THE PARADOX OF MAN

The Genesis chapter of Torah presents an evolutionary-like sequence of Creation whereby “each day introduces a qualitatively higher level of life form.”[36]

“The only thing that Torah discloses about the mechanism [of this progressive development] is that it involved a partnership between G‑d and the earth (i.e. nature).”[37]

“Both earth and the Creator collaborated to produce man. The earth brought his body, just as it did the bodies of all other creatures, and G‑d infused him with the intellectual soul.”[38]

The implication is that whatever the “earth” did to formulate the bodies of other creatures, so it did in the formation of man. Yet we must not forget that “the earth’s capacity is restricted to yielding the anatomical structures… while it is within His [HaShem’s] power alone to imbue creatures with the breath of life.”[39]

Back To The Parameters

We return to an initial premise of this paper where we differentiated between the “content” of Torah and that of scientific evolutionary theory. The latter is confined to an explanation of the physical aspects of man and Creation. It claims only to be a history of the progressive development of substance and form. It makes no speculation about soul or spirit, for such things are outside its range of applicability.

Torah, on the other hand, is concerned primarily with the highest soul level of man, the neshama. It addresses the implications of introducing that dimension of reality into Creation—morality, free choice, aspiration, intellect, love and fear of G‑d, knowledge of G‑d’s Will, mitzvot—all that is specifically relevant to human beings because of their exclusive possession of a Divine level of soul.

Thus, the evolution of form addresses the “earth” side of “partnership” (the aspect of ourselves that represents the sum total of all physical creations preceding us), while the evolution of consciousness expresses HaShem’s side of the “bargain” (the part of ourselves that is “in the image of G‑d.”) Again, it must be emphasized that the earth, too, is a creation of HaShem. Its “side of the bargain” is simply an indirect expression of G‑d through the medium of nature and natural law. On the other side, when we discuss soul and spirit, we refer to the direct relationship of G‑d with man. These two viewpoints are intimately related, “for all those souls are pure emanations from on high, how they become revealed in this world depends upon the kinds of vessels within which they are compelled to act.”[40] Thus the earth was charged with evolving a form of vessel of a sufficiently sensitive, complex an refined nature as to be capable of holding and expressing the highest and most profound level of the human soul, the neshama or the intellectual dimension of man.

Back To The Monkey?

Biologists have woven a theory presenting a probable/possible means by which the evolution of physical form was accomplished on this planet.  It synthesizes evidence from a variety of scientific disciplines and presents a convincing explanation based on observable facts:

1) The genetic and molecular similarity of various species of one to another;

2) The possibility of ranking all the species on a ladder ascending from simple and primitive to complex and developed;

3) The developmental states representing lower organisms through which the human embryo passes;

4) Fossil records.[41]

Neo-Darwinian Evolution outlines a logically and experimentally consistent (if incomplete) theory of the development of life on this planet through a mutation and natural selection.  In this paradigm form assumes greater complexity and sophistication with time, and each new creature emerges from a lower and more primitive species.[42] Thus, evolutionists conclude that there is compelling physical evidence that Homo sapiens evolved from the gene pool including monkeys and apes.

Although it has become a “reflex” for the traditional Torah community to label such a statement treif (not kosher), there is nothing in the Torah that necessarily contradicts it.  In fact there is even a branch of commentary that could be invoked to support such a theory.

Malbim claims, “Most sages agree that when G‑d said, `Let’s make man in our image,’ He was addressing the works of Creation which had already been established.”[43] He further stipulates that in the progression of Creation “the more advanced creatures incorporated in a perfect form all things that had appeared earlier.”[44] Following his line of thought, we can conclude that the highest and most sophisticated life form, i.e. primates, was a kind of microcosm and therefore the logical template from which the human guf (body) could arise and manifest, in totality nature’s part of the tzelem (image).

But Torah doesn’t say “your” image.  It says “our” image.  Man is not just the apex of a physical process of evolution, possessing a body of greater sophistication and refinement than any of his primate ancestors.  Of infinitely greater significance than the physical dimension of his being, man is blessed with a neshama, a unique level of soul that partakes of the very essence of HaShem.  Earlier creatures could neither contain nor express this level of Life Force.  “Each succeeding level [of creation] had to become increasingly more refined and more complex in order to be receptive to ever higher levels of the soul.”[45]

The real question is not “whether man’s anatomy did or did not develop from simpler anatomies, but to what extent is man primarily defined by his anatomy.”[46]

The true definition of man is not, as the philosophers have defined him, namely chai medaber, an animal possessing the power of speech – but medaber chai, the primary essence and true nature of man is his intellectual soul.  Hence judged in accordance with man’s essence, he is not to be classed together with the lower creatures, but with the higher beings… since the physical body is only an incidental aspect of man.[47]

The scientific theory of evolution does not and can not address these issues.  A person holding a materialist weltanschauung will force science into that framework while a person holding a spiritual world view cannot help but see the hand of G‑d behind the miracle of physical form, whether it arose from an evolutionary process or not.

The naturalist who denies G‑d discloses a trace of the very G‑d he denies with every law, with every force, with every purpose he works out of any form or shape he investigates.  Yea he denies his denial with the very step which he takes in his searching in the realm of nature.  The end he seeks presupposes the thinking G‑d whom he denies, Who must have established the Laws, the very discovery of which fills him with such supreme joy.[48]