Category Archives: Science

Evolutionary theologies – a thought for the day

Posted on 20/11/2015 by Jon Garvey

I believe the evolution of life happened, albeit that the mechanisms have barely been glimpsed, and that providence is bigger than science. But I notice a tendency amongst theologians who accept evolution to suggest that, whenever fundamental theological questions like the nature of God, or the nature of man, are discussed, only an evolutionary view of the world enables them to be rightly approached. It’s worth remembering that for over 1000 years in Old Testemnt Israel, and for 2000 years in Christianity, they were dealt with quite adequately under the working assumption of special creation and fixity of species, usually in seven days. Those assumptions included the worldviews of Jesus, … Continue reading →

Posted in Science, Theology | 3 Comments

The dead end of evolutionary dead ends

Posted on 19/11/2015 by Jon Garvey

I had a brief conversation on BioLogos with someone who’d been a little troubled by the ancient arguments about “vestigial organs”, found in Darwin and echoed in textbooks for kids since as proof of evolution. I ended up suggesting that in very concept the idea is worthless and ought to be dropped. The trouble is that, like much of the popular presentation of evolution, it is actually not a good argument for evolution, but a polemic “case for evolution against creation”, and so is ideologically driven, even though it’s of no value to science and less to theological discourse on creation.

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 9 Comments

The principle of divine uniformity

Posted on 17/11/2015 by Jon Garvey

The end of John’s gospel contains what amount to a couple of prophecies by the risen Jesus. They come at the end of the famous passage where Jesus reinstates Peter, after his triple denial, through a rather painful triple reaffirmation of his love for the Lord. Forgiveness didn’t come completely cost-free to Peter.

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Design and difference – both scientifically elusive

Posted on 08/11/2015 by Jon Garvey

First molecular biologist: What’s the difference between a Creationist and a Crustacean? Second molecular biologist: I don’t know – what is the difference between a Creationist and a Crustacean?

Posted in Philosophy, Science | 8 Comments

Flat earth conspiracy

Posted on 05/11/2015 by Jon Garvey

I’ve spent the last five years or more, essentially full-time, researching matters centred on the Christian doctrine of creation. That’s actually as long as I spent getting a Cambridge degree to practise medicine, and just as intense, only without the vacations. The social life is rubbish, too. It’s a huge subject once you consider the ramifciations in science, theology, philosophy, sociology, ecology, etc, etc. Unlike a medical qualification, a blog doesn’t lead to a career, but I persist because the doctrine of creation is central to Christian faith, and according to the Bible (Gen3.1ff, Rom 1.18ff) is one of the main areas where error leads to perdition.

Posted in Creation, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | 2 Comments

The classical Hebrew God and the classical Scholastic God

Posted on 03/11/2015 by Jon Garvey

One of the minor ongoing spats in the origins debate is the objection of some analytical Neo-Aristotelians like Ed Feser to the idea that one can perceive divine design in nature, or anywhere else, come to that. My own reaction to this is here, and I’ve also referred to another dissenting Aquinas scholar, Logan Paul Gage, an essay by whom is here. There are, in other words, objections to such ideas within the writings of Aquinas himself.

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If the raqia is solid, why isn’t heaven wet?

Posted on 02/11/2015 by Jon Garvey

It’s foolishness, I know, but let me dwell a little more on the “solid raqia” idea that I deliberately and sensibly avoided in the last post . The issue is, essentially, that the wise and good say that the Hebrews definitely believed in a solid raqia (or firmament) over the sky, that they definitely taught it in Genesis 1 and that there definitely isn’t such a thing surrounding the earth. Therefore their science was wrong and one must either say that Scripture is just untrustworthy, or that it doesn’t matter because the true message is not scientific (though that often turns out to mean “vaguely mythical and equally wrong”).

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 3 Comments

Flood geography

Posted on 30/10/2015 by Jon Garvey

My discussion with Unitarian George at BioLogos led to too much to and fro about the old chestnut of the “solid raqia and flat earth” supposedly espoused in Genesis. My “side” (on which I’ve written before here and here, for example) is that Genesis is pretty indifferent to material or scientific descriptions of creation, but is primarily describing the cosmos as God’s temple, and that dictates its whole content.

Posted in Adam, Science, Theology | 6 Comments

Prothero, Eldredge, Gould – Eek!

Posted on 16/10/2015 by Jon Garvey

I continue to be intrigued by the ubiquity of evolutionary stasis as described by Donald Prothero, for example in this piece. It is the breadth and depth of his evidence that makes his case so striking, but the strapline would be: In four of the biggest climatic-vegetational events of the last 50 million years, the mammals and birds show no noticeable change in response to changing climates.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science | 8 Comments

Extraterrestrial theology

Posted on 12/10/2015 by Jon Garvey

Sy Garte’s comment on the last post, mentioning panspermia, and GD’s subsequent admission of a liking for science fiction, renewed an intention I formed a while ago to draw together thoughts on the relationship of possible extraterrestrial life to theology. Overall there seems to be a mainstream skeptical generalisation that the existence of ETs would be a threat to Christianity, which echoes a perception that Fundamentalists “don’t hold with Space” (as some Luddite told my father shortly before Sputnik 1 showed that Space didn’t hold with him).

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 8 Comments