Embedded Files
The book "The Heart of the Matter" features an article based on excerpts from "The Instant (Retroactive) Universe".
"The Instant (Retroactive) Universe"
You - the reader of these words - do not yet exist....but when you will, you'll remember having read this.
"Just because it didn't happen, doesn't mean it isn't true"
Adam & Eve in the instant universe: an illustration for the article in the journal pictured below.
What's the topic of this book?
What's the topic of this book?
It's a hat-trick: the book can be described in three different ways:
1. Deep philosophical & scientific analysis of the notion of human free will, and its relation to cosmology;
2. Innovative Biblical commentary on the creation & Eden accounts in Genesis;
3. Providing a path to resolving the alleged conflict between Biblical belief and big bang/evolution theory - by accepting both.
We'll show:
We'll show:
a) why the big bang theory actually SUPPORTS the essence of the Biblical creation account;
a) why the big bang theory actually SUPPORTS the essence of the Biblical creation account;
b) how to reconcile those aspects which do NOT seem to be supportive.
b) how to reconcile those aspects which do NOT seem to be supportive.
(the above links to a page on this site)
The article - which originally appeared in the journal on the right - is an excerpt from a book.
The book's preface - and some of the the book's actual content - is on this webpage.
Contents of this webpage:
Contents of this webpage:
Links to video-lectures covering some of the topics of this book;
Preface (to the book): what Christians and Buddhists believe about Genesis. Why religious Jews ✡️ don't believe in the Bible 😲 ;
The book's arguments (a preview);
Creation & Shabbat 🕯️🕯️: link to discussions about whether belief in the reality of shabbat requires belief in a literal 6-day creation;
Scientists viewed the big bang theory 💥as very Biblical, theologians considered it heresy;
A Radical Biblical Innovation: the concept of "True Free Will";
A big bang emergent universe: combining the big bang theory and Genesis;
A graphic which summarizes some of the points made in the book.
From Rabbi Aryeh Carmell:
Video-lectures covering some of the topics of this book
Video-lectures covering some of the topics of this book
Most of the topics in this book are touched upon in the above video, and in these:1:43:58: The Big Bang in Art & Bible: Einstein's 'blunder', Genesis & Quantum Kabbalistic Metaphysics1:02:00: "Reconciling" Genesis and the Big Bang theory
For readers who tend to believe the Bible mandates a 6,000 year age there is a section in the book focusing on the issues of literal vs non-literal readings of Genesis etc, and the 6,000 yr age vs 15b etc. One can also watch this video. Readers for whom these topics are not of interest can skip all that.
Video: "Einstein's 'blunder' regarding the big bang". 10 minutes: scientists who discovered the big bang theory understood the essence of Genesis better than theologians. (As preparation, you can watch the videos below.)
One of the topics in the book involves:
The alleged science-torah conflict re the age of the universe
The alleged science-torah conflict re the age of the universe
The point made here: As seen by scientists, the essential 'conflict' on this topic is NOT between the idea of the age of 13 billion yrs vs 6,000 yrs.
Actually the conflict started long before modern science - it was a conflict between torah and the area of philosophy which was the ancient-day equivalent of our modern-day physics. Specifically, the conflict was between the notion of the temporal-infinitude of the universe vs its temporal finitude - ie whether it always existed or was created a finite amount of time ago. More importantly for religious people, the conflict was between the implications of these two positions, ie whether the universe is uncreated or created.
In fact the 13 billion year age proposed by the big bang theory (about 100 years ago) was considered by most physicists and philosophers of the time to be pro-Biblical, not counter to it! Why? Because finding that the universe is 15b yrs old, ie it is finite in time, is consistent with the idea that it was created, and it overturned the millenia-old adherence to the Aristotelian proposition of the inifinitude of the universe, ie that it was NOT created.
So for scientists and philosophers, the crucial element in the creation account in the Torah is that the universe is created, as implied by a finite age, NOT the specific age, ie the notion that it is 6,000 years old, which to them is a red herring.
We'll expand on these ideas a lot in the coming pages.
23:44: Ancient Metaphysics & philosophy. The universe's eternity & infinitude according to Aristotle & Rambam.
5:23: Maimonides & Spinoza, Friedman & Einstein: 4 Jews, 5 opinions.
10:21: How Scientific development influenced religious disbelief.
13:48 GeoCentrism, EgoCentrism & Existentialism: An alleged Bible-Science conflict created by theologians.
Preface to the Book
Preface to the Book
Post-modern Biblical fundamentalism
Post-modern Biblical fundamentalism
A: For someone who takes philosophy and science very seriously, and the Bible as well, what is the philosophical meaning of the first two stories in Genesis - the creation & Eden accounts?
Answer: They raise and resolve the problem of evil (they supply both a theodicy and the need for it).
B: If the universe is like a large mechanical clock 🕑 , can events in it be of interest to the being who made it?
Answer: The two accounts in combination tell us that: creation was a free willed act, the created beings shared in the creator's free will, and so could be held morally responsible.
The message that humans were granted a true free will and the juxtaposition of the creation & Eden accounts teaches us also how to resolve the following questions:
C: Did the Big bang actually happen? If not, does that mean the theory is untrue?
Answer: No. 🤔🤨
Did the events in the creation account actually occur? If not, does that mean Genesis is untrue?
Answer: No. 🤔🤨
We'll see how combining the big bang theory and the Biblical account of creation enables us to conclude that perhaps neither one physically occured, and yet both are true. 😵
Which of these does God expect us to believe:
Which of these does God expect us to believe:
If a genius raised in complete ignorance of the Bible investigates the universe using rational methods, honest logic etc, they will come to the conclusion that:
there is a creator, who created the universe in 6 days, about 6,000 years ago; a human was created which was split into male and female, they ate from a tree which gave them an understanding of good and evil, etc.
after some investigation it appears that the universe emerged from a big bang 💥 and humans evolved 🙊, but upon deeper intellectual and logical investigation one sees that this is not correct, and one arrives via scientific investigation of nature and via logical reasoning that actually there is a creator... 6 days... 6,000 years ago...
after some investigation one can see that in some aspects it seems like the universe emerged from a big bang 💥 and humans evolved 🙊, but holes and gaps appear in these theories which show that this is an incorrect conclusion, and try as one may there is no scientific route to the answers, instead one sees that scientific methods are fundamentally insufficient and one must look to revelation for the answers.
the universe emerged from a big bang 💥, humans evolved 🙊 etc.
This book assumes the last is true, ie God fully expects that when a human being who was never introduced to the Bibe uses their brains fully, they will arrive at the scientific theories of origins of the universe and of life and humanity; however God revealed complementary aspects. The aspects revealed by God and recorded in the Bible take into account that which science does not include, such as the reality of meaning, purpose, moral responsibility, conscious awareness, free will etc. We are expected to make sense of the combination of the two sources (science & Bible), ie finding the way to accepting both as true.
The purpose of this book is to make two complementary points:
The purpose of this book is to make two complementary points:
* Even fundamentalist believers in the literal truth of every word in the Bible can accept the scientific fundamentals of the big bang bang & evolutionary theory;
and v.v.:
* Believers in scientific theory need not consider a belief in Genesis to be anti-scientific.
Of course there are people for whom the ideas in this book may not be relevant. Many atheists 🤨 or certainly materialists have been convinced that science disproves religion, and that the big bang and evolutionary theory disproves the Bible. They will not be interested in reading this book, since the book takes as given that both scientific theory and the Bible are true.
Similarly, many fundamentalist Bible believers have been convinced that evolutionary theory and the theory of the big bang are 'fake news', and won't want to accept these presuppositions, and therefore may not be interested in reading this book.
Note: Deniers of evolution etc are almost always fundamentalists, but the reverse is not necessarily true. That is, many fundamentalist bible believers accept that these scientific theories are correct from the scientific point of view but not as pertains to the spiritual aspect, but virtually every single denier of these theories happens also to be a fundamentalist Bible-believers. Legitimate scientists who are not fundamentalist Bible believers may have doubts about the correctness of this or that aspect of a scientific theory, but they will certainly not propose that instead science ought to adopt the Biblical creation acount as science.
Caveat: Since it is very easy to make incorrect assumptions about this book, and its author, I would have liked to explain to the reader what it is that I AM saying, and what I am NOT saying in this book. However I fear that it is only after reading the entire book that readers could understand this (what it is that I am saying, and what I am NOT saying). Since it would be impossible to explain all that without actually writing the book itself as part of the explanation, I suggest that readers read the entire book, and then they will not need any explanations.
To solve a problem, one must have a clear idea of what the problem is.
To solve a problem, one must have a clear idea of what the problem is.
So, in terms of religion and big bang/evolution theory, what exactly is the objection?
So, in terms of religion and big bang/evolution theory, what exactly is the objection?
Imagine a Tennesse high school classroom; there are students, a teacher and two visitors. The visitors are parents who are representing the PTA - one is a fundmentalist Bible-believer and the other an atheist.
The teacher opens the lesson by telling students the following:
"Using our rational faculties and experiment, and the biological and physical knowledge we leaned about in previous classes, and using the findings of archaeology and paleontology, we come to the conclusion that the universe began about 13 billion years ago in a big bang, and later on life emerged on Earth - about 3 billion years ago - and after several billion years of evolution humans emerged.
We however believe the biblical account. The Bible states that the universe was created in 6 days about 6,000 years ago. However there is no way that we can know this using rational investigation and experiment, it is something that the Bible conveys. We do know that the universe is designed in such a way that for medical etc purposes it is better to make the assumption that things are as science finds it.
And class, there are two possibilities we propose to 'reconcile' all this:
1. For some reason God arranged matters this way, ie that although the universe was created in 6 days about 6,000 years ago, nevertheless God made what we find via science to be incompatible with that fact. It may be a mystery why God decided to arrange it all this way, and it may be that it is not a mystery, there are many people who claim they can explain it. Basically, for practical purposes one can assume that at some point after creating the universe in 6 days 6,000 years ago, God put the univers einto a "big-bang-emergent-state", ie a state completely identical to one which would emerge from a big bang.
2. The Bible is God's literal word - God chose carefully every word of the Genesis account, and dictated it to Moses who wrote it down. Many aspects of what God writes in the Bible are poetic and some are meant allegorically. The more we learn in science, the more we can make the detemrinaiton of what was meant literally and what is meant allegorically. For example, it is now pretty clear that the notion of creation in 6 days about 6,000 years was meant allegorically, and in a later class we'll learn some of the deep allusions in this beautiful allegory, and learn of the way of life which God instructed for us, for our own good.
Ok, class over."
Having these opinions in one's mind does not violate the laws of physics, does it? Would such an attitude 'solve' the alleged 'incompatibility' issue? If so, what issue is it that this book ought to try to resolve? What do religious leaders consider to be the problem?
Relevant statements from religious authorities of various faiths:
Relevant statements from religious authorities of various faiths:
Catholics
Catholics
POPE FRANCIS: Oct 2014: "God...created beings and he let them develop according to the internal laws with which He endowed each one, that they might develop, and reach their fullness. He gave autonomy to the beings of the universe at the same time in which He assured them of his continual presence, giving life to every reality. And thus Creation has been progressing for centuries and centuries, millennia and millennia, until becoming as we know it today...The beginning of the world .... directly from a supreme Principle who creates out of love. The Big Bang theory, which is proposed today as the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of a divine creator but depends on it. Evolution in nature does not conflict with the notion of Creation..
As for man, however, there is a change and a novelty. When, on the sixth day in the account of Genesis, comes the moment of the creation of man, God gives the human being another autonomy, an autonomy different from that of nature, which is freedom..." https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/october/documents/papa-francesco_20141027_plenaria-accademia-scienze.html
[AR: Note: He says "Evolution in nature does not conflict with the notion of Creation because evolution presupposes the creation of beings who evolve." Of course this is not consistent with the theories of science, but neither side can be 'proven'. The bottom line is that Catholicism does not consider big bang and evolution theory to conflict with Genesis.].......
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_literalism
Church father Origen (184-253 CE), due to his familiarity with reading and interpreting Hellenistic literature, taught that some parts of the Bible ought to be interpreted non-literally. Concerning the Genesis account of creation, he wrote: "who is so silly as to believe that God ... planted a paradise eastward in Eden, and set in it a visible and palpable tree of life ... [and] anyone who tasted its fruit with his bodily teeth would gain life?" ...
Fundamentalists typically treat as simple history, according to its plain sense, passages such as those that recount the Genesis creation, the deluge and Noah's ark, and the unnaturally long life-spans of the patriarchs given in genealogies of Genesis, as well as the strict historicity of the narrative accounts of Ancient Israel, the supernatural interventions of God in history.
.....
Mormons:
Mormons:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_views_on_evolution
The LDS Church has no official position on the theory of evolution or the details of "what happened on earth before Adam and Eve, including how their bodies were created."[1][2] Even so, some general authorities of the LDS Church have made statements suggesting that, in their opinion, evolution is opposed to scriptural teaching. Apostles Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie were among the most well-known advocates of this position. Other church authorities and members have made statements suggesting that, in their opinion, evolution is not in opposition to scriptural doctrine. Examples of this position include Elders B. H. Roberts, James E. Talmage, and John A. Widtsoe.[3]:vii,xi-xiv
While maintaining its "no position" stance, the LDS Church has produced a number of official publications that have included discussion and personal statements from these various church leaders on evolution and the "origin of man." These statements generally adopt the position, as a church-approved encyclopedia entry[a] states, "[t]he scriptures tell why man was created, but they do not tell how, though the Lord has promised that he will tell that when he comes again."[5]
...
Buddhism
Buddhism
Of course Budhism does not consider the Bible to be divinely-revealed literal truth and so here we are simply taking a brief look at how THEIR religion may or may not be seen to conflict with scientific teaching aobut our origins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_evolution
As no major principles of Buddhism contradict it, many Buddhists tacitly accept the theory of evolution. Questions about the eternity or infinity of the universe at large are counted among the 14 unanswerable questions which the Buddha maintained were counterproductive areas of speculation. As such, many Buddhists do not think about these kinds of questions as meaningful for the Buddhist goal of relieving oneself and others from suffering. ... Buddhists believe the beginning of this world and of life is inconceivable since they have neither beginning nor end, that the world was not created once upon a time, but that the world is constantly being created millions of times every second and that it will always continue to do so....
This Parable of the arrow has often been used to illustrate the Buddha's teachings that "practitioners who concern themselves with the origins of the universe and other topics are missing the point of their religious practice."
"Suppose someone was hit by a poisoned arrow and his friends and relatives found a doctor able to remove the arrow. If this man were to say, 'I will not have this arrow taken out until I know whether the person who had shot it was a priest, a prince or a merchant, his name and his family. I will not have it taken out until I know what kind of bow was used and whether the arrowhead was an ordinary one or an iron one.' That person would die before all these things are ever known to him."[1]
Stephen T. Asma has noted that the Buddha himself largely avoided answering questions about the origins of the universe.
But the historical Buddha shunned metaphysical speculations. He refrained from spooky conjectures generally, and thought that origin-stories about how the universe started were avyakata (unanswerable), given our empirical constraints. Most Buddhists take all this as an invitation to embrace the sciences.[2]
The Buddha argued that there is no apparent rational necessity for the existence of a creator god because everything ultimately is created by mind.[1] Belief in a creator is not necessarily addressed by a religion based on phenomenology, and Buddhism is generally accepting of modern scientific theories about the formation of the universe. This can be argued either from the standpoint that it simply does not matter, or from an interpretation of the Agañña Sutta favoring the notion that it describes the basic concept of evolution.[3]
....
What is the "problem" for Jews?
What is the "problem" for Jews?
Well of course "2 Jews, 3 opinions"
(and some say 4).
Most Jews who may accept being categorized as "non-observant" or "non-orthodox" do not necessarily believe the Genesis account was divinely written or inspired and therefore have no issue. Since we looking for a problem to solve, we'll look at what "observant" Jews believe, the Jews for whom 'the problem' is greatest.
However we will not be so concenrned with the other end of the Jewish spectrum, those very observant Jews who are so self-isolated from science and general culture that they don't even realize that there is a scientific theory of origins which is different than what the Torah teaches, or don't think science has enough credence for this to present a problem.
So what do this middle-ground of Jews believe?
So what do this middle-ground of Jews believe?
Well...The Bible seems to teach that God, like people, gets tired after a week's work.
Well...The Bible seems to teach that God, like people, gets tired after a week's work.
And furthermore:
God's has hands and eyes and legs.
To get things done, God just speaks (presumably Alexa executes it all).
God is initiallyuncertain of the value of what he does, until... ("and God saw that it was good...": 😇 👀 the 💡 & it was 👍.
God is a combination of male and female, and is prone to jealousy;
God regretted some of the things he did, gets angry often, and is rather vengeful.
Oy vey, when is shabbos already!?
Or maybe NOT?!
Or maybe NOT?!
Actually, religious Jews don't believe all that. Because in fact,
religious Jews don't believe in the Bible.
religious Jews don't believe in the Bible.
The teachings which religious Jews consider holy, say that all those Biblically-based conlcusions above are untrue, though they are based on a word for word understanding of the Bible. That is, religious Jews endorse an element of "allegorical interpretation" of the Bible rather than a 'literal reading' - however they do so while still maintaining that every word was dictated by God to Moses who wrote it down completely as it was said by God. That is, God dictated words that were meant to be understood allegorically.
However, in the same way that many religious people insist that all the above Biblically-basd 'literalist' statements are NOT true, many DO insist that certain statements that are NOT in the Bible, ARE true - like that the universe was created about 6,000 years ago (this 'age of the universe' is NOT mentioned explicitly ANYWHERE in the entire 1,000 page Bible).
So we can see that indeed Judaism is NOT based on the Bible.
So we can see that indeed Judaism is NOT based on the Bible.
Why? And what DO these religious jews believe in?
Answer: There was a revelation to all those assembled at Sinai after the exodus from Egypt. And that revelation, and others received by Moses are recorded in the Bible. Part of the revelations involved the divine perspective on what happened to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, but the events themselves were of course already well known to those hearing the revelation.
The only reason Jews today accept the Bible is because there is a Tradition which tells of the events themselves, and of the revelation at Sinai, and that the Bible is a faithful record of the revelation. So Jews don’t ‘believe in the Bible’, they believe in their Tradition, a Tradition which tells that the Bible is a record of a divine revelation, which occured to THEM.
But that very Traditions also specifies what is the intended meaning of the stories and laws recorded in the Bible. So: Judaism does NOT really ‘believe in the Bible’, but rather in the traditional meanings associated to the Biblical text.
The same tradition which teaches that the Bible was divinely communicated specifies what its intended meaning is, so traditional Jews do not see any logic in accepting the Bible as divinely inspired but rejecting the associated meanings taught by that very tradition.
To convey how different the traditional understanding of events can be from what would be gleaned from a literal reading of Gensis, here's a compendium of Traditional Jewish teachings about the beginning: though on the face of it, there's virtually no resemblance to Genesis, it is a composite of traditional understandings of the creation referred to in Genesis, a creation poem:
"Before all was created
God reigned
and after all ended
God reigned.
Time emerged from no time,
and there passed 17 1/2 billion years.
Then,
in the beginning,
nine hundred and seventy four generations prior to that of Adam,
God was to have created the universe...
but didn't.
God contracted Himself,
and emanated a number of emanations from Himself,
in descending order of contact with the Divine.
God looked then into that part of Himself which is the Torah,
and created the universe from a black fire.
God then created and destroyed several universes.
Then God created a universe in one day,
containing among other things
a two-headed male-female human
with scales, webbed fingers and a tail,
whose height was such that it could see from one end of the world to the next.
[At first God wanted to create a female and a male separately, but then God decided not to.]
In the heavens, God created two suns, but changed one into a moon later on.
And before all that is written in Genesis, in an earlier creation, God created the waters (which is why waters can ritually purify via immersion, and are not themselves rendered thereby impure....
.......(etc)
There is virtually no similarity between the above 'creation account' and that given by the Bible. In fact they 'contradict' each other no less than the origin theory 'contradicts' the Biblical creation account. However, every idea in the above derives from traditional Jewish sources many hundreds or a few thousand years old. More importantly for us, those who feel the scientific theories are incompatible with Genesis believe the truth of the sources quoted above, despite the glaring contradications.
Clearly, contradicting Genesis (breishis) is not in itself a religious problem.
Clearly, contradicting Genesis (breishis) is not in itself a religious problem.
Science, the Kabbalah, and the Midrash, are all systems which provide explanations regarding certain aspects of reality, and do so from differing perspectives. They see things differently, and are interested in answering different types of questions. Thus, each system describes the origin of the universe from the point of view of its concerns, leading the unwary to the impression that this difference implies a contradiction and a conflict.
This contradicts genesis no less than does scientific theory! So the fact that an account of beginnings is very different from what is written in Genesis is not in itself necessarily a problem.
So what IS the problem?
So what IS the problem?
We'll be dealing with that in various places in this book.
And: for whom is it a problem? And why? And, what can overcome this particular problem for that particular community?
...
Perspective-dependence
Perspective-dependence
There are histories of art, of science, of philosophy of the development of the atmosphere of our planet, of the burial practices of ancient pre-humanoids etc. Each takes its cue from the importance in that context of something particular and ignores the others. We don't expect that a history of art will contain a history of the emergence of type I stars, or that the history of the latter would contain that of the former.
From the perspective of Genesis, a brief history of the creation of the physical universe serves simply to spotlight the emergence of humanity as the star of the show, with all else being the stage and backdrop upon which the drama takes place... what plays center stage are moral dilemmas, and the choices made while under the sway of strong emotion...passion and jealousy, anger and.... which is relevant, by beings who are aware of the distinction between good and evil.. Actions taken not just by individuals but also by civilizations - and so we are told of the tower of Babel, the generation of the Flood, the emergence of wars, and the invention and spread of metal-working and music.
For those who believe both in the truths found by science and in Biblical religion, there is not generally an expectation that Genesis would have to depict a story of creation focused on the emrgence of matter or of hydrogen etc; however perhaps there IS an expectation that it should at least be not inconsistent with facts.
So should the Bible teach the big bang & evolutionary theory? What for xample could such an account consist of without it giving away scientific notions discovered by humanity severla thousands years later?
Example:......
Some Bible-believers feel that the implication of Genesis is that God expects them to belive that the universe was created in a short amount of time in a certain order and not so long ago, and expects them to therefore reject the scientific theories of the big bang & evolution.
We wish to show why we feel that this is not the implication intended in Genesis, and why we feel that there is no religious requirement implied in the Bible to reject the results of scientific origin theory.
Preview of the book
Preview of the book
Towards a resolution:
Towards a resolution:
(these ideas are expanded on in detail later on in the book)
Given our understanding of the focus of Genesis on moral activity, it is perfectly reasonable that the creation account is juxtaposed to the Eden account and then those two are juxtaposed to the emergence of human civilization.
And we understand that even though the impression can be obtained that the Bible is implying that the universe was created only several thousand years ago, the true implication is that there was nothing of interest to the creator hapening on Earth until the emergence of human moral choices, and the emergence of human civilization.
.....
This book will make the following claim:
We do NOT claim to prove anything. We do NOT claim that the Bible is God-given truth, nor that the big bang and evolutionary theories are true. Instead we attempt to make the following claim (which would be understood by readers of the book after completing it):
Even atheistic scientists who believe there is no God, no creator, and that the Bible is a humanly-produced document with many false statements, and who feel that there is no true free will such as implied in the Bible, would agree that if somehow it IS true that there is a creator etc as described in Genesis, it would make sense for that creator to initiate the universe at the stage of the emergence within it of a true free wil, rather than at the big bang stage.
In that context we will introduce the quantum metaphysical notion of the centrality of human 'observership' and Wheelers notion of the retoractive emergence of the physical universe.... [or: we will show why some intriguing notions of 'quantum metaphysics' are also relevent....]
In this sense, the emergence of true free will has a cosmological signficance.
Radical Innovation in the Bible: the concept of "True Free Will"
Radical Innovation in the Bible: the concept of "True Free Will"
"In the beginning....
"In the beginning....
God was bored....
God was bored....
But when God saw
But when God saw
the humans
the humans
that were just created....
that were just created....
well, things were getting
well, things were getting
a little more interesting."
a little more interesting."
The ancient Babylonians and Egyptians and then Greeks etc perhaps did not believe in a true free will, and therefore perhaps did not believe in a an all-powerful deity, but insead spoke of impersonal forces or of gods whose acitons and feelings and considerations were similar to those of the humans over whom they ruled.
In more modern times, Einstein wrote of his Spinozist disbelief in true free will and therefore his disbelief in the existence of a rational God who would hold humans responsible for their actions.
So it was a very radical invention indeed when Genesis introduced the notions of a true free will, and of moral responsibility existing even from the perspectve of the all-powerful creator of all. And one can begin to appreciate the interelation of the various concepts introduced in Genesis one to the other:
the notion of an all powerful entity, who designed and created everything - including the laws of nature, the physical universe and humanity;
the existence of the type of free will which enables moral responsibility to be assigned even from the perspective of that creator;
and the notion of the 'beginning of history' (a history relevant ot the creator);
the notion of humanity as begin created in the image of the divine;
the notion of divine-human communications & relationship.
All these are interrelated in forming the necessary context for the idea of meaningful moral-responsibility.
.........
According to physics & biology, a big bang and evolution cannot produce a soul: does this mean religion and science are incompatible?
Answer: No physical theory includes 'soul', it is not a physical concept, cannot be physically detected, measured etc. As long as one is not a mechanist/materialist who states that ONLY that which is physical can exist, this is not in itself a 'contradiciton' to religion. Religious people believe in two realms, that whis IS amenable to science and that which is NOT. The probmes arise when they seem to contradict each other. Science itself does not claim that there is ONLY that which is detectable by science, but some people DO believe this (they are 'materialists') and some do NOT.
The idea that there exists a soul is not a contradiction to science, but of ocurse no scientific theory will incorporate within it a model of how the soul originated. What do religious people believe about its origin? Bible beliers will point to the story in Genesis where it is told that God "breathed into" the being created from the dirt (material stuff), thereby transforming that material entity into 'a living being' (in common parlance: possessing a 'soul').
Given the model of God designing a big bang to produce a human, this would mean then that the big bang produced the physical aspects of humanity. When did the first human with a soul exist? According to the context of our presentaiton, we would say it was when free will emerged, with understanding of morality (good and evil), or shortly before it, but not afterward.
In any case therefore we can see that in order for the universe to have the elements meaningful to the creator as portrayed throughout the Bible (nterested in moral choice, and spiritual development etc), there would be the necessity of intervening in the devlopment of the carefully-designed big bang in order to infuse free-will & soul into the human which had evolved 'naturaly' from the divinely-created & designed big bang.
It makes sense that the two non-physical apsects, true free will and soul, are interrelated, and in the context of Genesis, we can see it as the meaning of 'a being created in the image of the creator'. And we can consider them both to have been infused into the univers,e into humanity, at the same time - or they are part of the same non-physical phenomenon.
Given that the events in the physical universe unfolding until that point (the emergence of free-will) are not of interest to the creator, the reasonable jubnture for creation of an instant universe would be then, at the stage of the emergence of free will & soul.
...
Chance or design? Impossibility of deducing a priori when already within the system:
Can a universe exist w/o there being a creator? Whatever argument we make to say it could, it may be that the argument is valid only given the fact that we are in a universe, In other words, it may be that when the creator creates a universe, within that universe it seems possible for it to have emerged on its own, but actually it could not have. Or, that there is no God, but to many people it seems as if there has to be a creator in order for all this to exist. There's no real way to prove that the universe (or anything at all) could or could not have emerged had things been different, since we cannot arrange an experiment which changes that key aspect (ie to add or subtract the creator and see what happens).
The creation account is not meant to prove it one way or another.
What the creation account tells us is revealed by prophecy, because the existence of a creator cannot be deduced, or detected physically or proven.
The crucial insight of the prophetically-revealed creation account is that humans emerged via an act of will, by design, not by chance, but the Torah is not claiming that correctly-thinking humans must come to this conclusion on their own, God is not telling humanity that it would be illogical to think that humans emerged by chance. God is revealing that although to humans it is a logical possibility for it to have happened that way, it didn't.
Einstein
Einstein
As a young boy Einstein rejected the Biblical creation account. He adopted the Aristotelian (Spinozan) model and so believed the universe to be eternal. He even imposed this on his physical theory, which led to what he later considered to be his 'greatest blunder'.
Einstein believed humans do not have true free will, and rejected the Bilical garden of Eden account, and his rejection of free will was based on a belief in determinism which led him to his other great error, the rejection of quantum physics due to the indeterminism at its root.
Caveat: Were I to have made any one of Einstein many errors, I'd have been famous - his errors were profound, and to make them took genius.
The Spinozan Aristotelian notion of the universe rejected the notion of a creator, interested in its history, concerned with human behavior and the significance of human choices, directing history etc. It also sidelined the ideas of cosmic meaning and a 'purpose' for creation of the universe, as well as purpose to human activity. Einstein adopted much of this and also rejected randomness and true free will.
For us here in this book all these ideas are linked: randomness & determinism to free will, and this to meaning & purpose, and all of that to the Biblical accounts of creation and of the garden of Eden. And so we end up linking Genesis with Einstein, Aristotle & Spinoza.
What is to be expected, and what is 'problematic'?
What is to be expected, and what is 'problematic'?
What would a fundamentalist Biblical believer expect that scientific theory would show? Specifically, should physcis research lead to equaitons specifying this cosmological theory: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth, and the earth was void...and God said "Let there be light!" and there was light."?
Conversely, what do scientists think that an omnipotent creator should have written as a creation story to be given to people 3,500 years ago?
Presumably even the most literal Biblical believer would agree that scientific investigation into the origin of the universe would not produce the description of creation in Genesis; let's use the label 'Theory X' to represent the expected scientific origin theory arrived at by Biblical fundamentalist physicists.
Now recast the technical theory X into language appropriate for the ordinary person, a story which can be understood even by a child, and which could be given to humanity 3,500 years ago without involving scientific knowledge not yet known then. We'll call the result "origin story Y". Maybe this is what we can challenge Biblical literalists to have expected the Bible to have contained.
Now let us task rabbis who are Biblical fundamentalists to craft what they believe is an account of God's creation which can be understood literally. Presumably these literalists do not believe that God speaks, or that God needed to 'say' "let there be light" as words uttered by vocal chords into air, by making molecules of air vibrate - especially as there was not yet any air. So let us task the literalist with crafting a religious story of creation - a real description of what the Biblical literalist believes occured at creation - and we'll call that "A".
Now we give A over to the children's-story writer (who transformed scientific account X into children-friendly story Y); they are tasked with rewriting religious creation account story A in their own chosen style relevant to children, and let's call the result 'child-friendly religious-story B'.
How different will the two origin accounts be: ie 'child-friendly science-story Y' and 'child-friendly religious-story B'? We should not really be worried about a contradiction between scientific theory and a literal reading of the Bible's creation account (LRBCA), which is inevitable, but rather potential contradictions between stories Y and B (both written by the same childrens' author in the same writing style and ostensibly describing the same event). Or should even the Biblical fundamentalists expect that there would be difference between them? ie that there is an inevitable difference between the children-friendly story of 3,500 years ago describing the religious-level desciption of God's creation and the one relating what science could tell us of the universe's origin?
Now from the other direction: What would an atheist feel would be a likely story written by a divine creator-of-all, an origin story for human consumption, something that is also a story understandable to a child, and would not reveal unknown sicence to people 3,500 years ago? What would it be expected that this divine creator would want to convey about the creation? Task the atheist with writing a creation account as they feel a divine creator crafting a story for all would write it, and turn it into a child-friendly story.
Let's call this story V. How does this 'story' V differ from B? from Y?
Even if B and V are different. would the athest feel that B is an acceptable form of creation-story?
If not, what are the elements of B which the atheist feels indicate that it is definitely NOT a true story.
...
The Biblical traditionalist considers the first Humans to have had a special relationship to the creator of all. They would probably have taught their children something about the creation of the universe, and the creation of humanity. Over time, these accounts would get corrupted in various ways in transmission, so that after a number of generations there would be different origin-stories in different cultures. However the Biblical account, written down long after creation and after the first humans died, would represent a 'true' account.
Age-dependent interpretations of the Creation Account
Traditionalist teach the the creation story to school children of 5 years old - the Traditional philosophy being that the beginning of the Torah (and more) was written so as to be understandable by children and adults, each at their level. Perhaps this holds as well for historical periods, ie the creation acount is meant to be understood in each 'age' in a way appropriate to that period. Just as an adult can understands the creation account and statements about God in ways that are quite different than that of a 5 year-old (ie the author's intended meaning was designed to be dependent on the reader/hearer's chronological-age), so too people today are perhaps meant to be able to understand the creation account differently than they would have had they lived 1,000 years ago (ie the author's intended meaning depends on the reader/hearer's historical age, and cultural milieu).
Overview of part of my approach
Rather than seeing the creation and Eden accounts as a continuous chronological story, I consider them to be a deliberate juxtaposition of three events which according to scientific theory would take place at three different junctures:
1. the origin of the universe;
2. the emergence of the first members of biological humanity;
3. the emergence of those mental-realm correlates of the physical human brain which are most significant in the Biblical contect: moral responsibility & free will.
The speculation raised here is that the reason for this anachronistic juxtaposition is not necessarily because in ancient times the three were assumed to have been simultanous, nor that the writer felt that the people of the Book must believe that it was, but rather for a more sophisticated reason: it was the most reasonable portrayal of events from the perspective of (the biblical writer's conception of) a creator. That is, from the perspective of the creator of the physical universe and of natural law and the designer of the parameters leading to the emergence of humanity, all that occurs after the big bang is either random or determined, simply an unfolding of what the creator designed into the big bang and laws of nature, and therefore inherently 'uninteresting'. Only actions arising from a 'true free will' have the potential to be independent of the choices made by the creator [of natural law (and the design of humanity)] and therefore to be potentially of interest.
More specifically, to the creator depicted in Genesis, what is interesting are choices made which involve ethical dilemmas, ie where the creator can meaningfully ascribe 'moral responsibility' to the choosers. As such, the creator's creation begins to achieve its purpose only when beings capable of "moral-choice" emerge.
This motivates the above-mentioned juxtaposition, where it seem as if the emergence of free willed beings faced with morally-fraught choices immediately follows the creation of the universe and the emergenc eof physical humanity.
Furthermore, perhaps the biblical stories emerged not so long after humans attained a real level of self-awareness, perhaps a la Jaynes, not just when modern humanity emerged biologically. In other words, perhaps the abiliity to conceive of making choices between actions based on perceived contrafactual outcomes, and based on the notion of "right" and "wrong" emerged much later than did the core of the biological brain of modern humanity.
And if the ability to make 'moral-based choices, and to tell stories and transmit them to later generations emerged late, it could explain why the juxtaposition-based creation account was framed in place and time not long before the emergence of civilization in Mesopotamia.
Presenting the above discussion within the framework of the supposed biblical-science "conflict" regarding the age of the universe
In the author's opinion, even if the universe was created 6,000 years ago as detailed by a literalist reading of Genesis, this does not contradict the big bang theory. And conversely, even if the universe was created billions of years ago in a big bang, this does not contradict the belief in the divine origin of the creation account in Genesis.
Additionally, in the author's opinion it is significant that although it is claimed that "the age of the universe" can be inferred from the stories of Genesis, this is only if one interprets very literally various passages that many (inlcuding Rambam/Maimonides) do not consider to have been meant in this way. And very significant that nowhere in the Bible is there a direct mention of a specific age for the universe. Many times the Bible states "it was in the 5th year of" or etc, but NEVER in the entire Bible is there a mention such as "it was in the 500th year after creation" or anything like that. Why? In this author's opinion it is because this age is not of religious concern or interest - God does not need for us to believe that the creation took place at some specific time.
Of course it can be that creation took place 6,000 years ago as fundamentalist-literalists believe, but the perspective of this book is that the "age of the universe" is not religiously relevant. Instead of being focused on telling us of the age of the universe, the creation account tells us that from the Biblical perspective the onset of universal purpose must await the emergence of a free-willed being capable of moral distinctions. And that as a result, from the teleological perspective creation culminates in the emergence of such a being. It is completely consistent therefore that the origin of the universe is tied firmly to the emergence of Humanity.
[More specifically: The Bible's first sentence presents the existence of a Creator, and from the Bible as a whole we know of the primary importance to this Creator of the choices made by human beings. The first few pages (two stories) of the Bible relate how Humanity is created in the Creator's image, with its essence being "the breath/spirit of God". Then, that Humanity achieved a state of self-awareness and the ability to freely choose, as well as the "knowedge of distinguishing between good and evil", in contrast to the animals. When this occurs, it is the initiation of universal purpose from the divine perspective, and as such the universe - created to achieve this divine purpose - can be said to have 'begun' then. That is the reason for the placing of the creation of Humanity and the emergence of moral reasoning and free choice in the story of "the Creation of the universe". Not to tell us of the age of the physical universe, which in this author's opinion is - from the religious perspective - an irrelevancy, a red-herring.]The book develops the above idea in depth, as well as examining various caveats to it, and aome of it's ramifications.
For advanced readers, we present the notion of a "true free-will", the type which is referred to in the Bible (namely, one which is of relevance to a Creator, as we'll explain).
We also present an intriguing analogy to these ideas from the realms of quantum metaphysics, based on the uniqueness of the "true free-will" referred to in the Bible. Due to true free will's transcendence of physical processes and logic (as we'll explain), the being is said to have been created in the divine image, and its essence is "the breath/spirit of God".
Also presented are analogies to other deep notions and speculations regarding physics and cosmology proposed by prominent physicists.
Various quotations from Jewish traditional texts are also presented, in poetic support of the ideas put forward here.
Throughout, the presentation is rooted in the Jewish Traditional understanding, of the Biblical text being revealed by God to Moses word-for-word. Also, that the scientific theories of the big bang and of evolution are fundamentaly correct (subject to future scientific revision). As such, the book also examines what might seem to some readers as a contradiction between these two approaches, showing why there is none in fact. However, the book does not purport to prove anything in particular, neither that evolutionary theory and the big bang theory are correct nor that the Bible is divinely authored - rather, the book simply takes these two theses as the fundamentals underlying its explanations.
Creation & Shabbat
Creation & Shabbat
Question: Is Shabbat real if the creation did not actually happen as described by a literal reading of Genesis? <-- Read the discussions on this webpage if this is a question which deeply interests you.
Scientists viewed the big bang theory as very Biblical, theologians considered it heresy
Scientists viewed the big bang theory as very Biblical, theologians considered it heresy
(see the video above on this topic)
(see the video above on this topic)
This excerpt below from the book of the very prominent physicist Max Born (see morea bout him in the footnote) shows how the issue was seen among physicists, and how they felt that:
1. the specific age of the universe was not the real issue
2. the issue was eternity as opposed to creation a finite time ago;
3. even theologians felt that the big bang theory supported the biblical creation account;
4. that atheists felt the big bang theory was too supportive of the biblical creation idea that they searched for a scientific alternative!
Footnote: material taken from https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/science/leading-figures/max-born-the-rival-of-einstein-who-believed-that-god-plays-dice/ Like so many other Jewish scientists in Germany in the 1930s, he had to flee from the Nazi regime, which deprived him of his citizenship and even his doctorate, almost to the point of legally erasing his existence and his work. ....... ...... In 1926, Born ... transform the orbitals of electrons into probability density clouds. Naturally, this increasingly foggy nature of atomic physics was going to be responded to by those who saw all this uncertainty as half-knowledge. On December 4, 1926, Einstein wrote in a letter to Born: “Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the ‘old one’. I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice.”Einstein was not a believer, but he used the metaphor of God to refer to the functioning of nature in a discussion that he would maintain for years with his colleague, and that he himself would summarize in an exemplary manner in another letter to Born dated years later, in 1944: “You believe in the God who plays dice, and I in complete law and order in a world which I, in a wildly speculative way, am trying to capture.”
A big bang emergent universe: combining the big bang theory and Genesis
A big bang emergent universe: combining the big bang theory and Genesis
Creation account & the big bang: The creation account is telling us that the universe was designed to contain humans. And humans were meant to live in a physical uiverse, and it would have space and itme and there would be animals and vegetation , and sun & stars to at as a clock, to keep time for holidays (among which - indeed chiefly, in terms of moadim - is shabbat).
So the creator made sure that the big bang which was to bring it all about would be carefully designed to give rise to humans.
The first stage of the universe was the design of this big bang,and when the design was completed and the big bang which produces that desired universe was implemented, the creator 'rested'.
Technical note: And what was created would be a big bang and not a gqlitshkmjbn or even a tplsx or zvmtg, bec a qglitshkmjbn does not contain time and space and laws of nature, and certainly would not include shabbos which requires time; and a tplsx or zvmtgwould could not produce humans. So once the creator decided to produce humans, who would live in time, and for the universe to incorporate a spiritual essence every 7th day, it was necessary that the creator start it off with a big bang and not a gqlitshkmjbn or tplsx or zvmtg or etc. And in fact, not every big bang would necessarily produce humans, and indeed AnY big bang would require key intervention at various junctures in order to guarantee the production of humans, as we'll see later on in the book.
Caveat: Of course, given the impossibility of proving that the universe existed a second ago, it is impossible to determinewhether the universe was created at the stage of the big bang or at a later extrapolated stage (like right now, or when a free willed being first emerged) .
Explanation of the concept of "A big bang emergent universe":
Explanation of the concept of "A big bang emergent universe":
Imagine a pattern made from blocks of different colors. Now think of how one could cause this design to emerge on its own, even for an instant. An expert is consulted, and says that it is possible, but not if the pieces are flat and made of simple plastic and placed on the floor, but rather is one makes it all out of colored billiard balls, and the task is now to have all the needed balls make contact in the right way all at the same time. That is, the essence of the task is achieved, but now the objects are very 3-dimensional and round, and hard, and there has to be a billiard table involved.
A computer is then programmed to find what needs to be the initial state of the balls and how they have to be impacted in order for them to careen around the table and then at some point create the desired pattern. The computer starts with the desired state and extrapolates it backwards to find the initial state.
All states following from that initial state can now be computed, and the computer can create a fake video, a simulation, of what it would all look like. In terms of 'stills', there can be aa snapshot of what the pattern would look like at all intermediate stages, and can describe each intermediate stage - for example there can be an intermediate state which has an exact description such as: (ball 1, green, location on table-grid is 12-08, moving in direction 40 degrees, with speed 10), (ball 2, red, location 14-12, moving in direction 22 degrees, with speed 16), etc etc. If someone placed the corresponding balls on the table and gave them the right push in the right direction, they would in a few seconds assemble into the desired pattern.
No matter which intermediate state was put into practice using the actual physical balls, the eventual result would be the desired pattern.
Similarly with the physical universe. The desired eventual stage was a being capable of making decisions based on free will and moral imperatives etc. The way to make such a being emerge, would be to create it having a brain, and eyes and legs etc, and the way to have that emerge 'naturally' would be for it be made of cells and genes etc, and for there to be a big bang and laws of nature, which would eventually give rise to it, and would also give rise to plants and animals and stars etc, though those wer enot in the original specifications.
So the initial state of the creation is the idea of a free willed being capable of understanding good and evil, and the way to produce that was via a big bang and laws of nautre, which produces an entire ecologically-complete universe. Once the big bang was actually created, it was inevitable that some time later the desired being would emerge. And of course, the creation could be at any of the intermediate stages as well, and the eventual result would be the same.
Graphic summary of the conclusion:
Graphic summary of the conclusion:
A lecture on this topic was given at the opening for docents of this exhibition at the YU museum:
Some of the artwork at the exhibition featured the Ouroboros, and so I included in the presentation this idea (in the book) & its accompanying diagram:
END: from here on, the page is still under construction
END: from here on, the page is still under construction
Creation: Individual or race?
If one believes the universe meerged 6,000 YA, then clearly there were many humans at the time not just a pair, and so interpreting Genesis as being the creaiton of a pair of humans 6,000 YA is problematic, and so one assumes a big bang emergent state followed that intial pair-creation state, or that Ha'Adam in the creaiton account refers to "The Human" ie the human race. Or one assumes the creation occurred long before 6,000 YA, when indeed there was only one human pair.
And indeed accroding to sceintific theory,t her eouwld have been only one intial human, and at some point it would mate with the pre-human ancestor-relatives, and when there was both a male and female human there could be the first truly human pair. But there would not be the simultaneous evolution of an entire race of course.
Evo(lution) book: "Chapter 7" Jewish People, God as Observer
Evo(lution) book: "Chapter 7" Jewish People, God as Observer
Evo Inst Un Doron Lazarus Fri, Jan 25, 2008, 1:49 PM
to darin Doron, hi
Here are two versions of one chapter, one is in my 1991 folder, the other was in a folder marked 1994. I'm not sure which is actually more recent, but I think they're different.
shabbat shalom, Avi
CH 7 Synergy from Evo, HTML
CH 7 Synergy from Evo, HTML
Mon, Aug 28, 2006, 8:23 PM
is the file in this email the same as the one above?
not my drawing, unfortunately...
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