Category Archives: Creation

It’s always the naturalism that blinds.

Posted on 06/01/2019 by Jon Garvey

One reason I post decreasingly often at BioLogos (and also at Uncommon Descent) is that it seems that all origins sites (except this one, so far) eventually  become populated by a bevy of science-orientated positivists. These post on every vaguely physically-orientated subject, quite often picking on every sentence of a post and making criticisms grounded on the standard materialist line. They usually support each other whether claiming to be atheists or Christians (or ex-Christians – though seldom ex-atheists), and their main aim seems to be to drive home the message that “Science disproves that God acts in nature.” The net result is that anybody with the temerity to explore how … Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology, Theology of nature | 16 Comments

Happy 2019 – lots forward to which to look…

Posted on 31/12/2018 by Jon Garvey

I’m afraid things are still rather slack on the Hump post front, though not on the work front generally: I did a review of N.T. Wright’s fantastic chapter on Christ and the Cosmos  over at Peaceful Science; I got the indexing finished on God’s Good Earth, which means it’s now actually in press, and I’m simply awaiting news on availability (and price); and I’ve been beavering away on the new book, to accompany (one hopes) those on Genealogical Adam by Josh Swamidass (due out November) and Andrew Loke (due out I have no idea).

Posted in Creation, Science | Leave a comment

What isn’t homologous converges

Posted on 18/12/2018 by Jon Garvey

I took part in a discussion over at Peaceful Science a week or two ago, in which the slam dunk evidence of nested hierarchies for evolution was (not for the first time) being disputed – by me, amongst others.

Posted in Creation, Science | 1 Comment

Come and join the celebration

Posted on 14/12/2018 by Jon Garvey

I’ve been thinking about the rarity in our lives, overall, of moments when we can really celebrate some triumph. I mean the champagne, flag-waving kind of celebration that you get from winning an Olympic Final, or that an old-fashioned army got returning from a victorious battle before war became politically complicated as well as efficiently bloody.

Posted in Creation, Theology | Leave a comment

Before the powers went bad

Posted on 12/12/2018 by Jon Garvey

Daniel Deen (aka Philosurfer), over at Peaceful Science, has just reviewed a chapter by Brian Curry in the book Christ and the Created Order. The chapter is interesting in focusing on the role of the “powers” that are so prominent in New Testament teaching, but so completely absent from science-faith discussion generally.

Posted in Creation, Genealogical Adam, Theology, Theology of nature | 2 Comments

Final causes and Brexit

Posted on 05/12/2018 by Jon Garvey

I think what irks me most about the scientistic mindset is how much it takes for granted about the world, as if needing no explanation – things like logic, reliable human faculties and so on.

Posted in Creation, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | 2 Comments

No computation without teleology

Posted on 26/11/2018 by Jon Garvey

Support for the suggestion in my last post, that we are likely to be missing significant biological truths by not recognising Aristotelian formal and final causation, comes from a philosophical direction in a recent article by Thomist analytic philosopher Ed Feser .

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology | 16 Comments

The shape of things to come

Posted on 21/11/2018 by Jon Garvey

Reader Wayne Fair kindly sent me a link to this overview article on morphogenetic fields, which has nothing (directly, at least) to do with Rupert Sheldrake or telepathy, but which does address an important and under-investigated subject. The author of this review article, Michael Levin, is particularly interested in the highly practical goal of organ regeneration after trauma or surgery, and the theoretical basis of form is closely tied into equally important medical issues such as the causes of cancer.

Posted in Creation, Science | 2 Comments

More on Molinism

Posted on 18/11/2018 by Jon Garvey

Molinism has come up for discussion again on Peaceful Science. Although it’s popular nowadays with significant Christian thinkers like William Lane Craig, it seems to me to be a complicated philosophical way of failing to solve the problems for which it is designed, whilst creating more.

Posted in Creation, Theology, Theology of nature | 4 Comments

Curses, Moriarty

Posted on 16/11/2018 by Jon Garvey

Here’s a thought that would have gone into my book, had I thought of it earlier. One of my minor theses there is that the “curse on the ground,” usually invoked to support the “fallen creation” teaching, actually applied only to Adam’s immediate descendants, and was abrogated in Noah’s covenant. I’m pleased to find overt support for that in Brian Curry’s chapter in the book I’m helping review at Peaceful Science, Christ and the Created Order, where he writes: But even within Genesis this curse lasts only until the end of the flood and is later canceled by God (Gen 8:21). Further, it exercises no systematic relevance within the rest … Continue reading →

Posted in Adam, Creation, Theology | Leave a comment