Political theology

Name: Professor David Novak

Position: J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair of Jewish Studies, held since 1997

Affiliation: Department of Philosophy, Department and Centre for the Study of Religion, Centre for Jewish Studies

Education: PhD, Georgetown University

Areas of Expertise:  Jewish philosophy and theology

Teaching

RLG 3624   The Jurisprudence of Maimonides

RLG 220     Philosophical Responses to the Holocaust

Publications

– In Defense of Religious Liberty (2009)

– The Sanctity of Human Life (2007)

– Talking with Christians: Musings of a Jewish Theologian (2005)

Major Awards & Honours

Board Member, Assisted Human Reproduction Canada (AHRC)

Fellow, American Academy for Jewish Research

Should democratic societies be entirely secular?

A religious covenant has parallels with a social contract, and makes demands upon the faithful which often transcend their political commitments. But surprisingly few societies have considered the ways in which religious insights can engage with the philosophical underpinnings of the secular, modern, democratic state.

Professor David Novak, the J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair of Jewish Studies, believes this partitioning of knowledge (secular philosophy on one side, revealed knowledge on the other) diminishes an important corpus of human experience, marginalizing  trenchant, often essential, critiques which belong in the public sphere. Far from being a purely private affair which needs to be tolerated and accommodated, Novak sees religion in general, and Judaism in particular, as positive forces which can contribute centuries of profound moral introspection to almost every modern debate.

Consider, for example, the concept of trust. “Philosophically, [modern arguments for it] have been dependent on views of human nature that do not give a reason why any rational person should enter into a relationship of trust, like a contract, with any other rational person,” Novak explains. “[S]ecularist admiration for interhuman trust has been more phenomenological than ethical, that is, most secularists only describe how trust benefits society rather than why anyone ought to trust anyone else or be trusted by anyone else.” Jewish theology, by contrast, is replete with meditations on the nature of faith and trust, and fills this gap very eloquently.

Novak believes that dogmatic secularization has undercut the meaning of religious freedom, that “without a defense of Judaism’s public participation in civil society, which is theologically and philosophically cogent, individual Jews do not have enough cultural capital to maintain their Jewish identity even in private.” Religious liberty ought to be understood as an invitation for Judaism to engage with canonical Western philosophy. Cross-fertilization of these traditions offers a more comprehensive approach to modern life than either does by itself.

The J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair in Jewish Studies was established with a gift from Toronto’s Jewish community and the late J Richard Shiff, a respected businessman, teacher and philanthropist, and his wife Dorothy.

Story by Brendan de Caires
Photo: Dave Chen