How Michael Wyschogrod Taught Me To Eat Like a Jew

[Michael]

Like every hill farmer I know, I have sometimes called in a vet to a sick sheep and paid ten times the animal's market value for the treatment. Of course, this only happens in a tiny minority of cases, but it is simply a matter of principle that (1) no animal is allowed to suffer and (2) no potentially healthy animal is denied treatment. After all, they are not just book-keeping entries; we live with them and look them in the face.

Similarly, I have seen men weep, not loudly, but very hard, when they have lost a ewe in a cross-birth. It was not the money

[Spengler]

Apropos of sheep, here is the first attempt I made at drawing attention to Wyschogrod's essay on the animals, in the context of the Christmas creche tradition begun by St. Francis:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/IL25Aa01.html

Code: Select all

Children around the world dress up as oxen, sheep and donkeys this week in Christmas pageants. Domestic animals appear beside the shepherds and magi in every nativity scene, introduced by St Francis of Assisi in 1223, [1] but not in the canonic Gospels, where no mention is made of the beasts’ adoration of the Christ child. This part of story is to be found in the New Testament Apocrypha, in later texts that Christian authorities consider suspect and misleading.  Sometimes, though, the intuition of children is more reliable than the pronouncements of scholars. What would Christmas be without the sheep and oxen?

...Judeo-Christian culture places great emphasis on kindness to animals, and the ox that kissed the Lord’s foot stood in the manger as a representative of all his fellows.

Children spontaneously identify with animals, and the Bible tells us that God finds an affinity between the innocence of animals and children. He chides Jonah, “And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand [ie, small children]; and also much cattle?”

It may seem trivial to worry about the welfare of animals when we might fret more productively about Iranian nuclear weapons or Pakistani suicide bombers. But we must justify ourselves not only to God, but also to our children, and at this time of year we owe attention to a child’s view of things. A deeper point about our own nature is at stake. What is it that makes us different from animals? Contrary to Aristotle, I do not believe it is the faculty of reason as such. I own a terrier who schemes on the level of a Talleyrand. If oxen and asses adored the Christ child, moreover, are we better than the beasts in our capacity to love?

[Denver Bob]

As a gentile (Goy or cattle) why should I care, other than just for general information. All the rules are just to keep the community together and apart. Seems odd that thinks the speed an exclusionist culture, perhaps even a racist one have any true interest or worth for the rest of the world.

We need much less ethnic stroking and more decency.

[Michael]

Apropos of sheep, here is the first attempt I made at drawing attention to Wyschogrod's essay on the animals, in the context of the Christmas creche tradition begun by St. Francis:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/IL25Aa01.html

Code: Select all

Children around the world dress up as oxen, sheep and donkeys this week in Christmas pageants. Domestic animals appear beside the shepherds and magi in every nativity scene, introduced by St Francis of Assisi in 1223, [1] but not in the canonic Gospels, where no mention is made of the beasts’ adoration of the Christ child. This part of story is to be found in the New Testament Apocrypha, in later texts that Christian authorities consider suspect and misleading.  Sometimes, though, the intuition of children is more reliable than the pronouncements of scholars. What would Christmas be without the sheep and oxen?

...Judeo-Christian culture places great emphasis on kindness to animals, and the ox that kissed the Lord’s foot stood in the manger as a representative of all his fellows.

Children spontaneously identify with animals, and the Bible tells us that God finds an affinity between the innocence of animals and children. He chides Jonah, “And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand [ie, small children]; and also much cattle?”

It may seem trivial to worry about the welfare of animals when we might fret more productively about Iranian nuclear weapons or Pakistani suicide bombers. But we must justify ourselves not only to God, but also to our children, and at this time of year we owe attention to a child’s view of things. A deeper point about our own nature is at stake. What is it that makes us different from animals? Contrary to Aristotle, I do not believe it is the faculty of reason as such. I own a terrier who schemes on the level of a Talleyrand. If oxen and asses adored the Christ child, moreover, are we better than the beasts in our capacity to love?

Of course, the reference is to Isaiah 1:3 - "The ox knows his owner and the ass his master's crib..."

[Collingwood]

Spengler,

Thank you for this essay, which nicely continues the direction you took in your Christmas 2007 essay. Both in our discussion of that essay, and in the months preceding it, including in context of the pastoral metaphor, we discussed the theological consequences of taking animals seriously. Plainly, Judaism did that from the beginning, and St. Francis attempted by all accounts to put that back into Christianity, although not in the same way; rather than revert to the ritual law, he sought, in good Christian form, to move Christians to encompass animals within the scope of the Summary of the Law, as neighbors that one should love as one's self. So in observing that Christianity erred by departing so entirely from at least the basic principle underlying kashrut, you seem to have the implicit support of the greatest of Christian saints. And the remarkable popularity of St. Francis in this respect, including of his innovation of putting ox and ass in the creche, is notable; petting zoos flourish, and the "Little Flowers" continue to sell, for a reason.

It's not just a matter of mercy; it's a matter of community, a multi-species community that our species leads. That mankind, in pre-history, managed to achieve civilisation by domesticating other species (and failed to do so or did so more slowly where there has been a paucity of domesticable species), is the core argument of Gerard Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel; suspend your loathing for Diamond's intent, and focus solely on his results, and you will find that they inspiringly reinforce the Hebrew Bible's approach to man's relationship with other animals. Humans arrived at a position of being able to record and hence benefit from Revelation only by domesticating other species, specifically by inserting ourselves as "leader" in the societies of other heirarchically social species, which alone are domesticable. The community that Revelation must address therefore cannot be mankind alone; insofar as it is given in love to help mankind, it must address man's relationship to the animals, and its eschatological goal must include the Peaceable Kingdom. But the most interesting aspect of all this is that we ourselves are heirarchically social; that's how we know how to play "leader" to other such species, how to "shepherd," and Revelation offers us a Shepherd who enables us to form communities that transcend mere blood-ties. Our relationship to our domesticated animals mirrors our relationship to God; with those we cannot domesticate, we have no such relationship, no community -- we give them nothing and dare not demand their lives, lest we find God our hunter rather than our shepherd. To escape this symmetry, we must descend below the mammals to the fish and locusts. It is not, I think, entirely about killing mercifully, not merely our inability to slaughter a wild deer in the prescribed manner that underlies the Hebrew Bible's reservations about hunting and hunters; the laws of slaughter are merely the outward and visible sign of a deeper truth underlying kashrut.

. . . . . . . . . * . . . . . . . . . * . . . . . . . . . *

The Covenant never stated that every individual Jew would prosper, only that the Jewish people would be eternal, and that other nations would bless themselves by us ... The Jewish position comes from Deuteronomy 30.

That Deuteronomy 30 is traditionally the key text seems undeniable. And I, like you, prefer to read it as collective rather than individual morality and covenant. Yet doesn't it repeat some of its "blessings and cursings" twice, once in the singular and once in the plural? And doesn't it seem to describe Torah observance not merely as a necessary but as a sufficient condition of prosperity?

I'm not sure how to deal with the repetition of the same language in both singular and plural.

But I have long observed that to mistake necessary conditions for sufficient conditions is one of the most common errors of human thought, and I see no reason why the author of Deuteronomy 30 (perhaps Jeremiah) should have been immune in his capacity as a recepticle of Revelation. There is no sufficient condition of worldly prosperity; there are no guarantees. There are, however, necessary conditions; sooner or later, bad consequences ensue from bad actions, and although the brevity of individual life may allow an individual to escape them, they are hard to escape for a whole people in the long run.

The problem with promising guarantees is not merely that it engenders disappointment and disillusionment when things go badly, but that it also erodes gratitude when things go well. That prosperity is possible at all -- the the world exists, that we exist, that we can lift ourselves above an animal standard of material existence at all -- is all a miracle, a gift past our deserving; justifying what we already are and have in this life is the immediate problem, and only grace seems an adquate answer.

What remains of "covenant" without sufficient conditions, without promising guarantees? Plenty, I think. The law itself, not any specific consequences of observing it, is the blessing: warning of necessary conditions of our welfare suffices as blessing, even though they be not sufficient. "The Torah is the inheritance of Jacob's house." That's as true for Christians and the moral law as for Jews and both the moral and ritual law. One does right, and if one is Jewish one tries to observe ritual mitzvot, for its own sake, not for any specific consequences; it is enough to know that, whatever the outcome may be, it would be worse (albeit not necessarily for one's individual self) if one did not. Ultimately, it's about love, and love, although it may be calculating, is not contingent upon specific outcomes. God, both by creating us as what we are and by reminding us in historical revelation of the necessary conditions of long-run collective well-being, has shown us love enough that we should require nothing further, no promises either for here or hereafter, to be moved to reciprocate it.

Orthodox Christianity seems to refocus Deuteronomy's promises of guarantees from the collective to the individual, from the objective to the subjective, and from this world to the world to come. I sympathise with the implied critique, but find the solution uninspiring; I much prefer to refrain from trying to bind God to any promises, and instead simply to be grateful for what is -- which includes the possibility that I might help to make it better than it otherwise would be.

[ellens]

"There are, however, necessary conditions; sooner or later, bad consequences ensue from bad actions, and although the brevity of individual life may allow an individual to escape them, they are hard to escape for a whole people in the long run."

________________________________________

Welcome back, Collingwood. I like your point about the brevity of human life allowing individuals to escape drawing conclusions about the consequences of their bad behavior. How true! It is also often true, though, that people do realize the negative consequences of their own bad behavior, but alas, too late in life to make much of a difference. Once you've ruined your marriage, alienated your children, destroyed your best friendships or ruined your career, it doesn't do much good to sit back in the rocking chair and contemplate sagely how it would have been better to behave differently.

People grow old with regrets, and nowadays I suspect there are more and more people in that situation. Partly, because people live to such old ages now, they have loads of time to ruminate on past failures. Until not too long ago, most people dropped dead in what would be viewed today as the prime of their life. No time for introspection.

The one good thing I can say about career missteps or omissions is that the average American goes through quite a number of career changes these days. If you make a mess of the first or second one, try a third or a fourth! Roll with the punches. Starting a career at mid-life myself, I have come to view that as the best advice.

[Spengler]

Collingwood,

Shalom Carmy's excellent review of Rabbi Soloveitchik's book in the Aug/Sept 2009 FT is worth rereading:

Nonetheless, And from There You Shall Seek seems to me to offer an alternative, even for Christians, to Tillich’s stark dichotomy between unbridled human subjectivity and a divine subjectivity for which human beings are merely objects

Such resources are not absent from Christian thought and experience. Human imitation of the divine is an old Christian theme and one that has played an increasingly central role for modern Protestant theologians from Kierkegaard to Barth (whom Rabbi Soloveitchik studied with a degree of sympathy). Partnership with God in ethical action has been championed, though it is frequently linked to theological liberalism. Even the distinctiveness of “religious reading” and the role of study in religious life have been explored. The importance of absolute, divinely commanded norms as the anchor of moral and religious life has been widely recognized, as have been the dangers of mysticism divorced from ethical existence within social and historical communities

It is regarding the objective normative element in revelation that Soloveitchik presents his sharpest critique of Christianity: “Subjective faith, lacking commands and laws, faith of the sort that Saul of Tarsus spoke about—even if it dresses itself up as the love of God and man—cannot stand fast if it contains no explicit commands to do good deeds, to fulfill specific commandments not always approved by rationality and culture.”

Soloveitchik speaks of the Holocaust in this context. Christian commitment, able to reject Tillich’s ­scenario of revolt and negation, must be able to confront the dangers inherent in a faith insufficiently attentive to divinely commanded works that are not always approved by rationality and culture. For Soloveitchik, the Augustinian dictum to “love and do what you will” is insufficient to transcend human inclination. Conforming oneself to divine revelation requires more:

Pragmatically, fearing God precedes loving Him. Western metaphysical religious philosophy, born out of the union of the Greek eros and the Christian agape, says much about the plenitude of love for the spiritual and higher realms. But all its statements remain hollow utterances devoid of reality, because it has never understood fear in all its terrible essence. It therefore has often turned apostate and brought chaos to the world. From time to time, Satan has taken control over the realm of Western religiosity, and the forces of destruction have overcome the creative consciousness and defiled it.

A one-sided emphasis on agape prevented Christianity from standing in the way of the “forces of destruction” in twentieth-century neopaganism, among nominal and even among some practicing ­Christians.

How do frail human beings avoid sin without specific commandments? I have always found the Christian view somewhat ambiguous and confusing. On the one hand, the "circumcision of our hearts" (a phrase that in fact goes back to Deuteronomy) through a "new covenant" (Jeremiah's reiteration of Deuteronomy) will take the place of the Law; in the common interpretation, that means that once we are filled with love for Jesus Christ we spontaneously will do the right thing without the need for all the detail of mitzvot. Very well; but St. Paul also says (in Romans) that in some way we are programmed to do so by nature:

"For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things contained in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law unto themselves, their conscience also bearing witness."

That is "natural law" in a nutshell. But how much is nature, and how much is divine love? In fact, I don't believe that either is true (that God's love substitutes for specific commandments, nor that the law is written on the hearts of the Gentiles), much less both, or some combination. That, I believe, is why Christianity tends to oscillate between "Judaizing" reliance on the Hebrew Bible, and antinomian tendencies.

[Michael]

Since the Scholastics, Catholics have tended to use a synthesis, between the Virtue Ethics of Aristotle and Divine Positive Law, based on Scripture, particularly an expanded reading of the Decalogue. The virtues are the three "Theological" virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity (1 Cor 13:13) and the four "Cardinal" virtues of Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance (Cic. De inv II: 153 inter alia)

Moral Theologians have developed a vast and intricate casuistical treatment of human action, grouped under these headings: so, murder, adultery and theft are sins against Justice, drunkeness, gluttony and lechery are sins against Temperance &c

The system presupposes an accepted philosophical anthropology and, here again, the "natural end" of Man is drawn from Aristotle and his "supernatural end" is drawn from Scripture.

The Seven Deadly Sins, going back in substance to the hermit and classical scholar, Evagrius Ponticus (345-399) are used in the same way in the East and spread to the West, in the sixth century; since Gregory the Great (another monk), the list has been Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Sloth, Avarice, Wrath and Lust. Again, the catalogue is character-centred, rather than action-centred. Evagrius, by the by, was an admirer of the Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria, whom his co-religionists regarded as rather suspect. It was, and remains, very influential in monastic spirituality, where it is used as a check-list for the nightly examination of conscience. It is a useful index to the well-springs of human action - Advertisers and politicians certainly appear to ground their appeal on them.

Dom David Knowles, the Cambridge mediaeval historian (and a Benedictine monk in private life) once remarked that the modern invention the Schoolmen would have admired most is the card index.

Natural Law thinking has undergone something of a revival in recent years. It started in Germany, after the War, for obvious reasons. John Finnis at Oxford and Robert P George at Princeton are the main exponents in the English-speaking world, although they tend to talk of "values," rather than of "virtues." In political debate, Natural Law is often seen as furnishing Christians with "public reasons" for their moral positions.

[Spengler]

Michael,

I am aware of the synthesis. The Jewish view (or at least the mainstream Orthodox Jewish view) differs in a very basic way. From ancient times Jews have viewed created nature as less than perfect. This is intimated in Psalm 102:

25Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands.

26They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed:

27But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.

28The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee.

Joseph Soloveitchik in Halakhic Man (pp. 105-107) explains:

When a Jew goes outside and beholds the pale moon casting its delicate strands of light into the empty reaches of the world, he recites a blessing. The natural, orderly cosmic phenomenon precipitates in his religious consciousness both melancholy thoughts and bright hopes. He contemplates this spectacle of the lawful cycle of the waxing and waning of the moon and sees in it a symbol of defectiveness and renewal. Just as the moon is "defective" and then "renewed," so creation is "defective" and will be "renewed," "replenished."....[Jews] therefore whisper a strange silent prayer: "May it be Thy will...to replenish the defect of the moon so that there be in it no diminution. And let the light of the moon be like the light of the syn, like it was before it was diminished. As it is said: 'And God made the two great lights (Gen. 1:16)." The Jewish people, by means of this prayer, give allegorical expression to their hope for the perfection of creation and the repairing of defects in the cosmos, to their hopes for the realization of the great and awesome eschatological vision: "The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun" (Isa. 30:26).

This view is deeply embedded in Jewish liturgy. Rabbi Meir Soloveichik (a regular FT contributor) recently gave a lecture examining the special liturgy for Shabbat Rosh Hodesh (a Sabbath that coincides with the New Moon), which I hope he eventually will publish.

As Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik makes clear, this is an allegorical expression. In his treatise on science The Halakhic Mind he discusses some of the implications of this view. As I read him, the epistemological problems raised by Goedel, Heisenberg and others--our incapacity to see into the Noumena of nature--can be read ontologically. That is, we are not passive observers attempting to grasp the harmony of perfected nature, but participants in an imperfect world in which natural laws themselves contain flaws.

Although I did not spell this out in my recent article "The God of the Mathematicians," that is how I suspect Goedel thought, especially in his critique of General Relativity (his time-flowing-backwards conjecture). A great deal of work would have to be done, to be sure, to draw a credible parallel between Rav Soloveitchik and Goedel.

It is clear that if the natural order itself is deficient, our understanding of natural law becomes problematic. There is something of a parallel here, I suppose, with Paul Griffith's argument about the problems of natural law in a fallen world. The Jewish idea of natural deficiency is quite different, of course, than the Christian concept of Fallenness, but the parallels are intriguing.

[CognitiveDistoibance]

How do frail human beings avoid sin without specific commandments?

Several possible correct answers here, but I'd have to go with "Rather as poorly as those with specific commandments." (Ro 3:20, among others.)

Another way of approaching the question is to ask the reason behind that "avoid sin" objective. And then behind that answer, what is the reason for it--which is to say: What does that answer say of one's view of God and His character? Which can get uncomfortable very quickly.

I have always found the Christian view somewhat ambiguous and confusing. On the one hand, the "circumcision of our hearts" (a phrase that in fact goes back to Deuteronomy) through a "new covenant" (Jeremiah's reiteration of Deuteronomy) will take the place of the Law; in the common interpretation, that means that once we are filled with love for Jesus Christ we spontaneously will do the right thing without the need for all the detail of mitzvot. Very well; but St. Paul also says (in Romans) that in some way we are programmed to do so by nature:

"For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things contained in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law unto themselves, their conscience also bearing witness."

That is "natural law" in a nutshell.

My sense of the christian view is that the law is a means of formally establishing guilt (or human frailness, if that be a softer term) and by no means of establishing righteousness. The law (natural or revealed) is regarded essentially as our accuser, our Satan, not our savior. Thus righteousness can only be imputed. (Ro 3:21-22, echoing in the christian view, Gen 15:6.)

But how much is nature, and how much is divine love? In fact, I don't believe that either is true (that God's love substitutes for specific commandments, nor that the law is written on the hearts of the Gentiles), much less both, or some combination. That, I believe, is why Christianity tends to oscillate between "Judaizing" reliance on the Hebrew Bible, and antinomian tendencies.

Color me antinomian, I guess... ... insofar as I can conceive of no higher character of God.

[Spengler]

How does God pray?, asks one famous Talmudic comment. "May my attribute of mercy prevail over my attribute of justice." From the Jewish standpoint, God never expected the Jewish people to avoid sin; that is why he gave us means of atonement for sin (starting with the Day of Atonement). Rather, the Torah is a guide to bringing holiness into the most mundane aspects of quotidian life so that we may "cleave" to God. St. Paul (or the standard interpretation of Paul) says that the Law ends up burdening us with sin. This is unrecognizable from the Jewish vantage point. What Paul actually meant, or if he meant the same thing in different passages, is a question outside my competence.

[Booklady]

How does God pray?, asks one famous Talmudic comment. "May my attribute of mercy prevail over my attribute of justice." From the Jewish standpoint, God never expected the Jewish people to avoid sin; that is why he gave us means of atonement for sin (starting with the Day of Atonement).

And from the Christian standpoint God's mercy is paramount for our salvation, for if left to our own devices, none of us would make it to heaven.

[CognitiveDistoibance]

... St. Paul (or the standard interpretation of Paul) says that the Law ends up burdening us with sin. This is unrecognizable from the Jewish vantage point. What Paul actually meant, or if he meant the same thing in different passages, is a question outside my competence.

My sense of Paul's writings is not that "the Law ends up burdening us with sin." The sin is there by nature--which soon finds its way into volitional choice. But the Law formally establishes the facts and extent of our sinfulness. Bringing us to recognize the limits (or better, folly) of our own merit before God--and the need for both mercy and atonement for sin. I certainly do not pretend competence of my own regarding Jewish vantage point(s), but there seems much commonality between Jewish and Pauline thought--at least thus far.

[Michael]

Michael,

I am aware of the synthesis. The Jewish view (or at least the mainstream Orthodox Jewish view) differs in a very basic way. From ancient times Jews have viewed created nature as less than perfect. This is intimated in Psalm 102:

25Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands.

26They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed:

27But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.

28The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee.

Joseph Soloveitchik in Halakhic Man (pp. 105-107) explains:

When a Jew goes outside and beholds the pale moon casting its delicate strands of light into the empty reaches of the world, he recites a blessing. The natural, orderly cosmic phenomenon precipitates in his religious consciousness both melancholy thoughts and bright hopes. He contemplates this spectacle of the lawful cycle of the waxing and waning of the moon and sees in it a symbol of defectiveness and renewal. Just as the moon is "defective" and then "renewed," so creation is "defective" and will be "renewed," "replenished."....[Jews] therefore whisper a strange silent prayer: "May it be Thy will...to replenish the defect of the moon so that there be in it no diminution. And let the light of the moon be like the light of the syn, like it was before it was diminished. As it is said: 'And God made the two great lights (Gen. 1:16)." The Jewish people, by means of this prayer, give allegorical expression to their hope for the perfection of creation and the repairing of defects in the cosmos, to their hopes for the realization of the great and awesome eschatological vision: "The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun" (Isa. 30:26).

This view is deeply embedded in Jewish liturgy. Rabbi Meir Soloveichik (a regular FT contributor) recently gave a lecture examining the special liturgy for Shabbat Rosh Hodesh (a Sabbath that coincides with the New Moon), which I hope he eventually will publish.

As Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik makes clear, this is an allegorical expression. In his treatise on science The Halakhic Mind he discusses some of the implications of this view. As I read him, the epistemological problems raised by Goedel, Heisenberg and others--our incapacity to see into the Noumena of nature--can be read ontologically. That is, we are not passive observers attempting to grasp the harmony of perfected nature, but participants in an imperfect world in which natural laws themselves contain flaws.

Although I did not spell this out in my recent article "The God of the Mathematicians," that is how I suspect Goedel thought, especially in his critique of General Relativity (his time-flowing-backwards conjecture). A great deal of work would have to be done, to be sure, to draw a credible parallel between Rav Soloveitchik and Goedel.

It is clear that if the natural order itself is deficient, our understanding of natural law becomes problematic. There is something of a parallel here, I suppose, with Paul Griffith's argument about the problems of natural law in a fallen world. The Jewish idea of natural deficiency is quite different, of course, than the Christian concept of Fallenness, but the parallels are intriguing.

The stress on inward character or disposition that one finds in Christian moralists includes much more than the “avoidance of sin.”

One of Abba Evagrius’s favourite texts is “You are gods, And all of you are children of the Most High.” (Psalm 82:6), although he balanced this with Genesis 8:21: "The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth," and, like all the Desert Fathers, he dwells much on the “evil leaven.”

Thus, many of the Fathers spoke of the process of sanctification as theosis (θέωσις) or deification.

So, Gregory of Nazianzus says “Man has been ordered to become God.” His close friend, Basil the Great, said, “From the Holy Spirit is the likeness of God, and the highest thing to be desired, to become God.” Origen teaches that the spirit “is deified by that which it contemplates.” And Cyril of Alexandria commented that we are all called to take part in divinity, becoming the likeness of Christ and the image of the Father by “participation.” Irenaeus noted, “If the Word is made man, it is that man might become gods.” Athanasius says the same thing, in the same words, which suggests it was common teaching. Again, John Damascene says that Christ’s redemptive work enables the image of God to be restored in us so that we become “partakers of divinity.”

The idea of the purely “natural” man, following right reason, in pursuit of his “natural end,” is a philosophical construct that suppresses the factors that are doing all the work, namely, Revelation and Grace. Its value is merely to show that Judeo-Christian morality commends itself to reason, not that “Natural Law” can function on its own, so to speak.

[rhapsody]

The idea of the purely “natural” man, following right reason, in pursuit of his “natural end,” is a philosophical construct that suppresses the factors that are doing all the work, namely, Revelation and Grace. Its value is merely to show that Judeo-Christian morality commends itself to reason, not that “Natural Law” can function on its own, so to speak.

"Grace" and "Revelation" are precisely that: philosophical constructs.