A militant Marxist atheist and a "Radical Orthodox" Christian
theologian square off on everything from the meaning of theology and
Christ to the war machine of corporate mafia.
"What matters is not so much that Zizek is endorsing a demythologized,
disenchanted Christianity without transcendence, as that he is offering
in the end (despite what he sometimes claims) a heterodox version of
Christian belief."--John Milbank
"To put it even more bluntly, my claim is that it is Milbank who is
effectively guilty of heterodoxy, ultimately of a regression to
paganism: in my atheism, I am more Christian than Milbank."--Slavoj
Zizek
In this corner, philosopher Slavoj Zizek, a militant atheist who
represents the critical-materialist stance against religion's illusions;
in the other corner, "Radical Orthodox" theologian John Milbank, an
influential and provocative thinker who argues that theology is the only
foundation upon which knowledge, politics, and ethics can stand. In The
Monstrosity of Christ, Zizek and Milbank go head to head for three
rounds, employing an impressive arsenal of moves to advance their
positions and press their respective advantages. By the closing bell,
they have not only proven themselves worthy adversaries, they have shown
that faith and reason are not simply and intractably opposed. Zizek has
long been interested in the emancipatory potential offered by Christian
theology. And Milbank, seeing global capitalism as the new century's
greatest ethical challenge, has pushed his own ontology in more
political and materialist directions. Their debate in The Monstrosity
of Christ concerns the future of religion, secularity, and political
hope in light of a monsterful event--God becoming human. For the first
time since Zizek's turn toward theology, we have a true debate between
an atheist and a theologian about the very meaning of theology, Christ,
the Church, the Holy Ghost, Universality, and the foundations of logic.
The result goes far beyond the popularized atheist/theist
point/counterpoint of recent books by Christopher Hitchens, Richard
Dawkins, and others. Zizek begins, and Milbank answers, countering
dialectics with "paradox." The debate centers on the nature of and
relation between paradox and parallax, between analogy and dialectics,
between transcendent glory and liberation. Slavoj Zizek is a philosopher
and cultural critic. He has published over thirty books, including
Looking Awry, The Puppet and the Dwarf, and The Parallax View
(these three published by the MIT Press). John Milbank is an influential
Christian theologian and the author of Theology and Social Theory:
Beyond Secular Reason and other books. Creston Davis, who conceived of
this encounter, studied under both Zizek and Milbank.
