Three Twentieth-Century Jewish Responses to Evolutionary Theory

The three thinkers examined in this paper, Abraham Isaac Kook, Mordecai M. Kaplan, and Yeshayahu Leibowitz, responded to the challenges of Darwinian evolution in different ways. Kook stressed divine immanence, whereas Kaplan redefined divine omnipotence. Both accepted biological evolution but rejected the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection. Leibowitz, too, rejected natural selection and Darwinism, although for scientific reasons rather than theological concerns. These thinkers' positions on evolution and the posture each adopted toward science in general are studied.