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A CRITIQUE OF BOROWITZ'S POSTMODERN JEWISH THEOLOGY |
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| Authors: | Norbert M. Samuelson |
| Affiliation: | Norbert M. Samuelson is Professor of the Philosophy of Religion and Jewish Studies, Religion Department, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122. |
| Abstract: | Abstract. Borowitz's book is primarily a systematic response by a liberal Jewish theologian to his perceived challenges from rationalism on one hand and postmodernism on the other. It is within this context that Borowitz discusses issues of the relationship between modern science and Judaism. The first part of this essay is a summary of Borowitz's book. Here I locate Borowitz's place in the general discipline of Jewish philosophy and theology. The second part of the paper is a critique of Borowitz's discussion of postmodernism and liberalism. It is in this concluding section that the issues raised by contemporary science for Jewish religious thought are discussed. |
| Keywords: | asymptote atomism and relationalism autonomy Eugene B. Borowitz Martin Buber calculus Hermann Cohen covenantal theology entities, parts, and collections hafakhah and aggadah hopeless hope human rights and democracy individual rights Jewish and singular self liberalism and traditionalism modernism and postmodernism moral relativism Newtonian physics quantum mechanics rationalism and nonrationalism realism Reconstructionist, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism Bertrand Russell and the Principia Mathematica Steven Schwarz-schild universalism and particularism |