David Novak
David Novak
David Novakis a Jewish theologian, ethicist, and scholar of Jewish philosophy and law. He is an ordained Conservative rabbi and has also trained with Catholic moral theologians. Since 1997 he has taught religion and philosophy at the University of Toronto; his areas of interest are Jewish theology, ethics and biomedical ethics, political theoryand Jewish-Christian relations...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTheologian
CountryUnited States of America
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The relationship between God and his people was always the one having absolute primacy, the one that had basically to determine all human relationships, whether those within the covenanted community itself or those between the covenanted community and the outside world.
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If human language, with its logic, is the way God has given us to understand the world, then the Torah must be understood in that same language and with that same logic.
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The Jewish tradition presents itself as the greatest revelation of God's truth that can be known in the world. That is why we call ourselves 'the chosen people.' It is not that we choose ourselves. It means that we have been elected by God and given the Torah.
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To be a Jew, essentially and not just accidentally, is to regard the Jewish people as one's sole primal community. Election by the unique God requires total and unconditional loyalty to one people.
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Even when God chose Israel, he did not create the people of Israel as he created its human members, as natural beings. Instead, God formed the people of Israel from individual human beings already living in the natural world, calling them into a new historical identity.
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God chose us to live both in body and in soul, but the body functions for the sake of the soul more than the soul functions for the body.
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Because Judaism and Christianity are both covenantal religions, the relationship of the individual Jew or Christian to God is always within covenanted community.
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The community in which one hears the voice of God structures how one hears that voice and interprets what it says.
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The common moral praxis of Jews and Christians is most definitely theologically informed by the doctrine we share in common: The human person, male and female, is created in the image of God.
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The shortcoming of purely political discourse between Christians and Jews arises from the fact that it is largely built upon the perception of a common enemy.
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The right to privacy has both positive and negative connotations for those who consider themselves part of the natural law tradition.
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During the Middle Ages, Jews were members of a semi-independent polity within a larger polity.
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Perhaps the main stumbling block to a better, and more fruitful, theological relationship with Judaism and the Jewish people has been the tendency of many Christian theologians to see the Christ event as the end of history.
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A religious commitment coupled with theological awareness gives Jews a much better way to answer the claims made upon us by missionaries representing other religions than do the rather weak political and cultural arguments of the secularists.