By nature objects of wrath

Posted on 02/04/2020 by Jon Garvey

I’ve belatedly realised one plausible reason why Paul places homosexual acts at the head of his list of the sinful results of denying the true God in Romans 1:18ff. On the face of it, that particular activity doesn’t seem obviously to follow on from idolatry, nor to be uniquely evil.

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Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 2 Comments

A little science is a dangerous thing

Posted on 30/03/2020 by Jon Garvey

Using an electronic copy kindly sent my new Hump commenter MartinV, I’ve been looking at a recent book by John Schneider, The Darwinian Problem of Evil (it’s not released in UK until the end of the month).

I won’t do a review, but from the comprehensive Introduction I found it to be a summary of the kind of theodical problems and novel theological solutions against which I reacted at BioLogos several years ago. Although the new book postdates my own God’s Good Earth, I’d see mine as a response to his, rather than the reverse (and indeed, Schneider does not interact with my work).

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Posted in Creation, Science, Theology of nature | 2 Comments

The banks of sweet primroses

Posted on 28/03/2020 by Jon Garvey

Well, I guess that a large proportion of my readers around the world will be locked in against the Coronavirus pandemic, in one way or another. A friend in Sri Lanka is facing enforced curfews, and there are massive queues for food when they are lifted, which rather defeats the object.

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Posted in Creation, Theology of nature | Leave a comment

Lying for Jesus = lying to Jesus

Posted on 24/03/2020 by Jon Garvey

In my former life as a doctor, I was a GP, but ended up specialising in back pain, for a variety of contingent reasons.

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Posted in Medicine, Science, Theology | 2 Comments

Cancelling society to save lives

Posted on 18/03/2020 by Jon Garvey

A wise retired surgeon said on a radio phone-in yesterday that, just a few years ago, we wouldn’t even have known about COVID-19 until the pandemic was past its peak, and we would probably have concluded that it was just a particularly bad winter for elderly deaths from respiratory disease. Maybe ignorance is bliss.

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Posted in Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science, Uncategorized | 6 Comments

God’s River of Love

Posted on 16/03/2020 by Jon Garvey

Long ago God formed a River of Love. It flowed from the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ, and ran with the clear water of life, a water so powerful that when it washed against those who bathed in it, it turned their rebellion and enmity against heaven into a love that reflected God’s own, and poured out from them to share the good news of forgiveness and healing to other people. As for those who drank of that water, they were enabled to live forever in the very presence of God.

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Posted in Politics and sociology, Theology | 2 Comments

Hump retrospective 8: the origin of spiritual evil

Posted on 12/03/2020 by Jon Garvey

Satan before the Fall

Because it’s unfashionable to think about Satan in science-faith discussions (which goes along with the semi-deist viewpoint that reduces the whole of existence to “God” v “Nature”), the question of what the devil was doing before the Fall, in an old earth scenario, gets little attention.

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Posted in Hump Retrospective, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Hump retrospective 7: the natural evolution of mankind

Posted on 09/03/2020 by Jon Garvey

…with consciousness, spirit and eternal life

Sy Garte, in his excellent new book The Works of His Hands, mentions three intractable problems in science (because there seems no way they can arise through “materialistic natural causes”); and all three are origins questions.

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Posted in Creation, Philosophy, Science, Theology | 5 Comments

Faith, and faith

Posted on 05/03/2020 by Jon Garvey

This is taking time out from my “retrospective” series.

Does anybody else remember the old Science Fiction story about an anti-gravity machine?

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Posted in Hump Retrospective, Music, Politics and sociology, Prometheus, Theology | 3 Comments

Hump retrospective 6: worldwide flood

Posted on 02/03/2020 by Jon Garvey

In my “quest” to sort out origins questions, this “old chestnut” problem was really a question of filling in details, rather than finding entirely new solutions, because I was already aware of work by exegetes arguing that Scripture allows for a regional Flood.

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Posted in History, Hump Retrospective, Science, Theology | 1 Comment