A big day for The Hump

Posted on 02/11/2013 by Jon Garvey

As you can see, The Hump of the Camel has undergone a cosmetic makeover. But the changes are far more than visual, because today The Hump becomes a co-operative venture, with several authors and a specific focus. The camel has become a caravan.
To read about the purpose, see What we are, and to read about our writers see Who we are.  New members will soon be joining the team as other commitments allow. We’re all rather excited about it, and we hope you are too, and that you’ll want to join the discussion.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Models for a historic Adam – 3

Posted on 01/11/2013 by Jon Garvey

The second model for understanding Adam listed by David L Wilcox  is this:

Federal Head – Sin originated with Adam. He was not the only man living, but God appointed him as representative and put him to the test. When he sinned, sin passed on to all men everywhere (and when) by divine fiat. I.E., there was a sudden transformation of human life. Continue reading →

Posted in Adam, Creation, Genealogical Adam, Science, Theology | 2 Comments

Models for a historic Adam – 2

Posted on 31/10/2013 by Jon Garvey

Kicking off the series proper, here is the first suggested “model” for understanding Adam named by David L Wilcox.

Generic Head – Sin originated with Adam, and has been passed along to all his descendents (which is everybody) like a genetic inheritance. (? Does this mean Adam was the only ancestor for the race –or just a particular man who is in all our genealogies? – AKA, Y chromosome Adam).  Continue reading →

Posted in Adam, Creation, Genealogical Adam, Science, Theology | 10 Comments

Models for a historic Adam – 1

Posted on 30/10/2013 by Jon Garvey

As a preliminary to this series about the possible scenarios to explain the Genesis account, which I listed in my previous post, I want to remind us of the biblical data to be accommodated, and its significance to theology. It’s easy to follow a hunch to a theory without considering this adequately. Continue reading →

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

Introducing a new series for discussion

Posted on 29/10/2013 by Jon Garvey

I’ve expressed my appreciation before (here, here and here for example) of population geneticist David L Wilcox in his thoroughly orthodox integration of standard evolutionary theory with historic faith. Most recently I noted that James Stump at BioLogos flatly contradicted his statement that theistic evolution, by definition, meant guidance by God.

Well, now I’ve stumbled upon the notes he made for a talk for ASA this year called Updating our Genetic Prehistory which has given me some ideas for a useful new series on Adam. Continue reading →

Posted in Adam, Creation, Science, Theology | 15 Comments

Does chance exclude God’s guidance?

Posted on 27/10/2013 by Jon Garvey

“Chance” is in some ways a slippery concept – in nature there are many different flavours of chance, and one really ought to consider them case-by-case. Many involve the unusual intersection of quite predictable events – like the kid in my street when I was at school, who always ran across the main road behind the bus when he got home, and always got away with it because there were a lot more spaces than cars. Until one day he and a car occupied the same space, and he died. We all knew it would happen, but it was a chance event. Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 2 Comments

RIP Oliver Barclay

Posted on 26/10/2013 by Jon Garvey

I never met or knew Oliver Barclay, but his life had a great influence on mine as one of the spiritual giants – not too strong a term – who served the Evangelical movement in Britain after the Second War.

Barclay was a Cambridge trained zoologist, but was persuaded to became involved in the Inter Varsity Fellowship of Evangelical students in 1945. IVF was an example of a necessary and ultimately successful splinter movement. Evangelicals had started the Student Christian Movement in 1889 as a missonary organisation, but by the late nineteenth century, like so much of the Church, it had lurched into liberalism, and IVF was a secessionist group. Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 8 Comments

Broadening the conversation

Posted on 25/10/2013 by Jon Garvey

I’ve commented here on the decreasing number of those contributing to discussions at BioLogos – majoring, of course, on the unwillingness of most of their own people to get involved.

Well, now it seems the problem is to be solved by closing comments on most of their articles, following the controversial lead of Popular Science. People are to reply by e-mail, and the “best” will be put in a “Letters to the editor” section. Continue reading →

Posted in Politics and sociology | 13 Comments

Structuralism

Posted on 24/10/2013 by Jon Garvey

You know that feeling you have when something niggles away at the back of your mind and won’t go away? Well, for the last 45 years…

It’s not quite that bad. But I was reading a little while ago about Haeckel’s forged drawings of embryos, purportedly showing their recapitulation of evolution. And the writer mentioned the interesting phenomenon that vertebrates which differ markedly in life do indeed go through a stage in which they are, at least to some extent, fairly similar. However, it is found that they differ greatly in the earlier stages of development – a fact which is not only hard to square with Haeckel’s recapitulation theory, but with Darwinian processes themselves. Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 3 Comments

Bibliolatry

Posted on 22/10/2013 by Jon Garvey

This concept came to my attention today because BioLogos has printed a response to Ken Ham’s response to a testimony piece by a chap called Daniel Hamlin. Daniel used the word to describe the Scylla and Charybdis of “bibliolatry” and atheist dismissal of all biblical truth between which he was trying to steer. I don’t want to comment either on his article, or on whether I agree that his theological ship is on course, but on that word itself.

“Bibliolatry”. You can find definitions for it, of course, but it is significant that it is not a synonym for any historically accepted theological term, or even for a standard English word. It is, in fact, a buzz-word, and regular readers will know that my antennae always go up when buzzwords like “puppet-master” or “robots” are used to drive theological debate. Or even words like “kenotic“, “logos” or “incarnational“. Give me an emotionally-loaded buzz-word and I’ll show you a theological confidence trick. Continue reading →

Posted in Theology | 2 Comments