The Hump of the Camel

Following on from the previous post, let me give an example of how the rubber might hit the road according to the two different doctrines of God, ie classical theism and theistic personalism. My example lies in the significant, and contentious, area of providence with reference to human free-will. Continue reading →

I’m grateful to Ed Feser for focusing my attention on possibly the biggest division in contemporary approaches to theology, including the theology of science and nature. That is the term theistic personalism, or sometimes neotheism. It is theistic personalism that explains the ascendancy of my bête noir, Open Theism, but also of many other modern Christian attitudes. Continue reading →

Here’s another consideration from my very cursory reading of Thomas Aquinas on providence. Continue reading →

I was prompted, by writing about the Pharisees in my last post, to look again at the historical source for their views. Surprisingly, our only contemporary source for information on the Pharisees, ouside the New Testament, is the historian Josephus. The same is true of the Sadducees. There are mentions in the Talmud, but these are much later. The third main “philosophy” or sect in first century Judea was the Essenes, which the NT doesn’t mention at all but Josephus, Philo and (briefly) Pliny does. Imagine that all we knew about the Labour, Liberal and Conservative parties (or the Republicans and Democrats) came from a total of about a page in four or five fortuitously preserved sources. That shows the danger of dismissing Biblical people and events as fiction because of lack of confirmatory documentation. Continue reading →

When I was preparing my previous post it wasn’t actually the parallel of Aquinas’ teaching on God with Calvin that struck me most, though that suited the point of the post better. It was how much what I was reading cast light on the Scriptural presentation of God (or vice versa), just as it did when I first read Calvin. Both are an attempt to put consistent philosophical flesh on what is assumed by the Bible writers, however paradoxical it sometimes appears. Continue reading →

I came across an essay by a theistic evolutionist on the history of the understanding of nature. Dealing with Thomas Aquinas he said:

Moreover, nature’s autonomy allows for the accidental and random. “It would be contrary to the nature of providence and to the perfection of the world if nothing happened by chance,” he wrote (cited in Haught 41). Randomness, then, is an essential feature of God’s creation.

The use of citation rather than primary source is a bad sign. The autonomy mentioned referred to what we now call natural laws, God-given, rather than “freedom”, so that’s clear enough. But the bit on “chance” reminded me of all the articles on randomness on BioLogos, in which it’s never made quite clear whether it’s random to God as well as us. I’ve written here, and on BioLogos itself, about the apparent incoherence of TE statements that God uses laws and chance, under providence, through his sustaining power, to do his will. As regular readers will know, I’ve been frustrated because no one ever says whether God directs this chance, or simply makes do with whatever it happens to produce. The only reply I’ve ever really had is “It’s a mystery.” Continue reading →

Here’s another set of contrasts. In my last post I looked at the mindless inefficiency of neutral-theory evolution and junk DNA in juxtaposition with the wonder of one particular group of organisms, the raptors. But one might also contrast them with the intelligent and rational actions of the human beings who have discovered, and applied, these “undeniable truths”. Continue reading →

I had the privilege yesterday of getting up close and personal with various raptors at the Hawk Conservancy Trust in Hampshire. I got to meet various species of owls, a young secretary bird and some vultures, and actually to fly one of the African vultures and some Harris’ Hawks. These are in deed very special creatures. Continue reading →