Q&A: Evolution
Evolution
Question
Have a good week!
How is the Rabbi doing?
I have several questions about the Rabbi’s view on evolution: 1. How does the Rabbi’s explanation fit with what is written in the Torah?
2. Seemingly, if we assume that evolution happened, it would follow that the world began through a process of natural selection, and that contradicts ideas brought in various places that there is a cosmic unity in creation, such as: Nachmanides’ statement that in the future “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb” literally, since the cruelty prevailing in the world is a result of human sins; and Beit HaLevi’s statement that in the generation of the Flood the animals sinned not because they had free choice, but because the human realm influences creation?
Thank you very much!
Answer
I’m doing excellent. Thank you.
- What is the question?
- I didn’t understand any of it. But if your intention is to challenge me from something Beit HaLevi or Nachmanides wrote (I didn’t understand the difficulty), then it’s not even worth elaborating. If what I say goes against their words, then I disagree with them.
Discussion on Answer
Man was created as dust from the ground, but it doesn’t say there by what mechanism. That could also occur through abiogenesis and (planned) evolution. That is, of course, assuming that the description there is a factual description and not an instructive myth or some kind of parable. That too is possible.
I don’t know what a process of cosmic unity is, and I don’t see why the words of those two commentators say anything like that or anything that contradicts evolution. After evolution is over, the wolf will dwell with the lamb, because all creatures that fight one another—at least one of them will go extinct. That is exactly the expected end of the evolutionary process.
And in what you brought from Beit HaLevi I don’t see anything connected to the discussion.
Evolution will go extinct through an evolutionary process? So it too will fall prey to its own method?
There are many processes that certainly happened and were not written in the Torah. For example: if a person experiences an earthquake, the Sages obligated him to recite, neither more nor less, “Who performs the work of creation”; likewise for meteor falls or lightning and more. The Torah does not say at all that this is part of the work of creation, but the Sages knew/estimated that this too was part of the work of creation even though it is not written explicitly in the Torah…
That is to say, there were many processes included within the summary written in the Torah.
Man accumulated from dust, and through cycles and progress over … years became a human who could be defined as being in the image of God. What were the stages? How long were they? Go ask scientists…
For example, in the Zohar, Vayikra 10, God speaks with ancient human beings who preceded “Adam the First” [who was created in the image—some kind of moral consciousness? chosen?]
And in this way the midrash about Adam—that for the sake of his honor his sting [tail] was removed—is understandable; there was a stage when that was no longer appropriate…
The first question is that in the language of the Torah it seems that man was not created by an evolutionary process (even a planned one)?
And the second question is that in the sources I brought it seems that the primordial process is a process of cosmic unity and not of a struggle for survival. I have no problem with the Rabbi disagreeing; my question is only whether this is really a different understanding, or whether I simply didn’t grasp it correctly.
Thanks