Category Archives: Creation

Francis Bacon, Owen Barfield, Ian Dury, ID

Posted on 11/05/2014 by Jon Garvey

It’s just astonishing how things fortuitously/providentially connect together. PNGarrison has kindly sent me a chapter of a difficult (oh dear…) book by Owen Barfield, which he has painstakingly transcribed for me. Thanks Preston. Barfield was C S Lewis’s great mentor – which has to be a recommendation – and the book, Saving the Appearances, is about the development of the way humans have viewed the world across history. The Amazon reviews tend in general to say, “This book has changed my life: I don’t understand much of it, but I keep coming back to it.” Having read one chapter, I see what they mean. It’s on my Amazon wishlist, and I’ll … Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology | 9 Comments

Jaki – Science and Creation

Posted on 10/05/2014 by Jon Garvey

One of the books often cited with approbium on the Christian roots of science is Fr Stanley Jaki’s Science and Creation. It’s one of the best early (1986) attempts to reverse the Victorian myth that science and religion are incompatible, by showing, to the contrary, how only the Judaeo-Christian concept of creation really made science as we know it possible.

Posted in Creation, History, Philosophy, Science | 1 Comment

Chickens, eggs, concurrentism and Job

Posted on 07/05/2014 by Jon Garvey

One of the strands running through some of these posts is that if we want to understand God’s ways in creation (and therefore scientific questions like evolution), we must also understand how he acts now. I’m speaking here as to Christians, who accept Scripture’s inspiration and authority, but who sometimes say these questions of God’s governance in the world are moot. The same (they say) is therefore true of God’s involvement in natural processes and the vexed question of natural evil. There seems to be a feeling that the kind of philosophical-theological views proposed in such concepts as concurrentism are imposed upon the biblical text. But I’m going to argue … Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 3 Comments

Observing how new orthodoxies arise

Posted on 05/05/2014 by Jon Garvey

Preston Garrison has drawn my attention to a piece by “RJS” on The Jesus Creed, about a christological view of creation. It’s very familiar to me as exactly the same scheme to which I reacted in my series both on divine kenosis and my own seven part series on Christological creation. 

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What the new creation teaches about the old

Posted on 23/04/2014 by Jon Garvey

The Christian doctrine of creation is incomplete without a consideration of the concept of the new creation. Not only is Christianity inextricably linked to the idea that, in Christ, the whole cosmos will soon be renewed, but that renewal has been revealed as the end towards which the old creation was always headed. 

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 6 Comments

This is what I meant

Posted on 22/04/2014 by Jon Garvey

I did a series last year (starting here) on the fundamental difference between the original Christian idea of freedom, and the almost universal modern perversion of freedom into “autonomy”, even within the churches. The series arose from my research on the historical teaching on the goodness of creation. Without grasping the radical difference in these two concepts of freedom, one cannot understand why the whole “free process” theology underlying most theistic evolution now is so far adrift from historic Christianity. In fact, it’s hard to comprehend historic Christianity at all.

Posted in Creation, Theology | 14 Comments

Conway Morris and Behe – an example of convergence?

Posted on 21/04/2014 by Jon Garvey

One of our readers pointed me to a useful overview  by Simon Conway Morris of his thinking on his pet theory of convergent evolution. I don’t want to review it here, as it’s clear enough in itself. But I will summarise it in relation to The Hump’s recently coined approach to things scientific, Classic Providential Naturalism.

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 5 Comments

Easter thoughts

Posted on 18/04/2014 by Jon Garvey

For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit. (1 Peter 3.18) G K Chesterton famously answered the question, “What’s wrong with the world?” with two words: “I am.” Christ did not become creation – he became man. And he did not die for suffering, but suffered for sins. Yet in doing so he redeemed both the suffering of man and the suffering of creation, both of which are the result of our sin. The cause is a deeply sobering thought. The solution is one of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Theology | 3 Comments

Answered prayer and creation

Posted on 11/04/2014 by Jon Garvey

This is not a new discussion so much as a closer focus on one that I’ve raised a couple of times before, in thinking about the issue of whether God would be “expected” to be active in the natural world, including the process of evolution. To certain kinds of theistic evolutionist, God is definitely not expected to act in nature apart from by sustaining laws he has established, perhaps even very fine tuned laws with emergent properties. This is because of the theology of autonomy, in which nature “ought” to be free to create itself. Of course, the more fine tuning you have, the less like autonomy it looks and the … Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Theology | 4 Comments

Creation doctrine and natural law

Posted on 03/04/2014 by Jon Garvey

Arguments from natural law form an important part of Catholic deliberation on issues like abortion, but play little role in Evangelical thinking (though they are implicit in the US constitution and were explicit in Martin Luther King’s politics). However, I suggest that natural law is an important implication of Christian creation doctrine, and another demonstration of the way that, as I have argued in various places on The Hump, creation is foundational for much of our correct understanding of the faith. Creation is not just about scientific origins.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Theology | 5 Comments