Reformed and Radically Orthodox?: Participatory Metaphysics, Reformed Scholasticism and Radical Orthodoxy's Critique of Modernity

Abstract

Radical Orthodoxy locates the intellectual roots of secular modernity in the attenuation of Thomistic participatory metaphysics in the late medieval period. John Milbank implicates Reformational theologies in this unintentionally secularizing movement. I examine seventeenth-century Reformed scholastic Stephen Charnock, contending that he articulates an account of participatory metaphysics similar to Thomas Aquinas, and even further, fails to exhibit the negative trends which Milbank and Catherine Pickstock associate with Scotus and the via moderna. This analysis of Charnock calls into question the location of Reformed theology in Radical Orthodoxy's genealogy of secular modernity, and opens up possibilities for rapprochement between Reformed theology and Radical Orthodoxy. Radical Orthodoxy and Reformed theologyThe roots of Radical Orthodoxy reside in a historical critique of secular modernity set forth in John Milbank's Theology and Social Theory. The contours of Milbank's critique are by now well known, but crucial for our purposes, is Milbank's contention that the roots of secular modernity lie in the abandonment, or at least drastic weakening, of Thomistic participatory metaphysics. Briefly stated, Milbank contends that secular modernity is not merely the neutral space uncovered by the receding tide of primitivism and superstition, but rather consists in a distinctive evaluation of human personhood and ends which prioritizes indifferent self-determination, and a pseudo-proprietary right to exercise one's volitional