Category Archives: Philosophy

Methodological theology, naturally

Posted on 17/07/2016 by Jon Garvey

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

Posted on 24/06/2016 by Jon Garvey

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

Posted on 09/06/2016 by Jon Garvey

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

Posted on 29/04/2016 by Jon Garvey

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

Posted on 25/04/2016 by Jon Garvey

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

Posted on 21/04/2016 by Jon Garvey

Here  is a link to chapter 8 of my book, and an apology.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology | Leave a comment

On God’s uniqueness

Posted on 19/04/2016 by Jon Garvey

I’ve been trying to keep The Hump’s recent blog posts focused on the drip-feed of my book God’s Good Earth in twice weekly chapters – even that is a lot of reading for busy people, and I want to present my case in an orderly manner rather than firing off posts on all kinds of subjects in between.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Theology | Leave a comment

God’s Good Earth – Chapter 6: Tracking the Fall of Creation

Posted on 14/04/2016 by Jon Garvey

Here is a link to chapter 6 of my book.

Posted in Creation, History, Philosophy, Prometheus, Theology | 6 Comments

Monotheism and automata

Posted on 13/03/2016 by Jon Garvey

In my last post I suggested that failure to deal adequately with the implications of monotheism itself leads directly to many erroneous ideas in both theology as such and in understanding the relationship of God to creation, including evolution.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology | 65 Comments

A metaphor for an abstraction

Posted on 26/02/2016 by Jon Garvey

Mike Flynn (aka The O’Floinn) links to a short piece from last year by James Chastek pointing out how even Richard Dawkins, championing materialism in the “selfish gene” concept, cannot avoid the hated idea of final causation. Food for thought, indeed.

Posted in Philosophy, Science | Leave a comment