Interesting Book Alert: Rav Dr. Michael Avraham on Religion and Evolution

Regular readers of this blog (I heard the sixth one’s on vacation) will know my affinity for Rav Dr. Michael Avraham, an original and erudite religious thinker. I am taking this opportunity to plug a new book of his (in Hebrew), which sounds like it’s worth reading (and translating). I present below a translation of the blurb on the back of the book as it appears on the publisher’s website:

Is it possible to reconcile the theory of evolution and faith? Is a believer in the existence of God forever doomed to deny the findings of science? Is a neo-Darwinist necessarily also an atheist? The book God Is Playing Dice gives a brilliant response to these questions, reconciling in an original and intelligent fashion between belief in God and the theory of evolution. It presents an innovative argument to its readers, according to which the starting points of both sides are correct but their conclusions are not. It appears we will not be forever forced to choose between two poor alternatives: to be foolish believers or intelligent atheists.

The polemic surrounding evolution has refused to die for a hundred and fifty years. In fact, it is escalating and becoming more and more a dialog of the deaf. Humankind, it seems, must choose between a bad and worse option – because the neo-Darwinists present the believer as a threat to science and the enlightenment, and believers present neo-Darwinists as evildoers and heretics.

Although the discourse is dominated by radical extremes, most of the public is in the middle. However, this middle position lacks a theoretical and systematic basis, and it is therefore almost completely absent from the public sphere and the scientific-philosophical discussion taking place there.

The theory of evolution is thoroughly established, both theoretically and empirically. However many of the interpretations given to it – both the theistic ones and those that tend towards atheism – suffer from various fallacies. Dawkins’ book The God Delusion is filled with such fallacies, and Michael Avraham presents here a comprehensive and incisive scientific and philosophical critique against his arguments. He cuts the Gordian knot, accepted by most who deal with this field, between the philosophical and theological questions about God and the scientific questions. The resulting conclusions may surprise many readers.