What a historic Eden means for understanding “goodness” in creation

Posted on 22/05/2017 by Jon Garvey

In a recent post I argued for the case that Genesis 2 intends us to take the garden of Eden as a real place set in geography and history. I want to take that idea a bit further, and draw some conclusions on what we are intended to understand about the “very good” nature of the Creation before the Fall. Continue reading →

Posted in Adam, Creation, Genealogical Adam, Theology, Uncategorized | 6 Comments

A Promising Suggestion on BioLogos, But Will There Be Any Support for It?

Posted on 19/05/2017 by Edward Robinson

Regarding tone, and often regarding contents, one of the more reasonable commenters on BioLogos is Chris Falter. He tries to at least listen to those who disagree with the TE/EC party line, and (with one exception which I will refrain from mentioning here, as it concerns a science other than evolutionary biology), he tends to engage constructively with critics of his views. Continue reading →

Posted in Edward Robinson, Philosophy, Science, Theology | 4 Comments

Keeping on message

Posted on 18/05/2017 by Jon Garvey

There’s an election campaign on at the moment here, and it’s amusing how, whatever questions politicans are asked in an interview, they’ll make sure they get one of their chosen manifesto slogans or buzzwords into the answer. It’s laughably transparent, but presumably it works because we are all depressingly gullible. For light relief, my wife and I relaxed over a wildlife documentary last evening. Continue reading →

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Escaping the flannelgraph Bible world

Posted on 15/05/2017 by Jon Garvey

Over at “the other place” I’ve been in conversation with Richard Wright about divine action, and one of his points, all too common in the science-faith discussion, is that science has increasingly shown nature to operate through natural causes (and hence the accusations of invoking the “God of the Gaps” in any consideration of design). So divine action is to be sought (at least in Richard’s rather more positive view, compared to some others) in answered prayer, biblical miracles and so on, but not in nature. Continue reading →

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(Testable) hypotheses about a historical Eden

Posted on 11/05/2017 by Jon Garvey

Carrying on the theme of biblical archaeology, Kenneth Kitchen’s book On the Reliability of the Old Testament takes a general overview of the “proto-historic” first 11 chapters of Genesis, but there have been some interesting developments since he wrote it that are worth considering, with regard both to the Flood and to the Eden narrative. Continue reading →

Posted in Adam, Genealogical Adam, History, Science, Theology | 1 Comment

Creative power and oriental potentates

Posted on 08/05/2017 by Jon Garvey

This year’s BioLogos conference was addressed by N T Wright, and his talk was praised by Hump writer Sy Garte on his own website. A clip, basically showing that one might expect an evolutionary process if one sees Christ as the creative Logos of God, appeared later at BioLogos. You can see the four minute clip here.

Continue reading →

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Sodom and aetiological tales

Posted on 04/05/2017 by Jon Garvey

I like to keep tabs on Biblical archaeology from time to time, not only because I wanted to be an archaeologist till my Auntie Dorothy put me off by saying they spend all day down a hole, but because it’s fun to see 19th century mythology about the Bible writers slowly being eroded by a steady trickle of confirmatory evidence (by which you can tell that I’m not sympathetic to the archaeological “minimalists” of the last couple of decades). Continue reading →

Posted in History, Science, Theology | 4 Comments

Intelligent Design, “Cultural Baggage” and the Eye of the Beholder

Posted on 01/05/2017 by Edward Robinson

A frequent theme in BioLogos writing is that Intelligent Design (ID) theory has contaminated the notion of divine design in nature, so much so that some Christians have shied away from even using the word “design.” One can find this notion expressed in remarks of Jim Stump, who wrote a whole column on “reclaiming” the language of design from the alleged damage it had received at the hands of ID people, and in comments by people like Brad Kramer and Casper Hesp. Casper’s latest remark along this line (in a reply to a new poster, Allison) is:

“… the cultural baggage that is linked to the term “design” could be a reason to avoid the term.” Continue reading →

Posted in Edward Robinson, Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | 11 Comments

The two cultures

Posted on 30/04/2017 by Jon Garvey

As C P Snow observed in 1959, there indeed appear to be two cultures at work in our society, one striving for fresh insights into the world, and one bound in dogma and tradition. Let me tell you about two recent conversations that exemplify this sad state of affairs. Continue reading →

Posted in Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | 1 Comment

RNA editing – a squid pro quo?

Posted on 27/04/2017 by Jon Garvey

Empty-headed nautilus

Yet another “unexpected” piece of news on evolution was carried by the Washington Post, though here’s a link to the version in The Independent. As you will see, it concerns the remarkable degree to which cephalopod mollusks like octopi recode their RNA for a number of important functions, including (as the relevant study shows) their nervous system. It appears that their proverbial intelligence is not in the genes, but in their editing (the article contrasts them with the Nautilus, a cephalopod that doesn’t recode, and doesn’t therefore predict election results, escape down pipes and so on). Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Science | 8 Comments