Category Archives: Philosophy

Dickens ex machina

Posted on 07/08/2026 by Jon Garvey

I’ve had some further thoughts prompted by my use, in my last post, of Charles Dickens as the quasi-deity creating the world of Oliver Twist. One of the weaknesses of Dickens as a writer, especially in his earlier books, is his use of unlikely coincidence, or deus ex machina, in resolving his plots. It’s not uncommon for his characters to be rescued from difficult situations by bumping into people who happen to have been friends in far-off places and times.

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Rehashing double causation

Posted on 06/08/2026 by Jon Garvey

One of the problems atheists have with theism is the doctrine of double causation. This is usually demonstrated by their belief that finding efficient causes in nature excludes the need for God. Whilst they may find pause for reflection in the Big Bang, every other reference to God in the world is taken to be “the God of the Gaps.”

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The extended God hypothesis

Posted on 01/08/2026 by Jon Garvey

I’m reading Steve Meyer’s Return of the God Hypothesis as part of a self-imposed refresher course on science-faith matters. My reading follows directly on from another fairly lengthy book on cosmological fine-tuning, A Fortunate Universe, by Lewis and Barnes.

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Gillick competence and sexual abuse

Posted on 24/06/2026 by Jon Garvey

One of the harrowing things about the recently published Rape Gang Report is how often young girls of twelve or thirteen, once discovered to be in abusive situations, are assumed by the police and other authorities to be in consensual relationships.

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Ideology as brain surgery

Posted on 06/06/2026 by Jon Garvey

The Henry Nowak murder has rightly drawn attention to the Critical Race Theory underpinning and infecting police training, and much more, within our institutions. But perhaps the focused coverage is in danger of missing that the same cult ideology governs every aspect of what passes for British institutions now.

Posted in Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Theology | 2 Comments

Does matter matter?

Posted on 06/05/2026 by Jon Garvey

A stimulating four-way discussion between mathematicians David Berlinski, Sergiu Klainerman, and philosopher of science Stephen Meyer, mediated by Peter Robinson, proposes that the existence of mathematics is a likely defeater for naturalist materialism, and a strong argument for theism.

Posted in Philosophy, Theology | 4 Comments

What I think I know about life in the deep past

Posted on 26/04/2026 by Jon Garvey

Colin Patterson, FRS, was a palaeontologist and proponent of “transformed cladistics” based at London’s Natural History Museum, who raised a controversy in 1981 by rhetorically asking his colleagues at a conference, “Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing, any one thing that is true?”

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How Darwinian evolution became plausible (for a time)

Posted on 24/04/2026 by Jon Garvey

Here are some thoughts on what factors provided the fertile ground for Darwinian evolutionary theory to appear plausible when it was published in 1859. This is followed by some of the problems raised at the time the theory was published, showing that they have all become more acute, rather than being resolved, since 1859. The net result is that “variation and natural selection” as the origin of species is now thoroughly implausible, and remains a consensus only by academic inertia.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology of nature | 6 Comments

Immanence narratives for the post-secular age

Posted on 03/01/2026 by Jon Garvey

A nice academic-sounding title for a blog inspired by my post-Christmas reading, by dint of an inspired present from my wife’s academic cousin. It is Planet Narnia, by Michael Ward. Ward’s 2008 book proposes that C. S. Lewis built his seven Narnia stories around a secret scheme that based both their distinctive “atmospheres,” and the varying aspects of the Christ-figure, Aslan the lion, on the astrological features of the seven Ptolemaic planets.

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Was Einstein wrong?

Posted on 30/11/2025 by Jon Garvey

Every once in a while, some sciencey YouTuber posts a video about a new scientific discovery that casts doubt on Einstein’s theory of relativity. I’ve no idea whether any of these have validity, but instead I want to ask whether scientific progress has refuted his view of God – that is to say his theology rather than his relativity.

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