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Post Archive
Category Archives: Philosophy
Some thoughts on information and meaning (2)
This post is something of a speculative exploration of the relationship between “information” and “meaning”. I wondered as I conceived it whether anyone would find it useful, but in fact Sy Garte’s comment on Merv Bitkofer’s post seems to lead straight into it, so maybe it will lead to some fruitful reflections.
Posted in Philosophy, Theology
2 Comments
Humanity, MN, and other boundary issues
In this essay, I argue that our orientation should be a more important focus than the precise locations of boundary lines with regard to where our eternal hope resides. And since boundaries come up at all for discussion, it should go nearly without saying, that I’ll have my philosophical and theological hat on as I examine a landscape that subsumes science (its modern form) as one of the included territories. My route meanders a bit to include discussion of the contrast between the materialist agenda and the Christian one.
Posted in Merv Bitikofer, Philosophy, Prometheus, Science, Theology
5 Comments
Some thoughts on information and meaning (1)
A recent thread on Uncommon Descent (now deleted for some reason) was discussing information in living systems. One of their resident skeptics commented that it was significant that, for all the ID talk about information, nobody could give a scientific definition of it.
Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology
4 Comments
Science’s self-imposed gaps
Is the cosmic fine-tuning argument an example of the “God of the Gaps” argument? Biologos likes the first, as opposed to Intelligent Design, and dislikes the second, so their answer would presumably be “no”. I contend, however, that CFT does point to empirically obvious gaps in the understanding of the natural world which are instructive for answering the question of whether God’s activity is distinguishable in nature in the affirmative.
Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology
2 Comments
Methodological theology, naturally
There’s an interesting new series of YouTube videos (of which I confess to having heard only two so far) of a conference discussing alternatives to methodological naturalism. The organiser is, of course, an ID group – which is hardly surprising, as according to most mainstream scientists MN is just fine and dandy. What you don’t doubt, you don’t examine that carefully. But as I’ve been suggesting here and here there is at least an argument for its being a hindrance not only to the consideration of God’s role in nature, but also to some aspects of understanding nature itself.
Posted in Creation, History, Philosophy, Science, Theology
35 Comments
The danger of dualism in theistic evolution
I’m continuing the theme here, from the last two posts, that origin of life questions may require not just new knowledge, but a new scientific paradigm – perhaps one that integrally includes God. This is counterintuitive to many Christians most involved in science, and who are comfortable with methodological naturalism as the only alternative to a crude supernaturalism. But I’ll try to justify it from a remark made to me by Joshua Swamidass on BioLogos.
Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology
17 Comments
“Underdetermination”, diversity and truth
In a recent debate between proponents of Open Theism and Classical Theism, much was made of the suggestion that Scripture “underdetermines” the matters in question. This suggestion was made, apparently irenically, by moderators of the debate but also, less intuitively, given their claim to be more Scriptural, by some on the “openness” side. This would appear to be because they are currently perceived as the “fringe” (although within academia there are grounds for saying that the “voluntary-kenotic-perichoretic-relational-panentheist paradigm” is the new orthodoxy – see this blog re academic theology overall and this essay on the same trend in Evangelicalism), and can gain a better foothold by the strategy of saying, … Continue reading
Posted in Philosophy, Theology
2 Comments
You see more on a camel
As regular readers will know either from moonlighting on Biologos, or from the heads up in the comments on a previous post, BioLogos moderator Caspar Hess started a thread there questioning why The Hump should both feel the need, and dare, to exist. The way that thread has developed is the answer, as far as I am concerned, and explains why I don’t bother to discuss much there now, even on a thread about me.
Posted in Philosophy, Politics and sociology
9 Comments
God’s Good Earth – Chapter 9: On Pain and Suffering
Here is a link to chapter 9 of my book.
Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science
11 Comments
God’s Good Earth – Chapter 8: The Non-Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
Here is a link to chapter 8 of my book, and an apology.
Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology
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