I read it, and indeed things are more organized for me now.

I’m just still not clear why those same arguments about the absence of a mechanism that creates worlds with laws, and the absence of other such worlds—arguments that you accept—shouldn’t also be applied to Darwinism itself. Is there any reality of new life being created in the world since the six days of creation, such that we could say that the world supposedly creates itself? Has anyone encountered such a phenomenon of the sudden formation of new creatures? And likewise, where did all those thousands of mutations and deformed creatures supposedly go, which should have been found among us at every stage? Is it plausible to say that they all became extinct and not even a trace of them remains?
You wrote in the article that you do accept Darwinism in itself, and I really don’t understand why in light of the arguments you yourself made there..
I’d be glad for a plausible explanation.
Happy holiday!

I accept Darwinism not because I checked the details, but for two other reasons: 1. I have a basic trust in the scientific process. 2. For the sake of the discussion, to show that even if one accepts evolution, that does not in any way undermine faith.
Why should there be creation of new life? Evolution does not create life but rather develops existing life. As for abiogenesis (the formation of life), that is a different question, and to this day there is no clear answer as to how it happened. But people are working on it intensely.
The deformed creatures and unsuccessful mutations do not survive, and so they disappear. What survived is the totality of creatures you know.
In general, since I claim that dealing with evolution has no theological significance whatsoever, I don’t see why you’re engaging with this issue. If it interests you scientifically, then study the subject properly. But if you’re dealing with it only for theological reasons, that is completely unnecessary. Even if there were no answers to the question of deformed creatures (which you asked), that is a purely scientific question, and it has absolutely nothing to do with faith and theology.

All right, many thanks.
It’s just hard to disconnect so quickly and totally from the idea that the theory of evolution is a direct contradiction to faith. So besides your original approach, I’m also trying to see whether from the outset this is a theory with a very shaky and tendentious basis, in which case there would be no need to get into this whole discussion at all. And that would be a simpler path.

I don’t recommend that path. You are not sufficiently expert to carry out such an examination, and the difficulties you raise have already been discussed to exhaustion by the professionals. That will not be where your glory lies. Just as I would not recommend that you critique the findings of modern physics based on your own intuition. I assume you don’t really expect to come up with difficulties that professionals haven’t thought of.

Happy holiday, honorable Rabbi,

How does the Rabbi explain the counting of the age of the world accepted in Judaism?
And what is the point of it if it is wrong, and really how is it that all of humanity throughout the world counts the same thing?
Do you think there is some kind of professional difficulty here?

I am still waiting for an explanation from you and the professionals as to how the soul was implanted in the process of abiogenesis. And where did it come from, after all—it isn’t even matter…
So with all my zeal, I would recommend that you stop believing in modern Darwinist findings, and how can you openly declare trust in them when neither you nor they answer the arguments I have raised more than once. A primordial contradiction. In my opinion, accepting evolution absolutely does undermine faith. See the book of Genesis. See there the first man.
Who “switched on” the sun?

Regarding the age of the world, there are several possibilities, and since there is no way to decide among them, the topic does not seem worth discussing to me. The days of creation can describe long periods. History focuses mainly on the period in which human beings exist, etc.
By the way, contrary to your assumption, not everyone counts the same thing.

The question of how a soul entered the animal assumes the conclusion in advance—that there is a soul. Most scientists do not think there is such a thing. In my view, it entered at some stage when the biological body was ready. Exactly as when a human being is formed from a drop of semen, at some stage a soul enters him. My assumption is that in the drop of semen there is no soul, and at some stage it enters. I don’t see any special problem with that.

As for your recommendations regarding belief in evolution, I can only suggest that you raise your objections in an orderly way in scientific journals. As far as I am concerned, these recommendations are roughly equivalent to the recommendations of a layman regarding modern physics. But of course, recommendations don’t cost money.

So you don’t think the Torah owes us information about when exactly the soul entered the human body? And into the souls of those born from him… Does evolution explain that? That’s the question.
And according to your approach, man was not really created from the earth, nor his wife, but was created evolutionarily…
And who switched on the sun?
I’d be glad to hear who counts differently and on what basis, or a link to read.
Happy holiday.

The Torah doesn’t owe us anything. Nor does it really give us historical information except what is relevant. Evolution does not explain that, if only because most of its researchers do not believe in the existence of a soul at all.
Who switched on the sun? The Holy One, blessed be He, or some law of nature that caused it to form as a blazing star.

I’d be glad to hear who does count like us, aside from those who believe in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) literally. That is not a large minority of the world’s inhabitants. Every mythology has its own dating.

And who switched on that blazing star?
You said that laws do not cause or create anything; they are only laws. So how would they switch on a sun?
True, the Torah doesn’t owe anything, but when it describes creation it may not describe a falsehood. If we were created by evolution, it would be false for it to say that we were created from the earth. And in falsehood neither I nor you nor anyone else believes. So why were we called Adam?

With God’s help,

Good week,
I still don’t understand from your article the claim regarding grounding the argument on the complexity of the world—why, if we say that thousands of mutations and deformed creatures are formed naturally, does that still not pull the rug out from under the physico-theological argument? As I understand it, that argument is based on the near-zero probability of such a complex and precise world existing without a directing force. But if we say that there may be a mechanism that causes billions of mutations to arise (a claim that seems utterly implausible to me at first glance, but that you and the scientists accept, as far as I understand), then the chance that one normal one will emerge from all of those becomes much greater and approaches 1. And if so, the proof has seemingly fallen. Where am I mistaken?

See my article here:

מבט שיטתי על יחסי אבולוציה ואמונה

That’s the article you sent me at the beginning, and it’s about that that I’m asking the question.

I answered that. It’s the argument outside the laws. The formation of many mutations does not touch the fundamental difficulty at all. Mutations are once life already exists. The question is how life was formed and how the laws that allow life were formed.

So in the article you meant that only the probability of a state in which life would arise is the near-zero one?

If I understand correctly, then your proof relies only on the mere existence of life around us. But as for the complexity, precision, and exemplary order that exists in the world, it comes out that the basis for the proof really is removed if we say that billions of mutations are indeed created? (That is, it is not a physico-theological proof.)

Hello Y.,
I meant the probability that life would arise and that there would be laws that would allow it to develop evolutionarily. That is the physico-theological proof itself (the argument from complexity).

Just so I know I understand correctly: by “that there would be laws that would allow it to develop evolutionarily,” you mean that the very existence of a system that creates thousands of mutations, from which only the survivors remain, and that this system has the property of reproduction that passes these survival traits on to the next generations—all this complex system proves in its very essence and complexity the existence of God.

If so, I can understand the logic in that. But in my opinion this reduces the level of proof by several orders of magnitude compared to a complexity in which we say that the world and all its creatures were created directly precise and perfect, without the whole process of producing thousands of random mutations (which seemingly increases the chance of eventually arriving at precision and order randomly).
Is that correct?
(It seems to me that in your article you argued that Darwinism actually proves this more strongly, and I don’t understand why.)
Happy holiday,
and thank you for the precious time invested in the answers.

It really does not reduce the force of the proof; it strengthens it. If the world was created as it is by chance, then that is one chance event. But if there is a precise system of laws that begins a process at the Big Bang and after 14 billion years arrives at living creatures in a way directed in advance, then there is no proof like that of a guiding hand.
The question why there is waste along the way is a result of how the laws operate. It is doubtful whether there is another system of laws that would produce all this without waste. But that is a second-order question (I think I explained that there too, or in my book. I compared it to someone who finds a watch that works in a way that is not optimal in his opinion. The complexity still proves that there is a watchmaker, except that the watchmaker’s mind is apparently not my mind. The fact that this watch works differently from how I would have done it does not undermine the proof, because it is based on its complexity and not on its mode of operation).