Category Archives: Science

Heavily overlapping magisteria

Posted on 08/06/2018 by Jon Garvey

When I wrote a recent piece on the limitations of science, compared to the sum total of truth (and even of knowledge), I was building on discussions with Joshua Swamidass, who liked the article, I’m pleased to say. He might be less in agreement, perhaps, with another thought about science, and that is the dependence on all kinds of “soft” human qualities that make science impossible to define, except by rather ad hoc conventions which, in any case, are full of exceptions.

Posted in Philosophy, Science, Theology | 2 Comments

The sum total of truth

Posted on 01/06/2018 by Jon Garvey

The Renaissance humanists saw the human being as a microcosm, because the mind of man can reach out to encompass the farthest reaches of the universe, or the smallest particles of matter. It can even raise itself to contemplate the things of heaven, and God himself. The last shows why the microcosm view, which gives man such a central importance in the creation, is both a glorious truth and a misleading half-truth at the same time.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology | 4 Comments

The scientific consensus on the Resurrection

Posted on 14/05/2018 by Jon Garvey

Here’s a thought experiment about how the socially-constituted rules of scientific methodology can easily be misconstrued as the real constraints of the world.

Posted in Philosophy, Science | 9 Comments

Convergent evolution of origins discourse

Posted on 05/05/2018 by Jon Garvey

On Thursday I drove two hundred miles across England to attend a meeting on Christian approaches to origins – only to find the meeting had been cancelled and the organisers forgot to tell me.

Posted in Creation, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | 12 Comments

The impossibility of ontological chance

Posted on 27/04/2018 by Jon Garvey

I want, again, to critique the notion that “God uses chance” in evolution, off the back of my last piece, whose main burden was that admitting such chance into the picture utterly destroys the already dubious ability of the laws of nature to achieve divine aims, such as the evolution of mankind. Now I want to consider “randomness” from the viewpoint of divine being. Consider, for a moment, what it means for us to exist, given the truth of Christianity – as far as we can consider what is a rather deeper matter than we are used to assuming it to be.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology | 52 Comments

Critiquing bits of BioLogos

Posted on 25/04/2018 by Jon Garvey

How Hegelian! The pained responses to the unfairness of the large ID book critiquing Theistic Evolution has led to the clearer exposition of the various views within BioLogos that some of us have been calling for for years. This piece was drafted before Eddie’s recent post, which nevertheless arises from the same observation of self-examination within the organisation. I particularly recommend reading the discussion on this thread, and the clear theological and metaphysical water between, say, Ted Davis and Jim Stump there. In this piece, though, I want to examine one particular view presented by BioLogos president Deb Haarsma, not so much in her own recent “defence” piece, as more … Continue reading →

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Paging Dr. Applegate: Please Call Dr. Haarsma

Posted on 23/04/2018 by Edward Robinson

After nearly 10 years of reading the writings of American TE/EC leaders, especially those at BioLogos, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is an unwritten code of conduct (probably the product of unconscious consensus rather than conscious collusion) which governs the public behavior of ECs. This code of conduct is rarely breached, at least on BioLogos (though Joshua Swamidass’s challenge to BioLogos regarding Adam and Eve provides a refreshing counterexample, and Darrel Falk’s principled dispute with Robert Bishop over Stephen Meyer’s second book constitutes another), and it could be stated in the form of a rule: “No EC leader shall directly contradict another EC leader in public, or at … Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Edward Robinson, Science, Theology | 40 Comments

Even the simple stuff is hard

Posted on 22/04/2018 by Jon Garvey

Genesis 1:28 says: “Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” I recently mentioned a book I’d read called Silent Fields, which documents how the wildlife of Britain has been systematically wiped out over the last five hundred years, leaving a number of species extinct, many more in an endangered state, and much of the rest depleted.

Posted in Creation, History, Politics and sociology, Science | 1 Comment

Correcting the science of Genesis

Posted on 18/04/2018 by Jon Garvey

“Hullo, is that God?” “Yes, Yahweh speaking, can I help you?” “Yes, as a matter of fact. I have a problem with the fact that your account of the creation of the world in Genesis isn’t scientifically accurate.”

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 6 Comments

A fantastical tale

Posted on 15/04/2018 by Jon Garvey

This piece would possibly be classed as a thought experiment, except that, as I mentioned in a recent post, the kind of theistic evolution that was around in the nineteenth century came to be re-defined as “non-scientific” by the new naturalistic criteria. So since you can’t do thought experiments in non-science, this will have to be a fantasy. It just might happen to account for some features of the real world too, though.

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 7 Comments