The paradoxical man: the view of science and the view of faith

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleЧеловек парадоксальный: взгляд науки и взгляд веры.
3. Language term Russian
4. lemma author Saprykin, Dmitry
5. lemma category Modes of interaction > Integration
6. Publication date 2-2001
7. lemma work Муравник Галина [Author]. The paradoxical man: the view of science and the view of faith
8. lemma manifestations Новый мир
9. Keywords teleological principle - Evolution
10. Citations
    1. http://magazines.russ.ru/novyi_mi/2001/2/murav.html
11. Lemma body

    1. The author sets forth her view on the problem of man origin considering it "only a modest mite in the search for a life-giving conceptual agreement between science and theology, so necessary for the further movement toward truth."

       Based on the analysis of modern paleontology, paleogenetics, anthropology and other sciences data, the author comes to the conclusion that they convincingly confirm what two millennia ago was discovered in the biblical narrative: the origin of mankind from one pair of our distant ancestors. The author assumes that the human body is the result of a teleological evolution, the idea of which is evolutionary movement not to be realized at the expense of random processes, as Darwin and his followers believed, but to be guided by the Lord to the goal pursued by Him.

       The mechanism of biological evolution is not capable of giving rise to the immortal human spirit, so the search for a solution inevitably leads us beyond the framework of "pure" science. "Science does not know the nature of the sacred creative acts of the Creator. However, incomprehensibility of such phenomena as emergence of the universe, life and man indicates that the Divine Will transformed the created matter directing its development to the original idea of the world order. Of all the living creatures that have evolved on Earth for millions of years, the Lord chose the genetic ancestor of man to give him the main thing - God-likeness. "

       Muravnik puts forward the hypothesis that physical body of man has been perfecting, maturing for a long time, as the fruit ripens, to give birth to a new life. "But at the moment the Lord had breathed His Spirit, as the Scripture says, into this fostered body of the first man, there was such a significant, cardinal change in his material nature that it became impossible to speak further on any kinship of man with any representatives of the early forms (and genetic analysis clearly showed it)."

       The author compares the human body origin from animal to the cultivation of the fruit tree cultivar to the wild. "Scion receives from the tree that has received it the strength for growth and development, feeding on its roots, trunk, leaves. The breeder must gradually remove the unnecessary branches of wildness. Eventually, shoots of a new variety will be the only ones on the trunk that received them - a tree of a new, fruitful variety will be obtained. But still no one will argue that as a result of engraftment the cultivated variety originated from the wild. After all, it can even be trees of different kinds."

       The appearance of man, the author writes, would never have been realized without "that sacred action, which we can only name giving it some verbal reality, due to the absence of concealed, comprehensive knowledge. This is the creative Will of God. It seems that our species can be called Homo paradoxalis - a paradoxical man. Everything in it (in each of us) - from incarnation in the world to incomprehensibility of God-likeness - is a paradox. Therefore, science, despite its zeal, stops silently before this majestic paradoxical mystery, giving the word to Revelation. However, this does not at all testify to the impotence or senselessness of scientific research, since, as one German scientist has noted, every progress in science is progress in our knowledge of the world governance by God."