Category Archives: Theology

Humanity, evolution and concurrence.

Posted on 11/12/2015 by Jon Garvey

Nearly two years ago I wrote on the difficulties evolution presents to philosophical realism – the existence of universals like “human nature” – and what it would take for us as Christians to be able to hold the first without losing the latter. It’s a real philosophical problem, and involves who we are. Another recent conversation with Timothy Hicks relates to that issue.

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Dating the gospels

Posted on 09/12/2015 by Jon Garvey

No, I know that’s not a subject closely linked to creation teaching, science and so on, but it’s just for this once and it does kind of connect to my post on Jesus’s prophecy about Jerusalem. But an interesting post by Jonathan Bernier on the dating of the Letter to the Hebrews gives me an excuse. When John A T Robinson wrote his book suggesting a radically early date for all the New Testament writings, he was (as an outsider) astonished at the shaky case made by New Testament scholars for late dates. That remains much the same situation today.

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“God of the gaps” – an accusation from ignorance

Posted on 07/12/2015 by Jon Garvey

Every couple of days, it appears, the “God of the gaps” argument is mentioned in comments at BioLogos, usually with reference to its alleged use by Intelligent Design proponents, but often in an attempt to steer round it whilst still acknowledging a truly theistic understanding of creation and evolution. It seems to function in a kind of negative capacity, in the same manner as discussions of immigration or terrorism that begin, “Of course, I’m not a racist, but…”

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The Ascension, perception, and worldviews

Posted on 02/12/2015 by Jon Garvey

I commented on an instructive exchange at BioLogos a week or so ago. A guy calling himself WalkerColt asked: How does the Ascension fit into the accommodation view? Jesus seemed to hold to the three-tiered view of the cosmos (Jn 17:1). Did Jesus ascend ‘up’ to accommodate the view of the witnesses? How do we believe this to be an actual event in history if it is explained using this ancient cosmology? Moderator Brad Kramer replied: The trick here is reject the false dichotomy between the “everything in the Bible must have happened exactly as it was written or the whole thing is false” position and the “anything that sounds … Continue reading →

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Tentative thoughts on original sin

Posted on 30/11/2015 by Jon Garvey

The idea of a single couple as the progenitors of the whole human race, especially on the time-frame suggested by Genesis 3, is difficult to support from history, archaeology, genetics or palaeontology. It is not actually mandated by the Bible’s testimony either, being more an obvious assumption in the absence of perfectly accurate knowledge of the genre of the garden account. It is, however, quite possible to postulate an historical Adam who is not the sole and specially-created progenitor of mankind. That I’ve covered elsewhere, but one of the biggest remaining problems is how it can still be true that “sin came into the world through one man.”

Posted in Adam, Creation, Genealogical Adam, Science, Theology | 18 Comments

More on the unfallen creation

Posted on 28/11/2015 by Jon Garvey

Thanks to Timothy Hicks for prompting this “update” on the “myth of the fallen creation”, and in particular on the aspect that it is not taught in Scripture. In fact, the extent of the Fall “in the natural world” shrinks even as you watch it.

Posted in Adam, Creation, Theology | 11 Comments

Patristic plagues on popular positions

Posted on 26/11/2015 by Jon Garvey

One complaint people like myself and Eddie Robinson have about writers on theistic evolution is their selective use of the Church Fathers to show that they supported, or would have supported, evolution against Creationism or Intelligent Design. I want to show here that their views on the current scene would probably have been more like “a plague on all your ignorant houses”. How you build an orthodox theology of nature is then up to you!

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Selfishness in evolution: which self?

Posted on 24/11/2015 by Jon Garvey

A comment by Sy Garte on a recent post, and some recent reading, prompts this. He said: In fact, I am in quite the minority of environmentalists, since I do not necessarily view ALL extinctions as a bad thing by definition. For those who do, I tend to ask, “bad for whom?”

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Power

Posted on 21/11/2015 by Jon Garvey

Merv Bitkofer, responding to physicist Tim Reddish, kindly introduced my name into another BioLogos discussion in which the autonomy of creation came up. I responded along my usual lines about the illicit (and incoherent) fusing of ideas of genuine secondary causes with the language of freedom and coercion. I don’t want, or need, to repeat all that here as the piece Merv linked to there says enough. But I feel the need to say something more of the kind of theology underlying “freedom of creation” ideas, partly because it was strongly hinted at in Dr Reddish’s posts, and partly because, by the power of God fortuitously I received an academic … Continue reading →

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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