Shusterman against Richard Rorty's interpretation of Dewey in: Richard SHUSTERMAN, `Dewey on Experience: Foundation or Reconstruction?' in The Philosophical Forum 26(1994), pp. 127-148. 19.Ernst Troeltsch, review of James in Deutsche Literaturzeitung 25(1904), c. 3021-3027; Ernst TROELTSCH, Èmpirismus und Platonismus in der Religionsphilosophie' in Ernst TROELTSCH, Gesammelte Schriften. Vol. 2. Tübingen, 1913, pp. 364-385. 20.Émile DURKHEIM, Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse. Paris, 1912. 21.Hans JOAS, The Genesis of Values. Cambridge, 2000 (German original Frankfurt/Main 1997). 22.Talcott PARSONS, The Structure of Social Action. New York, 1937. 23.Harald WENZEL, Die Ordnung des Handelns. Talcott Parsons' Theorie des allgemeinen Handlungssystems. Frankfurt/Main, 1991. 24.Jeffrey ALEXANDER, `Theoretical Logic' in Sociology, Vol. 1: Positivism, Presuppositions, and Current Controversies. Berkeley, 1982. 25.Werner STARK, `The Place of Catholicism in Max Weber's Sociology of Religion' in Sociological Analysis 29(1968), pp. 202-210. 26.For example Friedrich Wilhelm GRAF, `Die `kompetentesten' Gesprächspartner? Implizite theologische Werturteile in Max Webers `Protestantischer Ethik'', in Volkhard KRECH, Hartmann TYRELL (eds.), Religionssoziologie um 1900. Würzburg, 1995, pp. 209-248 (slightly different English version in Hartmut LEHMANN, Günther ROTH (eds.), Weber's Protestant Ethic: Origin, Evidence, Contexts. Cambridge, 1987. 27.For a longer version see my `The Charisma of Human Rights', to be published in a volume about Max Weber edited by Charles Chamic et al. 28.I call Weber's distinction between ìdeas' and ìnterests' dualistic despite the fact that Weber was, of course, mostly interested in their combination. Ernst Troeltsch explicitly repudiated the claim he purportedly makes in the introduction to: Ernst Troeltsch, Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen. 2 vols. Tübingen, 1912. 29.Johan HEILBRON, The Rise of Social Theory. Cambridge, 1995. 30.As Milbank demands in Òn Theological Transgression', p. 172. The Jewish context has now been thoroughly studied by Ivan STRENSKI, Durkheim and The Jews of France. Chicago, 1997. 31.Most of these studies have been collected in Talcott PARSONS, Action Theory and the Human Condition, New York, 1978. See on these studies: Hans JOAS, `The gift of life: The sociology of religion in Parsons' late work' in Journal of Classical Sociology 1(2001). 32.Cf. on this question Frederick J.D. SCOTT, S.J., `William James and Maurice Blondel' in The New Scholasticism 32(1958), pp. 32-44. 33.Alan SHANDRO, Òn the Politics of Postmodern Theology' in Arachne 2(1995), pp. 136-144. 34.John MILBANK, On Theological Transgression, p. 151.

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35.Ibid., p. 173. 36.Ibid., p. 156. 37.Ibid., p. 157. 38.John MILBANK, `The End of Dialogue'. 39.Charles TAYLOR in James L. HEFT (ed.), A Catholic Modernity?, New York, 1999, p. 16. 40.For the Jewish critique cf. Daniel BOYARIN, `A Broken Olive Branch' in Arachne 2(1995), pp. 124-130; for Milbank's response: On Theological Transgression, pp. 170.

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