Answered prayer and creation

This is not a new discussion so much as a closer focus on one that I’ve raised a couple of times before, in thinking about the issue of whether God would be “expected” to be active in the natural world, including the process of evolution. To certain kinds of theistic evolutionist, God is definitely not expected to act in nature apart from by sustaining laws he has established, perhaps even very fine tuned laws with emergent properties. This is because of the theology of autonomy, in which nature “ought” to be free to create itself. Of course, the more fine tuning you have, the less like autonomy it looks and the more like computation, but we’ll leave that consideration aside here. Such TEs weigh in with arguments from natural evil and so on to support their presupposition, so it’s not just a question of “wait and see what the science shows.” There’s a prior commitment there, which since it cannot be adjudicated by the science can only be appraised as theology and philosophy, whence it arose anyway. Continue reading

Posted in Creation, Theology | 4 Comments

Small earthquake in Chile, Not many dead

What’s the big deal about evolution anyway? Not scientifically, as an interesting little group of theories about the varieties of organisms, but as “the most important scientific development in the history of mankind”. The theory that makes the world a different place forever. What’s with all that heart searching about whether it does away with the need for God? That stuff about making it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist? Aren’t we forgetting something basic? Continue reading

Posted in Philosophy, Science, Theology | 2 Comments

Creation doctrine and natural law

Arguments from natural law form an important part of Catholic deliberation on issues like abortion, but play little role in Evangelical thinking (though they are implicit in the US constitution and were explicit in Martin Luther King’s politics). However, I suggest that natural law is an important implication of Christian creation doctrine, and another demonstration of the way that, as I have argued in various places on The Hump, creation is foundational for much of our correct understanding of the faith. Creation is not just about scientific origins. Continue reading

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Theology | 5 Comments

Mind, quanta and algorithms

Given the difficulty of quantum theory, the last post has generated an unusually high level of interest in a short time, both in comments and hits. I surmise that it’s fascinating because it’s fundamental, rather than that the OP was world-changing. I want to reflect on just a couple of thoughts arising from the generalities of the subject, rather than the valuable and serious discussion of our more erudite readers on that thread. My prompt is the article on “qbism” referenced by pngarrison in his post, which opens up again one of the ways that “mind” seems (like King Charles’s head in Mr Dick’s Memorial) to keep impinging itself on the very nature of the quantum world. Continue reading

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 8 Comments

Quantum concurrentism

For my next trick, ladies and gentlemen, I shall attempt the impossible: trying to say something coherent about quantum mechanics from the background of a “B” grade in A-level physics. My only encouragement is that proportionately few people in the world have any understanding of QM, and those who do disagree about its interpretation. I’m aware (with some hope of useful feedback and correction) that our subscriber Ian Thompson, a nuclear physicist who has a very similar approach to theistic science that I do and is a concurrentist and Neo-Aristotelian to boot, has actually written a book on quantum theory and philosophy of science – currently on my Amazon wish-list. Continue reading

Posted in Science, Theology | 30 Comments

Education as love

The separation of science and religion has recently been discussed on BioLogos in the context of Ted Davis’s mention of Langdon Gilkey, who advocated the complete separation of science and religion. Pretty soon in that discussion Gilkey’s particular approach was compared to Stephen Jay Gould’s NOMA (Non-Overlapping Magisteria), in which science has to do with “facts” and religion with “values”. Continue reading

Posted in Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | Leave a comment

Classic providential naturalism – towards a manifesto

When The Hump was relaunched with multiple authors around last October, after various events at BioLogos, I cobbled together a kind of working brief to the prospective writers whimsically entitled The Hump Strategy (or “Evolutionary Creationism in a cheap camelskin coat”). The reference to a certain infamous wedge should be obvious to those in the know. In the light of Sy Garte’s call to arms in a comment yesterday I fished this document out for inspiration (rather than reading through the whole of what is now approaching a million words on the blog). The summary with which I concluded was this: Continue reading

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 18 Comments

Theoretical preferences

Physicist Ian Thompson was kind enough to agree with the recent post in which I suggested that, if we are theists, we probably ought to expect a universe in which God interacts personally in natural, as well as in human, affairs. He pointed us to an excellent article of his own in which he argues the same. I want to explore that theme further through the work of Michael Denton. Continue reading

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 5 Comments

Understanding Evolution (HT Michael Polanyi)

How do you catch a lion with your bare hands?

Catch two and let one escape.

two_lions

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

The rational world

One of the things that triggers a writing attack for me is the fortuitous coincidence of separate ideas that seem to inform each other. On this occasion it’s reading Michael Polanyi on the true nature of scientific thought, and the recent discussion on here, BioLogos and everywhere about the Cosmos TV series. To that I must add the catalyst, an old video I chanced upon where philosopher and theologian R C Sproul mentions a correspondence he had with Carl Sagan towards the end of the latter’s life. Let’s start there. Continue reading

Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science | Leave a comment