A Visual Representation of Science and Torah

Disclaimer: In my high school classes, I strive to craft my lessons to fit the minds of the particular students I'm teaching. When I learn one-on-one with a student, my lessons are extremely tailor-made. 

Since this blog post originated in one-on-one learning with a student, I wasn't sure whether it would be worthwhile to write it up, since I designed it specifically for that student. Ultimately, I decided that it would be good to write it out for the sake of my own clarity, and once I was doing that, I figured I might as well share it as a blog post. Maybe others will find it valuable.

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A Visual Representation of Science and Torah

I recently had a discussion with a science-savvy student of mine who asked the following question - in more or less these words:

In science, when scientists find something that doesn't make sense based on their current understanding of the world, they keep thinking about it and theorizing and experimenting; eventually they realize that they need to either modify or abandon their prior theory and come up with a new theory in order to solve the problem. 

In Torah, however, we don't do this. Even if we see something that seems crazy, irrational, or morally objectionable, we don't reject Torah or Judaism. Why not? What's the difference between Judaism and science? And how many problems in the Torah would you have to see in order to conclude that the whole thing is false?

I immediately recognized the flawed premises of this student's reasoning, and I almost responded with the first answer that popped into my head. But I caught myself. I sensed that this student was touching upon something important - and that if I could extract that kernel of truth AND show him where his analogy fell short AND answer his question, then he would emerge with a clearer understanding of both Torah and science. 

I spent a few days thinking about how to approach this student's question and finally - while I was proctoring my Gemara final - I had an epiphany. I realized that if I could come up with a visual depiction of how science works and compare it side-by-side with a visual depiction of how Torah works, then I could show him (a) how these two ways of gaining knowledge of reality are far more similar than he realized, and (b) I can answer his question in a way that would satisfy his scientific mind. 

A Visual Depiction of Science

Here's what I came up with for science. I'll walk you through it below:

Here's what each part means:

Reality: at the top of the diagram we have "reality" (i.e. that which exists), which is what we are trying to know and understand through science; strictly speaking, the "reality" part in the science diagram should say "physical reality" since science doesn't go beyond the physical - but for the sake of consistency, I labeled this part as "reality" on both diagrams

Horizon of Ignorance: this represents the gap between our understanding of reality and reality itself, - a gap which science continually strives to diminish and eventually close.

The Senses / The Mind: at the very bottom of the diagram we have "the senses" (the five senses of sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste according to the traditional count, plus some or all of the non-traditional senses according to our modern understanding) and "the mind" (i.e. our ability to think logically and rationally); these constitute the epistemological foundation of the scientific method; if one maintained that either the senses or the mind were incapable of giving us knowledge about reality, then all scientific knowledge would be null and void. 

Empirical Data: from the day we are born, we are bombarded with loads of sensory data, but this empirical information is only a surface-level knowledge of reality.

Scientific Thinking: the scientist is the one who seeks out the lawfulness underlying the myriad particulars; instead of attempting to write an entire discourse on scientific thinking, I'll just quote from my Gemara rebbi's eloquent explanation in his essay on Scientific and Halachic Thought:

In the scientific method every particular is viewed as an expression of a universal principle - not as a separate localized reality. An apple falling from a tree to the ground is not an apple-ground phenomenon but an interaction between their underlying substances. We look for the simplest explanations of the widest range of events, not for a complex patchwork of explanations each fitting a single event. Thus explanations based on the particulars of apple and earth are rejected in favor of explanations based on the universal matter each possesses. This method naturally leads to simpler principles that unify more and more particular cases. As Einstein and Infeld state in the Evolution of Physics, (which is an excellent book on the subject of scientific thought and methodology), "[The scientist] certainly believes that, as his knowledge increases, his picture of reality will become simpler and simpler and will explain a wider and wider range of his sensuous impressions (P. 31).” ... 

What is the basis for this approach? It is the belief that all of the universe is composed of fundamental building blocks under the influence of fundamental forces with all of the observable phenomena being their various expressions. It is this search for what lies beneath that demands a universal law of nature, the law of the fundamentals, with each advance striking deeper. ... 

The scientific process is one of moving from the concrete to the abstract, from the particular to the universal, from a strange chaotic world to a system of laws governing outcomes in a clearly predictable way.  

This is what I mean by "scientific thinking" - not the particular theories about the universe that are developed in each successive generation of scientists, but the general way of thinking about the universe which gives rise to those theories. 

Scientific Theories: these are the particular theories that emerge from scientific thinking and aim to explain reality, in whole or in part; there "macro theories" which attempt to explain the foundations of the universe (e.g. Newtonian "classical mechanics," Einstein's theory of relativity, Planck's quantum mechanics) as well as the "micro theories" which aim to explain localized phenomena (e.g. Kepler's laws of planetary motion, Darwin's theory of natural selection, the theory of climate change).

Conceptual Understanding: the aim of these theories is to give us a conceptual understanding of reality, thereby pushing back the Horizon of Ignorance and bringing us closer to objective truth.

New Empirical Data: in many cases, these scientific theories will also help us discover new empirical facts and/or new methods of uncovering more new empirical facts.

New Questions and Difficulties: while these scientific theories enlighten our minds, solve problems, and push back the Horizon of Influence, they (along with the new empirical data) raise new questions and difficulties of which we were previously unaware; at first, scientists will attempt to solve these problems within their current theoretical framework, but eventually ...

Scientific Life-cycle: ... these questions and difficulties will prompt scientists to come up with new theories, and the entire cycle will begin again. My Gemara rebbi described this process as follows:

Something interesting occurs near the end of a philosophic regime. The idea that was an intellectual boon to science at its inception, allowing for new freedoms of thought, can become in its decline an intellectual shackle forcing every phenomenon to conform to its terms. To the conventional thinkers it is no longer a tool of new insights and fresh ideas rather it becomes an ideology of its own. The loyal rally around it and craft creative if not brilliant ways of fitting the unruly phenomena into the old terms no matter how tenuous or far fetched. Ironically, this is the opposite approach of the methodology that spawned the very idea they are defending. Whereas the original breakthrough started with a set of problems from which were derived a new universal, this method starts with a universal and insist on particular kinds of solutions which are in line with the philosophy. Eventually a new breakthrough is needed to once again reduce the complexity created.

The questions and difficulties which prompt this rethinking of the prevailing scientific theories will also, in many cases, lead to a reconsideration of the empirical data, since scientists will realize that their perception of that data was biased or clouded by the reigning scientific framework. For example, when it was believed that the earth was the center of the solar system, all empirical observations of the heavens were tainted by this bias; when people believed in spontaneous generation, their empirical observations supported their belief that maggots were generated out of putrid flesh. These beliefs were eventually disproved, and when that happened, the empirical data had to be reconsidered in light of the new theoretical model.

Step #1 of My Answer: The statements on the left and right of the diagram constitute Step #1 (out of 3) of my answer to the question asked by my student:

• Questions and difficulties compel us to modify or eliminate the very scientific theories which yielded them in the first place, thereby continuing the life-cycle of scientific understanding.
• Although these questions and difficulties will force us to reject particular scientific theories, they do NOT cause us to doubt or deny the general approach of scientific thinking as a whole.

For example, classical mechanics was dethroned as "a theory of everything" by the theory of relativity; the limitations of the theory of relativity were brought to light by quantum - but at no point did the problems with these particular scientific theories cause scientist to doubt or question the validity of scientific thinking as a whole. To the contrary - the fact that scientific thinking led to the discovery of these theories AND the questions and difficulties AND enabled new theories to arise is evidence of the validity of scientific thinking.

And that is my visual depiction of science. I'm sure there are imperfections with my diagram, but it served my purposes just fine.

A Visual Depiction of Torah

Here's what I came up with for Torah:

Here's what each part means:

Reality: at the top of the diagram we have "reality" - not just physical reality, but metaphysical reality as well.

Horizon of Ignorance: see explanation above; according to the Ralbag, this Horizon of Ignorance exists in our understanding of Torah in the same way that it does in science; I wrote about this at length in The Limits of Our Understanding of Torah.

The Senses / The Mind: the senses and the mind constitute the epistemological foundation of Torah - the same as in science; this point is explained very clearly in the essay Torah from Sinai.

Contents of Torah: for the sake of simplicity, we will say that "Contents of Torah" refers to the Torah she'bi'Chsav (Written Torah) and Torah she'baal Peh (Oral Torah) that were given to Moshe at Sinai, plus the Neviim (Prophets) and Kesuvim (Writings); in truth, there is more included here than just that, but we'll stick with this definition to avoid complications.

The Revelation at Sinai: our basis for accepting the Contents of Torah as Divinely authored is the historicity of the Revelation at Sinai; our acceptance of this event is based on a rational argument that was best explained in the essay Torah from Sinai; Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb also wrote a version of this argument in Living Up to the Truth: Chapter 6 and Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen wrote an essay version of this entitled A Rational Approach to the Torah's Divine Origin, in addition to his book Permission to Receive.

Rational/Scientific Thinking: in the same way that scientific thinking is applied to empirical data to generate scientific theories, so too, rational thinking is applied to the "data" of the Torah's contents to generate Torah theories; I refer to this as "rational/scientific thinking" to emphasize that the type of conceptual understanding we are looking for is similar to that in science.

Torah Theories: by "Torah theories" I am referring to a conceptual understanding of reality that is arrived at via the contents of Torah; I refer to these as "theories" because they are the product of human thinking, which is fallible and incomplete (again, I refer you to my post: The Limits of Our Understanding of Torah).

Conceptual Understanding: as is the case in science, our goal in learning Torah is to arrive at the most accurate conceptual understanding of reality that is humanly possible.

New Understanding of Torah's Contents: here we see a major difference between science and Torah; in science new theories lead to the discovery of brand new facts, but in Torah, there are no "new facts"; however, our new understanding sometimes leads to a total reevaluation of the Torah's contents, to the point where the factual data we once worked with is completely reinterpreted.

A great example of this is the Ramban's interpretation of the rainbow in Parashas Noach. He acknowledges that a literal reading of the pesukim would lead us to believe that rainbows weren't created until after the flood. But then he says:

But we are compelled to believe the words of the Greek [scientists] that rainbows are a natural phenomenon resulting from the sun’s rays passing through moist air, for in [any] container of water that is [set] before sunlight there can be seen something that resembles a rainbow.

The Ramban then goes and reinterprets the pesukim in light of our "updated" understanding of how rainbows work. To my mind, this is an example of how the "facts" of Torah are not set in stone, but are still subject to change in light of advances in our understanding of reality. We will never receive new pesukim or new Torah she'baal Peh from Hashem, but our understanding of what He gave us continues to evolve as our knowledge of Torah and the universe continues to grow.

New Questions and Difficulties: our new understanding of reality and the contents of Torah will raise new questions and difficulties - just as in science; in some cases we will be able to answer these by developing our current Torah theories, but in other cases ...

Life-cycle of Torah Understanding: ... these questions and difficulties will prompt us to go back to the proverbial drawing board, and come up with new theories which address the problems. Unlike in the scientific community, where this life-cycle plays out on a community-wide level with a very small percentage of individuals pioneering new major theories, the life-cycle of Torah understanding plays out on a community-wide AND individual level. The great baalei Mesorah have made contributions of Torah theories which have shaped all of Klal Yisrael's understanding of Torah - but at the same time, each individual Jew goes through his or her personal odyssey of understanding Torah as well.

Step #2 of My Answer: The statements on the left and right of the diagram constitute Step #2 (out of 3) of my answer to the question asked by my student:

• Questions and difficulties might compel us to modify or eliminate parts of our theoretical understanding of Torah and its content.
• Although these questions and difficulties will force us to reject particular Torah theories, they do NOT cause us to doubt or deny the basis of the Revelation at Sinai or the veracity of the Torah's contents. 

This is the crux of my answer. For example, let us say that a person was bothered by the story of Adam and Chava in Gan Eden. A few hundred years ago, there would be no problem saying that the first human beings were Adam and Chava, that they were the progenitors of the human species, and they lived 5,777 years ago. However, in light of what we now know about anthropology and evolution, it is difficult to accept the Torah's account at face value.

In the premise of my student's question, he voiced the possibility that a problem like this would cause us to doubt or deny the authenticity of the Torah as a whole. I disagree. At most, this difficulty would cause us to modify or reject our current theoretical understanding of those pesukim in the Torah - perhaps even going so far as to say (like some Rishonim who shall remain unnamed) that the Gan Eden story is a mashal. But this problem would not shake or undermine the basis of our acceptance of Torah, which is the Revelation at Sinai. 

Step #3 of My Answer: I happened to have been sitting near my Gemara rebbi when I made these diagrams. I showed them to him and asked what he would change or add. He approved of my diagram and explanation, but added an important point. 

Generally speaking it's true that the questions and difficulties which emerge from scientific advancements will not undermine scientific thinking as a whole. However, on rare occasions, thinkers will come to the realization that there are problems with the paradigm of scientific thinking as a whole. This will lead to a total revolution in the way we approach science. When this happens, nearly all of the knowledge and understanding that was arrived at through the former paradigm will be rendered invalid. 

For example, Aristotelian thought dominated science (a.k.a. "natural philosophy") for over a thousand years. The way that Aristotle and the other "natural philosophers" thought about the world and the types of theories they came up with bear almost no resemblance to the scientific theories of the scientific thinkers after the scientific revolution. The Aristotelian paradigm was so off base that we now reject all of this theories about the physical world as non-scientific. If Aristotle was right about anything in science, it was by accident. 

What would be the equivalent of this type of "scientific revolution" in Torah? As we said, it wouldn't come about through particular questions or difficulties in our theoretical understanding of the Torah's contents. Rather, such a revolution could only stem from problems with the rational basis of our acceptance of the Revelation at Sinai itself. If one had a valid reason for rejecting the historicity of the Revelation at Sinai, then this would undermine the validity of all our Torah knowledge. 

This is one of the reasons why I favor the Torah from Sinai version of this "proof of Torah mi'Sinai" over the others, since the author demonstrates that if we deny the historicity of the Revelation at Sinai, we would ipso facto have to deny all of historical knowledge - and indeed, all secondhand knowledge as well. In my opinion, he makes a valid argument.

Summary and Conclusion

My student asked why we don't reject Judaism when we encounter problems in the same way that we reject scientific theories when we encounter problems with them. My answer essentially boils down to the fact that there is a distinction between scientific thinking and scientific theories; problems only cause us to reject scientific theories - but we do not reject the scientific way of thinking which enabled us to come up with those theories. So too in Torah: problems may cause us to reject particular Torah theories, but they would not cause us to reject the historicity of the Revelation at Sinai, which is the basis of our acceptance of the Torah. 

My student was satisfied with this answer. I hope you found value in it as well!