Lecture #25a: Letter 91 - Torah and Scientific Theories

 https://www.etzion.org.il/en/lecture-25a-letter-91-torah-and-scientific-theories

 It is important to note that a hundred years ago, when the letter was written, the scientific world had not arrived at any convincing answer, other than Darwin's hypothesis, as to how the world as we know it began. The theory of evolution was greeted in the religious world – especially the Christian world – as an atheistic teaching, since it proposed a manner of the world's creation that did not assume any transcendental will and was based on the assumption that our natural world can be understood purely on the basis of its internal processes. Darwin's theory that man was a descendant of apes likewise contradicted the foundations of the religious perception of man – a perception that regarded man as fundamentally different from other natural creations, and therefore maintained that he must have been created separately (and obviously by God).