Category Archives: Theology of nature

We must do something

Posted on 28/05/2022 by Jon Garvey

An unusually prolonged exchange on a thread at Daily Sceptic, on the claims that we are in the midst of a mass extinction, put me in mind of the sudden decline in greenfinch numbers in the UK over the last few years.

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Hard cheese for ptarmigan

Posted on 01/02/2022 by Jon Garvey

What hope for the ptarmigan’s future? I doubt most of you have ever asked that question. But as I belatedly watched Winterwatch yesterday, the ever-pessimistic Chris Packham bemoaned their decline in numbers and warned of their imminent extinction, of course due to climate change.

Posted in Politics and sociology, Science, Theology of nature | 3 Comments

Old views on biology tested empirically

Posted on 01/12/2021 by Jon Garvey

With biology nowadays so focused on evolutionary theory (“nothing makes sense” etc – Dobzhansky) it’s easy to forget that the predictions of older theories about the living world can still be tested against the wealth of modern data. Sometimes, they do surprisingly well: sometimes they don’t.

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology of nature | 1 Comment

Revisiting evolution (on the same old season ticket)

Posted on 28/11/2021 by Jon Garvey

I’ve been re-reading Phillip E Johnnson’s Darwin on Trial, partly for nostalgia’s sake, since I met the guy once, and partly to re-examine some of the arguments, having been largely detached from the evolution discussion for a year or so in favour of examining dubious hegemonic scientific consensuses in other fields.

Posted in Philosophy, Science, Theology, Theology of nature | 1 Comment

Repenting for civilisation?

Posted on 01/11/2021 by Jon Garvey

I believe in original sin. But that means not that everything humans do is evil, but that everything we do is tainted by evil. My book God’s Good Earth argues that original sin has not corrupted the natural creation, which remains firmly under God’s good government. And likewise, mankind cannot corrupt that creation, which in part at least was made for humanity, by living in it and using it. I think that may have been forgotten.

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The phenomenological cosmos of childhood

Posted on 09/08/2021 by Jon Garvey

In The Generations of Heaven and Earth I make a case for the Genesis 1 creation story being in essence a phenomenological, rather than an ancient “scientific,” account of the world, though that is complicated by the author’s concept of this creation as a temple reflecting the form of the wilderness tabernacle and/or the Jerusalem temple.

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology of nature | 4 Comments

Scurvy knaves as the products of worldviews

Posted on 02/08/2021 by Jon Garvey

In my last post I finished off by speculating whether the ambitions of technocrats like Klaus Schwab for a new world order, dangerously near to fulfilment because of the apathy of the majority, might in part be based on the materialist worldview which regards free-will as an illusion.

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Evolutionary theology

Posted on 02/05/2021 by Jon Garvey

An essay of mine has just been published at Sapientia as part of a symposium in response to John Schneider’s Animal Suffering and the Darwinian Problem of Evil, overseen by Kevin Vanhoozer.

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Good Creation revisited

Posted on 21/02/2021 by Jon Garvey

A couple of new reviews have appeared on my book Good’s Good Earth, in Studies in Christian Ethics and Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, the latter of which rolls it together with a review of Generations of Heaven and Earth. You can find them by linking to the respective book tabs on the menu above, and clicking on the “Endorsements and Reviews” links.

Posted in Adam, Creation, Genealogical Adam, Science, Theology, Theology of nature | 7 Comments

Suffering and anguish

Posted on 30/10/2020 by Jon Garvey

David Snoke’s presentation at last week’s Christian Scientific Society webinar added a useful thought to my treatment of animal suffering in God’s Good Earth. This question plays a large part in the kind of theodicy tangles that Evolutionary theologies tend to get into, deep time being held to build up an immense “debt” of suffering for God to requite, and evolution itself (apparently) being grounded on senseless and wasteful suffering.

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