Sadrian Genesis and Neo-Darwinist EvolutionA Comparative Study of the Human Genesis in the Two Theories

One of the challenging instances of the confrontation between tradition and modernity is Darwin’s theory of evolution. Traditional critics of the theory of evolution generally point to Lamarck and Darwin’s drawbacks from the perspective of biologists and conclude that the theory of evolution is wrong. In the philosophical-theological circles of Iran, Neo-Darwinism has been neglected. Criticism of the theory of evolution by deliberately neglecting Neo-Darwinism deceives the researcher into the fallacy of attacking the straw man. This article is written to eliminate this shortcoming. To narrow the scope of the research topic, Neo-Darwinism has been compared with Mullā Ṣadrā’s views. In this article, after a brief historical account of the evolutional approaches to human creation, Ṣadrā’s view on the human generation is presented and the two opinions are compared in different parts of the article. By explaining the criteria of Mullā Ṣadrā and Neo-Darwinists about the origin of man, the present study came to this main conclusion that these two ideas are compatible in material (natural) aspects but are different in trans-material aspects. This difference, however, does not lead to the contradiction between the two views. The paper uses the descriptive-analytical library research method.