Category Archives: Prometheus

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

The myth behind the myth

Posted on 24/07/2014 by Jon Garvey

In the last post I referenced C S Lewis’s essay on the modern Myth of “Evolutionism” (as distinct from the scientific theory of evolution, just to remind you…), of which one major, and undoubtedly correct, point is that the ideological motivation to believe in evolution as an overarching principle precedes Darwin’s biological theory by several decades. But Lewis doesn’t attempt to explain fully why it should have developed in the first place. Here’s my attempt to do so.

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

Bats, theistic personalism and Frankenstein

Posted on 20/11/2013 by Jon Garvey

Let me present three apparently disparate themes and then show that, together, they give some useful theological insights.

Posted in Creation, Prometheus, Science, Theology | 6 Comments

Prometheus and cosmology

Posted on 09/10/2013 by Jon Garvey

I’m reproducing here a longish post I’ve just done over at Biologos (#82822), only because posts there are ditched after 6 months and I’d like to preserve it. Ted Davis posted a link to an excellent article by Dennis Danielson, on the prevalent myth that the old “geocentrism” implied anthropocentrism. But it also answered a question to me by PNG about sources for TOF’s claim in his blog series on heliocentrism that Renaissance folks preferred the new views because they elevated man to the celestial realm. My post follows:

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Freedom and Autonomy #5

Posted on 11/06/2013 by Jon Garvey

The Reformation, and the upheavals associated with it, were paradoxically both a reaction against, and dependent upon, the humanists’ new view of “freedom”. The piety of northern Europe could not accept the anthropocentricity of the ideas that swept the south, even infiltrating the Papacy. So Luther’s protests, and those of Calvin, Zwingli and the rest, were largely fired by a desire to return to the humble God-centred faith of the Bible. Yet it was only the humanist scholarship of people like Erasmus that made the original Bible text available to them, and both Luther and, even more, Calvin were educated in humanist methodology. Equally, support (especially political support) for Protestantism … Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Prometheus, Theology | 6 Comments

Freedom and autonomy #4

Posted on 10/06/2013 by Jon Garvey

I showed in #2 that the Bible’s approach to free-will is based on the commonsense reality of our daily experience, with its positive teaching aimed at showing how that experience should be modified by God’s revelation. Any resulting paradox it leaves unresolved, calling only for humility before God’s truth (eg Romans 9.19-21). Any resolution of such issues requires theologising which is, at least in part, philosophical. Indeed, the need to resolve them usually arises from philosophical speculation.

Posted in Adam, Creation, Prometheus, Theology | 2 Comments

Law, natures and freedom (2)

Posted on 26/04/2013 by Jon Garvey

In the last post  I suggested that “laws of nature” are better understood as the properties of the natures of entities themselves, as in Aristotelian metaphysics. Seen in this light, the concept of “freedom” in nature makes little sense, since there are no “external” laws either maintaining order or restricting freedom. Rather, everything in nature is simply created to act according to its God-ordained nature. It would be no violation of the natural order by God either to create some new type of nature in the world directly, or to act on existing forms according to their existing natures. On the other hand neither would it be a problem for … Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Prometheus, Science, Theology | 14 Comments

Evolutionary theodicy

Posted on 24/02/2013 by Jon Garvey

Michael Ruse, in his book Debating Design, quotes (as have many others) a letter from Charles Darwin to Asa Gray about why he cannot see the hand of a good creator in nature. The interesting thing is how he presents his argument. I’ll summarise it.

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It’s all about sovereignty

Posted on 04/12/2012 by Jon Garvey

In my last post I alluded to the hardening in the attitude of American Fundamentalists towards evolution after the Great War. And I mentioned that some of the authors of the Fundamentals had previously been sympathetic to evolution. Here’s a quote I turned up from one of them, G F Wright:

Posted in Creation, Politics and sociology, Prometheus, Science, Theology | 21 Comments

Prometheus and Adam

Posted on 29/11/2012 by Jon Garvey

About half a dozen times on The Hump I’ve made passing mention of the Prometheus myth in relation to modernity. Maybe I should expand that, as it truly is a foundation myth in the sense that it is a simple and potent key to understanding much of what our modern world is all about. I stumbled across its scope when researching how the original Christian teaching about the goodness of creation came to be changed into the modern Christian assumption that the natural world is fallen and spoiled – but that’s a smaller and more specialised story which may yet come into print. Prometheus himself may be understood, with little … Continue reading →

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