MacIntyre, Derrida and Milbank: Notes towards a Neo-Aristotelian Politics

The Self-Authorisation of the Church College in the 20th Century ‘Fin de Siècle’

MacIntyre, Derrida and Milbank: Notes towards a Neo-Aristotelian Politics

or


by Duncan Pugh

!"Blind mouthes! that scarce themselves know how to hold

A sheep-hook, or have learn’d ought els the least

That to the faithfull Herdmans art belongs!

What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;

And when they list, their lean and flashy songs

Grate on their scrannel Pipes of wretched straw,

The hungry Sheep look up, and are not fed,

But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,

Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:"

John Milton, Lycidas, 1637.

!Introduction

This paper was first presented to post-graduate students at the University College of St.

Mark and St. John, Plymouth, UK, on Saturday 19th April 1997. It asks about how the

Church of England and by extension the Church College at which we were gathered on

that day might respond to John Milbank's attempt to reconcile Alasdair Macintyre’s call

for the restoration of an ethics of virtue with Jacques Derrida's post-modern affirmation

of absolute difference. Milbank sees them as opposing voices but detects a common

thread of violence in their work. In applying this debate specifically to the institution of

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the Church of England and one of its Colleges we can propose a response to the central

ethico-political concern that is addressed in the work of all three of these writers.

Update December 2011: Theology and Philosophy are no longer taught at The College

of St. Mark and St. John.

The Question Concerning Martin Heidegger

"....... how hard it is to break through the wall of the signifier. Many people have tried since Christ, beginning with Christ. But Christ himself botched the crossing, the jump, he bounced off the wall.” 1

Let’s begin by elaborating on the reasons for framing this discussion in terms of a

question about self-authorisation in relation to the role of the Church College at the end

of the Twentieth century. The title is a parody of Martin Heidegger's infamous Rectorship

Address of 1933, The Self-Assertion of the German University. However, I also want to suggest

that the political or pedagogical questions raised here with reference to Heidegger's 1933

lecture, should be of some significance to us as postgraduate students in the department

of Theology and Philosophy at the University College of St. Mark and St. John.

Heidegger's concern, in the Rectorship Address, was with creating an agenda through which

the German University might perform a guiding role for the German nation. We can

raise a similar question in relation to the Church College. What specific political or

pedagogical role should be played in our society by the institution at which we are

gathered today? What is the raison d'être of this educational institution? By whose

authority does it claim to represent the Christian God in contemporary British society? 2

What kind of leadership can be supplied by the discourses of Theology and Religious

Studies that we practise in this department? What is their relationship with the other

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disciplines practised across the college as a whole? How might they attempt to engage

effectively in the public arena of ethical and political discourse? To take such questions as

these seriously today could be seen as an irrelevant activity. Moreover, in the Twentieth

century fin de siècle, any attempt to answer them might be considered as an extremely

dangerous enterprise and therefore one that should be suspended indefinitely.

The Self-Assertion of the German University was Heidegger's inaugural lecture as the Rector of

Freiburg University. This appointment, like other politically influential positions at that

time in Germany, was bestowed upon him by the Nazi party who used the lecture as

propaganda to win the support of students, academics and intellectuals. Copies of it

were posted up in the hallways of every German university. The following quote, cited by

Jacques Derrida in his 1987 lectures on Heidegger, published under the title, Of Spirit:

Heidegger and the Question gives us an idea of why it might be considered controversial with

the benefit of hindsight:

" 'To will the essence of the German University is to will science, in the sense of willing the spiritual historical mission of the German people as a people that knows itself in its State. Science and German destiny must, in this will to essence, achieve power at the same time.' " 3

Like Derrida in Of Spirit, I will not get involved in the debate surrounding Heidegger's

brief and certainly misguided endorsement of the Nazi party. I merely want to point out 4

that, at the end of the Twentieth century, beyond the Führerprinzip, Auschwitz and

Dachau, it is perhaps no longer appropriate to encourage a 'self-assertive', or 'self-

authorising', strategy in a bid to provide political or pedagogical leadership. Yet, as the

Twentieth century draws to a close, we can also ask if it is at all possible for an

institutionalised discourse to operate from anything other than self-assertive premises? Is

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not every institution necessarily informed by a political or pedagogical desire, and thus by

definition self-assertive? Does not every institution, like it or not, affect our social

landscape? These questions are especially pertinent when applied to a discourse that

claims to have some expertise concerning knowledge of God.

Post-Marx: The Second Death of God 5

In the nineteenth-century fin de siècle, Friedrich Nietzsche announced the ‘death of God’.

At the time this was seen mainly as posing a threat to institutionalised Christianity. What

has often been obscured is the fact that Nietzsche saw the consequences of this death

extending far beyond theological and religious discourse. The sense in which Nietzsche

understood this can be seen in this sentence from Twilight of the Idols, written in 1888, it is

aimed more towards the discourse of Philology than Theology:

"I fear we are not getting rid of God because we still believe in grammar.” 6

Today it does not require a thinker of Nietzsche's stature to recognise the catastrophic

consequences of this death for every form of institutionalised discourse. It is all too

common today, both inside and outside academia, for people to profess suspicion about

overtly theological claims to truth. Today the 'Nietzschean' critique is being extended to

other, ostensibly non-theological, but nonetheless truth orientated discourses. In the work

of certain writers, this on-going critique has led us to a confrontation with the possibility

that any attempt whatsoever to justify, or authorise, the perspective of a particular

discourse through an appeal to truth might be a fundamentally self-subverting enterprise. 7

Today we not only have to come to terms with the 'death of God' and thus also the notion

of theological truth. One could say that we are experiencing a 'second death of God’.

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Take, for example, this quotation from Jean Baudrillard writing in 1976 with the intention

of performing a 'Nietzschean' critique of certain professedly anti-theological discourses,

most specifically those of Marxism, psychoanalysis, and the discourses of the human-

sciences in general:

"All these things _ factories, asylums, prisons, schools _ still exist, and will no doubt continue to exist for an indefinite period, as warning signs ....... . There have always been churches to hide the death of God, or to hide the fact that God was everywhere, which amounts to the same thing." 8

In order to end this introduction, let us take this statement of Baudrillard's at face value,

let us ask about its significance in relation to our discussion today. What for Baudrillard,

writing in 1976, would our gathering in this room signify? What for him, would our

discussions and debates, in this building, the home of an institution that has often been

referred to, for the sake of certain economic considerations, as 'Marjons', amount to?

On one level what we are doing here today could be seen as a somewhat anachronistic

activity. Baudrillard would perhaps say that as students of Theology or Religious Studies

in a Church of England approved college, we are merely simulating a discourse that died,

for all intents and purposes, at least 100 years ago and that in so doing we serve only to

disguise one or both of two fatal facts which contaminate our contemporary social

existence and in a stronger sense perhaps, radically subvert the foundations of the

institutional discourse that we are seeking to perpetuate here.

In what sense then could we be seen as endorsing this double-function that Baudrillard

accords to factories, asylums, prisons and schools, here today at a Church of England

approved college in Plymouth? Such things have always existed, Baudrillard said, chiefly

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in order "to hide the death of God, or to hide the fact that God (is) everywhere, which

amounts to the same thing.”

From the first perspective we could be seen as attempting to conceal a ‘God-shaped hole’,

which lies at the centre of Theology and its sister-discipline of Religious Studies. From

the second, perhaps more pertinent angle, one might conclude that, along with the

priests, we have taken God hostage in the name of some privileged expert knowledge of

the divine, of some perceived although not, conveniently enough, easily expressible

theological or religious truth. At best we could be seen as misguidedly attempting to

mediate something that is, or at least should be, always already known by everybody.

Yet what, if any, significance can we derive from the fact that the reference to religion

operates for Baudrillard only as a means of illustrating the significance of his critique of

certain modern secular discourses, from the fact that he wants to subvert the political and

pedagogical role that is played in our society by "factories, asylums, prisons (and) schools",

which he sees as the crypto-churches of advanced capitalist modernity? Baudrillard's

critique actually appears more threatening to certain other discourses that take place

within this college, sociology for example, and that is to say nothing of the teacher-

training degrees and the public-relations department.

So, does such an observation merely confirm the absolute irrelevance of Theology in our

society? Or is Theology, given the failure of the secular discourses of modernity

presented with an opportunity to re-assert its influence upon the prevailing political and

pedagogical order? Yet even if we can gain genuine encouragement from the situation

that Baudrillard has described so concisely, how could such a re-assertion have a

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significant impact in a world where any and every claim to possess ethical or political

authority can always be seen as a mere exercise in wilful self-authorisation, an attempt to

exert power over others?

In sum, how might a theological institution, for example a Church or a Church College,

conceive its role as a self-authorised mediator of God's 'truth' in our society? How could

it act, without either lapsing into political irrelevance, or, at the other end of the scale,

acting in a coercive manner?

It is possible to illustrate and explore this question through a comparative study of the

writings of Alasdair MacIntyre and Jacques Derrida, both of whom can be read as

having some sympathy towards Theology. I will now briefly recount a central argument

of my more extensive exploration of these issues in MacIntyre, Derrida and Milbank:

'Christianity' in the Garden of Gethsemane, before ending this paper with a thought-9

experiment, a hypothetical strategy for the church. This will address the question of how

we might begin to formulate an effective political and pedagogical strategy for the church.

A 'self-authorising' strategy that could, in principle, avoid any lapse into coercion at the

same time as attempting to make itself more relevant to the society within which it

currently operates. Where all of this might leave a Church College is a question that

must here remain open.

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At the Threshold of Theology

I have employed the example of Heidegger's attempt in 1933, to 'will the essence of the

German University … to will science, in the sense of willing the spiritual historical

mission of the German people’, in order to illustrate the problems that face Alasdair

MacIntyre at the end of After Virtue. Heidegger could be seen as responding to the 10

problematic situation that was described much later by Baudrillard. Like Nietzsche

before him as MacIntyre laboriously and instructively laments, Heidegger too recognised

the catastrophic consequences of the 'death of God'. Like MacIntyre in Three Rival

Versions of Moral Enquiry, Heidegger too saw the institution of the university as providing 11

a possible means of going beyond a purely negative critique of the dominant ethico-

political discourses of modernity. Hegel, just to remind you, hovers over all of these

questions too.

In After Virtue, MacIntyre describes his own 'second death of God' scenario, employing the

example of Nietzsche in order to support his narration. For MacIntyre, Nietzsche

exemplifies the flawed nature of the Enlightenment's stress on the individual moral agent

and its rejection of the Aristotelian teleological ethical scheme, with its functional concept

of man-as-a-political-animal, the animal who loves to live in cities, the animal who by

nature desires to know. The only possible alternative to Nietzsche's nihilistic strategy, for

MacIntyre, is that we should perform a reworking of an ethics of virtue in a neo-

Aristotelian manner. That is, that we should work towards the creation of meaningful

social practices within which moral language can become more rational, where people

can appeal to truly impersonal criteria in making their moral judgments.

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However, in the light of his own philosophico-historical critique MacIntyre has set

himself an impossible task. His appeal to Aristotelianism and the necessity of creating

recognised roles and values as the context within which rational ethical judgments can be

made, in which phronesis (practical ethical wisdom) can be practised, would seem to be

dependent upon a radical, complex and probably impossible restructuring of society and

its institutions. The question that arises inexorably for MacIntyre's strategy then is how

he proposes to change this context, for without such a change, and this holds ex-hypothesi

for the argument of After Virtue and Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, the possibility of

creating a coherent ethico-political discourse must be completely ruled out.

Like Heidegger then, and in apparent opposition to a thinker like Baudrillard, MacIntyre

sees the institution of the university as a possible site from where we might attempt a

transformation-from-within of the prevailing social order. For the sake of brevity I must

leave aside here a discussion of certain points of convergence between MacIntyre and

Derrida as the contemporary representatives of the 'Aristotelian' and 'Nietzschean'

traditions of ethico-political discourse. let’s just say that Hegel would be a good starting

point. Here, let Baudrillard represent Derrida's position as lying at the other end of the

scale to Heidegger's politics. A 'Baudrillardian' reading of Derrida would perhaps

contend that he has only managed to avoid a 'Heideggerian' lapse into coercion at the

cost of his writings becoming absolutely irrelevant and benign insofar as effecting a

transformation of our contemporary social context goes.

For example, one rather Nietzschean implication of Baudrillard's hypothesis in Symbolic

Exchange and Death is that in the end everything comes down to power relationships and

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thus, in order to avoid lapsing into a coercive politics or pedagogy, it has become our duty

to maintain a rigorous critical disposition towards every form of institutionalised

discourse. This is much the same as saying that we should avoid any form of positive,

political or pedagogical, assertion whatsoever. Yet does not such a strategy also leave us

impotent if we are seeking to restore rational coherence to contemporary ethical and

political discourse? This is the question that MacIntyre would like to pose against

Derrida.

On the other hand, is not the territory onto which we must venture if we adopt an

early-1930s Heideggerian strategy, or indeed an early-1980s MacIntyrean strategy, simply

too dangerous for us to try and take a step beyond Baudrillard's hyper-critical stance?

Does not any such self-assertive, or self-authorising, attempt to effect a significant change

in the prevailing ethos of our culture, be it in the style of MacIntyre or Heidegger,

inevitably risk becoming a coercive strategy? This is the question that Derrida might

want to pose against MacIntyre. Let us now turn to our conclusion and the question of

how this might relate to the discourse of Theology, its social representative the Christian

Church and of course the Church College.

The Narrato-Logistics of Death

John Milbank's Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason attempts to provide a

specifically Christian-theological resolution to this dilemma. Having borrowed insights

from MacIntyre's critique of modernity and his subsequent appeal to narrative, or

tradition constituted enquiry, as well as from Derrida's project of deconstruction, Milbank

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argues for a Christian 'out-narration' of what he perceives as a common thread of

violence in the writings of MacIntyre and Derrida. 12

In short Milbank casts MacIntyre in a 'Heideggerian' role and Derrida in a

'Baudrillardian' role. In his narrated scenario, MacIntyre's appeal to the Aristotelian

virtues is seen as an illegitimate attempt to impose an order on Derrida's absolute

affirmation of human difference and the assumption that any such attempt to impose

order is only a disguised expression of our will to power. The implication of this line of

Milbank's argument is that by arguing for Aristotle against Nietzsche, MacIntyre has only

attempted to suppress violence with violence. On the other hand, a supposedly

uncompromising anti-traditional stance on the part of Derrida makes his strategy appear

as nothing more than an insane celebration of violence that has abandoned any hope of

achieving a lasting resolution to this conflict.

Milbank suggests that MacIntyre's appeal to an ethics of virtue could be effectively

reconciled to Derrida's absolute affirmation of difference through practising the Christian

virtue of charity. Obviously, for Milbank's resolution to take place it was implied that only

the Christian Church, as the social representative of Christian Theology could provide it

with any significant impetus. However, the dialogue he stages between MacIntyre's

'Aristotelian' and Derrida's 'Nietzschean' voices, as a means of proposing a Christian-

theological resolution to the ethico-political dilemmas he wants to resolve, employs an

oversimplified perspective on their writings. Furthermore, it could be said that Milbank's

overt appeal to charity, and his manifest failure to practise it consistently, operated in

much the same way as Heidegger's appeal to the 'spiritual historical mission' of the

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German nation. It thus sounds at times like a blindly assertive and, ex hypothesi for

Milbank's argument, fundamentally self-subverting, defence of institutionalised

Christianity. 13

Thus, although there is a sense in which I want to agree with Milbank's hypothetical

resolution. In the following thought-experiment, I will suggest that the only real way in

which Christian Theology, or the Christian Church, might contribute towards a

transformation-from-within of the prevailing social order would be if it committed

institutional suicide. The argument of this thought-experiment can be supported with

reference to the narratologic of Jesus' crucifixion in John's Gospel. 14

It gains support also from MacIntyre's philosophico-historical argument regarding the

latent social influence of Theology and, for example, Derrida's discussion of the affinities

between his own pedagogical strategy and that of the 'negative theologians' in his 1987

lecture How to Avoid Speaking. They provide us with a means of illustrating a possible role

for the Christian Church in creating the conditions for going beyond a purely negative

critique of modernity. For philosophical, or should we say narratological reasons, the 15

Christian tradition is perhaps uniquely relevant to the questions that are opened up by a

comparison of Derrida and MacIntyre. For socio-historical reasons the Church is

uniquely positioned to escape the compromises that face the university in its role as a slave

of techno-capitalism, as a research vehicle for the military or as a facilitator of the

managerial ethos of our increasingly decadent culture, and that’s just mentioning a few.

I want to suggest that the Christian Church could complete the projects of MacIntyre

and Derrida, in the sense that it could provide a widely effective ethico-political response

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on the institutional level to the problems that their writings have exposed. Even when

approached on a very general level, I believe that it would be possible to stage a dialogue

between MacIntyre, Derrida and Milbank, in terms of a simple and widely accessible

examination of Christian views on the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the sense in

which Jesus should be understood as the son of God. 16

In this scenario the theological correspondences can be effectively elaborated through

contrast and comparison of certain readings of John's Gospel, for example those provided

by Rudolf Bultmann's Theology of the New Testament, and John Louis-Martyn's History and

Theology in the Fourth Gospel. In John Jesus is the word made flesh. Unlike Moses who 17

lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, John's Jesus is himself the sign that will convince us

of the glory of God, 'glory' being a translation of the Greek doxa, which according to its

rather ‘negative' Platonic resonances, would provide an illuminating contrast with its use

in John. In John one could say, as with Derrida and Baudrillard, that everything takes

place on the surface, that the medium is the message, that for him too there exists no real

distinction between God and man, between a sign and that which it signifies. Thus John,

and indeed John's Jesus, could be seen as being engaged in a form of post-death-of-God,

praxis. From the perspective of Bultmann and Louis-Martyn, this could be described as

an ongoing terrorist campaign against the religious authorities of first-century Palestine.

This thought-experiment about a possible course of action for the Church of England is

an attempt to translate a 'Derridean' strategy onto the institutional level. For example,

one could suggest that the church, if it does want to play an ethico-politically effective

role in contemporary society, should follow Bultmann's understanding of Jesus as God-

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incarnate. This passage from Bultmann would certainly have many affinities with

Derrida's strategy:

"(But) the astonishing thing about it is that Jesus' words never convey anything specific or concrete that he has seen with the Father. Not once does he communicate matters or events to which he had been a witness by either eye or ear. Never is the heavenly world the theme of his words. Nor does he communicate cosmogonic or soteriological mysteries like the Gnostic Redeemer. ....... Whatever Jesus does is a speaking, whatever he says is a doing. His actions speak his words act." 18

Derrida can be read as having attempted to transform a similar exegesis into a form of

institutionally grounded ethico-political praxis, perhaps even as an 'anonymous Christian’.

However, it is to Dietrich Bonhoeffer that the clergy would surely wish to turn for a recent

example of an overtly Christian call for such a Christ-like form of praxis. If only it could

be enacted on a church-wide scale:

"The Church is the Church only when it exists for others. To make a start, it should give away all its property to those in need. The clergy must live solely on the free-will offerings of their congregations, or possibly engage in some secular calling. The Church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live in Christ, to exist for others ....... It must not underestimate the importance of human example (which has its origin in the humanity of Jesus and is so important in Paul's teaching); It is not abstract argument, but example that gives its word emphasis and power." 19

There are, of course, many respects in which the story of John's Jesus and indeed that of

Bonhoeffer do not invite comparison with Derrida's biography: Jesus openly proclaims

himself as the son of God to his contemporaries. Bonhoeffer was prepared to die in

order that his freedom might be perfected in the glory of his Christian God. This

presents a stark contrast to his fellow German, Heidegger, who was living through the

same historical circumstances. But how does the Church of England measure-up to such

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a comparison? Why does the nineteenth-century critique of Christianity still seem so

pertinent in Britain today, especially when we consider that a rather sophisticated version

of precisely such a critique of 'religiosity' was a central theme of such an early example of

Christian-Theology as that provided by John's Gospel?

John's refusal to defer the parousia (the ‘second coming’ of Christ) and to preach a realised

eschatology is made all the more effective by Jesus' self-proclamation as God-incarnate.

Furthermore, what makes John's narrative speak to us most effectively today is the

willingness of Jesus to embrace his own crucifixion. It is this that sustains the

contradictory nature of his open self-proclamations that he, himself, is God-incarnate. It

is also what provides his 'deconstruction' of Judaism with its ethico-political force. 20

As God-incarnate Jesus knew in advance that he must embrace death on the cross in

order to reveal God's glory (doxa). There is no compromise at all on this question. Never

once does he stray from the path of total revolution. In this respect one could ask of the

Church of England and thus of the Church College, as self-proclaimed guardians of the

'truth' of God-incarnate in our society, as self-styled counter-cultural institutions, whether

or not they can live up to their own claims to divinity, whether or not they can sustain this

contradiction in a way comparable to Jesus' strategy as it is narrated by John.

So, let’s finish off by suggesting a way in which the church might attempt to adopt a

strategy that could be compared to Derrida's ongoing project of the 'deconstruction' of

metaphysical, or theistic, attempts to restore a rational coherence to ethico-political

discourse. Is the church capable of raising such a strategy, by acting in the spirit of

Bonhoeffer, onto and beyond the institutional level by practising, or at least preaching, a

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similarly post-theistic, or post-death-of-God, realised eschatology to that of John's Gospel.

This accords with Milbank's appeal to charity, as well as pointing out a possible way in

which Christianity might attempt to capitalise on Derrida's example. The conclusion is

that the Christian Church has to die in order to create any possibility of taking its

argument forward in a significant way.

Posting Christianity: Christianity in the Garden Gethsemane

In the Gospel of John just after his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is

questioned at the court of the high priest. In the midst of Peter's three denials we see his

Messiah in yet another confrontation with the religious 'authorities' of his day. His first

questioner is Annas:

"The high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. Jesus answered him, 'I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together; I have said nothing secretly. Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me, what I said to them; they know what I said.' " 21

I am not making inappropriate comparisons here between Derrida and Jesus in saying

that there is an obvious parallel between these words of Jesus to the high priest and

Derrida's approach to defending himself in How to Avoid Speaking . Furthermore, beyond 22

their common refusal to speak in a certain self-assertive way, it could also be argued that

they both submit to a not entirely dissimilar death. Derrida is all too aware of one of the

possible consequences that arrive beyond his critique of theistic and crypto-theistic

discourse. He remembers this in the earlier part of the Envois section of The Post Card, it

involves a 'chance' meeting at Oxford University with yet another person who wants to

'crucify' him for what he has written:

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"....... Afterward, on the lawn where the discussion continued, wandered along according to switch points as unforeseeable as they are inevitable, a young student (very handsome) thought he could provoke me and, I think, seduce me a bit by asking me why I didn't kill myself. In his eyes this was the only way to 'forward' (his word) my 'theoretical discourse', the only way to be consequent and to produce an event. Instead of arguing, of sending him back to this or that, I answered with a pirouette, I'll tell you, by sending him back his question, by signifying to him that he must have been savouring, along with me, the interest that he visibly was taking, at this very moment, in this question that I moreover concerned myself with along with others, among them myself. In private. And what proves to you, I said to him if I remember correctly, that I do not do so, and more than once." 23

It is perhaps a metaphorical abuse to suggest that the sense in which Derrida says that he

kills himself here is of a kind with the actual crucifixion of Jesus. Yet from a

narratological perspective, here that of John's narration of the life and death of Jesus, and

the way that Jesus narrates himself within the context of Judaism in that text, we could

argue that Derrida's own 'heterodoxical' writing strategy should be understood in similar

terms.

Yet what would be the point of attempting to identify a strong 'narratological' link

between these two writers, that is John and Jacques, the authors of at least two not

entirely dissimilar apocalypses? Let us end rather by asking a question about the

possibility of making such a link without recourse at this late stage to academic language.

For even if we could show a strong link how far would this go towards lending a new

authority to the Christian tradition? Nowhere at all, and here again this would be in line

with Milbank’s conclusions. No, this question has to remain open.

So what course of action is being prescribed for the church in suggesting that like John's

Jesus, and in another sense Derrida, it should submit to a certain kind of 'death' or

'crucifixion'? Should it remain silent regarding any attempt to refute secular academic

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discourses and thus evaporate into the mists of time? Or should it speak out and thereby

risk being crucified?

In reply to the first question, yes, I would say that it should remain silent with regard to

any attempt to refute secular discourses. That would be a self-defeating exercise. Thus,

although I have a great deal of sympathy with Milbank's motivation in Theology and Social

Theory, I regard such a strategy as fundamentally self-subverting. Any attempted reply to

the second question then, has to begin by deciding upon how the church should go about

speaking out, if it is to avoid the problems that are inherent to Milbank's rather 'self-

assertive', perhaps I should say crypto-Heideggerian, strategy?

Having suggested earlier then, with reference to the writings of Bultmann and

Bonhoeffer, that traditionally it is through action and example that Christianity has

spoken, how might a church attempt to live-out the narratologic of the example provided

by Jesus? Should it open its doors, including first and foremost, those of Westminster

Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral, to the homeless, to the petty criminals and prostitutes

that presently populate the streets of so many of our towns and cities? Should it then

attempt to exist only on the free-will offerings of what would be left of its congregation?

Should it attempt to mediate God's 'truth' to our society only through recourse to

example, and therefore begin by giving away all its money to the needy and dismantling

all of its hierarchical structures, including the very notion of the existence of clerical and

lay members? Should it never, as a means of attempted 'self- authorisation', involve itself

in any theistic debate whatsoever?

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How can the church attempt to create a transformative political or pedagogical agenda,

without lapsing into coercion, or making itself completely irrelevant? How can it avoid

speaking inappropriately? Is it too preposterous to suggest, with Milbank, that the church

should, single-mindedly, begin to practise the virtue of charity, follow the central

implication of its own narratologic and willingly embrace its own crucifixion? Yes, I am

talking about institutional suicide, about the possibility of the church taking itself 'out of

the picture’. For as the self-proclaimed institutional mediator of God's 'truth' in our

society, would such an absurdly conceived event have only a negligible ethico-political

significance for the society in which the church currently operates? Could it do any worse

than it is doing now?

No! It is frantically clinging to a tree trunk in the garden of Gethsemane, praying that

the cup from which, according to its own narratologic, it must inevitably drink, should

pass over to somebody else? Christianity can only authorise itself by submitting to its own

death! I will not even attempt to predict the possible outcome of such a crucifixion, for

this too, like Milbank's appeal to charity, would only result in diverting my hypothesis

from its authentic goal.

I will end this short piece then by quoting John's Jesus again, for, if Derrida's work does

have a relevance for theological discourse then I would want to add that his own message,

is not a world away from John's conception of Jesus' mission, or of what was necessary for

its eschatology to be realised:

"And Jesus answered them, 'The hour has come for the son of man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

! 19


He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." 24

! 20


! 21

! Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi, Athlone 1

Press, London, 1988. p.187

! Professor Adrian Thatcher at the College of St. Mark and St. John comments in a 2

memo, dated 5th. May 1997, that one is not likely to find many people in a Church College who would claim that either they or it represent God or are self-proclaimed guardian's of God's truth in our society. Is it not the case, however, that such claims are made implicitly by every overtly theological or religious institution, if not indeed any form of institutionalised discourse whatsoever. In any case one would hope that those of us engaged in theological enquiry are at least aware that we could be perceived as representatives of God by the general-public.

! Jacques Derrida, Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question, trans. G. Bennington and R. Bowlby, 3

University of Chicago Press, London, 1989. p.35

! On the complex question of whether Heidegger's thought inevitably leads to fascism, 4

see ibid. Derrida Of Spirit. See also H. Ott, Martin Heidegger: A Political Life, trans. A. Blunden, Basic Books, New York, 1993.

! I borrow these themes from Andrew Wernick's Post-Marx: theological themes in Baudrillard's 5

'America', published in P. Berry and A. Wernick (eds.), Shadow of Spirit: Postmodernism and Religion, Routledge, London, 1992. pp.57-71. That we are now living 'post-Marx', as we shall see in my own approaching reference to Baudrillard, implies one of many 'second death of God' scenarios. As we reach the conclusion of this paper I hope to bring out more of the 'postal' resonances of this sub-title, that is of how today we might exist in an epoch that can be understood as 'post-Marx'. See the section 'Posting Christianity: The Church in the Garden of Gethsemane' below.

! Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, trans. R.J. Hollingdale, Penguin, 6

Harmondsworth, 1990. p.48

! The self-subverting nature of any appeal to truth is a central theme in the writings of 7

Derrida. See, for example, Envois and To Speculate_ on ‘Freud' in The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond, trans. Alan Bass, University of Chicago Press, London, 1987; and Parergon in The Truth in Painting, trans. G. Bennington and I. McLeod, University of Chicago Press, London, 1987. A central question of MacIntyre, Derrida and Milbank: 'Christianity' in the Garden of Gethsemane concerned this self-subverting tendency in MacIntyre's attempt to support his neo-Aristotelian position through an appeal to narrative, beyond his own rather Nietzschean account of a second death of God scenario. Is not this a fundamentally benign position? Must not MacIntyre's argument fail precisely to the extent that he holds back from practising a 'pure' narrative strategy and attempts to provide some justification for his argument via the invocation of 'narrative'? How can he forget that he has reflected upon this question? Is it necessarily the case that a self-consciously narratological strategy carries less force than a 'pure' narration? Are there many, or is there only one narrative? How do we distinguish between a 'good' and a 'bad' narration? This is not even to mention the 'socio-political' obstacles that stand in the way of MacIntyre's call for the re-working of an 'ethics of virtue', or the fact that some of his 'Nietzschean-genealogical' scapegoats have consistently addressed the seemingly insurmountable difficulties that arise as a consequence of seeking to embark upon precisely such an ethico-political project. The same, I argue, would apply to Milbank's 'narrative' strategy, although he does show an awareness of this problem. I imagine that Derrida might direct both of them towards his essay 'Signature Event Context' published in Limited Inc., trans. S. Weber, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1988. pp.1-23 This is also one of the major themes in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, but that’s something for another time.

! Jean Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange and Death, trans. Iain Hamilton Grant, Sage, London, 8

1993. p.19

! MacIntyre, Derrida and Milbank: 'Christianity' in the Garden of Gethsemane, by Duncan Pugh, 9

Amazon Kindle Publications, 1998.

! Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, Duckworth, London, 1981.10

! Alasdair MacIntyre Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, Duckworth, London, 1990.11

! See John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason, Blackwell, Oxford, 12

1990. For Milbank MacIntyre and Derrida represent two of the least deluded versions of 'secular reason' they are seen to differ mainly as respectively 'benign' and 'malign' versions of ‘postmodernism'. In MacIntyre, Derrida and Milbank: 'Christianity' in the Garden of Gethsemane I argued that they are certainly no more deluded than Milbank and that it is in fact he who is the most 'violent' writer, especially with regard to his readings of their writings.


! 22

! Milbank's appeal to charity fails first and foremost, as implied in note 9, precisely to the 13

extent that he fails to practise it consistently in his readings of MacIntyre and Derrida. In comparing it to Heidegger's strategy I am not seeking to accuse him of being a crypto-fascist. I am merely suggesting that the appeal to charity operates in his text as a rhetorical strategy and that as such it serves only as a self-authorising ground from which he is able to blast holes in the work of his chief antagonists.

! The term narratologic provides a good means of describing what MacIntyre, Derrida 14

and Milbank have sought to identify in their readings of texts, traditions and histories. For all of them there is a sense in which textuality, if not fiction, is seen as the primary mode of human understanding. Derrida's deconstructions, for example, can be understood as a project of thinking-through the logic of particular texts and mapping out their consequences. There is not a little of this deconstructive tendency present in the work of MacIntyre, Milbank and indeed John's Gospel, as I hope to show in what follows.

! See Jacques Derrida, How to Avoid Speaking: Denials in H. Coward and T. Foshay, Derrida 15

and Negative Theology, SUNY, New York, 1992. pp.73-142. In this text, considering especially the fact that it is an attempt to defend his work against those who read him negatively, Derrida is perhaps at his most charitable. This is evinced in his reluctance to meet his critics on their own ground by submitting to the language of assertion and counter-assertion. This refusal of a self-assertive strategy reflects its central theme, which concerns the apparently unavoidable nature of metaphysical/theistic/onto-theological language for anyone seeking to create an authentic, and thus non-coercive, politics/pedagogy. Derrida identifies a considered awareness of this problem in the work of Plato, Meister Eckhart, Pseudo-Dionysius, Martin Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein. See, for example, his typically allusive 'interpretation' of the seventh proposition of Wittgenstein's Tractatus: "Concerning that about which one cannot speak, isn't it best to remain silent? I let you answer this question. It is always entrusted to the other." p.122. It is worth mentioning also Derrida's recurring references in 'How to Avoid Speaking' to themes in Jean-Luc Marion's, God Without Being, trans. Thomas A. Carlson, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1991. Marion's appeal to charity and his argument for the fundamental importance of the eucharist in theological discourse would certainly have many affinities with Milbank's project. See also note 7 above.

! To argue for the unique relevance of the Christian Church with regard to the problems 16

addressed in this paper is perhaps as inauthentic a gesture as Milbank's overt appeal to charity in Theology and Social Theory. However, from within the context of MacIntyre's philosophico-historical narration it would be valid to argue for the particular relevance of the church to the questions that he raises. It is in this sense that this purportedly 'unique relevance' of the church is intended to be understood.


! 23

! John Louis-Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, Harper and Row, New York, 17

1968. Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament Volume 2, trans. K. Grobel, SCM Press, London, 1955. It could be said, somewhat paradoxically perhaps, that a 'deconstructive' understanding of Jesus and Christianity in relation to Judaism would correspond to the most 'conservative' interpretation of their relation available today. But see, for example, how Jesus 'deconstructs' his 'religious' peers in St.John chapter 8 which ends with him referring them back to their own scriptures (specifically Exodus 3:14): "The Jews then said to him, 'You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?' Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.' So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple." St. John 8:57-9

! Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, Volume 2, trans. K. Grobel, SCM Press, 18

London, 1955. pp.62-3.

! Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison, Eng. trans., SCM Press, London, 19

1963.

! Although it is certain that Milbank does not agree with my proposed strategy here. In 20

correspondence with me on 14th. July 1997 he expresses 'suspicion' of my 'Bonhoefferian', or as Milbank calls them, 'Franciscan', proposals for church property. In the same correspondence he points out that his conception of the church is 'eucharistic' rather than 'institutional'. I would argue that I am aiming in this thought-experiment at a rigorously eucharistic strategy for the church. I can't see how the church can otherwise avoid being an 'institution' where the 'eucharist' is practised.

! St. John 18:19-21. RSV.21

! To repeat: "I let you answer this question. It is always entrusted to the other." op. cit. 22

Coward and Foshay. p.122

! Jacques Derrida, The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond, trans. A. Bass, University 23

of Chicago Press, London, 1987. p.15

! St. John 12:23-6. RSV.24


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MacIntyre, Derrida and Milbank: Notes towards a Neo-Aristotelian Politics

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