originally published 3/23/2018
John Milbank, theologian and president of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham, discusses the Centre’s goals of reintegrating philosophy and theology, so as to equip theologians with the skills to address cultural and historical questions in light of a Christian account of reality. In this interview, Milbank also talks about how liberalism inadequately recognizes the human person in politics and economics. A robust account of political life needs to acknowledge the inherently transcendent nature of the human person; otherwise, argues Milbank, political and economic discourse assumes an anthropology that renders humans either as beasts or as machines. In The Politics of Virtue, co-written by Adrian Pabst, Milbank and Pabst describe a post-liberal vision of politics that denounces liberal, atomistic approaches to equality in favor of a “dynamic equity” that takes into account humans in time and at various stages of wisdom and knowledge.
John Milbank’s co-author Adrian Pabst discusses in this interview the nature of what many are calling the “crisis of liberalism.” Pabst argues that liberal assumptions about the human person and social relations lead to inherently self-destructive outcomes and that liberalism as an ordering principle for political life is parasitic upon pre-existing cultures if it does not establish a way to honor and secure non-liberal traditions. A better alternative to liberalism, argues Pabst, needs to preserve in its account of political life our primary status as social beings, which “flows out of the divine economy” of a trinitarian Creator.
51 minutes
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