Category Archives: Theology

Thinking through theistic evolution

I only recently encountered a large-scale 2009 survey of UK views on evolution and creation, called Rescuing Darwin (a strangely unconfident title for his Bicentennial Year). I won’t review it fully because the detailed analysis produces a confusing and not particularly clear picture, like the US survey recently discussed by Debbie Haarsma on BioLogos. For those interested, I will just quote the headline figures, as they are rather surprising for what is a far more deeply secularised society than the US.

Posted in Creation, Theology | 4 Comments

Creation and Magic

The discussion on God’s “magical” activity on a previous thread managed to jettison the theme of the thread, and the overall theme of the blog too, that is the doctrine of creation. But it’s actually worth devoting a post to the subject of magic, because in many ways it is a magical understanding of the cosmos that the biblical creation doctrine subverted.

Posted in Creation, History, Philosophy, Science, Theology | 31 Comments

Complex systems and top-down causation

Lest you think that my last post  was merely whimsical (which seems a popular word here recently) have a look at the following YouTube talk by George F Ellis (quoted in that post), whose speciality as a physicist is complex systems.

Posted in Philosophy, Science, Theology | 24 Comments

The myth behind the myth

In the last post I referenced C S Lewis’s essay on the modern Myth of “Evolutionism” (as distinct from the scientific theory of evolution, just to remind you…), of which one major, and undoubtedly correct, point is that the ideological motivation to believe in evolution as an overarching principle precedes Darwin’s biological theory by several decades. But Lewis doesn’t attempt to explain fully why it should have developed in the first place. Here’s my attempt to do so.

Posted in Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Prometheus, Science, Theology | 2 Comments

Frontloading, maths and logic

After our worthwhile diversion into the christology of creation for three posts, I want to drop back briefly to the previous discussion on frontloading, natural v supernatural action in nature and so on. A post on Uncommon Descent about scorpion burrows prompted  one of my infrequent comments there.

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 23 Comments

Creation as Mission

One aspect of the close connection between creation and salvation that I didn’t mention in the previous two posts on the subject is that of Missio Dei, the mission of God, which encompasses the outgoing motivation he had both to create all things from nothing, and to restore them in the aftermath of the Fall.

Posted in Creation, Theology | 15 Comments

Athanasius on the nature of man

Let me expand a little on the quote I gave in the last piece from Athanasius, because it seems to give some pointers, derived from Scripture, on the essential nature of Christian creation teaching. Here’s the quote: …for, as I said before, though they were by nature subject to corruption, the grace of their union with the Word made them capable of escaping from the natural law, provided that they retained the beauty of innocence with which they were created. That is to say, the presence of the Word with them shielded them even from natural corruption, as also Wisdom says: “God created man for incorruption and as an image … Continue reading

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The relationship of creation to salvation

It’s often said that the doctrine of creation is of relatively minor importance compared to the gospel of salvation. What we believe about creation doesn’t make any difference to eternal life. But this view is because creation doctrine is not properly understood. In fact the two things are inextricably entwined – it is not for nothing that the Bible, the story of salvation, begins and ends with creation.

Posted in Adam, Creation, Theology | 6 Comments

Check out McGrew

Lydia McGrew has done an excellent piece, Special agent intention as an explanation, which though not addressed to the same specific subjects, relates to the discussions we’ve had here over the last few posts, on frontloading, natural causes, etc. It’s in the comments that much of what is relevant to our concerns crops up, so I recommend reading those, and the article itself.

Posted in Philosophy, Science, Theology | 5 Comments

The impossible takes a little longer

Hanan (what useful links he gives!) drew our attention in a comment on my previous post to a recent quotation from John Polkinghorne on the compatibility of naturally-occurring processes with God’s will. Eddie and I both agreed that this is unexceptionable as it stands, but that it requires some contextualisation if it is to be fully endorsed.

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