The Hump of the Camel

A long and rancorous thread has, I hope, begun to peter out at BioLogos. I referred to it in an earlier post, written when it was merely controversial. The bitterness masks the fact that, hidden deep, some propositions were actually given some kind of answer, though in typical BioLogos fashion (sad to say) it’s taken 140+ posts, none by staff members, to slug out what could have been answered amicably in about seven. Let me try and summarise what I think is the actual reasoning, gleaned from a number of people’s possibly varying positions. Continue reading →

The question of God’s oversight of evolution has come up yet again on BioLogos, as it must so long as it’s denied there. Bren, in defending evolution as a substantially undirected process, raises again the analogy of evolution being like a child given freedom to make mistakes by its parents.

It’s a superficially plausible idea, and was used on me by Darrel Falk a couple of years ago, so maybe its origin is in one of those popular theistic evolution books in which theology is done by buzzword. But since it is being used to overthrow the fundamental monotheistic doctrine of universal providence, it had better have some pretty good bona fides. Instead, like the rebellious Sheba son of Bicri (2 Sam. 20), it’s actually a “worthless fellow”, so I’m not here to trace its lineage but to be its executioner – for which I have a little qualification, having studied developmental psychology at Cambridge. I therefore have few qualms about inflicting on it cruel and unusual punishments. Continue reading →