Presence

The preferred approach by most quasi-rational Orthodox Jews to reconcilling Genesis with a scientific account of the age of the universe seems to be what I call a Schroederian approach (named for Dr. Gerald Schroeder, a quantum physisct who authored several works attempting to reconcile modern science with the Biblical text). Typical of this type of approach is an acceptance that the Biblical narrative does not literally correspond to the actual truth of the creation of the universe, but, when properly interpreted metaphorically, the cosmogony presented by the Bible is in congruence with the accepted scientific theory. The most basic example of this, as Dr. Schroeder explicates in his book, is the non-literal interpretation of the word "yom" (day), allowing it instead to signify a stage of universal development , which may or may encompass a significantly longer period of time (such as millions or billions of years) than a single day. By interpreting the text of the Torah as metaphoric, while at the same time aligning the interpretation with modern science, the conflict between reason and belief in the Biblical text is done away with.

I have a serious problem with this approach. As I will demonstrate, I believe that taking a Schroederian approach to interpreting the Genesis narrative requires one to affirm one of two positions, both of which I believe to be untenable for anyone with an honest intellect and a serious sense of religion.

When taking a Schroderian approach, one must affirm one of the two following assertions. Either that the text of the Torah, when given, was incomprehensible to all previous generations that did not have knowledge of modern science, and that only now, in our time, do we have the means to properly understand the true meaning of the text; or that the Torah, being divinely composed, was written in such a way that the science of each generation would be able to be read into the text. So, in the times of Artistotle, Genesis would be reconcilled with Artistotle; when Newtonian physics became the dominant theory, the interpretation would be revised to match the current understanding. The same would apply to quantum physics, and any other theory that should arise in the future.

My objections to the first approach should be obvious: to affirm that all previous generations had an incorrect understanding of Genesis is, to me, an unacceptable position to take. In addition, the nature of science is that, while we have a workable system today, as time goes on, revisions and adjustments will be made to that system, and, quite possibly, an entirely new paragidm will become accepted. Science is a moving target, to assert that the Torah was given and that our current understanding is the correct understanding is both arrogant and illogical.

Regarding the second approach: I find the idea that God composed a text with such exquisite nuance that it could encompass any past, present or future scientific explanation to be a bit unreasonable; if, however, we are accepting the concept of an omnipotent deity, I suppose it is possible. But still, if we take this approach, what we are saying is that knowledge of the universe comes not from the Torah, but from a combination of our reason and experience. Only once we have come up with a system using science as our guide do we go back and read it into the Torah. The Torah, from this perspective, becomes irrelavent in teaching us anything about the universe; rather, it is just an outline into which we place the fruits of our own reason. For this reason, I find this position as well to be untenable.

If this approach, namely re-reading the current scientific cosmongy back into the Genesis narrative, is untenable, what other approaches are there? One could believe that the Torah itself is the literal truth of the creation of the universe (i.e. that things really happened about 6000 years ago, and only took six 24-hour days), but this runs contrary to reason, and so is not a rational position. Another option is to understand Genesis as referring to some other metaphorical type of creation, such as the creation of society or of civilized Man. Yet another approach is to presume that the Genesis narrative reflects the best available information from the time in which it was composed, and to accept that what we know now may very well conflict, even contradict, the biblical text.