By Rabbi Dovid Markel
I recently read an article from an individual on the cultural divide between Rambam’s rationalism and what he termed as Ashkenazi anti-rationalism.
The individual who penned the article used the example of Rambam’s anti-corporealism and the defense of corporealism by Moshe Taku.
Moshe Taku defended corporealism, as this is the simple meaning of the verses. G-d is not bound, in his opinion, by our rules of logic and one cannot simply reinterpret the verses and take them out of their simple meaning if they are not understood.
Both Rambam and Rasag differ in this regard and explain, that when the verse is faced with a logical absurdity, one must conclude that the verse is not to be understood literally.
The author wished to apply this question to the question of creation vs. evolution.
He postulated that were Rambam to have been alive today, he would have surely re-interpreted the biblical account of creation in a non-literal sense.
In my opinion, this individual and others who posit similar views about reinterpreting the creation story in a non-literal manner are making an axiomatic mistake of Rambam’s opinion of when to reinterpret verses of the Torah.
Rambam, in the Morah (2:13, 2:16, 2:25) explains why he accepts that creation is something from nothing, though he is aware of the philosophical questions on this approach based on Plato, and is aware of the theory that the world was created from a “Chomer Hiyuli” or potential matter.
He explains in Ch. 25 that though he is surely able to interpret the account of creation, “and this would possibly be much easier” logically than defending creation ex nihilo, he nevertheless does not do so.
The reason that he does not, is because creation ex nihilo is not impossible for G-d. He explains that if creation ex nihilo is possible for G-d then one cannot remove the verse from its simple meaning even if the other explanation is more plausible philosophically.
The same would apply, in my opinion, to the question of evolution vs. the narrative of creation. Although it would “possibly be much easier” to reinterpret the verses, one cannot do so unless there is a logical absurdity for G-d.
In our case, there is no logical absurdity to explain that G-d created an old universe, therefore I would presume that even were Rambam to have been a student of modern science he would not change their meaning.
(This is in addition to his argument against Aristotle, that he cannot explain according to him, as it is contradiction to axioms of faith. This is congruent to the idea that the are be postulated that one cannot explain these verses in a non-literal sense at is in contradiction to the reason for keeping Shabbos and would destroy Halacha, etc.)
