Monthly Archives: November 2015

The muzak of heaven

The discussion board at BioLogos is much more “lively” than it was a while ago, which I suppose is a good thing. Sadly that largely means that in any thread one encounters a complete smörgåsbord of religious opinion from Deism at one end to any number of special revelations about the real meaning of Scripture, the world and everything at the other. If the project is to create a current of integration for science and faith, then the more likely result is a maelstrom that drowns many and goes nowhere.

Posted in Philosophy, Theology | 2 Comments

Design and difference – both scientifically elusive

First molecular biologist: What’s the difference between a Creationist and a Crustacean? Second molecular biologist: I don’t know – what is the difference between a Creationist and a Crustacean?

Posted in Philosophy, Science | 8 Comments

Flat earth conspiracy

I’ve spent the last five years or more, essentially full-time, researching matters centred on the Christian doctrine of creation. That’s actually as long as I spent getting a Cambridge degree to practise medicine, and just as intense, only without the vacations. The social life is rubbish, too. It’s a huge subject once you consider the ramifciations in science, theology, philosophy, sociology, ecology, etc, etc. Unlike a medical qualification, a blog doesn’t lead to a career, but I persist because the doctrine of creation is central to Christian faith, and according to the Bible (Gen3.1ff, Rom 1.18ff) is one of the main areas where error leads to perdition.

Posted in Creation, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | 2 Comments

The classical Hebrew God and the classical Scholastic God

One of the minor ongoing spats in the origins debate is the objection of some analytical Neo-Aristotelians like Ed Feser to the idea that one can perceive divine design in nature, or anywhere else, come to that. My own reaction to this is here, and I’ve also referred to another dissenting Aquinas scholar, Logan Paul Gage, an essay by whom is here. There are, in other words, objections to such ideas within the writings of Aquinas himself.

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If the raqia is solid, why isn’t heaven wet?

It’s foolishness, I know, but let me dwell a little more on the “solid raqia” idea that I deliberately and sensibly avoided in the last post . The issue is, essentially, that the wise and good say that the Hebrews definitely believed in a solid raqia (or firmament) over the sky, that they definitely taught it in Genesis 1 and that there definitely isn’t such a thing surrounding the earth. Therefore their science was wrong and one must either say that Scripture is just untrustworthy, or that it doesn’t matter because the true message is not scientific (though that often turns out to mean “vaguely mythical and equally wrong”).

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 3 Comments