Creation, Evolution, and the Secret Doctrine

By W. T. S. Thackara

The Secret Doctrine of the Ages teaches that the universe came into existence through creative and evolutionary processes; and it demonstrates why both are necessary to explain our origins. It harmonizes the truths of science and religion, while showing that major assumptions of both Darwinism and Fundamentalist Creationism do not bear up to careful examination. By drawing our attention to the questions of why we live and die, of what is mind and substance, the Secret Doctrine helps us realize that wisdom begins with understanding how very little we really know. Yet it also affirms that the most perplexing problems can be solved; and that, as the progeny of one cosmos, we are a family who should be helping each other to discover the mystery of what we are and can become.

Evolution means unfolding and progressive development, derived from the Latin evolutio: "unrolling," specifically of a scroll or volume -- suggestively connoting the serial expression of previously hidden ideas. A climb from the bottom of the Grand Canyon reveals an unmistakable evolutionary story: of the appearance of progressively more complex species over a lengthy period of time. But how actually did this happen? The compelling evidence of nature contradicts the week-long special creation postulated by Bible literalists. Darwinian theory is also proving unsatisfactory, as a growing number of scientists are relegating its major claims to the category of "mythology."(1) Though not assenting to any metaphysical implications, Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould declared in 1980 that the modern synthetic theory of evolution, "as a general proposition, is effectively dead, despite its persistence as textbook orthodoxy."(2) Dr. Pierre-P. Grassé, former president of the French Academy of Sciences and editor of the 35-volume Traité de Zoologie, was more forceful:

Their success among certain biologists, philosophers, and sociologists notwithstanding, the explanatory doctrines of biological evolution do not stand up to an objective, in-depth criticism. They prove to be either in conflict with reality or else incapable of solving the major problems involved.

Through the use and abuse of hidden postulates, of bold, often ill-founded extrapolations, a pseudoscience has been created. It is taking root in the very heart of biology and is leading astray many biochemists and biologists, who sincerely believe that the accuracy of fundamental concepts has been demonstrated, which is not the case.(3)

While most critics readily acknowledge that natural selection and gene changes partially explain variation in species or microevolution, they point out that Darwinism has failed spectacularly to describe the origin of life and the mechanism of macroevolution: the manner in which higher types emerge.

Textbook theory asserts that life on earth began with the formation of DNA and RNA, the first self-replicating molecules, in a prebiotic soup rich in organic compounds, amino acids, and nucleotides. Dr. Robert Shapiro, professor of chemistry at New York University, recently wrote: "many scientists now believe that neither the atmosphere described nor the soup had ever existed. Laboratory efforts had also been made to prepare the magic molecule from a simulation of the soup, and thus far had failed."(4) Even if the purported soup existed elsewhere in the universe, and DNA were brought to earth by meteorite, comet, or some other means, there remains the enigma of how it was originally synthesized.

In the first place, several mathematicians have shown the astronomical improbability of chance mutations "evolving" any organized system -- neither complex DNA molecules nor higher organisms. The 10-20 billion year time frame presently assigned to our universe is far too short a period, given known mutation rates. Moreover, nothing in empirical experience suggests that unguided trial and error -- i.e., random mutation -- will produce anything but the most trivial ends. Research biologist Michael Denton writes that to "get a cell by chance would require at least one hundred functional proteins to appear simultaneously in one place" -- the probability of which has been calculated at the negative figure 1 followed by 2,000 zeros -- a staggeringly remote possibility, to say nothing of the lipids, polysaccharides, and nucleic acids also needed to form a viable, reproducing cell.

The same reasoning applies to the extraordinary number of coordinated, immediately useful mutations required to produce "organs of extreme perfection," such as the mammalian brain, the human eye, and the sophisticated survival mechanisms (including inter-species symbiotic systems) of the plant and animal kingdoms. There is simply no justification, according to Denton, for assuming that blind physical forces will self-organize "in the finite time available the sorts of complex systems which are so ubiquitous in nature." In observing the sheer elegance and ingenuity of nature's purposeful designs, scientists like Denton can hardly resist the logic of analogy. The conclusion may have religious implications, he says, but the inference is clear: nature's systems are the result of intelligent activity.(5)

Another enigmatic problem is the absence in fossil strata of finely-graded transitional forms between major groups of species, i.e., between reptiles and birds, land mammals and whales, and so forth. Darwin himself recognized this as one of the "gravest" impediments to his theory and tried to defend it by asserting "imperfection of the geologic record."(6) Yet over a century of intensive search has failed to disclose the hypothetical missing links.(7) Thus far only conjecture, or imagination, has been able to fill in how gills became lungs, scales became feathers, and legs became wings -- for the record of nature on this point is still a secret.

Darwin also worried over one of nature's most formidable barriers to macroevolutionary change: hybrid limits. Artificial breeding shows that extreme variations are usually sterile or weak. Left to themselves these hybrid varieties -- if they are able to reproduce at all -- revert to ancestral norms or eventually die out. In this sense, natural selection, environmental pressures, and genetic coding tend as much to weed out unusual novelties, as to ensure the survival of the fittest of each type -- a fact which is confirmed by the fossil record. Unquestionably, species adapt and change within natural limits; refinement occurs, too, as in flowering plants. But no one has yet artificially bred, genetically engineered, or observed in nature a series of chromosomal changes, micro or macro, resulting in a species of a higher genus. There are no "hopeful monsters," except, perhaps, in a poetic sense. Trees remain trees, birds birds, and the problem of how higher types originate has not been solved by Darwin or his successors.

We do not give up our dogmas easily, scientific or religious. Obviously, ideas should be examined for their intrinsic value, not blindly accepted because somebody tells us "Science has proven" or the "Bible says so," or again, because the Secret Doctrine teaches it. But with science's recognized ignorance of first causes and macroevolutionary mechanisms, as well as the failure of scriptural literalism to provide satisfactory explanations, there remain the questions about our origins, purpose, and destiny. The answers to these questions are, in a sense, nature's secret doctrines. Her evolutionary pattern suggests, however, that they are not hopelessly beyond knowing. Just as from the conception of a human embryo to a fully-developed adult, so from the first burst outward of the primordial cosmic atom, the progressive unfolding of intelligence is a natural and observable process. The whole universe seems bent on discovering itself and its reason for being.

The concept of the universe evolving for purposes of self-discovery and creative expression is found not only in modern European philosophy, such as Hegel's, but also in ancient myths the world over, some of which sound surprisingly up-to-date. The Hindu Puranas, for example, speak of our universe as Brahma, and of alternating periods of cosmic activity and rest as the Days and Nights of Brahma, each of which spans over four billion years -- an oscillating universe reminiscent of modern cosmological theory. In each "creation" Brahma attempts to fashion an ever-more perfected mankind, in the process of which he serially evolves from his own consciousness and root substance all of nature's kingdoms: atoms, minerals, plants, animals, and so forth. Conversely, the stories allude also to the striving of mankind and, for that matter, of all sentient beings, to become Brahma-like in quality -- i.e., to express more and more of the hidden mind pattern of the cosmos.(8)

We often look down on ancient traditions as moldy superstitions. While this judgment may well apply to the rind of literalism and later accretions, concealed within and giving life to every religion are core ideas which bear the hallmark of insight. Biblical Genesis also, when read allegorically as is done in gnostic and kabbalistic schools, yields a picture of evolutionary growth and perfectibility, both testaments clearly implying that we are sibling gods of wondrous potential.(9) But are the secret doctrines spoken of in these older traditions expressions of truth or simply romantic wish-fulfilling fantasy? Can they teach us anything relevant about our heritage and our future? It is to such questions that the modern book entitled The Secret Doctrine addresses itself.

Published in 1888, the SD is not put forward as a revelation but, according to its author, H. P. Blavatsky, it is only a "partial statement of what she herself has been taught by more advanced students." Drawing upon the Stanzas of Dzyan, these two volumes outline the archaic wisdom-teachings on cosmic and human genesis, a system said to derive from the matured experience of generations of adept seers, and "higher and exalted beings, who watched over the childhood of Humanity." A challenging statement -- but among the many unusual features of the SD, the one which lifts it far above any other of its kind, is the extent to which it offers supporting evidence.