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Can a Gift Be Commanded? Theological Ethics without Theory by Way of Barth, Milbank and Yoder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Chris K. Huebner
Chris K. Huebner
Affiliation:
Duke University, The Divinity School, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA
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Extract

In a recent series of essays, John Milbank has continued his impressive project of narrating a theological path beyond secular reason in both its modern and postmodern versions by attempting to develop an ‘ontology of the gift.’ In order to overcome the ontology of violence in which he claims that secular rationality is rooted, Milbank argues for the need to reclaim a specifically Christian understanding of ethics, and suggests that the best resources for doing so can be found in the logic of gift and gift-exchange. Among other things, he claims that the logic of gift involves a rejection of the notion of command, a notion whose theological significance has perhaps been expressed most forcefully by Karl Barth. It is therefore appropriate to examine Milbank's appeal to the ontology of the gift as an objection to Barth's divine command ethics. Given his construal of ethics in terms of command and obligation, it might be suggested that Barth's ethics is problematic to the extent that it retains the structure of the Kantian categorical imperative. At the same time, however, it is noteworthy that Barth develops his account of the command of God in the context of gift, and in particular the specifically theological context of the gracious gift of God in Jesus Christ. Such a combination of command and gift has led some to suggest that Barth's ethics is actually significantly anti-Kantian in structure.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , November 2000 , pp. 472 - 489
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2000

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References

1 See, e.g. Milbank, John, ‘Can a Gift Be Given? Prolegomena to a Future Trinitarian Metaphysic’, Modern Theology 11:1 (1995), pp. 119–161CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Milbank, John, ‘Can Morality Be Christian?’ in The Word Made Strange. Theology, Language, Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), esp. pp. 225–228Google Scholar; ‘Socialism of the Gift, Socialism by Grace’, New Blackfriars 77:910 (1996), pp. 532–548, esp. 538–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and ‘The Midwinter Sacrifice: A Sequel to “Can Morality Be Christian?’’, Studies in Christian Ethics 10:2 (1997), pp. 13–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Such an objection is perhaps most appropriately associated with the work of Stanley Hauerwas. See, e.g. Hauerwas, Stanley, ‘On Honor: By way of a Comparison of Karl Barth and Trollope’, in Dispatches from the Front: Theological Engagements with the Secular (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1994), pp. 58–79Google Scholar.

3 See, e.g. Biggar, Nigel, The Hastening that Waits: Karl Barth's Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), esp. chapter 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ‘Ethics as an Aid to Hearing.’ For a similar argument, see William Werpehowski, ’Command and History in the Ethics of Karl Barth‘, Journal ofReligious Ethics 9 (1981), pp. 298–320.Google Scholar

4 Biggar, , The Hastening that Waits: Karl Barth's Ethics, p. 17Google Scholar. For a similar argument, see Werpehowski, ‘Command and History in the Ethics of Earl Barth’, pp. 300–4.

5 Biggar, , The Hastening that Waits: Karl Barth's Ethics, p. 9Google Scholar.

6 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics II/2, trans. Bromiley, G. W. et al. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1957), p. 518.Google Scholar

7 See, e.g. ibid., p. 516: ‘it is the electing grace of God which has placed man under His command from all eternity’ (Barth's emphasis).

8 Ibid., p. 518. See also ibid., p. 539: ‘it is in grace—the grace of God in Jesus Christ—that even the command of God is established and fulfilled and revealed as such;’ and ibid., p. 557: the command of God ‘confronts us in the loftiness and dignity of the obligation which derives automatically from the gift that He has made us.’

9 Ibid., p. 565. See also ibid., p. 548: ‘It is as God gives man His command, as he gives himself to man to be his Commander, that God claims him for Himself, that He makes His decision concerning him and executes His judgment upon him.’

10 See, e.g. ibid., pp. 606, 608.

11 Ibid., p. 517 (Barth's emphasis).

12 Biggar, , The Hastening that Waits: Karl Barth's Ethics, p. 16Google Scholar.

13 Barth, , Church Dogmatics II/2, pp. 527, 529Google Scholar.

14 See esp. Milbank, , ‘Can Morality Be Christian?’, pp. 219, 226Google Scholar.

15 Ibid., p. 219 (Milbank's emphasis).

16 It is important to note at this point that the terminology of ‘logic’ is that of Milbank. Although he uses the term frequently throughout his appeal to gift over against command and related concepts, it is not entirely clear what he means by ‘logic’ Indeed, this essay can be read as an extended commentary and interrogation of Milbank's use of the term ‘logic.’

17 Ibid., p. 226 (Milbank's emphasis).

18 Ibid., pp. 221, 226.

19 Ibid., p. 226.

20 Ibid., p. 227.

21 Ibid., p. 226.

22 See, e.g. ibid., p. 228: ‘in the beginning there was only gift: no demon of chaos to be defeated, but a divine creative act; this virtue of giving was not required, was not necessary, and so was a more absolute good, complicit with no threat. Which in relation to gift is an entirely secondary will to self-possession, to non-receiving of life and so to death.’

23 Ibid., pp. 226, 228. See also Milbank, , ‘Can a Gift Be Given? Prolegomena to a Future Trinitarian Metaphysic,’ p. 135Google Scholar: ‘[the divine gift] is a gift to no-one, but rather establishes creatures as themselves gifts.’

24 Milbank, , ‘The Midwinter Sacrifice: A Sequel to “Can Morality Be Christian?”,’ p. 30Google Scholar. In discussing the work of Derrida and Marion, Milbank is dealing primarily with Derrida, Jacques, Given Time: 1. Counterfeit Money, trans. Kamuf, Peggy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992)Google Scholar; The Gift of Death, trans. Wills, David (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995)Google Scholar; and Marion, Jean-Luc, God Without Being, trans. Carlson, Thomas A. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991)Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., pp. 31–2. See also Milbank, , ‘Can a Gift Be Given? Prolegomena to a Future Trinitarian Metaphysic,’ pp. 144–154Google Scholar.

26 Ibid., p. 32. For this reason, Milbank argues that ‘both Marion and Derrida remain trapped within Cartesian myths of prior subjectivity after all’ (ibid.). While Marion can be seen as attempting to defend a self-sacrificial conception of gift, Milbank suggests that Derrida is correct to argue that the notion of a purely self-sacrificial gift is incoherent (ibid.). What is problematic with such a self-sacrificial conception of gift, moreover, is that it absolutizes ‘one's inalienable self-possession of a will to sacrifice’ and thereby functions as an attempt to isolate the moral life against contingency or ‘moral luck’ in away that conflicts with the logic of creation and divine grace (Milbank, , ‘The Midwinter Sacrifice: A Sequel to “Can Morality Be Christian?”,’ p. 32)Google Scholar. For a more developed account of the relationship between Marion and Derrida on these matters, see Milbank, , ‘Can a Gift Be Given? Prolegomena to a Future Trinitarian Metaphysic,’ pp. 129–144Google Scholar.

27 Milbank, , ‘Can a Gift Be Given? Prolegomena to a Future Trinitarian Metaphysic,’ p. 152Google Scholar; ‘The Midwinter Sacrifice: A Sequel to “Can Morality Be Christian?”,’ pp. 29, 37.

28 Milbank, , ‘Can a Gift Be Given? Prolegomena to a Future Trinitarian Metaphysic,’ p. 150 (Milbank's emphasis)Google Scholar.

29 Milbank, , ‘Can Morality Be Christian,’ p. 226Google Scholar. In a similar vein, he claims that ‘[i]f supernatural, complete virtue is charity, gifts which are merely requirements or duties are not ethical or virtuous at all, and the command to give or love is supremely paradoxical’ (ibid.).

30 von Balthasar, Hans Urs, The Theology of Karl Barth: Exposition and Interpretation, trans. Oakes, Edward T. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992), pp. 245–247Google Scholar. See also Hauerwas, , ‘On Honor: By way of a Comparison of Karl Barth and Trollope,’ esp. pp. 77–79Google Scholar.

31 Barth, , Church Dogmatics II/2, pp. 596, 663, 669Google Scholar. See also Biggar, , The Hastening that Waits: Karl Barth's Ethic, pp. 24–25Google Scholar.

32 Yoder, John Howard, ‘How H. Richard Niebuhr Reasoned: A Critique of Christ and Culture,’ in The Authentic Transformation: A New Vision of Christ and Culture, ed. Stassen, Glen H. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1966), p. 75Google Scholar; The Priestly Kingdom: Social Ethics as Gospel (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), p. 92; and ‘The Otherness of the Church,’ chap, in The Royal Priesthood: Essays Ecclesiological and Ecumenical, ed. Cartwright, Michael G. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994)Google Scholar. See also Yoder, John Howard, Body Politics: Five Practices of the Christian Community Before the Watching World (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 1992), p. ixGoogle Scholar.

33 Yoder, John Howard, ‘Walk and Word: The Alternatives to Methodologism,’ in Theology Without Foundations: Religious Practice and the Future of Theological Truth, ed. Hauerwas, Stanley, Murphy, Nancey, and Nation, Mark (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), pp. 77–90, esp. p. 88Google Scholar. Sea also Yoder, , The Priestly Kingdom, p. 114Google Scholar.

34 Yoder, , ‘Walk and Word: The Alternatives to Methodologism,’ p. 82Google Scholar. See also Yoder, John Howard, ‘Sacrament as Social Process: Christ the Transformer of Culture,’ chap, in The Royal Priesthood: Essays Ecclesiological and Ecumenical; ‘On Not Being Ashamed of the Gospel: Particularity, Pluralism, and Validation,’ Faith and Philosophy 9:3 (1992), p. 289Google Scholar; and The Priestly Kingdom, pp. 7–8, 37, 113–16.

35 Yoder, , ‘Walk and Word: The Alternatives to Methodologism,’ p. 89Google Scholar. See also Yoder, , The Priestly Kingdom, p. 114Google Scholar.

36 Yoder, , ‘Walk and Word: The Alternatives to Methodologism,’ p. 79Google Scholar.

37 Ibid., p. 81.

38 Ibid.

39 The terminology of ‘codification’ is not Yoder's but is rather introduced into the debate concerning viability of moral theory by McDowell, John, ‘Virtue and Reason,’ Monist 62 (1979), pp. 831–850CrossRefGoogle Scholar. While Yoder does not himself construe theory in terms of codification, I believe it adequately captures the general thrust of his argument. For a helpful discussion of McDowell's ‘uncodifiability thesis’ in the context of other arguments in favour of anti-theory, see Furrow, Dwight, Against Theory: Continental and Analytic Challenges in Moral Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 1995), pp. 9–18Google Scholar.

40 It is significant to note that Biggar himself stresses the need to disregard Barth's argument against system. See, e.g. Biggar, , The Hastening that Waits: Karl Barth's Ethic, pp. 8–9, 26, 31ffGoogle Scholar. For an example of Barth's own rejection of system, see Barth, , Church Dogmatics II/2, p. 51Google Scholar.

41 Frei, Hans, ‘Review of Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts,’ The Virginia Seminary Journal 30 (1978), p. 45Google Scholar, as quoted in Werpehowski, , ‘Command and History in the Ethics of Earl Barth,’ p. 300Google Scholar.