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Author Archives: Jon Garvey
Elliott Sober on divine direction of evolution
It’s lazy, I know, but this is a cut-and-paste of a post I wrote to Ted Davis on BioLogos. The Sober article makes points relevant to previous blogs here, so it seems relevant to record them and my comments on the Hump rather than to lose them in the Biologos archives.
Posted in Creation, Science, Theology
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Human evolutionary continuity and exceptionalism
There’s a series on BioLogos at the moment, by Joshua Moritz, on the real meaning of the imago dei. Moritz is a significant scholar in the science and faith field, so one detects the influence of Ted Davis in his recruitment as an author. The basic thesis is that the “image” is, on textual and ANE grounds, best seen in relational, rather than ontological terms. Man is appointed as God’s representative on earth, with a priestly function in bringing all things together in God’s presence. He is elect but not primarily for his own sake (Moritz argues a parallel with election to salvation by grace, which, he says, is also … Continue reading
Posted in Adam, Creation, Science, Theology
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A new web page
A good many years ago I owned an interesting guitar built by a guy called John Bailey, who made guitars for Ralph Mc Tell, Gordon Giltrap, Roy Harper, Robert Plant and other folkies and rockers on the London scene in the 60s. He also mader the first flat-back bazouki for John Pearse and a mandolin for Robin Williamson of the Incredible String Band. John died in 2011, some years after he retired to Dartmouth, and I had a chance to converse with him a year or two before. Interest in his work seems now to be picking up. So I’ve done a set of webpages documenting this particular guitar’s 44 … Continue reading
Posted in Music
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Another way of looking at it…
For your edification, let’s attempt a synthesis of economics, free will and Intelligent Design. Maybe it will kick off a whole new academic discipline. Or maybe not.
Posted in Creation, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology
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Fame at last
Whadya know – I have my own Wikipedia entry. Well, not my own, exactly. It’s actually in the entry about luthier John Bailey, who admittedly isn’t that well known. And it’s in a paragraph by Gordon Giltrap in which he mentions in passing that I bought a Bailey guitar off him and later sold it back. Unfortunately Gordon spells my name wrong. But you can link to it **->->->->HERE<-<-<-<-**, and use the search engine’s “find” function, and there, about half way down … my very own encyclopedia article. What’s the betting some sad atheist comes along and deletes it?
Posted in Music
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Money evolves too
I caught a trailer for this year’s BBC Reith lectures on the way to a rehearsal yesterday. Apparently they are being given by Niall Ferguson on “the evolutionary approach to economics.” As far as I can see from Google, they’ll be based on his book The Ascent of Money, which clearly alludes to Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man, which in turns refers to Charles’ Darwin’s The Descent of Man. None of them, it seems, depends on my first boss’s political slogan, “Sideways with the People.”
Posted in Politics and sociology, Science
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Scripture doesn’t tell us?
In Darrel Falk’s latest intervention on Dennis Venema’s behalf at BioLogos (#70551), he refers Bilbo back to previous statements of his (and BioLogos‘) position, especially in his replies to William Dembski, on the extent to which God directs evolution.
Posted in Creation, Science, Theology
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Natural and supernatural
Maybe I ought to explain why I consider the combination of a naturalistic, unguided interpretation of creation and evolution, with the admission of the category of “miracle” with regard to the events of the Bible and phenomena like answered prayer, to be illogical. Broadly this is the position that seems to be held by those leading BioLogos, as far as one can ascertain and steer round their provisos and ambiguities.
Evolution and British Christianity
Whilst desperately trying to find the final quote for my last-but-one post, I came across a file of old Christian magazines from my University years, 40 years ago. Hoarder that I am, I’ve never had the heart to throw them out, and they’re probably unique now. It was interesting to see that there were a few articles about science and faith which give a flavour of the UK Christian climate of the time – more or less confirming my memories of that era.
Posted in Creation, Science, Theology
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How evil is the world?
“Most animals are fated to an agonising death.” “The sheer horror so frequent in the biological world has seemed to make Christianity unintelligible and even offensive.” “[A world] which seems at best to be utterly indifferent and at worst implacably malevolent.” These are all quotes from Christians dealing with a theodicy of natural evil. I have commented on natural evil before, largely on the question of whether the natural world is “fallen” and, specifically, on the history of that doctrine. See for example here, here and here. I have pointed out that fallen nature is a relatively recent doctrine, even before evolutionary theory raised the stakes. Nevertheless theodicy of some … Continue reading
Posted in Creation, Science, Theology
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