Category Archives: Philosophy

It often seems to me that in the discussions over how evolution impacts theology, the theological adjustments felt necessary by many are often apparently snatched out of the air with little thought over how they change very basic Christian truths about, say, the nature of God himself. And that’s just when the theologians are writing. Start reading the comments of ὀι πολλοι and it’s like being in a rowing boat in the vicinity of Cape Horn. Somehow, it brings to mind an image from art history.

In the discussion I had with John T Mullen on BioLogos, he criticised my skepticism about evolutionary psychology as a truth-finding discipline, including the following argument to which I did not reply then, but which seems worth examination in its own right: [T]hough we cannot pronounce on the specific claims made by either side, we can (if we have a broad-based education) identify when a consensus exists within a given scientific community, and we are rationally obligated to accept the conclusions of the consensus. Outsiders must not judge another discipline’s consensus.

The discussion on my recent divine action piece has gone in a direction that is quite detailed. That’s all to the good, as there are not many blogs where serious work along these lines gets discussed. I’m aware, though, that for myself and probably many regular readers we’re operating beyond the limits of our knowledge of Aristotle, Aquinas and so on. Stick with it, though – the more we all get even slightly familiar with these metaphysical issues , which are central to the science-faith debate, the richer the result will be for all. Today, though, I want to revisit a more basic point that is probably still a difficulty … Continue reading →

If God is the universal author of natural events in the way described in the previous post (following the position of classical thinkers like Aquinas in denying the univocity of God and affirming his concurrent acton in the world) we would expect that, in their own domain, natural processes should give a complete explanation of events. God is evidenced by such explanations, not by their absence. God acts from within nature. And so they are right who say that it is a wrong approach to look for gaps in knowledge to demonstrate God, for that is to limit God’s activity to the miraculous.

Darwinian evolution is an atelological theory of origins. Theism is the belief in a “Hands On” God who acts for clear purposes. On the face of it, then, the title of this piece is an oxymoron. Purposeful purposelessness is a flat contradiction. And so in such a context, it would appear that “guided evolution” can only mean the miraculous imposition of intention on the unintentional. That would make biology intrinsically supernatural, with the concomitant that its directedness would be evidence for God as evolution’s principal efficient cause.

Rounding off my meanderings in Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions I just want to pick up on a point I mentioned near the close of the last post. Kuhn says that, in his view, it is a mistake to see science, in its various paradigmatic guises, as converging on the Final Truth of reality, preferring to see it as extending from where it is now. In other words he is committed to the value of science, and its progress, but more in terms of its utility in solving problems than in the grand ambition of reaching ultimate truth. In this, actually, he seems to echo part of the mediaeval … Continue reading →