THE RECONCILIATION
Even if neo-Darwinian evolution is not incompatible with Torah, the question still remains: Why do we as religious Jews need it? Even if it’s not treif, what can it contribute to our body of religious understanding?
Evolutionary theory provides a macrocosmic parable of the human creative process. A scientist’s loyalty to neo-Darwinian evolution is not an attachment to a set of empirical facts or biological evidence, but a deep identification with the creative paradigm outlined in that theory. In the human experience, change and evolution are nearly synonymous. In every realm—cultural, ontological, technological, physiological, psychological—growth imitates the evolutionary model. Growth is sometimes graduated and sometimes punctuated, but it moves persistently and progressively—stage by stage, with each stage emerging out of the last—toward increasing sophistication and perfection.
Thus, evolutionary theory actually integrates and verifies two important “axioms” of Torah:
1. The “Law of Correspondence.”[49]
2. The Creation of man in the image of G‑d.
1) The first law postulates that anything true on one level of reality has a correspondence on every other level. If on a global level growth and development consistently occur in the natural world as a process of maturation and transformation, then it follows from the “Law of Correspondence” that this is a likely model for describing on a cosmological level the hierarchical development of life forms on this planet.
2) The second “axiom” explains that man is created in the image of G‑d (b’tzelen Elokim). The human being is a microcosm mirroring Divine reality in one-to-one correspondence, albeit on an infinitely smaller scale. The attribute articulated in Torah as the feature distinguishing man from other forms of life and according him the status of b’tzelem Elokim, is his creativity—his ability to refashion the raw materials of his environment into new and original forms. “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness and he shall have dominion over (the entire earth).”[50] The laws of observing Shabbat are based on this principle.
Since man creates in an evolutionary-like manner (wherein the products of his creative expression are continually refined and elevated from the primitive to the sophisticated), and since his attribute of creativity is expressly identified by Torah as a point of overlap with HaShem, it becomes possible to assume that when G‑d chose to fashion the universe by projecting Himself into the relative realms of name and form, time and space, He did so through a process similar outlined by the scientific theory of evolution. Even if we knew nothing of Darwin, we could derive his theory from Genesis and these two laws (as did the Maharal, see footnote 42). Rather than calling for a surrender of Torah principles, Neo-Darwinian evolution affirms and extends the Torah weltanschauung.
Torah, in turn, can explain two of the discomforting loose ends that plague neo-Darwinian theory, notably:
1) The statistical impossibility of “random” mutation yielding the current variety of life forms in such a short period of time. (Time here is that specified by geologists and cosmologists.)[51]
2) The fact that science has not documented even one instance of any new species actually evolving into existence.
The first problem (as discussed in detail in an earlier section of this paper) was eliminated by the idea of a “blueprint” that defined all the probabilities and limitations of the as-yet-uncreated universe. The second problem concerning the lack of speciation is more serious, for science has yet to explain why “There has never been actual observation of one species descending from another (despite numerous experiments on various types of bacteria, Drosophilia and other rapidly reproducing organisms).”[52]
Torah commentators explain this second problem by introducing a very sophisticated and profound idea based on Genesis 2:1, “Thus the heaven and the earth and the whole host were brought to their desired completion.”[53]
Samson Raphael Hirsch elaborates:
Our sages teach us… that matter and energy, once called into existence, were in a state of continuously progressive evolution until (vay’chulu) G‑d set a goal and a limit to their development. Had He not called ‘enough’ to heaven and earth, they would still be today in a state of continuous development. This ending of creation that no new formations emerge established the Sabbath of creation.[54]
Just as the weekly Shabbat is a time for turning attention from acts of creative expression and mastery over the physical plane, so the Sabbath of Creation marks the transition, in the macrocosm, from physical enumeration, to an entirely new and non-physical phase of evolution—the evolution of consciousness.
The process of writing this paper provides a useful metaphor. The first phase involved much physical activity and outward-directed energy—collecting information from science libraries and yeshivot, consulting resource people, copying articles, tracking down suggested reading material, following up on bibliographies, cross-referencing Torah commentators. I could have continued indefinitely collecting all the information having some direct or indirect bearing on the topic. Only by saying “enough! “, by determining that I had gathered sufficient material (even though I had not covered every conceivable angle) was it then possible to proceed into the second phase of developing the ideas and the structure of the paper. This part of the project engaged a higher and qualitatively unique level of conscious activity, that of creative and abstract thought. It involved minimal physical effort and, therefore, activity was not manifest on a physical plane. Rather it entailed an intense degree of mental exertion. The project continued toward its original goal, but the progress was now apparent only in the mode of consciousness.
