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Rabbinic Insights:  Creation of the Creator

San Diego Jewish Times, November 18, 2005


By Rabbi Wayne Dosick

The question is simple: what is the origin of life; what was the process of creation?

For millennia, the answer was clear and, mostly, unchallenged: God created the universe and everything in it, including human beings, according to the description and timetable laid out in the opening chapter of the Bible. Ancient Greek philosophers had offered the idea that the development of life came from non-life and from the evolution of man from animal. But, in the western world, by far, the dominant view has been of biblical creationism.

In 1859, Charles Darwin, a British naturalist, published, On the Origins of Species By Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, more commonly known as, The Origins of Species. Darwin argued the theory of evolution, and added that evolutionary change was gradual, and that evolution is selective, that is, it occurs through natural selection — that survival or extinction of any particular organism is determined by that organism’s ability to adapt to its environment.

The theory of evolution challenged long-held beliefs in the biblical description of God's six-day creation process, and, eventually led to the ongoing debate between modern scientific postulates and religious faith.

In the United States, the apex of the early debate came in 1925 in what is known as the Scopes Monkey Trial. Famous attorneys Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan came to tiny Dayton, Tennessee,  to argue the case that would have far-reaching consequence. The defendant, John Thomas Scopes, was found guilty of violating state law banning the teaching of evolution in the public schools. On appeal, the verdict was overturned on a legal technicality, but the state Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of the law, and let the ban stand on teaching evolution.

Nevertheless, the debate raged on between those supporting the theory of evolution as good science, and those supporting the biblical account as true faith. Slowly — at least in the public arena, in this rational, scientific age — science began to win out, and, across the nation, the teaching of evolution as the scientific theory of creation began to enter most every classroom. In 1967, the state of Tennessee overturned the ban of teaching of evolution, but, in 1973, enacted a law requiring that the teaching of evolution and creationism be given equal time. That law was overturned by a federal appeals court in 1977, and even "balanced treatment" was overturned in 1987. America has opted that its public schools teach science, not religion.

With the recent rise of religious fundamentalists into the American political arena, the debate has been entered once again. Four states have mandated a classroom critical analysis of evolution, and just last week, Kansas redefined "science" so that it not be explicitly limited to natural explanation. One school board member said, "I'm pleased to be on the front edge of trying to bring some intellectual honesty and integrity to the science classroom, rather than asking students to check their questions at the door, because it is a challenge to the sanctity of evolution." (The sanctity of evolution?) An ardent supporter of the new definition said, "This is what I believe God wants us to do."

The proponents of the biblical, faith-based account of creation are now calling that belief "Intelligent Design," that is, nature alone cannot explain life complexities, so the world must have an "intelligent Designer" — God. This is the modern version of the old philosophical "teleological argument,” also known as the "argument from design" for the existence of God — that "the order in the universe implies an orderer, and cannot be a natural feature of the universe."

So, where do we modern Jews — steeped in faith and educated in science — stand in this debate? There is, of course, no unilateral stance. The biblical fundamentalists among us insist on the validity of the biblical account. Others opt for demonstrable, provable science. Others see no conflict between religion and science, between faith and reason, between creationism and evolution.

Let's look directly at the biblical text to see the account of creation that is clearly attributable to God, to the intelligent design of the intelligent Designer. Here's what happens:

Day One: light is created; light is separated from darkness. Light is called "day." Darkness is called "night."

Day Two: waters are separated from waters — above and below the expanse/firmament. The expanse is called "Sky"/"Heavens."

Day Three: water below the sky is gathered into one area, making dry land. Dry land is called "Earth." The gathering of waters is called "sea." Earth sprouts vegetation; seed-bearing plants of every kind.

Day Four: lights in the firmament are created to separate day from night, to shine upon the Earth; to set the times of the days and years. There are two great lights — great for day; lesser for night; and stars are created.

 Day Five: the waters bring forth swarms of creatures; birds that fly; great sea monsters; living creatures of every kind that creep. They are told, "Be fertile and multiply."

Day Six: every living creature is created; cattle; creepy things; wild beasts of every kind; God says, "let us make man in our image;" male and female human Beings are created. They are told, "Be fertile and multiply." To humankind is given for food: every seed-bearing plant for food; all the animals, birds, everything that creeps (all that has the breath of life) and the green plants.

Day Seven: Heaven and Earth finished. God rests from all the work; blesses the seventh day and makes it holy.

This biblical account surely is attributed to God, the Intelligent Designer, and at the very same time, it follows the pattern of evolution that science posits. First, the "big bang" light and the separation of light from dark; then separation of the high heavens; then water and earth; then vegetation; then sun, moon and stars; then the swarm of creatures emerging from the waters; then birds and fish; then creepy, crawly things; then cattle and all living beasts; then human beings.

Not exactly the evolutionary pattern? Perhaps not. But, according to this account, the time measuring sun and moon are not created until the fourth segment of creation, so we can hardly demand to measure time according to our modern days and years. The birds come before the fish? Probably not. But close enough.

For, you see, the biblical account is antiquity's tribal tale of the telling of creation. Let's suppose for a moment that right before bedtime, a child of antiquity says to a parent, "Mommy, Daddy, tell me a story.” "What story would you like to hear, my child?" "Tell me how God made me." Now, neither an ancient parent, nor a modern contemporary one, would say, "My dear child, let me tell you about the evolutionary process, and how one thing derived from another, and how the survival of the fittest means that you are here tonight." No, a parent of then and now would weave a story — some might say a tale, a fable, an archetypal myth that is easily understood by a three-year old. This story would have a great and mighty hero — and although this hero, God, does not have to defeat other powerful gods in order to create, this God simply speaks and creation comes into being. (In the morning, Daddy will tell the child that, as a prayer, we can say, "Blessed is the One who spoke and the world became.") The story would be mysterious, and exciting, and a bit scary, and build, slowly, slowly to a wondrous and wonderful conclusion — as all good stories do. And, it would put the child right into the story, as the crowning work of creation.

And, when finally it becomes time to write the story, the nighttime tale — which remains as understandable for uneducated, unsophisticated adults as it is for little children — it becomes the Hebrews' tribal account of God's creation. And, millennia later, when modern science challenges, people of faith will know that the ancients had it almost perfect. There is no real conflict. God creates anew. Science discovers and catalogues what God has already created.

If you insist, God, the Creator, created the complicated evolutionary process, which science claims as its own, while the biblical account gives us the sweet story that we and our children can understand and embrace.

Elephants still give birth to elephants and human beings still give birth to human beings. An accident? Survival of the fittest? Or the mind and hand of God?

No contest.

So — for those who understand and "get it" — this can be the end of the fight between science and religion, between creationism and evolution.

Fundamentalism of any kind — religious or scientific — does not help or unite. It only separates and harms.

 

Rabbi Wayne Dosick, Ph.D., the spiritual guide of the Elijah Minyan, an adjunct professor at the University of San Diego and the Director of the 17: Spiritually Healing Children's Emotional Wounds. He is the award-winning author of six critically acclaimed books, including Golden Rules; Living Judaism; and Soul Judaism: Dancing with God into a New Era.