J1: Science & Judaism

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Four approaches to Science and Torah

Each of the following approaches to this issue have their advantages and their drawbacks. They have all been suggested as valid approaches and they have all been successfully justified in traditional Jewish sources. There is therefore no reason or need to reject one view for another. It is also important to realise that at different times in history, different approaches have appeared to be more convincing or more helpful than others. See what you think...

Example Question: Is Man unique?

According to Science Modern Man (Homo-sapiens sapiens) is not inherently different from the rest of the animal kingdom, he is just further evolved. But in Judaism, Man is the pinnacle of creation, created separately and uniquely. So are we unique or not?

1. Contradictory approach

Torah and Science are fundamentally incompatible, but this can never be a problem.

According to science, the universe is ruled by the laws of physics. No object or phenomenon may break these rules. According to Torah, the universe was created, and is kept in existence, by God. He has ultimate control and is not bound by any man-made laws. These two views of the universe are contradictory. The universe is governed by Physical Laws or God. There is only room for one Master.

However it is OK for there to be contradictions between Torah and Science because scientific knowledge is always developing. As it evolves, laws that were treasured for hundreds of years are discarded in favour of new ones. Every scientific law that we hold true today could potentially be proved wrong tomorrow. Even the most accepted facts have changed: Ptolemy's view that all planets circled the Earth (geocentricity) lasted for over a century before Copernicus explained that our planet was actually just one of eight that circle the sun (heliocentricity); Newtonian physics ruled for over a 150 years before it was superseded by Einstein's theory of relativity. Even today, there is no unified theory that can incorporate the theory of Quantum Mechanics and Relativity. Science is always in a state of flux.

Example Answer:

There is a basic contradiction between Evolution and Creation and they are incompatible. However, this is OK because scientific understanding is constantly developing and is thus never conclusive. Evolutionary biology is convincing but not complete and this inherent lack of completeness in this as in every other scientific field gives room for change. Thus the Torah perspective is unchallenged and the present scientific view can be accepted even though they contradict.

2. Harmonious approach

Both in general and specific terms Science and Torah are compatable.

EXAMPLES OF GENERAL COMPATIBILITY:
The theory of evolution and the biblical account of the seven days of creation both describe the origin and growth of life forms from the simple to the complex; the Big Bang is suggestive of the opening lines of Genesis; and the great difficulty of designing artificial intelligence makes sense when we see the Torah describe Man as uniquely created in "the image of God".

EXAMPLES OF MORE SPECIFIC COMPATIBILITY:
(a) Maimonides used Aristotle's division of the basic elements into earth, wind fire and water when describing Creation;
(b) Rabbi Abraham Kook related physical evolution to the spiritual evolution of history and far from being afraid of evolutionary theory, he called for Jews to study and advance it in the hope of gaining a deeper insight into the process of history;
(c) The late 1950's saw the establishment of the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists in the USA which grew to consist of academics from all the various disciples who were committed to Judaism and to the pursuit of scientific enquiry. They have found ways of being comfortable in a scientific environment and publish articles and journals on various topics.
(d) In the 1990s, books intermittently appear dealing with ways of harmonising Torah and Science. One involves seeking counterparts for the specific facts written in the Torah, in the scientific theory of the development of the universe (Aviezer) and another uses relativity theory to show that the days of creation are actually equal to the billions of years prescribed by Science. (Schroeder)

The problem with the 'harmonious' approach is that scientific theory is constantly changing. To keep in harmony, the explanations of how science and Torah work together must also be constantly changing. It turns out that what helped deal with the 'contradictory' approach actually hinders the 'harmonious' one!

Example Answer:

A sociological description of Man's uniqueness is compatible with the Torah's description. There are three clear aspects of man's uniqueness identified in both:
Communication - The ability to intelligently converse has allowed Mankind to build upon the work of others and led to the rapid technological progress that is the hallmark of civilisation.
Intellectual Curiosity - Only Mankind is curious enough and can investigate matters not directly connected to survival.
Conscience - Man, and only Man, is capable of making decisions based on the abstract principles of right and wrong.

3. Mutually exclusive approach

There can be no contradiction between dissimilar things. Science is about the physical world while Torah is about morality and human's purpose in Creation. They therefore have nothing in common. The Torah is not a biology, physics, or archaeology textbook. It does not need to mention cells, dinosaurs or equations. It is a book about how to live. Thus Science and Torah are two different subjects and cannot be compared. They cannot be at odds with each other since they are not in each other's scope.

Example Answer:

Science concerns the physical body, the Torah addresses the soul. Science tells us how life works while Torah tells us why we are alive. You can't talk about the soul scientifically. It can't be weighed or measured. The brain is made up of cells containing complex chemicals joined by neural pathways but does this really explain where ideas and feelings come from? The Creation of Man is a description of his basic essence, not an exact listing of his physical make-up.

4. Partial overlap approach

No one approach is correct. Approaches 1-3 are all appropriate for different issues in Torah and Science: some overlap is contradictory, some is harmonious and in other areas there is no overlap at all. Since both Judaism and Science exist in time, the ways of relating to them constantly changing and it would be foolish to exclusively limit their relationship to only one of the first three approaches.

Example Answer:

Combining answers 1-3: The Torah describes elements of our sociological uniqueness as well as our soul. Creation is not completely compatible with Evolution and yet both recognises that we are last in the long process of the development of life.

Way to go...

So there are four ways to go with Science and Torah:

1. Live with the contradictions knowing that scientific theories are constantly changing.
2. Find ways of harmonising the two of them.
3. Show that they are all describing very different things.
4. Mix and match all of the above.

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