March 9, 2023 - LAW AND RELIGION FORUM

The Morningside Institute will host two seminars on natural law, on March 22 and 29, at Columbia Law School. See below for details:

Natural Law: Aquinas, Locke, and the Moral Foundations of America

From the Declaration of Independence to Letter from Birmingham Jail, Americans have appealed to the natural law as the foundation of political action and justice in our society. Today, however, the natural law is widely contested and rejected by some as partisan or dangerous. In this seminar series, Philip Hamburger (Columbia) and Nathaniel Peters (Morningside) will explore Thomas Aquinas’s and John Locke’s conceptions of the natural law and how they might help us understand the moral foundations of twenty-first century America.

Part I of this seminar will meet from 6:00 PM-7:30 PM on March 22, 2023 in Case Lounge, 7th floor of main law school building, Jerome Greene Hall (435 W. 116th St). Due to policies at the law school, you must register to attend.

Part II of this seminar will meet from 6:00 PM-7:30 PM on March 29, 2023 in Room 416 of William and June Warren Hall on Amsterdan Avenue. Due to policies at the law school, you must register to attend.

One of the great and perennial problems in law is the relationship between “the rules” and the transcendental order (if any) that animates them. This is so in all the Abrahamic religions, which have, over the centuries, developed different understandings of that relationship. Even within a single religion, different strains emerge: the Thomism of Catholicism differs from the approach of the Christian East and from Protestant understandings. Luther burned the canon law books, after all.

A new book from Yale explores perhaps the greatest sage of Jewish law who attempted a synthesis between faith and legal reasoning: Maimonides: Faith in Reason. The author is Alberto Manguel. Here’s the publisher’s description:

An exploration of Maimonides, the medieval philosopher, physician, and religious thinker, author of The Guide of the Perplexed, from one of the world’s foremost bibliophiles

Moses ben Maimon, or Maimonides (1138–1204), was born in Córdoba, Spain. The gifted son of a judge and mathematician, Maimonides fled Córdoba with his family when he was thirteen due to Almohad persecution of all non-Islamic faiths. Forced into a long exile, the family spent a decade in Spain before settling in Morocco. From there, Maimonides traveled to Palestine and Egypt, where he died at Saladin’s court.

As a scholar of Jewish law, a physician, and a philosopher, Maimonides was a singular figure. His work in extracting all the commanding precepts of Jewish law from the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud, interpreting and commenting on them, and translating them into terms that would allow students to lead sound Jewish lives became the model for translating God’s word into a language comprehensible by all. His work in medicine—which brought him such fame that he became Saladin’s personal physician—was driven almost entirely by reason and observation.

In this biography, Alberto Manguel examines the question of Maimonides’ universal appeal—he was celebrated by Jews, Arabs, and Christians alike. In our time, when the need for rationality and recognition of the truth is more vital than ever, Maimonides can help us find strategies to survive with dignity in an uncertain world.