David Novak, Athens
and Jerusalem: God, Humans, and Nature (Toronto, University of Toronto
Press: 2019) xii + 373.[1]
The review of David Novak’s magnum opus requires a
small team of scholars. The book is learned in classical, medieval, and modern
philosophy, as well as in biblical, rabbinic, medieval, and modern Judaism.
These Gifford Lectures are the summation of a long career in Jewish philosophy.
Chapter One is a masterful survey of the reason vs.
revelation (“Athens” vs. “Jerusalem”) argument that has lasted for centuries.
Novak argues that this discussion ought not to be acts of “intellectual
triumphalism.” Nor should this discussion be understood to claim that
universals are the domain only of philosophy, and revelation the domain only of
theology. Finally, the discussion should recognize that reason implies a faith
in the a priori ontological reality of nature / God, and faith implies the
necessity for ratiocination. “Both Athens and Jerusalem have their foundational
myths” (34).
I see two problems with this learned position. First,
both philosophy and theology must, at some point, deal with real life, and real
life is not always a function of either philosophical or theological reason. Real
life deals with people’s conflicting values and ambivalences. Real life is not
about proper definitions; it is about conflict resolution which is not always
achieved through logic.
Two examples: (1) Abortion is not about defining when “life” begins. It is about defining the
limitations that our social, emotional, spiritual, and other understandings of
“life” place on us. Different people and different traditions have diverse
understandings of what those limits are. We need to think carefully, but consistent reason is only one tool.
Law, not theology or philosophy, will have to resolve this conflict in real
life. (2) Hate speech is not about definition of what is “hateful.” It is about
what we say about each other. Real life is not about the imposition of
theological or philosophical reason; it is about the compromises we make as our
values change. I remember when there were no (or very few) “rights” for LGBTQ+,
Blacks, Jews, women, etc. Now, there are substantial rights under the law for
these groups. This change in values is not a function of reason but of “love”
in one sense or another. Again, law,
not theology or philosophy, will have to resolve this conflict in real life.
Second, Novak, true to
the Greek traditions he represents, wants to reserve “truth” to that which
reason can approve. As he puts it:
Sadly enough, theologians have often been willing to let theology be demoted to the kind of psychological
subjectivism that only speaks of feelings that needn’t be thought of as
intending any external reality, let alone any higher reality, to which truth is
adequate. Yet not only does this approach have much too little correspondence
with Jewish and Christian traditions to be considered authentic Jewish or
Christian theology, it also opens up theology to the judgment of the
psychologists. (41,
emphasis added)
However, the loving yet
demanding God of Judaism, the self-sacrificial love of Christ, and Allah, the
powerful God of Islam, are not just metaphors, as the Greek traditions would
have it. They are living religious entities that interact with us, evoking
devotion, fear, love, confusion, despair, and spiritual bliss. The “judgment of
psychologists” is, indeed, an integral part of the personalist theology of the
great monotheistic faiths. Philosophy and philosophical theology, in many ways,
failed to capture the interpersonal nature of revelational religion.
In addition, Novak, while
arguing strongly for what one might call “philosophical pluralism” which would
include the unique insights of Judaism (and Christianity and Islam), has
explicitly excluded the insights into religion from psychology, especially from
psychotherapeutic psychology. Excluding personalist, psychological theology
from theological-philosophical discourse is not consistent with intellectual
pluralism.
Chapter Two is, again, a
masterful survey, this time of one of the basic differences between philosophy
and theology: the place and role of the divine. Novak explains
clearly that, in classical philosophy, there is God, who is involved in
self-contemplation. There are gods, who prescribe the political order for
humans. And there are humans, who imitate the gods and God. Humans do this by
seeking wisdom and justice and by contemplation. However, since God and the
gods did not create humans, they are not responsible for humans though humans
must conform to the political order of the gods. Also, in classical philosophy,
nature is a given, in and of itself; it is a good. But, since God is not
responsible for nature, there can be no miracles. Humans must learn to live
within nature.
By contrast, in biblical
tradition, God is responsible for creation, including humans. The latter
takes the form of “covenant.” This is God’s “self-chosen responsibility.”
Further, covenant is immutable because God has promised that it is; i.e., because God has assumed responsibility for
covenant. Divine responsibility also means that God must “change” in response
to what humans do though how and why God changes is not always clear to humans
since God’s knowledge exceeds that of humans. Human responsibility means that
humans are answerable to God through covenant. Nature is not good in and of
itself. Nature is good because it enables God to relate to humans. Thus, God
can change creation, i.e., create miracles. The purpose of miracles is to alert
humans to what follows – God’s Word. Covenant, not nature, is the medium of
relationship between God and humans. Because God and humans have
responsibilities, they must have free will to exercise, or refuse, those
responsibilities. Humans are “junior partners” in creation.
Chapter Three continues
this analysis from the point of view of humans. In religious thinking, humans
are created with a need for mutual relationship with God. This relationship is
reciprocal though asymmetrical. It is also freely entered into on both sides.
As Novak puts it, humans need We-Thou and not I-Thou. Novak even concedes that
“God is the archetypal person, because God reveals the fact that He does
make deliberate choices and acts upon them in the world” (85, emphasis added).
As a result, justice is socially located. It is not a combination of
utilitarian social justice and justice as contemplative bliss (88-89). Because
justice is a function of covenant, humans have a right, even the duty, to
question God when that guardianship seems deficient (96). In religious
thinking, God’s guardianship for nature can only be known through revelation. Humans
can use nature/creation for their communal life with God. They may not exploit
it as they wish and they may not concede nature’s use only to those most able
to use it efficiently. As tenants, humans have no right to wantonly destroy the
owner’s property.
Novak lays out all this with great clarity of thought and language.
Chapters Four, Five, and Six are essays on the contrast between philosophy
and theology through a comparison of Philo and Plato, Maimonides and Aristotle,
and Kant and modern Jewish philosophers. I am not competent to intelligently comment
upon chapters four and six but I would like to draw a critique of Novak’s
treatment of Maimonides. In Chapter Five, Novak notes that the claim of
philosophy to be universally valid for all cultures led Jews to be in the
position of always having to argue for the superiority of Judaism over
philosophy, the danger to Judaism from philosophy being assimilation to
philosophy or, worse, interpreting Judaism as not truth (141-42). Novak, then,
gives a very detailed exposition of Aristotle’s theory of causality and
metaphysics: God Godself is the
Unmoved Mover who neither extends himself towards others nor hides from them. The
universe, including the intelligences, has a desire to “remain in perpetually
cognitive orbit around God” (154-55). Contemplation (theoria) is, thus, the ultimate activity. It
“lets the heavenly intelligences be known or be seen with the mind’s eye” which
“imitate[s] the heavenly intelligences being enjoyed by God as God enjoys
Godself.” This is, in Aristotle’s word, “transcendently blissful” (150).
Novak, then, proceeds to a very detailed exposition of Maimonides’ ontology
and ethics, showing how Maimonides maintained the freely willed responsibility
of God in creation and revelation (covenant) within Aristotelian causality. The
culmination of the relationship between God and humans is prayer. Dividing
prayer into “psychological,” “political,” and “metaphysical,” Novak notes that prayer is an expression of “our deeper
psychological need to talk to God directly” (171). It is also “the experience
of the need for a community with which to speak of, and to, God as the
community’s Founder, Sovereign, and Redeemer” (173). “Psychological” and
“political” prayer are a function of covenant (173). It is in Novak’s
description of “metaphysical” prayer that I think he has erred. Novak quotes
the famous passage from Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed which
describes ultimate worship as “setting
thought to work on the first intelligible and in devoting oneself exclusively
to this … in solitude and isolation” (173-74, citing Guide, 3:51). From
this, Novak draws the following conclusion: “In that case, then, this
contemplative activity is not moving from the world up to God who transcends
even the cosmos” (177).
This is not the argument that Maimonides is making in that stunning
chapter. In fact, Maimonides argues that the human intellect makes “contact”
(Arabic, wusla) with the Tenth Intelligence.
He even uses the word “union” (Arabic ’ittihad)
and the word “bliss” (Arabic ghibta; Hebrew no`am) to describe this experience. Maimonides goes
on to unify his theory of providence and even of the world-to-come with this
form of worship, transforming the strong love motif in Song of Songs into a paean
to “philosophical mysticism” There is a form of metaphysical prayer in
Maimonides but it is not one-way. It is, indeed, a meeting of the divine and
the human, albeit limited in its character to pure mind (intellect). (For more
on this, see my essays on philosophical mysticism here; or my book, Philosophic Mysticism: Essays in Rational Religion.)
I have known David Novak for 50 years. We have always had respect for one
another and for each other’s work. But we have always disagreed on the role of
the rational in religion. It seems that, in our elder years, we still disagree,
respectfully, on this.
David R. Blumenthal
Emory University, retired
[1] David Novak, Athens
and Jerusalem: God, Humans, and Nature (Toronto, University of Toronto
Press: 2019), Journal of Religion,37:2 (May 2022) 399-402.