1. We are a world that longs for goodness and beauty, whether we are believers or not.

2. The data from emerging neuroscience and attachment research points us to a world of goodness and beauty.

3. This same data reflects and energizes the biblical narrative. Creation itself points us to the very story God is telling.

4. One of the most integral processes—that helps us get to truth and beauty—involves the changing (and renewal) of our minds. The renewal of our minds is a subset of the renewal of everything. God is on a mission of complete renewal, albeit on his timetable.

In this mission for renewal, one of the most important aspects is the interpersonal experience of being known. We change primarily not by what we know, but by how we are known. We live in a culture that is really good at knowing things, but not so good at being known.

5. Our first reaction is likely to be, “How will knowing this stuff change me?” But the biblical narrative is not just about us as individuals, it is about a world of mercy and justice. In order for us to have mercy and justice, we don’t do it primarily as individuals, we do it as institutions. God’s renewal is not just about changing us, it is about changing everything.

See part 2 for the second half of Dr. Thompson's presentation

In the last installment of our video “Conversations”, Dr. Jeff Schloss of Westmont College discussed two reasons for evangelical opposition to evolution: the theory’s challenges to biblical historicity and to the belief in a creator. In this segment, Schloss addresses what he sees as the third major area of difficulty and that is the question of whether or not human beings are predisposed toward belief in a higher power.

He observes that this has to do with human nature, and not just the origins of human beings, but what it is inside of human beings that people take as tokens of the transcendent—for example, certain moral beliefs, or the human capacity to have religious beliefs. He notes that these are areas of inquiry that evolutionary theory didn’t touch for the first 150 years or so, but in the last few decades its discourse has considered the possibility.

Schloss points out that while this question of evolutionary predisposition toward religious belief may be challenging, Christians need not see it as threatening. In fact, this is actually a Pauline notion that is explored in Romans 1, where Paul claims that it is in mankind’s nature to “know God”: “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (ESV, Romans 1:20-21).