The Imago Dei in David Novak and Thomas Aquinas: A Jewish-Christian Dialogue

The Thomist 72 (2008): 259-311 THE IMAGO DEI IN DAVID NOVAK AND THOMAS AQUINAS: A JEWISH-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE MATTHEW LEVERING Ave Maria University Ave Maria, Florida AT THE ROOT OF Jewish and Christian understandings of human nature are God's words in the first chapter of the Bible: Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Gen 1:26-27) Interpreting this passage, Richard Middleton describes the contemporary debate between "a metaphysical, substantialistic analogy" (the image of God as rooted in human rationality) and "a dynamic, relational notion of the image as ethical conformity or obedient response to God."1 Middleton's concerns regarding 1 Richard Middleton, The Liberating Image: The "Imago Dei" in Genesis 1 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos, 2005), 20. He attributes the latter position to Karl Barth, among others. See also Marc Cardinal Ouellet, S.S., Divine Likeness: Toward a Trinitarian Anthropology ofthe Family, trans. Philip Milligan and Linda M. Cicone (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2006). Regarding Genesis 1:26-27 Ouellet observes that "current exegesis is moving beyond two extremes. On the one hand, one finds the purely spiritual interpretation-which is the commonly held opinion of Christian exegesis since Philo-that the notion of image of God concerns only the spiritual dimension of man, allowing him to have dominion over animals and things. On the other hand, there is the purely material interpretation of the image: the fact that the Hebrew term selem (sculpture, statue) would bring us back to the bodily configuration proper to man, that is, his vertical posture. The majority of exegetes can 259 260 MATTHEW LEVERING the traditional account of the image of God as human rationality are shared by Jewish theologian David Novak, who sets forth his position especially in two books, Natural Law in Judaism and Covenantal Rights. In what follows, I will explore Novak's approach in detail, and then examine Thomas Aquinas's theology of the image of God in light of Novak's insights and criticisms. The goal is to offer an account of the imago dei that engages constructivelywith contemporary concerns about "a metaphysical, substantialistic analogy." I. THE IMAGE OF GOD ACCORDING TO DAVID NOVAK A) Human Nature and Divine Power: Creation and Covenant Novak argues against the view, held by Aristotle as well as by Jewish thinkers such as Maimonides, that the human relationship with God is part of a cosmic teleology. For Novak, such a view undermines the priority and gratuity of the covenantal relationship of human beings with God.2 Although for Maimonides the eschatological "world-to-come" will include only persons "whose moral conduct is oriented in the context of a relationship with God,"3 nonetheless he reaches this conclusion primarily on the basis of the doctrine of creation rather than that of covenant. As Novak says regarding Maimonides' teleology, currently be found between these two opinions" (27). 2 See, e.g., David Novak, Natural Law in Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), chaps. 4-5; idem, Jewish-Christian Dialogue: A Jewish Justification (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 125, 139, 154; idem, Covenantal Rights: A Study in Jewish Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 53. As he puts it inJewishChristian Dialogue, "in Scripture, the Lord God is the creator of this cosmic order, and as creator he transcends its limits. Holiness (qedushah) is not part of the cosmic order. Being God's own relational capacity with man, it, too, transcends that order. Those addressed by God's covenant also transcend therein the limits of that order: 'You shall be holy because I the Lord your God am holy' (Leviticus 19:2). The relationship, on the human side, only presupposes the cosmic order for its formal structure, but it transcends it in its substantial being-with God" (154). 3 Novak,Jewish-Christian Dialogue, 139. Novak emphasizes...