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Document Details : Title: Litany of Truth and Scholia on Reason according to Radical Orthodoxy Author(s): VENARD, Olivier-Thomas Journal: Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses Volume: 90 Issue: 2 Date: 2014 Pages: 287-322 DOI: 10.2143/ETL.90.2.3032681 Abstract : The bold positions of the 'Radical Orthodoxy' movement towards truth is being criticized in two opposite ways. Sometimes it is considered as overly postmodern (hence: relativist) in its rejection of the philosophical correspondence-theories. Sometimes it is rejected as yielding to dogmatism in its appeal to ancient theologians and use of Christian beliefs. Both criticisms spring from an underestimation of the connection – deeply assumed but hardly expressed by 'Radical orthodox' thinkers – between the 'linguistic turn' and the worldview brought about by the Canon of Scriptures. In Scripture, language is not a mere representative tool. Ever since Genesis 1, verbum precedes (created) esse, everything being included in the Word of God ever since the beginning. Hence, the biblical ideal of human verba is to imitate the unique Verbum of God – at least: to retrieve the divine take on creation; at most: to share and continue the divine work by uttering 'prophetic', performative words which 'make' what they say. Besides, in this worldview, rational knowledge and faith, both mediated through words, senses, events and community, are no longer discrete disciplines. Something deeply theological suffuses any access to truth. Our contribution begins with a brief attempt to articulate the link between biblical world and postmodern words, in describing truth as: not representative, linguistic, narrative, scriptural, culturally mediated, historical, poetic, and liturgical. In liturgy, the performative supplement of truth inherent in any human action reaches its acme: indeed, 'God inhabits the praises of his people' (Psalms 22,3 and 114,2). Our paper acknowledges the ultimately liturgical aspect of truth according to such authors as John Milbank or Catherine Pickstock in its very display. It presents 'Radical Orthodoxy'’s positions on truth in the form of a litany. Truth is also described as: participated, eschatological and apocalyptic, theological correspondence, performance, beautiful, cosmological, sensory, especially touchable. Eventually, truth is Christological and Trinitarian. Our paper ends with specifically theological variations, listing the fittingness (convenientia) of both core dogmas of Christianity (incarnation and Trinity) with the human access to any truth through senses, desire, events, community, and words. In conclusion, an account of truth as correspondence may be retrieved theologically. Real correspondence between word and world is only possible in a (biblical) worldview suffused with the presence of a creator God. It is only achieved through shifting from a 'resultative' to an 'operative' take on reality (both material and spiritual), from a semantic to a pragmatic conception of language. Thus theology is back among practical sciences: no longer a theoretical discourse about God, it becomes a discourse providing with – and not only representing – That about Which it deals. Will theologians dare to embrace such a task? |
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