Category Archives: Theology

The muzak of heaven

Posted on 10/11/2015 by Jon Garvey

The discussion board at BioLogos is much more “lively” than it was a while ago, which I suppose is a good thing. Sadly that largely means that in any thread one encounters a complete smörgåsbord of religious opinion from Deism at one end to any number of special revelations about the real meaning of Scripture, the world and everything at the other. If the project is to create a current of integration for science and faith, then the more likely result is a maelstrom that drowns many and goes nowhere.

Posted in Philosophy, Theology | 2 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.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology | Leave a comment

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

Fallen or flawed? Form and finality

Posted on 28/10/2015 by Jon Garvey

Had a spat over at BioLogos with a guy named George (who makes rejection of the Fall his strapline, it seems), who was replying to GJDS to say that the biblical creation story is flawed because of Hebrew lack of scientific knowledge, and in particular because there was no Fall, and humans were actually created flawed. He hasn’t replied to the question of just how he knows what happened so long ago, and the details aren’t important here. I just want to use the opportunity to look at what has been a pretty constant motif in “evolutionary theology” since Victorian times – that evolution is entirely incompatible with a fall … Continue reading →

Posted in Adam, Creation, Philosophy, Theology | 6 Comments

True myths

Posted on 24/10/2015 by Jon Garvey

Tomorrow (in case you forgot to organize a party) is the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt, when King Henry V and his small band of proletarian archers defeated the aristocracy of France, and the media has not failed to remember it. Significantly it’s had its English pronunciation, with a sounded final “t”, restored after decades of hearing it said the French way. That’s relevant to my post, which is about providing a clearer understanding of the word “myth.”

Posted in Creation, Politics and sociology, Theology | 49 Comments

Tangential thoughts on the will

Posted on 22/10/2015 by Jon Garvey

I find the concept of “free will” to be a very unfruitful one, as I have argued, for example, here. (I’m considering now not the philosophical issues relating to physical determinism, quantum randomness and what not, but the daily experience of choice and its theological consequences). The Bible doesn’t even mention free will, which ought to be significant. It assumes men makes choices, according to common experience, and holds them accountable for them even to the point of acceptance or rejection before God. But it deals with this in relation to character, not to freedom. Its concept of freedom on the other hand, beyond the commonplace and trivial, has to … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy, Theology | 6 Comments

“Literal meaning” is not “plain meaning”

Posted on 14/10/2015 by Jon Garvey

For those who take the authority of Scripture seriously, a commonly stated principle is that one should understand it according to its “plain sense.” For example, a 1970 statement by David L Cooper, founder of the US Biblical Research Society is much quoted: When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense.

Posted in Theology | 24 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