David Novak

A Jewish Argument for Socialized Medicine

An analysis of traditional Jewish texts yields neither the capitalist notion of medicine nor the socialist one. Neither alternative is sufficient to ground the respect for the sanctity of the human person as a being created in the image of God that is so rationally appealing. That is why the Jewish ethical tradition, which is based on this respect for the sanctity of human personhood, both individual and collective, is so attractive—if only for its insights, rather than its authority; its guidance, rather than its governance.

The Human Person as the Image of God

Those who come to Paris to philosophically examine the human person must surely be mindful of the great philosophers who have taught here and who have sustained an atmosphere of gravitas most conducive to philosophical discourse. In my own case, I must pay respectful tribute to those Parisian philosophers from whose works I have learned so much over the years, such as Thomas Aquinas, Henri Bergson, Jacques Maritain, Gabriel Marcel, Yves Simon, and the still living Paul Ricoeur, and the recently deceased, Emmanuel Levinas — especially from Levinas. As a sign of my gratitude to Levinas, through whose writings I and others like me have learned what a Jewish philosopher can be, let me begin with a quote from his essay, “The Rights of Man and the Rights of the Other”: These rights are, in a sense, a priori: independent of any power that would be the original share of each human being in the blind distribution of nature’s energy and society’s influence... Prior to all entitlement: to all tradition, all jurisprudence, all granting of privileges... Or is it perhaps the case that it’s a priori may signify an ineluctable authority... the authority that is, perhaps — but before all theology — in the respect of the rights of man itself, God’s original coming to the mind of man (1994: 117–17).

Political Theory: Beyond Sovereignty?

The student of modern Jewish political theory is immediately faced with what may seem an insurmountable problem: almost all modern Jewish philosophers claim that Judaism is not centrally concerned with politics. By this they do not deny that Jewish people have been, and are, involved in modern political life. Rather, they claim that Judaism as Judaism was not historically and is not today concerned with political life. Zionist and non-Zionist Jewish thinkers have both made this claim. For Zionists, Zionism is the rejection of the nonpolitical character of Judaism and the Jewish past. Different as they are, Moses Hess, arguably the first socialist Zionist, and Zvi Yehudah Kook, arguably the first religious Zionist, agree that Jews need to throw off the shackles of exile in order to return Jews and Judaism to the political life of the Jewish nation. In contrast, for non-Zionists, such as Moses Mendelssohn, Hermann Cohen, and Franz Rosenzweig, the nonpolitical character of Judaism allows Jews and Judaism to coexist with (either comfortably with or alienated from) their contemporary political realities. In this way, the Zionist and non-Zionist positions are two sides of the same coin. And clearly, if Judaism is by definition not political, then the attempt to articulate a modern Jewish political theory of any sort would be meaningless at best.

Avoiding Charges of Legalism and Antinomianism in Jewish-Christian Dialogue

This article sets forth a theological approach to Jewish-Christian dialogue on the issue of law, which is often thought to be beyond the grasp of that dialogue because Judaism and Christianity are supposed to be in diametrical opposition here. Christians must recognize that for Jews, law is not in opposition to grace as a substitute for faith but, rather, law is the faithful response to grace in the covenant. Christians cannot be antinomians without simultaneously rejecting the very authority of God to command any faithful response. The issue between Judaism and Christianity is which law, Jewish or Christian, best enables a human being to be in the fullest possible relationship with God in the yet unredeemed world. On many points, though, Jewish and Christian law will overlap, thus reveal some essential commonalities.

Response To the Desire of the Nations

This is a book which I have been eagerly awaiting, ever since ! Professor O’Donovan told me of its imminent publication, when he so graciously received me in Oxford in February 1996. My eagerness has been whetted not only because of my admiration for Professor O’Donovan as a scholar and thinker (especially as the author of the justly acclaimed Resurrection and Moral Order), but also because he told me that this new book would deal with, inter alia, the issues of Jewish-Christian relations and natural law, issues in which I share his own keen interest. Now, after carefully reading this book, my initial eagerness for its appearance has been in no wise disappointed; quite the contrary, it has been well worth waiting for.

On Freud's theory of law and religion.

This paper is a critical engagement with Freuds anthropological theory of the origins of law and religion, which Freud developed as his representation and development of the Oedipal myth. Freuds mythology, it is argued, is the theoretical result of the essentially narrative nature of psychoanalytical praxis. Freuds myth, especially its treatment of patricide as the original sin, is seen to be a displacement of the biblical myth of fratricide as the original sin. It is argued that the biblical myth is more coherent than Freuds myth, and that it corresponds to the reality of the human condition better than Freuds myth. The paper concludes with the suggestion that the acceptance of the biblical myth in place of Freuds does not necessarily entail a rejection of psychoanalysis as a praxis.

Are Philosophical Proofs of the Existence of God Theologically Meaningful

Proofs of the existence of God have comprised the border area between philosophy and theology. They combine philosophys concern for certainty with theologys concern for God. As a theologian, this chapter shows how the three proofs of the existence of God (ontological, teleological, cosmological), outlined by Immanuel Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason , are theologically meaningful statements if one reinterprets them within the context of theology and abandons the hope that they are or can ever be philosophically convincing. The author has chosen Kants outline of these three proofs for two reasons. First, his outline has become so commonplace that it is quickly recognizable, even though the author uses it differently than he did. Second, by using his outline of the proofs, the author attempts to answer his charge that they have no necessary connection with our understanding of experience. Keywords: cosmological argument; God; Immanuel Kant; ontological argument; philosophical proofs; teleological argument

Response to Edmund N. Santurri

Barth and Niebuhr seemed to be wary of natural law because each of them thought that the “natural” in natural law means that natural law has to be rooted in natural theology. However, natural law today is more cogently formulated without any natural theology at all. “Natural law” means that law can be derived from the twofold character or nature of human personhood: the capacity for a communal relationship with other humans, and the capacity for a covenantal relationship with God, both of which continually overlap in human life. The natural or external world only provides the backdrop for these human capacities; it does not determine them.

After 9/11: Religion and Politics

Abstract The political facts that make Jewish-Christian dialogue a possibility and a reality in the present seem to be absent as regards Jewish-Muslim (and Christian-Muslim) dialogue today, especially after 9/11. This article suggests, however, that Jews and Muslims might find some needed common political common ground in working together to protest ultra-secularist attempts to outlaw the circumcision of infant males, even when done for religious reasons, as it is done by both Jews and Muslims for the same religious reason. The formulation of this political protest, in order to be rational, requires serious dialogue between Jewish and Muslim thinkers.

Divine Justice/Divine Command

In the Jewish tradition there are those who simply identify divine justice with the specific divine commands, which is a theological version of legal positivism. This paper argues for another view in the Jewish tradition, viz., divine justice or divine wisdom is the rationale of the specific divine commands, thus making them more than arbitrary decrees. As the rationale of the specific divine commands, divine justice functions as a criterion of judgment that prevents irrational interpretations and unjust applications of the specific divine commands. This approach is a theological version of natural law.