Q&A: Evolution Before Darwin
Evolution Before Darwin
Question
It is brought as an appendix to the words of Sefer Ha-Ikkarim at the beginning of the third essay.
A. Is there any proof from this that the author of Ikkarim had an understanding similar to the concept of evolution?
B. More generally, did Darwin originate his theory out of nothing, or had these ideas already existed to some extent in earlier generations?
Thank you very much!
And what indicates that matter always moves from deficient existence to complete existence, according to the elevation of the composition, is this:
We find coral, which is like an intermediate between the inanimate and the plant world,
and we find the sea sponge, which has only the sense of touch, and it is like an intermediate between the plant and the animal,
and we find the ape, which is like an intermediate between the species of animals and the human species,
and with the human species coming-to-be comes to a stop.
If so, it is impossible that man, who is the end-purpose of the lower creations, should not be more honored and more complete than all of them, since all the previous forms are gathered in him, and they are like prime matter in relation to him. Therefore he is greater than them all, and subdues all the animals beneath him and rules over them.
Answer
A. I cited his words in my own book as well. Of course not. Just as Rabbi Kook, who wrote that evolution fits the accepted Torah outlook, could not really point to a source for it in our classical sources. These are just homiletic flourishes.
Evolution is not a doctrine that says creation develops from simple creatures into complex ones. That is a simple description already found in Genesis. Evolution is the scientific explanation for how that happens. Lamarckism also claims that this is how it happens, but it is apparently incorrect.
B. There is no idea on earth that comes out of nothing. You will always find some elements that appeared before the final conceptualization. But an idea belongs to the person who conceived it, defined it, and made it available to the thinking of the world.
Discussion on Answer
With God's help, 2 Elul 5782
Obviously there is a difference between Darwin's evolution, which seeks the natural causes for the processes of development in the world, and the faith-based explanations proposed centuries earlier, which sought the purpose: why did the perfect Creator create an imperfect world that needs development?
The Maharal (in Netzach Yisrael, chapter 3) sees the developmental growth of the world as the answer to the question: how did a world full of multiplicity and oppositions come from one Creator? And he answers that the created being, by its very nature as created, must be incomplete, and therefore there is a need for additional abundance that will complete the original deficiency.
Thus it becomes clear that the world is not a "mess" of opposing forces constantly wrestling with no purpose. The struggle between opposites leads and brings the world closer to a kind of harmony, in which it will become clear that the opposites complement one another.
In a certain sense, that is also true in Darwin's evolution: the one that survives is the one that succeeds better in adapting itself to life in a complex world.
Best regards, Yaron Fishel Ordner
In the history of humanity, deficient reality places responsibility on the human being to be a partner in the act of creation and to discover within himself abilities and powers to make the world more beautiful and better. This is Rabbi Akiva's answer to the claim of Turnus Rufus: indeed, the works of man, who must invest and develop, are more perfected!
A broad discussion of the Maharal of Prague's approach can be found by the interested reader in the book of Professor Benjamin (Beno) Gross, An Imperfect World – Toward Responsible Freedom.
And in the case of evolution, the scientific explanation fits as well, describing the development that brings growth and progress דווקא through a chain of malfunctions, mutations that deviate from the genetic order, where precisely from what appears to be a "defect," something better grows.
And so too the "light of the Messiah" is created through a chain of mishaps. Jacob deceives his father and is forced to flee to Laban. Laban deceives Jacob and gives him two sisters as rival wives, which leads to conflict among the brothers and to Joseph being sold down to Egypt,
And marvel of marvels, this downfall, whose continuation is a plot that leads to his imprisonment, is what brings about his rise to greatness and sustenance for his family. And later again, a terrible downfall: the enslavement of the children of Israel in slavery and affliction, from which salvation itself grows. The family becomes a people, and the oppressed people, exposed to the heights of evil and oppression, fills with "antibodies" that prepare it to receive a "redeeming Torah" and a destiny to establish a "kingdom of priests" in the land of its fathers.
And Judah, in his sorrow, falls into entanglement with the "veiled prostitute by the crossroads," who is revealed to be a righteous woman acting for the sake of Heaven, to raise up offspring for a dead woman's husband, and her "holy boldness" brings Peretz, the ancestor of kingship, into the world.
And Ruth joins Tamar, though her beginning lies in the sin of Mahlon and Chilion, who abandoned their land in a time of distress and "went to Moab." And precisely the Moabite woman abandons the legacy of hatred and alienation of her people, clings to a foreign people, and becomes the mother of converts and of the Davidic monarchy, from which the redeemer will grow, who will call all humanity to accept upon itself the kingdom of Heaven.
What appears to the eyes of the present as a "chain of mishaps" is revealed in historical perspective as the "growth of our redemption."
Best regards, Amiyoz Yaron Shnitzelr
And if there is such a genuinely novel idea, it seems to me that one of the leading candidates for that is Darwinian evolution. All the precedents people find do not have the slightest connection to his theory, as I explained above.