Truth and Politics: A Theological Comparison of Joseph Ratzinger and John Milbank

by Peter Samuel Kucer

Overview

One of the perennial questions in political theology is how the concept of truth is defined and how such is grounded theologically. The answer to this determines, to a great degree, theological engagement with and appropriations of political systems and theological accounts of political and social order. Truth and Politics tackles this crucial question through an analysis and comparison of the thought of two of the most important contemporary Catholic and Protestant theologians, Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) and John Milbank.

Peter Samuel Kucer here traces out the critical question of the relationship of theology and politics, particularly as it intersects with ecclesiology, through a focus on the issue of the theological relationship to socialism. In this, Kucer demonstrates the competing accounts in the theologies of Joseph Ratzinger and John Milbank, arguing that Ratzingers theology is oriented in such a way that it maintains a provisional openness with regard to political formsthat theology and politics, while interconnected, do not demand commitment to a singular form of political modelin contrast to Milbanks work, which subscribes to a particular pattern of church and politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781451465303
Publisher:	Augsburg Fortress, Publishers
Publication date:	08/01/2014
Series:	Emerging Scholars
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Peter Samuel Kucer is a member of the theology faculty at the Holy Apostles College&Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut and serves the diocese of Norwich, Connecticut as resident priest at Immaculate Conception Basilica. He earned a License in Sacred Theology at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC and a PhD in systematic theology at the Catholic University of America.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Ratzinger on Truth as Essentially Uncreated 21

2 Ratzinger on Truth as Illuminated and Mediated 61

3 Milbank on Truth as Created 101

4 Milbank on Truth as Illuminated and Mediated 145

5 Ratzinger and Milbank Compared 119

6 Ratzinger's Theology of Politics and Milbank's Political Theology 221

Conclusion 259

Bibliography 269

Index 283