Benjamin Warfield
B B Warfield was not just a Princeton Presbyterian theologian, but one of the leading theological scholars of his age. A sign of how superficially we consider matters now is that he was the person most responsible for the modern Evangelical doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy, and yet considered that Charles Darwin took too literal a view of the Bible. Go figure, as they say! Continue reading
Charles Kingsley
The usual pull-quote from the English Anglican clergyman Charles Kingsley is from his somewhat effusive reply to the pre-publication review copy of Origin of Species Darwin sent him:
…I have gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of Deity, to believe that he created primal forms capable of self development into all forms needful pro tempore and pro loco, as to believe that He required a fresh act of intervention to supply the lacunas which He Himself had made. I question whether the former be not the loftier thought. Continue reading
This is the first part of a 7,500 word essay on historic and modern theistic evolution, which I hope to upload over the next week.
It is seldom appreciated that the earliest Christian response to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, even preceding its publication, was theistic evolution. A number of important thinkers held, and developed, this view during the nineteenth century until it was eclipsed, for reasons not due to any weakness of the position(i), for most of the twentieth. Through the work of the science and religion community of (mainly non-evangelical) scholars(ii), and secondarily through the American Scientific Affiliation and BioLogos, it has experienced a resurgence, particularly amongst Christians in the biological sciences(iii).
It is my contention, though, that in that second, late twentieth century phase, the theological position of theistic evolution has sheared away from historic evangelical teaching in a number of important respects. This would be a serious issue in itself, but it also has a detrimental effect (in the case of BioLogos) on its ambition to forge a rapprochement between conservative believers and science. I will also argue that the theological novelties have created a degree of internal incoherence which affects TE’s credibility overall as an intellectual position. Continue reading
My apologies for continuing to pursue the prevalent theological view in Evolutionary Creation (aka Theistic Evolution) about a universe given freedom by God to create itself and so on, as I’ve done in recent posts and many others before. My main arguments have been, and remain, its incompatibility with the scriptural witness to creation, and the incoherence of the concept itself. But a further aspect occurs to me which may be worthy of some comment. Continue reading
In the last post I suggested that “laws of nature” are better understood as the properties of the natures of entities themselves, as in Aristotelian metaphysics. Seen in this light, the concept of “freedom” in nature makes little sense, since there are no “external” laws either maintaining order or restricting freedom. Rather, everything in nature is simply created to act according to its God-ordained nature. It would be no violation of the natural order by God either to create some new type of nature in the world directly, or to act on existing forms according to their existing natures. On the other hand neither would it be a problem for him to have created something with the ability to unfold in an evolutionary fashion.
It follows, however, that for anything in nature to be “autonomous”, in the sense of writing its own laws, creating or changing its own nature, would be the most unnatural thing imaginable. That’s the question that arises par excellence if we consider humans and their free will. Continue reading
Freedom, in both human free-will terms and in the rather nebulous “free nature” view of modern theistic evolution, has some kind of integral relationship with God’s law. God’s moral law, especially with regard to judgement, seems largely a no-go area in the science-faith field. But “God’s law” in terms of “the laws of nature” is often referenced regarding nature’s freedom, and it’s not immediately clear how they relate. I think the mental picture is of scientific laws providing a regulated environment in which nature can prosper, much as the laws of a civilised nation, written in parliamentary statutes or town hall resolutions, permit a society free to be productive and fruitful. Continue reading
The Christian theological tradition was built on the truth of the Bible, supplemented by such things as philosophy, reason, practical experience and so on – but crucially, the Bible. That’s easily shown by reading how the theologians used Scripture.
Now regarding human freedom, Scripture clearly assumed it, and specifically in the instance of accountability for sin, and therefore eternal reward and punishment. However, many Scriptures suggested very clearly that God was providentially in control of the world, and in many instances human decisions seemed to be specifically included within that. Continue reading
In the comments on a previous post I suggested that:
…this whole edifice of “freedom of nature” is, at root, intended to preserve the “freedom of human individuals“, understood in the post-Renaissance Promethean manner as “Libertarian Autonomy.”
The “edifice” concept is a key one, since as I’ve pointed out frequently, the current approach to theistic evolution depends upon the rather contingent preferences of quite a small “science-faith” community of academics like John Polkinghorne, Robert J Russell, John Haught, Howard van Till etc, which has guided the opinions of the “foot soldiers” of TE at BioLogos and so on. Their diversity has been reduced by the fact they are small and a community, so that certain quite unusual ideas have become central. One could, I suppose, draw an analogy with a very small breeding population on an island, which is quite likely to differ from the species as a whole, the species in this case being Christ’s worldwide Church. Continue reading
I’ve now finished Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos, and it certainly is a very important book. I don’t intend to review it, as scores of important thinkers have done so already, and recently. Ed Feser has gathered these reviews, and reviewed them, starting here. Continue reading
The news of the genome sequencing of the famous “living fossil” coelacanth raises interesting questions. This isn’t because of any relationship to the established Young Earth Creationist suggestion that it disproves evolution and the old earth, but because it does make for some apparent difficulties for the reigning paradigm of Neodarwinism (but what doesn’t nowadays?). Continue reading
