Category Archives: Theology

Death before the Fall

Posted on 16/01/2020 by Jon Garvey

Three times in the last week, I’ve encountered YEC objections to old-earth thinking in general, and Genealogical Adam and Eve in particular, that stress the theological importance of the direct relationship between sin and death. One of these was in one of the few negative comments on Josh Swamidass’s YouTube interview (a good watch), one was from a scholar into whose correspondence I was copied, and one was from another Christian academic in a video on another topic.

Posted in Creation, Genealogical Adam, Science, Theology of nature | 2 Comments

On the importance of real history to the gospel

Posted on 15/01/2020 by Jon Garvey

One of the themes I deal with, fairly briefly, in The Generations of Heaven and Earth is how important it is that the Genealogical Adam hypothesis grounds the Bible in history – real history.

Posted in Genealogical Adam, History, Theology | 4 Comments

You can’t judge a book…

Posted on 13/01/2020 by Jon Garvey

…by looking at the cover But you can at least try. The publisher sent me the proposed cover design for my forthcoming book before the weekend, which delighted me as it matches exactly what I had in mind (so it’s entirely my fault if it’s rubbish!).

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Progress on Heaven and Earth

Posted on 23/12/2019 by Jon Garvey

Well, the indexes of The Generations of Heaven and Earth have now gone off to the publishers, which is my last literary input before the book comes out.

Posted in Creation, Genealogical Adam, Theology, Theology of nature | 2 Comments

Genealogical Adam and Eve

Posted on 13/12/2019 by Jon Garvey

Three days late (to miss the rush) I need to remind you that on 10th, Joshua Swamidass’s book The Genealogical Adam and Eve was published, and has already attracted a number of reviews including one at BioLogos (they got the title wrong initially, like Francisco Ayala did reviewing Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell there back in the day – read more carefully, chaps, if you want to appear sincerely interested).

Posted in Genealogical Adam, Science, Theology | 1 Comment

You can’t exclude human influence from science

Posted on 27/11/2019 by Jon Garvey

The title of this blog could refer to a number of things I’ve discussed here over the years. It could mean the fact that science is entirely a human activity, which could be summarised as asking the near-infinite realm of nature particular questions of human interest, to which it will return equally particular and incomplete answers. Or it could refer to the mysterious effects of mind on quantum events. But in fact in this post it’s about something else: providence.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology of nature | 5 Comments

Heads up on “The Generations of Heaven and Earth”

Posted on 18/11/2019 by Jon Garvey

I’ve just checked the proofs on my forthcoming (second) book, The Generations of Heaven and Earth: Adam, the Ancient World, and Biblical Theology, so when it is published by Cascade early next year you can blame all the residual mistakes on me.

Posted in Adam, Creation, Genealogical Adam, History, Science, Theology | 2 Comments

Religion ghosts in refrigerated truck

Posted on 09/11/2019 by Jon Garvey

I’m not sure how internationally this news was reported, but last month’s “illegal immigration tragedy” in Britain was the discovery of 39 bodies in a refrigerated truck recently arrived in Essex from Zeebrugge. It quickly emerged that, apart from the scale of the incident, it was unusual in that the victims, first identified as coming from China, were all actually from Vietnam.

Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology | Leave a comment

How the seal got his genes

Posted on 01/11/2019 by Jon Garvey

The atlantic grey seal is the commoner of Britain’s two seal species: we have 40% of the world population. Not only is it a wonderful animal, but something of a conservation success story, the population having escalated after protective legislation in 1914 from just 500 to 120,000.

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Daytrippers, demons or dolphins?

Posted on 25/10/2019 by Jon Garvey

Back in 2015 I confessed to an unhealthy obsession with UFOs in my early years. I regaled my friends with the exploits of George Adamski, and even persuaded my Latin teacher to have the class translate an allegedly mediaeval UFO report. Even now I still remember the Dewey Decimal code for the relevant section of our public library (629.1388).

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology of nature, Uncategorized | Leave a comment