ABSTRACT
Root’s third lecture begins with the previously discussed ‘conservatism of radicalism’, suggesting that it may well be a conservative instinct – the ‘fear of loss’ – rather than a reductionistic drive motivating the radicals’ attempts at translation. This leads Root to consider the nature of change, and more specifically, a changed theology. There is a tendency, says Root, to think that all change must be ‘forward-looking’. Root thinks this strange, given the etymology of ‘radical’ (i.e. ‘returning to the roots’), and floats the idea of a ‘backward-looking’ radicalism with unspoken similarities to the ressourcement of Congar and others. Root continues, drawing upon T.S. Eliot’s essay ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ to emphasize ‘the dynamic, on-going nature of tradition’, and this raises the question of criteria (i.e. with reference to ‘the “really new”’ in relation to ‘the “given”’).
