Category Archives: Theology of nature

At the end of his 2018 Gifford lecture series, N T Wright tells us that the coming of Christ not only unlocks the coming new creation, but enables us to understand the present creation. The cross is at the centre of any theology of nature. I think he’s right, but this needs some careful unpacking to contribute to our theology of nature.

At the end of this section of the series on the theology of nature, a section in which I have looked at modes of divine action, I want to say a word about an alternative concept called “continuous creation”, usually put in Latin as creatio continua.

Indirectly critiquing , perhaps, the positions I’ve stated in this series, Josh Swamidass over at Peaceful Science opts for a model of creation as God’s “call and response”, exemplified by Genesis 1:11, in which God says, “Let the earth bring forth vegetation…”, and it obediently does. I think he has in mind a natural process of evolution, and/or biogenesis, set in train by God’s command or invitation.

At this point, in looking at the theology of nature, I thought it would be good to recap and refocus on where we’ve got to. A special opportunity arises from a piece on his blog by our own Sy Garte. The piece involves his very personal testimony, and in our brief conversation in comments, we mentioned the dangers of “dissecting” nature and missing its point. I’m very aware that the same danger – perhaps even more so – exists in “dissecting” his experience. But I hope he’ll forgive my using it as an example, since my aim is to broaden our view of, and wonder in, nature as God’s work, … Continue reading →

If a word means everything, it means nothing. “Creation” is in danger of becoming such a word in evolutionary accounts of origins. When I asked for people’s own working understandings in a post on BioLogos not long ago, one atheist suggested it means no more than “efficient causation,” as in “the tree’s fall created mayhem.” And it’s not uncommon amongst TEs to find the word “creative” applied to truly random mutations that happen to lead to functionality – but clouds are not creative when they happen to resemble faces.

Special providence is a huge subject, both because there is a lot one could say about it, and because according to Scripture it pervades the operation of everything in the cosmos.

I want to unpack each of the three modes of God’s contingent action that I outlined in the last post. Perhaps the easiest to deal with in the context of a theology of nature (or perhaps not) is the category of “miracle.” This is because, as I suggested last time, miracles are intrinsically alien to nature’s normal modes of operation: they are intended as signs.

Having embarked on a couple of excursus (4th declension Latin plural, Eddie reminds me!) in this exploration of a theology of nature, one on the likelihood that such a new theology would be bound to impact on how one does science, and a longer one on the connection between human speech and divine creation, we may now return to rather more conventional territory – the nature of divine action.

Let me continue where I left off the last post, by quoting N T Wright’s fifth Gifford Lecture from February of this year. He describes: …the human task of hermeneutics, of a rich and multilayered truth-telling, discovering and displaying meaning, in symbol, story and song, by the many levels of significance in God’s world present and future, and particularly in human life.

Last time I looked at the interesting scriptural correlation between God’s creative and transformative word of power, Christ the Logos who is said by John to be that word, and the same word of power effectually spoken by human agents (whether by Jesus himself or divinely appointed agents) in human “natural” language. Today, I want to start by grounding that correlation in biblical ontology.