Check out McGrew

Posted on 11/07/2014 by Jon Garvey

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. Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy, Science, Theology | 5 Comments

The impossible takes a little longer

Posted on 10/07/2014 by Jon Garvey

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. Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Theology | Leave a comment

A potted guide to potato peeling

Posted on 08/07/2014 by Jon Garvey

Hanan’s query on the last thread was trying to sort out what I meant by “guided evolution”. He, Eddie and I all made the same distinction between a universe created with “frontloading”, so that “natural laws” elegantly do all that God might wish in a hands-off way, and a “guided” process where God continues to be active in “nudging” evolution the way he wishes it to go. Continue reading →

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

Let’s go back

Posted on 07/07/2014 by Jon Garvey

The summer I went up to University I had a job decorating somebody’s house. Hearing I was a Christian and that I was going to Cambridge to study medicine, the owner tut-tutted and said it would be hard to keep my faith. I’m not sure if that was because religion has no answer to suffering, or because it has no answers period. One reason I didn’t lose my faith, though, apart from the stubborn desire to prove her wrong, was that I expected to run into all kinds of different belief-systems, promoted by people far cleverer than me, but I told myself that all other things being equal my beliefs were no less likely to be right than theirs. It actually worked, preventing me from being overawed by an idea’s sheer novelty – or its plausibility, in the sociological sense. Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | 14 Comments

The plausibility and credibility of materialism

Posted on 04/07/2014 by Jon Garvey

One of the perennial issues underlying the poll to which Edward Robinson draws attention in his post is the question of loss of faith. The most obvious reading of the trend towards support for evolution not guided by God, and away from guided evolution, is that believers see the evidence for evolution (in its original undirected, unpurposeful guise) and are persuaded that God could not have been involved.

For all its theological faults, this is one of the central concerns of BioLogos – kids brought up in Creationist churches get to college and, realising the truth, lose their faith. The fact that the poll suggests this is rare (Creationist numbers are stable) and that it’s apparently commoner for “guided evolutionists” to lose their faith is an issue they’d do well to address. But the problem itself is the problem of the plausibility of materialism. Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology | 2 Comments

Gallup, Jerry Coyne, and Karl Giberson: Is the Handwriting on the Wall for Theistic Evolution?

Posted on 02/07/2014 by Edward Robinson

It is not often that I agree with Jerry Coyne.  Nonetheless, his recent column on the results of a new Gallup poll about creation and evolution hits some nails on the head.

This Gallup poll that has been run every two years since 1982.  Here are the results, up to and including this year’s: Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Edward Robinson, Theology | 24 Comments

Five-finger exercise

Posted on 02/07/2014 by Jon Garvey

It’s music time again. Another old song finally brought to completion (though not as old as the last one I posted!) Continue reading →

Posted in Music, Science | 5 Comments

If all the world were paper…

Posted on 01/07/2014 by Jon Garvey

… and all the sea were ink…

Here’s a thought building on both the biblical worldview covered in the last couple of posts, and the analogy (if that is all it is) between the written word as both material and as message , and the creation, explored in the last post (thanks to Merv and C S Lewis). Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | Leave a comment

My old school as worldview

Posted on 30/06/2014 by Jon Garvey

Commenting on the last post, Merv has raised a truly excellent analogy – which is actually a direct comparison – to the diffence between our own way of seeing the world (whether Christian or secular) and that of the Bible and other ancient sources. Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 1 Comment

Worldviews without science

Posted on 29/06/2014 by Jon Garvey

Since we’ve been talking about worldviews, let me refresh a theme I’ve covered a little before, and that is how difficult it is for us moderns – whether Christians or not – to escape from our materialist worldview at its broadest. By this I don’t mean the idea that the material is all that exists (snare though that is), but the fact that, for all of us civilized folks, material explanations for things remain the default “reality.” Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology, Uncategorized | 4 Comments