Symposium introduction: Beyond secular order: The representation of being and the representation of the people by John Milbank

• Main Author: TSE, Justin Kh
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2015
• Subjects: Arts and Humanities; Religion
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3382; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4639/viewcontent/Beyond_Secular_Order_2015_av.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

What does Beyond Secular Order have to do outside of the quibbles of the theology and religious studies academy? What might Milbank be saying to plebeians like me who have to live our lives in a world whose order is understood as ‘secular’? Milbank’s answer is to present two sequences, signaling that Beyond Secular Order is not to be read so much as a technical text, but as art, poetry, music, perhaps even a map. As an artist, poet, and musician (and geographer), Milbank has crafted a first sequence on ‘modern ontology’ tracing the strands of modern philosophy that serves as the basis for a second sequence on ‘political ontology’ that proposes nothing short of a full-fledged merger of Anglican, Byzantine, and Roman Catholic polities for a Christian socialist recovery of global Christendom. Underlying both sections is what Milbank claims to be the ‘hidden dimension of humanity’ of ‘trans-organicity,’ understanding that human persons are not only natural organisms but are teleologically oriented toward the supernatural.