Freedom and autonomy #4

Posted on 10/06/2013 by Jon Garvey

I showed in #2 that the Bible’s approach to free-will is based on the commonsense reality of our daily experience, with its positive teaching aimed at showing how that experience should be modified by God’s revelation. Any resulting paradox it leaves unresolved, calling only for humility before God’s truth (eg Romans 9.19-21). Any resolution of such issues requires theologising which is, at least in part, philosophical. Indeed, the need to resolve them usually arises from philosophical speculation. Continue reading →

Posted in Adam, Creation, Prometheus, Theology | 2 Comments

Freedom and autonomy #3

Posted on 09/06/2013 by Jon Garvey

Freedom is a buzzword with an enormous emotional resonance. Beware reading this stuff, those of you who live in democracies, especially in those that honour emblematic bells or statues named “Liberty.”

Freedom in its modern context is almost synonymous with libertarian autonomy, the ability to do things completely independently of all other agents, including God. And that may be fair enough in politics, psychology and so on. But in theology we ought to start with revelation, and it’s rather important to ask if the Bible’s understanding of “freedom” is the same as ours, particularly if “freedom” is to be the mainstay of our system, as it is in the kind of theology outlined in the first post of this series. Continue reading →

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Freedom and Autonomy #2

Posted on 08/06/2013 by Jon Garvey

The first post in this series has already generated some good comment, which shows how live the issue of “freedom” is for many of us. I’ve decided on a slight change to plan – I feel the argument will be clearer if I deal with the biblical position first, and then proceed to how people have understood it historically. But keep in mind the thesis I’m presenting is not “free-will v predestination”, but that:

(a) Theologies based on the centrality of human and natural freedom and God’s “letting go love” are novel.
(b) The explanation for them is found in the enthronement of autonomy as a primary “good” over several recent centuries.
(c) This autonomy is not a biblical concept, and must therefore be suspect. Continue reading →

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Freedom and autonomy #1

Posted on 07/06/2013 by Jon Garvey

Another big task, which really needs someone to put into a book, so I think it will spread into multiple posts. Sorry. The task is to lay the case out for overturning a concept that came into the Church’s thinking maybe 600 years ago, and has gradually gathered ground until, in the last few decades, it has been systematically and exponentially destroying the prophetic and apostolic doctrine of many branches of Christianity, like some Trojan Horse computer virus. I mean it.

This time it’s not the doctrine of a fallen creation – though it helps explain that – but something more fundamental: the belief in human autonomy. I will try to show how inimical it is to the whole revelation of God both in Scripture and in the incarnate Christ. After that, it’s up to you to see if it applies to you or your theological neighbourhood, and whether you care. The idea is now so ingrained that for many it is far more important than what Scripture, or Christ, might teach. It is, indeed, heresy to suggest they don’t teach it. So I don’t expect to turn the tide – maybe just get one or two more people swimming against it. Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Theology | 13 Comments

Wallace and [Gromit’s] Spirit’s World of Invention

Posted on 06/06/2013 by Jon Garvey

It would be mean-spirited of me not to cash in on the centenary of Alfred Russell Wallace’s death, and the opportunity was given by the BioLogos token-atheist Lou Jost the other day on this thread. He was putting down Roger Sawtelle with a post of the standard “You just don’t understand the theory of evolution” genre: Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 2 Comments

Confusion worse confounded

Posted on 05/06/2013 by Jon Garvey

Milton: Paradise Lost, ii. line 996 (though I confess I got it from Martin Magnus on Mars by William F Temple, 1956).

The incoherence of the “creation free to create itself” theology of much modern theistic evolution, and especially “the angel of the church at BioLogos“, has been a major theme here on the Hump. So much so that it’s hard to think of the most informative link, but this one is relevant. Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 3 Comments

The hermeneutic of suspicion and the paranoid society

Posted on 03/06/2013 by Jon Garvey

A very good article here. It is primarily about the ascendency of the hermeneutic of suspicion in contemporary (meaning mainly post-modern and feminist) theology, but usefully beds that into the state of society itself. US theology and society are in its sights, and rightly so, but the rest of the world is far from immune: Dan Brown is popular over here, too, as are more academic manifestations of the idea that knowledge is a function of power, not of truth. We’re slightly less obsessed with conspiracy theories as yet, though. Slightly. Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | 57 Comments

Fecundity in Genesis 1 – Amazing

Posted on 01/06/2013 by Jon Garvey

The creation accounts of Genesis are the introduction to the five foundation works which make up Israel’s covenant document, the Torah. The centrepiece of that is the covenant on Mount Sinai in Exodus, in which God gives the nation he’s called and rescued the promise of (a) a numerous people (b) a land and (c) blessings from his presence (in return for covenant obedience summarised in the Decalogue and under threat of punishment for disobedience in various places, especially Leviticus). The climax of Exodus is the descent of God to the tabernacle to dwell with his people. One key (and unique) feature is that Israel is called to demonstrate Yahweh’s glory to all the nations. Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 71 Comments

Patristic views of Romans 8

Posted on 29/05/2013 by Jon Garvey

The work I’ve done on the changed position of the Christian Church regarding the supposed damage inflicted by the Fall on nature was prompted by revisiting the usually cited biblical supports for a “fallen creation.” See here and the several posts following. I concluded that there is a very poor scriptural case for it. Amongst them was the passage in Romans 8.18-27. Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Science, Theology | 14 Comments

Soapy Sam

Posted on 28/05/2013 by Jon Garvey

One of the celebrated incidents of the science v religion myth is the debate of Thomas Huxley with Samuel Wilberforce at Oxford in 1860. It’s presented as the clash of enlightened science with biblical obsurantism. There was no contemporary record of the debate, though, and even the famous quip of Huxley about preferring to be descended from an ape than a bishop is likely to be, at best, exaggerated. But we do have access to Wilberforce’s review of Origin of Species in the Quarterly Review, which is quite an illuminating counterbalance to the myth. It shows, once more, how much one can learn by not taking received wisdom as fact. Continue reading →

Posted in Creation, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | 41 Comments