Chapter 7 - Taste and See

Summary

By closely examining the agonistics of mythos pursued by Milbank in Theology and Social Theory, I aim to problematise the idea of inter-mythic relations as fundamentally a matter of conflict. I go on to suggest that Milbank’s appeal to taste, considered in light of Jean-Louis Chrétien’s phenomenology of prayer, can be better thought as a participation in the perichoresis of the Trinity and of the creature’s return to its creator. By privileging the dynamics of desire and erotics over that of agonistics, I attempt to orient mythopoiesis toward the desire for God. Finally, I consider the way that mythoi can challenge or critique one another from within one another, allowing a new understanding, a new encounter with meaning, to emerge from the making of a new narrative and a new practice. In this I seek to point toward how it is possible to discern the movement of the Spirit in and through human cultural production (including mythopoiesis) working to bring all things, including our sinful and broken making, into God’s desire.