Ascent of Man – KNOWING GOD'S PATH

NEO-DARWINISM CANNOT EXPLAIN MAN’S DISTINCTION FROM ANIMALS

The Biblical text was not intended as a precise scientific document, but it does describe essential facts that Man needs to know, including the two phases of Man’s creation.

These phases correspond to the scientific evidence we have.

Phase I:

“And God formed the man of dust from the ground, and he blew into his nostrils the soul of life, and man became a living being”

(Genesis 2:7)

The term “living being” used in Genesis 2:7 is the same term used in Genesis chapter 1 to describe the animals that God created before Man.

The great rabbinic sage Sforno explains that in phase I primitive Man existed as a higher form of animal, but still an animal similar to all the other animals which are lacking the ability of speech and intellectual reasoning.

We might conclude from this that these animal like humans could have existed for hundreds of thousands of years, but they left no evidence of language, writing, civilization, or abstract thought.

Line drawings on a cave wall, with no evidence of language or abstract thought, do not really distinguish primitive Man from animals.

Phase II:

“God planted a Garden in Eden, to the East, and placed there Man whom He had formed.” (Genesis 2:8)

The rabbinic sage Sforno explains that the “Garden” is the location where Man received the “image of God” so that higher Man gained the ability for speech and intellectual reasoning that primitive Man and animals are lacking.

This second phase would have occurred less than 6000 years from the present time, IE in the year 5786 according to the Jewish calendar that counts from the creation of higher Man.

Honest scientists will admit that the oldest writing that exists is less than 6000 years old, which was the period when Man was placed in the “Garden” and received the “image of God”.

No amount of Darwinist imagination can explain Man’s ability for speech, language, writing, and intellectual reasoning. These abilities could only be granted by a supernatural Creator.

Man’s Uniqueness in the Creation

Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, in Chapter I:4 of his famous book “Derech Hashem”, identifies the species of mankind as being the primary and central being of the Creation, upon which God seeks to bestow his goodness. All the other components of the Creation were only created for Man’s sake.

God bestowed upon Man an intellect that Man can utilize to perfect himself and to perfect civilization. This intellect was only bestowed upon Man and was not bestowed upon any other animal or creature. There also exists within Man a soul that does not exist in any the other creatures.

We must not allow Man to be devolved into just another animal by the Woke Leftist media and academia. There is far too much propaganda in secular media and secular academia intended to erase the profound differences between Man and animals. Many secular movies may try to falsely imbue animals with human characteristics such as depicting animals as having emotions or depicting animals as being capable of rational mental processes

The elements of Man that constitute Man as a unique creation of God have often been totally erased and denied by the false modern ideologies such as “progressivism” and “scientism”. Without Man’s unique elements, Man would only constitute an advanced form of animal. This is essentially the goal of the modern secularist movements, that is to devolve Man into an advanced form of animal.

How can Neo-Darwinism explain the profound metaphysical differences between Man and the animal kingdom, such as Man’s rational intellect capable of abstract thought, Man’s ability for speech, Man’s recognition of good vs. evil?

Why would Darwinian “survival of the fittest” principles require a gorilla or chimpanzee to develop a rational intellect capable of abstract thought and develop the ability for speech?

A gorilla’s “survival of the fittest” in the jungle requires strong arms to pull bananas off a tree and fight off lions, a gorilla has no need for a rational intellect capable of abstract thought or the ability for speech.

Why would a gorilla require an intellect capable of creating an advanced civilization?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates

Beloved is Man

הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, חָבִיב אָדָם שֶׁנִּבְרָא בְצֶלֶם.

“He (Rabbi Akiva) used to say: Beloved is man for he was created in the image [of God]”1

The above statement from the ancient Talmudic tractate “Ethics of the Fathers” expresses the uniqueness of Man relative to the other physical creatures. Various great rabbinic sages commented on the above profound statement:

“Beloved is Man, etc.: “Therefore it is incumbent upon him to do the will of his Maker.”2

“And Rabbi Akiva was speaking about all men and like the proof that he brought, which is said about the Children of Noah and not the Children of Israel alone.”3

In various narratives in the Jewish Bible, we see that God is concerned with the welfare of many nations, and not just with the welfare of the Jews. God saved Noah’s family, a non-Jewish family, because they were a righteous family. Hagar, the Egyptian maid of the Hebrew matriarch Sarah, ran away from Sarah, but an angel appeared to her in the wilderness and directed her to return to Sarah. In the Biblical Book of Jonah, the non-Jewish city of Nineveh is saved after God sent a prophet to that city to urge them to abandon their evil ways. And there are many other examples.

1 Talmud, Tractate Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) 3:14.

2 Rashi, a medieval rabbinic commentator.

3 Ikkar Tosphot Yom Tov (a commentary) on Tractate Avot 3:14

Man Must Find His Purpose

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים נַֽעֲשֶׂ֥ה אָדָ֛ם בְּצַלְמֵ֖נוּ כִּדְמוּתֵ֑נוּ’

And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”’¹

On this verse from Genesis, and also on the verse in Leviticus 13:47 (“if there will be a tzaras affliction in a garment”), the great rabbinic commentary Sforno provides profound insight into Man’s uniqueness and Man’s purpose.

Sforno’s commentary on that verse seems to be based on Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed, meaning that the term “image” used in the Genesis 1:26 verse does not refer to the shape or physical configuration of Man. Rather the term “image” in that verse is referring to Man’s unique intellectual apprehension and ability to reason, characteristics that distinguish Man from any of the animals.

The Hebrew term translated as “likeness” in Genesis 1:26 refers to Man’s power of free will and ability to choose good or evil, which Man alone possesses among all Creation. Thus, the ultimate purpose of Man’s existence that is intended by the Creator, is that Man should make the Creator’s will as his own will, so that Man becomes more like the Creator (in Man’s actions) than all other creatures.

Thus, a profound message of the Torah is that Man’s purpose must be to serve the Creator of the Universe, a non-physical Creator who stands above the Universe. Man’s purpose cannot be to serve any of the creations or to serve regimes created by Man.

Communism and the Left have redefined Man’s purpose as serving the totalitarian state and world government, instead of serving God. These leftist ideologies are very jealous ideologies that leave no room for Man’s free will to serve God.

Submission to communism, atheism, and the Left devolve Man into an animal who lacks free will and who also is deprived of the right to rational, critical thinking.

In modern society, materialism, scientism, and Darwinism now function as types of substitute religions for traditional religions. These ideologies remove any meaning or purpose to Man or to the Universe, and devolve Man into an animal.

The Jewish Bible teaches the existence of one God who created ex-nihilo the Universe and its scientifically intelligible laws. However, the God of the Bible is above and beyond nature and has always existed. The God of Judaism communicates to Man through His prophets and expresses His will in the Torah.

The Torah thus teaches a Universal, God-given morality to all Mankind so as to elevate Man above the level of the animals and thereby to produce a just and moral human society where Man can attain his correct destiny.

These concepts taught by the Torah represent some of the most profound and significant ideas in world history, and they offer great meaning to the existence of Man along with profound moral instruction. This is especially true in the present degenerate world that seems to have lost any sense of moral compass or direction.

Man is not an animal. Animals cannot serve God, they can only exist the way God created them. Unlike the animals, Man’s purpose must be to serve the Creator of the Universe, as opposed to defining Man’s purpose is to serve any of the creations or to serve regimes created by Man. Totalitarianism, scientism, and Darwinism now function as types of substitute religions for traditional religions. These ideologies remove any meaning or purpose to the Universe.

1 Genesis 1:26

How Man Serves God

Man created in the image of God enables Man to serve God by imitating God’s ethical behavior in this world.

Many of the ideas about God revealed in the Jewish Bible were considered radical ideas by much of ancient Man. The Jewish Bible emphasizes how God created the species Man, and He is not a capricious and irrational God. He is concerned with the well-being of Man, He is concerned that Man adhere to His moral principles, and God judges the world according to His moral code. In Genesis 18:20-21, we read that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah has been “very grave”, and God will “descend” to see if those cities are acting in accordance with the outcry they are making. Such ideas about God as taught in the Book of Genesis radically conflicted with many of the ancient pagan cults whose false gods in their behaviors tended to represent the absolute worst aspects of human flaws.

Maimonides in his book Guide for the Perplexed 1:54 explained a profound principle, which is that the greatest virtue of man is for man to imitate to the extent possible God’s actions.

“For the utmost virtue of man is to become like unto Him, may He be exalted, as far as he is able, which means that we should make our actions like unto his…”

Man’s purpose must be to serve the Creator, and NOT serve any of the Creations. Man’s purpose is certainly not to serve the totalitarian regimes and ideologies that attempt to replace worship of God with worship of dictators and tyrants.

A corollary to the concept of Man serving God is the concept that Man must not serve any objects in the Creation, whether natural or Man-made. Man does not exist to serve the all-powerful utopian “progressive” state.

For the West to survive without conquest by Islam or Marxist, it must seek purpose in embracing Biblical values. Man is not an animal. Animals cannot serve God, they can only exist the way God created them. Man has free will to serve God by imitating Him in doing good in the world as stated by the Biblical prophet Jeremiah:

“But only in this should one glory: In his earnest devotion to Me. For I the LORD act with kindness, Justice, and equity in the world; For in these I delight —declares the LORD.” (Jeremiah 9:23)

Man Created in the Image of God

וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם׃

“And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27)

According to Jewish tradition, the concept of Man being created “in the image of God” does not mean that God has a body or a physical form, or that Man resembles God’s physical form.

A primary understanding of the Biblical concept that Man is created “in the image of God”, as explained by the great rabbinic philosopher Maimonides, is that man possesses an ability of intellectual apprehension that no other physical creature possesses. Intellectual apprehension does not exist in animals, only in Man.

According to the Jewish Bible, the prophet Noah had three sons who with their wives reconstituted humanity after the Biblical Flood. The nature of civilization is hinted to in the Biblical descriptions of the three sons of Noach. The ability of intellectual apprehension has been especially manifested in the descendants of Shem and Yefet, two of the sons of Noah.

The Biblical Shem became the ancestor of the Semites and the Jews. The Jews gave the world the Bible and thus disseminated the concepts of ethical monotheism to the world that replaced the pagan barbarism that reigned in earlier ages. The Biblical phrase “Yaft Elokim Yefet” in Genesis hints at the concept that God will expand Yefet’s mind. The Biblical Yefet became the ancestor of the Europeans, including the Greeks, who greatly advanced science and philosophy.

The Red-Green Axis today is a worldwide alliance of powerful totalitarian ideologies, including Marxists, radical Islamists, and “progressive” Leftists including much of the current Democrat Party today. This unholy alliance is not only attempting to dismantle Western Civilization, but they are also attempting to suppress and destroy Biblical concepts such as Man being created in the image of God. Their goals are to devolve man to just another sophisticated animal and replace Western Civilization with barbarism.

Civilized people and nations must not allow the Red-Green Axis to succeed in their goal of dismantling Western Civilization and replacing it with barbarism.