Category Archives: Theology

Letting the air out of Genesis 1

Posted on 18/01/2016 by Jon Garvey

Here’s the phenomenological treatment of the Genesis creation account I promised you, if you’re interested in the cosmology of the Bible. You’ll need to read my piece on “air” first to see where I’m coming from, but you might also want to take a look at a two-part scholarly article here and here  by Andrew Perry, of Durham University.

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On the resurrection…

Posted on 14/01/2016 by Jon Garvey

… and on a good number of other matters too, from Creation to Scriptural Inspiration…

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When creation is not good enough

Posted on 13/01/2016 by Jon Garvey

I found myself astonished by the sheer scale, and immediacy, of media outpouring over the death on Monday of David Bowie. I don’t know what it was like elsewhere in the world, but from the first “We heard half an hour ago…” on the non pop-culture BBC Radio 4, pretty well the whole radio output of the day seemed to be replaced by every available media person’s appreciations, however trivial. Here was the BBC news: “I’m sorry to have to cut short your thoughts on tomorrow’s national doctors’ strike, but you’ll appreciate that in the light of David Bowie’s death this specially extended programme…”

Posted in Music, Politics and sociology, Theology, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

The rate- (or purpose-) limiting step of Creation

Posted on 07/01/2016 by Jon Garvey

I was struck by a succinct observation by poster StephenB on an Uncommon Descent thread about theistic evolution: For guided evolution, the design precedes the process. For Darwinian evolution, the process precedes the design (appearance of).

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology | 7 Comments

Outsiders’ insights

Posted on 03/01/2016 by Jon Garvey

I’ve in the past waxed enthusiastic about the BBC radio programme In Our Time, in which presenter Melvyn Bragg asks a specially assembled panel of (genuine) experts intelligent questions about some chosen topic, which might range from the Battle of Marathon to Alice in Wonderland, or from Genghiz Khan to Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Just before Christmas they did a good one on Michael Faraday.

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

Climate change and Christian faith

Posted on 31/12/2015 by Jon Garvey

My wife’s cousin, an academic historian, was staying over Christmas. We were watching the news, of which the first half was about the severe storms causing extensive flooding in northern England and southern Scotland, and the the second half about unprecedented snowfall and tornadoes sweeping the United States. Cousin suddenly remarked, “I think God’s trying to tell us something.”

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Arminius and natural providence

Posted on 28/12/2015 by Jon Garvey

Back in 2012 I posted a piece about the views of the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius on creation. The start of my argument was that the still-prevalent semideistic “freedom of creation” teaching amongst theistic evolutionists is most logically taken as a projection of the Arminian teaching on human free-will.

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Eternal verities

Posted on 18/12/2015 by Jon Garvey

I want to present an important distinction that’s been made clearer to me during my reading of N T Wright’s magisterial series Christian Origins and the Question of God. And that is the importance of history to a truly biblical faith.

Posted in Adam, Creation, Theology | 13 Comments

Resurrection, continuity and forms

Posted on 16/12/2015 by Jon Garvey

One of the questions that exercised the rabbis in the discussion of the general resurrection of the dead, even before the Christian era, was the question of continuity. The school of Shammai, working from Ezekiel, believed that God must clothe the dead bones (hence the need for careful burial, and even careful execution of criminals). The school of Hillel, working from Job, believed God would work inwards, filling the skin with new life.

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An alternative choice for “We must have been able to choose differently…”

Posted on 15/12/2015 by Jon Garvey

This is picking up some themes from a post in October. I always remember a conversation I had with my friend Tim on “A” staircase of Pembroke College, Cambridge, back in 1971. We were discussing some current issue over coffee, and I screwed up one eye sagely and said, “Ah, things would be different…”, expecting him to fill in the gap mentally with “…if it weren’t for the Lefties,” or “…if my parents had loved me” or some other amusing platitude.

Posted in Philosophy, Theology | 2 Comments