Q&A: Secular Dualism
Secular Dualism
Question
The Rabbi mentioned several times in his book The Science of Freedom that there can be a secular dualist worldview. A secular worldview, to the best of my understanding, is based on evolution as the foundation of the entire world (because of the physico-theological argument). How can one explain the emergence of a soul in an evolutionary process without intelligent intervention?
Answer
First, not every secular person has to accept evolution. There were secular people even at the beginning of the 18th century. Second, even if the soul was not formed in an evolutionary way, that does not prevent one from accepting its existence. It is true that there is an affinity between secularism and materialism, but the connection is not necessary.
Discussion on Answer
Since I don’t understand how they deal with that argument today, it is certainly even harder to understand how they dealt with it back then.
I already wrote that, in principle, belief in evolution does not require materialism (for example, I tend to accept evolution, but I am not a materialist). Beyond matter, which develops evolutionarily, there are also souls. Evolution also does not explain the formation of matter, and it does not even explain the emergence of life (only its development).
As for the secular people of the 18th century, how did they deal with the physico-theological argument? And regarding evolutionists, isn’t evolution supposed to be the source of everything? How was the soul created if not through an evolutionary process—in other words, what is there in nature beyond the laws of nature that could create it?