Monthly Archives: September 2017

Why Christian theism entails a perishable creation

Posted on 29/09/2017 by Jon Garvey

Ian Thompson has kindly pointed me to a brand new paper, happily accessible online, about animal suffering in particular and the perishability of the world in general – a subject that regularly forms the basis of attempts, from deism to atheism, to distance God from nature on the grounds of the latter’s “immorality”. It’s actually an exposition of the thought of Thomas Aquinas on this subject – accurate, as far as my limited knowledge goes – which shows how our modern mindset is simply looking at the problem wrong. Since it is pretty clear and readable, I’ll simply recommend it to your attention without further comment.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Theology | 19 Comments

Theistic evolution an oxymoron?

Posted on 25/09/2017 by Jon Garvey

My attention has recently been drawn to the work of Olivier Rieppel, a distinguished palaeontologist based at  the Field Museum in Chicago, whose writings appear to show a mixture of scientific rigour with the historical and philosophical awareness so rare in scientific writing now. In other words he has the wit and courage to question received wisdom and go where the evidence leads, and moreover to know why he has done so. His latest book is on turtle evolution, provocatively entitled Turtles as Hopeful Monsters, which intrigues me a great deal, but finding its price is above my current budget at Amazon, I browsed some of his other books there … Continue reading →

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

Origins without history

Posted on 22/09/2017 by Jon Garvey

Our house, according to our neighbour (who was there) was built in 1969, but on a 2½ acre plot that was already surrounded on three sides by traditional “devon banks”, and on the fourth by a lane. So it’s a field with some kind of history, but mostly unknown to us as we’ve only been here eight years.

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Let me tell you all about about my disease…

Posted on 18/09/2017 by Jon Garvey

Spoiler alert: this is a change of tack from recent serious philosophical posts. The only real conclusion will be, “What an interesting world we live in”, with a slight flavour of that old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”

Posted in Creation, Medicine, Science | 5 Comments

Further reflection on chance

Posted on 14/09/2017 by Jon Garvey

In a comment on a previous post about the role of creation in the origin of species, Noah asks: What would you say about the randomness we observe in the process of evolution? …I guess it’s similar to our discussion on why it takes thousands/millions of sperm to fertilize an egg if God intends me to exist. We’re presented with a reality that sure as heck seems to involve a ton of randomness, not just in events (car crashes, etc.) but in being (how many things had to happen by chance for me to exist?).

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 11 Comments

Forms, natures, homeostasis – and me

Posted on 11/09/2017 by Jon Garvey

Last time I touched on the problems Thomistic philosophy has with evolutionary theory’s lack of any way of dealing adequately with the concept of form (formal causation, in Aquinas-speak). I mentioned that Darwin was only able to introduce his theory on “The Origin of the Species” by spending many pages seeking to demonstrate that the concept of a species, meaning a class of “natural substances” sharing a single essential nature, was meaningless anyway. To all subsequent evolutionary theory, this philosophical nominalism has been axiomatic. If evolution is a constant flux of changeable characteristics, then there can be no real genera or species embodying tiger-ness, or hors-itude, or even, come to … Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Genealogical Adam, Philosophy, Science | 9 Comments

The Creation of Adam

Posted on 08/09/2017 by Jon Garvey

One of the points made by Michael Chabarek in the book I reviewed in the last post  – perfectly valid as far as I can see in the primary sources – is that to Thomas Aquinas, the special creation of Adam (and of Eve from him) was an essential truth of the faith. Apart from his understanding of Scripture, this had to do with the immutability of fundamental natures (substances), as I mentioned briefly in my post, but also with the special nature of man as both a spiritual and an animal being, whose immaterial aspect (aka soul) cannot even in principle be formed by material secondary causes. On the … Continue reading →

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

Aquinas on Evolution

Posted on 05/09/2017 by Jon Garvey

Over the seven years of The Hump I’ve dabbled in Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy, mainly for the reason that it deals with intuitively obvious matters such as purpose, and form, to which conventional science (and therefore most theistic evolution) is completely blind. It also deals with divine action, providence, chance and so on in a way that makes the discussions of many Evolutionary Creationists seem frankly half-baked.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology | 2 Comments