Monthly Archives: June 2012

Robert J Russell on theodicy

I’ve found much to agree with in reading Russell’s Cosmology – from Alpha to Omega with regard to his approach to theistic evolution. I’m rather less happy with his take on theodicy. He is quick to point out that by putting divine governance back into theistic evolution, he has increased the challenge of theodicy posed by evolution. You’ve heard it, and I’ve criticised it, before – all those parasitised grubs agonising from Darwin, egregious genetic errors and viruses from Ayala, and so on. Russell sees that a “top-down” evolution doesn’t let God off the hook at all, yet concludes that a God who is actually in charge necessitates even more … Continue reading

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Robert J Russell sitting on the TE/ID interface

In my reading of R J Russell’s book, discussed in my last post, I’ve reached the point where he uses his concept of God’s activity within quantum uncertainty to defend theistic evolution.

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Robert J Russell on Creation’s Freedom

I’m slowly wading through Russell’s Cosmology – From Alpha to Omega, in which, amongst other things, he covers his “quantum indeterminacy” hypothesis for NIODA (non-interventive objective divine action), as advertised in Ted Davis’ blogs at BioLogos. If I have a criticism overall, it’s that he seems to be playing a game that accepts science’s assertions about nature’s being (at the Newtonian level) a closed system. This being assumed, he seems to say, how can we assert God’s activity in the world without his interfering with natural law, which science won’t allow. To me, the obvious first move is to question whether there is adequate evidence for science’s deterministic assertion in … Continue reading

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Two interpretations of Romans 8

Romans 8.28-39 is, unquestionably, about assurance. And it touches upon the “doctrines of grace” covered in a few recent threads. A few years ago a charismatic friend of mine (now deceased) used to point to verse 38, where it says: For I am convinced that neither life nor death, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of Christ that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And he would nod gravely and say, “There’s one important omission from that list – ourselves. God has done everything … Continue reading

Posted in Theology | 3 Comments

Series on the Covenants of God

Since we’ve had some discussion here about the covenants in the Bible, and covenant theology, I thought I’d put some links to a series of articles I did in a magazine called  Prophecy Today between 2004 and 2005, in case anyone finds it useful.

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Mind the Biggles

When I was about 4, the first aeroplane whose name I learned from my father was the de Havilland Tiger Moth. I used to watch the little silver biplanes doing lazy aerobatics above me over the Surrey hills on which we lived. Yesterday I actually had the opportunity to fly in a vintage 1943 Moth, thanks to a belated birthday present.

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Imago dei

I’m glad that penman’s double blog has gained approbation from regular readers. We’ve been tossing such ideas around for a year or two now – in my case since I first toyed with the concept of MRCA. The take home message was the possibility of taking the spiritual creation of mankind as a historical event more or less in the time-frame of the Genesis account. Penman refines that a bit, taking Adam and Eve as chosen members of a Homo divinus race recently endowed with the imago dei. He sees that endowment as a kind of species-wide spiritual awakening. I note that John H Walton has recently been thinking along … Continue reading

Posted in Adam, Creation, Genealogical Adam, Science, Theology | 5 Comments