I should say I am deeply sympathetic to Creston Davis’ project. The attempt to find ways of combining the ideas of his two former teachers might be the only response that remains true to them both. Paradoxically, one might say. Or dialectically. I believe which term you prefer comes down to what blogs you like to read (i.e. whose approval you are after).
The mere fact of having been taught by both Milbank and Zizek gives Davis a kind of street cred that not everyone can boast. This biographical fact itself suggests that, at least in Creston Davis’ head (since he has simply had to make it work somehow), Milbank’s metaxology and Zizek’s dialectics can be fruitfully combined. And indeed, it is Davis’ own contributions to the book, together with Catherine Pickstock’s wonderful reflection on the liturgy and the senses, which are (to me at least) the most interesting.
Not that Milbank and Zizek are boring, not at all. But when reading the allegedly new reflections on Paul from the two ‘ultimate fighters’ from Monstrosity, I realized that I have read most of this before. This is where the book disappoints a little. Milbank’s style is entertaining if you like the metaphysical ‘zapping’ of enemies. But the in-it-to-win-it theologian’s essay on Badiou has been available (albeit in draft form) online long before the publication of this book (which raises interesting questions regarding online and printed publishing, but that’s for another day). Zizek’s essays are as entertainingly rebellious as ever (he is that school yard bully you think is cool so long as he's not after you), but his arguments are yesterday, today and forever the same. And, hey, why not?
Now, here's the point. In his (dauntless or hopeless, I leave that to the reader) attempt to combine these two thinkers, it seems to me that Davis is, in some weird way, actually being faithful to both of them. Not that either would embrace everything he writes, as if Milbank and Zizek were a quarreling couple, who after a therapeutic session with Dr. Davis realize that they are in fact meant for each other. Not that. But simply because neither of them could be content with less than Everything. We are discussing ontology, after all. Neither Milbank nor Zizek would admit that there is anything that ultimately escapes his own ontological framework, because then they wouldn’t be doing ontology anymore. Ontology speaks of Everything, and there is no ‘outside’ space for the opponent to inhabit.
This is what makes Davis’ project seem (to me, at least, though blog wars will go on) to be the only appropriate response to the incompatibility of Milbank and Zizek. Both will fit the other into his own ‘system’ of thought rather than reject him as simply ‘outside’ it. To Milbank, then, Zizek is fundamentally a protestant assuming the possibility of a qualitative break from stale tradition and hence failing to account for human creativity as improvised participation in God’s life. To Zizek, by contrast, Milbank is fundamentally an ideologue providing a vague yet final theodicy in the face of even God’s ultimate suffering, disguised as aristocratic babble of cosmic/societal harmony. Of course dressed up in a dispute over who is ‘more Christian’, but that’s not only beside but really quite far off the point. In this sense they are really engaged in an all-or-nothing battle. But precisely for that reason, it would be inadequate to simply choose one of them. To choose one and reject the other would, in some ways at least, be to deny the all-encompassing nature of the system one chose, and allow the rejected ‘outsider’ a legitimate foothold beyond the reach of one’s categories – which would reveal one’s blind spot – which would be the end of one’s ontology.
And of course, the conflict itself can be construed in the terms of both sides. "It's harmonic difference!" "No, its dialectic constitutive contradiction!" Ad infinitum. Fun for the kids.
Davis’ clever response has been, primarily, to produce these two books, thus literally placing these two articulated universal ontologies next to one another in a shared space. Not only does this open up room for thinking about the nature of the space where such an unlikely meeting is somehow made possible, but it challenges the reader to join Davis in the effort of holding things together (without simply postulating a common enemy in liberal capitalism). Or, if you like, to deny the necessity of the violent rejection of one in favour of the other. Now, this ‘positive’ approach, I think, implicitly betrays Davis’ debt to thinkers such as William Desmond (who Milbank draws on for conceptual clarification in Monstrosity). Death and dialectics are not simply eradicated, but 'swallowed up', all St. Paul-style.
In this subtle way, Davis simultaneously kills and resurrects both of his former teachers. He also thereby ensures that he pisses off two opposing camps of devoted followers in one and the same move, which, to my mind, is probably not a bad thing. So having read both Monstrosity of Christ and Paul’s New Moment I now eagerly await a book to complete the trilogy – this time one written primarily by Creston Davis perhaps flanked by like-minded explorative thinkers who respect both Milbank and Zizek enough to neither follow nor reject either (though this is of course impossible to avoid – Dialectic! Paradox!), but rather think with them till the end, and then a bit further. Maybe that book will feature numerous footnotes with the name ‘William Desmond’ in them. I’d like that, I think.
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