The terrestrial globe from the beginning was created with all its elements, substances, minerals, atoms and organisms; but these only appeared by degrees …
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’
Sept 2, 2012. The Bahá’í perspective on evolution combines the ages-old view of the world’s monotheistic religions – all earthly things were created by God – with an evolutionary view that all things grow and develop.
`Abdu’l-Bahá describes the Bahá’í perspective in Some Answered Questions:
[T]he terrestrial globe from the beginning was created with all its elements, substances, minerals, atoms and organisms; but these only appeared by degrees: first the mineral, then the plant, afterward the animal, and finally man. But from the first these kinds and species existed, but were undeveloped in the terrestrial globe, and then appeared only gradually.
There is great deal in the Bahá’í writings expanding on these themes – in Some Answered Questions and the Tablet to Dr. Forel among other places – and we will explore them in greater detail later. But for now, lets restrict ourselves to two issues central to modern discussions of science and religion:
1. What is the compatibility of the Bahá’í teachings on evolution with the central principle of modern science?
We argue that there is complete compatibility. And we find something remarkable – certain metaphysical interpretation of evolution depart from these central principles (to be discussed in future blogs).
2. Is man descended from the animals?
The correct answer – we claim – is no. And the answer is no regardless of whether you accept the religious perspective or not. The reason is clear, simple and consistent with evolution as a science, although not with certain metaphysical interpretations of evolution.
The Relationship between the Baha’i Teachings on Evolution and the Central Principle of Modern Science
When I grew up and trained as a scientist, I learned that the central principle of science was that all things obey the laws of nature.
The starry universe in its sublime grandeur, the suns that fuel life and create the atoms we are made of, our earth in its sea-clad beauty – all of these exist because of the laws of nature.
All natural things – we learned – are the consequence of natural laws. Systematic investigation done by the scientific method gives us knowledge of those laws. And we can use that knowledge to overcome the limitations of our own nature. I can, for instance, go from Casablanca to Istanbul at 600 miles per hour because of that knowledge.
This central principle of science – we learned – extends to everything, even life. Biological evolution is not in exile from its domains. It too must abide by the laws of nature.
What does it mean to be created?
What does it mean to be created? If the natural laws are created by God – as the great monotheistic religions of the east and the west attest – then all things – it follows – are created by God. If the laws of nature came into being of their own accord, then all things still are created (or “created”, as the postmodernists would have it). All things in those circumstances still come into being – are created – as a consequence of the laws of nature. Science makes no distinction between the two scenarios, and neither should we.
What does it mean to have evolved?
What, then, does it mean to have evolved? If all things came into being gradually – if, for example, the universe comes into being from nothingness, or if this globe of ours is lifeless when it begins and acquires life later – then we use the word evolution and we say that things have evolved. A process has taken place which we variously call emergence, development, growth, change, or evolution.
And the truth is that all of us see growth, evolution, and development all of the time. We see it in our children, in our own personal growth, in our gardens, and very often in our personal endeavors. (And we see it very obviously in technology. Nowadays we can put two billion transistors in a computer chip smaller than the end of your finger. In the mid twentieth century, a vacuum tube, then the equivalent of a transister, was the size of a baby’s fist.)
Biological evolution is – simply put – the study of growth processes in the biological world. It studies how the immense diversity of life that we see around us grew to be. The processes of growth and development in the cosmic realms, in the planetary realms, and in the geological realms are continued into the biological realms. And in every realm, including biology, the potentialities inherent in the laws of nature unfold into actuality. Life, like everything else, has evolved.
Lack of contradictions with the Baha’i teachings
In all of this, there are no contradictions with the teachings of the Bahá’í Faith, nor are their contractions, I believe, with the principles of any of the other of the world’s great religions. That is not to say that there aren’t contradictions with various interpretations introduced by various schools of thought or by various thinkers. But those are transient and fall to the wayside in the long run.
Is man descended from the animals?
So, now lets go to that most troublesome of questions: is man descended from the animals? (I’m using “man” in the generic sense of “human”.)
The answer – both from the perspective of the laws of nature and the Bahá’í teachings – is no. It is simple to see why.
Here is why. Humans are who they are because they are created by – built-in to, if you will – the laws of nature. They are an expression of the laws of nature, a realization of the potential inherent in those laws of nature, an actualization of that potential.
The mechanisms by which man emerged – the long stages of evolution by which man went through from high energy quarks after the big bang, to interstellar atomic matter, to starstuff, to earthbound minerals, to ingredients in an organic molecular soup, to the first reproducing cell, to multicellular creatures, to animals, to hominids, and finally to man – are of secondary importance to the reality of who we are. We are not the process by which we emerged. We are the end result.
Now, of course, you can say that we are descended from the animals, provided that you admit that we are also descended from multicellular creatures, individual reproducing cells, chemical soups, or high-energy quarks (although it does sound a bit silly to say that man is really just a high energy quark). But then you are just using an analogy.
Man’s Emergence as an Aspect of Universal Processes of Growth
Those evolutionary processes leading to man’s emergence, although important, are simply an aspect of the universal process of growth and emergence by which all things have come into being. Man, then, is the actualization of the potential for man’s existence built into the laws of nature.
As the Bahá’í writings put it:
[M]an’s existence on this earth, from the beginning until it reaches this state, form and condition, necessarily lasts a long time, and goes through many degrees until it reaches this condition. … Man was always a distinct species, a man, not an animal.
The processes of evolution by which man came into existence are not the reality of man, nor is the fact that man went through an animal stage, although of course it contributes to who we are. We are born of the laws of nature.
Next Week
Next week we look at why this obvious and simple argument is so difficult for many to see. We examine, among other things, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s explanation for the difficulty.
…………………………
This is the 24th in a series of blogs on evolution and religion. The author, Stephen Friberg, is a Bahá’í living in Mountain View, California. A research physicist by training, he wrote Religion and Evolution Reconciled: ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Comments on Evolution with Courosh Mehanian. He worked at NTT in Japan before joining the semiconductor industry in Silicon Valley.
12 comments
1 ping
Skip to comment form ↓
Brian Corvin
September 3, 2012 at 5:28 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
A pity that you don’t answer the question about man being descended from animals,which I think is the scientific position. As I understand it Bahais take up a position somewhere between the Creationist and the scientific points of view, and go on to suggest that man was always man. In actual fact the scientific and Bahai views can not be validated objectively, though this could change
Stephen Friberg
September 3, 2012 at 12:49 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Hi Brian:
I’m not sure that you are catching the argument. It is very simple and logical, and it is hard to believe that it is incorrect scientifically, but because of the traditional usage of the term “descendance”, it is very, very difficult – I have found – for many to see it. It most certainly is NOT a disagreement with the scientific record, which is extraordinarily well established.
The conventional scientific interpretation is – as you say – that man is descended from the animals. And indeed, the incontrovertible historical record show a line of development going through the animal kingom, through the hominid line, and it shows humans emerging – which I suggest is the much more correct word – from the animal kingdom. That much, I hope, is well understood.
But humans have a different capacity – they have new capabilies that animals don’t have. It is this that means they are not descendants – except allegorically – of the animals.That is not at all to challenge or question the scientific record, which is, as I said, extraordinarily clear.
The point I am making is that humans are an expression of the laws of nature – certain laws clicked into operation in the transition from the animals to humans that made us possible. These laws lead, among other things, to our minds – but these laws were there all along.
If it makes it any easier, I’m thinking as a physicist, and we always tend to thing in terms of the fundamental laws of nature and how they are expressed. The standard interpretation – not the reality, but the interpretation – of 19th century evolution was geneological – who were your ancestors? But that way of thinking – which is where the term “descendant” comes from – is historical and ascientific to a physicist.
Let me know if this explains things better.
In particular, does this answer the question about man being descended from the animals? I’m saying that from a scientific standpoint – one that looks as all living things as an expression of the laws of nature, man is NOT descended from the animals. If he were, there would be no distinguishing differences. But rather, we see higher order phenomena – things we call reason and mind – at play. From an allegorical and historical standpoint, you can indeed say that man is descended from the animals.
Stephen
P.S. More and more, I’m starting to think that this “descendance” terminology is a legacy of the old-fashioned Christian bibliocentric culture that biology grew up in. In that culture, the book of Genesis was literally believed to be true by many, and its terminology and broad thrust was adapted by evolutionary thinkers who – as is now well known – weren’t scientific in their approach before Darwin. The Biblical thrust, of course, is genealogical. We read in Genesis, for example, that “Abraham begat Isaac;and Isaac begat Jacob.”
Maya Bohnhoff
September 4, 2012 at 3:10 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I think Abdu’l-Baha makes this relationship clear (at least as clear as I, personally need it to be) when he says:
It is what Abdu’l-Baha refers to as the “inner ethereal reality” that makes human beings more than merely smarter (quantitatively different) animals. This is why there can be no “missing link”. The difference between humans and animals is not a physical one per se, but it is natural in the sense that it is now part of our human nature. IMO, the agitation the human world is suffering today comes, in large part, of the tension between our animal (physical) and human (evolving) natures. A subset of humanity is trying to live more deeply in its animal nature, but ultimately, we cannot go back; we can only go forward.
The scientific view does not conflict with Abdu’l-Baha’s remarks on the human reality. Science must, in the end, conclude that we are a different sort of animal (perhaps as a crystal is a different sort of rock, possessing different qualities than the matrix from which it grows) but it has so far been unable to explain why. Religion, on the other hand, has been explaining for millennia why we are different, but has not undertaken to catalogue all the ways in which that is true.
But our inner ethereal reality (what Abdu’l-Baha calls the rational soul) has undeniably changed our physical reality as well, and it has begun to shape our continued evolution. That some of us doubt its existence can’t curtail that evolution … though I think it can slow it down a bit. Our failure to recognize the forces that act on us does not stop those forces from exerting their effect.
Bahram
September 3, 2012 at 9:32 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Hi Brian
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. Baha’is believe that every theory or belief should withstand the test of scientific process. With regard to man being descendant of animals; the best answer, I personally think we can give at this time, is that we dont know for sure.
Humans are fragile compared to many other animals not as powerful as say a gorilla etc. What makes us special is the ability for abstract thought, to be able to *understand* the invisible and abstract, manipulate nature.
If this is an important feature of distinction, then we need to figure out the physical signature (if any) that is unique to humans that we can use to trace back. Then trace back in time to figure out the human family tree and see if humans are descendants of animals. My brother always says, maybe there is an ‘abstract thought’ gene we have not found yet.
Stephen Friberg
September 3, 2012 at 1:34 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Hi Bahram:
I think it highly unlikely that there would be a physical signature that can be tracked back, unless it were simply something mundane like the ability of systems to form states in response to their environment.
The scientific lesson of everything that we know that evolves is that new “physical signatures” emerge that are quantitatively and qualitatively different than what they are “grown” from.
Consider a giant towering redwood tree. It is both quantitatively and qualitatively different than the soil it grows from, and it is both quantitatively and qualitatively different than the conditions on earth that preceded its existence. If you look into the soil either now or before the tree existed, you will find no physical signature that is an indication that towering redwood trees are in the works.
The “physical signature” argument is, to my way of thinking, very close to both that of creationism and to New Atheism. To both of these approach, only the physical is real. To my physicist way of thinking, it is the laws of nature that are the root of things, not just historically real things.
In the case under consideration here – complex biological systems, some animals, some humans – there are indeed physical distinctions, although not unique. We walk upright, have fingers designed for keyboards (joke!), very complex brains, etc. These physical distinctions, while real, are not things we are going to trace back. I’m sure we are not going to find some seed-like human “nucleus” something in the past that sprouted into who we are.
Stephen
Anonymous
September 3, 2012 at 3:36 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I think we should acknowledge the possibility however small, of a physical signature unique for humans. Our understanding of these things is still very limited. The future will tell. Current scientific understanding, I think precludes a unique human signature, but this can change with new discoveries.
Abdu’l-Baha states: “…In each one of these stages (mineral, vegetable or animal kingdoms) are signs and evidences of his human existence and destination.”
There is a possibility that ‘these signs and evidences’ He talks about are manifested somehow in a physical manner.
Stephen Friberg
September 3, 2012 at 7:16 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Interesting point! You’ve got me speculating. Let me make a stab at trying to understand this.
1st of all, we should be able to see those “signs and evidences” now in the “mineral, vegetable or animal kingdoms”. Otherwise, the statement would be meaningless – we weren’t around back before we existed.
And if we presume that these signs and evidences are to be seen scientifically, then there would have to be evidences, as the underlying laws could not be ascertained otherwise.
So, what is it that we can see in these kingdoms?
The most obvious are those in the animal world where we see things like intelligence, comprehension, memory, tool-use, social life, and the like. We also see evolution, which combined with what we know about how things advance, strongly suggests that the qualities of intelligence and the like we see in animals leads to further developments. And this is to just suggest a few among many possibilities.
In the other kingdoms, we see multiple signs as well. I grew up in an ex-mining town that had become the seat of New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Our neighbor, “Lefty” Thompson, was the head of New Mexico State Bureau of Minerals and had an extensive collection of gorgeous minerals of all kind, including geodes and smithsonite that had grown up underground. The richness of mineral life is widely known among geologists, as are the growth processes that created the ordered crystals and metals that emerge from the raw material of stone, rock, heat, and water in the depths of earth.
So, I would say that the signs and evidences are clear and readily seen in the dynamics – in the growth processes, including biological evolution – that we see clearly and abundantly in all the kingdoms of nature we choose to look into. And that, of course, was the view of Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, Newton and the other great thinkers who were the forgers of the scientific revolution.
Bahram
September 3, 2012 at 10:10 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Stephen Friberg states: “So, I would say that the signs and evidences are clear and readily seen in the dynamics – in the growth processes, including biological evolution – that we see clearly and abundantly in all the kingdoms of nature we choose to look into….”
This is great.
Thanks for articulating. Maybe the dynamics and complex growth process you are talking about, lets say for humans, is due to the high level of sophistication of the interaction between the elements, whether traversing through mineral vegatable or animal kingdoms.
I love the talk by Abdu’l-Baha given in San Francisco (see below) that makes the comparison of the long evolution of humans on earth, to the evolution of the human embryo.
It begs the question: is there anything fundamentally different between the embryo of a human, when compared to the embryo of a gorilla? after all they look identical even at the advanced stage of their growth process . Due to my limited understanding of Biology, I cannot answer this question
Bahram
September 3, 2012 at 1:40 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Stephen says “… that man is descended from the animals. And indeed, the incontrovertible historical record show a line of development going through the animal kingom, through the hominid line, and it shows humans emerging – which I suggest is the much more correct word – from the animal kingdom. That much, I hope, is well understood…”
I thinkthis is excellent. It is all about potential, Humans from the very beginning had the potential to be humans, even though we were traversing through different kingdoms such as the animal kingdom. This is a quote by the son of the Prophet Founder of the Baha’i Faith, Abdul-Baha, almost exactly 100 years ago in San Francisco:
“…The philosophers of the Orient in reply to those of the western world say: Let us suppose that the human anatomy was primordially different from its present form, that it was gradually transformed from one stage to another until it attained its present likeness, that at one time it was similar to a fish, later an invertebrate and finally human. This anatomical evolution or progression does not alter or affect the statement that the development of man was always human in type and biological in progression. For the human embryo when examined microscopically is at first a mere germ or worm. Gradually as it develops it shows certain divisions; rudiments of hands and feet appear—that is to say, an upper and a lower part are distinguishable. Afterward it undergoes certain distinct changes until it reaches its actual human form and is born into this world. But at all times, even when the embryo resembled a worm, it was human in potentiality and character, not animal. The forms assumed by the human embryo in its successive changes do not prove that it is animal in its essential character. Throughout this progression there has been a transference of type, a conservation of species or kind. Realizing this we may acknowledge the fact that at one time man was an inmate of the sea, at another period an invertebrate, then a vertebrate and finally a human being standing erect. Though we admit these changes, we cannot say man is an animal. In each one of these stages are signs and evidences of his human existence and destination. Proof of this lies in the fact that in the embryo man still resembles a worm. This embryo still progresses from one state to another, assuming different forms until that which was potential in it—namely, the human image—appears. Therefore, in the protoplasm, man is man. Conservation of species demands it. “
Ian Digby
September 4, 2012 at 11:20 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I believe that much of the division between science and religion on this issue derives from a metaphysical obsession with one or other paradigm used to explain the facts of evolution. Accepting as we must the overwhelming record of evolution, Darwin then sought an explanation in mechanistic terms which he expounded in The Origin. But whereas natural selection undoubtedly happens, it by no means explains all of evolution. Biologists are faced with a paradox: to seek an hypothesis without ever being able to test it with experiment. So let us be clear: the deterministic application of natural selection as the ‘law’ underpinning the evolution of life is not based on science in the true sense of hypothesis/experiment/paradigm, but is an assumption only, a philosophical construct promoted from the realm of mechanics to that of a scientific law . If we look at actual, real-world physical evidence of life evolving, we find as Stephen here points out, that all growth and development is of DNA ‘blueprinted’ seeds/eggs into their pre-destined adult forms. An acorn will always grow into an oak, never a fish or barnacle, no matter how much it adapts to or is influenced by its environment.
So to assume that all life was ‘blueprinted’ from the very beginning is actually a much more scientific hypothesis, based as it is on real-world observations, than the implausible notion that the qualities and attributes of living things should derive from some mechanistic random process.
For me, it is in this sense that the Baha’i teaching that man and indeed every other thing has always existed potentially, is a much better explanation of reality as we find it.
Stephen Friberg
September 4, 2012 at 12:56 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Hi Ian:
I’m a bit scared by the term “DNA ‘blueprinted’ seeds/eggs” but otherwise I agree with you. My first experience with complicated systems – in my case it was with quantum solitons – is that you find regions of stability with interesting things going on in large part by chance
So my perspective on evolution is that random processes of the type that Darwinism talks about are very important for establishing “new systems” that natural selection then works on. For those new systems, natural selection works to discard the unstable and accept the stable. Then, the processes iterates again and again – and it continues to do so to generate considerable stability in the context of an ecosystem.
But, this is not a process of descendance (which is only about inheritance, it seems to me) – its a process of emergence – new things continually coming into being. But I don’t see it as a DNA/seed process except in the larger sense that DNA then gives a material that both “remembers” old configurations and is plastic enough to allow new “experimental” configuration.
Come to think about it, that might be precisely what you are saying. Is it?
Stephen
Bahram
September 6, 2012 at 10:01 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Not sure exactly what the implication of these findings outlined in the below article are, since I am not a biologist, never-the-less found this interesting.
The first paragraph states: “In what many scientists say is a revolution in biology, a giant new project is rewriting our understanding not only of what causes diseases or what makes our eyes a certain color, but what makes us human. And it turns out scientists have been looking in the wrong place for a very long time.”
http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/05/13683358-new-dna-project-shows-us-living-beyond-our-genes?lite
I always thought that the argument that we have 98% genes in common with say a gorilla hence we are 98% like gorillas or monkeys, was weak, and this article sheds light on it.
Evolution, Science, and Religion 25: Evolution and Idolatry » Common Ground, The Blog
September 10, 2012 at 12:42 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
[...] 9, 2012. Last week, we discussed the Bahá’í perspective on creation and evolution. Like, Judaism, [...]