Category Archives: Hump Retrospective

A review of the problems I began with on the blog, and how they have received answers.

Hump retrospective 8: the origin of spiritual evil

Satan before the Fall Because it’s unfashionable to think about Satan in science-faith discussions (which goes along with the semi-deist viewpoint that reduces the whole of existence to “God” v “Nature”), the question of what the devil was doing before the Fall, in an old earth scenario, gets little attention.

Posted in Hump Retrospective, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Faith, and faith

This is taking time out from my “retrospective” series. Does anybody else remember the old Science Fiction story about an anti-gravity machine?

Posted in Hump Retrospective, Music, Politics and sociology, Prometheus, Theology | 3 Comments

Hump retrospective 6: worldwide flood

In my “quest” to sort out origins questions, this “old chestnut” problem was really a question of filling in details, rather than finding entirely new solutions, because I was already aware of work by exegetes arguing that Scripture allows for a regional Flood.

Posted in History, Hump Retrospective, Science, Theology | 1 Comment

Hump retrospective 5: mankind late to the party

One of the theological problems I had with an old earth a decade ago is less commonly remarked than some others: if mankind was created to rule and subdue the earth, as Genesis 1 teaches, how did it manage without him for over four billion years?

Posted in Creation, Hump Retrospective, Science, Theology, Theology of nature | 1 Comment

Hump retrospective 3: creation with no need for a Creator

In Britain, at least, a common position of many ordinary Evangelical Christians (until they start reading American books, anyway!) is, “I don’t see why God couldn’t have created through evolution.” The rub is that they usually have little idea of what evolutionary theory says: what they mean is that species might well change over long periods of times, under the creative direction of God, as an alternative to each being created de novo.

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Hump retrospective 2: old earth with death, carnivores and natural evils

Creation “groaning” for 13bn years? My retrospective review of this aspect of the last ten years of my research is timely, it seems. For reviewing Joshua Swamidass’s Genealogical Adam and Eve YECs Robert Carter and John Sanford mention Josh’s citing of my book God’s Good Earth, in relation to the subject of death before the Fall.

Posted in Creation, Hump Retrospective, Science, Theology, Theology of nature | 2 Comments

Hump retrospective 1: six day recent creation

It was what I fielded about the biblical acceptability of an old earth view that got me “censored” in the original series of articles for a Christian magazine in 2008 (see previous column) that put me on to the science-faith trail.

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A retrospective on my last decade’s work

I thought it would be worth spending a few posts looking back on what has turned out to be a fruitful “research programme” on scientific and biblical origins over the last ten years for me, to see what problems have been resolved, and which, if any, remain unanswered.

Posted in Creation, Hump Retrospective, Science, Theology, Theology of nature | 53 Comments