Fundamentals of Islamic Thought

Ayatollah Murtaza Mutahhari

Tauhid and Evolution

In order fully to understand this section, the reader must bear in mind the contents of the two preceding sections. In "Spiritualism," I made the point that life is a reality accompanying matter under certain special conditions. A duality does not govern the relation of matter and life3 and they are not two conjoined realities but matter and life are two levels of one being, each level having special properties.

At certain stages of its evolution and under special conditions, matter transforms into life. As everything transforms from a less perfect to a more perfect form, the less perfect being of inanimate matter transforms into the more perfect form of the living organism. Life is not the creation or effect of inanimate matter but an entelechy or activity that is added to it. Matter in its essence does not possess life, such that it could express or manifest it. Matter has a receptivity vis-a'-vis life that becomes apparent under certain conditions, not the property of creating or giving life.

In other words, matter cannot create or give life. This system of living organisms we see before us is a system of receptivity from the standpoint that it is associated with matter and a system of creativity from the standpoint that it is associated with a higher plane.

Life transforms, intervenes in, governs, and makes matter behave as a function of its own determinations. If life were the creation, effect, or product of matter, it would not be able to so influence its own cause and origin or to have determinations superior to the determinations of inanimate matter able to govern them. Biologists and psychologists, without seeking to arrive at a conception of the substantive reality of life, have arrived at results that demonstrate such a reality. Even the theory of natural selection, seen by most authorities as having a materialistic character, when gone into more deeply, demonstrates the governance and substantive reality of life.

In "The Qur'an and Life," I considered the mode of relation between life and the supernatural, or God's will, and I explored the marvellous logic that is one of the features of the Noble Qur'an. I dwelt on two points in particular. First, that an erroneous idea of Jewish origin as to the meaning of the creation has appeared in the world. It inevitably attaches the creation to a moment. That is, whenever one attempts to visualise the creation of the universe or of life, one begins by asking, "At what moment did it emerge from nothingness; when did it begin?" The question of this moment never arises in the logic the Noble Qur'an first propounded.

The second point is that innumerable persons approach the question of tauhid and theology by attempting to know God by negative means. They seek for God amid their ignorance, not amid their knowledge. Whenever they are at a loss to explain the cause of an event, they drag God into it. Thus, in dealing with the question of the createdness of life or that of the createdness of the universe, they dwell on the moment of its first appearance because in their view nothing is less known than how life or the universe appeared. This idea of negative theology amounts to the basis for the idea that creation is confined to a moment.

This Jewish idea on the one hand and this negative idea on the other have resulted in a tendency to predicate the question of tauhid on the matter of the moment on the one hand and on the unknown causes of events on the other. If the matter of the moment of the creation of life or of the universe is placed in doubt or if the unknown causes of events come in time to be known, then the ideas of tauhid and theology in time come into doubt and discredit.

An example of the miraculous nature of the Noble Qur'an consists in the fact that no trace of this Jewish idea or of this negative idea is to be found in it, notwithstanding the fact that these two paralysing ailments are so pandemic in human intellectual history that none but the few who have drunk deeply from the Qur'an have escaped them.

This fact is confirmed by a close examination of the intellectual history ofpre-Islamic philosophers as well as that of the mutakallimin of Islam and that of the European philosophers of the modern period as a body. The Qur'an is the sole teacher of tauhid that introduces God to man within the extant and observable system, within the process of operative causes, effects, and norms of the creation, not by reference toits beginning, and through the clear and demonstrable, not by the negative means of resort to unknown causes.

I shall not go into the subject of tauhid per Se, rehearse the proofs for tauhid that have appeared in books of kalam or of philosophy, or go over all that has been said or might be said on the subject. Nor shall I discuss the evolution of living beings, committing the same error others have committed in seeking to defend the bounds of tauhid by denying and attempting to falsify the principles and laws of evolution, thus inciting those who take a materialistic approach to philosophical problems to leap into the fray and obliging them to treat even the more questionable aspects of evolutionary theory as definitive in order to attack the theory of the existence of the Creator.

This wrangling is pointless for two reasons. First, the principles of tauhid and the principles of evolution in nature in all its forms, including the transpecific evolution of living organisms, do not negate and oppose but affirm and complement each other. The supposition that these two principles contradict each other is born of ignorance. Second, it is not for just anyone to hold forth on this subject. Only those scientists who have devoted their lives to research on this question and have approached it by the correct scientific method can more or less reasonably discuss what the flickering flame of science is able to reveal.

Transpacific evolution is a recognised scientific fact. The gradualistic model of evolution, which the ancient Greek philosophers advanced, which Lamarck and Darwin sought to demonstrate scientifically, and which prompted their fanatical followers earnestly to search for the ancestors of horses and human beings and their assumption that man is descended from the apes, has been displaced by the punctuation model of evolution.

But consideration of this question is the task of biologists. Theists and materialists alike must await the results of scientific research to see whether it accords with their principles.

Accordingly, I shall treat directly neither tauhid nor evolution, but the complement to these topics, the relation of tauhid and evolution. I seek to see whether these two ideas are mutually exclusive or mutually supportive. For instance, if someone should be convinced of the principle of tauhid through rational proofs, does this entail his rejecting the principle of the evolution and speculation of living beings? If he comes to believe in speciation, does this impair his belief in tauhid? And likewise, if someone has accepted the principle of transpacific evolution, if he is convinced that species of living beings derive from others in so the manner, does this entail his casting aside the key principle of tauhid and turning into a materialist? My citations of the proofs of tauhid or of the principles of evolution in this section are directed toward answering this question.

The idea of the contradiction between tauhid and evolution, like the idea of the creation's being tied to a moment or that of negative theology by resort to the unknown has spread across the globe. Bizarre, even unbelievable, specimens of such thinking that can only sadden a Muslim thinker have appeared in the histories of European science and philosophy. Study of the modern history of biology and the sciences in general shows that this contradiction exists in the thought of almost all European scientists. Thus, an ambiguity or distortion, which materialists have had no small part in creating, has come about.

We are obliged to study this intellectual current to see why, as modern thought has developed, a materialistic and antitheistic aspect has been imparted to the theory of evolution Why have both parties to the conflict taken this aspect of the theory for granted? Why have tauhid, theism, and acceptance of the principle of creation been thought synonymous with the theory of constancy of species? Is there really a logical contradiction between the idea of tauhid and that of evolution, or has one or more particular causes led to the supposition that there is?

In studying the works of scientists in this field, I have always striven to discern the roots of their thinking from the tenor and phraseology of their writing and to apprehend just what has prompted them to approach a problem involving philosophical inference in a particular way. What assumptions have they taken for granted and based their subsequent views upon? The main reason for divergences in philosophical views is that each thinker tacitly begins from a set of assumptions. Each supposes that these assumptions are beyond question and to be taken for granted, not only in his own mind, but in others' minds. In fact, the assumptions are nothing but idiosyncrasy and fallacy.

What has led to this conception of a contradiction between the idea of tauhid and that of evolution is the Jewish idea of creation and the negative theology at its root. If we study the history of science or biology or refer to the books of philosophy written, on the one hand, to defend the bounds of tauhid and refute the theory of evolution or, on the other, to defend the school of materialism, we see the specter of that Jewish idea everywhere.

The idea of negative theology appears to be the source of the idea of the momentary character of creation. The idea of the momentary character of creation is the source of the idea of the contradiction between tauhid and evolution.

From ancient times until comparatively recently, scholars have debated this point: Does the organism with all its members and organs exist in miniature yet fully formed from the beginning in the female ovum or the male spermatozoon, these organs thereafter to grow in proportion? Or is the matter that is the source of the members of the organism at first simple and uniform1 only later to be differentiated into various organs and members? In modern times, not in the middle ages, for about two hundred years, most scientists held to the former belief.

This is more or less the same split in opinion that once existed between Aristotle and Hippocrates, with their respective followers, concerning the germ. Hippocrates held that sperm collected from all the body, and so each portion of it gave rise to a member. Aristotle believed that germ is uniform.21 It is not clear from what Hippocrates has written whether he held that there was an actual homunculus in the germ. (His opponents said that such an unsound inference follows from his assertion.) Beginning in the seventeenth century, however, scientists formally held to preformation and preexistence.

One of the wonders of the creation is this appearance of the most diverse beings with all their various members from a simple, uniform substance that is the same in appearance for all of them. One of the best testaments to the existence of a dominical guidance and a divine sovereignty is this very diversity and this structure within which beings progress from uniformity to diversity and from simplicity to complexity. It is said in the Noble Qur'an, "It is He who forms you in the womb as He pleases" (3.6). As Sa'di says: "He gives the germ a Pen's form/Who's painted images on the water?"

Many seventeenth century scientists contributed to this theory of preformation without having any scientific proof or analytical evidence. They claimed that, from the first creation of the human species, all individuals have been created with all their organs and members whole and entire, if minute. They were present in the seed of the first human being and have been transmitted from generation to generation3 growing into visible form with each generation. Pierre Rousseau says:

William Harvey affirmed in 1651 that every creature arose from an egg, and, dissecting the does of Windsor Park at regular intervals, he discovered the embryonic calves at the various stages of their development. Some years later, in 1672, the Dutchman Regnier de Graaf (1641-1673), sacrificing in the same way a series of rabbits, believed he had laid his hands on the secret of the eggs of mammals. And in 1689, Malpighi, studying eggs not yet sat on by hens, declared he had seen the forms of chicks there. This was the point of departure for the extraordinary theory of preformation.

Seeing that the as yet unfertilised egg contains a complete being all ready to develop, that being, that embryo, must itself contain eggs that in their turn contain each a complete being, and these too must contain other eggs containing other complete beings, and so on.

"Consequently," added Swammerdam, "the body of Eve contained, nested one within another, all the eggs and all the germs of future humanity."

But a voice was raised in contradiction-that of Lecuwenhoek, who, in 1679, had just discovered spermatozoids: "This is all wrong," he wrote. "It is not the egg that contains the preformed being, but the spermatozoid."

"The proof," exulted Fr. de Plantades, secretary of the Academy of Sciences of Montpellier, "Is that I have seen, under the microscope, a spermatozoid open, and a tiny but fully formed man emerge from it!"

Was this believed? The biologists (sic) placed their faith in this audacious tall tale and went on gravely discussing whether the germs of humanity had been lodged in the ovaries of Eve or the spermatozoids of Adam.

Rousseau recounts the opposition of a couple of scientists to the theory of preformation and continues. Yet, the theory of preformation, commended by such grand savants as Haller and Charles Bonnet, continued to rally the near-unanimous support of men of science. Even Cuvier [the great biologist of the second half of the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries] was a Johnny-come-lately partisan!"

Pierre Rousseau offers no explanation as to why so many scientists held to this senseless theory. I believe that this hypothesis was intended to account for the fact of the creation; these scientists sought by this means to demonstrate that every living being is the creature of God. That they hypothesised that every human being and even animal came into existence completely formed, if minute, on the first day its most remote ancestors came into being shows the influence of the Jewish idea.

How vast is the difference between this way of thinking and that way which, when it seeks to express God's creatorship, says it is God who gradually formed and shaped a shapeless, characterises, simple, and uniform substance in the womb. "It is He Who forms you in the wombs as He pleases" (3:6).

Usually, when the subject of the origin of life, the nature and character of its appearance on earth, is approached by works of biology, works of so-called philosophy, or even textbooks, various hypotheses are offered, none of which has any scientific corroboration. One of these is called the creation hypothesis. It holds that all species of beings were created whole and entire, with no antecedents. This interpretation therefore implies that, if any of the other hypotheses are valid, there is no creation. What has led to this position, which holds that, if the appearance of living things was instantaneous and without antecedents, then creation is demonstrated, but if this was not the case, creation if refuted?

A chapter of Farziyaha-yi Takamul ("Hypotheses of Evolution"), beginning on page 9, is devoted to the subject of the origin of life. After an introduction, the author says, "We shall now note the hypotheses that are worthy of mention and that have had widespread acceptance for some time."25 He then notes several hypotheses, such as that the first living organism came to earth by chance from another planet, spontaneous generation, and that of entities arising through volcanism or lightning. The first hypothesis he names he calls the creation hypothesis. He suggests implicitly that, if living organisms were spontaneously generated from inanimate matter, then no creation is involved. If the ultimate origin of living organisms is some other planet, then the living beings found on earth have not been created. One can only say that the living beings on earth are God's creatures if none of the previously-mentioned conditions hold, if living beings first appeared out of stillness and with no antecedents. In the small mind of the author of this book, creation can have no other meaning than this.

As the history of biology shows, Cuvier, who had a tremendous influence on his contemporaries' scientific thought, rejected gradual transformation of living beings. Seeing that the fossil record shows that animals had not maintained the same structure through various periods, Cuvier proposed and defended the hypothesis of a series of geological revolutions and catastrophes. He proposed that, in consequence of these catastrophes, the species living in one geological era had become extinct, and God had created newer (and, of course, more perfect) species to replace them on the earth.

There is an article in the Azar 1338 [November 1959] issue of Sukhan that consists of the recorded remarks of Mahmud Bihiad, a scholar from Tehran, at a meeting commemorating the centenary of the publication of On the Origin of Species. He says:

"Cuvier in comparing fossils of extinct faunas noted their gradual development with the passage of geological eras. He also perceived that the animals of any given era are comparable to those of previous eras in their structural organisation, but since he believed in the constancy of species and their periodic mass extinction, he sought to explain his observations through the hypothesis of "the plan of creation." Cuvier maintained in this hypothesis that a general plan exists for the creation of living beings, and that this phan is consulted on the occasion of each renewed creation: the reason for the basic resemblance among the faunas of different eras is the existence of such a plan"

Elsewhere, too, whenever reference is made to Cuvier's theory on the partitioning of the organisms of one era from those of another, it is called the theory of successive creations. One would have to ask Cuvier himself, or at least his followers, what led him to suppose that we can speak of creation only in the event of the absence of genetic relation among organisms. Why should creation otherwise be meaningless?

Pierre Rousseau writes:

When the Darwinists had resolved-they thought-the problem of the origin of man and animals, they no longer sensed any limit to the all-power of their science, so they merrily attacked another question, one which the German naturalist Emile du Bois Reymorid (1818-1S96), successor to Jean Muller, had classed, ma famous discourse given in 1880 at the Academy of Sciences of Berlin, among the seven enigmas of the universe: the question of the origin of life. There was a very perplexing point here, for if one were to reject the creationism of the Bible and of cuvier, if one were to deny that only divine intervention could make living matter appear from nothing, one was as good as admitting that living matter had been created all by itself. In other words, one was as good as shaking hands with spontaneous generation, which Pasteur had condemned justly in the name of experimental science.

We must confess that, since that epoch [the time of the materialists' hypothesis on the origins of life, which was discredited by Rousseau's time], not much progress has been made on the problem. It always consists in finding by what means many hundreds or many thousands of atoms of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen were able to agglutinate to form a molecule of living matter..

The probability of the appearance of a single cell rests on a phenomenon of pure chance, a chance so prodigious that it approaches a miracle.

Is one thus obliged to have recourse to divine creation? "No," responded the French de Monlivaultin 1821,and "No," responded the German Richter in 1865, followed by Lord Kelvin and Helmholtz. Since positive science admits neither creation nor generation, it remains for us to suppose that the earth has been inoculated like a petri dish. "Good God, inoculated by what germs?" "Well, by bacteria come from other worlds and sailing across interstellar space."

Rousseau, who claims conversance with all the world's scientific knowledge from ancient times to the present age, believes that positive science accepts neither creation nor spontaneous generation. He is right to believe this because his conception of the meaning of the creation is unsupported by science. His conception, and that of all scientists who think along the same lines, is, according to firm and indubitable philosophical demonstrations, impossible and absurd; such a thing never has occurred and never can occur. That conception of the creation rests on wild, haphazard surmise. God's creation does not take place except through specific and definite norms, whether or not they are known to us.

You may suppose that Pierre Rousseau and others speak for science, propounding and explaining what science has shown them, and that my objections amount to objections to the progress of science. What I have sought to show in these examples is that the hypotheses so expressed do not rest on concrete observations and objective experiments. The trend of scientific experiment can be otherwise explained and interpreted, but the particular conception scientists have of the creation and the particular sort of philosophy that holds sway over their minds have resulted in the above-named questions being addressed as they have throughout the history of science. Despite what the title of his book suggests, what Rousseau addresses is not lust the history of science and of empirical observation, but a hybrid history of science and European philosophy.

The most tragicomic aspects of this situation pertain not to the history of the modern sciences, but to that of philosophical thought in Europe. European scientists conceive of the creation in terms of a form of the Jewish conception and of God in terms of the negative theology I have discussed in "The Qur'an and Life." That is, they seek for God amid their ignorance.

By now you should able to guess why the materialist school so flourished in Europe. The faulty logic on questions of divinity that has held sway over scientists at large was doomed and bound to fail and disappear from the very beginning. As I study the history of science in recent centuries and note the peculiar coloration given pure science simply by scientists' special turn of philosophical thought, I grow saddened and discouraged.

I wish scientists could become acquainted with the fine calibre of philosophical thought that has evolved in the lap of the Noble Qur'an over the last fourteen centuries and the limpid water of science would not remain polluted by that Jewish way of thinking. lam especially saddened to see those youths newly introduced to science and lacking the power of analysis who, reading works of modern philosophy, works on the history of science, or even textbooks, assimilate a conception of scientific progress adulterated by that way of thinking. They are persuaded that scientific observation discredited the hypothesis of the creation and of the existence of God years ago. They think that the hypothesis of a creation and a Creator lives on only in the darkness of inherited beliefs and that not a trace of it remains to be seen in the clear light of science.

Perhaps what has led scientists to adopt this mode of thought is not what I have termed the Jewish way of thinking, but reverence for the contents of the Book of Genesis. Doubtless, its contents have had a profound effect, but at the most, the Book of Genesis has propounded the character of the creation in a special manner. It has not suggested that, if organisms have come into being in any other way, creation has no meaning. Basically, the Book of Genesis cannot impart a particular conception of or way of thinking about the meaning of the creation. The history of scientific thought on this question indicates that scientists, theists and materialists alike, have been unable to consider the creation from any other standpoint than the one I have described.

Even after rejecting the conception of the creation given in the Book of Genesis, scientists continued to regard the meaning of the creation as before. Therefore, some other cause is at work. I believe that cause is a pandemic way of thinking characteristic of the Jews and stemming from Jewish scholastic theology, not from the Book of Genesis. They lack the correct, clear, and logical way of thinking characteristic of those raised with study of the Noble Qur'an. After noting Cuvier's theory of catastrophism, Bihzad says:

It is not unamusing to note that Louis Agassix (another student of Cuvier and opponent of evolution), in order to accommodate the evolution of faunas observed in the fossil record to the theory of the constancy of species, arrived at a bizarre theory that is in a class of its own and, if closely examined, sheer unbelief. Agassiz proposed that the cause for the development of faunas from era to era, or otherwise their gradual evolution, resulted from the evolution that has taken place in the thought of the Creator Most High from the first era of time to the present.

This quotation shows how deeply rooted this Jewish idea has become, not as a principle of religious observance, but as a philosophical assumption, so deeply that it is easier and more acceptable for one scientist to conceive of evolution occurring in the mind of

God than, gradually, in the creation. Is the theory of catastrophism also found in the Book of Genesis? Does the Book of Genesis say that God's knowledge gradually has evolved?

[ PREVIOUS ]   [ INDEX ]