By Mark H. Mann | February 6, 2012
Of course, for us to know how to use science correctly we must first have a clear understanding of what we mean when we speak of science. This is doubly important because, as I see it, there is a deep sense of confusion about the true nature of science—among both Christians and non-Christians alike.
Comments (18)| February 5, 2012
We tend to think of creativity in terms of flashes of insight and brilliance, of novelty, and especially of unexpected things bursting upon the scene. But creativity is no less creative and no less remarkable when it proceeds step by step, according to discipline, according to rule. We notice significant ruptures in the flow of things and upheavals of the regularity and predictability of life, faith, or science, precisely because such revolutions happen against a background of the ordinary.
Comments (1)| February 4, 2012
Physical death is a necessary and, perhaps, disconcerting element of the evolutionary process for many Christians. It is difficult to imagine a perfect and loving God designing such a universe where forces such as natural death and entropy operated. Michael Gungor of Bloom Church in Colorado addresses this idea and offers wisdom on such a complex issue.
Comments (0)By Dennis Venema | February 3, 2012
For a tiny fraction of processed pseudogenes, however, this may not be the end of the story. As we saw previously for transposon insertions, in rare cases the arrival of new DNA sequence at a chromosomal location might alter a cellular function and then be selected for on that basis.
Comments (52)By Andy Crouch | February 2, 2012
I am married to a scientist — to be specific, an experimental physicist (which I’d like to think is the very best kind). For more than 15 years now I’ve accompanied Catherine through a life in physics, a kind of Pilgrim’s Progress. So here is what I wish our pastors — and fellow Christians — knew about the life of a working scientist.
Comments (4)| February 1, 2012
In today's video, Rev. Dr. Michael Lloyd talks about how being created in the Image of God transcends survival of the fittest and how what we believe (or don't believe) as Christians speaks volumes about our worldview and it's ability to be expanded.
Comments (24)By David Opderbeck | January 31, 2012
Anyone interested in the faith and science conversation knows that there currently is considerable, heated debate over the problem of “Adam.” Genetic studies conclude that the modern human population could not have arisen from only one primal couple.
Comments (121)By Rick Kennedy | January 30, 2012
We did not make it to the top of Mount Darwin. No story of triumph here, intellectual or physical. The story is one of companionship and recognition of academic strengths and weaknesses. Christianity’s intellectual foundation—the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection—is weak at universities. It is weak in the way ancient human history is a weak academic discipline.
Comments (41)By Mark Sprinkle | January 29, 2012
But in practice, few scientists expect that sort of grand-scale closure. For even if this kind of surety is possible in principle, it is only possible in principle. That is, the power of theories, of formulas, and of scientific images and analogies, is that they help us make sense of the specifics we have already seen while suggesting where next we should look.
Comments (0)| January 28, 2012
The song entitled “The Fall” by Gungor is from the artists’ latest album Ghosts Upon the Earth. The lyrics begin by painting a picture of the Fall as something in which each person has participated as indicated by the assertion that “the fruit (of the Fall of man) is seen in every eye and every hand.” It then goes on to suggest that nothing is yet a true reality, but rather, a mere shadow of the things to come.
Comments (0)By Rick Kennedy | January 27, 2012
“Daunting,” commented Dave as the four of us stood at the shore of Blue Heaven Lake (elevation 11, 821΄) looking up to the top of Mount Darwin. He scrambled around the lake and checked out the area, but it was clear we were not going further. We should have been at the lake an hour earlier to make a real attempt at the peak. This was as high as we were going.
Comments (30)| January 26, 2012
Recently, we became aware of an email conversation between two young persons: one a young physicist and a deeply committed Christian named Aron and the other a person named Josh who identified himself as a skeptic. The exchange is so rich that we’ve asked for permission to post it here.
Comments (1)| January 25, 2012
In today’s video, Michael Ramsden discusses the importance and meaning of mystery in the Bible. The mystery in the Bible does not come from ignorance, as the word is often used in modern times, but rather it is mystery born out of insight and wonder, one that is informed by understanding the world around us.
Comments (2)By Mark H. Mann | January 24, 2012
The question that lies before us, finally, is how we might read the Book of Scripture and the Book of Creation in concert. I am going to start by exploring how I think we ought to read Scripture. In my next essay, I will look at how we might use science as a tool for reading the Book of Creation.
Comments (8)By Rick Kennedy | January 23, 2012
Locke, using mathematical analogies, asserted that information, at every stage of being passed on, becomes proportionally less credible. Locke extended this formula to both oral and written testimony. As for deeds and copies of deeds, “the farther still it is from the original, the less valid it is, and has always less force.”
Comments (4)By Jeff R. Warren | January 22, 2012
Returning to our exploration of the confluence of music, science, and Christianity, I’ll reiterate that the way music is practiced in different cultures may be different, but every culture we know of has music; or, as Cambridge scholar Ian Cross puts it, “humans are one single, recently emerged species, biologically fairly uniform though culturally diverse.”
Comments (0)| January 20, 2012
Recently, we became aware of an email conversation between two young persons: one a young physicist and a deeply committed Christian named Aron and the other a person named Josh who identified himself as a skeptic. The exchange is so rich that we’ve asked for permission to post it here.
Comments (5)By Kelsey Luoma | January 19, 2012
In our last BioLogos podcast, we looked at the question of transitional fossils, and how the transitional species story strongly supports, and certainly does not disprove, evolutionary theory. In our latest, we move on to look at the genetic evidence for evolution. The discovery of DNA has revolutionized our understanding of common descent, particularly in the past few decades.
Comments (49)By Dennis Venema | January 19, 2012
As we saw in the last post, only a small fraction of the human genome appears to be subject to selection (on the order of 5-6%). The rest appears free to mutate freely without consequence to mammalian biology, and as such constitutes good evidence that it performs no particular function.
Comments (28)| January 18, 2012
In today's video, Brian McLaren,discusses the value of considering Scripture in light of the cultures that surrounded them. The Biblical writers were aware of the myths of the power nations that surrounded them, but flipped their stories on their heads to reveal truth about God.
Comments (0)By Rick Kennedy | January 17, 2012
The life of Jesus is noisy. A cacophony of information reaches through two thousand years to communicate with us. In the Bible alone we have four organized biographical sketches, Luke’s history of the first decades after Jesus, and a bunch of letters. Intersecting Jesus and the New Testament is an amazing amount of Roman literature dealing with Syria and Palestine, which were important and unruly parts of the empire.
Comments (12)By Jeff R. Warren | January 15, 2012
I’ve purposely looked at these last two instances of research into the neuroscience of music because they have gained wide attention and become popularized, pointing to how this area of study is subject to both ‘trickle down’ and ‘seep up’ effects. Supposed insights from research by specialists and philosophers often find their way into popular practice, becoming part of the general knowledge of the public.
Comments (11)By Denis Alexander | January 14, 2012
About a year ago I posted the first article in this series, asking whether recent advances in genomics made any difference to the Judeo-Christian notion of humanity being made in the 'image of God'. That article focused on DNA sequencing data from our closest relatives. This article will focus on the issue of genetic determinism.
Comments (4)| January 13, 2012
Recently, we became aware of an email conversation between two young persons: one a young physicist and a deeply committed Christian named Aron and the other a person named Josh who identified himself as a skeptic. The exchange is so rich that we’ve asked for permission to post it here.
Comments (9)| January 11, 2012
In today's video, Rev. Lincoln Harvey discusses our desire to "domesticate" the liveliness and abundance of God. Harvey notes that the Trinity highlights both the manyness and oneness of God, which can be hard to Christians to fully understand. While this lack of understanding can be unsettling, Harvey encourages Christians not too force God into too neat of a box.
Comments (25)By Ian Hutchinson | January 10, 2012
After its demise in reaction to the Nazi horrors, the rebirth of new forms of Social Darwinism was not long delayed. Sociobiology is the extension of population biology and evolutionary theory to social organization. Though coined in 1945, the term sociobiology exploded into public consciousness through the Pulitzer prize-winning writings of Edward O Wilson in his Sociobiology: the Modern Synthesis (1975), and On Human Nature (1978).
Comments (149)By Rick Kennedy | January 9, 2012
Modern academic tradition tends to try and maintain order. For historians it behooves us professionally to avoid accounts of alleged spiritual events. We find comfort in a little logical gymnastics that keeps history safe for us to wander in, a deceptively formulaic avoidance method that helps us avoid what people are telling us about extraordinary events in the past.
Comments (34)By Jeff R. Warren | January 8, 2012
Humanity is marked by the biological capacity for musicality. Every known culture has something like music. Understanding how we experience and create music in the present gives us clues to why and how music emerged as one of the defining features of human culture (and, therefore, of humanness itself) in the past. But thinking carefully about music and evolution can also help us reassess how we use music now: in the wider culture, collectively as the church, and even within our own homes.
Comments (11)By Rick Kennedy | January 6, 2012
Summiting is, to use the cliche, a mountain-top experience. Darwin assumed that “everyone must know the feeling of triumph and pride which a grand view from a height communicates to the mind.” Summits encourage mountaineers to wax metaphysical. Henry Thoreau wrote about climbing Mount Katahdin in Maine.
Comments (2)| January 5, 2012
Recently, we became aware of an email conversation between two young persons: one a young physicist and a deeply committed Christian named Aron and the other a person named Josh who identified himself as a skeptic. The exchange is so rich that we’ve asked for permission to post it here.
Comments (32)| January 4, 2012
In today's video, Kerry Fulcher discusses the idea of viewing creation as a constant, evolving process in which God is intricately involved rather than a single explosion of creation a long time ago. When we get stuck on the idea of having biological ancestors, says Fulcher, we can miss the relationship with God reflected in our bearing the Image of God and our responsibilities of being stewards of creation and reflecting God's glory.
Comments (11)By Ian Hutchinson | January 3, 2012
Some Christians reject evolution by natural selection because of metaphysics. But it is not, I believe, Christian metaphysics that is the most important cause of suspicion of evolution. It is evolutionary metaphysics.
Comments (47)By Mark Sprinkle | December 31, 2011
Only a week after celebrating the Incarnation at Christmas—the singular mystery of God entering into His own creation as a human child—we come to another holiday that marks beginnings: New Year’s Day. Like Christmas, each New Year’s Day is symbolized by a baby, but one destined to grow old and be replaced only 365 days later as the next year supercedes the one before.
Comments (3)By Rick Kennedy | December 30, 2011
There are various ways to handle this mathematical problem. “Chaos theory” posits the possibility of fast spurts of variation and selection. Theories of multiple universes allow us to spread the mathematics broader so that the calculations of random variation work. The idea that Dawkins likes best emphasizes algorithms
Comments (16)By Dennis Venema | December 30, 2011
These similarities and differences, however, will not be randomly distributed. Sequences subject to purifying selection will have fewer differences than sequences that can freely mutate. Accordingly, when compared side-by-side, the two genomes should have regions where differences are common, and where differences are rare.
Comments (23)| December 29, 2011
Recently, we became aware of an email conversation between two young persons: one a young physicist and a deeply committed Christian named Aron and the other a person named Josh who identified himself as a skeptic. The exchange is so rich that we’ve asked for permission to post it here.
Comments (6)By Ian Hutchinson | December 27, 2011
Secularist advocates object to calling scientism a religion because they say scientism lacks the clerical hierarchic authority and public rituals that characterize most theistic religions. A remarkable feature of early nineteenth century scientisms, however, was the attempt to embody them in explicit new religions, complete with all the trappings of traditional faiths.
Comments (20)By Rick Kennedy | December 26, 2011
“Nature is messy,” a geologist tells writer John McPhee, “Don’t expect it to be uniform or consistent.” McPhee’s books on geology tend to emphasize the humbling effect of the real earth on the overly-intellectual geologists who want to over-simplify it. In Rising from the Plains (1986), McPhee rambles through Wyoming with an aging U.S. Geological Survey geologist who heaps disdain on “Megathinkers” who don’t get dirty working in the field.
Comments (7)By Mark Sprinkle | December 24, 2011
In a sermon dedicating another Theotokos icon, Goa warned of the danger of living in a time when Christmas imagery has become too-familiar, "that we make a fetish of virginity and the birth of a Palestinian baby; his mother and would be father; that we fill the emptiness with the glamour offered from all quarters; that we turn this feast into a family occasion: freeze frame our familial affection.”
Comments (3)By Rick Kennedy | December 23, 2011
Darwin’s theory has legs. It has vast explanatory power. In many cases it even predicts what later will be discovered. Although there are big mysteries still out there, “black boxes” where Darwin’s theory is seriously strained, Darwin’s theory is one of the hardest working theories in science and continues to be more successful than not.
Comments (7)| December 22, 2011
In today's video, Alister McGrath discusses the importance of going beyond surface readings, both in Scripture and in the natural world. McGrath highlights the parables as examples of passages with "levels of meaning" in the Bible. In the same way, McGrath argues that a Christian world view enriches our reading of the natural world, allow us to find deeper meaning in the world around us.
Comments (0)By Darrel Falk | December 21, 2011
I entitled this essay BioLoguration II. There are a couple of reasons for that. One is simply that we’ve received our grant renewal and BioLogos now moves into the phase governed by the second grant. However, the other reason is that the first BioLoguration focused on introducing our mission and helping people to become aware of the need.
Comments (11)| December 20, 2011
The second major characteristic that natural science requires I refer to as `Clarity'. I use capitalization to indicate that the word is being used in a specialized sense. Clarity is a requirement for the expression and communication of reproducibility; so these two scientific traits are partners. The results of any scientific investigation have to be expressed in terms that are unambiguous.
Comments (20)By Rick Kennedy | December 19, 2011
Time is a wonder. It is not a line. It is not a circle. Time and distances shrink with acceleration and lengthen with deceleration. Speed, not time, is a constant in Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. Time is something wholly different than any analogy we use to try to describe it. The Bible pictures past, present, and future as entwined with Jesus at the fullness. Time isn’t a line. It is like a cup overflowing.
Comments (5)By Mark Sprinkle | December 18, 2011
In last Sunday’s consideration of the “root” image for the coming Christ, I noted that the text of Isaiah 1:11 helps us understand Jesus to be not only the source of creation and salvation (the literal “root” of both), but also the means of their flourishing (as the growing “branch” or “shoot”) and their culmination (their “fruit”). The traditional American carol linked above goes even farther afield than the prophets for its image of Christ, turning to Song of Songs 2:3 for inspiration and a more specific tree image.
Comments (0)By Steven Benner | December 17, 2011
Non-scientists rarely see the kind of uncertainty that drives science forward. The high school science classroom and the distribution science course in college are the end of science education for most lay people. Introductory science courses at both levels are all about teaching fact under the authority of the teacher. A good grade is the desired outcome. Belief in the authority of the teacher is a key to a good grade.
Comments (17)By Rick Kennedy | December 16, 2011
Mount Darwin was named thirteen years after Charles Darwin (1809–1882) died. Evident throughout his Voyage of the Beagle is a serious young man, diligent and humble. Also evident is a young man with little interest in an active and communicating God. The Christian church appears in the book as an oppressor of Indians, and his accounts of camping and climbing adventures don’t include outbursts of praise for the creator.
Comments (15)| December 15, 2011
In today's video, Oxford physicist Ard Louis discusses the famous debate between renowned evolutionary biologists Stephen Jay Gould and Simon Conway Morris over the idea of evolutionary convergence.
Comments (32)By Rusty Pritchard | December 14, 2011
Science and religion are at war. Or, at least that’s the impression you might get from bloggers who watch the spectacle of Republican primary candidate debates. Some want to lay the blame for the Republican Party’s anti-science lurch at the feet of evangelical religion, using the statements of Republican candidates as a sign of attitudes in conservative churches. But evidence indicates that the picture is a lot more complicated.
Comments (9)By Ian Hutchinson | December 13, 2011
There are two key characteristics of science that underlie its immense power but limit its scope: reproducibility and Clarity (which we will discuss in the next post). It was said that whenever the great 19th century scientist Michael Faraday heard of some new phenomenon the first thing he would do was attempt to reproduce the effect in his own laboratory. He understood that science is concerned with reproducible experimental phenomena.
Comments (11)By Rick Kennedy | December 12, 2011
With my elbow in the breeze and a long, straight, high desert highway ahead, Dave and I were free to think about all sorts of historical issues. The classrooms we work in are also places where freedom rings. If it is reported to have happened in the past, then it is fair game for historical investigation. There are few things more enjoyable than a serious academic discussion in which students and faculty lose themselves in strategies pursuing understanding.
Comments (7)By Mark Sprinkle | December 11, 2011
The season of Advent is a time when we are particularly attentive to images of Christ gleaned from the prophetic texts of the Old Testament, in addition to those that emerged from Jesus’ earthly ministry in Palestine. As poet, priest and musician Malcolm Guite notes, “In the first centuries the Church had a beautiful custom of praying seven great prayers calling afresh on Christ to come, calling him by the mysterious titles he has in Isaiah.
Comments (1)By Steven Benner | December 10, 2011
Above all, we teach scientists to distrust all measurements, but to distrust most those that confirm what we want to believe. All experiments should be repeated to make certain that their results are reproducible, of course. But the experiments that are most in need of reproduction are those that produced data that support the proposition or theory that the student wants to support.
Comments (94)By Rick Kennedy | December 9, 2011
Back in the 1970s, I learned to love university life. I eventually became a professor of history. I started out a Bible-trusting Christian and have not lost my faith. This series is about the reasonableness of biblical Christianity in universities. By reasonableness, I mean the warranted credibility, if not the persuasiveness, of Christian claims about ancient history.
Comments (1)| December 7, 2011
I suppose everybody would like certainty, but it isn't available to us in that absolutely black and white way. We have reasons for our beliefs. I commit myself to my Christian belief for reasons that are sufficient enough for me to bet my life upon it. But we don't have absolute certainty in the 2+2=4 sense. And that is true of everybody. Everybody has to make a commitment beyond what they know for certain to be true.
Comments (22)By Ian Hutchinson | December 6, 2011
In his new book Monopolizing Knowledge, physicist Ian Hutchinson engages with the world-view he calls “scientism”: “the belief that science, modeled on the natural sciences, is the only source of real knowledge” (page vii). In Hutchinson’s eyes, this erroneous world-view is at least indirectly responsible for the apparent friction between science and religion that many see today.
Comments (44)By Steven Benner | December 5, 2011
Science is set within a culture. Culture, defined broadly, is a collection of generally-accepted models describing reality (Thomas Kuhn used the word "paradigm"; others have called it a "received view"). Paradigms are so well accepted that members of a scientific community may not even think about them explicitly. Of course, a profound part of the culture underlying science is that something like a "reality" exists.
Comments (5)| December 4, 2011
One of the things about Christianity that I admire most is its comfort with mystery even in knowing. "O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 'For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?'"
Comments (1)| December 3, 2011
in Genesis two, God calls humankind to know and study the surrounding world. The scriptures say that Adam took on the God-given task of naming the animals, which is, in fact, science: the exploration of the natural world. It is a wonderful gift to men and women to study the surrounding world and so discover more about the God who is its Creator.
Comments (0)By Dennis Venema | December 2, 2011
So, for Driscoll, the choice is a simple dichotomy: Scripture or science. Scripture is the highest court of authority in all matters, and the role of believing scientists is to affirm Scripture. To fail to do so is to “exchange the truths of Scripture for the truths of science” and to fall into the grievous, idolatrous error Paul describes in Romans 1.
Comments (15)By Mark H. Mann | December 1, 2011
Moreover, I am seeking to make the case that anti-scientific attitudes among some Christians are grounded in an unbiblical theology that was rejected by the early church. Finally, I would suggest that we may identify this theology as a sort of resurgence of ideas which characterized an ancient movement called Gnosticism.
Comments (15)| November 30, 2011
When addressing the science and faith dialogue, one of the first things we must look at is how we interpret scripture. In today's video, Nancey Murphy, Professor of Christian Philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary discusses the importance of stories as a tool for the ancient writers to teach theological truths, especially about the nature of creation (who created? what is the role of humanity in the creation?).
Comments (14)By Darrel Falk & Stephen Mapes | November 29, 2011
As we noted in our response to the June article in Christianity Today “The Search for the Historical Adam,” the evidence for gradual creation is overwhelming, with more studies supporting the evolutionary process being published each year. We’ve looked at many of these evidences: from fossils, from comparative anatomy, from genetics. Today, we’d like to highlight for our readers a compelling video from the annual TED Conference.
Comments (1)By David Kerk | November 28, 2011
If evolution is true: whales are related to the even-toed hoofed mammals and should share common ancestors with them; transitional fossil forms dating from about 45 to 50 million years ago should be found which can be shown to be related to both the even-toed hoofed mammals and modern whales; whales are most closely related to modern hippos, and should share a common ancestor with them.
Comments (21)By Steven Benner | November 27, 2011
Unfortunately, things are not so simple in the real world of science. It turns out that whether or not an emerald is observed to be green depends on how it is observed, and who is doing the observing. For example, an emerald may be observed to fluoresce a red color when observed under ultraviolet light.
Comments (14)By Steven Benner | November 26, 2011
It is easy to be confused about what science is and what scientists do. In part, this is because scientists do so many different things in so many different ways. By way of illustration, I was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows in the 1980s. I shared this pleasure with many other young scientists who were also launching their careers within the Society.
Comments (55)By James Kidder | November 25, 2011
Indeed, it has become an article of faith for those espousing both the young earth creation (hereafter YEC) model and many who hold to the intelligent design model that transitional fossils do not exist and therefore evolution has not taken place. Support for this position usually entails attacking the weak areas of the fossil record or defining transitional fossils in such a way that none could ever be found.
Comments (1)| November 24, 2011
Of all the blessings to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day, none of them surpasses the riches of the eternal blessings which the Lord has bestowed on his sons and daughters in Christ Jesus. Pastor Mark Swarner of Menlo Park Presbyterian emphasizes this point as he looks at Psalm 103: 1-4 (NIV).
Comments (0)| November 23, 2011
In today’s video, Brian McLaren talks about what he calls a paradigm of compatibility between evolution and Christian faith. He explains his own comfort with accepting Scripture and evolution and seeing the process of evolution as a wonderful opportunity for adaptation, growth, and development and a reflection of God’s glory.
Comments (5)| November 22, 2011
The vast majority of scientists do not debate whether evolution took place, but they do debate many details of how evolution occurred and occurs in different circumstances. Antievolutionists may hear the debates about how evolution occurs and misinterpret them as debates about whether evolution occurs. Evolution is sound science and is treated accordingly by scientists and scholars worldwide.
Comments (47)| November 21, 2011
Evolutionary theory does encompass ideas and evidence regarding life's origins (e.g., whether or not it happened near a deep-sea vent, which organic molecules came first, etc.), but this is not the central focus of evolutionary theory. Most of evolutionary biology deals with how life changed after its origin. Regardless of how life started, afterwards it branched and diversified, and most studies of evolution are focused on those processes.
Comments (10)By Mark Sprinkle | November 20, 2011
The song is built around the image of a river flowing through a canyon it has sculpted—an image that can easily be played out as a picture of the way that the Lord has been at work preparing a path for us in the material world, complete with signposts to his former and present activity. Zipf’s imagery of flowing water as a powerful (even dangerous) but also refreshing force echoes the similarly-complicated place of springs and rivers and seas in the scriptures.
Comments (1)| November 19, 2011
In the last verses of Romans 2, the Apostle Paul relates the “failure of religion because of the terrible beauty of the Law” to the need for a regenerate heart. This is only possible through the circumcision of the heart in Christ by the Holy Spirit.
Comments (2)| November 18, 2011
In a recent interview with the Sirius XM radio show Centered, Karl Giberson, co-author of BioLogos' The Language of Science and Faith, sat down with host Don Belanus to discuss the book and the interplay between science and faith.
Comments (5)By James Kidder | November 17, 2011
In the previous post, I detailed the arrival of early Homo on the landscape and the differences of these forms from contemporary australopithecine species. The australopithecines, while possessing bipedal locomotion and, perhaps, rudimentary tool use, were characterized by having small brains, largely ape-like faces, reduced stature and primitive characteristics reminiscent of their ape ancestry.
Comments (11)| November 16, 2011
I think there are sometimes a couple of biblical images we struggle to lay hold of. In the New Testament we find when we talk about life, we have the idea of living or ‘bios’. In other words, we talk about how we are alive. But Jesus talks about the fact of “coming to life “ when we know him. That doesn’t suddenly mean that our heart starts beating. It means that there is this whole side to us which was dead… which wasn’t alive and is now… that has actually sprung to life.
Comments (5)By Thomas Burnett | November 15, 2011
Professor William P Brown of Columbia Theological Seminary has taken an intriguing approach in his book The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder. He puts the scientifically-informed reader at ease by revealing his understanding of modern science and his fascination with its discoveries. Then he proceeds to share a deep knowledge of ancient history to make sense of highly contentious passages in scripture.
Comments (60)By Mark Sprinkle | November 13, 2011
Clearly, the orb weaver is a powerful symbol of both spiritual and creative truth for Suzanne Rhodes—something wonderful and beautiful. But my own experience with orb weavers was somewhat less poetic, and can serve as a counterpoint, of sorts, on our way to thinking about reconciliation.
Comments (0)| November 12, 2011
The early chapters of Genesis appear to pose scientific problems that challenge our literal, post-Enlightenment lens through which we often read the Word of God. This leads many scholars to believe that the descriptions in Genesis 1-11 are meant to reveal more than raw journalistic account. Pete Shaw highlights the story of Noah to explore how the story would have been understood in ancient times and from there he goes on to explore how we might consider it today.
Comments (2)| November 11, 2011
Organisms have changed significantly over time. In rocks more than 1 billion years old, only fossils of single-celled organisms are found. Moving to rocks that are about 550 million years old, fossils of simple, multicellular animals can be found. At 500 million years ago, ancient fish without jawbones surface; and at 400 million years ago, fish with jaws are found. Gradually, new animals appear.
Comments (6)By Kelsey Luoma | November 10, 2011
A common argument leveled against the theory of evolution is that scientists have not been able to produce transitional fossils that show the change of one species into another. In our first ever BioLogos podcast, presented by BioLogos intern Kelsey Luoma, we address the misconception about what a transitional fossil actually is. Rather than a mix between two related species, these fossils point back to the common ancestors that modern species share.
Comments (12)| November 7, 2011
In today’s video, theologian Chris Tilling, New Testament Tutor for St Mellitus College and St Paul's Theological Centre in London, discusses biblical genre and the relational truth of Scripture. Tilling notes that when we read the Biblical text, we bring our own presuppositions and assumptions to the text (what theologians call “eisegesis”). The genre of the text is central to how we understand the Bible. For example, we read poetry very differently than we would read a phone book.
Comments (12)By Mark Sprinkle | November 6, 2011
Poet Susan Wharton Gates begins her poem “The Spirit in the Oyster Shell” with a reference to Jesus’ description of a merchant willing to sell all he had to possess “a pearl of great value.” Following on the previous verse’s image of a treasure buried in a field, the pearl itself is often understood as an image for the Kingdom of God—something so dear that we should, likewise, give all we have to claim it for ourselves.
Comments (1)By Karl Giberson | November 4, 2011
In the same way—but far more importantly—we cannot divide the world on a large scale into “secular” and “religious.” If I were to offer a slightly less flawed—but still too simple--knowledge map, I would suggest that we create a continuum stretching from “religious knowledge claims” at one end to “anti-religious claims” at the other with “secular claims” somewhere in the middle.
Comments (15)By Mark H. Mann | November 2, 2011
Gnosticism was a widespread and amorphous spiritual and religious movement in the Greco-Roman world influenced by a wide variety of philosophical and mystical traditions of the pagan world. It began to exert influence on Christianity almost from the moment that the apostles first began to take the gospel to the Gentile world. So, we find a response to Gnostic ideas in some of the New Testament writings.
Comments (9)| November 1, 2011
In this video, Lincoln Harvey explores the intended role of humans in God’s creation as seen in Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. It is significant, he notes, that in the beginning humankind is placed in a garden. The Biblical narrative, however, does not remain here, but journeys from this garden to the city in the book of Revelation where culture—whether the sciences or the arts—reflects God’s intention for his creatures to “grow into the fullness of its stature.”
Comments (4)By Mark Sprinkle | October 30, 2011
What should not be lost here is that even the most ornate and exquisite window is more than something to be looked at, wherein the light coming from behind and through the glass illuminates the story told there on the surface. Photographic images of such windows reinforce the idea that they are self-contained narratives,
Comments (0)| October 29, 2011
In this excerpt, he explains how the Church adopted Enlightenment thinking and advocated the scientific method as a way to verify God’s created order in nature. However, as science became more sophisticated, scientists began to question whether or not God intertwined with the natural world or even existed.
Comments (7)By Dennis Venema | October 28, 2011
In contrast, the scientific picture is rather different. Mitochondrial Eve, though the most recent common matrilineal ancestor of all humans, was but one of a large population living about 180,000 years ago. So too for Y-chromosome Adam: he was also a member of a large population, and he lived about 50,000 years ago. There are multiple lines of evidence that indicate the human population has never been below around 10,000 members at any time in its history
Comments (75)| October 27, 2011
There are three things I am much more concerned about than any particular position on evolutionary science. First, there is a God who knows everything. Whether you are a seminary professor or a science professor, you are not him. Second, in all the bluster of the science versus Scripture debates, I don’t want you to miss what Genesis 1 is all about: you have a Creator. Just like the creed reminds us, ‘I believe in God the Creator…” not, “I believe in this version of creation or that scientific theory…”
Comments (27)By Mark H. Mann | October 26, 2011
But, as much as I sympathize with Giberson and Stephens, I am concerned that one of their central assumptions—that there is a divide between ‘secular knowledge’ and Christian faith that must be overcome—essentially undermines their very pursuit of a middle ground where the two can be ‘integrated’.
Comments (80)| October 25, 2011
The Bible teaches us many essential things, some of which we may miss if we’re looking for answers about the age of the earth or the process of creation, which I don’t think are there. So while we must reject an atheistic world view, there’s no reason to reject science. So while we must reject an atheistic world view, there’s no reason to reject science.
Comments (16)| October 24, 2011
In today’s video, Pastor Brian McClaren discusses the idea of the “slippery slope”. As he notes, the metaphor itself is problematic, because we often assume that we are on the top of the slope to begin with, when in fact changing our views may help us ascend the slope, or to reach a new peak of understanding on the other side.
Comments (8)By Mark Sprinkle | October 23, 2011
Listening to this recording of The Fretful Porcupine playing “The Water Is Wide” online is a very different experience than being in the room with the duo and other audience members for a live performance. Nevertheless, the diversity of readers of this post does recreate one particular aspect of being with Jake Armerding and Kevin Gosa presenting the music in person.
Comments (9)| October 21, 2011
Previously in this series, Pastor Dave Swaim discussed the difference between truth and literal truth within the context of scripture. He explained that certain passages of the Bible contain profound truths about God and humanity but are not meant to be taken literally. Today, in part three of his creation sermon, Pastor Swaim discusses the overall structure of Genesis 1. He points out that the early passages of Genesis were written in a poetic rather than historical style.
Comments (18)By Stephen Matheson | October 20, 2011
In this series, we have looked at the evidence that has led biologists to conclude that the limbs of animals like birds, bats, and brachiosaurs have their historical roots in the fins of fish. We will conclude our series by addressing two interesting questions that have come up along the way and by looking closely at the meaning of purpose and design in the context of evolutionary explanation.
Comments (25)| October 19, 2011
In this video, physicist Ard Louis discusses the misconceptions about evolution and what it says about our purpose. A lot of the young earth arguments against evolution, says Louis, can be beneficial to those promoting atheism. According to Louis, both sides are attempting to extract theology from the natural world and wrongly accept the premise that where we come from determines who we are and how we should live. However, that’s not what the Bible tells us.
Comments (14)| October 18, 2011
Today, Swaim takes us on a brief tour of Genesis 1 and 2. He points out that embedded in the text are many details that seem puzzling. Plants, for example, were created on the third day—before God created the Sun or rain to nourish them. Because of obvious detractors like these, he explains, many ancient Christian scholars, all of whom lived well before Darwin, assumed that Genesis 1 should not be read as literal history. They looked for deeper meaning. That, Swaim implies, is our calling as well.
Comments (22)| October 17, 2011
In this sermon, Swaim discusses our belief in God as creator, or “Maker of heaven and earth”, as the Apostle’s Creeds so poetically states. To begin, he reminds us that some passages in the Bible, like the parable of the prodigal son, convey deep truths even though they are not historical accounts. Asking “the wrong questions”—questions that focus on arbitrary details—about such stories can cause us to miss out on their intended message.
Comments (15)By Mark Sprinkle | October 16, 2011
A recurring topic in the discussion about whether an evolutionary account of biological origins is compatible with Christian faith is the question of teleology; that is, does the history of life on earth demonstrate (or even hint at) directionality, or purpose? This general issue takes many forms and opens up many avenues for exploration and argument, including what we mean by “randomness” and “chance” when discussing genetic change and natural selection
Comments (18)| October 15, 2011
While some view the realms of the church and the arts as completely separate, Myers notes that both have suffered from a “diminished appreciation for the meaning of creation”. Creation is not simply a collection of materials for us to manipulate; rather it is a reflection of God’s own creativity. Creation is “an epiphany”.
Comments (0)By Dennis Venema | October 14, 2011
One consequence of speciation being a population event is that populations have genetic diversity – not all members of the population are genetically identical. For any particular gene, then, a population may have several slightly different forms present within it. These different forms are called alleles.
Comments (11)| October 13, 2011
Many parents and church leaders wonder how to most effectively cultivate durable faith in the lives of young people. A five-year project headed by the Barna Group explores the opportunities and challenges of faith development among teens and young adults within a rapidly shifting culture. The findings of the research are included in a new book titled You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church and Rethinking Church.
Comments (12)By Matt J. Rossano | October 11, 2011
Gould was a talented science writer, but he overplayed evolution's whimsy. Increasingly, science is showing that the evolutionary process has many built in constraints which limit its possibilities and bias its pathways. Take, for example, the ubiquitous phenomenon of convergence - the tendency for highly diverse species to independently evolve similar adaptive (analogous, not homologous) traits.
Comments (154)By Mark Sprinkle | October 9, 2011
The Psalmists observed that both the starry heavens above and also “everything that hath breath” praises the Lord; but is this more than a flowery anthropomorphism, a poetic but ultimately meaningless trope? If interpersonal and relational knowledge of the Lord is one of the defining aspects of our humanity, setting us apart from the rest of creation, in what way might creatures who lack our ability to ponder abstract ideas and relationships be said to offer praise to their creator?
Comments (1)By Dean Nelson & Karl Giberson | October 7, 2011
Across the river is the building where Polkinghorne used to live, the President’s Lodge. It is where he designed the crest for his presidency, imprinted with what has become one of his favorite scripture verses – I Thessalonians 5:21 “Test everything. Hold fast to what is true.” After lunch, back at his house, he picks up his writing where he left off and works until mid-afternoon. Then he reads theology for a few hours.
Comments (0)By Stephen Matheson | October 6, 2011
But we left off with a very interesting unanswered question: to what extent do tetrapod limbs arise from fish fins? Detailed developmental studies of developing limbs led to a model of early limb emergence that identifies a process occurring in three phases. As we saw in the previous post, the first phase lays the groundwork for the upper arm, the second phase outlines the lower arm, and the third phase is associated with the most highly specialized structures in a limb: the digits.
Comments (1)| October 5, 2011
In today’s video, Michael Ramsden of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics discusses the humility and openness we need to have before we approach Scripture. Ramsden encourages us to continually question to what extent our paradigms of Scripture can be open to change, lest we end up defending paradigms rather than what Scripture actually says.
Comments (4)By James Hannam | October 4, 2011
Most people still assume that the Middle Ages were a period entirely benighted by violence, superstition and stagnation. Indeed, the triumphs of Greek reason and mathematics had allegedly been snuffed out by Christians once the Roman Empire abandoned paganism in the fourth century AD. Echoing the enlightenment historian Edward Gibbon, some commentators today even blame Christianity for causing the "Dark Ages".
Comments (6)By Thomas Jay Oord | October 3, 2011
For some Christians, the science-and-theology dialogue is peripheral to their faith. The heat from disagreement, conflict, and unresolved questions repels them. By contrast, I think Christians should care deeply about science. And they should intentionally engage the theology-and-science dialogue. Here are ten reasons Christians should care deeply about issues emerging from the science-and-theology interface. These reasons, together, comprise my argument for why engagement in the dialogue is fundamental.
Comments (32)By Mark Sprinkle | October 2, 2011
>If we can share Smith’s sense of seeing the dynamic, circuitous, but far-from-random path of water towards the sea as both responsive and beautiful—a way of thinking that she attributes to her reading of Wendell Berry’s poetry as much as to her reading of the landscape of Iowa—we will find a better balance between looking into God’s past and the desire to see into our future. Perhaps then we can realize that God’s work in us is precisely like the river’s work on its banks.
Comments (0)| October 1, 2011
In this message, John Piper, one of America's most loved pastors explores the sense in which creation "begs for completeness."
Comments (0)By Karl Giberson | October 1, 2011
Unfortunately our educational system is structured to provide training in science or religion but not both. The result is a stilted and uninformed cultural conversation with a high level of illiteracy on both sides of the table. The need for improved dialog is critically important but hard to come by.
Comments (6)By Dean Nelson & Karl Giberson | September 30, 2011
His question was simply: Is it true? And if so, what is the case? As with the existence of electrons, gluons and quarks—none of which can be seen directly—the best one can do is create a theory and test it. “Part of my reason for being a Christian is that I believe that a Christian understanding offers us such a coherent framework adequate to the perplexing way the world is.”
Comments (5)By Stephen Matheson | September 29, 2011
We saw developmental homology in the basic signaling network that controls the growth of the limb bud. But what about the shape of that bud, and of the limb that it will become? The final structure will have a front and a back, a top and a bottom, an end and a base. And different things will happen in each of those areas – for example, the digits are at the end, and the humerus is at the base. And furthermore, why do the limbs form where they do?
Comments (41)| September 28, 2011
In this video, young earth creationist Aaron Daly offers his thoughts on theistic evolution, creation, and how Christians should handle disagreements over issues such as the age of the earth and how God created. Most of all, however, Aaron highlights the need for love in our discussions with one another, especially when we disagree.
Comments (58)By Darrel Falk | September 27, 2011
We have been tempted not to respond to this video. The people in his huge audience— those who are laughing at his remarks and applauding his words—are not going to be swayed into changing their opinion by anything we would say. There are millions in that audience and for them the choice is simple: what is most trustworthy—God’s written Word or as Mr. Ham terms it, “man’s historical science?” Mr. Ham is adept at speaking to the heart of their concerns.
Comments (50)By Brian Godawa | September 27, 2011
Jesus’ Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 is the classic reference used by futurists to point to the future second coming of Christ. I have been exegeting the decreation language about the sun, moon, and stars as referring to the end of the Old Covenant. Yet, right after those verses that speak of the collapsing universe, Jesus speaks of his “coming on the clouds”
Comments (7)By Ruth Bancewicz | September 26, 2011
This summer I gave a series of talks at several youth festivals on the subject of ‘Why a Christian should be a scientist’. As someone who spends every day interacting with Christians working in science, I have no shortage of material to present on the topic, and it’s exciting to see the reactions of these young people when they are encouraged that science is a great career for a Christian
Comments (6)By Mark Sprinkle | September 25, 2011
Of hymns that speak to a Christian understanding of the natural world and our place within it, perhaps none more familiar than Maltbie Babcock’s “This Is My Father’s World.” Written by the Lockport, New York pastor as a poem before the turn of the 20th century, published posthumously by his wife in 1901, and appearing in a hymnbook in 1915 as three stanzas set to an adapted English tune by Franklin L. Sheppard, it has been recorded by various stars of the contemporary Christian music scene in addition to being widely sung in local congregations.
Comments (2)| September 24, 2011
In the Garden of Eden, Eve is tempted to put her own desires ahead of God’s call for her life. The serpent tells her that if she eats of the fruit she can become like God: she, in essence, can become the master of her own fate. Similarly, as the New Testament begins, Satan comes to Jesus and tempts him in three different ways to become centered in self, rather than centered in the Father. Finally, Paul begins his great treatise, his letter to the Christians in Rome, with the same thought.
Comments (0)By Dennis Venema | September 23, 2011
As we have seen, speciation (the events that lead to reproductive isolation between populations of organisms) can be a prolonged and complex process. Populations can become isolated geographically (e.g. through migration) and begin to accumulate genetic differences that may raise a barrier to reproduction between them. This barrier may only be a partial barrier, however.
Comments (98)By Darrel Falk | September 23, 2011
And I thought biology had gone to the moon when it revealed the 24 base sequence of the lactose operator! Now we have billions of bases sequenced and a draft of the instruction plans for building three different hominins, all of whom lived on this Earth at the same time, as recently as 30,000 years ago
Comments (6)By Dean Nelson & Karl Giberson | September 23, 2011
In his professional research, Polkinghorne was part of the team that began to challenge the longstanding conclusion that the smallest known particles that made up atoms were protons and neutrons. Experimental evidence suggested that there was something “inside” protons and neutrons. But what could that be? It became clear that those particles were made up of other particles, but no one could see what those smaller particles were.
Comments (2)By Stephen Matheson | September 22, 2011
The fossil data paint a picture of common descent: animal limbs are descended from fish because tetrapods are descended from fish. This means that, in some sense, a limb is a fin or, more specifically, a modified fin. It's not enough to say that fins and limbs are similar, or that they are constructed using similar principles of design. They are linked by descent.
Comments (12)| September 21, 2011
In this video, author and pastor Brian McLaren discusses the idea of surrogate arguments, in which a debate over one thing is really a means for arguing something completely different. According to McClaren, the argument over the age of the earth is one such argument, which can lead to crises of confidence and ethics. Managing the crises well requires courage of convictions while also respecting tradition and maintaining a gracious spirit. Anything less, is not only unwise, it is also unfaithful.
Comments (25)By Brian Godawa | September 20, 2011
The interpretation I have presented in this essay is no doubt earth-shattering for some eschatological paradigms about the end times. Such radical departures from the futurist’s received wisdom always beg plenty of questions about other passages and concepts taken for granted by the futurist interpretation.
Comments (33)By Michael Horton | September 19, 2011
If we do not hold ourselves and each other to modern standards of specialized discourse in ordinary conversation, we can hardly impose such standards on ancient writers. As Calvin observed, "Moses wrote in the manner of those to whom he wrote." If one wants to learn astronomy, Calvin adds, one must ask the astronomers rather than Moses, since his purpose was not to deliver supernatural information about the movement of planets.
Comments (18)| September 17, 2011
BioLogos has been following a sermon series by Pastor Tim Keller entitled The Bible: The Whole Story-Redemption and Restoration.” It comes in three parts. The first consisted of a nine part series on Genesis, which basically addresses the question of “What’s wrong with the Human Race,” (Genesis 1-4) and we have posted excerpts from all nine. The book of Romans masterfully addresses the solution to the issues raised in Genesis. We feature the first today.
Comments (5)By Dean Nelson & Karl Giberson | September 16, 2011
In both his science and his faith commitments, Polkinghorne embraces Michael Polanyi’s thinking, taken from the chemist/philosopher’s influential book, Personal Knowledge. Polkinghorne summarizes Polanyi’s thinking into this maxim: “To commit myself to what I believe to be true, knowing that it may be false.”
Comments (7)By Stephen Matheson | September 16, 2011
That explanation postulates that tetrapod limbs arose during a particular era in life's history, and that they arose as modifications of the fins of fish. And the evolutionary explanation isn't just an interesting idea. It's a comprehensive explanation – it helps us to understand bones, fossils, genes, chemical signaling systems. It provides a coherent framework for understanding why limbs are the way they are, and how they got that way.
Comments (34)By Dennis Venema | September 15, 2011
One of the challenges for discussing evolution within evangelical Christian circles is that there is widespread confusion about how evolution actually works. In this (intermittent) series, I discuss aspects of evolution that are commonly misunderstood in the Christian community. In this first post, we examine how speciation is something that happens to populations over many generations, and discuss how this informs our understanding of human speciation.
Comments (61)| September 14, 2011
For many, the importance of apparent randomness in evolution can be a major stumbling block when considering whether God could have created through an evolutionary process. After all, if God created for a purpose, how could there be room for “unguided and purposeless” processes? Aren’t randomness and design naturally opposed?
Comments (35)By Brian Godawa | September 13, 2011
God describes the creation of his covenant with Moses as the creation of the heavens and the earth (Isa 51:14-16). The creation of Israel through deliverance and Promised Land was likened to God hovering over the waters and filling the formless and void earth (Deut 32:10-12), separating the waters from the dry land (Ex 15:8, 16-17), establishing the sun and moon, and defeating the mythical sea dragon of chaos to create his ordered world (Psa 74:12-17; 89:6-12; Isa 51:9-14).
Comments (5)By Darrel Falk | September 12, 2011
Steve Meyer has responded to Dennis Venema’s review1 of his book Signature in the Cell in the September 2011 issue of Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith (PSCF) (63:171-182). Although, Dennis has ably responded (63:183-192, I would like to address one specific aspect of Meyer’s response, especially since it relates to the final paragraph of my initial essay regarding the book and Dennis’s six part series on the BioLogos website.
Comments (105)By Ian Hutchinson | September 12, 2011
Science is increasingly portrayed as identical to a philosophical doctrine that I call "scientism". Scientism is the belief that all valid knowledge is science. Scientism says, or at least implicitly assumes, that rational knowledge is scientific, and everything else that claims the status of knowledge is just superstition, irrationality, emotion, or nonsense.
Comments (0)By Michael Horton | September 12, 2011
Against the repeated claim that the doctrine of inerrancy, unknown to the church, arose first with Protestant orthodoxy, we could cite numerous examples from the ancient and medieval church. It was Augustine who first coined the term "inerrant," and Luther and Calvin can speak of Scripture as free from error. Down to the Second Vatican Council, Rome has attributed inerrancy to Scripture as the common view of the church throughout its history.
Comments (7)| September 11, 2011
This sermon is a clear reminder that we each have a choice. We can work to build cities that celebrate God’s love for us (the lineage of Seth), or we can live in the destructive lineage of Cain. May the spirit of prayer, humility, and love characterize the world’s cities on this the tenth anniversary of America’s most stark example of “The Tale of Two Cities.”
Comments (7)By Dean Nelson & Karl Giberson | September 9, 2011
Weinberg and Polkinghorne famously sparred in a celebrated debate on the existence of God at the Natural History Museum The showdown was a clash of two titans of science -- similarly trained theoretical physicists who, one might think, would hold identical views of the world. How could a world described by mathematical equations be otherwise?
Comments (5)By Stephen Matheson | September 8, 2011
As you might have guessed, tetrapods are vertebrate animals that have four limbs. The group includes reptiles, amphibians, birds, mammals... you know, the usual suspects. (Snakes and whales, which don't have those limbs, are nonetheless classified as tetrapods, and we'll come back to that.) At first, this might look like a wildly diverse crowd of animals with almost nothing in common
Comments (20)By Rachel Held Evans & Dennis Venema | September 7, 2011
Well, the evidence is everywhere. It’s not just that a piece here and there fits evolution: it’s the fact that virtually none of the evidence we have suggests anything else. What you see presented as “problems for evolution” by Christian anti-evolutionary groups are typically issues that are taken out of context or misrepresented to their non-specialist audiences
Comments (30)By Brian Godawa | September 7, 2011
First, let’s take a look at the usage of sun, moon and stars in the Old Testament. In the ancient Near East, there is often a conceptual equivalency or link between stars, heavenly bodies, and deities. The Encyclopedia Judaica notes that, “in many cultures the sky, the sun, the moon, and the known planets were conceived as personal gods.
Comments (29)By Mark Noll | September 6, 2011
If the mystery of divinity and humanity fully inhabiting a single being is at the heart of Christian faith, and if this faith offers Christ as the definite answer to the deepest mysteries of existence itself, then there is a way forward. It is not a way forward along the path of latemedieval univocity when it was assumed that a natural explanation for any phenomenon was a fully sufficient explanation.
Comments (29)By Mark Sprinkle | September 4, 2011
In successive and sometimes overlapping stays, we got to know a large Louisiana red swamp crayfish named Clovis and a number of his locally-native kin, among them Claw’d (an even more massive green local variety), Crustina (a muddy-black, medium sized crayfish), and Mr. Trundles number One, Two, and Three (all small, speckly brown crayfish like the one pictured above, which may be Mr. Trundle Four). We even got to see Crustina “in berry” with a clutch of eggs and then tiny baby crayfish held under her tail, and then the small crayfish grow and explore on their own.
Comments (4)| September 3, 2011
One of our readers in Oregon suggested that we would be interested in this, a sermon her pastor preached a couple of years ago. She’s right. Dr. Ben Cross, of First Baptist Church in Eugene holds a young earth view of creation. In this message he lays out various positions that evangelicals hold, including what he calls “theistic evolution.” (Editorial commentary by D. Falk)
Comments (0)By Dean Nelson & Karl Giberson | September 2, 2011
We don’t believe that at all, and neither does the deep thinker we profile in this book. We hope you won’t either, when you are finished reading. Much has been written about faith and science – the history of supposedly major conflicts and minor harmonies between the two; the rational and irrational accounts from people who read just one of the two books set before us.
Comments (5)By Mark Sprinkle | September 2, 2011
"Through da Vinci’s complex and integrated sense of the way art, science and faith swirl together, Housley helps us see that the elegant dynamism of such incompleteness is the very lifeblood of the “not yet” in which we make our way"
Comments (0)By Matt J. Rossano | September 1, 2011
On the morning of June 22, 1633 in the hall of the convent of Santa Maria sopra Minvera in Rome, Galileo Galilei knelt before the Lord-Cardinal Inquisitors-General and publicly abjured his false opinion that the sun was the motionless center of the universe. Thus ended Galileo's personal trials; but the "Galileo affair" was just commencing.
Comments (10)| August 31, 2011
In our contemporary society, people want black and white answers . They want absolute certainty about things. Fundamentalisms, whether the fundamentalism of atheism or fundamentalism of creationism, does offer you the prospect—I think it is a false prospect—of certainty on those terms.
Comments (18)By Mark Noll | August 30, 2011
In his words, “recent debates concerning evolutionist and ‘creationist’ accounts of the origins of nature are marked through and through by modern assumptions about a distant, competitive, and occasionally intervening God, whether the existence of such a God is affirmed or denied.”
Comments (20)