Q&A: How Can One Speak of a Spiritual Difference Between Humans and Animals Within the Framework of Evolution?
How Can One Speak of a Spiritual Difference Between Humans and Animals Within the Framework of Evolution?
Question
Hello,
It is known that the Rabbi believes in evolution. According to evolution, however, there is no essential spiritual difference between a human and an animal, no “idea” of man, because there is no such thing as “man” — you can’t point to the exact moment when there is no longer an ape and there is Homo sapiens; that is, the distinction is arbitrary. In other words, evolution conflicts with traditional spiritual approaches (such as Judaism) that say man was created in the divine image, or with philosophical approaches that believe in an independent idea of man. According to evolution there is no “man”; it is just a creature that was once a fish, once a cell, and simply upgraded itself according to the environment.
So how can one believe in evolution and still maintain a traditional approach?
Answer
Evolution deals with the emergence and development of life on the biological-physiological plane. It does not deal with our spiritual dimensions. Indeed, many evolution researchers think that we consist only of biology and have no spiritual component, but that is their belief, not a scientific finding. On this point I disagree with them.
Therefore, the contradiction is not between evolution and dualism, but between the beliefs of many evolution researchers and dualism.
Discussion on Answer
Evolution basically teaches only that there was a common ancestor. It doesn’t say anything about how that happened.
1. Carefully. What do you mean, how? What do you mean, where? At some stage, when bodily development reached the appropriate point, the Holy One, blessed be He, decided that a human soul would enter it (it is possible that animals also have a soul at some level). Do you expect me to point out exactly when this happened? Why is that necessary?
2. The difference is really not arbitrary. It is a very significant difference. The fact that it is hard to define a clear line of transition says nothing. Are you claiming that because there is no line, you see no difference today between an ape and a human? That is a baseless claim.
My claim is that there is no continuity of ideas. That is, the idea of an ape did not suddenly become the idea of a human (otherwise it is not an idea), and therefore spiritually there is no difference. Biologically, of course, there is a difference.
It seems to me that, as far as I’m concerned, this hair-splitting has run its course.
At the point when there was already a serious difference and the human had reached the maturity of free choice,
from that moment that individual receives the crown called “the First Man,” and is commanded by the Creator what to do and what not to do.
Later on, about 20 generations afterward, there will also be Abraham the citizen from beyond the river.
However, according to the Zohar on Leviticus 10,
there were ancient human beings prior to the one the Torah calls the First Man, and God had already spoken of them.
Apparently, for believers in the Zohar, the line is drawn at an even earlier stage.
Thank you for the quick response.
1. How exactly did a soul enter in the middle of the evolutionary process?
If God inserted it, where exactly did He insert it? After all, according to evolution there is no difference between a human and an ape. You can’t put your finger on when a human being was born.
2. It indeed does not deal with spiritual dimensions, but what I am trying to argue is that it cancels them out: if the difference between species is arbitrary (at some point we were apes and developed into Homo sapiens), then a philosophical proof of a completely distinct spiritual essence between humans and animals, an “idea” of man, as traditional ideologies believe, is a serious refutation of evolution.