In The Beginning," or in Hebrew, "B'reisheet," is the first chapter (or, in Hebrew, "Parsha") of the Torah (or, in English, the "Bible"). Apart from its transcendent beauty, it is the subject of much debate, controversy, legislation, feuding, conflict, and polarization between the so-called Creationists (or Religionists) and the so-called Darwinists (or Evolutionists).
To avoid suspense, let me begin with my opinion, which is, that this controversy is without basis.
The supposed basis of the controversy which has caused governments to ban the teaching of the Bible in public schools is that if one interprets the Torah narrative of the creation of the universe literally, then one has to believe that in six Earth days, G-d created Heaven and Earth, and everything in them. This, of course, clearly contradicts the scientific evidence of both evolutionary, organic and inorganic development of the Earth and everything in it, apparently spanning billions of years.
As a believing Jew, I have no problem with the evidence of billions of years of development because I have my pick of any number of explanations, plus my own original interpretative theory.
For those of us who believe in G-d, it is indeed a rewarding and awe-inspiring exercise in faith to contemplate that, since G-d can do anything, perhaps He did create a complete Universe in six Earth days about 5,769 Earth years ago, in such a way that it had all the appearance -- and evidence -- of having been around for billions of years. To disbelieve that G-d could do such a thing is a grave, self-imposed limitation. After all, what is G-d, if not omnipotent? And what exactly does omnipotent mean, after all? Why should we puny humans try to handcuff the Master of the Universe with the feebleness of our own imaginations?
The i-Dea being, to stretch a little. Think of G-d ... as really G-D!!
What a concept.
What if, in fact, all the inferences of science as to the nature of the universe are based on a "factional" reality created and supported by G-d for the past almost six millennia? Not possible, the rational person says. But the rationale for the scientific person's belief system is based on appearances, not necessarily substance.
I'm just being the Divine's advocate here, but is it really necessarily so? Did we all personally witness the buildup of the Earth's surface layers over eons? Is there really only one explanation for the core samples of the Earth going down deep into our planet indicating different ages spanning billions of years? By our science, of course, there's no alternative to the chronological build up of these layers but is this explanation, derived, as it is, from our human observations, the only one? What if there were a Greater Power, believed in by many, who made it all look this way, right down to the apparent mutations of our mitochondrial DNA, but created it in a much shorter period of Earth time? The point here is, are we capable of even conceiving of a power so great as to mold the shape of mountains, continents and seas in a day?
The Earth appeared -- by the evidence of their observations -- to be flat at some point to some people who accepted it as such. Some may still (see Flat Earth Society) promote this point of view, albeit in jest. The serious point is, appearances -- and all logical inferences derived therefrom -- can deceive. And what, by the way, happens after you get to the smallest known particle, and you still can't account for what's beyond it?
Thus, the world appearing to have evolved over eons may merely be a collectively subjective perception, deduced from our studies. We, anchored in our understandings and observations of physical cause and effect, presume it must be so because it fits our view of the laws of physics and nature, as we have currently inferred them.
For those hidebound in this faith, I say "loose the shackles of your imagination." Let it play with the concept that G-d supports the universe constantly with His Will, and should He withdraw that Will, the so-called Laws of Nature would fall apart. Can we stretch our minds to conceive of a power greater than all the stars of all the galaxies or, more locally, the Sun? Able to move tall mountains and vast continents?
It is an exercise in imagination beyond the grasp of most scientifically-oriented people. Such people focus on evidence and phenomena so much that it blinkers them to what may be above such phenomena.
"The G-d above phenomena" describes the concept. To those dedicated to the study of phenomena, it's hard to see. Phenomena, we can see, or at least infer. We can't see G-d. And even inferring His existence can be risky business -- from a scientific point of view.
So, let's turn that basically Buddhist-inspired (but not necessarily approved of by Buddha) song of the late John Lennon -- may he be dwelling in the Heaven of his choice much to his delight -- one-eighty degrees. "Imagine there's a Heaven ... It's easy if you try ... No blinkers on our spirit ... G-d sits above the sky ..."
It's an exercise which many a thinking person would not dare to attempt. It takes them back to the shame they experienced growing up when they discovered there was no Santy Claus, or Tooth Fairy, or Superman (Oops! For those of you who still believed in these, sorry). They won't fall for that again, these True Believers that human beings know everything there is to know. What's real is real. I can see, taste, touch, smell, hear or at least infer it. There is nothing in the "real" world to support the concept of the almost instantaneous creation of billions of years of a planet's history.
Funny how we enjoy all kinds of fantastical, impossible things in movies, TV, and books, suspending our disbelief for the pleasure of engrossment. Why do you think we have Science Fiction? Apparently, we have a need to contemplate things beyond the world as we know it. So let's use this talent of ours, and say it again.
G-d created a world in six Earth days which, by all the evidence, appeared to have been around for billions of years. That's billions of years of history created in a few days!
Awesome, isn't it? It's one explanation embraced by a population of believers -- of different religions, by the way. And it's liberating to contemplate.
And why would G-d do such a thing? Why to give us humans, "derech ha-tevah," a natural order of things, in order to stabilize our lives in this immense universe, and provide a normal baseline for us to study and learn about ourselves and our world from our point of view, as our souls enjoy the life of experience a merciful G-d has bequeathed us.
Perhaps.
Would I, however, dogmatically insist that everyone who believes in G-d accept the story of the Creation of the Universe, and the Earth, in its most simplistic, literal form? Nope. That's why I would never call myself a "Creationist" even though I do believe that G-d created all, or that everything came from the Mind of G-d.
I stand apart from Creationists because they don't merely believe that G-d created everything; they believe they actually understand how He did it -- just from reading the Bible, -- and they insist we accept their own literal view of what it all means.
The truth is, as much as we can enjoy the Bible's description of the creation of Heaven and Earth, we just do not have clue #1 as to how it all really happened. Nachmanides, aka the Ramban, a great and revered Jewish scholar, says as much, and his knowledge of the Bible was very great. He concluded that, despite the description in the Bible, the actual events of Creation are a mystery, and that anyone who claims they know how G-d created the Universe is simply blowing smoke. Remember, though, it's perfectly kosher to believe with complete faith one way or another. Knowing for a fact exactly what the Torah means in its description of Creation is, according to the Ramban, not possible.
I agree. As powerful and evocative a narrative as is the story of Creation, it's still pretty hard to figure out how it all works from the words alone.
So, on a very basic level, you can't really say that the belief that G-d created Heaven and Earth is unscientific because a) it's a matter of faith, and, more importantly, b) we don't really know how it all went down, and therefore, we can neither confirm nor deny whether or not the Torah story of Creation is scientifically viable. We don't really understand it. The description in Genesis is not meant to be a scientific proof. It really is a poetic outline, not a detailed log.
They say that genius, like a Louis Armstrong trumpet solo -- or like his legendary vocal artistry, (I also really like the late Jimmy Durante for this, even though I'm a big fan of "beautiful" voices, as well) -- has the ability to present depth and complexity in an elegantly simple way. The genius of the Torah, in fact, sets the standard for all genius when it takes an unfathomably complex topic like the creation of the universe, and distills it into a delightfully compelling six day story. This, we must infer, is all G-d wanted us to know about it, -- for now,-- but we must not fall into the trap of believing that it is everything there is to know. For instance, the actual length of a Day of Creation could easily be billions of years. We will know more, when we know more.
In fact, as I will explain in Part 2, the purpose of describing Creation at the beginning of the Torah was not to teach us about how everything came to be but to fulfill another function. In addition, we should know that the written Torah is a kind of a short-form abbreviation of all that G-d communicated to Moses. The Oral Teachings that Moses brought down to Joshua and the Elders fill in a lot of the gaps, some of which we are privileged to know, and some of which we are not currently privileged to know but they might well have had more of the specific details of Creation.
For those, therefore, who believe that the Earth's creatures have not evolved but were created whole instantaneously, I say, "You are RIGHT" to believe what you believe. The Torah is open to this interpretation. To those who say that creatures and the world have evolved, I say the very same thing.
So, to close Part 1 of this blog, I cannot agree that the assertion made in the Bible, that a Supreme Being created Heaven and Earth and all within them, conflicts in any way with the Theory of Evolution and the theories of the development of our planet because I can't possibly know how G-d went about creating Heaven and Earth from the biblical narrative alone. Anyone who says they do, is, in my opinion, indulging in premature speculation. I cannot, therefore, possibly have a conflict between scientific evidence, and the story of Creation. They currently work on different levels. In fact, my belief is, that when we understand the world through science well enough, and we understand the Torah well enough, we will find that the seemingly disparate realities represented by each are actually one and the same.
Next time, I will describe where I find a hint to evolution in the biblical narrative.
