Posted on 04/18/2006 10:31:13 AM PDT by Zionist Conspirator
Did the software in the cell, DNA, write itself? Is genetic information the only information that science has ever encountered that was not generated by an intelligent agent? These are some of the questions raised by the scientific and cultural war going on over Charles Darwin's theory and its modern challenger, intelligent design.
In an April 6 Jerusalem Post op-ed, the writer and editor Larry Yudelson took me to task for arguing in numerous venues that the debate about Darwin is a crucial one for Jews who care about Judaism. If it was simply Yudelson offering his personal opinion that "Darwin is no problem for Jews" (the title of his article), I wouldn't have sought the generous permission of the editor to respond.
But given that Yudelson also summons no less a figure than Maimonides to the defense of Darwin, along with another rabbinic luminary, Abraham Isaac Kook, a response is necessary. MAIMONIDES lived seven centuries before Darwin presented his argument that natural selection operating on random genetic variation produced you and me. Yet Judaism's greatest sage of the past millennium was engaged in a strikingly similar scientific argument in his own time.
That argument centered on the question of whether the universe is eternal and without a starting point (the position of Aristotle) or whether it had a beginning in time at the moment of creation (Maimonides's view).
Larry Yudelson recommends to us the path of Maimonides, "who opposed his contemporaries who preached the eternity of the world simply because 'the theory has not been proved' (Guide II:25), while allowing that were it to be proved, it would not contradict the core Jewish beliefs."
I wish Mr. Yudelson had read that important chapter in Guide for the Perplexed more carefully. In fact, the sage writes that he rejects the eternity of the world for two reasons not, as Yudelson says, just one.
First, Maimonides rejected Aristotle's thinking on this point because it "has not been demonstrated." But second because it makes nonsense of the Jewish religion: "If the philosophers would succeed in demonstrating eternity as Aristotle understands it, the Torah as a whole would become void, and a shift to other opinions would take place. I have thus explained to you that everything is bound up with this problem."
Maimonides was saying that though parts of the Bible's text may indeed be interpreted in other than a literal fashion, there are philosophical reasons that make an eternal universe incompatible with the God of the Torah. Simply put, Aristotle makes God's role in the world, as a creator and guide, superfluous and impossible. AND DARWINISM does the very same thing, ascribing all creation to blind material processes, as Darwin himself wrote: "I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of natural selection if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent."
Maimonides would ask if Darwinism nevertheless has been "demonstrated." Well, Darwin's followers reached a high point of self-confidence in 1959 with the Centennial Celebration held at the University of Chicago to mark the 100th-year anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. The event was notable for the total conviction on the part of many speakers that any debate about Darwin was over and done.
But since then, the intellectual trend has changed directions. The Discovery Institute has compiled a list of Darwin-doubting scientists, a list currently standing at more than 500 doctoral researchers at places like Berkeley, Princeton and MIT.
It is now 71 years since Rav Kook died. So obviously in writing the beautiful and poetic words that Larry Yudelson quotes, Kook was not aware of the current state of knowledge about microbiology and the nanotechnology of the cell. Was Kook a close student of Darwin's writings or of the state of biology even in his own day? Is Yudelson?
In theory, it's very inspiring and idealistic to write, as Kook did, that: "In general this is an important principle in the conflict of ideas, that when an idea comes to negate some teaching in the Torah, we must not, to begin with, reject it, but build the edifice of the Torah above it, and thereby we ascend higher, and through this ascent, the ideas are clarified."
In practice, however, there is simply no way to reconcile an idea with its precise negation. The premise of Judaism is that God commands us on the basis of his having created us. The question before us, therefore, is not a simple-minded one of whether the universe was made in six calendar days, but rather of whether the universe has a need for a God, period.
In the philosophical system elaborated by Darwin and his disciples, there is no room for a creator in any sense. To explain the existence of life without reference to a deity was Darwin's entire purpose.
He developed a theory that answered his own purpose, certainly not ours as Jews. Given that his idea has neither been unambiguously demonstrated nor is it congenial to Jewish belief - the two-fold test of Maimonides - I am bewildered to find Jews who are committed to Judaism rushing recklessly to Darwin's defense.
Really? And I suppose the Holocaust itself was divine preemptive punishment for future-support of Kadima?
Soon to be extinct thread placemarker
Actually, except for the known IDer/creationists, the only two I've heard of are Fritz Schaefer and Phil Skell. The rest are a collection of mediocrities.
"But it's pretty clear God did create the heavens and the earth along with plants, animals and humans."
That is pretty clear to those who believe the Old Testament accounts. What isn't so clear for a lot of people who believe those accounts is HOW that deity did all that creating.
Many Jews and Christians believe that their deity simply set the natural laws in motion and the universe and all that is in it came to be in accordance with those laws.
There's no conflict of belief in those people's minds.
It's not what I believe, but a lot of people I know who profess Judaism or Christianity believe just that. Their deity created everything by getting it all started and then it followed the natural laws to get to the state it's in today.
No conflict.
Perhaps there's a place to discuss the relative merits of different perspectives on Judaism and Israel, but I'd think that deserves its own thread. A thread on evolution hardly seems to fit.
The Rabbinical Council of America has no problem with evolution. Neither did Chief Rabbi Hertz or Chief Rabbi Kook. Except for Klinghoffer, I have not seen any Jewish writer attacking evolution.
You are merely reiterating what I myself said. The RCA and other Orthodox evolutionists state that it is possible to reconcile opening of Genesis with Darwin and don't go on to tell anyone that once Adam arrives on the scene they are as Fundamentalist as Jerry Falwell. Since most evolutionists (chr*stian and atheist) are Biblical higher critics, they then assume that Orthodox Judaism tolerates higher criticism and the "mythology" of the Torah as well. Thus, the RCA (a Modern Orthodox group anyway) knowingly implied to naive chr*stian and atheist Fundamentalists that the Divine origin and inerrancy of the Torah are not dogmas of Judaism. They got to look sophisticated without actually saying that they endorsed higher criticism, thus removing the heat from themselves so the Bible-bashers would move on to ridiculing Southern Baptists.
What does "German higher criticism" have to do with this?
You could not possibly be that naive. Do you honestly believe that the evolution debate is simply over how to interpret the first six days of Genesis? Do you? Even Klinghoffer is an evolutionist ("ID" is simply a form of Theistic evolutionism and is quite happy to take the creation account figuratively). Do you actually believe your fellow evolutionists here on FR stop their non-literalism with the appearance of Adam? C'mon. You and I both know better than that.
This debate is all about German higher criticism. Aside from evolutionist Orthodox Jews, all other Theistic evolutionists dismiss the literal truth of the entire TaNa"KH and take it as mythology (much of it adapted from paganism).
If all you want to do is defend a non-literal interpretation of the first six days why are you even attacking Klinghoffer? Klinghoffer isn't arguing against a non-literal interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis but against the idea that the universe created itself. It's amazing how many "Theistic evolutionists" are offended by the idea that G-d did it. Why do you call yourselves "Theistic" evolutionists if that is the case?
I am not an IDer. I am a literalist Creationist myself and make no claim to be anything else, nor do I agree with Klinghoffer's non-literalism. But all he does is argue that evolution was the work of G-d as opposed to being utterly unplanned and meaningless and all you "Theistic" evolutionists start pulling at your collars. Maybe you're not so "Theistic" after all?
The publicly enunciated pro-evolution argument (as its makers well know) implies a great deal of other ideas, and it is partly for that reason that it is made. And you know it as well as you know the position of the majority of the Yeshivish world. Shoot, even the Modern Orthodox National Council of Synagogue Youth has published anti-evolution stuff (I have one of their books).
Mr. Klinghoffer commented on Rav Kook. As for Rabbi Hertz (do you actually think I don't know about him?) he departed radically from tradition in many ways (such as accepting higher critical theories about the Prophets, though not the Torah itself) and is touted by some chr*stians who don't like the "fundamentalist" commentaries published by ArtScroll.
Now, you were saying . . . ?
Nothing wrong with the Modern Orthodox. Many of those rabbis are Orthodox Union rabbis. They are "modern" because they do not believe one has to live in a shtetel and pretend the year is 1701 to be an observant Jew.
You're comparing Klinghoffer to the prophets? What's next, he's the Messiah? This whole exercise is absurd.
BTW, the Holocaust is to be commemorated on Tish`ah Be'Av, not on a day in the holy month of Nisan. A separate "Holocaust Memorial Day" (contrary to Halakhah, in the month of Nisan) implies that the reality of the Holocaust is different from the reality of the Jews commemorated on Tish`ah Be'Av. No one seems to care that people call into question the ancient Egyptians killing of the ancient Jewish children. But then, that's primitive religious mythology, right? Perhaps you believe the "parting of the sea" is a "mythic" reference to Pharaoh's chariot getting "stuck in the mud?" Can't be a literalist, now, can we? "We Jews" don't do that. That's a chr*stian thing (chr*stians say it's a Protestant thing and Protestants say it's a "redneck" thing). So why are you living in 'Eretz Yisra'el again? Sounds to me like you're interpreting some parts of the Bible literally, anyway.
Thank you for revealing your political orientation, btw. It is very enlightening.
Thanks for not being the Nth person to quote the RCA statement to me and reinforce my point without realizing it.
Note: Darwin was a rebellious character who was a seminary student, gone bad...
Gone bad? In what way?
He's been dead a while.
Well, fertilizer does do some good.
Literalist.
No conflict if they agree humans were created as humans.
I take exception to your claim that Jews are responsible for everything that befalls us. The logical extension of that is that the Jews are responsible for the Holocaust. Here's an idea -- how about blaming anti-Semites for anti-Semitism. Or is that too radical?
BTW, the Holocaust is to be commemorated on Tish`ah Be'Av, not on a day in the holy month of Nisan
I'm not sure why you bring this up, but you're wrong. Tishah Be'Av certainly includes the Holocaust, but we commemorate other historical tragedies on other dates as well. I can only assume you refuse to observe the Tzom Gedalya too?
He came from a highly religious environment(I think, England). Don't remember if he was a preacher's son, or what. But anyway, he was somewhat forced into a mold, and one day snapped. But he was egged-on, don't remember by whom, but Darwin would not have gone forth with anything were it not for the antagonist. Took off from his base, and never looked back. I think even those close to him remarked that he went too far. To his dying day, he maintained that God did not exist, in spite of relatives showing evidence proving otherwise. Just went out of his way, to try and prove, and I don't remember the details, but there were things he fabricated with his evolution business. I do remember that those close to him remarked on how sullen and awnry he remained...
I will say it once, and that is all. I HAVE NO INFORMATION FOR YOU...
"I will say it once, and that is all. I HAVE NO INFORMATION FOR YOU..."
I was correcting your post. Did I make any mistakes you can point out?
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