The Hump of the Camel

Theistic evolution is potentially a very satisfying position for Christians interested in science. It’s sad, then, that it’s so very rare to find TE writers who don’t wander off down all kinds of theological byways – hence my love-hate relationship with BioLogos, which seems particularly fond of hacking through the doctrinal undergrowth. One has to go back to B B Warfield to find an authoritative figure with a good understanding of science and a biblically sound theological position – and he died nearly a century ago, being largely ignored today. As shown in other posts, I was pleasantly surprised by Robert J Russell’s position on divine action and many other things, though the nods he gives to the whole science and faith enterprise tend to dilute the best of what he has to say.

Ted Davis, however has again turned up trumps by pointing on BioLogos to a letter by David L Wilcox, who is not only a TE, but a population geneticist – usually, it seems, the most naturalistic variety of TEs. The letter, in turn, links to this article. Continue reading →

Commenting on an Uncommon Descent thread about chance, I used the example of tossing 1000 heads in a row with a coin as being evidence, without any further information, of design. It was the old argument that strictly, even miracles are likely to be indistinguishable from chance except by their having a specific meaning and greater improbability. The division between miracle and chance, as I said there, is theologically somewhat of a false dichotomy, as is all talk of divine intervention. And that’s because classical theology attributes all actions in the Universe to God as first cause. You can’t intervene in what you’re already doing.

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A bit of light relief after all that heavy stuff on creation. You’ll be aware how scientists of a naturalistic bent often claim that their naturalism follows on from the findings of science, rather than being merely a metaphysical or philosophical  assumption grafted on to science. Many of them are deeply suspicious of both metaphysics and philosophy, almost as much as they are of theology. That may be for good reason, for if you read the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Causal Determinism you’ll see that there is growing doubt amongst philosophers as to whether fixed laws of nature exist at all, and that those who maintain there are are standardly termed “fundamentalists”! It’s ironic that those in BioLogos leaping out of the frying pan of Creationist fundamentalism end up in the fire of philosophical fundamentalism anyway!

But the question is whether the naturalists’ contention to be metaphysics-free and dependent only on empirical evidence stands up to scrutiny. Continue reading →

At long last I’m in a position to look at the content of most science-faith discussion, that is the material Universe, in the context of what we’ve seen from the Bible about its purpose. That means especially, in terms of (a) the glory of God, (b) his eternal purpose in glorifying Christ through sacrificial suffering and (c) the central role of mankind. We can even say a little about creation in relation to the angelic realm, if I remember. Continue reading →