Monthly Archives: July 2012

Philosophy of divine action

Gregory raised the question of occasionalism in a reply to the last post, hinting at its presence in the BioLogos leadership and asking me about the alternatives to it in the pre-evolutionary era. Historical philosophy is a bit above my pay-grade, but it might be useful to discuss it in view of the ongoing question of divine agency in evolution. So here’s my overview for proper historians and philosophers to come back with corrections.

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 11 Comments

Does divine action have to hide in random cracks?

In the article  by Elliot Sober I mentioned in my previous post, he describes a hypothetical experiment to show what evolutionists mean by “random mutation”, before going on to establish that, because the Neodarwinian explanation is causally incomplete, science can neither deny, affirm, nor even express agnosticism on whether those random mutations were directed by an agent such as God.

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 7 Comments

Elliott Sober on divine direction of evolution

It’s lazy, I know, but this is a cut-and-paste of a post I wrote to Ted Davis on BioLogos. The Sober article makes points relevant to previous blogs here, so it seems relevant to record them and my comments on the Hump rather than to lose them in the Biologos archives.

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 2 Comments

Human evolutionary continuity and exceptionalism

There’s a series on BioLogos at the moment, by Joshua Moritz, on the real meaning of the imago dei. Moritz is a significant scholar in the science and faith field, so one detects the influence of Ted Davis in his recruitment as an author. The basic thesis is that the “image” is, on textual and ANE grounds, best seen in relational, rather than ontological terms. Man is appointed as God’s representative on earth, with a priestly function in bringing all things together in God’s presence. He is elect but not primarily for his own sake (Moritz argues a parallel with election to salvation by grace, which, he says, is also … Continue reading

Posted in Adam, Creation, Science, Theology | 6 Comments