Radical orthodoxy: the first philosophy in the "post-Christian world"

The theological turn is a significant recent development in European philosophy that uses religious concepts to resolve the crisis of postmodern culture. Its most active participants are part of a movement founded by John Milbank called “Radical Orthodoxy”. Both postmodernism and these figures oppose the principles of Enlightenment and regard its claim to “objective knowledge” as concealing false gods under supposedly neutral transcendental claims. Like postmodernism, and many 19th and 20th century Orthodox theologians, Radical Orthodoxy is occupied with determining the moment when western philosophy took the wrong turn. This article will juxtapose Radical Orthodoxy's history with that thinkers such as Vladimir Soloviev, Vladimir Lossky, Henri de Lubac, John Romanides, and others. We determine that these thinkers have different theological conceptions of 1) the nature of human reason, and 2) how God can be approached by it. How then are Christian thinkers to receive scientific knowledge? We conclude that the Cappadocian fathers with their confidence in human reason and neptic asceticism can provide a new approach to a world where we again find ourselves surrounded by pagan understanding, a world we have made ourselves. The paper is followed by a translation of Milbank's seven theses of Radical Orthodoxy into Russian.